Read this before playing Fallout 76: A jump start beginner's guide

By Denis Marasan ☆ 23/Nov/2018

This guide is meant for players who want familiarizing themselves with game basics before the start or had difficulties while playing Fallout 76 for the first few hours. Make sure you didn’t miss the important stuff I mention here when playing. And yes, this guide is useless for experienced players.

Things to do while still in the vault

There’s really nothing much to do or pick up in Vault 76.

Fist select your character’s look, but don’t waste time fooling with customization options, unless you really like it. Coz in Fallout 76 you can change your look anytime you want for free. Save it for the future.

Before you leave the quarters you may consider taking a nap until getting a Well-Rested bonus and play a guitar for getting a Well Tuned bonus. This will help you gaining more experience points and leveling up faster. When leaving the quarters you're getting your Pipboy!

Head towards the exit from the vault. Don’t forget taking stuff from the tables with those funny robots hovering around. All these robots are marked so you don't accidentally miss them. Please, pay attention. Make sure you’d picked up a CAMP and a set of perk cards close to the exit from the vault. These two things are the most important.

After picking up the cards you’ll level up (the first quest completed). Now you’re level 2. Open your Pipboy by briefly pressing the TAB key (for PC players) and choose to level up (the tips are in the lower part of the screen, just pay attention to this area when interacting with Pipboy, Workbenches, etc.)

First, you’ve got to select a SPECIAL stat you want to increase. There’s not much difference which stat you’ll choose coz they’re all at 1. Though in my opinion, the best choices are Strength (coz it increases your carrying capacity and damage inflicted by melee weapons) or maybe Endurance (coz it increases your health).

After choosing the SPECIAL stat you’ll be asked to choose a perk card. The stack you’ll be shown will relate to the stat you’d chosen earlier. But you can always switch between card stacks and hence select any perk card you want by simply pressing the “Z” and “C” keys (don’t forget to look at those tips in the lower part of the screen as I mentioned above). Choose your first perk card and don’t forget to equip it.

Now you can leave the vault!

Outside the vault

You may go just right, there’s a dead body nearby, or ignore it, because the loot is small potatoes. A good idea is to head downstairs in the direction of the marker shown on the compass in the lower part of the screen. There’s another hovering robot giving quests, which will mark the Overseer’s camp on your map. That’s the first quest chain you have on the surface which you should complete at least for the sake of loot.

Then go downstairs and find a dead body with Machete on it, pick it up. Open your Pipboy, choose Inventory – Weapons, select Machete and press the “C” key (or read a tip in the lower section of the screen).

Now you can either follow the quest marker or deviate from it a little for the sake of fighting monsters and looting more stuff.

If you want more fights and loot

Don’t go downstairs, go to the right instead. There’s no road, but this way you’ll be able to come up to a parking lot close to Vault 76. There you’ll encounter Liberator robots. It takes 1 or 2 strikes to kill them, and the damage they do back is minuscule. There’s a roadblock there, go past the barrier, loot the area and hit the road towards wrecked cars.

Soon you’ll encounter another group of monsters. They’re randomly generated, so if there’re robots, fly back to the parking lot, attacking Protectrons and their friends with Machete isn’t an option. If there’re Scorched – kill and loot, they may have valuable weapons on them. Any other type of monsters – choose what it feels good for you, they shouldn’t pose a threat.

After you’ve dealt with the monsters you can either go back East through the parking lot or go South. In the latter case you’ll find the Moonshiner’s Shack you can loot. After that continue going South to the Lumber mill.

On the way to the Overseer's camp

Head downstairs in the direction of main quest marker. Kill and loot Liberator robots. Find and loot the hunter's shack (you may play musical instruments for the sake of Well-Tuned bonus to Action Points regeneration) and head in the direction of Lumber mill nearby, it’s just slightly to the right from the direction to Overseer’s camp. After getting tips (wood scrap) from yellow caterpillar robots and looting the mill (always scavenge every item at the start) notice there’s a farm at the distance (several dilapidated buildings) called the Wixon Homestead.

There's a group of Scorched there, they’re easy to kill and may have great loot on them. Especially the one with a crowned marker, that’s an areal boss that has a lot of loot on his body.

You may be lucky to find a Short Hunting Rifle – definitely the best gun until maybe level 15 or so. Another good option is a Pipe Bolt-Action Pistol. They both use overpowered .308 ammo, killing most living creatures in one single shot. These weapons spawn randomly, so good luck.

As usual, scavenge the location and take everything. Find a Workbench nearby and scrap all the junk you have found by following the tips shown in the lower section of the screen. This decreases the weight of stuff you carry drastically. Do this often.

Now you can return back to the road leading you to the Overseer’s camp. There’s a bunch of tutorial quests over there worth of completion. After that follow the Overseer’s steps to Flatwoods.

To do list at Flatwoods

You may start scavenging Flatwoods right away. Just don’t forget to kill all Brahmins, these are two-headed cows. They are harmless but provide you with meat you can cook and hide you can scrap to make Leather Armor. There is going to be a side quest for cooking Brahmin meet, so get some beforehand to be prepared.

Follow the Overseer’s quest, in case you’ll be invited to participate in an event called Fertile Soil – don’t overexert. If somebody’s going to complete the quest for you – it’s good, you’ll get your bonuses for completion. If not – don’t bother. Those robots are ammo eaters, but if you have fun killing them – why not, kill ‘em all.

Before completing a side quest for cooking a Ribeye Steak rush to the river and collect water. Stand near the water and follow the tips on the screen (just for God’s sake don’t drink water from the river!) By briefly pressing the button (count your presses), collect 40 or 60 units of water. In case you get mutation from radiation use Rad Away from the Aid menu of Pipboy. Then return to the cooking station in the middle of town and cook Boiled Water. Remember cooking food and drinks for future use, coz otherwise, you’ll get a penalty for hunger and thirst. Or die.

Another great place to visit in Flatwoods is a Red Rocket gas station. There’s a stash box for storing your belongings that is magically linked with other stash boxes all over the Appalachia. Meaning that you can leave any stuff there and take it from the stash box anywhere else. You can find stash boxes at Red Rocket gas stations, Railway stations and at your camp.

Congratulations! You’ve spent your first hour in Fallout 76! That’s basically it. Now you may want to check out the TOP 5 beginner's tips and tricks to max out your game experience!