Forum:Struggling early for caps and ammo??

Hi first time poster, be gentle.

I'm not very far into the game, basically on the get dish for radio station on main quest, and war memorial quest from Moira, hope that helps give an idea as to how far I'm.

Anyway, although I'm now well into this game it has me finally hooked, however I'm really beginning to get both, frustrated and disheartened at the severe lack of caps, and ammo, I'm constantly struggling with both of these, which also lead me to lack of stimpacks, so therefore find myself returning to megaton a hell of a lot, to much in my opinion, or is this how it should be played.??.

Any tips would be really helpful to keep this game from getting to frustrating for me. Weapons I currently use regular are, assault rifle, hunter rifle, and just got sub machine gun.

1 other tip would also be appreciated,the "plans" I'm I way to early to be thinking of making stuff on the workbenches, as I keep hearing about them, but seem to be getting nowhere.

Apologize for all the questions, believe me I have many more, as I don't really want to get to rely heavily on this superb wiki, well at least not just yet.

Thanks

tozol.

Well, there are plenty of ways to make caps and ammo, both legitimate and idiotic (read: lol farming enclave troops and selling armour for lots of caps). Basically, caps are a rare commodity. Most of the time you will not be able to earn a lot of caps, which is why you are able to trade things for their worth in caps. For example, if you had loot worth 500 but the vendor only has 300 caps, you can sell the 500 worth of loot for 300 caps and 200 worth of ammo and stimpacks.

A good way of making ammo and stimpacks (but not caps) is turning in technology to Protector Casdin at Fort Independence. You can bring in things like scrap metal, sensor modules and various high-tech equipment like power armour and laser rifles for magazines of 5.56mm ammunition, as well as stimpacks. If you're looking for cold hard caps and aren't afraid of losing karma, speak to the guard in front of Paradise Falls' entrance - he might have a job for you. PlasmaFox 03:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks,will check them out.

You need to be checking EVERYWHERE,every corner,every room,every shelf,then youll be ok,and take the scrounger perk that gives you more ammo in cases etc,i didnt use the cap one.what level are you??i had chinese assault rifle,combat armor,missile launcher,a3 21's plasma rifle then--Bluemax 15:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Check north of downtown DC to find Catebury Commons, If you upgrade their Caravans you never need to fear merchants having enough caps(A week ago I started a file now I have 18000 caps). Also let me give you a great tip...

Head north of springvale and find Big Town.

Ask about their captured freinds to get a quest.

German Town will be marked on your map, head there.

Once there head north-west to find Paradise Falls.

Talk to grouse and use the tough guy sounding lines.

And afterwards he'll help you become a slaver and you'll earn an income at 250 caps per person.

Username-kill the overseer!

Thanks again, to be honest I think my problem is, a couple of things really, I don't explore very much, and just try to get the quest done, an obvious flaw. The other, I'm not too well up on the perk system, and I think I need to look at them a bit more.(can I only change them at each level increase)??

The awnser is yes, and choose wisely.

Username-kill the overseer!

Steal the ammo you need, and sell other items for caps.


 * If you're just looking for caps with minimal karma loss or gain, I find the easiest way to be looting miniguns off of Super Mutants in downtown DC. Miniguns retail for ridiculous prices, especially if you use the crappy ones for repair parts and get a good condition one. Another way to get some cash is to loot all of the Raiders armors you find and repair them as much as your repair ability will allow. Good condition armors all have a very good weight/value ratio.


 * If you don't mind some negative karma, the best way to make a quick buck is to kill random merchants. The Scavengers wandering the wasteland are a good place to start; they're all alone, so you won't make anyone else hostile in the process. Typically, each Scavenger will have 100-200 caps, a nice chunk of ammo, and various other valuable goods (weapons, crafting ingredients, armor, etc). Basically, everything they have for sale is on their corpse once you off them. If you want to be really diabolical, have them repair everything in your inventory before you kill them- all of the caps you paid for repairs will be on their corpse, meaning you just got free repairs.


 * 'WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS TO FOLLOW'. Of course, the problem with killing random scavvers is that they're small fish- they never have big-time equipment on them. If what you're looking for is one big score that'll set you up for the rest of the game and you don't mind a bigger karma hit (-300 karma or so), then here's what you do; in Megaton there's a resident named Lucy West. If you talk to her, she'll ask you to deliver a package to her family, beginning the "Blood Ties" sidequest. Follow and complete the sidequest (refer to the wiki page if you need help). Afterwards, return to the Meresti trainyard and go visit The Family. When you get there... kill everyone. This'll make everyone in Arefu hostile as well, so watch out... but neither area is essential once you've completed Blood Ties, so it should be fine. The family can be very tough, so I recommend liberal use of Bottlecap Mines (best tactic- wait till they go to sleep, drop a bottlecap a bit away from the bed, then attack one and the others will wake up, run over the mine, and then die). The Family has an incredible amount of loot and a huge weapons cache, not the least of which is a working Shishkebab (the best melee weapon in the game) on Vance's corpse. Best of all, on Karl's corpse you find the key to his supply cabinet, which contains the ENTIRE INVENTORY from his store. Wiping out the Family will get you a very strong weapon stockpile and over a thousand caps worth of caps and goods. Plus, the Shishkebab is a great way to conserve ammo (if you kill half of the enemies in melee, then you're using half as much ammo). If you're playing a good character and are worried about the karma hit, then give Purified Waters to the beggars outside of Megaton and Rivet City- 6-8 Purified Waters will entirely offset the Karma loss from going postal on The Family.

Some Sort 23:30, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Also frag mines/nades are found alot, lets say you have 30 frags and 40 mines, sell half and that is lots of caps right there. Pre-war money is also something great to sell along with any carton of cigarretes also go for lots. Just collect a bunch of that and you'll be rich in not timeProtectorhalstead 02:31, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

for lots of free stuff just go to tenpenny tower and shoot the shop keepers in the head with the mesmetron theyll go mad and the guardsll kill them allowing you to take their stuff (including theyre keys for the supply boxes). this does cost you quite abit of karma because taking stuff from their supply box counts as stealing

--

To make money, save ammo and stimpacks. Go stealth (using silenced gun if you find one) and use VATS to kill with minimal ammo. Use the save feature all the time and reload if you wasted too many ammo or got hurt a lot. This may make the game duller if you like action but it will help saving a lot of money, making the beginning of the game easy to manage caps-wise. Get healed in Megaton for 50 caps including crippled limbs, it's way cheaper than using stimpacks. Save these for emergency healings while hunting. I'm barely using any when i'm cautious enough. Also, follow a caravan and let its two NPC's kill raiders along its way... loot the raiders and sell the loot to the caravan leader ! Leave the caravan by fast-traveling-away when they're getting low on health and cripples or you'll lose them. Basically, be skint and cautious and you'll spend little. My barter skill is 10-11 so it's really not hard. Also, use Melee and VATS on non-range beasts that are slower than you and easy to kill (like radscorpions, mole rats, bees and dogs) and you'll be able to kill these without even being hit, thus saving ammo and stimpacks. I have merely 40 melee and it's enough. Quintal 78.114.155.215 20:18, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

--

Kill stuff, loot corpses, search containers, etc, use your repair skill to compact value. For example you pick up 5 raider armor in %20 condition, you can combine them into 1 raider armor at %100 condition, saving weight.

You'll get to know which items are worth carrying and which are not. Basically 10:1 value ratio is what you want. Nuka-cola has a value of 20-something caps for 1 carry weight. Carton of cigarettes, value of 50, weight 2.

Basically your job is to kill lots of stuff and sort through all the crap they drop.

If you are not playing "stealthy" and using vats you're prolly burning too much ammo. You can go thru an entire clip magazine to kill 1 super mutant, or you can use a hunting rifle in stealth to nail him in the head for half or all of his health.

In the beginning, Super Duper Mart alone will net you a few hundred caps worth of loot.

Arming or disarming the bomb will net you from 500-1000 caps.

Tenpenny quest, 700 caps.

Every location you enter = hundreds of caps in loot to sell to merchants.

Save up caps early on,and then buy a my first laboratory,make lots of chems and sell them for a price,also,you should try hunting giant radscorpions and deathclaws,there poison glands and hands or usueful for cap earning Werewolfhell 15:51, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Sell pre-war money all forms of cigarettes and all ammo you will never use--Meca-dope 18:15, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

(Spoiler Alert) Once your character is packing something better than a hunting rifle, try wiping out fort Bannister (tons of weapons and looted Talon Company armor), Evergreen mills (their's an isolated vendor that you can kill and rob without karma loss, as long as you can make it past 30 or so raiders and a caged supermutant behemoth), or sell out Tenpenny Tower to the ghouls, and loot every shop, suite, and whisky bottle in the place once the ferals are done trashing it. And yeah, like Werewolfhell says, giant radscorpions. It's like 240 caps a pair. I haven't even bothered selling my prewar money, and now have a heap of it covering the picnic table in my house. Or just go melee/unarmed. Smashing everything to death with a power fist early on saves a lot of money, you'll need to be stealthy though.Imp of the Perverse 08:22, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's easy to get 1000+ of caps quick in Megaton.

1. Speech Luca Simms into giving you 500 caps for diarming the bomb. 2. Visit the water treatment plant. Walter gives you 200 caps for fixing the pipes. 3. Hack the terminal (very easy) in the Brass Lantern. 300 caps in te floor safe. 4. Speech Leo Stahl into giving up chems so he gives you his key. There's usually 70-120 caps in there, as well as an assortment of chems and meds. 5. Visit Silver in Springvale. Speech her into giving you 400 caps.

So in about a half hour of starting the game you'll have about 1500 caps!

Loot all Chems (They don't take up any weight) and sell all the concoctions you don't need. I sometimes use Jet or Psycho, but i don't use Buffout or Mentats at all, therefore I sell them off. Also, don't be a stranger to stealing from shops: Utilize a Stealth Boy, then rob them blind... AngryNorwegianDude 14:43, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Take everything you can and store them somewhere (a house if you have one). You end up finding traders (Sugar Bombs at Northwest Senaca, Scrap Metal with the old guy in Megaton, Pro War Books with the Scribe at the Library, and loads more). These traders ALWAYS have caps for the trade... You can stock up loads of them and sell them for as much as possible. Side quests also pop up (Gradys special package for example) and they can get you a few hundred caps. Trade Raider armor for Chems and Ammo.. they never run out if you can hop between Megaton, Rivit City and one or two others. If it comes to it, take the Lawbringer perk and you get caps for fingers of bad guys you kill. Every little helps... Sulfate 16:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)