Fallout 4

[LowPolyOWG]

Alright. Then that's a new thing in FO76.

[fragger]

I'm just starting to get my head above water on this difficulty. Geez, you have to be careful playing at this level. I ran into a few Super Mutants near Diamond City (including a Legendary) and trying to take them down at my then current Perk level (and with my then assortment of scoff-inducing popguns) was akin to whittling floorboards. I haven't died - yet - but I've gotten into heartbeat territory a few times.

And the damage I take - one good hit and there go a third of my HPs. I've been blowing through Stimpaks, Purified Water and various bits of cooked animal like there's no tomorrow. So I've been living in power armour. T-45 - I don't want to risk going too far afield looking for better PA models until I get a bit more toughened up. To that end, I've gotten up to Level 18 and managed to find a Combat Rifle which I've spiced up a little, so I can hold my own now - at least against low-to-medium-level Raiders. Anything tougher than that and I'll leave a few perfunctory dents in their armour before doing the "better part of valour" thing and making myself scarce.

Even the Feral Ghouls that I was happily biffing out with bare-fisted abandon in my last game are giving me grief. But I'm getting there. I managed to clear the Super Duper Mart in Lexington of the shambling ones without having to shoot up too many Stimpaks.

As indicated above I've ventured as far as DC and I now have Piper along as companion, so I'm not the sole travelling bullet-magnet. But if I encounter a Deathclaw out in the open, I'll be history if I can't get out of mauling range quickly enough

[Art Blade]

That post was so entertaining, mate, that I just had to give you a +1

I feel your pain, so to speak Keep going, keep it up

[fragger]

Thanks for the kudo Art

So far in this playthrough, according to my stats I haven't committed any murders. In my last game, at one point I noticed the stats were showing that I'd committed four murders, yet I was darned sure I hadn't offed any civvies. I don't look at the stats very often (the ones under "DATA/Stats" that is, not the main STAT tab), so I couldn't tell when I had allegedly committed those murders.

So I researched a bit online and the consensus is that false murders are most likely to get in your stats during the Arcjet mission with Danse. Apparently, killing some of those synths (particularly the ones in the final control room) counts as "murder", for some reason. Solution is to hang back and let Danse do all the killing. That means missing out on some XPs though.

I'm a fair way away from that yet, but when I get to it I'm going to try that and see what happens.

Murders don't seem to have any adverse consequences on your character build, but I just don't want to see them in my stats.

I'm innocent, I tell you! Innocent!

[Art Blade]

I experienced the same: I think 10 murders and I don't know how. One or two exceptions may have been random encounters, like Art vs Art, when I misjudged someone ending up killing the wrong guy(s) that weren't synths. Or perhaps killing "innocent" raiders. Maybe it was related to killing off the whole population of Covenant, hehe. No idea, but I too didn't like to be a murderer, however I couldn't undo it.

[mandru]

I get a little trigger happy/overly slashy at times. 

Weapons with area effect (which includes some of my more powerful blades) are probably the source of a few of my murders.  When I've come upon a group of enemies holding a hostage there have been times I've rushed in under stealth mode and failed to check what weapon I've got equipped.  Mistakes have been made when it's too far of a reach back to return to the previous save to correct them.

Oops. 

[fragger]

One consequence of playing on high difficulty is relatively lower quantities of ammo, since it generally takes more rounds to bring down bad guys. .38 caliber weapons are next to useless against anything tougher than the lowest-level Raiders, so one of the first things I saved up for was the special "Spray and Pray" Tommy gun and I kept an eye out for a Combat Rifle. Both use .45 ammo and I've been having to wheel and deal a fair bit to get sufficient amounts of it. Especially the S&P, which uses up bullets like they're going out of fashion.

I'm enjoying this tougher experience so far. Being aware of just how vulnerable I am means making different tactical choices and engaging in more careful play. Until I get my combat-related Perks up to par, I'm forced to be more circumspect and use greater discretion when taking on enemies. For example, if I see any more than two Supermutants travelling in a single group, I'll avoid contact altogether. I also have to think about my skedaddling capabitlity - since my Endurance isn't terribly high yet, I can't sprint for any great distance before getting puffed out, so I have to be careful about what and where I engage and consider if I am within sprinting distance of a good fallback position or escape if things go south (in my last game, I'd gotten my Endurance up to the point where I could sprint all the way from Sanctuary to Abernathy Farm in one go. Now, I can barely get across the old bridge )

It also means I don't want to range too far south and east yet. I'm certainly not up to dealing with the likes of the Quincy Gunners or the mob in the quarry above Vault 88, which is a bummer because I like to get that done early so I can get access to the extra Vault goodies for my settlements.

Far Harbor and Nuka-World should be interesting later...

[Art Blade]

Now, I can barely get across the old bridge )

that's funny, fragger

Yep, that difficulty level makes you think twice before doing anything stupid

On survival, you can only save when there's a bed to sleep in, then you can contract diseases easily (like, from sleeping in beds that you don't own, eew) and you need to eat and drink to stay alive.. which is why you keep finding bottles all over, to pump fresh water in. And you can't drink radiated water of course unless you want to start glowing.. diseases need antibiotics to be cured which are rare, or doctors, of which there aren't many, either. And all what you said, only worse. That's really extreme.

[fragger]

Yeah, I didn't want to do all the eating and drinking and sleeping and stuff, which is why I went for the second-highest level instead. Plus there's no fast travel allowed on Survival mode.

[fragger]

Jeepers... I fast-travelled into the County Crossing settlement to pick up some Mutfruit and the place was being attacked by Mechanist robots. The force consisted of five, count them, five, Tankbots (one of them a Legendary), two Swarmbots (one of them a high-level Quantum with a red skull next to its name) and a couple of Eyebots. The settlers ran out to engage, some of them going into the grounds of the old nuclear power station across the road - where they stirred up a nest of Bloodbugs, and one of those was a Legendary.

I wasn't ready for all that, and I'd beamed right into the middle of it I'd left all my heavy weapons back at base, so I had a fight and a half on my hands. Fortunately I had an armoured-up Ada with me, I had already armed my settlers with Combat Rifles, and I was clad in a suit of X-01 Mk. IV Power Armor, otherwise I would have been in serious trouble. As it was, the suit took a heck of a beating - one leg knocked out, both arms in the red and everything else half kaput.

I only went out for some flipping fruit...

I think I'll be beefing up the defenses at all my settlements until Mecho is dealt with.

Speaking of The Mechanist, apparently there is a way to resolve things without having to fight the waves of robots at the end. I'm going to give it a go - if it works, I'll post the method here.

[mandru]

Good job on surviving that attack.  It was quite the situation you got into there fragger.  Five Tankbots and reinforcements?  Sheesh! 

Exactly the type of situation that makes me wall enclose and highly over mechanize my settlements' defenses.


I have 11 seemingly happy Synths now inhabiting Hangman's Alley for my pure synth settlement experiment.

There has only been one attack there so far.  It was random event of the three Super Mutants with the scavenger hunt list of items they were trying to gather.  I happened to be there at Hangmen's when they approached by way of the pre-equipped fenced and gated West entrance ( I have installed an electric doorway on the East entrance that only opens from the inside).  The whole fracas lasted less than two seconds.

The phalanx of missile launchers (8 total) I have placed up on two levels of scaffolding aimed so they can shoot over that gated fence detected and targeted the intruders before they had a clue that they had wandered into the wrong side of town. 

I don't believe the Super Mutants even got a shot off before all that was left of them was scattered body parts for me to go out and pick through the debris.  I seriously don't think that there was a single limb or head still connected to torsos after that brief salvo.

[Art Blade]

I only went out for some flipping fruit...

I think I'll be beefing up the defenses

That shows the difference between fruit and meat/beef. You'd never been fruiting up the defences..

What a story, mate. Whoa. I'm glad you managed

And mandru, nice story, too

[fragger]

Thanks chaps I've never seen five Tankbots at once. I don't know if it's related to the difficulty setting I'm on, or if there was actually more than one gang of robots involved. I was too busy trying not to get hammered to take a lot of notice of where they came from

mandru, missile turrets are pretty devastating, but (as I recall you mentioned yourself once) they need to be positioned in such a way that they can't fire back into your own settlement, otherwise they damage stuff and put settlers on their bums.

So to that end, I like building missile towers like this one

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and position them so that I can determine the turret's field of fire. It also looks kind of cool aestetically I can also position the turret further back or forward on its platform to expand or contract the field of fire a bit - or, add a third curved wall section at the top to restrict the field of fire even more. It's a bit more of a hassle to wire up (need to use the cabling exploit to get the wire through the wall, and some temporary ladders).

To be sure, there are more economical ways of setting up missile turrets and restricting their fields of fire, but I just like the way these things look This one is near the north-east corner of Sunshine Co-op, which seems to be the direction that most attacks on this settlement come from.

[Art Blade]

sure looks cool

I think the turrets can't fire 360° but I'm not sure. At least when they're on standby, they only move left-right and back in something like a 45° range. However, if you put up a wall like you did, don't you think that if they shot that direction, that they'd blow up themselves when they fire right into a wall in front of them?

[mandru]

sure looks cool

I think the turrets can't fire 360° but I'm not sure. At least when they're on standby, they only move left-right and back in something like a 45° range. However, if you put up a wall like you did, don't you think that if they shot that direction, that they'd blow up themselves when they fire right into a wall in front of them?

I agree that type of defense tower is sweet indeed.  I'd never considered useing those concrete elements together in that combination. 

I'm also seeing how I can use one column of this type (by continuing to build upwards with open front floors) to have multiple levels so I can load them up with varied and additional fire power.

I'm pretty sure all of the automated defenses are capable of flipping around and firing 180° behind their resting positions.  If they can see you they are going to give you grief.

Also my results have been that any of the automated weaponry can only fire on targets that they can visually range.  If a wall or another obstruction (like a tree that can't be scrapped  )  is blocking a target and another piece of weaponry (including your own or a settler's opening fire) the automated unit will activate into alert mode but refrain from firing until it confirms a target is in line of sight.

The only time I've had a missile launcher or a MK7 gun turret harm itself is when I've sloppily placed a unit on the ground instead of being elevated and an enemy gets close enough or spawns right on top of it to put the unit in danger of it's own collateral area damage effect.