Fallout 4

[Art Blade]

hehe

the splatter gun was great, I know we briefly discussed it earlier. You will have fun, I bet
Speaking of guns, I was underwhelmed by the lack of stopping-power of full-blown large caliber, high-powered sniper rifles. Even with explosive rounds, they were nothing compared to most other weapons such as the Gauss rifle. I used sniper rifles a lot during early game stages but replaced them eventually. Well, not entirely replaced them, I usually kept one with me for ranged targets that I didn't necessarily have to take out with the first shot. That refers to creating a distraction by stirring up a group or just for the heck of it.

[fragger]

Same. I have "Reba II", the sniper rifle you get from the old guy in Salem for fixing his turrets and helping clear the place of Mirelurks. For a .50 cal weapon, it's surprisingly underpowered, even after it's been modded up a bit. Having the "Rifleman" Perk fully levelled up helps, but in reality, anything hit in the head with a .50 round is pretty much immediately dead. It'll take out low-level baddies readily enough, but tougher ones just wave the shots away like blowflies. I took out half a dozen wandering Rust Devils from long range at the dam near Sunshine and they each went down with just one hit, but the tougher varieties of Super Mutants and the like are another story. Then it's a case of use the sniper rifle just to get their attention and damage them a little, then pull out something heavier-duty to properly deal with them when they're closer.

Having said that, I think a sniper variant of one of NW's AK-type weapons hits harder than any sniper rifle found in the Commonwealth proper, but only by a few extra damage points.

[Art Blade]

the best weapon upgrades are legendary stats. Should you ever want to erm, mod, your rifles in a more, uhm, unconventional way, you might consider the mighty console for adding legendary stats. The splatter gun that either causes bleeding or increases damage per consecutive hit is fabulous. I mean, you can turn any gun into a splatter gun or change the splatter gun into something different when playing around with legendary stats.

Most of the legendary weapons are useless. There are a few exceptions, however. Usually those that you can buy are more of the useful type but most random loot weapons are *bleep*. Especially when you find a melee weapon like a pipe with a legendary feature that makes an enemy frenzy on critical hits. Yeah, great. I kept finding weapons with useless legendary stats and decided to take matters into my own hands by using the console. The results were far more satisfying

[fragger]

Maybe on a future playthrough I might cheat up the weapons and do some other console fiddling, but for now I'm happy to remain Mr. No-Cheats

I've been working on and off on an effort which I'm calling "The Starlight Project" (sounds cool, huh?  ) Inspired by mandru's endeavour to build a settlement in Nuka-World which is completely off the ground, I thought I'd try the same sort of thing out at Starlight Drive-in.

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There are two main sections. The lower, concrete part of the structure is built over the water-filled crater in the middle of the drive-in's car park, and I left enough room in there for a large Water Purifier (I haven't installed it yet, but I know it will fit). This lower section will also house a couple of Fusion Generators and all my workshops. The upper Vault-style section is for everything else - farming (making use of planting beds), dorm, shops, clinic and rec area. The small structure at the very top has a terrific view, and is there just for the hell of it

The "Service Level", with the original water-filled crater where the Purifier will go.
The structure to the right with the open door is where twin Fusion Generators will live.

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Nobody lives there yet. I'm going to try building and equipping the whole thing in its entirety before setting up a recruitment beacon, then see if it all works. The idea was to have all the settlers inside and up off the ground all the time. There is one main entrance (which will be guarded by a phalanx of turrets) plus a "back door" which is located close to the Workbench shed, and is a powered one which can only be opened and closed from inside the building. Settlers can't open it because the switch is out of their reach behind a barrier which I can jump over, but they can't. There is also a way in from the top of the old movie screen which only I can use because once again a small jump is required to get from the top of the screen onto the structure, and since AIs don't appear to be able to jump over things in this game, that way should be closed to everyone but myself.

Whether it will all w0#k as intended remains to be seen. Knowing the quirkiness of NPC AI in this game, I wouldn't be surprised to find all the settlers milling about outside, unable to find their way in They should have no trouble getting inside though, the main entrance is pretty straightforward. It's only in the "service" area in the lower structure where the ways around are a bit more intricate, but there shouldn't be any reason for settlers to wander down there. Everything they'll ever need is in the upper structure, and they'll all have jobs to do.

I'll post some pics of the inside once I get everything built in there. Then I'll see if I've achieved success with it, or whether I've simply built a giant white elephant Hopefully the former, because I blew through a good number of Rubber, Steel and Concrete shipments to build this thing, and wiring it all up for power is going to be the next big job. I guess it will become either "Starlight's Stronghold" or "Fragger's Folly"

[Art Blade]

the very first impression I got out of this was, "that's my 'open air' structure," but almost at the same instant I realised it wasn't. Heh heh. Nice w0#k, and even if you can't get settlers to settle in the way they should, you can still use it entirely for yourself.

Speaking of AI and where they go or don't go, I too had in my Starlight settlement doors that they couldn't open. The one door that allowed access to the whole settlement was closed still when I met one of the settlers outside. Sometimes they just morph through walls. They may be unable to get back in (or out, depending) but only for a certain amount of time, then they'll be on the respectively other side again. That was ground level, however.

Maybe you'll get to see similar situations

[fragger]

Yep, I've seen how settlers can teleport themselves as a kind of last resort if they can't otherwise get to where they're supposed to be. Sometimes though when I fast-travel to a settlement, the settlers will be all standing around in groups away from their jobs, then they'll start drifting back to whatever they should be doing. It doesn't happen every time, maybe about a quarter of the time. Some settlements seem to be more prone to this than others, and if the settlers make a habit of doing that at Starlight, I might be finding them all loafing outside whenever I drop in...

Sometimes too when I've had a settlement with an elevated area, a settler or two may spawn half-embedded in the floor when I FT in. They'll manage to extricate themselves after a minute, usually when I'm not looking, but until they do, they look like victims of the Philadelphia Experiment

[Art Blade]

 

[mandru]

Regarding the vastly under powered sniper rifles.  I like to keep on hand (so I can reach out and give enemies a friendly tap) a low powered long scoped Enraging sniper in my carry inventory which I combine with the Critical Banker perk for the sole purpose and personal amusement of stirring up trouble occasionally by causing pockets of infighting among groups of enemies. 

Other than that my main carry always includes a double shot gauss rifle, the spray and pray, and a legendary Disciple blade (I don't remember which legendary effect the blade has but it's bad *bleep*  ) all of which have been modded up to their max potentials and backed up with the supporting perks.

Even though I've not invested level up points on Bloody Mess my disciple blade (or any other blade I carry) have gained an area effect that smears anyone within 4 or 5 steps of my intended target.  I have to be vigilant to not use any blades in towns, around friendlies, or my settlements during attacks.

I've found the buffed up Cryolator to be very effective against super mutants but only at its limited range.


Then there's my extensive efforts to make self contained habitats where the settlers never need to go outside.  I've found that settlers are going to do what settlers decide to do. 

Anything I've tried to keep settlers inside basically only manages to lock them out and blocks them from getting back in.

In trying to keep happiness levels up I routinely scan the workshop tab of the pip-boy's data page.  I often see that a settlement is reporting as having "no beds" but on my arrival I'll find that all of the settlers are milling around outside and have forgotten how to get back upstairs. 

Tied up over maybe 5-6 game days by building and populating a settlement at Egret Tours this last week I had my Nuka World Red Rocket settlement drop from a happiness rating of 100% to 24% with zero attacks and no breakdowns of needed utilities or resources. 

When I zipped over to NWRR to fix things the entire settlement was on the ground outside scattered.  Occupied in each of their individual drunkard walks some had strayed even beyond the limits of the build footprint.  They slowly started filtering back in remembering they were supposed to be part of a settlement once I'd arrived.

I hate it when I have 23 settlers and 26 available beds but the game itself fails to recognize that fact and tells to settlers to run amok. 

[Art Blade]

that's crazy stuff, mandru And I think you're right, settlers do stuff you don't want them to do. Remember I once posted about Sanctuary and Red Rocket exchanging visitors? In other words, you need to keep baby-sitting them

[fragger]

My fave weapons are the so-called "hand-made" AK47-like rifles from Nuka-World (why they're called "hand-made" I don't know - I think that name is a more fitting description for the "pipe" weapons). With the Rifleman and Commando perks maxed out and the highest-level mods applied, they are seriously hard-hitting weapons. I like to carry two - a reflex-sighted semi-auto for ranged combat and a cut-down, full-auto machine-pistol-like version for close-up scraps.

I usually carry six or seven weapons. Apart from those above, I also like to tote a 10mm suppressed pistol for stealth hits, a semi-auto Combat Shotgun, a Plasma Rifle, a suppressed sniper rifle ("Reba II"), the "Limitless Potential" laser weapon from the University Credit Union vault (modded into a rifle form) and a Gauss Rifle, while my companion lugs my Fat Man and Quad-Missile Launcher for me, which I get off them when needed. This time around I found a second laser rifle which never needs reloading (a Legendary it was, I think), so I made that into a full-auto pistol. I also have a full-auto Plasma pistol, so whichever pistol I carry is determined by my ammo situation. I also lug 3 of each grenade/mine type (I keep extras in storage) and 10 frag grenades.

Sometimes I'll vary the loadout with a flaming high-speed minigun I found (another Legendary job) and a well modded-up Combat Rifle if ammo for the "AKs" is running low. Like the pseudo Tommy Guns and the pseudo AK47s, the Combat Rifles in the game appear to be roughly modelled on the venerable M1918 B.A.R. (Browning Automatic Rifle), so mine has been re-named to "B.A.R.". Semi-auto with Reflex Circle sight. If I think I'll be encountering a number of Ghouls, I'll take along a Legendary Boxing Glove to biff them out with (it does additional damage to Ghouls). Saves a bit of ammo.

Here's a neat resource tactic that I discovered and now like to employ:

Since I don't cheat and the Adhesive resource is needed for almost every type of mod, I'm always on the lookout for Duct Tape, Wonderglue, etc. when I'm out and about. To gain even more Adhesive, I also do this: In every large settlement (and those that I expect to become large), I plant three crops: Mutfruit, Corn and Tato. These three foodstuffs, plus Purified Water, are the ingredients required to make Vegetable Starch at a Cooking Station (recipe is 1 Purified Water and 3 each of Mutfruit, Corn and Tato). Each Vegetable Starch produced can then be scrapped into the Workbench to yield 5 Adhesive. With those three crops being worked in various settlements, every so often I access the Workbench inventories of those settlements and remove those surplus foodstuffs that have collected in there, take them back to Sanctuary and stick them in a locker (I also pick some of the food from those settlements' plants. There are a few settlements which are good places to snaffle up yet more of these foods since those settlements come with numerous plants already growing there, such as Abernathy Farm (Tatos), The Slog (Corn) and Greentop Nursery (Mutfruit). When I have accumulated 60 each of those three foodstuffs plus 20 Purified Water, I have a big cooking session and make 20 Vegetable Starches, which can then be dropped (as a single jar) and scrapped to produce 100 Adhesive. Comes in very handy, and costs nothing except for a bit of time and travel.

[Art Blade]

nice

I guess a good part of your gaming comprises numerous ways of getting resources needed. Cheating resources saved me from going through all that, leaving me with a lot more time building stuff and doing anything else.

[fragger]

It's Concrete that I usually have to do the most wheeling and dealing to get. I use a fair bit of it in my big settlements, but there is little or none of it to be found at those sites. Which means bartering for shipments. I have a crate in Sanctuary where I store up shipments, then pull them out as needed (not just Concrete, but I keep on hand at least one shipment of everything that comes in shipments. Mostly Concrete though - I currently have 1600 worth in storage, which seems a lot, but you go through it with alarming quickness when you're counting the cost). When trading for them, to get cheaper buying prices I'll change into clothes that boost my Charisma as much as possible (I had already levelled Charisma up to 10 with Mr. Vault-Tec at the start of the game expressly for this purpose, and I have an outfit that adds another 5) and sometimes I'll pop a Grape Mentat to give me even better prices, both for buying and selling (GMs allow you to sell at 10% higher and buy at 10% cheaper). I have to make the GMs myself at a Chemistry Station as they are exceedingly rare to come across in the game world. Recipe requires Hubflower, Whiskey and plain Mentats, so I keep an eye out for those when I'm roaming. GMs seem to have a low threshold for addiction however, so I also carry an Addictol or a Radscorpion Egg Omelete to cure that, should it happen. Otherwise, I use them sparingly.

I like all the wheeling and dealing. It adds a level of strategy and planning to the game which, as a fan of such things, I thoroughly enjoy.

There's another thing I started doing (I admit I didn't discover this myself, I stumbled across it online). In Sanctuary, I built another Manufacturing machine - a "Builder", which produces nothing but a selection of junk items. What's the point of that, you ask? Well, one of those producible junk items is a Vault-Tec Lunchbox. These are cheap items to build in terms of resources - each one only requires 3 Steel to make - but the benefits are detailed below.

Normally, when you find a Lunchbox in the world, it opens when you pick it up and a "prize" falls out - usually something relatively worthless like a plastic spoon. But sometimes one will yield something good like a Baseball (I make Baseball Grenades out of those to give to my companion), a robot model (these sell for surprisingly high prices, more than many weapons do) or, very occasionally, a Fusion Core (I also sell those when they get low in charge, as their charge level has no effect on their selling price, which is considerable. So if I'm in Power Armor and the Fusion Core charge gets down to 3 or 4 percent, if practicable I'll get out of the suit and manually swap the Core out for a full one, and keep the almost-spent one to sell later).

Thing is, Lunchboxes manufactured in a Builder don't open to yield a prize when you try to pick them up - but you can still make them open by either shooting them, or whacking them with a melee weapon. Then they will yield a prize. So what I do is: Load the Builder with enough Steel to make, say, 20 Lunchboxes, set the Terminal to produce those, then stand by the conveyor belt with a Security Baton. As the Lunchboxes come out of the Builder and move past me along the conveyor, I hit them with the baton to make them open and let a prize out. I don't pick them up though - I allow both Lunchbox and prize to continue along the belt and into the collection hopper, where they can all be pulled out after the run.

The interesting thing about this is that when you take the Lunchboxes out of the Hopper, they're closed again! You can even drop them and hit them and they'll open again, but the chance of getting a prize from a "recycled" Lunchbox diminishes each time you do this, until you will no longer get anything out of it (by "recycling" I mean picking up the dropped Lunchbox, dropping it onto the Conveyor Belt so that it gets carried back into the Hopper, then taking it out, where it will once again be closed). A better option is to just sell the Lunchboxes to a Vendor as they fetch pretty good prices, and either sell or scrap the unwanted prizes. Alternatively, I can make Bottlecap Mines out of them, which are not only powerful but will yield a bunch of grabbable Caps when they go off, or I can sell the mines to Vendors for even higher prices. It's a very good return for just 3 Steel. Of course there is the initial resource outlay for the Builder, Conveyor, Hopper and control Terminal, with a total power usage of 8, but it's worth doing for the long-run monetary return.

Of course, you can't do it too often or you'll clean the Vendors out of capital. Once every few game days or so works, once the Vendors get their "caps on hand" amounts back up. But I mostly barter stuff with Vendors anyway to get something else I need, and I try to w0#k it so that the difference only comes to a few Caps, so as not to bankrupt the Vendor, and so that the next time I deal with them, their caps-on-hand will have increased even more. Once they get a good dollop of dough together, then I might do the cleanout thing on one or two of them.

[mandru]

Interesting trick with the lunchboxes fragger. 

I also bet you've (or at least should have) been making a list of concrete respawn locations.


Over the last week at the Egret Tours settlement I've had two of the 500 power unit Vault-Tec super reactors go pop and blow themselves open.  This was my first experimentation with these big generators and I'd placed the first one on the roof of the building that houses the settlement w0#k shop securely framed in on all sides by two heights of concrete wall panels.

When the first one blew out I swapped it out for another but within three game days the second tore itself apart too.  Realistically there's no way Egret Tours needs 500 units of power even with my habitual overbuilding of defense batteries stacked with heavy lasers and missile launchers.  I just thought it would be cool to have one of the super reactors up and running at one of my settlements.

When one of these generators go bad they open up like the broken reactor found towards the rear of the first cavernous build area beyond the actually finished vault features at the entry way of Vault 88.

I happened to be fussing with details of the settlement on both of these occurrences so I know there were no attacks or meddling by settlers that could have caused these failures.  So unless I'm missing a computer terminal interface to control the super reactors (that I've yet to learn about) the designs themselves must be dicey.  At least in the application where I was attempting to use them. 

When the second reactor failed I scrapped its remains and replaced it with three of the vastly more dependable 100 unit fusion generators.  I've never experienced a problem with the 100 unit generators.  Until this experience I'd been using them exclusively in every settlement build since they became available to me early-on during this time through the game thanks to the addition of the Vault-Tec Workshop add-on. 

[fragger]

I've never built one of those Super Reactors mandru, so I have no experience with them blowing up. Other people have, however. Below is a quote from a Steam user named SuperSledgeNY on the subject. I can't say whether he's right or not.

"The reactor (or generator) explodes because the game has assigned a random radiant quest to Repair or Build a generator in that settlement. Wander around the settlement and you should be approached by someone who will give you this quest. In my own game, this has happened multiple times in Finch Farm and Abraham Finch is the usual quest giver but I'm fairly certain it cna happen in any settlement" [sic].

Some believe the Super Reactors blow up because this quest can glitch out by not being offered, even though the quest itself still becomes active, so that the reactor blows up because you haven't repaired it, and you haven't repaired it because you didn't know about it

Just what I read

Whether this problem applies solely to Super Reactors, or to any kind of power generator, I don't know, but I have never encountered a quest like the one SuperSledgeNY mentioned.

[Art Blade]

I happen to be one of those other people who built one of those Super Reactors.

They never blew up on me.

Also, I am not aware of that radiant quest.