Once you can mod the chest pieces with the good stuff, it's easier to just have full sets depending on what you're trying to do. For instance, my combat suit is a Winterized T60d/e with Medic Pump, Callibrated Servos and that Sensor visor that highlights lifeforms. Meant to take Lasers to the face without flinching and snipe away at enemies I wouldn't have seen otherwise. But my Exploring suit is a set of Shark painted X-01Mk5 with Jetpack, Calibrated Servos and increased Perception helmet. Increased Perception and Agility so I don't use up all my AP boosting around as much and I can locate enemies easier in the Wasteland via HUD instead of just by sight.

Also got Lead T60 for the Glowing Sea, and your Companion should have a set too because why not?

Just realized...does it, at any point, explain why power armor suddenly runs on an extremely short-lived battery?

Could be that post-war batteries aren't as reliable as pre-war ones.

 BrookM wrote:
Could be that post-war batteries aren't as reliable as pre-war ones.

This is what I reckoned, too.

All those pre-war fusion cores you acquire? They, according to in game lore, last ~100 years and you're finding them 200 years after the war.

So think of them as having lost some of their charge and reliability by now

Well I think I may have screwed up the railroad quest, I was doing a spot of exploring, found a sewer tunnel, then was attacked.
So I wade in and blast everyone that is shooting at me.
Lets just say that the town of covenant now is clear for new tenants.....
I have the feeling that place used to be important. Oh well, too late now....

 Sigvatr wrote:
Just realized...does it, at any point, explain why power armor suddenly runs on an extremely short-lived battery?

Probably not, it's quite possible that it's a pure game play idea rather than anything to do with the lore.

 marv335 wrote:
Well I think I may have screwed up the railroad quest, I was doing a spot of exploring, found a sewer tunnel, then was attacked.
So I wade in and blast everyone that is shooting at me.
Lets just say that the town of covenant now is clear for new tenants.....
I have the feeling that place used to be important. Oh well, too late now....

Only a side quest. Whilst it is Synth related, it's not part of the Railroad faction quest line.

And don't feel guilty, they totally deserved it.

 marv335 wrote:
Well I think I may have screwed up the railroad quest, I was doing a spot of exploring, found a sewer tunnel, then was attacked.
So I wade in and blast everyone that is shooting at me.
Lets just say that the town of covenant now is clear for new tenants.....
I have the feeling that place used to be important. Oh well, too late now....

I'll do you one better. They didn't shoot at me and I jumped a gap, made it into their facility while every guard I passed says 'Never had a stranger down here before'. Then Doctor Lady begs for her life and I friggin have no idea why. I just wander back out the way I came all confused and then Covenant doesn't have some guy I'm apparently supposed to talk to... Didn't even get my GOAT test. I was disappointed.

Edit: Got there with my second character and it was much more rewarding. Not important to any stories, but still a fairly interesting set.

Anyone got some weird deja vu in Fairline Estates with Vault 112? It fills me with dread every time I pass through...

Anyone else irritated that it's December in Boston in game, and while all the people are bundled up like crazy, there's no snow anywhere?

Or that the shacks you can build might work for the southwest, they've be little to no protection at all in Boston?

200 years of radioactive fallout may have altered the Boston climate somewhat.

It still rains, so it will probebly snow when it gets cold enough. After all, it's "nuclear winter" not "nuclear unseasonably warm".

So I wandered around the map yesterday and entered a town. It had defensive walls and all that and some of the messy gore sacks Super Mutants have, must've been a Raider or Super Mutant setlement but there was not a single npc in sight. No bodies, nothing. Well... except for the standard ones you find with the bloody gore sacks. So I wandered around and suddenly heard a Vertibird, it dropped off some power armored BOS guys and then proceded to crash itself, like they always do. But after a while they started to shoot some things... and yup, the town was absolutely infested with Deathclaws. At least 8 to 10 of them, or even more, they were spread out all over the place. It was funny to see Deathclaws attack in packs. When I killed most of them I ran around the corner and found that a bunch of raiders just spawned right in front of my nose, all bunched up. And so I threw a mine in there... it was the goreiest fireworks I have ever seen, limbs flew everywhere.

tl;dr: My Fallout 4 day was a fun clusterfeth.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Also got Lead T60 for the Glowing Sea, and your Companion should have a set too because why not?

Because they forgot to put in a suit for Dogmeat?

He's my only companion up to now,

Funny thing happened last night. I'm in my Red Rocket garage, crafting away (using the console commands for supplies since I was testing to see what each color of armor upgrade looked like, because I gotta be stylish in the wastes), and I hear something attacking. I ignore it, after all, I've got 4 companions there and 5 heavy laser turrets mounted on the roof. When I'm finally done, I come out and find bits of Deathclaw everywhere.

Also, I just learned yesterday that armor pieces come in three tiers: normal, sturdy, and heavy. I thought sturdy and heavy were just mods so I had been breaking down or selling all the extra armor I've been finding. Nope, they're separate armor pieces that are stronger and, visibly, cover more of the body.

With Enclave is gone. this time player character begins with a faction.... the Commonwealth Minutemen (a 18th Century themed army modelled after the actual American revolutionary troops). The Eastcoast Brotherhood of Steel got a new leader, the last Maxson.... and so its new policy, combining the original BoS with the tighter outsider recruitments (and also new ethical alignments, being less virtuous, more neutral). The Railroad (introduced in Fallout 3) becomes 'Good' and The Institute is Evil.

But what about the remainder of the Enclave, what happened to them? did they adapt with post-Enclave life? or hunted down? or assimilated?

Well, the enclave remnants in NV from the west coast seem to have integrated relativly well, so about the same I'd reckon.

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Just realized...does it, at any point, explain why power armor suddenly runs on an extremely short-lived battery?

Probably not, it's quite possible that it's a pure game play idea rather than anything to do with the lore.

From a gamepla point of view, it makes no sense. Fusion cores are more than plentiful and you rather have too many than ever finding yourself in need of them. Why then introduce such a system? Also kinda breaks with FO lore. Not liking the kind of power creep going on. Power Armor feels "too early". To me, t's alwas been some kind of major scalig point, i.e. get Power Armor and you know you just started kicking major ass.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Just realized...does it, at any point, explain why power armor suddenly runs on an extremely short-lived battery?

Probably not, it's quite possible that it's a pure game play idea rather than anything to do with the lore.

From a gamepla point of view, it makes no sense. Fusion cores are more than plentiful and you rather have too many than ever finding yourself in need of them. Why then introduce such a system? Also kinda breaks with FO lore. Not liking the kind of power creep going on. Power Armor feels "too early". To me, t's alwas been some kind of major scalig point, i.e. get Power Armor and you know you just started kicking major ass.

Yeah, I think they wanted to make PA more available to appeal to the masses, but they then realized how OP it would be.
So they decided to break lore by incorporating such a tedious mechanic.
And then they realized that it made PA useless, so they just spammed cores everywhere

They should have given different suits of armor different energy uses.
Lore wise, T45 was supposed to be very energy inefficient, as opposed to the T51 which had a battery pack that could last a millenia.

Also, why is there not a .223? Such a weapon would have been perfect considering the game's story, as the .223 pistol is based off of the gun from Blade Runner, and the Synths are basically Androids.

Honestly, I'm glad that I no longer need to get power armour training first, that was always such a pain in the ass to get.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Also, why is there not a .223? Such a weapon would have been perfect considering the game's story, as the .223 pistol is based off of the gun from Blade Runner, and the Synths are basically Androids.

I wouldn't be surprised if that becomes part of future DLC.

 BrookM wrote:
Honestly, I'm glad that I no longer need to get power armour training first, that was always such a pain in the ass to get.

Yeah, that was also an arbitrary balance thing, introduced in FO3 as there was power armor everywhere.
That mechanic did not exist in the earlier games.
Jsawyer mod in FNV removed that mechanic. Sort of. You can wear power armor without the perk, but you don't get the strength bonus.
That's the proper way of doing it, imo.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BrookM wrote:
Honestly, I'm glad that I no longer need to get power armour training first, that was always such a pain in the ass to get.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Also, why is there not a .223? Such a weapon would have been perfect considering the game's story, as the .223 pistol is based off of the gun from Blade Runner, and the Synths are basically Androids.

I wouldn't be surprised if that becomes part of future DLC.

"Don't worry, mods will fix it! Lack of obvious and logical content is a feature!"
I hate that excuse. The existence of mods should not be an excuse for laziness.
The settlement mechanic is an example of said laziness. If they put some effort into that feature, it could have been more than a way of getting some free resources and caps.
Not that you get much.

Also, does it bother anyone else how there like, only 10 weapons?
I get that you can mod them, but you can also mod weapons in new vegas, and there were like 30 types.
The inner ork in me has a fever, and the doctor prescribed more dakka.

I would like to have seen more guns too.

possibly real world versions of the pipe guns. as a natural progression of arms.

I love my guns but dammit if those pipe weapons are UGLY

I like the little legendary quips though. would of liked to see more interesting ones or more variations.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Also, does it bother anyone else how there like, only 10 weapons?

Mods will fix it.

Seriously, though, this is what Bethesda does nowadays. Skyrim wasn't a good game at its core. Terrible story, terrible combat system, shallow world. What made it good were...mods. Fallout 3 and NV both only became as good as they did because of...mods. Bethesda is well aware of it and why do more than you have to if there's a lot of people out there doing your work /for free/?

My biggest problem with the current weapon design is that single shot weapons are far more preferably right now than full auto ones. Even my mighty minigun only does 10 damage per shot. I can empty an entire brick into something and it'll still walk away almost unscathed.

Also, New Vegas was done by Obsidian, not Bethesda...

 BrookM wrote:
My biggest problem with the current weapon design is that single shot weapons are far more preferably right now than full auto ones. Even my mighty minigun only does 10 damage per shot. I can empty an entire brick into something and it'll still walk away almost unscathed.

Also, New Vegas was done by Obsidian, not Bethesda...

Who worked under a contract for Beth, using Beth's engine and following beth's conditions and restraints.
It was still unfinished, but it actually felt like someone worked on it, rather than pouring a bunch of sand into a box, and letting their fanbase go nuts.

I will give Fallout 4 credit for its characters though; they are a bit better than the ones in Skyrim and FO3, who were pretty bland.
FNV companions weren't as bland, but they were still pretty meh. Can't think of one I really liked. Sharon was ok, but her dad was better.
Cait and Kellogg are my favorites so far. In fact, I kind of wish the game was about Kellogg rather than Lone Daddy.

There are so many weapons they could have added. The selection, although bolstered by the modding, is depressingly small. Especially explosives, in NV you had stuff like grenade launches, grenade rifles, and even grenade machine guns. As well as a rocket launchers (less powerful than the missile launcher but faster, 8(?) round capacity and built in scope) and specialized missiles for the missile launchers, with HE, high speed, and "hive" (9 smaller missiles) missiles.

They also had the ammo system with AP and hollow point rounds, and even more specialized hand-loaded round, like the Mach .50 cartridges. But no, now we just have magical guns that ignore armor somehow.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
There are so many weapons they could have added. The selection, although bolstered by the modding, is depressingly small. Especially explosives, in NV you had stuff like grenade launches, grenade rifles, and even grenade machine guns. As well as a rocket launchers (less powerful than the missile launcher but faster, 8(?) round capacity and built in scope) and specialized missiles for the missile launchers, with HE, high speed, and "hive" (9 smaller missiles) missiles..
They also had the ammo system with AP and hollow point rounds, and even more specialized hand-loaded round, like the Mach .50 cartridges. But no, now we just have magical guns that ignore armor somehow.[

Yeah, FNV added a lot of weapons, and FO4 has next to none. They even got rid of Small Energy Cells and pistol energy weapons, instead having that stupid system where nearly any weapon can be either a pistol or a rifle.
Why is the Commonwealth so special? What, did all of their laser and plasma pistols get blown up, along with SMCs, leaving only the rifles and MFCs? How does that work?

The lack of ammo types and ammo crafting was a surprise. I still don't quite understand why they didn't add those back in.
It gave the gunplay a strategic element, as you had to change ammo to match the situation, but now there isn't really any strategy at all.

I'm also glad they did away with weapon and armour durability.

 BrookM wrote:
I'm also glad they did away with weapon and armour durability.

Yeah, no argument there. That was pretty tedious.
It didn't even make sense. Why would my gun deal less damage? Guns don't work like that. The bullet doesn't hurt less when the gun is rusty.
It just might come out the right way.
Everything broke so quickly too.

In Stalker guns didn't get weaker, and they took a while to go bad. When it does go bad, it just jams and gets a bit inaccurate.
Armor also lasted a while, as if you try to tank hits like in FO3, you'd be dead

I would have liked a bit more variety of guns, too. But, at least they're all still useable as you level up. Half the guns in FO3 and FNV became useless once you got to the better ones.

I do like the new power armor, though, as it actually feels like I'm stomping around in a giant powered suit of metal. Annoyed about the constant need for fusion cores, though. Especially since it keeps auto loading a new one when it runs out. I'd rather manually reload them to use up the dozen partial cores I have, or at least be able to recharge them somehow.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I would have liked a bit more variety of guns, too. But, at least they're all still useable as you level up. Half the guns in FO3 and FNV became useless once you got to the better ones.

I do like the new power armor, though, as it actually feels like I'm stomping around in a giant powered suit of metal. Annoyed about the constant need for fusion cores, though. Especially since it keeps auto loading a new one when it runs out. I'd rather manually reload them to use up the dozen partial cores I have, or at least be able to recharge them somehow.

Recharging should of been a major thing. and i feel it could of been an opportunity for bigger settlements.

One major quip i have is not being able to breakdown items without having to use it or dropping them in a settlement then scraping via the menu.

would of been nice for the pack rats and OCD people that hate looking at 200 items in the inventory

I found a funny

To be fair, I am glad they got rid of the complicated ammo system. Keeping track of what felt like endless amounts of different ammo (10+?) was just annoying.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
I'm also glad they did away with weapon and armour durability.

Yeah, no argument there. That was pretty tedious.
It didn't even make sense. Why would my gun deal less damage? Guns don't work like that. The bullet doesn't hurt less when the gun is rusty.
It just might come out the right way.
Everything broke so quickly too.

In Stalker guns didn't get weaker, and they took a while to go bad. When it does go bad, it just jams and gets a bit inaccurate.
Armor also lasted a while, as if you try to tank hits like in FO3, you'd be dead

I didn't like the decrease in damage, but I was OK with jamming + inaccuracy, it was good design. I sort of miss it.

 Desubot wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I would have liked a bit more variety of guns, too. But, at least they're all still useable as you level up. Half the guns in FO3 and FNV became useless once you got to the better ones.

I do like the new power armor, though, as it actually feels like I'm stomping around in a giant powered suit of metal. Annoyed about the constant need for fusion cores, though. Especially since it keeps auto loading a new one when it runs out. I'd rather manually reload them to use up the dozen partial cores I have, or at least be able to recharge them somehow.

Recharging should of been a major thing. and i feel it could of been an opportunity for bigger settlements.

One major quip i have is not being able to breakdown items without having to use it or dropping them in a settlement then scraping via the menu.

would of been nice for the pack rats and OCD people that hate looking at 200 items in the inventory

You mean junk? You know you can store it all in a workbench, right?
The junk stored in a workbench is shared across all crafting stations in that settlement.
If you have a supply line, you can share your junk across all connected settlements.
Its probably the best settlement mechanic in the game.

The Misc section is pretty terrible though. I just don't know where to store it all.
Magazines have a magazine rack, and bobbleheads have a bobblehead stand, but where do I put holotapes?
I could just dump it all in a box, but I actually like to be able to see the stuff I'm not using.
That's what I like about the new power armor; they make good display pieces.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
I'm also glad they did away with weapon and armour durability.

Yeah, no argument there. That was pretty tedious.
It didn't even make sense. Why would my gun deal less damage? Guns don't work like that. The bullet doesn't hurt less when the gun is rusty.
It just might come out the right way.
Everything broke so quickly too.

In Stalker guns didn't get weaker, and they took a while to go bad. When it does go bad, it just jams and gets a bit inaccurate.
Armor also lasted a while, as if you try to tank hits like in FO3, you'd be dead

I didn't like the decrease in damage, but I was OK with jamming + inaccuracy, it was good design. I sort of miss it.

Yeah, jamming and loss of accuracy was fine.
It was the fact that it decreases damage and how it broke so quickly that made it a problem for me. You pretty much had to constantly loot spares to repair your stuff.
Repair kits were brilliant in FNV, as they were light and repaired quite a bit of weapon health.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigvatr wrote:
To be fair, I am glad they got rid of the complicated ammo system. Keeping track of what felt like endless amounts of different ammo (10+?) was just annoying.

How was it complicated?
It only really got nuts with GRA. In vanilla it was pretty straight forward.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:


You mean junk? You know you can store it all in a workbench, right?
The junk stored in a workbench is shared across all crafting stations in that settlement.
If you have a supply line, you can share your junk across all connected settlements.
Its probably the best settlement mechanic in the game.

Well yeah there was that. but i still hate having to scroll through to see what i have, what i need, and just the giant list of items.

that and not being able to break down in the field since some items seem to weigh more that the parts.

though i guess you need to be careful what you scrap since some things IIRC need actual junk items.


On a side note. i kinda miss the ability to reload ammo.

 Sigvatr wrote:
To be fair, I am glad they got rid of the complicated ammo system. Keeping track of what felt like endless amounts of different ammo (10+?) was just annoying.

3-4 per ammunition type usually, the only ones who really had a lot were shotgun rounds and explosives, and it wasn't necessary at all, or even complicated. And just hitting "2" would switch you between ammo types.

The types were usually:
Normal- no change
AP- less damage, ignored some armor
HP- more damage, armour was better against them
and for some of them
Surplus- cheap, sometimes more powerful, more weapon degradation, more spread.

And that's all there was to know if you didn't want to get into it. And even then they were in no way necessary, it just allowed you to use your weapons more effectively/efficiently.

If you wanted the more in depth you had the specialized hand-loaded stuff, (JSP, JSF, mach, ect), but you had to get a specail perk for those so if you weren't interested, than you would never even see them.

 Desubot wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:


You mean junk? You know you can store it all in a workbench, right?
The junk stored in a workbench is shared across all crafting stations in that settlement.
If you have a supply line, you can share your junk across all connected settlements.
Its probably the best settlement mechanic in the game.

Well yeah there was that. but i still hate having to scroll through to see what i have, what i need, and just the giant list of items.

that and not being able to break down in the field since some items seem to weigh more that the parts.

though i guess you need to be careful what you scrap since some things IIRC need actual junk items.


On a side note. i kinda miss the ability to reload ammo.

Did you try viewing the component list under the junk section?
There's a button that shows only the components, and how many you have for each.
Then you can mark which components you need, and any item you look at will have its name marked.

Its a mechanic they really don't explain to you.

Oh.... well then

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I didn't like the decrease in damage, but I was OK with jamming + inaccuracy, it was good design. I sort of miss it.

Yeah, jamming and loss of accuracy was fine.
It was the fact that it decreases damage and how it broke so quickly that made it a problem for me. You pretty much had to constantly loot spares to repair your stuff.
Repair kits were brilliant in FNV, as they were light and repaired quite a bit of weapon health.

And they weren't too hard to make either. I actually am using a mod that makes the same sort of thing, but for armour, I like it a lot.


Also ammo-boxes, I miss those. Being able to buy in bulk was a nice feature.

Just found the spray n pray, a fully upgraded legendary Tommy gun with +15 explosive dmg bullets. I think I'll rename it to InstaGib.

Has it been mentioned here at all that under water combat was patched out of the game? That or it'll be returning in a piece of DLC? Remember way back in Oblivion when you could swing a sword willy nilly under water (not that there was much down there in that game)?

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Just found the spray n pray, a fully upgraded legendary Tommy gun with +15 explosive dmg bullets. I think I'll rename it to InstaGib.

As I said earlier, I renamed it Heavy Bolter for a reason.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Just found the spray n pray, a fully upgraded legendary Tommy gun with +15 explosive dmg bullets. I think I'll rename it to InstaGib.

As I said earlier, I renamed it Heavy Bolter for a reason.

That gun is broken on so many levels, you literally need no other weapon in the game, it can reduce any enemy to bits in moments.

I shoved a suppressor on it and use it for sneak attacks with x3 damage.

Mirelurk Queens and Behemoths?
No problem...

 Formosa wrote:
That gun is broken on so many levels, you literally need no other weapon in the game, it can reduce any enemy to bits in moments.

I have a gun with the same explosive trait but it's a shotgun. It just destroys anything.

Out of curiosity, how many people use VATS? I personally find it completely breaks any immersion.

At this point, when I have so much health and healing items etc, I just use it to watch cool things nearby in slo mo

 Kojiro wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
That gun is broken on so many levels, you literally need no other weapon in the game, it can reduce any enemy to bits in moments.

I have a gun with the same explosive trait but it's a shotgun. It just destroys anything.

Out of curiosity, how many people use VATS? I personally find it completely breaks any immersion.

Just on those bloody annoying insects, that's it

 Kojiro wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
That gun is broken on so many levels, you literally need no other weapon in the game, it can reduce any enemy to bits in moments.

I have a gun with the same explosive trait but it's a shotgun. It just destroys anything.

Out of curiosity, how many people use VATS? I personally find it completely breaks any immersion.

I mostly use it on targets that are hard to hit, or good at actively dodging, like insects and deathclaws.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just figured out I can upload my screenshots to an online library in Steam then link the images from there directly. No faffing about with photobucket.

So heres a big image dump. (Spoilered for size).

Raider's are getting inventive and somewhat desperate with their improvised armour.


I think this guy forgot something...


Secret midnight meeting in the garden? THEY'RE PLOTTING AGAINST ME!


Met a bunch of unfriendly ghouls...Luckily I had a nuka grenade.


My character, Laura. For my first playthough I'm focusing on the Minutemen and Railroad faction quest lines. Then I'll reroll with the husband as a new character and play the Brotherhood of Steel (according to official canon, the wife was a law graduate, and the husband was an army veteran. Seems fitting).

I ran into another.. glitch today. I went to a settlement that supposedly had 18 people at it. I could only find 3. It's one of the coastal ones so, not a lot of room to lose them in. Went off, did some stuff, came back and boom. There they all are, eighteen of them standing in a group. When I walk up they all start to disperse (like they were talking about me or something ) and just walk off in random directions. As I said, it's a coastal town, and some of them just walked up to the edge, down the rocks and waded into the water. Off they went... just.. swimming.

And yes, I loath those insects. Or I did until I got the everything explodes shotgun.

Oh and I finally ran into the Legendary Glowing Alpha Deathclaw. I was level 44 and it shredded me with one hit (I don't wear power armour as a rule).

 Kojiro wrote:


Out of curiosity, how many people use VATS? I personally find it completely breaks any immersion.

Regarding the immersion factor, it is at least plausible when wearing power armor or any suitably high tech helmet.

I'll use it to "scan" for enemies or mines, as well as hitting the really fast buggers. It's also great fun when I sneak into a room full of enemies and then queue up a dozen headshots with the Deliverer.

I use it in conjunction with a scoped weapon at close quarters.
In real time its difficult to do, due to the hip fire penalties and the lack of iron sights.

VATS does not suffer from these problems.
Using a sniper rifle in a closed environment is pretty op

You can do cool stuff with it as well. Like, explode 3 heads within a second using Kellogg's pistol.
You know, John Woo stuff.

I have finally completed Vault 81's quest. I can't believe it was here, of all places, I'd find a companion to replace Dogmeat



The Teddy Bears are at it again

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I use it in conjunction with a scoped weapon at close quarters.
In real time its difficult to do, due to the hip fire penalties and the lack of iron sights.

VATS does not suffer from these problems.
Using a sniper rifle in a closed environment is pretty op

You can do cool stuff with it as well. Like, explode 3 heads within a second using Kellogg's pistol.
You know, John Woo stuff.

Also apparently you can only crit in VATS, which is super annoying. But then part of me also thinks yeah, using a sniper rifle at close quarters should be hard.

I have finally completed Vault 81's quest. I can't believe it was here, of all places, I'd find a companion to replace Dogmeat

That's exactly what happened to me. If you like her now, just wait.

 Kojiro wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I use it in conjunction with a scoped weapon at close quarters.
In real time its difficult to do, due to the hip fire penalties and the lack of iron sights.

VATS does not suffer from these problems.
Using a sniper rifle in a closed environment is pretty op

You can do cool stuff with it as well. Like, explode 3 heads within a second using Kellogg's pistol.
You know, John Woo stuff.

Also apparently you can only crit in VATS, which is super annoying. But then part of me also thinks yeah, using a sniper rifle at close quarters should be hard.

I have finally completed Vault 81's quest. I can't believe it was here, of all places, I'd find a companion to replace Dogmeat

That's exactly what happened to me. If you like her now, just wait.

Yeah, I didn't like how they changed the crit mechanic. Instead of it being a luck thing, it now only happens if you spam vats enough.

It is annoying. And some special weapons like Lucky had extra crit chance which was a cool mechanic.

Many of the companion perks are also VATS related too. That really annoys me. Or finding VATS armour/weapons. But I feel like I'm being punished for not *needing* VATS.

That said, a friend who has zero FPS skills noted that I was effectively cheating. My character has a PER and AGI of 4 each. If I open VATS it gives me single digit percentages on a lot of shots that I personally can easily make. So maybe that's the trade off.

I have so many action points right now that using VATS, this was Curie and I hitting Gunner HQ. (Yes, I really wore the black trenchcoat and wrap around raybans when my character did this.)

There is no Spoon.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Has it been mentioned here at all that under water combat was patched out of the game? That or it'll be returning in a piece of DLC? Remember way back in Oblivion when you could swing a sword willy nilly under water (not that there was much down there in that game)?

There was a quest outside the Imperial City that involved collecting the scales from those murderous fish. It rewarded you with a really nice ring, but those fish were freaking deadly to a low-level character.

Well I found a glitch that would have ruined my experience. So after who knows how long (an hour... it was an hour...) adjusting the nose and eye shape of my new character, the game refuses to allow to me after falling out of the cryo pod. So the game in completely non-responsive to anything but the pause button. Had to delete the saves and go back to my usual characters. I'm glad that wasn't my first character or I'd have been pissed~

My wife had that error but restarting the console fixed it.

Currently dragging my heels on picking a faction to side with.

I went with the Institute myself, I had my doubts about them, but in the end, both they and the Minute Men had end goals that I personally liked the most.

Just finished my second playthrough so now I've done the Minuteman and the Institute endings. Going to see about a proper BoS ending now. The Institute quest line

Spoilered it just in case. No specifics though.

 BrookM wrote:
I went with the Institute myself, I had my doubts about them, but in the end, both they and the Minute Men had end goals that I personally liked the most.

I'm with you on the MM. Not sure on the Institute yet. The BoS seem like a bunch of tools in this game. Not done anything but meet the railroad yet but have a feeling that I will not get on with several of the characters

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
I went with the Institute myself, I had my doubts about them, but in the end, both they and the Minute Men had end goals that I personally liked the most.

I'm with you on the MM. Not sure on the Institute yet. The BoS seem like a bunch of tools in this game. Not done anything but meet the railroad yet but have a feeling that I will not get on with several of the characters

So...the BOS have returned to their original status quo of Fallout 1 and 2.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
I went with the Institute myself, I had my doubts about them, but in the end, both they and the Minute Men had end goals that I personally liked the most.

I'm with you on the MM. Not sure on the Institute yet. The BoS seem like a bunch of tools in this game. Not done anything but meet the railroad yet but have a feeling that I will not get on with several of the characters

So...the BOS have returned to their original status quo of Fallout 1 and 2.

Exactly, and I appreciate them returning to "bag of dicks" status

In this game the BOS are nazi's, they even dress the kids up in Hitler Youth uniforms, complete with the caps. Honestly, I do not like them one bit in this game.

As for the Institute ending..

 BrookM wrote:
In this game the BOS are nazi's, they even dress the kids up in Hitler Youth uniforms, complete with the caps. Honestly, I do not like them one bit in this game.

As for the Institute ending..

Spoiler:

PHASE 3. Oh boy, they kept prattling on about it and for a long time I was worried that it was either the complete extermination of everybody in the Commonwealth via Synth invasion or the release of a killer strain of FEV or the like. But instead.. they just want to fire up a new reactor and keep to their selves for the most part, staying true to their ideals? I'm actually really okay with that, well done Shaun, I am proud of you.

Eh, its about the same as in the first games, really.
Except they are more aggressive this time, and ended up being this game's enclave.

By the way, which mission is it where you have to make the choice between the Railroad, BoS, and the Insititute? I'm not sure if I'm there yet or not, so I've been dragging my heels on doing this particular mission as I still want a bit of freedom to roam around.


Also, for those who enjoy settlement building, I discovered two vitally important console commands last night. There is an arbitrary limit on how many objects you can build (while it is there to make sure you don't overbuild beyond your computer's capabilities, it does not actually take those abilities into account and is, by default, apparently set to assume you're running on a machine with a hamster wheel for a CPU and GPU).
Open the console, click on the workbench, and type (without the quotes) "setav 349" followed by any number between 3000000 and 10000000+, and "setav 34B" and any number from 2000 to 10000+. The range depends on how good your PC is (the defaults are 1000000 and 1600, respectively). You can pretty much set the numbers as high as you want, as it's really what you actually build that matters. The limits are there to prevent you from placing more objects than your PC can handle.

This is really useful for some locations that already have a lot of objects (like the Castle, where just placing enough beds for everybody, some generators, crops, and a couple stores reaches the limit).

I'm currently copying this design for my own Red Rocket base to house and display all the suits of power armor that I find in my travels.

I've also upgrades the Castle a bit. You can repair the walls by using the wooden floor/foundation piece, as the cement part of it is allowed to clip the terrain,

So

Just did the Institute ending. Kind of a bit meh about that whole arc. 90% of the choices were suboptimal for how I wannted to play, though I can see why they had to limit things somewhat.

Also the whole thing with the director could have been much more intense :(

Welp... and we are only in week 3 of Fallout mods and there already so many impressive re-textures

Do you only have 1 chance to romance a follower?
I want to get perks, and apparently romancing the fastest way to get them.

Not sure about Curie, but every time I walk even near Piper the option pops up. She seems to be the only one like that though.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Just did the Institute ending. Kind of a bit meh about that whole arc. 90% of the choices were suboptimal for how I wannted to play, though I can see why they had to limit things somewhat.

That was how I felt about the BOS ending. Starting the fight with the Institute was awesome, but before and after that was basically just "go here and murder, because." To which my high CHR character stammered back an argument for why we shouldn't be doing this, only to get told, "no, you're wrong. Go do it," and then I get a location on my map. It just felt painfully linear, and much more barbaric than the BOS always felt back in the old games.

The game also felt stupid easy. I ALWAYS had at least a couple Fusion Cores, and getting around the end of my character build (mid 30s) I had even small arms that could take down Deathclaws and the like fairly easily. Seldom even fired the big guns except for hilarity.

I'm starting the game over on hard with a character with all 3s in SPECIAL except luck, which is a 10. This character is going to be a melee fighter who is terrified of using power armor, and I'm not taking any perks until I have melee damage and all of the luck perks maxed for my level.

(As an aside, where is all the morally horrible stuff I could do back in the old days? I want to rob graves, murder children, sell my body for favors, and solicit ghoul prostitutes of every gender, damnit.)

I think I broke one of my railroad quests :( You have to go to Cambridge Polymer Labs. There's a robot that's supposed to guide you through the first part, she unlocks some area where I guess there's stuff to kill. Before she closed the door and locked me in, I decided to step out and exoplore first. She closed the door and locked my dog inside, and now I can't get in. There's no way I can find to open it again. So I went back to my quicksave and tried again, and now I can't even click on her to get her to start talking. She's just floating by the controls doing nothing.

My next earliest save happens to be like 2 hours worth of playing prior and I don't wanna go back and redo all that. So I guess this is as far as I can go with my railroad quests?

Yeah, you were supposed to be trapped there. In cases like that (as well as any instance where you might be stuck on some terrain or something), the console command "tcl" disables clipping, allowing you to fly through anything. Of course, if you're not on PC, that advice doesn't help you.

 daedalus wrote:

The game also felt stupid easy. I ALWAYS had at least a couple Fusion Cores, and getting around the end of my character build (mid 30s) I had even small arms that could take down Deathclaws and the like fairly easily.

My character build is stealth and charisma. If you want fusion cores (and free power armour) that's the way to go. For those that don't know, if you pickpocket a fusion core, the target will exit the armour. You can do this even to targets you pacify in combat.

So I finally romanced Cait. Turns out you don't have to succeed to get the perk.
I wanted that buff though.

Can you have multiple romances, and when I do I get flirts? I find Cait's dialogue to be somewhat amusing.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Can you have multiple romances, and when I do I get flirts? I find Cait's dialogue to be somewhat amusing.

Yes, polyamory is a thing in FO4. However, I heard that if you flirt with someone in front of someone you've already successfully romanced, there is a slight hit to your reputation with them.
But, it is fun to see who you wake up with when you have all your companions at one base.

Edit: and I've just had the game actually have an emotional hit on me.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Can you have multiple romances, and when I do I get flirts? I find Cait's dialogue to be somewhat amusing.

Yes, polyamory is a thing in FO4. However, I heard that if you flirt with someone in front of someone you've already successfully romanced, there is a slight hit to your reputation with them.
But, it is fun to see who you wake up with when you have all your companions at one base.

Edit: and I've just had the game actually have an emotional hit on me.

Spoiler:

While helping the Minutemen, I had met a ghoul in The Slog who sent me to find some parts for the Buttercup horse toy he was working on. Later, I visited the toy company's HQ and read notes and logs mentioning he (I'm somewhat surprised I recognized the name as being the same as the ghoul's) had been fired, and that he was the designer of the horse toy. I found his office and a holotape from his daughter and figured I would see if anything would happen if I visited him again.

Yeah, his reaction to the tape and his story of what happened definitely had me feeling it. Good bit of work there, Bethesda.

Yeah, there are a few nice ones in there but they far and few between compared to previous games. To be honest, the best lore I've encountered in this game so far has been holotapes and terminal text dumps.

That's because it's world-building, Bethesda are great at that. It's just a shame that they are utterly pants at story and dialogue.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
That's because it's world-building, Bethesda are great at that. It's just a shame that they are utterly pants at story and dialogue.

Debatable. Skyrim, for example, wasn't good world-building. Proportion issues and a lot of same-looking places.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
That's because it's world-building, Bethesda are great at that. It's just a shame that they are utterly pants at story and dialogue.

Debatable. Skyrim, for example, wasn't good world-building. Proportion issues and a lot of same-looking places.

Yeah, I don't see how FO4 is an example of good world building.
Consider power armor frames; they already have the power source in them, and yet they are still lying around.
How could they have not been taken? The ones that are behind a locked door makes sense, but the ones just lying around? Absolutely absurd.

Who put those teddy bears in odd positions? What's with all of the mannequins? Why isn't everyone in the Commonwealth dead due to the small army of raiders and mutants running amok?
How are legendary enemies even a thing? etc etc.
The game feels too much like Borderlands to have the mantle of good world building.

I'm pretty sure even locked doors would have been kicked in a long time ago; unless people are only just moving back into the area (which kind of seems to be taking place to an extent; though there are a number of large settlements which contraindicate this).

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I'm pretty sure even locked doors would have been kicked in a long time ago; unless people are only just moving back into the area (which kind of seems to be taking place to an extent; though there are a number of large settlements which contraindicate this).

I meant fortified military doors, the ones locked by a master terminal.
I supposed sufficient amounts of explosives can break it open though.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
That's because it's world-building, Bethesda are great at that. It's just a shame that they are utterly pants at story and dialogue.

Debatable. Skyrim, for example, wasn't good world-building. Proportion issues and a lot of same-looking places.

Yeah, I don't see how FO4 is an example of good world building.
Consider power armor frames; they already have the power source in them, and yet they are still lying around.
How could they have not been taken? The ones that are behind a locked door makes sense, but the ones just lying around? Absolutely absurd.

Who put those teddy bears in odd positions? What's with all of the mannequins? Why isn't everyone in the Commonwealth dead due to the small army of raiders and mutants running amok?
How are legendary enemies even a thing? etc etc.
The game feels too much like Borderlands to have the mantle of good world building.

Oh, it's not as good as their previous titles, not even close, but it's still what they have done far better than their story and dialogue.

I went with the Institute. Not happy with the result.Actually, that is what really frustrated me the most about FO4: the main quest forces you to make extreme decisions but does not really justify them except on the grounds that the various factions are so absolutist and rigid that they cannot even imagine each other's viewpoints. And that in turn really drains my sympathy for any of them. I wouldn't mind having to make such hard and stomarch-turning choices if the story lent stronger support to this notion. As things stand, it's hard to understand why the factions cannot resolve some of their differences without resorting to ultraviolence. I guess war never changes. It's a heavy-handed way to evoke the IP tagline, however. My first playthrough really left a bad taste.

I'm 75 hours into the game and still haven't chosen a faction. I have done a lot of the Minutemen quests, but only for the settlements. I haven't yet gotten to the point of no return.

I've only just now met the Railroad and had them decode the courser chip.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
That's because it's world-building, Bethesda are great at that. It's just a shame that they are utterly pants at story and dialogue.

Debatable. Skyrim, for example, wasn't good world-building. Proportion issues and a lot of same-looking places.

Yeah, I don't see how FO4 is an example of good world building.
Consider power armor frames; they already have the power source in them, and yet they are still lying around.
How could they have not been taken? The ones that are behind a locked door makes sense, but the ones just lying around? Absolutely absurd.

Who put those teddy bears in odd positions? What's with all of the mannequins? Why isn't everyone in the Commonwealth dead due to the small army of raiders and mutants running amok?
How are legendary enemies even a thing? etc etc.
The game feels too much like Borderlands to have the mantle of good world building.

I still have this issue with it being December in Boston and not a lick of snow to be seen. Everyone seems bundled up for winter as best they can, but outside it's Nevada with trees.

Why are these morons in flimsy shacks not all dead due to exposure? Why does Bethesda, who did such good work in Point Lookout, absolutely clueless now in Fallout 4???

Global warming due to nuclear apocalypse?

People might be bundled up but it still might only be 50 degrees F outside, if you're used to a warm climate then that can feel cold.

Just a thought.

200 years of radioactive fallout probably fethed up the climate.

Manchu wrote:
I went with the Institute. Not happy with the result.

Spoiler:

It's very frustrating because I don't really agree with the RR but I hardly want to murder them all. In fact, I think Father has the better point regarding keeping the more advanced synths on a short leash and conclusively proved it by sending you on the quest to take down the synth-turned-raider. I mean, I disagree with Father that synths deserve no status beyond being objects. But the RR seems to operate on the basis of emotion and ignorance. Tinker Tom is a good example of this, with all his conspiracy theories. It would have been a stronger story if (a) the RR had more insight into synths and/or (b) if you could negotiate some kind of understanding between the RR and the Institute.

Actually, that is what really frustrated me the most about FO4: the main quest forces you to make extreme decisions but does not really justify them except on the grounds that the various factions are so absolutist and rigid that they cannot even imagine each other's viewpoints. And that in turn really drains my sympathy for any of them. I wouldn't mind having to make such hard and stomarch-turning choices if the story lent stronger support to this notion. As things stand, it's hard to understand why the factions cannot resolve some of their differences without resorting to ultraviolence. I guess war never changes. It's a heavy-handed way to evoke the IP tagline, however. My first playthrough really left a bad taste.

Yeah i really hate this aspect.

I cant play my most neutral character that just wants everyone to get along.

on a side note
I kinda wonder why you can take power armor off dead BoS besides the parts. the frame should be removable and all :/

Thought this was very interesting, both well done, and pretty much says most of everything I was thinking.
It's an hour and a half though.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Thought this was very interesting, both well done, and pretty much says most of everything I was thinking.
It's an hour and a half though.

From the blurb of that video...

To all modders: I look forward to the "Mama Murphey Starter Kit" that puts a pack of drugs in Sanctuary that are needed to kill her. Please make it happen.

 Alex C wrote:
Global warming due to nuclear apocalypse?

Except it works the other way. There's a reason it's called 'nuclear' winter.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Alex C wrote:
Global warming due to nuclear apocalypse?

Except it works the other way. There's a reason it's called 'nuclear' winter.

Theres also a theory called the 'nuclear summer'.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Alex C wrote:
Global warming due to nuclear apocalypse?

Except it works the other way. There's a reason it's called 'nuclear' winter.

I looked outside at the wonderous landscape of northern Michigan today, on December's eve, and all was brown (except my lawn, which is still green because I'm awesome), with a light smattering of rain. Only a few years ago we would be clearing our driveways at this point, yet my snowthrower remains unused this season. Maybe by the late 2200's the weather pattern may have shifted?

I wouldn't let it bother you, just enjoy the game!

 Alex C wrote:

I looked outside at the wonderous landscape of northern Michigan today, on December's eve, and all was brown (except my lawn, which is still green because I'm awesome), with a light smattering of rain. Only a few years ago we would be clearing our driveways at this point, yet my snowthrower remains unused this season. Maybe by the late 2200's the weather pattern may have shifted?

I wouldn't let it bother you, just enjoy the game!

We've already had snow much further south than you. Thank YOU Lakes.

And (and this is somewhat paradoxical) a warmer Boston means run away snow fall further inland due to how the water cycle and the North Atlantic current work. Since neither the Capital Wasteland nor The Pitt have frozen over in a new little Ice Age.....


Hmmmm...





'

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Theres also a theory called the 'nuclear summer'.

If nuclear summer were occurring, all those trees would be gone.

It's basically just another oversight that could have been easily fixed by making it set in, say, April.

So...people are now saying that Fallout and Skyrim are in the same universe, as Fallout 4 has a nirnroot Easter egg.
Instead of it just being a case of both games being made by the same company.
Heresy intensifying.

 Desubot wrote:


on a side note
I kinda wonder why you can take power armor off dead BoS besides the parts. the frame should be removable and all :/

Simple reason: out of all the tools and junk items I've found, I have yet to find a can opener or a crowbar.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It's basically just another oversight that could have been easily fixed by making it set in, say, April.

A green and leafy fallout game? Blasphemous!

But, yeah, those trees have to still be alive. After 200 years, even in an arid climate those trees would be gone.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It's basically just another oversight that could have been easily fixed by making it set in, say, April.

A green and leafy fallout game? Blasphemous!

But, yeah, those trees have to still be alive. After 200 years, even in an arid climate those trees would be gone.

Fall then, like september, or october, but you know what I mean.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:


Simple reason: out of all the tools and junk items I've found, I have yet to find a can opener or a crowbar.

You can't have a crowbar because that would be copyright infringement

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

Simple reason: out of all the tools and junk items I've found, I have yet to find a can opener or a crowbar.

I have. Don't forget this is set in a future based off 1950's Americana, so they're not called 'Can Openers' any more, they're called "Ripper"s!. Either that or they got the Mr Handy's to saw the top off the cans.

And don't forget, even now, we have ring-pull cans for some things, or key cans for some fish.

I just don't believe that Nuka-Cola had produced enough that any are still available 210 years later!

Just got my first suit of X-01 armor last night, MK3 at that. I'm in the mid-30's already, and I'm dealing with deathclaws pretty easily without the armor, so it's kind of pointless, but was still neat.

I'm thinking I should just finish the story up on this character, and start a new guy to work on all of the side stuff with.

 djones520 wrote:
Just got my first suit of X-01 armor last night, MK3 at that. I'm in the mid-30's already, and I'm dealing with deathclaws pretty easily without the armor, so it's kind of pointless, but was still neat.

here's what I do, and the only time I use power armor:

I save up around 2k+ of 5mm ammo, then I put on power armor, and my "tactical minigun" and just walk around an area going Space Marine on people's arses



Unlike some people though, I only have 17 "batteries" for the suits, and I usually run low on 5mm pretty quickly so I quick travel back to drop of the armor

I've started to encounter those really nasty sentry bots, and they tend to drop 3-4 cores when you kill them. It's built my stockpile up pretty quickly.

I'm at 50+ fusion cores now, so I like to bust out the gatling laser sometimes. I gave it the charging barrels mod that makes it do more damage but shoot slower.

And then I used the console to give it the legendary upgrade that makes it shoot faster for funsies. Even then, it's still not quite as good as my rifle (as I have the rifle perks), but it's still fun to stomp around spitting laser death everywhere.

Have you guys seen the infinite ammo capacity on a double barreled shotgun? It's hilariously OP.

The only infinite ammo weapon I've found so far was a 10mm pistol, unfortunately.

My biggest issue with the shotgun is ammunition. I tear through it so damn fast.

 djones520 wrote:

My biggest issue with the shotgun is ammunition. I tear through it so damn fast.

even spamming the heck out of VATS with my shotty, I go through it's ammo way too fast.... Luckily enough, I have a lot of .308 and 5.56mm, which means I use my hunting/sniper rifle and assault rifle far more often and engage beyond the range of even VATS

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

My biggest issue with the shotgun is ammunition. I tear through it so damn fast.

even spamming the heck out of VATS with my shotty, I go through it's ammo way too fast.... Luckily enough, I have a lot of .308 and 5.56mm, which means I use my hunting/sniper rifle and assault rifle far more often and engage beyond the range of even VATS

I found an explosive sniper rifle, and have upgraded it to a .50 cal. It's just redonkulous now. It works really well with that perk that makes guys explode.

I just won at fallout 4.

Well this was en-lightening--spoilered for minor sweary words:

 Soladrin wrote:
I just won at fallout 4.

Spoiler:

Come back to me when you find an endless fat man.

 Desubot wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
I just won at fallout 4.

Spoiler:

Come back to me when you find an endless fat man.

This on survival, as you can see, his entire bar is discoloured, IE, it's a 1 shot kill.

I wasn't even aware that a legendary sentry bot could be a thing...

I'm level 49 now and I just have my 2-shot 50 cal sniper rifle that I modded to the max. It's a 1 shot kill for pretty much anything.. maybe 2 for a really tough enemy. I also have Piper following me around in Grognak's costume and a super sledge. Give her a melee weapon and she goes from cracking jokes to taunting and kicking arse. I love when she flips someone upside down then smushes their head with her hammer.

Right now I think I'm near the end of the institute quests where I have to kill the railroad lady.. so I'm doing the RR quests instead, but I think I'm gonna stick with the institute at the end. Right now I'm mostly just exploring and adding new settlements. I think I light the lighthouse in the top right of the map the best so far.

Jeesh, cannot stand the Railroad. What a bunch of idiots. Not only is their entire premise stupid as hell (freedom for...robots. Really?), their entire idea to do it is killing a few people to let a few escape. Gosh. Eradicating them was awe-some.

Yeah, I've even done a railroad playthrough and I still think they deserve to die.

They're really nonsensical.

Yeah i really dont like them ether.

Does anyone actually like the RR?

I sort of like what they believe in (freedom for intelligent sentiants), but the people within them can go die in hole.

I like Desdemona even if her characterization is mostly indirect (you learn why she is a good leader by listening to Carrington complain about her). I think the real reason the RR is annoying is Bethesda just shoves 'em down the player's throat: THESE ARE THE GOOD GUYS. Why? FREEDOM AND STUFF. I kind of got the impression that another, more competent writer handled the Institute.By contrast, how does the RR prove its point? It's like Bethesda simply assumed the player would already agree that (a) synths are basically interchangeable with humans and therefore (b) their "freedom" should be an immediately sympathetic goal. In effect, most of the burden of carrying this premise falls on the shoulders of Nick Valentine, a second gen (?) who managed to integrate into human society in a positive way. But when you think about it, the key to Nick's success is not that humans believe he is a human (the basic assumption of the RR) but rather that he is (and has to be) up front about who/what he is.

Yes, yesss. Let the hate flow.
Know my contempt at dealing with Victoria Watts in FO3
Feel my annoyance at their short-sighted, illogical and poorly developed ideals.

TBF the RR quest in FO3 boiled down to Doctor Zimmer being an ass who needed killing. His subordinate (and rival?) Doctor Ayo isn't much better.

The solution to the Ayo problem wasn't elegant though.

Manchu wrote:
TBF the RR quest in FO3 boiled down to Doctor Zimmer being an ass who needed killing. His subordinate (and rival?) Doctor Ayo isn't much better.

He was ass, yes. But at least he didn't stalk you across the wasteland and shove an undroppable item in your inventory without so much as a please and a thank you.
I can understand Zimmerman's arrogance, being from a high tech society and all, but what makes Watts so special, to treat me like her underling?
His reward was also better. Though I normally went for the gun, which is probably the best outcome anyway.
I think telling an android what he really is is more ethical that letting him live a lie, only to discover his true identity by accident, which would surely cause more pain.

So really the three choices were this

RR choice - Lie to the institute, leaving the android blissfully unaware of his true identity, which may result in him doing something that will reveal his identity, causing pain and ostracisation from the human populace, as well an existentialist crisis. Not to mention the possibility of him having a malfunction and melting the inhabitants of rivet city with that fancy plasma rifle.
Reward : some caps and a pat on the back from the game

Zimmerman choice - Remove a possible threat from human society, at the cost of a sentient machine's freedom.
Reward : A perk that makes vats better

Android choice - Reveal his identity to him, allowing him to keep his freedom, as well as preparing him to integrate better into human society. If he knows what he is, the likelihood of him revealing himself decreases.
Reward : A unique, kickass plasma rifle

Not mentioning the exploit that allows you to get both good rewards, as that always felt dodgy to me.

You could tell Harkness the truth without handing him over to Zimmer and Armitage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
ninja'd

Yeah, I did a stealthy edit

I'm happy I chose Brotherhood, now I just need 40k power armor mod (with all the marks, naturally) to really get in the spirit!

I was toying with saving the RR and betraying the institute, because that seemed like fun. Then I hit a known bug and now I have no choice but to destroy the RR. Not having a choice really makes you want to do the other thing.

RR is easily the most annoying faction, especially since they're the worst choice for the commonwealth as a whole

 Wolfblade wrote:
RR is easily the most annoying faction, especially since they're the worst choice for the commonwealth as a whole

Spoiler:

and trying to save like, 13 synths or whatever it was in their final mission is kind of a pathetic goal for a group that is made up to be far more powerful

Also, as someone who's finished every faction quest line. RR also requires you to do some institute quests for you to continue their quest line. This was very annoying since I'd already finished the Institute by then and had no reason to retread those quests.

 Soladrin wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:
RR is easily the most annoying faction, especially since they're the worst choice for the commonwealth as a whole

Spoiler:

and trying to save like, 13 synths or whatever it was in their final mission is kind of a pathetic goal for a group that is made up to be far more powerful

Spoiler:

That's not actually the end though.

Also, as someone who's finished every faction quest line. RR also requires you to do some institute quests for you to continue their quest line. This was very annoying since I'd already finished the Institute by then and had no reason to retread those quests.

Yeah I think I'm gonna cut my ties with the RR now and finish up the institute story, then maybe try a new guy and go with the BoS. I don't agree with their kill everything attitude but then killing everything is fun.

 Necros wrote:
Yeah I think I'm gonna cut my ties with the RR now and finish up the institute story, then maybe try a new guy and go with the BoS. I don't agree with their kill everything attitude but then killing everything is fun.

But but but LASERS!

I very much enjoyed the later Brotherhood missions where you...



That was one of the most pleasurable video game experiences in recent memory

So, because I haven't quite gotten there yet... how are these faction choices? Are they pretty much exactly like NV where if you choose the BoS, you cant choose the Institue or RR?


I kind of have in mind which factions I want to ally with, but not sure if I can, based on some posts here, it's a wee bit confusing.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
So, because I haven't quite gotten there yet... how are these faction choices? Are they pretty much exactly like NV where if you choose the BoS, you cant choose the Institue or RR?


I kind of have in mind which factions I want to ally with, but not sure if I can, based on some posts here, it's a wee bit confusing.

You really don't need to choose until pretty close to the final missions, hell, I've had the institute, BoS and RR friendly all at the same time until they started a conflicting mission at the same area (which is when you need to choose who you will help)

You basically have to align with Brotherhood, Railroad or Institute. Railroad alignment will have you working with the Institute for a while too. Not sure how the Minutemen factor in, I've kinda ignored them and they haven't reared their heads.

Whatever of the three you choose, you cut yourself off from having anything to do with the others in the future, except as small pockets of enemies to encounter once in a while.

Sadly (at least from what I've seen) there is no "independent" way, which I would prefer. I'd like to turn the minuite men into the government of the commonwealth, but that would allow for player freedom and lots of choice, even morally grey/black things, and we can't have that now can we.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Sadly (at least from what I've seen) there is no "independent" way, which I would prefer. I'd like to turn the minuite men into the government of the commonwealth, but that would allow for player freedom and lots of choice, even morally grey/black things, and we can't have that now can we.

You want blue, red, green AND grey endings?

Cheeky sod

Welp, I'm still at a miserable lvl 19, playing mostly on Very Hard and I've finally reached the Castle to give a hand to my fellow Minuteman.

Wow... I mean, wow. It's just .... He described it "A monster rose from the sea and destroyed the Castle" but I didn't know he meant it literally!

The bloody thing is thrice my size! I shot a rocket at it's face and it didn't even flinch! (aka, it's health stayed almost the same)

It's ... gonna be a challenge to beat the bloody thing when it sneezes at me and I die.

Well, for a creature from the deep, I would expect that.

It has to cope with high pressures at depth and therefore will be hard to damage physically.

However, I bet it doesn't take heat based attacks well. So Flamer, Napalmer, Shishkebab would probably be the best, but laser and plasma weapons would also work well. Or possibly the Gamma gun, but from what I've read about that, probably not.

That's if Bethesda have taken a logical course on that fight and not just given it an obscene health bar, of course.

 Conrad Turner wrote:
Well, for a creature from the deep, I would expect that.

It has to cope with high pressures at depth and therefore will be hard to damage physically.

However, I bet it doesn't take heat based attacks well. So Flamer, Napalmer, Shishkebab would probably be the best, but laser and plasma weapons would also work well. Or possibly the Gamma gun, but from what I've read about that, probably not.

That's if Bethesda have taken a logical course on that fight and not just given it an obscene health bar, of course.

So bloated health bar is it

Anyone found the submarine yet? That was a surprise.

Finally got Curie too. She complains about the violence but the weapon she picked up with zero prompt from me was a flamethrower. She is actively torching buildings and is amazed at the violence... She's the most violent Companion I've had, and I travelled with Strong.

Yeah I gave my CURIE a deathclaw gauntlet and she goes around slicing throats while lecturing me about how we should find a more civilized solution.

So, after thinking about it a while, I think that I have decided how I feel about the game.

It's a decent game, though sometimes it tries to do too much without enough explanation (see: workshop system). It's a gak fallout game though.

Why? Well, there were always a couple things fallout was all about. The moral reprehensibility of the wastes, the myriad of different ways to handle any situation, and the fact that almost anything in the game could be handled without firing a single shot.

I mean, they touch on this stuff a little. You can choose to help people or not. You can help the chem pusher at the diner instead of the trader that runs it. You get to pick which rail you ride (militant techno-extremists, science-at-all-costs-extremists, or freedom-extremists). I haven't done railroad or institute stuff yet, but in the BOS the only thing you can really do to affect the outcome of anything that happens is and that doesn't really have much in the way of ramifications beyond keeping a companion available.

Beyond that, it's "go here, kill these, otherwise, don't progress the story." When I think of fallout, I think of saving the ghouls at Necropolis in spite of taking the water chip. I think of Vault City shenanigans and getting citizenship without attacking Gecko by going around the quest. There's at least three ways to fix the Gecko generator, and it was tricky to figure out, rather than just "I put on my power armor and take the beryllium gadget without worrying about the rads" like in FO4. I think of talking down the raiders to save Tandi without getting into a fight. I think of the fact that you can choose to screw people to get your way (or not), and you suffer consequences (as far as reputation) for that. I think of the total mess that was New Reno, and how you could side with any of the factions there, but do almost all of the quests your way. For example, you could blame anyone you wanted for the poisoning of the kid of one of the families, or you could do some actual detective work and solve the problem and find out who is responsible, and each choice had other (game changing) consequences you had to deal with. You could reason your way through the final encounters of both Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. You could even kill the kids(!) that stole from you in the Den, but you'd be hated by basically everyone remotely good after. There was even Francis, one of the most... unique situations I've ever seen in any game. It was horrible, gritty, and believable in the new wild west that you would expect of a wasteland.

Fallout has always been a world where there were multiple ways to go with any situation. Sometimes options were limited by what kind of character you were, but there was almost always some way to make your decision "your way" of doing things. This feels like "Space Marine: Fallout Edition". I mean, they give you power armor almost immediately, and try to fix it by making it a resource consuming thing, and then there's enough of that resource to basically play out the entire game wearing the armor anyway with even just a token effort toward collecting it. That didn't really strike me at first, but the other night with my melee character, I got jumped by a deathclaw out of nowhere during a Railroad mission. Not finding another way to do anything about it, I realized I was still carrying the fat man I picked up earlier and the single nuke I had for it. I blasted the thing with it, and then finished it off with small arms. What's the problem with that? My melee character has a STR of 3, because the game was way too easy the first time. It was then that I realized that, even mechanically, I was a god with anything I could swing or pull a trigger on, even without making any choices. There's literally only one decision I can make in the game that has any ramifications, mechanically, or otherwise.

Don't get me wrong, Bethesda created a beautiful and vast expanse to explore and investigate, but only once did I really have that pang of "oh god, what decision do I make here, and what will the ramifications be?" Contrasted with previous games where basically every conversation was one of those situations. But maybe I just somehow missed all of those quests?

 daedalus wrote:
that pang of "oh god, what decision do I make here, and what will the ramifications be?"

I generally hate that kind of "evil genie" logic. If the consequences of your actions are not largely foreseeable then you cannot meaningfully attribute them to your choice. In any case, the problems with FO4 don't even lay on that spectrum. The actual issue is, the only choice is complete a faction quest line or don't. I agree with your point about FO4 being too linear in that regard.

Manchu wrote:
I generally hate that kind of "evil genie" logic. If the consequences of your actions are not largely foreseeable then you cannot meaningfully attribute them to your choice. In any case, the problems with FO4 don't even lay on that spectrum. The actual issue is, the only choice is complete a faction quest line or don't. I agree with your point about FO4 being too linear in that regard.

I get that, and to a certain extent, I agree.

My argument to that is that in real life we don't always know the ramifications of our actions, and as such, the old games captured that feeling well. And you almost always had a vague idea of what the immediate ramifications were. If you (falsely) outed Jules as the murderer of the boss's kid, you knew he would get dealt with. You'd have to be dense to think otherwise. You didn't know that your car would get stolen though, and Jules was basically the only way to track it down, at least, that I found. Knowing that game though, there was probably another way to do it that I just never found.

It was just too much in the opposite direction. I felt basically no agency as I played as far as my interaction with people. Even Mass Effect (well, ME1) gave me harder (and thus more rewarding) choices to make.

I guess that makes the way I play the game make a bit more sense


Basically, I am Max Rockatansky.... with a Boston accent (seriously, does the boston accent go extinct in the next 62 years?)

If I help, it's for the reward to me, elsewise I'm pretty much gonna kill and loot it for my own "survival".... Though I suppose I have a bit of Immortan Joe in me, since I am killing time building the occasional item in settlements and all.

I think FO4 had hard choices. Or rather one hard choice in several variations: kill a bunch of arguably good people or don't play any more. Hard choices aren't necessarily interesting or rewarding.

FWIW I chose to kill good people and then stop playing ... because I was honestly so disgusted by the game at that point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
(seriously, does the boston accent go extinct in the next 62 years?)

Some NPCs speak with a Boston accent. The accent is in even detectable in certain written documents from 2077 (for example, go visit Wicked Shipping).

Manchu wrote:
I think FO4 had hard choices. Or rather one hard choice in several variations: kill a bunch of arguably good people or don't play any more. Hard choices aren't necessarily interesting or rewarding.

FWIW I chose to kill good people and then stop playing ... because I was honestly so disgusted by the game at that point.

:(

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
(seriously, does the boston accent go extinct in the next 62 years?)

Some NPCs speak with a Boston accent. The accent is in even detectable in certain written documents from 2077 (for example, go visit Wicked Shipping).

I was bothered by the fact that, here we were, a couple generations later, and there's still random wastelanders out there who speak with vastly different accents than each other. "Why are you the only person in the entire known world who has a British accent?"

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
(seriously, does the boston accent go extinct in the next 62 years?)

Game is set in the late 2200's with most of Boston's population killed. I don't think it's a stretch of the imagination to see regional accents altered to some degree.

That said, I like it when NPCs do speak with the accent, and would like to have seen it used more, but accept that it may not be as common as it was before the war.

Yeah, it would have been better to have approx as much Bostonian spoken in FO4 as Nord accents in Skyrim.

I finished last night, I milked the railroad for all the quests they were worth (like blowing up the BOS blimp), then turned around and murdered everyone with my shiney new gauss rifle and got the institute ending.

Still plenty to do and a whole area of my map with no icons so lots to explore, but I think I might do that with a new character. Been wondering if it would be worth it to do a melee build.. or would that not really work since there's so many guns? Or only work for high levels where you can get good armor?

So the Minutemen are the only good guys? I like them, I really do, but they're just so boring.

RR are pretty clearly white hats. The trouble is, there are no brains in the heads wearing those white hats.

Agree that Minutemen are boring. More like Milquetoastmen.

Manchu wrote:
RR are pretty clearly white hats. The trouble is, there are no brains in the heads wearing those white hats.

Deacon is a fun guy to run around with for a while though until the one liners wear on you. Of course, you can say the same for anyone else who'll travel around with you.

Deacon is the best companion because of the disguises.

Well, yeah, those too. One time he showed up just wearing underwear, sunglasses, and the wig. That caught me offguard.

His outfit changes?

I mostly just use Dogmeat, and Piper sometimes, but Dogmeat is still my favoritest. Guess I just like dogs better than people.

Nick Valentine and Cait for me.

I run solo, they get in the way too often. Plus, I like to sneak about, they suck at that big time.

Anyone know how to get hold of the diamond city guard baseball armour without killing a guard?

Well, if you use the "kill" and "resurrect" console commands you can loot the armor from them and then bring them back to life as good as new. Cheaty, but better than nothing.

Maybe get one killed by a super mutant or something? That way, you're at least not killing them yourself.

Can you pickpocket equipped items, or give people live grenades and watch them blow up?

 daedalus wrote:
Maybe get one killed by a super mutant or something? That way, you're at least not killing them yourself.

This. They patrol near where Super Mutants are nesting. I have come across their corpses there.

I used to do that in skyrim with dragons, that way I could get my shield collection.

There's a baseball nut next to the weapons guy in Diamond City, maybe he sells it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Necros wrote:
Can you pickpocket equipped items, or give people live grenades and watch them blow up?

I believe that's unlocked in the Pickpocket perk tree.

Oh crap, think I may have fethed up.

I went to the Railroad and asked for their help to build the teleporter to get to the Institute, but I'm worried this has locked me into the Railroad faction. I wanted to side with the minutemen for the ending. Am I now permanently locked in to the railroad or can I switch to minutemen later?

Has anyone spent any time swimming around the bay? Those ships you see on the horizon are pretty cool to explore. Not much in the way of loot, but some nifty shelters. No enemies so far though... or survivors, which is a shame. Probably missed some though.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Oh crap, think I may have fethed up.

I went to the Railroad and asked for their help to build the teleporter to get to the Institute, but I'm worried this has locked me into the Railroad faction. I wanted to side with the minutemen for the ending. Am I now permanently locked in to the railroad or can I switch to minutemen later?

Nope, you can still flip sides.

So.... boy was I dumb.. 52 levels in my first playthrough, and I just now realized you can pic any perk you want. I was building my guy where I just assumed I had to put a point into each perk above it on the chart to unlock the one below it.. I dunno why but I thought that's how you had to do it... So. Many. Wasted. Points.

Anyway, I started a new guy tonight, gonna try and tear my way through the BoS story and murderize everyone else. And just pick the perks I want.

Wow, that sucks...

ZP review up: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/116433-Fallout-4-Review

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Oh crap, think I may have fethed up.

I went to the Railroad and asked for their help to build the teleporter to get to the Institute, but I'm worried this has locked me into the Railroad faction. I wanted to side with the minutemen for the ending. Am I now permanently locked in to the railroad or can I switch to minutemen later?

Minutemen don't have an ending, they are a side faction which doesn't care who you stick with.

Sadly. They could have been a cool independent ending, but nooo...

Meh, minutemen are boring incarnate.

I really hope DLC adds an interesting faction. And an option for actual evil characters.

The lack of a karma system does make certain actions rather meaningless.

 BrookM wrote:
The lack of a karma system does make certain actions rather meaningless.

It's not just that, I'm pretty sure i've completed over 80% of all side quests in the game and there really isn't a single quest in the game that could be considered evil. The worst you can really do (without mass murdering every npc for gaks n giggles) is being a douchy good guy. The game has no evil or neutral, it just has varying degrees of good guy. The closest thing to neutral quests are the ones involving drugs.

 Soladrin wrote:
The game has no evil or neutral, it just has varying degrees of good guy. The closest thing to neutral quests are the ones involving drugs.

I'd blame it on the fact that you're from the year 2077... clearly those guys were all such supremely nice people.

Remember in FO3, you were born in the vault, many many years after the fact. And, IIRC, the same was true of F:NV.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
The game has no evil or neutral, it just has varying degrees of good guy. The closest thing to neutral quests are the ones involving drugs.

I'd blame it on the fact that you're from the year 2077... clearly those guys were all such supremely nice people.

Remember in FO3, you were born in the vault, many many years after the fact. And, IIRC, the same was true of F:NV.

Why would I blame that when I can blame bethesda for being lazy? The game has no real choice or karma, they made fallout half of borderlands. Mind you, still enjoyable, but it's even further from what the originals were then ever.

It's unclear in NV. I think you were just one of the many people living their lives above ground.

When I heard about the new settlement system, and saw the awesome concept art for Raider armour (especially power armour), I had grandiose dreams about founding a gang of Raiders, fortifying a settlement and leading raids against other settlements.

Bethesda...I R DISAPPOINT.

 Soladrin wrote:
The game has no evil or neutral, it just has varying degrees of good guy.

Meanwhile, back in Skyrim:

Manchu wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
The game has no evil or neutral, it just has varying degrees of good guy.

Meanwhile, back in Skyrim:

Spoiler:

Manchu wrote:
There really aren't plenty of opportunities to be good. And there is a huge disparity between the good things you can do and the bad.

Being good in Skyrim:

Sure, I'll give you a minor healing potion that I just happen to have five bajillion of (and cannot sell because all the merchants are out of gold after buying reclaimed armor/weapons). What's that? It's to get clean from Skooma? Yeah, whatever. Ah gak, did you just give me potions for this?

Being evil in Skyrim:

So, let me get this straight, although I don't worship or in any way venerate you, you want me to go kill a bunch of savages who have imprisoned one of your rival's worshippers just so I can lead him back here and while you hold him I mercilessly beat him over and over until he begs you to be his master? And I get a sweet mace? I'm in. : open map :

Never said Skyrim was better.

That said, being the good guy is boring.

I guess that was kind of my point as well, at least from Skyrim's POV. The evil quests in Skyrim were plentiful and more importantly much more interesting than the good quests. The shades of good and evil are much more muted in FO4. For one thing, there is no real geopolitical or cultural standard to judge against. The heart of FO4, in fact, is about that very issue: which faction do you pick to be the standard of morality in the Commonwealth?

- heartless isolationism
- passionate buffoonery
- arrogant zealotry
- unoffensive futility

So is it possible to play 2 different characters? On Xbone?

I’m on my 2nd playthrough with an all new guy. But, when I start the game if I go to load an old game instead of just continue, I can’t find any of the saves from my first guy or any reference to him at all anywhere :/

There's an option to switch accounts, and log into my xbox as someone else and I guess use their character... but not to change characters.

When you go to load your game there should be an option for character select in there. (on PC)

 Soladrin wrote:
When you go to load your game there should be an option for character select in there. (on PC)

I haven't noticed that, though I've not really tried to go back and play my previous character. I know the PC version has a bug where if you try to start a new character having played an old one without restarting the game, you won't be able to move after getting out of the cryo pod.

 Soladrin wrote:
When you go to load your game there should be an option for character select in there. (on PC)

This option is present on the PS4 version. But, it does require that you have a least one manual save on the system.

That happened to me actually.. I kept reloading the save and watched Sean get kidnapped 4 times before I read that you have to reboot the whole machine to fix it.

 daedalus wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
When you go to load your game there should be an option for character select in there. (on PC)

I haven't noticed that, though I've not really tried to go back and play my previous character. I know the PC version has a bug where if you try to start a new character having played an old one without restarting the game, you won't be able to move after getting out of the cryo pod.

I started on the whole settlement stuff. Level 7 now, did the quest about Sanctuary Hills and just "renovated" my characters old house. Removed the car wreck and expanded the roof there a bit, and put my crafting stations + suit of power armor there. Looks quite nice for a base, I think!

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
When I heard about the new settlement system, and saw the awesome concept art for Raider armour (especially power armour), I had grandiose dreams about founding a gang of Raiders, fortifying a settlement and leading raids against other settlements.

Bethesda...I R DISAPPOINT.

There already are people working on a mod to get settlement fights going, pre-Alpha now. PC only.

Speaking of settlements. i REALLY wish i could put doors on preexisting buildings and structures.

Also being able to keep people out of it :/

You know, Bethesda should really start their own little sect of Buddhism.
I mean, they already have a mantra - "Mods will fix it"

 Desubot wrote:
Speaking of settlements. i REALLY wish i could put doors on preexisting buildings and structures.

Also being able to keep people out of it :/

That, as well as being able to remove leaves and other trash + being able to fix walls to some extent.

 Desubot wrote:
Speaking of settlements. i REALLY wish i could put doors on preexisting buildings and structures.

Also being able to keep people out of it :/

Piper is squatting in my house in Sanctuary Hills. She's sleeping in my bed.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Speaking of settlements. i REALLY wish i could put doors on preexisting buildings and structures.

Also being able to keep people out of it :/

Piper is squatting in my house in Sanctuary Hills. She's sleeping in my bed.

Nicccce

I think i would also love to see planter boxs

I REALLY hate running around clicking all the ground to find places to plant food.

mostly since i TWD Walled sanctuary and left most the dirt area on the outside :/

 Alex C wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Speaking of settlements. i REALLY wish i could put doors on preexisting buildings and structures.

Also being able to keep people out of it :/

Piper is squatting in my house in Sanctuary Hills. She's sleeping in my bed.

Nicccce

One time I woke up and Mama Murphy was sleeping in my bed :shudders:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Desubot wrote:
I think i would also love to see planter boxs

I REALLY hate running around clicking all the ground to find places to plant food.

mostly since i TWD Walled sanctuary and left most the dirt area on the outside :/

On PC there is already a mod allowing you to create planter boxes.

I put a wall around sanctuary, too, though mine ran around the perimeter of the build zone. I used the large dirt bit behind the crafting building for farmland.

 Desubot wrote:
I think i would also love to see planter boxs

I REALLY hate running around clicking all the ground to find places to plant food.

mostly since i TWD Walled sanctuary and left most the dirt area on the outside :/

That's already been modded in.

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1478/?

Well i got mine on the bone for free so im kinda stuck with vanilla.

So... I just saw on a wiki page (I was looking for where I can get Piper... turns out she's already available to me, lol)...


Apparently you can make your companions wear power armor...

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
So... I just saw on a wiki page (I was looking for where I can get Piper... turns out she's already available to me, lol)...


Apparently you can make your companions wear power armor...

How did you miss either of these things? I've had Hancock running around in raider power armor for ages (Because I can!).

Companions in PA is a nightmare though. They keep breaking bits! One fight and Curie is just wearing the torso armour... :(
(though interesting fact: Companions dont need fusion cores in their armour. <.< )

Yeah that's one thing that kind of bugged me about building settlements.. even if you clean up all the junk that's all over the place, it still looks all junked up because there's no way to really clean up everything. I want to build a nuclear wasteland utopia!

 Necros wrote:
Yeah that's one thing that kind of bugged me about building settlements.. even if you clean up all the junk that's all over the place, it still looks all junked up because there's no way to really clean up everything. I want to build a nuclear wasteland utopia!

Or fix damaged houses.

See if i keep seeing animations of people in sanctuary fixing houses i would expect them to finish eventually :/

Am I the only one thinking they are gearing up for a war between the ncr and the brotherhood of steel, the ncr are taking the West, brotherhood from the east, me thinks they are gonna meet at some point in the middle and a massive war will break out.

 Soladrin wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
So... I just saw on a wiki page (I was looking for where I can get Piper... turns out she's already available to me, lol)...


Apparently you can make your companions wear power armor...

How did you miss either of these things? I've had Hancock running around in raider power armor for ages (Because I can!).

On Piper... I "missed" her because when she became available as a companion, I was running with Dogmeat, and at this point in the game had completely forgotten about her.

On the other, no idea really... but I only just yesterday figured out how to establish a supply line, lol. Im more innit to kill things

A tip regarding supply lines. You don't need to connect all settlements directly to your main hub (e.g. Sanctuary) like the spokes on a wheel. You can connect everything in one continuous line, A - B - C - D - E. Everything in that line will be connected with everything else. It's less messy and uses up fewer settlers.

Your supply network should be more like a circle than a spiders web.

The whole settlement thing is abysmally done. The fact I had to even look up how to do supply lines was bad enough, but the way it's so clunky to manage. Oh you're a provisioner? From where? To where? Settlers don't stand at the stores you assign them, wander off into the wilderness or worst of all, bemoan a lack of food until you *tell* them to go work the crops. They're beyond useless, needing you to literally hold their hand and point at the exact crop you want done. And heaven forbid they actually *harvest* crops and expand them. Or build themselves a bed or anything else. No no, you, the lone survivor must not only run across the entire Commonwealth clearing out ghouls, super mutants and raiders (and rescuing that damn Abernathy girl over and over) but you, and only you, can organise beds, defenses or food/water. Oh sure you're also supplying all the materials for everything, lugging it all about the place while you risk your life, but that won't stop settler Bob from bitching about the living conditions to you. After all, you drove the raiders off for them, certainly it's up to you to organise their beds and dinner too. Ugh.

My second play through is completely ignoring the Minutemen and settlements. Useless drains that provide nothing.

I suppose you could lay in wait on the roads between settlements and ambush your own provisioners.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Settlements and crafting actually give a huge amount of XP. I must have had the equivalent of 15 levels or more of xp from crafting and settlement building alone.

I have no idea how many levels I got from it, but looking back after the play through is done, what does it matter? It didn't profit me *at all* to spend that time running about making their lives better. It's just creating more work for yourself. In the end I shut down all the beacons because I didn't want more whiny mouths to feed.

The entire process is self defeating. If I don't liberate Settlement X I don't get to use the workshop. But that's ok because quick travel means I'm precisely the same travel time from my base. Plus if I don't liberate it, i don't have to build a beacon. Which means I don't have to build beds, water treatment, power, defenses and everything else. I don't have to periodically clear out nearby threats, rescue kidnapped settlers or fend of raids/attacks.

Ultimately settlements are a waste of time. Sure you get XP but there's plenty of XP out there. I mean if you enjoy all the building, go your hardest. It was certainly entertaining *once* but I'll skip it this time.

Never came across a downside of letting the Settlements all live horrible lives in one bed per 15 people with no defenses. You can just ignore them and nothing bad comes of it. You can even Sandman Kill the ones in the bed when you need to have a quick kip and leave the corpse by the bed. If no one sees it, no one cares. It can be just a fun little side game that makes no difference. Like building a house on top of the main building in Bunker Hill. That's a good time. Or rebuilding the Castle with concrete and making it look pretty.

Just restarting as a new character. Going to play as an avenging daemon who is not happy at all about the world being destroyed and is very much out to destroy what is left of the world

So, it turns out that you can't use power fists with power armor.
Which is both lame and illogical.
The Power First was added in Fallout 1 to give unarmed specialists a viable late game weapon that would work thematically with a suit of power armor.
Wtf bethesda?

Yeah I was pretty annoyed when I found that out myself.

 Formosa wrote:
Am I the only one thinking they are gearing up for a war between the ncr and the brotherhood of steel, the ncr are taking the West, brotherhood from the east, me thinks they are gonna meet at some point in the middle and a massive war will break out.

Fallout 5: St. Louis

BoS traditionally don't want land though. One of the things I don't like about Bethesda's portrayal of them is as an all-conquoring army. They are a secret cult of donkey-cave technophiles that make surgical strikes from small, hidden bunkers.

 djones520 wrote:

Fallout 5: St. Louis

St Louis already has enough exposed nuclear pile laying around though. It doesn't quite offer the sprawling urban wastelasnd either.

My vote's for Chicago. Allows for a similar premise and gives a place more people can relate to.

 Alex C wrote:
BoS traditionally don't want land though. One of the things I don't like about Bethesda's portrayal of them is as an all-conquoring army. They are a secret cult of donkey-cave technophiles that make surgical strikes from small, hidden bunkers.

in the west I totally agree, but they have taken over the east, or at least totally occupied Washington state and surrounding areas, one can only assume they will continue to expand as they get new recruits and the need for food, water, space etc. grows, the comment about them taking over the capital wasteland has changed everything about them, they are clearly no longer insular, but a very real presence in the east, just as the NCR is in the west, give it a decade or 2 and I honestly think they will meet at some point, seeing what the NCR did to the west coast brotherhood, I cannot see the encounter being peaceful, WW4...

What did NCR do to the BOS? They didn't have much interaction on the west coast from what I remember of Fallout 1/2, and I have more knowledge of that than most.

Well, there were conflicts over the normal BoS things (i.e. NCR going after tech). Come the time of NV, the BoS has mostly been force back to hiding in their bunkers.

Okay, I don't think I got that from NV. Didn't play it that much, to be honest. I could see that though, and I might need to give it a second chance, given how close to the originals people are saying it was.

I'd heartily recommend it. There is a great amount of choice and options within.

 daedalus wrote:
What did NCR do to the BOS? They didn't have much interaction on the west coast from what I remember of Fallout 1/2, and I have more knowledge of that than most.

Due to political and ideological differences, the ncr effectively wiped out the brotherhood, they have been either forced into hiding, defected to the ncr, killed or fled, we meet the ones that have fled the ncr in new Vegas, from a logical standpoint I can understand the ncr not wanting a highly disciplined army that is well motivated and equipped living under its feet, that it has no control over, also the brotherhood refuses to integrate any kind of abhuman (ghouls etc.) and the ncr does allow them (maybe not super mutants), fallout tactics as far as I know is not canon though, so the brotherhood will not accept any of these.

This clearly led to a conflict of interests between the two parties and as a result, the brotherhood was broken in the West.

This appears to be the complete opposite to what happened in the East, Capital wasteland was stabilised, then the brotherhood took over before they could be turned on, I feel sorry for what has aboviosly happened to any super mutant or ghoul in the East that the brotherhood gets its hands on, I can't imagine living under the totalitarian regime of the brotherhood is nice either, which is a shame, as they are clearly commiting the same mistakes of the old world.

Hope that helped.

The BoS on the east coast, under Elder Lyons, decided to actually try to make things better for the people living there and act as protectors and guardians. That ideology certainly changed due to the events of FO3 and the reintegration of the splinter faction that had wanted to stay true to the BoS's core beliefs. The BoS have always had something of a "might makes right" mentality. The BoS in the west were rightly disabused of that notion, but still refused to adapt as seen in F:NV, and are dying out because of it. The BoS in the east have adapted, by being more inclusive of outsiders and working towards governing those they see as under their protection. However, they are still very much under the mindset that they know what is right, because they have the might, and you don't.

That's the point I'm making tan, it seems the new game is saying the Conservative brotherhood won, as the brotherhood you meat in Boston are extremely hostile, Puriton BOS.

 Formosa wrote:
That's the point I'm making tan, it seems the new game is saying the Conservative brotherhood won, as the brotherhood you meat in Boston are extremely hostile, Puriton BOS.

Yeah, canon is that



so I'm left to wonder if siding with the Institute is actually better or worse...

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
That's the point I'm making tan, it seems the new game is saying the Conservative brotherhood won, as the brotherhood you meat in Boston are extremely hostile, Puriton BOS.

Yeah, canon is that

Spoiler:

Lyons and his daughter are dead, and the last of the hard liners has taken control. They took Rivet City's reactor to make that huge airship you see,

so I'm left to wonder if siding with the Institute is actually better or worse...

Well, only one of the two

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
That's the point I'm making tan, it seems the new game is saying the Conservative brotherhood won, as the brotherhood you meat in Boston are extremely hostile, Puriton BOS.

Yeah, canon is that

Spoiler:

Lyons and his daughter are dead, and the last of the hard liners has taken control. They took Rivet City's reactor to make that huge airship you see,

so I'm left to wonder if siding with the Institute is actually better or worse...

Well, only one of the two

Spoiler:

creates androids that kill people in the middle of the night to replace them

The other commits genocide.
The FO4 BoS is more like the Enclave than the BoS.
Just paint their armor black and give them a bio weapon, and you're good to go.
The only difference is that their idea of genetic purity doesn't extend to the human populace.

Ghouls and supermutants are a threat to humanity, though.

 thenoobbomb wrote:
Ghouls and supermutants are a threat to humanity, though.

Even Marcus, and the Supermutant inhabitants of the NCR? Remember that in Fallout 2 there was a Super Mutant ranger.
What of the sentient ghouls, who managed to successfully integrate into human society?
Also keep in mind that the BoS just have a different concept of mutation than the Enclave; the Enclave thought that anyone who wasn't born on that rig was a mutant.
The BoS will still shoot anyone who has an extra toe.

 thenoobbomb wrote:

Well, only one of the two

Spoiler:

creates androids that kill people in the middle of the night to replace them

So, the institute is bad because it does it retail, and the BoS is good because they do it wholesale?

Remember, the faction that's back in charge is the one that murders whole towns to get technology they want and

Look at all this! We should take as much of this as we can carry.

-Preston Garvey, volunteering himself for Pack Mule duties.

I had just stepped out of my PA to build some stuff at one of my settlements when something attacked and one of the settlers STOLE MY GOD DAMN ARMOUR!

How the hell do I get him out of it?

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I had just stepped out of my PA to build some stuff at one of my settlements when something attacked and one of the settlers STOLE MY GOD DAMN ARMOUR!

How the hell do I get him out of it?

Can you trade with them and yoink the fusion core?

That's theoretical. Never had that happen.

I think you can order them out of the armour in Workshop mode.

It was Jake Finch; I can order him to do stuff in workshop mode but not to get out of the suit (even ordering him to use things that he can't do in armour does not cause him to jump out). Since I just rescued him from the Forged, all he will say is "thanks for rescuing me!" (yeah, thanks for stealing my armour you jerk! ) so I can't trade with him.

Ah well, I had not pimped it out at all, but it was the best of the stuff I had at the time

I will revisit the settlement at some point in the future and see if he has jumped out (to go to bed for example )

Try pick-pocketing the fusion core. That should eject them.

Eh, it's just a frame. You can always trade the armour pieces off him and put them on another frame. There's several of them lying about in the game. Fun as it is to build Iron Man style garages of power armour, the reality is you only ever need one suit.

Your companion should always wear a spare frame. It doesn't cost a core to run and provides them with a few benefits (such as increased carrying capacity).

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Just realized...does it, at any point, explain why power armor suddenly runs on an extremely short-lived battery?

Probably not, it's quite possible that it's a pure game play idea rather than anything to do with the lore.

From a gamepla point of view, it makes no sense. Fusion cores are more than plentiful and you rather have too many than ever finding yourself in need of them. Why then introduce such a system? Also kinda breaks with FO lore. Not liking the kind of power creep going on. Power Armor feels "too early". To me, t's alwas been some kind of major scalig point, i.e. get Power Armor and you know you just started kicking major ass.

Yeah, I think they wanted to make PA more available to appeal to the masses, but they then realized how OP it would be.
So they decided to break lore by incorporating such a tedious mechanic.
And then they realized that it made PA useless, so they just spammed cores everywhere

They should have given different suits of armor different energy uses.
Lore wise, T45 was supposed to be very energy inefficient, as opposed to the T51 which had a battery pack that could last a millenia.

Also, why is there not a .223? Such a weapon would have been perfect considering the game's story, as the .223 pistol is based off of the gun from Blade Runner, and the Synths are basically Androids.

Alright you guys win, I was wrong.

Starting to get the hang of this game. I was ready to put it to rest last week but this weekend I've put in a good chunk of hours into it. Its like Morrowind for me all over again: start of confused and overwhelmed then transition to being curious and excited.

 Cheesecat wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Just realized...does it, at any point, explain why power armor suddenly runs on an extremely short-lived battery?

Probably not, it's quite possible that it's a pure game play idea rather than anything to do with the lore.

From a gamepla point of view, it makes no sense. Fusion cores are more than plentiful and you rather have too many than ever finding yourself in need of them. Why then introduce such a system? Also kinda breaks with FO lore. Not liking the kind of power creep going on. Power Armor feels "too early". To me, t's alwas been some kind of major scalig point, i.e. get Power Armor and you know you just started kicking major ass.

Yeah, I think they wanted to make PA more available to appeal to the masses, but they then realized how OP it would be.
So they decided to break lore by incorporating such a tedious mechanic.
And then they realized that it made PA useless, so they just spammed cores everywhere

They should have given different suits of armor different energy uses.
Lore wise, T45 was supposed to be very energy inefficient, as opposed to the T51 which had a battery pack that could last a millenia.

Also, why is there not a .223? Such a weapon would have been perfect considering the game's story, as the .223 pistol is based off of the gun from Blade Runner, and the Synths are basically Androids.

Alright you guys win, I was wrong.

But the 'spamming' of fusion cores DOES have a reason that is unconnected with power armour. They are the ammo for the laser Gatling gun. That is why I am stockpiling them at Sanctuary. I want to finish the game strolling around in top of the range power armour toting one of those bad boys being able to take down anything in the game. Then I'm going to kick the BoS, Institute, and RR in the nuts and help the Minutemen unify the commonwealth!

Helping people for no reward rocks! [Also, re-doing those repeatable missions is great fun and allows me to collect a shedload of adhesive and some good comics. Last Saturday I got a new Grognak in that shipping company. I had already cleared it a couple of hours before and taken everything it had. Got a mission to clear out the ghouls from it. It cost me 3 rounds from my combat rifle to retire the 3 ghouls that were there, I found more ammo than I spent, more duct tape and wonderglue, and a new issue of Grognak. How is that not a win for 5 minutes work?]

The repeatable missions are mostly there to farm for XP, seeing as there's no level cap and well, there aren't a lot of quests per faction to begin with.

 Conrad Turner wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Just realized...does it, at any point, explain why power armor suddenly runs on an extremely short-lived battery?

Probably not, it's quite possible that it's a pure game play idea rather than anything to do with the lore.

From a gamepla point of view, it makes no sense. Fusion cores are more than plentiful and you rather have too many than ever finding yourself in need of them. Why then introduce such a system? Also kinda breaks with FO lore. Not liking the kind of power creep going on. Power Armor feels "too early". To me, t's alwas been some kind of major scalig point, i.e. get Power Armor and you know you just started kicking major ass.

Yeah, I think they wanted to make PA more available to appeal to the masses, but they then realized how OP it would be.
So they decided to break lore by incorporating such a tedious mechanic.
And then they realized that it made PA useless, so they just spammed cores everywhere

They should have given different suits of armor different energy uses.
Lore wise, T45 was supposed to be very energy inefficient, as opposed to the T51 which had a battery pack that could last a millenia.

Also, why is there not a .223? Such a weapon would have been perfect considering the game's story, as the .223 pistol is based off of the gun from Blade Runner, and the Synths are basically Androids.

Alright you guys win, I was wrong.

But the 'spamming' of fusion cores DOES have a reason that is unconnected with power armour. They are the ammo for the laser Gatling gun. That is why I am stockpiling them at Sanctuary. I want to finish the game strolling around in top of the range power armour toting one of those bad boys being able to take down anything in the game. Then I'm going to kick the BoS, Institute, and RR in the nuts and help the Minutemen unify the commonwealth!

Helping people for no reward rocks! [Also, re-doing those repeatable missions is great fun and allows me to collect a shedload of adhesive and some good comics. Last Saturday I got a new Grognak in that shipping company. I had already cleared it a couple of hours before and taken everything it had. Got a mission to clear out the ghouls from it. It cost me 3 rounds from my combat rifle to retire the 3 ghouls that were there, I found more ammo than I spent, more duct tape and wonderglue, and a new issue of Grognak. How is that not a win for 5 minutes work?]

Which doesn't make sense, as the Gatling laser is supposed to use either Microfusion cells or ECP.
Making a new ammo type that's also needed to power PA is an odd design decision.

I swear, when I thought I couldn't love Curie even more



She even knows Japanese (I love it how the Protectron's single line "Nan-ni shimasho-ka?" has typos )

Ooh, if you like her now, you'll love that..

So, I decided to side with the Institute, and tell the BOS to go eff themselves. Then I get handed a quest today that sounds like I'm going to have to pick between the Institute and the Minute Men. I'm not liking that one...

The minutemen don't care who you side with, so if you side with the institute you can do all of their quests, and still do all of the minutemen ones.

Meanwhile, I sided with the Brotherhood.

 thenoobbomb wrote:
Meanwhile, I sided with the Brotherhood.

My next run through, I'm going to do a melee specialist who goes with them.

I went to the Railroad for help building the teleporter, and I did the undercover quest with the holotape where you make contact with their operative. That hasn't locked me permanently into the Railroad has it? I want to side with the Minutemen in the long run, not the Railroad.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I went to the Railroad for help building the teleporter, and I did the undercover quest with the holotape where you make contact with their operative. That hasn't locked me permanently into the Railroad has it? I want to side with the Minutemen in the long run, not the Railroad.

I don't think the Minutemen are one of the vital story line factions. It seems to me its just RR, Institute, or BoS.

Screw the RR guys though. Everytime.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Ooh, if you like her now, you'll love that..

Spoiler:

you can transfer her into a Sexy Synth Bodytm.

Yeah, I've only discovered this today after finding a very ... uh ... I'm gonna call it "artistic" image of her Probably the best way to be spoilered about something.

When I built the teleporter on my first playthrough, I did it with the minutemen. Sturgis wanted me to download a tape with institute data, and when I gave it to him he was just like "thanks" and that was the last anyone in the minutemen had anything to do with the whole institute quest line. It felt like the devs just forgot to finish it or something.

 Necros wrote:
When I built the teleporter on my first playthrough, I did it with the minutemen. Sturgis wanted me to download a tape with institute data, and when I gave it to him he was just like "thanks" and that was the last anyone in the minutemen had anything to do with the whole institute quest line. It felt like the devs just forgot to finish it or something.

The Institute handed me a quest that said I had to go "take" someone to join the Institute, that the Minutemen were protecting. I haven't done that yet, so not sure what to expect.

How do you join the Institute and do quests for them, at what point does that come in the game?

I like the idea of being a crazy scientist..

You'll know it when it happens and to me it's less crazy scientist, more the only sane faction that just wants to do what is right for mankind, even if that means abducting people and replacing them with synths.

From what I've read online (I haven't gotten so far in the game, and I wanted to know how to join the Institute... so that I'd at least know what to look for when I decided to stick with BoS on this play through), you have to be very near the end of the "main" story line, around the second to last mission or something.

Yeah, you're not locked in until the very end and if a mission makes you hostile to another faction it will say so in the quest description.

The last Quest of the Brotherhood gives you a pop-up saying the Institute will go hostile towards when you get into the Vertibird. RR will go hostile after you get the order to Problem tho... I still had a quest to finish with Tinker Tom... He's as dead as can be now.

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:
The last Quest of the Brotherhood gives you a pop-up saying the Institute will go hostile towards when you get into the Vertibird. RR will go hostile after you get the order to

Spoiler:

squash them under your power armored boots like the annoying people they are.

Problem tho... I still had a quest to finish with Tinker Tom... He's as dead as can be now.

I think the brotherhood offers you a similar mission.