Fallout 4

[Art Blade]

as to the robots mentioned by Binnatics, with the DLC you can craft your own robots and make one of them (at the time) your companion. There is a sentinel not far from Sanctuary, near a massive electrical tower, which sits there idling, and if your perks are ranked sufficiently, you can make that robot follow you. That's most likely what Binnatics was remembering, I posted some pics with those guys around me. But without mod, they can run dry on ammo.

[BinnZ]

I think those were the ones. I remember exploring a bit with your char, and before I knew there were bad guys around, they were already killed by my companions. I wanted to do some shooting myself, so I had to make them not follow me any more, or I would come in last every time a shooting appeared
Anyway, without mods D_B's suggestions sound like what I would want to try for.

[fragger]

Thanks for the tips and all, chaps And thanks for your input D_B, sage advice indeed, I believe

I guess I'm so accustomed to FPS games that I've approached FO4 like one, so I've just sort of barrelled headlong into things too soon. FO4 isn't FC4 I need to rein in my shooter instincts and make more of an effort to adapt to an RPG methodology, evidently - like getting myself more sufficiently kitted out first instead of just charging forth in my underpants, as it were (geez, I don't think I want to ponder too deeply upon what drove me to come up with that metaphor. Maybe it was that embarrassing dream I had last night. Come on, admit it, you've all had it too... Heck, maybe my FO4 experiences so far triggered it).

I'm silly in that I feel kind of guilty if I use God mode in a game. I feel like I'm wimping out. I've never modded a game to my advantage either. The last thing I would be is critical of those who do (except in MP, where people who resort to that should be put in a public pillory IMO), but I feel a little like I'm letting myself down if I do. Irrational? Probably. I guess I've always felt that I should play a game the way it was intended. Call it a character flaw But I got so exasperated being zombied to death in town the other day that I thought, "bugger it - they've made this so tough, I'm gonna make myself invincible for flipping once. How do you like them apples, game?" But in reality it was my own fault for bolting into things with such precipitous abandon. Pace yourself, fragger...

w0#k's over for the week and the storms have finally cleared off, so I plan to get into the game good and proper this weekend.

About those storms - bloody hell, the one last night was a doozy! Not long after I signed off here, it hit us with some serious attitude. It was like being on the receiving end of an artillery barrage. I've been through some wicked storms before, but that one was something else I'm amazed we didn't lose power - we've lost it before in lesser storms. I had strategically placed candles in position and my trusty police-grade, crook-clocking Maglite ready to hand, just in case. Didn't need any of them, fortunately.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Don't sweat the god mod, fragger. There have been plenty of times when I invoked it just to get through a sticky part and was frustrated or when a game gets stupid like the original Far Cry when the mutants appeared.

But for Fallout, not thinking like a typical shooter is a better idea. In the beginning, you generally have to play a lot more cautiously than you normally would. And be sure too loot all the bodies and containers for every scrap of ammo. Upgrade your armor as much as possible and toss the old ones when you find better versions. Legendary enemies are a good source of better armor and weapons, but harder to kill, of course. The wounding 10mm I carried the whole game I got early on from a legendary bloatfly I think.

[mandru]

Wow!  That was outstandingly decent of you Art and Binn.  A measly thumbs up for both of you guys seems to fall far short but it's the best I've got to offer.  +1 each 

fragger once you get over the hump for survival mechanics I believe you will thoroughly enjoy FO4.

It might be a good idea as you collect decent weapons and some armor to swing back by and kit your first settlement in Sanctuary.  When giving one of your settlers an upgraded weapon you can take away their original weapon so they don't automatically fall back on it and give them a small seed stock of ammo for the new weapon plus one 5mm round.

That 5mm round for some reason allows your settlers an unlimited amount of ammo for the weapon you've provided them.  Hopefully that glitch or intentional boon still is effective in the game.

I'm exited fragger for you and your FO4 gaming experiences and the forthcoming comments/observations on the game. 

[BinnZ]

Thanx guys, it's a pleasure

I'm exited fragger for you and your FO4 gaming experiences and the forthcoming comments/observations on the game. 

Me too

[PZ]

Me 3 

[Art Blade]

I wouldn't have given him the game if I weren't So, me as well.

Fragger, learn to use V.A.T.S. -- and keep using it. And get your perception up. 

[fragger]

Well, best laid plans and all that... I didn't get to play very much over the weekend. My nephew dropped in - from Tasmania - on Saturday and stayed overnight, so that pretty much used up my weekend. The upshot is that I only got a couple of hours of gaming in earlier tonight.

Nothing much to report so far, I've just sort of been wandering around with the dog and fending off the odd nasty critter. I ventured into that satellite station or whatever it is not far from Sanctuary and had a massive fight with a bunch of Raiders in there. I got a Fusion Core out of it though, which I needed since I'd earlier used up the original one while I was clumping all over the countryside in my power armour without realizing the core was running down the whole time. I made it all the way back to the Red Rocket, though the core ran out just before I got there and I had to Frankenstein it for the last few meters or so.

Is power armour worth bothering with? It's going to be a pain if it keeps running out of juice, and those Fusion Cores don't appear to grow on trees.

At this stage, I have to say I'm not enormously enamored of the game thus far. I don't dislike it, but it's not setting my world on fire either. Maybe that will change the further in I get. It has only been a few hours after all, I haven't given it a proper chance yet.

A question - when you trade with somebody, is there any money involved, i.e. can you sell items to them, or do you just barter stuff? If so, what are the bottlecaps for? I'm not clear on that. I tried to trade with Marcie and it seemed that all I was doing was giving her some of my stuff. She had nothing to offer me in exchange and I didn't get any dough for what I gave her (though I could just get my stuff straight back off her again). I'm not too clear on what that's all about. Actually, that was two questions, wasn't it? Three, including the last one

Another question: I can interact with a workbench, exit it, then go around Sanctuary salvaging or building stuff. But it stops working if I leave the boundaries of the settlement, and even if I walk back into the settlement, it won't w0#k again until I enter/exit a workbench. Am I missing something there? Also, is there some way I can salvage things without having to confirm every time? That's a bit of a drag... Okay, that was two more questions.

One gripe I have - I'm really not a fan of that V.A.T.S. system. I know FO4 isn't a FPS as such, but if a game is going to have shooting in it, I'd much rather handle my own aiming. I'm not crazy about setting the shots up in super slow-mo and then watching a cinematic of my guy taking them. I don't get a lot of fun out of that. To top it off, the game doesn't seem to handle regular aiming terribly well, unless that's something I can perk up. Ironsighting seems kind of clunky and random as it is, so I'm not enjoying the combat aspects of the game very much.

I don't want to focus on negatives. But this is a game that may have to grow on me - it hasn't tremendously wowed me as yet. Like I said though, that may well change. I'm aware that I've only scratched the surface. It looks terrific, has a nice open-worldness to it and there's still a lot I haven't plumbed much, like building and crafting, so we'll see.

[Art Blade]

Power armour is powerful armoured decoration, unless you got a good amount of fusion cores and don't mind the noise and bulkiness -- leave it in a well-lit space to admire it every time you're around.

Barter and trading: There are two ways of interacting with people. One is trading which is when you equip a companion or settler with stuff you have and take stuff from their inventory that you want. It's not so much a money thing but exchange of goods, mostly to give someone better gear or take theirs. Barter is what shopkeepers do. This involves money or the worth of a good shown as money. You may find something that is worth more than you or the person can afford. Then you can fill up the difference by adding goods like ammo. For instance, you want to buy a rifle for 500 caps. You have 400 so you add bullets worth 100 to the mix, done. Or you give a rifle worth 500 to the person who only got 400. You can take 400 or try to find something from their stash like ammo and buy that for the remaining 100, so you get 400 cash and bullets worth 100 caps.

The workbench and the green border surrounding a settlement is where you can build stuff and how far your workbench and its resources reach. You'll always have to confirm again that you want to scratch something. It is always bound to one settlement. Unless you start a supply line (sharing supplies with your other settlements via trade routes) your workbench is an isolated entity that only works with and is related to the one single settlement it belongs to. So either carry all your stuff to one place (Sanctuary, probably) or start a supply line.

As soon as you're being attacked by multiple hostiles, you'll have time to rethink your attitude towards VATS. I understand that you think it's a shooter and that you have to master it with your own reactions and aim but you found out already that it isn't your typical shooter. You're slow and sloppy with manual aiming while there is a TON of perks that w0#k extremely well with VATS. When you're getting too tired of dying all over, reconsider VATS.

Like almost always, you determine how your game plays. Consider the perks carefully, which ones to build up early and which ones later..

[Dweller_Benthos]

I agree with Art, power armor is a nice decoration, but too slow and clunky for me. It's good in the Glowing Sea where the radiation protection is nice, but there are other ways to counteract that, but that's a ways in your future yet, just avoid the place for now. Fusion cores are all over the place, and some people complain there are too many. Running and jetpack flying take more power. But for the most part, I just picked them up and took them back to display. I rarely wore them. What I looked for was normal armor that had perks, like speed boost. I'd rather have slightly less armor protection with normal armor over power armor and be able to move fast.

I wasn't a fan of VATS and still don't think too much of it. You can go two ways, take perks that increase your normal accuracy and play it like a shooter, or go for the perks that increase VATS options and use VATS all the time. I was watching a video where the person had VATS maxxed out, was using one of the super powerful pistols and used VATS for every encounter, and it took one shot to kill pretty much everything. At most two shots. That's not the way I'd like to play the game, so I went for the accuracy perks and weapon mods that increased accuracy, and played that way.

Also, if it seems a bit tough still, lower the difficulty. I did that for the first couple hours, played on the second highest level. It's called easy, I think, with the lowest being very easy. Then once I had my feet under me, some better weapons and armor, moved it up to normal or whatever the middle option is.

But like Art mentioned, look at the perks carefully and pick the ones that seem to mesh with how you want to play. Some might not be obvious at first, for instance, the Mr Sandman one seems to be for the sneaky player who likes to sneak up and knife people in the back. And it is, mostly, but one of the added effects is that if you're sneaking, and aren't detected, you do more damage even with a gun from a distance. That one also stacks with some of the other sneak perks and added to a weapon mod that adds to silent kills, like a silencer, can give a damage boost modifier of 4X or 5X while hidden. For the sniper, that is a huge boost. Add it to a legendary weapon like a rifle that does extra damage, the boost can be enough to one hit kill a lot of things, as long as you are reasonably careful about not being seen.

Another thing to keep in mind are your XP levels. These give you the perks, and pretty much everything gives you XP. One of the early game things you can do to gain XP is building stuff in a settlement. I gained probably 10-15 levels just scrapping stuff and building defenses in Sanctuary. That got me a lot of those low level perks started right away. Another one to keep in mind is the aqua boy one, that allows you to swim without taking radiation damage from the water. That way, you can use the rivers to swim to where you want to go, and not have to worry about getting there overland. One other early game perk that might be useful is getting Piper as a companion, as her perk gives you more XP each time you discover a new location. So having her perk gives you more XP just for exploring. Though meeting her is a bit further along the main quest line, then once you do, it takes a bit to get her affinity up to where you get the perk, but it might be worth it.

[Art Blade]

well said, D_B

I prepared this following post before D_B's post (thanks, D_B, for slipping yours in before I could ) and indeed, some things are covered in both posts. Should be fun for you, fragger, to read both of them

Here we go:

Regarding VATS, let me put it this way. Regard it as a high-tech weapons system which is rubbish when you get it. 

You keep building it up by adding perks (such as perception because better perception means your VATS can react earlier, to your advantage but there are sniper perks, silenced weapon perks, melee attack perks, explosives perks.. you'll find something that goes harmoniously with your personal edition of VATS) and by building weapons (levelling up weapon or black smith, locksmith and other perks like science play a role in advancing your weapons on a weapons w0#k bench) and your ease of use with them. Essentially, you become a specialised weapon. Like, a stealthy, sniping, silenced weapon with a few dark stabbing melee dashes to spice it up a bit. Now, if you are a good weapon, VATS will be your navigational system that takes you to where the action is and sets you off. No matter whether you want to pop a few feral ghouls with precision head shots and explosive sniper ammunition or you want to show off and blow some guy's legs off first before you headshot his mates, leaving the one guy crawling for you to finish off "manually," you can create your own show. Don't get it wrong, it's not actually a show, it might as well be your funeral. But since we have it in our hands, we might as well make it a proper show down and be sure it's us who prevail. With some style, please.

There are perks that allow you to attack multiple targets with a melee weapon such as a serrated combat knife and jump gaps between enemies so you can stealth-kill all of them within literally a few seconds. You couldn't do that without VATS. And it does look cool if you do stuff like that, it's not going to grow old on you, believe me

So.. VATS is your friend in FO4, it is a different type of gaming. Embrace VATS already or I'll knock your block off, mate

[BinnZ]

 

I don't know much about the VATS system. I hardly ever used it in FO3. I am more the free aim shooter type of guy. And all I remember is that you do get good at it. I'd choose my perks wisely like D_B suggested and start stacking up headshots the proper way

[mandru]

fragger I think I see the reason for some of your confusion in questioning the reason for caps related to your initial trading attempts.  It looks like you were trading with your settlers in Sanctuary Hills.  At the start of settlement development you can trade equipment with settlers but until you have used build mode creating one of the shops and assigned a settler to attend it there's no use for caps within the settlement. 

Soon enough you will encounter cities that will have a variety of stores where you can spend the caps as currency.  KL-E-O the weapons dealer in Good Neighbor is quite the temptress and one of a few favorite FO4 NPCs of mine. 


It's a good idea fairly early on in a play through to decide what kind of play style your character is going to be using most often and figure out the abilities in the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. skill tree that will best suit your character.

Under each aspect of the SPECIAL headings are tiers of abilities that become available depending on the number of Level Up points you have spent on the category heading.  For example each Level up point spent (up to 10 max as there are 10 tiers) on the "A" (agility) aspect of  will give you your choice of spending additional level up points on any of the abilities on each of the tiers under Agility.

When viewing what perks are gained with each of the SPECIAL unlocked abilities before unlocking them (at lest on the PC) you can use the "Alt and Ctrl" keys to scroll up and down the levels of each ability to preview what is offered and determine if it grants skills that are the most beneficial to your character.

Abilities on Unlocked tiers can also be previewed using the "Alt and Ctrl" keys to see if there are perks that you want to keep in mind as you are gaining Level Up points to develop your character's skills. 

It's also good to know that even though you have several tiers unlocked under one of the SPECIAL aspects you don't have to unlock a lower level tier to access a higher level tier.  That is to say if you don't care for an ability on tier 3 of one of the SPECIAL attributes but like an unlocked ability on tier 7 of that same attribute you don't have to waste level up points unlocking abilities you are not interested in or you simply don't want.

This is also a key point. The success of an ability on an unlocked tier often has it's own steps of "Good, Better and Best" kind of level up to power up that ability and remember there is also a lot of positive effect and chance of success provided from having the SPECIAL aspect the ability is located under built up to levels higher than what was needed to unlock the tier for the ability in question.

For me personally in my character build Sneaking maxed as an ability (with various other additive perk influences from other ability unlocks (like Agility tier 7 Ninja and both levels of Agility tier 9 Blitz) tossed in for fun) while having the Agility attribute maxed out rocks. 

It lets me melee strike targets with a damage multiplier from long distances cleaning out most assignments without being detected while clanking around in my top rated stealth equipped Power Suit that has a helmet attuned to make enemies glow red long before they can see me and wielding little more than a brutishly powerful knife.  I like to use the blade Kremvh's Tooth which packs poison damage and an area effect capable of killing multiple secondary targets if they are close enough. 

I like the VATS feature in FO4.  For my build and at my overall level in game if I sneak up close and make a carefully laid out plan of attack in VATS I'm usually able to clear a room.  Blitz allows me to almost teleport and thusly move over distance instantly from one to the next of several targets with the Kremvh's Tooth dropping the entire group most times before they even realize they've been attacked. 

[fragger]

Thanks for all the tips, guys Consider them taken on board.

mandru, that key point you discussed... I'm going to have to read through that a few times before I can get my head around it Not because you wrote it in a confusing fashion or anything, but just that I'm grappling with it the same way I grappled with string theory when I first tried to comprehend it I'm like, "Hang on... how did that go again?" All the power ups, level ups, tiers and abilities is like bosons, mesons, tachyons and baryons to me at this juncture