How Do You Stop Being Over Encumbered in "Fallout"?

Having lots of items in your pack can be useful, but heavy.

"Fallout 3" and "Fallout: New Vegas" mix first-person shooting with role-playing and character building to create elements of strategy and realism. Characters are personalized to the player's tastes through stats like Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Endurance and Perception. Players can level up, and add skill points to increase proficiency in different activities and when utilizing specific weaponry. One of the aspects of the game affected by the Strength stat is the amount of weight a character can carry. If the player's inventory exceeds this maximum carry weight, they become encumbered; a status effect that lowers movement speed to a crawl and prevents Fast Travel.

Instructions

1. Access your Pipboy and click the Items button. At the top of the screen will be a readout marked "Wg" which is short for weight. The number on the left of this readout is the total weight of your inventory, and the number on the right is the maximum carrying capacity for your character.

2. Highlight items in your inventory. Clothing, food, and weaponry all have weight and can weigh you down. Highlighting the item will give you a short description of any attributes, such as Attack and Defense ratings, the weapon may have, including how much it weighs.

3. Drop items until you are below your maximum carrying weight. You will now be able to move freely again.

4. Return to a town and either store items for later retrieval or sell them for extra money to free inventory.

5. Increase your maximum Carry Weight by increasing Strength. Strength can be raised through the use of medicines, foods, armors and perks. Maximum carrying weight is determined by the simple mathematical formula: 150+(Strength x 10). Therefore, every 1 point of Strength adds 10 more pounds to your maximum carrying weight.

6. The Strong Back perk, available to players at level 8 with 5 points in Strength and Endurance, adds plus-50 to maximum carrying weight directly, essentially changing the calculation formula to 200+(Strength x 10).

Tips & Warnings

• If you are willing to risk the addiction, Buffout is a useful drug for the plus-2 Strength bonus it awards. This can give you a temporary additional 20 pounds of weight, allowing you to Fast Travel to a town to store your excess gear.

References

• Fallout 3 Walkthrough; Absolute Steve; 2008