Sometimes when you are exploring the barren wasteland, you may tell your good friend Dogmeat to search for something, more specifically, Ammo. If you tell him to search for ammo, there is a glitch in the game that causes him to mysteriously vanish for a REALLY long time. If this happens to you, do the following:

1.Check back at Vault 101,sometimes he appears here.

2.Rest in one spot for 24 hours. If he still isn't back, keep going until you trigger a dialouge option with dogmeat.

3.Ignore his absence and wait until you get the message "Dogmeat has died".

When using your V.A.T.S. (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System) a good part to pick would be the arms because the enemies will almost always drop their weapon and they will give you a bunch of time to shoot at them while they are either trying to equip a new weapon or coming at you to use their hand to hand combat. Plus even from a distance you almost always get 90% plus success rate at landing your shots on the enemy's arms...

THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO ALL. Generally, V.A.T.S. can hit all body parts about the same at any distance. (i.e. Head is 32%, Torso is 41%, Arms are 36%, leags are 32%, weapon is 25% at a 40 yard-ish distance).

If you've gotten the Contract killer perk, you can collect Ears from good people for Bad Karma and Caps, well in Rivet city if you pickpocket Doc Hudson or Harkness every week or so(in the game) they'll have lots of Ears in their pockets, pretty useful if you don't wanna waste your time killing lots of people for ears!

If you want to find a new location without wasting any perks, you can do so by using the compass to find the new locations. If you go onto the wasteland, you'll notice that on the compass on the bottom right hand corner you'll see some little Triangles. These triangles will be completely filled in if you've got the location on your map, but you haven't visited it yet (and so cannot fast travel to it), and will be just a border if you've not even been to it yet.

All you have to do then is travel in the direction of the triangle and you will come across the location. This works the best when you know where abouts a certain location is, however aren't too sure. The triangles will lead you directly to the door of the area.

In order to find Dogmeat(A dog that follows you and helps you), you need to find a place called Scrapyard. If you discover a town called Minefield, simply head south-east to find Scrapyard. once you have Dogmeat as a companion, he'll follow you around, search out ammo, attack enemies and other cool stuff. Just be careful to heal him with Stimpaks as he can(and will) die, which can be a real bummer.

To invest in the Trade Caravans just go see Uncle Roe in canterbury Commons after you've done 'The Superhuman Gambit' Quest, talk about the trade Caravans, Suggest to him that they broaden there stock (High Speech or Barter maybe required), you will get the option to invest in the Caravans, 200 caps for the 1st investment in each caravan, 500 Caps for the 2nd investment for each one, so 700 caps for each caravan, 4 caravans, thats 2800 caps you need to fully invest in htem all:

Cons:
The Caravaners may die, if they do, then its a waste of your caps. I suggest you simply get some decent armor and Pickpocket the caravaners and plant the armor on them. go through a door which requires a loading screen, then come back out, they should be wearing the armor you gave them

Pros:
Each Merchant/Caravan will have better things to sell
Each Merchant/Caravan will have more caps, to buy your spare things from you, once you fully invest in them, they become the NPC's with the most caps to spare in the game
Each merchant will have better repair skill with Crazy Wolfgang's repair skill going to 75 once you fully invest in him, this is the highest in the Game (Except for you)

You Also get a 'Gift' from each Merchant
1-7 Stimpaks from Doc Hoff
1-7 Stealth Boys from Crazy Wolfgang
A special Helmet form Crow
A Mini Nuke from Lucky Harith

During the game upon reaching three specific levels you will earn certain trophies... Level 8, Level 14 & Level 20. These trophies (as can be seen above) will be all based on your Karma, and so you may want to save a bit before you get to that level and change your Karma so it's either Good/Neutral/Evil.

But how do you do that? What's the best way? Well here are the simplest ways I've found:

Going From Good To Neutral To Evil
The best way to do this is to hack into any termnial... the one that I'd suggest is going into Moriaty's and hacking his terminal at the back (doesn't matter if anyone see's you, they wont raise the alarm). Once hacked, just back out. You'll notice that when you hover over it, it'll be in red meaning that everytime you activate the terminal you'll lose Karma... however what you wont realise is that you will lose Karma based on the number of times you tell it to activate the terminal. Due to the delay in you initially selecting to avtivate the terminal and the terminal being animated, you'll can actually manage to tap X about 5 times within this period losing 5x5 lots of karma (25 karma lost). If you have a quick finger you can lose quite a bit more. So just avtivate the terminal and whilst it's activating just aim at it and tap the X button as many times as you can. Once it's activated just back out. Simple. Be sure to check when your going for Neutral that you don't go into the Evil karma since it's very easy to do.


Going From Evil To Neutral To Good
There are two ways to do this, which is dependant on your caps. If you have around 1000-1250 caps this should be the preferred method... Simply go to either Megaton (assuming you haven't blown it up) and speak to the Preacher by the bomb (he'll ask for donations, so just give him around 1200 caps). You can also go to Rivet City, and give it to the doctor who again will ask for donations. Both these methods will INSTANTLY increase your Karma by the amount of caps that you gave these characters. So for Neutral, depending on how good you are, just keep giving 100 caps till you reach the desired Karma level.

The second which can be used is to have a high stock of Scrap Metal, And/Or Purified Water. If you go to Megaton you'll be able to find someone called Walter who after doing a small unnamed sidequest, you can give/sell Scrap Metal to. If you give it to him for free then you'll gain a fair bit of Karma for each Scrap Metal that you give for free. The Purified water works in the exact same way, and can be given to someone waiting just outside of either Megaton or Rivet City (and possibly both). As for where to get the items from... Scrap Metal can be found pretty much everywhere, and for Purified water, after dismantling/activating the bomb and completing the quest, you'll have gotten a nice condo, one that comes with a robot. Just talk to the robot and tell it your thirsty. He will give you around 5 Purified Waters a week. If you then wait in front of him for days at a time, you can quickly make up a high stash of Purified Water and all for free.

When you can't carry any more items just go ahead and mark it in the map. Go find a Shop owner and sell your items. Once you're out of items to sell go ahead and go back to the marked spot on the map and pick up anything that's remaining and there you go...

in the mapexpansion called: The Pitt there are new things to collect, this time it's 100 steel ingots, each time you collected 10 of them you will be rewarded by the slaver in the mill, here's a list of them:

10 - Laborer Outfit
20 - Filtration Helmet
30 - Steel Knuckles
40 - Metal Master Armor
50 - Metal Blaster
60 - Bombshell Armor
70 - Leather Rebel
80 - The Mauler
90 - Perforator
100 - Tribal Power Armor

NOTE:
- The mauler is a stronger version of the autoaxe.
- The perforator is a much stronger and scoped version of the assault gun.
- The metal blaster is a stronger version of the lazer rifle.

As for the armor they become better the more ingots you collect with as best one the tribal power armor.

Just in case you aren't aware, Bobby pins tend to break the third time you try to Pick a lock. So, why not simply try it twice, Quit out of the attempt and start again? It works, and best of all you'll never break a bobby pin again. A Similar approach can be used for Computer terminals. you get four attempts to hack a console before it is Locked down. Simply try to hack each terminal three times, quit out and restart the process. while you'll get a different set of words each time, at least this way you're sure to succeed.... eventually.

You need to have VERY good sneak and the law bringer and or contract killer perk for this. A stealth boy or the Chinese stealth armour from operation anchorage will make this easier, too.

Save before you start! Sell any ears / fingers you have to the appropriate NPC. You can then pickpocket them and take them back. Keep selling them back. They won't mind! Good karma will go up slower than bad karma, as you are stealing from a good character.

You need to finish the Stealing Independence quest and have the "note from Little Moonbeam's father", located in a suite on the 3rd floor of the Statesman Hotel. When you complete the quest, Sydney will appear at Underworld inside Ninth Circle. After talking about her gun, choose the last dialog option and choose the option "So what happened to your father?". Select this and Sydney will give you her SMG along with 50 10mm rounds. Keep doing this and you'll have enough to sell for about 400-999 caps depending on your Barter skill.

When trying to unlock a terminal. Scroll through the many bracket options: (){}[]<>, and when you come across one that covers more than one bracket, click on it and it will eliminate a dud or dummy code, thus narrowing it down for you. Also it won't use any of your four chances.

If you find that you're constantly getting attacked without warning, make sure to use the V.A.T.S Button to scout out each new area. It will often zoom in on enemies that have not appeared on your radar. Really handy for avoiding ambushes or, alternatively, running into battle like a suicidal maniac.

First of all, you need the Operation: Anchorage DLC to actually do this glitch.

For this glitch to work, you need Gary 23. Before you begin the simulation, there is a lock door, lock pick it, and get the Gary 23 dead body to the simulation room. Position the body as when you sit down and you look down you can see the body in front of you as you were to search it. The hardest part of this glitch is positioning Gary 23 right, so before you begin the simulation make a save file, just in case you did it wrong, you can load the save file and repositioning Gary 23 all over again.

When you get to Paving the Way, any armor or weapon at this point you can take it out of the simulation. I suggest to do the infinite ammo, and all requisition weapon as well, but I will cover this aside from this.

Because of this glitch or exploit you can take back Winterized Combat Armor and Helmet, Gauss Rifle, Assault Rifle, Trench Knife, Jingwei's Shock Sword, Fatman, Flamer, and etc out of the simulation with an enormous amount of HP or Condition making the almost unbreakable.

When you get to the part when you have to defeat General Jingwei, choose the option "I'm going to kill you SO MUCH", and shoot the sword out of his hand, thats to get the Jingwei's Shock Sword with the enormous CDN. When you defeat the General Jingwei try to not get too close to General Chase, and make another save file. Don't overwrite the one you did before entering the simulation.

As you go back to the Outcast Outpost, during the loading screen, hold down the right stick as if you were looking were you position Gary 23 and left if alone, when the black screen with the clock started, keep pressing the X (PS3) or A (360) button, if you get it right it should search Gary 23 body. Put all your stuff in there, and now you can have all these unbreakable armor and weapon with you.

Now this could take few attempts to do it properly, as you may be doing it wrong. In that case you can load your save file before talking to General Chase and try again. In the worst scenario you will have to reposition Gary 23, and because of that start all over again the whole simulation, so I suggest to get it right the first time.

STEPS:

1: get 2 grenades.

2: equipt 1 of them.

3: put the other one in an essential person

4: exit and take the grenade back.

5: throw the grenade.

Go to the Minefield then head north if you keep going you'll eventually pick up a radio signal from the alien space craft when you find it there is a space craft and special gun with limited ammo.

If you come upon a Brahmin anywhere in the wasteland (a Brahmin, not a pack Brahmin) you can crouch and hit the interact button to tip the Brahmin over.

The mission Those! is a reference of the old Oscar nominated, 1954 movie Them! about Giant Ants attacking a small town.

Go look for the clinic. Go up the stairs. Go straight, turn left and go a little bit further. In there you will find lockers, search them and you will find armor of different types such as leather, combat and recon armor. In the next room there is more armor and helmets.

NOTE:You can also find other goodies among this vault.