Fallout 4 Console Commands That Actually Matter

The console is one key away, and Survival is the only mode that hides it

Fallout 4 on PC ships with the full developer console of the Creation Engine. There is no launch option and no ini file to edit. Press the key left of 1, the HUD disappears, a prompt shows up in the lower left corner, and the game pauses until you close it again. On a US keyboard that key is ~ or `, on a German one ^ or ö, on a French one ² or ù. The Fallout Wiki keeps the full list by layout, and its fallback works when nothing else does: switch the Windows keyboard layout to US.

Two facts decide whether the console is useful to you at all. Using it does not disable achievements in Fallout 4, which sets it apart from Starfield. And it does not open in Survival mode. Bethesda built that lock into the difficulty itself, so a Survival player who wants an extra stack of Stimpaks has no line to type.

The current release is the Anniversary Edition of 10 November 2025, which came with an update that added the Creations menu to every version of the game. Mods from that menu are a separate topic. This guide is about the console alone.

Commands worth typing, sorted by the problem they solve

Syntax follows the Fallout Wiki console pages. The player. prefix targets you; without it, most commands act on whatever you clicked while the console was open.

Command	What it does
tgm	God mode: no damage, no radiation, unlimited ammo, AP, carry weight and settlement build resources
tim	Immortal mode: you take damage, but health never reaches zero
tcl	No clipping, walk and fly through walls
tfc	Free camera, tfc 1 also freezes animations
tmm 1	Every map marker, discovered and ready for fast travel
tai	NPC AI off and on
player.additem f 5000	5,000 caps
player.additem 0000000a 100	100 bobby pins
player.additem 00023736 20	20 Stimpaks
player.additem 00075FE4 5	Five fusion cores for power armor
player.setlevel 30	Sets your level, cannot lower it
cgf "Game.AddPerkPoints" 3	Three perk points
player.setav strength 10	Sets a SPECIAL stat and updates the perk chart
player.modav carryweight 500	Adds 500 to carry weight
unlock	Opens the clicked door, safe, container or terminal
coc qasmoke	Teleports you to the test cell that holds most items in the game
setstage <questID> <stage>	Moves a bugged quest to a later stage
help raider 4 armo	Lists every armor with “raider” in its name, with its ID

Caps carry the form ID 0000000f, and the wiki writes them as plain f. Bobby pins sit right next to them at 0000000a. Everything else is easier to find with help than with a printed list, because help searches by name and prints the ID next to each hit.

setav, modav and the commands that do more than they say

The two commands for stats look alike and behave differently, and the difference shows up hours later.

player.setav sets the base value. For a SPECIAL stat that means the perk chart notices, and the perks unlocked by the new value become available. player.modav adds a modifier on top. The Pip-Boy shows the new number, the perk chart does not react. For carry weight, modav is the better choice: modav carryweight 5000 leaves you at 5,200 with base Strength and still counts every later Strength gain, while forceav carryweight 5000 freezes the value at 5,000 for good.

tgm hides a catch as well. While it runs, Stimpaks and RadAway do nothing, so leaving god mode in the middle of a fight puts you back at whatever health you had before.

Where the console breaks things it cannot repair

Most commands are harmless. A few are not, and the wiki marks them plainly.

resetquest can leave a quest with no way forward. caqs, which completes every quest at once, is listed as very buggy and prone to crashes; saq, start all quests, crashes outright. unequipall on a character in power armor destroys the frame and leaves the character disfigured. setscale while wearing power armor can strip armor, clothing and Pip-Boy, recoverable only from an older save. The safe way through a bugged quest is setstage to the next stage, not completequest on the whole thing.

The practical rule follows from that. Make a separate save with a name you will recognize before you type anything that touches quests, scale or equipment. The console has no undo.

What the trainer covers that the console cannot reach

The console does a lot, and in one mode it does nothing. In Survival the key stays dead, and that is exactly the save where an extra stack of Stimpaks or a lighter backpack matters most.

The Fallout 4 trainer lists 22 cheats, three of them free: no recoil, set perk points and plus 100 lockpicks. Seven of the 22 are single SPECIAL steps, plus one Strength, plus one Perception and so on, one switch per stat, which is the job setav does without the risk of mistyping the stat name. The rest reads like the table above in switch form: godmode, invisibility, plus 5,000 bottle caps, infinite carry weight, set level and add experience. Two have no clean console twin: terminal passwords that are always right, and no settlement size limit.

It changes values in memory while the game runs. Nothing goes through the console, so the Survival lock does not apply to it.

Console or trainer, by the save you are playing

The console for a normal difficulty save and a one-off fix. Caps for a weapon you want, a quest stuck on a stage, a door whose key you never found. Type the line, close the console, keep playing, achievements included.

The trainer for Survival, or for anything you want switched on and off during play rather than typed again each time. Carry weight that stays infinite, a godmode toggle on a hotkey, SPECIAL raised one step at a time.

The same split holds in Bethesda’s next engine. The Starfield console guide shows the difference: there the console costs achievements, and that changes the arithmetic. Single-player only, in both games.