Fallout 76 Survival Guide: Tips for Survival in the Wasteland

Our survival guide for Fallout 76 shows you

  • What you have to keep in mind when collecting water and food
  • What workbenches are good for in the open world
  • Why diluting medicines is worthwhile

If you're new to the Fallout universe or bad at managing resources, you should take a look at our Fallout 76 survival guide. Here you'll get a feel for what's important to start with in the wasteland and what you don't really need to pay attention to for now.

Table of Contents: Survival Guide

General survival tips

Always pay attention to your stats in Fallout 76: Hunger and thirst affect your action points and make you unable to move in the short or long term. So always roam the wasteland well-fed. Especially in longer battles, thirst can suddenly take you by surprise and take away your ability to react quickly.

In gas stations, story-relevant C.A.M.P.s and other interesting places you will occasionally come across a VAULT-Tec crate. If you store things here, they will automatically end up in your C.A.M.P. and save space in your inventory. Wood and consumables for short-term survival on the road are always plentiful - so don't worry if you don't have anything on you for a short time.

You'll find plenty ofammo at the beginning. Ammunition for weapons you are not currently using should be stored. Fallout 76 displays the type of ammunition a weapon requires in the weapon wheel next to the corresponding weapon, for example. If you have a weapon in mind for later, store the cartridges for it for now.

The alternative Pip-Boy view can save lives. As already described in the beginner's guide, you can switch the display of your Pip Boy from full screen to semi-transparent mode. This is essential on the road, so you won't be suddenly surprised by enemies.

The semi-transparent Pip Boy view makes the game immediately clearer.

What do I have to consider when choosing food?

In the wasteland of Appalachia, pretty much everything you find is contaminated. For example, plants or the meat of mutated animals that you collect. Therefore, it is important that you prepare your food beforehand. Not only to reduce the ingested radioactivity, but also to have more of your food.

Of course, you can chow down on processed food from before the fallout, but situationally, you should eat something home-cooked. Because this will give you different bonuses in Fallout 76.

From the meat of Brahmins - the double-headed cows - you can prepare a delicious ribeye steak, which temporarily increases the carrying capacity. Useful when you want to haul more stuff and when you're overloaded, for example, but want to get to another place via fast travel. Deer Steak gives the same bonus.

Opossum Bacon , on the other hand, is made from - who would have thought it - opossum meat. Eating it will temporarily increase your luck. So if you are on a loot hunt, such a snack can improve your collection yield.

Soups not only satisfy hunger, but also thirst. The green fluorescent mushrooms, for example, which you can find at the start at almost every roadside, can be processed at cooking stations. Sometimes a simple sip of water is still more worthwhile.

Depending on your hunger, thirst, hit points, and bike, you'll get more out of it in percentage terms than making a quick soup beforehand. However, if you need a quick boost for all your stats in Fallout 76, soup is always a good choice.

Master chef and survival pro go hand in hand thanks to food bonuses.

Why water is not always useful

Don't stand in water: Natural water sources in Fallout 76 are usually always contaminated and increase your Rad not only when you pick up water - but additionally when you stand in it. We recommend a Rad-X for collecting larger amounts of water or other activities in the cool water.

Never drink dirty water: otherwise your Rad levels will increase immeasurably, as will the risk of illness. Before you drink a sip of dirty water, rather decapitate a found Nuka Cola - even if you actually wanted to put it on the shelf.

Boiled water usually offers a good ratio of radiation to thirst quencher. Purified water is ideal, of course, but that is also used to process certain medications and should therefore only be drunk with caution.

In any case, you should always have a solid amount of drinking water in your inventory when you go on tour. Because in the wasteland there are areas where there are hardly any or no natural water sources.

Wet feet will immediately increase your radiation level.

What should I pay attention to when choosing weapons?

At the start of Fallout 76, you will have to make do with improvised weapons. They hardly cause any damage, but they are better than wandering through the wasteland unprotected. However, don't bother with repairing or improving them. You'll find them everywhere, and you can simply recycle broken improvised weapons and grab a new one from the next ghoul.

Better early than late, you should specialize in a certain type of weapon, as described in the skill guide. You should then make this your main weapon, upgrade, improve and maintain it.

Even if you have focused on a shotgun or a Colt, we recommend that you always have at least one melee weapon and a rifle in your inventory. The former is useful for saving ammo on small and weak enemies.

With the rifle, you can always take the damage bonus for hidden shooting at longer distances when sneaking up on hordes of enemies. Especially in the beginning, this guarantees kills with only one bullet.

If you find weapons with modifications, chances are you'll get them when you recycle them.

What are the benefits of workbenches in the open world?

In the C.A.M.P. guide to Fallout 76, we explain why workbenches belong in your own camp. Nevertheless, workbenches in the game world are not useless. You should collect a lot of scrap andimprovised weapons, especially at the beginning.

However, this also ensures that you will quickly reach the limits of your pockets. On longer trips away from your camp, you should therefore regularly recycle scrap. You can do this at any workbench, which can be found everywhere in Appalachia. This will free up space in your inventory.

If you recycle modified weapons, chances are good that you'll get a blueprint for the corresponding part and can screw it onto your favorite weapon.

Really valuable items - which you can't or don't want to do anything with - you shouldn't necessarily recycle right away. Here and there in the game world there are robots with whom you can trade items for crown caps.

How do I use medicine effectively?

At the beginning, your life bar is still quite short and your radiation rarely increases immeasurably by itself in the first areas. So for everyday life in the wasteland you rarely need a complete stimpack or a full Rad-Away. It's only later, when you properly distribute your level-ups, that your hit points skyrocket.

Dilute medicines is our recommendation. This can be done at a laboratory station, which you can find everywhere (like workbenches) or build in your C.A.M.P.. For dilution you need not only boiled water, but treated water. If you find some along the way, don't drink it all in Fallout 76.

Diluting not only ensures that you don't waste any excess healing, but logically increases your supply of medicine at the same time. Undiluted stimpacks are only really worthwhile for large raidsand long battles. You can get by with diluted rations for at least the first 15 levels.

More guides for Fallout 76

We will gradually provide you with more solutions to your problems in the game. Check out our big Fallout 76 overview or our guide to finding power armor.

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