When you start with a new game in Fallout, it’s always important to be prepared. The wasteland holds many dangers, and going unprepared might just be what kills you, so here’s a list with 10 things that you can use to make survival just a bit easier out there.

10) Anything golden!

With the release of each new game, there’s always a variety of new things to grab and use in the Fallout series. Fallout 4, with its new component and crafting mechanics, introduces a large variety of new ‘junk’ items. One of the rarer components is gold, useful in some energy weapon mods. Anything made out of gold is in very low supply, and it’s worth it to stockpile whatever you find that is made out of it, be it a gold-plated flip lighter or a full out ingot of the stuff.

9) Glue!

Wonderglue, the oh so wonderful 10 caps vendor junk from the previous games. However, in Fallout 4 it has gotten a lot more use out of sudden. Wonderglue, as well as ductape and other ‘sticky’ items now act as adhesive, one of the rarer and most used components in the game. Whenever you see some, make sure to grab it. You’ll come to regret it later if you don’t.

8) A good melee weapon!

Fallout 4 is primarily an FPS-RPG game, meaning there’s a large focus on guns. It’s thus quite easy to forget that melee weapons exist! However, bullets are a limited good, and it’s easy to miss small targets like radroaches and molerats. It’s thus a good idea to keep a good melee weapon, like a baseball bat, on your person in case you need to deal with these weak, yet agile threats. At later levels, don’t forget to upgrade them either for the more powerful threats further into the wasteland!

7) Chems!

Weightless, valuable, and now even mixable with a chemistry set they’ve been made even more useful and valuable than ever before in the Fallout series. Especially buffjet and psychojet are deadly new combinations that will make the Sole Survivor a demigod compared to those pesky raiders.

6) Leather armor pieces!

Armor in Fallout has never been so detailed as today! While your Vault 111 suit provides decent early-game protection against energy weapons and radiation, it doesn’t stop bullets. That’s where leather pieces come in, providing you with some extra resistance against both bullets and energy weapons. Your first encounter with these pieces will likely be the raiders in Concord, so make sure to loot them whenever there’s a quiet moment!

5) Fruits and vegetables!

And not for food either! With the new town mechanics, it means your villagers need to drink and eat, just like in Fallout Shelters. For them to have a steady supply of food, farming is imperative. That’s where your fruits and veggies come in. You need to have some on you in order to build a farm that your villagers can use. In time it’ll get you a nice supply of food too, and muttfruit, tato and corn and purified water can be crafted into vegetable starch too, yielding a good supply of adhesive!

4) Fusion cores!

Fusion cores are big batteries found in many places, powering entire buildings or power armor, which use these cores as fuel supply. Each core will last you 20 minutes without any perks, and when empty become useless, so it imperative to hoard them so you aren’t suddenly left out of power while fighting a deathclaw.

3) Food!

With the new crafting mechanics, comes some good cookin’ as well. With the right ingredients, you can make all sorts of foods, from soups that enhance the rate that you earn XP to an omellete that enhances your healing rate.

2) A good scoped weapon!

Despite having a smaller than usual world map for a Bethesda game, Fallout 4 puts a lot of focus on the vertical axis. These large height differences make scoped weapons a lot more useful, in turn allowing you to pick off raiders from a distance before swooping in to loot. As a bonus, you also avoid the hassle of getting wounded or overwhelmed.

1) Everything not nailed down to the ground!

With the new component mechanics (Yes I’m going there again), even the most mundane items like tin cans have become useful beyond measure. Breaking down these items is absolutely essential to upgrade weapons, (power)armor, and even building up your town. Hoarding all these ‘junk’ items, as well as less-useful weapons has thus become more important than in any game ever before.