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TGQ Plays: Fallout

 
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Scratchmonkey
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PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2008 1:34 pm    Post subject: TGQ Plays: Fallout Reply with quote

I noticed that Shapes had been talking about restarting Fallout and it got me to thinking about doing it myself, since I first played Fallout way back in the day and I basically don't remember anything about it (possibly because I always played it while drunk when visiting a friend).

And after trying to start playing it a couple times, I've come to the realization that I need some sort of help getting started. To put it frankly, the rats just own me every time I try and leave the vault. I walk out and either try and either try waiting for the rats to come at me and then skewer them with the knife, which seems to miss a lot more often than the "55%" that pops up when I use the targeting system, eventually leading to me getting munched to death, or I try using the gun, which always has something like a "1%" on the targeting system and misses until they're standing directly next to me, at which point I might as well be using the knife.

Anybody spot what I'm doing wrong? Are you just supposed to have to use stimpacks to try and get through the opening cave? I have a feeling that I'm not using the gun correctly since I'm pretty vague about how the various systems work -- as I understand it, you cycle through Move, Action and Kill as the three basic states and there's Action Points you use when you're in a combat round; I don't really have anything more than that to go on though.

I'd appreciate any help that people could offer and also peeps should use this thread for their own Fallout playthroughs.
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dhex
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PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2008 2:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

guns are kinda hit or miss har har until your stats/skills get boosted. high agility helps more in this game than many other rpgs, fwiw.

you can also just run away, annoying as that is.
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Redeye
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PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2008 3:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I always just run through the damn cave.

Also you can exploit the enemies' action points by keeping 4-5 steps away from them at the end of your turn.

They can approach, but then will not have enough points to attack.

Then you can attack and run.

Rinse and repeat.

Every combat is like a puzzle. Counting points to run, hide, reload, etc.

I like to have a lot of APs so I can just skip the annoying rat gangbangs that will happen repeatedly in the desert.
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sediment
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PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2008 3:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

remember that Fallout does not punish you for saving mid-combat. For really hard fights early on, before your skills have matured, the game basically rewards you for saving before every shot you fire.

Downside is this can and will corrupt your saves if you do it too often. Cycling saves is really, really super-important in Fallout so you don't get screwed if your most recent save goes invalid.

But yeah, Move, Act, and Attack are pretty much your options. General shots are probably wisest in the opening cave and in general until you can get whatever combat skill you favor up to 70-80%, whereupon targeted shots are your babies. Unless you took Fast Shot, then just overwhelm them with fast attacks and a high crit chance.

Opening your inventory to shoot yourself up with many drugs is often a good option, since individually using drugs on yourself will take two AP per or so and your inventory is a flat 4 and limitless actions may be taken while so engaged.

Oh yeah, winners use drugs. A lot. Seriously. Getting addicted to Nuka-Cola is actually a pretty good thing if you're a sharpshooter or whatever, since it increases your perception.

Firing a gun from melee range is still preferable to using a knife unless you've got points in melee. Melee is a solid option that really blooms later on, but I have only done melee satisfactorily in FO2. In Fallout 1, energy weapons are really where your best money's at, but all that comes pretty late. Small guns are all that's available at start. Things are different in 2.

Other recommendations on my part: Take Gifted, avoid Skilled. Gifted's boost to all attributes seriously outweighs its penalty to your starting skills, and help you reach the magic Agi 10 where you are the fastest asshole on the field.
If you're shooting for a conversationalist, wheel/deal sort of character you can probably just run away from everything in the cave, talk Ian into coming with you in Shady Sands, and pick up new companions whenever you can. I believe it's possible to talk your way through Fallout without firing a single shot.

If you tag Stealth, it's a lifestyle. If you don't, never put points in it. Dynamite is typically going to be an invaluable ally, especially if you can plant it on someone without them noticing. Yes, you can do that. It'll also blow 99% of the doors in the game open, and many containers are dynamite-destroyable - they just leave their contents where they were when they blew up. Sometimes. It's an alternative to picking locks.

It's not really possible to be a stellar jack of all trades, it's way better to be really good at one or two things.

Feed the dog and treat it nicely.

I can also answer more specific questions; I'm thinking about replaying it myself, since it's been ten years since I've beaten Fallout, but the big draw of FO1 versus FO2 is the plot and atmosphere; FO2's gameplay is much more fun and forgiving. And I play it way more.

edit: Oh, 10 luck and Jinxed is pretty amusing.
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Scratchmonkey
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PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2008 3:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

sediment wrote:
But yeah, Move, Act, and Attack are pretty much your options. General shots are probably wisest in the opening cave and in general until you can get whatever combat skill you favor up to 70-80%, whereupon targeted shots are your babies. Unless you took Fast Shot, then just overwhelm them with fast attacks and a high crit chance.


How do you do targeted shots versus general?

Apparently I took the Finesse trait, which doesn't make sense with a 5 in Agility. Hmmm.
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Redeye
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PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2008 4:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Scratchmonkey wrote:

How do you do targeted shots versus general?

Apparently I took the Finesse trait, which doesn't make sense with a 5 in Agility. Hmmm.


Right click on the gun in your inventory. Cycle through reload, shoot, targeted shot.
1 extra AP for targeted shot.

Finesse can be good with 5 agility if you have high luck and perception.

Fallout 3 will not allow shooting rats in the groin.

meanies
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Winged Assassins (1984)
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PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2008 5:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Redeye wrote:
Fallout 3 will not allow shooting rats in the groin.

meanies

What if you have a high-powered rifle that can shoot through the rats to get the bullets into their groin?
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Scratchmonkey
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PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2008 5:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Redeye wrote:
Finesse can be good with 5 agility if you have high luck and perception.


5 in both. What the hell was I thinking when I made this character*? Might have to restart.

* - 7s in Charisma and Intelligence. 6 in Strength. I guess I was going for a talky dude.
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Worm
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PostPosted: Sun May 25, 2008 8:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Fallout is honestly one of the games I have played the fuck out of, right up there with Counter Strike.

In Fallout 1 and in some pre-patched versions of Fallout 2(which you really shouldn't even be playing) Psycho will make your character essentially invincible, which helps with some of the tougher encounters.
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sediment
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PostPosted: Sun May 25, 2008 9:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yep, drugs really are the answer.
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Sun May 25, 2008 11:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is shaper posting out of wes' account because he auto logs in.

Anyways, my first experience was a mess honestly, but if I didn't have it I wouldn't want to try to play it again properly.

I honestly recommend that on your first play through you just go for it. Don't listen to what people say (real people, not NPCs) and attempt to get as far as you can before you realize that you've gotten yourself into a situation that can't be rectified. It only took me about 12 hours before I realized that I'd gotten too far into the world without properly preparing myself and that I didn't have enough time to fix this.

Not that there's anything wrong in going in and completely following what people have said, but it's really the world that I saw around me that makes me want to go back and revisit it.
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Scratchmonkey
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PostPosted: Sun May 25, 2008 12:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh, fair enough, it's just not getting out of the first cave that lead me to this. I mean, it's a nice cave as caves go (shame about the rats); however, it's not horribly compelling on its own.
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Redeye
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PostPosted: Sun May 25, 2008 5:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

@ last 2 posts:

There are things in Fallout that I think were put there for people who didn't know what they were doing.

Knowing how to play games messes up the spontaneity.

I envy the people who just wander out there cluelessly and have fun.


I also don't see how you can screw up your game.

It's pretty easy.

Or maybe I just know the tricks too well.


Oh and that cave was really just a mechanic for getting you half or more of a level up, right at the start.

FO2's "cave" was inexcusable.
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dessgeega
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PostPosted: Sun May 25, 2008 7:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i think the cave was a little bit of wanting to introduce the player to the combat mechanics right away in a relatively safe setting and a little bit of IT'S AN RPG SO WE MIGHT AS WELL FIGHT RATS. there's a whole world waiting on the other side of that cave!

and yes, you will plunge in and then get stuck not because the game is in an unwinnable state but because you just won't know the world well enough to find a way out of your hole. it's a worthwhile experience anyway, like shaper says. just do it!

but yes, fallout 2's "cave" is far worse and could not give a more misleading first impression of the game that follows it.
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Cycle
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PostPosted: Sun May 25, 2008 8:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So we're all palying Fallout ITT? Maybe I'll jump in again and actually try to finish it this time.
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purplechair
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PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2008 12:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm playing Fallout too!

I've made loads of characters, most of which have been pretty poorly thought out, but I'm just OBSESSED with having a Luck of 10. Fast Shot and 10 action points = I can put down a group of rats in a single turn?!

At the moment, I'm mostly just wandering randomly through the desert to explore the world a bit. But the last time I played, I randomly stumbled upon an overturned truck containing about 12,000 caps! Considering I was still level 1, this sounded like the kind of excellent fortune that would break the game, so I saved my game for good luck and bought a motion scanner, some metal armour, and an SMG.

Then I accidentally dropped my gun behind a table, and couldn't see it to pick it up again. Sad
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purplechair
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PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2008 12:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh, and I can recommend taking Jinxed, Bloody Mess and a Luck of 10. Watch with delight as your enemies blow themselves up while trying to shoot you!
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dhex
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PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2008 8:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i was under the impression that f2's starting cave was a kind of parody, an ass-backwards culture trying to prepare someone for the world at large (yet leaving them completely unprepared).
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PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2008 10:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It`s not only related to your ways of using guns,but also to your responding behavior.
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Redeye
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PostPosted: Mon May 26, 2008 1:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Luck 10 in Fallout can be a little too lucky.

And watch out for the motion detector in FO2, it causes crashes.
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sediment
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PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2008 12:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

On caves: I don't really think the starting cave in Fallout is the truest introduction to the game, it's not its real "cave", if you know what I mean? The game being as open-ended as it is kind of allows you to choose your own cave but I've always typically headed east to Shady Sands, since it's a nice, isolated village with an associated "cave" of introduction to how the game expects itself to be played. (Vault 15.)

Fallout 2's cavern of trials is incredibly contrary to the ultimate theme and purpose of the game, but as far as a technical introduction goes it primes you for more or less every task possible in the game. You fight, you explore, you abuse the environment, you're given the opportunity to steal or talk your way out of a situation.
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Redeye
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PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2008 3:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

sediment wrote:
...

Fallout 2's cavern of trials is incredibly contrary to the ultimate theme and purpose of the game, but as far as a technical introduction goes it primes you for more or less every task possible in the game. You fight, you explore, you abuse the environment, you're given the opportunity to steal or talk your way out of a situation.


You can drop a spear before the end-cave fight and run over and pick it up to cheat. But the guy sees the spear too and will go for it. So drop it out of his range.
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sediment
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PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2008 4:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

yeah, there are a lot of similar situations in certain games, where they really don't expect you to rig the scene but doing so can be pretty gorgeous in the end. Fallout and Fallout 2 have many, many such situations... most of which are made awesome through dynamite.
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