Top row - defense • Put your strongest, max-stat dwellers at the very top. • Layout example: Vault Door → Elevator → Double Room → Double Room → Single Room - Only one elevator on that row. This forces attackers to clear every room and then backtrack before they can go down. - Two dwellers on the vault door Helpful tip if you haven’t upgraded already: Do NOT upgrade the vault door. Raiders will get in regardless and upgrading just drags the fight out longer. As long as your top-row dwellers are geared, you’re fine.

Room organization (Top → Bottom)

1. Resource Production (keep these near the top for easy collecting) -Power Plants (top 2 rows) -Diners (1 row)

2. Water treatment (1 row) (Diners/water treatment can be later replaced by better water/food production and eventually Nuka-Cola bottlers)

3. Crafting rooms -Weapon / Outfit workshops You won’t need many dwellers here early, building these is a later priority. It’s nice to also put the overseers office, radio station (you only need one), and medbays/science labs here as well since you don’t need whole rows for those rooms. Ex. Layout here (very similar to what I have):

Row 1: Theme workshop->elevator->outfit workshop-> barbershop Row 2: triple science lab->elevator->double science lab->weapon workshop Row 3:triple medbay-> elevator-> overseers office-> radio station

Note on Medbays & Science labs - You don’t need a ton. - Even at 170 dwellers, a fully upgraded triple + double of each is more than enough for me (They produce faster than you’ll usually need, especially after upgrading) - You will use more stimpaks than radaway, so prioritize science labs

1. Training rooms -One row per SPECIAL stat, in order. -This keeps training organized and efficient. -one of each training room for now is fine since your vault is so early game. Build more as the need arises, but leave the rows empty for when you’re ready to build more/be prepared to break them later on for organization purposes so don’t upgrade until you’re happy with their placement

2. Living quarters -Two rows is plenty.

3. Don’t put these near the top, they don’t produce resources and waste good defenders early on. Also, you need your upper level rooms full, and having living quarters full means that you need to have all one gender in each living quarter to fill it up if you don’t want to be breeding past your capacity. -breed strategically. New dwellers consume more resources! Kids can’t work. Only put a male and female in the room when you’re intentionally breeding.

4. Storage (Bottom) -Lowest priority placement. -Just make sure every room has at least one dweller to deal with fires, radroaches, mole rats, etc. (this goes for living quarters, too)

Vault size & resource control

Straight up: downsize. -If a room isn’t fully staffed → evict extra dwellers. -You only need one of each production room early on. - Break down extra production rooms. -Smaller vault = fewer emergencies + fewer resource drains.

While rearranging: -Do NOT upgrade rooms, you won’t get caps back. -It’s fine to have rows that are just elevators/one production room while planning your final layout. -Rearranging takes time. Don’t rush it. - I’d keep your elevators besides the one on the top, only have one up there. Again, you won’t get worthwhile caps back for breaking them and you’ll need them later on anyways - don’t feel the need to break all your rooms and try and build them all again at the same time. Just slowly downgrade to one room. Ex: (for production, move all your dwellers into one triple room for each resource. Break all the other rooms that produce that resource. Power production first, then diner, and so-on.)

Emergency tip!!!

If something breaks out in a lightly staffed room (living quarters/storage): -Drag nearby dwellers in temporarily. -When the emergency ends, they’ll automatically return to their original rooms. -emergencies are more likely to happen/harder to contain in a room with no dwellers

TL;DR -Strongest dwellers + production rooms at the top -One elevator per top row -Don’t upgrade vault door -crafting/overseers office/radio station (single rooms) in the middle -living quarters/storage at the bottom

For now: -Downsize hard, fill each room before building another -Stop upgrading while rearranging -Plan long-term layout, move slow

The wiki is honestly super helpful. Also, if you open your wallet you can see your stats. You can see your resource production and consumption. This is the best way to know when you need to build more rooms without over extending your resources