Terminal



A terminal is an electronic device that can be used to interface with various computers, such as those programmed for controlling turrets, opening safes and doors, storing information, and activating robots and other special equipment. Some terminals have been rigged as explosive traps. The operating system of a terminal is the Unified Operating System, published by RobCo Industries. A typical terminal uses the computer mainframe which it is connected to for processing and data storage, and has a keyboard for typing commands and a monochromatic monitor for displaying information and for monitoring commands.

Fallout and Fallout 2
The terminals in Fallout 1 and 2 can be used with the skilldex science if it's high enough.

Using Terminals
To use a terminal, one must simply activate it. See below for more information on secured terminals.

Secured Terminals
Most terminals are secured. To access them you either need
 * A password, mostly random.
 * A high enough Science skill to hack them
 * An encryption key

Usually only one or two of these options are available.

Passwords
There are various ways of getting a password to a terminal. The two most common ways to get a password are that someone tells you the password or that you find an item describing the password, such as a holotape.

Guessing the password or knowing the password from any other source than the game - like The Vault wiki - does not help you; if you haven't got the password, according to the game, your only resort is to hack the terminal.

Mothership Zeta Terminals
There are terminals scattered around the ship Mothership Zeta, in the add-on of the same name. They are used by the Aliens for security purposes, and with the required Science skill, ranging from 25 to 75 Science, you can hack them. There are a few choices once hacked: 1) Set it to blow up in a small amount of time. 2) Set a proximity charge and 3) Unlock the door. These terminals can also be destroyed by gunfire. They are usually found near doors, and when opened, they contain various Alien items, such as Alien Epoxy, Alien Biogel and Alien Containers. A certain door can be found in the Weapons Lab that contains the Atomic Pulverizer. It can be found in a small room located in a hallway near the entrance. The room can only be accessed by using an alien door terminal that requires 75 Science to activate. The terminal is explosive so when killing the enemies don't destroy it. It will be found lying on a rack directly to the right after entering the door. Other notable loot inside the same room include some Alien Power Cells, another Atomizer, an offline Guardian Drone, and other forms of Alien memorabilia.

Hacking Terminals


One way to deal with secured terminals is to hack them -- if you can. This works only under the following conditions:
 * The terminal is hackable.
 * Your Science skill is high enough to hack the terminal. You will need 100 in Science (base or adjusted; see below) to even attempt to hack a "very hard" terminal.

The Vault 101 Lab Jumpsuit, the Vault Lab Uniform, the Surgeon's Lab Coat, and most types of Scientist Outfit that can be found later in the game (with the exception of Dr Li's outfit) will add +5 to your Science skill. Lesko's Lab Coat adds +10. You can carry one of these with you and put them on when you want to hack a terminal so that with a Vault lab coat, your Science skill only needs to be 45 to hack a 50-skill terminal, for example, and with Lesko's coat, your Science skill only needs to be 40 for a 50 terminal. This frees up points for you to put into other skills. (Just don't forget to change back to your armor when done hacking.)

Hacking a terminal pays a good number of Experience Points, so you may want to hack terminals even if you don't need to, just to get the XPs. For example, hacking an average terminal may give you 40-50 XPs, and most good sized buildings usually have at least a half-dozen terminals. You get more XP for hacking a Very Hard terminal than you do killing a Super Mutant Behemoth.(on Normal Difficulty or below).

You will be presented with a list of words, all of the same character length, interposed with random characters. One of the words is the correct password, and your goal is to guess it. You choose a word by clicking on it. If you didn't guess correctly, the terminal will display "x/y correct" where x is the number of correct letters, and y is the word length. It is important to realize that a letter is correct only if it is in the right spot. For example, if the password is "RELEASED" and you choose "DETECTOR" then you will be told that there are 2/8 correct because there are 'E's in the 2nd and 4th place for both. The words have other letters in common, like 'R', but it is in the first spot in one word, and the last in the other. You have four attempts to select the correct password. However, if you do not have faith in yourself you may cold start the terminal by pressing the on/off button, which will exit the minigame. The hacking can then be restarted with all four attempts in order to circumvent lockout. The disadvantage of this is in that the correct password will have changed, as will all of the possible solutions. Higher difficulties mean more letters in each of the words (ranging from 4-5 on Very Easy terminals to 10-11 on Hard terminals to 12+ on Very Hard terminals). The Player character's skill level in Science determines how many possible choices are on-screen (higher = fewer words to choose from).

This game has many similarities with Mastermind (a board game).


 * If you have the Computer Whiz perk, you will get another try. Also, if you fail two times, exit the terminal and then use it again to get three tries. (confirmed in Fallout 3 for Xbox 360.)

Methods, tips and tricks
Before you have used all four guesses, you can exit the game. You can then start the game again, and you will be given a new batch of words. This is useful if you're running low on guesses. Using all four guesses without getting the correct answer will lock the terminal and you will be unable to hack it again.

Use previous guesses to eliminate words. If you guess a word and are told that it has n correct letters, that means any word that does not have exactly n letters in common (same letter in the same position) with the first word cannot be the correct choice. For example, if you guess "CONVINCED" and are told that 3/9 are correct then you can eliminate words like "CERTAINLY" (1 letter in common) and "COMMITTEE" (4 letters in common). This often narrows your choices down a good deal - in the mini game this example was taken from, choosing "CONVINCED" eliminated all but 3 words ("FORBIDDEN", "CARDINALS", and "CLUTTERED"). So after only one guess, being able to win the mini-game was guaranteed (since there were three guesses and three words left). If your first guess has no correct letters it can greatly benefit the player as there likely aren't many other words that could be the right passcode, leading to much narrowing down.

Often times, many of the words have the same suffix or prefix. Suffix are often more common, with -ion, -ing, -er, -es, and -ily are among those used the most. For example, if you guess a word that ends in "-ION" and at least three letters are right you can almost bet on the correct password being a word ending in "-ION", but there are times when it is not the case.

There are also things you can do with the characters that are not part of words. Clicking on matching brackets (i.e. [] {} or &lt;&gt;, even with other characters between, but not a whole unremoved word between) can remove a dud password or reset the number of remaining guesses to four. Dud removal is more common, so it's a good strategy to guess 3 times, then start hunting for brackets. This way, you'll have 6 attempts to hack without locking up the machine.

The brackets must be of the same type and on the same line. Although you cannot match brackets with a whole word between them, you can match brackets separated by the dots that appear when a dud word is removed ( <.......> ). Also, two or more opening brackets can be matched to a single closing bracket ("[ [ ]" on a line gives you two chances), but the opposite is not true ("[ ] ]" only gives you one chance). When you scroll across this type of entry from left-to-right, the entire entry will be highlighted letting you know if you've found one or not.

Previous choices are displayed on the right-hand side of the terminal. You may find this easier to use for position-based character mapping than trying to do it mentally.

To get to the hacking mini-game quickly, you can click the startup screen on the terminal to skip to the next screen. Click once more to load the hack screen instantly.


 * Another note more often than naught the password is simply the first or second choice on the terminal.

Encrypted Terminals
Sometimes terminals have options that can't be used until you have the correct encryption key, and will be presented as gibberish.

An example of this are the terminals used by Chinese Remnant in the Capital Wasteland - but the terminal encryption key is usually nearby.

Trapped terminal
A terminal can also be a trap in disguise.

If triggered by activating the keyboard, the terminal will become electrified (not harming the player), and then the rigged frag grenade will detonate.

How to recognize
A trapped terminal has a broken rear, and a small antenna on the back, sending or receiving from an unknown location; see picture to the right. Also, all terminals with traps on them are plainly called "Terminal", as with the normal "Click/press 'A' to Activate Terminal."

Disarming
Disarming a trapped terminal demands 45 Explosives skill. It is disarmed by activating the rear of the terminal rather than the front.

A frag grenade was used to create the trap, and you will get the one used to rig the terminal when you disarm it.

A Word Of Caution
Hacking privately-owned terminals -- which display their "Hack" options in red instead of in green (such as Moira Brown's research computer in Craterside Supply) -- is always a risky choice. Ignoring the likelihood of karma loss, owners who see you tampering with their private property are very likely to become hostile to you and retaliate. Usually, your followers will attack and kill them immediately when they become hostile. This can lead to serious consequences, particularly if the owner of the terminal is necessary for obtaining or completing a quest. Be warned.

Purpose of Terminals
In Fallout 3, terminals are generally used to find information about a particular quest or character. This information may be useable in some practical way, or it may be for background and atmosphere (an example of the latter is the nurse's diary on the terminal outside Germantown Police HQ, detailing how she and her fellow nurses sickened and died of radiation poisoning after the nuclear attack). Some terminals have no discernible use whatsoever.

Controlling defense systems
Turrets often have a terminal near them that can turn them on or off, or disable the turret's targeting. If targeting is disabled, the turret will shoot at everyone within range, not just the player (including other turrets, two turrets close together can destroy each other this way). This can be very useful to thin out the ranks of your enemies without exposing yourself, turning the turret(s) back off before you move into the area yourself.

A few terminals are more specialized. In the Robot Repair Center there is a terminal that can set off a pulse explosion disabling every robot in the area. There is one in Fort Constantine that launches the fort's ICBM if the player has the Fort Constantine Launch Codes (the launch appears to be abortive). There is also one in SatCom Array NW-05a that allows the player to launch a nuclear strike from the Highwater Trousers orbital weapons platform, though the nukes are relatively small and there is no way to aim them (they explode harmlessly some distance from the player).

Opening doors and safes
Terminals are quite commonly used to open safes, giving an alternative to lockpicking the safe. To get maximum XP, you can pick a lock first, then hack the terminal which would have unlocked it. You could also hack the terminal but not unlock the safe/door etc before exiting and then lockpicking it.

Terminals are also sometimes used to unlock or open doors; an example is the terminal used in the Tenpenny Tower quest to let Ghouls in from the Metro.

Riddles & Mini-games

 * In the Museum of Technology, Prime has reprogrammed a few terminals so that Jiggs can track his whereabouts, if he manages to get the answers right. See Jiggs' Loot.
 * In Hubris Comics, one still-working terminal has a beta test of a computer game called "Reign of Grelok".
 * In the National Archives, a terminal controls a multiple-choice quiz that dispenses a reward ticket on successful completion. This ticket (and others found elsewhere in the museum) can be cashed in at a nearby terminal for some unique Mentats.

List of hackable terminals
For the Data Miner achievement, you need to find 50 terminals to hack. For this purpose this page will contain a list of those terminals. If there are any others please add to the list.

Терминал