General tips | Basics Fallout Shelter Guide

Last update: 01 June 2016

Maintaining high level of satisfaction is awarded with a bonus to your production score.

Assign your dwellers to appropriate tasks. That choice should depend on their skills
Combine single spaces into larger to increase the maximum amount of dwellers working in it and this way raise the production
Achieve the objectives, especially at the beginning of the game it is a great source of caps and resources boxes
Improve the front door to the Vault as soon as possible, this way you can gain time to organize defense in case of an attack.
From the beginning of the game send for the exploration those of your dwellers, that have a good level of strength, endurance and happiness. Other dwellers can use the weapons and outfits they find during exploration.
Use an appropriate strategy to fight disasters, don't ignore radroach infestation and send well-armed dwellers to get rid of them. If you ignore any disaster even for a little while, it can spread to other areas.
Dwellers living nearby the front door should be armed firstly as they're the first line of defense in case of the raiders' attack.
Make sure the amount of resources is sufficient, mind you that rooms require an adequate supply of energy and new dwellers (including children) - water and food.
Pregnant women can't fight... (so their weapon can be used by other dwellers)
...therefore they shouldn't be left in a room on their own. There always should be someone around who can protect them against raiders and radroaches.
Use the "Rush" option reasonably as it causes a disaster in case of a failure. Pay attention to the percentage possibility of causing an incident, it should be as low as possible.
If you want to gain a better armament and outfits, assign well prepared people to explore the wasteland, those with good statistics (strength, endurance and happiness). Don't forget to give them a supply of Stimpaks and AntyRads to make their exploration last as long as possible.

Objectives awarded with lunchbox are a bit harder, but worth the effort.

Expand the warehouse in order to increase the limits of held weapon and outfits. Also, sell all of your poppers making minor injuries (0-1, 0-2).
Children are a good thing but not in excess! They can't work but they're using resources. Take care of an appropriate ratio of working people to children.
Mix couples. Don't choose the same parents all the time if you don't want to reproduce the same statistics. In further stages of the game it is advisable to pair only the best dwellers.
If you find it difficult to maintain satisfaction, make sure your resources stock is big enough and that your dwellers fulfill themselves in assigned tasks (it involves the right skill). The following factors affect the satisfaction: disasters, unsuccessful acceleration of work, lack of resources and a dweller's corps left in a room. The fastest way to increase the level of satisfaction is a pregnancy - thanks of that dweller is happy in 100%
Dwellers don't get injured while returning from exploration, call them back only when they run out of stock
Use outfits to increase statistics of dwellers wearing it. Proper disposal of them can accelerate production significantly.
Some tasks are very easy to complete. You can call back dwellers you've sent to explore the wasteland. Outfits and weapons can be reused. You can reject one task daily if you feel you're not able to complete it at the moment.
Pay attention to the maximum limit of population. Pregnant women won't give birth to a baby until the limit is increased.
Plan expansion of your Vault. Building of new room takes energy so it's advised to first improve the existing ones.

See/Add Comments