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Wasteland Diaries: Take a hint

Edward Marshall
Updated ·6 min read

In the past, I've written guides to help new Fallen Earth players. Most of the information I put in these guides is common knowledge. I have compiled a list of things one should know about playing Fallen Earth, whether one is a brand new clone or a grizzled veteran of the wastes. This guide is different because it isn't really a guide at all, just a compilation of advice.

Most of this stuff may not help you, but I can assure you, at least one of these bits of wisdom will be of use to you. Essentially, I have compiled a list of useful hints, tips and tricks that I think every player should know. Some of them might evoke a facepalm from the veterans, and some might make life easier for a new player, but you will learn something. So without any further ado, proceed past the cut and prepare to be enlightened.



General tips

  • In the options menu, you can select auto-first-person. This will default you to first-person mode whenever you switch to combat mode.

  • By holding down the ALT key and the right mouse button, you can rotate the camera around your character. This is one way of viewing or taking a screenshot of your character.

  • By the way, it's CTRL+Q to take a screenshot.

  • You can remove the HUD with ALT+F10 to take screenshots or play in "ultra-hard realism" mode.

  • You can hold down CTRL to drag single items off of a stack.

  • While in town, switch to the Marathon stance and run Organize and Quicken to run faster. Remember to change stances when you leave town or you might wind up in the cloner.

  • When your horse is mixed in with a bunch of similar horses (like at the bank), try to run through the group. Your horse will stop you, while you can run through other people's horses. Same thing for vehicles, but we can paint those now so it's not as much of an issue.

  • There is an in-game browser. Type "/support" in the chat bar.

  • You can drag the corner of your hot-key bar and make it huge. With as many redundant abilities as Fallen Earth has, you'll need to do this.

  • Click the "+" on the left side of your chat bar. This will open a menu with all the chat channels, dances, and emotes, among other things.

  • Max out your skills first, then your attributes.

  • Press Num Lock to auto-run. Note: This can get you killed if you ALT-Tab or go AFK. There are cliffs and things that want to eat you.

  • The green dot on the map is your current mount. Yes, that's where you left it.

  • Your social skill will improve your buying and selling prices with the NPC merchants.

  • Increasing your willpower attribute will improve your alpha mutations (no AP required) and the amount of gamma you have.

  • You can rename your mount by right-clicking its name on the mount window.


Survival tips

  • Press ALT+K to see all of the knowledges you have accumulated thus far.

  • Hit ALT+P to open up your waypoint menu. Here you can store up to 100 custom waypoints. Why only 100? I have no idea; I wish it were more, too.

  • Press the N key to see all of your actions. All of these abilities, stances and mutations can be dragged to the hot-key bar for quick access.

  • When in town switch the map to "overhead." You can mouse over merchants (chip icons) to see what they sell, and find vaults (safe icons), auctioneers (gavel icons) and mailboxes (envelope icons).

  • Press F to toggle your flashlight on and off. Don't worry; the batteries never die.

  • Crouching or going prone can make you invisible to enemies. Either stance gives you a bonus to your Athletics skill versus their Perception. This works on other clones in PvP, too.

  • You can use Fortify on a creature mount to increase its stamina regeneration so you won't have to feed it as often.

  • If you've been dying a lot lately and feel a little squishy, check your gear; it might be broken.

Combat

  • When dual-wielding weapons, use the left mouse button to attack with the right hand and the right mouse button to attack with the left hand weapon.

  • If you are scavenging or harvesting, press the U key to interrupt the action in the face of danger. Usually the danger will interrupt you anyway, so why let it get the first hit?

  • When doing "kill x number of mobs," just hitting the mob for any damage will count it as a kill. It is generally considered bad etiquette to kill-steal, but hey, this is the apocalypse.

  • Melee specialists should always have some kind of ranged weapon on them to pull mobs out of the crowd.

  • Go easy on your ammo. Always go for headshots against mobs (if they have heads).

  • You can wield or holster weapons by clicking them on your character. You can also do this unintentionally. I once unequipped my pants in Mumford... well, that's another story for another time.

Appearance

  • Some equipment items have alternate states. Hats can be backwards, jackets open, or riot shields up. Right click on the item in the gear window to change its state. This only works on certain gear.

  • Right click on your character's head. You can change your hairstyle to another type that has a similar amount of hair. If you are a bald male, well, your choices are limited to bald and bald.

  • To wear one shoulder pad instead of both, for that gritty wasteland look, use the shoulder armor slot on the right side of the gear window.


Crafting and scavenging

  • Seemingly useless items can still be useful.

  • Look for an "also counts as" entry on some of the junk you find. It might be just what you need.

  • Hold down SHIFT when you loot something to automatically grab everything and bypass the loot window.

  • Crafting something less than 30 levels or less below your skill will generally give you a skill point increase. Crafting something 15 levels below your skill or less will also give you XP.

  • Only the active crafting task removes materials from your inventory. If you abort this task, you will lose those materials. Any other task can be aborted without penalty.

  • Always try to queue up as many crafting tasks as possible (up to 20) before logging off for an extended period of time. You will continue to craft while offline. You will also retain any bonuses if you log off in the appropriate workshop.

  • Try to stop and scavenge if you have room to carry stuff; it's almost always worthwhile.

  • If you see a strange structure in the distance or a building in the middle of nowhere, go take a closer look. There are many of hidden things to find in Fallen Earth.

  • Make sure to keep your most-often-used items in your sector vault. This is the vault you will always have access to in any town.

  • You can stack scavenging bonuses. For example: You can dual-wield army knives for a +10 bonus.


The most important thing I can tell you is: take your time, explore, and read all of the mission text -- there's no hurry to hit the level cap. Enjoy the ride. See you next week.