On 14/12/2015 09:28 AM, Bill Pragnell wrote:
> Orchid Win7 v1<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> So I managed to leave Vault 101.
>
> You can get out without violence, you can just leg it around the guards.

Can you really pick the lock and hack the computer terminal while two 
guys are physically beating you? I wouldn't expect that to work...

>> Next I'm supposed to pick the lock to open the door. The game marked the
>> lock as "very easy" (not just easy, but *very* easy), and yet I failed
>> miserably, not even coming close to unlocking it.
>
> The lockpicking minigame isn't that hard once you get the trick of it, and it's
> invaluable for finding loot. You do need quite a lot of pins before you get good
> at it tho :\

I found that when you press a way, regardless of the position of the 
pin, the same thing happens. And after a while, the pin breaks.

What I didn't realise is that you're supposed to *hold* the button! >_<

(FWIW, I had the same problem with Assassin's Creed 2. I literally got 
stuck for 20 minutes trying to figure out why the button press I'm being 
prompted with didn't do anything. It took that long to figure out you 
have to actually *hold* the button. Sheesh...)

>> I'm not actually sure what the point in Vault 101 existing is. I mean, I
>> left the vault, and I'm presumably never going back there, so everything
>> that just happened was basically a total waste of time.
>
> The idea is that it's an in-universe character generator (the skill classroom
> test etc), tutorial and story beginning all in one. And you're assuming you
> never go back there ;-)

The test was weird. Several questions have one obviously correct answer 
and several obviously incorrect ones. But a few of the questions only 
have incorrect answers. I had to admit, the final question made me 
chuckle though...

>> But I had
>> assumed that all living entities were hostile
>
> Hostiles show red on your radar. All others show green.

Yeah, I didn't know that. I just assumed that all living things want to 
kill me. Because that seems to be the case. Especially when I'm away 
from Megaton, I have a hard time trying to figure out whether distant 
entities are dangerous or not. Still, it seems *really* hard to avoid 
people.

>> bomb
>> and yet it was
>> trivially easy. I don't know if there's a random component and I was
>> just extremely lucky, or what.
>
> IIRC the bomb requires your repair skill to be a certain level, which might not
> immediately be the case depending on your initial skill choices in the vault.

Oh, I see.

Knowing now that 95% of the game is about repairing stuff, I wish I'd 
put 100% of my points into the repair skill. Again, this is what happens 
when they make you take irreversible decisions before you know what it 
affects! >_<

>> So I walked all the way back to Megaton. But apparently the game seems
>> to think there definitely *is* food to be found, and won't let me abort
>> the quest until I find it.
>
> You since found fast travel ;) Don't forget it's an open world game. You don't
> *need* to advance a quest, you can just go find some more. That particular quest
> line isn't part of the main story, although Moira's tasks are quite good at
> getting you around to interesting places.

Oh, really? I just turned up at Megaton, and she started handing me 
quests. I assumed that was the intended path forward...

>> towards the river, and a large team of humans started shooting me. So I
>> quickly crossed the river, and got shot at even more. There were only
>> two enemies, but no matter how much I shot at them, they just wouldn't
>> die. Eventually I exhausted all my health supplies and died.
>
> Hmm, there are two super mutants on the west bank of the river around there I
> think. They're pretty tough early in the game, especially when your accuracy
> isn't yet high enough to hit them at range.

...there's a way to increase accuracy? Because right now, even when I 
aim directly at somebody 6 feet away, the bullets fly in random 
directions, and even when they appear to hit, they do no detectable 
damage at all.

Then again, maybe the 10mm pistol isn't the thing. It's the only gun I 
can find any ammo for. (Well, except for the magical revolver that only 
fires 5 bullets, not 6.) I assume the Chinese Rifle does more damage, 
but it's permanently out of ammo.

>> So I tried going further north. But then some kid runs up to me and
>> tells me how "fire ants" have taken over his town, and begs me to fix
>> it.
>
> Again, you can just ignore quests if you're not ready for them yet. There are
> very few cases where you're required to do something immediately. IIRC the kid
> just tells you to meet him somewhere, so you can go back whenever you're ready.

Yeah, I discovered that actually, there's 3 molerats right outside 
Megaton, so you don't need to cross the river at all. ("Awww! The poor 
liddle molerats with their fwuffy noses!" Er, lady, are you *seeing* the 
same monsters I am?)

So that got that quest out of the way. But a few quests later and I need 
to get to the memorial. I took a really strange route to get there, and 
that damned kid *still* found me! Miles away from where he usually 
hijacks me. Apparently he's impossible to avoid. (I said people are hard 
to avoid...) So I just told him I'd do it, and then ignored him.

Actually, a while later, I did come back and do the quest. Approaching 
from the high ground seemed to make it possible to kill the ants with 
VATS. And then I went in a house, came out again, and told the kid his 
dad was dead. (No idea how my character found that out; I just noticed 
the quest marker had moved...)

That didn't end the quest though; now I'm supposed to eliminate the 
"source" of the ants. No idea how the **** that's supposed to work; I 
guess that's the challenge. To figure it out.

>> First of all, it asserts that trying to evenly spread your upgrade
>> points among all abilities is a doomed strategy, and you have to pick
>> one or two and focus only on those.
>
> Early on, good advice. However you can pretty much max out all skills by the
> endgame so I wouldn't worry.

Interesting. The guide claimed that it's physically impossible to max 
out all skills, and in fact insanely hard to even get *one* to maximum, 
so you should focus on only the most important ones.

> A guns skill is very useful for a first
> playthrough, as is repair, speech (so you can take the negotiation route where
> possible and save ammo and karma). But there's no right way to play the game to
> be honest.

But I bet there's plenty of *wrong* ways! ;-)

>> They urge you to use V.A.T.S. constantly, for everything. Clearly I'm
>> using it wrong. So every time enemies are near, the game is constantly
>> nudging you to turn on V.A.T.S... So I press V, and the game pauses and
>> asks me what part of the target I want to hit. So I say, uh, head. And I
>> press Accept. And the game unpauses, and nothing happens. So... what was
>> the point of that, exactly?
>
> As you subsequently found out, you can queue up as many shots as your AP
> permits. Although the accuracy can be a bit of a crapshoot until you get your
> guns skills up, VATS is still the best way to go for beginners because you take
> almost no damage whilst in the mode. And the slo-mo kill replays look awesome.

 From what I've seen, human enemies do little to no damage. The only 
reason they're dangerous is because it takes *so many* shots to hit 
them! By which time you're nearly dead.

I particularly enjoy the fact that VATS will tell you there's a 95% hit 
chance, when actually every single shot hits the invisible wall around 
the edge of whatever bit of scenery you're hiding behind. Thanks for that.

The slo-mo looks cool? It looks confusing as hell! I can't even tell 
what's happening. I queue up 2 shots, and I see an animation of my 
character firing 16 shoots. What am I watching? And why isn't he aiming 
where I said? And why are multiple shots hitting but no damage happened? 
I AM SO CONFUSED!

>> (Apparently ammo is extremely rare in this world.)
>
> It's really not. You'll burn through it at the start of the game, but after 10
> hours of looting ammo for guns you don't yet have, you'll end up with plenty.

Well... I've found an endless supply of lawnmower blades, pilot lights, 
medical tubing and crutches. You know, useless crap you don't do 
anything with. Ammo, however, is *never* to be found. You also can't buy 
it, for some reason. Although at this point, 95% of everything Moira has 
for sale is the stuff I just sold to her!

My current tactic is to travel to the nearby elementary school and 
collect as many burned books as I can carry, and then go back to Megaton 
and sell them. I get 0.6 caps per book. It's a very, *very* slow way to 
earn caps.

> I must have sunk more than 300 hours into Fallout 3 alone over the last 7 years,
> it's a great game. As someone else said, try New Vegas too if you end up liking
> it. The game mechanics in New Vegas are significantly improved (and there's a
> hardcore mode where you have to regularly sleep, eat and drink, and ammo has
> weight), and the story choices are much better too. I still prefer 3 for the
> exploration/atmosphere though.

I still end up sleeping a lot, mainly to avoid being outside at night. 
(And to work around the store opening hours.) Oh, and free heals.

> I shall be giving 4 a go next year I expect :D

Oh, when the price comes down? ;-) Why do you think I started with 3?

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