Craaaab peee-pole, craaaaab peeee-pole. Tastes like craaab, walks like peee-pole.
You should just eat them.

ah ok. i haven't been up that way yet. i've been sticking around megaton and finishing up the quests in the surrounding areas. do you remember if it was an adult deathclaw? the previous games had immature deathclaws that were a cakewalk.

It just said Deathclaw, and like I said, he was wiping the floor with the NPC's.
It's obtainable in the minefield, although I have yet to find it, don't know why but I just can't see the sucker.

I've taken two off of 'retired' Raiders. :) Used one to repair the other, I do so love phoning in head shots long distance. .303 ammo is pretty scarce, though.
Repairing weapons is very cool. Ups damage AND value.

the dude in the ruined house is firing one. i have one but i rarely use it because the ammo is EXTREMELY rare. i'm level 8 and i think i have 12 rounds for it and i haven't found any for sale.

i'm almost positive that the supply shop in megaton sells some .303 rounds.

I've run into a bunch of super mutants at level 3-4. The low level ones go down pretty easy (shotgun blast, a couple hunting rifle/chinese assault rifle hits). The brutes and higher level ones are pretty tough if you encounter them alone. The mini-gun brute was painful, though I did cripple his arm with my second shot to make him drop it (he picked it up again...). No deathclaws yet though, but fire ants and mirelurks are painful at times, though I am playing on Hard difficulty.
I've noticed a huuuge variation in the difficulty of enemies after a while, even ones that are the same (like raiders early on are much easier than the raiders later on with missile launchers and flamers). Don't trust the stuff you meet early on to be a good indication of what you'll find later. I took down some super mutants at the start pretty easily, later ran into a group of 3 brutes that nearly killed me a few times. At the moment the combat shotgun and chinese assault rifle are my best friend (haven't found sniper rifle yet), but the hunting rifle single shots a lot of lower level creatures when hidden.
Overall I like the game... I do have a ridiculous amount of ammo (300+ for laser pistol, 300+10mm AP, like 40 shotgun shells, ~130 .32mm, like 100 rounds for assault rifles which are .303 or something, flamer fuel, 20 magnum rounds... etc) at level 7ish and am in the process of clearing out a Talon squadron military base for the fun of it. So far the energy weapons I've found have been utterly un-impressive vs actual bullet counterparts, even considering my perc and agility and small guns and energy weapons are pretty comparable.
Killed my first behemoth... or really just ran around waiting for it die. The Arefu quest storyline was really bad IMO and was just really nonsensical, brought me back to Oblivion in terms of subject, a reminder which I didn't need.
I think I've used the +1 to SPECIAL skills perk 4 times now. My stats are pretty ridiculous. They should've capped that, because honestly, that's probably one of the most powerful perks you can get and its at level 2.

see the thing is that unlike previous fallout games, different stats are your prime stats for the weapon types. a high Perception will make you better with energy weapons. Agility is for Small guns.

The only time I ever really started to sweat was when I was trying to restore the communications tower, I somehow ended up in the center of a nest of Super Mutant Brutes and a Super Mutant master. that drove me insane. but I survived. I'm not really afraid to expend my resources because I find I'm always finding more!

Pretty good gathering of info started on this site:
[url=]http://www.wikicheats.com/index.php/Fallout_3_-_PC_PS3_XB360[/url]

by the way....
have fun in vault 106...
think f.e.a.r. =)
(also, frag grenades/frag mines are key!!!! awesome against anything big and heavy. mirelurks/super mute brutes)
also if you're lucky, try to find another enemy type and pit them against each other.... and then frag them all! ahahahahaha

I hear that Amazon's Survivor edition is overrated. At $120 bucks a pop, the only thing you get that's not in the Collector's edition which costs $70, is the Pip Boy clock. And it appears to be not very sturdy. But that's only what I've heard.

Me, I'm returning it to the store tomorrow. I just bought it today. I've yet to get more than 3minutes outside of the Vault before the game crashing and my computer requiring a reboot.
Oh well. Looks like Far Cry 2 it is.
Karl

Lucky you, here we'd be able to exchange it for the same game.