Fallout 4

[PZ]

Nice 

Also, nice pic - I still like the apocalyptic setting of FO3 and FO4 

[Dweller_Benthos]

I've said before, Nuka World was a huge opportunity for the game to have a fourth faction to side with to get into the Institute. As Art found, once you do NW you have to essentially erase everything you've done there in order to complete the rest of the game. A choice to continue as the Overboss and complete the main story would have been so cool. But since it was a late add-on, changing that much of the main game would have been a huge amount of w0#k, not to mention the number of bugs it would introduce, especially with people having save games already in progress, so keeping it as essentially an independent story like Far Harbor, was the only choice. Aside from actually including it from the beginning of the game's development, instead of making it a late DLC.

As far as making choices in the game, when presented with something that has a good, bad, or indifferent outcome, I usually went with the one that was going to give me the largest boost in ability.

For instance, going back to Fallout 3, there's the oasis with the living tree mutant guy, Harold or whatever his name was. You had the choice to kill him, leave him alone or do something else if memory serves. two of the options had different outcomes to the story but didn't really affect you as you play the game, but if you killed him (I think) you got a bonus boost in stamina or something, so that's what I did. Now, a person doing a role play would choose a different outcome based on what role they were playing. As I don't role play like that, I always choose the path that gives me the biggest boost playing the game from then on.

In Fallout 4 the biggest choice is to save or destroy the Institute. They had a lot going for them, clean water, power, beds, showers(!), food, etc. Most likely, I would side with them under any other circumstances. But as far as the game goes, to maximize stuff to do after the main quest, having the most factions alive was what I wanted and went with the Minutemen and the peaceful ending with the other two factions around for quests and stuff to do after the main quest. The fact that the Institute had to be destroyed was a bit of a bummer, and the fact it left a crater was something to consider as that part of town was no longer available. Not to mention the bridge to the city that's the easiest access to hangman alley and diamond city was also gone was a bit of a bummer as well.

[mandru]

On the topic of The Croaking of Mama Murphy.

fragger, since you still have that strung out old sack of bones moping around in her "Special Chair"* (more on that later) if you have a high level Charisma and all the levels of the Lady Killer skill set (under charisma) It is possible to get firm with mama and convince her that her life is more important than The Sight.  I don't know if there's an accompanying perk that goes with succeeding in drying her out but it does perk her up,  get her back up out of the chair, and moving around the settlement like part of the community. 


* When I have Mama's special chair (and she's installed herself in it) I always pick up a distress signal notification (with radio beacon) that picks up as I enter Sanctuary and again a pop-up notice that the signal has been lost when I leave.

Is anyone else getting that?

[Art Blade]

not that I'm aware of, mandru.

Yep, when I let her live, I was also able to relocate the chair of hers. This time I might have her take a sweet dosage of every chem I can muster, and load her up to her eyeballs.

D_B, you were essentially the reason why I followed the guide I keep referencing which allowed for the maximum of quests and leaving everything alive but the Institute. This time however, I am very, very tempted to side with the Institute. I still have got my other character with the good outcome and everyone alive so I can afford a totally different playthrough with my second character.

[Art Blade]

So here we go. I need to get into the Institute. Because there is no straight way in and because I still don't want to meet Preston, I have to infiltrate the Railroad.

In a way I was truly role-playing: when I went through their secret entrance in the church and met them for the first time, I was being completely honest, reacting to questions the way I would have in Damascene's place. Even when Deacon was trying to "sell" me to Dez and I should have chosen "back him up," I didn't. Instead I said, "do we know each other?" He then made up something: "I didn't need to meet you to hear about you. You made waves," and so on So when Desdemona interviewed me I said that (indeed, not during this playthrough) no one had told me how to get there, that I didn't know about Synths nor about the Institute and, after Dez didn't want to go into detail why, that I wasn't willing to just die for any random Synth. I believe she really was on the verge of killing me, it was hilarious  I think that was a situation she would have violently slammed the door shut behind her if it had been scripted

Funny enough, Deacon wouldn't let me go that easily. Only to get what I, the player, want, I had to pretend that I was willing to help their cause so they let me sign up. In the background, wearing a white baseball outfit and some raider armour, is Porter "Travis" Gage. If you look closely, he's wearing a "shock collar" that I picked from the dead body of a slave in NW. Actually, I shot that slave in the head only to see whether I could pick up that collar. Because I could, I wrapped it around Travis's neck and checked my stats, killing that slave didn't even count as murder so I left his corpse right there and went on. They wear those things around their necks, with a little red light that keeps flashing. Supposedly the collar explodes when they try to leave NW and I was curious to see whether it was going to blow Travis's head off once we left for the Commonwealth but he is still wearing it and his head, too. Desdemona should have noticed his flashing collar and because moments before she had told me the Institute treated Synths like slaves and how she needed to free them, she should have made that connection. One more reason for her to go ballistic

RR first contact
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RR truth be told
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RR Travis and I sign up
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[fragger]

@mandru, that technique for persuading Mama Murphy to get off drugs may not w0#k so well for me. I have my Charisma level up to 10, but if you play as a woman, you don't get the "Lady Killer" perk - instead, it is replaced with the "Black Widow" perk which boosts your powers of persuasion over men instead of women.

I'll give it a shot though, maybe by utilizing some charisma-boosting drugs and clothing.

Good story, Art I'm thinking of being a difficult, sarcastic dick in my next game, just to see what happens. I've been the soul of congeniality in this one.

[Art Blade]

cheers

I'm essentially still playing a good character, considering that I could have killed virtually everybody but I limited myself, as usual, to killing (mostly) enemies. Only because it somehow fits my raider image, and like you I want to allow myself some evil episodes for a change, I do make some nasty exceptions. And it has been fun Albeit I could never go full evil and bad. But choosing some speech options that I wouldn't have with my other character, already made me laugh quite a few times

[fragger]

  Same here, it's not in my nature to be nasty

Well, I got Mama Murphy up off her backside. It never occurred to me to try to get her off drugs, thanks mandru for the initial suggestion

To compensate for not having the Lady Killer perk, I donned this Charisma-enhancing combo
(and made a bold fashion statement in the process ) :

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The Laundered Green Dress gave me +2 CHR, the Dark Rimmed Glasses added +1 CHR and the Trilby Hat added another +1 CHR. I've also got the Charisma Bobblehead, and for good measure I also grabbed some Grape Mentats out of the locker for another +5 CHR - then forgot to take them before I went to see Mama Murphy Turned out I didn't need the drugs anyway, she came good with what I had.

She's up and pulling her weight now. I know I'd gone as far as I could with her visions anyway, so it's all okay.

[Art Blade]

Cool And Jesus, that outfit of yours! Almost made my glasses crack Then again, most of the women in the UK dress like that.

In my case, D_B told me to talk her out of it Good team here  And I think CHR 10 is enough, you can indeed up it with a pair of glasses, a hat, and perhaps some other apparel to something like 14 or more. If you pop some chems on top then you're going over the top

Here, I'm being mean: The first mission, get that prototype out of a Synth-infested compound.

With this second character I sometimes enjoy making choices that are really nasty and evil.. like this one (I edited a follow-up line into the pic) which I could have avoided easily. Normally I'd have sent Ricky home or at best asked him to help as a sniper from up there. This time, however, I asked him for a distraction that required him to pick his way through "the mother of all mine fields" and if he survived that, he'd have to toss explosives at the very aggressive Synths who were lying in ambush for us. In other words, I sent him on a suicide mission just for fun. Err, for the good cause.

RR being evil
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There's something else I'm going to do differently. Remember that elevator? You can try to go full frontal assault and use the elevator, just to find out they cut the power so you can't use it. What remains is the first option that you ignored, using the secret tunnel through the sewers so you have to go through there anyway.

However, this time I picked the first option straight away and went in through the sewers. Which, having arrived at the Switchboard, caused Deacon to tell us hey, there's an elevator, a shortcut to get out of that compound. I'll check whether I can avoid taking that elevator and go all the way back we came in and then still do the frontal assault at the Slocum's Joe "afterwards" instead of "first"

I have to add this: Interestingly, despite Travis being part of a late DLC and despite the fact that even the wiki doesn't mention him as a companion when doing that quest, he does have comments he keeps slipping in. Like, when the vault with the prototype was open or at least around that time down there, he said that the place looked as if someone had left in a hurry which wasn't a good sign. Nice And he really enjoys me picking locks, like Piper does, so it has been easy and fun with him around. Plus he likes the mean approaches and intimidation speech options 

[Art Blade]

I tried going back, it worked. Only in my case it wasn't really worth it because I sent Ricky to play suicide bomber with a mini-nuke, I unfortunately I didn't see how he blew up himself. It would have been more fun if he had been assigned the sniper position.

So I reloaded and went the designated path, from the Switchboard up the elevator out through Slocum's Joe. The moment I opened the door (after the loading screen) we heard a massive bang somewhere nearby. Ricky had just turned hero and taken out all the synths and perhaps one or two mines. I found his torn corpse right outside Slocum's and a handful of fragged Synths and one wrecked turret. Most of the mines were still there and a couple of ghouls came running at us after I had shot some mines.

At least this game doesn't lock up every part you came through, unlike other games (yes, UBI*bleep*, I mean your *bleep*) so it is worth trying out some alternative ways if you want

[mandru]

I know this isn't a mater of concern for most people but on my first time through FO4 I ran into some cases of conscience regarding how and where to place my companions once I'd achieved full affinity with them and gained their perks.

Cait (whom I really didn't want to return to the Combat Zone), MacCready and others like Dogmeat it really didn't matter where I parked them other than their point of origin.  But companions like Piper who has a little sister who would be left alone and the situation with Nick Valentine's secretary (who deeply cares for and loves him) it seemed wrong to leave him anywhere other than in his office so she could continue to fuss over him.

(I know I'm an unrepentant romantic.  )

I found that when in the dialog for dismissing a companion and being presented with the list of settlements I wanted to send them the settlements were not the only option.  If I return those companions to where I initially engaged them before dismissing them and hit Cancel instead of selecting a settlement it would cause them to stay there at home.

I prefer being a sole wanderer.  Having a companion is too much like an escort mission which is something I've always disliked but on the other hand I want the companion perks.  So I tend to dismiss them once I've met the affinity requirements.

I was concerned with reengaging Nick for Far Harbor after our initial stint and completing Nick Valentine's character missions in the base game finishing with returning him to his office.  But when I became aware of the additional dialog options that were available having him as a companion would present while running though the Far Harbor content I took the risk and enlisted his services again.

Fortunately once we were done I was able to successfully return him to his office even on a second time companion hook-up. 

[fragger]

I'm the same mandru. I tend to think about where dismissed companions will "fit in" best and be most comfortable, which is why Hancock ended up at The Slog and Ada went to Graygarden. I know it doesn't matter one whit to the gameplay, but it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy

I found this interesting. I was curious about a couple of songs on Diamond City Radio: "Uranium Fever" and "Crawl Out Through The Fallout". Thinking they were probably "joke" songs recorded for the game, I was surprised to learn they were both legitimate releases. Uranium Fever was recorded in 1955 by Elton Britt, when there really was a "uranium rush", like a gold rush, in the US after WW2 and into the early 50s. It began when the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) encouraged prospectors to seek out domestic sources of uranium and offered lucrative rewards for doing so. Crawl Out Through The Fallout was recorded in 1960 by Sheldon Allman, shortly after the "rush" had ended and the Cold War began to shift into high gear, creating a more sobering awareness of all things atomic. The sardonic tone of that song reflected the way atomic power had come to present itself in the public awareness - not as a key to the future, but as a potential annihilator of it.

Even though FO4's story begins in 2077, its setting is as though either American culture never left the fifties, or fifties culture in America came a lot later than it did in reality. Either way, it's a really clever piece of game conception. After WW2, many Americans really did believe that a prosperous future would be provided by limitless atomic energy. The harsh realities of the Cold War would later throw a pretty big bucket of ice water on such bright dreams.

[Dweller_Benthos]

I did the same thing with companions, sent them home when I was done with them. I even loaded a mod that can change where a companion is sent, because if you send them to any other settlement at any time, they can no longer go back home, that settlement will now become their home and the default place they will go to if you use the cancel option when sending them somewhere.

So I sent Nick back to Diamond City using the mod as I had previously sent him to Sanctuary. Cait is at the castle, because the Combat Zone is just nasty and since she's cleaned up now, I figured it was better to have her there. Piper and Ada are at Sanctuary as well as Dogmeat, who has his own doghouse next to another dog I got from the random dog seller you can run into sometimes, so they are buddies. The rest are all where they came from, except for Danse who's the sole occupant of Starlight drive in. The only one I wish had more options was MacCready, you really should have the option to send him home to his sick kid.

[Art Blade]

since I've only one complete playthrough, I can only tell about that.

It never occurred to me to send them back. I much rather had all of them together, a bunch of companions, so to speak, which was in Sanctuary. Later I sent Strong to Covenant to live by himself, then I sent him to Graygarden to where I had sent all my robots in the meantime.

The robots, as D_B pointed out, never get over 50% happiness so I needed to relocate them, away from Sanctuary, and Strong got on my nerves with his loud clomping and him standing in front of the dormitory at night. He also used to hang around near where I'd w0#k on my power armour or bring home a new set, and he always disliked me getting in and out of one. So off he went. Best fit in with the robots, I thought.

Later I created a synth colony at Starlight (all my synth companions) which is where Nick is now, among friends.

fragger, interesting background info there regarding nuka songs.

[Art Blade]

the pic was taken shortly after the explosion of a "fragmentation grenade MIRV" (basically a cluster bomb) which I had tossed up a roof-position of some wasteland raiders somewhere to the right.

pic of the day 01 (enlarge to see the flying raider)
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..and introducing myself to Bunker Hill. Enlarge if you can't read it.

who's there?
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