Fallout 76

The timeline linked from that page: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline is quite interesting to pick through.
The lore has gotten quite complex since the original game was released in 1997. The original Interplay/Fallout Bible/Obsidian sourced lore is less 'off the wall' than that created by Bethesda for 3/4/76, with contortions thrown in to reconcile the two.
 
General impressions as a player leveled into the mid 20's:

I thought I would miss VATS. I don’t, gunplay feels more responsive than previous games. At the same time most combat is initiated by a sneak attack for extra damage and then mag-dump after mag-dump as I backpedal and occasionally use stimpacks. It can get tense and feel engaging but it is formulaic.

The world looks better but feels empty. The world is more vibrant and lush than FO3 and FO4 but I think that may actually add to the feeling that it is devoid of people. It is so alive compared to previous games that there should be survivors. Robots with two dialog options and random holotapes are not characters. Bethesda has always been good at filling their world with evocative vignettes and there are some in FO76 but most of them now are just “hey look, this guy is dead, this camp is abandoned, and these people are dead too.” After a short period of gameplay you realize you will never find anyone alive, let alone surviving - not at that raider outpost on the hill, the next waypoint on your quest, or even at the well-stocked and defendable compound you just came across.

Your starting quest (follow the overseer’s journey) and general mission of “rebuilding the world” carry no gravitas, sense of urgency, or personal investment. Instead of an over-arching quest that you feel you need to, or even should, complete it is replaced by the kill stuff to get some better stuff so I can kill more stuff. On the way I’ll explore some new areas (the game does have some good looking scenery and well-designed areas) and scavenge some things to build my C.A.M.P.

But then the C.A.M.P. has a smaller limit also (it gets better as you level). Livable space, crafting benches, defense, water, power for water purification and lights, crops (for adhesive and soups), and decorations. If you want more than a 2x2 size small shack or more than 3 turrets you must sacrifice from each category or entire categories.

With all that said I do have fun in the game, the patches have removed many of the major technical problems (crashes to desktop, freezing at program close, framerate problems). It is fun to explore the world and try to outsmart the build order limitations of the construction system and going to pick a fight with a large mob of enemies as a puny human.

Is it worth $60? Was it released in a stable and playable state? Will it hold my interest the way FO3 and FO4 did?
No.

But getting it on sale and waiting for the patches to go live have given me the push to play. I will never call it a great game but I will say it is a fun way to spend a couple hours after work.
 
Knowing that you'll *never* encounter an NPC survivor is probably the biggest bummer in the game. Almost every plot line involves crisscrossing the map only to discover that everyone is long dead or a yet another robot/computer. It makes the story missions uncompelling, because you know how everything is going to end up. Some of the more tedious ones (like the marsh bunkers) I barely even paid any attention to.
No idea if Bethesda will end up seeing this thing through and adding new content or what, but it NEEDS some scattered survivors that aren't just other players. Just for the sake of keeping things fresh and not making every mission eyeroll-worthy.

At first I wasn't feeling the whole C.A.M.P. thing, but I've grown to enjoy it. Running into other players basecamps can actually be one of the funnest parts of the game. I've seen everything from floating castles on the side of a mountain to a massive swamp cabin with a 2-story hydroponic farm in the basement. I ended up going with an outdoor setup on top of a mountain fairly close to Whitesprings. My wife's encompasses a series of wrecked railroad cars. In at least one instance I used a player's rocket turrets to help me kill a pair of level 64 Yau Guai. Little things like that can be fun and give me hope that the game actually has a decent core that can be fixed with a spit polish.
 
So, another question for you guys. I am currently level 28 and have gotten to this point entirely solo. Last night I was invited to join a group of 2 other people which I accepted. The 3 of us went around Whitespring for a while just killing all of the ghouls and other enemies until one of the other guys in the group told me that I needed to move on because I was stealing their kills. That got me to thinking, how does the team thing work? Is XP and loot not shared among the group?
 
So, did the miner miracles mission to get the excavator power armor and I have to say, the power armor is quite ridiculous. I am lvl 35 now and I solo'd a level 50 scorchbeast earlier. Took like 100 shots from a lvl 30 .308 hunting rifle and about 10 minutes in total, but I didn't even lose a single piece of power armor. Also, solo'd a lvl 91 deathclaw, the one with a crown over it's name which means it's a champion or whatever. Much easier than the scorchbeast. Seems too damn easy, honestly.
 
So, another question for you guys. I am currently level 28 and have gotten to this point entirely solo. Last night I was invited to join a group of 2 other people which I accepted. The 3 of us went around Whitespring for a while just killing all of the ghouls and other enemies until one of the other guys in the group told me that I needed to move on because I was stealing their kills. That got me to thinking, how does the team thing work? Is XP and loot not shared among the group?

You all get XP, the key is that each person needs to hit the enemy once. I don't think it divides it up evenly but I could be wrong. I've never noticed any difference in leveling up when playing with my wife, but we only play as a pair.

You'll notice that power armor basically never breaks. Well, it does eventually but it isn't like normal armor at all. I had a set of the Excavator armor that I used exclusively for two weeks and most of it doesn't have a scratch. You can still die in it, obviously, but it doesn't take damage like normal armor.

I've killed a few Scorchbeasts at this point and have probably taken out at least 1 example of most everything else. The toughest enemies I've faced so far have been the Mirelurk Queen and crazy high-level unique Yao Guais. The Mirelurk Queen fight takes forever and just about nothing hurts it very much. It also keeps shooting acid at you that keeps doing heavy damage even after you've been hit. I probably used 7-8 stimpacks along with 100+ rounds of ammo and at least 15-20 melee hits. Yao Guais aren't so horrible solo, but they almost always attack in pairs or even in groups of 3 or more. A group of 4 high level (I can't recall how high, but my hits weren't doing much) ones tore me up. I luckily managed to get away from them and actually got help from a random player's fortress defenses. Even with his missile defense system helping it still too a long time. Scorchbeasts are still a pain, too. They do heavy damage, are hard to hit, take a ton of hits, and there are usually other enemies that help them.
 
I've killed a few Scorchbeasts at this point and have probably taken out at least 1 example of most everything else. The toughest enemies I've faced so far have been the Mirelurk Queen and crazy high-level unique Yao Guais. The Mirelurk Queen fight takes forever and just about nothing hurts it very much. It also keeps shooting acid at you that keeps doing heavy damage even after you've been hit. I probably used 7-8 stimpacks along with 100+ rounds of ammo and at least 15-20 melee hits. Yao Guais aren't so horrible solo, but they almost always attack in pairs or even in groups of 3 or more. A group of 4 high level (I can't recall how high, but my hits weren't doing much) ones tore me up. I luckily managed to get away from them and actually got help from a random player's fortress defenses. Even with his missile defense system helping it still too a long time. Scorchbeasts are still a pain, too. They do heavy damage, are hard to hit, take a ton of hits, and there are usually other enemies that help them.

Problem is, the cost to kill those things is much higher than the reward.
 
Problem is, the cost to kill those things is much higher than the reward.

No doubt. Killing a Scorchbeast nets you a whole lot of nothing. I don't need more stimpacks or another food item that will spoil in a day. The amount of XP you get could have been earned by killing like 3 random enemies. It's a waste of time.
Yao Guai's drop 5-6 springs each, so there's that. I farmed those near the B&B to build my excavator armor. Strong ones are no better to kill than the weak ones, though.
The Mirelurk Queen gives exotic rewards so that battle could be good or bad depending on the drop.

As of right now the best approach to leveling up (and netting exotic drops) is just to hit up the cottages by Whitesprings with a strong melee weapon. You can take out about 50 high level ghouls in no time. Once you have a weapon that does 150+ damage they only take 1-2 swings each. One out of every 10-15 will have an exotic item and there are even random unique enemies like deathclaws, behemoths, and whatnot wandering too. If you're brave you can even fight all the robots, too. That area is rough until you hit level 25 or so, but it's the place to be once you can hack it.
 
I have just been bouncing from Harpers Ferry/Whitesprings/Watoga taking out everything along the way. Even though the melee weapon I have now is only ~100 dmg, it makes short work of most enemies. Any other locations with a large mass of enemies to kill? So, I hate to ask because i'm afraid I already know the answer, but what is the end game like? Is it just more of the same?
 
There's a mine area just east of the Whitespring train station that has lots of powerful miners and a daily event that's one of the decent ones. The skip cabins north of the Top of the World area are pretty rugged and loaded with stuff to grab. Those are just the areas I've found.

I just had two very weird, but cool things happen.

In the middle of Whitespring found a bag full of end-game type weapons. A full set of level 50 armor with uniques on all of them and at least 10 weapons of varying strength and utility. One of them was a level 45 lever action rifle that actually heal you on hit, which is a borderline godsend as far as I'm concerned. There was also a full-auto grenade launcher and a couple decent melee weapons. I can only guess someone either didn't want to wait for a vendor reset, they were just being nice, or they're so overloaded that these weapons were no longer good. Either way, it made me happy.

Event #2 - a guy's turrets randomly started shooting at me for some reason. When I retaliated - I became wanted. I wisely dumped my random items and just assumed someone would be killing me any moment. 5 attempts later (2 of them were level 90+, 2 were in their 60's) and my level 53 ass is still alive. I simply rushed and super-sledged 3 of them. My super sledge does 190+ damage and I have the max 2-hand damage and melee speed cards. I took some damage and got pretty close to death, but 2 swings seems to take anyone out. The 4th guy attempted to attack my base. I sledged him to death he first time, but he came back and tried to take me out from above. I hid, used some stimpacks, and busted out the level 50 .50 cal I'd been saving for times like this. I melted him while he was trying to use a normal machinegun of some sort. At this point I'm refusing to go down without a fight, but I'm kinda sick of people coming after me. I think I'm going to let my wife's character do me in :p
 
Do you stay wanted until someone kills you? Never really pursued anyone that was wanted, mainly just steered clear of them.
 
As of right now the best approach to leveling up (and netting exotic drops) is just to hit up the cottages by Whitesprings with a strong melee weapon. You can take out about 50 high level ghouls in no time. Once you have a weapon that does 150+ damage they only take 1-2 swings each. One out of every 10-15 will have an exotic item and there are even random unique enemies like deathclaws, behemoths, and whatnot wandering too. If you're brave you can even fight all the robots, too. That area is rough until you hit level 25 or so, but it's the place to be once you can hack it.

Nuked Whitespring is insane. Good condition power armor, a fully repaired melee weapon or two, pop a Rad-X, and go to town!
 
Nuked Whitespring is insane. Good condition power armor, a fully repaired melee weapon or two, pop a Rad-X, and go to town!

You're making me excited to try this. Haven't gotten an opportunity to yet, though.
 
Do you stay wanted until someone kills you? Never really pursued anyone that was wanted, mainly just steered clear of them.

Yeah, you're wanted until another player kills you. Normal deaths (like fall damage) don't count. I ended up letting my wife get the kill because until you die, you can't see any other player markers on the map. I was trying to build up my base and it got pretty old having other players invade.

I tend to hunt down other wanted players. At least the ones around my level. Not for any real reason (10-20 caps isn't much) but you do get XP and whatever junk they have. I managed to get like 25 screws and springs from one guy. Because they can't see you, they're usually pretty easy to sneak up on. Many are just looking to get it over with, too.
 
Big'ish update incoming in January. Full list of fixes and additions incoming.

A previous posting from them mentioned more vaults (there are 3 or 4 of them on the map that are mostly inaccessible), new PvP options, and new types of player-based vendors.
I just hope whatever new vendors are that they don't cheapen epic-level drops and items. In too many MMOs you see like 90% of the player base rocking the same overpowered stuff.
 
I wonder what "player-based" vendors means. I am all for more vendors; always have extra starred weapons/armor and excess junk to sell.

Domingo, I found out what you mean, ran into a lvl 50 scorched mirelurk queen last night. Took less hits to kill than the scorchbeast but I used more stimpacks due to that poison. Also fought a couple high level yao guais (level 65 and 91 glowing one) which were formidable foes for sure. Think i'm level 42 now. Can't imagine how long it will take to hit the hundreds. On that note, anyone encounter any 100+ level opponents yet? I haven't found any as of yet.
 
At work right now and they have this content blocked so I can't check it out. Any highlights?

It's more of an "Announcement of an upcoming update"...

Full text:
Later this month, we are providing resolutions by way of new patches for Fallout 76.
Like our December 11 update, we will have a big update that will address many of the issues you’ve been providing feedback on. Full patch notes will follow soon.
We’re also building an incredible list of future updates that we can’t wait to share, including new quests, weekly in-game events, new Vaults opening, a new PvP mode, Player Vending and much more.
2019 is an exciting year for Fallout 76 and we can’t wait to grow it with you. Keep providing your feedback and letting us know what you’d like to see.
Happy New Year from all of us!

I wonder what "player-based" vendors means. I am all for more vendors; always have extra starred weapons/armor and excess junk to sell.

Domingo, I found out what you mean, ran into a lvl 50 scorched mirelurk queen last night. Took less hits to kill than the scorchbeast but I used more stimpacks due to that poison. Also fought a couple high level yao guais (level 65 and 91 glowing one) which were formidable foes for sure. Think i'm level 42 now. Can't imagine how long it will take to hit the hundreds. On that note, anyone encounter any 100+ level opponents yet? I haven't found any as of yet.

Scorchbeast Queen is level 95, so I'm thinking that's as high as they go right now.
 
I think enemy levels cap at 99, but I could be wrong. The numbers don't really tell the whole story since you can wholesale slaughter some enemies that are in the 60's, while some in the 20's can be a struggle.

My guess with the player-based vendor thing is that they're going to have some kind of auction house or more organized way to sell/trade items with other players. I don't play many MMO's, but I picture the original Diablo 3 and Neverwinter resell and auction houses. While a neat way to get what you want sans grinding, I picture everyone cruising around with the same overpowered weapons in a few weeks. There isn't that much variety to the special weapon properties.

I suppose I'm always afraid they're going to nerf the regenerating fusion cores, too. I've had to dump a bunch of those thanks to their weight and I hope I don't end up regretting it.
 
Do you stay wanted until someone kills you? Never really pursued anyone that was wanted, mainly just steered clear of them.

From what I've read you stay wanted for about 2 hours of real-time actual in-game time. Server hopping does not remove this. I do wonder if the "Block for Session" command will hide you on the map when you're wanted, I haven't found anything concrete yet.

I've been wanted twice, once on accident since it didn't give me a warning that I was "stealing" from another player near an owned workshop and once on purpose to get an item I needed for a quest (also near an owned workshop). All I did was fast travel to a train station stash and store my valuable junk and then wait for the inevitable. A character in the low 20's without power armor doesn't stand a chance against a level 98 and, on the second wanted, a level 73.
 
I've been wanted twice, once on accident since it didn't give me a warning that I was "stealing" from another player near an owned workshop...

Yeah, same thing happened to me when I was just getting started. I think I was around level 6 when it happened. Best part is, the game glitched and I still took almost no damage per shot from other players. Made a level 70-something really frustrated as I just kept working on my CAMP while he unloaded tons of ammo on me before finally killing me for a few caps.
 
What's funny is that people's levels don't really matter THAT much. Your stats cap at level 50. At that point you're just stockpiling cards or shifting your existing points around.
If you have good combat-based cards (like the ones for additional rifle or melee damage), you can hang with players at a much higher level. That's especially true if you're going for a specific build of some kind. I'd be more scared of a level 35 player that has almost everything poured into STR + melee weapon than someone at level 150 with balanced stats.
Right now none of that matters all that much thanks to the PvP rules, though. A smart player will just take your initial gunfire and only return fire with something like a melee shot, .50 cal, grenade launcher, homemade, missiles, etc. If you're wanted, the other player is dumb not to come at you with something insanely strong ASAP. Normal weapons (.308, .45, .38, .44, shotgun, etc.) do laughably little damage compared to melee and power weapons. The exception seems to be the Homemade, which fires ultra fast and hits harder than you think.
 
I haven't delved into the PvP at all. Really have no interest, but I might try going after someone that is wanted sometime, just for the hell of it. So, what is the homemade; a machine gun, rifle? Just got the plans for the .50 cal last night. Haven't crafted one yet, though. Been switching between the blade of bastet melee weapon and a maxed out .308 hunting rifle. Been good to me so far. Not crazy about grenade and missile launchers, especially since the missiles weigh so damn much. Also been holding onto a gauss rifle, but haven't really used it yet do the ammo being scarce. What are some of the more powerful weapons to be on the lookout for?
 
So, what is the homemade; a machine gun, rifle?

Handmade Rifle is basically an AK-47 (except it's chambered in 5.56(x45...presumably) instead of 7.62x39, as it should be). You can have semi-auto or full auto receivers on it, so it works with Rifleman or Commando perks, respectively. As far as I know, it's the best high ROF rifle in the game...WAY higher damage than the Assault Rifle that is also chambered in 5.56. I just wish you could scrap other ammo for lead. I don't know how many rounds of 10mm, .44, and .38 I've dropped/ignored and how often I've had to switch to a Combat Rifle for a bit while I restock on lead to craft up more 5.56.
 
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Weapon-wise, melee is overpowered right now. Any kind of strong melee weapon with a decent random perk will serve you well. Pair that with the cards for additional 1 or 2-hand damage and the "Martial Artist" card and you'll wreck shit.
The Black Diamond can be acquired and upgraded fairly early in the game. It served me well for a long time. Once you level up past 40, you'll probably want to swap to 2-handed weapons. 1-handers tend to cap around 100 in damage (without crazy upgrades) while 2-handers are almost double that by default. Super Sledges and War Drums are especially potent.
I think the best PvE gun is the lever action rifle. It's similar to the .308, but it hits harder and shoots faster. Plus .45 ammo is literally everywhere. Apparently there are .50 variants, too. I've gotten 3 of them and they've all been .45.
The Handmade is awesome, but it eats through ammo really fast. Even the stronger/slower semi-auto version. Ditto with the .50 machinegun. They would both be super OP if they didn't. If you don't mind making new ammo all the time, both are terrific.
For pure 1-shot damage, the Gauss rifle is really strong. Its ammo is somewhat rare, but you can make your own with just steel and lead.
 
Weapon-wise, melee is overpowered right now. Any kind of strong melee weapon with a decent random perk will serve you well. Pair that with the cards for additional 1 or 2-hand damage and the "Martial Artist" card and you'll wreck shit.

The synergy with the Gladiator/Slugger, Martial Artist, and Incisor perks is pretty nuts. I really wonder if they're going to nerf some of those perks.
 
The synergy with the Gladiator/Slugger, Martial Artist, and Incisor perks is pretty nuts. I really wonder if they're going to nerf some of those perks.

I have a feeling that whenever they start seriously balancing the game they're going to nerf melee weapons in general. They're too good across the board. I can shoot random enemies 3-4 times with my rifle (which requires some level of aiming) or I can run up and smash 'em in 1 hit. When I repair my guns, they take all sorts of parts. I also have to worry about ammo. With a melee weapon, repairs are easy and ammo isn't a concern.
It makes no sense. I'd rather get hit by a bladed ski or a hammer than shot with a .308 any day.
 
Once you level up past 40, you'll probably want to swap to 2-handed weapons.

Got this just a few minutes ago; seems decent, I will give it a go for a bit.

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The All Rise is what I'm using as well. The fact that it weighs almost nothing is awesome. There's a level 50 version of it that does 180'ish damage, which is pretty insane.
This morning I got my first Radium Rifle drop. It seems like a cross between the laser rifle and homemade. It fires .45 rounds compounded with radiation damage.
I can't tell for sure, but on paper it seems great. It's supposedly doing roughly the same ballistic damage as the lever action rifle along with radiation damage. It fires very fast, too. Yet I'm not sure it's really doing that much damage. Seems like an amazing PvP weapon, though. If/when that gets fleshed out a little more, I'm going in with this gun.
 
I did the nuke mission this morning. Completely solo, level 59-60. It isn't hard, but it's tedious and it's kind of a long mission. Tons and tons of turrets as well as re-spawning robots. There's also a little bit of a learning curve to the different steps, too. Nothing like a Destiny raid, but you'll probably scratch your head a couple times during the process. It took me about an hour.
Some words of advice:

1. Bring at least 2 fusion cores. You can probably complete it with 1, but on your first try you'll likely waste a decent amount of time figuring things out. 2-3 is wiser, depending on how full they are. You don't want to run out in there.

2. Bring some quick firing weapons and as much ammo as you can. Those turrets are maddening. They barely hurt you, but there are rooms with nearly a dozen of them. Have weapons you can gun them down with quickly. The hunting rifle and lever action don't cut the mustard. The homemade and radium rifle are good options if you have them. As usual, the shotgun is useless.

3. Either bring a second melee weapon or at least be ready to repair your main one. The caveat to that is that it involves getting out of your power armor and losing 100lbs. of carrying capacity. There are a bunch of assaultrons and high level robots that guns barely scratch. Melee is the way to go vs. everything except the turrets.

4. Do NOT screw up the code at the end. You only get one shot at it. I made this mistake and had to do it all over again.

EDIT: I killed a Scorchbeast Queen last night and all it gave me was a bunch of "meh" gear. There were something like 10 other players and it still took like 15 minutes of bullet sponge tediousness. At this point, I've basically done everything. I have a C.A.M.P. I'm happy with. I have a bunch of really good level 50 weapons and power armor. I've done all of the actual quests that I know of. About all there is left is to get one of those overpowered explosive shotguns everyone raves about or to unlock more perk cards. Hopefully there's some more content incoming soon.
 
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For pure 1-shot damage, the Gauss rifle is really strong. Its ammo is somewhat rare, but you can make your own with just steel and lead.

I have a Two Shot Gauss Rifle with +10% damage while aiming and vats critical meter fills faster (useless for me). It has 448 Dmg with my rifleman perks. I can one-shot the Ghouls at whitesprings in the head every time. I can two shot them in the body consistently. I can shoot the Scorchbeast queen and see her meter move. It is a beastly weapon. I also picked up a two-shot dragon with 738ish dmg. The most fun weapon was the two-shot handmade I gave to my buddy. He loves that thing. The only thing I can't seem to get is an explosive weapon that isn't a dam bolt-action pipe rifle. Such useless weapons those pipe rifles. So weapons are a lot of fun really...

Armor not so much I haven't seen any armor I find to be exciting. Trying to get teh shocks for x-01 is a horribly boring experience and after weeks of server hopping 4-5 times per session I still dont have them SO I have X-01 on with one T-60 leg and one Excavator leg both of which have shocks.
 
As usual, the shotgun is useless.

The enforcer perk makes shotguns a staple with my buddies and I. Nuked Whitesprings is where it shines but really anywhere it works great. Kneecap something and it starts limping after you. Shoot the other leg and it goes down to the ground and can't attack you unless you stand on it. It can't turn around either so you can walk up from behind and melee it without getting hit back.

It's funny seeing a level 93 Deathclaw stuck on the ground looking at you not being able to do anything lol.
 
The enforcer perk makes shotguns a staple with my buddies and I. Nuked Whitesprings is where it shines but really anywhere it works great. Kneecap something and it starts limping after you. Shoot the other leg and it goes down to the ground and can't attack you unless you stand on it. It can't turn around either so you can walk up from behind and melee it without getting hit back.

It's funny seeing a level 93 Deathclaw stuck on the ground looking at you not being able to do anything lol.

Never thought to use the shotgun to cripple things. I just know that they do basically 0 damage unless you have one of those special explosive ones. I have a non-special one fully maxed out and it takes dozens of rounds to kill enemies that only take a single melee hit. If I could cripple things, that could work as a nice pairing with a melee weapon. I'll add the Enforcer to my list of cards that I need to get. I'm trying to get the last science card and will probably compound all of the 2-handed melee cards at some point. Until they nerf melee, it's laughably strong and I'm only using 1 stack of booster cards. With all 3 it has to be insane.

Armor-wise, I'm rocking the Excavator set forever. I've grown too used to the additional carrying capacity. I lug around 8 different weapons, 100 stimpacks, and 40 waters all the time. It's excessive, but considering my stash is permanently full I don't have much choice.
 
It's excessive, but considering my stash is permanently full I don't have much choice.

Just gotta suck it up throw some shit away. Unless you're going to spec into them, missiles are too damn heavy. Dump any ammo you're not going to use (I'm all rifles, so .38, .44, and 10mm are all out). Sell any chems and weapons you're not going to use. No point stockpiling any alcohol...that shit is everywhere. If you've got more than like 10 bulk stacks of something, odds are you've got too much of it...especially super easy stuff to get like wood, steel, concrete, plastic, etc.
 
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Just gotta suck it up throw some shit away. Unless you're going to spec into them, missiles are too damn heavy. Dump any ammo you're not going to use (I'm all rifles, so .38, .44, and 10mm are all out). Sell any chems and weapons you're not going to use. If you've got more than like 10 bulk stacks of something, odds are you've got too much of it...especially super easy stuff to get like wood, steel, concrete, plastic, etc.

At this point I stopped collecting missiles, fat man bombs, lousy ammo types, etc. I have 5 missiles and 5 fat man bombs and that's it. I keep all bulk stacks under 5, too. I dump or sell stuff almost every time I play, but I swear every time I do that, I end up needing that stuff for repairs or building. It feels like I'm still always low on something important. Repairing some items absolutely eats up your stockpile. I'll go from 5 bulk stacks to being unable to repair something before I know it. Plus, those damned guns that are weighing my down. I'm absolutely convinced they're going to overhaul the weapon meta sooner than later, so I'm trying to keep weapons that have potential. There aren't a ton of them, but I probably have 7-8 weapons in my stash and 7-8 on me all the time.
 
Since there isn't much else to do (beyond wander or grind), I've decided to build up my C.A.M.P. into a huge complex on top of a mountain. I've been up there for a while, but I've only just started going with a multi-floor layout. I really like what I have, but It feels like I'm missing a LOT of plans. Nothing important like workshop items or wooden walls, but things like spotlights, rocket turrets, lockable doors, and concrete walls.

Are those items you have to buy from vendors or are they often located in consistent spots?
 
I got the brick wall plans off of Grahm the wandering super mutant merchant a couple days ago.

For stash I never sell or drop screws or lead (I can't get enough). Steel, rubber, cork, plastic, adhesive, and wood I keep at 10 or less bulk stacks, most others I keep at 15. You can get 10-20 stacks of wood, steel, and rubber in a few minutes by killing low level enemies and scrapping the weapons they drop. I also hoard ballistic fiber. I hear about people short on springs and gears but I sell them all the time. I never keep missiles (way too heavy). I also keep power armor pieces on frames and never loose in the stash (they are weightless when on a frame). I also don't keep weapons or armor more than a few levels above my character's as I will farm more by the time I reach that level. (Other than the level 45 vampiric baseball bat I got 2 days ago)

For weight-based perks I use: (Remember - these perks DO NOT save weight in your stash, only on your character)
Traveling Pharmacy - chem and stimpack weight is 90% less at rank 3. - This perk saved more capacity for my player and stash than anything else I've tried. I keep all chems on my character and sell most non-heath chems to vendors.
Bandolier - ballistic ammo weighs 90% less at rank 2. - With this perk I also don't keep any ammo in my stash. (Energy weapons seem to have poor durability so I haven't put points into Batteries Included, the energy weapon ammo equivalent.)
Pack Rat - at rank 3 all junk weighs 75% less. If I'm wearing excavator armor or not scavenging I will swap this for damage perks. I also scrap junk and weapons at nearly every work bench in the wasteland as component items weigh far less.
Thru-Hiker - at rank 3 food and drink weight is reduced by 90%. I mostly carry soups because they satisfy both hunger and thirst and I get XP for making them. with this perk I also don't feel the need for any other hunger/thirst perks which saves me points for more damage perks. I also don't keep any food in my stash.

Other weight-saving perks I use: (as 2nd/3rd order effects): First Aid - stimpacks 45% more effective at rank 3 so you need less. Ammosmith - make more ammo with less junk (lead!)

I haven't felt like strong back is needed, especially with excavator armor. Without Traveling Pharmacy stimpacks weigh 1 pound so if I have 40 stimpacks with strong back that uses all the extra weight I gained with 4 points in strong back while with 3 points in traveling pharmacy those 40 stimpacks only weigh 4 pounds. The same goes for pack rat, most junk items that contain screws are heavy (desk fan, typewriter, hot plate, giddyup buttercup). I would easily top out strong back before maxing weight with pack rat.
 
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