Look, we’ve all been there. You’re vibing with your vault, everything’s going great, then BAM—Deathclaws show up and wreck your entire day. Your dwellers are dropping like flies, resources are tanking, and you’re wondering why you even opened that vault door in the first place.
The truth? Your layout probably sucks. But don’t worry, we’re gonna fix that.
Why Your Layout Actually Matters
Here’s the deal: Fallout Shelter isn’t just about slapping rooms down randomly and hoping for the best. Where you put stuff directly affects:
- How fast you produce food/water/power
- Whether your dwellers survive raids or become Deathclaw snacks
- How quickly you can respond to fires, radroaches, and other annoying incidents
- Whether molerats spawn in every damn room
A good layout = thriving vault. Bad layout = constant panic and dead dwellers.
The Basics You Need to Know
Room Merging Is Your Best Friend
Always merge rooms into triple-wide (3 squares) before upgrading them. Here’s why:
- Single room holds 2 dwellers
- Double room holds 4 dwellers
- Triple room holds 6 dwellers AND produces way more resources
BIG MISTAKE: Upgrading three separate rooms costs WAY more caps than merging them first then upgrading once. Don’t be that person.
Exception: Medbays and Science Labs are actually more efficient at double-wide. Don’t ask me why, that’s just how Bethesda coded it.
How Attacks Actually Work
Raiders and Deathclaws aren’t smart, but they follow a pattern:
- They smash through your vault door
- Move through EVERY room on that floor left to right
- When they hit the end, they backtrack to find an elevator
- Go down one floor
- Repeat until dead (hopefully them, not you)
This means you can predict exactly where they’ll go and set up kill zones.
Molerat Prevention 101
Molerats only spawn in rooms touching dirt. The solution? Put elevators along both sides of your vault and across the bottom. No dirt contact = no molerats. It’s expensive but 100% worth it late game.
Beginner Layout: Your First 30 Dwellers
When you’re just starting out, forget the fancy endgame stuff. Focus on:
Step 1: Destroy the tutorial rooms (yeah, really). They’re in terrible spots.
Step 2: Build this order:
- Power Generator right next to starting elevator
- Water Treatment directly underneath
- Diner directly underneath that
Why? Because these rooms need to be close together so you can:
- Get dwellers there fast during emergencies
- Put your strongest armed dwellers in these rooms for early defense
- Keep everything compact
Step 3: Keep Living Quarters and Storage on lower floors where they’re safer. Attackers hit top floors first.
Pro tip from Reddit: Don’t have more than one pregnant dweller per room. Pregnant dwellers run away from fights, leaving rooms defenseless. Yeah, it’s realistic but also really annoying.
Deathclaw Defense (AKA How Not to Die)
Deathclaws show up at 60 dwellers (35 in Survival mode). They’re basically the “you thought you were doing well” check.
The Harsh Truth
If you’re not ready, they WILL massacre your vault. Here’s what you absolutely need:
Minimum Requirements:
- Fully upgraded vault door (buys you time)
- 2 guards in the vault door room with decent weapons
- Triple-wide room right after entrance with 6 level 50 dwellers
- Everyone needs weapons averaging 15-20+ damage
- Stack of Stimpaks ready to spam-click
The Real Secret: Train dwellers to Endurance 10 BEFORE leveling them up. Seriously, this matters way more than you think. A level 50 dweller with low endurance dies just as fast as a level 1.
Best Weapons for Deathclaws
From community testing:
- Fat Man – Deals AOE damage, melts Deathclaws but slow fire rate
- Plasma rifles – Good DPS, energy damage wrecks them
- Miniguns – Fast fire rate keeps pressure on
- Dragon’s Maw – Legendary flamethrower, ridiculous damage
Honestly? Any weapon 17+ damage will work if you have enough of them. The key is quantity—every dweller in top rooms needs to be armed.
Active Defense Strategy
Don’t just sit there watching. Actively drag your armed dwellers to follow the Deathclaws room-to-room. Having 6-8 armed guards moving as a group makes Deathclaws way easier.
Also, turn off your Radio Studio if Deathclaws keep wrecking you. It attracts them, and you don’t need new dwellers if they’re all gonna die anyway.
The Endgame Layout: Triple-Layer Strategy
Once you’ve got 80-120 dwellers and decent caps saved up, it’s time to rebuild for endgame. This layout separates your vault into three sections:
Top Section: Production + Defense
All your resource rooms go here with your best armed dwellers:
- Power generators (Nuclear Reactors late game)
- Water treatment
- Diners or Gardens
- Nuka-Cola Bottlers if you have them (these are OP—they make food AND water)
These rooms serve double duty: making resources AND defending against attacks. Put elevators on both sides to start molerat protection.
Middle Section: Training + Workshops
This is where you stick stuff you need but don’t check constantly:
- All 7 SPECIAL training rooms
- Weapon Workshop
- Outfit Workshop
- Overseer’s Office
- Barbershop, Radio Studio, whatever
Keep elevators on the sides here too for molerat immunity.
Bottom Section: Storage + Living Quarters
Here’s a cool trick from experienced players: Put ALL your Living Quarters and Storage rooms at the bottom, completely separated from the rest of your vault. Then put elevators across the entire bottom row.
Why? When incidents happen here, they spread through empty rooms and just… disappear on their own. You literally don’t have to do anything. Plus, the elevator wall at the bottom means ZERO molerat spawns anywhere in your vault.
Common Mistakes That’ll Wreck You
Expanding Down Before Wide
Don’t build deep vertical vaults early on. It takes forever for dwellers to respond to emergencies. Build sideways first, keep everything on a few floors.
Not Checking Power Capacity
That vertical bar on your power meter? It should be in the middle. If it’s at the end, you’re screwed. Build more power rooms just for capacity—you don’t even need to staff them.
Thinking High Level = Strong
Level doesn’t mean much if your dwellers have trash Endurance. A level 1 dweller with maxed Endurance who levels up will be way tankier than a level 50 with low Endurance. Train Endurance FIRST.
Placing Critical Rooms Together
Don’t put all your power generators in one spot. If an incident hits, you’re in trouble. Spread them out across different floors.
Growing Population Too Fast
Seriously, slow down. Quality over quantity. It’s better to have 50 well-equipped dwellers than 100 weak ones getting destroyed by Deathclaws.
Quick Tips from the Community
- Mr. Handys are awesome for collecting resources but they’re NOT good fighters. Don’t rely on them for defense
- Keep average vault level LOW if you can. External attacks scale with your dwellers’ average level
- Empty buffer rooms between sections slow down Deathclaw spread
- You can run dwellers away from Deathclaws to heal them, then bring them back. Micro-intensive but works
- Having a Radio Studio active increases Deathclaw attack frequency
- Opening your vault door (sending explorers) also increases attack chances
The Bottom Line
There’s no single “perfect” layout because it depends on your playstyle and whether you’re playing Normal or Survival mode. But if you follow these core principles:
- Merge rooms before upgrading
- Put production rooms with armed dwellers on top floors
- Prepare for Deathclaws BEFORE hitting 60 population
- Use elevators on sides and bottom for molerat immunity
- Keep storage and living quarters at the bottom
You’ll have a vault that actually thrives instead of just barely surviving.
And remember: You can’t move rooms, only destroy and rebuild them. So plan ahead before you start building, or you’ll waste a ton of caps fixing your mistakes later.
Now get out there and build a vault that doesn’t suck. Your dwellers are counting on you (and probably already dying because you haven’t fixed your layout yet).
Good luck, Overseer. You’re gonna need it.
More Gaming Guides You’ll Love
Looking for more gaming tips and guides? Check these out:
- Best Horror Games – If you survived Fallout Shelter’s Deathclaws, try some actual horror games
- Best Idle Games – Perfect for when you’re waiting for your vault resources to collect
- Gifts for Gamers – Level up your gaming setup or find the perfect gift
- Best Star Wars Games – More post-apocalyptic vibes but in space
- How to Make a Video Game in 2026 – Ever wanted to create your own vault management game?
- Best PS2 Games – Classic gaming nostalgia while your dwellers train
