Section 10: The Wasteland

10.1

Q: How do SPECIALs affect exploration?

A: Here are all the main points:

• Random quests found by explorers use quest mechanics, so PAL are your stats if you care about those, agility and luck being very important. See 20.1 for the breakdown of SPECIAL during quests.

• Endurance is by far the most important, see 4.1 on dweller health. Having high health from having leveled with high endurance will greatly increase the survivability of any explorer. Endurance also provides radiation resistance in the wasteland (only the wasteland, not in the vault or while questing), and at 11+ endurance a dweller is immune. Even with rad immunity though it's still good to give them a few RadAway in case they stumble upon a random quest and need it.

• Luck is the stat used for determining how many caps an explorer finds. The amount of caps found linearly increases with luck, so focus on it if you really want caps.

• All SPECIAL play a role in survivability, see 10.2 for more info. Generally, SEAL are the stats used by the harder events. As success at wasteland events depends on SPECIAL, but also the explorer's level and damage, then a low level explorer and/or one with a low damage weapon will benefit greatly from all SPECIAL. At level 50 with a Dragon's Maw (or weapon of comparable damage) SPECIAL doesn't matter much in normal, though it can still help in survival where the events are harder to succeed at.

• For junk the answer is different depending on a normal or survival vault. In the late game you'll probably only care about legendary junk for crafting. See 10.12 for more information on legendary junk from exploration in normal and survival.

  • ECL are the stats for legendary junk in a normal vault with P helping a tiny bit. PC are good at 10, EL benefit from being boosted as much as possible. Unfortunately due to changes in the mobile-only updates, Android and iOS (version 1.16) will in general get noticeably less legendary junk than other platforms (version 1.13).

  • Survivability is the only real concern for legendary junk in a survival vault, and as long as an explorer can make the full trip SPECIAL doesn't matter. Survival was mostly untouched by the mobile-only updates, so yields should be the same between versions 1.13 and 1.16.

10.2

Q: How do exploration events work? How do weapons and outfits affect exploration?

A: I have a post here that goes into full detail on how events in exploration work. Basically, most events (including enemies) have a difficulty value and SPECIAL stat associated with them. Whether an explorer passes the difficulty check or not depends on their level, damage (from their weapon and a damage pet if present), and SPECIAL (boosted by their outfit). The full breakdown of how each helps is near the top of the post under the "Difficulty Values" heading. All SPECIAL are used to some degree, though how much and by what difficulty levels depends on your game version and whether you're playing normal or survival. This means weapons and outfits help with both defeating enemies and finding items. Damage pets are just extra damage, so they also increase survivability and help find items.

See 10.3 for a little more on the best weapon. Outfits just add to SPECIAL, so see 10.1 for the effect of SPECIAL during exploration, and 10.4 for the breakdown on what outfits are best.

10.3

Q: What's the best weapon for exploration?

A: The more damage the better (see 7.6 for weapon damage). If you care about random wasteland quests though, you might want to avoid giving them an AOE weapon so they can focus fire if needed (see 20.2 for quest weapon types). Regardless of version, Dragon's Maw has the highest average damage in the game (25.5, the range being 22-29).

10.4

Q: What's the best outfit for exploration?

A: That greatly depends on what you're going for. Some people prefer something with at least 1E because that gives wasteland radiation immunity. With 10E they only need a few RadAway, but there is a glitch that seems to happen randomly where explorers don't use RadAway (see 16.10). 11 or more endurance ensures that glitch won't affect you.

If you desperately want caps, then maximize luck, with Lucky Formal Wear (+7L) being best.

The biggest concern for outfits otherwise is often legendary junk, see 10.12 for information there. To summarize, outfit really doesn't matter in survival so long as a dweller can survive the trip. SEAL all help with harder events, so should be focused over PCI. In normal though a focus on ECL is necessary for legendary junk, with P helping a tiny bit. PC are good at 10 while EL benefit from being boosted as much as possible, so any outfits that boost them should work well. Lucky Formal Wear (+7L), Heavy Wasteland Gear (+7E), and Lucy's Vault Suit (+3PL, +2E, version 1.16 only) are all good options that can be crafted.

However, if you care about random wasteland quests, you'll want high agility. Perception doesn't really matter as with a bit of practice you can still get the x5 crit multiplier with low perception, and luck past 10 probably won't matter much since random quests are so short, more luck might not give you another crit. More agility will always help with quest mechanics though, making the Expert Jumpsuit (+7A) ideal.

10.5

Q: What's the best pet for exploration?

A: See 8.2 on good pets. Wasteland Return Speed is always super useful, Wasteland Junk is super useful in survival (not so much in normal), and Damage, Health, and Damage Resistance are useful if you're concerned about explorer survivability. Damage pets can also help with finding legendary junk in normal. You can also use Objective Completion pets on explorers to help with any exploration related objectives.

10.6

Q: Is it possible to find legendaries in the wasteland?

A: It used to be possible and there were glitches that let you find them as well, however, currently in the game it is 100% impossible to find legendary weapons and outfits in the wasteland. You do however find legendary junk and recipes in the wasteland. You can sometimes find legendary weapons and outfits during high level quests, but not in random wasteland quests.

10.7

Q: How many explorers can I have?

A: 25 is the limit, plus 5 Mr. Handy robots (see 12.3) and 3 quest teams. Their limits are all independent of each other.

10.8

Q: How many items can an explorer carry?

A: 100, at which point they auto-return to the vault and you can't keep them exploring. You also can't tell them to drop all those stupid BB guns they decided would be useful. A small note, recipes for crafting do not count towards the carry limit. I did some testing on that here. Only items that take storage room space in your vault count towards the limit, meaning that other things like lunchboxes and pet carriers found on random quests also don't count to the carry limit.

10.9

Q: My explorer just equipped a worse weapon/outfit they found, why did they do that?

A: Their definition of what's better is different from yours.

For weapons, they auto-equip anything they consider better by looking at maximum damage first then minimum in the event of a tie. They do not look at average weapon damage, so it's possible for them to equip something they found that has a slightly lower average.

For outfits, they only look at total SPECIAL and switch out if whatever they just found offers more total SPECIAL. They don't switch if total SPECIAL is tied. So if you have someone with an outfit that provides +3 total and they find something with +5 total, they'll equip what they found. Switching out outfits can be a much larger pain than weapons, as they might switch out that +3E you gave them for health while they level up for some +5C pajamas they found, and you might not realize it right away. Even only a day out an explorer will probably find at least one rare outfit, and they definitely will if it's a 100 item trip, so be wary of what you give them. To avoid this:

• If you're not on Android or iOS, send explorers out with at least +5 total SPECIAL on their outfit. The highest total SPECIAL that can be found in the wasteland are +5 outfits.

• If you're on Android or iOS with the anniversary update, then there are +6 total SPECIAL rare outfits that can be found, meaning you need an outfit with at least +6. If you're using exploration for endurance leveling, there are no good rare endurance outfits with at least +6 total. In fact there are only two that offer any endurance, both from the update. The RobCo R&D Suit (2E, 4I) and Robot Armor (2S, 2E, 2L). Unfortunately this means to guarantee they don't swap for something with worse endurance, you pretty much need access to legendary outfits.

10.10

Q: I saw my explorer find an item, but it's not in their inventory. What's going on?

A: They auto-equipped it (see 10.9), and their old weapon/outfit will be in their inventory.

10.11

Q: How do +X% wasteland weapons and outfits pets work? Are they worth it?

A: Short version, Wasteland Weapons and Outfits pets are not worth it unless you're early game enough that you'll take any weapons and outfits you can get.

See 10.2 for the breakdown on how wasteland events work. Whenever an explorer finds a weapon or outfit they have the pet's chance of finding a second item of the same type and tier, so a common weapon, rare outfit, etc. Most of the weapons and outfits an explorer finds will be from the 60 minute guaranteed event, so this pet causes many extras to be found and will have the explorer hit the carry limit much sooner. Early game this is wonderful, but as loot quality increases with time spent exploring, this pet is terrible later game when you want your explorer to go as far as possible to have as many chances at the good loot as possible.

10.12

Q: How do +X% wasteland junk pets work? Are they worth it? What's best for legendary junk?

A: Wasteland Junk pets are amazing in survival but terrible in normal.

Whenever an explorer finds junk they have the pet's chance of finding a second item of the same tier. In normal this pet will help with common and rare junk, but will cause explorers to fill up quicker before getting to the legendary junk events. In survival this pet will help with all kinds of junk, particularly legendary junk, since the legendary events occur much earlier in survival.

See 10.2 for the full breakdown of how events work in exploration. The post here (Akitoru) has very extensive testing on legendary junk to back it up.

The famous post that first discovered ECL in normal, and concluded that max ECL with min SPIA is optimal, has since been proven wrong. ECL are the main stats for legendary junk while P helps a tiny bit, but SIA neither help nor hurt. Exploration events check against 3 factors to determine success, dweller level, damage, and a single SPECIAL stat that varies based on the event. A level 50 explorer with a Dragon's Maw adds so much value that most events are succeeded automatically regardless of SPECIAL. In version 1.13 only legendary junk events are a high enough difficulty to not auto succeed, while in 1.16 the only higher difficulty non-legendary events also use E or L, so they can't be avoided. The only way to avoid other item events is to significantly lower weapon damage, but that then makes it far too hard to succeed at the legendary junk events, so avoiding other events isn't worth considering. That means an optimal build for both versions is PECL at 10, Dragon's Maw, and an outfit that focus L, E, or both. Agility can be trained for random quests. Damage pets will help further with succeeding at the E and L events. Wasteland junk pets are likely a poor choice for causing inventory bloat before the legendary events. This is the same across versions, 1.16 will just have unavoidably lower yields than 1.13.

In survival the main legendary junk events still use ECL, but the difficulties of all junk events are so low that a level 50 dweller with any weapon that isn't common trash will auto succeed all of them. This means staying alive is all that matters for legendary junk, and all SPECIAL help with that. As the legendary events also start appearing much earlier, survival will yield far more legendary junk than either version of normal. Survival is mostly the same between versions, so this doesn't change.

10.13

Q: What are the penalties of death while exploring on normal difficulty?

A: The dweller will have to be revived using caps, the cost depends on their level. It ranges from 100 caps at level 1 to 1000 caps at level 50. If you decide to remove the dweller instead their equipment and loot will all be lost, unless they had a pet equipped, in which case the pet will bring everything back (including equipped weapon and outfit). Reviving a dweller fully heals them, though only up to any rads they had before dying, with no other penalties. They'll even be returned to the same happiness they had just before dying.

Since loot quality is greatly determined by the amount of time exploring, it can actually be beneficial to let explorers go until they die. Even low luck explorers will often have found enough caps to cover their revival cost, and since there's no other penalties for death you may want them to go as far as possible. You could even keep them exploring after reviving them, continually reviving them each time they die, but I wouldn't recommend this. Since they'll be out of stimpaks they'll likely die soon after, and depending on their level chaining revives could get very expensive for little gain.