Artifact: Boiled-Down Fallout 2 Handbook

Gifted or not Gifted

The big choice lies in whether or not to get the Gifted trait. It is the best trait by far, worth the setback for most players, but not getting Gifted lets you get skill-points faster so that you may enjoy the game more in its early to mid-late stages. And in end-game (level ~24) you have hundreds of extra skill points, allowing you to have all necessary and all useful skills at 100, and some skills past 100 (such as Science), which is nice for experiencing more game content.

Other traits

• Finesse is decent, but gets obsolete with the Sniper perk, so it'll benefit you only up until then. That said, that’s most of the game.
• Fast Shot will disable your sniping ability (to aim at specific body parts), but with it you can often fire more shots. Choose whether you want to be a tactical sniper or a bullet-raining commando. Keep in mind that aimed shots in Fallout 2 are not limited to sniper rifles - you can do it with most any weapon, excepting shotguns and big guns.
  • The tactical sniper may not need to spend as many points on LK, which enables him to get more CH, EN or PE. A very minor tradeoff is needing a bit more weapon skill.
• Sex Appeal is mostly for bartering with shopkeepers of opposite gender to your own when your CH is low. Most shopkeepers are male, so this is only useful for females. There is some “fun” stuff that this trait will enable, however it's nothing that Kama Sutra Master, Sexpert or Gigolo can't do, and those do not include a penalty with NPCs of the same gender.
• Good Natured makes you gain more useful skillpoints (Doctor +15, Speech +15) than you lose useful ones (one or two combat skills -10 each), so it's a fine choice if you don't want any other trait. Prepare to suck hard in Temple of Trials (the very first mission), though.
• Small Frame is for opening up an additional attribute point if you're not planning to loot a lot of stuff. Remember that if your ST is high you can simply take points off ST and lose less carrying capacity than you would by picking this trait.

All traits besides these are crap. Some downright injure your performance, such as Bruiser (losing AG 4 for ST 2?) and Skilled (you level up for perks, not for skills) to name a few.

First, understand that attributes will never go above 10. If you set something to 10 and get a further bonus in the game, that bonus is wasted. That’s why this part is so important.

Strength

Set Strength to 4 or 5 (recommended). It will be increased by 5 points in the game (surgery +1, armour +4). You can’t cut back to less than 4 because good guns require at least this much, and it’ll be some time before you get Strength boosts. 3 might be feasible, you stick with the 10mm pistol and let your henchmen do the heavy damage until you find power armour. 2 strength should be your minimum, you need to hit 8 with Advanced Power Armor and a Buffout to gain access to the +1 strength implant.

You can use henchmen as pack mules, however it’s tedious trading with them all the time, so you still want Strength for yourself.

Perception

Set Perception to 5. It's the minimum you should have as a gunner, since the Sniper perk requires PE 8, you'll get PE upgrade +1 while you play, and you can use Mentats to give you a temporary +2 to take the perk. Not that Sniper matters, since you don’t have it for most of the game.

PE 6 has some quest benefits that come early in the game (before your PE boost) and PE 7 has a few more quest benefits. So set it to 6 if you want (you end up with a permanent 7). We'll return to this stat later if we have points available.

Endurance

Stimpaks, first aid kits and doctors' bags can be found in great abundance, so Endurance is fairly useless. Leave it at the minimum value. Come back and spend points here if you have a surplus of points. If you want to become a pornstar in New Reno you will need 5 EN and take Buffout to meet the 8 EN requirement. [wait, sounds like you can double dose Buffout]

Having low EN while not knowing the game well enough to avoid injuries can get irritating because of the constant self-healing.

There's also a much higher chance of getting insta-gibbed outright if you encounter particularly difficult enemies (something that occurs often in your early levels), so for taking such enemies on, EN actually turns into something more than pure convenience. Your choice.

Note that low Endurance will force you to take the perk Quick Pockets (for accessing stimpaks), when you could get some other perk (Awareness or Bonus Move) at that level. However, Quick Pockets is useful for anyone, so you might've ended up taking it anyway.

Every other point of EN gives no benefit - go for an even number of EN if not minimum. EN gets no upgrade in the game, so it’ll stay at the level you set it.

Charisma

The amount of Charisma you need depends on whether you want to be a solo fighter or run around with a group of henchmen. Every two points allow you to have one more party member. Charisma also helps keep your dialogue options open, but isn't really important in that light - Intelligence is actually the social stat in this game.

6 is a good value, since it'll let you have the three good end-game henchmen\* (Cassidy, Sulik and Vic). Otherwise, leave it at 1, or 2 (able to pick up NPCs temporarily for xp).

Charisma is increased by 2 points in the game, however those bonuses will be negated by the combat implants you get later on. If you're not much of a soldier, you may decide against those, so you can start out with a 4 instead of 6. It is notable that said implants are very expensive, you have to be a focused money-gatherer to even get one. So they are an endgame concern and for most of the game you would still have higher CH than the level you set now.

\* These three henchmen are good because you can insert them into power armour and they have good combat skills and will consent to wielding good guns. You’d think that’d come easy but… In any case, during mid-game, several other henchmen work as well because you don’t have any suits of power armor anyway. When you tire of them, just shoot them in the head.

Intelligence

You want as much as possible. Put it to at least 7 and up to 9. When you have IN 7, Mentats is sufficient to hit the roof for the occasions it's needed.

High intelligence is nice for dialogue options - depending on the kind of character you want to play, you might not mind dragging it down to 7. Doing so goes well with dragging Charisma down to 1, since you’re not putting priority on successful conversation (though you can definitely be successful anyway).

Intelligence will be increased by +1 in the game. There is another +1 increase in the game, but that one will put you out of luck for a LK +1 bonus, so you might as well favour Intelligence in character creation instead.

Agility

Set it to 10. You'll appreciate every single action point.

If you plan to be a Fast Shot 'n' max-Luck character, you can set Agility to 9 and end up with 10 by taking the perk Gain Agility in the place of Living Anatomy (see Perk Progression), which is not overly efficient with burst-fire weapons such as those you might choose to use with Fast Shot. It is extremely good for pistoleers though.

Never let AG stay at 9 - odd numbers are worthless. Even AG 8 is better, due to the leftover stat point.

Luck

Here is where we'll possibly increase Perception again; match your Luck level to your Perception, then distribute points to both however you see fit.

LK may be increased up to a value of 8, since you'll get +2 while you play the game.

LK is valuable for doing damage when you get the Sniper perk, since it gives you extremely large chance for critical hits. With Sniper, LK 4 gives a 42% crit chance, while LK 9 gives a 91% chance.

For aimed shots, the benefit of very high Luck is much less, because aimed shots add their own critical chance. This is why I recommend the Fast Shot trait if you max out Luck: you don’t benefit much from aiming anyway. It causes bonus damage and cripplement, but the crit chance is wasted.

Summary

Fast Shot, or aimed shots. Decide. Distribute points as appropriate. These are the main choices:

• Fast Shot or aimed shots
• Solo or henchmen
• Social or asocial
• Gifted or not-Gifted

You don’t have to decide right now. Feel free to keep reading. The chapter on weapons will help you settle on choices.

Tagging a skill makes it much cheaper to raise. Most skills do not benefit you beyond 100. Therefore, you tag skills you want above 100. These would be the weapon skills, and Science.

Consider keeping a surplus of skill points (do not spend them all). A surplus of 79 is safe because you gain 20 at most from a level and 99 is the maximum. You can spend the points when the need arises for a certain skill.

Tag Small Guns, because you want it at about 130 - more if you practice aimed shots. Don't tag Energy Weapons or Big Guns, because you won't find the weapons early on, and you will hopefully have leftover points by the time you do.

Science is among the only skills that benefit you beyond 100. There are minor uses for it all the way up to 200.

Keep in mind the existence of skillbooks which can only be used until the skill is at about 90. By keeping a surplus of points, you can blow the whole surplus on Science after it's hit 90 through skillbooks.

For the third tag skill, choose Lockpick or Speech, whichever is lower. They will be useful nearly right off the bat, and there is no skillbook for either. Traps, Barter and Gambling don’t come into use.

Progression

• level 3 Quick Pockets or Awaremess
• level 6 Bonus Move, Quick Pockets or Awareness
• level 9 Better Criticals (must have)
• level 12 Living Anatomy
• level 15 Bonus Rate of Fire (must have)
• level 18 Action Boy (must have)
• level 21 Action Boy (must have)
• level 24 Sniper (must have)

Alternatives

As far as I've figured, Awareness is good for the following two things: Finding out which enemy has the most powerful weapon, and therefore which enemy to kill first

If you know the damage you will do, finding out which enemy you can kill in one round (mostly when there are different enemies around, with different amounts of hit-points left)

Quick Pockets will have you thanking the Lords you took it every time you access the inventory. You can reload weapons and heal yourself up at the same time, all for 2 AP.

You can consider Sniper an overpowered perk that was put there in case the player messed up his character design, so he can still beat the endgame bosses. Since you will spend most of the game not having Sniper, you can act as though there is no such perk, and Better Criticals becomes less important - because it synergizes with Sniper. It’s still very good if you do aimed shots, but otherwise you could pick something else at level 9. Bonus Ranged Damage good with miniguns?

At level 12, if you shoot a lot of burst-fire (and therefore have the Fast Shot trait), you can skip Living Anatomy because it doesn’t add 5 damage to each bullet, but to the sum, and therefore not amazing. Exploit this at character creation by setting AG 9, and taking Gain Agility at level 12. If you failed to take Fast Shot at character creation, you can take Mutate! to get it, though in this case I would consider sticking to the aimed shot playstyle.

Finally, how many ranks in Action Boy to take can be affected by what weapon you ultimately want. Enter: the chapter on weapons!

Reasons to choose a weapon

Picking an endgame weapon from the outset will not ruin the natural progression, because even if you find your chosen weapon early, you won’t have the ammunition for it. So let’s pick a weapon so you know what to design your character around. You’re still allowed to mix things up for a change, but it doesn’t hurt to pick one that will be the best for you. All weapons in this list are brutal, given you have the traits and perks to exploit them. Take something that fits your style, there is no single best choice.

Recap of weapon mechanics

First, understand how Action Points can affect your combat performance. Each attack costs a certain amount of AP, and depending on your perks you probably have 10, 11 or 12 total AP available. That means if an attack costs 5 AP you can only ever attack twice in a round: if it cost 4 AP, then you’d be able to get three attacks, which makes a huge difference. That’s why you pay attention to this.

Base cost

All weapons that can do single-shot can also do aimed shot. Aimed shots always cost 1 more AP than the single shot. Some weapons can do burst shots, which also always costs 1 more AP than the single shot. An assault rifle can do single shot, aimed shot as well as burst shot, usually at costs of 5 and 6 and 6 respectively.

Reductions of cost

The perk Bonus Rate of Fire will mean all attacks cost 1 less AP than usual. If you chose the trait Fast Shot, that’s another 1 less AP. So a single shot that costs 5 AP will cost 3, and a burst shot from the same weapon would have cost 6 AP but will only cost 4.

Energy Weapons

• Turbo Plasma Rifle is a single shot-rifle. 5 AP cost. As an aside, this was much more powerful in Fallout 1 due to lower AP cost, and blew other guns out of the water. Now it’s outdone by the Pulse Rifle, but has an advantage in accuracy and range.
• Pulse Rifle is a very powerful single-shot rifle. 5 AP cost. Has poor accuracy and low ammo capacity. Switch to it when enemies get close.
• Alien Blaster - This is a pistol that does a ridiculous amount of damage, but it’s only effective in close quarters. Since it costs 4 AP to fire, it drops to 2 AP with Fast Shot & Bonus Rate of Fire. That means up to six shots per round! It only requires 2 strength to wield effectively, nice for a minimum-strength character before you get power armor.

Small Guns

• M72 Gauss Rifle is the endgame sniper rifle. 5 AP cost. So aimed shots cost 5 AP with Bonus Rate of Fire, and you only need 10 AP to get off two snipings. Uses rare 2mm EC ammunition.
• H&K G11E is an assault rifle that uses rare 4.7mm caseless. 5 AP cost. Ammo capacity for seven bursts and one single/aimed shot. The H&K P90c is a good backup submachinegun that uses common ammo.
• The PPK12 Gauss Pistol requires only 4 strength to wield. Since it costs 4 AP to fire, it drops to 2 AP with Fast Shot & Bonus Rate of Fire. That results in up to six shots per round! This is a bit wasteful with rare 2mm EC ammunition though. It’s very accurate, pierces armor well, and has range like a sniper rifle. You could get three snipings a round with this compared to the Gauss Rifle’s two snipings.
• Pancor Jackhammer

Big Guns

• The legendary Bozar looks like a big-ass sniper rifle, but fires full automatic. It is not a sniper rifle, it doesn’t even have the range. It uses relatively common .223 FMJ rifle rounds. Only does burst shots, that cost 6 AP. It runs out of ammo after two bursts, so you don’t quite need Fast Shot.
• The Avenger minigun is pretty good mid-game, but against tough armor you have to switch to the Bozar.
• The Vindicator minigun is the other top-tier Big Gun, but It’s only found at the oil rig at the end of the game. Bring 4.7mm caseless ammo to that mission if you want to give it a spin. This weapon and the Light Support Weapon both have the ammo capacity for three bursts a round, unlike the Bozar.

Unfortunately, many things are very easy to miss. Fallout 2 would normally require twenty playthroughs to explore everything. It is my opinion that an informed playthrough enhances the quality of the experience.

To avoid spoilers, I resorted to making a checklist so you know what keep an eye out for as you progress. I will not include certain things that would be boring to get too soon, like the Advanced Power Armor. You’ll find that one eventually.

By item

• Turbo Plasma Rifle - upgrade a Plasma Rifle
• Alien Blaster - Sold during a random encounter north of Modoc
• H&K G11E - hostile Hubologists || soldiers at Navarro || Snake Morton (random encounter after you complete the kill Frog Morton quest)
• Bozar - once you have electronic lockpicks and high Repair skill, revisit the Toxic Caves north of Klamath.
• If you’re just itching for the Strength bonus from power armor, you can find a basic suit in Mariposa, level 2. Harden it at the Hubologists in San Francisco.
• PPK12 Gauss Pistol - Mariposa, level 4.
• Mirrored Shades (CH+1 when held) - The grave of Presnell, New Reno. Bring a shovel.
• blue memory module (CH+1) - Navarro, armory
• yellow memory module (IN+1) - Sierra Army Depot, level 1
• green memory module (PE+1) - Mariposa, level 3
• red memory module (ST+1) - Vault 8, level 2

By zone: What to do Gecko when to use Mentats for a quest

Drugs

Many drugs weigh nothing, so you can gather and carry huge stacks. You can apparently also double-dose many of them, something that might not be obvious.

Use Buffout for those times when you have too much to carry - it'll increase your strength.

Jet increases your total Action Points by 2, which can be a very powerful benefit. Save them up, buy them everywhere, and start using them near the endgame. The permanent addiction is bad, but you improve performance when it counts. You can get access to a cure for addiction from Myron or the Vault City doctor.

Melee

Melee weapons or unarmed weapons are fully viable in Fallout 2. This section contains what you need to know.

The main problem is that you often knock enemies back many steps. At this point you either switch to a ranged weapon, as you easily hit and crit enemies who are down, or you can catch up. You’ll want the Bonus Move perks for this purpose, which become even better than the Action Boy perks.

It’s also very important to max strength (start with 5, let power armour and implant get you to 10). Furthermore some perk choices will be different. Bonus Rate of Fire obviously is changed out for Bonus HtH (Hand-to-Hand) Attacks, and Sniper is changed out for Slayer. In addition, Slayer does not need you to make a Luck roll, so you may not need as much Luck. Ditto for Perception. PE 6 and LK 6 are required for Better Criticals, though.

One Hander

Unarmed weapons (the Mega Power Fist) count as one-handed weapons. This means you can exploit the trait One Hander, and also get a bonus with one-handed ranged weapons. The best would be the P90c against soft targets, and Gauss Pistol against armour, and probably the .223 Pistol before you find that one. The G11E may look like a submachinegun but actually counts as two-handed.

Hotkeys

My first time, I went through the whole game without knowing this… it was rather bad. There are hotkeys for your skills. They go from 1 to 8 in the same order as they appear on the skilldex list (which can itself be accessed by pressing 's').

Find a guide/walkthrough for Fallout 2 and search through the document for where to find stat upgrades as soon as possible, especially IN. Then keep your eyes open for references to these places while you play the game. Do also pay attention to when you'll be needing to temporarily boost PE or IN for quests. You'll thank yourself.

List

Just in case.

Item/Perk Bonus Location

Blue Memory Module Green Memory Module Red Memory Module Yellow Memory Module Mirrored Shades

Zeta-scan

Vault City Inoculations Combat implants

Gigolo

Sexpert Gecko Skinning Alcohol Raised h.p.

Autodoc Raised h.p.

(CH +1) (PE +1) (ST +1) (IN +1) (CH +1 when worn)

(LK +2 or LK+1 IN+1)

(pois/radresist +10%) (CH -2, all DR +10%)

?

? (Nice.) (+2 — +4 HP)

(+2 HP)

Navarro Military Base Vault City Vault Sierra Army Depot Golgotha (Grave) or New Reno (Mason) NCR (Hubologist) (probability occurrence) Vault City Vault (Doctor 75%) Vault City Vault (Sci 51%, Doc 75%, $92,000) Have "good" sex, or a lot of sex Have sex ten times Klamath (Smiley) Vault City Parlor Room (LK 9—10) Vault City (Dr. Andrew) (IN 3)