Fallout 4

[Art Blade]

Hmm. The other day I was surprised at how I managed to enter Far Harbor without that boat trip, there was an icon; same the way back. I may have missed that detail as well with regards to Nuka World. I'll take a look Actually, I was wondering wether or not they added it as part of some update, regarding Far Harbor. Weird, but anyway, thank you for that tip

And about that island.. alright, fast travelling is an option Usually I don't fast-travel. At least these days, I don't. I believe ever since that incident when I got a warning of a settlement being under attack while I was inside a building in Nuka World, I stopped fast travelling because a test revealed that I can run a lot faster than fast-travelling takes. Well, that was with godmode enabled, so no AP to use up when running constantly. Anyway, I like to walk around or, if necessary, I use a vertibird as a means of fast transportation

[fragger]

I remember we established that the game time deducted for fast travelling is related to the "timescale" setting. Since I like to play in "real time" (by setting timescale to "1" instead of 16 or 20, or whatever the default value is), fast travelling is a viable option. At a timescale setting of 1, about half an hour is deducted for a trip right across the map, whereas on the default setting about 10 hours or something is deducted for the same trip

The trade-off is that it takes a lot longer for enemies/loot to respawn on the "real time" setting, so I end up with a fairly empty world after a while, unless I make myself repeatedly sleep for about a game week. I looked into enemy respawning and it appears that while some areas remain permanently "cleared" after you've done so, many, for instance the ghouls in the Super Duper Mart in Lexington, will keep respawning, but it takes at least one game week to do so. Note that that is when they begin to respawn - they don't all reappear at once, which is why sometimes you'll revisit a previously cleared area and there will only be one or two bad guys inside. If you leave it for longer, over time more enemies will reappear until the full compliment is restored. Loot in a previously cleared area however appears to respawn all at once, after the game-week-or-so time delay (some things, like Power Armor and unique weapons such as the Junk Jet never respawn at all).

In addition, as soon as you revisit a previously cleared area, it will reset the spawn time - so that if you repeatedly revisit a cleared area before any respawning begins, you will never see any respawning taking place there. You need to stay away from the location altogether (or rather, its "cell" - the area of the map it's located in) for the required game week or so in order for respawning to begin. As soon as you revisit the location after respawning has begun, any enemies that have already respawned will still be there, but the timer for new respawns will be reset.

But even then, it varies. There are a few places where enemies seem to respawn with almost every new visit. A couple I can think of off the top of my head are: On the outskirts of the city, roughly between Hangman's Alley and Vault 81 (in the street with the diner on the corner, right near the reservoir); and a spot just north of the Andrew Station Raider hangout (under the ruined freeway overpass, near the Slocum Joe's with the "speakeasy" hatch entrance in its floor). There are a few others. Some don't respawn with every visit, but seem to respawn faster than others, like Satellite Station Olivia.

The upshot of all this is that since the respawn rate appears to be governed by number of game days elapsed, it takes a lot longer for respawning to occur in a "real time" timescale than it does in default.

[Art Blade]

I remember that discussion about real time vs default time and its relation to fast-travelling And because I haven't changed the default time, I keep running around as opposed to fast-travelling That of course means, I don't run into empty locations often.

However, right now I am facing one of those Bethesda bugs: In Starlight Drive-In, in the diner, I have got that well of refreshment I set up and acquired during that Vault88 scenario. It attracts so many people now that I've got a huge population that more people try to flood the diner than is room for them. Resulting in random settlers warping upstairs, even several floors high, and getting stuck there over night, in places that are normally inaccessible or that they normally wouldn't bother to reach. I'll have to move that soda machine to a different place just because of that and I'll quickly find out whether or not the warping stops.

[Art Blade]

Apparently the light was the reason for them to pile up at the diner. It was the only well-lit place and everyone congregated there like moths around a street lamp.

[Art Blade]

I think it's worth mentioning that I dismantled basically everything to find out what the reason for the gathering was, starting with moving that soda fountain and because that didn't help, I dismantled the entire vault structure on top of that diner, all the stairs, everything. And then it dawned on me: damn, it's probably the light. I dismantled several light sources inside the diner, et voilà, they stayed away. Which gave me a breather, I reloaded a savegame from before so I didn't have to rebuild the structure and only focussed on the light. I also moved the soda fountain away from the diner. Now it's all good

[mandru]

Art, I thought you were using a console command "player.placemeat XXXXXXXX" or something like that to avoid fast traveling.

Going into and out of places that can be reached by fast traveling (like Good Neighbor, Diamond City, or Vault 88) where you enter through a door or trigger point that acts as a gate causing a loading transition it is faster for me even if I'm standing right at the trigger point to fast travel in than suffer through a much longer loading time.

Maybe if I lower my resolution off of everything set at Ultra on my graphics I could reverse that situation.  I'll have to check it out.


Gene the dog merchant has no self preservation instincts. 

Intent on storming Gunner's Plaza I'd climbed up the exterior stairway (on that one side of the building) to the roof and dealt with the two Gunners on the back side of the building when I glimpsed an unexpected figure moving out of the corner of my eye.  There's never three Gunners in that area but I'm fairly adaptable to the unexpected in FO4.

I automatically pounded the VATS button preparing to dish up another serving of death and it was only by chance that I spotted the target's name in the display a split second before killing Gene. 

I bought his dog even though I didn't have a spot ready for it so once we'd concluded our transaction(Gene's sorrowful parting words "You, you be a good girl now.") I fast traveled to Abernathy Settlement and set up the amenities for her in the form of a raised well lit covered shelter, clean dog dish, and a carpet under the dog house.

Still the roof of Gunner's Plaza would be the last place I'd expect to encounter Gene.

What is he?  Part of a Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition skit? 

[Art Blade]

"player.placemeat XXXXXXXX"

place meat? Like, place vegetables? That obviously is a typo (supposedly meaning "place me at" whereas there is a command "place at me") however, it's a very funny typo

You're right, at least I used to travel to a place where a named person like Piper lived, the corresponding command is player.moveto 00002F1F to move the player to Piper. Until I recently noticed a strange side effect. All of a sudden, a whole bunch of settlers from Sanctuary, among which were companions, materialised (before relocating settlers) in Starlight Drive-In. They then returned to Sanctuary on foot. I checked, by actually fast-travelling to Sanctuary and running back, they all came walking towards me on roads from Starlight Drive-In. Also, unexpectedly, I suddenly have two new settlers in Covenant, without having that device installed that attracts new settlers. And even stranger, one of them obviously is from Far Harbor because all his lines relate to it. So to avoid any more strange occurrences, I abstain from using that command.

And Gene, hehe, he's a wanderer. I encountered him in different places but certainly not in one like you mentioned

[mandru]

 

[fragger]

I think it should always be borne in mind that the console is primarily a developer's debugging tool, not an actual game feature as such. So it should be used sparingly and with caution. It's like a drug - using it too often and/or abusing it may cause undesirable side effects

Sometimes I too have had to rearrange or rethink a settlement layout because the inhabitants don't behave the way I expect, even when it's as seemingly straightforward as I can make it. At Tenpines for instance, I floored over that whole area of rough ground between where the settlers do their farming and the ruined house, established a bar, seats, a soda fountain and gym equipment in that area, then built an adjacent structure on the very same level with extra beds in it. When the settlers knock off w0#k for the day, they have no trouble moving onto the floored area (it ends flush with the ground at the farm end) and using the facilities therein, but do you think they'll find those extra beds? Nope. The structure with the beds is simply a three-sided barn (with a roof, of course) and all they have to do is walk a few steps from their recreation area and into the bed barn - no stairs or doorways to negotiate, absolutely nothing to obstruct their passage, and plenty of space around the beds, using a bed-placing system which I use everywhere else and which always works fine. They just won't flipping go in there, and apart from two who will use the original mattresses in the pre-existing shack, they'll just stand around all night like mannequins. Apparently, that floored area is somehow throwing them for a loop, but only when bedtime comes. Subsequently, I'm battling to get the settlement Happiness meter above 65, so I may have to rebuild the whole place. There's only six people there, including the original couple.

In Sanctuary, I placed gym equipment in my pad, on the fourth floor of my main workshop building, which is near the roundabout. I put them in there for my own use, to get the temporary Strength and Agility boosts. But I eventually had to get rid of them, because after w0#k half the settlers will wander all the way up from their end of town (near the bridge) and crowd out my digs, even though they have their own gym equipment down their end (two of each type), along with a bar, a soda fountain, a soda mixing station, a slot machine, lights, radios, and plenty of places to sit and recreate. Once I got rid of the gym stuff in my apartment, they no longer darken my doorstep (except for Mr. Vault-Tec, who habitually uses my bed unless I beat him to it).

Well, actually, the settlers do invade my apartment, but only in the early morning before w0#k, not after it. If I get up before w0#k hours, they'll be lounging around in my place and using my w0#k benches on a lower floor. I guess after w0#k they're too buggered to do any workshopping

mandru, I had a similar incident with Gene. I was preparing to clear out Cutler Bend and moved out onto that rough bridge made of old boats. I've come to know the spot which triggers the appearance of several Mirelurk Kings, and was poised to enter it, when who should come along? Gene, of course. He appeared on a bank, then he and his dog began to cross the boat-bridge, which is not that easy to negotiate. Not wanting to involve him or his dog in a nasty monster fight, I waited to see what would happen. He went all the way across and made it to the opposite bank, then continued on his way without incident.

Of course, once Gene was well clear and I subsequently entered the trigger zone, the MKs popped up.

It seems that only the player activates enemy triggers, not AI characters.

But finding Gene - and his dog - on the roof of Gunner's Plaza is a singular moment of wackiness

[mandru]

I've only had one occurrence where the settlers refused to go to bed.  It was at Croup Manor.  Initially I had fixed up the rooms inside the manor with decorations and beds but the five or six settlers I'd attracted at that point refused to go upstairs to use the re-floored and extensive living space I'd created.  So for several nights they stood around and the happiness level refused to climb.

My response was "Fine, you don't like that then try this on for size."

Being cheap with my remaining resources for that site and anxious to move on to other pursuits I tossed up a large minimal shelter between the front of the Manor and the statue out front.  It consisted of a non-walled covered (flat shack roofs with sparse lighting) on bare ground supported only at two of the opposing walls leaving the other two walls completely open and the beds (I'd hauled them all downstairs one by one before I'd learned about storing and reusing items) set out in long rows head to foot with enough gaps in the line up to give ample access for the settlers to reach their assigned bed.

That effort fared about as well as trying to stuff their stubborn a$$es upstairs to the first layout. 

Researching a solution for the sleepless curse of Croup Manor I scoured through the FO4 wiki and eventually came across a paragraph that said settlers will be less than comfortable if their sleeping quarters are not secured with a door leading outside.  It doesn't matter if the door (or several doors) is left flapping open it just gives them peace of mind to know that there's a door at each opening into their quarters. 

There's even a console code that can be used on a bed to see if an individual bed is recognized as Secure.  I didn't bother to jot that code down.  I instead determined to build more suitable sleeping conditions and have never had that problem arise since.

I've had several builds where there is a ladder leading up to the roof through an opening but as far as I know that has never caused the settlers discomfort.  I suspect it's because there is no direct line of access into their sleeping quarters via the roof by way of exterior ladders reaching the ground.

Thankfully other than by being in close proximity to a fatal explosion the ghouls, super mutants, synths and raiders (toss FO4's critters in that list too) have little access to the gift of flight. 


There has been the odd situation where I've come across an occasional settler standing next to their bed asleep on their feet. 

[Art Blade]

I needed some distraction after all that settlement-building and decided to take Danse with me as a temporary companion (and Dogmeat remained my other companion, of course) and by that, the Brotherhood of Steel became my temporary enemy. What better idea could one come up with than to pay the BoS a little visit in their headquarters, the airship Prydwen, right above their military ground base, Boston Airport? So we visited them. Of course, not without loading myself up to the eyebrows with every possible drug the Commonwealth had to offer.. albeit, not all at once. At least not at the beginning.

The reason I did all this was to find out how much damage I can stand and hopefully survive. I did that once with godmode and the firepower and resistance of the BoS was impressive. Now, on very hard difficulty and without godmode, it was going to be a proper test of my character build. The chems were amazing but the chemistry between Danse and me wasn't as good once I killed a few of his former brothers and sisters. Also, he dislikes it when I take chems so he must have started to hate me thanks to the vast amounts of substances I happily indulged My battle goal was to kill each and every one of the Brotherhood of Steel "soldiers," both in the airship and the airport, and to survive it.

Another test was: will I survive a jump out of the Prydwen without wearing any power armour? I know that I died once when I fell into the sea below the airship. This time, however, I was taking more drugs than all musicians of the 1960s combined and I actually survived ALL of this. I then reloaded my previous savegame and now we may all pretend nothing has ever happened, at least the BoS are all back and kicking and friendly

Spoiler

And I recorded all of it It was an epic battle. I collected those BoS holotags so I had proof of how many enemies there were.

My face paint indicates that I was playing out of character.

Enjoy watching that unusual massacre because I don't think you're going to try that yourselves.

[mandru]

Art if this experiment wasn't the mission to blow up the Prydwin I'm interested in hearing how much of the airship's staff respawns when you do finally get around to that detail. 

I use Gunner's Plaza a lot for gathering scrapable resources.  So it would be nice if the Prydwin which is loaded with high tech swag and other useful goodies is a similar repeatable target for junk collection once I deem them as no longer essential to my overall end goals. 


In game there are armors for legs that are Legendary and classified as Acrobat.  The ones I've encountered have a 50% damage reduction from falling.  An interesting aspect of how that 50% percent is calculated is the first leg cuts half of the damage and if the Acrobat legs are worn as a pair the second leg removes the other 50% of damage so there is a net total of zero resulting damage from any fall. 

In my last (uncompleted) run through FO4 I'd collected three different faction's sets of both Acrobat legs before my computer buggered up on me.  So Acrobat legs are out there to be found. 

[Art Blade]

yep, I got a set of acrobat leg armour but I prefer legendary armour with perception perks. And I wanted to see whether or not I could survive that fall without acrobatic legs

It was only a test which means I didn't continue the game after that massacre so I don't know about the respawning. And it was after the end game so I can't blow up the Prydwen anymore. However, it doesn't feel right to kill just everything because I can, which is why I declared it an out of character episode and reset my game to before the test. The BoS isn't essential anymore but I do like to get a lift once in a while using their vertibird taxi services

[fragger]

lol, That was quite the drug-fuelled blastathon in that video, Art

Jumping off the Prydwen reminds me of the time I was way up on the roof of Hub360 without PA and didn't feel like going through a couple of loading screens to get back down. I managed to get a fair bit of the way down by jumping off the roof and landing in the swimming pool many floors below. It worked, but it was a tad hair-raising From there, there is a series of wooden ramps and stuff to eventually get back to street level.


mandru, that's interesting about the doors on sleeping areas. However:

I found the console command for checking if a bed is sheltered or not:

----------
In the console, click on the bed, then type:
getav 334 <ENTER>
The command will return a value of 1.00 if the bed is sheltered, and 0.00 if it is not.
----------

A check on all the beds I placed at Tenpines using this command revealed that they all are in fact sheltered, even without a door or doorway. So I guess the only way I can really check is to give the building a door and see if the settlers go in. At this stage though, I'm suspecting some kind of clipping bug introduced by my wooden decking.

Here's the area in question. The beds are in that structure on the left in this picture

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and on the right in this one, looking the other way.
You can see that the access is quite unobstructed.

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There are three more beds on the upper floor, but I have had beds on multiple floors many times and settlers seem to find them without any problems. They'll even walk up three or four floors to get to a bed, provided the stairs leading up are placed in a straightforward manner. Even so, I've seen them successfully negotiate landings with flights of stairs at right angles to each other.

Anyway, thanks for the info I'll experiment some more.

[Art Blade]

lol, That was quite the drug-fuelled blastathon in that video, Art

Jumping off the Prydwen reminds me of the time I was way up on the roof of Hub360 without PA and didn't feel like going through a couple of loading screens to get back down. I managed to get a fair bit of the way down by jumping off the roof and landing in the swimming pool many floors below. It worked, but it was a tad hair-raising From there, there is a series of wooden ramps and stuff to eventually get back to street level.

Thanks, fragger Although it felt like a "blastathon" while I was playing, watching the vid revealed quite a few speed-breakers like when I was either picking bodies several times over or running around to make sure I didn't miss out on anyone or other passages when I was busy thinking. But it wasn't a scripted movie, it much rather showed how I actually played. Like, I don't know all the drugs well enough to just pop those best suited for the situation. I am still a bit wary because when focussing on perception boosts, some time prior to that video, I noticed a constant increase of the perception value after each chem until suddenly I noticed a decrease. 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.

Regarding that jump down into the pool, the other day I did just the same (after a quick save) and indeed, it was a bit of a rush on my way down, not knowing whether or not it would w0#k

What does w0#k quite well is taking time-slowing chems like Jet, you can steer in mid-air and also jump quite a distance across, and I think it also slows your fall and by that reduces the fall damage. Again something worth checking out "in depth"