This is true, you just have to exit out of the character screen and the perks menu will pop up next time you go back into it. Skill points don't all have to be distributed either.

It makes more sense in tough guy mode. Sure getting recruits with weapon skills aren't a problem but it's the loss of auxiliary skills that could be a problem. For instance in my last play through, I lost 2 medics to ambushes. If I can't just reload whenever I screw up, I will need to replace him with another medic but I would be screwed if I didn't have access to any new medics.

There's also the problem with some recruits having technical skills but useless (or no) combat skills or have poor stats or traits. If you lose a man or two on a mission, you will want to sift through the dead weight to get the better recruits.

I remember in my last playthough I had Stoma and his low agility and bruiser trait can be a real liability. However, he was one of the best recruits I had at the time (for big guns), everyone else in the bunker was just dead weight. With Stoma, you definitely want to get the mutate perk and get rid of his bruiser trait. Gaining +2 STR at the loss of 2 action points (or -4 AGI) is a terrible trade off!!!

I also kept Farsight but I think I lost Stitch in my last playthrough :P Brian is also a very good recruit you get early on, late game i tagged him with energy weapons as when the big guns he can use stopped being effective, he still had a ton of skill points in reserve. Kept him till the end of the game and replacing him with a higher ranking recruit would have been tough to do. A lot of new recruits come with stats, traits or skills i don't want.

The worst traits by far are bruiser and glowing one, ugh!!

Does that mean you can't distribute the skill points either, unless you pick a perk? That could be a problem then, I would like to use the skill points on probably every level up (as i don't intend to use the Tag!-perk to tag new skills), but I'd just like to postpone the perk selections to later levels. I need to bump up at least Small Weapons, Sneak and Lockpicking early on (my main character already has Small Weapons at 99% after the first mission (one level up), thank god).

If so, maybe I will find good perks also on low levels, e.g. the Bonus Move was somewhat useful before you get the Action Boy perk, and I didn't realize before how useful the Leader perk might be (but then it is useful only for your main character, you shouldn't pick it to any of your companions).

(Recruiting veterans.) Fair enough, so I think I found suitable recruits already right after the first mission. They are otherwise exactly the same ones I had in my first playthrough, only one is different because the one I had earlier was not available yet. But the replacement might be even better, she also has CHA 7 meaning I have now three team members (including the main character) with CHA 7, which I will bump to 8 with a perk at level 12, and then next perk to pick for those three members is Divine Favor, meaning after that they can pick a new perk after every two levels.

The other three companions (which have CHA 5 or 6) will have to do with a perk rate of 3.

For me to even consider the Tough Guy mode, there shouldn't be any sudden deaths like there are now. At that point losing a team mate should be only if you've become reckless and sloppy in your playstyle, not because you had bad luck.

I think besides Farsight and Stich, all the recruits (names and values) have been changed in the mod, at least I recall reading that.

On my first playthrough I chose Becca as one companion, and she(!) was apparently supposed to a big brute with lots of melee power. She had Bruiser and Heavy Handed traits, so i figured yeah maybe she will be my big melee-fighting tank, a good melee fighter like Sulik in Fallout 2, running to enemies and throwing them around the combat screen with his mighty super sledgehammer, like ping pong balls. And maybe even a heavy weapons girl with her high strength.

But I learned quite soon Becca was dead weight, useless in combat (and anything). As mentioned, melee and unarmed combat is pretty much impossible in Fallout Tactics (at least in high difficulty levels), plus Becca had only 6 action points, even though her agility was 7. That damn Bruiser trait... So yeah, I had to replace her after a couple of missions, and on this new playthrough I was sure to stay away from her.

On level up, you don't have to pick your perks or use your skill points right away. If you leave the character screen and come back, they will still be waiting for you. Nothing at all to worry about there.

This is exactly what makes starting out in FO:T a pain in the arse. If you only have one way into a room, two enemies on each side and no grenades, you are relying entirely in dice rolls that your squad members make it through. Bursting 3 times at point blank and not landing a single shot is just fucking bullshit, yet this caused my last game over.

This is the time the mutate perk (useless in FO1 and 2) becomes useful. Switching out bruiser for fast shot or gifted may make the character far more usable. It's something to keep in mind at least. Stoma became must more usable when i switched out bruiser for fast shot. He still needed action boy though.

My son did this to me on my Sleeping Dogs save. The only thing I told him was DO NOT WRITE OVER MY SAVE. I had an endgame save with around 95% completion on it. The next morning my save was 2 hours in with 8% completion on it. I was pissed to say the least.

Yeah i wanted to use the skill points right away but leave the perks alone for now, and one just needs to hit "Cancel" on the perk selection screen in order to get access to the skill points.

I had forgotten how fast you level up at the start of the game. I've only finished the first mission and went to fight a few random encounters against raiders and baby deathclaws (which at this point give assloads of experience), and already now all my party members are at level 8. almost at 9. So soon they all have 3 perks waiting to be selected. :) They all also have small guns skill already well over 100% (120% or so).

You can see how melee is useless even for enemies. I keep running away from those baby deathclaws and shooting potshots at them with small handguns, and kill them that way without taking any damage. Same thing with those Lift Bots and Scurry Bots or whatever later on, you just need to run circles and shoot at them, maybe using one party member as a decoy. Only ranged combat matters in this game.

Now I must check each and every perk from a FAQ how useful each are and what are the prerequisites (e.g. if I need to bump up some skill or value first, like Sharpshooter needing that IN 6). For instance i didn't know before the meaning of the Mutate perk because the description is so vague, and I will also probably select Leader for my main character, and maybe even Team Player perks. I earlier didn't select those Leader or Team Player perks as I wasn't sure if I will be playing with the team grouped together or operating in completely different parts of the maps, but 90% of the time they are always quite close to each other, so those perks probably make sense for me.

The only cases I'd keep them apart from each other is if I need to use one as a decoy, or if enemy is using rockets (splash damage), or if I send some to sneak up behind someone (but then I usually end up sending everyone sneaking, in case they all have high enough sneak skill).

I am now interested just in the levelling up part, I wish I could kinda just skip the missions themselves. :)

Yup, I found that out the hard way on my first playthrough, never again. Might be better if the slayer perk could be picked much earlier. much MUCH EARLIER!!!!

For any character with terrible traits (ie bruiser), mutate is an excellent perk. So if you do see recruits held back by a bad trait, don't forget this perk can fix it.

I think team player was bugged before the patch, after the patch or modding I'm not sure but I'd definely be careful about it. I think loner was bugged too.

As soon as it became available, I instantly used Mutate on three of my team members who didn't have the Gifted trait yet. I see that as the most important trait of all, and I am soooo glad now all have it. So for me it was not that much about getting rid of some bad trait, but to get that Gifted trait to any recruits missing it. Who can say no to +1 to all abilities? Sure you will lose some skill points then, but you'll get plenty of that in every level up anyway, plus the increased Intelligence (thanks to the Gifted trait) also gives more skill points later on.

I also thought about getting "Small Frame" trait to one who already had gifted (just in order to give her +1 to Agility), but for now I decided to keep her the way she is, just fo keep the extra carrying capacity. Maybe I will change it later, maybe. I just recall that I was always encumbered from all the loot, I wanted the money for power armors and stuff...


Now all I want to know is: how the heck do I find the Gas Station special encounter? There's an "Elixir of Life" for Endurance +1 there too...

Also considering not all recruits will use all the skills anyways so the downside of gifted in FO:T is considerably less than in FO1 and FO2.

Would the +1 AGI help for anything? It might be better to get action boy if you want more AP

In that case, you will need to have a character with a high outsdoorsman skill and luck. The special encounters are random and may not appear at all in a normal play through.

I remember a friend of mine who learned why savegame slots exist in that hard way. American McGee's Alice: saved just when falling on lava. Had to restart the game, no way around it.

More action points and less likely to be hit, I guess. On top of that action boy.

But I will save that for later, whether it makes sense to lose carrying capacity to +1 agility (and use one perk for it).

I have one recruit which had Luck 7. Since I gave her the Gifted trait (with the Mutate perk), it got bumped to 8.

If I later still give her Gain Luck perk (=> 9, making it the highest ability for her) and after that Divine Favor perk (which among other things gives +1 to character's highest ability, in this case Luck), it would go all the way up to 10.

And then I guess I could allocate points to her Outdoorsman, if I have left-over skill points. I probably don't need skill points for her other than small guns, energy weapons and sneak, so at least later there will be plenty of skill points for her to use on Outdoorsman.

Then again I am unsure if I want to do that just to find one special encounter for extra HP.... I could probably bump her Perception to 10 the similar way, which is more useful in combat I guess..

Oh, on Sega Saturn playing Resident Evil, we had the great idea of deleting some saves to ensure that we would not run out of save space later in the game since we were reaching the end of the game and it was getting pretty hard.
Oops, wrong saves deleted! We had to redo half of the game.

There are other special encounters. IIRC, you could get the alien blaster or a water gun in two of them. The one with the endurance potion isn't the only one worth going for :P

Alien blaster? Really? Is it as good as the alien blaster you find in Fallout 1? While its range wasn't that great, it would take only a couple of targeted alien blaster shots to eyes to kill pretty much any enemy in Fallout 1.

Then again all that "shooting in the eyes"-stuff has been seriously nerfed down in Tactics, it isn't even near as damaging in Tactics as it was in Fallout 1-2. In those earlier games it always caused lots of damage if you were able to shoot someone in the eyes; in Tactics the best that can happen is that it knocks that enemy unconscious, or at least blinds him (causing him to become less accurate with his shots). Otherwise it is rather meh.

Errrr, now that you mention it, I'm actually not sure, I never found it in FO:T. The water gun is good against robots but it isn't essential considering EMP shottie shells are better for short range encounters.

If I'm not mistaken, Blood and Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight had F9 as a hotkey for Quick Load/Save. I can't remember any specifics, but I'm pretty sure I screwed up at vital moments, like Quick Saving while falling to my death or Quick Loading after a hard-fought battle.

Mob Rule/Street Wars has this annoying issue where restarting a mission only takes you back to your last saved game. This became a huge problem in Rangoon Rumpus (and, to a lesser extent, Capital City), where you'd lose simply because the AI stopped repairing certain properties. If Lenny's Restaurant is about to explode when the mission starts, you better damn well have an earlier saved game handy. Whenever I play nowadays, I always reserve a unique save slot for when I start a new city.