Fallout 4

[fragger]

Great screenie, that Looks a bit like a scene from the Blues Brothers... I can imagine that's a pile of burning police cars in the background

Spoiler

Oh, the humanity...

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Funny how the docking tether running from the airport control tower stayed hanging in mid-air.
Devs must have forgotten to remove that.

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What a mess...

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[Art Blade]

hehe yeah

And thanks, it took some time to get that screenie right. It was with Porter, that loyal companion of Damascene, and I had both of them dress up for the occasion

[fragger]

I have now completed the Institute ending. Didn't have to backtrack very far as I'd already pursued their ending path up to the "branching-off" point to the Railroad ending.

The Institute ending means the destruction of the Railroad (by wiping out all the key characters, like Desdemona, Tinker Tom etc, inside their HQ - and if you've sent Deacon to a settlement, going there to whack him as well) and the BoS, including the Prydwen. The means of bringing down the airship are totally different though between the Institute's method and the Railroad's:

Spoiler

The Railroad method requires you, Tinker Tom and Deacon to steal a Vertibird from Cambridge Police Station (which means eliminating the BoS there, including Haylen and Rhys), then fly to the Prydwen, bluff your way onto the flight deck, then fight your way through the Prydwen and plant explosive charges on the hydrogen tanks before getting out of Dodge on the same Vertibird you flew in on. The Institute method is to infiltrate the airport and take out three EMP field generators which are preventing synths from beaming in. Once the gennies are down, synth reinforcements and Coursers can teleport in to help take some of the heat off you while you protect a Gen 1 synth as he uploads a virus into Liberty Prime to make the robot think the Prydwen is a Chinese Communist threat and shoot it down.

(Apparently, depending on how other things in the game play out, a situation can arise where the Minutemen can take the Prydwen down too, by using their artillery. I don't know what you do to bring that about, or whose ending path it may be a part of. The Minutemen's, I would imagine. I've never encountered that course of action though).

Both the Railroad's and the Institute's ending paths involve some pretty heavy fighting, either at the airport or aboard the Prydwen depending on which path you're pursuing. In the case of the Railroad ending, in addition to the grunts you also have to fight all the key Prydwen crew members - Quinlan, Neriah, Kells, etc - and you can loot their unique outfits. In both cases you can also nail Proctor Ingram (during the Railroad's mission, I killed Ingram on the Prydwen's external flight deck before entering the ship, then later found her body on the ground near the wreckage. During the Institute's mission, she's at the airport, defending from the top of Liberty Prime's gantry). In both instances, it's possible to fight and defeat Elder Maxson, then loot his flashy coat and his custom Gatling Laser - and in the case of the Institute ending, his one-off suit of BOSVIIf power armor.

End result is the same though - the Prydwen becomes a massive pile of scrap next to the airport terminal.
____________________

One key difference is that Shaun (the kid) stays inside the Institute, you don't get to relocate him. He still asks you to bring him bits and pieces to make unique weapons with. Another difference is of course that C.I.T. doesn't end up as a huge radioactive crater in the earth. The closing cutscene is slightly different too.

Of the endings, the Institute one is probably the most anticlimactic despite the massive fight at the airport (no battle inside the Institute itself, natch).

Playing the Railroad and Institute endings cleared up a couple of odd things that exist in the game world. The "inaccessible" door inside Graygarden Homestead is explained, as is the partially-excavated cavern underneath the Institute. They come into play during the Institute and Railroad endings respectively.

[Art Blade]

quite an adventure. Thanks for the detailed post, mate

[Art Blade]

Just in case, if you choose the Lone Wanderer Perk, level 1 will increase your carry weight by 50 and level 2 by another 50 to a total of 100. Dogmeat doesn't count as a companion so the Lone Wanderer may travel with Dogmeat and still get 100 extra carry weight.

And now some research results.

For some reasons, some pills decrease the values. I am not talking about obvious "+1" and then "-2" pill stats but for instance, "+3" giving me 3 and the next "+2" resulted in 2 rather than 5. Not sure yet which ones do that but I think the "mentats" reduce rather than stack when eaten after certain other pills. I'll have to take a closer look at that. Some chems, I think the med-X is one of those, keep stacking on themselves, like take three hits and your stats will have tripled. Again, an interesting observation I want to investigate further.

I found out which does what.

The Med-X stats show an increase of the poison resistance of +250 per hit so that does stack while the damage resistance remains at +25 and does not stack. I assume that it is an unintentional bonus, an oversight, to be able to stack poison resistance by taking Med-X repeatedly because other chems don't stack their bonuses. Except for radiation level removal which obviously makes sense. It also makes sense not to be able to stack bonuses by taking tons of the same chems or you'd be able to create a "chem monster" with temporary stats rendering you nearly invincible.


And here the important stuff:

Some chems come in a base variant like Buffout and there are pimped-up variants like Bufftats. If they share stats (like, both change strength and endurance and HP) then their shared stats are mutually exclusive and don't stack. So taking Buffout first to get +2 strength and +2 endurance and +50HP and then taking Bufftats which will override the Buffout's boost will give you only a total of +3 strength and +3 endurance (with an additional +3 perception and +65HP) but not a total of +5 strength and +5 endurance and +115HP. Let's just forget about the HP boost, it's only getting more confusing, but it works exactly like strength and endurance in this chem combo.

So the weird changes in stats which I had observed back then were obviously due to something like this:

Let's assume I have got 10 strength and 10 endurance without pills.

Popping Buffout gives an increase of +2 strength and +2 endurance, so a total of 12 strength and 12 endurance.
Then popping Bufftats gives an increase of +3 strength and +3 endurance, so a total of 13 strength and 13 endurance, also additionally +3 perception.
It looks as if I was only given an increase of +1 for strength and endurance each, but taking Bufftats had simply replaced the Buffout's boost for strength and endurance.

Popping Buffout yet again replaces the stats again and gives me a total of 12 strength and 12 endurance. However, the Bufftats' boost for perception is still active and both chems are listed in my stats. In this combination, Bufftats only show one active boost which is "+3 perception" because Buffout had been taken afterwards and thus overridden the stats. Which is why Buffout shows next to Bufftats in the active chems, with only 2 strength and 2 endurance. So it matters in which order you take your chems as long as they belong to the same family (like Buffout and Bufftats) and therefore share some boosts. Actually, it's not a matter of order but of choosing the right chem. Taking yet another pill of Bufftats would remove Buffout from the active chems list and only show Bufftats with all three boosts as active. Like in the pic at the end of the post.

In other words, popping only one pill of Bufftats is what I should have done to get the maximum result without wasting chems.

I posted some results earlier and was proud of having achieved +33 perception. I've now achieved a superb +41 perception Different combinations that still give a total of +41 perception do exist. Totally different stats when focussing on other boosts like strength or luck are of course possible.

Here, for you to check out. Note that all listed chems in the first pic are actively doing something to the stats, Buffout wouldn't show because Bufftats are in place. That's another way of checking out which chems replace other chems.

the chems..
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..and their effects
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[fragger]

That's reallu helpful info about chems Art, thanks Wow, 41 Perception You should be able to tell the colour of someone's eyes from a mile away with that

I always go for the Lone Wanderer perk as I prefer not to have a companion most of the time. They have their benefits and I travel with them to earn their unique perks and to help carry stuff, but they also have a bad habit of getting in the way. They're good for alerting you to enemy presence though at times.

Anyway - having now tried out all faction ending paths, I have to say I prefer the Minutemen one overall. Mainly because it doesn't require me to kill any of the friends or companions I make along the way (well, except for X6-88, but I don't like him much anyway).

I've now started yet another new game, and already I've had a brand-new experience. I was on my way to Sanctuary from Abernathy Farm when I heard a single yelp from the bush off to my left, like the sound a dog makes when it gets hurt, but at the same time not like any sound I've ever heard in the game before. After a few seconds, I heard it again. Making my way towards it, a pair of Feral Ghouls rushed out of the shrubbery and attacked Dogmeat. We took them out, and then close by I noticed a single Wild Mongrel hanging about near the body of a dead Gunner. When I aimed at him, the label "Wounded Dog" came up instead of "Wild Mongrel", and he had indeed taken some hits. He saw me, but made no attempt to attack.

Approaching the mongrel, a dialogue interface appeared, and I was able to talk to him and fix him up. Apparently he was grateful, because he then started following me around in a friendly fashion - so I then had two dogs accompanying me, the mongrel and Dogmeat. The mongrel's name was "Mutt", apparently, or that's what it said whenever I looked at him. I tried to get Mutt to follow me back to Sanctuary but he stopped when I got to within a certain distance from it. I then went the other way and he followed for quite a longer distance, all the way to the old trailer west of Abernathy Farm, where he not only stopped but now won't leave that spot. Maybe to avoid complications, the game intervenes when even a "tame" Wild Mongrel gets too close to a settlement.

Dunno how long Mutt will hang around there. I have a feeling he'll just disappear once I move far enough away, or FT right out of the area and back. Still, he's a novelty - for me, anyway.

This game is amazing. Just when I think I must have seen everything in it, it throws up something new, even after 15 months of fairly solid playing

Incidentally, I upped the difficulty level for this go-around to "Very Hard", which is the second-hardest level, succeeded only by the full-on "Survival" mode. Should be a challenge - one of those Ferals in the bush darn near killed me already

[Art Blade]

welcome

You can keep X6-88 alive (I did that) if you send him to a settlement prior to killing off the Institute. I let him live there by himself and he'd stay there. Well, interactions were gone so I made heavy use of the console to make him a valuable member of my settlement again, now he talks and walks and other settlers live in peace with him in the same settlement now.

Also, I met Mutt, the friendly mongrel. Followed me for some time and then went elsewhere, never to be seen again. I think it's one of those radiant quests.

[fragger]

I never ran into Mutt before, so he was a new thing for me

I did send X6-88 to an uninhabited settlement once (Coastal Cottage) but it bugged me having him there, so after the Institute was gone I went and got rid of him.

Apparently you can keep Porter Gage as a companion after doing Open Season at Nuka-World. Can't remember how to do it just now, but it's somewhere on the net. You can use console commands to do it, I think. I might try that this time around as I like having him as a companion, and I feel really bad bumping him off after he's told me that I'm the first person he's trusted for the longest time.

[Art Blade]

you did what? You got rid of poor X6-88? Damn. Alright, there's nothing to it, then, is there? Life goes on, with or without him, anyway.

Oh, keeping Porter would be absolutely sweet. I tried to find stuff back then but didn't succeed in keeping him. Not sure whether I tried too late or didn't find useful info, he's history. I don't know which playthrough, he was still alive and hanging out at the elevated room where you first meet him I guess, that kind of lofty living room with a lift outside and inside, across some kind of a pond. He was just there, couldn't talk, couldn't be interacted with, but alive. Like a meaty vegetable.

[fragger]

"Very Hard" mode is actually pretty hard. Who knew?

I did that quest for what's-his-name at Thicket Excavations, where you have to dive into the reservoir and turn three valve handles to start draining the water out, and then two Mirelurks pop up and attack. Only his time, one of the 'lurks was a Legendary Razorclaw. Bear in mind that I'm only on Level 9 and the only weapons I have are the 10mm Pistol from the Vault, a Pipe Rifle, a Laser Pistol and a double-barrel shottie, all bog-standard (except for the 10mm, which has a modded receiver). Oh, and I have a tire-iron, whoop-de-doo.

Any one of those weapons made barely made a scratch in the Razorclaw's armoured hide. I had to put a few rounds into him, then scramble away to temporarily find a spot out of of his reach, get a few more shots in, then scramble again because he kept finding ways around to get at me (Dogmeat and the dude weren't much help because Nipper Boy kept putting them on their backsides quick-smart whenever they had the effrontery to attack him). Couple of times I had to go jump in the lake to get away - and I don't have the radioactive waterproof perk yet, so I took a bunch of rads whenever I did that. It took ages to wear Crabby halfway down, then he mutated and I had to start wearing him down all over again

Did I finally get a cool unique weapon or anything off him once he croaked? Nah - I got a crummy bit of chameleon armor for one arm.

Still, it was fun, in a panicky "oh-*bleep*-he's-right-behind-me" kind of way.

[Art Blade]

that's survival horror for you.

I've played on hardest because of the legendary drops and found it quite easy.



With god mode.

When I switched off god mode, I was already a high level player and got everything I needed regarding weapons and perks so it wasn't that bad at all. However, playing on hardest without god mode and from start, respect

[LowPolyOWG]

So, the hardest mode is basically bullet sponges then

[Art Blade]

on both sides, yes.

However, this game features gear and weapons with special stats that are called "legendary" items and those belong(ed) to so-called legendary enemies. Legendary enemies have got something like an extra life which kicks in after you wore them down quite a bit, they will then instantly mutate to something worse and reset their health and armour. Once killed, they are likely to drop random legendary loot. The harder the difficulty, the more likely the appearance of legendary enemies and items.

[LowPolyOWG]

 

I have seen some FO76 gameplay and while the game itself is a generic survival online-only shooter (in a Fallout skin), I have seen legendary mobs having 1-3 stars to them. Is that the case for FO4?

[Art Blade]

no.

The star in FO4 stands for legendary, there is no system in place that allows for different classes of legendary stuff.