Show Your Fallout Shelter -- and Tips!
Welcome!
Hello, my fellow Giant Bomb Duders! Like many of you, I have been addicted to Fallout Shelter since its announcement/release during Bethesda's E3 2015 press conference. Due to it's relative complex nature and mechanics, there much frustrating trial-and-error. However, there can be a lot of reward and great feeling of accomplishment, seeing your shelter grow and develop into a well-oiled machine of an underground city.
It will be good to have a place where all of us can post pictures of and experiences with our personal Fallout Shelters, as well as any tips you have learned along the way about how to maximize the development and efficiency of a shelter.
Community Tips
I will read through all of the posts in this thread and provide a concise, but thorough and informative collection of helpful tips covering all aspects of Fallout Shelter. Know of a tip that isn't listed? Or perhaps an already listed tip that can be expanded upon or better? Post them in the thread, and I will add them to the main post!
Dwellers
The citizens of your Vault are called "dwellers". They are the key to the success of your Vault!
Health
- If a dweller is stricken with radiation - either through water shortage or while exploring the Wasteland - a red bar will appear on their health bar, meaning their max HP is decreased by the size of that red bar. Give them RadAway packs to get back your max HP. They also seem to lessen radiation level very slowly over time.
- Dwellers will regenerate health gradually over time, if there is enough food, and fully regenerate when they level up.
Food
- Have the requirement level at about a third, or half at most, of the bar. Raider attacks will deplete your resources quicker than you realize. (@dudeglove)
- If your food levels fall below the requirement, your dwellers' HP will start depleting gradually.
Water
- As with food, have your requirement level at 1/3-1/2 of the bar.
- If your water resources fall below the line, your dwellers will start developing radiation sickness, decreasing their overall max HP.
Happiness
- Building a radio station now only allows outsiders to find you, but it also increases the happiness of the dwellers stationed in all parts of the Vault. Just make sure to have at least 2 people manning the radio station - and that they have high Charisma levels - one for operating the outside broadcast and another for playing/singing music for your inside dwellers.
- If you have male and female dwellers with low happiness levels, get them into a barracks and have them "knock boots". Both the pregnant female and male will then automatically have 100% happiness. (@dudeglove)
Earning Caps
Just as in the rest of the Fallout universe, bottle caps are the currency you use to expand and upgrade your vault. There are many ways of earning caps:
- Depending on the total Luck value of the workers in a room, there is a % chance that the room will reward you with caps. (@dudeglove)
- Successfully rushing production in a room will earn you extra caps. (@dudeglove)
- Every time a dweller levels up, you will be rewarded with the number of caps relative to their new level. Example: a dweller leveling up to Level 20 will reward you with 20 caps. (@dudeglove)
- Every time a dweller increases a S.P.E.C.I.A.L. skill when in a training room, you will be awarded caps. (@dudeglove)
- Caps can be earned if you receive a Caps Reward card in lunchboxes. (@dudeglove)
- The game gives you a daily report that rewards you caps based on the overall happiness of the dwellers in your Vault. (@dudeglove)
- To earn a lot of caps, send dwellers with high Luck levels out into the Wasteland. In about 24 hours, a dweller with 9 Luck can rake in 3,000-4000 caps. (@dudeglove)
Expansion of your Vault
- When expanding your Vault, make sure to do so in this order: Power -> Food/Water -> Population Cap. You will first need power to run the rooms making your food and water, which you need both of to keep your dwellers alive and happy. (@excitable_misunderstood_genius)
Merging Rooms
- Always make 3x merged rooms. The Vault grid only gives you 8 slots across (2 of the 10 slots you should use for elevators), so fill the 2x slots with storage and population rooms. (@excitable_misunderstood_genius)
Outfitting Your Dwellers
Along your journey, you will receive different outfits and weapons by either acquiring lunchboxes by completing quests or by sending out dwellers to explore the Wasteland. You can equip these outfits and weapons to any dwellers in your Vault.
Clothes
Dress your dwellers in outfits that will enhance the specific skill for their jobs. Get your radio staff in nightwear, food staff in jumpsuits, water staff in armored vault suits, science staff in lab coats, and power staff in military fatigues. (@excitable_misunderstood_genius)
Weapons
- Arm every dweller as soon as you can, and upgrade their weapons when you bring in new ones (either through lunchboxes or Wasteland exploration). Once you have all of your dwellers armed with your best weapons, start selling off any unnecessary weapons (unless you are planning on a population boom). (@excitable_misunderstood_genius)
Population
- Prepare for population booms. If you are going to have a multitude of pregnant dwellers before you go to sleep at night, they are all going to give birth when you turn the game on again after you wake up in the morning. So, you will want to be sure to have the food and water resources necessary to sustain them. (@excitable_misunderstood_genius)
Raider Attacks
- Take two of your best dwellers, armed with the best available armor and weapons, and place them at your Vault Door. They should take care of at least 2 of the raiders before they leave the room. The Raiders will always go to the next available room, so arm the dwellers in the next adjacent room with the best available weapons. If any raiders survive past the Vault Door, they will be quickly mowed down in this room.
Room Assignments
- Since all rooms have a specific S.P.E.C.I.A.L. skill designated to it, assign the dwellers with the highest level of the skill specific to that room (Strength for Power Generators, etc.). The higher the specific skill level of the dwellers in the room, the more efficient that room is at production.
- Do not place too many pregnant women in a room at one time. Pregnant women (along with children) run away from crisis situations, resulting in the crisis spreading to other rooms or the dwellers left in the room to possibly die. (@excitable_misunderstood_genius)
Rushing Production
If your need, or just like to have, more resources immediately, you can choose to "rush" production of any room, except radio station rooms, giving you the resources immediately.
- Each room has an Incident: __%, meaning that there is that percent chance that rushing the room will fail, causing an incident in that room - either a fire or radroach infestation.
- Consecutive rushes, successful or failed, steadily increase the rush failure %. Let the some time pass before trying to rush the same room again, so that the success/failure rate can cool down to it's normal levels.
- The happiness of the dwellers in a room affecsts how successful that room can be rushed. Repeated successful rushes decrease the dwellers' happiness ratings, adding into the already increased new success/failure rate of the room after rushing production. (@dudeglove)
Training Rooms
- Get your six 3x training rooms up and running and cycle your dwellers through as needed. They train more quickly the higher level they are and the more people that are in there. For the most effective training, move through them in 6x dweller waves. (@excitable_misunderstood_genius)
Wasteland Exploration
The easiest way to acquire new outfits and weapons (as well as more caps!) is to send out your Vault dwellers into the Wasteland to explore.
- While it's not a requirement, it is always good to send out explorers with a high level. A dweller's level determines their HP, and there are plenty of dangers lying out in the Wasteland!
- Make sure that your explorers have a decent outfit and weapon to survive and fight. If an dweller dies out in the Wasteland, they cannot be revived and the loot they accumulated will be lost.
- Equip your explorers with as many stimpaks and RadAway packs as possible. With enough of each, even your lower equipped/leveled dwellers will survive for a while.
- Your explorers' S.P.E.C.I.A.L. levels affects how the outcomes of the encounters in the Wasteland. Though, as of now, it is not known which skill affects which encounter you will find in the Wasteland. (@excitable_misunderstood_genius)
- The only S.P.E.C.I.A.L. skill known to have an affect in the Wasteland is your explorers' Luck level, which determines the amount of caps you will find while exploring. (@donbert)
Giant Bomb Duder Vaults!
Here will be a gallery to show off all our of our Giant Bomb Fallout Vaults.
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