Fallout 4

[Art Blade]

I didn't know that, either. Cheers It explains why sometimes my Brahmins killed themselves.

[fragger]

You could be right about those missing settlers, Art. In any event, I'm not too perturbed by it.

I'm quite impressed with the "physical" extent of this game. The base map is big but not gigantic compared to some sandbox titles, like the Just Cause games, or even the Far Cry ones. BUT – when you factor in the numerous building interiors and underground areas which load up when you enter them (and some of them are pretty extensive), it all adds up to a huge playing area in total (and that's excluding the DLC areas).

Many a time I've set off for some particular place to do a quest, only to find some other place along the way which will sidetrack me for a couple of hours. Purely by happenstance, I stumbled across a pair of doors discretely tucked away in the basement of a wrecked school which could have been easily missed, and so I decided to see what was in there. What was in there was a whole labyrinthine underground complex (Vault 75) which tied me up for a couple of hours. I don't know if there's a mission at some point that would have sent me there anyway, but I came across it purely by accident – just a couple of nondescript old wooden doors in a disused basement.

Then, after I came out of there, I resumed my journey to my intended destination – only to find the entrance to the Malden Centre just a block or two away, and there went another hour I ended up not getting to where I had originally planned to go – instead, I went back to Sanctuary to unload all the stuff I'd collected. Ada was with me, and she too was loaded down with new weapons, armour and junk, most of which I later bartered for ammo and a few other goodies.

I really like the trading mechanic in the game, it's very cool. I like how it's not merely a case of get money and buy something, like so many other games. It's a full-on barter and trading system that lets you wheel and deal, and sell as well as buy.

[Art Blade]

yes, you can later even "invest" in traders (essentially you transfer 500 bottle caps to their inventory so they will then have like 1,200 bottle caps to buy your stuff with and it will refill to like 1,200 after some time) which means, it's a good idea to build a whole lot of emporiums (one of each type and a few more bars as they supposedly add to happiness, same with doctors/clinics) and then you can walk around and sell your stuff to all of them until either you run out of items or they run out of money Also, charisma and perks will change buying/selling prices. Don't forget to sell your weapon mods which will be stacking up in your inventory after using the weapons- and armor w0#k benches. They're heavy and easy money. Since those mods will be the ones you're not currently using, selling really is a good way of cleaning up your inventory and making money at the same time.

And indeed, sidetracking is the secret name of the game Wait until you see Nuka World and Far Harbor. Those maps are quite impressive, too

[fragger]

Cheers, but I've already got three traders set up in Sanctuary, gonna get the whole set in the near future I made a little marketplace for them all

I wasn't clear on the finer details of Traders though, and I didn't know about the bars at all. Thanks for that

[fragger]

Got some more screenies of my digs, upstairs this time. After this, I promise, no more Home Beautiful spreads

Spoiler

This where I retire from all the yahoos in the pub downstairs.

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At the top of the stairs.

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I've got various bureaus and lockers for storing different categories of stuff –
favourite weapons, melee weapons, big weapons, Legendary weapons, throwables, excess Aid items
(bet those drawers smell nice with Baked Bloatfly and Mutant Hound Chops stored in them), Fusion Cores, outfits, and so on.
Funny how cabinets never fill up. I wish I had ones like that in real life, with a system that finds things and gets them out for me.

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This is where I curl up to have apocalyptic nightmares.

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Dresser and relaxation area. Some cross-dressing Raider stole all my cosmetics and left me with only my hairbrush.

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When I don't feel like dealing with the crazy world upside, I just stay in bed and watch TV all day.
Pity the only thing to watch is a test pattern. More interesting than reality shows though.

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Back downstairs, this is the status of my Bobblehead collection.

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Here's a fort. Ridiculous, I know, but I have great fun building things, so why not. Door's around the side.

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This is a high-rise dorm.

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It's said that if you put beds in multi-level buildings, settlers will have trouble finding a bed on anything above a second level, unless you assign the beds to them. So what I'm doing is assigning some of the second-floor beds to the named characters, and letting the riff-raff choose their own on the ground floor. There are only beds on the first two floors. The rest of the building is empty – I just wanted a nice high viewpoint from the roof, in the centre of town. If those beds fill up, I'll make another smaller dorm elsewhere. If I suspect I'm flirting with build limit issues, I'll knock the two floors off the top and get some of my limit back.

[Art Blade]

hey, don't restrict yourself. Post as many pics as you want, I think it's both something to be sort of proud of if you build something nice and fun to share it, too. Plus I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who likes to take a look at other people's building efforts -- even if, do it just for me and you. Hell, if you go back in this topic, you'll find quite a few pics of mine dealing with my own building efforts 

I really like the details, nice structures and room design Keep 'em coming, mate 

[fragger]

Thanks pal

Yep, I remember you not long ago posting pics of your big storage facility at  the Starlight Drive-in I was thinking of building myself a sprawling private estate there sometime, just for kicks. No settlers though, bugger 'em Might include a bit of an arena.

I better put some good defences in though, I've heard it can be a bit of a hot-spot for trouble sometimes.

[mandru]

The first thing I always do when starting to develop a new settlement is to check the area's height limit.  I go into build mode starting at one edge of the usable area and create a ridiculously tall series of the long straight ladders until I can't go any higher.  If I run into the far side limit of the area before reaching max height I drop a floor panel to turn back the way I came from and continue building upwards until I can't go up anymore.

The highest level that I can drop a platform of floor panels is typically where I set up my generators   Yes, my builds are ugly leaving floating platforms all over the skyline that have no visible means of support once I pull out all the ladders to reach them.  As I remove sections of ladders I leave 1/4 size floor sections with pylons to pull down the power and lay out additional floating platforms to mount my patented Wall-'O-Death defenses.  I know it's cheating but I prefer functionality over pretty. 

I came into the game thinking that the sound of generators and turrets annoyed the settlers (I know the constant noise annoyed me) I wanted to place machinery as high above their living area as possible.  Most of my settlements are whisper quiet other than music from the liberally situated radios all tuned to the Diamond City Broadcast which do (if I understand correctly) add happiness.

I also had it in mind that if power and defense was set up high enough to not be immediately noticeable by attackers it would give my build an edge against direct attack on those features as well as giving the turrets a commanding view and striking position of any intruding threats.  After hot and heavy attacks I always scan my defenses to repair or replace components including water purifiers (which have to be at ground level) as necessary.


I was looking into settlement shops that add happiness and found out that only Clinics, General shops, and Bars/restaurants provide a boost in that level.  While the Weapons and Armor shops may be convenient for the player to buy ammo (you actually find better armor from looting) the settlers that you have outfitted have no need of those shops.

Clinics it turns out have the most happiness boost however they are not without their drawbacks.  I've encountered a problem in trying to upgrade armor and weaponry with the doctors once they've been assigned to a clinic.  Their dialogs don't have a trade option to interact with their inventories. 

I've found that if I want to change the armor and load out of a settler assigned to a clinic I have to drop an assignable garden plant nearby and shift the doctor to tend it so that while they have another occupation I can get at their trade option.  Then once I've made the desired adjustments I shift them back to staffing their original Clinic and store that plant back in the workshop.

[Art Blade]

I can second that, regarding doctors. You found a very cheap and effective workaround there 

[mandru]

As soon as I say something as a fact I trip over it in game and learn something new. 

Another way to deal with doctors not having a trade option in their dialogs is to catch them when they are asleep. 

I tried an experiment with my new understanding of using batch files.  I've created a text document that player.additems full sets of the Zealot Marine combat armor and dropped it into its proper FO3 file to be functional.  After getting the requested armor sets I hauled them over to the Sanctuary armor workbench and converted them to Ultra-Light Marine Assault Combat sets which I believe is the unified armor outfits available to me considering i only have the FO4 base game and the Far Harbor add on.

Then I went to the Oberland Station settlement catching all of the settlers asleep I systematically started waking them one by one and swapped out their previous armor for the new Ultra-Light Marine Assault gear I'd fixed up for them.  This was where I learned the even the settlers assigned to Clinics can have their gear traded out if approached while sleeping.

So now that all the settlers at Oberland are dressed in lvl-5 ballistic-fiber military uniforms and upgraded newsboy caps wearing shiny new feather light Marine Assault sets along with each of them now having their weapons swapped out for a spanking new Experimental 18-A Plasma rifles.  For variety half the settlers are equipped as snipers and the other half have short barrels with reflex sights but both styles should easily outclass anything or anyone that tries to intrude on their happy little home. 

[Art Blade]

excellent observation, mandru, thanks for sharing and for all the stuff you've come up with, here's a +1 from my end 

[fragger]

You have some terrific ideas, mandru +1 from me too.

As both creative and pragmatic as that idea of high, gravity-defying generators is, I suffer from a kind of opposite affectation. You prefer functionality over pretty - I lean towards the aesthetically pleasing and try to shoehorn the functionality in around it. In fact I often wish I could do something about those unsightly, half-ruined houses dotted around Sanctuary, they spoil the look of the place I'm currently spending as much time playing with the building tools as I am doing missions and trekking about.

I think that's one of the cool aspects of FO4, that it accommodates so many different playing styles and individual approaches. You can really make it your own. I think it's one of the most open-ended and flexible sandbox games I've encountered, and it's rapidly becoming one of my favourite games ever (compare that statement to the ones I made when I first started playing. You can now disregard those It took me a little while to discover the real nature of the game, and now I have trouble tearing myself away from it).

It's been an interesting progression for me. First, I was doubtful about the game and didn't even find it terribly appealing. Then it began to open up a bit, and it began to grow on me. Then I decided I wasn't much into settlement management and intended to primarily stick to doing missions while having minimal involvement with settlements. Now the settlement part of the game has dragged me in It's a wonderful game, a successful conglomeration of RPG, FPS, and even a kind of RTS, and it does all those things extremely well. It ticks all my boxes

I just discovered the Vault-Tec Population Management System and built a little one-slab concrete booth (complete with door) to house the terminal in I find it quite useful for monitoring what my settlers are getting up to - or not getting up to, as the case may be. I'm also getting to grips with the electrical conduiting system which is great for distributing power without having wires criss-crossing overhead. I used that to get the power to go through the wall of said booth so that I could neatly enclose the terminal in its own little home, running off the genny that powers my house. The conduiting could do with a few more component options and it can sometimes be frustratingly obstinate at refusing to go where I want it to, but I'm beginning to find creative ways to make it conform.

I've gotten my Gun Nut and Science Perks right up, allowing me access to top-end weapons mods and it's made quite a difference in combat. I no longer have to pump entire clips into Super Mutants to bring them down. One laser zap or Assault Rifle round to the noggin and they go down in a screaming heap. I found a Laser Rifle that does 50% extra damage to SMs and I've modified the dickens out of it, so I called it "Mutant X" and retired my venerable Righteous Authority to a wall-mounted weapon rack in my house for sentimental purposes (I can't bring myself to sell such a coolly-named weapon). I keep my upgraded Plasma Rifle ("Mr. Plasma") for dealing with the real heavies like Alpha Death Claws and Mirelurk Queens, and have my companion lug around my Fat Man for when it really becomes party time. I couldn't help but rename the Fat Man "Jake" - I toyed with calling it "The Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator", but that name would leave trailing dots on my Pip Boy list.

I'd really like to be able to grab some action screenshots when I'm in the middle of an energy-weapon exchange just for the sheer visual coolness factor, but I'm always too busy maintaining situational awareness to hunt for the F12 key. My reflexes may not be fast enough to capture a bunch of laser beams mid-zap anyway, but I wish Steam would allow a remapping of the screenshot key to something closer to where my fingers are on the keyboard so that I might at least have a fighting chance at it.

[Art Blade]

I may be of service here, fragger, thanks for "asking"

1) change screenshot hotkey for steam
Fire up steam (ahem)
In the menu bar, click on Steam
In the pop-up menu, click on Settings
In the window, to the left, 4th entry from top, click on In-Game
In the window, to the right, Screenshot shortcut keys.

2) a trick with power lines (glitch)
I will point out right here that inside the quote further down, the lines in bold are important, read carefully so it works when you try it. Highlight the wire but don't aim at it, aim next to the point (whatever it is) it's connected to.

When done properly, the result will look like a normal electrical wire but it will go through walls and whatever, also through ground. Also, you don't have a limit restricting its length but if it is very long, its "weight" might make it hang lower and lower and even start going underground and emerge again close to the end point. You can use it to your advantage to create a connection that starts maybe inside some structure with a generator, start at floor level, goes right into the ground, below a road or whatever, and emerges inside another building on the other side of the road without any visible wires when walking around on the road and no generator noise in that 2nd house.

the electric wire glitch works. Connect through walls, it works.

It goes like this: aim at the end of a wire where it's attached to whatever electrical unit. Then move your dot-shaped crosshair slightly away of the end of the wire so you are aiming at that connector, while still highlighting the wire.

If you hit the button now that usually starts a new wire (by default it's space on the PC) you will hear that electrical crackling sound that you get if you start a new wire, only this time you cannot see it. Now walk (not jump.. space is the button that connects a wire but also the jump button.. it may cause random unwanted results..) to where you want to "draw the line" through any solid obstacle like walls until you can aim at the connector of the unit you wanted to connect "through a wall" or whatever it is. It will highlight. This time you're supposed to press space in order to connect

and, done.

[Art Blade]

Regarding cool screenshots taken just in the right moment, I don't think that you'll have time for that if you want to survive I've always found it best to take shots during VATS attacks. Like so (the lower pic, the blue trail is from Piper's Gauss rifle)

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[PZ]

One of my favorite parts of the Fallout games is VATS. There was something similar in RDR I think, or one of the western themed games.