Fallout 4

[mandru]

If you decide to go that "Elevated Freeway" route fragger keep in mind that it might foul up your supply lines for that location.  It's not something I plan on applying as a build but I find the prospect interesting.  Let us know if you do give it a try. 


Dismissing a companion and following them to find your way out of a maze makes more sense that Hansel and Gretel's trail of bread crumbs. 

In some of FO3's more complex sewers and tunnels i had to resort to carrying light disposable junk (ashtrays, coffee cups, partially smoked cigars etc...) so that when I hit one of those intersections where I ran into one of those "Have I been here before... I think I've been here before... I've been here before!" moments, I could drop three pieces of the junk and arrange them in a unique way to mark the intersection to let myself know "Yes" I'd been there and which way I'd gone my last time past that point.

I've not run into too many of those situations in FO4.

[Art Blade]

Indeed, FO4 isn't that horrible regarding mazes but still, there are a few that are quite tricky. Particularly if a building consists of more than one indoor map you'd see a loading screen when transitioning or those long elevator rides.

hehe, the bread crumbs solution I did something similar in FO3, mandru However, I'm still a bit reluctant regarding items you leave in the open or stash away in some random location because those cell refreshes that keep happening will delete items that don't belong. I have no idea how well this works in FO4. Sometimes I find stuff I dropped somewhere long ago, then I don't find stuff that I left to pick up later.

[Art Blade]

What happened here?
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Here's the story. I finally had the pleasure once more to go to Slocum's Joe at General Atomics Galleria to enjoy a hot coffee. At least that's what Bean, the robot bartender with Codsworth's voice, promised me. Here a transcript of the events as they played out.


Bean: Howdy there! Come on in! Welcome to Slocum's Joe! Can I set you up with a nice hot cup of coffee? On the house!
Damascene Blade <looking around>
Bean: Looking for a nice hot cup of Joe?
Damascene Blade: Is that all you've got?
Bean: I'd offer you some of our world-famous donuts, but I'm afraid they went stale a few weeks ago. Pretty much everything else has, too, come to think of it. So the coffee's about all that's left. Can I get you some?
Damascene Blade: Is there a gas leak in here?
Bean: Err.. yes. I put in a w0#k order about fifty years ago. They certainly are taking their time with it, aren't they? Well, no harm done, I suppose. Now how about that coffee?
Damascene Blade: Sure.
Bean: Coming right up. Here at Slocum's Joe, all of our coffee is heated to a perfect two hundred - hundred - hundred degrees Fahrenheit.
Damascene Blade <waiting for the show>
Bean: You might want to stand back.

And then, with a remarkable bang,
there was fire everywhere which almost took out Bean.
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However, what in the end did take out Bean in a split second
were Dog and Gage. He used explosive rounds.
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[mandru]

 

[PZ]

I've never liked mazes in games - seems like a waste of time trying to navigate them when you could be doing much more fun things 

[fragger]

There are some quite labyrinthine interior areas in FO4, but they're not so complicated or samey all over that you could get hopelessly lost in them. And all of those will have a "quick exit" of some kind, meaning that even though the journey into and through these areas may be quite a trek during the course of a mission, there will be a quick way out once the mission has been completed. These quick exits are designed in such a way that you can't get in through them unless you have completed the associated mission, e.g. during the course of your wanderings you might find a door, but if you try to open it, the game will tell you that it's chained from the other side. Doing the associated mission will eventually allow you to unchain it from that other side. Of course, you won't know what you have to do to unchain it, but whenever you come across something like that, a way to get through will become available eventually (sometimes it's just a simple case of finding another way around to get to unchain the door. A chained door doesn't always mean there is a whole mission involved in getting it open).

Another example is one place where there is an elevator hidden behind a swinging bookcase in the basement of a shop. If you try to activate it, it tells you that it requires power. Turns out that you can only get the power on by doing the mission that eventually lets you use the elevator to quickly get out. But once you've done that, the elevator remains powered, so you can use it anytime to get back in should you want to.

Usually, once you have done a mission, its quick exit will then be accessible from outside throughout the rest of the game (if you can remember where it is ) It's not always the case, but mostly it is.

On a sidenote, I'm getting close to 500 hours into the game and I'm still finding places I haven't found before. It's an exploring gamer's paradise I like how once you've discovered any of the scores of marked locations on the map they immediately become fast travel points, so after a while you can get almost anywhere quickly. Or you can walk, have adventures and find new places along the way, it's your choice. The game world is big but not gigantic (including the Far Harbor Island, it's about the size of one half of FC2's map, i.e either the north or south district) so you can walk across it in a reasonable time if you want to. Since there is no vehicular transport (except Vertibirds, but it's not like you can fly them yourself) you wouldn't want the map to be gigantic anyway. It's the perfect size for the game it's in.

[Art Blade]

How I met and helped myself.

Originally, I was on my way to do a "Randolph Safehouse 5" mission when I heard someone not really close to me asking for help. I couldn't see anyone so I started throwing Hallucigen grenades into a tall building, aiming higher and higher until I hit someone. And the subtitles revealed that it was a certain "Art" asking for help.

I remember my first playthrough, it was extremely shortly after I had started playing FO4 and "Art vs Art" was my first random encounter just across the water next to Sanctuary. I blew off the heads of both Arts, then, and was so confused that I never dropped a savegame in time. So I blew that "mission" and never had a chance to repeat it. Until now.

This time, I did knowingly what I did and by free choice, for the right side. I have to mention that I'm still with the Railroad and I'm still waiting for the first option to get into the Institute. Maybe I can "help myself" a little next time I see me, hopefully inside of the Institute

Art vs Art.
So I listened to those two and decided to interrogate the kneeling one.
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And after a gunfight that involved me, myself and I, as well as Gage
and also, taking a few bites, Dog.
The kneeling one had risen and was probably happy
to be the one who had survived that, erm, first aid spectacle.
Albeit he asked me to keep it to myself.
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[Art Blade]

It's not so easy to get in. The Railroad doesn't offer any new jobs anymore. I decided to try a different angle now (not that I had much of a choice, anyway) which didn't involve Preston and his minutemen nor Paladin Danse and his Brotherhood of Steel. What remained was Nick Valentine. So I had to meet Piper to get into DC and then I just ignored her and went looking for Nick which required me to free him from Vault 114. Let's see how it goes.

[Art Blade]

Turns out that I could have skipped everything Railroad, just gone to Vault 114, found Nick, and been right on track. That would have saved me all those stupid "set up MILA" and "clear Randolph Safehouse" missions

Good to know for a next time or anyone of you who wants to be quick about it.

Strangely, Nick called my dog Dogmeat. Now Dog isn't Dog anymore but Dogmeat. I wonder how Nick could know that name or more to the point, how he could recognise my dog. Anyhow, I ditched Nick to keep Gage and we're now going to take on (and out) Kellog.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Dogmeat has been around, he knows people. People know him. He's a good dog.

I never had a chance to talk to either of the Art vs Art (remember Spy vs Spy in Mad magazine? Loved those. Not sure why I mentioned that, just the similarity I guess, but I digress) Anyway, Art vs Art was always a gun fight in the distance for me and by the time I got there, one of them was dead usually. No chance to talk to either of them for any options. It was also a repeating occurrence, I saw it happen a few times.

[Art Blade]

Maybe I get to see Art vs Art as a repeating occurrence this time around. So far, only once per playthrough.

yes, I remember Spy vs Spy from Mad Magazine My all-time fave Mad edition was when Alien (the first movie) was released, man did they make up a funny story

Today I was lucky because I keep dropping savegames, often. Because when I arrived at the Railroad HQ, everyone started to shoot at us. I was a bit perplex for a moment and then I knew.. after killing the Courser, I shouldn't have tossed those Hallucigen grenades around, particularly not the one through the window of the captive Synth. The grenade turned her hostile in her cell and Gage just killed her, with a shot through the window. So, after a reload and not tossing grenades, all was good.

Here, Gage and a new outfit. We erm.. inherited.. it from the late Cito. In the first pic in the background is the cell and that aforementioned window.

Gage wearing Cito's suit (and a wig)
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Gage ain't dead
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[Art Blade]

I imagine you're having fun reading the "best of" Damascene's lines, so here's number two. You may laugh.

Damascene's best lines 02 (please enlarge for readability)
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[fragger]

  That Damascene is a sassy broad (as they might say in Goodneighbor)

Funny, I come across Art vs. Art a lot. I must have had at least a dozen encounters so far. Maybe it depends on something you do - or don't do - at some point in the game. Or maybe it's just a glitch in mine. It's never in the same area either, I've run into those two in all sorts of different locations, all over the map.

"Alright, you lot! Party's over! Get up and go home already!
And take your empties with you!"

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"Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to w0#k we go!"
(Darn, can't convey buzzy robotic monotone in print)

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I might put a fence around this bed to keep those grubby settlers out of it.
Definitely the most inviting-looking cot I've seen in Fallout Land. I want it for myself!

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[Art Blade]

hehe, I'm quite sure that you're going to have a blast playing a cynical hard-line character with a fresh start (new playthrough, for shits and giggles) but I suppose you could use quicksave a lot at the start of a conversation so you can test the outcome. Speaking of which, not long ago I believe you were in a situation that caught you by surprise and you didn't seem to like the conversation you were forced into. Maybe you found out already but I'm going to tell you anyway: this game allows you to literally pull out of (probably) any conversation by walking backwards away from it. Also, you can save during conversations, at least right after they started. Ah, I remember now, it was Paladin Danse you tried to avoid like the pest by crawling alongside walls. You don't have to. If he initiates a chat, just ignore it by walking past and away from him

Nice pics, fragger. Indeed, a very comfy-looking bed there, is it in Covenant? And a lovely robot parade, really sweet screenie. I know that you like really good screenshots and therefore you're likely going to prefer those without any HUD/UI elements (unless you want to show dialogue or health bars and stuff like that) over those with them. Here's how: open the console and type tm (for toggle menu) and you'll get not one but two nice effects: one, no HUD/UI elements at all and two.. it's a freeze frame. Because the console is up, the game stops. Perfect for snapping the invisible console up and down as in pause and play on a movie player. That's how I can time explosions and stuff and still get pics as clean as a whistle

What really cracked me up was your caption for first pic. That and the pic itself, combined, just great. And the bullet holes in the wall, daylight shining through gaps of barricaded windows, the wrecked furniture and "passed-out party guests" everywhere, hysterical

[fragger]

Thanks Art Yeah, that bed is indeed in Covenant (I nearly wrote "Coventry" just then, lol). It was originally red-lettered, so had to do a "setownership" command on it to be able to use it.

And thanks for the info about the "tm" command. I did read about that one on the Wiki a while ago but then I forgot all about it. I must remember it in future