There’s a lot going on in Fallout 76 and sometimes it just forgets to tell you some of the mechanics, tips and little things you might want to know to help your journey in Appalachia.

Here are a few things we wished we had known before we started Fallout 76 and headed into the wasteland.

Food Spoils

Hunger and thirst are new to the game and this brings about a whole new reason to scavenge for food, meat and canned goods to keep your character in tip-top shape.

One thing the game fails to really hit home is that anything made from “fresh” food i.e. meat and vegetables will actually go bad if you do not eat it while it is sitting in your inventory. Food will turn to Spoiled Meat and Spoiled Vegetables after a certain time and you can check the CDN of a food item to see how long you have.

To make your fresh produce last a little longer you can cook it. This will keep it from going bad a little longer than in their base form, so head over to a Cooking Station and put together what you can. By gaining more recipes in the world you’ll also be able to make more food items which provide better bonuses than Stimpaks helping your journey and not costing you a fortune.

Scrap Weights Less

It’s no secret that Fallout likes junk and 76 is no different but with a weight limited on your character you can soon become unencumbered with too many telephones, coffee cups and duct tape.

To lighten the load you can go to any workbench and crafting station and “Scrap all Junk” that will turn items into their base components this actually makes them weigh less so you can carry more or be able to move again without your AP draining like a hole in a bucket of water.

Read Building Plans & Recipes to Learn Them

Something we’ve mentioned in our Building Plans and Recipes guide but one we hear a lot so we thought we’d mention it again.

When you find cooking recipes, building plan or any plan for a weapon or gun as you pick it up your character does not automatically learn it. Instead, you need to head into your Pip-Boy and navigate to Notes inside there you’ll see the various plans etc that you have picked up as they start with what type of item they are either “Plan: Some Bed Frame” or “Recipe: Nuka-Cola Quantum Grenade”

Once read you’ll unlock them for use at the different stations and don’t worry you can’t learn the same one twice so you can sell or give duplicates away to your friends.

Scrap weapons and armour to learn modifications

All those duplicate weapons and armour you don’t pick up do have a use.

Any weapon or armour piece you scrap will allow you to learn a modification from it, which is useful after you’ve collected 10 hunting rifles from dead Super Mutants.

You can scrap most to gain a different mod even when the weapon has a low CDN but if you scrap the same item over and over eventually you will have learnt everything you can from it and only get the base components back.

Levelling up S.P.E.C.I.A.L Does not mean choosing a card from that category

When you level up the game will ask you to choose a SPECIAL category that you want to add a point into. What is not clear though is after when it shows the screen to select a perk card from that recently chosen category it actually lets you choose cards from any one of them.

Use the SPECIAL filter at the bottom of the screen to see the other card options based on the stat, point cost or cards you have just gained.

From here you can also choose to undo your previous choice and select another stat to increase to choose a card from another category.

Power Armour Can Not Be Stolen

There’s quite a few different sets of Power Armour in the world and as everyone wants one thanks to their great stat boost you might be scared of yours being taken.

Luckily, any person who finds an inclaimed power amrour and steps inside it claims it forever. This means that even if you exit the power armour with other players near by they will not be able to jump into your suit and walk away with it.

If you do leave your suit unattended for sometime, it will automatically be placed back into your incentory. The bonus too is that any power armour parts attached to a power armour frame don’t add additional weight to your inventory but be carful and parts not attached to a frame do for example if they are too high level.