Fallout Shelter tips and tricks
Sheltered life
Bethesda's Fallout Shelter remains one of our favourite mobile games of the year - despite some fairly hefty flaws and a frustrating lack of end-game.
We're hoping that the success of this freemium offering means that Bethesda will fix the issues (Deathclaws and Mole rats really don't cut it, guys), but that hasn't stopped us religiously checking in to gather the latest weapons and outfits ever since it arrived.
So, if you're new to the game or you've been playing for a while, here are our favourite tips and tricks.
Don't buy anything*
Lunchbox
We're suckers for rewarding companies that do good freemium games with a few of our hard-earned pennies, but outside of giving a little back there really is no justifiable reason to fork out for lunchboxes or Mr Handys in Fallout Shelter.
By the time you get to the still depressingly underdeveloped end-game you are likely to have a glut of people idly standing outside of your door from the lunchboxes you have picked up on the way but who are tens of levels behind anyone else you have in your 200 vault dwellers, and generally well behind in SPECIAL as well.
*unless you want to
Dying isn't the end
Dead and not gone
We're not getting all theological on you - it's just that you can easily bring back your dwellers for a few thousand caps and you'll be hitting the 'cap cap' of 999,999 relatively quickly.
So - if you're facing rampant deathclaws or multiple mole rats, don't panic if you can't click on the right person to give them a stimpack, it's literally not the end. We're fairly sure most of our dwellers have had a bit of a glimpse of the afterlife.
Using a SPECIAL star to check your rooms
Room checker
Sometimes it's hard when you have a busy Vault to work out who you've upgraded and what rooms you have moved people in and out of without visiting each and every one. You'll have noticed that when you are moving people if you hold them over a room you will get a plus or minus or simply a number if their are fewer people than the room can take.
Out tip is to take one of your full SPECIAL superstars (10 in each of the categories) put them in a Vault Suit and then drag them from room to room and seeing if they are a + or a 10, making it easy to make a note of the rooms that still need improvement.
Don't hoard +3 suits and low damage weapons
Clothes maketh the man
At the start of the game you'll be scrabbling for outfits and weapons - but pretty soon you'll upgrading from any old suit to the relevant +3 for each room, and then you'll be going for +4 +1 suits and +5s, and then you'll be finally grabbing the odd +7.
Get training as soon as possible
SPECIAL measures
The best chance of success out and about comes from the best SPECIAL stats and the best equipment. it takes some time, but taking one of your favourite dwellers from their humble roots to a 70 SPECIAL superstar is one of the pleasures of the game.
You'll need to create the various rooms to train each SPECIAL stat - but you won't ever rue building them so factor them in nice and early.
Try sending out a level 1, full SPECIAL dweller
Brittany
Every time the dweller dings to a new level, its health gets reset - so with a bit of luck and a prevailing wind, sending out a level 1 superstar with full SPECIAL, a fatboy, 25 stims, 25 radaways and a +7 outfit should give you one of the longest 'dwell times' (sorry) and a chance at some great kit.
Endurance, luck, intelligence and strength are key
No experience
You'll find by the end-game that you are only building Nuka Cola (which need endurance, nuclear reactors (which need strength), labs for the RadAways and stimpacks (which need intelligence) and occasionally rushing rooms which are helped by a healthy +luck. Perception and agility are useful at the outset but, from a vault point of view, become less vital as you shift to the better rooms.
Managing an accidental drag
It s a drag
We've all been trying to collect some essentials from various rooms when we've realised that we've somehow dragged a dweller from overseer-knows-where. Well - rather than laboriously dragging them back through every room you may have grabbed them from simply drag them off into the ground at either side and it will cancel the whole thing.
Think carefully where you put your rooms
Overpopulated
You'll hit the point where you're destroying rooms to replace them with something more important, so make sure that you think about where they sit. This is even more important when you hit the cap because you cannot create or destroy living quarters - which means you will be left with room that you cannot get to to destroy because you'd have to bulldoze living quarters to do so.
Do your own experiments and enjoy them
Lot of pyjamas
This is your playground and a lot of the fun that you extract will be of your own making - whether its collecting enough nightwear to have the mother of all pyjama parties, or making sure that every single person has a gauss gun. Fill your +1 boots.
Storage is really important
Storage wars
You'll need reserves of power, water and food and you'll need plenty of storage for the influx of explorers that you'll wake up to in the morning. Even then you'll perfect the rapid tap to sell method so that you can get everyone in and back out again.
Put serious weaponry in your vault door
Guard Guards
The irritating deathclaws will run right through - but a couple of rocket launchers and some level 50 full SPECIAL guards (and fortifying your door) means that the majority of the raider attacks won't get very far at all.
Enjoy the journey
Annoying
There is no endgame so once you hit the cap all the fun and games(!) of reproduction disappear, you'll start to focus much more on upgrading than production, and you'll have a conga queue of people stood outside your vault who will never make the cut. It's a brilliant game - but it does lose all its momentum pretty quickly.
Source: techradar.com
Sheltered life
Bethesda's Fallout Shelter remains one of our favourite mobile games of the year - despite some fairly hefty flaws and a frustrating lack of end-game.
We're hoping that the success of this freemium offering means that Bethesda will fix the issues (Deathclaws and Mole rats really don't cut it, guys), but that hasn't stopped us religiously checking in to gather the latest weapons and outfits ever since it arrived.
So, if you're new to the game or you've been playing for a while, here are our favourite tips and tricks.
Don't buy anything*
Lunchbox
We're suckers for rewarding companies that do good freemium games with a few of our hard-earned pennies, but outside of giving a little back there really is no justifiable reason to fork out for lunchboxes or Mr Handys in Fallout Shelter.
By the time you get to the still depressingly underdeveloped end-game you are likely to have a glut of people idly standing outside of your door from the lunchboxes you have picked up on the way but who are tens of levels behind anyone else you have in your 200 vault dwellers, and generally well behind in SPECIAL as well.
*unless you want to
Dying isn't the end
Dead and not gone
We're not getting all theological on you - it's just that you can easily bring back your dwellers for a few thousand caps and you'll be hitting the 'cap cap' of 999,999 relatively quickly.
So - if you're facing rampant deathclaws or multiple mole rats, don't panic if you can't click on the right person to give them a stimpack, it's literally not the end. We're fairly sure most of our dwellers have had a bit of a glimpse of the afterlife.
Using a SPECIAL star to check your rooms
Room checker
Sometimes it's hard when you have a busy Vault to work out who you've upgraded and what rooms you have moved people in and out of without visiting each and every one. You'll have noticed that when you are moving people if you hold them over a room you will get a plus or minus or simply a number if their are fewer people than the room can take.
Out tip is to take one of your full SPECIAL superstars (10 in each of the categories) put them in a Vault Suit and then drag them from room to room and seeing if they are a + or a 10, making it easy to make a note of the rooms that still need improvement.
Don't hoard +3 suits and low damage weapons
Clothes maketh the man
At the start of the game you'll be scrabbling for outfits and weapons - but pretty soon you'll upgrading from any old suit to the relevant +3 for each room, and then you'll be going for +4 +1 suits and +5s, and then you'll be finally grabbing the odd +7.
Get training as soon as possible
SPECIAL measures
The best chance of success out and about comes from the best SPECIAL stats and the best equipment. it takes some time, but taking one of your favourite dwellers from their humble roots to a 70 SPECIAL superstar is one of the pleasures of the game.
You'll need to create the various rooms to train each SPECIAL stat - but you won't ever rue building them so factor them in nice and early.
Try sending out a level 1, full SPECIAL dweller
Brittany
Every time the dweller dings to a new level, its health gets reset - so with a bit of luck and a prevailing wind, sending out a level 1 superstar with full SPECIAL, a fatboy, 25 stims, 25 radaways and a +7 outfit should give you one of the longest 'dwell times' (sorry) and a chance at some great kit.
Endurance, luck, intelligence and strength are key
No experience
You'll find by the end-game that you are only building Nuka Cola (which need endurance, nuclear reactors (which need strength), labs for the RadAways and stimpacks (which need intelligence) and occasionally rushing rooms which are helped by a healthy +luck. Perception and agility are useful at the outset but, from a vault point of view, become less vital as you shift to the better rooms.
Managing an accidental drag
It s a drag
We've all been trying to collect some essentials from various rooms when we've realised that we've somehow dragged a dweller from overseer-knows-where. Well - rather than laboriously dragging them back through every room you may have grabbed them from simply drag them off into the ground at either side and it will cancel the whole thing.
Think carefully where you put your rooms
Overpopulated
You'll hit the point where you're destroying rooms to replace them with something more important, so make sure that you think about where they sit. This is even more important when you hit the cap because you cannot create or destroy living quarters - which means you will be left with room that you cannot get to to destroy because you'd have to bulldoze living quarters to do so.
Do your own experiments and enjoy them
Lot of pyjamas
This is your playground and a lot of the fun that you extract will be of your own making - whether its collecting enough nightwear to have the mother of all pyjama parties, or making sure that every single person has a gauss gun. Fill your +1 boots.
Storage is really important
Storage wars
You'll need reserves of power, water and food and you'll need plenty of storage for the influx of explorers that you'll wake up to in the morning. Even then you'll perfect the rapid tap to sell method so that you can get everyone in and back out again.
Put serious weaponry in your vault door
Guard Guards
The irritating deathclaws will run right through - but a couple of rocket launchers and some level 50 full SPECIAL guards (and fortifying your door) means that the majority of the raider attacks won't get very far at all.
Enjoy the journey
Annoying
There is no endgame so once you hit the cap all the fun and games(!) of reproduction disappear, you'll start to focus much more on upgrading than production, and you'll have a conga queue of people stood outside your vault who will never make the cut. It's a brilliant game - but it does lose all its momentum pretty quickly.
Source: techradar.com