Vault 84: Did Ya Notice....

UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES

Companionship aside, NPCs work wonderfully well as burros. To give them something, use your steal skill on them and plant the object in question. Alternately, you can barter with them and take nothing in return -- something every character in the game will think is a "fair trade." To take something, use your steal skill and take it away from them.

Your NPCs do have a limited number of item slots and they do have weight limits. Unload any weapons with ammo first so they will "stack" nicely. This also keeps them from blowing you away accidentally with the automatic weapon you just wanted them to carry to the next town.

You can still select a weapon whose minimum strength required exceeds your character's strength. You will get a -20% penalty for every point of strength difference between your strength and the strength required. So, Natalia (pre-gen character with Strength=4) will get a -20% hit modifier if she tries to use a combat shotgun (min strength 5), a -40% hit modifier if she tries to use a flamethrower (min strength 6), a -60% hit modifier if she tries to use a minigun (min strength 7), etc.

GAMEPLAY BUGS

None of these bugs are fatal, but they can be used to varying degrees to make your life easier in the game.

Bartering will allow a character to carry stuff that would otherwise exceed his/her carrying capacity. For example, if my character could only carry 150 pounds, was carrying 140 pounds, and bartered bottlecaps (which have no weight) for Powered Armor (which weighs a lot more than 10 pounds), I'd end the deal with the Powered Armor and well over my weight limit. This barter bug can be used to really pack your NPCs to the brim with stuff. After killing the Raiders, I had Ian toting 3 Desert Eagle Magnums, 3 10mm pistols, a shotgun, 2 leather jackets, and 8(!) suits of leather armor.

In another bartering bug, if your "Barter" skill is high enough, you can buy an item for a specific price and then immediately sell it back for more than what you paid for it. If someone has an especially large amount of money, you can easily take it all away from them essentially for free.

In version 1.0 of the game, allowing yourself to get radiation sickness (usually from the Glow) can result in tremendously boosted statistics. After radiaion sickness has set in, there will be an initial drop in stats, followed by an increase to nearly perfect scores.

Easter Eggs

Hold the "Shift" key and click on the "Credits" button to get the Fallout team quotes file. Not for the tender of ears, so avoid it if you turned foul language off in the game.

Hit "Command-P" in the game to get the Fallout Menu bar and select "About Fallout..." to see Tim Hume's credits for the game, complete with flying text and a random sound effect for each credit.

Hold down the "Option" key when doing the above to get the Secret About Box with Tim's acknowledgements.

There are several music posters throughout the game

A few members of the message board and the newsgroups have noticed the singer in the Boneyard has borrowed from Nine Inch Nails.

The dog behind the Cathedral as you go into the Cathedral Basement is named "Sasha," but you can't get to her in the game. Sasha is the dog of one of the Fallout producers, although I've forgotten if it's Tim Cain or Feargus Urquhart. Apparently, Sasha has showed up in other Interplay games as well.