Fallout 4

[mandru]

fragger your experience post-attack by institute synths in a settlement with an embedded synth being found as a pile of smouldering ashes along not being able to see whether it was a self destruction or that it was turned on by the other settlers is exactly parallel to every account I've encountered in this type situation.

I will continue on with this experiment (provided the game ever delivers the necessary guinea pigs) and report on any results. 

[fragger]

Cool

On another note, after over a year of playing and three complete playthroughs, I only just discovered the hidden employee area attached to Dry Rock Gulch at Nuka-World. I only realized it was there because while poking around the Gulch, a hollow icon of something showed up on my map (which I must not have noticed in my earlier 'thrus) and after circling around outside a fair bit it was apparent that the hidden area was somewhere inside the Gulch itself. I didn't find the security door to the area (which is hidden behind a hedge against the outside wall of the Gulch) until I was leaving - I got in by finding a way to get onto the top of the main wall, following it around, then dropping into the employee area from above. There was a horde of Ghouls and land mines in there (though with the Sneak perk maxed, mines don't bother me any more) and quite a bit of decent scavenge.

Geez, what else have I missed so far...? I thought I'd scoured NW from top to bottom.

[Art Blade]

you've barely scratched the surface.

[Dweller_Benthos]

I remember that area in Dry Rock, I was there in power armor with a jetpack for some reason, which is strange as by that time I didn't need power armor and didn't really like it over my speed boosted gunner armor. There must have been something in NW that I needed the jetpack for, but anyway, I think I was either under attack and boosting up onto a roof or fooling around on the roller coaster and could see over the wall to the secret area and used the jetpack to get in. I know I came over the wall from just behind the buildings near the entrance and landed on the roof of something over there. I don't recall if you can then get out the locked door or if I jetpacked over the wall again, that door might only open from the outside.

[fragger]

The door opens from the inside as well, that's how I got back out. Although it is possible to climb back up onto the main wall via the makeshift ramps and the building roofs

[Art Blade]

although I don't know for certain, that area sounds like the one where you can find one of those collectible comic books. There were tons of charred ghouls, too.

[fragger]

That's correct Art, there was an issue of SCAV magazine in there. Some of the ghouls obligingly took themselves out with the land mines, but there was still a small horde of them to deal with (I like it when all their arms and legs get blown off and they can only wriggle around on their bellies If I'm not in the middle of a fight or otherwise pressed, I usually walk up and clout them into oblivion with a weapon butt. No point wasting ammo )

Speaking of magazines, it looks like I may have inadvertently deprived myself of a couple. I've never collected all of them during one game, so this time I decided to employ the Wiki to track down the ones I haven't got.

There is supposed to be one on the Libertalia, but when I went to the location where it should have been - no magazine. It should have been on a table on a small balcony of sorts, where the guy with the Missile Launcher (or Fat Man, I can't remember which) normally hangs out. It appears that magazines can be blown around like junk items when there is an explosion near them, and since I used a Missile Launcher myself to take that guy out, I must have blown the magazine into the water. It could be anywhere on the bottom, or maybe it floated off to who-knows-where (dunno if they would sink or float).

There is another one in the Shamrock Taphouse, and once again, I seem to have grenaded it out of reach somewhere.

I know the magazines can be affected by blasts because I once found one face-down (they're just blank on the back) and right across the room from where it's normally found after I'd chucked a grenade in there. At the time I didn't know the magazine was in there and might have missed it altogether because it landed on a sculpted area of floor-rubbish and the only reason I found it was because while looking around, the "pick-up" prompt flashed on screen for a split-second as my gaze passed over it. I thought, "what was that", looked again and found it (it was almost perfectly camouflaged amid the rubbish AND was partly covered by it).

Apparently, using the console to conjure up a particular magazine will give you the magazine but not the perk that normally comes with it. So unless I happen to find those magazines in whatever obscure nook or cranny they've ended up in, I can kiss those perks goodbye. Actually, I haven't tried looking around in no-clip mode, and in the case of the Libertalia, I might try using the "tws" console command to temporarily make the water invisible (which should look pretty interesting around there ) Might give that a go.

So if you're magazine hunting, be careful where you direct your explosives, I guess.

[Art Blade]

that water cheat is quite useless, you'll see. However, there is a mod on the mod nexus that creates a box which contains all magazines and another one for the DLC mags. It will be located next to Vault 111 so if you're desperate, that will w0#k. The guy who created it not only stuffed the items in there but also the triggers for the respective perks and he removed the mags from their original position. I used it after almost competing my collection and for probably the same reasons as yours, couldn't get some of those mags, even some that I had collected during other playthroughs or in a different career. Heck with it, I thought, and got that mod and more importantly, those perks.

[fragger]

Well, this is embarrassing... I already have those two magazines that I said I couldn't find I must have been thinking of my previous playthrough. I know I didn't get them during a game, must have just been the one before.

Anyway - problem solved. Senility player error was the cause

[mandru]

 

[Art Blade]

 

[fragger]

The Commonwealth may be a dangerous place, but at least it provides decent health care for its less-fortunate citizens:

Spoiler

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[Art Blade]

looks decent enough

[fragger]

Hey, ghouls are people too. Smelly, repulsive, twisted, maniacally aggressive people who have lost their marbles and are slowly falling apart, but still...


...So I decided to build a dog cage at the NW Red Rocket settlement to catch some guard dogs, both for defense and for happiness (getting sick to death of cats). After a day or two, the cage had closed and had "dog" written on it, but when I opened the cage, a wild mongrel came out which immediately attacked me and I had to shoot it. Tried a second time, this time I got an albino wild mongrel which attacked me and I had to shoot it. Tried a third time and got yet another wild mongrel which...

Now in an earlier playthrough I set up a dog cage and got three normal dogs in a row. Then, deciding I had enough dogs for that settlement, I scrapped the cage. I never tried setting up any more dog cages until now.

This time, I went online to see if a dog-cage lottery is a thing. Apparently it is. Unlike cats, you take your chances with dogs - you might get a normal dog, or you might get a wild mongrel or even a mutant hound. According to cyberspace, you can set up a Beta Wave Transmitter along with the cage which will make wild dogs "tame", however it won't stop them from attacking other animals or even each other.

Some people claim that the kind of dog you get is randomly chosen at the moment of opening the cage, so if you do a save right before opening the cage, you can reload and try again if you don't get the dog you want, and keep reloading until you do.

I'll have to set up the cage again, but I'll try that and see what happens. I thought you always got a normal dog from a cage, but it seems you don't.

Btw, I am aware that unlike settlers, guard dogs can be killed by enemies (as can cats and Brahmins), but I'll risk that for the novelty of having a pack of dogs in a settlement instead of a clowder of cats (who knew a "clowder" was the word for a bunch of cats? I had to look it up). I've bought a couple of dogs from Gene, but that guy is too unpredictable in his wanderings to rely on for a good supply of pooches.

Speaking of wandering dudes, I finally got The Scribe on board. He's now manning the Armor store in Sanctuary. This also allowed me to have a dialogue with him, where I learned that he became disillusioned with the BoS and turned his back on them - hence his traipsing around in the Commonwealth.

[mandru]

That's a good tip about making a save before opening a trap and reloading until you get the dog you want.  Oh I wish I'd known that sooner.    +1

*** Not being aware of the above tip I did (eventually  ) learn that when an undesirable dog shows up in a trap wait until it completely leaves the trap and make sure that by killing it you don't knock it back into the trap.  You can't grab a dead dog to drag it out of the trap and you can't in build mode lift the trap off and away from the dead dog which forces you to scrap and expend the resources to rebuild a new trap. ***

Once I've set up a dog trap or traps (always in a non-obtrusive location) I keep them for the chance that a dog may be killed or fall through the ground in a clipping error never to be seen again.  An interesting feature of dog traps (maybe all traps) is once a trap has delivered a dog or some other wild throat seeking killer the repair option when setting up for the next trapping shows that there is zero usage of resources to reset it for the next go around.

(Edit:  The game made me a liar about zero resources to refresh a trap.    I know I've seen a requirement of zero resources to reset a trap but it was usually right after emptying one.  I went back to a settlement that has had a long time pass since I'd used the traps there and now it is showing that there is a resource cost to put the traps (both cat and dog) back into service.  I suspect that time passing was the determinant for this change as reported above.  )

Erickson the super mutant dog trainer on Far Harbor will even deliver dogs to the Nuka World Red Rocket or to Vault 88 which has is a block on setting up traps.  When buying dogs (or brahmins) there are times some of the various settlements will be darkened in the list of where you want the dog, wolf, mutant hound, or brahmin to be delivered but I've noticed that by waiting before trying again a previously blocked settlement will eventually become available again.


I don't really trust the Beta Wave Transmitters.  I've had too many times where I've remotely examined the workshops in the pip boy data listings looking for problem spots and noticed that there will be a return that one of the settlements has a serious problem like zero beds, no water, no food or even that the power has failed within a settlement.

Quite often when I've rushed in to fix the issue (how the hell do beds vanish?  ) the reported problem doesen't really exist and yet the settlers will be upset and complaining because they are too stupid to realize that the beds have been there all along or some other issue is a game glitch solved/repaired by my simply showing up. 

So if it's a matter of the Non-Player Character's perceptions affecting their reality (because the game is telling them a condition exists when it really doesn't) and they believe that the settlement has lost power the thought of a trap captured and assembled phalanx of defensive Beta Wave Transmitter mellowed Death Claws all running amok until I notice there's a catastrophe occurring... 

Well that's something I'd really prefer to avoid.