Fallout 4 Terminal Hacking Guide: How to Hack Computers

Hacking computers is one of the more important skills you’ll need to take on the wasteland of Fallout 4. These computers contain important information, and will often let you unlock doors, or perform actions that are key to completing quests and finding the best loot. So here’s some tips and tricks to make your hacking that much easier. If you’ve played Fallout 3 or New Vegas you should be familiar with the process, but hopefully there’s still some bits of info you hadn’t thought of.

How to Hack Terminals in Fallout 4

First, you need the right skills/perks to hack the computers. You can’t just stumble out of the vault and start hacking at Advanced computers. Once you have an Intelligence of 4, you can emphasize the Hacker perk. This will let you hack Advanced computers at first, but adding points will give you Expert and Master abilities. At its max, the Hacker perk will make it so you never get locked out. Of course, if you follow these tips, that won’t be a big concern anyways.

So, here’s the basics of how hacking works in Fallout 4. When you load up a computer that has been locked down, you are presented with a garbled mess of letters, numbers, and symbols. Your job is to find the password hidden within this mess. You’ll quickly see some words, and only one is correct. You have four guesses before being locked out for a certain amount of time, so here’s how you make them count.

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However, you aren’t just unthinkingly guessing here. You can get some help if you take the correct action based on the feedback from the computer you are attempting to hack. Each time you pick a word, the computer will tell you how many letters are correct, meaning they are the proper letter and in the right place. So, for example, if you picked FALL and the actual password was BALD, you would be told that you had two correct: the AL in the middle.

Using this, and a bit of trial and error, you should be able to get the password. However, things can get tricky with the tougher ones, so you need to be innovative. If you have FALL, BALD, CALL, TAIL, and BITE available, you don’t want to pick BITE first, as it gives you far less information than the rest. Picking FALL or CALL would be the best, as it will either be 100% right or quickly point you where to go next. For example, if it said 3/4 correctly, you know it is CALL. If it says 2/4, it has to be BALD or TAIL, and BITE is right out. But if it says 0/4, then it has to be BITE.

Now, let’s say you’ve tried this method and still end up on your final guess. Don’t make it! Choosing wrong here locks you out, causing some significant issues sometimes. Instead, look for brackets of jumbled letters. These are anything contained in the following symbols: {}, [], <>, or (). By highlighting these and selecting them, you will remove a dud answer or give a new set of guesses, possibly giving you the last bit of info you need to get it right.

Of course, if you can’t or don’t want to find them there is a slightly more nefarious way of getting an entirely new set of guesses. By simply backing out of the computer and retrying you lose your progress, as the password is randomly generated anew, but you get to start all over with your four guesses back intact, and you can keep trying until you successfully hack the computer in Fallout 4.

Author’s Note: I wrote this guide when playing Fallout 4 on PC using my Steam Deck.