Fallout 76 Tips

Updated 2026.08.09.a

Platform: Windows 11, Steam Bethesda ID: Bacca400 Time/date of bug: this happens sometimes. TODO - Get Marsupial serum, use with Starched Genes perk card. - Get chameleon armor.

1 Using AI with this document

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Also the instructions and keys here are for the PC only.

This document is still changing. Come back once a week to see if there are updates, and refresh your browser.

1.1 Fallout 76 server status

  1. https://status.bethesda.net/en

2 Fallout 76 tips for beginners

This help file is oriented to players with a PC keyboard, not a controller.

I restarted playing this in April 2026, after quitting in 2021. A lot has changed to make it more fair to earlier players.

Especially helpful for beginners.

  1. WARNING: Pacifist Mode (aka player vs player, where you can shoot each other) is off by default, you must turn it on right away. When Pacifist Mode is off, another player can harm you or your CAMP. You must first log into FO76, and and click Play to play a character. Once you are in the world hit M for the map then hit Z to get the menu. Click Settings, then Game. It will be on there. You can actually log into FO76 without connecting to a world, and the option is not in that Settings, Game.
  2. Visit the red wooden boxes at every train station. Players can put stuff in there for other players to take. It's all free.
  3. If a player is shooting at the ground, jumping up and down, or otherwise trying to get your attention it means they have gifts for you. They can drop stuff in a brown paper bag and you can take what is in there.
  4. Be aware there is no pause for the game. You can get on top of a building where most creatures cannot walk to, or go inside your camp and watch out for random encounters. It helps to crouch if you have a camoflage perk on armor so most creatures won't see you.
  5. When you try to take control of another red work bench in other parts of the map, Pacifist Mode is automatically turned off regardless of your settings. Ex: Tyler Fair Grounds.
  6. Follow the complete quest line you get from the Wayward Inn. You will eventually get plans to build a bed off the ground, a water purifier, and some other core useful things.
  7. New players can start at level 1 or level 20.
  8. Join a Casual team right away. It boosts intelligence which increases XP you earn. While in game hit CTRL-TAB to go to the teams menu. It appears that if you join a casual team, quit the game, and go back in to the game, you might be on another server and there are no team mates there. Just join another casual team there.
  9. Do not sleep on sleeping bags on the ground, you have a chance to get a disease. Instead sleep for free in the mobile home next to the Wayward Inn near where you start. Diseases will cure themselves eventually but they have debuffs while they are active.
  10. Scrap armor and weapons to learn mods.
  11. Join public events marked with "!" on the map. If you just hit an enemy once you still get full XP when they die.

2.1 More tips

  1. Take loot from containers. Save it in your stash. Your stash is located all around the map including in train stations. Your stash has a limit of storing 1200 units.
  2. Sell items you don't need to vendors at train stations or at other places. Some vendors are travelling, like Minerva.
  3. There are free donation bins at every train station, they are red boxes. Take what you need, and give what you can. There is no penalty for taking all the items.
  4. Manage weight carrying carpacity with perk cards like "Traveling Pharmacy", "Thru-hiker" (lowers weight of food and drink). Increase strength to carry more also. You might also be able to upgrade your backpack at some time.
  5. Don't fear high-level players. If a high-level player approaches you and starts shooting at the ground or waving, they are likely trying to give you a "gift drop" of stimpaks, ammo, or plans to help you out. The free stuff they give you will normally be in a brown paper bag.
  6. The letter "H" is bound to a stimpak for healing by default, it will use a diluted, normal, then super stimpak in that order). You can change the order of this in Settings.
  7. Numbers 1-0, and - (minus) an = (equals), are for quickly choosing weapons. Use the Favorites wheel (hit F) to put an item in a specific numbered slot.
  8. Get more caps.
    1. Get more caps when selling items. Get the "Hard Bargain" card, and rank it up. Some say stay away from this, there are better ways to get caps.
    2. Boost your charisma to get better prices; use Grape Mentats, alcohol. Don't sell common weapons, they are not worth much, scrap them instead.
    3. Make a water cooler or something that makes water. Check it frequently, and sell the water.
    4. Sell glowing meat, stimpaks, RadAway, cooked meat, ammo. You'll get plenty of RadAway.
    5. Use player vendors to get more caps.
    6. Make a vending machine at your camp and sell hard to find items, not common weapons. (I assume common weapons don't sell well.) Ammo sells well.
    7. Build a purified water farm at your camp. Then sell purified water. Build a water purifier.
    8. Join "Moonshine Jamboree", tag as many gulpers as possible, get their innards, make Gulper Slurry, and sell these.
    9. Raise your Charisma in the SPECIAL stats.
    10. Make a vending machine at your camp and sell items like ammo. Do not price ammo more than 1 cap each.
    11. Sell duplicate plans and recipes. Even common ones can get a few caps.
    12. Place CAMP near high traffic areas like Whitespring resort. This can be hard to do since many CAMPs may already be there and the CAMPS cannot overlap.
    13. Join public events which can award several hundred caps when done.
    14. Go Super Mutant hunting. They carry some caps and better guns.
    15. Pick all berries. They take up little weight? Sell them.
    16. Build a tato farm. Sell them.
    17. Clear out Blackwater Mine and sell their loot. This can take up lots of weight.
  9. Before building an item you must read the plan in your inventory. Open Pip-Poy inventory. Go to Notes. At the top should be "Recipes", this does not have just recipes but all plans. Click C to open Recipes, ENTER does not work for this. Find a plan that starts with "Plan:". Hit ENTER to read it. When you find a plan you can also hold E to learn it right away. Known plans begin with "(Known)" in your inventory list.
  10. You can Scrap parts, weapons, armor and junk but only at an armor station, weapon station, and a tinker station.
  11. You can scrap any item, including junk, at any armor, weapon, or Tinker station. Scrap all your junk at once and it will take up less weight.
  12. Fast travel costs a few caps with some places being free. The further the distance you travel, the more caps it costs. A typical cost is 4-15 caps for one fast travel. See the section here on Fast Travel in the TOC.

2.2 Perk cards

2.2.1 Apply Perk points to SPECIAL stats.

  1. Open the Level-Up Menu: Open your Pip-Boy and press the Level Up key (T on PC, Y on Xbox, Triangle on PS).
  2. Step 1: Pick the SPECIAL Stat: The first screen that appears will show the seven SPECIAL categories. Select the one you want to increase (e.g., Strength if you want more carry weight). Clicking it permanently adds 1 point to that stat for your current build.
  3. Step 2: Pick the Card: After selecting the stat, the game will move you to the Perk Card selection screen.
  4. To reallocate SPECIAL points use a Punch Card machine often found in train stations or player camps. But this is not usable until level 25.

2.2.2 Using Perk Cards

  1. Earning Cards: Every time you level up, you pick a SPECIAL stat to increase (until you reach level 50) and add one new Perk Card for each point in your SPECIALs. You also receive Perk Card Packs (containing 4 random cards) every 5 levels. But you can only "activate" so many Perk cards at once.
  2. Ranking Up: If you have two of the same card (e.g., two Rank 1 "Action Boy" cards), you can combine them to create a Rank 2 card with a stronger effect if that card has open ranks. Some cards have only 1 rank and you cannot level up that perk.
  3. Equipping: Each card has a cost (the number in the top left corner which I call "perk card points"). You can only equip cards if you have enough points in that specific SPECIAL category. For example, if you have 5 Strength, you can equip one 3-cost card and one 2-cost card.
  4. You can combine the same cards to rank them up. Some cards can be ranked up, some cannot.
  5. Scrap perk cards you cannot use.

2.3 Get more water

To sell or use. Water purifiers require power. Purified water can heal you with no effects and satisfy the body's water requirements.

  1. Get a small water purifier after completing "Bureau of Tourism" quest early in the game. A smaller purifier needs 8 power. So you might need plans for a bigger power supply. A small generator is granted to you for free.
  2. Get the standard water purifier in Overseer's Cache at Camp McClintock. You cannot get this from the cache until you complete your training at Camp McClintok.
  3. Water Filter Plan: This is often found early in the game at Grafton Station or inside the Pioneer Scout Camp. You can also find it randomly in containers or as a reward for the "Tentative Plans" quest. Fallout 76 Wiki: Plan: Water Filter
  4. Small Water Purifier Plan: You can obtain this plan by completing the quest "Personal Matters" (found in Welch) or "Bureau of Tourism" (found at Grafton). It can also be purchased from various Vendor Bots at train stations. Fallout 76 Wiki: Plan: Water Purifier - Small
  5. Water Purifier Plan (Medium): This plan is commonly found inside the Overseer's Cache at Camp McClintock. It allows you to build a purifier that must be placed in water. Reddit: Where to find Water Purifier Plans
  6. Large Water Purifier Plan: Similar to the medium version, this is often found in the Overseer’s Cache at Charleston Fire Department or awarded for completing the "Earth Mover" event. Fallout 76 Wiki: Plan: Water Purifier - Large
  7. Vintage Water Cooler Plan: This is a highly sought-after plan that allows you to generate purified water without needing a water source or power. It is a rare reward from the Festive Scorched seasonal event or can be purchased from other players' CAMP vendors. Reddit: How to get Vintage Water Cooler
  8. Industrial water purifier: buy at Responders Vendor at Whitesprings Mall or found in Overseer's Cache at Charleston Capital Building.
  9. Collect some purified water from others' water purifiers. This water goes fast so it takes some luck to find water in them.
  10. Most players will leave their water purifiers unlocked. If they are unlocked it is ok to take the water. If they are locked, do not pick the lock or you will be marked as "Wanted". Some players have a sign that says "Open" or "Free water".
  11. Make your own water purifier. You can buy plans or find them.
  12. Small purifiers (they look like an office water dispenser) can be placed on dirt or grass and can hold a max of 2 bottles of water. When they reach that limit they stop generating water.
  13. Standard and Industrial purifiers must be place on a body of water, like a pond or stream. Mud or puddles do not work. They can hold up to 5 bottles of purified water.

2.3.1 How to lock your water purifier.

Normally done by players who need water. You will need plans for this water purifier first. And this only applies to water purifiers you build.

2.4 Jumping higher

There are perk cards you can equip and use Starched Genes perk card to make the change permanent.

Or use the Marsupial Serum. Some player vendors sell it for 200-500 caps with the "Starched Genes" perk card. Take the serum first then apply the Starched Genes perk card.

Or get a Marsupial Serum from the Whitesprings bunker, visit the MODUS science wing. You must go through a series of steps before you are accepted into the Enclave first.

  1. Unequip Starched Genes from your Endurance perk.
  2. Drink the Marsupial serum.
  3. Equip Starched Genes rank 2.
  4. To jump higher in a team equip Strange in Numbers Charisma perk.

2.5 Reducing weight of items

  1. Armor: Use perk card Sturdy Frame (Strength), Portable Power (intelligence) to reduce power armor pieces.
  2. Weapons:
    1. Strength perk cards: Bear Arms (reduce heavy weapon weight), Martial Artist (reduce melee weapon weight), Scattershot (reduce shotgun weights).
    2. Agility: Packing light (reduct pistol weights), Ordnance Express (reduce explosive weapons and explosive ammo weights)
  3. Legendary effect: "Arms Keeper". Each piece of armor equipped with this mod reduces the weight of all weapons by 20% (stacking up to 5 pieces for a maximum 90% weight reduction).

2.6 Reducing weights in your cache/stash

  1. Do not store power armor pieces in your cache, they will take up more weight as individual pieces. Instead put them on the power armor frame and the whole thing weighs much less.
  2. Scrap all junk items at a Tinker's workbench. The components will be lighter than the item itself.
  3. Activate Perk cards to reduce the weights of certain items, like ammo. Different perk cards affect different items.

2.7 Enemies level with you

  1. Enemies level up with you. Sometimes they are a little higher than you. If the enemy is much higher than you their name will have a crown next to it.
  2. If you travel with a player of a different level, the enemies' level is the average of the 2 players so be careful when travelling with a much higher level player.
  3. If a high level player walks by and a monster spawns, it will spawn at that player's level and you may find it too much to handle.

2.8 Learning plans or recipes

When you get a plan or recipe you still cannot make the item. You must read the plan/recipe to learn it.

Go to Pip Boy inventory, Notes, open "Recipe book" by hitting "C" on a PC. ENTER does not open the recipe book. Click on the plan or recipe to learn it. Or if you find the plan/recipe, hold E to learn it on the spot.

2.9 Making recipes

There are recipes for stimpaks, food items, and more. But you must find and learn the recipe first. Make sure to save caps to buy a critical item, like a disease cure.

In general you must "learn" the recipe or plan by reading it. It is in your Pip-Boy under Notes, then under Recipe Book. Open the "Recipe Book" and read the plan to learn it.

Sometimes a schematic is under Notes in the Pip-Boy. Read the schematic there before making the item, and make sure you have all ingredients.

  1. Disease Cure: Blood leaf, firecap, snaptail red.
  2. Ammo: Make gunpowder at a chemistry bench. Then make ammo at a tinker bench. Unrefined Gunpowder can also be used at a Tinker Bench to make ammo.

2.10 Where's my Stashbox?

Your stashbox is where you can store more items. It looks like a dark blue box with the Vault-Tec colors. Your stashbox can be used to hold extra items that will not be in your pack. You can access your stashbox in many locations like: each train station, major points of interest like Fort Atlas, the Overseer's Camp by the Wayward Inn, other players camps, your camp, and more.

3 Fallout 1st

Fallout 1st is a premium package for $12.99usd per month or $99.99 per year. With this you get access to more stuff, a junk container and ammo container with no limits, 1650 atoms per month deposited into your account, and I don't know what else. The subscription is automatically renewing. You can buy this through Steam on the FO76 store page, or when you log into the game.

How to get it and unlimited cache.

  1. Restart Fallout 76 completely if it was open so Steam updates and syncs your active Fallout 1st subscription status. Source: Bethesda Support
  2. Open the in-game Atomic Shop menu to claim your monthly Atoms and unlock the Fallout 1st exclusive items. Source: Bethesda.net
  3. Enter C.A.M.P. Build Mode, navigate to Stash Boxes, and construct the Scrapbox to store unlimited crafting components and junk. Source: Fallout Wiki
  4. Build the Ammo Storage Box in your C.A.M.P. under Stash Boxes to store unlimited ammo. Source: Steam Community
  5. Open your Favorites Wheel (F key on PC) and press T to deploy your Survival Tent anywhere for instant mobile access to your unlimited storage boxes. Source: Fallout Wiki

4 Fast travel for free

Most fast travel costs caps, it costs more caps for a longer distance. But there are a few areas where a player can fast travel to for free. This can make your paid fast travel jumps shorter and cheaper.

  1. Your camp.
  2. Whitesprings Resort, main entrance.
  3. Faction hubs like: Foundation, The Crater (raiders), Fort Atlas (BOS).
  4. The Rusty Pick.
  5. The Rose Room.
  6. Skyline Valley spots.
  7. Fallout 76 vault exit point.
  8. Travel for free to your teammate's camp.
  9. Your active C.A.M.P., your active Survival Tent, your public/private teammates, your teammates' camps, and any active Public Events (marked with an exclamation point sign) are always completely free destinations.
  10. Nuka World on Tour. Just North of the Ash Heap.
  11. The fishing pier in the far east.

Starting Fast travel may sometimes start a 10 second countdown timer. Just wait for the timer to hit 0 and then you will go.

5 Camp

  1. Your camp gets attacked sometimes by non-players and the health bar of individual parts will be lower. You cannot repair components of your camp, you can only replace them, when its health gets to zero it will disappear.
  2. You cannot place a fast travel mat at your camp. Some say if you place your camp widget (it looks like an overhead projector from school), you will teleport to the east of it.

5.1 Where can I build my camp?

  1. Areas overlooking a cliff have great scenery.
  2. Open areas like a dry lakebed. Dry lakebeds in new New Gad, Forest Rivers near Wayward Inn or Sunshine Meadows Industrial Farm.
  3. It must not be too close to other player camps.
  4. If you hold the build key (V on a PC) and it doesn't go into build mode, you cannot build where you are.
  5. Savage Divide cliffs east of Top of the World.
  6. Golf Course near Whitespring.
  7. Near Lake Eloise.

5.2 Stash/Cache

Store your unneeded or extra items here.

  1. For the normal Fallout account (not Fallout 1st) your cache can hold only 1200 units of items. Sell off or donate items (to donation boxes at train stataions) if they are no longer needed. Sell them to a vendor robot (at train stations) or make your own vending machine. If you buy Fallout 1st you get unlimited storage and other storage boxes for Aid, and Junk.
  2. Each train station has a copy of your cache as a cache/stash box. No one can access the items but you.
  3. Most player camps also have a cache that is just for you. You can use it if you like with no penalty.
  4. To buy more storage caches, like just for junk, you must be a member of Fallout 1st, which is a monthly fee currently at $12.99usd.
  5. In Fallout 1st, you get access to a Scrapbox and Ammo Storage Box which have unlimited storage.

6 Armor

6.1 Power armor

  1. Power armor absorbs any falling damage, even if you just wear a power armor frame with no other parts. A perk card called "Goat Legs" also removes any falling damage.
  2. To exit power armor hold E. It may not work inside your camp walls so try it outside your camp. If there is not enough room behind the power armor you may not be able to leave it and you will not get an error message.
  3. Now that you are outside the power armor, 3 options appear. Click Collect. The power armor will be put in your inventory/stash. You can now transfer this power armor to your Cache.
  4. Add pieces to your power armor so it takes up less weight in your stash.

6.1.1 Power Armor repair stations.

You must find plans for the power armor repair station before building one. Or buy plans at an in-game vendor. Free power armor repair stations are at these locations:

  1. Whitesprings Resort (multiple locations). Free fast travel.
  2. Garrahan Mining HQ
  3. Fort Atlas. Free fast travel.
  4. Forward Station Tango, SE of vault 76.
  5. Some player camps will have them.
  6. Fort Defiance.
  7. Watoga Shopping Plaza.
  8. Foundation. Free fast travel.

If you are in first person view you may not be able to exit your power armor at a power armor repair station. Go to third person view and try to hold E to exit power armor. You can also try first person view and holding E to exit.

7 Chems

7.1 Buffout

  1. Buffout does not increase the damage from your bullets.
  2. Buffout gives +2 strength to increase carry weight and melee damage.
  3. +2 endurance which increases your total health and reduces Action Point drainage.
  4. It gives +25 max HP.

7.2 Overdrive

  1. Overdrive: Increases damage by 15% and critical hit damage by 15%.
  2. Pro Tip: If you use Overdrive first and then Psychobuff/Psychotats, the damage bonuses can sometimes stack depending on the current game patch, making it a favorite combo for boss fights!

7.3 Psycho

  1. Increases all damage by 15% and adds damage resistance.
  2. Psychobuff: A hybrid of Psycho and Buffout. It gives you the health/strength of Buffout plus the 25% damage boost of Psycho.
  3. Psychotats: Increases damage by 25% and boosts Perception (which helps with VATS accuracy).

8 Items

8.1 Jet pack without power armor

  1. Secret Service Armor: You can buy the Secret Service chest piece plan and its corresponding jet pack mod plan for Gold Bullion from Regs inside Vault 79 after completing the main Wastelanders questline, or occasionally from Minerva during her rotating sales. (Source)
  2. Civil Engineer Armor: You earn the base armor plans by completing the Atlantic City questline starting at the Rose Room poster, then you can purchase the jet pack mod plan for 300 Stamps from Giuseppe at the Whitespring Refuge. (Source)
  3. Brotherhood Recon Armor: You can obtain the base chest plan as a rare drop from Daily Ops or buy it from Minerva, and then buy the matching jet pack mod plan for 2,000 Gold Bullion from Regs or Minerva. (Source)
  4. Trading/Crafting Shortcuts: Unlike other variants, Civil Engineer armor chest pieces with a jet pack already attached can be traded or crafted by another player and dropped directly for you. (Source)
  5. Mod Modification Cost: Once you have the matching chest piece and jet pack plan, you must use an armor workbench to attach the mod, which requires stable flux (typically Cobalt and Violet flux). (Source)

8.2 Stealth Boy

  1. Look in Pip Boy Inventory under Aid.

8.3 Power armor

  1. To get out of power armor, go to a Power Armor workbench, hold "E" on PC. Then REMOVE THE FUSION CORE.
  2. If you leave your power armor in public it will automatically be placed in your inventory (in your backpack, not stash) after 60 seconds.
  3. WARNING: dropping a power armor will remove the owner tag and so anyone can take it.

9 Weapons

  1. Lower level weapons will not last as long and have to be repaired at a weapons bench more often.

9.1 Floater grenades

  1. Floater grenades have 3 types. But they do small initial damage (when they explode) but do MUCH more damage per second.

9.2 Missile launchers

If you have a missile launcher the missiles will home in on a target if you add the targeting computer. Naturally you have to find plans for that. Otherwise missiles do not home in on a target.

10 Legendary items

  1. If you get an Legendary item (any number of stars) and you don't want it or can't store it, give it to a Legendary machine. You will get Legendary Scrip from it. Now use that Legendary Scrip to buy something else at the Rusty Pick.
  2. Legendary machines are at most railroad stations, some player camps, and at Whitesprings Mall.
  3. Take your Legendary Scrip to The Rusty Pick to Purveyor Murmrgh and buy stuff with it. Murmrgh will sell you things at the Rusty Pick but the item is totally random so you just don't know what you will get. You can pick from armor, weapon, etc with 1-4 stars each. The armor/weapon is random, so is the legendary effect.
  4. The Legendary Machine destroys the item forever once you leave the LM menu.
  5. But it's better to scrap your legendary item as you have a very small chance to get a one-use Legendary mod, or the plans to put the Legendary on multiple items.

11 Gold bullion

How to get more gold bullion.

  1. Earn Treasury Notes from Public Events: Completing any public event marked with an exclamation point on your map rewards you with Treasury Notes (Steam Community - Gold Bullion Farm).
  2. Complete Faction Dailies and Head Hunts: Daily quests for the Settlers, Raiders, and the Overseer give 3 Treasury Notes each, while grinding standard Head Hunt activities also drops them steadily (YouTube - The Fastest Ways To Get Gold Bullion).
  3. Run Daily Ops and Expeditions: Successfully completing a Daily Op or running Atlantic City/The Pitt Expeditions grants additional Treasury Notes upon completion (YouTube - 2026 Gold Bullion Explained).
  4. Exchange Notes at a Gold Press Machine: Take your saved Treasury Notes to a Gold Press Machine—found at Foundation, The Crater, or the Whitespring Mall—to trade them for Gold Bullion (Steam Community - Gold Bullion Farm).
  5. Buy Bullion directly with Caps: Visit Smiley on the top floor of The Wayward to directly purchase up to 300 Gold Bullion for 6,000 Caps once per week (Steam Community - Gold Bullion Farm).
  6. Claim Season Pass Rewards: Progressing through the active Seasons rewards pages allows you to claim packages of free Gold Bullion as you level up your rank (YouTube - How To Get Gold Bullion).

12 Special builds

12.1 Sniper

For sniper build activate these perks:

  1. Perception: Rifleman (level to max), Tank Killer, Long Shot.
  2. Agility: Reverse Onslaught. Requires Gunslinger Master
  3. Agility: For rifle attack damage increases, use "Covert Operative" and "Mister Sandman". You can get up to 350% increase in damage on a first shot.
  4. Legendary effect: combine with Legendary Fury.

13 Defeating monsters

13.1 Scorch beast

Fighting a Scorchbeast when it refuses to land can feel like a exercise in frustration.

To force the Scorchbeast down and kill it before it can heal, focus on three specific mechanics: crippling, forcing a landing zone, and stopping mutation regeneration.

13.1.1 1. Force It to Land by Crippling Its Wings

A Scorchbeast cannot stay airborne if its wings are broken. Targeting its wings directly is the single most important tactic.

13.1.2 2. Control the Terrain (Landing AI Rules)

Scorchbeasts use specific AI pathfinding rules to decide when and where to land:

13.1.3 3. Overpower the Mutation Regeneration

All legendary enemies (including standard 1-star to 3-star Scorchbeasts) undergo a mutation phase when their health drops to 50%, restoring them back to 100% health once per fight.

14 Directions

14.1 Whitesprings bunker, MODUS

To get to Science area:

  1. Enter Whitesprings bunker. You must have finished a series of quests and become a member of the Enclave first.
  2. Open the valut door.
  3. Enter the vault foyer. Go left, enter an elevator. There is only one way to go, that's down.
  4. Go down some stairs, find the Science Wing. Go there. Go through some decontamination arches.
  5. Ease right through a doorway labeled "Genetics lab".
  6. Find the Genetics lab, go there.
  7. Look for a red MODUS terminal to buy things.

If you find a Marsupial Serum Recipe here's what you need to make it:

  1. 72 Fiberglass
  2. 40 oil
  3. 1 Crimson flux
  4. 11 Ultracite

15 Questions

15.1 How often is game progress saved?

About every 10 minutes, and on log out. So progress is preserved during events like fast traveling, resting, logging out, completing quest steps, or entering new areas. The game forces a save immediately upon fast traveling (especially to a CAMP), exiting the game, discovering a new settlement, or completing specific quest milestones.

Your location saved is the nearest fast travel point. Inside Fort Atlas your save location is just at the exterior gates to the compound.

For a quest with interior/instanced locations. You will get a checkpoint message on the screen. If it's not checkpointed, then you will have to do it again.

Or use this info:

If you are really concerned, change in Fallout76Prefs.ini or create a Fallout76Custom.ini, and add/change this line:

[SaveGame]
fAutosaveEveryXMins=1.0000

15.2 Binding stimpaks and weapons to specific keys

If you prefer to hit a specific number key (like 4) for a stimpak instead of H, you can use the Favorites Wheel:

  1. Open your Pip-Boy and find your Stimpaks.
  2. Press the Favorite key (F on PC, Y on Xbox, Triangle on PS).
  3. This opens the Favorites wheel. Assign the stimpak to a specific slot.
  4. On PC, the slot you choose correlates to numbers 1 through 9. If you put a stimpak in the top-right slot (often labeled '4'), pressing 4 will now use a stimpak. Steam: Favorites Guide

When choosing a favorite, the list will not show items which are already on the Favorites wheel.

Switch slots for a favorited weapon

To Switch Slots: If a weapon is already bound to 1 but you want it on 2, open the wheel (F or D-Pad Down), hover over the weapon, and press the Change or Select key to move it to a different slot.

15.3 How to "pause" the game and not get attacked

You can't. Whereever you are in the Appalachians you can get attacked by enemies. If you have Passive Mode On you will not start PvP mode accidentally with other players. Here are ways to stay safe if you have to take a break from a game without restarting it. There isn't an official pause function but some places are safer than others.

  1. Hop on a rooftop and crouch down. Enemies often have trouble jumping over short spaces between buildings.
  2. Go indoors. Larger enemies have trouble getting through doorways, like the Hermit Crab and Deathclaw. Make sure your building has a roof though.
  3. Go inside a shelter inside your camp or inside a building like Wayward Inn, Fort Atlas, or The Rusty Pick.
  4. Go into a shelter made by someone else at their CAMP.

16 Water purifiers

16.1 How do I lock a water purifier?

A person can take free water from anyone's unlocked water purifier. But if it's locked, and they pick the lock, the stealing player gets a "Wanted" tag and anyone can shoot them on sight.

17 Quests

17.1 All that Glitters

This is the quest where you break into Vault 79. The final boss is a tough Sentry bot that has unlimited missiles that can track you through walls and pillars, and even find you if you're camoflaged. I recommend power armor for this part. How do get past the sentry bot:

  1. This is best for level 50+ players only.
  2. Go into FO76 settings, click Display, turn on "Show Damage Numbers". In VATS it will show you the area on the creature where you can cause the most damage.
  3. Equip these perks: Concentrated Fire (it's for long range).
  4. When it pauses for a cooldown, use VATS to target its fusion core. This deals a lot of damage. Also equip the perk "Concentrated Fire".
  5. Use pulse grenades to buypass its shielding. There are pulse grenades in this area too.
  6. Cripple its limbs with shotguns.
  7. Use the kitchen doorway hack. Go in the kitchen doorway, its guns cannot get you and its frame cannot fit through the doorway.
  8. If its health bar reaches zero, run away as fast as you can as its explosion radius is much larger than normal, and the damage is much higher from the explosion. Run down the Atrium hallway as far as you can get.
  9. A Stealth Boy might help.
  10. Wear power armor to help. Even a plain power armor frame can help protect you from the final burst of radiation, if not all damage, when it explodes.

17.2 Deathclaw Island Egg

  1. Shoot the deathclaw from across the river. I don't know if tossing a grenade near the nest will make him come out or not.
  2. If you go to the island to wake him up, shoot him and run back across the river. Make sure you are not encumbered before starting the shooting. I don't know if a grenade will wake him up.
  3. Go to a shallow part of the river and walk backwards, dropping mines and grenades.
  4. Use power armor if you have it.
  5. Use Medx to reduce damage.
  6. Use a stealth boy and use perk cards to help your stealth before attacking.
  7. Use a floater grenade, they do great damage per second after the initial explosion.

17.3 Order of the Tadpole

The Order of the Tadpole is a scouting group. You do a bunch of quests to get badges, then later you can join the Pioneer scouts by taking exams at Camp Pioneer. At Camp Pioneer there is a building with a green door labeled something like "Exam terminals". It is west of the high lookup tower that is part of the camps.

18 Quest bugs

18.1 Abraxodyne quest bugs

This quest has some bugs.

  1. See this video.
  2. You need to pick up 90 cases of intel, not 25 like the game says. There was a big update on June 2, 2026 so maybe this was fixed. There is another update on June 8, 2026 to fix the update from June 2, 2026.

18.2 All the world's a stage

Updated: 6/12/26

This is a Main quest, part of the Rose Room quest line, that is started when you read a poster in one of the train stations about the Rose Room Grand Opening.

When you travel to Atlantic City (not as an expedition), become Dimples the Clown, you are supposed to dress up as the clown, get on stage, and throw pies at 2 other clowns. This step of the quest is completely broken. No matter how many times you hit a clown with a pie the game will not count it. Instead kill the other 2 clowns.

For the next step of the stage act you are supposed to throw grenades through red and white hoops hanging from the ceiling. This is still broken and the way to get past this step involves suicide by grenade, respawning, and repeating a total of 3 times.

I'm going to skip this quest for now.

18.3 Ally: Thicker than water.

Your quest is to go to the Watoga Underground and open the garage doors. There are several terminals you must access and several doors you must open.

When you find The Claw the game does not progress if you ask Becket to kill him. You must make the choice to let The Claw live.

18.4 Forging a legend

This quest is where you have to find Grant's Sword, then kill 6 different enemy types with that sword after putting a swing analyzer on it. There are known bugs where if you kill a creature it simply will not register as a kill. You may have to quit the game, wait 10 seconds, and start the game again, which will bring you to a new server. Getting on a new server can reset things and make it work in most cases.

19 Error messages

19.1 "Cannot find camp" error

If you log into FO76 and get this error that just means someone else built a camp near yours before you logged in, and yours is not available. Do not scrap your camp. You will be given a free camp slot to build a camp somewhere else.

You will be given a new camp slot so you can build a DIFFERENT camp. But you can have only one camp active at a time.

6/8/26. I think this update changed things. If your CAMP cannot be placed then you now have the option to go to another world/server where it can be placed. I have done this 2-3 times already.

19.2 I got a new item/weapon but cannot put it in my Favorites wheel.

Log out of FO76, wait 10 seconds, and log back in. Unfavorite the new item. Only items that are not in your Favorite wheel can be put in there.

20 Bugs

Report bugs on the official Bethesda Discord server in #76-bug-reports: https://discord.com/invite/bethesdastudios

20.1 Why am I walking at half speed?

There could be multiple reasons.

  1. You are encumbered and are over your weight limit. A Tinker Workbench can scrap all your junk in one step. Scrap all junk, and move some stuff to your stash.
  2. If you are encumbered you cannot fast travel or run. There is a perk card that will allow you to fast travel when encumbered, but not run.
  3. A disease might be slowing you down, or an effect from food or drink. Find a Disease Cure.
  4. Perks or mutations can slow you down temporarily or permanently. Fix them.
  5. Some power armor can affect movement speed.
  6. It may be a FO76 bug. Solution: Fast travel somewhere, or quit the game and restart it. That means go to the main menu where you choose your player, then when you log in you will likely get onto a new FO76 server. You only have to go to the Main Menu, you don't have to totally shut down the game. Wait 1 minute, then go back into the game.

20.2 How do I remove the window which says "Press to talk"?

  1. Start FO76. Log into the game.
  2. Before opening or starting a character go to Settings, Accessibility.
  3. Turn off Speech To Text.

or

  1. Go to Settings, Audio.
  2. Change "Voice Chat Mode" to "None" or "Area/Team", and change "Push to talk" to off. However this leaves your mic open (always on) and others may hear scratches or other noises coming from you all the time, they may ask you to mute your mic.

or

  1. Change Message Window Transparency.
  2. Start FO76 and log into the game. Before starting a character...
  3. Go to Settings, Display (or Accessibility) and turn opacity all the way down so it's invisible.

20.3 Cannot fix Legendary Pistol The Fact Finder

Problem: If you find that you have wear and tear on this pistol (which fires explosive shots) but you cannot repair it. Neither does it get more wear and tear at this point. I have logged off and on to the FO76 servers multiple times and the problem persists.

Solution: Unknown

20.4 Quest "Recruitment Blues" finished and automatically restarted

Setup: FO76 on Windows 11 and Steam, Nvidia graphics drivers.

About 5 days ago, Jun 22, 2026, I finished the full quest "Recruitment Blues" and got my bonus items. Yesterday, Jun 25, it restarted on its own. About 30 minutes later it finished on its own.

What is going on here?

EDIT: About 30 minutes later the quest finished itself, and I got more bonus items.

20.5 Audio of players goes mute randomly

Sometimes when I'm playing I use the audio in FO76, but after about 20 minutes all people on my team are muted. I cannot unmute myself so we end up using Discord so players can talk to each other. This started after the June 2, 2026 maintenance. Before that it worked fine.

20.6 Getting disconnected from FO76 or game is crashing

Quit the game and verify your Steam files. That should help.

  1. Go to your libary then your specific game.
  2. Click the Gear icon for the game. Select "Properties..."
  3. On left click "Installed files".
  4. Click button "Verify integrity of game files".
  5. If you want to be more cautious, reboot the PC.
  6. One line help: Verify your game files. Go to your Library, go to the game. Click the gear icon. Choose Properties. On the left click "Installed files" tab. On the right click "Verify integrity of game files". https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/0C48-FCBD-DA71-93EB

20.7 Server disconnect

If you get a "Server not responding/controls locked" message along with error code 4:7:0, Error code 4:7:0 in Bethesda's system indicates a failed connection handshake, often caused by high latency. Possible fixes:

  1. Check your firewall is open for FO76 ports.

21 Troubleshooting

  1. Links to help with PC, Playstation, and XBox. https://discord.com/channels/784542837596225567/784546579847184485/1519458090469032076

21.1 Open ports

Check to make sure your security software has these ports open:

  1. TCP: 80, 443
  2. UDP: 3000-3010

22 Log

Beckett will not kill The Claw, the quest freezes here. Instead, leave the current server, wait 10 seconds, and go to another server, and choose to save his life. You may have to do some parts of the quest again, especially if you have waited more than 5 minutes or so before repeating the quest.

23 Fallout 76 Public Test Server (PTS)

  1. You can download it from your game service, like Steam. It's free.
  2. Your account will be copied to the PTS server, but your account will be older.
  3. How to get on the PTS: https://fallout.bethesda.net/en/article/7n16CXcKQ4TdCEa6dGsP65/fallout-76-public-test-servers-guide
  4. PTS patch notes: https://fallout.bethesda.net/en/article/2nqh2JMnLeJnjpxwUUi5n6/inside-the-vault-burning-springs-public-test-server-release-notes Last patch notes are Nov 18, 2025, which is pretty old.

24 Links

  1. FO76 build planner. https://nukesdragons.com/fallout-76/character

Footnotes and links go here.