Strength – 4

Strength covers you for physical attacks with Unarmed and Melee weapons as well as helping you carry more loot. It isn’t a major stat for us but we put four points here to assist with picking up a lot of junk as well as helping with damage should we wish to dabble with hand to hand combat.

Perception – 4

Perception covers your range of detecting enemies as well as giving you perks to assist with lockpicking and rifle damage. We want enough points here so that we can go for those rifle damage bonuses down the line if we want to. This build also focuses more on lockpicking, so having enough points to rank that up is essential.

Endurance – 5

Endurance gives you more health to play with when it comes to actually getting in a fight. The reason why we want to balance this out at five is simple, swimming and walking in water without taking radiation damage. You will constantly be popping vital Rad-Away in the early game without this perk. Trust me, you can thank me later.

Charisma – 6

Debatably next to Endurance the best S.P.E.C.I.A.L stat in Fallout 4 as it can help you get more caps, pass dialogue challenges and help you level up that little bit faster. It also gives you perks to assist with your settlement builds, which is why we put six points here. Local Leader is essential for us to get trade routes and a steady supply of adhesive with vegetable starch (more about this in part two of the guide).

Intelligence – 3

We only need three points in here for the ability to craft weapon mods, that’s about it. We are not focusing on laser weapons, science or hacking this time around, this will mainly be a traditional ballistics weapon build. Consider switching these stats with the ones on Perception if you want to go the hacking route instead.

Agility – 1

This is our dump stat. Agility helps with speed and stealth but pfft, why do we need to stealth when we can just blast our way through everything? This will give you the perk that will increase non-automatic hand gun damage, which is up to you to go down but is really handy early on with your 10mm and Pipe Pistols. If anyone out there is worried about not hitting enemies in VATS, don’t worry. As much as this effects ability points and their regen rate, your VATS capabilities are mostly effected by the Gunslinger and other similar perks.

Luck – 5

Do not consider this a dump stat, it is way better than you think. Luck can effect a lot of passive events in the wasteland, but we are using it for one main reason, the Idiot Savant perk. This perk gives you a starting 3x exp multiplier that will have a higher chance of triggering the lower your intelligence. If you are lucky to have it pop on a quest EXP reward, be prepared for an easy level up. It is great to get on any build with any intellect level, but we want it at this state so we can level up even faster. We want this stat up a bit more to gain access to the bonus bottle caps and ammunition perks. You should only put points into these if and when you need to, but they are incredibly handy early on.

Sanctuary Hills, Your New and Destroyed Home

As soon as you come out of Vault 111 and see the blasted wasteland ahead of you, be sure to look everywhere for precious junk. You may think that this is a waste of inventory space at the moment but trust me, collecting junk is vital to becoming a powerful wastelander. Get all you need, come down into your old town of Sanctuary Hills and look as houses have been completely wrecked and the street is littered with trees, busted street lamps and more.

With all the houses looted, you may have found a good amount of Bobby Pins. These are your lifeline for lock picking which, if you are following our optimal build, is what we are going to be focusing in over hacking. All the safes are novice rank so getting into them shouldn’t be too hard. Be careful however as one of them is booby trapped with a makeshift explosive. Disarm this for some extra junk parts and you will be fine to carry on picking. Killing off all the flies, roaches and lockpicking all the novice locks in the area should either bring you close to or allow you to gain your first level. Upon levelling up you can put your perk point into any perk that is flashing a star above it. We recommend either going for Gunslinger or Local Leader to start off with. This will either give you a nice damage increase for the early part of the game or a good start for when you get settlers inhabiting Sanctuary, which won’t be that long.

What are we going to do now? Simple, rebuild Sanctuary. At least as much as we can with what we have. You don’t need to make any huge houses or construction works just yet, just try to get the basics down. After saving the characters at Concord, Sturges informs that you will need six beds, a good water supply, food and defences. We, however, are going to complete this side quest before he even informs us, giving us some easy experience once the settlers move in. The six beds should be straight forward to make with all the junk you acquired and should be placed within the houses that are still standing. You can either dedicate one house to all the beds or split them up between the houses to make the town seem more natural. When it comes to water, you should be able to construct a Water Purifier which you can place in the river nearby. This will need power so pop down a small generator here too just so that it can start working. Food is going to be the hardest thing early on, but if you found the melons and Gourds early on then you’re off to a good start. Place them somewhere close to each other to establish a farm and leave the rest for now. You will most likely find more food when in Concord or during the first Minutemen quest, which we will get to later. As for defences you can do this about two ways. First is to place defences barricades at the river of your settlement or concentrate them around the bridge. Where you put them is up to you but these seem like the best locations. Don’t worry about turrets at the moment as you may not have enough to make a substantial defence set up for your base.

The Adventure Begins – Dogmeat, Red Rocket & Saving Concord

Now you are ready to head over to Concord and save Preston Garvey and the settlers. But before you do, be sure to check Red Rocket on your way down and meet up with Dog Meat. Your first proper companion is great at holding down enemies for VATS as well as finding enemies and items throughout your adventures. Whilst you’re here, you can also find the work bench to establish a second settlement and start scraping the stuff around the garage for your junk pile. Do not worry about building anything at the moment however as we will be creating a supply line later on to assist with more junk.

Now there is one thing here that you may forget about on your first playthrough. Look at the terminal in the back of the garage and look through the logs. You will see information about a mole rat cave underneath your newly found settlement. This houses some more great loot to get early on, including a fully charged fusion core for power armour. Just head slightly south east of the garage and you will see the hole going into their cave. If you wish to conserve ammo, make sure your packing your trusty police baton. Grab your stuff, drop off the junk at Red Rocket and head towards Concord.

As you head into the museum to help Preston Garvey against raiders, be sure to pick up any and all ammunition you can get. Also pick up as much armour as you can during this time. You will mostly find only leather or raider gear this early on but anything will do to help you stay more durable. For these encounters, it is best to dawn a full set of Leather gear over your vault suit for maximum protection against bullets and shells. Before you charge off to get the Power Armour and Minigun after talking to Preston & Sturges, remember to check and loot all the corpses as well as the containers in the area. Also, talk to Mama Murphy to learn that the dog’s name is in fact Dogmeat and pass a Charisma check to get a hint about the upcoming battle. Remember to pick up the Perception Bobblehead from the desk in the room where all the settlers are held up. Bobbleheads add either 1 point to a specific SPECIAL stat or they give us a perk related to the old skill system from Fallout 3, so keep an eye out for these guys.

Local Areas To Explore Early On

After you are done saving Concord and bringing your team over to Sanctuary, it’s time to go out and explore. You can go straight to Diamond City, but where is the fun in that? Here we have a few areas to visit first to get yourself ready for what is ahead.

Abernathy Farm – Southwest of Red Rocket

Go over to this farm and speak to Mr. Abernathy to receive a quest to regain his long lost daughter’s locket, stolen by raiders. This will take you to USAF Satellite Station Olivia, which is situated quite a distance east of Concord. It is also situated close to a few other areas that are great to go to early on. Abernathy Farm is also an unlockable settlement with quite a lot of space to work with as well as a working tato farm.

Wicked Shiping Fleet Lockup – Southwest of Abernathy Farm

Head over to this location if you are looking for armour, weapons and ammunition. This is a raider stronghold so be prepared for a battle, as well as a possible legendary spawn. Another reason to head over here is a set of Power Armour that one raider will jump into. The Armour they have is randomised around your level but most of the time it tends to be an almost complete set of T-60 Armour. Definitely worth picking up for your collection.

Drumlin Diner – Southeast of Concord

If you want to give your Charisma a test then this is a great location early to try it out. You can resolve an issue between a chem trader and the diner’s owner to not just gain a nice bit of experience and caps but also access to two traders right off the bat. Great if you wish to purchase some chems, ammo, armour or weapons early on.

Starlight Drive-In – Southeast of Concord

This is an unlockable settlement that has quite a lot of junk lying around. Clear out the molerats and set up a beacon to get it underway. Also don’t forget to search around the massive movie screen as there are lock pick doors and safes for more loot as well as a machete if you are doing a melee run. One thing, when making this a settlement use the scrap function on the radiation barrels in the pool of water in the middle of the drive-in. This will permanently get rid of the radiation emitted from that area which makes the rest of your build much easier.

Thicket Excavations – East of Concord, Southwest of USAF Satellite Station Olivia

Come over here to find some caravans with some handy loot in them. You will also find a man who will give you a quest to dive into the water and disable three pumps. This should be easy to do but you may want to bring some Rad-X and Rad Away before jumping in. Do all this for some easy caps and experience early on but come back later on in your play through to see this hole turned into a raider base where you can fight your way to the bottom, receiving a lot of weapons, armour and ammo along the way.

Tenpines Bluff – East of Concord, South East of USAF Satellite Station Olivia

Another settlement to recruit to the minutemen. This one also has a substantial tato farm to take advantage of as well as some good space to make a nice build. Be mindful however when building in this area, be sure to build defences on the East and West sides of the settlement as they are the most prone to attack from mostly ghouls and super mutants. That isn’t it for this settlement however as if you go down the hill to the East of the settlement you will find a collapsed train that harbours another Power Armour frame with randomised armour on it. You will however need an advanced level hacking skill to unlock this armour so mark it down and come back later if you’re not ready yet.

That’s the end of part one of our Wasteland Survival Guide. Next time we will be covering all the companions you can have on your team in the game. Until then be sure to give us your survival tips in the comments and enjoy your time exploring in the vast commonwealth of Fallout 4.