Fallout 4

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah F4SE is updated, I ran it last night just to be sure it worked.

[Art Blade]

[fragger]

I started all over again as I detailed in my "new rig" topic The game looks superb now that I can max it out, and it's smooth as anything.

I haven't done much yet. I've scrapped everything I could in Sanctuary Hills to get lots of materials - every tree, fence, and bit of junk and furniture I could find. I've mostly just traipsed around the surrounding area, finding places and people. There's quite a bit tucked away in the landscape.

I'm trying to avoid God mode, instead playing on Easy to give myself a fighting chance. I've invested heavily in Perception to get my V.A.T.S. efficiency up, with good dollops of points in Strength and Agility. It's working pretty well for me so far. I found that cave under the Red Rocket and found a Fusion Core in there, and I found another one somewhere else, so I've got two up my sleeve if I want to go power armouring at some point.

I think I mentioned that I went female this time, just for the novelty value. I must say, I'm quite the hottie

Thanks for all the info about hacking guys, lots of good info there

[Art Blade]

you'll find terminals almost everywhere. Same goes for random locks. Go hack and pick 'em

[Art Blade]

on topic, my progress - update

Wow. I must have homed in on this for the last 1,000+ hours: I'm now getting those missions that will soon lead to a finale. You may remember that I posted this in July for later reference and now the time has come.

I'm just around that percentage of progress the vid is about, to get the most out of the game as in: as many faction missions as possible before any one of them turns hostile. Eventually I'll finish with the minutemen and as far as I understand it, the Institute will be my enemy. I don't think Synths will be hostile, unless perhaps they were sent by the institute. Well.

The recent missions I did in almost random order faction-wise just to make sure I advanced the respective faction story line to the point "of no return" as discussed in July. They were cool, I had to go to the institute for the first time and looted the hell out of that place ( ) several times now and I went into many BoS missions that were both interesting and disturbing. In other words, it has been cool so far

I'd like to mention that I don't read too much into the story. I know that there are tons of flaws and whatnot but hey, I still think they're fun. And if you tackle missions as "faction-related: yes" but generally more or less ignore the weird plot holes or story flaws, then it's a lot of fun -- at least for me it is.

[PZ]

That is amazing - you do seem to squeeze every hour possible out of a game. I think the only Fallout game I finished was FO3, and I did not spend a fraction of that amount of time getting there. I did not do much of the side questing, so I am sure I missed most of the actual fun of the game.

[Art Blade]

the good thing is that the game allows for it. To play for hours on end without doing any missions.

[PZ]

Indeed; that's what I'm doing in Origins 

[Art Blade]

what I'm doing now is forcing an end, with the minutemen. I could as well leave the main missions as is and have every faction still intact (well.. except all those raider factions in Nuka World..) but I want to see one of those official endings. I might start a different career and be strict about which line to follow, from start, see how that goes, and keep this playthrough here open for fun. I don't know yet. I might as well go back to a prior savegame but I think that's going to mess up the save game "order" (sequential) and I'll never find what I need among those probably thousand(s of) save games.

I think a fresh cheat start and one straight line should provide a much cleaner game. It is so hard to abstain from collecting and hoarding.. even if I don't even need anything thanks to cheating, I still drag half the universe worth of collectibles across the wasteland and stuff it in containers, organised of course, just to never touch that stuff again. Only to pack stuff on top of it.

[Art Blade]

I've now gained Paladin Danse's perk, after Blind Betrayal. Before I got kicked out of the Institute, I got X6-88's perk, too, and him being an Institute's synth courser, I "quarantined" that guy by sticking him to the Starlight Drive-In as sole inhabitant, just where I had built the arena. So I got kicked out of the Institute but still got that guy sitting in Starlight Drive-In and the happiness of that settlement is rising Probably "has been rising" -- at least when he sees me, that will definitely stop because I'm now enemies with the Institute and by that, with my "companion" X6-88 who for reasons unknown still counts as an inhabitant of said settlement.

Now with Danse being my recently gained and active companion, I can already see a funny situation coming up. I think I'll have ex-Brotherhood of Steel Danse move in to Starlight Drive-In as well. There's only one bed. He still hates Institute synths. There's going to be only one survivor.. so that one bed will be enough.

At first I didn't like Danse much but with his twisted fate, I feel almost pity with him. At least I like him now, after all the *bleep* we went through together, he's going to be an interesting companion. As long as I hang out with him, I'll be enemies with the Brotherhood of Steel as well. Might be fun

[Dweller_Benthos]

I did all the endings with save games at strategic places to go back to and continue as if nothing had happened to the Minuteman ending. It really is the most satisfying considering the other endings require you to go nuclear on the other two factions. It's nice to have them all alive (well, except for the Institute) even if they are a bit buggy sometimes, in regards to how they talk about people who should be dead but are standing right there, and send you off to eliminate certain members of the other faction as if you were enemies even though you are still fast friends (PAM and her missions to eliminate Brotherhood patrols).

The one thing I regret about destroying the Institute is the smoking crater it leaves just outside the city and that it takes out two bridges across the river. Plus it leaves a couple cars floating in air as the bridge is no longer there to hold them up, but they still mysteriously float. My X6-88 is part of the smoking crater, once I got his perk, I sent him home. I don't think he got out when I sent the evacuation order. But Danse is at Starlight, watching over an empty fighting arena.

[Art Blade]

funny how your and my Danse ended up in Starlight, where there is an arena in both cases. Independently

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah, not sure why I left him there, but that's where he is. Most of the companions I sent home after I was done with them, so that's why X6-88 was in the Institute when it became a crater. Aside from Piper who I usually have with me, Cait is at the castle, the rest are where I found them. As for building an arena at Starlight, it's a popular place to do so, since it's a large wide open space.

[Art Blade]

the only reason I ended up there was because it was unused except for when I plopped down a water pump into that puddle, which made me create an "open air vault" around it, and thanks to countless (power-related) bugs I decided to dismantle the whole damn thing and that led me to reuse the location which led to building an arena. The bed was there so I could lock up my companion while I was building. It had been unused for some time now and I didn't want a courser synth to live in Sanctuary.. so I sent X6-88 to starlight. And now, basically the same with Danse..

[Dweller_Benthos]

I think I had a settlement quest there, to build stuff and recruit some settlers, so I did the bare minimum to get the quest and then sent the settlers someplace else and left the buildings there until I wanted to build an arena and used it for it's big open space. I think I sent Danse there because I was getting tired of hearing him stomp around in his power armor in Sanctuary.