Starting tips for Survival Mode for noobs like me

[davbenbak]

For anyone thinking about starting a Survival mode game here are a few early game tips I have learned along the way.
1) When creating your character when visited by the salesman max out INT so you get the max XP as you travel through the vault. Before you leave the vault you can bring it down to 7 and adjust the other stats to fit your play style.
2) Infections will cripple/kill you so my first perk suggestion is Chemist so you can make antibiotics. Being terribly weak at the beginning you also need to learn better living through chemistry along with the XP you get from crafting. You'll need Psycho, Jet and Buffout so Addictol and Refreshing Beverages are a must. Also cook lots of radstag and radscorpion omlette.
3) Completely scrap everything in Sanctuary before venturing much further. Take advantage of the well rested bonus after 8 hours sleep and always wait to cook/build/craft until right after waking up. Get used to sleeping and napping because in the beginning you will die a lot!
4) It is possible to get to level 2 before leaving Sanctuary to venture South if you spend some time building and fortifying. I do recommend going South to just over the bridge to get the items around the Minuteman statue, getting Dogmeat at Red Rocket and clearing the mine there before heading north to explore around the vault entrance and heading south to follow the power lines. Dogmeat and the 10mm will be your best friends for a while. There is a two story house in the SE corner of Concord with a sniper rifle and a sleeping bag on the second story. I recommend going there first and saving the game before going to the Museum and again before getting the power armor to take on the deathclaw. If you find the deathclaw too hard hide in the hardware store and shoot out the windows but don't get too close because the deathclaw does have some reach.
5) Early perks I recommend are Chemist, Lone Wander, Gunslinger and Rifleman. I also focus on lockpicking skill as a good source of XP and better items. I consider Gun Nut perhaps a secondary skill that can wait and hold off on getting Armorer until I have ballistic weave. You'll pick up lots of unique items as there are a lot more legendaries on Survival mode and you can easily craft weapon and armor upgrades from what you scavenge. Don't overlook Sneak since mines and traps are much more deadly now.
6) Since there is no fast travel, settlements are much more important as are supply lines. Make Red Rocket your first base of operations since it has all the crafting that Sanctuary has to save on running around time. Don't automatically put settlers in each settlement (I never put any in Red Rocket) because without settlers there is no risk of attack and you can't fast travel to defend it anyways. Wait to get the XP from setting up beacons as part of quests and use those settlements to populate your network. You are going to have to put some points into Charisma as an early to mid-game strategy (when you have Tempines Bluff, the Drive-In, Sunshine Coop and Hangman's Alley) for Local Leader. The extra XP from winning speech checks doesn't hurt either. I use settlements that I can build a water purification station in like the Drive-In, Baffington Bay house and the Castle as hubs since they can support larger populations and thus provisioners. Hangman's Alley is also a great base but can't support much of a population.
7) Radiation sucks as do the cures. Best to pay a doctor and not suffer the hangover effects of chem cures. You shouldn't have money problems since there is a lot to sell to Trashcan Carla (usually in Sanctuary) and at the Diner. Don't complete the Olivia Quest by returning the locket and you can repeatedly sell watermelons to the Abernathy's as an early game cash cow.
8) Your going to have to take the game at a much slower pace on Survival. VATS check your surroundings often whether you use it to shoot or not.

[davbenbak]

Yes, only a true Noob would post the same thing twice!

[JDaremo Fireheart]

Check out the Guides Section and maybe create one of your own.

Discussions like this one will be come Buried real fast with all the posting going on, but a Guide will be there until you remove it. Plus, there's a Comments Section at the bottom of each guide where you can gather more info, get corrected, or just get Praised for the Guide.

As for your Guide here,
In 3), add in that using the mod Scrap Everything isn't advised to scrap all of the things in Sanctuary . . . especially Not advised for Red Rocket because it will also scrap the Mole Rat Den Entrance. Not sure about the Root Cellar in Sanctuary, but it may scrap that hatch as well making it unusable as a bolt hole for sleep.

in 4), North of the Vault & Sanctuary are lots of plants to harvest, a small raider outpost with 1 raider & a dog. West of the vault, where the Power Pylons are is another small raider outpost with 4 raiders & a dog. Along the river heading west are more plants to harvest. In the big field in front of Red Rocket are about 15+ Mutfruit Plants to harvest, just watch out for the Radstag & Molerats up the hill. If you install the mod No Wild Fruits[www.nexusmods.com], you can use the harvested fruits for planting in your settlement. Really stupid of Bugthesda to not allow using the wild fruit for planting crops.

in 6), it's Taffington Boat House, not Baffington Bay house. LOL
For Hangman's Alley, it does make for a great home base until you can afford Homeplate and all you need are a few settlers to farm crops for food, etc and some turrets to defend the place.

in 7), Doc Anderson (late game recruitable L-4 Merchant) spawns at the Campsite in the parking lot at the North East exit of Concord, The house across from Trudy's, and a few other places. She's good for healing and curing radiation as well. Lucas frequents Ten Pines and is good for selling stuff to buy better armour. Ten Pines is usually the default Settlement for the First Steps Quest, but I recently had Oberland Station . . . Quest is the same in both places (Corvega) if part of the First Steps quest. Don't try to take Outpost Z until you have a pretty good damage weapon, the Raider in PA will be a damned tough fight other wise. Being able to Snipe his Core is a Bonus to get him out of the suit.

in 8), Agreed. VATS Checking often is a must in early survival, especially if it's one of your first runs in the game and don't know the spawn locations or random encounter locations. The two I mentioned above, are Random Encounter Hotspots and can spawn some rare ones like Doc Anderson. Another is under the Rail Bridge in front of Starlight.

Overall, it's a great start to a solid Guide. Gather more advice and tips from our great help team at the Commonwealth Coffee Shelter. That place is frequented but dozens of helpful people who have been playing these types of games for many years.

[chickenchaser97]

At point 4 you said it was possible to get to level two before leaving sanctuary, but I thought you can hit 6-7 easily and 11 if you push it?

[JDaremo Fireheart]

Originally posted by chickenchaser97:

At point 4 you said it was possible to get to level two before leaving sanctuary, but I thought you can hit 6-7 easily and 11 if you push it?

Depends on what you do and how much crafting you do.

Technically you aren't supposed to be able to use the Settlement Workbench before rescuing the Quincy Group, but Bugthesda didn't code that in in case people wanted to save the Quincy Group later on but still get a settlement up and running.

[chickenchaser97]

Originally posted by JDaremo Fireheart:

Originally posted by chickenchaser97:

At point 4 you said it was possible to get to level two before leaving sanctuary, but I thought you can hit 6-7 easily and 11 if you push it?

Depends on what you do and how much crafting you do.

Technically you aren't supposed to be able to use the Settlement Workbench before rescuing the Quincy Group, but Bugthesda didn't code that in in case people wanted to save the Quincy Group later on but still get a settlement up and running.

Neat, didn't know that. What do I build besides shelves with wood and steel and mats with cloth? I reach around level 6ish but idk what stacking things are ceramic/rubber to get more xp

[Jouchebag]

Originally posted by chickenchaser97:

Originally posted by JDaremo Fireheart:

Depends on what you do and how much crafting you do.

Technically you aren't supposed to be able to use the Settlement Workbench before rescuing the Quincy Group, but Bugthesda didn't code that in in case people wanted to save the Quincy Group later on but still get a settlement up and running.

Neat, didn't know that. What do I build besides shelves with wood and steel and mats with cloth? I reach around level 6ish but idk what stacking things are ceramic/rubber to get more xp

How many levels do you need? You realize the world scales with you so you're actually just making the game harder since you're not actively collecting combat related supplies.

You could theoretically just whittle your way to 50 without leaving Sanctuary and then step out to face Doom with pipe pistols.

[chickenchaser97]

Originally posted by Jouchebag:

Originally posted by chickenchaser97:

Neat, didn't know that. What do I build besides shelves with wood and steel and mats with cloth? I reach around level 6ish but idk what stacking things are ceramic/rubber to get more xp

How many levels do you need? You realize the world scales with you so you're actually just making the game harder since you're not actively collecting combat related supplies.

You could theoretically just whittle your way to 50 without leaving Sanctuary and then step out to face Doom with pipe pistols.

I'm trying to hit level 11 after leaving both sanctuary and red rocket. That doesn't answer my main question though.

[Jouchebag]

Originally posted by chickenchaser97:

Originally posted by Jouchebag:

How many levels do you need? You realize the world scales with you so you're actually just making the game harder since you're not actively collecting combat related supplies.

You could theoretically just whittle your way to 50 without leaving Sanctuary and then step out to face Doom with pipe pistols.

I'm trying to hit level 11 after leaving both sanctuary and red rocket. That doesn't answer my main question though.

Did you do it with Idiot Savant or High INT?

Eventually you're going to just run out of scrap laying around Sanctuary.

Who even told you 11 was possible like that?

5000 experience when you're getting like... a handful at a time.

[davbenbak]

Thanks for all the positive feedback! Maybe I'll transfer this with some tweaks to the guides section as suggested. As for the leaving Sanctuary at level two comments, my purpose for posting was to help survival mode players not XP farmers. Yes, you can build a ton of wooden fence posts and then scrap them for half the wood repeatedly and level up pretty quickly. That's not what I consider playing the game. My thought was to build walls and other defense improvements. In an open world environment like FO4 sometimes it's hard to know where and how to start. This is especially true with survival mode which is almost a completely different game. Just thought I'd share some of my lessons learned, many of them the hard way.

[Flippy]

Great tips. In survival especially playing ironman and restarting if even a single death, then maxing out exp, even searching out exp and loot, before continuing on is the way to go. This and power armor always.

[davbenbak]

I did post a starting tips guide which I will continue to edit and expand. Not a precise walk through because others may have different playing styles.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1808036486

[davbenbak]

OK. Reformatted and expanded. Again, thanks for all of the positive comments. If you find this guide helpful please give it a thumbs up. If any of the sections need improvement or correction please leave a comment. Please remember there is no right or wrong way to play this game and many people have different play styles.

[red255]

I would mention if you are taking Chemist anyways Jet Fuel is an absurd amount of XP and is rather easy to craft once you have access to flamer fuel.

safely crafting XP can level you up quicker, although many survivalists dont like being high level because it ruins the experience when you can tank explosions and actually survive because you are level 140.

[davbenbak]

Added a "Life after Concord" section