Fallout Shelter is a fun little F2P tower building game, and one of the better executions of non-offensive free to play that I’ve seen in recent past. Past the initial tutorial levels the game actually has a lot of depth, and I’ve learned quite a few little tricks over the course of my hours as an Overseer. Check out these 12 Fallout Shelter game tips to keep your vault running smoothly and reach the highest levels.

1. Always force quit the game

For whatever reason, the game has a mechanic that causes your vault to continue to consume resources for a period of time after you stop playing. In the first place I’m not sure I quite get this mechanic, but aside from its intent it also seems to be super buggy – leading to what seems to be an “indefinite drain” behavior. You might play this game and think that its terrible because whenever you return to your base everything is in the red and all of your Dwellers are borderline dead. That isn’t how it is supposed to work, and fortunately there is a simple solution, just force quit the app after each play session and you’ll never have to worry about returning to a “ruined” base.

2. Grow room count and size gradually

Growing room count gradually is very important and to me it was somewhat non-obvious. The rate at which Caps scale tends to be faster, especially in the early game, than your economic ability to sustain rooms. Build too fast, and you’ll start having brownouts because you lack the Power to keep them running. Rooms without Power are literally worthless, and that usually means that a lack of Power leads quickly to a lack of Food and Water…. and doom. Instead of mass expansion, make sure you are adding adequate Power as you advance.

3. Merge and upgrade every time

Because rate of growth is an issue, you’ll want to get the most out of every room. In general you only have so much space too, so having a room that has a really low output is just a tax on your Vault. The game provides a means of increasing the efficiency of space by “merging” rooms which are built next too each other. Plan for this, and leave room to merge your major rooms (Power, Food, Water) every time. Other rooms such as the Stimpak and Radaway generators don’t feel as important to me (I tend to always have plenty) – so I don’t mind squeezing these in anywhere there is space. Note that when you select a room, there is also an “up arrow” on the upper right of the screen. In this menu you can upgrade the room, which provides a higher resource output, and further maximizes the efficiency of the use of space. The first upgrade is pretty cheap, so I normally pick it up early.

4. The Post-Apocalypse is sexist

So Dwellers are men and women, but unfortunately not created equal. In Fallout Shelter, women can become impregnated by “dancing” with men in the Living Quarters – and this is actually very important. After the first few hours, Dwellers will stop showing up at your door. After that you can only recruit them very slowly by using the Radio Station, or you can simply generate more by procreating. So the first sexism comes in with the fact that female dwellers are pretty much not meeting their full potential unless they are pregnant all the time. Being pregnant doesn’t prevent them from working other jobs, so when you population is small enough to warrant it – you can cycle through every female Dweller. “Reporting for impregnation, Overseer.”