Fallout 4 - How to Have the Best Start on Survival 

Great guide! One thing I would add is the free .44 revolver you can find as soon as you leave the Vault. After you cross Sanctuary's bridge, (where the dead drifter is) turn left and keep going till you find a large machine with a hose. There you can find a .44 revolver, some drugs, and caps.

When I found the original Fallout, way back when, I became a Fallout player. I've played them all except FO 76. (I don't care for team play.) And I am apparently the only player that did not fall in love with FO New Vegas. I bought a new PC specifically to play FO 4 since my laptop couldn't cut it. I preordered FO 4 and was at the store the day they called to tell me it had gone public and I could pick up my copy. I've been playing it ever since. I don't have a clue how many hours I have invested in FO 4, but it has to be many thousands. I have trudged all over the commonwealth while over encumbered, so I don't mind jogging everywhere in Survival difficulty. Like Super Twonky, I do not undertake quests I do not want to mess with. I loot everything, missing very little. I use only 3 mods. One makes dead bodies glow after a firefight so I can find them for looting purposes. The second moves the Settlement Needs Help Notification to the middle of my screen so I cannot miss it. And the third is My Jet Pack because I like to get on top of buildings to admire the view. I'm not into being the fastest to get to the finish line, or to get a higher level than anyone else, or to build the fanciest settlement or have the meanest weapon, or the absolute best armor. Things like that. I'm also not big on using booze or chems. I use only Stimpacs, Radx, Radaway, Grape Mentats, and beer. I collect Power Armor but seldom use them. I carry 5 weapons, 1 is a Silenced upgraded .308 Pipe Sniper Rifle, the other is a regular upgraded Sniper Rifle in 50 cal. I carry an upgraded 10mm, an upgraded Combat Rifle and the Laser rifle Danse gave me (I forget it's name). My armor is a mix of all types with 3 Legendary pieces. I have joined the Minutemen, Railroad and BOS. The one and only time I went to the Institute, I couldn't believe my eyes. They lived like this and let the rest of the Commonwealth live in squaller. These are the bad guys in my eyes, forever. I decided I would play as a Minuteman or a Good Guy Nobody. This play thru I took Preston and friends to Sanctuary and set them up. Then told Preston I would not join the Minutemen. Even with that, I go around setting up settlements and helping them out. When I set up a settlement, I try to make it to accommodate a minimum of 20 settlers (beds, food, water) with around 100 defense, before I turn on the beacon. I'm a big believer in the Decontamination Arch. I'm old and have retired twice. I'm retired military. I worked as a civilian until I retired in Sept 1999 almost 3 years before my heart went south. Now I'm a disabled vet, with a bad heart, half blind, and I live to play my favorite game, Fallout 4. Lt USN (ret)

I really wish there was an option for "survival mode, but save whenever you want" considering how many times the game has just crashed arbitrarily

Tip for power armour users: if you go to the disposal ground east of sanctuary you can get 3 fusion cores, which are great help early on. Just explode the sentry bot with the terminal inside the little cabin. There's also a free mini nuke and fatman, all attainable straight outta the vault.

just stumbled onto this guide just this morning there is also the Destroyer's Helmet which you can get from Penny in Covenant, it is a combat helmet to match the rest of the gear and has +1 to both Charisma and Intelligence 👍 very helpful guide, ive just put the whole set together

Very good guide. I'd like to bring attention to a fairly over looked perk though. Aquaboy/girl is fantastic. No rads from water so you can easily escape difficult enemies. Also, you can head east from sanctuary as far north as you can to avoid all enemies (pretty much) until you hit the coast, then swim down to alot of the harder to reach locations.

Simple, informative, entertaining, just the best video for starters or even players coming back to the game like me. New Subscriber, keep on the great work ❤

Watching this has helped me understand just how fun Survival can be - awesome video man!

Man, from a total newbie, thank you so much for this guide. Not only was it amazing to figure out the value of crafting Poison Caltrops, just seeing the routes you walked was super useful.

Interesting guide. A long time ago, I finished the game deathless on survival. I had no strategy besides rushing power armor and the explosive machine gun. That was it. The rest was pure improv. Nice to see your take on it. Well done.

Been watching your vids for a couple weeks now and just wanna say that your advice is very helpful and the content is great! keep it up!

Wow! I really appreciate you taking the time to putting this together. I have been thinking about starting a 'Survival' play through, but i have been really hesitant.

with the tv show and the recent patch, i decided to look for good content to start fallout and found your channel to be very helpfull man! thanks

This is the closest thing to my survival starts as I have ever seen in youtube. You even gave me a couple little tips I never tried before. Nicely done from a fellow 3000+ hours into this game person.

Good one! Most of these guides are from many years ago and you have good tips and tricks to get the best start possible, thanks!

Right next to MATN, one of my favorite Fallout RU-vidrs returns. Truly Christmas has come early

This is a small one but if you take a left first leaving the Vault instead of right to Sanctuary, you'll run into a wooden guard post with some dirty water. It's not much but anything counts at the start.

Super awesome video, found some things out I didn't even know, this helps out a lot, I honestly thought this would take you like 5-6 hours, but man 3, that's crazy!

This is crazy I just started getting back I to survival, this is exactly what I needed!!

ah man... it's been a while. So glad to see ya back in action :-)

Thx for the guide, i have never wanted to go for survival mode before but now i’ll try. 😊

Good video. I forgot I could refill bottles so thank you. Also, on the roof of the house with the basement bunker in Sanctuary there is a green duffle with a weapon, ammo, and food/junk. A fallen log lets you get on the roof easily.

the man, the myth, the legend, is back!

Amazing absolutely amazing you truly are amazing at this game you are one of the only youtubes i can watch play fallout 4 great work! :D

Im definitely refering to this guide when the next gen update comes out. After my 2000 hours or so playing and countless builds Ive never done the railroad ending. Definitely plan on doing it on survival

I didn't need this guide but I'm still here for the algorithm 👉😎👉 Plus, I've said it before, but I'll say it again: watching you play has made me drastically reduce the game changing mods I use in my own playthroughs and has revitalized my interest in the game

Great guide. Have used it to restart my journey in the wasteland. Two things I’d like to add: 1) near the Robotics disposal ground is a crashed vertibird where you can find a suit of power armor. Good for anything you run into and with the added carry weight, you’re able to grab more items to create more poisoned caltrops. 2) due west of Sanctuary is an irradiated bunker where you can find an army helmet. Another good find for early in the game (be careful in this area though because of bloatflies and blood bugs).

my man this was awesome. I followed this for my first survival run and just leaving diamond city and feel pretty confident after taking over the alley and also knocked out the boat while I was there. thank you.

Nice guide, learnt some things, good job, but I heard about a settlement that needs your help, here, I'll mark it on your map. :)

thank you, this really unstuck my survival play through and gave me so many more options ( I just needed a little help and the right video), perfect timing, really glad you were prompted and encouraged to drop this video, very supremely helpful, I'd like for this video to be pinned on steam

Excellent vid. A few things to add: 1. Sniping: A short scope can be added to a rifle easily with no Gun Nut perk. Or get the guaranteed sniper rifle from the sniper house in Concord (taking that was not shown) 2. VATS: For VATS users, mod a Light Receiver onto a 10mm pistol right away. This cheap mod *significantly* increases firepower. Add a tactical sight if possible. Do the same with a pipe pistol (light, tactical). 3. This video rightly shows avoiding contact but for when that fails, mod a double barrel shotgun with heavy receiver and long barrel for those "oh crap" moments. 4. Armour: By far the best armour you can get early game is go to the fight between Diamond City guards and supermutants, and passively collect armour from dead DC guards. Combine with some decent leg armour.

This is the most useful survival guide I've seen on YT. For anyone with CC tunnel snakes installed, the powerful classic 10mm pistol and unique version 'Ultimatum' are in the subway a little west of Hangmans. You just need to deal with some bloatflies and ghouls (be careful of ambushes). There is a boss, but I managed to cripple him with a bottlecap mine for an easy kill. Also, big respect for not using any cheap exploits.

Crazy how similar this start is to the path I took on my first survival play through. Glad I found the video cuz there are definitely some things I learned/missed

Awesome guide thanks bro I needed the help

How does this man not have more subs???

DUDE YOU'RE LEGENDARY! Thanks so much for the video! Gn try on series x with no mods, wish me luck

I know majorslackattack does skyrim walk-throughs and the other day I told myself I want a fallout 4 channel that does the same thing and I found this channel, you got a sub and im going to browse your playlist and get to watching.

Glad you’re back man, those bloat flies are weird sometimes it feels like they pop in one shot and other times they tank a whole clip lol

This is the most essential guide I’ve seen on FO4 survival mode. I’m only at level 15 but I wished I’d have seen this before I started!

Thanks for this guide! I made It in my first survival playthrough. It took me all day because I don't know world so good but it was great learning experience!

Yes!!!! Thank you! I just got back to fallout and remember that i have not played it in to survival mode all these time. but then I got a bug and i need the console command. kept looking for a way to bring it back and the mod you showed is perfect. Thank you!!!

Super Twonky is back! What videos/series do you have planned next? I need more of your videos, your content is top tier and I'm going through withdrawals man.

Thanks man for the fantastic guide. Great work. Vault forever surface never.

Thank you, that was very entertaining.

14:40 I've done a lot of runs in the beginning area of Fallout 4. For some reason, the two Bloatflies there near the water tower and the three Bloatflies along the river if you go left after leaving the vault have a chance of being tougher than a Bloatfly should be at that level. It's like they spawn several levels higher than they should. It doesn't always happen, but it happens enough that I always check them out in VATS first to see how much damage I can deal them. If they aren't going to lose a lot of HP per hit, I know they're the higher level versions and I might avoid them until I can boost the damage of my weapons. 21:10 You forgot to mention that shooting the monkey keeps the three makeshift bombs from going off if the monkey activates. Otherwise, you should disarm the bombs (which gets you some XP and some components). 28:30 I was going to comment that going up the billboard spawns raiders, but you knew that too. You forgot to mention, though, that giving Carla the sarcastic response (like you did) gets you a permanent 10% discount from her. Also, that raider camp on the other side of the rocks always has an Addictol. Good for selling or keeping on hand just in case.

Between Abernathy Farm and Wicked Shipping you can stop by the ranger cabin and pick up a trading bonus magazine. Three bloatflies there. You can catch that place on the way back when you do the radstags. There's another whiskey inside the little cabin next to the gift shop at walden pond. Three mines inside the gift shop you can disarm carefully, also a combat knife at the gift shop on the wall next to the door. More rad roaches in a tent above sunshine coop.

Dude, your wisdom, such charisma 10/10

Welcome back! Merry Christmas to us!

Great video......I like the idea of using the poison caltrops for currency. Never thought of that for some early game easy money.

34:10 appears to have a whiskey sitting on the shelf :) ignoring that, Nice video! Will definitely incorporate it into my next survival build :)

Great vid. Thanks.

Ive never made it far trying a survival playthrough but this definitely makes me want to have another go at it

Great video!!

Good stuff ! 👍

You can get a SPECIAL stat permanently to eleven very early by taking a debuff chem or alcohol just before you pick up the SPECIAL book in Shaun's room. Alcohol will drop your INT temporarily, pick up the book and add a point into INT and after the booze wears off you're at 11 points of INT.

Return of the Twonk!

Awesome guide, thanks for sharing! Quick question, what stat could we put the special book from sanctuary house into? STR? AGL? I will try my first Survival run with this guide to start! Thanks again

Very solid start. Anyone that reaches the end will have a powerful base on which to build. I’m a Survival only player, and those legendary items are good enough for the entire game. I’m using some now on my level 70. I’ve heard of the poisoned caltrops start. It’s never been for me. It breaks immersion. Scrapping entire communities is very video gamey min-maxing. Treating everything as expendable. Settlers will want things. I can’t bring myself to do it. The other thing I avoid is going on long journeys just to grab primo loot. Reason being, the game sets enemy level to yours when you enter a new zone. And it stays that way, permanently. In the case of this video, parts of Lexington, Cambridge, western and central Boston, and Bunker Hill zones will be based off a level 10 character. This has the effect of lowering the quality of the loot you might find, either fixed, random or legendary. Also, the enemies are like paper, once you return with your buffer build, which isn’t fun for me. That being said, I would strongly consider this start for a Permadeath run. I can imagine myself doing a poisoned caltrops start and run through major areas of the game for primo loot. Easier enemies? Sign me up! Oh, I didn’t see you mention the 5% melee resist magazine in the Ranger Cabin North of Abernathy, or the Army Helmet by the military transport on the west side of Sanctuary. Maybe I missed that, but both could be useful, so I thought I’d share. At least you didn’t go Spray n’ Pray, amirite?!?

He’s back!

Wow that was a F4 masterclass. Incredible effort!

Love the videos, i hit the bell!

My favorite thing to grab in sanctuary is the Gold Bars in the underground cellar for early game caps.

Your guide is amazing. The only thing I miss is the places you went being pointed on Map. That would help a lot more. But great guide anyway. i'm following it for this new next-gen update and looks fantastic.

Thorough and elite, thank you

Awesome guide. After this load out I’d go get Vertibird grenades

At the start, facing south, heading right of sanctuary there is a military transport vehicle with blood bugs and radioactive barrels next to it, you can get some healing items and an army helmet with 10 ballistic DEF, you can sneak in to avoid the blood bugs and get in and out quick so you don't take too many rads, I believe raiders can also appear nearby so be careful.

Interesting. I usually just do Concord and take the sewers to get fusion cores, plus the one from the mole rat den, plus the 2 from the Bot Yard up north, then roll through to hangmans alley with power armor, doing Danses quest on the way and set up a base of operations. Either that or take Aqua-boy and swim to the railroad HQ so I can get Deacon for the Deliverer really early. I've also done this "rush" for the Overseers guardian, but never used the caltrops, I mostly just used pre war money and junk.

this what i needed

I have played FO4 at least 100 plus times! Survival always scares me because of the no fast travel! But after watching your vid & some others I am going to start one! This is a really good guide! Liked & Subbed! I hope you make some more of these vids! Great job, keep up the good work! ;)

You get a full set of raider armor next to a suitcase just on the northside of the sanctuary water. Its just after the bloatflies if you head there straight from the vault. Very nice advantage for clearing the area at the very start for a bit of bonus xp 👍

Really nice guide! Any guarenteed legendaries you reccomend for a melee build?

(25:50) Isn't there a guaranteed scoped rifle on the upper floor of this building? It's a bolt-action pipe rifle, but it's useful in the early game. (48:35) Hangman's Alley is easier to clear from the rooftops, but that means dealing with the supermutants up the road first, of course.

I usually go 7 agility 3 endurance. I play permadeath with a save file right after scrapping Sanctuary to reload to. If you sleep in Sanctuary you can do RedRocket, Sunshine Tidings, Walden Pond, store your stuff back at RR or Sanctuary then go do Concord, the Museum, Speakeasy and the area under the Deathclaw. From a save after scrapping Sanctuary you'll not need to sleep until you meet Trashcan Carla near Starlight Drive. Also if you don't make safety saves so you have a few levels of adreneline you can 1 shot Walter with the hunting rifle found in the Walden Pond sewers or a pipe-bolt action rifle, Whislash is an easy kill. If you do kill them there is another guaranteed Whiskey and Big Jim to sell. Alternatively about half of the time I'll have picked up a mine or two by this time so you could just kill Whiplash and get Walter with the mine.

If you kill all the molerats and go into the cave first the bloatflies are always gonna be “bugged”. Same thing can happen to rad roaches in sanctuary if you don’t kill them first and hit the bunker first. I can’t remember why? This is a great Guide by the way!

at 39:55 in the "vegetable stand" backroom with the chemistry station there is a syringer rifle above the door on a shelf hidden

Also, if you go to Abernathy Farm and then go to that caravan by Mary's grave, head up the grassy wooded hill towards Sanctuary and there is a little camp surrounded by quite a few bottles of booze (think Bobrov's Best, Whiskey, Bourbon etc.) It's on a hillock overlooking Sanctuary Bridge and the river.

Are you going to do a play through with this build? Keep up the great content, loved the vats only run.

Loving your guide. How does everyone feel usong dogmeat with the lone wanderer perk? In survival of course.

Fantastic! 🎉🎉🎉❤❤ Tho Dogmeat does not count as a companion for the Lone Wanderer perk which is a HUGE advantage for this type of build. Especially if carrying steel/caltrops long distance to share the load 😎

I love your channel. How about doing a legendary apocalypse run. I bet your way of thinking things through and taking the smart way would do well in this run

Some over looked loot in the areas you went... such as a fusion core at walden pond... but that made it feel more authentic exploring and finding it myself lol.

In Diamond City In bar Scarlett sold me 5 Whisky, not sure If inventory is randomised but It's worth to check out. Grape Mentats and Dirty Wastelander are both awesome items to craft :)

Love the guide! I’m doing the punk princess build by badcompanysarge but in survival. Do you have any tips for making caps with low intelligence and charisma?

The nice thing about pre-war money is you can use it as ammo for a junk jet or for trade and it has no weight in survival

i appreciate the bloatflies being a tough enemy at the beginning

Good job

Thanks for your guides. I really enjoyed heavy weapons build. But I did different running for Gatling Laser as fast as I can. But learned other things from your guide. Btw I'm not into mods, but I dont like gattling laser leaving half-empty fusion cores, so maybe I will start using some mods to fix issues. What mods are you running?

This is on my main page again. The fallout hype is taking over

I see people have mentioned the snub nose 44 and cap stash on the other side of the river around sanctuary but if you "Bethesda" your way up the the rock face there is a little sleeping bag and ammo box tucked inside a little hole a raider and his dog have made. this box sometimes has fusion cores in it the north of that is the robotics scrap yard so guaranteed 3 fusion cores a fat man and nuke (if you self destruct the sentry bot) and just east of that is a power armor frame that due to your level will only have a few parts. all of that stuff can be traded between the three traders around Drumlins diner. or you can keep the stuff if you plan to grab the power Armour from the museum and the two fusion cores in concord and the one from under red rocket and you will have plenty of juice to book it down Diamond city in relative safety where you can Caltrops/steel shipment loop your self to being rich.... if that the playthrough you want to do. thats the only thing different i do in my survival games oh and I grab the stuff from the duffel bag on the roof of the building in sanctuary in front of the root cellar.

Bloatflies and radroaches and mole rats are easier to hit with your combat knife than with a pistol and you will save a lot of ammo too, even if you never use vats. Just get right up to them, slowly back away so they train directly in front of you and stab. You can get a combat knife very early at the grill near the next-to-the last house high on the hill overlooking Concord on the Sanctuary side of Concord. From the two bloodbugs near red rocket take a left and follow the street.

Nice walkthrough, but might want to mention caltrops are only available if you have the far harbor dlc - a kind of important bit of info for anyone who might be following along who doesn't have the dlc installed.

great video, bro. Your jurney is a most powerfull can i see, is truu. Bad, is not foe all. If the people a not so good for a snipe, or sneak, is propably a too risky. Styl is perfect and y wish you good luck.

Late to the party, just watched this now 😁 Great video, lots of things I never knew. I noticed with all of your encounters, do you never use VATS?

Survival is really the only way to play IMHO. Also, there are some leather armor pieces in the woods north of sanctuary by the river, plus a raider, their dog, and some loot further north. There is actually a lot of stuff around Sanctuary to loot and get you a good start.

Fallout 4 is so much fun on survival. Really the best way to enjoy the game.

First off great stuff you put there together this would definitely make Survival easier to approach if you have no prior experience. But it wouldn't work for my playthrough right now. I decided on a Sneaky-Detective type of build. So no Armor pieces(i wear pretty much Nicks outfit+Sunglasses), no Chems because it would not fit the character, only Pistols mostly because I did go with 1 Strength. Also only 1 Endurance so I get one hit by pretty much everything. It goes well so far ive gotten further than I ever have on Survival. Got a pretty nice Legendary 10mm drop with double damage on full health Enemys. Gonna keep you tips in mind for a non sneak character for sure.

Survival game is awesome. the settlement become so important.

also head towards the scrap yard along the bank of sanctuary there's a 44on the way, Fatman and mini nuke in the scrap yard, a power armour suite on the way to satellite Olivia and everything inside Olivia

I never followed any guides for Survival but I'm guessing the mid game people camp out at Hangmans Alley (very central, close to supplies diamond city & the lady north fairline hill estates), use the vertibird for travel to locations and the insitute teleporter for travel back close to Hangmans Alley?

What graphical mods/settings do you use? Looks good! Any UI resizer?