(fallout 3) Me or the guides?

[Stormthorn]

Why is it my experiance with fallout 3 and the way the guides paint it is different. Most o the guides mention a poorly defined "endgame" in which i am expected to have:

1: 20 levels.
2: Caps. One guide estimated 20,000 (after upgrading house and stuff) even with the extra buying of stimpacks and ammo for Very Hard difficulty.
3: Stimpacks. Another guide mentioned "hundreds" of them.
4: Ammo. Like 100 missles, 50 mini-nukes, 10,000 rounds for me weapon of choice.


At my end game (end of main quest with half a dozen sidequests completed) i had

1: 16 levels
2: 2000 caps
3: 40 stimpacks
4: 0 missles, 15 mini-nukes, 500 rounds for my weapon of choice.
And i wa splaying on Easy so i expected the levels to be lower but not to be at 1/10 the amount of other things i should have.

What am i missing?

[Toastkart]

Well, for starters, it is because you're playing on easy. I just finished my first playthrough on normal difficulty this morning.

I hit level 20 before I got about halfway through the main storyline.
I had about 1500 ammo for my weapon of choice.
Approximately 12,000 caps
About 200 stim packs
As for other types of ammo, missiles and mini nukes and such, I never bothered counting because my character was basically a sniper with laser/ plasma rifles and I never used them. I also got the scrounger perk at level 8, which means I found significantly more ammo as I was exploring than normal.

[littlebottom]

A:) depends on difficulty
B:) depends on weather it is first play through
C:) depends how many side quests you do
D:) depends on how you decide to play (if you go with melee weapons, your bound to have loads of ammo left at the end, but anything with a high rate of fire, you will eat ammo like no one business)

also, there is a fallout 3 thread already :smallcool:

[Philistine]

Why is it my experiance with fallout 3 and the way the guides paint it is different. Most o the guides mention a poorly defined "endgame" in which i am expected to have:

1: 20 levels.
2: Caps. One guide estimated 20,000 (after upgrading house and stuff) even with the extra buying of stimpacks and ammo for Very Hard difficulty.
3: Stimpacks. Another guide mentioned "hundreds" of them.
4: Ammo. Like 100 missles, 50 mini-nukes, 10,000 rounds for me weapon of choice.


At my end game (end of main quest with half a dozen sidequests completed) i had

1: 16 levels
2: 2000 caps
3: 40 stimpacks
4: 0 missles, 15 mini-nukes, 500 rounds for my weapon of choice.
And i wa splaying on Easy so i expected the levels to be lower but not to be at 1/10 the amount of other things i should have.

What am i missing?

What you're missing is, in a word, sidequests. If you completed "half a dozen or so," then you're missing lots and lots of sidequests. At almost any time between exiting the Vault and commencing the endgame sequence, you can take a break from the main quest and go do... whatever else. Talk to all the NPCs you can, then hike to the various locations revealed via dialogue, stopping to investigate every "unknown" map marker you come across - or just go out wandering the wastes. While doing this, playing pack rat will ease your supply issues - drag everything back to town to barter for caps/ammo/stimpacks. It's not actually difficult to reach max level, 20k+ caps, 10k+ ammo (for several weapon types, even!) and hundreds of stimpacks before getting even halfway through the main quest, if you put the main quest aside for a while.

And the main FO3 thread is here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106734)

[NerfTW]

The Stim Packs are mostly from one of the side-quests involving:

riley's Rangers, which takes place in a hospital, which coincidentally is loaded up with hundreds of stim packs.


And as mentioned, you need to be exploring and hitting major enemy camps to be collecting lots of ammo. For caps, you need to be out there trading goods.

Not to mention any guide is going to have a vastly different outcome in such a free roaming game.

[Flickerdart]

Some ammo is easier to find than other. While you'll be rolling in it if you spec Small Guns (and hence take advantage of .32 Hunting Rifle ammo from the Super Mutants, 10mm ammo for the SMG and 5.56 ammo for the assault rifle that Raiders carry) if you go Big Guns you'll be out of juice fairly quickly. Laser Guns isn't that good in terms of ammo either, I keep running low. Your best bet is to find Protectrons and loot them for cells, or buy. Missiles are actually quite common (though not enough to use reliably).