Fallout 4

[Art Blade]

There was a bug with the Vault-Tech Rep that just happened to me. He had arrived in Sanctuary alright, but I couldn't start a conversation with him which meant, no assignments, nothing. Also, the population of Sanctuary didn't count him as one of theirs, the number hadn't changed. It might have had to do with the fact that I had found the guy dead in the road on his way to Sanctuary. I didn't know he could die out there but well, "disable, resurrect, enable" put him back on his feet. He then said something about that I had to visit him in Sanctuary, it looked fine, I let him walk and went to finish some other business. And when I finally got to Sanctuary, he was bugged. A very elaborate combination of commands* allowed me to reset him, pick up a conversation and assign him.

Turns out that a normal trading shop works just fine with him. I didn't have the perks for an emporium so I gave him a normal trading shop. He had his legendary item for sale just as if it had been an emporium. Tss

*in case you need the details

code

the commands needed: I got them from the wiki and they got it from the steam forum. However, I put them in a format so you can just copy past them into a .txt file and run it as a batch from the console.

#this is to reset the inaccessible Vault-Tec Rep
prid 00031fb3
addkeyword WorkshopAllowCommand
addkeyword WorkshopAllowMove
addkeyword WorkshopAllowCaravan
setpv bAllowMove true
setpv bAllowCaravan true
setpv bCommandable true
setpv bWorkshopStatusOn true

Then I decided to send him and MacCready, whose maximum affinity I just achieved as well as his perk, to my base of operations, Vault88.

Remembering the time the game calculates for a trip when fast-travelling was quite long, I decided to put it to the test. I ran all the way from Sanctuary bridge to University Point Pharmacy. It took a little less than 2 hours 30 minutes in-game time. I reloaded a savegame from Sanctuary bridge and fast-travelled. That took clearly over 10 hours!

So in case you want to be quick.. god mode for infinite stamina and run, Forrest, run!

[PZ]

 

[Art Blade]

had to correct: trading shop (tier 2) worked nicely, not stand (tier 1) -- I didn't test that, only tier 2.

The Vault-Tec Rep now works behind a bar in my vault.

[fragger]

I reloaded a savegame from Sanctuary bridge and fast-travelled. That took clearly over 10 hours!

Curious... I just timed a few fast-travels in my game. I fast-travelled from Sanctuary to Sunshine Trading and it took 10 minutes of game time. I then immediately fast-travelled from Sunshine to Bunker Hill and it took 20 minutes. Then from Bunker Hill back to Sanctuary, 22 minutes. Same date throughout, I made sure to take note of that.

I don't know why fast-travelling uses up drastically less game time for me. Maybe because I'm playing in "real time"? It could be that time scale setting has something to do with it.

[fragger]

Yep, it's time scale. I set it back to 20 and FT'd from Sanctuary to Bunker Hill. 8 hours. Then I set it back to 1, return trip took 22 minutes again.

[Art Blade]

crazy. Hmm, that brings me to think about savegame files. The game saves them with the time spent in game, you can see it either from the in-game load option or by looking at the filenames where the time is behind the location you saved in.

Do you have time differences between savegames of only hours or even minutes? I'm at level 51 and the latest savegame states 3 days, 17 hours and 14 minutes. In my pip-boy the date is December 19, 2287, 10 PM.



I just met Jack Cabot wandering the wastelands. I already met him before some place out there but this time I had to see him because he wanted to give me his final gift, that fancy weapon. I had to chase him down, the old bugger couldn't have waited in his house, could he? He told me that he might travel to the Mojave Desert to unearth some alien city. Well, there are aliens and mutants in this game, so why not, but still.

[Art Blade]

Heh, I just thought of fragger's pic when I came across the same room. I tried to get the exact same angle, it almost worked. However, mine doesn't look as much as a battlefield. In fact, I didn't shoot anything. Perhaps because I took a different route in, through the subway. Still, funny how similar those few mutants that we have in common in those pics are spread out yet how different their armour is. I even got less bullet holes in the rear wall.

fragger, I suppose you did some shooting back then, didn't you?

"Alright, you lot! Party's over! Get up and go home already!
And take your empties with you!"

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Party's over! (comparison)
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[Art Blade]

LOL now I know, it was indeed the way I got in that made a change. As soon as I had passed through that room and got into some kind of control room (from the screenshot's point of view, behind me) I heard a voice over the PA informing us that a security breach near the rear entrance had been detected. The voice advised visitors and employees to seek cover and to remain calm. Then all hell broke loose, but Hancock (new companion, having maxed out MacCready's affinity) and I were out of sight and remained unmolested in that control room The announcer repeated the message and even clarified it was a security breach near subway entrance -- what the hell!

Hmm, two doors in the room. One we came in through and the other one with an expert lock. Can't pick that.. we're waiting for the battle to settle and then go back to see what is left to mop up

Found the key just outside around the corner, the expert lock secured a storage room which I could open with that key. So now indeed we'll have to go through the mess. Some distant super mutant and a turret can be heard. I think it's mostly safe now. 

OK, there were more than 20 new dead bodies, mostly supermutants, a whole lot of protectrons and a handful of mutant hounds. I only had to kill 3 supermutants 

By the way, if you return 10 overdue books for 50 tokens, you can buy the Massachusetts Surgical Journal (permanently inflict +2 limb damage) from the machine. That prize doesn't show up on the list if you've got just a few tokens but it does as soon as you've got say, 30+ tokens.

[Art Blade]

fragger, I just noticed that Rufus at Hotel Rexford in Goodneighbor is a vendor who sells shipments of concrete with both 100 and 200 units.

[Art Blade]

Regarding set timescale 1 / 20 and save game files, I decided to try it myself with real time and just checked the actual files, they're indeed only minutes apart.

Now that I worked through quite a list of quests and that there are only a few major quests left that I can start whenever I like, I've got a little more time for creativity. So I collected a few pool billiard items to make my little pub look a little more lively.

looks better now
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I also arranged the vault part a little and created a clinic room and a cafeteria room.

cafeteria with items that kind of fit,
like the soda fountain and the Vault-Tec Rep with his bar.
Oh and the slot machine.. why not. At least for now.
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clinic with surgery, phoropter, hairdresser.
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The "dormitory" is just a row of sleeping bags. I realised that settlers don't care about what they're sleeping in, wether they're sleeping in a bag or in a royal bed is just the same to them. Which makes it a lot more effective if you don't have plenty of room. Plus, they can walk over bags, you can actually place them right next to one another. I'll change those beds later, for my viewing pleasure only. The rest there is really only slapped down because the stuff had to be there, like mutfruit trees and all the other stuff. I'll take care of that later. I also transferred Codsworth to the vault, he's hanging out around the overseer's desk. Originally I had assigned him to tend mutfruit trees but when I returned, there was zero food in the status bar. The old chap had completely forgot to take care of the food supply. So I let him be and re-assigned Clem to the mutfruit trees. Then I planted six more of those trees and assigned MacCready, who's also now living in the vault, to take care of the additional food source. I think I'll send all human(oid) companions to the vault. I don't think that I'm going to recruit settlers with that beacon unless I need them for whatever type of job, like food production. I might even try to send everyone from Sanctuary over, using those cool commands that I posted earlier when I had to reset the Vault-Tec Rep. They can be used to make options like assigning and relocating possible even if the game didn't provide them, like for children, or those characters that normally cannot be sent to a different settlement. Maybe it works for cats and dogs, too? I don't have the ability to build cages yet, so that will have to wait.

not yet done
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[fragger]

Almost all vendors sell concrete shipments of 100 and 200 units, but small-time traders like the woman at Abernathy only sell small shipments of 50 - yet charge as much the price of a 100-unit shipment from the major traders. In fact all the prices from small-timers are inflated, so I don't buy concrete, or anything else, off them unless I really, really have to.

Looking good mate! I really like the clinic.

[spoiler text=this is a spoiler about the crashed ufo ]

Finally found the crashed UFO. I heard it whizz overhead while I was near the Old Corner Bookshop
and saw it disappear into the west, then heard the explosion. So I went and found it.

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Then nearby, I found this guy. He was still alive but wounded, and he attacked me. A single shotgun blast took care of him.

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Then I got this off him.

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[/spoiler]
I haven't done any main quests yet, I've been concentrating on getting Sanctuary up to where I want it first. As an experiment, I'm going around finding all the existing settlements and doing the missions in the populated ones before meeting Preston. I'm cleaning out the Workbenches of those that aren't populated and lugging all the stuff back to Sanctuary. I'm not going to bother with those ones, like Hangman's Alley and Zimonja Outpost. They can be fast-travel points and that's all.

After doing a mission for the two women at Oberland Station, I FT'd back there to tell them it was done and got spawned right in front of a freaking Swarmbot, close enough to spit on - that is, close enough for him to spit on me, because I spawned with my back to him He took half my health off me before I could even turn around and get a shot off

[Art Blade]

lol wow, that must have been quite the wake up call I don't think I ever spawned right next to an enemy but that might have to do with the mod that prevents settlement attacks.

Ah, that's a good idea, taking care of all the settlements first. That's something I think I'll do with Hancock now.
So far, I only did those I was required to take care of.

Heh, the alien. My first time I thought cool, maybe I can help.. zap! OK, maybe not, BANG! and he was a green smear that stopped zapping me.

The clinic is just one out of a couple of "domestic" type of room structures in the vault build menu. Thanks mate I thought it better to spread out those installations like phoropter and soda fountain and then had the idea of using those different room types for that purpose.

I never paid attention to details of shipments. All I know is that there are shipments of 50 and something lol, I usually just scrolled past those shipments so I thought 200 was unusual. Never mind, then

[fragger]

I never paid attention to details of shipments.

When you play without cheats, you DO pay attention to those Especially Concrete, because there's not a lot of it around to scrap in new settlements, and being heavy as hell, you can't carry much of it with you.

There's a great deal of wheeling and dealing involved in getting hold of decent amounts of ammo too, especially in the early game. I'm always grabbing every weapon I can get from dead guys, plus every drug and food item and every piece of clothing I can carry, so I can barter it all for ammo (as well as for junk items containing stuff like Copper, Screws, Gears, Circuitry, Crystal, and the always-scarce Fiber Optics for lasers). Eventually, even without cheats, later in the game you end up with more ammo than you'll usually need, but in the early-to-mid stages, you have to be quite sparing with it and try to make every shot count, because you can't get hold of a lot of it (except for .38 ammo which is relatively abundant, but that's like shooting peas at anything tougher than Radroaches. If you're facing a Deathclaw with a .38 Pipe Pistol, you might as well just throw the gun at it).

If I can afford it, I like to simultaneously buy both the 100 and the 200 shipments of Concrete from the same vendor (usually costs around 750 caps in total), then take them back to my base and stash them in a locker or something (NOT the Workbench). Then, if I start a new settlement and I want a pile of Concrete for it, I can just get the shipments out of the locker, and off I go. If the shipments are intended for some future settlement, I put them away because if I forget I have them on me (or they're in the Workbench) and I start building something out of Concrete in my base, and the Concrete that's already in the base Workbench gets used up, further building will automatically start eating into one of the shipments I'm carrying - and as soon as a single unit of shipment Concrete gets used, the rest stops being a shipment and immediately goes into that settlement's Workbench as straight Concrete. Then I can't take that Concrete with me to the new settlement because it weighs a ton (3 carry pounds per single unit, or 24 carry pounds for one slab's worth). The shipment is just a piece of paper that weighs nothing, but if it's on your person it can be drawn upon to build from, and as soon as you use a single unit of it, the rest of the shipment immediately goes into that settlement's Workbench and you can't turn it back into a shipment. You get no warning when that happens. Suddenly it's like, "Where did my shipment go? Oh *bleep*..."

You can drop the piece of paper on the ground, enter Workshop mode and scrap it like a junk item, then the entire shipment goes into the Workbench. I love Concrete shipments, they're a great way to get a lot of Concrete from one place to another. Well, the only way, actually.

[Art Blade]

interesting. I can imagine the learning curve and the curses learning how not to handle concrete. Nice, and well done. The god mode saved me a lot of trouble, apparently

[fragger]

I quite like this approach, for a few reasons. I go out on scrounging runs with a companion, which helps to get their affinities up early before getting into the meat of the story, and now that I know where some good places are to go to for stuff, it helps me to get my XP's up for discovering them. I mix it up with side quests from places like DC, Goodneighbor and populated settlements, the latter of which then gets me access to their Workbenches so I can grab whatever goodies might be in them and take them back to Sanctuary.

Only thing is, with the manufacturing machines I've installed, I need a ton of power and a Fusion reactor is still a long way off (need Science 4 and Level 41 for that, and I'm only on Level 21 so far). The three machines I have - Armor, Ammo and Energy Weapons - together require 35 power. With the PA racks, water pumps, the streetlighting I have planned and various other things, I'm already looking at over 75 power required. So I either build a temporary generator farm somewhere, or let everything sit idle until I get to fusion generator stage. At the moment I just have one large genny to run my twin large water pumps, one small one for the Recruitment Beacon and another small one for the lights in my building.

There's still a vacant slab available, the one close to the bridge. I could throw up a bunch of generators on that and scrap them when I get fusion power happening, but that means using up valuable materials like Copper and Nuclear Material to build the gennies.

As you know, I enjoy strategy games, and FO4 can have strong strategy dimension to it - if you want it to. It's not obligatory. That's the beauty of the game, it caters to a lot of different approaches and play style preferences