Fallout 4

[LowPolyOWG]

Good luck 

[Art Blade]

Cheers

Hmm.. maybe I'll try to avoid the minutemen ending this time, already got that with my main character.

Since it's already a character I started with as a raider, I might as well choose someone else to play along with.

contains info about the end game, be warned

Let's say, the ones I like the least are the BoS fellas. They're too fascistic. But they have vertibirds for fast travel.. already got that with my other character as I didn't kill them (because of the vertibirds)

The Railway might be an idea, they're crazy but I can sympathise with them to a certain extent. However, they brainwash synths and erase their whole memory.. which is also something one could discuss the ethical aspect of.

The Institute. Hmm. Would be interesting to see what they're up to if they "win" thanks to me having a say in who does. A clean underground world.. And it would be a "family business." That would be interesting. Become the new boss.. They're almost like the mafia. Enslaving some of their own, hunting down dropouts for a w0#k-over when back home.. they have their home-made goons in form of Coursers.. Hmm.

We'll see

[Art Blade]

Apart from that interlude, back to normal posts about what IS going on now.

I had some game crashes, hard, straight to the desktop. After some guesswork it turned out to be too much what I was carrying in my inventory. Like 4,500/350kg or some such. So apart from fast travelling, I walked, as opposed to ran, to my NW head quarters and unloaded all the *bleep* into a box there. I fear that I can't access it anymore at some point (NW storyline) so I'm very reluctant. But the crashing has stopped

[Art Blade]

I met this guy here in the wilderness, his name is Mac.. he runs a bar out there

Mac
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[mandru]

hanks Art I found the Emporium. 

Last time I finished the end game with the Railroad.  They too had acquired vertibirds and gave me access to smoke grenades to call and use flight for travel.

Unfortunately Mac isn't available as a possible settlement shop keeper.  In some of his dialog he might state that the rent in a settlement is too high.

[fragger]

@mandru, I too set Mr. Vault-Tec up in Sanctuary with a tier-3 Trader store (Emporium). I have to go through his spiel about "feeling swell" every time I trade with him though, which gets rather old. I also invested in his store so that he would have more junk to sell, including those much-sought after (by me) Biometric Scanners and Microscopes for their Fiber Optics components.

I too like to keep my settlements small, generally. My most populous one is the Castle (20 people) followed by Sanctuary and Hangman's Alley, @ 14 settlers each. Ones like the Somerville Place and Murkwater Construction I've left as they are, with 3 and 2 people respectively. I'm building up Sunshine Tidings though, both for its proximity to my main base of ops at Sanctuary and because I'm turning the big shed there into my main power armour workshop/depot, which I want to keep relatively close to my prime digs. Sunshine has a nice big build area too, with plenty of room to provide the frustrated architect in me with an outlet for building flashy but pointless constructs

It's also a good jumping-off point for the occasional raid on the Federal Ration Store (via the back way in through the Lonely Chapel) for the plethora of steel and aluminum knick-knacks I can swipe from the place. I just have to leave it alone long enough for all the cans and buckets and such to respawn in there. The opponents are all low-level Raiders who bite the dust with a single laser zap, so it makes for an easy sweep. I stop when I reach the door that leads to the entrance bunker, then go back the way I came with all the goodies.

A tactic I regularly employ when going on a scrounging run like that is to take along some Grilled Radstag to gulp when I reach my carry limit, which temporarily boosts my carrying capacity (there are always three Radstags hanging around the crashed Vertibird near Satellite Station Olivia, where I periodically go to hunt for meat). I usually load up my companion as well, plus I want to adapt one of my suits of PA with the "Pocketed" mod so I can carry even more on these forays. I've got 8 full PA suits now, with almost enough complete sets of spare pieces to equip the four additional frames I have. Still chasing those elusive X-01 pieces, both left limbs still to get. I like to "specialize" my suits, like having a lead-lined one if I know I'm going into a heavily irradiated place like FH or the Glowing Sea, a Prismatic one if I suspect I'll be facing a lot of energy-weapon zappery, a straight-up heavy-impact resistant one, a charisma-enhancing one with a Minuteman paint job, and so on.

You're right, you can't give kids orders. At Nordhagen Beach, I felt sorry for the two adults and the kid having to sleep on their ratty old mattresses on the floor, so I built a small structure and put three nice new beds in it. I then found that the game wouldn't let me scrap the existing mattresses, so I went to manually reassign the people to their new beds. I assigned the adults okay, but it wouldn't let me assign the kid to his.

I don't know why you can't command kids. Maybe there's some kind of politically-correct fanaticism behind it Which is pretty ridiculous, considering that kids in the game are exposed to all kinds of nasty people, killer robots, rad storms and horrifically-mutated monsters. But no, you can't tell kids what to do under any circumstances, heaven forbid

I hit old Mama Murphy up one time too many with Psycho and after having a vision, she keeled over and fell dead out of her chair. A red down arrow immediately appeared next to Sanctuary's happiness gauge and Marcie and Sturges came over and boxed my ears for letting her croak. Luckily I'd done a save very soon beforehand so I went back to that. I was already way ahead of her visions by then anyway, so the old meth-head can just keep sitting in her chair and sponging off the colony from now on. Happiness has remained at 100% in Sanctuary and it would be nice if I could keep it that way.

I'm curious - is there any underlying story regarding the "Art vs. Art" spat I come across from time to time? One is apparently human and one is apparently a synth as, according to the V.A.T.S. readout, there is a "friendly" Art and an "enemy" Art. I always help out the friendly Art, who afterwards goes on about "that thing" having his face, but I'm starting to wonder if I'm targeting the wrong Art in these encounters. Or maybe each encounter is just a kind of McGuffin.

EDIT: My mistake, PA can't be pocketed, only body armour. However, I made a suit of Polymer Combat Armor with the Deep Pocketed mod on all pieces, which will allow me to carry up to 410 - a temporary 420 if I do a weights workout, and a temporary 445 if I eat some Grilled Radstag as well. PA doesn't add to this, in fact it negates all of it and drops the carry capacity back down to whatever it is without the boosts. Using the Military paint job on PA doesn't boost carrying capacity as much as Deep Pocketed Combat Armor does, so I won't bother with that. I guess I could fit out a human companion with Military PA (or get Strong to do the lifting) if I really want to lug a big load. I imagine I could boost carry capacity even more with the Lone Wanderer perk in addition to the other boosts, but I don't have that as yet so can't confirm.

So many options...

[fragger]

Art, here's something that may be of interest to you, from the Wiki, regarding building the institute signal interceptor later in the game if you've already done Nuka-World:

"In order to build the interceptor with the Minutemen, Preston Garvey will ask that the Sole Survivor first check on Sturges and complete Sanctuary when The First Step starts.

However, if Nuka-World is installed, and the Sole Survivor becomes the Overboss of Nuka-World prior to completing When Freedom Calls, then Preston Garvey will no longer w0#k for the Sole Survivor and build the interceptor with them, and in order to w0#k with them more, they must wipe out the Nuka-World Raiders first, giving an opportunity to start Open Season, the quest that involves the destruction of the Nuka-World Raiders and freeing Nuka-Town's traders from slavery".

There's also this, not necessarily about NW though:

"If the player character has already asked a faction to help in building the signal interceptor, it is possible to reset this quest branch point. For instance: If the player character allied with The Railroad to build the signal interceptor, then return to Tinker Tom and barter with him. Look for the Signal interceptor plans and buy them back at no cost. After this, kill Tinker Tom. This will place the Sole Survivor in bad standing with The Railroad. However, now the player character can speak to the other factions (Brotherhood of Steel or the Minutemen) for help with building the transporter".

Following this course of action depends on whether you're willing to risk alienating two of those three factions, I guess.

I'm currently at the stage where I've had the chip decoded, reported back to Virgil and now have the three optional paths of having the Minutemen, the Railroad or the BoS help me build the teleporter. I'm going to hold off on going any further in that direction until I've completed as many other outstanding quests as possible (barring Nuka-World). I still have the main BoS branch to do yet, starting with Shadow of Steel. I get the impression that building the teleporter will be a watershed moment and will usher in Act III of the drama, and I want to get as much else done as I can before then.

400 hours in now and at Level 81. I don't think I've ever put in so many hours on a single playthrough of a game. It's huge.

EDIT: Actually, I went back to a save at a point just before I had the chip decoded, so that I can still talk to the leaders of the factions involved without having to get into the whole thing about getting their help to build the teleporter.

[fragger]

Here's something interesting. Remember when I posted about a console command you can enter that tells you how many, if any, synths you may have in a given settlement, and how it told me I had one in Sanctuary, but I didn't know who it was? Well...

Sanctuary got attacked by five Gen-1 synths, but they couldn't get in through the protective wall I'd built. My high turrets took out three of them, and I went outside the wall and took out the others (I've left a spot with some steps where I can jump over the wall near where any attacks appear to originate, should the need arise, as it did on this occasion).

Soon after, I noticed that the settlement population had dropped by one. I know for a 100% dead certain fact that I didn't shoot anyone but two of the attacking synths outside the wall - then I noticed that my Armor Store woman was missing. After searching high and low, I found her still behind her counter - or rather, the pile of glowing ashes that used to be her. When I examined the remains, there was a Synth component among them.

I know it was definitely her and not an enemy who'd spawned inside the wall because the remains had the word "Settler" above them.

From where her remains were, there was no way any of the attacking Gen 1s could possibly have targetted her. That led me to wonder - was it a glitch and a Gen-1 nailed her right through a high concrete wall where it couldn't possibly have seen her, or did one of the other settlers zap her? Could she have joined in the synth attack on the settlers and they shot her in defense? I didn't see what happened inside the settlement as I was outside the wall. I doubt it was a turret either as they are all heavy machine gun ones around there and those don't vaporize people, and anyway she was well outside any turret's line of sight.

In any case, I know who the synth was now. A subsequent check using the console command confirmed that I no longer have a synth in town. So it appears that while (human) settlers are immune to death during settlement attacks, synth replacements are not.

[Art Blade]

ha! You know what I love these days? The first time of the day that I fire up my PC and check OWG for unread posts, there's a TON of new stuff to read in FO4 Thank you, guys, this alone makes my day already

And oof. What a ton to reply to

mandru, thanks for the info both on the RR end (I never knew they had vertibirds) and on Mac. And I'm glad you got your emporium

fragger, I just saw you pop up on the forum so I suspect you're going to slip in one before I finish with this post

With my first character, I have Sanctuary with the highest population of 35 followed by Sunshine Tidings with 24. Hangman's Alley 14, Graygarden 11 (my robots and Strong are there) and The Castle with 8. Then a few with 4, 3 and 2, supposedly with locals I can't relocate and haven't yet disabled or killed. All of the remaining settlements are zero because what couldn't be stuffed into Sanctuary (charisma limit) had to bite the dust

With my second character I plan to avoid any beacons (unless forced to by a quest) and I will disable them right after building those However, my raider settlements don't have beacons and for reasons unknown, they keep bloody growing! I found myself checking pending missions and always came across the pip-girl's "workshop" entry showing me missing beds and a population higher than the last time I checked. Of course I had to comply and that had me fast-travelling around several times until I decided to load the settlements with spare beds so they can keep filling up the space without requiring my constant attention. lol.

The "Art vs Art" reoccurring is a bug D_B once told me, I only saw them once and killed the human. Oops. Then I killed the Synth, too. Double Oops. Apparently you're doing better

Mama Murphy croaking, yeah, good you reverted that

Thanks for the info about Preston in relation to NW I already knew it would come to that, if I wanted to play with Preston, I'd have to kill all NW raiders and finish the storyline of NW for good. Which is why I'm beginning to tend towards a different way because I already finished the game with the minutemen with my first character. I might try and keep the raiders but at least I made up my mind regarding the minutemen ending. Whichever way I'll choose, I don't know for certain yet. I'm tempted to go with either RR or the Institute

400 hours for one playthrough is a lot  I'm glad you're enjoying it so much. Same here, I think I hit 1,000 before continuing towards the end game

Interesting story about your infiltrator synth I have got an idea why she was killed. She might have turned hostile the moment the other synths were attacked. And every settler will have turned their heads and shot her the same instant. Do they have access to laser rifles or institute guns (blue instead of red lasers) so they could have turned her into a glowing red pile of ashes?

And no, you didn't slip in a post.. you've buggered off. Probably returning any time soon

[fragger]

Ah, of course, good point about the colour of the ashes. They were red and all my settlers have their "standard issue" laser pistols, so it must have been them. I was forgetting that the Institute lasers with their blue beams leave blue ash piles, not red ones. So that rules them out.

I noticed that her "Citizen" laser pistol wasn't among her remains, so I tried to open a trade dialog with the other settlers to see if any of them had an additional one that they might have taken from her and which would pinpoint he or she as the culprit - or one of the culprits - but none of them did, so it must have just disappeared or fell under the floor or something. Which sucks, because that was one of the "custom" ones I made especially for settlers. The only two settlers I couldn't check were Mr. Vault-Tec as you can't seem to trade with him when he's working in a general store, and the guy on the Clinic counter, whom you can't trade with either - at least, not while he's on duty.

But anyway, because I've now gone back to an earlier save to a point before I had the Courser chip decoded, synth-girl settler is back and the attack on Sanctuary hasn't happened - yet.

[Art Blade]

interesting, interesting

the only way to quickly interact with the VT Rep is to assign him to something else, like one (new) food plant (careful it might deassign a farmer) then talk to him, then reassign him again. "Real" Doctors can't be accessed via trade as far as I know, settlers turned docs can be deassigned like the VT Rep.

Regarding that synth lady, have you checked again whether or not you've got that one synth back in your settlement? If she is a synth then you could try to dispose of her..

[Art Blade]

I was just thinking that you guys appear to have abstained from any mods so far. Mandru commented about how complicated it was in FO3 (three, not four) which I too remember. Then it was the so-called load order that got mixed up once and then.

Now, with FO4, it's a tad simpler as the load order won't change. What that load order is: like a layer cake, first the "mods" that comprise the base game ("00") and all DLC ("xx" from 01 to 06) and then the "real" mods are added (07 to whichever many you've got)

You can do it manually but that's still a hassle. D_B pointed out that he's been using the mod manager from nexus (NMM, nexus mod manager) which takes care of the load order and all the stuff for him. I decided to try it and I have to say, life is MUCH easier with that program.

Simply check out https://rd.nexusmods.com/fallout4 and to the top right you'll see a button "install NMM 0.63.14" which you should download and install first. After that, almost every mod you'll find at the nexus will show two options: manual download and download with NMM.

To register with nexus WITHOUT having to pay, simply go to register and when you see all the options for premium membership and all that, the trick is NOT to check ANY of those check boxes. That will give you a FREE registration. It is necessary to register because downloading "bigger" mods require it.

You'll find virtually everything you can possibly want. Ranging from cosmetic changes to UI overhauls to cheats.

[fragger]

Just did a check, the synth is back. So it must definitely be her. I might have to arrange a little "accident"

I'll see what happens if those synths attack again. If they do, I'll stay on the inside of the wall and watch what transpires.

I'll defo keep mods in mind for next time. I've never been much of a mod guy, I've always gone with the standard games. I might make an exception in this case. I've never been keen on the idea of introducing mods part-way through a game, especially when I've invested so much time and effort in this 'thru. I'd kick myself stupid if anything got mucked up at this point and I don't want to risk it. But from a brand-new start, I might have a look at doing it

[Art Blade]

 

[Art Blade]

I've finished the NW main story line. Turns out that my choice how (more precisely, with whom) to end the NW story line gave me two perks that are very useful and the one that I excluded due to that choice wouldn't have been as cool so it was all good. During all that, I also achieved Porter Gage's maximum affinity and the resulting perk is also useful. Additionally, I ranked up to level 31. All in all, it was fun

I am now free to do whatever I want regarding the rest of the game and DLC.

Just for you chaps a view of (most of) Nuka World
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