Post-Play: 5 Ways to give Fallout Shelter more substance

1. A scenario game mode based on specific vaults

The Fallout lore has given the fanbase nearly endless amounts of fascinating, absorbing stories, especially where the vaults are concerned. From Vault 87 in Maryland where the forced evolutionary virus was unleashed on the population to Vault 3 in the Mojave where psychopathic raiders forced their way in, there are all kinds of tales which could be incorporated into Fallout Shelter. Following the inclusion of a survival mode, scenarios would be the next logical step. These vaults could offer new challenges for players that tie in with the events of the main series; what if you had to keep order in Vault 34 as dwellers seek to gain access to the overstocked armoury? Or maybe you could work to maintain the sanity of one man trapped in a vault with nothing but a crate of puppets? These kinds of scenarios would take Fallout Shelter far beyond the simple premise of simply making your own vault and would give players a different way to interact with the game.

2. Dweller quests

Sending dwellers out into the wasteland could be expanded by combining it with specific tasks. The ones currently in Fallout Shelter are quite simplistic, ranging from “Collect 1000 Water” to “Level up the Agility of 11 dwellers”. These could blossom in fully fledged quest lines which are unlocked and completed depending on dweller level. Multiple dwellers could be sent on a mission to survey and map the surrounding areas or exterminate a local mole rat infestation. Sending more high level dwellers on each quest increases the chance of success and can reward the vault with a special reduction in incidents or even some special loot. This would develop a greater attachment to your strongest residents, much like the highest ranking soldiers in XCOM and give more purpose to sending your dwellers outside the vault.

3. Tree upgrades for rooms

As with the vault layout and customisation, upgrading rooms is fairly basic; you upgrade a room once to up the resource levels it produces and again to achieve the maximum amount. What if every room had further upgrades that gave it specific benefits? There could be three separate upgrade trees to go down for each production room; efficiency, speed and defence. Efficiency would boost the amount of resources produced, speed would specialise in rushing production in a tight spot and defence would feature automated defences such as turrets and combat robots to assist in warding off any incidents. Players would either focus on one tree or try to find a balance between all three, which would really deepen the uses and functions of each room.

4. Trading caravans

Obtaining new items from lunchboxes and wastelands expeditions is all well and good, but what if this were taken a step further? We’ve seen all kinds of traders travelling around the wastelands from lowly wanderers to the Crimson Caravan and these could serve as a third avenue for getting better items. Buying and selling items through caravans as you do in the main Fallout games could be worked in as a weekly event; and this can be combined with an element of choice. Supporting one trader over another will cause others to avoid your vault and you may miss out on certain items by alienating specific vendors. The trading caravans could also be applied to different weapon strengths. Melee weapons from Swatters could be more effective against human opponents while energy weapons from the Van Graffs would do better against monsters. The same can be applied to stimpak and radaway suppliers. Players would need to keep a degree of balance in mind to ensure they are fully stocked to deal with any situation that threatens the vault.

5. More vault locations, along with decision points

As mentioned in my review, the location of your vault is very static; a simple mountain layout which can’t be changed or developed. Choosing where in the United States your vault is located as well as whether it is inside a mountain, under the ground or tucked into a city could result in different benefits and drawbacks. For example in XCOM: Enemy Unknown, basing your headquarters in Europe means that laboratories and workshops cost less to maintain. For Fallout Shelter, basing the Vault in the Capital Wasteland could result in more incidents from the outside such as raider attacks, but it can also give a surplus of water thanks to the efforts of Project Purity in Fallout 3. All these different variations could switch things up, significantly increasing the replay value and making the game more dynamic.

These new locations could go hand in hand with decision points, where you have to decide to take one direction over another for your vault. You could choose to use either improved power generators for reduced incidents or improved nuclear reactors for more power and this would impact your dweller’s happiness accordingly. The Fallout series has been known for its elements of player choice and to add this into Shelter would bring the app in line with its main series counterparts.

Those were a few ways that I believe Fallout Shelter could be improved. Do you have any ideas that I missed? Let me know in the comments.