Beginners guide, tips please

[gavtheman]

Hi, new to the game and loving it so far, but I don't play a lot of games and I'm not that quick with pressing buttons so I tend to play on easy level and enjoy more exploring. I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing with all the stuff I find so I'm wondering if there's an easy beginners guide or tips somewhere? But just a few things I'm not sure about...

Where do you store all your stuff, is it all stored in the workshop bench thing and if you store it in one is it available in the others around the place or only where you store it?

Where to store weapons? I've ended up with too many and need to sort them out. There doesn't seem to be a secure box or something, again is it just the workshop bench.

What am I supposed to do with all the food, you get health points if you use them but am I also supposed to store that at the cooking stations? I don't seem to be able to do much at the cooking stations anyway.

Thanks.

[EolSunder]

never hurts to ask questions.

You store your stuff in a settlement, yes the workshop bench thing. If you want to make boxes, etc in your settlements to store stuff that is fine also i usually like to keep certain items seperate from the workshop.

You can't access items from other workshops unless you actual visit them and take stuff in and out. You can't share items or access items, but you can share crafting material if you "link" the workshops/settlements with provisioners.

Weapons, etc all in the workshop bench. When everything gets too cluttered make sore to grab a bunch of it and visit some traders, especially cheap weapons/gear you don't use. Food also, EVERYTHING gets stored in the workshop red bench.

The stations in your settlement will automatically access anything in your workbench, so all your stuff is stored in the red workbench, if you use a campfire or stove in the settlement it will have access to the workbench stored items. Same with all the other workbenches. Mostly food you'll turn raw meat into better food, such as cooking and turning molerat meat, radroach, etc into better food. There are a few other items you'll be able to make later.

So after going out travelling and exploring fast travel to your settlement and drop all the excess stuff into the red workbench, you can sort through stuff later when you get more familiar with using this and that. Also make sure to go into settlement building and find the fast travel mat, and place it in your settlement where you want to appear with you fast travel there. Right at your red workbench of course is a great spot.

[EolSunder]

one early suggestion for new players, don't worry about trying to build up every settlement you find, or doing stuff. I suggest for 1st time players just use your one settlement you like, the rest you can scrap down and then lug everything to your main settlement to store. Settlement building takes time, many like to do it, but first time player, go explore and play the game instead of spending 100 hours building houses and bases, you can always do that later in the game, or another playthrough.

So if you find other settlements, take them over, strip them down, leave maybe a fast travel mat, bed in them and throw everything else into your main settlement storage to use/sell/craft. Play the game, have fun, and later in the game if you really want to make other settlements you can, or not. Some like to do it, some don't.

[The Inept European]

First suggestion would be search this forum for other threads called 'beginner's tips' or similar, there are quite a lot of them. There was one in the last week. Otherwise we will all get RSI typing the same answers again and again. :D

[Myr]

When you have 2000 caps you can buy a house in Diamond City from speaking to the Mayor's secretary which you can build in like settlements but it is isolated from supply lines and settlers so anything you put in there is fully safe storage without any risk of settlers taking weapons to defend themselves etc. In general most items will remain in workshops but for those special unique items you want to keep its best to store them away from grubby hands.

As a new player I'd recommend taking 1-3 levels into the Perks Fortune Finder and Scrounger from the Luck tree, they are quality of life perks that just plain increase the amount of money and ammo you get passively as you play without needing to know where the good stuff is.

[wesnef]

re: safe storage -

I usually make a "home base" settlement that has no actual settlers in it. Frequently the Red Rocket near Sanctuary.
I only put crafting materials of all kinds in my Workshop (including food ingredients), I put all sorts of other boxes/crates/wall safes/etc. to sort my other things into.

Like, I'll put 2-3 boxes near my weapon bench - one for explosives, one for unique/legendary weapons I want to save, one for weapons I might want to use. A box for extra medicine, a box for extra food, a box for clothes, a box for armor, a box for magazines, a box for notes/etc, and so on.
(as you can tell, I'm a compulsive hoarder :D)

But like I said, this is somewhere without any settlers, so they can't steal anything from me. I might have one or two companions hang out there, but that's it.

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[[STD]Random Lead]

VATS may be your friend if you are not a dexterous keyboard user. vats slows time a bit for you to react. i would suggest looking up vats videos or just spend a few moments going thru the settings setting it up to your personal preference.

Note you dont have to use vats but it could buy you a few moments to prioritize enemies before manually killing them. you can always enter vats, look around, cancel and engage the enemy.

[JMO]

The first time I played this thing, it took me the longest time to realize something so simple about quests. I am embarrassed to admit it.

Any time you are looking at a quest in your list of quests (under the "Data" tab in the Pip Boy), you can right-click on the quest and choose "Show on Map" to see where it is.

I was spending time scrolling all over the map trying to pick out the quest marker or, even worse, trying to remember where it is.

And it's a lot easier to understand quests if you only have one or two or three as "active" (i.e. checked) at the same time.

Oh and once you get used to a set of dialog -- like dialog you have with merchants -- and you get really tired of waiting for them to finish their little speech you've heard a hundred times before, just start hitting the down-arrow as they're talking. it speeds them past what you don't want to hear.

[gavtheman]

Thanks all some great advice there. I did a quick search on here but a lot comes up. I did read about storage boxes and safes somewhere else, how do you create those - is it under construction part of the workbench stuff, sorry I don't know the actual name of things unless I open the game up.

[Azure Fang]

An additional note on storage and settlers:

The game's AI is extremely simple. When a settler comes under attack, the game does a couple checks and responses:

• Do I have ammo for my weapon? If no, grab nearest melee.
  
• Is higher damage for my ammo within range? If yes, take.

This is what makes storing weapons that you care about dangerous in settlements. You can equip settlers with any weapon you wish, and as long as you give them one unit of appropriate ammo they can attack indefinitely (minus Miniguns and Fat Man, which still consume ammo). However, if their AI detects a better weapon for their assigned ammo within range during combat, they will grab that weapon whether it's in a container, on a corpse, or on the ground; this includes companions and the "magic ammo" they have for their default weapon. As such, when storing weapons it's ideal to do one of three things:

• Store weapons in a "house": A house is a settlement that has no settlers. These can be purposeful such as Home Plate or the CC houses that literally can't have settlers or they can be a settlement that you've decided not to set up a beacon.
  
• Over- or under-equip settlers: Building a fully upgraded 10mm and handing it to a settler means they will never have a need to seek out a different 10mm. Alternatively, leaving a settler with their cheapy Pipe Pistol ensures they'll seek out weapons, but only ever those chambered for .38. However, always check incoming settlers inventories: sometimes they generate with extra ammo types, opening them to steal your stuff.
  
• Get an "ephemeral" storage mod: There are some mods out there that give mobile or consolidated workshop storage. This is handled by a container that is out of reach of your settlers. If you don't mind having exact, universal access to you workbenches, then get a mod and never look back.

Now, some general advice. Mod your game. Even if you want a "totally vanilla" experience, get a list of recommended bugfix mods and an achievement re-enabler. The Unofficial Patch, High FPS Physics Fix, Weapon Debris Fix (if you have an Nvidia GPU), F4SE, and Buffout 4 (setup guide followed, all but F4EE support enabled) should be considered the bare minimum to ensure you have an enjoyable time with the game. Remember, this is a Bethesda game.

[wesnef]

Originally posted by gavtheman:

Thanks all some great advice there. I did a quick search on here but a lot comes up. I did read about storage boxes and safes somewhere else, how do you create those - is it under construction part of the workbench stuff, sorry I don't know the actual name of things unless I open the game up.

If I remember correctly, Containers is one subsection under Furniture. (I may be misremembering, or my menus are different because I have some settlement building mods)

[Liquid Inc]

to add to what "Azure Fang" said about storing weapons, as far as i know you can use a mannequin to store weapons + ammo. They are seen as NPC's and not a storage item, and so no settler will take anything from it.

[EolSunder]

ammo in regular game doesn't weight anything so just carry all your ammo with you. You can also just check settler inventory once in a while to see if they picked up stuff they shouldn't have, it isn't a big deal.

When you get a huge stockpile of weapons i usually grab some, upgrade their receivers for damage boost then give them out to settlers so they have extra firepower over their basic useless pipe pistols, etc. Most of your settlement defense should be heavy turrets, but hey doesn't hurt for settlers to do good damage either.

Again, i suggest first time not to worry about building up settlers/settlements a lot until later in the game or a 2nd playthrough.

[Relic62]

Early Game when u get out of the vault, scrap everything except what you want to keep, dump everything you pickup that are materials, steel etc into workbench, build 2 mannequins store your weapons in one and clothes in the other, build some containers put your chems that you dont use in them, build water purifiers as many as you can collect everyday, sell it for caps. Take your time familiarise yourself on how to build stuff and what everything does.

Sell all weapons you find to the merchants, except the ones you want to keep. Do purchase legendary weapons when you can and upgrade your armour at every opportunity, same with guns, mod them at every opportunity and armour.

Buy shipments if you want to build stuff as they weigh nothing, as you run out of wood, steel etc pretty fast if you like building stuff. Buy ammo at every opportunity 45 ammo and 308 mainly as thats what you use mainly (legendary weapons from merchants) oh and 50 cal if you like those weapons. I wont go down the rabbit hole with Preston, up to you whether you rescue him or not.

[The Inept European]

Bear in mind shipments cost more than getting the same components from Junk items, so buy them only if you need a lot of that material.

NPCs will also take a higher DMG weapon from a container if they have the ammo for it or if the ammo for it is stored in the same container. So always store ammo separately from guns. Or just use a mannequin (first item under Decorations).

[JMO]

Originally posted by wesnef:

re: safe storage -

But like I said, this is somewhere without any settlers, so they can't steal anything from me. I might have one or two companions hang out there, but that's it.

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Is there any particular reason you don't store weapons in the workbench itself? I've never had a weapon stolen from a workbench. At least not that I've ever noticed. Is that a thing?