Should I Read Guns and Bullets

[dwaynegand]

Small Guns is the only combat skill with a book to increase the skill, it's called 'Guns and Bullets'. You can buy them at the library quite early and find a few copies early as well. Taking the skill up to 91% with books could save on skill points, but is it really worth it? Is it better to take the skill up to 91% with books before investing points or should I just spend skill points in it?

[Shallex]

i think it's fun to build up the money to buy the books, and plus that's more skill points that don't go permanently down the toilet that you get to spend elsewhere, so i always try to buy my way to 91 percent before putting skill points there

[dwaynegand]

I suppose this question could also apply to the second game.

But if you do depend on this magazine to raise your skill until 91%, won't you be weaker in combat?

[Shallex]

maybe a bit at the start, but you can manage to acquire the books at a decent rate if you sell a lot of guns from random encounters, and if it does end up being a bit slower to level up, then i'll just take that as a fun challenge, with the reward being some extra skill points later on

[Vassago Rain]

>is it worth it to use the very easily acquired resource that lets me build skillpoints without actually leveling up?

Play the game once. Just once.

[The Chosen Chad]

^
Its free points, read these books so you can always have a backup weapon like a .233 Pistol or a Sniper Rifle when critters flee and you cant reach them.

[babuk.fracal]

If your gamble skill is high enough you can buy everything you want, including skills book.

[Mennan]

I wouldn't even bother reading gun's and bullets in F1. You can rush big guns/energy weapons so easy and the scripted early combat events are a cakewalk. You really don't even need the small guns skill unless you want to specifically play a small guns character.

Even then skill books only allow you to reach 90% so if you've tagged small guns you've likely started with roughly 40-60% starting skill and then if you placed any points into it you've reduced the amount the skill book helps you.

[dwaynegand]

Big Guns and Energy Weapons don't come until later on in the game. You would need Small Guns to get you through the game until then.

[Mennan]

Originally posted by dwaynegand:

Big Guns and Energy Weapons don't come until later on in the game. You would need Small Guns to get you through the game until then.

No you really don't. Early combat is pathetically easy that you don't need to put a single point into small guns.
The only time it will be difficult is if you happen to get one of the hard random encounters which is very rare. Usually these are the encounters where its you vs 6-9 Radscorpions or Slavers or something. Most the time in F1 your random encounter is 1-3 opponents.

Your first companion Ian can literally carry you through V15, and Radscorpion caves. You skip the raiders until your on you return trip with the waterchip. Try to keep your skill points for now.

Once you reach Junktown you get Tycho and Dogmeat and they can carry you through Junktown missions.

Once you reach the Hub if your abusing the Barter/Gambling system do the usual merchant trade abuse and snag all the free loot you want. If not you go snag some radiation meds from the Children of the Cathedral and a rope. If you want to feel safe use some of your aquired riches to buy a second dose of Rad-x and any other items you feel you might need for a trip to the Glow.

You can do a few of the easier quests here like joining the Thieves guild. You should also be able to do the Deathclaw since every time i've encountered it its literally always zeroed in on my character and you can just run around in circles until your companions kill it.

After that walk down to the Glow. In the glow is a free minigun, a plasma rifle, laser pistol, plasma pistol, rocket launcher, combat armor and other goodies.

Make your way through the glow killing every deactivated robot. Read the free books and place a few of your saved up skill points into repair/science. There should be other free rad meds in the Glow if you happen to do this to keep up your rad protection.

Even at about 60% you have a good chance of repairing the generator and restoring power to the glow.
Go back to Zax and use science to disable the remaining robots, even low amounts of science you should be able to repeat the attempt a few times to disable the robots. Walk into the final level of the glow kill the disabled robots and claim your free loot. Your trip should have a recieved a few assualt rifles. various pistols of both normal and energy variety, a rocket launcher, minigun, plasma rifle, ammo and combat armor.

Leave the glow and go play the rest of the game however you feel like but i'd suggest snagging the Water-chip and removing the water timer.

[dwaynegand]

I tried reading Guns and Bullets without putting points into Small Guns by the time I reached the Hub. However, I found that my combat skill at the start of the game was much weaker and I was missing much more often, even with a very reasonably high chance to hit when enemies were right in front of me. And since I'm using the Et Tu mod where gambling is much more difficult to earn money since you can no longer hold down 5 and 1 to win easily (you now play craps from Fallout 2), I'm starting to think that maybe it isn't a good idea to depend on magazines until you get 91% in Small Guns, and that it may be better to use hard earned skill points.

[babuk.fracal]

Originally posted by dwaynegand:

I tried reading Guns and Bullets without putting points into Small Guns by the time I reached the Hub. However, I found that my combat skill at the start of the game was much weaker and I was missing much more often, even with a very reasonably high chance to hit when enemies were right in front of me. And since I'm using the Et Tu mod where gambling is much more difficult to earn money since you can no longer hold down 5 and 1 to win easily (you now play craps from Fallout 2), I'm starting to think that maybe it isn't a good idea to depend on magazines until you get 91% in Small Guns, and that it may be better to use hard earned skill points.

Next time you should mention if you are using a mod that change game mechanics, also is it the first time you are playing fallout 1 ?

If yes here's something important, most of the time it's better to play a first time by yourself without trying to optimize and only do research when you really need it, then if you want try to play the game again but with the goal of optimizing.

It's totally possible to level up high enough to being able to fight around the beggining, its just that you need to know in advance what you need too do for that.

And again, you have to mention the game changing mod you are using when asking this type of questions.

[dwaynegand]

I only just started using this mod yesterday. Before that, I've been playing Fallout for years.