Fallout Shelter: Dwellers and Pregnancy Guide

Fallout Shelter is a free-to-play sim game by Bethesda where players try to construct an underground fallout shelter for their dwellers. A spin-off of the highly popular Fallout game series, this mobile game is all about keeping your dwellers happy and working, and increasing the number of dwellers living in your shelter.

One of the ways of enticing dwellers to your shelter is by having a Radio Station where one of your little guys sends out broadcasts telling others this is a safe place to shelter from the wasteland. This method alone would see you fill up your shelter very slowly as the new dwellers don’t arrive often. The best and fastest way to gain more dwellers is to have them breed.

How to Breed Dwellers

Breeding dwellers is very simple and all players need is one of each sex (and NOT related to each other) to enter the Living Quarters together, flirt for a while by chatting and dancing, and then they disappear into the back where they get to know each other a little better. The female then comes out heavily pregnant. It takes around 3 (played) hours for her to give birth, and it takes 3 (played) hours for the child to mature into an adult dweller and be ready to work.

It is important to remember that, just like in real life, not everyone will be up for being romantic with another. Sometimes they just don’t have the chemistry. Players will notice that the couple aren’t flirting or dancing after a minute or so, and this indicates that they won’t be breeding.

Tips:

• A dweller with high Charisma stat is more likely to be successful at breeding so equip any potential parents with a Charisma stat build outfit beforehand.
• Only place those you want to date inside the Living Quarters- this avoids any confusion or cross-dating/mating.
• Keep an eye on who is in the Living Quarters to make sure they are flirting and dancing. If they are not, swap one of the dwellers out for a different one.
• Make sure you are making babies you can afford to feed. Children use up resources but they do not work to provide until they are grown.

Pregnant dwellers can still work or increase stats so players can keep them in their workspaces, however they always run from a fight or a disaster so it is best to keep them unarmed and working further down the shelter level, away from potential beast or raider attacks. This also means it is best if they are working with dweller who can fight and can utilise armour or stat-boosting outfit.

Why Won’t My Pregnant Dweller Give Birth?

Pregnant dwellers will not give birth if there isn’t enough room for the child. If your female dweller won’t give birth then it is because your Living Quarters aren’t at a great enough capacity and you will need to extend it or upgrade the existing Living Quarters.

How to Keep a Dweller Happy

Dwellers’ happiness is indicated by the red/yellow/green face in the top right corner when you tap on them. Dwellers are at their happiest when they are healthy and working somewhere they are strongest in. Each working room has a specific stat assigned to it (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Endurance, Agility, Luck) and if your dweller has a high stat specific to that room they will be at their happiest. Keep training your dwellers in each stat and eventually your dwellers will be happy where ever they work.

Related: Best Vault Layouts in Fallout Shelter

Tips:

• Your dwellers also need to be at their best health to be 100% happy. Make sure they have enough resources to go round- food, water, and power- and heal them with Stimpaks or Radaway if they need it
• For reasons you probably don’t need to be told, dwellers who just had a successful date end up with 100% happiness.
• Clear away any dead bodies. Seeing their dead friends lying on the floor is a serious buzzkill.
• Keep newcomers and children at a minimum- they are automatically 50% happiness and children don’t increase happiness until they are grown.
• Get a Radio Studio- a fully equipped Radio Studio boosts the overall happiness of the shelter.
• Unemployed dwellers should be training or chilling out temporarily in Living Quarters or else they get depressed just wandering around aimlessly on a ‘Coffee Break’.
• Mix up the genders, for some reason you will get a small overall happiness boost when men and women are working together.
• Perform a successful ‘Rush’. This is a tricky one though as the Rush doesn’t always work and a failed rush can cause serious trouble and a decrease in happiness.

Fallout Shelter is available to play on IOS, Android, Nintendo Switch, XBox, PS4, and Steam.