Fallout 3 - Mods, Tips, Tweaks, and Faqs!

You begin your journey as an inhabitant of Vault 101, a fallout shelter in the Washington D.C. area. The vault has reportedly been sealed for 200 years until the player's father opens the only door to the outside world and disappears without any explanation. The Vault Overseer believes that the player was involved their father's escape, and sends the vault's security force to arrest him. This leaves the player little choice but to also escape from the vault, with the hope of locating his father and finding out why he left... Which is where your story begins.

Main character creation occurs as the player experiences the character's childhood. The character's mother dies in labor, immediately after which the player decides the character's general appearance through a DNA analysis conducted by the father.

As a child in the Vault, the character receives a book titled "You're SPECIAL," whereupon the player can set the character's seven primary aptitudes. The character receives training weapons and a PIP-Boy 3000 later on during childhood, and the player's performance in various tests determines the rest of the attributes.

Skills and Perks are similar to those in previous games: the player chooses three Tag Skills out of 13 to be the character's specialties. Five skills have been cut out from the game (Fallout and Fallout 2 had 18 skills). First Aid and Doctor have been integrated into Medicine, Throwing and Traps have been merged into Explosives, Steal integrated into Sneak, and both Outdoorsman and Gamble have been removed completely. The maximum level the player can achieve is level 20. The Traits from the previous Fallout installments were combined with Perks in Fallout 3, and the player can choose a new Perk each time after gaining a level.

The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, or VATS, is an active pause combat system implemented in the game. While using VATS, the otherwise real-time combat is paused. VATS also allows the gory deaths in the game to be shown in slow motion and great detail. Attacks in VATS cost action points, and the player can target specific body areas for attacks to inflict specific injuries. It should be noted that while VATS is useful for precise shooting, it also greatly reduces a weapons condition, forcing the player to strike a balance between using more ammo or losing guns quicker. This tradeoff allows for two very different play styles throughout the game.

Another facet of gameplay is that firearms wear out over time: as a weapon degenerates, its rate of fire slows and it loses accuracy. However, worn out firearms of the same type can be combined to make more reliable and powerful weapons. Weapon schematics can also be found and used to create various devices such as the Rock-it Launcher that can fire various items such as lunchboxes and stuffed animals, or the Clever Bottlecap Mine, made out of a Vault-Tec lunchbox, cherry bombs and bottlecaps. Along with equipping various weapons, the player can also utilize different armors and clothing that may have effects that can alter various skills. For example, a pair of mechanic's coveralls may boost the player's repair skill while it is worn. Armor and clothing come in two main parts for the head and body, allowing a player to wear different combinations of hats and armor. Also, a player's inventory has a specified weight limit, preventing a player from carrying too many items. Items like weapon ammo have no weight, due to the developer not wishing to bog down inventory management.

The player can have a maximum party of three, consisting of himself/herself, Dogmeat, and a single NPC. In addition to having Dogmeat in your party you are able to send him out on his own to search for items such as arms and ammo, radiation medicine, and stimpacks. Dogmeat can be killed during the game if the player misuses him or places him in a severely dangerous situation and he cannot be replaced, but if the player kills dogmeat he can aquire two followers. In the PC version of the game, Dogmeat can then be resurrected via console commands and will continue with the player unaffected. Only one NPC can travel with the player at any time, and in order to get another NPC to travel, the first one must be "fired" by the player. The players party can further be extended, with several temporary quest NPC's that will stay with them until the quest related to the NPC is completed, if their quest is never completed however, many will stay permanently with the player until killed.

A Karma system is an important feature in the gameplay. A players actions, including conversation and combat choices, affects the player's status in the game world; a player who makes good choices is received more positively by NPCs, and a player that makes bad choices has the opposite reaction. Crimes can also be committed by a player, and whichever faction or group that is harmed by a crime are fully aware of the player's action. Other factions that were not affected by the crime will not be aware of it, and since a town is usually its own faction, news of a crime committed in one town will not spread to another. Beware however, excessive good or evil deeds will cause a bounty by the opposite alignment group. The Bounty Hunters (If you are extremely good) or the Regulators (if you've been bad) will ambush you randomly, and are not bound to any particular area, they can appear anywhere in the wastes. Factions can range in size and boundaries, however, and may not be restricted to a single area. The game world itself was planned to be significantly smaller than that of Oblivion's but is now expected to be similar in size.

This one is awesome, as it allows you to continue exploring after completing the main quest. DO NOT CLICK THIS LINK IF YOU HAVEN'T COMPLETED THE GAME YET

Free Play after Main Quest

With this mod you need more XP to gain levels and also get less XP than a normal game for combat kills and other things. So you level up much much slower, giving the freedom to play slowly and not hit the level cap for a long time. All activites now get you less experience, lockpicking, combat kills etc etc. Discovery XP has been doubled to encourage you to go out and find more enemies and places to interact with to gain more XP.

Slower Leveling Mod