Fallout 4

[Art Blade]

alright

[fragger]

Yep, the turrets have a 45 degree traverse in stand-by mode, but once they lock on to a target they can swivel 360 degrees while they track it. Also, once one turret locks on, any others nearby with a line of sight will "get the message" and swivel about to lock on as well. But I think they only acquire in the first place if something initially comes into the field of view of their stand-by traverse, or even a bit outside it, so positioning is important (their stand-by traverse is 45 degrees but their stand-by field of view seems to be closer to their front 90). I've noticed that I can sneak up on enemy turrets from the sides or behind unobserved, although I think they can also detect you by sound when you get close enough. Don't quote me on that though.

[Art Blade]

test it toss a cracker or perhaps something bigger, a nuka grenade, behind a turret and observe..

And thanks for the info regarding turrets, guys

[fragger]

There is indeed a way to deal with the Mechanist while completely avoiding the massive robot battle at the climax Here's the method:

EDIT: I put it all in this spoiler:

Spoiler

Once you're inside Robco Sales and have gotten past the shop floor area, the first obstacle you encounter is the corridor with decontamination arches and lots of laser tripwires. To the left is a way around, through a small room, then a bit of cave, and finally into a control area. At the end of that on the left is an elevator controlled by a Master-level terminal (which you will later need to hack), but it is locked and can't be operated yet (it's actually the "quick exit" that you can emerge from after dealing with the Mechanist in her main computer room). You'll be coming back to this elevator later, but first you need to collect three particular holotapes as you make your way through the Lair.

The first tape you need is the Lead Engineer's Holotape.
After you get through the first large factory floor-type area, there's a "Quality Control" room.
The holotape is on a desk in that room, about here:

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The second tape is the Facilities Director's Holotape.
This is found in the "Facilities Management" area, which is upstairs above the watery junk room.
It's on this desk, behind the ammo box:

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The third tape is the Chief Scientist's Holotape.
This is in the research labs, where all the brains are stored:

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When you enter this area, head right and look for the room marked "Brain Extraction":

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The holotape is on a lower shelf in the far left corner, next to a Robot Parts model:

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Proceed no further into the Lair, but instead immediately retrace your steps, all the way back to that locked elevator near the beginning (it's a bit of a hike back). Once you are there, interact with the "Elevator Access Terminal" next to the elevator and select the option, "Initiate Manual Override". A new screen will load, with a line saying "Please provide the requisite authorization". Just hit TAB to return to the previous screen, and there will be a new entry, saying:


***MANUAL OVERRIDE INITIATED***
Standing by for authorization.


Insert the first of the three holotapes you collected and let it start playing. You don't have to let it play all the way through - you can click on the "Stop tape" command at any time. Either way, once the tape has stopped, the screen will refresh and you should then see:


***MANUAL OVERRIDE INITIATED***
Standing by for authorization. 1/3 voiceprints confirmed.


Do the same for the next two holotapes. I don't know whether they need to be inserted in a particular order (probably not), but I'd suggest inserting them in the order in which you collected them (as above) just for pragmatism's sake. After the third one, you will see this (and yes, there's a typo in it):


***MANUAL OVERRIDE INITIATED***
Voiceprint authorization adknowledged. Please confirm the override.

[Confirm manual override]
[Play tape]


(You can remove the last tape at this point if you want).

Confirm, and the elevator doors will open. Take the elevator down and you'll be able to walk straight into the Mechanist's main computer room and confront her (the same speech checks are involved). This is the point you would normally be at after the big battle - except there is no battle! None whatsoever.

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This was a major grief-saver for me - I wasn't looking forward to tackling that battle on Very Hard mode, even with super-duper X0-1 MkVI power armor I'd used up most of my ammo fighting my way through the lair just to get the tapes...

[mandru]

Wow, that's a fantastic find fragger.    +1

[Art Blade]

+1 from me, too. Cool, and thanks for sharing

[fragger]

Thanks, fellas Although honestly I can't take the credit for discovering the method, I happened across it on the wiki. Had to confirm that it worked though, and it does.

I remember being puzzled by the "authorization" business with that terminal in my last two playthroughs and could never figure out what it wanted, as it makes no mention of "voiceprints" until after you've run the first tape in it. And to the best of my knowledge, it is the only instance in the entire game where "voiceprints" are used to unlock something. It's a sneaky one

[fragger]

Forgot to mention, that terminal is a Master-level one and there is no password for it, so you need to have your hacking skills maxed. I edited the method post accordingly

[Art Blade]

I always max out hacking skills, and lock-picking

[fragger]

Nothing hugely special here, just a short clip made while trying out D3DGear in FO4. I'm getting hit from two sides by Super Mutants while trying to get up to the Fallen Skybridge on a really hazy day - I could see laser shots but for a while I couldn't tell where the bullets were hitting me from.

Dead easy software to use, like the old FRAPS but better

This is the first You Tube video I've ever uploaded YT video quality looked *bleep* here on the forum at first, but then much better on a second viewing. Dunno how that works, maybe it's just at my end. If you don't mind, please let me know how the quality looks to you, guys. I'm curious.

[Art Blade]

the quality is looking good What you described is typical for a really freshly uploaded vid, you'll see all blurry pixelated stuff because YT takes some time for let's call it "post processing." After a short while it's reached normal quality.

What settings in d3dgear did you use and how big was the original vid size?

[fragger]

I see

The only changes I made were the output frame rate to 60 and mp4 format. Left everything else as it was, which is 1280x720 res, Nvidia hardware H.264 codec, and "Best" compression rate.

Original video size was 550 Mb.

[Art Blade]

"Best" is not the compression, but the best quality. If you choose "better" or "good," the file sizes will shrink considerably.

Alright, the vid res is the trick. I have to confess I didn't notice it. What I do know is that recording at that res results in significantly lower file sizes. Had you recorded it at 1920*1080 it would have been perhaps bigger than 1.5 GB.

With regards to saving time for uploading while maintaining best possible quality, I might try that, see how it pans out. I was using 1920*1080 at "good" compression and still got 2.8GB for 10 minutes.. with your res setting, it would have been considerably less. Cheers

[fragger]

Glad I could provide some help, even if it was inadvertent

No doubt the lower saved res degrades the video quality a bit, especially when the video is then displayed full-screen at 1920x1080 res, as is the case when I maximize the clip. That's to be expected, but it's still passable enough for viewing, I think. Looks quite okay in the default site viewing size.

Isn't shrinking a file size "compression", though? Since the option is called "Quality/Compress Ratio", so I took that to mean the overall rate of file compression, i.e. best quality = less compression and larger file size, like a jpg image. Maybe I'm getting it wrong in my head.

[Art Blade]

you got it right but they meant it differently, as is evident when looking at the settings and comparing the respective file sizes. Best = best quality with good compression, Good = good quality with best compression. So to speak.

I experimented some and when looking closely, especially when looking at "fine print" as can be seen in Hitman 2, there's no compromise.. it makes my eyes sore when trying to read that stuff at 1280*720 at "best" and the same goes for "good" at 1920*1080. So I'll have to chew on that and use 1920*1080 with "best" setting.. and create monster files I can still start uploading them when I go to bed, for instance.