20 Helpful Gameplay Tips, Hints & Tricks - Fallout 1

Welcome to the first of the Classic Fallout guides! This one goes over 20 tips and hints for new and seasoned players alike!

Fallout (Released Sept 30, 1997), is a post-apocalyptic RPG, developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Interactive. Roughly 200 years after the great war in 2077, you play as a blue jumpsuit-clad dweller of Vault 13. This vault in particular is one of several underground shelters in the desolate southern California region. The water purification chip in your vault is now failing, and the Overseer tasks YOU with venturing out into the wasteland to save Vault 13.

[STALK CAEDO HERE]

[TIMESTAMPS]
00. Intro (0:00)
01. Combat Speed (0:26)
02. Starting Equipment(0:49)
03. Save Constantly (01:07)
04. F1 For Quick Help (01:32)
05. The Cursor (1:45)
06. Return to Vault 13 (2:04)
07. Exit Grids (02:15)
08. Game Timer (02:28)
09. Pip-Boy Alarm (02:58)
10. Crippled Limbs (03:10)
11. Shop Tables (03:26)
12. Weapon Modes (03:41)
13. Aimed Shots (03:52)
14. Save Skill Points (04:14)
15. Companion Trading (04:28)
16. Perks Every Third (04:52)
17. Skilldex Numbers (05:02)
18. Skill Boosting (05:13)
19. Books (05:37)
20. Special Encounters (05:52)

[OTHER GUIDES]

[FULL LETS PLAYS & CO-PLAYS]

[CaedoGenesis]

What kind of tricks did you learn in Fallout 1?

[etherraichu]

My biggest tip for fallout 1 and 2: Actions have consequences. It is entirely possible, and sometimes extremely easy, to make people mad at you, or make them refuse to talk to you. This can lock you out of a large number of things. In Fallout 1 for example, the guard outside of the Brotherhood of Steel. Make him mad and that's it, no brotherhood of steel for you, ever. in 2, just make a brand new save file before you talk to Lynette.

[giannigiovful]

Also note that Luck is very, very important in these games, unlike other titles. Do not set your Luck to less than 4 if you're new since it will cause a high amount of critical failures, and if you set it to a high level (around 9 or 10), you will be able to lockpick and repair things you normally wouldn't be able to at your level of skill with enough repeated attempts.

(Also, later on, if you get to the level where you can use Sniper, 10 luck guarantees that you will always critically hit.)

Never underestimate the power of luck.

[MilanVoorhees]

here's another tip
have okay luck, 50+ in the gambling skill, and, say, over 2000 caps - hit the roulette tables, just hold down 1 and 4 at the same time, and wait until you've earned 150k caps
not an exploit, by the way

[azoz-soqr]

I remember when I first played Fallout 1 it was such a pain in the ass, but after 4 hours I finally understood it.

[bruce]

Fallout 1 and 2 appealed to my imagination in such an amazing way. It didn't rely on flashy graphics to tell a story, it just told a damn good story through on-screen text and let our brains do the rest. Oh, and I'm not blinded by nostalgia, I only first played it a couple of months ago.

[AvariceOverlord]

Man, that shopkeeper's inventory one explains a lot.
I always thought people had the same shitty inventory full of the loot that I sold, but this has opened my eyes.

Thanks a lot man, this will make selling my junk a lot more pleasant.

[EpistemologicalYT]

Wow. 1997. Dot-Com companies, Daria, Frosted Tips... and the first Fallout.

[uincv]

You forgot to mention that the skill exploit goes in reverse when you learn from books. The less points you have in a skill, the more points a book will provide, so setting the Game Difficulty to hard when reading will get you more skill points from a book. Raise all of your skills to 91% on Hard, then switch it back to normal and they'll all be 101%.

[fobo]

From what im getting from all these comments is, you have to be the perfect human specimen, be lucky, be charismatic, dont be an ass, have a lot of guns, etc

[daltonstokes]

Thanks man, fallout isn't as easy as the rest of em' 👍

[georgeguest]

Followed this guide and I can guarantee you that it works, I only die 5 times every minute now!

[joeyjojosenior]

A Note on #9. Your Pip-Boy alarm has the option to Rest Until Healed which can take several in game days depending on how injured you are. Resting will also allow injured party members to regain health as well. As a way to save time, and get a bit of XP I suggest using the First Aid and Doctor Skills in conjunction with resting. If you are not crippled then using the Doctor skill on yourself (or an uncrippled companion) can heal for more HP than the First Aid Skill. Both First Aid and Doctor can be used successfully 3 times in a 24 hour period and each success gets you 25 XP and 50XP respectively. Basically you keep using Doctor until 3 successes, after which it tells you that you're too tired to keep using the skill, then use First Aid until three successes and then rest until the use counter resets. The reset is 24 hours after your last successful use, so if you follow these steps you don't need to rest 24 hours after maxing out your First Aid attempts but rather only rest long enough so that its 24 hours after your last Doctor success.

Another tip on Inventory Management. Accessing your inventory during combat uses AP, however you can perform as many actions during that time as you wish. So for the cost of 4 action points (3 with the Quick Pockets perk) you can reload all guns, change weapons and armor and use any drugs or healing items you want. Just make sure you have done everything you need to do in your inventory before you exit back to combat.

Both these tips also apply to Fallout 2 and are actually more useful due to the lack of time limit and a better Quick Pockets perk.

[epultric]

be sure to invest in energy weapons halfway so you have solid firepower in the endgame

[miketacos]

I don’t need these tips because I stumbled upon the truck full of 10, 000 caps immediately upon exiting Vault 13.

[StarMarshal]

Gambling is so underrated. Makes money a trivial thing if you use it with a high enough luck. Caps for days!

[LevityMire]

In combat you don't have to equip healing items and use them that way, it burns action points. You can use as many of them as you like from within the inventory screen, which will only cost you the AP for opening the inventory.

[ChaiKarl]

A good tip is that war.... war never changes

[Eek_The_Cat]

Lock Dogmeat behind closed doors to keep him alive.
Always have one rope with you.
Snipe your enemies through the window while you can.
Grenades are great against groups of light armoured targets.
Try drastically different builds (especially in Fallout 2).

[GermanHockey]

Fallout 1 to me was the creepiest of any that I've played. It made you have to visualize a lot of the game. Nowadays it's just shoot and scoot.