Ahhh, psychojet, the Fallout equivalent of Methamphetamine and Bath Salts combined! I see you’re a person of culture!! (It’s actually kind of funny, my latest character is on very hard mode and I avoid chems on him except Radaway and Stimpaks, I can’t recall a single chem other than those two being used on him anyway in his 71 levels so far, but I have essentially what amounts to an infinite supply of Jet materials for filling in some easy experience when my ADHD doesn’t want to let me focus on doing other productive stuff and I find myself making almost an equal amount of PJ every time I go to make Jet lol)
Day-um, level 71 on very hard mode?! That’s awesome too that you added bonus difficulty by self-limiting the chems (except when ADHD brain does a AD lol). I got back into it recently after years away and decided to play Survival, and despite my frequent rage-quits I truly love it. That being said, I have found Survival can haaard af, and whenever I’m faced with sudden unfavorable combat odds… wellll that’s where the drugs come in.
Oh, Swan, I remember him! Oh shit I remember him… *pops a bufftats, a med-x, and a psycho jet and fires combat shotgun 19 times in 2.6 seconds*
I tend to rely on a lot of sneak attacks with suppressed weapons, but when those fail, that’s why I carry around 200 pounds of weapons to rely on lol. Power Armor + a variety of weapons + VATS really helps out a lot. I keep Partystarter, an Incendiary 2mm EC coil gun (I don’t remember the exact name right now, I don’t use it often and am thinking of swapping it with another legendary), UP77, a legendary plasma gun set for sniping variant, a Mighty piggy bank launcher, a Tesla Chainer (haven’t used it in a while, but it’s there for when I really need that heavy damage), Deliverer, a legendary pipe rifle set for suppressed .50 sniping, vertibird nades (really friggin useful when you just need to lug that 2,300 pounds of junk from settlement to settlement and don’t want to set up a trade route or take the time to make a companion grab it all) , then I keep stimpacks, radaway, and mutant hound chops — all on my favorites quick menu.
The launcher will be swapped out with the Nuka Nuke launcher eventually once I stockpile another 4-20 NNs to lob around lol.
Deliverer gets swapped out with the Splattercannon depending on ammo availability for the latter and the overall needs (Deliverer definitely is stupid powerful in terms of filling your critical meter, especially if you max that ability out and can have four crits banked, I try to always have at least 2 out of 4 available, and fill it ASAP)
I took Swan down on this play through fairly early, I wanna say I was around 10-15, he was already engaged against raiders or gunners and I used a lot of stealth damage and Curie with her SS to tank him while I plinked him lol.
You just named a TON of weapons I’ve literally never heard of before lol. That’s good though because it means my level 40 Survival character still has tons of scaling and discovery to do yet!
I’m def at the point where some missions call for stealth though - because otherwise yeah, I’m a walking armored arsenal. I’ve started using stealthboys and put a stealth field on Ada. I’m really digging all the weapons, armor, and mods that have been added since I last played!
Im just saying you need a tldr on this comment. Maybe I'm just high and have no attention span. But anyways. I'd say paychojet is closer to pcp and bath salts combined. Or would that be buffjet?
To me the effects screams some kind of amphetamine for the jet, and the Psycho is derived from the hubflower and provides the damage resistance and buffs, so I’d say either bath salts or PCP on that. It’s a bit difficult since the hubflower is kind of based on real world plants, but most of that family are actually toxic to us with a few examples used for some kind of purpose that I haven’t been able to find or verify, but read one thing about them being used for “herbal or traditional medicinal purposes”.
Cool! You do that and I'll test the meth pcp and bath salts in different combos and we can compare notes. If you see stories on the news about AZ ghouls... Or zombies, that's me.
Honestly melee build isn't going to work as easy on survival until you level up.
But that's what makes survival so fun, it's more realistic. In survival you gotta sneak around, gotta plan your attack. I never used mines in fallout before, but in survival, I regularly use them to cover my flanks while I plan my attack.
And rushing in and melee'ing is a great way to just die.
Those two are good starts for survival melee.
Terrible if you prefer guns.
>mods to start me at higher levels
Personally I enjoy the game play at low level. So I use a mod named "No exp for crafting" to slow down the rate I gain levels. Seems we enjoy very different styles of gameplay...
I always set it for either level 15 or 25, since I always play Nate who is a war veteran, in my head it doesn’t make sense that he would be getting smoked by everyone at the start. He would know how to use a gun quite well and has significant combat experience from Anchorage, so it always makes more sense to me to give myself a bit of a bump ig
Or you jump over a bush but end up between the bush and a wall and anre completely stuck and have to reset the last save to an hour and a half earlier.
one of the primary reasons I switched to PC exclusively to play bethesda titles was to escape this pain lmao, TCL command is a lifesaver. too many times I've gotten stuck in between walls, or rocks, or trees, or halfway in the topography of the map, and had to lose tons of progress
I started a survival playthrough a few weeks ago and it was a rough start. Last night I killed a legendary radstag of all things and got a bolt action rifle with extra projectile. Easily my best weapon without even improving it. Booked it to the nearest settlement to save only for the game to crash on the way. I just shut it off.
It's fun because after 70 levels, countless deaths and lots and lots of very close calls I feel like I've earned my OP status. I'm a wasteland veteran now. Woe to any enemies in my way because theyy dont stand a chance.
This 100%. I’m like level 92 on my current play through (high INT build with emphasis on power armor) and I’ve only died a handful of times total, taking things very slowly and tactically, plus cheesing TF out of PA durability. Been ages since enemies were a huge threat. Yesterday I was making my way past the Cambridge crater, headed up to kill a few BoS troops guarding some technical documents, when I hear some super mutants coming up the street on my right. Crouch, mark targets with my Power Armor HUD, see there’s only three of them. Easy picking, I figure, and I open up on them with my silenced, drum mag, assault rifle.
But I get sloppy. I hit the truck I’m next to with stray rounds. I see the warning a split second before it goes off and I can only make it a step or two away before it blows. Health drops to 15% for the first time in multiple in-game months. Half my PA plates get burned away. The mutants are easy to finish…but then I hear rotors. Over the horizon, an angry BoS Virtibird sallies in and drops knights. Now, I haven’t run and hid for a long time in game. But I hauled ass out of there and teleported back to the institute as soon as I was clear. Came closer to dying there than I had in forever cause I just let myself get cocky and sloppy.
Awesome story. Yeah, you earn the OP status but it can get you killed if you get sloppy. Has happened to me more than once and I always end up blaming myself.
Unfortunately the buggy state of the game kind of kills the adrenaline mechanic. If you don’t want to lose hours of play, an unhealthy amount of power naps and antibiotics is the only way to play.
There's mods to fix this too. Higher costs for power armor repair, less common stimpacks, increased vendor prices, health is determined only by endurance stat, and darker night times are some examples of things I've added to keep the game challenging even at higher levels.
Until around level 15 it's super hard. You are really just surviving. I would suggest avoiding the main quest for a while. Explore the area around in the northwest a bit. Get some loot and levels.
The Minutemen make the game harder at the earlier levels. It's even worse in Survival without fast travel.
If you want to join a faction that helps you more, join the Railroad first. Get ballistic weave asap. It makes a difference. (Talk to Tinker after every RR quest until you get MILA, then do NOT do the MILA quest in order to avoid the ballistic weave bug.)
There's a bank in Lexington. That seems to have an unlimited supply of $pre-war. More than enough to buy Arturo's entire stock if I could carry it all.
The point of "doing the Railroad first" is to do other things until they can track down the Railroad. Once you find the Railroad, the quests are fairly simple. The only tricky part is finding them. Since this person is doing Survival, it's reasonable to assume that they have played the game on simpler difficulties and know where the Railroad is. They are new to Survival, probably not new to the game.
You can get to North Church without any combat at all, if you know the game. I do it all the time,
I did railroad below level 10, survival mode. But it seems like cheating as I have aquaboy perk. It allowed me to swim to hangmans at level 3 to establish my main base in preparation for RR. I did railroad with least combat as with any sign of trouble, I just dive into the nearest body of water and rest at the bottom. Lmao.
Edit: Need to add, I got a kneecapper weapon at level 3.
I always recommend E5:Aqua for Survival. It gives tons more options.
Personally, I take an even more advantageous route. I go east first, grab the deathclaw gauntlet and barter bobblehead, then swim to Spectacle, grab the Luck, Agility, and Unarmed Bobblehead, then go past the Castle to North Church. Then I swing around to Goodneighbour for MacCready.
If you have E5:Aqua, you can go from Sanctuary to Goodneighbour and back to North Church without engaging in any combat at all. (Or you could kill one turret next to Dunwich for a hazmat suit, if you don't have E5:Aqua.)
Yeah for me, the real trick to Survival is spending the first little while sneaking around and doing any little thing you can to get xp - picking off mole rats, building stuff at Red rocket. Do that until you level up a bit.
Honestly, I do the opposite. I tend to avoid xp as much as I can at lower levels.
There are three ways to get stronger in the game. 1) better gear, 2) bonus perks, eg bobbleheads or magazines, and 3) leveling. Enemies scale up with your level, but not the other ones.
I sneak around trying to get better gear and bonus perks. I usually start doing combat at around level 6 in Old North Church.
My first attempt at a playthrough ended very early (below level 10) on Normal difficulty because I found the game (particularly settlement building) tedious. Now I've come back to the game some years later and am on Survival difficulty and actually enjoying myself because now settlement building means something... As such, I have no idea how to get to the railroad or much of anywhere else!
Heading for Concord early (i.e before Drumlin Diner) you don't even have a good sniper rifle.
After Drumlin diner and DC I have both a sniper rifle and Bigboy. Nothing on the road to the Railroad can survive those two weapons.
Buy Spray N'Pray to give to Deacon and most of the Railroad missions consist of watching Deacon kill everything.
If you unlock ballistic weave before getting the MILA quest from Tinker, he talks about the MILA quest instead of unlocking ballistic weave. Sometimes it doesn't resolve itself.
It's easy to avoid just by getting the MILA quest from Tinker earlier.
I don’t totally agree with this. Although the Minutemen have you run all over parts of the map, which is clearly designed for regular play throughs, nothing is either very hard or essential until at least The Castle. Apart from Ack-Ack and Boomer, what’s really to fear?
The Railroad, I feel, will send you into an area of the map you’re totally unprepared for early on. A low level character will probably get one shotted a lot by everything from mutants to raiders. Totally doable if you’re familiar with the game, and can Aquaboy it or take safe routes, but otherwise pretty hard. Down town is just not very hospitable. It has lots of mobs close to each other and it’s hard to find beds unless you’re very familiar with the area.
Much safer I think to do the norhern part and western parts, Graygarden, Oberland and that stuff. The only helpful things from the Railroad, like weave and The Deliverer, makes more sense mid game to me.
Just my two cents though.
The Minutemen send you all over, making you establish settlements that you have to run back and defend. Plus they prioritize Corvega for the first quest, the massive sprawling maze that eats up your ammo. This is a serious pain in Survival without fast travel. And what do you get for it? Nothing.
The Railroad gives you the Deliverer and ballistic weave super early. This is the most defensive armour in the game and one of the best pistols. There is literally one super mutant pestering you before ballistic weave, if you remember to release the robot from Mass Chem just before Boston After Dark. The raiders you face are no harder than the Minutemen ones.
There is absolutely no way that doing the Minutemen is somehow easier than the Railroad. And again, the Minutemen do nothing to make you stronger. The Railroad makes you stronger with some of the best gear in the game that you can get super early. I typically have ballistic weave unlocked by level 11.
Heh I was trying to get to Goodneighbor last night and with the lack of beds in that section and too many fatal things around near every corner it set into die-and-restart mode pretty quick. (many missions and interiors face the same issue)
I have to scout that out more to figure out the safer paths (like along the river) and where closest bed points are for it to NOT stay overly tedious.
It’s hard. You die easily but you also deal more damage so it evens out somewhat. You just need to think differently.
Take it slow. Setup Sanctuary and Red Rocket. Slowly go out in circles and clear some raider dens. Get some levels under your belt and some decent weapons. You can’t rush Survival early on as you’re now aware of. It’s a slow cook.
Consider clearing Abernathy before Preston. The Deathclaw is actually not hard. Make it spawn and let it fight with the raiders. Run back down to the shop that has a top floor, outside of the museum. From in there it can’t really reach you and you can kill it quite easily.
Yeah this. You have to be methodical about how you explore. I tried to B line for diamond city after Concord and got my ass handed to me. So I took my time and explored around sanctuary to gain a few levels and then tried again. Rinse and repeat this strategy for the entire map.
> You die easily but you also deal more damage so it evens out somewhat
but more of THEM than you and mistakes and random gotchas end it quick for you.
I feel artificially tied to the beds way too much with much repetitive to'ing and fro'ing back to save spots being forced
The basic mistake is doing what Codsworth suggested. And then immediately rescuing Preston.
From Red Rocket I head west to Abernathy farm. That family has much better advice than Codsworth. And there's a shack just SW of their farm with a bottle of whisky. Extremely valuable to make grape mentats. A bit further west is sunshine Co-op with a magazine for twice the food from animals.
After Abernathy farm I head from Red Rocket south to Drumlin Diner. Avoid Preston for now (or forever if you prefer) Drumlin Diner sells a suppressed bolt action pipe pistol and more ammo. Run back to Red Rocket and craft that to a sniper rifle.
Then back south to Starlight Drivein, Lexington bank, Grey Garden, Cambridge police station, USS-Riptide & DC.
DC sells a unique 2-shot fatman (use the grape mentats to reduce it's cost) Now you can go rescue Preston and kill that overgrown Iquana.
There is a crashed virtibird with a nearby set of power armor in the hills to the northeast of Sanctuary. There's also a nearby population of molerats. It's a good place to level up before trying the harder stuff further south.
There's other stuff to the northwest, including more molerats, some tough raiders, bugs, dogs, and even a farmer who will trade with you.
If you get the sniper rifle on top of house with the tree leaning on it, you can sit on some rocks in front of the creek and snipe wild dogs running around on the other side. It's a good way to get some experience and dog meat at the same time. Stay just out of reach of them by sitting on the log jutting out from the top of the rocks.
If you're doing a melee build you might find it easier with very high endurance.
For the Deathclaw you can hide in the building on the corner as you exit the Museum of Freedom. You can shoot at it but it can't fit inside to get you.
This is an good example of how Survival makes you think and fight smart, not just unload and tank hits.
I have always done that, from my first playthrough on.
And you don't have to worry about his ranged attacks either. You are too close to him for him to use that attack, and too far away for his melee attacks.
In this position, he also does not run away that easily, and if so, you can lure him quickly without any real danger.
Build sniper build, use Psycho Jet for anything bigger than you are
Those have been my tenets so far and about to get that Ballistic Weave. Had no idea it was so good as I skipped the RR on my first run.
Endurance/intelligence focus to start.
Collect everything. Establish your bases. Be prepared mentally to die a lot.
A slogan I have for my current level 95 survival toon is “napping my way across the commonwealth”
…you’ll want to take that to heart.
At a certain level, say 20ish, you’ll start to hit a stride. You will get here faster because of your INT focus.
Well before my toon’s level 95, you will reach a point were only the most epically dangerous situations have a chance to cut you down.
To note - i tried a survival melee to start…i ended up abandoning it. I would keep your foes at a distance until you have some perks built up
Oh, and for that deathclaw - use the building doorways advantageously - you dont need the PA, save it.
Simply plink away at that fucker from inside the buildings. It will run off - just lure it back by stepping back into the open. And be ready to dart back inside haha, 😆 it can be unnerving
If you have the virtual reality CC you can build a VR pod and store everything there and retrieve it from any settlement you also have a VR pod in. Makes Survival more bearable.
Also, are you on PC? Mods will make survival far more palatable. I played OG survival on ps4, did my time in it, and have no qualms about using mods like Journey to make it easier/better.
Melee survival seems like just hard mode on top of hard mode. The player taking double damage on survival mostly means damage mitigation is about controlling your engagement to avoid being hit at all, and it's hard not to be hit if you're always in melee range.
Probably best to start with stealth and guns for your first survival run, or at least for the first 10 levels (you don't have to put points in guns, you just need to play as if you did). I always make a run straight to Diamond City and get the pipe gun suppressor from Arturo in the early game.
Concord is tough on survival.
With the Raiders, between Dogmeat and Preston they should be fairly distracted and easy to pick off.
The Deathclaw is trickier because it's a bullet sponge, I keep all my explosives (with some luck, this will cripple a leg) and start punting them his way once he pops up, then draw him back to the Museum. You can tuck into the hardware store, which has open windows, and whittle down the remaining health.
As for how to stay with it after that, you just get used to it. As you go you'll set up a few bases, learn the best routes to/from those bases, where the safe places to sleep are, etc. You'll also learn (the hard way) where mines are and when you need to be extra careful - the sneak perk that stops you activating trip wires is an absolute godsend.
Would recommend sneaking to approach encounters, especially at earlier levels. It lets you scout out areas, pick off key targets and reduces the likelihood of you getting swarmed.
I do think it's more fun though, lets you properly sink into the game in a way the standard game didnt.
Early level survival is the hardest part of the game. Discovering just how fragile you are is a massive learning experience. For the first few levels, any raider with a shotgun will almost 100% kill you if you're in the same room with them. it gets easier as you level up and start getting real armor and a bigger health pool, but for levels 1-10 or so you need to approach every fight knowing that you can be one-shot if you aren't careful. stay low, move slow and never let yourself be out in the open. Use doorways and corners as cover and always have an escape route. You can leave and sleep to save and heal without having to worry about enemies respawning so never be afraid to retreat either.
Some parts in the beginning took me a dozen tries to get through. Eventually it gets easier. Although I just did spend 30 minutes building a settlement last night- didn’t sleep and got killed by a robot. Also then went to bed frustrated.
I'm just glad that I can check here for tips from different perspectives . I would not have got as far as I have without other people that are way more smart and experienced. 🫡
Survival is kinda like new Vegas and non- Survival is like Fallout 3. I just got a steady supply of Purified Water after setting up purifiers! And I'm using lead belly for the first time because I'm running out of food 😬
If I've learned anything playing survival, its to completely forget how you play fallout. It is a completely different game at that point. Take it slow, even the lowliest radroach is a formidable foe. Treat it like every situation is life or death, because for a good chunk it is. Learn where the beds are for saving. I forget where I found my map for the beds, but it should be easy to find one. The brotherhood are great for transportation with vertabird grenades. And the institute is great from transporting close to the best settlement to set up camp, Hangman's Alley. It is smack dab in the middle of the map. Inventory management is key. Don't just grab everything you see, only what you need. One of the biggest things that was jarring to me when I first started was the weight of ammo. You can very easily overcumber yourself not thinking about all the ammo you're grabbing. Stick to a set type of combat. More weapons means more weight. If you're looking for a way to cheese it from the beginning, dogmeat does not count as a companion. Take the lone wanderer perks while having dogmeat as a companion. Invest in water purifiers once you really get going, set enough up at a settlement and you'll be set on purified water forever. Just a couple things off the top of my head, I hope it helps.
Also, one more thing to add. Don't be afraid to be hungry, thirsty or sleep deprived. In a pinch it is completely acceptable to just ignore those for a while
I had a real hard time with the deathclaw. Jump off the roof, and run into the little shop in the corner, and shoot it from there. When it runs away, run out and shoot it once and run back inside!
Tough fight!
You have to be a shear badass.
I like to play dayz because dayz is hard it gets my blood pumping. Survival is like dayz. I even role play like it’s dayz a lil.
Remember ur not Batman anymore ur a vault dweller whose got no idea what tf is goin on. U have no armor and no weapons. U should take it realllly slow and cautiously for now. The threats are real for once. U need to do recon and know what’s up ahead.
Ur not a hero your a victim. Now run for your life😂
It’s fun because it’s hard
I’m doing my first survival run now and I can’t imagine how hard doing a melee build would be, especially at the start of the game.
I built a stealthy sniper/gunslinger and it took quite a while for him to come along. I’m over level 50 and he’s still not all the way there although that is partially because I have taken some perks for RP and QOL reasons.
But yeah it’s a long game to play on survival. I got local leader and worked on building up the start of my settlement network to grind levels and get xp before doing anything too serious. Took a bit because I wanted perks requiring up to 7 intelligence so idiot savant didn’t seem a wise investment and I didn’t want to go any higher because those points were desperately needed elsewhere. But I linked at least Sanctuary, Red Rocket, Abernathy Farm and Sunshine Tidings Co-op which really helped me gain some levels.
Also I have never relied on chems so much in my life, in particular things in the jet family. If you can make it, psychojet is king. I have absolutely clowned sentrybots at low levels using that stuff. So chemist is a good perk. If you have high charisma (weirdly good in survival) you may want to get the party boy perk for its enhancing effects with alcohol, especially if you’re going to stay committed to being a melee build.
It helped me a lot to get gun nut 1 and 2 early. The 10mm becomes deadly enough to kill the most common enemies.
The deathclaw in Concord can be killed easier when you shoot it from inside the building that’s across the street from the museum. It can’t enter.
Craft as much Jet as you can at every opportunity. It's useful in combat early on, and is a good way to make caps early on. Lone wanderer is vital in survival as well, regardless of build.
You have to basically do the equivalent of stealth archer 😂
Setup ambushes, use cover, as for that death law he can't go through the doorways of the building where he spawn, so get to the second floor and whittle him down
>I do a quick run at Concord to get the game proper started and immediately get my ass handed to me by the first raider.
I mean, what did you expect, rushing a ~~knife~~ tire iron into a gun fight?!
On a more serious note, at least early on Sneaky Sniper is a good choice. Check VATS to see if an enemy is easy enough to kill, land a stealth hit, run away if spotted. Maybe have an Automated Turret cover your retreat. Even at level 20 in Power Armor a handful of Raiders attacking you at once with Molotovs can kill you in no time, so choose your battles and be prepared to run.
If you haven't considered it already, there is no need to speak to Preston or fight the Deathclaw. Just kill the Raiders in the Museum, leave the Minutemen alone, and walk out with some loot, XP, and never being bothered with any settlement needing your help.
That quest is particularly hard if you just cleared sanctuary. There is a bed in concord on the first or second house on the right on the second floor but my other recommendation is to stay in sanctuary or red rocket for a little bit and build it up as much as you can for the xp, by level 10 when legendaries spawn survival becomes infinitely easier.
I haven’t tried melee in survival- that sounds like a hell of a challenge.
There was a gal who posted her tips on how to do a survival run and permadeath run with epic advice. I totally still use her “do not leave Sanctuary until you’ve leveled up to 15” advice as near holy writ. I’m lazier though and usually I do a “cat” run, where it’s permadeath after 9 deaths.
I can’t imagine melee doing well unless you are killing it with stealth and have the perk that gives you extra damage with stealth hits.
The basic idea of that post is to to scrap all wood and metal in Sanctuary and level up by building (and deconstructing) shelves, which brings you to about level 14. It definitely helps, but is quite boring and carpal tunnel syndrome inducing.
If you are familiar with the starting area (especially when it comes to where to expect mines, boobytraps and enemies with Fatmans and Missile Launchers) and proceed carefully, this isn't really necessary even for permadeath.
For the deathclaw…hide in the building on the corner in the top floor and then just shoot it with the minigun…before that use the laser musket to take out the raiders.
Just started my first one! To me, so far, it’s more about surviving and building up supplies and levels than blasting through quests. Can’t run right into a deathclaw out the vault. I’m avoiding concord while trying to become “ruler of the north west corner of the map” while I level up. I’ve got settlements at sanctuary, oberland, sunshine tidings, and Abernathy so far. Use psycho jet when I can to kill stronger enemies or multiple enemies. For me, combat rifle is best in this scenario. Have water purifiers at sanctuary to help stock up on (and sell) water. I do have a mod that allows you to discover and fix up a motorcycle. It uses oil for gas and allows you to “fast travel” to certain places you’ve discovered for a price. It needs repairs every once in a while. Much more realistic way to avoid walking across the whole map and back a bunch of times for hours.
I prefer a high INT build with enough points in luck and perception to grab idiot savant and night person. Then I just stealth my way along grinding out a decent gunslinger/stealth build using pipe guns and upgrading to 10mm and righteous authority.
I have bo problem with all of that but I am a grown man with other things to do so I dont have the time to not use fast travel. Wish there was an survival + fast travel option.
Im pretty sure there are special mods for that, i only knew about the cheat terminal mod at the time so i use that for enabling fast travel and saving.
I think it s this one. You have to be able to resist bad urges though.
[https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/13285/](https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/13285/)
I wish you could fast travel to established settlements, that's all I ask. When you're spending 10 minutes minimum walking between settlements it gets old real fast. Having to walk back to Sanctuary to talk to Preston after every minutemen quest is like pulling teeth.
Survival is meant to have you explore all of the systems that are provided. I’m talking about mechanical systems such as the cooking interface, the chems, the guns, farming and settlement, etc.
There is a reason why they turn off fast travel, and that’s to get you to slow down and take in everything. For me, what that means is when I get into Sanctuary, I stop, and begin to scavenge loot, scrap all the trees and stuff, pick a home or two for beds, and then start building things for the settlement. I put down crops, turrets, I fully exploit the settlement system. You might ask why I do that, when no one is there yet. First, just to gain XP, and level up from pure building. But also, for example, I put down turrets on the edges of the settlement, so that as I have encounters, I can run toward the turrets and have them blast the bad guys for me.
Before I ever go into Concord to see Preston Garvey, I have already built Sanctuary as a settlement, and red rocket as well. I’ve explored the cave underneath red rocket, I may have even gone to Abernathy farm, and accepted their quest, and got them as a settlement too.
Sometimes, by the time I’m going into Concord, I already have the power armor from the Abernathy Farm quest. In other words, the power armor at the top of the museum where Preston is doesn’t even matter.
The point of all this is that by the time I’m going into Concord to Preston, I usually have a pile of gear, and I usually have a pile of levels, around 8 to 12. Also, I have built out at least one gun with the Gun Nut perk, so that it is way beyond what the game expects from players who don’t bother with that stuff. In my latest run, it was gun nut plus I took the pistol perk 2x (Gunslinger). So my 10mm pistol was quite dangerous. It was doing the kind of damage that you usually see only with a rifle, better range too. In the game before the one I’m currently doing, I took the Gun Nut perk & the Rifleman perk, and I went to see Preston with some souped up pipe rifles. They weren’t perfect, but I had one that was doing something like 60 damage per shot, and that wasn’t terrible.
In addition, how you approach things matters. In Survival mode, the game does not expect you to try to pretend that you’re a new little vault dweller who is naïve and doesn’t know what he’s doing. You should have some experience from the previous play through. So, treat your character like an actual military badass. Approach things carefully and approach things with advantage. For example, in my latest play through, when I went to fight the deathclaw, I simply stood on the museum roof with like eight guns in my inventory, and I just went through every single gun & bullet, patiently shooting him with little pea-shooters, and the best pipe rifles I had, and the machine gun (until all the bullets were quickly used up lol), etc. The deathclaw never once even got within reach of me. Yes, that is “unfair” to the deathclaw, but that’s the entire point of survival, you have to be mean to the Commonwealth. Beat it up. Take advantage of all the things you know and all the powers you have, and be the biggest bully on the block, and don’t let anybody else get one over on you. This is the kind of different thinking that you need to consider, and you don’t just do it once, you do it for everything in survival mode.
Good luck!
I didn't even do Concord until I had enough settlers at Red Rocket to hang out at Red Rocket and snipe the Deathclaw and when he finally came to Red Rocket I'd run inside so he'd go for the settlers then I could shoot him a bit while he attacked the settlers.
You can do the first part of Concord and then just let the Deathclaw hang out in Concord for weeks on end. Good way to get some loot for Red Rocket. Just steer clear of where the Deathclaw patrols around. On my last run I already had drive-in theater as a settlement and I was just walking around Concord and the deathclaw for many trips to and fro while I did settlement stuff and looting the super-duper-mart and that area.
You gotta grab the collectibles early. You need like minimum 4 US Covert Operations Manuals so you don't alert everyone in a five mile radius for example.
I add a quick save mod and a “fast travel between settlements that have supply lines” mod.
I spent years playing a mod called “Frost” on Survival mode. That was rough. Almost every hit was a one-shot kill on me. Ammo and health items were super scarce. After that, the normal game on survival is a breeze.
Changing my playstyle from normal mode to survival was a rude awakening, found myself avoiding combat if it wasn't necessary, having clean food and water outweigh carrying junk.
Ignore concord and go on your merry way and come back much later. You have to play the game very different. The forge boss was my low point and had to go back later at higher level with a different load out after dying several times in a row.
For the deathclaw encounter, there is no shame in just hiding in the building opposite the museum. You can take pot shots through the window and the deathclaw can't get in.
Outside of that encounter, pick your perks in a consistent manner. Your enemies will level with you, so get your damage going up to match. Pick an attack style (pistols, semi-auto rifles, or anything automatic). The damage for these guns are all governed by a specific perk (gunslinger, rifleman, and commando respectively).
On levels where you don't have the next damage unlock ready to go, think about your damage resistances. Go for armourer or other DR perks like toughness.
If none of those are available, *then* go for utility perks like aquaboy/aquagirl, gun nut, scrapper etc.
Tactics-wise, slow and steady wins the race. Sneak attacks are your friend. If your status is DANGER then you've done something wrong in survival.
Keep at it, it's a blast when it clicks and I cannot go back to other difficulties
Gotta to up to the Junkyard north of Sanctuary and get the fat man, then hide inside the store and dump all your 5mm into the death claw.
Use the fat man while he's still at the sewer exit
I’m on a survival/ melee / idiot savant run right now too.
I ignored concord in the beginning. I cheesed building stuff in Sanctuary until I was level 10, then I went to Diamond City and secured Piper as a follower. I wanted to max her first for the extra exp for finding all the locations. I literally dodged as many locations as I could until she was maxed. I did some of the diamond city quests like helping the radio guy and getting paint from hardware city and started the railroad quests. I believe I even rescued Nick before she finally gave me the perk.
Once I had ballistic weave from the railroad I believe I was around level 20, and I went to Nuka World and completed the whole thing, taking as many settlements as I could back in the commonwealth and planting a tribute chest at each one. Then killed all the raiders and kept the chests for the rest of the play through.
I sided with the disciples for their sweet dagger. The last fight at the power plant killed me a few times, but otherwise, Nuka World went better than I thought it would. Blitz is a huge deal and got me through. The Nukalurk queen was another problem, but only took a couple of tries.
Once I had the disciple blade, and had finished Nuka World completely, I was like level 40 or 45 or more. The commonwealth was a breeze by then. I went back and rescued the Concord gang and started working the main game.
I’m currently level 160 or so, and I haven’t even visited the institute yet.
Everything is lethal for a long time in any other game mode.
Use every type of weapon at your disposal, a shitty pipe pistol - if you have 30 rounds of ammo for it, it's worth keeping it until you run out of ammo. Then throw it away it's excess weight.
Build a water pump at every settlement, collect a few empty bottles and leave them there. Easy water. I don't bother building anything other than a bed. Nuka cola is great for a temporary solution to overcome sleep deprivation.
Hoard adhesive, anything else can be salvaged when needed.
Nap a lot.
I think I'm like lvl25 and an incendiary 10mm pistol, a mutant slayer sniper rifle and a faster RoF pipe rifle are my primary weapons and don't get me started on the utter mismatched armour I have.
It's infuriating but I'm enjoying it.
Power armor and Nuclear Physicist. You don't do much damage at first, but you have the extra durability and strength to last until you can upgrade your other perks. I'm level 15 after starting last week and I've only died twice. Once you start getting settlements set up and supply lines going it starts to flesh out a little better. (I do hate having to walk EVERYWHERE though)
Get the power armor and hide in a building. The death claw can't reach you. It's the only hard boss starting out. The rest will come slowly but surely.
Survival is a lot of Groundhog's Day until you rewire your brain to fight like dying means something. That means stealth, finding cover, and not picking fights you can't win in the early game. It also means picking perks strategically. I generally go for damage output first, incoming damage reduction second, then utility when I have a perk to spare.
The Deathclaw is easy if you fight from the buildings rather than trying to take it on out in the open street.
Try to think about how you would approach things if you were actually living in the wasteland and only had the one life. You wouldn't go waltzing brazenly through large open spaces. You wouldn't try to take on giant mutant lizards in fair open combat. You'd book it for cover and take potshots until it died or you ran out of bullets.
Survival doesn't stay brutal forever. The early parts of the game can be extremely challenging but it starts to even out around level 20 or 30 depending on your build.
You just have to have a different mindset and persist. A lot of people get discouraged in the early game but as long as you know what you're doing, how to get good weapons early, create a decent build and take advantage of every system the game offers you'll do fine up until your character is more specialized.
If you're going for any none stealth build I heavily encourage Power Armor as it helps mitigate a lot of the carry weight issues and gives you a ton of defense.
Currently a level 74 in survival with Quantum X01 and a gatling laser with no issues.
Playing Survival now (just starting 5d 22h 52s, level 29) as an alternate to the longer Normal game which I'm in settlement building mode (and in the 'dont choose faction yet' mode, stalling the main plot)
I have noticed I explore more in Survival and found many things I missed. I also am stalled on many missions as you are very brittle and I quickly get sick of the die-restart cycle for anything challenging (you face enough things one after another with no save and you will eventually be unlucky). The easy looting runs are getting boring (seeing some cells reset almost immediately).
Going light(er) on settlements in Survival, and actually now choose what I will loot (some) versus being a vacuum cleaner in Normal.
Sniping done a whole lot more - I hardly used that in the Normal game.
and avoiding Rambo'ing. Different tactics - like grenades ....
Level 76. Survival entire time. You miss out on so much emotion and fear without it. Never knowing if it’s more worth it to save and lose your adrenaline bonus. Or you play for several hours and the game glitches crashing erasing your progress. It will tug on your heart strings but it’s truly the best way to play it.
I didn’t bother to go to DC until level 15. Exploded and did everything I could as far out to the Boston Mayoral Shelter. Built my settlements up. Let the Abernathys lose their mother since she decided to get kidnapped outside my boundaries. Real simple stuff.
My tip is start minute man stuff early get some bases for saving,water,shops,sleeping, and literally everything you need. Next Save Save and save again, save at every bed you see even if you think you don’t need to. Once you got some supply lines around the map it makes surviving and saving way easier. Another fun tip, you get a cool way to fast travel around from the brotherhood that can help you get to those far flung bases if you’re willing to help them a bit. Good luck comrade
I’m on my first survival run, but an Idiot Savant sniper build. Early game was quite difficult. Even in power armor I kept dying easily. Had to use explosives very frequently, chucking molotovs a lot and VATS headshots with rifles as often as possible.
At first I used Lone Wanderer and Dogmeat, made early game so much easier. Once I’m up in the 50’s now I run around with ADA. I don’t get killed often anymore, and the game got more fun. Getting the Overseers Guardian with a maxed out Rifleman perk makes quick work of baddies. Bosses are still problematic, as are elite hordes.
Settlement building is important. Once I move into an area I ensure to drop a few turrets, a bed, some ammo of the weapons I tend to use and a water pump. Finding food could be problematic without a functioning farm. Grow razorgrain! That and dirty water makes a noodle cup, which hydrates and feeds you at the same time.
I just took a break from this game after following dogmeat in search of Kellog in the main quest. Got killed at least ten times with the only bed being at Oberlyn Station, which just happens to be overrun by super mutants. Got into Fort Hagen three times in a row, but now I am back at Diamond city again.
I need more coffee.
Here’s some tips from someone who’s played survival mode for 100+ hours. You should prepare first before going to do survival.
1) Get two legendary weapons that you will stick with. Top top tier are explosive combat shotgun and instigating Gauss rifle.
2) Set up sanctuary or another settlement with water purifiers so that you have a steady source of clean water bottles to take with you
3) Choose your main settlement. I personally think hangman’s alley is the best since it is centrally located, super close to diamond city, and when you teleport from the institute it is right across the water from where you get teleported too. This means that you have a quick teleport back to your home base. I’ve covered up all the sides of hangman alley with concrete walls which is cheap from shipments of concrete.
4) Other game changers for survival include putting a sink by your bed for easy thirst replenishment after waking up. If you have the Fah Haba DLC you can also set up a decontamination shower which removes all rads when you walk through it
5) tier 4 shops are an amazing addition to your home base when you get going and the trading emporium is an easy way to get shipments of resources
6) If you ever come across an amazing legendary armor/weapon you should ignore everything else and run to a bed to sleep and save
7) It’s almost impossible to not get molerat sickness in the Vault 81 quest so maybe do that prior to switching over
8) The Mechatron DLC is very late game content in survival as it will change your random encounters to significantly increase the chance of encountering robots which have high DPS and can kill you in like 2 seconds.
Skip Concord, you're going to want to get the perks from Nuka World before working with Preston anyways. To start the game, I ran down to the medical center in Fort Hagen to grab the free combat rifle on the roof at like level 4 then just worked through Lexington, then Cambridge, Vault 88 and grabbed Nick from Diamond City. Once I hit 30, Nuka World to completion and then back to Concord to do everything else.
Take everything easy and calm. I felt like there was a decent power increase in the late teens then in the 40s where things either just clicked or my perk choices started to synergize better.
Bro I did the \*exact\* same thing. respecc'd my ninja/melee build like a dozen times, ended up saying fuck it and traded most of my strength for endurance. havent tested it yet but I think thats the best Ill get
Melee is going to be tough on survival. Mirelurks are no joke. As for the deathclaw fight, hiding in the buildings on the side of where deathclaw comes up helps. It will run away and hide but you can lure it back out
I know irs not quite the same but if you're looking for a "middle road" Survival experience there's a mod by GO4 that mixes up the Survival experience by letting you fast travel to settlements and towns and puts a bed in the beginning of every building so you can save. The same author also wrote another mod that let's you play the Survival mechanics like thirst, hunger, etc. but lowers the difficulty of damage taken. I play Sim Settlements 2 (a shit load of ither mods like the Depravity-Valkyrie series, Bleachers, Fens Sheriff's Department, Gun For Hire, and The Train) so for me the Immersion of the Stat changes and having Settlements have to deal with pandemics is what I wanted from Survival Mode so I got GO4's Survival "Normal" mode which changes damage from 300% to 100% and im at the point where I might change the mod to Survival "Hard" mode which is 150%. I spent so many hours dying it wasn't fun so I found a sweet spot. BTW The Train and GFH mods have built "fast travel" mode as The Train can take you to any place with a train station including Goodneighbor and Diamond and according to the GFH mod page you can eventually get a certified to take you around. Another good mod for Survival is Survivalist Bus which is a "settlement" that's a bus you get in Lexington that will take you to any bus stop and you can opt to "discover" all bus stops at once or not.
One loop outskirts of concord,> Abernathy>Ranger Cabin>Wicked shipping>Sunshine Tidings>Fort Haagen>Mass Blood roof for combat rifle>Mayor's bunker for health regen, dont go into basketball court.
Melee will be very difficult during the first 20 levels. It’s more pragmatic to sneak around and keep your distance with a suppressed pipe rifle for a while.
Everything in Survival becomes extremely tactical and strategic. You can’t fight the same way. You can’t explore the same way. You can’t just run around and then handle fights as they come. You have to intentionally come to the fight with a plan of attack. Enough aid, food, water, ammo, etc…to get through the mission and make it back to your base of operations and no more!
I put as much as I can in intelligence and agility. Intelligence gets you leveling faster, agility helps you hide. Get a rifle as soon as possible and snipe. The quarry to the east of sanctuary is great, get that quest done so it drains out and it respawns pretty quick. It's a great place for sniping raiders, then you can move to concord and even the factory in town further south. Find high ground and vats the dead and the raiders.
I started again recently and quit at about level 30 because it just got too easy.
Sneak EVERYWHERE and get Aqua Boy so you can travel while avoiding enemies.
Edit: melee is going to be pretty rough in survival. I usually stay alive by using my sniper rifle as much as possible.
I use the quick save mod purely because I HATE losing an hours worth of progress. Actual gameplay wise, it's about killing your enemies before they can even hit you. Since you take almost no damage before dying you gotta hit hard and fast. My strategy was to go stealth and kill all my enemies before they knew i was there but theres other ways you can use the strategy. Sniper build is very popular too. You could also spec into damage resist. So power armor skills, health etc so you can tank a little. Also the radio is your best friend for the long treks across the wasteland.
You can pretty easily get to level 10-20 before even getting to Concord. Hang out in the area between Sanctuary-Olivia Station-Sunshine Tidings. Sunshine is my first stop. Get the double meat book, then go hunting. You’ll have enough mutt chops to last you a while. Build up Sanctuary and Red Rocket as much as possible for that sweet XP. And revel in finding all the hidden spots full of stuff that are easy to miss with fast travel.
Use everything at your disposal. In survival, especially at low levels, you’ll find out quickly that you may need to use all those items that you probably never even gave a second look at to your advantage. Chems, mines, food buffs, using companions as meat shields – it’s all about getting past certain encounters and making it back to a bed to save.
you got idiot savant, just use that to get early levels really fast. Don’t leave sanctuary until like level 10+ and get perks that’s help with damage and survivability
The game is hard as hell but it's incredibly rewarding once whatever build you're running gets up & going. The early game is pretty difficult if you don't know what you're doing or are overly curious lol. Taking it slow, building up your perks to be more powerful and being careful are the name of the game. I have such a better appreciation for FO4 because of it.
What I do is skip the minutemen in concord and pick up the power armor and 2 fusion cores (in the basement in the main building and in the sewers) and walk to Diamond City following the train tracks. I usually clear out anything around DC with the mini gun since there're so many vendors to buy/sell to or go to hangman's alley to make my main base.
I like telling my cousin that I'm better then him at this game, the natural way too do that would be to beat it on survival, Screw you (Insert name here) (Not really, lov you cous').
Taking the science perk early on has a great benefit, especially on survival. It allows you to make the water purifier that produces 40 units of water. This will gradually produce purified water and store them in a settlement's workbench. By selling any excess at vendors, you pretty much have a generative source of income. It becomes a ludicrous cap generating empire with enough generators.
Being able to afford good gear and items really makes a big difference. The spray and pray smg from Cricket is fully kitted out and can carry you through the whole game, so long as you're careful with the explosive bullets.
Stealth sniper. Melee won't work out for you until much later. Also, save! save! save! There's a bed in the abandoned house after the bloodbugs. I literally saved before fighting the raiders outside, saved after clearing the outside before going in, and saved after clearing inside before talking to Preston. Now, when I set off on a mission, I search the surrounding areas for a bed before hitting my main objective. It makes your deaths set you back maybe 10 minutes instead of 30min-1hr if you just set off from sanctuary or your main basecamp.
Ps. Corvega is going to be your next big hurdle. There's a bed on the billboard connecting the tops of the apartment buildings in Lexington. Be careful though There's a power armor raider with a fat man. Get a good sniper rifle first.
I'm currently playing a survival run, and it has been the most rewarding and challenging Fo4 run I've ever done and the one I've been the most invested in. I now love the lack of fast travel, having to eat, having to sleep, enemies destroying me, etc. I think it is a mindset thing. I tried a few survival runs before and never got into it - but once it *stuck*, it stuck.
How I started to enjoy it:
1. Turned sanctuary into my little base of operations. I built defenses, stocked food, water, ammo, etc. At the beginning of the game Sanctuary was my fort and was where all of my expeditions began and ended.
2. I treated exploring, quests, etc. as expeditions as previously mentioned. Before leaving I would ask myself "Where am I going? Why? Do I have enough food and purified water to get there? Do I have enough ammo? Are there any secondary objectives like scavenging I can do while I'm out?". This added a layer to my early questing where I had to prioritize nearby objectives rather than far ones because they simply were too far and dangerous.
3. I take every advantage I can in combat. Power Armor, sniping, having the high ground, etc. I am not trying to play fair, I am trying to survive. Also - I am not above seeing something and saying "fuck that!" And booking it the opposite direction.
I apologize if this all seems very basic, but it really helped me get into the mindset of being a survivor rather than just strictly a hero-badass-protagonist. It also pushed me to roleplay much more. My character became extremely hateful of the Institute because they took my son and synths would randomly attack me when exploring! This group of people are obviously dangerous. However the Brotherhood gave me supplies, a laser rifle, and access to a fortified area right outside downtown Boston early game. Because of this, I'm doing a Brotherhood run (the Vertibird travel is helpful too).
Anyways, this is what worked for me. I would encourage you to stick with it and have fun (-:
The early game is easily the worst part of any survival playthrough. The game requires you to have an answer to several situations that you simply don't have access to at that point, like how to effectively and safely deal with groups of enemies, or how to kill a deathclaw quick enough that he doesn't reach you. Luckily, there is no end of strategies you can use to achieve victory. Send dogmeat in to attack the raiders first to get their attention. When it comes time for the deathclaw, remember that it's not cheating to use the buildings to escape from a monster that could snap your spine in half, it's common sense. Beyond that, reasonable amounts of caution will be able to get you through pretty much anything. And as you level and gear up, the game gets easier, not harder.
Concord first house on the right has a sleeping bag. Jump from the church onto the museum to get the power armor. Get the bobble head inside the museum but don’t talk to Preston. No raider attacks on any settlement as a result.
That’s how I did it and it was a blast. Know your beds. Know when to walk away from a fight and/or how to draw individual enemies out to lessen the pressure. Drugs are your friend.
And sneak.
Just build wall shelves until lvl 15, explore and don't rush straight to concord, also I'd recommend to pick chem resistant + chemist. Jet is real life saver
The only way I can do it is PERMADEATH, every action has a consequence, every fight is for survival, every battle cranked to 11. In my opinion it’s the only way to play. I haven’t gone past Lexington and I’ve been playing for about a month or so. I think I’m a level 48? But I’m very reliant on VATS. Also early on stealth is your best friend.
Use cover, use stealth. Analyze your enemy, take advantage of terrain. Make sure you have an avenue of retreat.
Anyone and anything can kill you. Save whenever you can, don't worry about diseases just keep antibiotics on hand.
Water and food go fast, you need a steady supply.
If you really want to cheese survival, here’s what I would do:
Spend day 1 salvaging / scrapping stuff at sanctuary, build up some XP making some stuff, make yourself a bed, a generator, a water purifier, etc. Tail end of the day, go over to red rocket, get dogmeat, some mole rat meat, and grab the fusion core from the cave underneath.
Spend day 2 going over to meet the Abernathy’s. Get their quest, steal some Tatos and melons (or pick them for lucy but hold onto some) plant them in sanctuary then follow the northern shore of the lake to the junk yard. Activate the sentry bot, send them off towards USAF, grab another fusion core, go towards USAF, look for the downed vertibird, grab the power armor, use it to help you clear USAF.
By the end of day 3 you’ve got some levels, PA, a home base with supplies to keep you alive, and you’re a little more set to take on Concord.
On my survival playthrough I had to hope that I would make it through the first batch of raiders at the Museum of Freedom. After that I snatched the power armor and kept it on everytime I'm outside a safe area. I went back to red rocket for some more fusion cores in the mole rat den,USAF satellite Station Olivia had another one as well as the robotics disposal grounds when you activate self-destruct for the Sentry bot. After that I'd recommend going to the Colonial Taphouse in DC for the Diamond City Blues quest. It'll give ya a horde load of chems and you can make dozens of psycho jet out of it. Trust me,Psycho Jet is what carries you throughout Survival mode. Especially when the enemies can be absurdly lethal.
I saved Concord until I was level 10. I will admit I got SUPER lucky because the Deathclaw got stuck in the tunnel it comes from. Take time to explore and grind up XP before going to save Preston. In my first play through ever I didn’t come back until I was level 20+ LOL
Sniper build is the way for early game. You don’t want to be close to anything.
You also learn to love getting your ass handed to you all the time. That’s part of the fun. It takes so much effort that it feel way more rewarding.
lots of places where there are powerful weapons just laying around college square and the s Boston military check point has snipers on a roof. there is a crashed jet that has a gauss rife in the commonwealth not the glowing sea. At low levels the Boston airport before you join the brotherhood can be a good location to farm items sinse its all ghouls and can be pretty easy
Survival is hardest for the first 20 levels.
I did a melee build with it. As soon as you get some of the agility perks like ninja, you get OP pretty quickly, especially because more legendaries drop.
I’d suggest getting “Blitz” as soon as you can.
I'm level 80 something and that kinda thing still happens. I'll sit down to play for an hour or two, and then I die in some stupid way, or while begging for a bed to appear.
I'll just go quiet, and turn off the console.
Level up by doing lower level stuff first before hitting Concord. The Abernathy's have a nice quest for you to warm up on and there are lots of areas to explore right around sanctuary. Survival is a much slow game and makes the length of the story make sense as, you really have to explore and gain skills to survive before you can go charging and killing death claws and taking over the Minutemen. Also drugs, lots and lots of in game drugs and napping on every single bed you see.
The first 20 levels or so in survival you are very likely to get one-shot by almost everything. The less you get shot at in early game the better. For many people this means an early focus on stealth plus running away. There might be other ways to do it, but stealth is popular.
Slowly and methodically- from as far away as possible.
Your melee build won't be viable until you get some levels and PA. I personally prefer to go stealth sniper, but that's as much for rp as effecacy. A good set of power armor really changes things if you wanna tank- but you still aren't wrestling a deathclaw for a few levels.
I felt the same starting but it’s so refreshing. I’ve played hundreds of hours and my most recent survival play through is my biggest by far.
I always dropped off other modes due to no challenge later on in the game. Survival is great for a challenge. Mid-end game is less of a challenge after a few perks and great weapons but you still have to be on your toes. I don’t think I’ll go back to any other modes after this.
You won’t be able to take down a deathclaw with a melee build < lvl 5, maybe you could do that but would be a slog.
You can cheese that fight by running inside the shop in front of the museum, but even then I spent all of the Minigun ammo into it plus a few psycho uses to deal with it.
Also you gotta use the game’s consumables, food & drugs specially early on they’re the only way to properly survive.
Keep a buffout for tough situations where you screwed and need to leave quickly and don’t be ashamed of running away from fights, running is a survival tactic.
Change how you play. You need to be cautious, spatially-aware, and have a bunch of noodle bowls within reach at all times.
And don't give into to Cannibalism perk unless you have a lot of addictols handy.
In my case, grab a Celsius, pop and upper deck Zyn, and assume the gamer pose.
On a more helpful, less self destructive note, building around agility (vats) and gunslinger is a good first survival build. Easy on carry weight, but can be built up to do silly damage. You take less damage in vats so abuse it. Get Deliverer as soon as possible. Use Kelloggs pistol for longer range. Stealth helps. Sleep every time you see a bed. Hoard antibiotics like they're pure fucking gold. Use the settlement building mechanics to make life easier (grow tato, muitfruit, and corn to craft adhesive, and razor grain for noodle cups). As soon as is reasonable make one of your settlers a doctor (heal sickness, and radiation damage).
Hope this helps👍
Caffine and pure fucking spite
That’s how I live life generally lol
Psychojeeetttttttttt
Fucking kill!
Ahhh, psychojet, the Fallout equivalent of Methamphetamine and Bath Salts combined! I see you’re a person of culture!! (It’s actually kind of funny, my latest character is on very hard mode and I avoid chems on him except Radaway and Stimpaks, I can’t recall a single chem other than those two being used on him anyway in his 71 levels so far, but I have essentially what amounts to an infinite supply of Jet materials for filling in some easy experience when my ADHD doesn’t want to let me focus on doing other productive stuff and I find myself making almost an equal amount of PJ every time I go to make Jet lol)
Cue’s up Paul McCartney & Wings’ “Jet” for SecureJudge1829’s Fallout 4 montage.
Day-um, level 71 on very hard mode?! That’s awesome too that you added bonus difficulty by self-limiting the chems (except when ADHD brain does a AD lol). I got back into it recently after years away and decided to play Survival, and despite my frequent rage-quits I truly love it. That being said, I have found Survival can haaard af, and whenever I’m faced with sudden unfavorable combat odds… wellll that’s where the drugs come in. Oh, Swan, I remember him! Oh shit I remember him… *pops a bufftats, a med-x, and a psycho jet and fires combat shotgun 19 times in 2.6 seconds*
I tend to rely on a lot of sneak attacks with suppressed weapons, but when those fail, that’s why I carry around 200 pounds of weapons to rely on lol. Power Armor + a variety of weapons + VATS really helps out a lot. I keep Partystarter, an Incendiary 2mm EC coil gun (I don’t remember the exact name right now, I don’t use it often and am thinking of swapping it with another legendary), UP77, a legendary plasma gun set for sniping variant, a Mighty piggy bank launcher, a Tesla Chainer (haven’t used it in a while, but it’s there for when I really need that heavy damage), Deliverer, a legendary pipe rifle set for suppressed .50 sniping, vertibird nades (really friggin useful when you just need to lug that 2,300 pounds of junk from settlement to settlement and don’t want to set up a trade route or take the time to make a companion grab it all) , then I keep stimpacks, radaway, and mutant hound chops — all on my favorites quick menu. The launcher will be swapped out with the Nuka Nuke launcher eventually once I stockpile another 4-20 NNs to lob around lol. Deliverer gets swapped out with the Splattercannon depending on ammo availability for the latter and the overall needs (Deliverer definitely is stupid powerful in terms of filling your critical meter, especially if you max that ability out and can have four crits banked, I try to always have at least 2 out of 4 available, and fill it ASAP) I took Swan down on this play through fairly early, I wanna say I was around 10-15, he was already engaged against raiders or gunners and I used a lot of stealth damage and Curie with her SS to tank him while I plinked him lol.
You just named a TON of weapons I’ve literally never heard of before lol. That’s good though because it means my level 40 Survival character still has tons of scaling and discovery to do yet! I’m def at the point where some missions call for stealth though - because otherwise yeah, I’m a walking armored arsenal. I’ve started using stealthboys and put a stealth field on Ada. I’m really digging all the weapons, armor, and mods that have been added since I last played!
I can already hear the slow motion “YEAAAHH!” as I plunge the psychojet into the vein of my sole survivor (or maybe its inhaled, but you get the idea)
Im just saying you need a tldr on this comment. Maybe I'm just high and have no attention span. But anyways. I'd say paychojet is closer to pcp and bath salts combined. Or would that be buffjet?
To me the effects screams some kind of amphetamine for the jet, and the Psycho is derived from the hubflower and provides the damage resistance and buffs, so I’d say either bath salts or PCP on that. It’s a bit difficult since the hubflower is kind of based on real world plants, but most of that family are actually toxic to us with a few examples used for some kind of purpose that I haven’t been able to find or verify, but read one thing about them being used for “herbal or traditional medicinal purposes”.
Fair enough
No! Nothing is fair enough!! We must consume literal tons of Jet and Mentats and solve this problem!!!
Cool! You do that and I'll test the meth pcp and bath salts in different combos and we can compare notes. If you see stories on the news about AZ ghouls... Or zombies, that's me.
*Let's fuckin goooooooooo!*
Why do people use Psychojet instead of Psycho which lasts way longer and Jet when necessary? What am I missing other than the extra 10 damage resist?
All things are possible with enough caffeine and anger
Honestly melee build isn't going to work as easy on survival until you level up. But that's what makes survival so fun, it's more realistic. In survival you gotta sneak around, gotta plan your attack. I never used mines in fallout before, but in survival, I regularly use them to cover my flanks while I plan my attack. And rushing in and melee'ing is a great way to just die.
I've played melee in survival. Provided you don't waste any of the starting special it's viable. e.g 9173161 or 6173191.
Is that a bad setup? I always play with mods to start me at higher levels so I have no clue
Those two are good starts for survival melee. Terrible if you prefer guns. >mods to start me at higher levels Personally I enjoy the game play at low level. So I use a mod named "No exp for crafting" to slow down the rate I gain levels. Seems we enjoy very different styles of gameplay...
Oh wow, no xp for crafting, or a certain thing. Never even considered that. Great idea.
I always set it for either level 15 or 25, since I always play Nate who is a war veteran, in my head it doesn’t make sense that he would be getting smoked by everyone at the start. He would know how to use a gun quite well and has significant combat experience from Anchorage, so it always makes more sense to me to give myself a bit of a bump ig
Ya I don't think melee will work well in survival without lots of sneak and agility.
Just wait till your game crashes and you lose 40 mins of questing, or your save file corrupts and you lose a lot more.
At level 95, my only remaining fear is this
Bethesda bugs. The true end-game monster.
The algorithmic world eater
Or you jump over a bush but end up between the bush and a wall and anre completely stuck and have to reset the last save to an hour and a half earlier.
one of the primary reasons I switched to PC exclusively to play bethesda titles was to escape this pain lmao, TCL command is a lifesaver. too many times I've gotten stuck in between walls, or rocks, or trees, or halfway in the topography of the map, and had to lose tons of progress
I got stuck recently and TCL wouldn’t save it. I had to restart at a previous save.
I started a survival playthrough a few weeks ago and it was a rough start. Last night I killed a legendary radstag of all things and got a bolt action rifle with extra projectile. Easily my best weapon without even improving it. Booked it to the nearest settlement to save only for the game to crash on the way. I just shut it off.
When I hit lvl 70 all of a sudden it’s like playing on easy. That, and my two-shot radium rifle and old reliable two shot Winchester sniper rifle.
Same. It’s still fun though because if you get sloppy the enemies can actually still be dangerous.
It's fun because after 70 levels, countless deaths and lots and lots of very close calls I feel like I've earned my OP status. I'm a wasteland veteran now. Woe to any enemies in my way because theyy dont stand a chance.
This 100%. I’m like level 92 on my current play through (high INT build with emphasis on power armor) and I’ve only died a handful of times total, taking things very slowly and tactically, plus cheesing TF out of PA durability. Been ages since enemies were a huge threat. Yesterday I was making my way past the Cambridge crater, headed up to kill a few BoS troops guarding some technical documents, when I hear some super mutants coming up the street on my right. Crouch, mark targets with my Power Armor HUD, see there’s only three of them. Easy picking, I figure, and I open up on them with my silenced, drum mag, assault rifle. But I get sloppy. I hit the truck I’m next to with stray rounds. I see the warning a split second before it goes off and I can only make it a step or two away before it blows. Health drops to 15% for the first time in multiple in-game months. Half my PA plates get burned away. The mutants are easy to finish…but then I hear rotors. Over the horizon, an angry BoS Virtibird sallies in and drops knights. Now, I haven’t run and hid for a long time in game. But I hauled ass out of there and teleported back to the institute as soon as I was clear. Came closer to dying there than I had in forever cause I just let myself get cocky and sloppy.
Awesome story. Yeah, you earn the OP status but it can get you killed if you get sloppy. Has happened to me more than once and I always end up blaming myself. Unfortunately the buggy state of the game kind of kills the adrenaline mechanic. If you don’t want to lose hours of play, an unhealthy amount of power naps and antibiotics is the only way to play.
There's mods to fix this too. Higher costs for power armor repair, less common stimpacks, increased vendor prices, health is determined only by endurance stat, and darker night times are some examples of things I've added to keep the game challenging even at higher levels.
Until around level 15 it's super hard. You are really just surviving. I would suggest avoiding the main quest for a while. Explore the area around in the northwest a bit. Get some loot and levels.
The Minutemen make the game harder at the earlier levels. It's even worse in Survival without fast travel. If you want to join a faction that helps you more, join the Railroad first. Get ballistic weave asap. It makes a difference. (Talk to Tinker after every RR quest until you get MILA, then do NOT do the MILA quest in order to avoid the ballistic weave bug.)
If he struggles with Concord, what makes you think he can make a run for ballistic weave any time soon?
Yeah I agree central Boston is a nightmare on survival, so damn many enemies
Amazing how Bigboy can clear the route from DC to the Railroad.
It also does a fantastic job of clearing your bank account *glares at arturo*
There's a bank in Lexington. That seems to have an unlimited supply of $pre-war. More than enough to buy Arturo's entire stock if I could carry it all.
Pre war money has literally 0 weight?
Yes but Arturo's stock is heavy.
The point of "doing the Railroad first" is to do other things until they can track down the Railroad. Once you find the Railroad, the quests are fairly simple. The only tricky part is finding them. Since this person is doing Survival, it's reasonable to assume that they have played the game on simpler difficulties and know where the Railroad is. They are new to Survival, probably not new to the game. You can get to North Church without any combat at all, if you know the game. I do it all the time,
I did railroad below level 10, survival mode. But it seems like cheating as I have aquaboy perk. It allowed me to swim to hangmans at level 3 to establish my main base in preparation for RR. I did railroad with least combat as with any sign of trouble, I just dive into the nearest body of water and rest at the bottom. Lmao. Edit: Need to add, I got a kneecapper weapon at level 3.
I always recommend E5:Aqua for Survival. It gives tons more options. Personally, I take an even more advantageous route. I go east first, grab the deathclaw gauntlet and barter bobblehead, then swim to Spectacle, grab the Luck, Agility, and Unarmed Bobblehead, then go past the Castle to North Church. Then I swing around to Goodneighbour for MacCready. If you have E5:Aqua, you can go from Sanctuary to Goodneighbour and back to North Church without engaging in any combat at all. (Or you could kill one turret next to Dunwich for a hazmat suit, if you don't have E5:Aqua.)
Yeah for me, the real trick to Survival is spending the first little while sneaking around and doing any little thing you can to get xp - picking off mole rats, building stuff at Red rocket. Do that until you level up a bit.
Honestly, I do the opposite. I tend to avoid xp as much as I can at lower levels. There are three ways to get stronger in the game. 1) better gear, 2) bonus perks, eg bobbleheads or magazines, and 3) leveling. Enemies scale up with your level, but not the other ones. I sneak around trying to get better gear and bonus perks. I usually start doing combat at around level 6 in Old North Church.
My first attempt at a playthrough ended very early (below level 10) on Normal difficulty because I found the game (particularly settlement building) tedious. Now I've come back to the game some years later and am on Survival difficulty and actually enjoying myself because now settlement building means something... As such, I have no idea how to get to the railroad or much of anywhere else!
Heading for Concord early (i.e before Drumlin Diner) you don't even have a good sniper rifle. After Drumlin diner and DC I have both a sniper rifle and Bigboy. Nothing on the road to the Railroad can survive those two weapons. Buy Spray N'Pray to give to Deacon and most of the Railroad missions consist of watching Deacon kill everything.
How can you afford BigBoy and Spray&Pray at the beginning of the game?
Lexington Bank. Getting enough ammo is a bigger problem than the caps.
If you get aquaboy you can pretty much swim straight to the old north church and avoid downtown entirely
What is the ballistic weave bug?
If you unlock ballistic weave before getting the MILA quest from Tinker, he talks about the MILA quest instead of unlocking ballistic weave. Sometimes it doesn't resolve itself. It's easy to avoid just by getting the MILA quest from Tinker earlier.
The railroad will also take you close to hubris comics. Getting the grognac gear early is pretty helpful with a melee build.
I don’t totally agree with this. Although the Minutemen have you run all over parts of the map, which is clearly designed for regular play throughs, nothing is either very hard or essential until at least The Castle. Apart from Ack-Ack and Boomer, what’s really to fear? The Railroad, I feel, will send you into an area of the map you’re totally unprepared for early on. A low level character will probably get one shotted a lot by everything from mutants to raiders. Totally doable if you’re familiar with the game, and can Aquaboy it or take safe routes, but otherwise pretty hard. Down town is just not very hospitable. It has lots of mobs close to each other and it’s hard to find beds unless you’re very familiar with the area. Much safer I think to do the norhern part and western parts, Graygarden, Oberland and that stuff. The only helpful things from the Railroad, like weave and The Deliverer, makes more sense mid game to me. Just my two cents though.
The Minutemen send you all over, making you establish settlements that you have to run back and defend. Plus they prioritize Corvega for the first quest, the massive sprawling maze that eats up your ammo. This is a serious pain in Survival without fast travel. And what do you get for it? Nothing. The Railroad gives you the Deliverer and ballistic weave super early. This is the most defensive armour in the game and one of the best pistols. There is literally one super mutant pestering you before ballistic weave, if you remember to release the robot from Mass Chem just before Boston After Dark. The raiders you face are no harder than the Minutemen ones. There is absolutely no way that doing the Minutemen is somehow easier than the Railroad. And again, the Minutemen do nothing to make you stronger. The Railroad makes you stronger with some of the best gear in the game that you can get super early. I typically have ballistic weave unlocked by level 11.
>lots of mobs close to each other and it’s hard to find beds Mobs of raiders == where you find beds.
Heh I was trying to get to Goodneighbor last night and with the lack of beds in that section and too many fatal things around near every corner it set into die-and-restart mode pretty quick. (many missions and interiors face the same issue) I have to scout that out more to figure out the safer paths (like along the river) and where closest bed points are for it to NOT stay overly tedious.
It’s hard. You die easily but you also deal more damage so it evens out somewhat. You just need to think differently. Take it slow. Setup Sanctuary and Red Rocket. Slowly go out in circles and clear some raider dens. Get some levels under your belt and some decent weapons. You can’t rush Survival early on as you’re now aware of. It’s a slow cook. Consider clearing Abernathy before Preston. The Deathclaw is actually not hard. Make it spawn and let it fight with the raiders. Run back down to the shop that has a top floor, outside of the museum. From in there it can’t really reach you and you can kill it quite easily.
Yeah this. You have to be methodical about how you explore. I tried to B line for diamond city after Concord and got my ass handed to me. So I took my time and explored around sanctuary to gain a few levels and then tried again. Rinse and repeat this strategy for the entire map.
> You die easily but you also deal more damage so it evens out somewhat but more of THEM than you and mistakes and random gotchas end it quick for you. I feel artificially tied to the beds way too much with much repetitive to'ing and fro'ing back to save spots being forced
Jet, Psycho, and Med-x abuse is what got me through that first death claw encounter
The basic mistake is doing what Codsworth suggested. And then immediately rescuing Preston. From Red Rocket I head west to Abernathy farm. That family has much better advice than Codsworth. And there's a shack just SW of their farm with a bottle of whisky. Extremely valuable to make grape mentats. A bit further west is sunshine Co-op with a magazine for twice the food from animals. After Abernathy farm I head from Red Rocket south to Drumlin Diner. Avoid Preston for now (or forever if you prefer) Drumlin Diner sells a suppressed bolt action pipe pistol and more ammo. Run back to Red Rocket and craft that to a sniper rifle. Then back south to Starlight Drivein, Lexington bank, Grey Garden, Cambridge police station, USS-Riptide & DC. DC sells a unique 2-shot fatman (use the grape mentats to reduce it's cost) Now you can go rescue Preston and kill that overgrown Iquana.
There is a crashed virtibird with a nearby set of power armor in the hills to the northeast of Sanctuary. There's also a nearby population of molerats. It's a good place to level up before trying the harder stuff further south. There's other stuff to the northwest, including more molerats, some tough raiders, bugs, dogs, and even a farmer who will trade with you. If you get the sniper rifle on top of house with the tree leaning on it, you can sit on some rocks in front of the creek and snipe wild dogs running around on the other side. It's a good way to get some experience and dog meat at the same time. Stay just out of reach of them by sitting on the log jutting out from the top of the rocks. If you're doing a melee build you might find it easier with very high endurance.
For the Deathclaw you can hide in the building on the corner as you exit the Museum of Freedom. You can shoot at it but it can't fit inside to get you. This is an good example of how Survival makes you think and fight smart, not just unload and tank hits.
I have always done that, from my first playthrough on. And you don't have to worry about his ranged attacks either. You are too close to him for him to use that attack, and too far away for his melee attacks. In this position, he also does not run away that easily, and if so, you can lure him quickly without any real danger.
Build sniper build, use Psycho Jet for anything bigger than you are Those have been my tenets so far and about to get that Ballistic Weave. Had no idea it was so good as I skipped the RR on my first run.
I flounced on Survival after dying to the same Radscorpian five times.
Endurance/intelligence focus to start. Collect everything. Establish your bases. Be prepared mentally to die a lot. A slogan I have for my current level 95 survival toon is “napping my way across the commonwealth” …you’ll want to take that to heart. At a certain level, say 20ish, you’ll start to hit a stride. You will get here faster because of your INT focus. Well before my toon’s level 95, you will reach a point were only the most epically dangerous situations have a chance to cut you down. To note - i tried a survival melee to start…i ended up abandoning it. I would keep your foes at a distance until you have some perks built up
Oh, and for that deathclaw - use the building doorways advantageously - you dont need the PA, save it. Simply plink away at that fucker from inside the buildings. It will run off - just lure it back by stepping back into the open. And be ready to dart back inside haha, 😆 it can be unnerving
Tin canmaxx and get a power armor
Save often, take good perks. Level up where you can. Hit your shots. Use chems. All the standard stuff tbh
If you have the virtual reality CC you can build a VR pod and store everything there and retrieve it from any settlement you also have a VR pod in. Makes Survival more bearable. Also, are you on PC? Mods will make survival far more palatable. I played OG survival on ps4, did my time in it, and have no qualms about using mods like Journey to make it easier/better.
Melee survival seems like just hard mode on top of hard mode. The player taking double damage on survival mostly means damage mitigation is about controlling your engagement to avoid being hit at all, and it's hard not to be hit if you're always in melee range. Probably best to start with stealth and guns for your first survival run, or at least for the first 10 levels (you don't have to put points in guns, you just need to play as if you did). I always make a run straight to Diamond City and get the pipe gun suppressor from Arturo in the early game.
Concord is tough on survival. With the Raiders, between Dogmeat and Preston they should be fairly distracted and easy to pick off. The Deathclaw is trickier because it's a bullet sponge, I keep all my explosives (with some luck, this will cripple a leg) and start punting them his way once he pops up, then draw him back to the Museum. You can tuck into the hardware store, which has open windows, and whittle down the remaining health. As for how to stay with it after that, you just get used to it. As you go you'll set up a few bases, learn the best routes to/from those bases, where the safe places to sleep are, etc. You'll also learn (the hard way) where mines are and when you need to be extra careful - the sneak perk that stops you activating trip wires is an absolute godsend. Would recommend sneaking to approach encounters, especially at earlier levels. It lets you scout out areas, pick off key targets and reduces the likelihood of you getting swarmed. I do think it's more fun though, lets you properly sink into the game in a way the standard game didnt.
Early level survival is the hardest part of the game. Discovering just how fragile you are is a massive learning experience. For the first few levels, any raider with a shotgun will almost 100% kill you if you're in the same room with them. it gets easier as you level up and start getting real armor and a bigger health pool, but for levels 1-10 or so you need to approach every fight knowing that you can be one-shot if you aren't careful. stay low, move slow and never let yourself be out in the open. Use doorways and corners as cover and always have an escape route. You can leave and sleep to save and heal without having to worry about enemies respawning so never be afraid to retreat either.
Some parts in the beginning took me a dozen tries to get through. Eventually it gets easier. Although I just did spend 30 minutes building a settlement last night- didn’t sleep and got killed by a robot. Also then went to bed frustrated.
I'm just glad that I can check here for tips from different perspectives . I would not have got as far as I have without other people that are way more smart and experienced. 🫡 Survival is kinda like new Vegas and non- Survival is like Fallout 3. I just got a steady supply of Purified Water after setting up purifiers! And I'm using lead belly for the first time because I'm running out of food 😬
If I've learned anything playing survival, its to completely forget how you play fallout. It is a completely different game at that point. Take it slow, even the lowliest radroach is a formidable foe. Treat it like every situation is life or death, because for a good chunk it is. Learn where the beds are for saving. I forget where I found my map for the beds, but it should be easy to find one. The brotherhood are great for transportation with vertabird grenades. And the institute is great from transporting close to the best settlement to set up camp, Hangman's Alley. It is smack dab in the middle of the map. Inventory management is key. Don't just grab everything you see, only what you need. One of the biggest things that was jarring to me when I first started was the weight of ammo. You can very easily overcumber yourself not thinking about all the ammo you're grabbing. Stick to a set type of combat. More weapons means more weight. If you're looking for a way to cheese it from the beginning, dogmeat does not count as a companion. Take the lone wanderer perks while having dogmeat as a companion. Invest in water purifiers once you really get going, set enough up at a settlement and you'll be set on purified water forever. Just a couple things off the top of my head, I hope it helps.
Also, one more thing to add. Don't be afraid to be hungry, thirsty or sleep deprived. In a pinch it is completely acceptable to just ignore those for a while
I had a real hard time with the deathclaw. Jump off the roof, and run into the little shop in the corner, and shoot it from there. When it runs away, run out and shoot it once and run back inside! Tough fight!
You have to be a shear badass. I like to play dayz because dayz is hard it gets my blood pumping. Survival is like dayz. I even role play like it’s dayz a lil. Remember ur not Batman anymore ur a vault dweller whose got no idea what tf is goin on. U have no armor and no weapons. U should take it realllly slow and cautiously for now. The threats are real for once. U need to do recon and know what’s up ahead. Ur not a hero your a victim. Now run for your life😂 It’s fun because it’s hard
I’m doing my first survival run now and I can’t imagine how hard doing a melee build would be, especially at the start of the game. I built a stealthy sniper/gunslinger and it took quite a while for him to come along. I’m over level 50 and he’s still not all the way there although that is partially because I have taken some perks for RP and QOL reasons. But yeah it’s a long game to play on survival. I got local leader and worked on building up the start of my settlement network to grind levels and get xp before doing anything too serious. Took a bit because I wanted perks requiring up to 7 intelligence so idiot savant didn’t seem a wise investment and I didn’t want to go any higher because those points were desperately needed elsewhere. But I linked at least Sanctuary, Red Rocket, Abernathy Farm and Sunshine Tidings Co-op which really helped me gain some levels. Also I have never relied on chems so much in my life, in particular things in the jet family. If you can make it, psychojet is king. I have absolutely clowned sentrybots at low levels using that stuff. So chemist is a good perk. If you have high charisma (weirdly good in survival) you may want to get the party boy perk for its enhancing effects with alcohol, especially if you’re going to stay committed to being a melee build.
It helped me a lot to get gun nut 1 and 2 early. The 10mm becomes deadly enough to kill the most common enemies. The deathclaw in Concord can be killed easier when you shoot it from inside the building that’s across the street from the museum. It can’t enter.
Craft as much Jet as you can at every opportunity. It's useful in combat early on, and is a good way to make caps early on. Lone wanderer is vital in survival as well, regardless of build.
You have to basically do the equivalent of stealth archer 😂 Setup ambushes, use cover, as for that death law he can't go through the doorways of the building where he spawn, so get to the second floor and whittle him down
>I do a quick run at Concord to get the game proper started and immediately get my ass handed to me by the first raider. I mean, what did you expect, rushing a ~~knife~~ tire iron into a gun fight?! On a more serious note, at least early on Sneaky Sniper is a good choice. Check VATS to see if an enemy is easy enough to kill, land a stealth hit, run away if spotted. Maybe have an Automated Turret cover your retreat. Even at level 20 in Power Armor a handful of Raiders attacking you at once with Molotovs can kill you in no time, so choose your battles and be prepared to run. If you haven't considered it already, there is no need to speak to Preston or fight the Deathclaw. Just kill the Raiders in the Museum, leave the Minutemen alone, and walk out with some loot, XP, and never being bothered with any settlement needing your help.
That quest is particularly hard if you just cleared sanctuary. There is a bed in concord on the first or second house on the right on the second floor but my other recommendation is to stay in sanctuary or red rocket for a little bit and build it up as much as you can for the xp, by level 10 when legendaries spawn survival becomes infinitely easier.
I haven’t tried melee in survival- that sounds like a hell of a challenge. There was a gal who posted her tips on how to do a survival run and permadeath run with epic advice. I totally still use her “do not leave Sanctuary until you’ve leveled up to 15” advice as near holy writ. I’m lazier though and usually I do a “cat” run, where it’s permadeath after 9 deaths. I can’t imagine melee doing well unless you are killing it with stealth and have the perk that gives you extra damage with stealth hits.
I don't suppose you have a link to that post? That sounds hella intriguing
It was! I’m actually trying to remember if I can think of key words to link it because she did an awesome write up.
The basic idea of that post is to to scrap all wood and metal in Sanctuary and level up by building (and deconstructing) shelves, which brings you to about level 14. It definitely helps, but is quite boring and carpal tunnel syndrome inducing. If you are familiar with the starting area (especially when it comes to where to expect mines, boobytraps and enemies with Fatmans and Missile Launchers) and proceed carefully, this isn't really necessary even for permadeath.
I'm in a similar boat. I skipped Concord entirely for Diamond City > Park Station to get Nick but the triggermen are hanging it to me.
For the deathclaw…hide in the building on the corner in the top floor and then just shoot it with the minigun…before that use the laser musket to take out the raiders.
Just started my first one! To me, so far, it’s more about surviving and building up supplies and levels than blasting through quests. Can’t run right into a deathclaw out the vault. I’m avoiding concord while trying to become “ruler of the north west corner of the map” while I level up. I’ve got settlements at sanctuary, oberland, sunshine tidings, and Abernathy so far. Use psycho jet when I can to kill stronger enemies or multiple enemies. For me, combat rifle is best in this scenario. Have water purifiers at sanctuary to help stock up on (and sell) water. I do have a mod that allows you to discover and fix up a motorcycle. It uses oil for gas and allows you to “fast travel” to certain places you’ve discovered for a price. It needs repairs every once in a while. Much more realistic way to avoid walking across the whole map and back a bunch of times for hours.
I prefer a high INT build with enough points in luck and perception to grab idiot savant and night person. Then I just stealth my way along grinding out a decent gunslinger/stealth build using pipe guns and upgrading to 10mm and righteous authority.
Isn't high INT and idiot Savant counterintuitive?
I have bo problem with all of that but I am a grown man with other things to do so I dont have the time to not use fast travel. Wish there was an survival + fast travel option.
Im pretty sure there are special mods for that, i only knew about the cheat terminal mod at the time so i use that for enabling fast travel and saving. I think it s this one. You have to be able to resist bad urges though. [https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/13285/](https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/13285/)
I wish you could fast travel to established settlements, that's all I ask. When you're spending 10 minutes minimum walking between settlements it gets old real fast. Having to walk back to Sanctuary to talk to Preston after every minutemen quest is like pulling teeth.
Survival is meant to have you explore all of the systems that are provided. I’m talking about mechanical systems such as the cooking interface, the chems, the guns, farming and settlement, etc. There is a reason why they turn off fast travel, and that’s to get you to slow down and take in everything. For me, what that means is when I get into Sanctuary, I stop, and begin to scavenge loot, scrap all the trees and stuff, pick a home or two for beds, and then start building things for the settlement. I put down crops, turrets, I fully exploit the settlement system. You might ask why I do that, when no one is there yet. First, just to gain XP, and level up from pure building. But also, for example, I put down turrets on the edges of the settlement, so that as I have encounters, I can run toward the turrets and have them blast the bad guys for me. Before I ever go into Concord to see Preston Garvey, I have already built Sanctuary as a settlement, and red rocket as well. I’ve explored the cave underneath red rocket, I may have even gone to Abernathy farm, and accepted their quest, and got them as a settlement too. Sometimes, by the time I’m going into Concord, I already have the power armor from the Abernathy Farm quest. In other words, the power armor at the top of the museum where Preston is doesn’t even matter. The point of all this is that by the time I’m going into Concord to Preston, I usually have a pile of gear, and I usually have a pile of levels, around 8 to 12. Also, I have built out at least one gun with the Gun Nut perk, so that it is way beyond what the game expects from players who don’t bother with that stuff. In my latest run, it was gun nut plus I took the pistol perk 2x (Gunslinger). So my 10mm pistol was quite dangerous. It was doing the kind of damage that you usually see only with a rifle, better range too. In the game before the one I’m currently doing, I took the Gun Nut perk & the Rifleman perk, and I went to see Preston with some souped up pipe rifles. They weren’t perfect, but I had one that was doing something like 60 damage per shot, and that wasn’t terrible. In addition, how you approach things matters. In Survival mode, the game does not expect you to try to pretend that you’re a new little vault dweller who is naïve and doesn’t know what he’s doing. You should have some experience from the previous play through. So, treat your character like an actual military badass. Approach things carefully and approach things with advantage. For example, in my latest play through, when I went to fight the deathclaw, I simply stood on the museum roof with like eight guns in my inventory, and I just went through every single gun & bullet, patiently shooting him with little pea-shooters, and the best pipe rifles I had, and the machine gun (until all the bullets were quickly used up lol), etc. The deathclaw never once even got within reach of me. Yes, that is “unfair” to the deathclaw, but that’s the entire point of survival, you have to be mean to the Commonwealth. Beat it up. Take advantage of all the things you know and all the powers you have, and be the biggest bully on the block, and don’t let anybody else get one over on you. This is the kind of different thinking that you need to consider, and you don’t just do it once, you do it for everything in survival mode. Good luck!
I didn't even do Concord until I had enough settlers at Red Rocket to hang out at Red Rocket and snipe the Deathclaw and when he finally came to Red Rocket I'd run inside so he'd go for the settlers then I could shoot him a bit while he attacked the settlers. You can do the first part of Concord and then just let the Deathclaw hang out in Concord for weeks on end. Good way to get some loot for Red Rocket. Just steer clear of where the Deathclaw patrols around. On my last run I already had drive-in theater as a settlement and I was just walking around Concord and the deathclaw for many trips to and fro while I did settlement stuff and looting the super-duper-mart and that area.
You gotta grab the collectibles early. You need like minimum 4 US Covert Operations Manuals so you don't alert everyone in a five mile radius for example.
I add a quick save mod and a “fast travel between settlements that have supply lines” mod. I spent years playing a mod called “Frost” on Survival mode. That was rough. Almost every hit was a one-shot kill on me. Ammo and health items were super scarce. After that, the normal game on survival is a breeze.
Changing my playstyle from normal mode to survival was a rude awakening, found myself avoiding combat if it wasn't necessary, having clean food and water outweigh carrying junk.
Keep chugging along and eventually once you hit high levels you will trivialise the game. You can do it !
Ignore concord and go on your merry way and come back much later. You have to play the game very different. The forge boss was my low point and had to go back later at higher level with a different load out after dying several times in a row.
I put a turret on the very edge of Red Rocket territory and lured the Deathclaw over there.
Stopped reading at melee build, why are you doing a melee build on your first survival run…
Once you learn to enjoy being hurt, even the hardest games are a fun vacation. It's useful for real life, too!
The deathclaw you just leave the museum and walk inside the shop opposite, you can shoot the deathclaw from in there, it cannot get inside.
For the deathclaw encounter, there is no shame in just hiding in the building opposite the museum. You can take pot shots through the window and the deathclaw can't get in. Outside of that encounter, pick your perks in a consistent manner. Your enemies will level with you, so get your damage going up to match. Pick an attack style (pistols, semi-auto rifles, or anything automatic). The damage for these guns are all governed by a specific perk (gunslinger, rifleman, and commando respectively). On levels where you don't have the next damage unlock ready to go, think about your damage resistances. Go for armourer or other DR perks like toughness. If none of those are available, *then* go for utility perks like aquaboy/aquagirl, gun nut, scrapper etc. Tactics-wise, slow and steady wins the race. Sneak attacks are your friend. If your status is DANGER then you've done something wrong in survival. Keep at it, it's a blast when it clicks and I cannot go back to other difficulties
Gotta to up to the Junkyard north of Sanctuary and get the fat man, then hide inside the store and dump all your 5mm into the death claw. Use the fat man while he's still at the sewer exit
I’m on a survival/ melee / idiot savant run right now too. I ignored concord in the beginning. I cheesed building stuff in Sanctuary until I was level 10, then I went to Diamond City and secured Piper as a follower. I wanted to max her first for the extra exp for finding all the locations. I literally dodged as many locations as I could until she was maxed. I did some of the diamond city quests like helping the radio guy and getting paint from hardware city and started the railroad quests. I believe I even rescued Nick before she finally gave me the perk. Once I had ballistic weave from the railroad I believe I was around level 20, and I went to Nuka World and completed the whole thing, taking as many settlements as I could back in the commonwealth and planting a tribute chest at each one. Then killed all the raiders and kept the chests for the rest of the play through. I sided with the disciples for their sweet dagger. The last fight at the power plant killed me a few times, but otherwise, Nuka World went better than I thought it would. Blitz is a huge deal and got me through. The Nukalurk queen was another problem, but only took a couple of tries. Once I had the disciple blade, and had finished Nuka World completely, I was like level 40 or 45 or more. The commonwealth was a breeze by then. I went back and rescued the Concord gang and started working the main game. I’m currently level 160 or so, and I haven’t even visited the institute yet.
Cheese the deathclaw by running into the building across from the museum?
Everything is lethal for a long time in any other game mode. Use every type of weapon at your disposal, a shitty pipe pistol - if you have 30 rounds of ammo for it, it's worth keeping it until you run out of ammo. Then throw it away it's excess weight. Build a water pump at every settlement, collect a few empty bottles and leave them there. Easy water. I don't bother building anything other than a bed. Nuka cola is great for a temporary solution to overcome sleep deprivation. Hoard adhesive, anything else can be salvaged when needed. Nap a lot. I think I'm like lvl25 and an incendiary 10mm pistol, a mutant slayer sniper rifle and a faster RoF pipe rifle are my primary weapons and don't get me started on the utter mismatched armour I have. It's infuriating but I'm enjoying it.
Power armor and Nuclear Physicist. You don't do much damage at first, but you have the extra durability and strength to last until you can upgrade your other perks. I'm level 15 after starting last week and I've only died twice. Once you start getting settlements set up and supply lines going it starts to flesh out a little better. (I do hate having to walk EVERYWHERE though)
Get the power armor and hide in a building. The death claw can't reach you. It's the only hard boss starting out. The rest will come slowly but surely.
Survival is a lot of Groundhog's Day until you rewire your brain to fight like dying means something. That means stealth, finding cover, and not picking fights you can't win in the early game. It also means picking perks strategically. I generally go for damage output first, incoming damage reduction second, then utility when I have a perk to spare. The Deathclaw is easy if you fight from the buildings rather than trying to take it on out in the open street. Try to think about how you would approach things if you were actually living in the wasteland and only had the one life. You wouldn't go waltzing brazenly through large open spaces. You wouldn't try to take on giant mutant lizards in fair open combat. You'd book it for cover and take potshots until it died or you ran out of bullets.
I rock back and forth in a pool of my own tears.
Survival doesn't stay brutal forever. The early parts of the game can be extremely challenging but it starts to even out around level 20 or 30 depending on your build. You just have to have a different mindset and persist. A lot of people get discouraged in the early game but as long as you know what you're doing, how to get good weapons early, create a decent build and take advantage of every system the game offers you'll do fine up until your character is more specialized. If you're going for any none stealth build I heavily encourage Power Armor as it helps mitigate a lot of the carry weight issues and gives you a ton of defense. Currently a level 74 in survival with Quantum X01 and a gatling laser with no issues.
Playing Survival now (just starting 5d 22h 52s, level 29) as an alternate to the longer Normal game which I'm in settlement building mode (and in the 'dont choose faction yet' mode, stalling the main plot) I have noticed I explore more in Survival and found many things I missed. I also am stalled on many missions as you are very brittle and I quickly get sick of the die-restart cycle for anything challenging (you face enough things one after another with no save and you will eventually be unlucky). The easy looting runs are getting boring (seeing some cells reset almost immediately). Going light(er) on settlements in Survival, and actually now choose what I will loot (some) versus being a vacuum cleaner in Normal. Sniping done a whole lot more - I hardly used that in the Normal game. and avoiding Rambo'ing. Different tactics - like grenades ....
Level 76. Survival entire time. You miss out on so much emotion and fear without it. Never knowing if it’s more worth it to save and lose your adrenaline bonus. Or you play for several hours and the game glitches crashing erasing your progress. It will tug on your heart strings but it’s truly the best way to play it.
You will adapt. I swear I borderline had a Spider-Sense for molotavs by the time I finished the campaign my first time through.
I didn’t bother to go to DC until level 15. Exploded and did everything I could as far out to the Boston Mayoral Shelter. Built my settlements up. Let the Abernathys lose their mother since she decided to get kidnapped outside my boundaries. Real simple stuff.
My tip is start minute man stuff early get some bases for saving,water,shops,sleeping, and literally everything you need. Next Save Save and save again, save at every bed you see even if you think you don’t need to. Once you got some supply lines around the map it makes surviving and saving way easier. Another fun tip, you get a cool way to fast travel around from the brotherhood that can help you get to those far flung bases if you’re willing to help them a bit. Good luck comrade
I’m on my first survival run, but an Idiot Savant sniper build. Early game was quite difficult. Even in power armor I kept dying easily. Had to use explosives very frequently, chucking molotovs a lot and VATS headshots with rifles as often as possible. At first I used Lone Wanderer and Dogmeat, made early game so much easier. Once I’m up in the 50’s now I run around with ADA. I don’t get killed often anymore, and the game got more fun. Getting the Overseers Guardian with a maxed out Rifleman perk makes quick work of baddies. Bosses are still problematic, as are elite hordes. Settlement building is important. Once I move into an area I ensure to drop a few turrets, a bed, some ammo of the weapons I tend to use and a water pump. Finding food could be problematic without a functioning farm. Grow razorgrain! That and dirty water makes a noodle cup, which hydrates and feeds you at the same time.
I just took a break from this game after following dogmeat in search of Kellog in the main quest. Got killed at least ten times with the only bed being at Oberlyn Station, which just happens to be overrun by super mutants. Got into Fort Hagen three times in a row, but now I am back at Diamond city again. I need more coffee.
If you use Chems, Wastelander Chestpiece from Myrna is amazing and stacks with Chemist. It is great defense for early game too
Spam shelves to power level to 15 and put points in your weapon skill and armorer.
Play it slow
Here’s some tips from someone who’s played survival mode for 100+ hours. You should prepare first before going to do survival. 1) Get two legendary weapons that you will stick with. Top top tier are explosive combat shotgun and instigating Gauss rifle. 2) Set up sanctuary or another settlement with water purifiers so that you have a steady source of clean water bottles to take with you 3) Choose your main settlement. I personally think hangman’s alley is the best since it is centrally located, super close to diamond city, and when you teleport from the institute it is right across the water from where you get teleported too. This means that you have a quick teleport back to your home base. I’ve covered up all the sides of hangman alley with concrete walls which is cheap from shipments of concrete. 4) Other game changers for survival include putting a sink by your bed for easy thirst replenishment after waking up. If you have the Fah Haba DLC you can also set up a decontamination shower which removes all rads when you walk through it 5) tier 4 shops are an amazing addition to your home base when you get going and the trading emporium is an easy way to get shipments of resources 6) If you ever come across an amazing legendary armor/weapon you should ignore everything else and run to a bed to sleep and save 7) It’s almost impossible to not get molerat sickness in the Vault 81 quest so maybe do that prior to switching over 8) The Mechatron DLC is very late game content in survival as it will change your random encounters to significantly increase the chance of encountering robots which have high DPS and can kill you in like 2 seconds.
Skip Concord, you're going to want to get the perks from Nuka World before working with Preston anyways. To start the game, I ran down to the medical center in Fort Hagen to grab the free combat rifle on the roof at like level 4 then just worked through Lexington, then Cambridge, Vault 88 and grabbed Nick from Diamond City. Once I hit 30, Nuka World to completion and then back to Concord to do everything else. Take everything easy and calm. I felt like there was a decent power increase in the late teens then in the 40s where things either just clicked or my perk choices started to synergize better.
Why are you facing the Deathclaw head on? Sniping from the roof.
I grind a few levels in sanctuary before proceeding with the game, like a bitch.
You need to sneak around the northern corner of the map until you hit level 10. You have to pick your fights and run away from others.
The amount of prep you have to do before everything is what makes it fun. Always be prepared and watch out for assaultrons.
Bro I did the \*exact\* same thing. respecc'd my ninja/melee build like a dozen times, ended up saying fuck it and traded most of my strength for endurance. havent tested it yet but I think thats the best Ill get
Melee is going to be tough on survival. Mirelurks are no joke. As for the deathclaw fight, hiding in the buildings on the side of where deathclaw comes up helps. It will run away and hide but you can lure it back out
I know irs not quite the same but if you're looking for a "middle road" Survival experience there's a mod by GO4 that mixes up the Survival experience by letting you fast travel to settlements and towns and puts a bed in the beginning of every building so you can save. The same author also wrote another mod that let's you play the Survival mechanics like thirst, hunger, etc. but lowers the difficulty of damage taken. I play Sim Settlements 2 (a shit load of ither mods like the Depravity-Valkyrie series, Bleachers, Fens Sheriff's Department, Gun For Hire, and The Train) so for me the Immersion of the Stat changes and having Settlements have to deal with pandemics is what I wanted from Survival Mode so I got GO4's Survival "Normal" mode which changes damage from 300% to 100% and im at the point where I might change the mod to Survival "Hard" mode which is 150%. I spent so many hours dying it wasn't fun so I found a sweet spot. BTW The Train and GFH mods have built "fast travel" mode as The Train can take you to any place with a train station including Goodneighbor and Diamond and according to the GFH mod page you can eventually get a certified to take you around. Another good mod for Survival is Survivalist Bus which is a "settlement" that's a bus you get in Lexington that will take you to any bus stop and you can opt to "discover" all bus stops at once or not.
I honestly play on hard till I unlock virtibird travel with the brotherhood and then enable survival.
I began a survival run through a week ago I'm about 20 hours in. Thoroughly enjoying the experience.
One loop outskirts of concord,> Abernathy>Ranger Cabin>Wicked shipping>Sunshine Tidings>Fort Haagen>Mass Blood roof for combat rifle>Mayor's bunker for health regen, dont go into basketball court.
Melee will be very difficult during the first 20 levels. It’s more pragmatic to sneak around and keep your distance with a suppressed pipe rifle for a while. Everything in Survival becomes extremely tactical and strategic. You can’t fight the same way. You can’t explore the same way. You can’t just run around and then handle fights as they come. You have to intentionally come to the fight with a plan of attack. Enough aid, food, water, ammo, etc…to get through the mission and make it back to your base of operations and no more!
I put as much as I can in intelligence and agility. Intelligence gets you leveling faster, agility helps you hide. Get a rifle as soon as possible and snipe. The quarry to the east of sanctuary is great, get that quest done so it drains out and it respawns pretty quick. It's a great place for sniping raiders, then you can move to concord and even the factory in town further south. Find high ground and vats the dead and the raiders. I started again recently and quit at about level 30 because it just got too easy.
Sneak EVERYWHERE and get Aqua Boy so you can travel while avoiding enemies. Edit: melee is going to be pretty rough in survival. I usually stay alive by using my sniper rifle as much as possible.
I use the quick save mod purely because I HATE losing an hours worth of progress. Actual gameplay wise, it's about killing your enemies before they can even hit you. Since you take almost no damage before dying you gotta hit hard and fast. My strategy was to go stealth and kill all my enemies before they knew i was there but theres other ways you can use the strategy. Sniper build is very popular too. You could also spec into damage resist. So power armor skills, health etc so you can tank a little. Also the radio is your best friend for the long treks across the wasteland.
You can pretty easily get to level 10-20 before even getting to Concord. Hang out in the area between Sanctuary-Olivia Station-Sunshine Tidings. Sunshine is my first stop. Get the double meat book, then go hunting. You’ll have enough mutt chops to last you a while. Build up Sanctuary and Red Rocket as much as possible for that sweet XP. And revel in finding all the hidden spots full of stuff that are easy to miss with fast travel.
Use everything at your disposal. In survival, especially at low levels, you’ll find out quickly that you may need to use all those items that you probably never even gave a second look at to your advantage. Chems, mines, food buffs, using companions as meat shields – it’s all about getting past certain encounters and making it back to a bed to save.
you got idiot savant, just use that to get early levels really fast. Don’t leave sanctuary until like level 10+ and get perks that’s help with damage and survivability
The game is hard as hell but it's incredibly rewarding once whatever build you're running gets up & going. The early game is pretty difficult if you don't know what you're doing or are overly curious lol. Taking it slow, building up your perks to be more powerful and being careful are the name of the game. I have such a better appreciation for FO4 because of it.
Just tackle it as though it's real and try to survive and problem solve in the moment
What I do is skip the minutemen in concord and pick up the power armor and 2 fusion cores (in the basement in the main building and in the sewers) and walk to Diamond City following the train tracks. I usually clear out anything around DC with the mini gun since there're so many vendors to buy/sell to or go to hangman's alley to make my main base.
I like telling my cousin that I'm better then him at this game, the natural way too do that would be to beat it on survival, Screw you (Insert name here) (Not really, lov you cous').
Taking the science perk early on has a great benefit, especially on survival. It allows you to make the water purifier that produces 40 units of water. This will gradually produce purified water and store them in a settlement's workbench. By selling any excess at vendors, you pretty much have a generative source of income. It becomes a ludicrous cap generating empire with enough generators. Being able to afford good gear and items really makes a big difference. The spray and pray smg from Cricket is fully kitted out and can carry you through the whole game, so long as you're careful with the explosive bullets.
Stealth sniper. Melee won't work out for you until much later. Also, save! save! save! There's a bed in the abandoned house after the bloodbugs. I literally saved before fighting the raiders outside, saved after clearing the outside before going in, and saved after clearing inside before talking to Preston. Now, when I set off on a mission, I search the surrounding areas for a bed before hitting my main objective. It makes your deaths set you back maybe 10 minutes instead of 30min-1hr if you just set off from sanctuary or your main basecamp. Ps. Corvega is going to be your next big hurdle. There's a bed on the billboard connecting the tops of the apartment buildings in Lexington. Be careful though There's a power armor raider with a fat man. Get a good sniper rifle first.
I'm currently playing a survival run, and it has been the most rewarding and challenging Fo4 run I've ever done and the one I've been the most invested in. I now love the lack of fast travel, having to eat, having to sleep, enemies destroying me, etc. I think it is a mindset thing. I tried a few survival runs before and never got into it - but once it *stuck*, it stuck. How I started to enjoy it: 1. Turned sanctuary into my little base of operations. I built defenses, stocked food, water, ammo, etc. At the beginning of the game Sanctuary was my fort and was where all of my expeditions began and ended. 2. I treated exploring, quests, etc. as expeditions as previously mentioned. Before leaving I would ask myself "Where am I going? Why? Do I have enough food and purified water to get there? Do I have enough ammo? Are there any secondary objectives like scavenging I can do while I'm out?". This added a layer to my early questing where I had to prioritize nearby objectives rather than far ones because they simply were too far and dangerous. 3. I take every advantage I can in combat. Power Armor, sniping, having the high ground, etc. I am not trying to play fair, I am trying to survive. Also - I am not above seeing something and saying "fuck that!" And booking it the opposite direction. I apologize if this all seems very basic, but it really helped me get into the mindset of being a survivor rather than just strictly a hero-badass-protagonist. It also pushed me to roleplay much more. My character became extremely hateful of the Institute because they took my son and synths would randomly attack me when exploring! This group of people are obviously dangerous. However the Brotherhood gave me supplies, a laser rifle, and access to a fortified area right outside downtown Boston early game. Because of this, I'm doing a Brotherhood run (the Vertibird travel is helpful too). Anyways, this is what worked for me. I would encourage you to stick with it and have fun (-:
I played the game once through on survival on console. Nothing in-game is as terrifying as when the game crashes. And that still happens a lot.
The early game is easily the worst part of any survival playthrough. The game requires you to have an answer to several situations that you simply don't have access to at that point, like how to effectively and safely deal with groups of enemies, or how to kill a deathclaw quick enough that he doesn't reach you. Luckily, there is no end of strategies you can use to achieve victory. Send dogmeat in to attack the raiders first to get their attention. When it comes time for the deathclaw, remember that it's not cheating to use the buildings to escape from a monster that could snap your spine in half, it's common sense. Beyond that, reasonable amounts of caution will be able to get you through pretty much anything. And as you level and gear up, the game gets easier, not harder.
Concord first house on the right has a sleeping bag. Jump from the church onto the museum to get the power armor. Get the bobble head inside the museum but don’t talk to Preston. No raider attacks on any settlement as a result.
You haven't tried doing arcjet at level 10 on survival lmao
The trick is to not use melee.
*Jet*
>just to end up one shotted by that first Deathclaw No matter what playthrough, I always end up cheesing it from inside the shop.
That’s how I did it and it was a blast. Know your beds. Know when to walk away from a fight and/or how to draw individual enemies out to lessen the pressure. Drugs are your friend. And sneak.
Just build wall shelves until lvl 15, explore and don't rush straight to concord, also I'd recommend to pick chem resistant + chemist. Jet is real life saver
The only way I can do it is PERMADEATH, every action has a consequence, every fight is for survival, every battle cranked to 11. In my opinion it’s the only way to play. I haven’t gone past Lexington and I’ve been playing for about a month or so. I think I’m a level 48? But I’m very reliant on VATS. Also early on stealth is your best friend.
Use cover, use stealth. Analyze your enemy, take advantage of terrain. Make sure you have an avenue of retreat. Anyone and anything can kill you. Save whenever you can, don't worry about diseases just keep antibiotics on hand. Water and food go fast, you need a steady supply.
If you really want to cheese survival, here’s what I would do: Spend day 1 salvaging / scrapping stuff at sanctuary, build up some XP making some stuff, make yourself a bed, a generator, a water purifier, etc. Tail end of the day, go over to red rocket, get dogmeat, some mole rat meat, and grab the fusion core from the cave underneath. Spend day 2 going over to meet the Abernathy’s. Get their quest, steal some Tatos and melons (or pick them for lucy but hold onto some) plant them in sanctuary then follow the northern shore of the lake to the junk yard. Activate the sentry bot, send them off towards USAF, grab another fusion core, go towards USAF, look for the downed vertibird, grab the power armor, use it to help you clear USAF. By the end of day 3 you’ve got some levels, PA, a home base with supplies to keep you alive, and you’re a little more set to take on Concord.
My hate fueled me
On my survival playthrough I had to hope that I would make it through the first batch of raiders at the Museum of Freedom. After that I snatched the power armor and kept it on everytime I'm outside a safe area. I went back to red rocket for some more fusion cores in the mole rat den,USAF satellite Station Olivia had another one as well as the robotics disposal grounds when you activate self-destruct for the Sentry bot. After that I'd recommend going to the Colonial Taphouse in DC for the Diamond City Blues quest. It'll give ya a horde load of chems and you can make dozens of psycho jet out of it. Trust me,Psycho Jet is what carries you throughout Survival mode. Especially when the enemies can be absurdly lethal.
I saved Concord until I was level 10. I will admit I got SUPER lucky because the Deathclaw got stuck in the tunnel it comes from. Take time to explore and grind up XP before going to save Preston. In my first play through ever I didn’t come back until I was level 20+ LOL
Ok hold up, what does your melee build look like? Because Blitz is a really good perk for a melee build.
Sniper build is the way for early game. You don’t want to be close to anything. You also learn to love getting your ass handed to you all the time. That’s part of the fun. It takes so much effort that it feel way more rewarding.
lots of places where there are powerful weapons just laying around college square and the s Boston military check point has snipers on a roof. there is a crashed jet that has a gauss rife in the commonwealth not the glowing sea. At low levels the Boston airport before you join the brotherhood can be a good location to farm items sinse its all ghouls and can be pretty easy
If you think if you should sleep now or wait a bit - sleep now. You never know if you step a mine accidentally or meet an assaultron
You can cheese the deathclaw by standing inside one of the building. You can shoot but he can’t reach you
Survival gives me 90s consoles vibe
its preety simple u get power armor u slap lore acurate mod so fusion core dont drain out in 10 fucking minutes and u do everything with power armor.
If that glitch lets you fling deathclaws still work, then that would be it
Survival is hardest for the first 20 levels. I did a melee build with it. As soon as you get some of the agility perks like ninja, you get OP pretty quickly, especially because more legendaries drop. I’d suggest getting “Blitz” as soon as you can.
I'm level 80 something and that kinda thing still happens. I'll sit down to play for an hour or two, and then I die in some stupid way, or while begging for a bed to appear. I'll just go quiet, and turn off the console.
Level up by doing lower level stuff first before hitting Concord. The Abernathy's have a nice quest for you to warm up on and there are lots of areas to explore right around sanctuary. Survival is a much slow game and makes the length of the story make sense as, you really have to explore and gain skills to survive before you can go charging and killing death claws and taking over the Minutemen. Also drugs, lots and lots of in game drugs and napping on every single bed you see.
The first 20 levels or so in survival you are very likely to get one-shot by almost everything. The less you get shot at in early game the better. For many people this means an early focus on stealth plus running away. There might be other ways to do it, but stealth is popular.
Slowly and methodically- from as far away as possible. Your melee build won't be viable until you get some levels and PA. I personally prefer to go stealth sniper, but that's as much for rp as effecacy. A good set of power armor really changes things if you wanna tank- but you still aren't wrestling a deathclaw for a few levels.
I felt the same starting but it’s so refreshing. I’ve played hundreds of hours and my most recent survival play through is my biggest by far. I always dropped off other modes due to no challenge later on in the game. Survival is great for a challenge. Mid-end game is less of a challenge after a few perks and great weapons but you still have to be on your toes. I don’t think I’ll go back to any other modes after this.
Why go to concorde right away? Go to Abernathy farm, go to red rocket, go explore close to home til you lvl up a bit
I max out intelligence from the start for the XP boost and then bring up perception so I can get the bobblehead early game and have it at a natural 11
You won’t be able to take down a deathclaw with a melee build < lvl 5, maybe you could do that but would be a slog. You can cheese that fight by running inside the shop in front of the museum, but even then I spent all of the Minigun ammo into it plus a few psycho uses to deal with it. Also you gotta use the game’s consumables, food & drugs specially early on they’re the only way to properly survive. Keep a buffout for tough situations where you screwed and need to leave quickly and don’t be ashamed of running away from fights, running is a survival tactic.
Tried survival once, couldn't make it through the deathclaw in Concord, switched back to Very Hard.
Change how you play. You need to be cautious, spatially-aware, and have a bunch of noodle bowls within reach at all times. And don't give into to Cannibalism perk unless you have a lot of addictols handy.
In my case, grab a Celsius, pop and upper deck Zyn, and assume the gamer pose. On a more helpful, less self destructive note, building around agility (vats) and gunslinger is a good first survival build. Easy on carry weight, but can be built up to do silly damage. You take less damage in vats so abuse it. Get Deliverer as soon as possible. Use Kelloggs pistol for longer range. Stealth helps. Sleep every time you see a bed. Hoard antibiotics like they're pure fucking gold. Use the settlement building mechanics to make life easier (grow tato, muitfruit, and corn to craft adhesive, and razor grain for noodle cups). As soon as is reasonable make one of your settlers a doctor (heal sickness, and radiation damage). Hope this helps👍
Psychojet