Fallout Shelter – Ultimate Guide

A guide that will hopefully get you started on your Vault as a young Overseer along with basic information on Rooms and tips on surviving out the wasteland!

Caps & Nuka-Cola Quantum

Please note: all credit goes to Ozzymand!

Hey there! Is no one selling to you because you’re trying to give the actual hard earned money you stole from the elderly couple down the street? Well here’s what you gotta do!

In this game (as of most Fallout games) the in-game currency are Caps. Caps are used to build and upgrade building’s.

You eventually might realise…why are we using Caps? Well they….uhh..use them because….uhh…Hey! How are we supposed to know?

Note: Each time you purchase a new room the room gets more and more expensive to build!

Nuka Cola Quantum is a purchasable (with real money only) item that can be used to speed up and skip quests/tasks/objectives. You can also get these from objectives and quests ect.

Sure they come in handy if you’re the impatient type but they’re obviously not needed nor required. You will get 15 of these when you get the “Overseer’s Office”.

Security

We all want to be safe from raiders, bugs and deathclaws, right? So here’s a few things that will help you survive the fallout 😉

  • Put a high skilled, armed dweller that has high Endurance (Recommended over 4), and Strenght (Reconnebded over 5). This will be a good defense against raiders. 
  • If you don’t have a high endurance dweller than just put two dwellers by the door with a skill level around 2 (with weapons and armor/outfits)(PostNote: the Vault Door must be level 2 in order to have 2 dwellers guarding it).
  • Give everyone in the shelter a weapon (if possible) this will mean if you get into any picky situations where the dweller guarding the door dies there will be other dwellers ready for a fight!
  • Upgrade the door health so you’ll have longer period to prepare for the attack.
  • Don’t send out anyone to scavenge unless your defense is solid (or else).

Fallout Shelter - Ultimate Guide

Note: Killing raiders will reward you in weapons, armor, outfits and caps. Just click on their bodies!

  • Vault Door Price: N/A
  • Vault Door Upgrade 1: 500 Caps
  • Vault Door Upgrade 2: 2000 Caps

Living Quarters

The Living Quarters is the way to get kids meaning more forced labour for you!
All you have to do is mate a Male dweller and a Female dweller simply by assigning them both to the same Living Quarter.

After you get a Female dweller you have to wait what seems like an eternity to get the baby and THEN have to wait another thousnd years for it to grow UP!

Defenetly worth until you get the Radio Station.

Living Quarters are what you need to upgrade / construct to get more dwellers in your vault!
So make sure you have them Maxed out!

Fallout Shelter - Ultimate Guide

  • Living Quarters Price: 100 Caps
  • Living Quarters Upgrade 1: 250 Caps (Now a Residence)
  • Living Quarters Upgrade 2: 750 Caps (Now a Barracks)

Power

Rooms run on POWER which means you need to have power all the time!
If you don’t have POWER you are basiclly screwed! No POWER = No food / Water

Alright, we got that out of the way. Now. You got a vault, you got over the tutorial. What do you do?
Make a 2 blocks wide generator room and assign at least 2 dwellers! No matter what 2 dwellers are requierd for the minimum power (For the starting phase)!

Did it? Should look something like this:

Fallout Shelter - Ultimate Guide

All dandy’ so far ye? Good!

Power is no joke… Power is the blood that runs trough your vault!

  • Power Generator: 100 Caps
  • Power Generator Upgrade 1: 250 Caps (Now a Power Station)
  • Power Generator Upgrade 2: 750 Caps (Now a Power Plant) 

Food

Good ol’ food. A key to survival none-the-less. Maintaining food is rather easy if you have a general idea on what you are doing! So this is why you are reading this thread, i guess?

  • A level 3, 3 blocks wide dinner with 6 Dwellers working in there is enough to sustain a staggering (soon to be confirmed) 30 Dwellers! 
  • Keep Dinner (The Room) always at a 2 blocks (or 3 if you have the possibility) with 4 dwellers (6 dwellers if its 3 blocks wide) 

Fallout Shelter - Ultimate Guide

  • When dwellers go starving they will move slower, work slower, may refuse to fight! 
  • If you have the ability to get the Garden, do it! But don’t destroy the Dinner!! 

  • The Garden does give more FOOD but slower!
  • The Garden is really expensive but does save space!
  • You can’t live off only Garden’s. Have at least 2 Dinners if you have a BIG vault!
  • Small vaults can’t live off Garden’s!

  • Dinner Price: 100 Caps
  • Dinner Upgrade 1 : 250 Caps (Now a Restaurant)
  • Dinner Upgrade 2 : 750 Caps (Now a Cafeteria)

Water

Ah, yes. Waterfalls, Fountains, Rivers… too bad they are gone!
But hey, you can purify it with the room known as “Water Treatment Room”.
A wise choiche for a thirsty fellow like you!

When it comes to water it’s pretty easy to keep at a high level like food! Water is vital to your dwellers as they are 69% Water 1% Rad 30% Flesh and Bones, right?

  • 4 Dwellers are a good choice to keep a starter vault but as you expand more water is requierd (obviously) 
  • The Water Purification Room is also good but for BIG vaults as it produces ALOT of water but realy slow! 
  • The Water Treatment Room can be kept at level 2 for starters but you need to upgrade it to level 3 as your vault gets bigger!

Don’t be affraid to construct more Water Treatment Rooms!

  • Water Treatment Room Price: 100 Caps
  • Water Treatment Room Upgrade 1: 250 Caps (Now a Water Treatment Station)
  • Water Treatment Room Upgrade 2: 750 Caps (Now a Water Treatment Plant) 

Medbay

The Medbay, although not crucial, very useful.

The Medbay recuires “I” (Intelligence) to produce “Stimpacks” (Health Items) that can be used in defense and scavenging mode.

Something that can help you big time is upgrading your Medbay by one level, this will then turn it into a “Clinic”. They will produce 2 Stimpacks at a time.

If you have a dweller who has a high “I” skill it would be wise to put them on the Medbay to create Stimpacks.
Intelligence can be trained with Classroom.

Note: Stimpacks take app. 10 minutes or higher to produce so don’t expect them to pop out so easily. But the production can pe sped up by trainings your dweller’s intelligence and having more in the same room.

  • Medbay Cost: 500
  • Medbay Upgrade: 1000

Medbay:

Clinic:

Science Lab & Radiation

Before the Nuke most people would have been saying “Did you have your shower Timmy?”
Now…”Timmy if you don’t have any radaways after going outside you’re getting thrown out” No…Just me?…Ok…

While the Science lab is very similar to the Medbay in terms of skill (intelligence), it is WAY different in terms of production.

It will produce radaways that will erase any radiation that your dwellers may carry

Tip: If you click on a dweller and you see red in the health bar…GET THE SCIENCE LAB UP AND RUNNING MAN!

Radiation can be gotten from going out into the wasteland, so if you have a lot of scavengers then I’d keep them in stock 😉

  • Sciene Lab Cost: 500 Caps
  • Sciene Lab Upgrade 1: 1000 Caps 

Overseer’s Office & Exploring

Have you ever said to yourself “I need more weapons” or “I need more Money” or even “I NEED MORE CLOTHES!!!”? Well this section’s for you!

Exploring isn’t EXTREAMLY important but is very useful.

When you send dweller you will see dialouge from the dweller on it’s journey, so basically if you’re bored, you can read it.

Tip: Send out dwellers who have good skill stats like E (Endurance), S (Strenght), ect.

Also give your dwellers Stimpacks, Radaways and Weapons with them on their journey, we didn’t say it was safe outside now did we?

Tip: Check on the exploring dweller by clicking the outside the shelter or by pressing the gear on the top right of your screen.

Now the Overseer’s Office is VERY useful and introduces “Nuka Cola Quantum” (Speeds up game)
This building allows you to go to buildings and do quests for different rewards.
This is a WAY better method than just letting your dweller wander around the place picking up 2 caps every 10 minuites and the ocasional BB-Gun.

The Radio Station

Ugh, it sure gets boring constantly turning this wheel around over, and over and..what was I talking about again? Hey! A Radio Station! Let’s listen to some tunes! Oh wait, we’re the radio station…MAN LIFE SUCKS

The Radio Station is an important part of the the game later on as dwellers are a lot less likely to arrive to your vault. The radio stations main purpose is too bring dwellers into your vault.

Depending on the C (Charisma) that your dwellers have running the joint It can take up to 1-4/5 hoursish. And you might be like..”Wow, I can get a new dweller that often! Nope my good sir, you see there is a chance that your dwellers got on to another dweller so if you’re watching that timer, don’t expect to see a new dweller pop out EVERY time, and you will have to press on The Radio Station once a dweller received the message to prevent dwellers from stacking up overnight or just letting the game run without you checking on it. Alright? Good 😉

Note: Most dwellers skill levels are usually poor with their max usually being 2, so don’t expect any INSANE skill on them newcomers.

But hey! The radio station has a small switch you may never used or intend to. That, when being switched from left to right will boost your Vault’s overall happiness which is graded at the end of every day for CAPS as a reward. They are not initially too big but as you grow you get more and more Caps!

Random Events

We have all been there, a room randomly burstend into flames, or the coacroaches decided to attack back! But there are other dangers out there too, some deadlier than others!
So here’s a list with the events and how to take care of them!

Mysterious Stranger

A misterious dweller can appear in random spots in your vault with a piano tune alerting you about his presence. Clicking on him you can gain 50-Unknown Caps (Depends on vault size).

Fire

When a room catches on fire you will have to put it out QUICK or it will spread to other rooms! (Luckly it won’t destroy the rooms, it will just damage your dwellers).

Radroaches and Mole Rats

These nasty pests will invade a random room at random times. They will spread if they are not dealt with quickly! They just damage the dwellers so make sure they all have at least 1 gun per room!

Raiders / Bandits

These gentlemen attack coming from the wasteland first hitting the door, so make sure you have at least 1 powerfull dweller guarding the Vault Door or 2 dwellers (They obviously need to have guns!).

Resources that flash red are slowly draining as they are stealing them!

After a raider dies click his body to retrive caps, armor, weapons or junk.

Death Claws

You might aswell just say your prayers because they will rip your vault into pieces! These unstoppable mutants are every Overseer’s worst nightmare! Only a fatboy could stop these monsters!

Ghouls

The zombies stronger, uglier and faster cousin, the Ghouls will attack similar to raiders but will have a way bigger impact! They will attack the door, similar to the raiders but when broken down will inflict A LOT more damage and will give your dwellers radiation, so pack those Rad-aways! They go room to room a lot faster though so if your dwellers are at full health there’s not much to worry about.

Cappy and Bottle

Sometimes when you have alot of dwellers ~50 2 characters will visit your vault and perform dances randomly. Click on them while dancing to recive CAPS and Nuka-Cola Quantum
Cappy.

Training Rooms

Are you not great at serving food? Are you not great at making sticks that give you health? Are you not great at ANYTHING? Well you might wanna try out the new “Training rooms” We just got built!

All the training rooms have the same purpose, to train your skills (S.P.E.C.I.A.L Stats). There are several training rooms and here’s a list of most, if not all of them:

  • Weight Room: Strength
  • Athletics Room: Agility
  • Armory: Perception
  • Classroom: Intelligence
  • Fitness Room: Endurance
  • Lounge: Charisma
  • Gameroom: Luck

Although (depending on the skill level) it takes awhile to upgrade but it sure is worth it!

Note: The time it will take to upgrade will depend on the dwellers skill stat at that time, so having one won’t take too long but having 9 will take a good bit longer.

Hint: Try and train new dwellers instead of sending them to a room, it will mean that the dweller will be better at their job so you can get resources faster, but train him just for that room requierment as it takes quite a while to train them (unless you got Nuka-Cola Quantum to spare for the training).

Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 15051 Articles
I love games and I live games. Video games are my passion, my hobby and my job. My experience with games started back in 1994 with the Metal Mutant game on ZX Spectrum computer. And since then, I’ve been playing on anything from consoles, to mobile devices.

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