Money is useless.

[Charlemagne]

One of the big incentives in adventure games is money gain. But the game usually whets your appetite by presenting you with great expenses. However, in F3 after a small crisis at the beginning of the game and after building your house, you find yourself with nothing to spend your caps on. Weapons and armor usually come to you free from adventuring, same with ammo and caps themselves. Changing your home's theme is about the only thing to spend on, but I usually stick to one theme because I have already decorated my house with additional objects and don't want the hassle of picking all up and placing it again. I used to think Fortune Finder was an interesting perk, but it's a total waste. This would seem to lead to a point where loot is moot, and only ammo and medicines are worth picking. I wonder if there's some economic mod that will put a little more spice to the game.

[CursedPanther]

I didn't exactly overflow with caps in my playthrough of F3. But at the same time ammo was never an issue when you're a fairly thorough scavenger. If you ask me New Vegas is way easier to overflow with caps instead, with all the gambling you can do and faction missions. I suppose this is why Obsidian has introduced the weapon mods and implants as cash sinks.

The situation inF4 won't be improving as you even get to set up your own caravan business among your outposts in the wasteland.

[maninredagain]

This made me think now. Since there are caps as takeable items, can you drop them and i.e. fill a bathtub with them?

[malespecimen]

FWE makes caps, food, water, medicine and ammo alot more scarce, it even comes with a menu so you can tweak the settings you don't like

[Charlemagne]

Thanks for pointing me to FWE I'll give it a try. Seems to be what I've been wanting, and not only in the caps dept.

[Charlemagne]

Originally posted by maninredagain:

This made me think now. Since there are caps as takeable items, can you drop them and i.e. fill a bathtub with them?

You can't normally, I think, but there is a mod for that. Don't remember name but I saw it last night when looking for economy mods in Nexus. I think under the search for "caps".

[Strauss]

My caps always almost run out to buy ammo. Maybe its just too early in the game and that 308 ammo is so expensive, true i never run out 10mm or .32 but sniper rifle is my favorite and very scare in the beginning.

[Charlemagne]

Ammo is a problem early on and you do need to buy but later it's overflowing especially with scrounger perk. Besides vendors never seem to have enough of what you need (in my case, .44).

[Ludus Aurea]

If you think money is useless in Fallout 3, you're playing it wrong. There will always be a need to buy stimpaks and ammo, among other things. Even with scrounger perk, you'll need to buy certain types of ammo. It only becomes silly with all DLC where you are literally turning in fingers and power armor and junk for caps and then not really spending the money.

[Charlemagne]

By level 12 and with scrounger perk, I just can't run out of ammo. I still buy .44 (my favorite for Lincoln's gun and the magnum) which is the only ammo that tends to get scarce on me, but vendors don't carry that many .44 rounds. I always buy the few they can offer. I actually sell ammo. And stimpaks? Every now and then I sell off those that exceed 100 count.

[Ludus Aurea]

I highly, highly doubt this. As someone who has played the game for hundreds of hours, for 7 years, its factually incorrect to say "I can't run out of ammo." You will run out of ammo for literally every gun you have,all the time, until you get higher level and hoard ammo and ONLY use one gun to kill anything.

Yea sure if you TGM you can't run out of ammo.

[Charlemagne]

I'm shocked that you don't believe me, but I assure you in my game it's as I say. Why would I bring up this thread otherwise? I do play at normal difficulty (my policy in all games). And I have more than 400 hours in this game.

I use VATS a lot and collect VATS perks, and try to maximize my AP. I carry around about 7 or 8 different weapons as each serves a different purpose, but all are either small guns or melee. I hardly ever use big, energy, or unarmed weapons. Ghouls? Pull out the shotgun. It's just 1 or 2 shells per ghoul except for the bright ones (And except of course those superghouls, don't remember their name, those that are like they're flaming radiation. Those require a lot of ammo and dying and reloading a few times!) Raiders, if they're close treat as ghouls, farther, the hunting rifle reigns (Later the Lincoln. Man that gun rules!) Scorpions? Run backwards and feed them mines. Shotgun also works fine against the little ones, move backwards, wait until their face is about a foot away from you, while aiming, and BAM! then continue moving backwards, you can usually avoid the sting. The best option against super mutants is probably the assault rifle although it depends on the situation. Overlords can give you hell though. Deathclaws and those wheeled robots that are super fast do give me the shakes though.

I don't find the sniper very useful, and it's a pity as I love to snipe. I don't know why but I miss a lot with it even though the crosshair is exactly where it should be. I actually get more effect overall with the hunting gun or the Lincoln even at similar distances. If you are hidden, crouch, and aim for a few seconds it's almost always a critical sneak attack. The secret is aiming, taking a couple of seconds to aim, even in the middle of a heated battle where you're taking damage. Or of course use VATS.

I think I save too many stimpaks because I'm always gobbling up all the food I can find. I take a rad x, eat everything, then if still necessary or I'm crippled I add a stimpak or three. I even collect roach meat and fly meat (Yuck!) I sleep wherever I find a bed. I hardly ever use doctors, those guys charge too much. Except that I'm reconsidering that; now that I have more caps than I need, better to pay to get all fixed up near of my location, than to travel back to my Megaton House and use my (feels like cheating) lab and medical station.

Might I add, without incurring in your disbelief, that I prefer light armor or even clothes to heavy armor? I especially like the wanderer outfit with stormchase hat and tortishell glasses combination. The +1 PER, +1 END, +1 AGI is neat. Or the mercenary grunt outfit with shady hat, or a jumpsuit with thick eyeglasses for that Gordon Freeman look.

[CursedPanther]

I play on Hard and energy weapon is a must against any kinda power armor, and Deathclaws, otherwise you'll be wasting half your reserve by just taking out one of them.

[Charlemagne]

I don't know but I haven't found the liking for energy weapons. I think that it's because they're so bulky and obstruct your view when carrying them unholstered or aiming. I suppose they must work well in VATS though and do plan to go 'energy' in my next playthrough if only for variety. I take out armoreds and deathclaws with assault rifles (and psycho) just fine. But if the claw sees you first you're dead.

[Kaiser]

Originally posted by maninredagain:

This made me think now. Since there are caps as takeable items, can you drop them and i.e. fill a bathtub with them?

Yes, yes you can. Will take a while though.

[Strauss]

So far i use my caps to make Nuka Cola and convert it to ice-nuka cola to make it more value for barter :3