Fallout 3: Survival Guide
From Play It Hardcore
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Contents |
Overview
The rules of survival for FO3 have changed from earlier games, due to the much larger, open-ended world and the removal of a turn-based system. Game difficult has actually lessened, however, due to most combats no longer having the threat of instant death hovering just above your head. There are far fewer "gotcha" instances in this game.
General Survival
Non-combat survival is actually much easier than earlier games, so this section will be suitably short.
- Don't leave town without a grip of stimpacks available to you
- Keep yourself lightly loaded in the event you need to turn and run
- Pay attention to the Condition of your items before you leave a city. See the article on Repairing.
- Keep a suitable amount of chems on you as well, particularly Buffout, RadAway and MedX.
Traveling
Travel can be equally dangerous as it was in FO2, but this time around you have to advantage of never getting ambushed and skills like Sneak available to you.
- Use fast travel whenever possible, particularly if you are already wounded
- Keep an eye out on your surroundings. The limited AI isn't too sharp on getting through obstacles, but is pretty decent on finding its away around an obstacle. You'll be surprised at how far a creature will travel to get to you.
- Sneak everywhere. Particularly when you are approaching new areas, make sure you keep that Sneak toggled. Even when you are running through relatively friendly areas, crouch down every few seconds to double-check that you aren't currently being stalked. Make sure it says [HIDDEN] no matter what. You'll sometimes find yourself being moved to [CAUTION] before you even notice anything on your PIP. This can be a life saver.
- Move slowly through new areas. As you move from zone to zone, often an enemy won't be present on your PIP when they are relatively close. Some won't actually even exist until you are close enough, so don't make a beeline at top speed towards your objective. Half the fun of the game is exploring, anyway, so relax a little and look around.
Stealth Boy
If you need to creep through enemy territory, the Stealh Boy can be a fantastic tool. It does not, however, make you completely invisible - enemies can still detect and ultimately find you. If they happen to find you, they seem to completely ignore the "Stealth Field" that it generates. If they start firing at you while you're using a Stealth Boy, you're better off just running at that point.
Combat
See the article on Combat for specifics on how to stay alive during a firefight.
Traps
Traps are much more deadly than they have been in prior games. While enemies never actually lay traps, there are numerous traps in the game itself. Some of them are easily survived, whereas others have the potential to severely injure or outright murder you. Mines in particular are deadly, along with a few scripted traps the game has tossed in.
With all traps, early detection will almost guarantee your survival. When you're in a trapped area, pay attention to the ground. Use the game flashlight (hold down TAB) to help you light up a dark spot of floor.
Mines
Disarming mines is easy. You just have to Us[e] the mine. Approaching it quickly enough to disarm is isn't as easy. Since you have to get so close to a mine to disarm it, it'll almost always be engaged by the time you reach it and ready to detonate. Because of this, if you make a small mistake you have almost no time to correct it. Before approaching a mine, make sure you are in full health or at least have enough HP to absorb the mine detonating.
If you are standing still a mine will do nothing, so if you get injured by one, don't panic and start running away. Just pop up your PIP and heal. If you can't get close enough to easily disarm it, you can also destroy mines by firing at them.
A special note must be made for Bottlecap mines. These are extraordinarily deadly. Be wary.
Shotgun Traps
Every once in a while you'll encounter shotgun traps. They are usually plainly obvious. A shotgun will be mounted to face down a hallway or across a room. The trigger is always located somewhere that, if tripped, would put you directly in front of the gun's path of fire, and therefore are pretty easy to spot. So long as you aren't standing on the trigger, the traps do nothing. Keep an eye out on the floor or just approach from the side and the traps can do nothing to you. They are fairly damaging, though, so if you happen to see some make sure you locate the trigger.
Disarming one nets you a combat shotgun, microfusion shells, and experience. Joy!
Ball Cannon
More annoying than anything, this just repeatedly fires baseballs at you. The balls always travel along the exact same path and do minimal damage. If you find yourself being tagged by one a simple sidestep will protect you. There are only a handful of them, though, and none inflict a particularly high amount of damage. However, it's still worth avoiding the tripwire just so you can disarm the trap for a little bit of experience.
Exploding Baby Trap
I've only encountered a handful of these, and they caught me off-guard. I luckily survived and was able to patch up. If you walk near a baby carriage and hear a tape start up that plays the sound of a baby crying, run the fuck away because something nasty is about to happen. They require a whopping 60 explosives skill to disarm, and as my current character doesn't have the skill that high yet, I don't know what rewards you net for doing so.
Bhramin Trap
Occasionally, you'll see an Oblivion-like trap where if you hit the tripwire, the back end of a Bhramin will sing at you from a chain. I've never actually been hit by one, so I don't know how much damage they inflict. I do know that your character will yell like they are taking damage if you so much as graze the cow butt after it's already been trigger. I didn't notice any significant HP drop. It's a favorite trap of Raiders so keep on the lookout for tripwires in the bigger raider hideouts
Grenade Bouquet
Sometimes tripwires will release 3 grenades to fall at you. If you are ever climbing something and hear clinking sounds, you may have just tripped the wire and should start heading for cover. Disarming a bouquet requires a semi-high explosives skill and will net you 3 frag grenades.
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