This comes from Chronos in the comments to the Fallout 3 hacking tip I tried to explain earlier today, but I got some parts of it wrong. I didn’t realize it was always some sort of brackets, I thought it was just random characters like asterisks and pound signs and such.
I’ve never seen the asterisk thing Chris mentioned - but I *have* seen it with brackets. If two of the same type of brackets ({}, [], (), , etc.) are on the same line and face each other (One opening bracket followed by one closing bracket), then you can click on the LEFT one (Not the right) once and get the bonus from it (Either removing a bad password or refreshing your tries). Each opening bracket will only work once, but a closing bracket can work multiple times if there’s more than one opening bracket of the same type on a line.
One other thing about hacking - I found this out in the instruction manual. When you try out a word, the number indicated correct is not just how many of the letters are correct - it’s how many of the letters are both correct *and* in the right position in the word. Very important distinction there - as soon as I figured that out, hacking became a lot easier.
He was kind enough to throw in some lock-picking tips, too:
I hate how the game explained how lockpicking works - it’s confusingly worded. Basically, somewhere within the 180 degree arc that you can move the bobby pin around, there’s a range of angles that you can put the bobby pin into and then attempt to rotate the lock and successfully open the lock. On very easy, the range is so wide that you’re almost guaranteed to just immediately try and open the lock without moving the bobby pin, and you should be able to open it. The harder the lock, though, the smaller the range gets and the more randomly placed the range is. If you’re not in range when you try to open the lock, you’ll only get so far before the lock halts - the farther you get, the closer you are to the angle range.
Thanks, Chronos! I thought the game was pretty sketchy with its instructions on how to do these two things, and this definitely helps a lot.
EDIT: If you bought Fallout 3 over Steam, you can check out the manual online.
26 responses so far ↓
1 encogen // Nov 3, 2008 at 4:29 pm
The lockpick was pretty easy to figure out.
The brackets thing though…i’m a level 15 ambassador of peace and have opened the manual today for the first time to read about hacking.
It is never too late to learn, i guess.
2 A Person! // Nov 3, 2008 at 4:36 pm
I want this game, how much is it, I’m too lazy too look it up >.>
3 Rob Lowe // Nov 3, 2008 at 4:53 pm
My experience with hacking is angle brackets ” reset your attempts and the others ‘()’, ‘{}’ and ‘[]’ remove dud words.
4 Rob Lowe // Nov 3, 2008 at 4:54 pm
angle brackets such as ‘〈 〉’
5 Wolves // Nov 3, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Angle brakets? ?
6 Wolves // Nov 3, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Haha… I guess it does not recognize them. Do the comments support html? Let me try it differently: > <
7 ZomBuster // Nov 3, 2008 at 5:33 pm
My guide for hacking
1.click random passwords till you got only 1 try left
2.if not successful, restart computer and go to 1
8 Alexander // Nov 3, 2008 at 6:20 pm
There’s the disadvantage to buying on steam: More often then not, no manual.
9 Christopher // Nov 3, 2008 at 6:26 pm
You can view the manual from the store page, or by following this link:
http://cdn.steampowered.com/Manuals/22300/fallout3_us_pc_manual.pdf?t=1225760525
10 Donniey // Nov 3, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I vaguely remember reading the bracket advice in the instruction manual as well, but it was worded about as poorly as the lockpicking instructions (which I managed to figure out through trial and error, after that it became very intuitive).
11 patamau // Nov 4, 2008 at 5:48 am
I didnt know about brackets, I’ll try it later.
I believe I’ve found a way to guess the password using a smart procedure; if you pay attentions to words, you can recognize a common pattern among a number of them. For example: ruined, rained, rested, rusted. When you identify such groups just select one and go for a easy password catch (you usually get 3/6 or 4/6 at the first guess). I usually get the right one in three trials, but often at the second or first attempt.
I think that this password “distribution” depends directly on how the password generator randomizes the initial password. Probably the distribution is gaussian, creating more passwords very similar to the real one.
12 macho // Nov 4, 2008 at 6:09 am
Come on.
“When you try out a word, the number indicated correct is not just how many of the letters are correct - it’s how many of the letters are both correct *and* in the right position in the word. Very important distinction there - as soon as I figured that out, hacking became a lot easier. ”
This was said in the game - I noticed that and hacking became easy because of it. You can guess the correct password in 4 guesses, no need for brackets. If you start using those, you will cease to think and that’s not helpful. Just take the word with the most common starting letter and the most common ending letter - it usually has 30-50% of the characters in it. By this method I guess the correct password in three, sometimes two guesses. I needed four guesses only when I hadn’t noticed this thing about common letters.
Didn’t understand anything about lockpicking though except that the angle changes with difficulty.
13 The chicken // Nov 4, 2008 at 9:33 am
no tags
/cry
14 Killa-Ewok // Nov 4, 2008 at 9:50 am
Where’s my TF2, Chris? You should not tempt me with this OVERLY FUCKING GOOD RPG stuff.
15 [VGN] Chronos[Ha-G] // Nov 4, 2008 at 10:12 am
Huh - didn’t think my comment would be that useful. Guess I was wrong. Yay!
16 Ixtab // Nov 4, 2008 at 10:52 am
The thing I try with hacking is to pick one a word that shares a lot of common letters with others and then pick a word that shares very few and then between those you should be able to easily work out the actual password on the third try leaving a leftover choice incase you do get it wrong.
Also, on the subject of lockpicking I can’t believe I only realised last night that the bobby pin only breaks if you try and move the pin while it’s “binding” (shaking), I always thought it was to do with how hard I was trying to turn the lock somehow.
17 Trithemius // Nov 4, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Dear readers,
#11 is quite correct. I’ve had remarkable success trying to predict the password based on the situation. If the letter puzzles are irritating and searching for unpredictable bracket configurations is bothersome merely engage your poetic sensibilities and reap the rewards.
Regards,
T.
18 macho // Nov 5, 2008 at 6:33 am
Also, I just yesterday noticed that the password is usually one of the last passwords. So you better start checking for valid passwords from the end, not from the beggining, saves a lot of time.
19 DoctorDisaster // Nov 5, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I know they aren’t to everyone’s liking, but I find the hacking word puzzles a lot of fun to do. Every time I activate a computer and it doesn’t demand to be hacked, I am disappointed.
20 Trithemius // Nov 5, 2008 at 4:04 pm
@18
Dear Macho,
I regret to say that I have nearly always found the opposite to be true. Perhaps your pattern is simply one of the eldritch conjunctions of coincidence with which our unhappy post-apocalyptic lives are plagued - or perhaps my experiences are.
Perhaps, worst of all, it is the case that - as Howard Phillip Lovecraft states - there is no pattern, no order, to this insensible universe and our precious skein of logic is a lie to cover the abyss of disorder upon which our pitiful existence floats.
But I digress.
Regards,
T.
21 Volatar // Nov 7, 2008 at 11:33 am
@ 18
Do you mean that if I take my hand off the mouse I won’t break any bobby pins?
If so that’s awesome.
22 Sybren // Nov 8, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Hi folks!
To make hacking a little less tedious and a lot easier, I’ve put a little web application online at http://www.stuvel.eu/fallout3 - check it out, it really makes hacking a lot more fun.
Greetings,
Sybren
23 C // Nov 10, 2008 at 11:35 am
I made an excel spreadsheet to ease hacking. All you have to do is type in the possible passwords and make your initial guess on one of the words that seems to have a lot in common with the others. If the results comes back 3/9, the spreadsheet will identify which possible answers still exist. Repeat the process by entering in the second guess and waiting for the answer (2/9) to see which passwords remain.
It’s never failed and it only take about 3-4 minutes (most of which is spent typing the words in).
24 jj // Nov 12, 2008 at 8:55 am
just save-guess 4 times-and if it fails load and try again!!!
25 scott // Dec 7, 2008 at 12:44 pm
is it possible to just guess the password the first time
26 Gene // Dec 26, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Thank you Sybren!!!! That website works fantastic. Was able to hack my first terminal. Finally. And only needed 3 tries. Thanks!!!
http://www.stuvel.eu/fallout3
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