You forgot the cooking stations and the chemistry table

And no you don't need 6 button presses every time, only if your using VATS, I rarely use VATS.

You are not alone, when I get a new gun with limited ammo I tend to try it once then store it away for that big boss I will surely meet. Then when I meet a tricky boss I just end up trying all the guns on me and never bother to go back and pick up the better ones. I must have a small fortune in my box by now!

You will get the hang of the crafting stations, though they are confusing at first.

You don't need to use VATS to slow time and pick your shots. I rarely do, but it is handy in tricky situations to give yourself time to think and to find enemies you can't spot.

The clothes are a pain. Only certain clothes let you add extras to them. Look for vault suits, long johns, road leathers, maybe a few others I have not found.

Well, I just got my first look at F4 yesterday and I'm liking what I've seen so far.

It's strange because I've always enjoyed Bethesda's TES games so I had F3 on pre-order, got it the day it came out and (despite starting to play it half a dozen times) I could never really get into it.

I'm not finding that a problem in F4 at all. I think it's because of the story.
In F3 it just seemed like a case of "Here's a post apocalyptic world. Go play in it!" whereas there's enough of a story presented to you in F4 to encourage you to start reading everything on terminals and get deeper and deeper into it.

I also vaguely recall an issue with F3 where fighing involved "pausing" the game to see which parts of an enemy were weak and then having to shoot at that particular part in order to kill them.
That doesn't seem to be happening in F4 and it's all much more fluid.
Of course, that might be simply because I happened to find a sniper rifle almost straight away so most of my fighting tends to be conducted through a telescopic sight.

I'm finding the crafting rather confusing so far although I'm sure I'll sort it out eventually.
I can see that it's a bit like crafting in Skyrim but in Skyrim everything was more obvious - You have a steel sword. To upgrade it you need steel ingots and leather strips. Simple!
In F4 there seems to be this mechanic where you collect junk, feed it into your workbench and it creates raw materials which are used to upgrade and build various things.
That all seems a lot more convoluted and varied than Skyrim was.

Also related to crafting, I see that there's a mechanic where you can pick an item, pick an upgrade and the game will then tell you what raw materials you're short of and tell you what junk you need to go out and find in order to get the raw materials you need for that upgrade.
That's quite clever and useful but, as yet, I'm not sure I've managed to make use of it properly although I *think* I understand how it works.

I'll start off having a dabble by upgrading a few weapons and I'm sure it will all become clear eventually though.

I logged hundreds, if not thousands, of hours playing Skyrim (I played it through over a dozen times) so all that stuff became 2nd-nature and I'm reminding myself that Skyrim seemed confusing at first so I'll probably be just as comfortable with F4 once I've played it for a few hours.

I keep thinking of how fighting with a couple of Draugr or Skeletons was life or death in Skyrim when you first started playing even though they were little more than irritants after you'd got yourself some decent armour, weapons and skills so I guess that's I have to remember I'm probably in a similar position in F4 to begin with.

That's why a lot of people play specific ways.
I'm playing a sniper right now.
Carrying -
.50 sniper as my main.
Suppressed 10mm pistol and Kellog's .44 as my sidearms.
Combat shotgun for CQC when it goes loud.
Explosive AR - for those pesky Behemoths, Mirelurk Queens etc

I figure this is realistically possible to carry around and still be mobile.
Next up will be heavy weapons only. A minigun and fat man.
Then Rifleman. AR with sidearm and SMG.
I'm hoping for a proper sword so I can replay my Samurai character I had in New Vegas. Katana and combat knife - no firearms.

[quote=deans6571;80741902]...I literally just started playing this the other night - initially it looks quite impressive on my Xbox One.

I will say, though, that the crafting system looks rather overwhelming..... I don't think I will ever understand it if I am honest Crafting benches for weapons, crafting benches for armor, crafting benches for houses, crafting benches for power - my god - HOW MANY CRAFTING BENCHES are there????? Why not just have the ONE crafting bench that does EVERYTHING...........?![\QUOTE]

Trust me, it's a good thing they are separated. Having them all in one would be even more confusing.
There's no real tutorial either which makes it more difficult than necessary. But there is a HELP section in the pause menu that explains a few things about crafting.


You don't need to use VATS. Though it's a God-send against a swarm of Bloodbugs and Stingwings when at low level.


Only certain clothes can be worn under armour.
Vault Suit - can be modified too.
Army Fatigues - I find these the best so far. +1 STR +1 END and they go with my Combat Armour.
Road Leather
Raider Leathers
Athletic Outfit - except leg armour.
Long Johns.

There's more I'm sure, this is just off top of my head.

Similar to my future character plans. My biggest problem is I have to resist creating the character before I finish the current one!

I find it relaxing building settlements but I got Cait is companion now and apparently she doesn't like me doing good deeds.
So far I'm best buddies with Piper,Nick Valentine,Codsworth,Robert MacCready,Curie and John Hancock.

I never had a companion in Fallout 3 but the side quests and chat some the characters offer in this game I really like. Not to mention they can carry a ton of junk.

...oh yea, just remembered one other thing (thanks for the tips above by the way!).

Is there any way to stop my dog attacking EVERYTHING on site as I am wasting ALL my medkits on him when he gets hurt (does he actually die?!!) ?!!!!!!

He never dies. After about 30 seconds with no fresh damage he gets up again. You only need stimpak a companion if you want them to immediately rejoin battle.

It does, however, piss me off royally every time he runs off to attack someone I'm stealthing, especially when he then leads them straight back to where I'm hiding. I don't quite want to drop him altogether but I'm getting close...

I'm getting this for Xmas, looking forward to playing it.

I rarely use companions. They get in the way because Bethesda can't design AI that doesn't trap you by standing in a doorway. They also have no concept of a stealth surprise attack.
The only reason to have them is for the cheevo/trophy.

Companions, in only using them to get the special perks they give once you've fully got thier loyalty up, once that happens I'll be putting perk points into the loan wanderer to get the extra damage bonus.

It doesn't matter to me I'm a guns blazing type of player. Stealth isn't an option.

They don't block me not like the ones in Skyrim. It'll the settlers I keep having to tell to move because they always decide to sit on a chair or sofa I want to put somewhere else.

I really loved my companion . I did all my missions with Nick Valentine and he was good for hacking terminals. The dog made my real dog go crazy so I couldn't use him.

That seems to be a problem with followers in general in Bethesda games.

In Skyrim you could use it to your advantage by guiding a follower who was good with a bow to high places then telling them to stay there and then going in for a melee attack and then luring enemies into range of your follower.
Just remember to go and tell them to follow you again after the battle.

The F4 dog isn't quite as useful but you can use him as a "booby-trap" by telling him to wait somewhere close to a group of enemies and then, when you attract their attention, retreat past the dog and a bunch of the enemies will spend their time fighting with the dog rather than chasing after you.
You can then use a sniper rifle to pick them off from a safe distance and then go back for your dog after the fight.

I changed to Codsworth as a companion because of this, but he tends to do the same. I command him to stay put if I'm stealthing someone. The upside of using Codsworth is that he keeps me amused with the things he says!

I'm getting on fine with all the companions so far, I can even stealth with Dogmeat ok. The only one that gets on my nerves is my current one Macready. He is constantly creeping in front of my shot when I am sniping and I find his chat infuriating. Can't wait to be rid of him

Every time I close a door that effing dog goes and opens it again

Yeah I think I might be dropping him off at Sanctuary next time I'm there, he's annoying me far more than his actual worth.

I've not taken any other companions yet though. Might just do this whole thing alone.

There is one quest where you have to recover some treasure from a museum. There was a corridor jam packed with laser trip wires and turrets. As I tenderly crept forward to disarm the trip wires, dogmeat charged in and got us torn to shreds.

I've still not managed to get the benevolent leader achievment yet. I have 15 clinics. Tons of paintings yet it still hangs at 98%. I dismissed strong as I thought it may be him moping around causing it to stick however it's still there. I tried travelling to Diamond City to sell some stuff and build another clinic. Yet when I do happiness plummets.

This achievement seems a proper nightmare to get.

It may have been patched but most people had already moved on to the jet glitch anyway, which is much more efficient.

...yep, have to agree!! The amount of times the dumb dog is standing in a doorway and I can't get through cos he's blocking it, is ridiculous!!

How do I tell him to, DO ONE, or am I stuck with him for the whole game?!!!!!

so bit the bullet and bought it again at the weekend. Enjoying it much more now I actually played for longer than a couple of hours. Is it recommended to stick to quests rather than clearing out buildings you find on your travels? Yesterday I was doing the first quest after you get sanctuary (to go help some camp) and I went past a big radar - I cleared that out then found a Quary too, I went to that and ended up killing some named guy, but after googling how to drain the water it seems like I could of actually talked to that person in a later quest??! he appeared as an enemy so I just rifled him from distance using vats!

Is it possible to create doors and fit them to existing buildings or do they only work with buildings you've created yourself?
I was planning to fortify my original house and use it as a base but only if I can fit new doors.

On a grander scale, it occurs to me that it might be possible to build a shelter and then, once you've got the "construction zone" around it you could scrap everything in the area and then remove the shelter, move on a little bit and repeat in order to gradually get rid of every bit of junk and debris on the entire map.

How high can you build?....I've seen a video where someone built 21 stories...highest I could do was 7 stories. Maybe it's a mod?.