How to Hack Terminals in Fallout 76

While lockpicking is arguably the old-fashioned way of breaking and entering in Fallout 76, hacking is the futuristic, modern-day way of getting the loot, information, and just browsing someone’s diary when you really shouldn’t. Here’s how to hack in Fallout 76, as well as some other tips to help make things easier for you.

How to Hack in Fallout 76

While lockpicking is fairly straightforward, hacking in Fallout 76 can be pretty difficult to get your head around. It’s the exact same thing we’ve seen in Fallout games before, but there’s a good chance you may not have fully understood what you need to do, or what certain things mean.

The first thing you’ll need in order to even hack in Fallout 76 is likely get the hacker perk. Terminals come in different difficulty levels from 0 to 3, though the level 0 ones are few and far between. As such, you’ll want to get the Hacker perk card within the Intelligence category of SPECIAL, which you’ll be able to get from level 5.

This grants you +1 to your skill, and the terminal lock-out time is reduced, which is good for when things don’t go according to plan.

Now, access a terminal, and you’ll be greeted with a screen that looks a little like the screenshot below.

Here, you’ll see a number of words all the same length in number of characters, and some that are similar in the placement of certain characters.

Your task here is to figure out the correct password from the words within this screen by selecting a word, and using the ‘likeness’ number it gives you on the right-hand side of the screen to figure out what word could be the password.

It’s far easier to explain with an example, so let’s use the one in the images above and below. Our first pick in the top screen was ‘Sheriff,’ which if you see on the right side of the screen gave us a likeness of 3. This means that three of the characters within the word ‘Sheriff’ are in the same place as they are within the correct password.

The next thing you need to do, is go through the other words and pull out any that meet those criteria.

For example, ‘Driving’ doesn’t work because it only shares one character in the same position as ‘Sheriff’ rather than three (its second ‘i’). Whereas ‘Records’ shares no similar characters in position to ‘Sheriff’ and so cannot be the password, either. But then we’ve got ‘Showing’, sharing an ‘S’ ‘H’ and ‘I’ in the correct position.

That means that it’s well worth trying as the password. The higher the likeness score you get for a word, the easier it becomes to figure it out. Hacking in Fallout 76, just as it has been in any other Fallout game, can be a long, time-consuming process, especially on tougher terminals.

However, there are a few ways to make things easier. More on this, later though.

If you get the password correct, you’ll get a satisfying beeping noise and earn some XP for your hard work. Get it incorrect, and you’ll need to try again. You can make four guesses at the password before the terminal locks you out. You’ll then need to return to the terminal later on in order to try again.

How to Make Hacking in Fallout 76 Easier

One of the best ways to make hacking in Fallout 76 that little bit easier, is to simply start going through the lines of code in-between the potential passwords. If your marker ever ends up highlighting a number of symbols, like the ones below, then you’ll want to press X on PS4 or A on Xbox One.

These are always a pair of parenthesis i.e. () <> [] {} and sometimes have other characters within them. Check an example in the screenshot below.

By selecting these, you can do one of two things in Fallout 76. You’ll either remove a dud word from the screen, making it easier to find the correct password within four guesses. Or, if you’re really lucky, it’ll reset your tries entirely.

As such, it’s sometimes worth guessing a word or two first, before using this method, in case you reset your tries when you haven’t even used one.

How to Increase Hacking Skill in Fallout 76

In order to hack level 1 terminals in Fallout 76, as previously mentioned, you’ll need the Hacker perk. This falls under the Intelligence element of SPECIAL. However, you’ll also come across plenty of level 2 and level 3 terminals.

The Hacker perk card, however, doesn’t upgrade like the others in the game. Similar to lockpicking, you’ll need to get the Expert Hacker and Master Hacker cards and equip them. These add an additional point to your skill, so you’ll need to equip them all to unlock up to level 3 hacking.

To get these Hacker perk cards, however, you’ll need to reach set levels. For Expert Hacker, you’ll need to reach level 22, while the Master Hacker perk card unlocks at level 38. You won’t be able to earn these from simply leveling up, or from a perk card pack until you’ve reached these level requirements.

We’ve yet to be able to confirm what level these perk cards become available at, but as soon as we do, we’ll be sure to update this post and let you know.

These also grant an increased reduction in terminal time-out duration in Fallout 76. This means that if you end up incorrectly guessing the password four times, you’ll be able to come back and try hacking the terminal again sooner than you would if you had just the standard Hacker card.

Keep in mind that in order to get into level 2 and level 3 terminals, the Expert Hacker and Master Hacker perk cards must be equipped under the Intelligence perk.

That’s just about everything you need to know about hacking and how to hack in Fallout 76. For more tips, tricks, and guidance for your adventure across the West Virginia wasteland, be sure to check out our ever-expanding Fallout 76 guide wiki. There’s related content down below for you to check out as well!