There are many skills that are there just if you want to try something different with your character. Check this guide for more details: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/The_Nearly_Ultimate_Fallout_Guide

You can also use doctor to heal yourself, even with very low skill retrying until you succeed requires less time than resting.

Wikia.com is an AWFUL network. I suggest reading the guide straight from the source: http://user.tninet.se/~jyg699a/fallout.html

Save yourself the incompetent choice of font and obtrusive video ads that sometimes like to play sound on their own. Not to mention that wikia pages and ad exchanges are full of broken scripts that frequently kill Chrome on my android based tablet.

No mouse scrolling? That ain't right.

Anyway, I'd say it's time to stop reading opinions on what you should do and just play the game. Get out of here, and don't come back until you've saved the world!

I'm just going to go out and assume the books are permanent skill boosts. Use on acquisition is going to be my policy.

So,I picked up Tycho,Ian,and Dogmeat as followers. The more guns,the merrier. So,I have to ask: Do followers consume ammo?

Yes, they do. Just Dogmeat doesn't.

After three successful uses you need to rest for 24 hours to get First Aid working again. What I typically do is use Doctor and First Aid until they hit the limit then enter the PipBoy and pick a certain time period (such as Rest until morning) and use it to advance beyond 24 hours then Doctor and First Aid all over again. If you have followers you can use it on them as well. This yields quite a bit of XP over the course of the game and you never need to buy stimpaks.

Made QUITE a bit of progress last night. Got to the Hub,accidentally freed the BoS Initiate,went to the Necropolis and got the Water Chip,killed the muties,and fixed the pump. Delivered the chip,got told to kill uglies,and went to the BoS. Went to the Glow,and...

Yeah,I lost Ian and Dogmeat. Same room,too. Floor five,after turning on primary power. Robobrains got Dogmeat,and the hovering radios got Ian. Spent the next few minutes moving Ian's mule gear over to Tycho. Got me a set of Combat Armour (Yes!) and a Plasma Rifle (I heard something about a Turbo variant...),and then I returned to the BoS and learned that I could get power armour for saving the Initiate. Damn. Well,looks like Tycho's getting an upgrade.

Anyways,now I'm sort of roaming the area between Mariposa and the BoS,farming on the mutie patrols for loot,ammo,and XP. Now,the question becomes: How do I sell this shit to!? Nobody sells microfusion cells,to my knowledge,and nobody has an infinite supply of caps for me to take in exchange for my loot.

Yeeeeah, about that. Not sure if the mods you have installed have fixed this, but the companions in the vanilla game cannot equip new armor; Ian and Tycho will never get out of their leathers, despite the fact that doing so is suicidal at higher levels. It's a glaring oversight that Fallout 2 fixed, and I think some mods might also address it for this one.

Try the arms dealer from Old Town in the Hub; selling your gear for caps and ammo, and he keeps restocking after you say goodbye.

I have several mods installed,among them being something that allows followers to change their armour. The mods I have installed are in the sticky here on GOG,though just the updated list. The TeamX patches,the children patch,high res patch (which crashes the game in 16bit mode),and the TeamX NPC mod. Once I fix that suit of power armour in the bunker,it's going right to Tycho.

Also,how do I deal with the forcefields in Mariposa? I can only seem to temporarily disable one of the yellow ones.

Ironically, I had the opposite problem when I first started playing Fallout. I didn't realize that they could be disabled via my skill set. I had an absolute blast getting through them. (hint hint)

I usually store my excess items in the library in the Hub, then I sell them off whenever I return there and need caps. Store money replenishes over time. If there are no caps to be had, you can always trade for ammo and drugs.

The nice thing about the library is that it's easy to access and it has lots of different shelves. You can put grenades and explosive in one place, ammo in another, small arms in another, energy weapons in another, and so on. That makes it easy to retrieve stuff later.

Alright,story time! I got me the Turbo Plasma Rifle. Let me say this: Five. Shots. A. Round. I need to bump this up. I need Action Boy. Also found the Red Ryder LE BB Gun,and gave that to Tycho. He'll never run out of ammo,and,even if he DOES,there's that sniper rifle I gave him,and the 1k+ 5.56 rounds I gave him. Oh,and he has a Ripper,for melee fighting,with the energy cells to feed it. We're both decked out in power armour,and mine's hardened. Mariposa's MINE.