Hi, I've been playing Fallout 1 for app. 10 hours and have made it to The Hub. However, I've run into a luxury problem.

My skills are where I want them right now, and I'm only level 6 or something. My Small Arms is at around 150, my Lockpick at 100 and my Speech at 120. So I don't know which skills to focus on now? Per from the Nearly Ultimate Fallout-guide says that things like Science and Outdoorsman are a waste to put points into because you can buy books in The Hub, but these books are reeeally expensive.

Which skills should I focus on now? I'm generally interested in Barter, Science, Outdoorsman and Repair if it is a quest-related skill.

(I have 7 Perception, 6 Strength, 6 Endurance, 2 Charisma, 10 Intelligence, 10 Agility, 6 Luck)

Don't follow any guides, they are all written by min-maxers who have a very exact path they follow to get the character where they want them. If you don't know everything about the game already this is a very unnatural playstyle. Those 'useless' skills are only redundant if you're a savescumming bore like these authors.

That said, your tagged skills are well above what is necessary already, now you can develop in any direction. Energy weapons become great later in the game but you can really go with anything as you already have an excellent shooting skill.

After a few more quest, book prices will not seem that high (meaning that you will have much more money/bottle caps).

I think I'll focus on Science and Outdoorsman now - I don't like hostile encounters on the world map.

Late game energy weapons are so good you'll feel a little left out if you don't have any skill with them.

Agree with energy weapons. If you need money gambling is more effective than barter (spending the skillpoints of one level up should be enough to get all the money you'll ever need quickly by playing roulette) but you can afford to take any skill you like from now on. I wouldn't bother with outdoorsman, encounters grant XP.

Don't overlook the value of First Aid and Doctor. You can use these skills to heal yourself outside of combat and save your stimpaks for when you are low on health in the middle of a fight. Since you get XP from using these skills they could potentially add 200+ XP to every random encounter, which can add up very quickly.

Love this game - it is funny to notice that it has in many ways become a template of how you create an immersive RPG.

It is one of THE BEST ever, still, hands down, IMO. I'm so excited for you to be playing. OOOO and then there's Fallout2!

Really, don't hesitate to start all over at this point. You'll breeze through back to where you are currently and probably be much better off for it. Though, you're happy with your template so, yeah, just keep going too! As sufyan says, don't follow guides, it plays however you want it to play as long as you don't stretch yourself too thin in the skills.

Well, by some miracle I managed to get my hands on a Turbo Plasma Rifle, and now that I have 200 in the Energy Weapon skill, this game is becoming pretty good for my self-esteem ;)

I love Fallout1+2 and have played them several times, and every single time, I choose energy weapons, because they are so cool.

Since you don't have 10 luck, you won't find any weapon better than that one--have fun with it. By the way, if you're still looking for things to do with your skill points, try leveling up Sneak. It's a flawed skill, especially since there is no feedback system to let you know how detection works, but with a high level Sneak skill you can get pretty close to enemies without them noticing, or you can pick off enemies one by one, which is kind of fun. It also enables a different approach to defeating the Master, though you'll probably have more fun shoving your turbo plasma rifle in his face.

As small arms go, I was able to enjoy the game quite well relying strictly on a sniper rifle.

Then again I've also played the game before in such a way that I was unable to upgrade functionally beyond fully automatic fire from an assault rifle (deliberately low strength and no energy weapons skill), and with the right perks, basically anything but Throwing is tenable. There's really no question that energy weapons are quite reliable and effective, so if that's what you're enjoying, go for it.