Fallout 76 Beginner’s Guide

With the release of the highly-rated Fallout TV show, Fallout 76 is seeing new and old players return to the Wasteland. Whether you have just started your journey or played before, Fallout 76 has seen some new changes to the game that overhauled many of the core mechanics. Here’s a detailed guide for new players and explain what they can do to survive in Appalachia.

Creating Your Character

You are given two options for character creation after completing the tutorial mission. You can either start at level 2 and get a fresh new experience or get a free boost to level 20 with a weapon and stat specialization. Taking the level 20 option will give you a free weapon based on your specialization and some decent armor. For players starting out new, starting with the level 2 option is ideal, as you can take the time to learn the many systems of Fallout 76.

Your core character stats are called S.P.E.C.I.A.L or Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. Strength determines your melee attack damage and overall carry weight. Perception increases your V.A.T.S. accuracy and ability to detect targets on the radar. Endurance is tied to your health value, Action Point drain while running, and disease resistance. Charisma determines vendor prices and party experience gains and unlocks new dialogue options for quests. Intelligence dictates your experience gains, hacking skills, and crafting with technologically advanced gear. Agility increases the number of Action Points you have and improves your sneak skill, and Luck determines the amount of supplies you can loot and increases your critical hit modifiers.

Every SPECIAL stat is associated with a pool of perks that make your character more powerful. Some perks focus on offensive power, while others increase your chances of survival or are more utility-based for better quality of life. These perks are card-based, with ranks improving their value and a point value that consumes your SPECIAL points. Selecting a duplicate perk card allows you to increase that perk’s values but also increases the SPECIAL point cost of that perk. Currently, the level cap for gaining SPECIAL points is at 50, but you can continue leveling up past 50 indefinitely and continue to get perk cards per level. This is useful for swapping out cards if you need utility, survival, or damage.

Don’t worry about picking a build at the start of the game, as you can redistribute your SPECIAL points for free at any time. If you’re a beginner, take the time to experiment with your SPECIAL stats and learn the many perks you have access to.

Hunger and Thirst

Surviving in the Wasteland requires a healthy supply of food and water to keep yourself alive. You will get buffs to your health, AP, Strength, Endurance, and disease resistance for being well-fed and hydrated. While you can find food in ruins, food cooked with mutated animal meat and plants will not only sate your hunger but give even more stat buffs and health than Pre-War food. Make sure that you gather the meat of the creatures you kill so that you always remain in the best condition for harder encounters.

Building A Basecamp

At the start of the game, you are given a C.A.M.P. item that serves as the core of your base-building venture. Fallout 4 players should be familiar with this system, but for those who are not, your base can be used to generate food, water, storage, and crafting services. You will need resources like wood, steel, and other materials to build a structure. These can be gained by gathering Junk items during your travels and depositing them into your camp storage or scrapping them at any crafting station you see.

When building a camp, prioritize the cooking, weapon, armor, power armor, and tinkerer workstations first. You can use the resources you gathered to craft ammo, repair, and modify your gear. After getting these stations, you can start building other peripheral base structures that can aid you, like crops, turrets, water pumps, and generators to power the base.

Player Health and Conditions

Aside from your usual health bar, you can also suffer from a myriad of status effects that make the game harder for you. There’s Radiation, which reduces your maximum health. Standing in irradiated spots, being hit by irradiated enemies, swimming in water, or being out on a rad storm will cause you to take radiation per second. Using Rad-X will make you resist radiation while RadAwat removes it.

Diseases are specific debuffs obtained by eating raw or rotten food, getting hit by diseased enemies, or just being exposed to the elements in general. These can include reduced SPECIAL stats, increased damage taken, or increased AP costs. If you are infected, use a Disease Cure or Antibiotic to remove them.

Mutations are status effects that positively and negatively affect your character. These traits can be obtained by taking enough radiation damage or drinking a serum. Certain perks can counteract the adverse effects of a mutation, while some lock your mutations so that they can never be cured. Mutations can be decisive to your build once you know how to manage them.

Addictions are negative status effects that have a chance to occur after consuming a Chem item. These effects will remain until you consume the Chem you’re addicted to. However, you can cure yourself by consuming Addictol, a rare Chem found only in specific locations.

The Leveling Process

For the early game, you can gain XP by killing enemies, crafting items, and questing. Many questlines can be found all over the Wasteland, marked by hollow yellow markers on the world map. Completing these questlines can reward you with a good chunk of experience, consumables, and quest-unique gear with their set modifiers.

Fallout 76 also has public events that require a community effort to complete but can be a massive source of experience. These events offer substantial rewards, with many high-level enemies spawning in these events. You can gain even more experience by simply hitting a high-level enemy once and letting the best players kill them for you. Fast traveling to those events are free, so always participate in them whenever they’re active.

The best way to boost your experience gains is by joining a public team, as they provide an experience multiplier based on the number of people in the team. Don’t be afraid to join a random public team, as many experienced players are welcoming to new players.

Endgame Activities

Once you reach level 50, you can partake in two different activities. The first is your Daily Ops, where you participate in a semi-randomized dungeon mission with set objectives. Completing a Daily Op will reward you with Caps, experience, Legendary gear, and other currencies. Completing a Daily Op with an entire team of 4 players will give you a massive XP boost after completing admission.

The ultimate endgame activity for Fallout 76 is the Expeditions, which are long-form missions that span multiple objectives. These are the most challenging missions in the game but also the most rewarding. Expeditions are large maps with randomized objectives and multiple side objectives that can be completed for additional rewards. Two Expedition maps are currently in the game: The Pitt and Atlantic City. Completing an Expedition will reward you with up to 6 Legendary weapons and armor and Stamps, a currency that can be spent to purchase crafting plans and other endgame items.

Tips and Tricks

• Enemies drop ammo based on the gun you kill them with. For example, if you kill a Raider with a 10mm pistol, they will always drop 10mm ammo. If you want to save up on ammo, always bring a melee weapon until you craft or loot enough ammo for your guns.

• Always loot junk items you can find whenever you’re out exploring, as you can scrap them to reduce item weight, and workstations are found in many areas of interest.

• You don’t have to engage in PvP if you don’t want to. There is no reward for participating in it, and you can even disable it by activating Pacifist mode in the settings, making sure that you never accidentally trigger a duel.

• Bring Buffouts and other consumables that buff your Strength and Endurance, as overencumberance will be a frequent problem when hauling loot from events and other quests.

• Stimpaks and RadAways are usually dropped as Diluted variants, so use those first before consuming the regular base item.

• There is no other penalty for dying than dropping all the junk you were carrying, but even then, you can always retrieve them from the place you died.

• Always join a group even if you are playing solo, as you can gain an XP bonus or more points toward your stats.