Before we make a character read the list below to help plan.

• All SPECIAL bobbleheads except Perception are very difficult to get to or obtain if you're not level 15+ Do not count on getting them to acheive perk requirements when creating your character
  
  
• Settlement development is a HUGE part of this game and can be taken very very deep beyond just plopping down water pumps and turrets. Learn how to utilize this ASAP, especially with high charisma characters.
  
  
• You can get an additional +1 to any stat from the SPECIAL book on the floor in the nursery in your old house.
  
  
• You can get the Perception bobble head SUPER EARLY by going to Concord in the start
  
  
• You get your first set of power armor at the same time you get the Perception Bobblehead
  
  
• The only way to increase your accuracy in vats via STATS is in perception. There are no gained perks that increase vat accuracy. (barring the rank 10 perception perk, which all in all is pretty weak, if you have 10 in perception for that perk you'd need 10 in agility and drugs to make it viable with the action point total Jet Fuel, Psycho Jet, AP reduction gear)
  
  
• Critical Hits are tied DEEPLY into vats now
  
  
• Radiation is super deadly now, rad poisoning takes away from your max health until healed, and radiation comes from many sources now. Running through a stream can add 40 points of rad in a few seconds, that's 4%HP! 1000 rad kills you dead, it's based on percentages now. 10 rads to 1 percent HP. so if you had 900 rads, you're down 90% of you max capable HP.
  
  
• Speech checks are made from a flat out Charisma Score+ minor perk modifiers if taken
  
  
• Maintaining Power Amor Requires Amor Crafting and Science perks
  
  
• Power Amor Frames can not be left in your bags as in previous games, they are left in the real world where you left them as is Lore Friendly, they are tough as hell but parts can break and be swapped out as is also lore friendly. Most importantly, if you leave power armor free standing in a non defended area it can be stolen by enemies, making looting the frame back impossible, assuming you can kill the a$$hole taking your power armor for a joy ride.
  
  
• There are multiple power armor frames in game, in case yours get stolen or you want to keep several around at key settlements to save FUEL consumption...oh yeah power armor use fuel called Fusion Cores, no more god mode power armor use.
  
  
• The perk Lone Wanderer functions with Dogmeat as an active companion!
  
  
• NEW Critical hits do not occur outside sneak attacks or vats.
  
  
• NEW Perks or items that increase critical damage do not increase SNEAK critical damage, and vice versa.
  
  
• NEW Sneak Criticals and Standard (VATS) criticals are calculated by 2 different mechanics and SPECIAL stats. This has caused confusion so I'll explain it here as simple as I can. AGILITY Gives AP for vats, but it also handles SNEAKING. while LUCK handles CRITICAL IN VATS and other luck based attribute A VAT based critical build would have high AGILITY and LUCK, both to boost crits and give more shots in vats. Pistols would be the best VATS based crit build with AGILITY+LUCK. A sniper will never get tons of shots in vats because rifles use tons of AP where pistols don't, they should go PERCEPTION/AGILITY and focus on sneaking+long range NON VATS engagements. A ninja wold be STR+AGL. Figure out if you're going to be using crits or not, and if so, what kind. A sniper gets very very little use from luck, the "Better Critical" perk in luck does not affect sneak based critical shots.

Keeping mind there are certain perks I say you MUST get, choosing not to get them will hinder you or straight up ruin your game.

• Scrounger - Luck 2
  Get one rank right off the bat, it doesn't just increase the ammo you loot, you find ammo for any type of gun all over, containers that were empty have a MUCH higher chance of holding ammo in general. Ammo can run out easily for your guns in this fallout
  
  
• Lockpick - Perception 4
  I'd get a rank in lock pick as my 2nd choice, there are 4 safes in Sanctuary 2 need rank 1 , and 1 needs rank 2. There's also 3 rank 2 safes in Concord. Level this up at every available level
  
  
• Scrapper - Intelligence 5
  Suggest this as your level 4 perk, breaking down guns and items will now give gears,s crews etc.. instead of the very plentiful steel
  
  
• Hacking - Intelligence 4
  Take it at level 5 and then every level it becomes available
  
  
• Armor Modification - Strength 3
  It's neccessary, keep this leveld up when possible
  
  
• Aquaboy - Endurance 5
  1 rank is really all you need, it seems useless but there is A LOT of water in this game and it can kill you via radiation very very very fast, or just drain your rad away supplies like crazy. Get this before weapon skills. It's a quality of life perk and can be skipped if you want to avoid water. But there's a lot of fun water missions, hidden loot, unique gear and stuff you find under water.
  
  
• Town leader - Charisma 6
  Rank 1 lets you set up supply chains, letting your settlements pool their supplies together. I won't go in to detail how to do it, look it up on youtube. But this is crazy helpful, get rank 1 even if you don't plan to go deep into towns (which i suggest you do eventualy)
  
  
  When it comes to crafting perks, some are more important then others, in order of importance
  
  
  1. Armor Modding is first and foremost, always level this up, ALWAYS!
     
  2. Science rank 2- it's needed for amor, guns, and settlement building, get this to rank 2 when possible. Only above 2 if you use Energy Weapons and/or Power Armor
     
  3. Gun Nut rank 2- Needed for all ranged weapons to some degree and in settlement defense. Only boost higher then 2 if you specialize in NON-Energy Weapons
     
  4. Blacksmith I'd only take this skill if you are unarmed or melee weapon specialize. it can be use to modify the Arm Pieces of Power Armor for unarmed boosts.

So going from the NEEDED perks we can see you'll need a MINIMUM

• Strength 3
  
• Perception 4
  
• Endurance 5
  
• Charisma 6
  
• Intelligence 5
  
• Agility X - No required perks
  
• Luck 2
  
  Keeping in mind how you're going to play and that you get +1 Perception and +1 ANY STAT very early on. Create your build accordingly
  I prefer for my Ranged Combat heroes starting stats
  
• S 3
  
• P 4 (I don't use the bobblehead to hit 4, because higher perception is better overall)
  
• E 4 (use the SPECIAL BOOK for +1 to make it 5)
  
• C 6
  
• I 5
  
• A 4
  
• L 2

You can of course adjust for your weapon preference or playstyle and adjust as needed. It's important to play your own way, these are just suggestions to not cut your self off from exploration or certain quests and loot

OK so lots of things give xp, especialy crafting. I'm not talking about expensive crafting I mean easy stuff you don't think about.

• Cooking, it's easy. Cook your rad roach meat, stag meat, mole meat, w/e every one gives exp. Grilled Rad Stag takes 1 meat gives 120HP heal and+25lb carry weight limit for a few minutes.
  I then set those meats to hot button 0, eat those instead of wasting stimpacks. Cooked meat also sells for 20-200 caps each, good money there.
  
  
• Make chems, Psycho Jet and Bufftats are easy as hell to make and useful. Pop those for tough fights, the base components drop so often you'll probably never run out. I've leveled twice on cooking and twice on chems each, before level 15,
  
  
• Running powerlines between poles and items, also nets you some cheap easy exp. Stringing power up to sancutary houses, 2 levels on that alone.

So when I leave the vault and get to town, i do the Codsworth miniquest and he tells me to go to Concord. Before I do, i grab the SPECIAL book under in my childs room and add that to a stat I want. Then I go to the WORKSHOP bench and activate it to unlock settlement workshop building. I go through the town cleaning up all RUINED items. Do not delete the couched tables/chairs etc...
These add to town happiness level, while useless clutter detracts from happiness. leaving the couches and stuff there saves TONS of time and resources. I set up fallen tables and couches, clean out unusable debree from the entire town.
I also Move all the crafting stations (there's a cooking and a chemistry station around the other parts) to the main crafting area.

This gives you basic crafting materials. I then place 2 water pumps in town, 12+ beds (1 per bedroom of the non ruined houses) I loot and then plant 2 melons and a gourd to get a headstart on food production. Keep an eye out for floor SAFES under some beds and cribs, and the rear cellar enterance behind a house to a rank 1 safe and rare crafting gold crafting material.
Drop 1-2 turrets if you can near the bridge for security ratings.
Also upgrade one of the guns you're going to be using, there's a .38 Caliber Pipe Pistol in the last house codsworth takes you near a corpse in the kitchen that can be made into a rifle.

All this is done in preparation for a quest you get after you escort the Concord group to Sanctuary. Also CRAFTING items gives EXP and this can get me 1 sometimes 2 levels before i even get to Dogmeat. I then do similar at the Rocket Gas Station. Clean up the junk, collect all the crafting stations in to one area. Place at least 1 bed for my self.

This gives some good early exp and loot. Look under the gas station in some hidden caves for a FULL Fusion Core and another rank 1 safe.

1. Register a free account at www.nexusmods.com
   
   
2. Download the Nexus Mod Manager[www.nexusmods.com]
   
   
3. Read the installations instructions HERE[www.nexusmods.com]

• Better Power Generators[www.nexusmods.com]
  
  
  
• Customize Power Armour and Jetpack Drain[www.nexusmods.com]
  
  
  
• Glorious Female Nude Mod[www.nexusmods.com] - NSFW
  
  
  
• HD Bandanas[www.nexusmods.com]
  
  
  
• The Eyes Of Beauty Fallout Edition[www.nexusmods.com]
  
  
  
• Homemaker - Expanded Settlements[www.nexusmods.com]
  THIS HERE IS AMAZING
  
  
  
• Craftable Ammo[www.nexusmods.com]
  THIS HERE IS DOUBLY AMAZING
  
  
• Darkened Shark X-01 Armor[www.nexusmods.com]
  
  
  
• Lowered Weapons[www.nexusmods.com]
  
  
  
• Full Dialogue Interface (NewDialog English and CN-DE-ES-FR-IT-PL-PTBR translations)[www.nexusmods.com]
  IF YOU DON'T USE THIS, DUMP YOUR COMPUTER IN THE OCEAN AND BUY A CONSOLE
  
  
• Value per Weight indicator for container UI[www.nexusmods.com]

NEW

• Increased Settler Population with Infinite Settlement Budget[www.nexusmods.com] This should have been the default setting for Bethesda
  
  
• Longer Power Lines [www.nexusmods.com] Mandatory for settlements
  
  
• Crafting Workbenches - Immersive Crafting of Weapons Armor Clothing Ammo Junk[www.nexusmods.com] Can replace ammo crafting mod if wanted, adds more workbenches and workbench functionality, compatible with SSEx

This guide has been hugely popular and this pleases me, it has also gotten criticis, which is fine, and lets me either proof concepts or challenge myself (though the criticism could have come with less aggro). From the guide you an see it has very little wiggle room for stats, and the build is solid for almost any weapon type. This guide is not an end all be all, it points out mechanics that changed and has shown many new players and returning fallout franchise players solutions to common problems.

ALL BUILDS WERE BUILT AND PLAYED ON SURVIVOR DIFFICULTY

NEW I'll be using this section to post build concepts over all, after nearly 270 ish hours of game play across 5 characters, I know some fun stuff! I suggest these builds based on themes of combat or stats. So here is a link to a character creation planner[www.nukahub.com] Enjoy!

So to challenge my own guide, and prove not only to myself, but to the critics that "yes there are indeed multiple ways to build an effective character". I have played up to level 20, in one night, the following build on a pistol/critical-stealther.
Started the game on survivor from the get go

• Str 1 (no armor crafting for me)
  
• Per 4 (used bobblehead to get perc 5 for explosives)
  
• End 5
  
• Cha 4 (Just to get dogmeats perks)
  
• Int 3 (I'll use the bobblehead to get 4 for hacking)
  
• Agility 5 (more AP points)
  
• Luck 6 (used the special book to get luck 7)

Early Perk Order

1. Idiot Savant (level when possible, luck 5)
   
2. Lockpick (level when possible)
   
3. Scrounger (sell excess ammo, i'm sticking with .45 .44, 10mm) - 1 rank min, this is a luck build, up to you
   
4. Lone Wanderer (works with dog meat as a companion, good for stealth or dog users +carry weight, + damage resist, +over all weapon damage)
   
5. Aquaboy/Aquagirl (1 rank, probably 2 for the auto stealth)
   
6. Gun Nut
   
7. Dogmeat

I was/will be leveling during the levels when the above don't get ranks

• Critical banker -Luck 7
  
• Demolition Expert - Per 5
  
• Gunslinger - Agil 1
  
• Sneak - Agil 5

What shocked me the most was how often Idiot Savant kicked in with an int of 3. I was level 4 before I reached Concord doing my usual town cleanup. I was level eight after escorting the settlers back to sanctuary (the quest procced triple EXP and I gained 2 levels at once). I was level 9.5 by the time I turned in the build the town quests. Idiot savant with an int of 3, procs quite often and leveling went just a bit more then twice as fast. By the time i cleared the corvega car facility, and for the Abernathy Farm "Returning The Favor" Quest. I was level 20, just from the idiot savant procs. I imagine i could use levels for special points quite readily.

This character utilized Vats/Criticals for damage dealing, and stealth as a secondary. I had quite a bit of fun. It was very successful I downed 7 legendaries with a 10mm pistol.

----------------


Endurance BASE BUILD, 7 points left in character creation

• STR 2
  
• PER 3
  
• END 8
  
• CHA 1
  
• INT 5
  
• AGL 1
  
• LCK 1

You have 7 points left and the SPECIAL BOOK to think of, not including bobbleheads

Perks we will be aiming for will be Ghoulish on top of the usual Locksmith, Hacker, Science, Armorer. This opens up some fun perks as well, like Cannibal! I Highly recommend using Power Armor in the Endurance builds, not for survival, but more so because it will fit the themes I give. I highly suggest taking these builds a step farther as you wish with using the Toughness, Rad Resistant, Adamantium Skeleton, Cannibal and frankly every perk in the Endurance perk list.

----------------

Heavy Weapons+Explosives+Drug Abuse

• STR 7
  
• PER 3 (4 with SPECIAL BOOK)
  
• END 8
  
• CHA 1
  
• INT 6
  
• AGL 1
  
• LCK 2

Use the SPECIAL book on Perception!

Perks we aim for Heavy Gunner, Strongback, Steady Aim, Basher, Demolition Expert, Chem Resistant, Ghoulish, Gun Nut, Chemist, Scrounger, Bloodymess this is of course on top of the basiacly required, Locksmith, Hacker, Armourer, Science. Your goal will be heavy weapons, explosives, and DRUGS! You
I usually level by importance in order, Lockpick, Hacker, Armorer, Gun Nut, Science, then when I can't I level the THEME perks aka Heavy Weapons, ghoulish etc.., but i always take the listed earlier when they pop up, it opens up exploration and gear modification. I don't usually focus on weapons till I'm near level 20 -25
I won't give a level by level perk order, this is an advanced section, Grab the bobbleheads when you can to get access to demolition expert, basher, bloody mess, chemist. They aren't priorities, all your core perks are covered from Sanctuary on.

----------------

Whack a Mole-Rat, Unleash Your Inner Super Mutant - Melee/Unarmed

YOU WILL BE TAKING POWER ARMOR FOR THIS BUILD

• STR 9
  
• PER 3
  
• END 8 (9 with bobblehead)
  
• CHA 1
  
• INT 5
  
• AGL 1
  
• LCK 1

Use the SPECIAL book on Endurance!

Perks we aim for, Iron Fist/Big Leagues (Depends on if you go melee or unarmed, your choice, why not both?), Blacksmith, Strong Back, Rooted, Pain Train, Ghoulish, Solar Powered.
Follow the order of importance for perks, Locksmith>Hacker>Armorer>Blacksmith>Science>*Weapon Perks*
Many may think, why strong back? Sprinting When Encumbered may not seem like a big deal, till you get to Pain Train. I suggest using power armor mods, that refresh Action Points and reduce Action Point use. Keep in mind with blacksmith and armorer you can add unarmed attack mods to your own power armor fists, who needs weapons when you can punch someone with your own electric metal covered fist. use the early PER bobblehead to gain lockpicking, INT bobblehead (which is fairly easy to find level 10+ Boston Public Library) to unlock Science. Pain Train and Solar powered are just there to keep you going, melee builds need to either avoid damage entirely or soak it up and mitigate it.
I love this build with Strong as my Companion and taking Cannibal, eating people makes strong happy, I will find the milk of human kindness in every thing I SMASH!

In this section I will give reviews based on game play use, NOT STATS, of various weapons. This will assume you take perks for these weapons.

HEAVY WEAPONRY

There is a hiearchy of what to use, and the most powerful is not the best I shall list what I've found from best to worst.

1. Laser Gatling - Highly Damaging, very accurate, and if you're any kind of resourceful, you'll have PLENTY of ammo. if you can get this with the Rapid Fire (25% fire rate, 15% reload speed) and fully upgraded, you'll be unstoppable. Find this on Brotherhood of Steel Knights, Paladins, and level 40+ gunners.
   
   
2. Minigun - Ammo is easiest to acquire, very powerful, getting one with plasma, cold, fire, bleed, explosive etc.. just compounds its deadliness to insane degrees. Chews through ammo as fast as you can find it.
   
   
3. Flamer - Dont boost its damage with the nozzles, you want as much range as you can get, if you get it with a plasma mod, it's GG, well done and cooked. Giving this to a companion is not a horrible idea.
   
   
4. Missle Launcher - fairly easy to get ammo, good AoE radius, amazingly accurate with just the scope attachement, if you can get Instigating (X2 damage against unhurt opponent) your first shot is often the last shot, suprisingly easy to sneak attack with. The fire and forget feature is crazy fun, I once got it with Medic, and it auto targeted allies, 800 HP heals that home!
   
   
5. The Broadsider - Rare ammo, but fun, easy to upgrade, good range, great with VATS. The damage isn't accurrate, what ever it says for damage, double it. So if it says 200, that's 200 Projectile+200 explosive. Doesn't come in legendary flavor without mods, but if it did, Two-Shot. It's essentialy a long range grenade launcher/cannon! (It's actually useful) has an arc, aim carefully.

The Worst of the Heavy Weapons, from worst to less worse

1. Junk Jet - Even fully Modified, with the perks and a fully charged shot, this thing just sucks. Bad Damage, horrible accuracy, slow refire. Junk the Junkjet
   
   
2. Fatman - Not as bad as the Junkjet, to clarify why this is on the no-no list, its explosion is finicky. Unlike the missle launcher's AoE that can hit targets nearby and off elevation, ( you hit a shack wall with a missle launcher, the guy behind the wall gets hit, the guy a few steps down gets hit etc ) Mininuke explosions do not have a concussive force or radius. A good example I've tested many times against many opponents from level 1-40. you have 2 raiders, one is on a catwalk, the other is just beaneath the catwalk. You land the mininuke on the top raider, who is no more then 3 feet above the bottom raider, the top raider dies horribly, the bottom raider has 0 damage dealt. ZERO, a wall of paper can protect from a mininuke, even direct LoS doesn't help since it seems to only hurt along a horizontal plane from the point of detonation. But the missle launcher will kill everything in this instance. High weight, no reliable AoE damage, rare ammo. Vendor it. Medic does not make it heal..... I made a Neverending one with MIRV upgrade, took it that far to become useful.

END OF HEAVY WEAPONS

NEW
Wind-Sama is taking a pro-active effort for the community and compiling information from the top guides on forums for a fallout 4 blog located here[falloutlib.com]. With a link up via DISQUS and Facebook, it has efforts from my guide and others broken down in to more specific segments for the new and returning players wanting to tweak everything from 21:9 resolution to nearly direct quotes from my guide. He has my permission to use my information of course. Check it out if having a clean webpage is more your thing, or you want in on the discussions outside the steam UI format. Thanks again Windy-Sama for your efforts for the Fallout 4 community


Ok that's all you really need to know going in to the game without spoiling too much, The rest you can look up on youtube or suprise your self with. I restarted 2 games to learn this stuff.

Most of the negative reviewers have done jack diddly in crafting, game mechanic research, and tried to minmax stats to end up crippled *facepalm* or they QQ because power armor is no longer god mode with no consequences. Freaking carebears can't handle a lore friendly world IMHO.

Anyhow I wanted to share that the guide is more of a suggestion, and you can have wildly successful builds with proper planning, some may just surprise you.

Thank you everyone for the support for my first Steam Guide, and your continued positive and constructive feedback.


PLEASE +1 IF YOU FOUND THIS USEFUL
You can use any of this information in a more comprehensive guide, just leave a blurb of credit for me at the bottom and a link











12/5/15 Moved sections from Lone Wanderer to ending blurbs, general guide cleanup
12/5/15 Began adding sections for weapons. The Hiearchy of Weapons Part 1
12/1/15 Revamped entire "Are You a Lone Wanderer" with new guides and information. added a base Endurance build for player customization, and two themed Endurance builds.
12/1/15 Removed SSEx crafting mod from mods list, added replacement mod Home Makers
11/28/15 added 3 very important must have mods to mod list, made for settlements
11/24/15 added a MODS section, re-ordered sections of guides
11/22/15 added information on SNEAK CRITICAL vs VATS CRITICALS in the ebfore you leave the vault section.
11/22/15 Added a thank you and link to Windy-Sama's webpage, a collection of useful information from the various guides on steam and other users
11/19/15 added a correction to the Perception stat in the guide for the extremely anal retentive, which is one step above grammar n@zi
11/19/15 Fixed the misorder of SPECIAL stats in "What makes you SPECIAL" section, thank you Godzilla890 for catching it
11/18/15 Lone wanderer rank 3 conflicting with weapon rank 5 perk Bug was patched
11/17/15 added new section with advanced build and testimony to freedom of playstyle
11/17/15 added missing Luck 2 to SPECIAL section
11/15/15 added Settler Population Cap information
11/14/15 updated information on Radiation Poisoning vs HP total
11/14/15 added Lone Wanderer works with Dogmeat information
11/13/15 added Easy EXP section