Fallout 2 Beginner's Guide

Starting Fallout 2 can be rather challenging not for the games complexities but for its unknowns. The material covered here are the things I wished I knew on my first play though so that my experience would have been vastly easier and would have progressed vastly smoother. These are the tips to ensure that you get the most out of your Fallout 2 experience and avoid the pitfalls I made.

This guide also contains a walkthrough to get and use the Highwayman.

Character Customization

First thing you will encounter when starting Fallout 2 is creating a character. There is a default character but I always set about creating my own with customized stats. Unluckily I screwed up a couple times by making a simple mistake and traversing the unknown.

Mistake to Avoid: Make sure all your points are allocated; the game will not inform you if you have some extra to assign to any of the SPECIAL stats or skills.
Strength
What it affects: Carry Weight, Hit Points, Melee Damage, Thrown Weapons Range modifier
Associated Skills: Melee Weapons, Unarmed
Tips: Do not decrease your strength, with the exception of pistols most in game weapons require a level 5 strength or higher. If you are planning on going Big Guns (Flamer, Missile Launcher, ECT) then you’ll want to boost your strength to level 7 or 8 as many of the “Big Guns” require a level 7 or 8 to function properly.

Perception
What it affects: Dialogue Options, Distance from Enemies in Random Encounters, Ranged Combat Distance Modifiers, Sequence
Associated Skills: Doctor, First Aid, Lockpick, Traps,
Tips: Perceptions is a very useful stat to put points in. Early in the game it can net you a sharpened spear and later when you have guns it helps if you plan on sharpshooting.

Endurance
What it affects: Healing Rate, Hit Points, Poison Resistance, Radiation Resistance,
Associated Skills: Outdoorsman
Tips: If you need extra points to increase your other Stats this is where I would recommend taking them from. There are some drawbacks such as less health, increased chance of being poisoned, and you are more vulnerable to radiation (pop some RadX to solve that) but these are all manageable.

Charisma
What it affects: NPC Reactions, Party Limit, Prices,
Associated Skills: Barter, Speech
Tips: Charisma is the stat you want to boost if you want a large party, great prices, and plan to use speech.

Intelligence
What it affects: Dialogue Options, Skill Points Per Level
Associated Skills: Doctor, First Aid, Outdoorsman, Repair, Science
Tips: Intelligence basic perk is that you get more skill points to invest each time you level up but there are a few dialog options and moments where it comes in handy.

Agility
What it affects: Action Points, Armor Class (AKA Evade),
Associated Skills: Big Guns, Energy Weapons, Lockpick, Melee Weapons, Small Guns, Sneak, Throwing, Traps, Unarmed,
Tips: Agility is useful if you want to have more points to spend per turn. Increase to Armor Class (Evade) is also nice but not a guarantee that they will miss you.


Luck
What it affects: Chances with the Virtual Dice of the Game, Critical Chance
Associated Skills: Gambling
Tips: Luck is one of those skills that I’ll only take one kill point out of, if you boost it you can make a decent amount of money through gambling.

Skill Tips
Your choice in what skills you tag to level advance quicker depend on what you are aiming your character to be like. Such as what weapon class you are planning to use. Some other skills I would consider more valuable in tagging as not having them can limit your options during certain roads. Other skills while useful in the modern games just don’t come in as handy.

General Tip: Weapon class of choice is always a good skill to invest in even if in the beginning you can’t get access to that class of weapon.

Barter: If you want great prices on the things you sell and buy you’re going to need to invest in barter.

Lockpick: lockpick is an all important skill to tag. Throughout the game there are countless locked doors, chests, or lockers. If your skill in lockpick is to low for the lock you are trying to pick, you can end up jamming the lock.

Outdoorsman: This skill at first seems a waste until you understand what it does. It’s not for skinning animals but instead affects your random encounter chances. The higher the skill the less bad encounters you will have and the better chance you have at encountering a special encounter. Best feature is the ability to skip encounters and continue upon you’re merry way.

Repair: Repair like science isn’t used terribly a lot but it does come in handy from time to time.

Science: In Fallout 3 and New Vegas I consider science an all important skill as I like to go egg head and enjoy hacking. Unfortunately in Fallout 2 there simply aren’t as many terminals to hack. Okay that’s an understatement. There are few terminals to hack, so few in fact that it is better to just level science up each turn if you want to use it.

Speech: Speech is a very handy skill to have. It comes into play at the end of the game and allows for dialog options throughout the game.

General Tips

Save Frequently
Fallout 2 can be brutal and there is nothing worse than having to go back and redo everything you just did so save frequently. Saving during a battle is also a good idea if the battle is long, difficult, or has a good chance of going ether way.

First Gun
You can find your first gun in Klamath in Vic’s Shack. In the back of building you’ll find it. Also remember to grab his radio. It’ll come in handy for a later quest. The gun only shoots one bullet at a time but it is better than nothing.

If you desire a better firearm you can find a pistol in Trapper Town rat cave. On the second floor north of the rat god you’ll find a dead body. On inspection of the body you will find a pistol.

Exploration
You are going to be tempted to fill in all of the fog of war. Don’t, your village only as a certain amount of time to exist and traveling takes a long time. You can easily blow through weeks traveling across the map, days for shorter journeys and this all takes up time. Don’t waste the precious time you have exploring.

Highwayman Guide

The most important thing you can do in Fallout 2 is get the Highwayman. With the Highwayman you eliminate all the hassle of travel. Instead of weeks to cross the map you can do so in a couple of days. The only requirement is to have some energy or microfusion cells on hand to refuel the vehicle when it eventually runs out of fuel.

1) Head to the Den
2) Talk to Smitty in his Junkyard
3) Head to Gecko
4) Talk to Skeeter
5) Head to Vault City
6) Get Wrench by Finding Nixon Doll
7) Talk To Valerie in Downtown Vault City (you’ll need the day pass)
8) Purchase Tool
9) Give Tool and Wrench to Valerie and wait or quest for a couple days
10) Return to Valerie and retrieve Super Repair Kit
11) Return to Gecko
12) Exchange Super Repair Kit for Fuel Cell Controller
13) Return to Smitty and purchase your car
14) Optional: Retrieve Fuel Cell Regulator from Klamath and have Smitty install it for double the millage.

1) The Den is the second location you will arrive at. Upon entering the Den you will be on the West Side.
2) In the West Side head south (down) till you reach the Junkyard. In the Junkyard you’ll see a broken car, look at it and talk to Smitty. He’ll give you the quest to retrieve a Fuel Cell Controller to fix the car
3) Head directly East from The Den past Modoc is Vault City. North of Vault City is Gecko. Enter Gecko.
4) In Gecko Head north into the junkyard. In the large building directly on the right (the largest one) talks to Skeeter and he’ll agree to trade you the Fuel Cell Controller for a Super Repair Kit. Exit Gecko
5) Head South to Vault City
6) In the Courtyard talk to Curtis south of the bar and he’ll inform you he can’t find his Mr. Nixon Doll. The doll behind the crates outside the bar on the right. Bring Curtis the doll and he’ll tell you where to find a wrench. Collect the wrench.
7) Get a day pass by ether purchasing one or using speech and enter Downtown. In the large building is Valerie who is frustrated about not having the tools she needs. Tell her you will find the tools for her.
8) Purchase the tool (it’s just called tool in the shop) from one of the shops.
9) Hand both the wrench and tool to Valerie and she’ll tell you to come back in a couple days. You can wait in your pipboy menu or go questing for a couple days as there are plenty of quests involving Gecko to be done. After a couple days talk to Valerie again and she’ll inform you she got 5 Super Repair kits, simply ask her for one and leave Vault City.
10) Return to Gecko
11) Return to Skeeter
12) Trade him the Super Repair Kit for the Fuel Cell Controller. He’ll offer you another quest but it is unrelated to the Highwayman.
13) Return to Smitty.Give him the Fuel Cell Controller and he’ll fix the Highwayman. Now you can purchase the car for $2000.
14) This last one is optional but in Klamath by navigating through rate cave you’ll find a Fuel Cell Regulator in a car behind the fence in Trapper Town. Take this to Smitty and he’ll install it in the car doubling is mileage.

To Use The Car
You have to click on the car in the junkyard and select a destination. You will not immediately board it upon leaving any location you must always click on it. After the initial use it will be by a location exit in each location.

To refuel the Car
Have Energy cells or Microfusion cells in your inventory. Hold the left mouse button on the car and select inventory. From inventory select your cells and it will recharge the car. This may take a couple tries.

[Sly Bandit]

With a high enough Outdoorsman skill and luck/perception you can basically just run down to the NCR and gang areas and hang out on the border of the map until the encounters play out and then take loot off the npcs who kill each other then run off and sell it. This is the most fair way to "cheat" wealth to buy gear and skill books instead of going to navarro right away, and you can do it after 2 or 3 levels if you make your build however you want and spend the first few levels pumping outdoorsman. You can tell yourself you're a scout and a scavenger. Also, always save scum to get the +2 luck from the ncr hubologist

[DUKE NUKEM]

Hit Them craps tables play the field and bet on odds 6 and 4 works for me

[Exham]

Do not take Jet if you plan on getting thrown out of Vault City! You need to stay friendly with Mordino too so you can talk to Myron about making a cure!

[Styxx]

Theres no time limit, the game fakes having one for urgency, explore if you wanna

[tax evasion gaming]

thanks

[Unavalible]

- Big Guns aren't available until half of the game, so don't tag them at start.
i dont think so there is the steal gause rifle aproach...

[Buzztrax]

i'd say the only struggle is just getting money early game to get the highwayman but everything else is spot on and after you get the car and run a few caravans to get guns to sell, basically whatever the car costed in the first place is nothing compared to what you can get later on for just looting enemies

[BadbBalor]

Also, you can use the trunk of the car for storage of heavier things too

[Matt]

Luck has one very good perk, sniper, if you have 10 luck and sniper you crit on every single hit, so you completely ignore armour and are extremely overpowered, you can be doing like 400 damage on minigun burst or 200 on a gauss rifle headshot.

[Kevin7557]

Mes excuses mais je ne parle pas français. Si vous copiez l'adresse de ce guide dans un navigateur avec traduction automatique, vous obtiendrez un bon résultat. J'utilise Google Translate pour ce commentaire.