Guide By Optimusmart
This part is VERY IMPORTANT so make sure you read it so that you don’t misinterpret anything I state in the Guide.
Abbreviations
I wont always use Abbreviations but here they are for when I do use,
- SBC/s: Select bottom choice/s
- QM: Quest marker
- ATM: At the marker
- RTaGN: Raider troubles at greentop nursery
- UU: Underground undercover
- DCM: Diamond city marker
- RRT: Red Rocket Truckstop
- QS: Quicksave
- HS: Hardsave
- IS: Idiot savant
- PA: Power armour
- RR HQ: Railroad headquarters
- N, S, E, W: North, South, East, West
- NE, NW, SE, SW: Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southwest
- SRP: Stabiliser reflector platfrom
- MBE: Molecular beam emitter
- BOBH: Battle of bunker hill
- BOS: Brotherhood of steel
- NPC: Non player controlled character
Saving
The AutoSaves in the game will always be active, but these will only be for BACKUP just in case.
The Quicksaves will be used A LOT, mainly to control your own Luck ;). QS comes in very useful during long sections, if you make a mistake, you can just reload your QS and retry from the spot you Quicksaved. BUT, when I instruct you to QS, do not overwrite that QS until you have abused it for whatever reason I advise.
Only 1 Hardsave is actually REQUIRED in this Guide to achieve all Trophies. Although, there are a few other points I advise you to HS for safety reasons. Because a HS makes a completely new save file, You can make as many Hardsaves as you want, so feel free to make more than I instruct if you wish. Just be sure you make a note of each HS location, because after so many HS’s, its hard to remember which is which.
Abusing Idiot Savant
Idiot Savant is a PERK and perhaps the most important Perk in this Guide.
Idiot Savant gives you a random x3 or x5 XP bonus at rank 1 and 2 respectively. But the higher your Intelligence, the less it triggers, this is why the build I instruct you to use has a low Int. I use IS like this in order to reach Level 50 by only completing Trophy related Quests. If we were not to do what I outline here, you would be looking at a lot longer Platinum time.
Because the bonus is random, by itself its hard to judge exactly how useful it is, I guess you could say that it would come to player opinion BUT…… combine Idiot Savant with the QuickSave feature and Quest Completion Reward XP and Idiot Savant becomes the most useful Perk in the game.
I instruct you at points when to Quicksave when handing in a Quest in order to reload that QSave until Idiot Savant triggers for the Quest Reward XP. This can be repetitive at times, but it saves a hell of a lot of time and its not as bad as you think. Most the time, the game is quite generous at how easily this triggers, most the time within 5 or 10 reloads of the QuickSave. Only the odd time it takes over 10.
Because the game loads a QuickSave so fast which is in the same area your currently in, reloading a Save takes 10 secs or so, and the point at which I instruct you to save is either about 10 secs before IS would trigger or during the part of the conversation where it triggers so its a pretty fast process.
The point at which Idiot Savant triggers for completing a Quest can vary. Most the time, it is after a certain part in a conversation during the last Quest objective, other times it can be as soon as you complete the last Quest objective.
YOU MUST make sure you Quicksave at the point that I instruct whilst handing in a Quest. This is because the QS is placed just before IS triggers as mentioned above. If you QS later than this point, there may be a chance you have made your QS after the point where IS would have triggered, thus locking it out.
For some Quests, I have never been able to trigger IS, only a few though. Because IS relies on Luck, this may be because I was really unlucky at the time. But luckily, we don’t actually have to trigger it for every single Quest.
If you have a Quest that after 15 or 20 reloads, IS just wont trigger, then don’t worry about it. I normally end up not triggering IS for 5 Quests approx and I still reach Level 55 at the end of the Guide so I still receive plenty XP (you only need to reach Level 50, for a Trophy). I do mention if I couldn’t manage to get IS to trigger for a Quest throughout the Guide, so you will know which Quests it definitely works for.
Equipment
Your Equipment plays a very important part, in a lot of different aspects.
As standard, once you find these items, you will always have the following carried on your person;
- 10mm Pistol (until you acquire the Deliverer)
- Deliverer
- 10mm Ammo (try to always have 300-500 in stock)
- Fragmentation
- Grenades
- Radaway
- Stimpack
ALWAYS carry these on you.
RADAWAY and STIMPACKS are to heal HP/Radiation. DELIVERER is your weapon with Ammo of course and the FRAGMENTATION GRENADES are good for support, sometimes they come in handy.
With the 10mm Ammo, once you reach DCM and begin Bartering with the Vendors, you always want to try to keep a stock of 300-500 Ammo when possible. Obviously can’t be helped at the start due to your lack of Caps, but you will find plenty while Looting areas.
Apparel
As you play through the game, you will be Looting a lot and acquire various types of Armour/Clothing. You can wear a piece for almost each of the main body parts on your body.
Armour pieces can be found to cover each leg, each arm, your Chest, your head and Clothing normally covers your head, eyes, full body base layer with a few other additions that aren’t really necessary. Some Clothing can be worn with Armour. There are also some types of Clothing that can’t be worn with other types, for example, something like the MINUTEMEN OUTFIT can’t be worn with Armour, but TATTERED RAGS can, but you probably don’t need to worry to much about this.
I instruct you at one point in the guide to acquire TATTERED RAGS (Full body clothing that can be worn under Armour) and a BATTERED FEDORA (a Hat). These are perhaps the most important pieces of Clothing you will acquire in the game, due to the Fact that the BALLISTIC WEAVE MOD can be applied to these and each gives +1 Luck.
The BALLISTIC WEAVE MOD is just applied through a Armour Bench, first you must unlock this MOD in game though completing certain tasks, this will all be explained in the Guide. Once acquired, using the Bench, you apply this to the garments I mentioned above with whatever your ARMORER PERK allows. This MOD can only be applied to certain Apparel which is why I chose the above.
Apart from TATTERED RAGS and BATTERED FEDORA, all other Armour worn will be changed for better Armour as it is found. Anything with higher Stats will have a + beside it in the Inventory menu so its easy to tell. Even when Looting, a + will also be beside anything that has better stats than your current Equipment.
Once I tell you to stop Looting extensively, and you begin just quickly checking boxes or Enemies you have jus killed, you will just Loot AMMO, any Quest Items or Keys and any Armour that has a + sign beside it (because you know this is better than your current Armour). BUT REMEMBER, TATTERED RAGS and BATTERED FEDORA will NEVER be replaced once you begin MODDING them.
Also, throughout the game, you will come across certain types of Clothing all with various Bonuses. Some of these Bonuses may include +1, +2 or even +3 to Charisma. Any clothing you find that boosts Charisma, YOU WILL ALWAYS KEEP on your person. But you only need 1 of each type, for example, I normally find a Hat that gives +1 Charisma, Glasses that give +1 Charisma and a Outfit that you receive once you complete the [CURTAIN CALL] Quest that gives +3 Charisma as these can all be worn together.
Now, don’t confuse these Charisma boosting pieces with your Armour or Tattered rags/Battered Fedora. These Charisma pieces are ONLY EQUIPPED when you are BARTERING with a Vendor, as these will allow you to buy for less and sell for more. You will just equip these to Barter, then once done, Re-Equip your Armour pieces.
Bartering/Looting
These 2 are not the same thing, but there used almost together within the Guide so I thought best to explain them together.
I will tell you when to Loot and when not, but mainly you will Loot thoroughly for perhaps the first 10 Quests or so and then I will tell you to just Loot Boxes and Enemies and sprint through areas. You will also only Loot the Enemy objective areas as well really, if you Loot every single place you pass, you will be here ALL DAY LOONNNNGGGGG! But as said, I will advise you on when and when not to Loot.
Any JUNK you Loot will ALWAYS be stored in your Workbench in SANCTUARY. Any AID you Loot will also be stored in your Workbench. But, anything else will be sold to Vendors in order to receive CAPS, APART FROM what I mention above or anything else I tell you not to.
While Looting, early on, you will quickly become overburden. As mentioned in the basics, you can transfer some Items to your Companion and grab them back later or you may have to drop some stuff (you could always come back for it but thats never really necessary). I you ever do drop anything, always drop useless Weapons or Apparel, preferably something thats high in weight and has a low Value.
Your going to be selling unwanted Weapons/Apparel anyway and even though you will be selling unwanted Ammo, Ammo doesnt actually weigh anything so theres no need to bother with that.
When it comes to Bartering, a lot of the Misc items you find can be sold for Caps like Magazines for example. Selling a Mag will not remove the Bonus you received when you collected it as these Bonuses are permanent ;).
Once you have a purchased all the stock of a certain Item from a Vendor, you must rest/wait for 48-72 hours to reset their stock. In DCM, there are chairs next to the Vendors in the Cafe area, so this pretty quick to reset a Vendors stock.
Sometimes, when a Vendors items have restocked, they may sell slightly different items. Bear this is mind, especially when attempting to purchase the Tattered Rags from Fallon. If she doesn’t have them, you will have to reset her stock until she does sell them.
Combat
As I stated in the basics guide, V.A.T.S will not be used, honestly, it will slow you down to much.
Basically all you will be doing is running and gunning like most FPS games. You will have to be careful at the start of the game due to your Equipment and Level, but as soon as you acquire the DELIVERER and BALLISTIC WEAVE MOD, the game becomes a breeze.
FRAGMENTATION GRENADES will be saved mainly for larger difficult enemies that are very few.
You will have plenty of 10mm Ammo always as explained earlier, so just pump Enemies full of Bullets until they full, its that simple.
As for what Enemies to kill, obviously don’t kill any friendlies, or even injure for that matter! You will always kill all enemies at each objective or the majority anyway. Some are a pain to get to so if there not required, sometimes to best to ignore some enemies. You will gain more than enough kills to cover the Trophies as long as you kill the majority that you come across during Quests
Benevolent Leader Trophy
This is probably worth a mention since some of you who have knowledge of this game may be panicking about this, but do not worry! Its actually a very easy Trophy when prepared for early in the game. Unfortunately, everybody seems to leave it till last :(.
Early on in the guide, some of the instructions I give are actually prepping for this. For example, collecting Caps, acquiring resources and acquiring certain Settlements.
I actually instruct you to prep 2 Settlements just to be on the safe side due to possible glitches.
Once ready, you will be given instructions that take about 10 mins to perform and then thats the Trophy near enough finished.
The rest of it just requires your Happiness to reach 100 which will happen while your out completing Quests working towards the rest of the Platinum ;).
Please, do not worry about this Trophy!
Conversations
I will mostly instruct what Choice to select when you reach a point in a conversation where you encounter a Dialogue Option. If I havent advised you on what choice to select, then you will ALWAYS choose the bottom choice. The bottom choice always seems to be a neutral answer, well in most cases.
Whenever I do tell you to select a certain choice, its very important you select the choice I instruct. If in doubt, you can always HS or QS (if you don’t need to reload the previous QS for any reason) if you wish.
When comes to a Persuasive choice (yellow/orange/red text), that I have asked you to select and persuade successfully, make sure you follow my instructions. Some of the Persuasive choices are vital to the game.
Most of the time, just skip through all the text unless of course you want to listen to it, but overall, it will add a few hours. Just be sure you advance the text slowly when I am advising you to select a certain choice or QS at a certain point, you don’t want to accidently go past that mark, VERY IMPORTANT!
Forcing Random Quests Selection
At certain points within the Game/Guide, you will come across Quests that are random. Meaning the Quest will have a random objective, normally resulting in a random location as well.
To better guide you throughout the game, I have developed a way on how to force these Quests into what objective they give through making a QS at a certain point and reloading that QS until you receive the required objective. Although I have only done this with 2 Quests because the others don’t need completing.
Because I have done this, it is easier for me to guide you through these Quests and use the locations as a reference where needed. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to guide you through them parts leaving part of this guide blind in a sense.
I guide you through all this, but as I mentioned with the reloads to trigger IS, DO NOT save over the QS until the part has been completed. As before, if in doubt, make a HS, then you can always come back to that point if any mistakes are made.
Perks
This is a list of what Perks you will select at each level. Not every PERK will be fully ranked because all ranks are not needed, for example you don’t need rank 4 in GUN NUT.
- 2: IDIOT SAVANT
- 3: GUN NUT
- 4: GUNSLINGER
- 5: LOCKSMITH
- 6 & 7: GUNSLINGER, LOCKSMITH
- 8: CAP COLLECTOR
- 9: HACKER
- 10: HACKER
- 11: IDIOT SAVANT (FINISHED)
- 12: LOCAL LEADER
- 13: GUN NUT
- 14: LOCAL LEADER (FINISHED)
- 15: GUNSLINGER
- 16: ARMORER
- 17: MEDIC
- 18: LOCKSMITH (FINISHED)
- 19: ARMORER
- 20: CAP COLLECTOR (FINISHED)
- 21: HACKER (FINSISHED)
- 22: BLOODY MESS
- 23: BLOODY MESS
- 24: MEDIC
- 25: GUN NUT (FINISHED)
- 26: ARMORER (FINISHED)
- 27: GUNSLINGER
- 28: LONE WANDERER
- 29: BLOODY MESS (FINISHED)
- 30: LONE WANDERER
- 31 & 32: PICKPOCKET x 2 (QS before, get the Trophy then reload get points back)
- 33 & 34: S.P.E.C.I.A.L; AGILITY x 4
- 35: ACTION BOY
- 36: ACTION BOY (FINISHED)
- 37: MOVING TARGET
- 38: MOVING TARGET
- 39: MOVING TARGET (FINISHED)
- 40: LONE WANDERER (FINISHED)
- 41 & 42: GUNSLINGER (FINISHED)
- 43: *****From here on, select anything you wish*****
On the Menu 1st choose the following in options;
- Select very easy
- Turn subtitles on
- Save in pipboy every 10mins
- Make sure all save options are on
- Then begin a New game.
Note Regarding Trophies
Its hard for me to say exactly when you will earn some Trophies as some are cumulative, although I still guide you through each Trophy except for Whats yours is mine, as you should find the locks to pick for that Trophy as your Looting.
TROPHIES that you will earn as you play (cumulative) the game following my guide.
- WHATS YOURS IS MINE (pick 50 locks)
- ROBCOS WORST NIGHTMARE (hack 50 terminals)
- LOVABLE (reach max relationship level with a companion)
- …THE HARDER THEY FALL (kill 5 giant creatures)
- RANGER CORPS (discover 100 locations)
- PRINT’S NOT DEAD (read 20 magazines)
- MASSHOLE (kill 300 people)
- ANIMAL CONTROL (kill 300 creatures)
- COMMONWEALTH CITIZEN (reach level 10)
- UNSTOPPABLE WANDERER (reach level 25)
- LEGEND OF THE WASTES (reach level 50)
- PRANKSTER’S RETURN (placed a grenade or mine while pickpocketing). You will earn this Trophy once your Level 32. As mentioned briefly in the PERK guide above, at Level 32 you need QS, then put 2 points into the PICKPOCKET PERK. Now crouch down next to any NPC and place a grenade or mine in their pocket by following the onscreen command. Once done, reload your QS to get the points back and carry on with the guide.