Fallout 4 Player Builds One of The Best Looking Homes. In Fallout 4, players have to come up with their unique homes, something that has sparked the creativity of those who like building things.

• Unique Player Fallout 4 Nexus

“We will all go together when we go,” sang the satirist Tom Lehrer of the nuclear arms race. “What a comforting fact that is to know.” But how wrong he was: Bethesda’s Fallout 4 gives us a post-apocalypse jam packed with survivors, mutations, and all sorts of opportunities for the entrepreneurial survivor.

Much of the appeal of a Bethesda game lies in creating your own adventure in the enormous spaces they provide, but Fallout 4’s many depths are poorly served by the tutorials – even central mechanics are explained with cursory text windows, soon forgotten, or sometimes never touched on at all.

Consequently, some of this world’s real magic can only be found by poking around. Here are some tips about where to look, starring our own character – who, entirely coincidentally, bears a passing resemblance to Jeremy Corbyn.

1. Settlements

There’s a lot of fun in Fallout 4’s Settlements, and if you want to unlock them as quickly as possible, follow the Minutemen questline that starts in the game’s early stages. The first time you meet them everything ends up back at Sanctuary, which is a fine starting point – and even better when you find this hidden basement containing three gold bars and other lovely loot.

Two things are badly explained. The first is that you connect up your power supply by opening the workshop menu and looking for the “connect wire” prompt at the bottom of the screen: laugh all you want but this frustrated me for ages. The second is that once you’ve set up crops or trading stations, you need to assign settlers – also done using the workshop menu. Build a fetching bell like this to pull them all together easily.

This is key to supply lines, which I unlocked and then failed to use for about 10 hours. The upgrade description reads like it works automatically, but you have to assign a settler to cover specific routes – again, through the workshop menu once the option’s available. Some of this is lack of explanation, some is just bad interface design.

2. Massive Damage!

The size of your gun matters, but also incredibly important in Fallout 4 is what your enemy’s resistant to. It’s easy to ignore this but simple to check with the early ‘Awareness’ upgrade for your Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting Systems (VATs) – which shows symbols for the damage types alongside a defence value from low to high. Focusing on using the right weapon scores faster kills and saves wasted ammunition: it’s a critical skill.

3. Hide!

At the top of the bad-explanation list goes the utility of the basic crouch. When you crouch an icon reading [hidden] will appear, indicating your character’s entered stealth mode – and Bethesda’s enemy AI is idiotic, so it’s much easier to hide in plain sight than you’d think. On top of this, if you’re spotted, crouch behind cover and your character will actually take cover – and can lean out at the edges to aim.

4. The Lone-ish Wanderer

One of the biggest problems with Fallout 4 is the limited weight of items your character can carry. There are various workarounds for this (try cooking meat from the cow-like creatures, Brahmin) but by far the best is a trick built into the Lone Wanderer perk. This increases the damage your character can take and the maximum they can carry – as long as you don’t have a companion.

But! Right now, Dogmeat doesn’t count: you can take Lone Wanderer and toddle off with man’s best friend – both keeping the various perk bonuses intact and having a companion to store stuff with. If you’re just going out loot-hunting, there’s no more efficient setup. However, this is almost definitely a bug and is likely to be patched soon.

5. Here Boy

Fairly simple tip, but I wish I’d known this sooner. You can easily lose track of Dogmeat and, unlike other companions, he doesn’t come running to the bell. Always make sure to send Dogmeat to your main settlement and build a dog house for him – then whenever you need to find him, that’s where he’ll be. Makes sense I suppose.

6. Magic Jaws

One final tip for this most noble of animals. On leaving Vault 111 at the start of the game you may have been taunted by the Cryolater, an insanely good gun held behind unbreakable glass with a master lock. To get inside, you will need to become an excellent lockpicker – meaning many hours of play stand between you and the weapon.

No such rules apply to our four-legged friend, however. You meet Dogmeat shortly after leaving Vault 111 and, if you return, can bag the Cryolater. First get Dogmeat to stand in its vicinity, then instruct him to search for items, making sure you’ve cleared everything else lootable. Et voila, the gun warps from the case to this magnificent beast’s jaws – and if you trade items, he’s even stored the ammo too. Good boy!

7. Mod smart

The Gun Nut perk is an essential early pickup, because with this (and later ammo-specific perks like Science!) you can turn a standard base weapon into something like the above. But a key, unexplained thing with weapon modifications is to strip the good ones from guns you don’t want – by replacing them with a lower-tier mod. If you just scrap or sell weapons, the mods go too, but if you strip them you can acquire and use mods you can’t yet create yourself.

8. Personalisation

Renaming your favourite guns can be done at any weapons bench, and allows you to further inhabit that roleplaying experience. On another note, if you want to give your power armour a natty flame look then head straight east from Vault 111 to the Robotics Disposal Ground, where there are a few nice surprises.

9. Colour co-ordination

Notice my Pip-Boy’s attractive white hue? From the game’s pause menu – not the Pip-Boy menu – choose “Display” and you can alter the colour of both the game’s heads-up display and the Pip-Boy interface. One of the best things about this is that the Pip-Boy’s built-in torch reflects your choice – and using white light makes it, to my eyes, much more useful in dark areas.

Unique Player Fallout 4 Nexus

10. Hangover fuel

All the crafting elements of Fallout 4 can be a pain, but cooking provides all sorts of useful side-effects to replace expensive drugs and medications. Comrade Corbyn is fond, in particular, of drinking some vodka before a big fight – which means he’s always on the verge of alcoholism. But cook up a Radscorpion omelette and bingo, addiction cured, and we can start on the whiskey. Head to the radioactive desert that sprawls across the south-east of the map to get more ingredients than you can handle.

11. You can go back … if you want

Fallout 4’s world is huge but, if you want to re-visit a cleared location with everything re-spawned – from enemies to random loot – the same 30-day rule applies as did in Skyrim. Sit on a piece of furniture anywhere and you can ‘Wait’ for a set time to trigger this respawn manually, the only downside being you have to wait in 24 hour blocks. I’m not saying this is fun or even practical. But if you want to rinse an especially rich building again or replay an especially good fight, this is how.

12. Turn it off then on again

One of Fallout 4’s more serious issues is that you can sometimes end up in a situation like this – where the game has spawned a brahmin inside the house that’s trying to get outside and blocking my only exit. Most glitches aren’t nearly as bad but, if this happens, the classic IT solution applies: just saving and reloading respawns everything and should get your wasteland domination back on track.

That’s it from us (and from Corbyn). But if you have any Fallout 4 tips to share with fellow wasteland wanderers, please add them in the comments section!

• Fallout 4: the first 10 things to do in the apocalyptic wasteland
  

Fallout 4 mods

If you really want to change your game, check out our guide to the best Fallout 4 mods.

You summon any item or NPC from thin air, or make yourself immortal with a few Fallout 4 console commands and cheats. By pressing the tilde key (~), you can unlock the console, a gateway that lets you give yourself superpowers, spawn weapons and monsters, change your stats and attributes, speed up time, and complete the game with one tap of the Enter key.

Simply activate the console in-game, type the command you want, press enter and then close the console again and watch your command take effect. If the tilde button (left of the 1 key) doesn't work, try the apostrophe key. It seems to vary depending on the nationality of your keyboard settings.

Fallout 4 cheats and console commands

tgm — Good old god mode.

tcl — No collision. Walk through walls. Walk into the sky. Be free.

tfc — Activates free camera.

tfc 1 — Same as above, but freezes all animations. Great for screenshots.

tm — Toggles menus and UI on and off. It even stops you from seeing the console, so you'll have to press tilde and type tm again blind to get the UI back.

csb — Resets blood and damage effects.

fov [first-person FOV] [third-person FOV] — Change the FOV.

set timescale to [insert number here] — Speeds up or slows down time. The default setting is 16. 1 is realtime, 10,000 is crazy spectacular timelapse. Be sure to look when time's on fast forward because the sun and the moon actually bounce across the sky.

coc [cell id] – Teleports the player to an area.

• Example: coc RedRocketExt

Finding item and NPC IDs

For a lot of these commands, you'll need to know how to get the IDs of items, NPCs, as well as the names of locations and factions. With the console open, clicking on a character or item will show its ID. Additionally, many commands act on the targeted character—so, whoever you clicked on. Sometimes it can be tricky to get the right ID to pop up (it's easy to select yourself accidentally), so using free cam (tfc) can help. You can also look up commands and IDs...

help [item name] [0-4] — Searches items, characters, commands, and more. Use Page Up and Page Down to scroll. 0 searches for everything.

• Example: help 'attack dog' 0 would let you know that there's an NPC called 'attack dog' with the ID 000B2BF2. Make sure to use quotes when searching for two or more words.

coc qasmoke — This teleports you to a room with a number of boxes that contain every single item in the game. Surreal, but a good way to find item IDs. You can find an item ID by entering the console and clicking on the item in the game world with your mouse. It turns out that Dogmeat's real name is 0001d162.

How to change your character with Fallout 4 console commands

showlooksmenu player 1 — Reopens the character customization menu so you can change your look. You'll want to have your character's face centered on screen for this one.

player.setrace [race id] — Change your race (e.g. ghoul, mutant). Find race IDs with the help function, but beware of adverse side effects (most races just make it crash).

• Example: player.setrace GhoulRace

player.resethealth — Resets your health.

setgs fJumpHeightMin [insert number here] — Modifies your jump. Set it really high to vault over buildings like the Incredible Hulk. Warning, if you don't turn on god mode, the falling damage from your own jump will kill you.

tdetect — The AI won't detect you anymore. Steal to your heart's content.

player.modav [skill] [number] — Boost a skill by a numerical amount of your choosing. Eg. player.modav strength 10 will boost your strength by ten points. If there's a terminal you'd love to hack or an NPC you'd love to persuade, use this. However, if you want to unlock perks, use the next command.

player.setav [character variable] [number] — Sets a character trait to a new value. Unlike modav, this will unlock perks when you change your stats.

player.setav speedmult [insert number here] — The number you type in adds multiplier to your running speed, with hilarious consequences. Use in combination with god mode and the next command to go full superhero.

player.setlevel [insert number] — Boost your level to the number specified.

player/additem 0000000f [insert number here] — Adds bottlecaps equal to the number you specify.

player/additem 0000000a [insert number here] — Adds bobbypins equal to the number you specify.

player.additem [item ID] [number] — You may have noticed a pattern in the last two commands. Yes, you can add ANY item to your inventory this way as long as you know the item ID (see above for instructions for finding IDs).

How to manipulate NPCs with Fallout 4 console commands

tai — Turns AI off and causes everyone to stand still with a vacant look on their face.

tcai — Turns combat AI off. Brings peace to the world. Boring, boring peace.

killall — Kills everyone in the vicinity, apart from companions and any other characters deemed too vital to die. In that case they will slump down injured until you give them a stimpack.

kill [insert ID] — Kills the creature with the ID you supply. Type kill (0017fda3) now and wherever they are, the feral ghoul I tested this on will drop dead. Alternatively, click on an NPC with the console open and just type 'kill.'

resurrect [insert ID] — Brings the creature with the ID you supply back to life. Type resurrect (0017fda3) to bring the feral ghoul I tested this on back to life! He's having a torrid day. Alternatively, select a dead NPC with the console open and just type 'resurrect.' If you resurrect a headless NPC, be aware that they're going to remain headless.

recycleactor — Resets a character.

setscale [number from 1 to 10] — Makes you or your target HUGE. See the results in the picture at the top of the article.

sexchange — You'll never guess. Works on whoever is selected, though it may not have good results with unique characters.

getav CA_affinity — Get the affinity level of your current companion.

setav CA_affinity [number] — Sets your companion's affinity level to a number.

modav CA_affinity [number] – Adds a number to your companion's affinity level. Haven't noticed an effect.

unequipall — Unequip all items from the selected NPC.

How to change factions with Fallout 4 console commands

player.AddToFaction [faction id] [0 or 1] — Become allied with a faction. Alternatively, remove the 'player' prefix and this will affect the targeted NPC. 0 is friendly, 1 is allied.

• Example: player.AddToFaction 00028670 1 to become allied with bugs.

player.RemoveFromFaction [faction id] — Remove yourself from a faction. Alternatively, remove the 'player' prefix and this will affect the targeted NPC.

removefromallfactions — Removes the target from all factions.

setally [faction id] [faction id] [0 or 1] [0 or 1] — Make two factions friendly (0) or allied (1).

setenemy [faction id] [faction id] [0 or 1] [0 or 1] —Make two factions neutral (0) or enemies (1).

How to complete the game with Fallout 4 console commands

completeallobjectives [Quest ID] — Complete all current objectives in a quest.

resetquest [Quest ID] – Reset a quest.

completequest [Quest ID] — Complete a quest.

caqs — This completes every step of the primary quest, effectively completing the game for you. WARNING: Don't use it if you want to avoid spoiling the entire game for yourself.