How effectively are you using cover, and how far away are you engaging the enemy from? Also, are you keeping your guns in good repair so that their max damage doesn't drop off? If you can, try to start engagements hidden as well, since the sneak attack damage is awesome. If your sneak sucks, hide while you're still a long ways away and snipe them and you'll still get the damage.

Its not that my character is particulary weak or inept, it's that you suddenly find some supoer mutant with a minigun! Or, en route to arefu for the first time, five raiders in armour one of which has a flamethrower!

I cannot stress enough the value of the Combat Shotgun as a weapon, particularly when clearing buildings and tunnels.  Using VATS I regularly get 1 hit kills on just about everything (headshots only) up to, and occasionally including Super Mutants.  Packs of Feral Ghouls? No Problem.

For longer ranges, I actually prefer the Chinese assault rifle, though I keep the sniper rifle handy too, as it is more accurate (but less damaging, oddly).  

Now, my Energy weapons skill is half my small arms, but once you get a Plasma gun (in my case the named one...) it is  brutally effective, Combat shotgun killy potential combined with assault rifle range/accuracy.

Wow, sounds pretty FPS to me. What about all that multiple-choice conversation tree stuff from 1 and 2? That used to be halfway to genuine roleplaying, your character's personality affecting the way the whole story went.

In both 1 & 2, you could go through the whole scenario killing no humans; in 1 you had to kill mutants, but not in 2. You'd have to kill some rats, and have to kill Frank Horrigan in 2. But you could do huge chunks of the scenario with no violence at all, if you wanted to.

It doesn't sound like that now, sounds like the point is to wipe 'em all out. Which is fine and fun, but rather different.

Or not...?

Well, raiders and mercenaries can and will attack you in the wilderness... all the time, and you DO have to kill them unless you can somehow run away  (while they shoot you...), and supermutants are automatically hostile to humans.

The Ghouls are fun, I actually don't have to kill any more ghouls, since I did the Tenpenny tower quests (chosing to work towards peace and harmony, the other options being genocidal warfare for, or against, the smart ghouls...) and my reward was a 'ghoul mask' that keeps feral ghouls (mindless critters) from attacking me.

It's pretty much true of all the fallouts that there are hostile people that will attack you, and you do have to fight them off... but the story and quest stuff is a lot more open ended/branching tree than any FPS, closely akin to both previous fallouts and oblivion.  Fer Ex: you have the option to blow up Megaton (the main town) OR save it from the same fate very early in the game.  Or you can do nothing, which is sort of like not blowing it up without the reward.  I'm currently deciding to help out the run away slaves, rather than help the slavers...

I think one difference is there are more automatically hostile 'raiders' than you commonly saw in earlier Fallouts (disregarding Tactics...), and the feral ghouls are newish.  I haven't encountered any Deathclaws yet, but I suspect they are (unlike Tactics) hostile animals like the Yuo Gaoi...

I have no probloem with the idea of the wilderness being hostile. IN fact I have no problem with any of the concepts in the game; however I think the execution is unbaloanced. It's just too harsh. When you step out of an underground (as i did lots last night trying to reach the museum of technology for 3dog), getting immediately assaulted by 3 super mutant brutes armed to the balls with miniguns, then I have to question just what, either, I'm doing wrong, or the devs were thinking. I love this game, but there is no way this is balanced (it doesn't help that the SE portion of the map, the central urban area, is a nightmare to navigate with all the routes underground and dead ends). I struggle so much because you have to pay so much to maintain your health, ammo and gear. Half the time when i shoot I miss (and my combat is by no means weak - IMHO at least), and when i hit rarely will i do much damage. It's crazy! You can fight a raider with a shotgun and hit him five times in the head before he goes down, meanwhile he will close in on you instantly and start wailing on you unrepentantly with a hammer! On top of that healing effects are weak at best - stimpacks giv e nowhere near enoough health.

The wasteland shoudl be harsh, but the game should reflect that proportionately, not send you on quests through areas full of mobs that will kill you instantly. For instance, I made it to the Arlington Library as per Moira's quest. When I reached the room with the stuff she wanted there were three raiders waiting, one of whom had (and used) a rocket launcher. That's great, splash damage for the win!

I ove this game, but it ain't easy!

Golly! This game sounds fun!
 
I was just about to start a thread about what CRPG to buy, but this sounds gravy.

Should I play 1 or 2 first?

I don't see why 1 or 2 would be necessary for enjoying 3. But 1 and 2 are enjoyable in their own right. In my view, they're the closest any computer game has come to allowing roleplaying.

There's an overall quest, but lots of miniquests, when you talk to NPCs you have multiple choices for responses (the higher intelligence your character, the more choices), and your responses determine their attitude to you.

Which missions you choose, and who you kill, determines your reputation. If you achieve certain reputations some people will automatically befriend or loathe you.

And in the second game, there's only one humanish NPC you have to kill to complete the main quest. So long as you're fast you can flee from random encounters aside from that.

Though limited by the computer, there's a fair bit of stuff you can do which distinguishes your character from any of a hundred others who pass through the same adventure. In this, it's roleplaying.

Go play 1 & 2

So I got a good chance to put some significant time into fallout 3 this weekend (several 4-6 hr jaunts as opposed to an hour here or an hour there) and now have a very good feeling for the game.  I loved it from the beginning and that hasn't changed but some things I have a better appreciation for now...

First I'm playing it on the xbox and in about a total of 20hrs of play it's only locked up once.

The whole Oblivion with guns comparison is probably the most accurate description to give it, no real shocker there.  While the primary control is that of an FPS the game is definitely not an FPS, which may throw some people off.  It's far more of a tactical game where you need to sneak around, use cover and try and draw your enemies out.  Your armour isn't great and until you get much better in your weapon of choice your snap FPS style shots are often going to miss.  So the key is to get in close pull up VATS and kill stuff.

This game really is about using the right tool for the right job and you need to play it more like a Survival Horror game then an FPS.  If you keep that in mind you should be fine.  Resources aren't unlimited simple as that.  You need to make use of all of them.  Which often means picking up every scrap and making frequent quick teleports back to your safe city to sell it off, sleep to heal (which is free).  This is a basic strategy that you really need if you want to maximize your effectiveness.

Do quests. Wandering is great and you can fine some really cool side things.  But generally its more effective to do the bigger quests you run into in the cities/camps you hit.  They often provide bigger in game rewards and also help to find new areas to explore.

Melee weapons - no ammo, lots of damage use them.

Now in terms of Story I really like it.  From the subtle hints you find to the Galaxy Radio caster talking about your deeds.  I find that this game really keeps me feeling grounded and part of the story.  Much more then Oblivion ever did and yes even more then Fallout 1 or 2.  In Fallout 3 I feel important and want to keep going and less of an observer that's just being pushed forward.

Leveling.  You only have 20 levels, so plan ahead.  You can't be master of every skill so you need to really pick a core few and develop them.  The most difficult decision will be your weapons.   They are all so much fun.  The good news is you really can't make a wrong choice as they all are viable for the end game.  Also you get access to all of them early so it's not like if you waste developing energy weapons now you won't see your first one until the last 1/3 of the game.

Also on the subject of leveling most areas of the game set their level when you find them.  So if you go to an area, find it to tough to finish.  Just leave it and come back later when your tougher.   You should then have a much easier time going through it even if it's a matter of just having the right equipment for the job.  This is also key to certain story levels.  If you hit a quest point earlier it'll lock it.  You can then leave it alone go explore, come back later and that story quest will be easier.  Of course if you do this all the time then eventually quests will catch up with you and they'll all be hard.

The Rock-It Launcher.  This thing is great.  Save up your coin to buy the schematics asap.  Then this becomes your ammo saver.  All those cups and bottles you find lying around.  Sure you can collect them and sell them.  However if you have the Rock-It launcher you can shoot them instead.  Best of all you can often retrieve them making for almost unlimited ammo.  More importantly though it means you can save your bullets for when you need them.  Also it's pretty cheap to maintain the Rock-It launcher.

Combat is borked by the fact that the mobs move insanely fast. Anytime you need to reload they just move straight next to you and can dodge stupidly easily if you don't use the vats to target. The vats system is really good, but combat in this game is a needlessly awkward fps twitch  hybrid which doesn't work that well. In situations with one mob it's not too bad if you have a decent weapon, but when you find a group appear you're in exponentially much greater trouble. And when you walk into a room to find a guy suddenly fire a missile at you, then you're fucked. That crosses the line to stupid.

One other thing i've noticed is scavenging isn't really generous enough. I have schematics for things i can build but can't find certain parts for at all. I've yet to see motorcycle parts. And as for locating sugar bombs, forget it. I've seen two packs - and one of them i stole of 3dog. Anything else, crisps and snacks, are much more abundant.

I think you are just having bad luck.  I've found enough parts to make 4 shiskabob swords now and probably 6 rock-it launchers.  Though I haven't been building more because I'm waiting until I get my hands on more advanced schematics for them.  Sugar Bombs are more rare to be sure but I've sold about 8 packs now to the ghoul in the subway.

The Mob's charge you, but if you are prepared it's not so bad.  Just blast a few at range then as they charge in flip to a hand weapon and start swinging or back/run away and keep shooting.  Mobs typically only charge in if they are using melee weapons anyway.   If they are using ranged weapons they are charging to do hit and run tactics.

Missles to the face though, yes very painful and annoying.  But easy enough to get around with if you just skirt the corner first and see if you get any enemies popping up on your screen.  Usually you can trick them into firing and be out of the way or get the jump on them first.

They key is play tactical and not Rambo.

I don't play rambo. I sneak around as that's my character's schtick. But it seems to me you need to really max out combat to hit more than 60% of the time or so.

Ghost: I don't know exactly what you are doing wrong, per se. I first encountered supermutants when I still thought the hunting rifle was pretty sweet (actually, I also had to face a crazy sniper (with, you know, a Sniper Rifle) with my trusty hunting rifle, which is a pain.

Part of it is possibly play styles.  I mean, you gotta know what to use, when. The hunting rifle (or most pistols) are absolute ass unless you are going for 'long range' shots (give that the game seems to favor shorter ranged fights that's not much of an option).

Autofire weapons may be more your speed, but really I found Shotguns (particularly combat shotguns) combined with VATS solved everything that runs up on you.  And yes, you do need that 70%+ small arms to really dominate, or perks that are specific to your combat style.

I can highly recommend avoiding downtown DC until you are comfortable facing down supermutants.  Its that simple. The game faaking tells you as much over and over again.

I can't speak much to melee combat yet.  I'm taking a light break before I beat the game the first time before I make my 'evil ninja of death' punchy dude.   Of course, if you gimped your luck in character creation you may be suffering a lack of critical hits... I don't know.  (also: Stimpack health gains directly relate to your medicine skill. Raise that and the amount of health you get back goes up... another key is to make sure you have a home, and if you get (too) hurt, fast travel back and rest for an hour, then fast travel back to where you were fighting. The stuff you already killed generally stays dead. It will save you a fortune on stimpaks.

The game shoudl have been a fps like bioshock. I don't know why they bothered with the silly pretend fps they used as it's utter fail. other than that the game is excellent, if repetitious. i completed it and traded it in, i see no desire to play through it again.