Fallout 4 Tips & Tricks
A beginner-to-intermediate guide for new and returning players on the Next-Gen update. Covers SPECIAL mechanics, settlement setup, economy, crafting shortcuts, companion tricks, and combat tools the game never explicitly explains.
24 Tips · 8 categories
4 tipsProgression
SPECIAL Stats Keep Giving Bonuses Past 10
Temporary boosts from armor, headwear, perks, food, drinks, and chems can push any SPECIAL attribute above 10 and continue providing incremental bonuses. Strength past 10 keeps raising melee damage and carry weight, agility keeps increasing max Action Points, and dedicated builds can push stats into the 20s.
Play Survival Mode for the Best Experience
Survival mode adds food, water, and rest requirements alongside an Adrenaline system that increases damage output with each kill but resets on sleep. Ammunition and chems have weight, save points are limited to sleeping, and both you and enemies are far more lethal. It is the most engaging way to experience the game and rewards using settlements as checkpoints.
Use the You're SPECIAL Book to Push a Stat to 11
The You're SPECIAL book in Shaun's room permanently raises any attribute that is below 10. To push a stat to 11, first consume something that temporarily lowers that attribute. Daddy-O, for example, reduces Charisma on use. While the debuff is active, the book treats the stat as below 10 and lets you raise it, putting it at 11 once the effect wears off.
Collect Bobbleheads and Magazines for Perma Buffs
Twenty Vault-Tec bobbleheads are hidden across the map, seven of which permanently raise a SPECIAL stat by one point each and stack with the You're SPECIAL book trick. The remaining thirteen improve specific skills including lockpicking and critical damage. Magazines scattered throughout the world provide additional passive effects like improved sneaking and better barter prices.
3 tipsSettlements
Scrap Sanctuary Hills But Keep Workbenches
Breaking down everything in Sanctuary Hills at the start fills your settlement workbench with a large supply of crafting materials. The one exception is the crafting benches scattered around the area. Move each one to your chosen home base rather than scrapping them, since recovering a scrapped bench later requires investing in the Local Leader perk.
Build at Starlight Drive-In or Hangman's Alley
Starlight Drive-In, southeast of Concord, offers the most flat building space of any settlement and has a water source in the center of the lot. If you want a more central map position or are playing Survival Mode where fast travel is restricted, Hangman's Alley is compact but surrounded by buildings that make it naturally easy to fortify.
Buy Weightless Material Shipments from Merchants
Caravan and city merchants frequently sell shipments of specific materials that deposit directly into your settlement workbench like any other junk. Shipments are weightless until consumed, so you can stock up heavily when visiting Diamond City or Goodneighbor and carry it all without any encumbrance penalty.
2 tipsEconomy
Sell Chems and Purified Water for Steady Caps
Looting every medical container you find builds up a supply of chems that sell for solid caps. For a more passive income stream, place multiple water purifiers in your settlement's water source and leave them running. They generate purified water over time that can be sold to wasteland merchants, though the workbench has a storage cap so transfer the surplus to a separate container regularly.
Farm Vegetable Starch for Unlimited Adhesive
A settlement crop of potatoes, corn, mutfruit, and purified water gives you everything needed to craft Vegetable Starch at a cooking station. Vegetable Starch breaks down into adhesive, one of the most consistently scarce crafting materials in the game. A small dedicated farm generates a renewable supply that eliminates the need to hoard bottles of glue.
4 tipsExploration
Drink Alcohol Before Dialogue for Funny Skips
Fallout 4's dialogue skip plays a brief vocal sound when you interrupt a conversation. Drinking alcohol before triggering dialogue changes those sounds to slurred, drunk readings from the voice actors. The aggressive and sarcastic skip options are especially entertaining when talking to main story characters.
Boost Carry Weight With Food or Power Armor
Grilled Radstag adds a flat 25 carry weight for one hour and stacks with other bonuses. Buffout and alcohol can be combined for additional short-term strength. If you have a Fusion Core handy, any Power Armor frame raises your effective Strength to 11 while worn, which directly increases carry capacity even before other bonuses apply.
Tag Junk Components to Spot Them While Looting
Open the Junk tab in your Pip-Boy and switch to the Components view to tag any material for search. Tagged components show a magnifying glass icon on any item containing them while you loot, making it easy to prioritize what to pick up. Adhesive, screws, and aluminum for Power Armor are the three most consistently scarce materials worth keeping tagged permanently.
Change Pip-Boy Light Color in Display Settings
The color of your Pip-Boy light is tied to the text color setting. Go to Settings, then Display, and use the RGB sliders at the bottom to change it. The light updates in real time as you adjust, so you can see the result immediately. Power Armor lights can also be recolored, but that is done through modifications at the Power Armor Station.
2 tipsGear
Wear Military Fatigues for Bonus AP
Military Fatigues function as Under Armour with other pieces layered on top, and they grant plus two Agility, translating to 20 bonus Action Points for sprinting and VATS. They drop from Gunners and can be found at old military locations. If you side with the Railroad later, Ballistic Weave upgrades can make fatigues considerably more protective than their appearance suggests.
Quest for Legendary Power Armor Pieces
Legendary Power Armor never drops from legendary enemies, so the only way to obtain it is through quest rewards. Brotherhood of Steel side quests are the most reliable early source. Cambridge Polymer Labs, a Raider named Tessa, and the Nuka-World DLC also provide legendary Power Armor pieces with unique bonuses.
3 tipsCrafting
Strip Weapon Mods Without Crafting Perks
You can transfer modifications from looted weapons onto your own without any crafting perks. Take the donor weapon to a workbench, strip all its mods back to standard, and the removed modifications go into your inventory's Mods tab. From there you can apply them to your preferred weapon without investing perk points into the relevant crafting tree.
Rename Gear With Symbols to Sort Inventory
Layered armor sets scatter across your inventory alphabetically, making them hard to find quickly. Take each piece to a workbench and rename it with a symbol like a dash at the start. Any name beginning with a symbol sorts to the top of the inventory list, keeping your worn set grouped together and easy to locate.
Craft Refreshing Beverages as Portable Doctors
Refreshing Beverages require Blood Packs, Rad-X, and antiseptic to craft and function as an all-in-one healing item that restores HP, removes addictions, and reduces radiation simultaneously. They are especially useful in Survival Mode where managing all three of those conditions separately is costly.
2 tipsCompanions
Order Companions to Pick Locks and Hack Terminals
Companions can be commanded to interact with specific objects by looking at them and pressing the command button, then directing the companion to the target. Give Cait bobby pins and she will pick locks for you. Nick Valentine can hack terminals. Robot companions upgraded with the Automatron DLC can also be fitted with hacking or lockpicking modules.
Use Dogmeat to Keep Lone Wanderer Active
The Lone Wanderer perk normally deactivates when you travel with a companion, but Dogmeat is the only companion that does not trigger this restriction. Keeping Dogmeat at your side lets you benefit from Lone Wanderer's bonuses to carry weight and damage resistance while still having a companion for combat and item fetching.
4 tipsCombat
Peek Around Cover with Any Firearm
Pressing the aim button while standing against a wall or barricade lets you lean out and fire without fully exposing yourself. This works with nearly all firearms and lets you take shots from cover in the same way enemies do, reducing the amount of time you spend exposed during firefights.
Cripple Enemy Limbs to Control Fights
Targeting and crippling specific limbs in VATS dramatically changes how a fight plays out. Crippling a Super Mutant Suicider's right arm detonates their Mini Nuke instantly. Crippling legs slows enemies to a crawl, giving you time to reposition or deal damage. Robots, Mirelurks, and Feral Ghouls are especially susceptible to being crippled and can be immobilized while still alive.
Enter VATS for 80% Incoming Damage Reduction
While a VATS sequence is actively playing, you receive over 80% damage reduction from all incoming hits. This keeps melee builds viable in late-game encounters and provides an emergency option against grenades or enemies far above your level. The protection only applies during the animation, not while you are selecting targets.
Use VATS as an On-Demand Mine Detector
VATS can lock onto thrown grenades and placed mines, highlighting them before they detonate. Opening VATS in a suspicious area lets you spot mines that are difficult to see on the ground. Pressure plates and tripwires are not detected this way, so stay alert for those separately.
Verified: 2026-05-23 · All content is original with full credit to original creators.