Fallout 76 isn’t like any Fallout game before it.
If you’re just starting out, it can be extremely overwhelming.
So we’re here to walk you through some of the basics to get you on your feet in the wilds
of West Virginia.
There’s not a ton to do in the vault, and very little to pick up.
You’ll select your character’s look, but don’t worry if you muck that up;
you can actually change this at any time in the menus.
Just make sure you grab those perk cards at the “Get a Job” table.
You’ll be granted the first bonuses you can apply to your SPECIAL attributes.
With that out of the way, you can head out into the wilds.
As soon as you leave the vault, things start getting very dangerous.
Since you can’t pause in Fallout 76 — it is, after all, an online game —
you’ll need to be ready for any scenario.
The first thing you should do is Favorite two weapons to your d-pad
(assuming you’re using a controller): a melee and a ranged option.
Any more and you’ll find yourself scrubbing through a long list of weapons when you have
to make a quick choice.
Pro tip: Changing your PipBoy to the “overlay” setting lets you see the world around you
while you're still navigating your menus.
It's not as good as pausing outright, but close enough.
Until you reach Level 5, you should be picking clean every building, dwelling, or site you encounter.
Then break down the junk at any workbench and store all the junk in a stash box.
While you can trade with other human players and robot vendors, resources are harder to
come by than in previous Fallouts, so you’ll probably want to save your caps for things
like fast travel, or buying more ammo when you’re in a pinch.
You should expect to craft and modify, or find and repair, whatever you need
rather than buy it.
Seriously consider increasing your strength stat (to increase your carry weight), or picking
Luck Perk Cards that improve the condition or quantity of the items you find.
Food and water are a much greater concern in Fallout 76 than in past games.
Fortunately, there are plenty of sustainable water resources in the wasteland
in the form of creeks and sinks.
So as long as you have a steady supply of RadAway, you have an infinite well of water
to pull from.
I recommend grabbing a LOT of water at once — as much as you can carry —
and just popping a RadAway afterwards.
Then take all that dirty water to a cooking station and boil it, which you can then drink
for hydration or use in recipes to make food.
Most recipes in the game do require boiled water, so it’s a good idea to stock up whenever
you find a water source.
If you’re still having trouble managing your hunger or thirst, consider taking Perks
that either increase the nourishment you receive from drinking and eating, or that reduce the
RADs you absorb from eating impure food.
Speaking of dirty food, there are now a wide variety of diseases and mutations that can
be acquired. Hooray!
Mutations arise from radiation exposure and have both positive and negative effects, but
can be cured taking RadAway.
Note, however that RadAway also significantly lowers your disease resistance for a good
chunk of time. So you should be aware of that.
Sleeping on the floor, drinking dirty water, and eating raw food also
pretty much guarantees a disease.
If you wanna avoid those diseases but still get that well-rested bonus, any raised platform
or standing bed will do.
You should scrap duplicate weapons rather than keep them for resale or trade.
Often times when you scrap a weapon, you’ll learn a mod recipe for that weapon.
It’s also a good idea to have only one weapon per type of ammunition.
For example, a bolt-action pipe pistol, unmodded, is redundant to a short hunting rifle, because
they both use .308 ammo.
Scrap whichever one in worse condition.
If you’ve found a weapon you really like, make sure you always have resources on hand
to repair it.
Repairing items works differently than in previous games, but in general it’s a
good idea to always have adhesive, which can be scrapped from duct tape or wonderglue and
is a necessity for pretty much all repairs.
We’d suggest you avoid the “Events” (marked on your map by a yellow hexagon)
when you’re early in your adventure — through Level 5, at least, if not longer.
They’ll automatically be added to your quest list if you enter an area where one is happening,
so just ignore it or unfollow it inside your Pip-Boy.
Events are chore-like experiences that waste ammunition and don’t really provide
enough of a reward in weapons, gear or other items, especially if you're fighting solo.
That said, as long as you’re in the vicinity of an event, you can still reap the rewards from
it without ever firing a single shot.
Handy!
I would also avoid claiming Workshops early on.
Once you claim one, it’ll have to be defended against waves of enemies,
which also eats up ammo and degrades the condition of your weapons.
And you really don’t get much out of it.
While cruising through your PipBoy, you may accidentally hit a button
to start setting down your CAMP.
Ignore this, at least until you’ve progressed in the story to start getting tutorial missions
on how to build your CAMP.
This will be at the Morgantown Airport.
The CAMP is actually super helpful. You can fast travel to it for free, and drop down a number
of crafting benches and toolkits wherever you want.
Try to pick a pretty spot that’s somewhat central.
You will be able to move your CAMP later, but it costs caps so it’s a good idea to
get it right the first time.
These tips should keep you alive for the first 10 hours or so.
But of course there’s tons to explore in this game, so if you have any good tips for
people just starting out, drop them in the comments
and we’ll highlight the best ones.
Thanks for watching, and good luck out there!