GamerChas

This is something that constantly bugs me about playing FO3. Why am I wandering around the wasteland when I have a goal, finding dad? I am new to the Fallout series. I have heard about them fo a long time so I finally took the plunge. I mostly do FPS which are linear. And role playing like Baulders Gate or Neverwinter Nights which are still mostly linear. FO3 is my first sandbox. I started with Fallout 1 and 2 just before starting FO3. FO1 was still mostly linear, then in FO2 I started having a problem with the role playing. Why am I doing quests in Reno when I have a village to save? At least in FO2, about half the quests are important to the final goal. And you could go back and do them after finishing the main goal of saving your people. In FO3, if you just follow the main goal you can finish the game with doing less than 10% of what is available. So what kind of role playing do you think of to justify doing all the side quests? Or am I stupid to even think of role playing with a sandbox game? The only thing I can come up with is that when I emerge from the vault, I am amazed at the world and want to go everywhere (and kill lots an lots of things?) and to Hell with the dad who abandonded me. If I do find the SOB then fine, I can find out why he left me. But that is not what "I" want to be in the game. I have not played into Broken Steel yet. The first time I played FO3 was with no add-ons installed, so when you finish the main goal that is it. Done. Any quests not finished are lost. Now I have all add-ons installed including Broken Steel. So does it make more sense to go ahead and finish Project Purity early then do all the wasteland exploring after Broken Steel starts? I have no idea how the main goal plays out in Broken Steel. So, from a role playing point of view, does it make more sense to explore the wasteland during Broken Steel by putiing off the Broken Steel final game ending goal? Any better ideas? Do you create any kind of story for your character?

I was afraid of that. Thanks. I still think I will swap RL-3 with Charon. RL-3 is great for the storage and I have read that he levels up well with Broken Steel installed, but his aim is so piss poor that he is not much help. I guess I will leave the Fat Boy and Missle Launcher at home and hope that I can fast travel back if I need them. I know about the cheat to have both NPCs but I do not want to do that.

If I equip a companion with an empty gun that I do not want it to use will it pick up ammo for it on its own? I just want to store heavy guns on it for my use when needed, like the Fat Man and the Missile Launcher. I am using RL-3 now and his storage area is good because he will not use any of it (except sims). I am thinking of switching to Charon when I get to him. I am in the early part of the game, so I am limited to Rl-3, Charon or Jericho as my companions. I had Jericho until I could get RL-3 by following Morias quest to Robco. I am planning on doing everything possible before completing Waters Of Life then proceeding to Broken Steel. So Fawkes and Cross will not be available until very late. I am also trying to roleplay some by only going through areas first that I have some reason to do. I did all of Morias quests first. Then I talked to Three Dog and I am currently exploring the entire DC area and am not going to "find" The Mall until last. I have never played Broken Steel but I did rush through to the end of the game without Broken Steel installed after I got tired of trying to explore every square foot. Now I am planning to do every square foot, encluding all other expansions, before starting Broken Steel. This time it is all about the journey and not the ending. Unless that is a dumb way to do it. Is there a good reason to have Broken Steel started before exploring all the wasteland? One advantage is that I could have Fawkes along, or Cross. Are there other advantages/disadvatntages to starting Broken Steel after finishing DC but before exploring everywhere else? I have no idea how much having the Enclave as an enemy will effect my wasteland exploring. Please, no major spoilers, if you answer. I know very little of what to expect after surviving the Waters Of Life and starting Broken Steel.

Thanks Ranx31, that is exactly what I need. I Googled and found this from the GECK manual Confidence will be set on an actor using a dropdown (replacing the old Confidence number). These are gamesettings: 0: Cowardly = (fConfidenceCowardly=1000.0000) : I will always flee from combat. 1: Cautious = (fConfidenceCautious=0.3750) : I will avoid/flee from threats unless I am at least twice as strong as them 2: Average = (fConfidenceAverage=0.1875) : I will avoid/flee from threats that are stronger than me 3: Brave = (fConfidenceBrave=0.0375) : I will avoid/flee from threats that outmatch me more than 2-1 4: Foolhardy (fConfidenceFoolhardy=0.0) : I will never flee or avoid anyone (it is impossible for the threat ratio to be less than my confidence rating of 0) Survival Checkbox Actors can be marked to "Flee based on Personal Survival". This means that in combat, they value their invidual Threat Ratio over that of their combat group as a whole (see Flee section below for details). Dogmaet is set to 3 and RL-3 is set to 4, so I guess the Brave Dogmeat mod worked. But I disabled the Brave Dogmeat mod from loading then ran the game again and Dogmeat was still set to 3. So I guess you have to manually reset it to cancel out the mod. I am going to try and manually set RL-3 to 3 also. The second part of the above section, about "Flee based on Personal Survival" looks interesting but the options look confusing and I really do not want to put all the time in to learn how to use the GECK.

I am using the mod Dogmeat Leather Armor mostly because it can change his behavior to flanking like the other companions can do. At least that is how I think it is implemented. There is a Dogmeat option to use stealth and do not attack unless attacked. I have also found another mod, Brave Dogmeat, that will lower his attacking from follhardy to brave. So, I am wondering, is there a simple way to see what his setting is now? Maybe the Leather Armor mod already did that. I have not added the Brave Dogmeat mod yet because I am not sure it is compatable with Leather Armor. I would like to know what the setting is now - follhardy or brave. I have never used the GECK, and I am guessing that the GECK is the only way to check. I am hoping there is a simple command to use then I will go and read about how to GECK-up my Fallout :rolleyes:

OK. Thanks for looking up the info. I do not want to go through the learning curve of the GECK and how to make an .esp file so I will just live with the default speech.

Thanks for the reply. That is the speech I am refering to. But it is not working for me. I tried both a .mp3 and a .wav file but I still get the original speech. My fallout.ini does have bInvalidateOlderFiles=1 and the Dogmeat sounds are being replaced. I have no mod managers (FOMM?) installed. The Dogmeat sounds are .wav files. Will either a .wav or a .mp3 work? Do they heve to be a certain bitrate or something like that? I tried one of the Dogmeat .wav files as the replacement and that did not work either but it does work with Dogmeat.

Whenever I access the RL-3's storage, I am tired of hearing the big long speech "Sir, The RL-3 is equipped ...". I would like to replace it with something shorter, like maybe his "Commander" response. I have a 'mod' that replaces Dogmeats panting sounds by putting some override sounds in a directory ../data/sound/fx/npc/dog/idlepant/npc_dog_idle_pant_0x.wav. I assume that the same thing could be done for RL-3. I have never tried using the GECK. If someone could at least tell me the dir names and the sound name to replace, I could find my own .wav file to replace the speech with. Even better, if someone could extract a short RL-3 response like the above mentioned "Commander" of maybe just "Sir", as a .wav file that would be great.

Have you tried turning off save on travel in the main menu? I sometimes have trouble with doors also. Turning off the save game has worked for me. Then I turn it back on after getting past the trouble spot because I like the extra auto saves.

Surg23, The humanoid companions do the same thing you described, "shoots off up three flights of stairs ...". Surg23 and DavidYokosukaJapan, you both understand exactly what I mean about Dogmeat, blocking doors pushing etc. I diid find a mod that helps - Dogmeat Leather Armor. I am not using the armor part but it can also put Dogmeat into a sneak mode. He will hang back until you are attacked. Very much like the flank mode you can put the humanoid companions into. I do not know yet if it will prevent the running up 3 flights of stairs problem. But it does prevent the blocking of doors and the pushing. Dogmeat does hang back until needed. When I enter a small room, he waits outside. When I sleep in Megaton, he stays downstairs. So far, no crashes but I only have one day of using it. One downside of using Dogmeat Leather Armor is that it does tweak his health and damage some. I am too much of a noob to know if it unbalances Dogmeat. So far I like leather armor mod and it looks to be good enough for what I want. There is another Dogmeat mod called Brave Dogmeat that changes his behavior from foolhardy to brave, which means he will run away sometimes (if he is too hurt?). It sounds like a good idea but I have not tried it yet because I do not know if it is compatable with Dogmeat Leather Armor. A third Dogmeat mod I do use is Quiter Dogmeat. It just cuts down the volume of his panting and growling. The constant panting noise whenever you stop to explore was driving me nuts.

I am thinking of doing a runthrough without using the vendors. By living off the land. From a roleplaying view, I will be a lot like Mad Max. I will boost my repair skill early and use whatever I find. I guess I will be wearing raider armor for a lot of the game (: I think ammo will be a problem, I will have to use the weapon I have ammo for and not my best one. And I might run out completly if I miss too much. I will have to always use VATS. I know that this game is old now but it is new to me because I just got it during the Steam $5 sale :) Does anyone know if a guide has been written for this kind of play? I could use some hints. I am not sure what to do about Megaton. I am not interested in advancing to the ending, This is all about the journey. As a Mad Max character I would have little interest in visiting a town. But, I guess I could still do Moiras quests wthout buying or repairing from her. And I could still do the town quests - repairing, deactivating etc. Any ideas?

I read the following on the wiki playing hints page: "As long as you do not enter the Rotunda in Jefferson Memorial, you will not trigger the event which causes the respawning of enemies at previously visited locations. Avoiding this trigger makes this an ideal place to halt your progress along the main quest line and instead pursue side quests till your heart's content. A good alternative for combat oriented players is to finish the The Waters of Life by leading Doctor Li and the scientists to the citadel. This will allow you to receive Power Armor Training and will spawn lots of walking XP in the wilderness. You will level quicker by finishing this quest, however it will make the wilderness a far more hostile/dangerous environment thanks to Enclave spawns." I am playing vanilla GOTY with no DLCs added right now, so I am not sure if the above advice still applies without Broken Steel. Please explain. Is it talking about just Enclave soldires appearing randomly, or all critters everywhere I have been already? Do they mean the initial visit to the Rotunda when you can find all the tapes (before visit Rivit City), or only after escaping with Doctor Li? On the subject of respawning, I have noticed new Raiders at the schoolhouse near Megaton once. This was long before I ever visited DC. Is respawining at previously visited locations typical? I have not noticed respawing elsewhere, yet.

Oops. The guy was not wearing a trenchcoat but a long brown military coat that looks like a trenchcoat. He is about to shoot some innocent in a lab coat.

Yes, thanks. I also have Steam vanilla FO3:GOTY. I have continued on after disabling the Broken Steel DLC with no problems so far. The only difference I notice is that I now have a key for a celler door that is no longer there. I assume it will reappear when I activate the DLC again. I had one glitch so far that MIGHT be related to removing Broken Steel. When some bad guy in a trenchcoat goes to pull out his gun, the game always crashes. Might be related to some different type of gun or different texture available in Broken Steel? I solved it by setting the graphics to low then playing through that scene and then setting the graphics back to ultra afterwards.

I think I saw a post somewhere that said you cannot continue if you add Broken Steel to a vanilla Fallout 3 too late. Something about if you have too many skill points and saving the books to read later. But I cannot find it again. I am playing Fallout 3 for the first time so I do not want to search guides too much to avoid spoilers. I tried adding Broken Steel at the beginning but I ran into an Enclave soldier very early and got his power armour. This is not what I want. I want to finish the vanilla Fallout 3 first without any additional weapons/abilities/monsters. I would like to add Broken Steel after I finish the Vanilla Fallout 3 then reload a save from before the ending and continue on to Broken Steel, and to the other DLCs. So, is there going to be a problem with that? Please, try not to throw in spoilers. Thanks. P.S. I did enable Broken Steel in my game at the beginning. Can I stop it from loading now and continue on, or will I have to start all over again? Fallout 3 said something like "this save game has content no longer supported (by the DLC), continue?".

Is there somewhere I can verify what settings this mod is using? They must be stored somewhere. When you access the menu, by clicking on a companion, it only shows what the default settings are. The menu does not show what they are set to now. When you change a setting, it does say 'setting to ..' but I would like to verify that they are still set to my options when I run the game the next time.

The companions are driving me nuts. Is there a tweak or mod that will keep Dogmeat out of my A-hole? He follows right behind me. I know that dogs like to sniff ;) but this is annoying. Whenever I look ito a room then turn around, I have to push Dogmeat back out of the way. Same thing for sleeping in (spoiler deleted) in Megaton. Charon does not do that, he keeps an OK distance behind me. On the other end of the spectrum, is there a mod to cure their aggression? I like to sneak up and scout first. Maybe throw a grenade or lay a mine. I do not want to constanty say 'wait here'. Then go back and say 'lets go' again. As soon as an enemy is within their perception, they charge. And their perception range is greater than mine. Sometimes, I look around and they are gone. Off chasing something that I do not even sense. In Fallout 2 you could manage their combat. Maybe at least there is a variable to limit the distance they go from me?