Are conserves just for eating and must I accept the radiation?

[Marcao]

If I find tins, are they only for eating or can I eleminate the radiation or can I use them also for crafting anything else? The same question for every other food like the stuff from the institute or school. THX!

[Tyrant]

iron belly is the perk your after.

and yes all prewarfoodstuffs are radiated due to exposure and as a token towards preservation method actually used in limited amounts today that actually irradiates food to preserve it.

[Vinnie Mack]

leadbelly, Tyrant. Many think this is a waste of a perk point. I strongly disagree, especially if you are doing survival mode. Maxed out, the perk eliminates all radiation from found food and drink. If you don't think this is a big thing, trying starting a new character like I recently did, after having played with Leadbelly for 200 hours of game play. You notice the difference immediately. Also, get Aquamarine. Whatever it is called. Your chance to correct me, Tyrant.

[Tyrant]

Originally posted by Vinnie Mack:

leadbelly, Tyrant. Many think this is a waste of a perk point. I strongly disagree, especially if you are doing survival mode. Maxed out, the perk eliminates all radiation from found food and drink. If you don't think this is a big thing, trying starting a new character like I recently did, after having played with Leadbelly for 200 hours of game play. You notice the difference immediately. Also, get Aquamarine. Whatever it is called. Your chance to correct me, Tyrant.

Aqua boy/girl XD, but yes those perks are well worth investing in when playing survival
though you dont need more then 1 rank in the aquagirl/boy as the second rank is pointless unless someone ports argonians to fallout 4 XD

[LagMan_PT]

I assume your playing on survival, i usually reserve the radiated food for last resourse, keeping a good stock of grilled hunt and cooked food is essencial. You can also choose the ironbelly perk, it reduces radiation on food

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Lead Belly is a decent perk, it's hard to indulge the "Wasted Perk" argument when there is no level cap.

Personally, I recommend taking one Lead Belly perk point fairly early, as it will lower most RAD Damage from water/food to <1 Rad

I won't really recommend putting more than one point in, because you do reach a point in time where you have tons of radiation counter options, like Easily accessed Doctors, Decontamination Arches (Wasteland Workshop) and (Endurance willing) Solar Powered.

[Kalsu]

Aquaboy and lead belly are a waste imo. There's food that can make you breath underwater and you can use rad-x/rad-away for radiation.
I don't use any rad-x/away in my current survival game and it make the game more fun imo.
Sticking to craftable food and using those radiated food for building settlement is a better option and you save 2 perk. Find the wasteland magazine for double meat drop on animals.
Also with contraption dlc you can build pre-war food without rads.

[Tyrant]

Originally posted by Kalsue:

Aquaboy and lead belly are a waste imo. There's food that can make you breath underwater and you can use rad-x/rad-away for radiation.
I don't use any rad-x/away in my current survival game and it make the game more fun imo.
Sticking to craftable food and using those radiated food for building settlement is a better option and you save 2 perk. Find the wasteland magazine for double meat drop on animals.
Also with contraption dlc you can build pre-war food without rads.

i use the perks to save on weight, if i can eat/drink anything i find or swim in it without rads i dont have to carry much water and rarely food instead radx and radaway.

but you could skip the aqua perk if your willing to lug a hazmat suit with you at all times

[ghpstage]

I never found the amount of rads you get form eating and from dirty sources to amount to much more than being trivial unless I ended up consuming truly enormous amounts without visiting a doctor for many hours.
Plus, its not as though clean sources are in any way rare, especially food.
As a result, despite quite readily using irradiated food/water, lead belly is completely worthless to me, it doesn't even do anything to prevent the diseases dirty sources can cause.

While i'm still not a fan, I can see aquaboy/girl offering orders of magnitude more value for a tiny fraction of the investment, making it a genuinely useful convenience perk.

[Kalsu]

Maybe if there was more exploring to do in water , aquaboy would be usefull. Just pop a rad-x and a rad-away right after and you're fine.

[Charlemagne]

In Survival mode, where Radaway is a poison, any perk that reduces your rad intake is good. I also like Lead belly and aquaboy in non-survival though. Having that liberty of swimming across a lake instead of going the long way around is nice, and increasing the choices of food I can gulp down is also nice. Sometimes I run out of clean food and radaway (they have weight so I take a limited amount).

[Theo Hardmeier]

Why waste points on lead belly when a power armor helmet upgrade gives it for free?

[Charlemagne]

Well I almost never use power armor.

[Tyrant]

Originally posted by Theo Hardmeier:

Why waste points on lead belly when a power armor helmet upgrade gives it for free?

becasue the PA sinks like a stone which makes the traverse of say a river take ages compared to walking around it in an attempt to find a bridge. that and the weight of the FCs is really annoying on survival so i rarely carry more then 1 spare if i have to use the suit.

but hey everyone build their char the way they do.

[Gamebot]

If you have more than 2~3 settlements and Local Leader perk, you can get tons of Noodle Soup anytime, anywhere. (You can get dirty water from 1. bottles or 2. merchants.) (If you don't have Local Leader perk, you can just bring 30~40 razorgrain in your inventory, plant it in every settlement you go, and harvest them again.) In my first survival play, I didn't even touch any meats because Noodle Soup was too effective. In this case, eating and drinking is not an issue in survival mode.

Even if you are playing survival without settlements/merchants, lead belly is not an essential perk cause you can get many meats from kills and loots. Honestly there are too many dogs, rats bugs, and stags. And human enemies and super mutants bring so many meats than you think. You just need to cook them at the cooking station. I invested 1 point on lead belly in the latest survival play(without settlements/merchants), but I haven't actually eaten any canned foods cause I could get sooo many meats. So consequently I'm regretting that I waisted that 1 point. There are so many perks that makes your play easy and fun. Lead Belly was worthless for me.

Even if you have to eat some canned foods in inevitable situation, I still don't think Lead Belly is essential. You'll get much more rad damage from other sources and will use Rad Away anyway. So measly 10 ~ 20 hit points from canned foods doesn't change anything. The truly hardest part on survival is not Eating or Drinking, but rather Illnesses. There were some hard parts that I had to drink dirty water from the river, which resulted in various illnesses, but I haven't eaten any raw meats.

Lead Belly is logically a smart and interesting perk. But practically it doesn't make any difference through the play.