1681

It should be compatible, yes. The only report I’ve seen is that the Canadian version of the GOTY edition on the PS3 is not compatible with earlier saves, for some reason, but Bethesda is looking into fixing that. I haven’t heard of any problems on the 360 or PC versions.

1682

Thanks Rock8man.

1683

GOTY version up on steam now for the crack induced price of $50

wake me when it’s a weekend deal

1684

You’ve been able to buy that version in stores for a few months. Same for a console GOTY version. Steam is just getting it late.

1685

For the first time ever, Fallout 3 has begun to require me to have the disc in the drive when launching straight from fallout3.exe. Until now, I was able to play without the disc if I launched the game from the exe. I haven’t patched it or anything. The only thing I’ve done is install a new video card.

1686

bumping this because I’m just starting to play this and don’t know how long my patience is going to last with all the crashes and hangs, but here are a few other game related questions:

  1. I have emptied EVERYTHING From my backpack and I’m still walking like a turtle on valium. Why does it think I’m overweight?

  2. Where is the RAD counter? I’m not picking it up for some reason. I drink water from dirty sinks and it tells me it costs a dosage, but I’m not seeing my total anywhere. What’s up with that?

  3. How do I know I’m going into an area that is outleveled from me? I branched off and ran into some fire ants (I’m level 2) and they really took me down a lot and I used a lot of ammo just to survive. Luckily I could hide out in a building and let my AP restore. I felt the game was telling me “you’re barely able to enter this area, you might think of coming back later”, but was wondering if there is any explicit signs telling me this?

  4. How in the fuck do you pick locks. I need a primer. WASD? My clips just break off.

that will do it for now, but holy shit I don’t know how so many of you put up with this game with so many crashes (in Win 7 64 bit). I’ve tried a few fixes, but nothing really seems to work. I’d like to give it to level 5 before I ask valve back for my money for this and New Vegas.

1687

Very odd. I don’t know. It almost sounds like you’re sneaking.

  1. Where is the RAD counter? I’m not picking it up for some reason. I drink water from dirty sinks and it tells me it costs a dosage, but I’m not seeing my total anywhere. What’s up with that?

The small dial on the top left of your Pip-boy 300 shows your Rad level. You can see a more precise level in the Pip-boy’s stats menu by clicking “RAD”; that screen will also let you use Radaway (remove rads) and Rad-X (rad resistance) without going into the inventory.

  1. How do I know I’m going into an area that is outleveled from me? I branched off and ran into some fire ants (I’m level 2) and they really took me down a lot and I used a lot of ammo just to survive. Luckily I could hide out in a building and let my AP restore. I felt the game was telling me “you’re barely able to enter this area, you might think of coming back later”, but was wondering if there is any explicit signs telling me this?

Not really. Sometimes you have to run away.

  1. How in the fuck do you pick locks. I need a primer. WASD? My clips just break off.

Try the section “Strategies for PC” at http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Lock

1688

I’m not sure why you’re crashing; I played the game on the 360. But as to your other questions:

  • The Rad counter is on the first screen of your Pipboy, under Stats, I believe it’s the second one down.

  • I totally got boned by that Fire Ant area too. I left that quest alone for a bit and went and cleared out the shopping mall, and then went back to it and had better luck. The key seems to be to shoot the ants from a distance, so try to repair up a hunting rifle if you can.

  • Ben Sones had a good post on lock picking way back early on in this thread which I will quote because the rest of his post had spoilers:

1689

I had crashes in 64-bit Windows 7 too, mostly when entering a house that had a radio playing. The solution here fixed it for me. In summary:

[ol]
[li]Locate your FALLOUT.INI file (and make a backup just in case).[/li][li]In the [General] section, change bUseThreadedAI=0 to bUseThreadedAI=1[/li][li]Also in the [General] section, add iNumHWThreads=2[/li][/ol]
The FALLOUT.INI file is tricky to find. Try “C:\Users<username>\Documents\My Games\Fallout3”.

I had to do the same thing with Fallout: New Vegas.

1690

Awesome stuff on the lock picking. I’ll have to give it a try & thanks for the location of the rad counter.

I solved my problem with not running: when I had first started the game, I was always running unless I pressed the shift key, which is actually backwards (shift key is supposed to make you run). Turns out I had the caps-lock engaged at the beginning and later it wasn’t, so to run, I had to press the shift key.

Now another new question: When will get I ever get a chance to upgrade one of my base skills? I’m really regretting not upping strength as my backpack is always reaching it’s limit way too fast. I’m on level 5 and haven’t been able to increase any of my base skills when leveling, just the attributes.

1691

Check the perks when you level up. One of them can increase one base attribute by 1 point. I believe you can take the perk as many times as you wish.

It might be more fun for you to download a backpack or other carrying capacity cheat from the Nexus, though. That way you can be a superhuman pack rat and get interesting perks when you level.

That said, you should really consider doing the exact opposite. Playing with Arwen’s, FWE or some combination of mods that nerfs your carrying capacity and introduces basic survival mechanics, is a pretty cool experience.

If you really want to be a pack rat, you should check out some of the modified & new player homes at the Nexus, and DarN’s GUI. By default the sole thing you get out of behaving like a pack rat in FO3, is endless inventory juggling. DarN’s makes operating the PiPBoy a little less painful, and some of the player home mods lets you auto-sort and put your piles of junk on display.

Finally, you may want to RTFM. It answers most of the questions you’ve asked so far.

1692

There are some really good mods out there. Including ones that make lock picking less of a chore. On my second play through, I got one that just allowed me to force it if I had the skill. Same for hacking. Those mini games get old quickly.

1693

I actually liked the Minigames. They’re some of the best I’ve played in an RPG.

At least once I learned how the Hacking worked, that is. It was a huge revelation to me that when the game tells you your word has “4/7” correct, that’s referring to both the letter and its position. After that, it’s literally just a matter of looking for another word which has exactly 4 letters (no more or less) in the same position as in the one you just picked. With a careful first choice, you can usually get the right answer within only 2 attempts. So not exactly intuitive, but it actually felt kind of like hacking should once I got the hang of it (ie: analyzing a screen of data, etc.)

1694

I liked the idea too, sinnick, until I did for the hundredth time.

Funny enough, for my personal preferences, if hacking/lockpicking took time in game, I would care more about the time the mini game took. Meaning, if the time required had some sort of in game effect instead of the world freezing around you while you hacked, I would like the system more. It would make sense to make me dick around for awhile with it…

1695

Same here. They really-really overstayed their welcome.

But the solution I want is kind of anti-Bethesda (like sooo many other things I’d like to see in TES, hehe). Because what I want is a simulation, not a minigame meant to provide the illusion of simulation.

If it’s possible for my character to do, figure out how long it will take modified by skill and resources. Then simulate what happens in that time, and feed me the result. Interrupt me or make me start over if warranted, and while you’re at it, allow me to break stuff. Oh and, talk some sense into whatever level designer keeps leaving roadblocks of a nature and in places where any idiot with the player character’s resources could traverse them perfectly safely and without breaking a sweat, in less than 10 minutes. Stuff like that kind of clashes with the whole “Oooh! Luk how imrsiv our stuffs iz!!” thing.

1696

I just wanted to say thank you! I played all night tonight without a single hang. Now, why don’t they just patch the game with that?

1697

Ok, i can’t help but be an attention whore, but holy shit this game is awesome. I’ve put 20hrs into it easily, am only level 8 and have hardly progressed on the main story line. I’m having so much fun just wandering the wasteland and finding new shit I’m embarrased at how many 2am nights I’ve had this week. Damn it makes it hard to wake up and get to work at 8am.

One of my buds told me he had 300 hours into it before he decided to just go ahead and finish the main quest and he’s confident he left several areas unexplored.

I can see doing that…this is an amazing game. I just figured out I need a few schematics (I have like 500 darts ffs, where is that friggen dart gun!).

In the beginnig, I was running and gunnig from the super mutants, now I’m chucking grenades, laying down mines and chasing their asses down to kill them. No kidding, I had a super mutant who I had wounded pretty bad, he dropped his minigun and I had to chase him through hope hospital to finally kill him.

Awesome game!

1698

This is £2.49 for the GOTY edition on gamersgate today and registers on Steam, so anyone who has held off on buying it might want to take the plunge.

This thread might be relevant as well :)

1699

Could someone tell me how to disable GFW Live on Fallout 3 from the start? I really don’t want to have to mess with it and I hear it’s possible.

Also, when is the above fallout.ini file first created?

1700

There’s a couple of ways, but the route I’d pick these days is to install and use the Fallout Script Extender instead of the original Fallout 3 exe. Apparently it can’t do what it needs to do with GFWL active, so it disables it. It is also required to run several really cool mods.