Fallout 3: Where do I get ammo in early game?

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Blackstone

2[H]4U
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Mar 8, 2007
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I am pretty early in the game--I am level 3 and my last act of kindness was making Megaton disappear into a mushroom cloud.

I can't seem to find enough ammo to survive. Is there some place I can buy it? Every encounter I have is a disaster because I have to try and whack heavily armed people to death with a stick, basically. I have two assault rifles and a pistol, but no bullets.
 
Welll Bro....First and foremost, it being your first time thru the game, I wouldnt have nuked Megaton cause by doing so, you have also nuked the place where you could easily have bought ammo.

But, since you did nuke it, start looking EVERYWHERE. By that, I mean, start looking in all the houses, even the demolished ones. You will come across ammo boxes here and there. Find some traders which wonder around, they sell ammo.

I know it might be a hard thing to do, but I would seriously reconsider starting the game over since you are only at level 3 and NOT nuke Megaton and go talk to Moira, she will give you a quest "The Wasteland Survival Guide". Do the quest, it will show you places on the map to go and those places you will find plenty of ammo.
 
Is nuking megaton an act of kindness? I haven't played it as a bad guy yet. I told the guy i would nuke megaton, then I shot him in the head.
 
Explore a lot, pick up every scrap of ammo you can possibly find, loot bodies of items with decent value/weight ratio and sell them for ammo, and get the scrounger perk as soon as you're able.
 
Blackstone said:
I am pretty early in the game--I am level 3 and my last act of kindness was making Megaton disappear into a mushroom cloud.

I can't seem to find enough ammo to survive. Is there some place I can buy it? Every encounter I have is a disaster because I have to try and whack heavily armed people to death with a stick, basically. I have two assault rifles and a pistol, but no bullets.
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Make friends with some raiders, they usually carry the ammo you need. Since your character is Mr./Mrs. Paragon of the wasteland you'll also get plenty of chances to get some nice ammo and weps just from people out to get you. I'd also suggest shooting any non important(you know, the guys without the brahmin pack mules and guards) in the face and taking their stuff and then hocking whats not ammo or unuseful for moar ammo.

Also feel free to take down brotherhood outcasts you encounter if you feel you can drop em. They carry nice ammo and some of the weps they have can sell for a nice bit. Also rob tenpenny tower BLIND. I'm talking week old maple syrup sticky fingers. You should be pocketing anything that isn't nailed down, picking safes(if you got the skill) and trading with all the merchants there.

You see a guy begging for water? Shoot him and take his clothes. You see a non essential character? Off him and take his stuff. You walk into a "dungeon"? Make sure you drop every living thing in there and then carry EVERYTHING back out and hock it for useful crap.

Thats how I got by on my evil H2H sneak happy ninja character. I need to figure out a way to change the H2H animations over to some kicks.
 
I played a good character in FO3 and had epic quantities of stim-packs, ammo and aid items at the end. I never ran out of ammo.

A tip for the OP though is to carry multiple weapon types. While I was never totally out of ammo, I did have to switch between weapons that used .556, 10mm, shells and .44 rounds in order to conserve ammo. I never used laser weapons. Just keep 1 of every gun type and look in all the boxes you find. Red text items are stealing in case you haven't found that out yet.
 
Go Raider Hunting they have lots of ammo, or you can break into the Megaton armory and steal some.
 
BladeVenom said:
Loot Megaton before you nuke it.
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I just did this with my evil Bitch melee character. Did the Wasteland survival guide quest, then stole everything in Megaton, Recruited Jericho, then killed everyone BUT Moira. Nuked the place then went back and killed Moira once she was a Ghoul. I wanted her to suffer after all the crap she put me through in her Quest... twice (Already beat the game with my goodie-two-shoes character). It felt so good. My Kharma went from Neutral to Very Evil in less than an Hour!
 
You could always do what I did at low level...use Fisto! (a souped up power-fist) to pummel everything into submission.

Once I got up a few levels and gained a few perks, I never had any problems finding ammo. At that point I switched over to using mostly guns.
 
If you have the money, there is a trader in Tenpenny Tower that sells ammo and weapons
 
Ammo becomes pretty plentiful in the later game tho but do what the others suggest at lower levels.
Finally beat the game at about lvl 18 with my melee character which was interesting since i didn't use any explosives or guns. Still need to try and solo a behemoth to see if i can do it..lol
 
It seems like I have to expend almost all of my ammo just to take down one or two targets. The laser pistol for example is just worthless.
 
Blackstone said:
It seems like I have to expend almost all of my ammo just to take down one or two targets. The laser pistol for example is just worthless.
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Yeap, as is the 10mm gun. Find yourself a raider with a combat shotgun, repair it as much to full as you can, does about 56 dmg per shot. Also, use the Chinese Rifle, repaired as much as possible, mucho dmg.

Nades and land mines I always find very usefull. When your being attacked, you KNOW they are going to come after ya (usually straight after you... i.e. in a straight line towards you). As your shooting and backing away (presumably), drop a mine and keep on backing up, they will walk right over it and KABOOM!!!!

When using a nade, be sure to go into VATS to throw it and hear some cool replys from the raiders like "OH SHIT" (seriously, they actually say that).

If your having this much trouble my friend.....STAY AWAY FROM THE MIRELURKS...you think all else has been taking a lot of shots to kill....heh.
 
I'm doing a little better now. I find melee weapons to be most effective. I beat a supermutant to death with a pipe and took his "nail board" and have been beating everyone I meet to death with it. I wound up with a nice minigun but damn it is not very effective. I was able to clear out the superdupermart this time.

The only problem is that instead of blowing up megaton, this time I made the mistake of beating someone to death in one of the buildings. Now everyone in megaton shoots me on sight and I basically will have to exterminate the town to do any shopping there now. So I guess I fucked up again. I sort of wish I had an apartment in Tenpenny Towers now that my neighbors in Megaton hate my guts.
 
By the way anyone else really annoyed with that recycled "gurgling" like sound from Oblivion that you can hear like everywhere.

Also, the music is like Oblivion, the gameplay is like Oblivion, the voices are from Oblivion--it is sort of ridiculous how much like Oblivion this game is. I never played the original Fallout and I'm glad because I suspect most fallout fans find this game a travesty.

This is more refined than Oblivion in some ways--but it is Oblivion with guns there is no doubt about it.
 
Set your guns to fire single shot, that way you dont waste ammo.
I had tons of ammo always using this method.
Go for headshots.
 
There's a perk that makes ammunition a lot more common as a reward. Along with the perk you get for doubling the points you get for books - it's invaluable.
Ammo is pretty scarce early in the game or depending on how you play, but that'll give you more than enough to use any gun you want to.
 
I would suggest going to tenpenny tower, as they have a store inside. You can also find your apartment there.
 
Blackstone said:
The only problem is that instead of blowing up megaton, this time I made the mistake of beating someone to death in one of the buildings. Now everyone in megaton shoots me on sight and I basically will have to exterminate the town to do any shopping there now. So I guess I fucked up again. I sort of wish I had an apartment in Tenpenny Towers now that my neighbors in Megaton hate my guts.
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Give it some time before you go back. Some crimes some places will be forgotten after a period of time.
 
It is getting good now. I'm in the city and I am at the radio station. Lots of weapons.
 
i killed almost everyone in megaton ;) i diddnt bother doing the survival guide hehe. i buy all my gear from rivet city.

One day i will go in there and go on a rampage and kill every single person in there and steal there goodies lol.

go to this place. it is a gold mind for weapons
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Varmint said:
I must get this game!
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I bought it, installed it...and started playing...everything was going perfect until I got out of the underground to the open world...and all of sudden it hit me...I HATE RPG GAMES!!!

I knew it was this type of game before hand, but i hoped it would be similar to Stalker, but nope.
 
I was playing last night, and if you head to rivet city there is a shop that sells nothing but guns and ammo. You can also find a store room of rare guns (sniper rifles, rocket launchers, miniguns, plasma grenades etc.) in the weaton armory, but you need a rad suit and alot of rad away to get it. The bottom of the armory holds a nuke and its leaking. The rads get to be about 12 a second in some spots! But if you do it right you can make alot of money from them.
 
I find the sneaky assassin type character is the best for conserving ammo. Always strive for headshots to conserve ammo. Abandoned places with no one in them generally have some ammo for the least amount of effort. The capitol building has a ton of ammo and weapons and might be easy as two different NPC groups are fighting each other.
Though ammo conservation and constant hording, I've managed to have almost a limitless supply.
 
Mnx4 said:
I find the sneaky assassin type character is the best for conserving ammo. Always strive for headshots to conserve ammo. Abandoned places with no one in them generally have some ammo for the least amount of effort. The capitol building has a ton of ammo and weapons and might be easy as two different NPC groups are fighting each other.
Though ammo conservation and constant hording, I've managed to have almost a limitless supply.
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My gameplay too, same result :)
 
God damn, I am like right outside the museum for the fix the radio dish quest, and there is an ungodly mob of supermutants out here just kicking my level 5 ass. One is even perched on a fucking balcony with a rocketlauncher and I just can't take them all down or sneak past them. I'm stuck.
 
I need to get over to rivet city I still haven't found a shop that has a reliable supply of bullets.
 
Blackstone said:
God damn, I am like right outside the museum for the fix the radio dish quest, and there is an ungodly mob of supermutants out here just kicking my level 5 ass. One is even perched on a fucking balcony with a rocketlauncher and I just can't take them all down or sneak past them. I'm stuck.
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Leave that for now, go back when you are harder :)
 
Nenu said:
Leave that for now, go back when you are harder :)
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Blackstone said:
God damn, I am like right outside the museum for the fix the radio dish quest, and there is an ungodly mob of supermutants out here just kicking my level 5 ass. One is even perched on a fucking balcony with a rocketlauncher and I just can't take them all down or sneak past them. I'm stuck.
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This is one of the major improvements to gameplay over oblivion imo. You will have a hard time rushing through the game at low levels.
I have found that using VATS to get headshots with the combat shotgun from close range is about the most efficent use of ammo. 2 or 3 shells to the head takes down most baddies. From long range the laser rifle is pretty good without VATS, it has really good acuracy.
 
Another big help on the ammo front is to obtain "named" weapons. Named weapons will do crap loads more damage than an equivalent weapon of the same ammo type. That plus repairing the weapon to full 100% effectiveness also adds to the damage per shot.

By named weapons i mean weapons like "ol' painless", "android plasma rifle", "smugglers end", "lincolns repeater" and the like.

Also picking one type of weapon (small arms, large arms, energy weapons, melee) and really working the skill up to 90% plus really helps as well, as you simply miss less.
 
Look for the semi trucks scattered around, they usually have ammo boxes in them. Boats too, but lots of Mirelurks near water.
 
If you happen to fighting in areas that have old cars laying around lighting them up cuases a little mini-nuke explosion that can rock baddies pretty hard also.
 
Save the DC area till later, like lvl 10+

All I have to say is, i'm at lvl 18 and I've haven't done a single thing yet but explore the map, buildings, sewers, tunnels etc. I think I did one quest which was ANT thing and I escorted the whore from the russian guy's place to rivet city.
 
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