This guide is meant for new and low-level players getting started in Fallout 76, with tips on scavenging, ammunition crafting, where to find workstations and other useful amenities, and what kind of weapons to carry.
Fallout 76 isn’t like the Fallout role-playing games preceding it, in that the first several hours are rather linear as players complete a long series of introductory missions. After creating a character, players leave Vault 76 and may go anywhere. There is a main quest line to pursue, but there are more places and encounters in the rest of the world vying for players’ attention, distracting them from a less obvious main goal.
This guide sheds light on what is worth doing in the immediate surroundings outside Vault 76, and what new players should focus on developing and building up at lower levels before moving on to more advanced missions and content. Fallout 76 is much more survival-oriented than its predecessors, so scavenging, conserving ammunition and maintaining supplies of clean (or at least acceptable) food and water take on greater importance in Appalachia.
Related
We’ve made a guide about that already. Advancement, attributes and Perks work differently in Fallout 76. Don’t agonize too much over your choices early on. Remember that you can swap Perks in and out as necessary, which is very handy for skills like hacking and lockpicking.
After the opening cinematic, you begin in your apartment inside Vault 76. This is where you create your character name them, and take a picture representing your Vault-Tec ID.
You can change your appearance at any time in the game. Go to the map and, from there, the main menu (LB/L1 on consoles); the appearance options will be in the list there. But you can’t change your character’s name. If you’re wondering how you will appear to other players, they’ll see your user ID.
When you leave Vault 76, that’s it; you cannot reenter. So it might be a good idea to nap on the bed in your apartment to gain the Well Rested effect (5 percent bonus to XP earned) for the next two hours (real time).
Inside Vault 76, you’ll see a lot of useful-looking junk, in your apartment and outside. The only stuff you can pick up is the Nuka Tapper tape (from the Vault-Tec terminal inside the apartment), a love note on a table in the diner (not a quest item), and the Overseer’s log from her office terminal. Nothing else inside the vault can be picked up except for the items left for you on a series of tables in the short onboarding path that is upstairs leading toward the exits. So don’t waste time trying to scavenge here.
The Overseer’s office is the only “secret” (though not really) area. It’s behind the table with the water supplies on it. Logging in to the Overseer’s terminal will check off an optional goal; the holotape on it explains the larger story of what’s at stake in Fallout 76.
Pick up all of the items left on the tables. At the “Get A Job” table, don’t forget to pick up the Perk Cards scattered on the table. These will give you (at random) the first bonuses you can apply to your SPECIAL attributes, all of which start out at 1.
Immediately in front of you is a Responder’s corpse with a pipe gun and a small amount of ammunition. Take it and anything else you find. Don’t go exploring to the right. Two Liberator robots are there. Though they’re little more than nuisances, they still aren’t worth wasting the ammunition, and there isn’t anything that way to scavenge.
Go down the steps to the lower level and scavenge another Responder corpse, taking the machete. As mentioned above, melee weapons will be critical in your early adventures.
Moving south along the path, if you venture off to the left/west you’ll encounter a pond and, near it, what looks like an elevated shelter or deer stand. This is not marked on your map and is not a discoverable location. Inside are some useful supplies and scrap items. There is also a banjo and a mouth harp on the two chairs here. Play either for 30 seconds, and you receive the Well Tuned effect, which regenerates Action Points 25 percent faster for the next hour (real time).
Continuing south toward the quest icon that is the Overseer’s Camp. Stop by Wixon Homestead, but be prepared to fight several of the Scorched. These are humanoid foes like Ghouls, except they can (and do) wield weapons, including firearms. Use your machete on as many as you can to conserve ammunition. The Scorched here are low-level and probably won’t kill you, but you can still take enough damage to require a Stimpak after it’s all over. There are petrified Scorched corpses in the area, too. If you stumble into or otherwise disturb one, it will disintegrate and shed radiation (about 10 RADs) for a short while.
Scavenge everything from this site — the farmhouse, the barn, plus a shed and a storage building on top of a hill a little to the west. We found an armor mod in here. Importantly, there is a ton of fertilizer lying around. That can be scrapped (broken down) into acid at the Tinker’s Workbench in the shed. Acid plus scrap cloth creates gunpowder (though you will need a chemistry station to mix it). Gunpowder plus lead and steel scrap creates ammunition. (Also, if you hang on to raw food or vegetables for too long, they will spoil — but spoiled food can be scrapped for fertilizer, then broken down to acid, and so forth.)
Gilman Lumber Yard to the north of Wixon Homestead offers free wood, which might be useful to pick up before departing for the Overseer’s Campsite to the south. The Overseer will have left you a cache of supplies in her trunk, and there will be other items lying around here, too. Take all of the junk, break it down at the armor or weapons bench, and store it in the Stash Box. Anything you put into a Stash Box is accessible from any Stash Box you find elsewhere in Appalachia.
By the time you arrive at the Overseer’s Campsite, you should have enough raw material to craft a full set of leather armor (even modding some or all of the pieces to boiled leather) and either mod your pipe pistol or create a pipe revolver. Get to crafting pronto, cook any raw food you have, and get moving southwest to Flatwoods, keeping your machete out to deal with the mongrels and Mister Handy you encounter on the road there.
Flatwoods is southwest of the Overseer’s Camp, and it contains a wide array of materials, consumables, items and missions to help build your character up before adventuring elsewhere. There is a chemistry station in the church (it’s part of the “Thirst Things Thirst” mission), a cooking pit behind the tavern and a Tinker’s Workbench behind the Red Rocket south of town. These utilities, plus the Stash Box at the Red Rocket and the weapons and armor benches back at the Overseer’s campsite, will help you maximize the junk you scavenge before setting off north for the Morgantown Airport to continue the main quest line.
The Green County Lodge is midway between the Overseer’s Campsite and Flatwoods. It contains a lot of useful junk, particularly in the weight room on the bottom floor. You can lug it back to the Overseer’s campsite in one overencumbered shot, but just note you can’t use fast travel when you are overencumbered, like in past Fallouts.
Flatwoods has a lot of Brahmin cattle roaming around, useful for both leather and food. It will also see a lot of interference from Mister Handies and Securitrons from the nearby “Fertile Soil” event centering around the Vault-Tec Agricultural Research Center.
Across the creek in Flatwoods and up the very steep hill to the west, you will find Relay Tower EM-B1-27 guarded by a minimal robot presence.
