How to hack terminals in Fallout 76 and locations

Ever since its release, Fallout 76 has been challenging players with their daily missions through a variety of objectives and goals to meet in exchange for rewards, always giving them a nice incentive to keep coming back to the game. But many have felt dread instead when they see that one of these daily quests is hacking a terminal.

While at first glance the actual act of hacking a terminal can be intimidating, being presented with a screen full of random letters and symbols and told to find the correct answer, once you learn how to do so properly it’s actually quite simple. However, actually finding hackable terminals in the open online world of the game can be its own challenge in and of itself. Below we’ll give you some tips on how to accomplish both of these things.

How to hack terminals in Fallout 76

Terminals can be found all over the wasteland, usually connected to a variety of systems nearby. These computers allow players to activate and deactivate security systems, open doors, unlock safes full of loot, and typically access records to learn more about what its previous users had going on. But they’re usually protected by a password.

Terminal levels

There are four levels of terminals, each harder to hack than the previous one, ranging from zero to three. Anyone can hack into level 0 terminals, but To even be able to hack the higher level ones you first need to get the Hacker perk through investing skill points into it. Getting the perk lets you hack level one terminals, but to mess around with level two and level three you’ll need to equip the Expert Hacker and Master Hacker cards respectively.

How to Hack

So how do you actually hack? When you interact with a hackable device you’ll be presented with a screen with two columns of symbols and letters. Among these you’ll be able to find complete words. Your objective is to select the right word (the password) to unlock the terminal. You only get four chances to get the correct answer, and if you don’t you’ll be kicked out of the mini-game and have to start all over again.

When choosing a word, the terminal will give you its “likeness”, ranging from 0 to as many letters as there are in the password. 0 would mean that none of the letters in the word you chose are correct. 1 means that only one letter is in the correct spot, and so on. What you need to do is try to find the correct answer by choosing a word, seeing how much “likeness” it has, and looking for similar words.

For example: You choose the word “CONTROL”, with a likeness of 4. When looking at the other options, you find “CONTEXT” and choose it, and it tells you that it has a likeness 6. By comparing the letters you could deduce that the correct letters in the first word are “CONT”, which is over half a word. Now when you look at the rest of the options you may look at the word “CONTENT”, which is extremely similar to the previous one which you now is only one letter off from the answer.

Make it easier for you

Apart from choosing words, there are other things you can do to make the process easier on you. Hidden along the same lines you’ll be able to find codes comprised of symbols. When you see symbols like opening brackets or parenthesis ( like these “(” “[” “{”) they may signify the beginning of a special code. Clicking on these can have several effects, either giving you more chances to choose the right word, or removing “duds”, words that are not the correct answer.

Terminal locations in Fallout 76

There are many terminals spread around the Appalachian Wasteland. Below are some of these:

Level Zero Terminals

Level One terminals

Level Two terminals

Level Three terminals