This has to be one of the worst topics I've ever seen.
You would never make it to Rivet City at level 3 when you escape the vault.
You will be faced with super mutants and other enemies and have the worst weapon on the game.
Just go straight to Megaton and do missions to level up and earn better weapons before you even consider going to Rivet City.

i made it to rivet city at level 3 i dont know what your talkin
about

Yeah this is kind of stupid. Sure you MIGHT be able to get to Rivet City if you're lucky enough not to encounter Super Mutant's and anything else wanting to kill you.
As Frog said, it's best to go to Megaton, level up and then make your journey.

A way I used to explore Fallout, and it was actually quite good as it worked, was to start from an edge or side of the map and work your way to the centre, but by going clockwise around the map, moving inwards about 10-15 miles or so.

It was good if you done it right; you actually saw a lot of cool things and discovered a lot of new places.

I highly doubt you would make it all the way to Rivet straight from the vault without dying a million times.

Frog wrote This has to be one of the worst topics I've ever seen.
You would never make it to Rivet City at level 3 when you escape the vault.
You will be faced with super mutants and other enemies and have the worst weapon on the game.
Just go straight to Megaton and do missions to level up and earn better weapons before you even consider going to Rivet City.

Rebelsun is correct Frog

Every playthrough i do on Fallout 3 i travel to Rivet city at level 2 (impossible to do at level 1 due to the fact you level up after the first mission)

Helpful tip:

When starting the game, make sure your intelligence is at 9 and then travel to Rivet city at level 2 and collect the intelligence bobblehead at the lab

After that, make your way into the DC ruins and collect the Lincolns repeater from the Museum of history!

EDIT: Before anyone asks, yes i do play on the hardest difficulty

You always encounter Raiders and super mutants but they're easy to kill if you're smart, don't just run in guns blazing

Get bad karma in the vault (before your goat test the tunnel snakes will be bullying your friend whatsherface, call her fat) when you leave the vault go down the road and instead of going right to megaton go left, a lady called silver will be in one of the houses on the left, convince her to give you her money and then kill her for even more.

Next head to megaton, do odd jobs and sell stuff (make sure you horde guns and armour in the vault) until you have 1000 caps. Find Jericho and get him to be your companion. You should now be in good condition to travel to rivet city.

Frog wrote This has to be one of the worst topics I've ever seen.
You would never make it to Rivet City at level 3 when you escape the vault.
You will be faced with super mutants and other enemies and have the worst weapon on the game.
Just go straight to Megaton and do missions to level up and earn better weapons before you even consider going to Rivet City.

It's actually really simple. You just need to hide a lot. You can't run at them. My character now can run into a group of super mutants with a sledge hammer and kill them all, a level 2 character would need to rely on distance and stealth.