Base and Resources
The base of all things (pun very much intended, applause please) is your base - the vault. Your vault runs on the four essential resources, your effort, and potentially a battle pass (remember those handy - pun intended - Mr. Handies from Fallout Shelter? Well, you can buy it here too, along with additional rewards for dailies).
Let’s Break down the Basic Resources Now
There are no resource shortages as far as ‘penalties for not having them,’ but worry not - as soon as you reach higher levels, you won’t have enough resources. This is why you should try to be clever with them.
You can also get resources from various packs that you may procure through multiple ways (whether from missions or buying them). Finally, you may also find them in other places, but let’s talk about that some additional time.
Back to the Topic at Hand, Let’s Break down the Basic Resources Now
Power, the Harry Potter scar-shaped one, is the most important one… at least as far as base building is concerned. You can use it to expand or upgrade the vault. Pretty simple, right? It comes from the power generator room. My suggestion? Always upgrade the power generator first. That way, your hourly income will always be at its potentially highest.
Caps, the… uh… cap-shaped one. You use it the same way as in any other Fallout game; you buy stuff for them. Every gear upgrade, every cap shop, attachment making, … if you’re buying something simple, you’re most likely using caps.
Water, the tear-shaped one, is used to upgrade dweller (character) perks. Each dweller has a bunch of traits that require water to upgrade. Why? Because why not. If I dump a truckload of water down your throat, you can be sure you’ll gain some new exciting powers. What powers? Uhhh… the ability to explode? I don’t know, leave me alone. You earn it through water purification rooms.
Capacity, the vault boy head-shaped one in the top left corner, tells you how many dwellers you can have roaming your vault. If you run out of space, you can always use the cryo room (the room in the thumbnail) to freeze the dwellers you’re not using for production or combat - free of charge. You can increase it by building and upgrading living quarters.
Cutlery, better known as food, is the resource used to level dwellers up. You see, the Commonwealth is a place with a significant shortage of resources. So if I feed you, you’ll get stronger. Capish? That’s why you should always donate food to shelters. That’s how the homeless people level up (too much?). You generate it within the dinner.
Summary - you use water to level up perks, gaining ability improvements or stat bonuses; food for leveling up; caps for buying basic items and power to upgrade your vault.
But Martin, What Are Those Other Three Resources on the Right Side of the Screen?
Those are, what I call, the advanced resources. So let’s take a look at them, top to bottom.
Nuka-Cola Quantum - used for purchasing valuable items, speeding things up, purchasing the other two resources, and many other things. Usually, when something costs Quantum, it will cost more the next time. The price will, however, drop back down to the lowest one the next day. You may get the cola for free, or you can buy it. Also, you can speed most stuff up for a few pieces of Quantum, like 1 - 20. Also, anything under 2 minutes is free. (Unless it’s the overseer’s office, that usually takes hours to complete, and speeding it up would cost anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred, based on the level you’re upgrading to). So, it’s used in units to hundreds, depending on what you’re buying and how rare it is.
Pre-War Cash - used for purchasing dwellers and other nifty things. You can get it for free, or you can buy it. More about dwellers some other time. It’s used in hundreds to thousands.
Finally, there’s the funny-looking pill. That’s Rad-X for you. You need Rad-X to travel around the wasteland. Most missions will cost you 10 - 30 Rad-X. You regain it at a rate of 1 every 6 minutes. Each day you can also buy 120 Rad-X for a small price of 20 Nuka-Cola Quantums, then 40, 60, etc. Missions may hand you capsules with Rad-X that contain (based on their rarity) 60, 120, or 200 Rad-X. Vault 112 is one of the best places to get Rad-X, so make sure to keep at least 200 - 300 pre-war cash on you, and never miss the trader there. More about Vault 112 later. You may also claim additional 60 Rad-X three times a day at specific times.
There are other currencies, but I’ll get to them once they become relevant.
Who Should You Put in the Production Rooms?
Well, production dwellers. Some dwellers (namely the RARE - blue and COMMON - white ones) have production perks. That’s a nuclear physicist - power, workaholic - caps, plumber water expert, and the perfect chef. Rare dwellers have these prepended with the word High-Level. Basically, their perk makes more of the resource on its own. You can upgrade these perks for water. A level 1 high-level water expert perk makes 120 water/H. A level 45 one makes 1176/H. It’s worth the water.
There is a downside to water upgrading, and that’s the fact that both combat and production traits use it, so you have to choose which ones to upgrade first. I usually go for production, as they’re much cheaper and make me more resources, which I can use to upgrade my combat dwellers.
You can boost the tools used for resource making the same way you’ll boost equipment for combat. Production dwellers don’t need combat equipment and only need 2 (the correct ones, based on the resource they’ll be making) tools. In my experience, common dwellers are much easier to upgrade, so they’re worth using over rare ones as soon as they pass their production level. For example, my 3/10 upgraded rare physicist makes 2381 power an hour, while my 9/10 upgraded one makes 3334 per hour. The best part is - you can upgrade common dwellers through running missions or sweeping them, as they drop their upgrade materials (auto-completion, uses the Nuka Cherry resource, which is gained through first completions, daily rewards, purchase at a rate 1:10 cherry - Quantum, etc.).
Rare dwellers, on the other hand, require either faction currencies or other expensive methods to upgrade, so unless you’re ready to dump all of your Brotherhood of Steel points into Haylen so that she can make less power than a common dweller, you’re welcome to do so.