Looking for some tips and tricks for setting up your Fallout Shelter vault right? Want to increase happiness, production, and dwellers while gaining more weapons, outfits and caps. Check out our beginner guide to starting our vault off right!

Greetings Fallout Shelter gamers! Having played Fallout Shelter before it came out on Android, I’ve had a little time to learn what the game is all about. However, with the Android version came some new updates such as Mr. Handy, new attackers like the Deathclaw and other surprises. As a result I thought I’d take the time to write up a new set of tips and tricks for a thriving Fallout Shelter vault starting at day one. This guide is mainly geared towards players with 0-25 dwellers in their vault. I will continue to build from this article forward. Of course, prior to the game coming out for Android I did write some other tips posts that have been pretty popular. If you are a bit further in the game you will probably find them more useful. Those guides are linked below.

In this guide, however, I will focus on Fallout Shelter vault layout, assigning dwellers, what to do with special characters and when to go to the wastelands.

For more advanced Fallout Shelter Game tips and guides, see these articles:

Fallout Shelter Tips: Get Rid Of Radiation, Use Endurance, Increase Specials, Happiness And More Without Spending Any Money

Fallout Shelter Update Tips: On Deathclaws - How To Defeat Them Quickly Without Losing A Single Dweller

Fallout Shelter Tips Guide For Players Beyond The Basics: Update On Weapons, Wastelands, SPECIALS Training, Incident Survival And More

Fallout Shelter Advanced Game Tips: On Nuclear Reactors, Wasteland Endurance, Mass Population Management And More

Fallout Shelter Tips & Tricks: Exploit These End Game Strategies For Moving Rooms, Upgrading, Surviving Days In Wastelands And More

Read More More Fallout Shelter Strategies For Getting Ahead Without Spending...

Fallout Shelter Android Game Tip Set #1 - Set Up A Good Vault Layout

(For 0-8 Dwellers)

Ok, so one essential to a thriving vault is knowing how to set up your rooms. I have tried many different layouts, but when it comes down to it, in the early stages you don’t want to build too much too fast. The reason is, the more rooms you have out there, the more you have to power and making power takes people – if you don’t have enough, bad stuff happens.

So during the tutorial, this is how I layout my vault:

Build a power room on top level, to the right of the vault door/living quarters. Build a diner to the left of the second floor elevator Build a water treatment room to the right side of the elevator on the second floor.

Photo: iDigitalTimes

I do this same set up every time for a number of reasons:

Power rooms on the top floor are best because you will assign your strongest dwellers there and they will stand up better to attackers. The space to the left of the elevator can only accommodate space for two merged rooms. You usually need less food in the beginning so it’s better to make that one smaller. Placing the rooms on either side of the elevator allows you to expand and merge similar types of rooms.

(Vault Layout For 8 – 12 Dwellers)

Ok, once you reach 8 dwellers, you now have to build another living quarters. When you go to build you next living quarters, don’t place it next to rooms already set up! Build an elevator to the third floor and put it down there. This allows you to expand that room later. Merging same kinds of rooms together is a good idea for production/power efficiency so always keep that in mind when planning your layouts.

At this point you should get 4 more dwellers that come to your vault door. Make sure as each new dweller comes, you check his or her SPECIAL to see where they are best suited to work. The easiest way to do this is to drag the new dweller over each room and see which room he or she has a higher SPECIAL in. If the room is already full of dwellers, but your new one has a higher SPECIAL level than someone in that room, he or she will have a + sign over top of them with a number. Just drop the dweller in that room and he or she will replace the dweller with the lowest SPECIAL level.

Photo: iDigitalTimes

Importance of Assigning Dwellers To The Right Room

I cannot stress enough how important it is to assign dwellers to the appropriate rooms. The higher a dweller’s SPECIAL the greater an asset they are in that room because they speed up the production time. As a result I am constantly monitoring that new dwellers get assigned to the right places.

First Wastelands Expedition

Ok, by now you have 12 dwellers in your vault and two of them are just hanging out at the vault door. I would suggest you go ahead and send those two out into the wilderness for about an hour – but no longer or they will die and you will have to pay bottle caps to revive them.

The wilderness is a great place to pick up caps, outfits that raise specials, weapons for fighting attackers and more so get those unassigned dwellers out there!

Getting First Lunchboxes, Merging Rooms And Assigning Special Characters

Ok, at this point you should have completed enough objectives that you’ve probably earned a lunch box or two. When you open those you know they are full of goodies like caps, weapons, outfits and special characters. Here’s what you should do with each when you get them.

Photo: iDigitalTimes

Caps

With the caps you should obviously add on to your current rooms – merge one more diner room next to your old one and one more water treatment as food and water are probably getting low. If you food and water are in the red, it’s a good idea to try to RUSH each of those rooms once as soon as you’ve merged them as it may get your supply up in time to keep your dwellers from getting too sick or too much radiation. Radiation and sickness can become a major issue in your vault that can effectively kill all your dwellers if you don’t keep your food and water supply up, so always monitor that. For more tips about that, check out this post.

Outfits

I always immediately put all the weapons and outfits on my players. Depending on what special they have, assign the outfits that will enhance players that are high in that skill. For example, if I have three dwellers in my diner with a five, a three and a two in agility and get a handyman jumpsuit that raises their level of agility by 3, I place the suit on the person with the level 5. This makes production much faster.

Weapons

When I get weapons, I also immediately arm my players with them. I begin at the top of the vault, handing out the best weapons to the people on the top floor as they will encounter attackers first. If you have characters going into the wilderness, you could reserve a weapon for that, but beyond that, I keep them on my dwellers.

Special Characters

As far as I know, lunchboxes are the only way to get special characters so when you get one, cherish him/her. Generally speaking, when I get a special character, I immediately arm him or her with a weapon (if available) and send him/her into the wilderness. These characters always have high levels of specials and have greater levels of experience so they last waaay longer than any of your other dwellers and they pick up some amazing loot for you. (For more on wilderness survival, check out this post.) You should be able to leave a special character in the wilderness, even without a weapon, easily for 6 hours before needing to call him or her back. In that time they will have picked up some awesome stuff so put them to work for you!

Ok, so these tips should be enough to get your vault thriving a bit. To find out more about what you should be doing from here, check out:

Fallout Shelter Tips: Get Rid Of Radiation, Use Endurance, Increase Specials, Happiness And More Without Spending Any Money

Have more tips for a good begining vault layout in Fallout Shelter? Share them in the comments below.