Re: Fallout 4 (now with extra New Vegas!...and a dash of 76)

You know how I roll, waiting in the shadows for a game to get really old and then I pounce on it. Haha, and now I own Fallout 4. It's $10 on Steam for the GotY edition which has some DLC included. I was a massive fan of FO3 and New Vegas, but skipped FO4 for whatever reason, probably due to post-release chatter. The upshot is I get it at it's most seasoned, and with a box well beyond what was cutting edge in 2015, so it runs so nicely.

I played a few hours, to level 4, and had a great time. It's said that FO4 is a great game, just not a great Fallout game, but I'll see about that. My early impressions were really good and looking forward to sinking more time in to it. It works better as a straight shooter it seems, and I've completely ignored VATS so far, since the gunplay seems more shooter-like.

Anyone have recommendations for essential mods? I was pleasantly surprised by how good it looks, I think I was expecting something closer to Stalker CoP in terms of graphics, but even right out of the box it looks good.

Any other thoughts you think might help a noob appreciated.

I don't recall any of the post-release chatter being negative. Are you sure you are not confusing Fallout 4 with Fallout 76?

I played through Fallout 4 several years ago but I did not use any mods. You are right that F4 plays more like a straight FPS and I barely ever used VATS. I just didn't find it necessary.

Haha, no I'm not sure, but something put me off. Being such a big fan of the two previous titles it doesn't make much sense that I would skip FO4 unless the chatter was mixed. It could have been one of any number of reasons, but I have it now. I probably hadn't played a Fallout game in six or seven years, when I gave NV another run.

Pretty cool to be back in this universe, with the Nuka Cola, Pip Boy, Dog Meat and all the neat little touches these games have in their alternate reality. I like the idea of no level cap too, so there's always a sense of progression no matter how long one might play.

New Vegas was the first Fallout game I played and I've been hooked on the franchise ever since. The initial release of F76 was disastrous but after multiple updates the game has been vastly improved. After you finish F4 I recommend you give F76 a shot.

Fallout 3 was mine in 2008, and I really liked it. I dug the whole vibe, and played through a couple times. New Vegas was more of the same, better in some ways too. Two really good games, if you are in to this sort of stuff. We'll see how FO4 stacks up with enough seat time behind me.

I'm surprised you are recommending 76, as the chatter on that one was so bad, but it's a good game now? Maybe I will try it. But FO4 looks to have gobs of content and I can't see finishing anytime soon.

I'll try to sort out some mods once I have the lay of that land. Not looking at the moment for anything in particular, but UI mods are always welcome if they improve anything. Just curious which mods folks find essential to help me cut through the chaff. I guess the nexus is the way to go to mod Fallout? Disappointed there's no Steam Workshop support as that makes it so easy.

There were two I spotted that I think I'd like. One is a 'lowered weapons' mod that drops your weapon lower when not being fired. Maybe a weather/atmosphere mod, the mod to always have the dog even if another companion is along. Too early really for me to worry about crafting or settlement addons and the like I reckon. I'll need to have a go with all of that before I know what I might like to change.

The bottom line is that the game was originally intended to be a multiplayer experience only. There were no NPC's and no over-arcing storyline. The subsequent updates added the storylines and NPC's so you now have a full-fledged single player experience like the previous titles. The multiplayer aspect is still there of course but players can opt out of it for the most part if they are not interested. Having said that, I've enjoyed the multiplayer "events" quite a bit.

According to Steam it took me about 225 hours to finish F4 and all of the DLC's so yes, it's quite a time sink if you are a completionist like me who likes to do every side quest.

I am thorough, I'd say, but not the completionist you are. I remember talking about Dishonored 2 and how you had found everything and I was far from that.

There was a time I was like that, wanting to turn over every rock, but over time I started just taking it as it comes, and if I miss stuff so what? I've found this to be quite nice when I almost inevitably play the game again at a later time and actually find things I hadn't before. Just a personal perspective. I tend to avoid spoilers, don't want to look up solutions or any sort of guidance, try to figure it out as I go.

Like when I was creating my character I didn't look for info on best builds, I just went with my gut, trying to put my SPECIAL points in those that would dovetail with the way I envisioned my character. We'll see how it plays out, but I don't think the game will prove difficult enough that I'll regret any choices really. And I guess with no level cap you can eventually get all perks or nearly so anyway. I doubt I'd ever get that far along, but it's nice to know I can.

OK between you two guys I've bought a few games based on just reading your posts.Haven't hit a bad choice yet .so grabbed the GOTY edition.A good price so grabbed the GOTY edition on sale.Sure looks like something I'll enjoy.You guys keep posting and I'll keep reading.

Good to hear! You'll get a lot of playing time out of Fallout 4 assuming it fits your game tastes. The game takes place in the Boston area so you might be familiar with it since I remember you said you are originally from Connecticut.

Yes, that is good to hear. Maybe a bit pretentious to say this, but I write my posts (usually) with a lot of detail and anecdotes, because for me at least, this is the sort of thing I like to read. The sort of stuff that helps me decide if it is something I would want to play. Too often these days folks just post videos, or a brief summation. The game is good!

Yeah, well, that doesn't really narrow it down. And I rarely click a video someone has linked to. Not sure why. I prefer the written word. Weird isn't it? I prefer maps to GPS too. Books to film. Fly fishing versus bait. Stick over automatic. What was I talking about....? Oh yes...

And while this thread hasn't been one of these (yet), it's something I try to do, partly I guess to provide the type of content that I myself would enjoy to read. Like my F1 2020 thread. I could have just said it's a really good racing sim and be done with it. Instead, it's now many pages long, filled with images, AARs, mechanical comments, and well, I think, every nut and bolt about that sim, good and bad. Because that is what I would like to read if I were interested in F1 2020. I don't care to just rate it, but to take the reader along for the ride. Same with Falcon threads, or EU IV, Combat Mission or Total War and well, lots of them.

Honestly I wish there was a lot more of this around here, but that's a different discussion. And to come back to the point, it's nice to read that Russ finds it useful on occasion. And it would be good to get some updates from players who hop on to know how they are getting along with the game. I find it very interesting, especially if it happens top be the game I am in to at the mo.

At $10, this is a heck of a bargain really, for those of us who didn't buy it earlier. Probably easily a 200-hour game for me, and maybe more. That's a nickel an hour haha.

I'll be diving back in to the Commonwealth tonight. Got some exploring to do.

With you right at the same stage in the game as me Russ, I hope you'll make some follow-on posts so we can discuss it! Have fun and thanks for your comment.

PM Yep upstate N.Y.,,R.I. and CT and know Boston well.Walked the Freedom Trail pretty much yearly for a few years..It looks like my type of game.Summers waning so I'll have lots of time to play it.I needed some fresh meat and I've found it.

As for mods, I always use vivid weather makes for stormier storms and foggier fog. Also options for darker nights. Maybe the remove building limit, be careful as you can cause problems if you build up every base massively over base budget.
If you care about steam achievements, you'll want the achievement mod, since any mod will disable any achievements.
Mostly, just give it a whirl the first time thorugh and use mods to fix what you don't like. Too easy, make enemies hit harder or nerf your damage. Too few gun types, download some more. Hate the junk in your outposts, get a mod that lets you salvage it. Power lines too short, yep, there's a mod for that too.

Yes, that's good advice wormfood. I'll see as I go which I might think are needed. Was hoping to use the experience of those who went before to get whatever might be considered essential, like a community bugfix, or UI mod, or another that fixes a broken thing, which I don't know yet is broken.

That's good that you mentioned achievements. I'm not a total whore, but I like to get them. I'll be on the lookout for that mod when I finally get around to installing any mod. Is the nexus the way to go?

One of the things I like best about FO4 compared to 3/NV is the change in the way you converse with NPCs. Before playing, I had visions of the face-lock type convos we had in earlier Fallout games (and other Bethesda games too), which were a bit unsettling at times to be frank. They changed the dialog options too, and too early to know if that's better or worse, but, I expect, just different.

So, better graphics (of course), better shooting and better NPC interaction than what I remember from the earlier games. Lots more still to discover as I haven't been beyond Concorde. I think I'll turn the Red Rocket in to my base. I'm too much of a free spirit to shack up with the other unfortunates in Sanctuary. They'll only weigh me down

There is the unofficial patch that fixes a few bugs: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/4598

Got to have all six DLC's in order for it to work?

""""Yeah, well, that doesn't really narrow it down. And I rarely click a video someone has linked to. Not sure why. I prefer the written word. Weird isn't it? I prefer maps to GPS too. Books to film. Fly fishing versus bait. Stick over automatic. What was I talking about....? Oh yes..."""""

LOL DB you aren't alone with those thoughts.And I might add I prefer hard cover books to reading some bloody kindle screen.It's almost erotic to sit back open a book and have a beer and a double dose of Jack nearby.And of course my pup next to me.
I need to do a bit of reading today to get started with Fallout and figure out how to use the xbox controller I bought.Haven't got the hang of it yet

You choose the controller over KB+M?

Speaking of dogs, I was experiencing a weird phenomena last night. I have Dog Meat along, and probably will constantly through the rest of the game. He's been great, and has a vicious streak haha. Good dog

As I am playing I am aware of him, and then out of the corner of my eye I spot my real dog as he moves around the room and I think how'd he get over there? Like I'm conflating the two dogs and it's unsettling for a brief moment haha. Strange.,

I said earlier that the game won't prove too difficult but some of the combat is tough. I made the mistake bold choice to follow the quest to clear the Corvega factory and didn't know what I was getting in to. I did it at level 5 (and was 7 when I left) and it was quite a battle. All of those perforated walkways mean the AI can shoot at you from all over and it's hard to spot them. But I made it. I just had to adjust to the way things work in this game and by the end things were going smoothly. It would have been better to wait until I had better weapons and protection, but that's life.

So far it feels like a proper Fallout game. The opportunity cost over perk selection is compelling, but at the same time I know eventually I'll have everything I want. But early on these choices feel weighty. I took Gun Nut at level 6 and looking forward to messing around with weapon modding. Anyone know where a good early-game rifle is? Spoilers OK. I don't want to spend the mats for modding a low level gun if there's a better option close by.

Thanks for that link Wormfood.

Not sure yet DB I bought the controller for a golf game and found out I did better with a kb+mouse.Just couldn't get used to the controller.I'll give it a try for a bit and see if I like it.It was only $20 so if i don't like the feel I can bin it with my other computer extras.I couldn't get used to using rudder pedals for flying due to a left leg that doesn't work so well but at an IL-2 site I go to there was another member I gifted the set to..Reading a bit about F4 and getting a general idea how the game plays.Never played a Fallout game before.Haven't explored yet but is there some kind of easy scenario to use as a tutorial.
Don't know how much I'll get into it today.got my second virus jab yesterday and feeling real tired today..Might end up just slapping on the headset and listening to so good music.

If I remember correctly I didn't find the combat to be that difficult in FO4 except for those couple of unfortunate encounters where I ran into a deathclaw when I was still at a pretty low level.

My second Pfizer shot just about took me out. Seriously, my second shot wiped me and I spent the next day sleeping, going home very early from work. Everyone has a different reaction, but for me it was bad.

I'm finding the combat challenging, but it's situational. Like those AI that can see and shoot so easily through the walkways. Radscorpions popping out of the ground under my feet, or the molerat armies that do the same. I need to mix VATS in a little more and that would give me more control. But even still, I'm getting through it no worries. I'm nearly past the hobo phase and soon should be better equipped and I'll start tinkering with the crafting and modification stuff.

rwatson I don't think there's any sort of easy section, at least that I have noticed in my brief exposure. The earliest missions took me to clear out Concord, which isn't easy really, but not bad either and you'll get some good gear including a nice set of armor. I started by heading to Sanctuary after leaving the vault, having a look a round and talking to the butler, then clearing out the Red Rocket station, then in to Concord. This opens up the settlement mechanics and gets you a dog.

Concentrating on building up Sanctuary instead of exploring the wastes could ease a player in I reckon.

Thanks DB at least I have a starting point to work on.Just did a bit briefly yesterday and was in some apartment and didn't know what to do next.But exploring is part of the adventure and that's what i like.I'll figure it out in time.

Have you been through the vault and emerged after the war, or before that?

If before that, the thing to do is answer the door when the salesman comes around and talk to him.

No db just fired it up to see if my settings were god looked around the room and walked around a bit.If I can get moving today I'll start playing around a bit more.

OK mate, hope the shot effects pass quickly and you can get down to reclaiming the wastelands

You still need to do your character and all, so have fun.

You know it's funny how the thing that always trips me up with these types of games is picking a name. I spend an absurd amount of time not knowing what to do. I want to pick something I like in case it can't be changed later. But this time after five minutes of indecision I just picked...


Dave


And Codsworth pronounces it. Glad I picked something so simple, and was very surprised that the game could handle it and speak it. Pretty neat.

Dave's not here, man.

LOL my game name is always Ruski in games where I need one. I flew online in EAW as JG51_Ruski and that's been me since around 2001.I joined here in June 2001 and joined JG51 a couple months later otherwise I would have registered here with that name

Turns out the list of names is extensive

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Codsworth/recognized_names

Ruski isn't there, but Ivan is

Russell, too.

Bond is in the list. If only I had known!

Hmm Ivan sounds good to me.

Ivan works for me

I wasn't sure which way to go when spending the SPECIAL points but I leaned toward high Perception, Intelligence and Luck. Low Strength, Charisma and Endurance. Agility in the middle. A rifleman build but well-rounded enough that I can get useful perks in all disciplines. I'll probably take Lone Wanderer which gives +50% carry capacity and I'm not going to use melee all that much so low strength is fine. I think the best way to approach this is to look over the perks trees first, identify which ones you will want to get as you play the game, and then spend your SPECIALs to open those perks up. Otherwise you'll find yourself locked out of something you may have really wanted. Then again, you can always 'train' a SPECIAL point, but at the cost of one less perk of course.

Hit level 8, and explored more of the map. Getting fast travel points opened up is useful.

I've been farting around with the settlement stuff. Sanctuary is the primer settlement, and to bring it up you have to build beds, and water pumps, some crops and defenses. Not sure what I think of this side of the game yet. It's not particularly compelling gameplay, but over time, with a network of improved settlements maybe I'll feel differently. At this point I'll just work on two or three and see where that leads. FO4 vets seem to largely recommend getting Local Leader perk to establish supply lines. This allows all of your settlements to share resources I think. This also allows trading posts and other stuff.

I think when one of my settlements repels the first attack with my defenses proving key that I will start to feel differently and some attachment to what I am building.

I only put 3 points in to Charisma during creation, then spent one You're Special book to get a fourth point, but Local Leader needs level 6. I'm torn because if I am not going to make settlements a core focus then I don't care to drop more points in to it. There's still a bobblehead out there to bring me to 5 and then I can train the sixth point if needed.

The settlements mechanic seems to be something that should appeal to me so I'll keep working on it and see where it leads.

Got a Hardened Sniper Rifle off a fallen Gunner, and that really opens things up. With that scope I can now use VATS to scout ahead and identify targets, not to mention take them out at range. A nice boost to lethality and survivability, with the added bonus of improved SA.

I mentioned I am probably going to take Lone Wanderer which means my only companion can be the pooch, in exchange for 15% less damage taken and +50 carry capacity (not +50% as I said before). Does anyone have any opinion on this? Are any of the companions that I would lock out going to be missed? Any companion-specific content or items or abilities that I might regret missing out on?

Companions are a big part of the experience, and can be useful in a fight early on, although I typically go solo in the later game.

Yes, thanks. I just read that there are companion perks. So yes, it looks like I should do some companion stuff at least until I get any I want.

https://www.ign.com/wikis/fallout-4/Companion_Perks

Are these permanent, or once gained remain after dismissal?

I believe they're permanent.

100% agree. Piper was my companion for most of the time because hey, I like eye candy.

I've been rolling with Piper for a few hours. But so far I'm not too keen on the follower thing. It might be cool for the story, commentary, quests and that sort of thing, but from a tactical perspective it's pants lol. Constantly crossing my sight lines during combat which is annoying AF. The companion bonuses are not so strong I can't live without them. I might go back to dog meat and just ignore this. I'll give Nick a go too and then decide. A loner's more my style anyway, so I'm leaning toward going the Lone Wanderer route after all.

Made it to level 15 yesterday so moving right along. I wish I had spent my SPECIAL points slightly differently. I would have put a couple fewer points in Intelligence, and more in Luck and Charisma. I thought high Intelligence would pay off with more XP, but then I saw the Idiot Savant perk and that makes up for having low INT, although the trigger sound is also annoying AF. I'd love to replace that sound with something like the objective tone from Thief 2. Luck has the best group of perks for me.

I started with 3 Charisma, dropped another point with a book and then trained a fifth point and still have passed a single speech check so far. Knowing what I know now I should have put one less point in Perception and spent it in Agility. Even so I'm still doing fine but with some time in the game I can see a better starting build than what I went with.

I like the change that makes energy weapons use the normal perks instead of having its own. I'm dropping points in all three of Rifleman, Commando and Gunslinger. This way any weapon I pick up will be covered with additional damage output and the other bonuses such as ignoring a percentage of armor. The gunplay's pretty good in FO4, at least the free-aim is better than the previous games. In a sense it feels like FO4 is a shooter with RPG elements, whereas New Vegas and FO3 felt more like RPGs with shooter elements.

I absolutely see this as well and the "FPS with RPG elements" trend continues even more so with Fallout 76.

I may get 76 eventually, I'm enjoying rediscovering the Fallout universe. So many neat little touches that appeal to me in this alternate reality.

How do you guys approach arming and outfitting your settlers? Not sure how much effort I will put in to building the settlements, but I think I would have fun focusing on getting my people armed to the teeth. How do you do your defenses? Is a couple of turrets enough? Is placement important? I have yet to see any attack on one of my settlements so I don't know what is needed to repel one.

I assume I need to go to 'trade' with the settler, give him/her the weapon and one round of suitable ammo? I have a vast trove of pipe guns as well as things like missile launchers, a fat man, a couple miniguns and so on. Just curious how others go about this.

If I were to do it over this is how I would have spent my initial SPECIAL points. Since levels have no cap, and points and perks are not limited (until you run out of perks), it isn't that big of a deal. But if I had paid more attention, and knew what I know now, this is how I would have gone at the start.

Strength (3) -- To get to the Armorer perk. Not too concerned with melee, and while additional carry capacity is worthwhile, each SPECIAL point only raises the capacity by 10, which isn't worth a point to me.

Perception (4) -- To get the Locksmith perk, which is very useful. Five points would get Demolition Expert, and that was my plan. But I hadn't realized you cannot throw grenades in VATS any longer, which sucks, and so I'd keep it at 4. This affects VATS accuracy too though. Then again, with better shooting mechanics in FO4 VATS is not so crucial any more.

Endurance (1) -- Dump stat. The perks in this tree are mostly centered around survival, damage resistance, chems and so on. Useful, but for me the least important tree and points are better spent elsewhere.

Charisma (4) -- The target is Local Leader at level 6, but not needed right away, and the first You're Special can be spent to raise it to 5. Then train, find another book or find the bobblehead to get to 6 to get Local Leader, which networks your settlements and allows higher-tier buildings. Can be ignored if you ignore the settlement side to the game. But if you don't you'll want the Local Leader perk.

Intelligence (4) -- To get to Hacker. I made the mistake of sinking 7 points in to INT, because I thought that was a good idea to get more XP. But with the Idiot Savant perk (Luck tree) this really wasn't necessary, and I don't care about the level 5, 6 and 7 perks (Scrapper, Science, Chemist). This would have given me three points back. This decision nags at me. It's the sort of thing that usually makes me start over eventually. But since points are unlimited in FO4 I'll stay the course and can correct this over time.

Agility (5) -- To get to Action Boy. VATS is less vital for me in FO4, but it's still fun to use and can be a life saver in tight situations against mobs. 3 points to get to Sneak is bare minimum. Sneak is very powerful in Fallout.

Luck (7) -- To get to Critical Banker. Aside from Bloody Mess (level 3) I like every perk in this tree and if I were to eventually max one out it will be Luck.

Finally got started playing but I seem to have a few issues from the shot.Took me awhile to get going.Couldn't figure out how to get out of the house.
Finally got to the bunker but I'm stuck trying to get into the pod to put the suit on I can't get into it..I miss the days when you got a manual with a game at least to get you started,I think I'll go and find a Wiki or a general guide.But it looks like it's worth taking my time to learn.
I see there's an unofficial patch here https://www.afkmods.com/Unofficial%20Fallout%204%20Patch%20Version%20History.html
I have the GOTY edition with all the needed DLC's is it worth installing ??

You can't get in the pod?

Is it "E"?

You are on PC?

Got it DB turned around and went to a different pod behind me and looking in the Activate E choice showed and they shut the door on me.I tried using a game pad yesterday but didn't like it.I'm just getting my feet wet with Fallout.Bloody shot has me knackered a bit but at least I've gotten rolling with this game.It's good to take a break from flying

OK cool. I just zoned out for a bit and wondered what it would be like to have FO4 be your first Fallout game.

FO3 was mine and many things from that game have stood the test of time (and fading memory). Very memorable and unique compared to what I had played before. We're going back to 2008 here. I vividly recall emerging from vault 101 in to the blinding sunshine and just how freaking awesome it was. Nuka cola, Megaton, Lucas Sims, who had a cool vibe, and I dug his style. So much so that as soon as I could sport a long duster and a similar hat I did so. The Super Duper Mart, Reilly's Raiders. The trip with Liberty Prime to retake the Jefferson Memorial. The radio stations. Tranquility Lane, Big Town and Rivet City. Well I could go on and on. But all this sticks with me even 13 years later.

Emerging from the vault this time was less transcendent. How much of that is due to familiarity and how much due to how it is in the game is hard to say, but it did not have the same effect .

New Vegas is probably the better game from a mechanical and design standpoint, but it's hard to overcome the visceral effect that FO3 imparted. Too early for me to judge where FO4 falls within this particular trio, but so far it feels worthy of inclusion at the very least.

The current Fallout 4 is quite different from the game I first played back in 2015, which was not only glitchy in the usual sense, but the difficultly scaling was wonky and you could be suddenly overwhelmed with random high level spawns.

Also, the game was stingy when it came to loot and building resources, and of course you didn't have access to the DLC content.

It all made for a more challenging start, which I kind of liked, although you become just as overpowered by the late game.

This is pretty much a universal trait for all of the FPS/RPG games that I've played so far. It was most pronounced in the recent Deus Ex games where you are essentially a demi-god once you have all of the abilities and skills unlocked and maxed out.

Fallout 4 is a pretty extreme example of this though, as you are pretty much invincible past the early game without even optimizing your character.

I'm now level 23 and I'm not close to invincible. Those #%&*$# bloodbugs are lethal! I ran across a legendary one last night and it kicked my ass. I'm still dying a fair amount. I'm wearing combat armor with level 1 ballistic weave on fatigues. I'll put more points in to armorer to keep bumping this.

Things got better though with the ballistic weave, which I only knew to get from reading the internet. Without that I probably would have played through the game without even knowing about it. This is a big boost to armor rating. The bottleneck is the ballistic fiber needed to craft it, but I found a vendor selling a shipment, which cost a small fortune. But I had not bought anything at all to that point so had plenty of caps. Grab every military duct tape you come across.

Settlement defense is a joke, and I'll probably just ignore it when I see on the map that a settlement needs help defending itself. I fast travel there and am immediately piled on by a swarm of enemies. Last night I tried it and as soon as I dropped in to the 3D I was pounced on by four tankbots, and stood no chance. Maybe if I fast traveled close by and then approached from a distance I'd have some chance with these? Not sure what the penalty is for not responding, but if I don't find a different approach that stands a chance then I'll just ignore it and take the hit.

Still not sold on companions. I've been running with Deacon as he's pretty cool and has a nice companion perk that gives +20% sneak attack damage which is strong and dovetails nicely with my playstyle. If there were 'formation' commands and I could ask him to trail me at a distance it would be better. The companions aren't much use in combat, other than as an agg magnet. I prefer going it alone and if I'm able to get Deacon's perk I'll probably go lone wanderer and then if I ever play FO4 again I'll maybe give the companions another shot.

Deacon seems to like everything I do and say, but as far as I can tell I've not maxxed him out. How do you know you've reached it? I guess I would see evidence of this perk in the Pip Boy? Is there a notification?

I largely ignored this aspect when I played. I think all I did was built a few MG turrets at a couple of my settlements and that's it. It just seemed to me to be unnecessary tedious stuff to keep tabs on.

Is it true that if the defense rating is high enough that the settlements won't be attacked? Like if it's 'green' does that stop these attacks, or what is the requirement?

I only have defenses set up at three settlements, maybe I should make some rounds and set up more. it would be nice to put an end to this.

I talked before about how it nags at me that I spent my SPECIAL points the way that I did. Too many in Intelligence and not enough in Agility or Luck. So I decided to go find the Agility bobblehead last night to help mitigate this. It's on a boat with NPCs much higher level than I am, including a legendary boss. I made it on to the boat then spent about an hour! sniping from the pilothouse near the stern. Take a shot, which alerts the NPCs, hide until they revert, then another shot, and repeat. In this way I was able to get them all until it was just Rags left. For him I laid out some bottlecap mines, and then fired a shot to get him to investigate. He triggered a mine, which I guess crippled his leg and he sat down. I approached him to see if I could talk to him, but no, so I shot him with Deliverer and went to grab the bobblehead.

I got a fantastic gun somewhere along the line. It's a lever action, double shot legendary, but takes .45-70 rounds of which I've seen none so far. The stats says it does about triple the damage of my best guns now.

I'm having a swell time with Fallout 4, this was a good choice

I agree with that that DB.Best game I've played in a long time.A bit hard to learn but having fun with it.The learning will come in time.Well worth the effort to spend time working stuff out.Good break from flight sims that were getting to be the same old same old.

Anything you want to know? Post it up.

Since I'm just a little ahead of you it's all fresh. Here are a few things I would offer as tips

-- Get armorer perk and ballistic weave. This allows you to boost the AR on clothing and hats. So you can wear fatigues for example under your armor pieces and get a big boost to the rating, at top tier a set of army or military fatigues can reach 110 AR before the armor pieces are added in, plus add either +1 STR and +1 AGL (army) or +2 AGL (Military). Follow the Freedom Trail quest you'll get in Boston to unlock this. It takes a while, but very much worth it.

-- Do quests for all factions. Eventually you need to choose one, but that's way down the line.

-- Carry a gasmask. Radiation is an issue, and Radaway is precious early on. Carry a gasmask to give you some protection. Of course you might opt to use power armor all the time, which takes care of that. But who runs around in power armor. Seriously.

-- Choose early perks wisely. Lots to choose from, and depends to an extent on how you spent your SPECIALs. But some are more beneficial than others. Perks like Lead Belly and Toughness might seem a good idea at first, but these are the sorts of perks that will fade as the game goes on and you might regret that point. 10 DR is nothing later on. Early on I'd suggest focusing on a gun type (Rifleman, Gunslinger, Commando) to hit harder. Locksmith, Medic, Sneak.

-- Carry several guns using different ammo types. Ammo is scarce early on, and if you don't do this you will run out. So carry multiple weapons and rotate them to build ammo stocks. I took one level of Scrounger to help here, but now at level 23 I have gobs of it. So one point early will help when ammo is an issue, but done right you won't need to drop another point in to it.

-- Embrace crafting. Gather everything. This can be ignored, but I think that's a mistake. Grab Gun Nut and Armorer perks so you can modify these items. Gather as much as you can when out on patrol or missions, drop it at a settlement. To modify your equipment and to do the settlement thing you'll need lots of stuff. Grab every military duct tape or ammo bag you see, as these provide the ballistic fiber needed for the weave enhancement. Learn what items yield which materials and which items have the highest utility versus weight so you can be selective since capacity is limited. Cooked food has some nice effects too. Drop it all at the same workshop until you get Local Leader perk (if you do). Aluminum, adhesives, fertilizer, watches for gears and more are key mats you'll always need.

-- Hold R to holster weapon

-- Hold E to exit power armor

-- Hold Tab for Pip-Light

-- Sneak is really powerful. Not only do you get a constant alerted status for SA, you get an automatic critical when attacking an unalerted enemy from sneak. So take the Sneak perk, boost Agility and look for any other items that enhance it (muffled, shadowed, etc). Some players won't want a stealth build, but it is really strong in this game.

-- Scrapping weapons and armor removes their mods for later use, if so equipped

-- You can use VATS to scout and find mines

Thanks DB,Getting some great information from this thread.

Anytime, but if you have specific questions just ask. You may have known all that I just posted.

I'm just saying this because you posted that it's hard to learn, and there are several vets here who know the game and I'm getting there. And of course I like discussing these sorts of things and am happy to help.

Settlement defense ratings are misleading because it does not account for important factors like settler equipment and the majority of fortification features.

A settlement that's filled with well armed and armored settlers, is effectively walled off, and has well sited defensive turrets beats the crap out of one with a much higher rating where that isn't the case.

Of course, the latter will fair better when you're not actually there.

That makes sense but what I'm wondering is is there a point where the rating is high enough that the raids or attacks stop spawning? Will they only happen when below a certain level? Or will they always happen regardless?

My settlements are far from having walls. At most it's two turrets. I had brought up arming the settlers earlier, but I have yet to do this. I've not really gotten in to settlement building and management aside from what is needed to do the Minuteman quest line. I have three with any level of improvement, and the rest are left to their own devices. After visiting four or five I saw where this was headed and I stopped visiting more. And then you get the Railroad's safe houses, and the castle from a Minuteman mission. It doesn't take long before you've got a bunch to tend to.

For now I'm mostly ignoring it, but I can see the appeal for some players. I'm about ready to start the quest line that will lead to the Charisma bobblehead, which will raise it to 6 and then I'll take Local Leader and maybe start getting more involved once I have the supply lines in place. I was thinking I could give power armor and heavy weapons to each of the supply line 'runners'. Get them out on patrol.

Back to companions....

OK so I've used three so far, Dog Meat, Piper and Deacon. I've spent quite a bit of time with Deacon now trying to get his companion bonus. "Deacon liked that" has flashed on the screen plenty of times, I've exhausted all of this dialog options at every chance. But still no companion perk as far as I can tell. I want to ask again, how will I know? Is there a notification that flashes up, or will it appear n the perk list in the Pip Boy?

I get that some folks will enjoy the flavor that these companions provide, the dialog, the backstories. But I'm not feeling it. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but Deacon and I did a mission last night, the confrontation with Kellogg in Fort Hagen. I've given Deacon a combat shotgun, a sniper rifle, a laser rifle and handgun, and some ammo for each. We go in to the fort and he is using the sniper rifle in close quarters, hip firing. Very slowly lol. Next to useless in combat. Anytime we get jumped I'm firing away and he's off doing something other than firing his weapon it seems. After the enemy is dead here he comes like nothing happened and I say something sarcastic. I've been speaking out loud to these companions, and little of it is good.

For example when I was with Piper I came across the USS Constitution (which was a great quest for what it's worth, very Fallout). I had trouble finding the entrance for a bit, then as the quest rolls on I have to leave and return several times. So over the course of all this coming and going, Piper said, at least one hundred times (maybe a little exaggeration)

"This didn't sail up here did it?" Over, and over and over.

So I start taking back. I mean me, not my character, Dave.

Yeah Piper, it sure did. High tide don't you know. Must be the ebb at the mo.

Sure Piper, this is dry dock.

Let me roll my eyes a little farther and I'll see.

And plenty more snark, outta me, I reckon.

She's kinda cute, and bubbly and still I got rid of her and tried Deacon, who seems cool, but again, just about useless in combat. So I start wondering if I should just ditch these companions. Yeah, I'll miss their perks, but if every one takes as long as it is taking with Deacon, I'll not come close to getting them all. Lone Wanderer is that much closer now.

So the question is, if I take Lone Wanderer, does that mean I can no longer use companions? Or just that if I do take a companion I don't get Lone Wanderer bonuses while they are in the party? Dog Meat is actually quite handy in combat (and I bet Danse is too). I can take LW and still have the dog along, and I think once I get Deacon's bonus I'm going solo with the mutt.

The dog doesn't say stoopid stuff, doesn't judge your actions, finds useful things, does not break stealth, does not try to shoot through me, does not cross my line of fire and is useful in combat. Plus I love dogs. One of my favorite sayings is

"The more people I meet, the more I like my dog"

I believe it you get the defense rating above 100, you'll only experience scripted and random attacks from enemies that spawn nearby. Not sure about vertibirds.

Getting the rating to that level is not easy to do at many locations, at least early on. I like to put turrets in groups of four on a two level scaffold, and have a bunch of these facing broadside to the most likely avenues of attack.

IMO, you're best off only developing a handful of the more easily managed spots until later on when you have lots of resources.

Yes, good advice Crane. 10 defense is a long way from 100 defense lol.

I'm going to partially ignore this. Through time I'll make improvements here and there, or maybe repairs with this attitude.

It's feeling like something I would be more keen on if I decide to go off grid and live in the game world as opposed to following the quest lines. That's possible down the line, like I did with the Stalker games. So far though I'm not interested enough in the settlement side to the game. A little here, a little there, seeing it slowly morph over time. Thankfully the repercussions of inattention don't seem bad.

I logged on last night and the very first thing I did was spin around and talk to Deacon, and just like that I hit max affinity and got the companion bonus. To answer my earlier questions, the notification comes on screen and has to be clicked away so you cannot miss it and the perk is in the list in the Pip Boy. I haven't bothered with the stealth boy, but the +20% sneak attack damage is great. So I said "later" to Deacon and went and joined up with Danse and did some of the BoS quest line. Now this dude is effective in combat!

Alas, I have a problem. My faithful mutt was sent to Sanctuary when I hooked up with Deacon. I saw the dog there later, at the doghouse near the stream. During the Kellogg quest we had to do some tracking, and it was suggested that perhaps Dog Meat could get a scent off an item found in the target's house and lead us to him. As we left the house in Diamond City surprisingly Dog Meat was standing right outside and led us to the objective.

But since then I cannot find him. He's not in Sanctuary, I checked both doghouses. He's not at the Red Rocket, He's not still waiting outside the fort he led us to. I built the bell that is supposed to call friendlies, but Dog Meat did not show. Where is he? How can I find him?

I think it's some kind of ratio between water and food compared to defense. The more food and water you have, the more defense you need to discourage attacks. Arming the settlers doesn't count for defense points, but when it it attacked they'll fight much better.

When you arm them is it enough to give a single round of ammunition for that weapon?

I had asked earlier about this, wondering how others go about it, how much effort they put in to it. Are players giving them armor too usually? How involved do you guys get in this?

I got a notification while out on patrol yesterday that Tenpines Bluff was under attack. Due to apathy being otherwise engaged I failed to respond and promptly forgot all about it. Several hours later a message popped up that our defense had been successful. There are two people living there and no defenses at all. Odd.

Power armor is too ubiquitous in FO4. It's always something that felt like a late game thing, but here suits are found all over. I think I have five of them collecting dust in Sanctuary and a few more that I just left where they were. The power cores are designed to limit the suit's use to a degree, but those are common enough too. But as mentioned I was thinking that when I finally take Local Leader and attempt to establish supply lines that I can give the designated runner some very fancy kit. Maybe a mini gun and power armor. Put it to good use I reckon. And then I imagine I'd encounter them when out on patrol, since they go everywhere in real time right?

For settlers, yes, one bullet is enough, they just generate more somehow. For companions, they'll use what you give them until they run out, and they waste ammo at an astonishing rate. There are mods that make the companions have infinite ammo when you give them a weapon though.

I'll be curious to see which faction you end up siding with DBond by the time you get to the end of the game. I sided with "The Institute" when I did my play-through.

Really? The Institute? I have yet to encounter them so my entire impression is based on what encountered NPCs have had to say. And none of it good. No spoliers please about that.

In these games and with a diverse faction mechanic I tend to side with whichever faction is most like a revolution, for freedom. The loners and the stoners. I tend to reject authority, oppression, militaristic groups. Even so I've been quite impressed with the BoS, they've got their sh!t wired tight don't they? But they are also the faction I'd normally rail against. So we'll see how it plays out.

Railroad is the one most like what I would normally align with, the underground underdogs. But I'm wary of the synth threat lol.

As the story unfolds and I learn more it will be interesting which way I go in the end. I'll let you know for sure Panzer.

No worries. All I will say is that there are two sides to every story and that in the Fallout universe, no faction is really "all good" or "all bad".

OK, thanks, now how do I find my pooch?

Thanks for the info above wormfood.

You can all stop looking, because my dog has returned to Sanctuary. No guarantee he'll be there next time I look, but at least he's found. I'm rolling with Macready at the mo, to get his perk. I might go Lone Wanderer at that point. And to answer another of my questions, it appears that the perk will still allow companions, with Lone Wanderer effects suspended while a companion is with the Vault Dweller.

I'm level 28 now and starting to feel pretty powerful as everything comes together and the build path synergizes. There is a ton of content in FO4 and I've still got the two DLC to navigate.

Now level 33 and after getting Macready's companion perk I dismissed him, went and got Dogmeat and took Lone Wanderer. I happened to have two points unspent so went straight to LW level 2 which is 30% damage reduction and +100 carry capacity. That's pretty good, and having also gone to Armorer 3 to boost the ballistic weave even higher, protection is strong, even with the fairly lightweight pieces I am wearing to make me stealthy.

It was funny, because when you reach the point the companion hits max affinity, he/she launches in to a heartfelt soliloquy of how meaningful the relationship is and how great a friend I am and the next thing out of my mouth is hit the road Jack, I'm done with you. Coldhearted, man.

I'm starting to think I should have played on Survival. Anyone play this way?

I have not because at the time I felt that the added difficulty was overkill.

The difficulty didn't matter too much to me as the lack of saving and crashes did.

Yes, that too! Nothing sucks worse than losing an hour or more of progress in a game.

You may be right. No fast travel is a big restriction, the save restrictions too. Ammo has weight, which with all I am carrying at the mo would probably bore me through to China. Hunger, thirst, sleep. Tougher enemies, and much longer re-population cycle. The player does get the Adrenaline perk to help offset the added difficulty.

Too late now, but if I were to ever play again I'd give Survival a go. Those changes actually sound good to me, but the fast travel one is a killer.

Back to companions for a moment. They are well done in this game outside of combat. Their quests, backstories, dialog, personalities and mechanics are all well done in my view. But in combat they are frustrating and annoying most of the time. I've only used five or six in this run, and they are not entirely useless. But they get in the way far too much for me. It is so annoying to be sitting at the top of a staircase or whatever scoping ahead, maybe shooting, and having the companion just park in front of you, blocking the view.

By giving them up and going Lone Wanderer (which doesn't lock companions out, so I can still use them) I feel like I will be missing some good content (like having Nick along in Far Harbor), but for me Dogmeat's combat behavior is the best, and I'm a loner at heart in games like this most of the time. Just a man and his dog reclaiming the wastes, one raider at a time.

In case you were curious, Fallout 76 implemented some of those "survival" aspects by default. All ammo has weight and especially explosive ammo like missiles and mini-nukes will weigh you down quickly if you carry too many of those. Hunger and thirst are definitely factors and you will lose all bonuses to your disease resistance and hit points if your hunger and thirst states are too far in the "red". You can fast travel but you have to pay a fee (in caps). The fee depends on the distance you are fast travelling.

Thanks Panzer, appreciate the info. Not sure I'll go that route, but more information is always good.

I read that in (FO4) survival mode that mini-nukes weigh 12. And I have like 20 of them. I don't even want to know what the 40 or so cannonballs I am carrying around would weigh lol.

At the same time these sorts of things appeal to me. I found the early game fairly challenging, and made some regrettable decisions spending my SPECIAL points. But as the perks are acquired, and I find and modify better weaponry and armor I'm feeling a bit too powerful frankly, and even bumped the difficulty up from normal to compensate. I think a Survival run will help to balance that out. I'm tempted to give it a go. I would like another shot at SPECIAL distribution. BUT! In survival, Endurance would suddenly be not a dump stat and instead of bumping Agility and Luck like I want to do, I'd probably need to boost Endurance instead.

I've been reading about Survival most of the day, and I'm going to start over and give it a go. I feel like I want the extra challenge, especially the inventory restrictions that will put such importance on what kit I carry. I'll keep my current save in case it doesn't work out the way I want it to.

So I've got some ideas on how to approach it, with character creation, weapon selection and perks. The 80 hours I've dropped already will serve as a primer. I know enough now to play more optimally, where to get certain things and what to avoid until I am prepared for it.

I don't think I'll like the lack of fast travel, that seems the biggest hit. I hope I can deal with the stronger enemies, environmental effects, hydration and illness. We'll see, but those look manageable with the proper preparation. Limited saves is workable too, as long as I change my approach and don't look to kill everything within range. Stealth, discretion and preparation should see me through.

One of my favorite shooters is the Misery mod for Stalker CoP. And while I'm not thinking this will be the same, I think with how much I liked playing that that maybe I can find some of the same in FO4 Survival mode.

Fallout 4's Survival mode is more tedious than challenging IMO.

You're better off with mods to increase the difficulty and playing permadeath, where if you die, you erase your character.

No I don't want to play dead is dead, that wouldn't last long haha.

You may be right about the tedium, and I've played survival for a bit now, enough to get to level 6. There is some stuff I like and some I don't. I've lost progress a number of times already, due to dying quite a while after the last save.

On the other hand I'm liking it enough to keep going for a bit. I should expect to find it dangerous out there at low level, and if this run follows the same sort of progress I had in normal then I will be fine before too long.

You should try the DLCs...

I really enjoyed the "Nuka World" DLC. I had a LOT more fun making all of those different Nuka Cola varieties than I thought I would.

Can you expand on this? Why should I try them? I have the DLC and plan to do them, just curious why you're saying to give them a go. In my first, normal run I got a quest called Far From Home I think, and I believe that's the portal to Far Harbor. Nuka World I've not gotten a sniff of, aside from finding a single bottle of the mixed Nuka Cola in Concord I think

Survival mode is getting its hooks in. Parts of it are frustrating at times, but maybe in the end that will prove its charm. I've hit level 8. My approach is completely different, much more plodding, so the rate at which I increase my level may suffer a bit, but that's not a big deal. Starting over gave me a chance to re-roll my starting build.

Strength (3) -- I'm again not too concerned with melee, and while carry capacity is even more important in Survival, there are perks I plan to take that will overcome any drawbacks to low Strength. 3 points gets me to Armorer, which is key for me.

Perception (4) -- I wouldn't mind another point or two, but there's only so many to go around (at the start). Four points gets me to Locksmith, and the easily-obtained bobblehead to level 5 and Demo Expert. Perception affects VATS accuracy, and I will be using VATS a lot, so another point or two here eventually might be in order.

Endurance (2) -- It's Survival, so I really agonized over this, wondering if it would be a mistake to go so low. I didn't know if Endurance acts as resistance to the various illnesses and other maladies you pick up. Seems it does not, and if true then going so low is OK. I then spent the You're SPECIAL book in the baby's room to boost it to 3. That gets Life Giver. Staying alive is the single most important thing (duh!), and Life Giver is a nice boost to the health pool, which can make the difference between surviving an attack versus reloading that save from 45 minutes ago. You get Lead Belly at level 2. So far it feels like I could get away with not sinking points in to it, but on the other hand it will be such a quality of life improvement. Lead Belly would simplify the whole food/hunger thing, and allow me to eat all the junk food encountered in the wastes. I've held off so far, as there are many perks I want. But I think eventually I'll go Lead Belly 3 to make it a non issue.

Charisma (3) -- Gets me to Lone Wanderer which will be one of the most important perks I will take. The DR, extra damage dealt and carry capacity will be great in Survival. +100 capacity is nearly double what I get with Strength 3 so that's a massive boost. I have yet to take it, as I am using Codsworth at the moment. I named my character Bond and the way he greets me as "Mr Bond!" in his English accent is so perfect. But soon I'll ditch him for LW. The difficult part of this is how far out of reach Local Leader is now. I may regret this as the lack of fast travel makes settlements seem more important. If it's regrettable enough I can train it up plus the bobblehead and get LL eventually.

Intelligence (4) -- This tree is pretty good in Survival, with some of the mid-level perks like Chemist looking very attractive. But again, only so many points to go around at the start so compromises must be made. Four points gets me to Hacker, which I don't care much about really. Another point though gets to Scrapper which I do want (need lots of screws for gun mods!). So at some stage I'll want another three points in INT to get those perks (Scrapper, Science, Chemist).

Agility (7) -- The key attribute to how I want to play. Sneak and VATS are cornerstones. Sneak, Action Boy, Ninja and Sandman will all be crucial to killing them before they kill me.

Luck (5) -- I like this tree a lot and 5 points gets me to Idiot Savant. With my lower INT it will proc more often and the potential is amazing. When it fires on quest turn-in it's OP. At level 2 you get 5x the XP. On some quests that means 2000 points instead of 400. And while this is rare, just a few times is a massive boost.

For perks I went like this so far

Level 2 -- Idiot Savant. Too good to pass up and might as well get it straight away, and can pay off just hanging around Sanctuary Hills and crafting or building up the settlement. I hate the sound it makes when it fires, but I like the XP.

Level 3 -- Rifleman. Semi-auto long arms are great in this game, and this boosts them all. Sniper rifles, laser rifles and non-auto shotguns too. Weapon modding means any automatic can be converted to semi-auto with a receiver change.

Level 4 -- Sneak. Awesomely powerful in FO4, and most Bethesda games really. A number of perks synergize and make sneak attack damage crazy good. And avoiding detection, or escaping more easily will be crucial for staying alive. And one of the best parts of the sneak perks is the ability to not trigger traps and mines. Losing a big chunk of progress to an unseen mine or trap sucks big time, so these perks are invaluable.

Level 5 -- Life Giver. +20 health per point, and at level 3 you get regeneration. I wouldn't pick this outside of Survival. That deeper health pool will save me countless times I am sure.

Level 6 -- Sneak 2. Harder to detect and ignores traps.

Level 7 -- Ninja. In my normal run I ran with Deacon for hours to get a 20% sneak attack damage bonus. Ninja is +250% with one point, +300% with two points and +350% with three. Plus, sneak attack melee damage is 4x, 5x and 10x. I won't use that often, but it is handy in some situations and helps to overcome my low Strength.

Level 8 -- Haven't actually spent this point yet, as there are about eight I want to spend it on. Lone Wanderer, Lead Belly, Scrounger, Action Boy, Sandman, Gun Nut, Armorer, Mysterious Stranger and Gunslinger at least, not to mention the next levels of the perks already chosen. So many great perks in Fallout.

The entertainment and rewards are superior to most of the base game IMO, and one of them at least is considerably more challenging.

You'll probably want to gain at least 10 more levels before even attempting it.

No worries there, I was around level 33 in normal and had yet to go to either. In this run I have yet to get anywhere near Boston. Farthest I've ventured is the Sunshine Holdings Co-op or whatever it is called to get the Wasteland Survival magazine there to double the meat from kills. I really have to take it slow because everything one-shots me at this stage.

For instance I made it to the diner where the woman's son has been hooked and the dealer is looking to get paid. The first time I told her I'd help and was shot dead before I finished the dialog lol. So back to the save and this time I brought my loungeware and spiffy hat, and talked to the dealer first. I attempted the speech check telling him to lower his weapon, failed and was dead in a single shot. So back to the save and this time told the diner lady to pay up, passed the speech check and everyone lived.

At least early on I really need to be careful of how approach things. It's brutal out there!

The trick with survival being that tedious is to either mod the base game to get the elements into it you liked, or mod out the elements in survival you don't. It's your sandbox.

Bingo. You also have different types of gamers. Some gamers need to be challenged while playing and if they are not, they get bored while other gamers get frustrated if they feel they are being challenged too much.

You should have seen what the game was like soon after release, where you'd get spawns of ridiculously high level or numerous enemies early in the game, like the time when my first build of Sanctuary Hills was attacked by a pack of well equipped supermutants.

It looked scripted as they came sprinting over the bridge, two of them very quickly knocked out my turrets with multibarrelled rocket launchers, and then they commenced to trash the place. Another time, my first Hangman's Alley build was attacked by literally hundreds of Synths, the biggest battle I've ever been involved in in Fallout, so many that the majority of them wouldn't even render. I ended up having to resort to mini nukes and nuclear grenades and I was down to a sliver of health with my inventory completely depleted by the time it over.

Another time, The Slog was attacked by about 50 feral ghouls, luckily I had it pretty well fenced off and had equipped most of the settlers there with miniguns. What made those kinds of attacks really challenging was that it was difficult to find certain kinds of building resources at that time, especially oil, so that really limited the amount of defences that you could build early.

So far the only thing I don't like is how sleep triggered afflictions are done. I'd like to cut those out, but otherwise I'm fine with how things are working. The save restrictions are a killer, but the effect it has on my mindset and approach to the game is well worth the trade off. It's like how someone might say that turning off external cameras in Silent Hunter is a big hit to situational awareness, but maybe don't consider how this simple thing transforms the game experience and forces the player in to a different approach to things.

The fast travel restriction is a b!tch too, but again it forces a different approach and so far I'm OK with it. But unless I eventually get Local Leader I think this is the one that will ultimately prove the most annoying. Maybe the vertibirds will be a good substitute. A pretty cool one anyway. But no longer can I sweep stuff up, fast travel to dump it, fast travel back and do it again. Everything must be planned out. My kit, what I carry, what I pick up, where I go and what I choose to do all have to be carefully considered and planned or I'll be back staring at the last bed I slept in.

The sheer lethality of the enemies is brutal, but I have no problem with that. It's a good thing and once again affects my approach. I like this. In normal there was nothing I wouldn't take on aside from Swan. In Survival I'm looking for the best path to avoid and evade half the time.

I think one key will be to establish a good settlement network, get beds, decontamination arches and doctors set up at strategic locations around the map. Speaking of the arches, I have yet to build one, but that seems like it would make Lead Belly not needed. Of course they won't be everywhere I need them, but minor radiation is no big deal, and a quick easy way to remove it without the heavy drawback of RadAway is great. I'll see about building one of these tonight.

I'm squarely in subset A. Survival mode is a natural option for me. For anyone that likes the Misery mod, FO4's Survival mode will be right up their alley. In a few posts above I was saying how powerful I was feeling already by level 30. So this shift in to this mode is going to help keep me engaged and feel a sense of challenge and accomplishment that was already waning in normal. Or at least I hope so.

Have you invested much into melee?

Combined with a sneak build, that can really save you a ton of ammo and hassle in many situations.

If only I had just made a post detailing everything I had invested in! Haha, yeah I make long posts. No, nothing in melee aside from the Ninja perk which gives a sneak attack melee damage multiplier. You are right that it would conserve ammo, but that's not really an issue, so far anyway and I expect it will only get better. Then again, weight is more of an issue and I won't be carrying a lot of weapons to spread ammo usage around so it could become as issue on long missions like Corvega.I haven't taken Scrounger either, as it feels like I can get away with it. I really only need 10mm, .308 and .45 rounds. The rest can get sold or stored. Each bullet doesn't weigh much, but it sure adds up fast.

Hit level 10 in this Survival run.

Level 9 -- Rifleman 2. More damage, plus ignores 15% of target's armor.

Level 10 -- Locksmith 2. More stuff.

Decontamination arch will have to wait a bit, needed some mats, but I think I went and found everything i need. I went exploring and found Covenant, which I hadn't found in the normal run, just hadn't been through there yet. The doctor there can clear my list of afflictions. 15 caps is nothing, but it's another 40 to get the rads out of me. I'll still build an arch to see if I want to keep building them in other settlements.

From my perspective, I don't find the recent Fallout games (4 and 76) to really be conducive for a stealth-based approach. I've been much more effective just having a high armor and HP rating and going in "guns ablazing" with a heavy weapon like a mini-gun or laser gatlin gun. Fallout simply doesn't play like true stealth games such as Dishonored or Splinter Cell.

I can't agree with that at all. But that's one of the great things about RGP-style shooters, they often have many viable approaches. For me stealth in this game is the best and most powerful way to go. Sneak attack damage can be absolutely insane with the right perks, and the ability to remain unseen and to evade after detection is really strong. If I'm calculating it correctly it appears that with the right perks sneak attack damage can be boosted over 500%. In Survival I think it's a no-brainer. Heavy weapons just aren't that viable in this mode. They are heavy, and have big ammo requirements. For me stealth's the way to go for sure.

In Fallout 4 the weight of your apparel factors in to your detectability, so it's necessary to go light if you want to make the most of it. So I'm in leather, for now anyway. Later I can go Muffled and Shadowed which makes stealth even more effective.

The Sandman perk will be the kicker once I get it. This adds up to +50% damage to silenced weapons, which overcomes and then some the damage reduction from the suppressor itself. Lowered range is the main issue.

Or maybe the main issue is finding silenced weapons in the first place. While I was out exploring I stopped at a few vendors to check, and only Trudy at Dumlin Diner had one, but it's a rather crappy silenced handgun chambered in .308. In order to add suppressors I need at least Gun Nut 2, and maybe higher on better weapons? I went all-in with Armorer in the first run, but not too far in to Gun Nut since I was finding plenty of good weapons. But this time I think I'll drop points in to Gun Nut eventually so I have more control over how my weapons are configured. Get Sandman, and silence everything. And get Deliverer.

Me:



At least 1/3 of my kills were with a knife, the huge stacking sneak attack damage bonuses often allowed me to one-shot even boss level characters.

Another 1/3 fell to silenced sniping, it was only when I failed in the stealth attack or during a scripted event would I "go loud".

You should try using a knife next run

Yeah, I agree that sneak attacks are awesome. I'm building my whole run around those and VATS. When your sneak is high enough, through perks and attire, it's not hard to keep things at least [Cautious], and attacks then are still sneaks. In my normal run I had Sneak 3 or 4, plus muffled and shadowed armor and I had super mutants standing 5 feet from me and looking right at me and not able to detect me.

Sneak 5 even causes enemies to lose you if there's any reasonable distance between you. Add to this the ability to ignore traps and mines (extra valuable in Survival I think) and it all adds up to be a very effective way to play, and in my view the most effective from both a survival and damage dealing perspective. And in Survival the more surgical nature of playing this way dovetails nicely with the weight and inventory limits. Each round fired does more damage so fewer need to be carried.

Panzer didn't use this mode right? In non-survival walking around in power armor and carrying a minigun wrecks I am sure. But in this mode I don't think it would be very effective. Too much of a target, and the weight of the weapon and ammo is prohibitive. But players would only care about that in Survival mode I reckon.

Survival is a natural extension of New Vegas' Hardcore mode, which was my favorite way to play that game. The rules shift has an effect for me far greater than what it might seem at first glance. It's about changing my mindset and approach to the game. And so far I really like how it has transformed Fallout 4 for me.

Correct. It just seemed to be more hassle than it was worth to play the game in that mode.

Yeah PM, I totally get it. Horses for courses as they say, eh?

I would expect only a small percentage of players would engage this mode, and even a smaller portion to stick with it. It sure got its hooks in for me, and I don't think I'd play a different way now. Same thing happened with Vegas.

There are certain enemies in some of the DLCs that are considerably more difficult to apply stealth attacks against, especially when it comes to melee, but for the most part, I think stealth is overpowered in Bethesda games as a rule.

Agreed and I made the same point earlier in the thread. But I really like playing this way. The power armor/mini gun type of playstyle has little appeal. I've always been in to sneaking, stealth, loner style play. I like sub sims, helo sims, sniper, ranger, black ops type stuff. I've played Fallout 4 about 100 hours so far and I bet I haven't been in power armor for more than an hour or two.

On the other hand I see the appeal in that style of play, its just not what I find up my alley.

Hit level 12

Level 11 -- Idiot Savant 2. More XP

Level 12 -- Sneak 3. Harder to detect and ignores mines. This used to be called Light Step I think. or was that a different game?

I built the decontamination arch and man that's nice. Instantly removes radiation, though it does require power, which is not a big deal. It's so easy and effective that I wonder if I should make a house rule and not use them. Radiation is obviously a core thing in a post-apocalyptic setting, and these arches trivialize it. Maybe I'll build a couple here and there but not abuse them.

I've hit level 12 but I've only completed four missions so far. Mostly doing a free-roam sort of thing, looking for better kit, gaining XP and exploring the map. As part of the Minutemen quest line the fine folks at Tenpines asked for help. These two settlers, who have nothing, ask the Vault Dweller, Lone Wanderer Sole Survivor to help them by clearing a hundred armed dudes out of a massive factory! It's a request that seems all out of proportion to their measly existence.

I did this Corvega mission first run of course and found it pretty tough. Lots of enemies, vertical interiors with perforated walkways that the NPCs have no trouble seeing and shooting through. I was probably only about level 3 then, so hopefully I will be a little better off this time. In preparation I went there and found a crumbling house on a hill nearby and sniped all the NPCs I could see outdoors, up high in the structure and those near the entrance. But the interior still needs to be cleared. I don't have enough ammo to do it at the mo, but I would probably find enough as I fought through the facility to keep going. While I was sniping, radroaches attacked and one was legendary (legendary radroach is funny) and he dropped a legendary leather chest piece with -15% damage from human enemies which should help with this.

I have yet to take Lone Wanderer perk and I am debating if I should take a companion. More firepower versus compromised stealth. Not sure which way to go and anyway my options are limited. I managed to lose Codsworth somewhere near the Super Duper Mart. Told him to hold position and then walked away and he has not returned to Sanctuary. He's the worst for stealth too. So that really leaves Dogmeat and Preston. I might be better off going solo. I'll kick it around. Maybe go start the BoS questline and get Danse. But he doesn't become a companion option right away. I can always go in, have a bash and leave if needed.

I was level 6 when I first tackled the Corvega plant, mind you it was on regular difficulty but it was my first playthrough and the game was less forgiving then.

I didn't have much ammo at that point so the key for me was melee stealth kills and also using mines.

This is on Survival of course. In combat terms the mode is different than normal, with enemies hitting much harder (+50%), but I think I read they also are less spongy, so everything is both more mortal and lethal.

I tackled Corvega last night and just approached the plant very deliberately. I went through slowly and patiently and cleared it without dying. I entered through the street level sewer pipe and engaged and hid, engaged and hid through the whole facility until I reached Jared and completed the mission. Good to have this out of the way. It's a big difficulty spike for early game, and more so on Survival. Halfway through I was feeling the effects, especially from lack of sleep so I walked back to Sanctuary for the night, got some proper rest and returned to finish the rest of it.

Hit level 14

Level 13 -- Scrounger. In my first run I took one level of this and had gobs of ammo. I reasoned that I probably only need half of that so could get away without spending a point this time. But I clearly didn't realize how strong this is. Without it, I wasn't just finding less ammo in random containers, but none at all. Enemies and ammo boxes almost exclusively. So I really had to take it again, and it started paying off immediately with ammo in file cabinets, desks and toolboxes.

Level 14 -- Unspent. The opportunity cost of perks in Fallout is agonizing haha. So hard to choose when so many perks are attractive. At this point I want Action Boy, Armorer and Gun Nut for sure, but the last two really only pay off if you go deep so dropping a single point has little immediate return. By avoiding missions so far (just five completed) the XP should start rolling in as I do them and leveling should pick up pace and I'll be able to get all of these in short order. If Idiot Savant fires on quest turn in I could level up twice at once.

I don't really need Armorer until I can make ballistic weave and I have yet to venture past Lexington so that may still be a ways off.

I had lost Codsworth as mentioned but went and found him after leaving Corvega. Reached max affinity to get the Robot Sympathy perk, which only grants 10% DR against robot attacks. Meh, but better than not having it I reckon. I may spend that point on Lone Wanderer. I need to head in to the city soon, and that extra DR and carry weight will be nice. Codsworth loves armor and weapon crafting, and that's the best way to get his affinity up. He also hands out random purified water which was really nice while out in the wastes. But with the perk I dismissed him and got the dog again.

Codsworth is a good companion. His dialog is pretty good, he tells jokes and puns constantly. He calls me Mister Bond, which I love. The purified water is great and in combat he does OK, cutting enemies up and occasionally burning them. Because he hovers he's not vulnerable to things like radroaches and molerats. But he is also the worst from a stealth standpoint, easily spotted by enemies it seems.

His jokes are things like this

Alcohol actually IS a solution

A proton checks into a hotel, the bellhop asks, "Where are your bags?" The proton replies, "I don't have have any, I am traveling light"

I was wrong about the +50%. Actually it is this

Sole Survivor does 150% damage and takes 200% damage relative to "Very Hard" difficulty. Relative to normal mode, Sole Survivor does 75% damage and takes 400% damage.

400% damage! Good grief. That's like, way more than 50. It's brutal out there!

What are you currently running for weapons?

Hardened Sniper Rifle chambered in .308
10mm Pistol (renamed Snakebite, heavily modified)
Short Combat Rifle chambered in .45 (lightly modified)

These are the best I've found for my style in the early going, but I'm going to look in to getting Overseer's Guardian when I go to the city. I think it's heavy though so we'll see.

I'll probably use Deliverer once I get it, because of the VATS bonus, but does putting a reflex sight on my 10mm do the same thing (25% lower shot cost in VATS)?

Oh yeah, and that reminds me...earlier I said that the Sandman perk overcomes the damage reduction from mounting a suppressor. But I looked (I can't actually add suppressors yet, don't t have the perks) and from what I saw a suppressor has zero effect on damage, just range.

Its been so long that I can't even remember what I was using for my Corvega runs other than a combat knife and a very basic 10mm.

I don't think I'd even found a hunting rifle at that point, certainly not in my first playthrough.

I believe reflex sights only yield a 15% reduction in AP, and I never used them because of the cluttered sight picture.

I prefer the reflex sight over the iron sights on the combat rifle. Whatever mods I did to it changed the name to Tactical Combat Rifle. Maybe just because of the sight.

Last night I went to the city. Did Hangman's Alley, Vault 81 and Diamond City to open up all of these places and their quests. In order to get in to Vault 81 they demand three fusion cores. I actually knew this, had read about it a couple weeks ago. I had not found vault 81 in my first run, but looked for it this time. And of course forgot about the fusion cores. So after trekking across the map, I had to turn around and go all the way back to Sanctuary, and then all the way back to the Vault with the cores.

I did a number of missions and so the XP was coming a little faster and hit level 18. I kept that unspent point from before and didn't spend any points so had five to drop.

So at level 18 I took these perks all together

-- Rifleman 3. Even more damage and ignores more armor.

-- Locksmith 3. Can now pick all locks. I won't spend a fourth point here to make bobby pins unbreakable. Waste of a point.

-- Action Boy. 25% faster AP recovery. My high Agility build works great for VATS. And VATS is fantastic in the heaviest combat situations. This recovers AP faster, allowing me to use VATS more often and for longer.

-- Lone Wanderer 1 and 2. 30% damage reduction and +100 carry capacity. These are strong bonuses, especially in Survival. The companions are fine, but I prefer going solo with my dog.

Hangman's Alley is one of my favorite settlement locations, even though the layout obviously limits what you can build there.

It's conveniently located, easy to secure, compact and if you build upward enough you can access the building rooftops and perform a little parkour.

Yes I agree Crane. I hadn't been there in run one, despite how close it is to Diamond City. Its defense potential is what I like. Easy to set up a kill zone to protect against attack. Good location, easy to get to. I've made it my main base at this stage. Good call Crane.

Hit level 22.

Level 19 -- Armorer. Need to start getting these levels for ballistic weave (and other mods).

Level 20 -- Gun Nut. This isn't all that necessary, as there are gobs of great guns to be found. But if I want to customize and personalize the high end weapons, which I do, I need Gun Nut 4, so gotta start sometime.

Levels 21 + 22 -- Gunslinger 1 and 2. Damage and range boost to non-auto handguns, and gives me viable secondaries. Picked these up just before I got Deliverer, so it all dovetails nicely.

I decided to buy Overseer's Guardian from Vault 81 to see what all the fuss is about. And yeah, this is a serious firearm. In order to bring the price down I got a +1 CHR cap and then popped a Daytripper, which together boosted my charisma by 4 to 7, and the gun still cost me over 3000 caps. Overseer's Guardian is a combat rifle chambered in .45 that shoots two rounds at a time for the cost of one round. I had read that the displayed damage reflects the additional projectile, and yet it showed just 55. That didn't seem very good, just barely higher than the Tactical Combat Rifle I was using. But then I used it against some super mutants and realized it came with a armor-piercing automatic receiver.

As an automatic it did not benefit from my Rifleman perks, and of course both AP and auto affect damage too. So I took it back to Sanctuary, and after scouring the countryside for screws I modded it for Hardened receiver, which makes it semi-auto and now the damage is 118 (at Rifleman 3, and higher when Adrenaline is factored). It also came with a short night vision scope and I swapped that for a Reflex sight (Dot) and it is now my main carry rifle and it wrecks. A massive increase in lethality. I'll add a long barrel to it once I can. Later I can rechamber it to .308 (Gun Nut 4) and it will hit way harder than it does now. Add a suppressor and this is an end-game weapon. Sweet.

For Deliverer I also modded a hardened receiver and glow sights, and now have a great silenced secondary that is especially good in VATS.

Now I need to do a couple more quests for the Railroad and get that ballistic weave.

An anecdote about Survival mode.... So there I was in the northeast corner of Boston, near Old North Church. I got in to a firefight with some raiders, who had a walled off encampment in the streets. I took down a couple of them, all that ventured out of their compound, then shot up some ghouls attracted by the gunfire, and then waited for things to return to [Undetected]. A raider or two were still behind the walls, but could not see me. One of the ghouls was legendary, so once the coast was clear I went to see what cool gear he would drop.

Jackpot. He had a Lucky Hardened Sniper Rifle. Yes! What a great find, as Lucky imparts double crit damage, and since all sneak attacks are crits, here was a sniper rifle that could take me through the game. A fantastic find! So I snapped a screenshot of it to show off, and then hit tab to return to the game. At that instant a grenade icon flashed up and boom, dead. I had owned a Lucky Hardened Sniper Rifle for all of two seconds. Gutted

I didn't get Overseer's Guardian until very late into my second playthrough, wanting to see what the fuss was about, yeah I should have attained it much earlier!

Tough luck on the grenade incident, that reminds me of my early playthroughs where the AI was uncannily accurate with grenades until that was toned down with a subsequent patch.

It sounds like you're almost ready for a DLC run?

AI grenade tossing has been toned down?! Haha, they're like Vida Blue out there. Grenades and molotovs are responsible for probably 3/4 of my deaths.

So I played a bunch yesterday, determined to get the ballistic weave which I did. I also saw that Tinker Tom sells upgrades for Deliverer. Bought a powerful receiver from him which increased the pistol's damage significantly, even over the hardened receiver I had just installed.. It's beginning to look like maybe Gun Nut isn't so vital. I want to suppress all of my weapons, and that needs Gun Nut 4, unless I can find another weapon with the right mod, and then it become a matter of chance. Points are unlimited in FO4 so I will probably fill this out eventually, but its low priority at the mo.

Hit level 26

Level 23 -- Sneak 4. Even harder to detect and running no longer affects stealth. This is key and if you can find some of the covert ops magazines then this is highly effective in FO4.

Levels 24 + 25 -- Armorer 2 and 3. Timed this for when I unlocked ballistic weave. You know how many games make you build the first level of something in order to build the next level, when you're thinking why couldn't I just build the better thing straight away? Like how you have to build a blacksmith before you can build a foundry and you just want to build a foundry? Haha, well in Fallout 4 you can build the highest level of armor modification you have unlocked straight away.

Level 26 -- Fortune Finder. There are a lot of very cool pieces of kit at vendors, and they have a very high cap cost. Took this perk in order to get my income up so I can start to buy and try some of these good weapons and armors.

So getting these two perks (Armorer 3 unlocks at level 25) allowed me to go straight to the fourth level of ballistic weave which means I could give my army fatigues 90/90 protection. That more than doubles my armor rating. By doing it this way I saved a lot of mats making lower level versions of the mod earlier. Ballistic fiber is precious. I got a newsboy cap, and it looks like I can do the same mod to this hat, but I need more fiber. If so that would be another 90/90 and I'll have excellent survivability considering you still put armor over the fatigues and Lone Wanderer gives 30% DR. Maybe I'll even be able to survive Vida Blue

So really, at level 25 my character has taken a big shift forward. Much better protection and both Deliverer and OG have made me more lethal. The hobo phase is over. Now I should concentrate on putting together a really good armor set to wear over the fatigues. I want something that is light, stealthy and has good DR, especially ballistic. At the moment I'm wearing a mismash of synth, combat and leather.

Enemies will throw grenades and molotovs at you quite often as well in Fallout 76. The super mutants tend to use grenades most frequently against you.

Those suiciders are no joke either.

The flying insects too can give me a rough time.

Especially with that +400% damage in this mode.

So many ways to die in Fallout

VATS works great against those since it does a good job of tracking small fast moving enemies.

Very true and I have a VATS build, and Deliverer is great against them. The infected bloodbugs are the nasty ones.

VATS is fun to use, and very effective, especially against mobs. I want Mysterious Stranger to spice it up, I always took it in the previous games.

I remember back when FO3 was in development and how much of a kerfuffle the VATS feature was. Many wanted a shooter and not this thing. At first I was one, and then once I began using it I saw it was pretty cool and effective. With FO4 indeed being more of a shooter VATS is less necessary perhaps, but for me, and especially in Survival mode its really good to have. I forget too often to pop off criticals, and should be more mindful of that.

I have my settlement autoturrets either elevated or positioned behind a chain link fence whenever possible, in part because it keeps the AI from knocking them out easily with grenades, even though you no longer see the kind of uncannily precise grenade spam that was common in the early 2016 build state of the game.

I like a staggering or wounding shotgun for dealing with enemies who rush you.

Yes, a good shotgun is a must-have. It always cracks me up seeing how the enemies (especially the ghouls) will do those ridiculous long range lunges at you to try and melee you.

Have you encountered one of these yet DBond?

Is that a courser? Have not encountered one, aside from a reference from a companion. He said to run, so I assume they are bad ass.

Hit level 30

Level 27 -- Mysterious Stranger. To spice up VATS, and maybe now and then he will make a decisive contribution in a fight I might have lost.

Level 28 -- Gunslinger 3. More damage, more range.

Levels 29 and 30 -- Demolition Expert 1 and 2. Explosives have been much more useful to me in survival, especially mines. Before a hard looking fight I will lay a few out on the path an enemy might have to take to reach my position. So if I don't take them out and reach [Danger], then the mines will slow or kill them as they close in. With the Sneak perks I don't have to worry about setting any off and so can just pick them up as I move around the map, so always in supply. Demo Expert makes them have a bigger boom as well as adds a targeting arc for thrown grenades. Since you can't throw in VATS any more, having this arc is necessary I think to be effective with them. At least it's a big help to me.

You guys were talking about shotguns and I really like them in fallout, the combat shotgun is good fun in this game. This run though I've not carried one because of the weight. Hard to support more than three weapons really, so the shotgun misses out. I'm going with sniper rifle, OG and Deliverer.

You're gonna have to find out...

I don't know if Fallout 76 has the same perk cards as Fallout 4 but there's a perk card specifically for shotguns which reduces their weight. I guess you have not seen that one in your current playthrough? If not then it must be a new perk card introduced with F76.

I don't remember that, it must be a 76 thing.

One thing you could do is store a shotgun and ammo on Dogmeat until you need it.

Shotguns in Fallout 4 aren't as versatile as they were in previous Fallouts IMO, as their effective range is so short that they're almost like a extended range melee weapon. But they're still useful in certain situations, and they get the most out of certain legendary effects since they apply them up to 8x per trigger pull, depending on how many pellets hit.

The range thing is a great point. I picked up a really nice shottie yesterday but the range is listed as 29 and that's way too short. A few days earlier I was out on patrol and equipped a shotgun. From first person view the combat shotgun and the short combat rifle look very similar, and I forgot I was holding the shotgun. A raider appeared above me on the second floor landing of a fire escape and I opened fire but seemed like I was not hitting him at all. Then I realized I held a shotgun. That's pretty close and the weapon was completely ineffective. It's best to carry when moving around indoors, but outdoors it's pretty useless in FO4,

Hit level 34.

Level 31 -- Rifleman 4. +80% damage and ignores 30% armor with semi-auto long arms.

Level 32 -- Spent one point training Luck to 6.

Level 33 -- Used that Luck increase to get Better Criticals

Level 34 -- Gunslinger 4. Deliverer now hits for close to 90 depending on Adrenaline. If and when I get Sandman it will be even higher. And then sneak attack bonuses on top of it all and it's pretty lethal.

I did the level 4 ballistic weave to my newsboy cap and that's another 90/90. So just between the fatigues and the cap that's 180/180 which seems OP. Add the armor pieces over it and I'm like 250/250 and feeling properly protected Mostly wearing lightweight shadowed combat armor at this point.

I finally got another legendary sniper rifle to drop. I'm still ticked off about losing that Lucky one, and this one is Assassin's. Not bad, it deals +50% damage to humans which is strong. But humans are already pretty vulnerable to headshots so in reality it's not that strong, but humans are also the most common enemy so it works. I think the Instigating prefix is the one I need to be on the lookout for. It deals double damage to enemies with full health. But I'd love another Lucky one too with double crit damage. Come on you ghouls, get dropping!

The slow respawn frequency on Survival must make it difficult to find decent legendaries?

Even on normal difficulty, the repopulation rate is low enough that you begin to run short of enemies to fight after a certain point.

Have you begun to arm your settlers?

Even early on, I'll try to give a minigun and decent armor to the settlers assigned to a guard post at least. Most of the remainder I'll give some kind of automatic weapons as I find they're most effective with those.

Massed automatic fire seems to confuse and suppress enemy AI and using automatic weapons seems to make friendly AI more aggressive..

Eventually everyone gets good armor and ballistic weave clothing.

I'll also issue grenades if the settlement layout is such that I don't really have to worry about settlers killing other settlers or provisioners with them, or wrecking equipment.

As mentioned I'm nearly level 35 in Survival mode, and I want to hit on a few points having put this much time in to it.

I can't see ever playing vanilla Fallout 4 again. It's perfectly fine, and I had a lot of fun playing it. In my Normal run I also reached level 35 so it's a good time for side by side comparison. Survival mode's rules have a sweeping effect on my approach, mindset and long-term engagement, as the combat especially remains challenging even at this level, where in normal I was feeling too powerful at the same stage.

When I began playing Survival I was focused on the well, actual survival elements. Hunger, thirst, radiation. And probably the two biggest challenges in this mode, no fast travel and no saves aside from sleeping. And all of those things are indeed an issue early on. But over time it becomes less and less so. The side effects of those maladies and statuses are minor. You can't let it spiral out of control, these must be dealt with eventually. But rolling for a few hours with radiation poisoning and parasites isn't that big of a deal. Get to a doctor before you start stacking more of these, but not something you need to deal with right now, either.

Water and food were certainly in short supply early on. But over time keeping stocked with purified water and cooked food becomes second nature. I had debated taking the Lead Belly perk early on but kept holding off and now I'm happy I did. It really isn't needed, but also not useless. Some players will find it a QoL improvement. But for me it's a sunk point. Life Giver is the same, though I put a point in to it. Matter of fact it is the only point I've spent that could be considered regrettable. Then again, those extra 20 health points probably did prevent several deaths (and subsequent reloads). Early on those 20 points represented 20% of my total health. But now it's about 6% and dropping every level. I would have been smart by spending that point elsewhere, but in the end it's not a big deal.

I started with just 2 points in Endurance, which is the health and survival tree, and then spent the You're Special book to boost it to 3. And even in this mode that turned out not to be a problem. If FO4 used the Endurance attribute as a resistance modifier to status effects or similar then I'd probably reconsider. I sort of rolled the dice here with the END points, and it turned out fine.

So the traditional 'survival' elements have proven to be important, but not the biggest challenge in Survival mode. That is reserved for combat. The combat is a massive shift from normal. And for me this is a big part of why this mode is so much fun. I really do have to be careful. The way the map is done is that it is divided in to regions, each with a range of possible enemy levels. The northwest is the easiest, the southeast the most difficult. If you venture down there before you are ready for it, it is is very difficult indeed. You can still do it, but one mistake is lethal and back to bed. Last night I left Vault 81 and decided to explore to the SE. Spent 45 minutes methodically moving through the area, picking off enemies at range. Dog and I came to a gunner bunker and I sniped one through the opening. Another came out and I started lighting him up but he was soaking up my OG rounds, and before he dropped another came around behind me and lights out. Lost nearly an hour of splendid play by allowing myself to get boxed in. Lost a level, lost a great weapon and lots of XP and other stuff.

But you know, this is part of why it is so appealing. Every action feels weighted, each decision feels important. I can't just walk around wrecking things like in Normal. I can't just F5 before I do anything and everything. If I had found that Lucky sniper rifle I keep crying about in Normal I would have quick saved before going to check the ghoul's inventory. I would have probably died to the same grenade. But then a quick reload and now that rifle is mine. So that death had real consequences, that actually hurt. And that makes the game more engaging and fun. For me anyway.

I can feel it when on patrol or a mission. Like if I am on a suspended walkway far above the ground, I get a little queasy in the gut if I suddenly come close to falling, simply because that fall would lose a lot of play time and gains. A setback that isn't likely when quick save is a thing.

And finally, fast travel and saving. Fast travel is so convenient, and not having it is indeed a big change. But man does it add to the experience. I'm no longer just teleporting all over, but actually getting down there in the weeds, learning all the dips and folds in the terrain and interesting and dangerous places to discover. Planning routes, and kitting out for it. Avoiding and evading, or just taking it head on. It forces a complete shift in how the player approaches the game play and I've really taken to it.

Saving. Well, this one is tough. The relief though when I lay my head down is real. Glad I got that saved. But I have also lost gobs of time, items, XP and more. It's the consequence of this restriction that puts so much finality on player actions, and in turn gives these the weighted feel they have in Survival mode.

I get the same sense when playing permadeath, but without the time consuming inconveniences of Survival.

The stakes are high when you have to go all the way back to the bathroom mirror if you die!

I draw the line at deaths to bugs though, like when I died after touching a wrecked car due to a physics glitch, or when I was killed when a big group of Super Mutant Masters spawned out of thin air right on top of me.

Yeah, it's 30 days I think. At first I thought that was crazy, but when you factor in you are sleeping 1/3 of the time, that in effect becomes like 10 days and is fine. I want to benefit from having cleared an area or route for a while, and not just find it repopulated next time though. It actually feels just right, for example Corvega is populated again, but I was able to pass by there for a while while it had been cleared. This does affect drops of course, you are right, but in practice this rate feels good.



Armed yes, but not armor. Honestly I'm mostly ignoring the settlement side to the game. I put up a few tactical walls, water, beds and turrets and call it a day. I'm usually all-in with games that allow building -- and FO4 is deep here -- but so far it's failed to take root. Even Hangman's Alley, which seemed at first perfect for me, is now an afterthought. I've really gone all-in with the loner, stealth sniper vibe, and settlements don't dovetail with the roleplay. My favorite place to get down for the night is on the roof of the Red Rocket close to the BoS HQ/ Police Station. Perfect spot for my character.




Good grief that is a lot of ballistic fiber. Well done to you for taking that task on!



Nope

There's a lot to be said for concentrating your resources on developing a limited number of settlements, until resources are plentiful and you can establish supply lines.

As a long term goal I would have liked to assign at least one combat robot to guard each settlement, and replace all the human provisioners with robots, but that's a stretch even when you're at a high level and I was losing interest in the game at that point.

It's interesting to read your comments about that side of the game, the settlement side. I see the appeal, and the options are extensive. Maybe I'll get more in to it later on. Without LL it feels less advantageous to build them up.

I hit level 35 but I don't think I spent that point yet.

So there I was, I had only just left Sanctuary, having returned to clear my rads, dump some of the gear I'd collected and restock my water. After rising before dawn I set off toward Cambridge with the dog. As we moved in to the city at first light I could hear distant gunfire, to which I am attracted like a moth to flame. We moved down a street, the gun fire getting closer, now just around the corner. Rounding it, my view was a narrow opening between two houses, which beyond opened up in to the town square. I could see a couple of gunners taking cover and firing at unseen targets with their backs to me. Taking advantage of their diverted attention I put a couple silenced 10mm rounds in to the nearest one, who dropped.

Just then a gaggle of ghouls appeared, spotted the dog and went after him. I switched targets and dropped two ghouls, about 20 feet in front of me, in that space between the houses. At this instant a deathclaw leaped out from behind the house on the right and just wrecked those ghouls in a single strike. In a blink I was sprinting for safety, back up the street we had just come down, I made a hard left, then dodged to the right, and went behind a ruined house, surrounded by a broken picket fence. I crouched and listened. The dog had followed me, and the deathclaw followed him. I heard the dog whimper as the deathclaw took him out. I dropped a bottlecap mine on the north side of the house, then retreated behind it, and then dropped one on the south side.

I knew it was close by. I could hear it breathing out by the street. Can it smell me? Can it feel my heartbeat? Boom! The bottlecap mine on the north side went off. I went around to the south side, frantically pivoting my view to each corner of the house to see him when he came to find me. In the street he appeared, just a few feet away. I moved around behind the house. Boom! The other mine went off and the deathclaw lay dead in the street, blown back thirty feet by the explosion. I healed the dog and took some deathclaw steaks to fry up later.

How far along in the main quest are you?

Still have to find Nick. I've been off doing other stuff

Actually over the past 20 or 30 hours I've mostly just been patrolling, out looking for trouble and trinkets. According to the stats I am on day 68 in the wastes.

Hit level 38. I had three points unspent and decided to go all-in on Agility. I knew where the Agility bobblehead is from the first run and decided to go get it. It is in the extreme SE part of the map, on a beached ship, and it was a journey fraught with peril. Had an especially intense firefight and defense in the town of Quincy against a horde of gunners. After the dog got taken out I retreated to a half-destroyed house and held off the assault with a combination of luck and landmines.

I finally managed to reach the ship, then spent 30 minutes methodically sniping the residents from the pilothouse, waiting for [Undetected] after each shot. After clearing it I grabbed the bobblehead on the bow and gratefully slept in the bed there. Whew!

I spent two points raising Agility to 9, the bobblehead made it 10, and I spent the last point on Gun-Fu, the first level of which grants +25% damage to a second VATS target.

Stopped off in Diamond City on the way there and a guard said Merry Christmas and I looked around to see Christmas trees everywhere. A neat touch. It's amazing to me now, but the first run I completely failed to notice I was in Fenway Park. How I missed this I'll never know. But the whole vibe is pretty cool.

I switched sniper rifles again. Found a fully-modified .50, with low recoil and a quick eject mag. It came with a night vision scope so I swapped it out for a medium scope. It's no heavier than the Assassin's sniper I had been rolling with, but hits much harder, aside from maybe humans since the other rifle had +50% damage against those enemies.

So at the moment here's how I'm kitted out

Newsboy cap with level 4 ballistic weave
Army Fatigues also with level 4 ballistic weave
Full set of lightweight shadowed combat armor
Eyeglasses for the +1 Perception

Deliverer with powerful receiver and glow sights
Overseer's Guardian, with hardened .45 receiver and dot reflex sight
.50 cal sniper rifle
All explosives, but especially mines

The armor rating is about 260/270. Each piece of lightweight armor grants +2 AP. I am going to modify all of it for ultra lightweight, which makes it all much lighter and each piece will grant +10 AP! VATS will seem endless. Just need to gather the mats to make this modification.

Actually I bet only the chest piece is +10 AP. The arms and legs probably half that per piece.

I had some issues on my first playthrough when I switched from .308 to .50 since ammo for the latter was rare for some time.

.308 was getting to be marginal at that point so I had no choice but to step up.

No such issues on my second playthrough, not only did I find plenty of .50 but I was able to stop using a bolt action sniper rifle fairly early on...

As far as other gear went, at roughly the level you are at now I believe I was using 4 pieces of matching combat armor with the Sprinter effect, granting a 40% faster movement speed, a certain legendary combat knife, and an explosive SMG for when I had to resort to pitched combat.

On my first playthrough I think I'd beaten the main quest at that point, but none of the DLCs were out yet.

The DLCs contain some overpowered gear but you really have to work for them at times.

I have yet to find an explosive firearm, or if I have I failed to notice. Except Spray and Pray that Cricket sells.

Hit level 41.

Level 39 -- Demolitions Expert 3. More and wider boom. Hemming myself in with mines is a core tactic for me for any significant engagement or set piece. At DE3 bottle cap mines go off for nearly 600 damage.

Level 40 -- Lone Wanderer 3. Another flat 25% bonus to all weapon damage. That's a big jump at this stage and OG hits for 200 a shot.

Level 41 -- Sneak 5. Maxxed this perk. Distant enemies lose the player when going in to crouch. Combined with lightweight shadowed armor, 5 levels of the Covert Ops magazines, and Agility 10 my stealth ability is very high. Outside of sunlight enemies can run right in to me without seeing me.

I found enough mats to convert the chest piece to ultralight. And yes, that is +10AP while the other pieces would be +5 AP. At this stage I have 200+ AP, and there are a few perks I'll be taking soon that boost that farther. Once I get ultralight on the rest of my armor that will be another 15. I also want to convert OG to .308 but either need to find a .308 combat rifle or spend more points in Gun Nut. Even at this stage there are so many perks I still want.

I like mine warfare so much I'd even place them in Raider beds and other likely spots so that I can enjoy a little effortless EXP the next time I enter that area.

Yes sir. If you drop a mine and a NPC steps on it a couple days later when you are in a different part of the map does it count for XP? Seems every now and then I see some XP flash up when nothing's going on so I assume it is that.

I finally got around to doing the Skinny Malone and Kellogg missions, so bumped the main quest forward a bit, plus the second one brought the Prydwen so now have Vertibird travel.

Hit level 43

Level 42- Gunslinger 5. Maxxed out for more damage plus disarm and cripple chance

Level 43 -- Gun Fu 2 -- +50% damage to third VATS target. Gun Fu is a great perk for VATS, making it much more effective against mobs, which is when you need it most.

I like the weapon and armor modification systems in Fallout 4. I've dropped four points in to Armorer because I cannot get high Ballistic Weave in another way. But I've only dropped one point in to Gun Nut. Since you can strip modded weapons and attach that mod to a different gun I've held off dropping points here. The downside is you need to actually find the right mod on a weapon in the wild.

Yesterday I wanted to give Overseer's Guardian a boost, so went looking for a combat rifle chambered in .308. Found one finally in Diamond City, sold by Arturo for almost 800 caps (my low Charisma). As a bonus it also had a Long Light Barrel and a Quick Eject mag. I stripped all of these and put them on OG. These three mods were ones I really wanted and otherwise would need to wait until dropping more points in to Gun Nut. The light barrel offset the heavier receiver and the magazine is a nice boost in combat with the fast reload. Damage with zero levels of Adrenaline is 202. At level 46 I can take Rifleman 5 and boost it even more.

So far between my two runs, normal and survival, I've gone about 75 levels combined and still have not gotten a sniff of the DLC. But now I think I want to. Which one between Nuka World and Far Harbor should I do first? How much of a pain is travel in Survival to and from these places?

In Nuka World do I become a raider? Whats the general vibe of this? I don't want to become a raider, but I am happy to perforate them. Do the quests involve a lot of traveling between the DLC region and the main region? There seems to be many unique items and weapons in the DLC, and I'd like to check these out.

The DLC's have totally unrelated storylines so it doesn't matter which one you play first. In Nuka World you do not become a raider. You are an outsider who happens to discover an isolated area with its own rules. No spoilers but I will say that the Nuka World DLC is especially fun if you enjoy crafting.

And I do! Thanks PM, Nuka World it shall be.

What if...




























































there was a place with all the zip of Nuka-Cola?

Wouldn't that be the cheer-cheer-cheeriest place in all the world!

Where the river's made of Quantum, and the mountaintops are fizz.

With fun and games and rides for all the moms and pops and kids.

Well it turns out there's a place with all the zip of Nuka-Cola.

Come on down to Nuka-World and see it for yourself.

Kiddie Kingdom's lots of fun for tots like you and me.

And Safari Adventure's full of animals to see.

Blast off to Galactic Zone for otherworldly thrills.

Down in Dry Rock Gulch there's cola up in them thar hills.

The World of Refreshment's the most wonderful place.

The friendly streets of Nuka-Town put a smile on your face.

Now you know there's a place that's just as great as Nuka-Cola.

Come on down to Nuka-World and see it for yourself.

A vacation that refreshes, a trip you won't forget.

A park with every minimum acceptable safety standard met.

Quench your thirst for adventure at Nuka-World!

Sorry, I had to.

There's also Automatron, which is shorter than Nuka World or Far Harbor yet I found it more challenging on my first playthrough.

In order of release, Automatron came first, then Far Harbor then Nuka World.

That's the order I played them in, but I probably would have started with Nuka World if it had been available at the time.

Catchy tune Crane. I'll be humming that on the monorail ride

Yeah I think i want to just go in and clear the raiders out. I'm not all that devoted to the Minutemen, and actually not really devoted to any faction, I just use them for XP and helo rides haha. And no one likes Preston, but for this run I'm not feeling the raider vibe. I have no desire to destroy the Commonwealth, which is already done innit?

Well, I'll check it out and see where it leads. I think my character is ready for it at this stage.

Going raider can be lucrative though, lots of easy passive income if you set things up right in the Commonwealth.

They also make for a steady source of good weapons to arm your settlers with, although I don't know if that's the case if you wipe them out off the bat.

Thanks but I'm not interested in that. I see many players are, with some saying to set up water purifiers to produce lots of purified water to sell. I get it, but not something I care to do. Matter of fact I've found caps to be mostly inconsequential. I don't buy much. I bought OG for 3100, the .308 CR for 800 and then occasionally I'll buy a globe, hotplate or similar if I need a couple more of a certain mat. And this run I bought a shipment of ballistic fiber even though I didn't quite need it, since I have yet to go Armorer 4. Those shipments are quite expensive. 1100 for 25 screws or whatever.

Dropping that point in to Fortune Finder was a good decision, as I now find plenty of caps. I'm holding about 10,000 with not much I want or need to buy. Yet, anyway. Maybe I'll see some stuff in Nuka World I want. I am eyeing a point in to Cap Collector, but not sure how much of a discount it is.

My armor is great, just right for my playstyle. But I don't like the way it looks. I've modded it to all be a matched set and it gives good protection and stealth. But I'm not stylin'. I'd like a different look, but don't know which armor would both be as effective for me and look good at the same time. So maybe this money will come in handy if I do find something I'd like to switch to. It's first person so no big deal, I don't see myself much. But it's important to look good.

Well, you need at least one secure convenient location per map so that you can safely store your spoils, and later on I think you'll find money to be a bit more relevant.

I liked playing the end of automotron while wearing the Silver Shroud costume. Even the Silver Shroud regular questline was some good, if cheesy, fun.

I've done neither of those things in either run. In the first normal run I talked to the guy to start Silver Shroud, and got the outfit, but never took it much further. Most players seem to really like the quest line, so I want to give ti a go. I found I could not drop the Silver Shroud get up from inventory. Is it possible once the quest line is complete? I guess I couldn't drop it because ti's considered a quest item.

I've not given Automotron a sniff.

I didn't go to Nuka World yet, just doing more missions. Did the Cabot quest line to get the Charisma bobblehead.

Hit level 46

Levels 44 and 45 -- Spent these two points on training Charisma from 3 to 5. The bobblehead makes 6 and now I can get Local Leader, plus other benefits like better prices and the chance to pass some speech checks.

Level 46 -- Rifleman 5! A long wait to get to it, but now it's maxxed, double damage plus ignores 30% of armor. OG hits for about 230 now plus Adrenaline. The .50 sniper rifle is about 165. With Adrenaline constantly making the damage output fluctuate I'm not exactly sure. But OG hits hard.

I seem to have all points accounted for in my posts but somewhere in there I also went Armorer 4 and put top ballistic weave on my fatigues. Need more fiberglass for the hat. Waiting this long to get local leader and set up supply lines was a choice, but it will be nice from a crafting point of view to get some of these set up.

Oi, wots all this then lads?



Anyway, I initially hated to put points into non combat related perks and attributes during my first playthrough, but I found you kind of have to do it at some point as it really limits you otherwise.

Blimey!

That looks really cool, and that's a free mod for Fallout 4 right? That looks really ambitious and I dig the London setting. Thanks for the heads up Crane.

A question about crafting.... so when I did the last level of ballistic weave to the fatigues I actually paid attention to which items were being used for the mats. All of the military duct tape I've collected was for the fiber of course, but also has adhesive. When I was crafting I saw the game was selecting the military duct tape for the adhesive (even though I have gobs of stuff like wonder glue). I stored the duct tape elsewhere so that the glue was used. But the question is, if I use the military duct tape for the adhesive, does the unused ballistic fiber get stored, or is it gone? And obviously this carries over to all mats that yield a variety.

Yes it's for Fallout 4.

https://fallout4london.com/

Unused materials get stored.

You'll find that it's well worth buying "junk" items from vendors whenever practical, and to put some points into Scrapper so that you can get the most out of scrapping weapons and armor.

Even so, I found myself buying materials shipments constantly in my late games.

Scrapper's one I've wanted for ages, but it always loses out in the opportunity cost stakes. Screws are precious if you're modding weapons at all. The INT bobblehead took me to 5, so I can get Scrapper. It will come eventually, depending on how high I climb in level. For now I've hit level 48

Level 47 -- Local Leader. As mentioned, I'm mostly ignoring settlements, and I think I actually lost one -- Tenpines Bluff -- due to my indifference. But without fast travel, establishing supply lines will be a nice QoL improvement for crafting. Another point in to LL and I can build shops and crafting stations.

Level 48 -- Action Boy 2. Faster AP recovery isn't crucial, but does help in tight situations, and I can sprint more if needed.

A question about supply lines... If I connect A to B with one provisioner, and then connect B to C with another, are A and C now connected as well? Provisioners are unable to be killed correct? But they can be kidnapped?

I put ballistic weave 5 on my goofy hat, and now about 290/320 in armor rating. 220/220 comes from the fatigues and hat, which weigh just 4 between them. Ballistic weave is awesome, and probably a little OP. Survival mode would be much harder without it.

Yes, all those settlements will be connected.

Provisioners can be killed if they take sufficient damage after being downed, which is usually the result of an explosion or some other area of effect weapon.

They can also die from radiation poisoning, unless they are ghouls or robots, if their supply route takes them through water. They can be kidnapped as well but its rare in my experience.

On my first playthrough I didn't even equip regular armor once I could craft ballistic weave, this leaves you a little "squishy" in certain situations, but the weight savings are considerable.

Thanks, that's great to know. I did the Fort Independence mission last night to retake the castle. It went much better this time, the mirelurk queen was dispatched in short order. Half a mag out of OG took it down and every minuteman survived and I can't say the same from the first time I played it in normal. Of course I was not expecting its appearance then.

While there I noticed the castle has a water purifier, which I did not notice the first time, nor the fact the joint is already wired up. So After getting the transmitter powered up for the quest, I built another generator to power the lights and the purifier. Purified water hasn't been a problem beyond the early game, but having this influx of 40 bottles after getting the supply lines set up will be nice.

I'll try to start building my network tonight

I mentioned before that I always gave my provisioners decent armor and weapons, preferably a set of fatigues, combat armor and a minigun, which I'd later upgrade.

Anyways, you might find its worth investing some points in Science so that you can build fusion generators, which among other things makes running a large amount of water purifiers much easier.

Yeah, I'm just at 5 INT, so would need to sink some points. At the rate I'm leveling, if I keep playing through to the end I'll have plenty of points to devote to attribute training. I took Idiot Savant as the first perk and it's been paying off ever since. I killed a behemoth and got 1400 points for it! The perk fires quite often, and I'm sure it's gained me thousands of XP. Of course raising INT will slow its roll, but eventually I can see dropping some extra points here.

I didn't actually set up any provisioners, as I'm distracted by shiny things. Still haven't kicked off any DLC either. But still, had a great session last night. I completed the Lost Patrol mission for the BoS. Then I used vertibird travel for the first time and I love it. Used that to return to Kells to turn in the Lost Patrol and buy a few more vertibird grenades. Then when done, I took the shuttle to Logan and then called another vertibird which flew me to Sanctuary. Now that is traveling in style (after 100 hours of walking everywhere)! Is there a way to target things from the vertibird? We were taking some fire but I never saw what was doing the shooting.

But before I returned to the Prydwen I swung south from the Lost Patrol bunker to do one of PAM's cache missions at the hospital in Malden. Good (or lucky) decision. Got swarmed by all of the super mutants and barely survived. After one wave had set off the mines I had hemmed myself in with I went to throw another one just as a mutant hound came round the corner, setting it off in my face. Those 20 Live Giver points paid off this time as I had the smallest sliver of health after the explosion.

But it was lucky because of the weapons I found in there. One was a legendary plasma pistol that does +50% damage against muties. It's very lightweight so I can carry it. Then on the boss I got a legendary incendiary assault rifle in 5.56. Then in a container I got a suppressed .50 cal sniper rifle. All of this loot weighed way too much so I had to cull my inventory to get it all home, including dropping my current .50 sniper rifle. Hate to see that scope and other mods go, but I had to make a choice. And since I wanted a suppressor for my sniper rifle so badly it was an easy choice in the end. And with a second suppressed weapon now in hand...

Hit level 49

Level 49 -- Enter Mister Sandman.+15% sneak attack damage with silenced weapons. Just the beast under your bed, in your closet and in your head! I wanted to take this for a long time, but with only one suppressed weapon (Deliverer) I kept choosing other perks. But with two suppressed weapons now I took it.

As I talked about earlier, suppressors in Fallout 4 do not affect damage, just range. And from what I can tell this is no hard cap, but the point at which the weapon damage begins to fall off. This rifle's range is 185, 18 lower than the 203 range on the discarded rifle, so not a big deal. This one came with a long scope, quick eject mag, long light barrel, markman's stock and the suppressor. Nice. Finds like this keep Gun Nut from being important lol.

The scoped rifles I own in real life all have a similar reticle, a simple crosshair, which I prefer over the vertical post-style on the medium scope. But the increased magnification reduces it's suitability for recon and scoping ahead. So a bit of a trade off here. Wonder why there are no binoculars in this game?

And to add to that post.... When I turned in the Lost Patrol, Kells gave me the Steadfast BoS Combat Armor chest piece. Very similar to what I am wearing, but adds the BoS upgrade for +15 radiation protection, plus a legendary effect that boosts DR in proportion to how low your health is. I flew back to Sanctuary to put ultralight on it and swapped to this armor. It's BoS, not shadowed, so I'll keep an eye on that.

But maybe the best thing about it is a different aesthetic. It's more worn, and doesn't have that star on it, making that armor look like it was made by Mattel, like a toy. The BoS looks better for my character. Ultralight made it a little ultralight-er than the standard combat armor, by a half pound, so a win-win-win. Looks better, protects better and is lighter. But the jury's out on whether I will prefer the radiation protection in place of shadowed.

When I did the Fort Independence mission for the Minutemen a couple days ago I lost the dog. He was with me when we launched the attack, but after killing the mirelurk queen I couldn't find him. Looked all around the castle and along the route we took there, and can't find him anywhere. So I played last night alone, and while I miss his aggro-magnet abilities and takedowns, I found I was more stealthy without him. Dog's combat behavior is pretty good, and I like the way he ranges out in front when I am running, but falls back in trail when I am crouched.

So I will try to get him back, but going solo solo is fine, and maybe even a little better with my build. Next level is 50, at which point I will take Lone Wanderer 4, granting an additional 25 AP.

Plasma guns are great if you can support them.

One of my late game weapons in my last playthrough was a maxed out wounding plasma scattergun. It would kill anything quickly and would often melt them down to glowing green goo, giving me lots of nuclear material.

I found that every once in a while it paid to pare down your inventory ruthlessly, stashing the excess items in a safe place, and just throwing them into a settlement workshop won't cut it.

I believe there are only 2 locations in the game where your items are truly safe, but you can vastly reduce the chances of your stuff being swiped at a typical settlement by storing it in places where NPCs can't normally access, such as rooftops and raised platforms that you have to jump to get to.

Very occasionally, you'll find a setter has managed to "teleport" somewhere that they shouldn't have been able to get to, but I've only seen that happen a handful of times and I don't think they managed to grab anything valuable, if at all.

Yup. In both Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 plasma ammo is expensive and it takes a lot of crafting components to manufacture if you decide to go that route. Oh and if you want to use a plasma gatlin gun that eats ammo up at an alarming rate so you'll be making/buying plasma ammo frequently.

I've been stockpiling most of the better ammo along the way. The 2mm, the plasma rounds and 5.56 for later use. I have not seen 7.62 or .45-70 yet. So I have a few hundred of the plasma rounds. Are muties more vulnerable to ballistic or energy? No matter I guess since it deals both equally.

The place I put any items I don't want to lose is the cellar behind the house in Sanctuary. I think that's safe from NPC pilfering.

One of my prize possessions in F76 is my High velocity gatlin gun that fires the 2mm EC ammo. It just tears through most enemies but the high fire rate means I have to make/buy that ammo all the time since it's pretty rare to find it laying around out in the "gaming world". I can easily go through 500 rounds of 2mm EC after a couple of large firefights.

I don't use any automatic weapons and have not sunk any points in to Commando. But eventually I might do.

So what's 76 really like? You seem to like it a lot. It's MP-only? Is it like death match or how would you sum it up? Can you decribe in detail a typical play session? No obligation of course. I've enjoyed playing FO4 so much I'm eyeing up another go at New Vegas or FO3, but maybe 76 is the way to go. I know it was panned at release, but seems they've improved it quite a bit since then.

You ask some great questions and I'll answer them the best way I can. F76 has a fully fleshed out single-player story line that you can play but at the same time you have these periodic "events" that come up in the gaming world where players can decide if they want to participate or not. These events are like quests where you join in with other human players and if you complete the event successfully you get XP points plus rewards like maybe a plan to make a certain weapon or you might get ammo and consumables like repair kits. It varies quite a bit. So in essence F76 is both SP and MP. Some players play it exclusively for the events while other players only do the single-player storyline.

There is "deathmatch" as well but both players have to have that option enabled in their settings. You are not obligated to participate in PvP.

I might have to try 76 at some point, although it would be competing against a fully modded playthrough of Fallout 4.

I haven't touched any mods of yet, and they've certainly come a long way since the early days.

Thanks man @ PM. Yeah that sounds pretty good to me. In a sense it sounds like how I play GTAO, mostly private server, essentially single player really, and occasional opt-ins to join others on missions or activities or run my public-only businesses. Then return to private to get my gangsta on in peace. I'll look more in to it. Thanks for your persistence in bringing it to my attention.

I did the main quest up to the point where I have to go to the Glowing Sea to find Virgil. It's taken on a mystical hue, forbidding, dangerous

When I go there I must be properly prepared. Power armor is a given, I reckon. I have several sets, though most came incomplete, usually missing the left arm for whatever reason. I think the best one I have is called X0-1, also missing the left arm. I've done virtually nothing using power armor, I roll with ultralight. But can I just take the arm from a different set, like T-60, and plug it right in there?

I have Armorer 4 and lots of mats. Which mods would you suggest I do to it? Will I still take rads in the Glowing Sea in full power armor? I haven't even burned through one power core in this run, the only time I've used PA is the Concord mission right at the start of the game. I've been collecting power cores and have maybe 20 which should be plenty right? Best weapons, lots of water and drugs too to get there. I can always vertibird out of there once I've reached the objective.

Hit level 50 and did indeed take Lone Wanderer 4 for +25 Action Points.

I decided to take that incendiary AR I found a couple days ago out for a test run. Fun to use, but the fire damage doesn't stack I don't think, so maybe a little less potent than I originally thought it would be.

So there I was, deciding to do the USS Constitution mission. I did this one in the first run, and it was probably my favorite quest. Very Fallout, reminiscent of FO3. So I go to the top deck and meet Ironsides who gives me my orders, as scripted raiders attack from the streets below. I crouch beside the gunwhale and start plinking them when suddenly I am assaulted by heavy automatic fire from close range. Grenades being thrown, taking damage.

I had only come to get the quest going, and would then head to a safehouse to get my progress saved. I had been playing for over an hour, including the whole Memory Den part with Kellogg's memories.

I look to the left as I attempt to retreat out from under this fire and it's Ironsides lighting me up! What the hell? "Quest failed" flashes up.

Left with little choice I kill the captain. With the whole ship now hostile I am not looking forward to going below decks in to that lion's den. I step on to the dinghy hanging from the davits and it automatically lowers me to the street! Sweet! Under [Caution] I slink away wondering what the hell just happened. What I think happened is I sent a round downrange at the raiders below but it struck one of the crew's Mr Handy robots, possibly Navigator, failing the quest and turning them hostile.

So I had a decision to make. I could either keep on and accept it, or reload to the last save. Well, that was too long ago and I just took it on the chin as emergent gameplay haha. Too bad because that is a fun quest that I like but there ya go.

Anytime! Always glad to help out a fellow PC gamer.

Yes, you can mix and match power armor pieces.
Other viable strategies for the glowing sea is shotgunning radx or wearing a hazmat or space suit. Not much armor with those suits though so you gotta be sneaky. And radx has weight and limited supply.

I actually prefer the T-45 to the other types for general knocking around, as it requires the fewest and least valuable resources to repair.

T-51 isn't too far off in that respect however.

20 cores might be a little light from what I remember, although the rate of usage might have been slowed since I last did that quest.

You can also leave the power armor behind and use a Hazmat suit, but since it offers no damage protection, it might be a bit risky given how you'll encounter some dangerous enemies.

I don't remember if Fallout 4 had Ultracite armor but that's my main power armor model that I use extensively in F76. I even have it decked out in a Brotherhood of Steel skin.

Good, thanks gents, this is what I was hoping to talk about.

From what I have read, the better the power armor, the slower the core drain. Is it true? So X0-1 drains slower than T-45 for example.

I also have Mysterious Serum, and evidently you can always get more from Cabot. This gives -10 rads/sec for one hour. My four syringes on hand thus would be four hours. At this point I am not sure if I want to beeline to the objective or explore around. If the former, I could be in and out with the serum. I could always come back later to explore, having seen what it's all about.

My sneak is quite high, maxxed perk, and 7 Covert Ops magazines. My ultralight shadowed armor I suspect means nothing encased in a X0-1. And I could go with hazmat underneath too I suppose. Depends on if the power armor is enough to overcome the rads

As I said I could always throw a vertibird grenade for a fast exit if ran out of anything, like meds or cores or ammo or health or patience or courage

I'm thinking having points in Armorer won't help me here, I need Science! for power armor mods I bet. There's also a T-51 from the Railroad? It has built in Stealth Boy effect when crouched? How do you obtain that?

I think I could make a go of it thusly....

-- X0-1 power armor with the left arm fitted with T-60 piece. If the above is true, then this should have a slow(er) drain
-- Plenty of Radaway and Rad X, just in case. Will the rads bleed through the power armor?
-- Stealth Boys. Have not used these, but they could help me quickly move past gangs of deathclaws and radscorpions. I have about 8 of them I reckon
-- Vertibird grenades. Can call for extraction at any point, and even leave, save and come back once I have any locations discovered. Stealh boy in, meet Virgil, vertibird out.
-- Best weapons and plenty of explosives. Lay out a Hansel/Grettel trail of frag mines and bottlecap mines before sniping and let them run over the frag highway as they try to get to me. I read about 'packs' of deathclaws and super scorpions and I worry.
-- Discover Somerville to give me a good save place in case it all goes tits up

In many games there are things which take on a life of their own, where the challenge or difficulty grows as I imagine it, or read about it. But then when I do it I think what was all the fuss about? So maybe some of that here and I'd be fine. But it is Survival mode and there's potential to lose a lot of time so I want to be as prepared as possible.

Some say that the Glowing Sea is the most Fallout place in Fallout, like being on the surface in Metro. Some say it the best experience they've had in the game. I just want to survive and get the quest completed haha. And if I do then I can assign platitudes and accolades.

I like the Glowing Sea, but can only stand being there for a short periods as its rather creepy and depressing.

From what I can recall, the mission to find Virgil was not particularly difficult if you're careful. I was playing on Normal mind you, but on the other hand I was at a fairly low level on my first playthrough.

I don't recall there being any real difference in power consumption between different models of power armor, although by the time you start encountering the more advanced types you should have access to certain perks that will slow it down considerably.

I would go ahead and build up either Somerville or Egret Tours Marina, the latter is a bit further away but is just a much better build location IMO.

Yeah, I read it in a forum, but I see nothing official about suit quality affecting fusion core drain. The only boost I have here is the Repair bobblehead from atop Corvega. But I have quite a few cores. They are spread out among my settlements and stashes so I need to gather them up and see how many there are. Don't have enough invested in INT to get those perks.

I'm level 50 now, but enemies level with you right? And this is the highest tier quadrant on the map. Ah what the hell, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Maybe I'll give this a run tonight and see how it goes. If not now, when?

Same with the special Railroad T-51. I think I either misread or misunderstood another thread. That's a torso mod, not something special about stealth boy mode inherent in Railroad version. I think the only Railroad special is a paint job.

I've spent no time at all with PA and don't even know how to repair it. I better get to learnin'!

Do you have a Hazmat suit?

If so, you could always just throw that on and make a quick dry run or two so that you can get an idea of what you'll be up against.

But really, compared to what you'll encounter during the DLCs, it's not that bad.

No, I've come across them but never bothered to pick one up. I'm hoping the X0-1 is enough by itself to keep the radiation out. But I'll have the serum and radaway/rad-X. we'll see how it goes. It's fun building anticipation, even if I am let down in the end.

It's like the rescue missions in Elite. It seemed so daunting to fly in to a burning, exploding station, then I did it and I'm like that wasn't bad at all. Now I've done it a hundred times. The glowing sea may prove the same, as long as the nasties don't gang up all at once. I'm high level, relatively speaking, have great perks, good weapons, high sneak and sneak attack damage. VATS however eats fusion cores so might have to limit that and just shoot normally. Shouldn't be a problem unless I get overwhelmed. The scorpion's ability to burrow will probably be the biggest challenge.

I've got the plan, now to execute it and I'll let you guys know how it went

January 21, 2288, Boston Massachusetts

I awoke in Sanctuary, and prepped for my mission. To the Glowing Sea i must go. After a breakfast of radscorpion steak and water I looked over the power armor suits arrayed in front of the stand. The X-01 was missing a helmet and left arm. I took a T-60 helmet and the arm from a pre-war T-45 to complete the set. The X-01 torso was already Mk III, and I modified the legs and right arm for Mk II protection. Not much, but for this expedition, any improvement is welcomed. I left the T-45 arm alone, not wishing to spend the mats on this relic, and besides, I might find a better one on the way in the wild.

I dropped everything extraneous, and stocked up with 120 rounds for the .50, 250 rounds for the silenced 10mm and 180 .308 rounds for OG. Some mines, some grenades, including 8 bottlecap mines for the biggest threats. 30 bottles of water and plenty of food and medicine along with 14 fusion cores to power my armored suit. To hear others talk of it, my destination is dangerous, and I aim to be prepared. As a failsafe, I made sure to have some signal grenades to call for airborne extraction should it prove necessary.

Alone I headed east at first light, toward Cambridge, moving silently through the town and across the Charles River at the Harvard Bridge, though most call it the Riptide Bridge these days. On the other side I ducked in to Hangman's Alley, and then left, heading back west to the river. Reaching it, I turned south along the eastern bank. From here it was all foreign, as I had not ventured past this point before.

Keeping low to avoid detection I approached a facility hard by the river, garrisoned by super mutants, and high level ones too. Finding a rock outcropping some distance away, I began sniping the mutants with the .50, taking out the one holding a nuke first.. A couple of hounds came for me, but soon all defenders were down for the count. I was looking for a place I'd heard of, Egret Tours Marina, to settle down for the night, before continuing my mission refreshed in the morning. But this wasn't it. I looted the joint and continued south along the river bank as fog settled in. I came to a bridge, which was patrolled by a fierce-looking band of Rust Devils, with their mechanical abominations. I skirted their position, not seeking an engagement now, and just a little farther south came to the marina, which emerged at close range out of the fog.

Moving through the buildings there, I opened the door to the main building and was greeted by a woman pointing a shotgun at me. Her name was Phyllis. As I was to discover from reading her journal entries a little later, she had shot and killed her son, and believed she was synth, controlled by forces that caused her to act outside her will, and was holed up here to prevent her from killing anyone else. She warned me to get back or she might shoot, and I obliged, backing out of the door. I went around the building but heard her calling to me, wanting to talk. I cautiously entered again, but maybe I got too close to her. Maybe she just snapped. Maybe the sight of me in such armor, and heavily armed seemed a threat. Whatever the reason, she suddenly opened fire, striking my left arm. Again I backed out through the doorway, dropping a frag mine on the threshold. In her pursuit of me she met her end. Sorry Phyllis, I didn't want it to go this way.

The marina though is a nice place, I could see making a home here, even if it's off the beaten path. Nothing wrong with that. The interminable fog remained. I planned to cross the river to my destination over the bridge I had just passed. To clear the way I wanted to snipe those devils off the bridge, and could possibly do that from atop the marina, but I needed the fog to lift. It was stubborn though, so I spent the day cleaning up the joint, and building some defenses. A couple tactically placed turrets, some frag mines. When the fog finally broke, I found the bridge was deserted, the rust devils had moved on. But I could also see that the western half of the open drawbridge was much more open than the eastern side, leaving a gap I wouldn't be able to cross from this direction. I could jump down if headed to the eastern side, but crossing to the west was impossible.

So I turned in for the night, and when I awoke I reconned to the south, looking for a crossing point. I found a rickety arrangement of boats and boards that was fashioned in to a footpath across. I returned to the marina to climb in to the X-01 and set off to the south. Reaching the makeshift crossing I stepped out and halfway across, the boards under my feet gave way, plunging me in to the murky water. In the armor I sank to the bottom and caught glimpses of something moving. Something, alive. Frantically I looked for a way out, and found it by reversing course to the side of the river I had come from. Emerging from the depths I was attacked by two mirelurk kings, which I had never seen. And they meant business. And then a third. #%&*$#.

I didn't want to take any hits to my armor before I even reached my destination, but did anyway, and soon the foul creatures lay dead along the river bank. My foot bridge was now gone, and to get across the river I'd either need to walk across the bottom or find another way. I chose to go the submerged route, mirelurks be damned. I made it across only to be confronted by a stationary group of more rust devils, with some machine that was part robot, part tank, and with a skull aside its name. Nope.

So I moved along the bank of the river, which was low enough to stay out of their sight line. Just then a glowing dog and another not-glowing one approached. I backed up, dropping a couple of mines. They turned around just short of where I placed them, so I shot one of the dogs and they dutifully turned and set off the mines, killing them both. I skirted the rust devils and came up a hill to find a mutant camp. As I was scoping it out, spotting a mutant overlord of course, a vertibird arrived on the scene and took the encampment under fire, which was returned in kind. The vertibird landed to disgorge its troops just as a suicider ran toward them. I tried to snipe him, and hit him once, but not in time and he exploded his nuke on the vertibird taking out the entire BoS team. Time to go, it's hot around here.

I kept going toward the Glowing Sea marker on my pip boy and came across a park, or memorial. It was infested with ghouls, and as soon as I shot one, the rest came for me in a rush. Using VATS I was able to take them out with the pistol, some literally dying on the end of my muzzle. My destination was close now, just over the next rise. As I moved through the park, I went to enter the last house on the left and was surprised by a glowing deathclaw. I retreated back to the last house, and dropped a frag mine on the steps leading up on to the front porch, as is standard operating procedure in such circumstances. But instead of falling neatly to the ground, the mine exploded, killing me, and losing all that time, XP, a sweet radium rifle and courageous battle of nature's worst. What. The. Hell.

I have the perk to make these things NOT explode in my face, but this one did. Why? I can only speculate that maybe there was a sleeping ghoul under the porch, and the proximity mine was in proximity and so was I. Serious setback, this.

So back to the marina, staring at the bed I built and slept in last night. This time I just crossed the river, right here. The mirelurk kings get a second lease on life. I went straight to the memorial park, took out the ghouls and then released four protectrons before getting the glowing deathclaw's attention. The five us us took him out in short order and I moved over the rise to the outskirts of the Glowing Sea. I had made it, yet seemingly the hardest part lay ahead.

To be continued.

Having arrived at the Glowing Sea I cautiously entered, moving through an increasingly desolate landscape. Here is where the bomb fell, and it is hell on earth. Everything is smashed and twisted, and the atmosphere has a green glow. Visibility is compromised, like there's a fine dust in the air, and the geiger counter ticks incessantly. I felt vulnerable, my eyes darting here and there, hoping to catch a glimpse of death in time to avoid it. Slinking though the rubble, over mounds of former office buildings and gas stations, I made my way toward the marker. There is probably good stuff around, but I'm in no mood for sight seeing. I'm centered on my destination. If I make it, I can come back later. For now, I'm mission focused.

Soon I spot a radscorpion, green and glowing. I climb atop the old Red Rocket, which I can only recognize because the rocket still stands. The rest is a pile of debris. Three quick shots from OG finished him off and I moved on, not wanting to still be here if the gunfire caught anything's attention. Down through some draws, and over heaps I popped out on a ridge, overlooking a shallow valley. Off to the right were more scorpions, including one called a legendary radscorpion stalker. Deducing that this is a lethal foe I attempt to skirt to the left, down through the draw and up the other side. Just as I reach the crest my stealth indicator goes from undetected to cautious to danger. I wheel around stabbing Q to find what has already found me. Legendary radscorpion stalker it says, and I can see him ,now just 15 feet away. I transition to VATS and open fire, but he strikes, taking 80% of my health in a single blow. In power armor. No joke, these things. He falls dead under a hail of .308. I spin around several times, looking for his friends, but none are in sight. I heal up with a couple of stimpaks, and water to quench the thirst they bring. That was close, and I had been hyper vigilant. Still they got me.

Healed up to 90% I continue toward the marker, now close. As I crest another ridge the bomb crater opens before me. And I am shocked to see buildings here. New ones, with people living in them. What. The. Hell. VATS shows they're friendly, so I approach. I have to talk to them. How can they survive here? I speak to the leader, who doesn't trust me naturally enough, but I convince her to tell me where to find Virgil. She finally agrees and I leave these folks behind, still astounded to find them here. And I still don't know how they survive.

I move on, and in to some very rocky and craggy terrain, hopping from rock to ledge, up and down, and over. More scorpions are bypassed, and as I near the new marker showing Virgil's location, I see a deathclaw guarding the entrance. I won't be denied having come so far, and so close. I do not want to lose my progress again. So I open fire with OG, first round hit for sneak attack, next misses as he dodges to the left, I adjust and two or three more rounds kill him. I descend down to the cave entrance and slip inside. I've made it.

Inside I meet Virgil, an intellectual mutant if ever there was one. I'm saddened by his circumstance, but he agrees to help me if I will help him. Having accomplished my objective and with a new lead in hand, I depart. Outside I throw a signal grenade next to the deathclaw and await my ride out of here. A few minutes later I can hear it approaching, and it sets down nearby. I hop aboard and charge the minigun. I ask the pilot to take me to Sanctuary and we lift off. The flight out is glorious, as we pass high over the hellscape I had just traversed. And the counter finally stops clicking.

In the end, it was more challenging to get to the Glowing Sea than to get through it. Maybe my route was lucky, maybe my sneak helped. Still, I nearly died again. Not sure what I missed, or if I'll go back. I didn't see much as my route was fairly direct, but I know I missed a lot. I made it, and that's what counts.

Hit Level 51

Level 51 -- Sandman 2. Boosts sneak attack damage with silenced weapons from +15% to +30%.

I didn't do much exploring either on my first foray either, it was strictly get in and get out.

But don't worry, you'll be back!

I think I initially went in with a Hazmat suit, with Nick as a companion, and armed with a combat knife, a .308 sniper rifle and an explosive 10mm pistol. I might have not even been level 20 at the time. I ended up dismissing Nick fairly early on when it became obvious that he was both horribly unstealthy and of negligible combat value.

I got to the cave fairly uneventfully, carefully crept up to and shanked the sleeping Deathclaw in VATS, did my thing and had to walk out, since I did not have Vertibird grenades.

I spent a long time, several weeks in real time, doing some badly needed levelling up and preparing before I tackled the next phase of the story mission.

Yes, that flight out was wonderful, I felt like Charlie Sheen being medivacced in Platoon. Looking back at the destruction, knowing I was safe, for now, and had made it.

It is a forbidding place.

Now I've a courser to kill.....

OK, well not exactly now, that can wait

I should have mentioned a long time ago that I sneak almost everywhere when "outside the wire", which means I rarely get mobbed by unexpected enemies, which saves me a lot of ammo and hassle at the cost of increased travel time.

On my first playthrough, I believe I spent most of the time between the Glowing Sea and Courser signal missions concentrating on building up my settlements, focussing on commerce and getting a good logistical chain going. I also gained a bunch of levels and items, but that wasn't my main goal at that point.

I was greatly helped by the fact that recent patches had finally alleviated the scarcity of certain crafting resources that had been an issue since release, now you could finally build without being unduly limited.

The ridiculous glitch spawns and overpowered settlement attacks started going away too, although in some cases I think they might have been scripted.

For example my Somerville Place kept getting attacked by enormous bands of supermutants {35+} who seemed to have some unique dialogue and behavior, at least I've never heard or seen it since.

Needless to say, I had to fortify the heck out of that place, and it was still barely enough, even with me there.

I haven't seen much of that in this Survival run. A few attacks, and one I was present for and one I ran to get to, from Hangman's Alley to Abernathy farm, just in time to shoot the last raider and play the hero.

I decided to check out the DLC, heading off to Nuka World. As a nice surprise, Dog found his way back to me when I loaded in to Nuka World after the monorail ride. Hadn't seen him in a couple weeks, even returned to the castle and looked around again. After disembarking from the monorail I ran the gauntlet, no problem, until a room filled with gas and I died. I was like fook that and reloaded to a save before Nuka World. Maybe later.

Then I decided that if I'm not going to Nuka World, why not check out Far Harbor? Reloading meant Dog was gone again, so I made my way up to the Nakano residence alone, and headed off to Far Harbor. Spent enough time there to get four new missions, but the everpresent fog meant that my sniper rifle was mostly useless, and the anti-mutant plasma pistol probably wouldn't be needed either, so I sailed back to Commonwealth to re-jig my inventory. Dropping those two weapons and all of their ammo saves nearly 30 pounds, or kilos or whatever it is supposed to be.

So then I decided to do the Hunter/Hunted mission to kill the courser. Dog returned when I loaded in to the top level. Hey Dog. That's a good boy. I used The Sight to throw the kill switch, so that was easy. And Crane was right on, I need to return to the Glowing Sea now. I just left that place!

For now I've dropped Overseer's Guardian. It's very strong, does fantastic damage, and I have it fully modded, save a suppressor. But it kicks like a mule. So much recoil in fact that even though it is semi-automatic, in effect it's like a bolt-action in terms of firing cadence. I have been finding a number of modified assault rifles, taking them back to camp, stripping them of their mods. I decided to try one of these, and fully modded out the legendary incendiary AR I had found a few days ago. It hits for around 130 per shot, compared to 230 for OG, but I can get off four or five aimed shots in the time it takes to fire two from OG, waiting for the recoil to subside.

The incendiary effect is fun, for a bit. But 15 points per second of fire damage isn't much, and what I found was the flame effect obscures the target when downrange at any significant distance, making it hard to know instantly what effect my shot had. So eventually I stripped it and modified a standard AR. Again, I'm able to use high-tier mods with just a single point in to Gun Nut. That's cool.

Earlier I think it was Crane who said they didn't like the reflex sight. I was using a 'dot' reflex sight on OG, which is a combat rifle, and like it a lot. I wondered why Crane wouldn't rate it. But then I put one on an assault rifle, and yeah, not nearly as good. They use different reflex sights, and the AR one is more cluttered, thicker frame, worse than the CR one. But I still prefer it over a scope for close to medium range firefights.

So this one now has

Reflex sight
Vented barrel
Marksman's Stock
Suppressor
Standard mag
Advanced receiver

Some of those are Gun Nut 4 mods, and it's cool that they allow this even when you don't have the right perk. Of course you need to find the mods in the first place, but as long as you can mod a weapon with the base part, the modification can be stripped and mounted again regardless of Gun Nut level. As a result this AR is awesome. Recoil is minimal, so I can send rounds downrange as fast as I can pull the trigger, which just wasn't possible with OG, except at the closest ranges. I just need to find a quick eject mag, eveything I find seems to have a drum on it. So going with standard for the mo.

Carrying just two weapons, the AR and Deliverer, means less ammo types and less weight to lug around, or more space for junk and explosives! anyway haha. I also made a couple modifications to Deliverer, which is an excellent weapon.

Hit level 54

Level 52 -- Demo Expert 4. Maxed perk. Double the boom and bigger blast radius. I'm using explosives more and more and this makes them even more lethal.

Levels 53 and 54 -- Ninja 2 and Ninja 3. Maxed. Increased sneak attack damage multiplier.

And a little settlement news to report! Haha, I'm mostly ignoring this, or maybe just doing the minimum. But I've now established four supply lines, which is great for crafting reasons.

Sanctuary to Hangmans Alley
Abernathy farm to Sanctuary.
Hangman's Alley to the Castle
Sanctuary to Greygarden

Now I am much more likely to pick up random junk, and not be so discerning, since I can drop it more quickly at whichever of those places is near by.

Oh yes, one other thing I meant to mention. When I reached the docks at Far Harbor the quest completed (Far From Home I think), and Idiot Savant hit for 2520 points! Normally that would have been 504 I suppose, but with the 5x multiplier it was 2520. An entire level in a single shot. That perk has paid off massively!

Automatron is a shorter ride than the other DLCs and doesn't involve leaving the Boston area, I don't know if its less of a challenge though.

I only just got around to building the robot workbench but have not built a robot. Ada (who is annoying AF) wants me to find stuff so not sure what else needs to be done. I'm not too keen on this, aside from maybe building robots to garrison settlements or become provisioners.

I returned to Virgil, vertibird in, vertibird out. The LZ was hot though, a deathclaw and some bugs. The pilot was like good luck dude. I started building the molecular relay but only the early bits.

Hit level 58

Level 55 -- Sandman 3. Maxed perk, more sneak attack damage. I now have so many sneak attack modifiers that if I get the drop the target is good as dead.

Level 56 -- Critical Banker. I went and picked up the Luck bobblehead, taking it to 7 and opening Critical Banker. Now I've a critical in my pocket in case it's needed. This leaves the Endurance bobblehead as the only SPECIAL one I have yet to pick up.

Level 57 -- Trained one point in Intelligence to 6. I plan to take Scrapper and Science! so another point here to open the latter. Scrapper for the screws and Science for the armor and weapons mods it opens up.

Level 58 -- This point is unspent but will probably go in to the first rank of Science.

Lost the dog again.

I forgot his name but have you tried using the friendly super mutant you meet in Boston as a companion? I would assume he would be much better to use for combat than the other companions.

That's Strong, and no I have not. He's in Trinity Tower which I have yet to visit. But even so, I'm full Lone Wanderer build so the dog is the only companion I can have without losing those nice bonuses.

Speaking of screws...

Screws are precious, and why I'm looking to take the Scrapper perk, which allows you to harvest these and other uncommon mats from scrapping weapons and armor. If you do any real weapons modifying, screws go fast.

So the other day I was making my way south from the NE corner of the map and as I was approaching the iron works north of Finch Farm I came a cross a terminal just sitting out in the open. So of course I logged on to see what it was about. Turns out it controlled an eye-bot that could be sent out in to the wasteland to search for items. I picked screws and off he went. I promptly forgot about it. A day or three later I got a notification that the intrepid eye-bot had found some screws! Cool.

Turns out they were in a hospital south of the city, bad juju 'round there. But I couldn't pass up free screws. A bundle of 25 of them would set me up nicely. So I make my way there, fighting through deathclaws and bugs, synths and mutants, and finally make it to the hospital. I then fight my way through the interior and reach the objective to find

TWO SCREWS!!!!

Bah!

Wow.


I can tell you with certainty that screws are not nearly as rare in F76. They do still get used very frequently though if you repair guns and armor frequently and like you mentioned, mod guns frequently.

You can also buy screws from NPC vendors but they are pretty expensive.

Can you mail some to the Red Rocket in Cambridge please?

Since I established supply lines this has been overcome to some degree, as I now will pick up a toy truck or hotplate since I have more deposit points, and don't have to consider hauling it around for a longer time and distance like when Sanctuary was my only viable crafting spot. It's still where I do most of it, but since I can draw resources from more settlements, I have more of everything on hand, so to speak.

Fallout 4 is absolutely stuffed with content. I'm nearing 300 hours, level 58 and I wonder if I've even seen half of it. Traditionally I consider any game I sink 300+ hours in to a classic. Going to have to add FO4 to that list. This has been ten bucks well spent.

Strong is one of the only companions who can pull his weight beyond the early game IMO, give him a good melee weapon and he'll actually slay a surprising number of bodies and do a good job of keeping the enemies focussed on him.

Ada is best left at a settlement ASAP, she doesn't even grant you a perk so there's no sense in using her if you don't have to.

The companions are cool. I decided for this Survival run that I was going to do without them, in order to take LW. It's a choice, but it fits my style and of course the bonuses for LW are hard to ignore. I like playing the loner, so it's a good fit for me to go it alone.

And actually I did get Codsworth's bonus, but then took LW and have been rolling solo or with the dog ever since. But I know I am missing a lot of cool stuff, such as not having Nick with me in Far Harbor. The companion perks are not a big deal, but all added up together are significant.

Their dialog, quests and perks are great. But that is counterbalanced by poor combat AI, stealth issues and honestly I like not caring about whether they dislike what I am doing. The dog don't care

I don't know that I will play FO4 a second time (third time with my level 35 first run), probably not. But if I do maybe I'll give them a proper go.



Modified that a bit

A few random screens. I rarely think to snap screens when I'm playing, which is s shame since there are many awesome vistas and scenes throughout the wasteland.

Bond. Ultralight BOS Steadfast Combat armor, army fatigues and newsboy cap with ballistic weave.





Christmas in Diamond City (inside Fenway Park)




Overseer's Guardian, now converted to a sniper. Added the long ported barrel, scope and suppressor and am carrying it again to handle long range duties. These modifications added yet another 4 pounds to the weight. To carry this third weapon and ammo cuts a big slice out of my available carry weight. But man it hits hard. The very first target I shot was a raider leaning on the rail of the walkway above Corvega's main entrance. There's always one there, just chillin' and I snipe him each time I pass by. This time he took the round to the head, and he flipped head over heels one and a half rotations before hitting the floor.

Hit level 59 but the last two points are unspent. I'm at the point now where each perk I identified as a core requirement for my character is done. Points now can be spent on 'luxury' perks, things that are nice to have but are not crucial to my build. As a result I've lost a bit of focus and cannot make up my mind how to spend them.

As noted above I started carrying OG again to be my sniper rifle. That adds considerable weight back in, about 170 total with all the other stuff I'm carrying. Max is 225 so that leaves just about 55 for loot. I wouldn't mind adding another weapon, maybe a combat shotgun for example, which would be heavy. So I'm considering not going with the Intelligence perks I was thinking of right away and dropping the next four points in to Strength and Strong Back. This would add 70 carry weight (+50 from the perk and +20 from the two Strength points). That's a lot of points for that sort of gain, hence my indecision. But doing so means another weapon can be carried.

I decided last night to complete my bobblehead set, and to go and get the Endurance one. It's in Poseidon Energy, in the SE corner. Great mission, as it was like a war zone, with raiders, gunners, BoS, rust devils and caravans all involved in firefights around the area. I took position in a nearby two-story building, and dropped mines at all entrances and at the bottom of the stairs which paid off. From there I sniped a number of bad guys, making moving through this area a little safer for now.

I also did the Strong mission at Trinity Tower, but couldn't take him with me because of Lone Wanderer. Well, I could, but then my legs would break due to carry weight haha. So I sent him to Finch Farm which had been recently attacked. Missions must get assigned a level when you get them, because the mutants in the tower were pretty low level I think. They dropped very easily. I'd been sitting on that mission for most of the game, so I felt way overleveled and the points for completion seemed to reflect this.

On my first playthrough, I think I finished the main quest when I was only level 31, at which point none of the DLCs were even released yet, nor did I spend much time with any of the companions other than Deacon.

It was only later on, when I was well established, did I make an effort to spend time with the other companions.

Purely from a gameplay perspective, I can do without any of them, especially the dog, but they add flavor and are part of the experience.

I'd suggest putting those points into Science, not just to allow certain mods, but to be able to build fusion generators at your settlements.

Thanks, I was wondering the same thing, what level others reach when playing Fallout 4, so a pertinent post Crane!

I'll be level 60 almost as soon as i play again. Idiot Savant is one of the primary reasons. I can't quantify it with any accuracy, but if I had to guess I'd bet it's been good for ten levels easy. Free XP. Plus, in Survival mode, all kills count for double XP, and then if you hit Idiot Savant as well it's quite the points haul.

Plus, just my play style is a factor. I've talked about patrolling, and not sure how many players do something like this, where you just go out on patrol, seeing what you can stir up, with no mission or game objective in mind. I do a lot of this. It's how I mostly played the Stalker Misery mod, and it carries over well in to Fallout 4. The fact that enemies respawn, and are out patrolling themselves gives the gameworld a sense that it does not revolve around the player. It feels alive and organic. Battles take place in the distance. I absolutely love games like this where you hear those distant gunshots, reverberating off the concrete walls and skyscrapers, and where it isn't just random sound files that play in the background to simulate the same. You never know what's just around the corner, or at the end of the next block. It all adds up to a fantastic environment to patrol and means I can have compelling play that isn't strictly tied to quests.

So the XP and levels keep rolling in. And since there is no level cap I can just keep going, adding more perks along the way, with no end in sight. I still have a long way to go here. In the main quest I am at the point to build the relay, so I haven't even gotten in to the Institute yet. And my quest log is quite long, and gets added to (and some removed) every session.

I was also thinking about how my first exposure to the game does indeed come flush with all DLC, which as Crane noted not all players share. Even so, I've hardly touched any of the DLC so far.

Thanks for the tip!

I don't know what level my playthroughs are currently at, since I had to uninstall the game 10 months ago to be able to accommodate Cyberpunk 2077, but they are probably well above 100.

Total time played is 590 hours, easily the most time I've ever put into a single game.

I also used to spend a lot of time on random patrols, as well as salvage runs, mainly looking for materials and items for my settlements.

The only thing I never really got into was mods, as they were rough around the edges at the time and I didn't want to run the risk of corrupting my save files.

I might give one of the major mods a go if I get tired of waiting for upcoming games and the Cyberpunk DLCs.

I just looked it up on Steam and I have 214 hours in Fallout 4 but I've only played through the main game and all the DLC's once. One day I'll reinstall and do a second playthrough.

As for my top game in Steam by gaming hours that goes to Total War: Attila with 4,099 hours.

I'm at 290 so far and counting. That's in like 6 weeks! Haha, I must like it. Of course that's Steam time which is always longer than actual play time due to forgetting I left it running or whatever, but still. That's a lot in such a short time space.

My top Steam game is EU IV, with about 3,600 hours. But I would bet that Falcon 4 is my actual all-time most played game or sim. Just don't have the hours tracked to know.

I finished building the molecular relay in Sanctuary. An impressive contraption to be sure. But I did not actually attempt to use it yet.

Hit level 60

At level 60 I had three unspent points. Still unsure how to spend them, I did drop one for the first rank in Science, since that opens up large generators, which I used to power the relay. I don't know that I'll go to rank 4. The fusion generators that Crane is advocating are awesome, 100 power. But nothing I am doing or have planned needs that sort of power. One of those could power everything I've built in all settlements on the map and probably have half left over. But who knows, maybe I'll take more interest in it down the line.

For the first time in those 300 hours I've dropped in to Fallout 4 I was cursing the design team. While out on a mission I found a nice drop, a leg armor piece that grants +2 Luck. it was 16 protection to my current 9. So I thought I'd head back to Sanctuary, and put ultralight and shadowed on it and equip it. But when I did so I saw that to put ultralight on this piece requires Armorer 4 (check) and Pickpocket 2. Pickpocket 2?! What the hell. Why should I need to have dropped two points there to modify a piece of armor? That's silly and so that armor goes in to storage. Shame that. But this is just arbitrary complication that makes no sense. And to top it off, shadowed is not even an option, only Improved for the first slot.

I had noticed my caps on hand had grown to 22,000. So I bought Home Plate. Not needed, but what the hell, right? A place to display my bobbleheads and to crash when I spend the night down the pub I reckon.

Do you know if there is a limit on how many caps you can carry in F4? I don't remember but in F76 you can have up 40,000 caps max.

I think there is no actual limit, but a display limit of 999,999.

However I did read there is a maximum workshop storage (for junk and stuff) in Survival mode, but no idea what that limit is.

I'm not finding anything to spend caps on really, I make little effort to sell things. So I figured what the heck, might as well buy Home Plate. It's a dump but I can fix it up if I want. I cleaned it up and moved some stuff around, but no other improvements yet. I might spend a point in Local Leader 2 so I can build shops and crafting stations. Put a clinic in Sanctuary.

At the mo, I'm off to the southeast in power armor, returning to explore the outer edges of the Glowing Sea, and to run a mission to unlock Somerville Place. Plus I think I can get my missing left arm for my X-01 at the abandoned shack, plus my eighth Covert Ops magazine (I read a wiki). More stealth.

I've had as much as 200K caps at one time, but money is not a huge consideration beyond the early game IMO.

The limited amount of caps held by the shopkeepers makes it difficult to make a lot of money quickly by selling loot or manufactured items.

I usually found I was obligated to buy a large amount of junk items from them just to bring the total down to what they could afford.

Late game, the only thing I couldn't get enough of was certain materials, particularly concrete and high tech crafting elements.

A wealthy wanderer for sure. 200k is a fortune in this game.

Hit level 62 and now have four points unspent. Who plays like this?!

I entered the institute and did the opening stages there, meeting everyone. But now I'm concerned about how my actions will affect faction relations, and have no real idea of how to go about it. I don't even know which faction I want to align with. But I don't want, at this stage, to close anything off or make enemies out of them.

My expedition back to the Glowing Sea was not so lucrative. I made it in to the facility below the abandoned shack, found the set of X-01 and it had no arms. Just my luck. Did get the Covert Ops mag, so that's good. Then I patrolled home through a small town I think called Natick, which was garrisoned by deathclaws and mutants. Quite a battle arose which was joined by nearby raiders and a BoS vertibird and squad. Fun stuff.

I was leaning hard towards the Railway in the earlier part of my first run, but at some point I went over to the Institute, figuring that they had a lot more going for them than any pitiful little band of wastelanders.

That's interesting. I'm still undecided, and maybe my actions, or the missions I trigger, intentionally or otherwise, could make the decision for me, if I understand how it works. The player must tread carefully at this stage or could find himself in or out, depending.

I liked the Railroad at first. They feel like Freedom from Stalker, who I tend to throw in with in those games. But over time I saw they were not so much synth sympathetic, as supremacist. They grew to feel too zealous, with a skewed perspective on the humanity and synth question. My character started to feel less ethically aligned as time went on. But maybe worse than a question of ethics and morality, they are a bunch of lazy freeloaders. Of all the factions, the Railroad are encountered the least out in the wild. They are content to sit in their subterranean HQ and flap their gums and let the vault dweller do all the work. In exactly the same way I grew to resent the camp followers in RDR 2, i began to see the Railroad the same way. Get to work ya bastages!

The Minutemen feel safe, a Lawful Good vibe. But it feels like without me they'd not stand a chance. They insist on using laser muskets for crying out loud haha. But they were the first friendly people I met in the wastes, and want the right things for the world, even if it feels like they'll never have the capacity to make it so. The sort of underdog you'll pull for, but wouldn't stake your money on.

BoS are the opposite, like Duty to Stalker's Freedom. They also have a skewed perspective, but the capacity to get things done. Of all the factions, it is the BoS out there in the weeds giving the bad guys the good news. It feels like they have the best chance aside from the institute of realizing their vision.

The Institute is too new to me right now. The whole thing was a revelation, from meeting Shaun to seeing the facility and learning their stated goals. Of all the factions, the Institute are the only one to have the ability to truly make the world a better place. But I've been doing this a long time, and I know things can never be that simple, that what I see is likely a veneer, and beneath lies a more sinister foundation. I have yet to uncover this, if it exists, but the cynic in me senses something amiss. They are stringpullers, and I have yet I think to see what's dancing on the end. If I'm honest, I think it's me.

So I have little to pull me in any of those directions. It feels like aligning with the Minutemen will perhaps offend the others less, with any other choice making instant enemies. To avoid making this choice any time soon I've returned to Far Harbor to take in some more of the content there, and maybe get some good DLC gear. Hit Level 63

I still hold three unspent points, but did spend two others on Better Criticals 2 and 3. Along with Critical Banker this means I almost always have one devastating shot in the pocket. I don't use it much, but it's good insurance.

The Railway is mostly just an intelligence network, who are experiencing hard times and who have to operate under the nose of a vast surveillance system who have operatives everywhere and even the birds have cameras in them. I don't blame them for lying low. While I don't believe in their mission, I respect their dedication and level of sophistication despite their circumstances.

The East Coast Brotherhood of Steel has some potential, but I don't see them as being able to successfully govern a region or outgrow their dependence on salvaged tech tech any time soon. What's more, is that they re probably only one leadership squabble away from splintering further.

The Minutemen are good for waiting at the finish line so they can latch onto the real winner IMO.

I nuke the institute every single time. Don't let their stated goals fool you. At best they're bond level villains and they deserve to go down.

OK Deacon.

Even under new management?

The Institute is the only faction that has the means to eventually rebuild the area to any real extent, as well as defend it against significant outside threats.

If Caesar's Legion or the equivalent comes knocking, do you think the Railroad, Minutemen or even the BoS will be able to handle them?

The factions are one of the worst parts about that game. They're all terrible in different ways, except the institute, they're just straight up evil.
Assuming something l like the Legion came to the commonwealth the Institute won't stop them as they don't give a rat's behind what goes on. I'm certain they're whole goal is to straight up genocide everyone in the commonwealth and replace them with synths. Until then, they're just guinea pigs for whatever other experiments they happen to be running on the side.

At least the other three options aren't straight up murdering people and replacing them with synths. Those factions can at least be fixed by a change in management. As for the institute, loot some tech if you need to but nuke those #%&*$# for orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

The institute would probably just replace you with a synth as well if you tried changing them. I don't trust them.

Maybe the message of the game is that in a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland where resources are few and desperation for survival is high, there will be no outright good faction?

Well, I'll need to make a choice soon, but in the meantime I'm putting it off. After tooling around Far Harbor for a bit I was already irked by the radiation fog, and wondered how best to mitigate it. I decided to go get a set of power armor, and to swap my regular armor chest piece for an identical one that has BoS radiation resistance in place of shadowed. So back to the 'Wealth.

But once again the fact my set of X-01 was incomplete, missing the left arm, irked me too. So I did an internet search and saw there should be a full set on top of 35 Court in Boston. Went there and sure enough there it was. a full set with all pieces, and due to my high level all were already Mk III protection. I went back to Sanctuary to install a few mods, Mk VI on the torso, recon mod on the helmet and then ran out of aluminum. I planned to put the stealth boy torso on it but thankfully I read about it first and saw that the crouch stealth effect burns AP, and that would not have worked.

Then I did the long trek back to the boat to return to Far Harbor. Just hanging out, patrolling and getting Longfellow's cabin set up and arranged to my satisfaction.

Hit level 64

Finally spent my saved points. Dropped two to bring Science up to rank 3, which opened up the power armor mods I wanted to do. I spent another point to get Local Leader 2, and the final point on Scrapper. Which scrapped weapons or armor yield aluminum?

Did you guys use emporiums, or shops in general? I took LL 2 to look at these, but then saw I need to drop another two points in to Cap Collector. Is it worth it in your opinion?

Aluminum isn't particularly rare, I don't think I ever specifically sought it out in my playthroughs. However you can find lots of it in places like Corvega or the Mahkra fish packing plant, or buy shipments from Arturo in Diamond City.

Shops are nice to have for the purposes of raising settler happiness and to conveniently buy and sell items, but be aware that they take a long time to actually turn a profit as far as their tiny daily generated income goes.

I found many of the enemies Far Harbor are good at detecting you while sneaking compared to the Boston counterparts, so wearing power armor may really make sneaking difficult. Mind you, I was looking to get close enough for melee kills most of the time.

I think I'm low because I just built the molecular relay. I'd been collecting the entire game, but I ran out fast yesterday.

My power armor sneaks OK. I have Sneak perk maxed and 8 Covert Ops mags. Seems to do fine keeping me stealthy even in the PA. Good enough anyway, to get those sweet sneak attacks.

I wish you could store fusion cores on exited power armor and then I could jump in and out of it more often in the field. I've hardly used PA in this game, or any Fallout for that matter. But it works well in Far Harbor fog. Fun to mix it up a bit, and gives me more stuff to modify

Edit: No, the relay only required ten aluminum it seems, so I didn't have all that much on hand to begin with I guess. I know where to find it, but the Scrapper perk rank 1 specifically states aluminum, but I got none scrapping a number of laser and pipe guns, and some armor pieces. Just curious which ones yield aluminum and I can pick those up on on patrol.

I can't remember what weapons or armor yields aluminum, but of course the more heavily modded the item is from baseline, the better the scrap materials you'll get.

I bet a lot of your missing aluminum is due to your X-01 power armor, which needs a significant amount of it to repair and upgrade.

For this reason, I would normally only use the T-45 or T-51 power armors for patrolling and other routine use, since they mostly only require a modest amount of steel to repair.

It's not specific weapons that scrap into aluminum, but specific mods on that weapon that require aluminum. Breaking those down will give you some aluminum back. It's had to tell if it'll give you aluminum until you look at what mods it has exactly.
Best source is aluminum cans since they only weight 0.1 and yield 2 aluminum. TV trays and surgical trays each yield 3 but weigh 0.5.

You can always buy some, they're expensive.
Making money is easy though. If you build shops in your settlements they'll generate caps that you can pickup from the workshop. Extra water also gets stored in there and you can trade it to merchants to pay for whatever resource you need. Turning Sanctuary into a water factory is a reliable way to make cash. The maximum it'll store in the workshop is 40 purified water, so you'll have to manually empty it out every once in a while.

Those shops and emporiums don't really make you much money, but they make new vendors that you can buy and sell things to. Most of them also provide a job and increases morale of you settlement. Not too sure what high morale does exactly, but if it's too low people may leave.

You're right about the repair costs for X-01, but I have yet to actually repair it since I use it so little. But I did look at the costs to see what they were yesterday.

Do the vendors (like Vault Tec Rep and Rylee) have worthwhile unique items for sale if you set them up with a stall? I don't think I'll bother with emporiums, as I already have the gear I want. But maybe there's something I don't know I want yet...

I can't see dropping two points in to Cap Collector unless it is very worth it. Then again, I'm sort of running out of perks I want.

Speaking of water factories... maybe you guys can help me. I have the castle as a settlement, and it has a water purifier. I powered it up, or at least the light is lit, but I never see any water from it in the workshop. Maybe I should look again, perhaps I don't have enough power to it. Water's not really an issue, but I'd like to have at least one purifier on line I think. Don't go there that often so maybe it doesn't matter at all. Just curious what else I need to do to get it to produce product and have it stock up in the workshop.

I read that advanced receivers yield aluminum, so I'll look for those and get aluminum and screws out of it. Gotta use the perk now that I've dropped a point on it.

Becoming a drug dealer is a straightforward way to make caps, mass produce Jet for the cost of 2 fertilizer, 1 plastic, and sell it to vendors.

You may have at least 1 settlement somewhere that is not self sufficient in water and drawing it via a supply line.

I'm already a drug dealer, but I sell appropriated product.

Yeah, I want the shops for what I can buy, not the money they'll make, which is nice, but not enough to add up to much if I'm not putting them in a number of settlements. It was more for legendary and unique items they may offer for sale. And to dress the place up a bit, and to put these vendors I am meeting to work. Vault Tec Rep was so happy to get the job that doesn't exist

Totally not needed, more of a roleplay thing to make Sanctuary feel more advanced and civilized. Then again, when I saw the prices of some of the best armor in Far Harbor I nearly fell of my horse. I'm all like "I have gobs of money" and Far Harbor was like "You have what now?"

I was the Scarface of the Commonwealth for a while there.

"F*ck Eddie Winter, and f*ck, the f*cking Bobrov brothers, f*ck 'em all, I bury those rad roaches!"

Yeah man, the Commonwealth Kingpin. That's rollin' right. And that's how you amass 200k caps.

The way to make real caps, is to set up some productive settlements, and shake them down in the name of your raiders.

All you have to do from that point is periodically collect your ill gotten gains in Fizztop.

R A I D * L Y F E

Make that blue Jet to be Commonwealth Heisenberg.

Say my name.

That was a great show.

I wish I hadn't gone all the way back to get the X-01 because I soon found the Vim T-51b set in Far Harbor and now have two sets to transport back to the collection. I built a warehouse in Sanctuary, built a power armor stand and have them all neatly arrayed so I can look at them. If I had just gone another 100 yards up the road I would have found the Vim armor, and saved all that time and effort going all the way to Sanctuary and back and have two armors to bring back. I could leave one here, but the display collection!

Far Harbor's a nice change of pace from the 'Wealth, but I'm not feeling it much. Dark, foggy, feels claustrophobic. I picked up a couple rabbit legs and can't cook 'em up, need seaweed and bat droppings or whatever to make up a stew. Sup with that? That's fine to have more advanced recipes for better bonuses, but I should still be able to have roasted rabbit. In Survival I only eat for the nutrition, never the bonuses. Roasted rabbit legs should be an option dangnabbit.

I've maybe done 1/4 of the island and am ready to head back. Honestly after 300+ hours I'm starting to feel like I should see the game to its conclusion. Run down the main quest. But its so much fun to just get out there and stir it up.

Hit Level 66 but didn't spend the two points yet. The perks in Fallout are great, but there aren't many left (and within reach) that I still want to get. I wouldn't mind just training attributes, but in this game they are more of a perk unlock level than any real advantage for the character. Carry a little more, a little better VATS accuracy or sneak ability. I wish there were more mechanics attached to the attribute points. Which reminds me of one of the things I am most disappointed with FO4. Skill checks. Where are they? Ya gotta have skill checks all over the place in Fallout. Which would make the SPECIAL points feel more important. I think I've had one, in my first run, where my high INT let me take a shortcut through the USS Constitution mission.


I'm leaning toward the high-end Luck perks, like Grim Reaper's Sprint for example. But the benefits would be so situational that it feels like going through the motions just to spend the points. A 15% chance to refill AP sounds great, but how often do I need to use VATS that long? Never, really. My build has a lot of AP with max Agility and it's rare that I'll ever chain more than three targets together and actually benefit from the perk with another three or four targets to immediately need to engage. Combat's rarely that dense. With Action Boy the AP regenerates quickly already, so while these top Luck perks are cool, I just don't see them ever really being all that useful.

I love the idea of Ricochet, to instantly kill an enemy that lands a shot, but I read that it's about as rare as Mysterious Stranger. And a few words about that perk. In previous Fallout games I took this perk. It's fun, and from time to time he would show up and make a real difference, swing a tough battle. But in Fallout 4 it's been a wasted point. I could have dropped more points to increase appearance chance, but it's been so underwhelming I feel like it's good money after bad. I took this perk at level 27, I am level 66 now, and I've seen him twice. Twice! And the first time he popped up to kill a radroach for me. Gee, thanks mate.

So if Ricochet is about the same probability to trigger there's no sense in getting it, and anyway I'd need to train Luck up just top unlock it. Even a 5% chance would be great, but it must be more like .005%. Maybe the info's bad and it triggers more often, but it's too much investment to find out.

I preferred Nuka World to Far Harbor, even though the consensus is that the latter is far better in terms of story and overall quality.

Nuka World felt like a rushed product and I wish Bethesda had put more effort into it, even if they'd sought to charge more.

You really should start wrapping up the major quests as you might be over levelled for at least some of them at this point.

As for me, while I doubt I could bring myself to ever play vanilla Fallout 4 again, I hope one of the megamods is released before S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 and the Cyberpunk DLCs.

https://www.pcgamer.com/upcoming-fallout-mods/

There's no comparison in my opinion. The main story for Far Harbor is really intriguing and it's especially interesting for people who are into the whole sci-fi theme of artificial intelligence.

Nuka World had minimal story but I really enjoyed crafting the different varieties of Nuka Colas and also exploring the different theme park areas.

Good advice, but I reckon that ship sailed 30 levels ago

I've maybe done half of Far Harbor. It's mainly the terrain/fog/lighting that I don't like. It's so close, traveling around you rarely can see more than 50 yards in any direction. Not a big deal, but I prefer the sweeping vistas of mass destruction haha. I don't much care for the story either, I feel no affinity nor rejection of synths. I'm content to let them live, but have no cause to assist them either. Live and let live, if that's what synths do.

I complained of pricing earlier, but it's only the Marine armor that is this way. The rest is reasonable, or so it seems. I made it to Nucleus and saw that Kiloton Radium Rifle and had to have it, so bought it. I plan to make it my carry rifle, replacing (at least temporarily) my assault rifle that has performed well. The Kiloton comes bone stock, so I added a new barrel, sight, stock and receiver. I was very pleased to see that this weapon doesn't have high Gun Nut requirements, and most of the good mods can be done with Gun Nut 1 and Science 3, both of which I have! I need Science 4 for the suppressor, and that will be the next point spent.

This rifle is better in just about every way. It is lighter weight, and the ammo is too. Base ballistic damage is higher, it also does 50 points of radiation damage and explosive damage as well. I have Demo Expert 4 which seems to apply and it just wrecks. The radiation damage probably isn't all that powerful against many enemies, who I suspect have resistance or are immune? Against humans it should be especially strong though.

I took my X-01 PA back to Sanctuary, leaving the Vim T-51b in Far Harbor. Crane's comment earlier was particularly poignant, as I went on a long loop patrol around the island. The more modest repair requirements make the T-51 much easier to repair in the field, whereas the X-01 is going to need to be in a settlement where you have stocks of mats, which you won't have at a random station encountered in your travels. After reading his comment I decided to run that patrol in the T-51 and it worked out well. My approach now is to use the heavily modified and very strong X-01 for specific difficult missions, but wear a lesser model when out on routine patrol. I haven't modded the T-51 yet, and as it stands the X-01 has double the protection stats. But the T-51 and T-60 are good enough. I now have about ten suits of PA. But aside from Far Harbor and the Glowing Sea, I rarely use them.

The levels keep rolling, and I hit level 68. I spent the four points I had to get Strong Back 2. Two points were spent to train Strength to level 6 and two spent on the perks. Carry weight without PA is now 295. I'm nearly level 69 at which point I will take Science 4.

What's the most dangerous enemy you have encountered?

How to judge?

Legendary Vampiric Bloodbug is a b!tch
Courser?
Some-prefix Fog Crawler?
Behemoth?
Alpha Deathclaw? No, those go down pretty fast these days
The Rust Devil contraption with tank in the name?
Mirelurk Queen?

What are the toughest enemies? I could pick those I've encountered from the list

Anybody in power armor equipped with a fatman. Maybe not as bullet spongy as the already mentioned enemies, but the can usually survive enough hits to launch that thing and if it hits, will usually kill me instantly.

So I've spent the intervening time scouring the 'net. Yeah, most of what they talk about I've not seen, like Mythic Deathclaw or Enraged Fog Crawler.

Here's one writer's take on the most difficult spots in the game

https://gamerant.com/fallout-4-hardest-parts-enemy-encounters/

Of those, anyway, I've been to 35 Court, killed Sarge, cleared Quincy, took out Bugsy Malone

I've let Swan live thus far. VATS'ing him I can see a couple shots from my rifle will kill him at this stage, not to mention sowing mine seeds. But he never bothers me, and isn't in the way, and having him around makes others think twice of coming downtown and stepping on my toes, so he yet lives.

I have yet to enter the State House, and wish I hadn't seen this spoiler. And I don't know I've even seen Gunner's Plaza, but this seems like a good place to try out my new Radium rifle!

Took one out very early, the one in Lexington near Corvega. But I sniped him from the overpass above. Anyway, that's a formidable foe you are right.

Crane's question is a good one for everyone. Who IS the toughest enemy you fought in Fallout 4?

BTW, I've enjoyed my time in FO4 so much I am thinking of playing FO3 or FNV again. Last night I looked at FNV and saw most of my gameplay was in November of 2010, judging by the timestamps on the achievements. I then returned to it in 2013, and played enough to get Come Fly With Me. But I'm not sure I actually finished the game. I thought I did, but the achievements tell a different story. Might be worth another go, in Hardcore mode.

It seems I didn't buy Fallout 3 on Steam.

I found Assaultrons a major threat at the point in the game where I initially encountered them.

Once I'd levelled up a bit they were not so bad, but to an early character they are boss tier IMO.

Yeah, assaultrons are tough. There are some elite level versions too that will fook your sh!t up.

I'm still interested in more answers about hard enemies, but all this got me thinking about something else, and am curious how others approached it, and that is combat support. By this I mean all items and other means of receiving additional assistance for combat. Drugs, flare guns, artillery and that sort of thing. I use none of this.

I've been carrying the flare gun for the Minutemen through the entire game and never fired it once. I always think that will come in handy one day, and then I never think to use it when those times actually happen to me lol.

I read about players who swear by the bullet-time drugs like psychojet. Never used it once. I did use Med-X twice I think early on, but no other combat-enhancing drugs even though I always have them on me.

I've built artillery in several locations, and carry the grenades, but never used it aside from when you have to in the quest. I mean, that was cool, calling in those rounds, yet I never think to call for it in the field.

So really, I've not used any of this support. There have been times it might have come in handy!

I was heavily melee sneak attack oriented, and managed to kill many formidable opponents fairly easily and at a relatively low level.

For example I managed to kill Swan with a VATS sneak attack when I was under level 10 on my first playthrough. He never even managed to rise out of the water, and I didn't even know what he looked like until I gave him a fighting chance on my second playthrough.

It was mostly the enemies that I had difficulty sneaking up to within knifing range of that I had issues with.

As far as support weapons, I used artillery and synth relay grenades quite a bit on my first playthrough, I didn't bother with the Minuteman flares as the summoned Minutemen won't even last a minute in any serious encounter.

As far as drugs use goes...

🎵 Rush rush to the Psycho
Buzz, buzz, gimme Psycho {oh oh}
Yo, yo, no, no, Psycho {Go, go}
Rush, rush to the Psycho 🎵

Is that by The Clash?

What's a synth relay grenade?

Inspired by:



Synth grenades are an Institute provided item that cause synths to relay in and fight for you, the synths aren't that tough but can be a useful distraction.

MedX, RadX, and psychojet can be very useful in some situations.

Thanks for the info gentlemen. I continue to neglect screenshots, for whatever reason I rarely think to snap them. But I got a few

Fenway Park, otherwise known as Diamond City. Green Monster in the background






Arriving at Far Harbor






I noted yesterday how I've failed to call for artillery. Last night I was coming out of the Four Leaf Fishpacking Plant having done a mission there for the BoS. As I came up this street I spotted Rust Devils in a half-destroyed house. It was two stories, with the whole front facade blown out, and the rubble piles reached up to the second floor. The roof was gone. I told Dog to stay in place and crept forward and tossed an artillery smoke grenade over the wall and into the house. The Rust Devil said "huh?". I quickly went back down the street to clear the immediate vicinity. A few seconds later I could hear the tube fire from back at the Castle and then the rounds came screaming in. I snapped this shot just at the instant one of these rounds came right down inside that open roof and took out the Rust Devils. It's blurry due to the explosion, and the flash can be seen on the adjacent buildings, but the spot it actually detonated is out of view since it is inside the house. But I think it's a cool image

Hit level 70. Seven-tee! That's nuts and I'm nowhere near done. I haven't set foot in Vault 88, I haven't done Nuka World. Not built a robot, hardly touched the Institute content. Locations undiscovered, plenty of interiors unexplored. But yet I'm level 70. I think in FNV and FO3 it was a stretch to even approach 40, but maybe I'm wrong about that.

At level 69 I took Science 4. That opens up a whole host of craftables,including the suppressor for the Kiloton Radium rifle, and fusion generators! Haha, at least I could build these now Crane. The suppressor for the Kiloton is a bit of a larf. I mean I am suppressing a weapon that has explosive rounds. It still goes boom every time you pull the trigger. Perhaps it still makes it difficult for the NPCs to know where it is coming from? But the real reason is to get the +30% damage from Sandman.

One of the reasons I wanted to switch to this rifle is weight. But now that I've upgraded it it is only 4 pounds lighter than the assault rifle I had been using. And if and when I upgrade the receiver from Powerful to Advanced it will add another 2 pounds, to 20, and make it just two pounds lighter than the other rifle.

But it hits like a freight train. I was making my way back from Far Harbor last night, and had just passed Coastal Cottage and I made my way south along the shoreline. Up and over the hills toward the ironworks and came to a sunken road, where I paused to sweep with VATS. Just about 75 feet to my right was an Alpha Deathclaw, which had not detected me. I took aim and one-shotted him. Boom, done.

Later I came across a group of ghouls with some high level ones like glowing bloated or whatever. In VATS, this weapon kicks serious ass, especially against ghouls who can tend to gang up and get close to one another. The area effect of the explosive just wrecks. On the way to the fishpacking plant I cut through a junkyard or something (the whole map looks like a junkyard so I can't be sure lol). Inside a building I could see the flashing red light that betrays a suicider. I wondered if the explosive radius would detonate that mini-nuke he is carrying. The answer, with a sample of one, is hell yeah it does!

I think I need to be careful though, and not get caught with this rifle with enemies at arm's length or I could get caught up in the boom.

Weapons like this are a lot of fun to use. When I am done with this game I plan to bookend this thread with a review. But for the moment I want to talk about how Fallout 4 handles weapons, and why I like it so much. Aside from the excellent variety of weapons, and cool variants, the weapons modifications and scaling is very appealing. I love being able to modify my guns, to customize and personalize them. It gives me a sense of agency, and produces weapons tailored to my vision of how the game is played. Customized weapons feel personal and foster a sense of attachment. This is my rifle.

But it would mean little if the scaling had been designed differently. In many RPG-style games it's a continual progression through weapon after weapon. You're constantly on the hunt for the next one, which is only marginally better than the one you have. But in Fallout, the weapons scale to the player and his perks, and this means you can carry the same weapon throughout the game, it levels up with you in a sense. So it is not a loot grind. That's not to say I haven't gone through a progression, I have. But it also means that the weapons remain viable for a very long time, not just the next two levels. Since I have become attached to the weapon I have spent so much time and mats refining, and it does not become obsolete in short order, it imparts that sense of 'this is my rifle' that other games fail to capture due to how weapon scaling works.

I liked the modding aspect but was otherwise not impressed by the weapons mechanics, and found most of the models to be awkward and ugly. I had hoped that Bethesda would haved used New Vegas as their main inspiration instead of Borderlands.

Kiloton is good weapon, I wish I had found it a lot sooner, although I think it may have accompanied me to Nuka World.

It sure is, the Kiloton. If I can find an advanced receiver for it, or take another two points in Gun Nut to build one, it will be even better. That is a big boost, even over the 'Powerful' receiver it has now. As it stands it does around 160 damage, plus the radiation and explosive damage. I don't know how those bonus damage types are affected by the perks like sneak attacks/Ninja, Demo Expert and Sandman, but the sum of all that damage is pretty high.

I hit level 71 and spent two points to train up Intelligence to 8. I'll spend one more point here to get to level 9, and then invest in the Nuclear Phycisist perks. First rank is +50% damage with radiation weapons (like Kiloton) and second rank doubles damage. Would that mean 320 base damage plus the rad and explosive damage? Good grief. In addition, filling out that perk doubles the life of fusion cores. A very nice perk all around. Situational yes, but if you're using radiation weapons and wearing power armor it's really strong.

If I get a receiver upgrade it will be well over 400 ballistic damage. Not much can stand up to that.

I'm at the point now where I'm ready to enter the end game. I might still keep playing even after the ending, but I'm trying to set that all up now. I broke tradition and researched this, rather than just let it play out. I wanted to get a feel for which decisions and actions lead to which factions I end up friendly or enemy with, and how to shape my post-ending game world. I think I've got a plan. I intend to side with the Minutemen, while keeping good relations with BoS and RR, and blowing up the Institute. When it's done I will hopefully remain allies with everyone else.

So I think I can accomplish this by informing BoS and RR of the Institute's plans at Bunker Hill. Once that battle begins I stay neutral by not engaging anyone. When it's over, free the synths, and kill the Courser. On the roof talk to Father and tell him he is nuts, and reject the Institute which will get me banished, leading to the Defend the Castle mission. Once that's over I can then infiltrate the Institute, plant the explosives and Bob's your uncle.

Oh yes, I forgot to add that Borderlands is one of my favorite series ever. Especially BL2 and 3. It's interesting you drew that comparison and it's true. The weapons are a bit Borderlands-like, especially energy, gamma and radiation weapons. I like how it's done in Fallout though, and most weapons look the part, from pre-war firearms that look as though they've been through an atomic event to newer weapons that have the look of something cobbled together out of available parts.

The gun play is the best in the series too, even if I probably would prefer a more RPG-like experience, like the previous games. But I quickly acclimated to FO4 being more shooter than RPG, it works well for me as it is. The improved accuracy outside of VATS is a big shift, and allows real long-range sniping that was difficult in the other Fallout games due to how dispersion worked.

So yeah, overall I can;t find too much fault in how Bethesda implemented this, even if it feels less Fallout as a result.

I wonder which ending will be canonical?

While it seems that most players opted to destroy the Institute, doing so would pretty much eliminate them as a future faction beyond some scattered remnants.

That's a great question and I don't know the answer. maybe once I've been through the ending sequences I might have a different perspective. As it stands now I'd probably guess that exactly what I am setting up would be it. But there are plenty of holes in this argument, not least of which is the Minutemen are a weak faction. As I said earlier I can't imagine these people having any long term success without my help. Too disorganized and they have no special tech to help them (that I've seen), unlike all the others.

The problem for the Railroad is that if the Institute is indeed destroyed, the Railroad loses its purpose, and would probably fade away.

BoS is a good candidate, but too extreme. But I might have thought the same about the Enclave, and their ending was canonical in FO3.

The Institute is evil, right? That's what everyone says but I have not dived deep enough to really see this, it's more a hunch as I talked about earlier, born of a lifetime of suspicion and mistrust in others

I did indeed follow through on that plan, and it seems to be working out. After finishing Synth Retention, the Battle of Bunker Hill followed. I informed both BoS and RR of the Institute's intentions, then did the mission. The battle was a massive firefight between the Institute, RR and BoS. I stayed on the fringes, not engaging anyone in order to maintain my alliances. Surprisingly it was the Railroad left standing at the end. They brought some units called heavies which I had not seen previously. I expected the essential escorting Courser would prevail, but he collapsed in a heap in a corner, alive but out of the fight.

I freed the synths, then needed to kill that Courser who was still down so it was easy and I went to meet Father on the roof of the CIT ruins. I told him I wanted out and that I was disappointed in him, and was banished from the Institute, making enemies of them. Eventually I found my way back to the castle for the Defend the Castle mission. I needed to build defenses. I already had ten turrets there, and built another half dozen or so, laid out some mines and the battle started. It was hard! Coursers were teleporting in, to suddenly be behind me, plus they have stealth boys. Synth striders and elites too, and it was a hell of a battle. I died twice and had to replay it. Third time was a charm (I got in to my BoS PA suit and popped Med-X).

Victorious, I started the Nuclear Option mission. Now to talk to Sturges to get the plan which leads to the main quest ending. It looks like the plan to keep three allies is working, which will be good for the post-ending world. Of course I'm not sure how much I'll keep playing after that point, I've dropped 350 hours in to this game over the past couple of months. Maybe at that point I can go all-in with Nuka World and become the raider overlord I've never wanted to be.

Hit level 73 and was disappointed to discover that the Nuclear Physicist description, "Increased damage of radiation weapons", does not apply to the weapon necessarily, only to the radiation damage it does. So the ballistic damage of Kiloton got no boost, only the +50 radiation damage which became 75. Far from what I expected, I misunderstood the perk bonus, but the way it is worded is misleading in my view. The increased duration of fusion cores is nice though.

Maybe the best thing to come out of this sequence of big battles was the acquisition of a Gauss rifle off a fallen combatant. It does 288 damage stock. I'll take it to a workbench and see if I can't customize it and make it even better. The ammo's precious (2mm), but I've stockpiled a few hundred rounds now. With Kiloton not reaching the lofty heights I expected, I plan to give the Gauss a go and see how it performs.

I sure you've discovered by now that the gauss rifle is best suited to sniping, although settlers seem to do well with them as a more general purpose weapon.

I believe my Castle had a 384 defense rating when it was attacked, I did not have to do much fighting. The Institute is probably a tougher opponent than the BoS was in that particular scenario admittedly.

Most of my play time and enjoyment came after I beat the main quest, this was partially due to the fact that a lot of content was added only after I'd beaten it, relatively early, but regardless there's still plenty to do. I actually lost a lot of interest in the main quest after I'd reached the Institute.

I haven't actually fired the gauss rifle. I didn't take it with me to Fort Independence for the battle. I left it at Sanctuary to be tinkered with later. Kiloton still wrecks, even if it does not wreck to the extent I thought it would wreck

I reconfigured OG as my sniper rifle and it is fantastic. It's 236 damage before any adrenaline, and 271 with three levels of it, as an example. And of course that is before Ninja, Sandman and the sort. It's quiet, accurate and has a 20-round magazine. I'll give the gauss a go and see how it handles and go from there. I need about 10 weapon mods to get the achievement for it.

I bet BoS was a tough nut too, but yeah I found the synths and coursers put up a very strong fight. That invisibility is a b!tch. And on survival especially they hit hard.

You finished the main quest in the early 30's right? I think after that's done is a good time to do Nuka World so we'll see.

For some reason I'd expected Liberty Prime to be part of the attacking force, so I totally went totally overboard on my defenses.

As it turns out I was hardly able to get a shot off at the attackers. Since the BoS can't teleport inside the walls, and their vertibirds were getting annihilated as soon as they came into range, there was nothing they could do.

Yeah I think I was only level 31 going into the last battle against the BoS, it was tough, especially since as I later found out, Institute synth soldiers are not on par with their Brotherhood counterparts until you hit higher levels. They were getting plastered, only the Coursers could hold their own.

At one point I had to resort to throwing a Nuka grenade at a mass of enemies in front of me just to buy me a little breathing room, and even with that they had me down to a tiny sliver of health.

I would have expected that too. So where and when does he appear?

I finished the main quest. It all went according to plan, with the Institute going boom. Honestly I did it this way for a certain outcome, or post-quest state of affairs. But I never really found the Institute all that objectionable. Sure they were treating humanity as an experiment, but that's how you find the limit, how you test your theories. And honestly the world is pretty fooked up at this point, and there's plenty objectionable to find. So the Institute doesn't really stand out all that much. But perhaps there's some stuff I never discovered. I did very little of their quests before lighting them up.

The upshot is that I still am allies with BoS and Railroad, and have their quests and especially vertibird travel still at hand. So my end-game path was done more with these things in mind rather than any moral judgement or alignment. The Institute really was humanity's best hope for a better future. That's over now.

This game has been a lot of fun, I've really enjoyed it. I spent $10 on this and have played for 350 hours, about 2 cents per hour lol. Good bang for the buck. I think I'll set it aside for now, and maybe return later to play more of Far Harbor and Nuka World.

Hit level 76. I spent three accrued points to max out Gun Nut.

Liberty Prime makes a notable appearance in the BoS quest to end the Institute.

You played a lot more hours concurrently than I did, my total play time was broken up by a couple of lengthy breaks.

It's no wonder that you are a little burnt out on it at this point.

LOL No kidding. Everyone is different of course but I'm always rotating between several different games. Sure, I may play one game for 3 hours in one sitting but I'm always rotating it with other games on my schedule.

Not so fast! While my gaming habits ARE suspect, I found I had not burnt out quite enough. I wanted to do two more things. One, I wanted to see what the gameworld looked like after the big boom. And indeed, the Minutemen have spread out across the land, with squads posted at checkpoints around the map. And one unforseen consequence was the fact the Institute explosion formed a huge crater where M.I.T. C.I.T. used to be. This includes the western end of the Riptide Bridge, which was my usual route in to the city from the northwest. I can jump off if headed west, but the path is now blocked heading in to Boston. That bomb made big boom.

Two, I wanted to take advantage of having Gun Nut 4. Now I could actually build advanced receivers and other high end mods, rather than hoping to find them in the wild. And with even more powerful weaponry in hand, I decided to head off to Nuka World for a second time. First time, I had given it up as a bad job when I died in the gas room. I made it through the gauntlet this time, but that is no joke on Survival. After defeating the overboss I was actually at max adrenaline, and my rifles were hitting for 300-400 per shot. That helped with the overboss. He is tough, but a combination of a squirt gun, Kiloton and psychojet made short work of him.

I made it as far as Fizztop mountain, and got that sweet PA from the overboss fight. But I'm not too interested at the mo in leading the raiders, just wanted to check out the place and brew up some Nuka Cola like PM has been talking about. I'll have a look about and see what's what. Maybe find some good gear, but I have no plans to lead these factions. After all I went through to lead the Minutemen to a brighter end game, it doesn't follow to now throw that all away.

The huge mess that the destruction of the Institute causes is a major negative IMO.

Anyway you may find these interesting:

No worries and like I said before, everyone is different. When it comes to gaming there really isn't anything that I would call "suspect".

Which is?

Thanks for the links I'll check 'em out later.

My gaming habits are indeed suspect, but thanks for the cover. So much so I am seriously considering going for a run down New Vegas. Turns out they released some DLC after I played, which is news right? It might be worth a return, with the DLC and raised level cap. It's not on sale though dammit

Wonder if it's worth it after all this time? Must be, right? Only one way to find out

I reinstalled FNV. Everything I read talks about frequent crashes, so before I buy any DLC I thought I'd play it a bit and see if it affects me. When I fired it up I saw it said 'continue'. My old saves! I loaded the most recent one, from 2013, and found I was level 17 when I stopped playing (this was a second run). So I had to decide whether to start over. I think I'll just continue from here, having played through the hobo phase. My SPECIALS aren't ideal, making CHR a dump stat. Instead I have 5 points in it, but it's not the end of the world, even if I'd do it differently if I were to begin anew. I can tell I wasn't min-maxing or reading internet guides then haha.

This save is Hardcore mode, and of course I'm wearing a Duster and Sheriff's hat. I didn't actually play as I spent so much time reacclimating to the pip boy. Having just played FO4 it is striking how different this is, how much more info, especially statuses, and things that aren't in FO4 at all, like challenges. Forgot all about those. Guns degrade, and it's interesting that I am carrying a couple copies of each of my weapons in order to have a fresh one to swap to.

Leveling is also way different, with skills that you drop points in to, instead of the perk-only system in FO4. Just looking through the pip boy it's striking how much more RPG FNV is. We knew this, but it still jumps out at me.

But it looks pretty rough. I'm not one who puts graphics over gameplay, which I'm sure is true of you guys too. But the terrain, and weapons look their age no doubt. What I find is that while this stands out having just played a better looking game, I undergo a sort of sensory adaptation effect through time, and after a number of hours it becomes the new normal in a sense, and this is really not noticed any longer.

I must say that finding these old saves blows my mind. I just didn't expect it. I often turn cloud saves off in games, but I guess sometimes I don't, and it's cool to have it pay off so many years down the line. There was another game I played recently where this happened as well. It was RDR2, which I had bought on Epic at release. Now I had bought it on Steam and just didn't expect my saves to be there on a different platform. But they were. That was a much shorter interval than the 8 years since I fired up New Vegas though.

My inventory is a mess. Can't believe all the crap I was carrying. Gotta take care of that.

I tried going back to New Vegas briefly last year while waiting for Cyberpunk and just couldn't do it, the primitive shooting mechanics, lack of settlement building and yes, outdated graphics, killed it for me.

I still think New Vegas was the better game for its time though.

Agreed. I think it has the best story and most interesting characters of any Fallout game.

Now if Bethesda one day decided to remake New Vegas with the graphics engine currently used by F76 I would buy it in a heartbeat.

It's the Fallout game we'd expect from Obsidian, isn't it? Even though I've played it before, a couple of times evidently, I'm still finding it striking how much more robust the systems are in FNV than FO4. A different approach to things, and for me they both work.

I'm just a few hours in to my return to FNV and I'm having fun with it. leveled up a couple times. I had made a couple of choices with the character build before that I wouldn't if were I to start again now, but it's nothing I can't live with.

No crashes so far. If that continues I'll drop some cash on the DLC. I have the thing called the Caravan pack but that was probably either free or maybe a pre-order bonus. The rest I do not have yet.

Hardcore mode is pretty simple. Just gotta eat and drink now and then, and companions can be killed. But I can also quick save and fast travel. It doesn't feel like it imparts and combat bonuses to the NPCs, or at least not like Survival in FO4.

It's totally stock at this point, no mods at all.

I've apparently got 9 DLCs, which came included as part of the GOTY edition.

Of the bunch Gunrunner's Arsenal, Old World Blues and Lonesome Road were the standouts.

It would have been awfully nice to see what Obsidian could have done with the Fallout 4 engine...

FNV was the first game with a survival mode I didn't mind, and actually enjoyed. Everything I tried up to that point made your character have the metabolism of The Flash so you needed 75 million calories a day to survive.

Yeah, it's pretty tame compared to say Misery or something like that. But I like having these things to monitor and solve. The real difference is in crippled limbs and the effects of healing items, the gradual instead of instant recovery, compared to normal mode.

Two of the things that jump out compared to FO4 are dialog/conversations and skill checks. I had just mentioned that a few days ago, how skill checks need to be everywhere in Fallout, but that I can only recall one from all of my time in Fallout 4. Maybe there were a few that I forget, but even so FNV has as many in one dialog. FO4 doesn't need them, it's still a great game, but maybe this is one of the things meant when it's said that Fallout 4 is a great game, just not a great Fallout game. I thought it had enough of the soul in it to feel Fallout honestly, but having skill checks is more faithful to its iso roots, and well, every game up until Fallout 4!

It makes the build feel more consequential. I said more than once about FO4 that SPECIALs felt more like a perk permission. Just a number to hit to get the perks you want unlocked. In FNV -- and probably FO3 but I forget that game even more -- the SPECIALs carry more weight. It makes the run feel more specialized based on your build path. And another thing tipping the scale to the RPG side.

New Vegas is showing it's age, but good RPGs are timeless, if you can look past (or mod) its dated graphics. I get what Crane is saying, the things that put him off a return. I see the shooting mechanics as another RPG scale-tipper. It sure was nice to play a long-range sniper in Fallout 4. It's a nice blend of free-aim and VATS, and you could probably play through it without ever using VATS and do fine. Can't really say the same about FNV. i don't think. I mean it's not literally true, of course you could do it, but VATS is of higher utility due to the shooting mechanics in New Vegas.

But I know that if I had found the settlement building in FO4 compelling I would have a tough time returning to an earlier game. For players that go all in it becomes an entire game on it's own.

I was never a settlement building junkie, but its nice to be able to make at least some locations your own.

Also its useful to be able to store some of your inventory there if need be, something you can't do in New Vegas outside of a special area or two.

I barely bothered at all with that aspect when I played F4. I did a few things to get me the achievements but that's it.

Same here. I did the minimum in order to have way stations across the map. Water, a bed or two, a couple of turrets and that was that. I built two radiation arches (Sanctuary and Hangman's Alley).

This is what FNV looks like for me. Not so bad really, and I got used to it quickly.

I fast traveled here and got jumped by those #%&*$# Cazadores as soon as it loaded in, and so my health has taken a hit







By the way, I mentioned the extra copies of weapons I'm carrying, and it's not to swap to, as I said. It's to use as repair materials for my main weapons. I had forgotten how this worked when I made that post.

Another core difference between the two games is the leveling mechanic. In FO4 you get one perk point every level. The perks are great. They are varied, useful and strong. Having no level cap is awesome. Leveling up is one of the things that keeps me engaged, and I've shelved a few RPGs when I ran out of levels before the game ended. I need that rolling goal to keep me going. I hit level 76 in that FO4 survival run, and I wonder if I would have seen it through to the end if I had been forced to stop leveling up at level 50 for example.

In FNV instead you get skill points, and a perk every other level. The skill points mechanic is great in my view. It allows finer tuning of the character build, making it more specialized than it feels in FO4. I like this system more. Nothing wrong with FO4, but I prefer the way it works in New Vegas. On the other hand, there is a level cap. It's 30 in vanilla right? And each of the four DLC raise it by 5, so if you have them all the level cap is 50.

I'm going to get the Gun Runner's DLC this evening. It's only two bucks and seems well worth it for more weapons options and some of them are quite powerful indeed. Love me some Nuka grenades..

The DLC is well liked in the community, with maybe Lonesome Road being the least well-regarded. Old World Blues and Dead Money are very good, according to the posts I've read. I plan to get these too, each are five dollars. I want to wait for a sale, being a cheap bastage, but I should do it before too long. The DLC would cost me more individually than it would cost to just buy the Ultimate edition that has everything. I mean, it's just $2 more but still!

I said before that hardcore mode meant eating and drinking, but as can be seen in my screens above, sleep is needed too.

And game publishers know this gamer psychology very, very well now. This is why you see so many games now with weekly and daily "challenges" that give you different rewards as well as the achievements and XP grinding to level up your character. It keeps most gamers coming back for more even well after they've finished the main storyline missions.

Great point and I agree. Borderlands 3 and the last Hitman both have this for example, and it has worked on me!

I liked Lonesome Road, whereas I found Dead Money to be dark and tedious.

Interesting, thanks for your opinion. I'll get them all and later in this thread you know I will have offered my assessment

At the rate I'm leveling now I could hit the cap before I'm done. I will need to judge this and time it so they are reached at the same time at worst. I've already gone from 17 to 20. I mentioned before there were some perks I took years ago when I started this save, that I would not take now, knowing what I know. One of these is Swift Learner. There's so much XP in this game, and more with the DLC, that I don't think it was a smart way to spend my points.

I also forgot you only get a perk every other level, and the first one I bought in this return was Hand Loader only to find I really don't have what I need to take advantage of it. This will change now, but I could have waited and taken one that would have more utility now.

The skills I am investing most in are Guns, Repair, Barter and Speech (all around 80 now). The second tier is Lockpick, Survival and Sneak (all around 50). Third tier is Explosives, Science and Medicine (all around 35). No points are being spent in the other skills which are Energy Weapons, Melee Weapons, and Unarmed.

My SPECIALs are

Strength 5
Perception 5
Endurance 5
Charisma 5
Intelligence 9
Agility 9
Luck 6

If I were to start over I would dump those Charisma points, and spend them instead in Endurance and Luck. It sort of nags at me, but I think New Vegas is an easier game in Hardcore than FO4 is in Survival. So an optimized build isn't really needed, even if this sort of thing nags at me and usually causes a restart.

Endurance for example, which I found inconsequential in FO4, is both a resistance modifier in FNV, and determines how many implants you can have. So far I've taken Agility, Luck and Subdermal Armor implants. But my Endurance means I can only take two more. Higher Endurance here would let me build a stronger character. I do not believe that taking the Endurance implant would grant an additional implant slot. Does it?

I found New Vegas quite a bit more challenging than the somewhat dumbed down Fallout 4, especially when it comes to the DLC quests, and your character build really matters.

Yes, maybe so. I should have written that so far, FNV is easier. I did read some of the DLC is difficult so maybe I'll end up agreeing

I bought all the DLC, but did not start any of it yet. Like FO4, FNV is also stuffed with content isn't it?

With my build I am getting 17 skills points per level. When I hit level 20 I spent 13 of those in Repair to raise it to 90 in order to grab Jury Rigging, which is a magical perk allowing repair of weapons and armor out of just about anything, it doesn't have to be another one of the same thing. So you can repair a shotgun with a laser pistol for example. Massive quality of life perk, eliminating the need to carry around repair source items since the next bad guy you kill is going to have it on him. This is a great perk that will ensure I keep my gear in tip-top condition the rest of the way.

With the addition of the DLC my level cap jumps to 50, and a long way from there. But it's a neat shift that will allow a more diverse and presumably powerful character than I was able to do when I first played New Vegas.

I'm at the point where I need to start considering which faction to side with.

The Legion is right out. I've made them mad it seems, but they've been getting what's coming. But even if I hadn't I wouldn't side with them. Not only are they evil (but perhaps lawfully so), which is bad enough, they are technophobes, and me loves me technology.

NCR.. A good choice, but I get the sense that with them in control of the future that nothing would really change. Their corruption holds them down and they'd just keep making the same mistakes. Too expansionist. They can barely hold on to what they have yet they're gung-ho to stretch themselves even more thinly on the ground and keep expanding. Good people fighting an unwinnable fight, made so by their own leadership and doctrine.

House. A possibility. Of all the main factions, House is the one with the plan. He may be a dictator, but he has a vision, and looking to colonize other planets seems a worthy goal. I may not like his style, but he's got substance.

Yes Man. The independent route. Or maybe this. The loner path fits my style, and what do I care what path the Mojave takes? I'm in it for me, not the greater good of humanity. I've saved it countless times in dozens of games haha. Maybe my path is a free one, and let the others fight over the scraps.

Who did you guys go with? I can't recall who I sided with in my earlier runs. Are the Followers of the Apocalypse not a main faction? These are the real good guys, but I don't see them being a choice. Maybe I'm missing it. Same with BoS too? They are considered a minor faction? They're isolationists, and a bit selfish if I am honest haha. But anyway, I don't think they are an option for end game path right?

FNV is another example of terrible options for factions. You've already nailed them in your post.
NCR ain't great, it's full of corrupt politicians and brahmin barons, and they steal water from local farmers.
Legion literally burns down cities and decimates the populations. More like massacres , decimation is only 1/10 they do more like 9/10.
House is the man with the plan, but is also mostly out for himself and a dictator.
Yes Man seems alright, I won't spoil that ending.

Of the few play throughs I side usually with House or the NCR. I've doe the Yes Man route once also. One of these days I may go back and do a Legion just to say I did.

I do like how there is also a ton of much smaller ones that you can get to side with one side or the other for the big dam battle at the end.

I bought New Vegas during a Steam sale for 5 bucks. I ended up putting well over 200 hours into the game. How's that for getting the most bang out of your buck?

I remember being very impressed with the actors Bethesda got to do the voice acting:

Michael Hogan
Rene Auberjonois
Ron Perlman
Kris Kristofferson
Michael Dorn
Danny Trejo
Zachary Levi

You got me. My FO4 run worked out to be $.028 per hour. Your FNV run works out to be $.025! I've now dropped $22 on the DLC, and I pre-ordered the game evidently (caravan pack is the clue) so I probably spent $40 on that in 2010. So at $62 total investment I would need to play FNV for 2,600 hours to beat your record



Lynda Carter is the voice of Magnolia in the Third Rail. All those songs are her singing.

How many times have you finished New Vegas wormfood? Thanks for your comments.

Oh yeah, and Stephen Russel did a lot of voices in Fallout 4 (and just about every Fallout game). He is forever known as the voice of Garrett in the early Thief games. In FO4 he did

Codsworth, Deezer, Professor Goodfeels, Mister Handy, Nick Valentine, Old Rusty, Percy, Tenpin, Wellingham, Whitechapel Charlie

Amazing that the same voice could be Garrett, Codsworth and Nick Valentine. He was also Xerxes in System Shock 2 and Corvo Attano in Dishonored.

Wow, that guy is certainly a voice actor extraordinaire. Another one who comes to mind is Claudia Christian (Babylon 5). She's worked on several Bethesda games like Skyrim, Fallout 76 and Fallout 4,

Indeed. I'm not one to pay all that much attention to voice actors. You and I have discussed this before and my view is only the quality of the voice acting matters, not who is doing it. Matter of fact, I'd advocate for voice actors on scale. I can only imagine the talent expense for these AAA games using famous people for voice acting. But I also understand the marketing angle.

But Stephen Russel is the exception. He is Garrett, for me one of the most iconic protagonists in gaming history. So much so that I view Dishonored as Thief 4, rather than the actual Thief 4 which did not use him, for whatever reason. Obviously there's a game play lineage involved, Dishonored is a spiritual successor, much like Arkane are to Looking Glass. But the voice for me is iconic, and probably more so than any other gaming franchise. Corvo sounds like Garrett, and it really did take me there, back to the days of classic missions like Life of the Party, Framed, and First City Bank and Trust.

To see his range is sort of mind blowing. Like I said, it's hard to believe that Codsworth is the same dude as Corvo you know? I wonder what he's paid?

That's really the bottom line. It's all about attaching big well known names to your game. It's similar to ad campaigns which use well known celebrities to sell their product.

4, but 2 of those were practically speed runs just doing things abit differently with builds and seeing some other options. The only DLC I've done was Honest Hearts and Dead Money.

Wow that's cool. Four runs. I guess this is my second run, having picked it up after 8 years, but I didn't finish my first one I don't think. I have none of the achievements for completing it.

I started Honest Hearts. Actually I went to play Dead Money and backed off on the warning, and decided to play Honest Hearts first. It's OK I guess, I like having fresh rad-free water and food everywhere. The Indian vibe is a neat shift. Just having new lands to explore and new quests to undertake is nice. Joshua Graham is an interesting character.

Finished Honest Hearts. a few things were left untouched or undone perhaps, but I mostly cleared the map. About 6 hours I reckon. Went from level 20 to 26 I think. Gotta slow my roll, because that is the shortest DLC I believe and if I could get that much XP out of it I can only imagine what the others are like. Don't want to max out too far before the end.

I had fun with Honest Hearts. In the end I called for the Sorrows to make their stand and to spare the chief. Seems the best way to go about it. Nothing here to blow my socks off, but mixing things up is good. Got some decent kit out of it, but no uniques aside from Joshua's armor and a lightweight .45. He was a good character, nice voice acting, and an interesting tale. For now I've swapped from my Duster to this armor. Nearly a 2:1 DT to weight ratio, so that will do. The Duster is too, but only 6 DT versus the 15 on Joshua's. I trade +1 CHR and +5 Guns for +3 Critical Chance with this swap.

Not sure which direction I will go from here, another DLC or more of the main game. Maybe Vault 22, which I seem to recall was challenging. There's a good rifle in there if I recall correctly.

Edit: No the weapon I'm thinking of is in Vault 34.

And I dutifully did the dive in to Vault 34 in order to get the All American rifle. That place is rather creepy, dark and irradiated. And ghouls spawn out of thin air to keep you on your toes. Having been there before, it was fine, i knew where to go, and how, to get what I wanted, but it's the sort of place that can do your head in on the first visit. Also picked up a riot shotgun in the same armory. Good loot.

Hit level 29 already and still have three DLC untouched. Still not sure which end path I'll take, but looking like it will be House or Yes Man. Lots to still do if I choose. I'm having a great time with New Vegas, I really like the RPG vibe. And the bane of Fallout -- loading screens! -- is not a problem as they are nearly instant in a game this old. I cannot say the same for Fallout 4, where you spend a lot of time in loading screens.

I'll hit level 30 next (duh) and that's as far as I could have gotten previously. With the DLC installed it jumps to 50, and if I get that far it means just about every skill can be maxed out. And for sure the ones I actually care about can. Perks are more precious, with these only available every other level. That's 25 perks at most, whereas in FO4 you can take a lot more with no level cap and perks every level.

My build is well-rounded, no attribute lower than 5, with high Agility and Intelligence. A crit-build really, with Finesse, Better Criticals and + crit chance on a couple pieces of my gear. I could stand to have higher Luck than 6, but those decisions were made eight years ago haha. Criticals happen naturally in FNV, rather than the 'commanded criticals' of FO4. But both games grant an automatic crit on sneak attack. I read that Lonesome Road grants two more SPECIAL points and if I do it I could always drop those in to Luck.

I'm rolling with ED-E and Boone.

My original saves are long gone, but I believe I was rocking a hunting shotgun, a Ranger Sequoia, an inverse Proton Axe and Medicine Stick towards the end.

I put a lot of points early towards "logistical" abilities, repair, jury rig, handloader etc. otherwise its difficult to support using the good stuff.

I loved the ammunition reloading aspect of New Vegas as much as Panzer loved the Nuka Cola crafting in Fallout 4, there's a lot to it and I wish it had been carried over.

Yeah man, same here. I was going to comment on exactly that but thought it would make my comments even less interesting

Last perk I took at 28 was Pack Rat, which is amazing for any sort of run, but especially so in Hardcore. It cut my carried load in half instantly. Better than Strong Back.

I also took Handloader a couple perks before that, and I agree completely with your assessment. This is a cool mechanic, and I'm fully in with match hand load 5.56 for All-American

I have 100 Repair, and took Jury Rigging, one perk after Handloader. I like FO4's weapons modding mechanics more, but the ammo crafting is a nice addition in FNV. Crafting ammo for additional effectiveness is fun and useful. Reduced spread, additional damage, better armor piercing. This stuff is right up my alley.



As for loadout I'm rolling with this

Joshua Graham's armor ( light, +3 crit chance )
First Recon Beret ( +1 PER and +5 crit chance )

All-American. 5.56 scoped assault rifle
A Light in Shining Darkness. Lightweight .45 (.6 with pack rat)
Riot Shotgun. Strong, but hard to repair. Does not use shotguns for this. Need assault rifles, marksman rifle, sniper rifles, oddly
Sniper Rifle. .308 standard sniper rifle. I had been carrying Ratslayer, but finally stored it.

I just got two of those last night, but they instantly bumped other weapons (assault rifle, hunting shotgun) and were well worth the descent in to Vault 34

I prefer the hunting shotgun to the riot shotgun largely because it has close to 3x the effective range with the choke installed. The riot shotgun rules indoors though.

Shotguns with the right perks are far more useful in New Vegas than they are in Fallout 4.

Heck, most of New Vegas' weapons are just more soundly conceived and distinctive, period.

I've dropped the riot shotgun already. Didn't see the strength requirement at first, which I don't meet. I can still equip it, and kill stuff with it, but I must be penalized in some way, and that won't do haha.

I swapped it out for Sleepytyme, which wrecks. Figured I may as well use some of the Gun Runners gear having paid for it and all.

Both the riot shotgun and the AMR need 7 strength, and I'm 5. Maybe I'll take that perk which drops this by 2 levels and equip those later.

What's your take on Medicine Stick? Clearly you liked it since you were carrying it. Many players list it as their favorite rifle. It's a bit steep at the mo, but I might give it a go down the line. That gun, and the Survivalists Rifle get a lot of love. It's a lever action .45-70? Like the Brush gun?

Money's a lot easier to come by for me in New Vegas than Fallout 4. Jury Rigging is a rain maker.

It's a big bruiser, providing similar damage per shot as the 12 gauge shotguns but without the DT and range limitations. Despite the expensive and somewhat rare ammo, it's actually fairly economical to use as a little goes a long way. It's best used at mid range IMO.

The Medicine Stick only has marginally better stats IIRC than a regular brush gun but the rear sight is FAR less obstructive and is worth getting for that reason alone.

See what I mean with the standard brush gun:

Thanks Crane. I went with semi-auto in FO4, but I seem to prefer automatic weapons in New Vegas. I may check out the Medicine Stick at some point. It's very expensive, which is not a big deal in New Vegas. But I also read up on Old World Blues and saw the prices of the auto-doc mods. I plan to try that DLC some time soon, and I'll want to grab some of these. And to do that I'll need a mountain of cash, so I need to start building that up and not spend it lavishly on whatever shiny trinket catches my eye.

I'm torn about my faction choice. I'm at the point where House wants me to kill the BoS, which I don't really care to do. I don't feel any affinity for them, but conversely I don't wish them gone.

My level 32 perk choice was Light Touch, which I'd never taken before. It's another +5% crit chance, which synergizes well with my build, but it also grants -25% crit chance for enemies. I assume that many, most or even all of the NPC enemies have a crit chance of 25% or lower. If that's true, it would seem this perk may virtually eliminate getting struck by any crits. If so that seems incredibly strong from a defensive point of view. The Courier must be clad in light armor for this perk to work, which of course I am. It may not work exactly as I assume it does. It could instead mean their crit chance, whatever it is, is reduced by 25%. For example, if they have a crit chance of 10%, with this perk it become 7.5%, which is not much of an advantage. I should have figured this out before taking the perk

So I belatedly did just that. Or, according to the wiki, it works the 'stronger' way

"The same applies to the enemy critical chance penalty. An enemy with 15% base critical chance wielding a weapon with 2x critical multiplier will have an overall critical chance of 30%. After subtracting 25% for Light Touch, the enemy still has 5% chance to score a critical on the target. "

So yeah, this seems very strong. I have no idea where the average NPC crit chance falls, but regardless this perk can mitigate much potential incoming damage.

And the reason I never took this before (or even noticed it) is it comes from the Dead Money DLC.

There are certain areas of the game where you encounter a lot of well armored enemies, and it gets pretty resource intensive to hose them down with an automatic weapon.

In fact, I try to use melee weapons as much as possible in order to save ammo. Melee damage is doubled in VATS in New Vegas, so its got that going for it as well.

Good points all, Crane, and I didn't know about the double melee damage.

But yeah, I love automatic weapons in New Vegas, and especially in VATS. Of course I'm also carrying a .45 and a sniper rifle, so I've got both. I swapped back from the .308 sniper rifle to Ratslayer. Ratslayer does a paltry 28 damage with my build, but it has a 5x crit % multiplier. So that means every shot is a crit, and that makes it quite a bit more effective than it might appear at first glance. The .308 is good too (2x crit multiplier and hits harder) but weighs nearly twice as much. Plus Ratslayer has the only night scope I've come across, which isn't vital, but nice. It also streamlines ammunition carry, since Ratslayer uses the same 5,56 as All-American, so I can drop the .308 rounds from the loadout.

Handloader has encouraged me to craft ammunition, and I've done so and have quite a bit of it. Hollow points I ignore, but the types that negate armor, reduce spread and reduce wear are great. AP, +P and Match are the ones I make mostly. I even made some Dragon's Breath and Flechette rounds for the shotgun, which I'm not actually carrying at the mo.

I really like entering VATS and firing a weapon like Sleepytyme in super slo-mo watching from a quartering perspective, as that bolt slides back and forth spitting death.

I'm kinda running out of things to do in the main game. About to hit level 34. I'm struggling with my faction choice. I was thinking House, but then he wants me to destroy BoS, which I'm not keen to do. I see a way to hit self destruct in their bunker, so it can be done without battle (I could stealth boy my way out I suppose).

But now BoS is ticking me off, sending me around the map to do their light work, Fetch this, fetch that. I'm the Mojave Messiah dammit, and you will recognize! So they are tap dancing on my last nerve. They don't realize their fate hangs in the balance, and each stupid demand moves them closer to demolition and demise.

So I've been keeping Yes Man apprised of my accomplishments, and I'm leaning toward this. Sure, House might be able to colonize planets 100 years from now, and that's great for humanity and all. But I won't be around to see it, so why not rule the Strip for the rest of my days? Everyone save Powder Gangers and the Legion love me, and I think I could do a fine job of it. The Lucky 38 makes a fine base of operations, and with House out of the way there's nothing to stop me.

I want to tackle another DLC. Dead Money sounds tedious and annoying. It may not be, but from what I've read that is the impression I have formed. Old World Blues sounds more suitable for me, but I searched "how to prepare for OWB" and everyone says energy and melee weapons, which of course are the two skills (along with unarmed) that I've ignored all the way through. Once in you cannot turn back until you've seen it through. I'll just make a hard save and dive in and see I suppose.

I kicked around starting OWB and instead launched Lonesome Road. I'm to do this one last it seems but who cares.

I'm liking it so far, more than Honest Hearts if I'm honest. They say energy weapons are the way to go in OWB, so I thought I'd play this, level up a few times, all the while dropping points in to energy weapons so that those will be viable when and if I get there. Get the duster at the end, with its 4.33:1 DT to weight ratio. Its bonuses are to be determined based on my rep with various factions. Hoping for the "old world" House version with it +1 Agility and rad resistance. But I'd guess my NCR rep is higher. That's +1 Endurance and +25 carry weight. Meh, whatever,

These DLC throw XP at the player, don't they? Completing quests is worth a lot and the levels go by more quickly. So I've gone from 20 energy weapons to 55, just like that, and if I decide to follow through with OWB maybe I'll be better prepared as a result. I've mostly ignored these weapons throughout the run, so might as well mix it up and use them.

Lonesome Road is meant to be the end of the road for a reason, you might have to leave and come back and finish OWB first.

Why is that? Spoilers OK.

Potentially the toughest boss battle in Fallout.

I see, thanks, but I believe I won't need to fight him. I can opt to, but won't need to. Maybe I'll try both just to see how tough he is.

I completed Lonesome Road. I liked it. It was linear, no freedom to proceed how you might wish, but that's fine. Metro Last Light was like this all the way through and I love that game. It's not a bad thing in of itself. Ulysses is a good character, a bizzarro Courier if you will. Intelligent, mad, tortured, driven by revenge. It's an interesting attempt to fill in a backstory, giving the Courier a history before Benny's bullet.

I completed it, but can't say I finished it, leaving the Courier's Mile untouched, and I failed to complete the collections, ED-Es upgrades, the posters, the warheads. I might go back to find the upgrades I missed, and maybe run the Mile gauntlet. Maybe not, too. Got two nice Dusters out of it. The faction one is NCR, because the game sees me with the highest rep with them. It's true I reckon, and completing Boone's quest line seemed to boost my standing considerably. I wanted the independent duster, but the NCR one grants +25 carry weight and +1 Endurance, which isn't bad. Got another one with crit chance and +1 Perception I think. Carrying them both. Swapped out Joshua Graham's armor, which is a little more DT, but also triple the weight, nearly. You're also given Ulysses' mask for +50 rad resistance, which might be good in Dead Money, should I do that. Good rewards that I'll find use for.

In the end I did indeed talk Ulysses down, impressing him with truth and strength in my words. The revenge melted away and together we stood side by side to repel the Marked Man assault, and left, not friends perhaps, but Couriers, bound by our shared experience and circumstance. We have both walked the East. And the West. The Divide. Footsteps, following, a history born of common fates.

The missile detonated over Dry Wells, the Legion paying the price for their assassination squads. Malice has consequence.

I started Lonesome Road at level 31 and left at 39, and dropped my free SPECIAL in to Luck. At level 38 I took Robotics Expert, since I've read Old World Blues has a lot of them, and I reckon the damage boost against will come in handy. So I plan to do that next. During Lonesome Road I raised Energy Weapons skill from 20 to 85, and now I'm pumping Melee. Doing the DLC out of order seems a good choice in this case, and I'll enter OWB with a build more suitable.

I don't remember what level I was when I went into OWB, but I had decent melee skill going in, and quickly raised my energy weapons once it became clear what bullet sponges many of the enemies were.

What's more is that they were difficult to knock down and stagger from what I remember, and have very high perception making sneaking considerably more difficult.

Thanks Crane, as always. My plan is to go in light. I understand that ammo is hard to come across, except for energy weapon ammo. There are a lot of good DLC weapons to find so I plan to start light, and leave most of my core weapons at home, to mix up my experience. So Sleepytyme, All-American and Ratslayer will get left behind.

Not sure what a good energy weapon is as I've mostly avoided them. But I have a tri-beam thing that I fixed up. Instead, I will try to go with what I find there. The Proton Inversal Axe I understand is priceless in this DLC. Christine's Sniper Rifle I will try to find. The LAER, whatever that is

We'll see how it goes, but yeah, my plan is to arrive light and use the indigenous weapons I find there. Do a energy and melee run, since that is so different than what I've done so far. Good thing there's a raised cap, or I'd be stuck with a poor build.

I kicked off Old World Blues, level 40. I loved the opening, brilliant dialog with the Think Tank. It's been a quite a while since a game made me laugh like that.

Waiting this long to start this DLC paid off since I could pass every speech check, and get more XP, dialog and gear like the K9000.

I'm digging the vibe in this one so far. Got Elijahs LAER, Christine's sniper rifle, the proton inversal axe (melee is up to 52 now) and a couple more uniques. For the first time I'm actively looking to craft repair kits, to get and keep all of these in good shape. I left most of my weapons at the Lucky 38 so I could experience some new stuff, and so far t those first three are gettin' it done. I did bring Light Shining in Darkness and Sleepytyme.

Crane's right about the enemy perception. Sort of takes away the OP stealth play, which I'm built for, so it mixes things up a bit from that perspective.

I've adjusted to the combat rhythm of OWB, and it's not as bad as I thought it would be from the discussions I had read. The enemies hit pretty hard, but I think taking the Light Touch perk a couple levels ago has really made a difference in those mob fights where taking hits is inevitable. Presumably I am taking a lot fewer crits, so smaller chunks of health are being stripped away, giving me more time to kill them before they kill me. Having auto-stims plays a part too, and I see them deploy on occasion, when otherwise I might have died shortly after, I suppose. Taking Robotics Expert helps too, and I got a perk that does even more robot damage just by killing lots of robots.

Elijah's LAER kills 'em pretty good, but the barrel's made of tissue paper it seems. Picked up a .45-70 scoped hunting revolver which is pretty awesome. Christine's sniper rifle is really good too. I'm even sporting a glowing halo granting drip-feed regeneration and +1 Endurance. The regen is a novelty to talk about at cocktail parties, mostly useless, but the END bump is nice. But the real attraction, aside from looking like a bar sign, is this little ring of glowing gas grants +3 DT, or more than 10% of what I had before, and takes its own slot like eyeglasses so can be worn with a beret. Nice little bump from such a stylish and flimsy accoutrement.

Level 42 now and I reckon that by the time I finish this I'll be in perfect position to run down the ending. Yes Man it is, just can't bring myself to kill the Brotherhood. House would have had my support, but he's gone too far hasn't he? An independent strip sounds fine, with me installed as it keeper, dispensing justice in random fits of madness. I'll be swapping the roulette wheels for poker tables, tout suite.

When I went into OWB I was probably at a lower level and did not read up on it in advance, so it was tough going initially.

In fact I'd say that OWB probably has the most consistently challenging combat in any first person Fallout game.

Did you get the Stealth Suit?

Yes, I spoiled it by reading about it and being well prepared. I knew what weapons I'd find, what ammo was abundant, the enemy types I'd encounter and the best skills and weapons for taking them on. I usually don't play this way, but I also knew I couldn't turn back until I made it through, so I justify it that way

I didn't get the stealth suit yet, but if I understand how it works I won't wear it. My stealth skill is 100, and you can't go over right? With upgrades it can boost AGI and PER I think, plus faster move speed when crouched. But as far as DT it is only +1 over my Duster while weighing 800% more. DT to weight ratio is key for me. So while I will get that suit once I come across it, I'm not sure I would actually wear it.

Plus it's medium armor which would negate the light armor perks I've taken.

Old World Blues is a bit of a dichotomy. The loot is the best, or at least most unique and interesting, of the three DLC I've played in FNV. The writing, as far as I'm concerned, is the best too. It is honestly funny, in an intellectual sense. So much so that I feel sorry for the players who come away not seeing the humor, which I am sure some just won't get.

But the gameplay side of OWB fails to match it. An endless series of fetch quests. Several have been like this

Step 1 : Go find these three pieces of tech

(objective complete)

Step 2: Go find these five pieces of tech

(yeah, yeah, objective complete, where's my XP?)

Step 3 : Go find another three pieces of tech, all of which were right next to the first three pieces from step 1. Uggg

Mindnumbing. So yeah, love-hate with this DLC. The Sink is the best base in Fallout though

All Fallout games on Steam are on deep sale through the 26th. I'm considering picking up FO2 believe it or not. Three dollars for the whole works.

FO4 and New Vegas are both 70-75% off at the mo. Sadly, FO3 is not on Steam or I'd buy it for that trip down Tranquility memory lane

What am I talking about? FO3 IS on Steam. I'm gonna buy it. Lots of comments about crashing/incompatibility with Win 10

I would gladly pay full price for FO 3 if it was re-released with the current engine that is being used by FO76. I won't buy the original FO 3 though. The graphics are just too dated for me now.

I would too (well maybe not full price exactly), but having just dropped 100 hours in to the nearly-as-old FNV my brain's been acclimated.

My only concern is if I can get it to actually run. Sale's through the 26th.

Check that. Plan's dead. I think Fallout 2 is dipping too deep in to the past. And Fallout 3 sounds like a technical challenge I'm not eager to experience. I saw some guides for getting it running in Win 10 and while it may be more simple than what I saw, I'm not willing to take that test.

So back to New Vegas..... Just about done with OWB. I did the stealth suit stuff, but not the upgrades. I'm not going to be wearing this suit, although it's pretty good (and it talks to you). All that's left is the Old World Blues quest to finish the DLC main quest line and get my brain back.

Started the DLC at level 40, now 46. That's enough to have all these skills at 100

Energy Weapons, Guns, Sneak, Medicine, Speech, Repair, Science

Explosives, Barter and Survival are nearly so. Melee is around 65, I had boosted it in anticipation of needing melee weapons to counter lack of ammunition in this DLC. But it wasn't needed so I stopped dropping points. Unarmed then is the only skill I've ignored. If I see it through to level 50 then Unarmed and probably Melee will be the only ones not at 100.

Old World Blues is done and dusted. A mixed experience as I said. The writing is top notch, quite funny. The loot, perks and the Sink base are all great. The main quest line is also good. The side quests however I did not care for in the main. Repetitive fetch type stuff. Overall it was certainly worth 5 bucks.

Left at level 47, and immediately knocked off House, setting the final quests in motion. Nearly done. I'll clean up a few side quests and visit the few locations I have yet to. Then I'll be searching for my next game

New Vegas as a whole would have been a lot better if they'd had more development time IMO.

Many aspects of it felt rushed and it had a rough launch from what I understand.

Still, I probably enjoyed it the most out of any of the Fallout games I've played.

There are rumors running around online that a New Vegas 2 is under development but nothing has actually been confirmed by Bethesda so take it with a grain of salt.

18 month development time if I recall. That's lightning fast for such an undertaking.

I don't recall what issues existed at launch, even though I bought it straight off. It's really good now. Minor instability for me, probably about ten lockups or CTDs in my time revisiting this game. Thankfully it loads so fast that it's at most 30 seconds from crash to back in and playing..

I finished New Vegas, and it was a lot of fun to revisit it after so much time. I didn't time my progression quite right, finishing at level 49 instead of 50 haha. I did not end up playing Dead Money, but played all the other DLC. I took the Independent Vegas route.

Got the Hardcore achievement for playing that way start to finish and was surprised to see only 4.7% of players have gotten it. I'd expect 15%, but maybe it's just a reflection of the fact that many players never quite finish?

In the end only three skills were not at 100, Barter, Melee and Unarmed. The raised level cap makes a big difference in how powerful and versatile you can build your character.

You can learn a lot by looking at the global stats for achievements in Steam games. Not only have I seen surprisingly low percentages for achievements for finishing a game, I've also seen low percentages for achievements that you get when you finish the first chapter/level in a game.

This may be anecdotal but I've seen posts from quite a few players saying that they will start a game but never finish it because they started playing another game or they got busy with real life stuff.

Yes, and you see me talk about this a lot, I would think, trying to spot trends and patterns from achievement percentages.

I suspect rwatson is a factor. He seems to start a lot of games, but then I never hear another word.

In Fallout 4 I think achievements are watered down to an extent, because I believe mods disable achievements, and I'm sure a lot of players play with mods. So a certain percentage of the player base locks themselves out, skewing the results a bit. I think there's a mod to fix this, so who knows really?

Anyway, 5% for the Hardcore achievement seems really low, and I'd expect it to be higher despite all those factors.

Another trend I've noticed is many gamers have huge backlogs of unplayed games. No doubt a huge factor in that are all of the free games that have been given out by some of the streaming services and especially Epic.

That could be a factor, although I don't think a game is part of the percentage until you either play it or maybe install it. Just having it your library does not, as far as I can tell.

My backlog is pretty small, maybe five games or so I snapped up in sales, intending to play but never getting around to it. Frost Punk, This War of Mine, Outlast, Dark Souls 3 and Darkwood are all games I bought but have yet to play. Well Frost Punk and Darkwood I started, but didn't even play an hour.

Then there's a whole bunch of games I played for a few hours before setting them aside. Dragon's Dogma, Greedfall, Styx Shards of Darkness, the newer Doom, and more. I just bought Disco Elysium, which is on sale on Steam, and have already dropped about 4 hours in to it. An intriguing game, that one.

I'm curious, what was it about the latest Doom that failed to grab you?

Hard to say, not really my type of game, I guess, if I'm honest. Too busy maybe, a pacing issue. I bought it mostly to play with my son, and we played a couple of hours but never returned to it.

Understood. Yeah, all Doom games are essentially the same type of scifi horror frantic game play. As with anything else, that type of game play either does it for someone or it doesn't.

Over the past year I thought from time to time about firing up Fallout 4 and giving Nuka World a go. I had visited it briefly before, after struggling with the gauntlet a bit on the way, and then when I wanted to tackle it finally I burned out and stopped playing. The main campaign was completed, but I had hardly had a sniff of Nuka World. When I loaded in my save I was in the base, with all of the DLC ahead of me.

Let's see what I think of it. I wasn't so keen on Far Harbor if I'm honest, though it's not bad, just didn't quite click for me, and I think it's the short ranges caused by the radiation fog. Nuka World has a vibe that isn't up my alley either, in terms of plot at least. But I really like Fallout 4 and more of it is good. A year is enough time to let the burn out wear off.

Fallout 4 is one of the most surprisingly good games I've played. Not sure why I doubted it. I loved FO3 and New Vegas of course, as mentioned in this thread. I guess I suspected that Bethesda would be mailing it in, and that FO4 would appeal to the console generation rather than me. And while I liked the game a lot once I gave it a go, it was when I restarted in Survival mode that the game turned in to one of my all-time favorites. Certainly right at the top of the list of games I've played in the past few years.

Fallout 4 is a great game indeed and I put in well over 200 hours into it. I'm still playing Fallout 76. Bethesda keeps putting out frequent updates for it so I keep coming back for more.

On a related note, I am also very curious to see how this Amazon Fallout series turns out. I believe they are still in the process of writing the scripts for the first season.

I've just crossed 360 hours in Fallout 4.

I've given 76 several looks, mostly on your recommendation, but have not been fully convinced or pulled the trigger.

Not aware of the series and don't have the service anyway. Although I just bought a 55 inch OLED TV with smart stuff. So maybe I'll finally get around to this stuff (streaming services, netflix etc) but I'm way old school you know.

Since last playing FO4 I also bought a 32" curved monitor and Fallout's even better now

I've had one of those for about a year now and I absolutely love it.

Like I've mentioned before with Fallout 76, it has a full single player experience just like Fallout 4 but it's set in West Virginia instead of Massachussetts. I'm pretty confident you will like it if you ever decided to give it a shot.

OLED TVs make great monitors.

As for my two cents on Fallout 76. I wasn't really a fan. I preferred my Fallout single player and with options for mods. I'm not a fan of the level scaling, or when you level up you get a random pack of perks that you use to make your character. Adds some randomness, but until you're at or near max level you're usually using weird perks and weapons based off some RNG rolls, not on how you want to build your character.

The map is ok and they recently added an expansion (haven't played it). It can also be fun to run around multiplayer. Main story wasn't too bad, even if it didn't originally have any NPCs.

Same. Wasn't sure how I'd like a curved monitor but turns out I like it a lot

I searched something related to Nuka World last night, where to find a doctor most likely, and was reading reddit threads. This one was right below and I clicked on it to see what the discussion was

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/ym32ot/i_would_really_enjoy_fallout_76_if_you_could_play/

Essentially they are complaining about the always-online thing, which isn't a problem in itself necessarily, after all I have a number of games that are the same way, like Hitman for example. But the overall tenor of the comments is negative. Maybe just a collection of the most disheartened, and I'm sure many love 76. Panzer sure likes it.

Now that I've fired Fallout 4 back up, may as well keep on keepin' on with the direction of the thread.

Hit level 77

Level 76 -- Medic. At this high level I'm rather running out of attractive perks. Training SPECIALS to open more choices is probably going to be needed. But in Survival the additional healing and rad removal is handy. Each one does 40% now.

Level 77 -- Hacker. Who knows, might pay off here and there and gives me new or alternate options and some good loot too.

Check that. After selecting those perks I played some more and found the Splattercannon rifle for sale in the market. Until now I've not dropped a point in Commando, which boosts automatic weapons. Everything I've used in the past 370 hours has been semi automatic. My build is focused on this, along with stealth and silenced weapons. As a result I get too little damage with autos, so I never use them.

But the idea of starting to use automatics began to take root. Why not after all this time, switch it up and give the run a twist. Autos are fun in VATS too. So I reloaded a save from before I had spent those points, and instead spent them in Commando. Popped a grape mentat and bought the rifle. It comes with a long scope and that won't do. With none of my crafting materials here in Nuka World I had to scavenge a bit and then swapped out the scope for a dot reflex sight. With only two points in Commando I only get a +40% damage boost, but I'll keep sinking points. Splattercannon has the Furious legendary effect which grants increasing damage for every bullet which hits consecutively. And on automatic with a high fire rate this gun can be insanely good. The drawback is it uses 7.62 ammo, which is both heavy and can only be found in Nuka World.

My plan was to swap the receiver to 5.56 but it appears the Splattercannon cannot take a receiver change other than to semi-automatic.

So updated it is...

Hit level 77

Levels 76 and 77 -- Both points in Commando

However I read that once you advance the Nuka World plot to the point where you are expected to start taking over Commonwealth settlements, Nuka World raiders can start appearing there, meaning there can be a source of 7.62 ammunition in the main game world. But I think the idea has to be to just stock up on several thousand rounds everytime you can. Caps aren't really an issue at this stage so I can afford it. With this new aspect to my build I can use any type of weapon with good effectiveness, except heavies maybe? And melee which I've not really pursued.

But the Sandman perks give me 10x melee sneak damage. Nuka World of course has a number of unique weapons, and one of them is a knife called Throatslicer, which does 80 damage plus 25 bleed damage. With a 10x sneak attack, that's well over 800 damage, more than a bottlecap or nuka mine with full Demolitions Expert. But just after spending thousands of caps on that knife I got another great knife (no bleed effect though) that did equal damage from a drop off an enemy at the Kiddie Kingdom. So after the reload and mulligan with my perk points I did not buy Throatslicer and got the other knife to drop again and saved all those caps.

For those who don't play, the grape mentats boost charisma by 5 for a short time, so can be used to get better pricing at the vendors, and here it saved me a couple thousand caps.

As for the Nuka World DLC itself it's OK. Like Far Harbor I don't find it special really. It's different and essentially a way to keep earning XP and find some new gear. The plot and theme are fine I guess, but nothing here blows me away. And I plan to run 'em all out anyway. After all the work done in the Commonwealth to build it up I'm not going to throw it all away now. So I'm the trojan horse, just biding my time before turning on them.

Does anyone know if I leave Nuka World whether I'd need to re-run the gauntlet upon return?

It's Ninja, not Sandman, which gives the melee sneak attack bonus.,

In the event someone here might know the answer.... I want to both obtain the Ace Operator perk and do Open Season. It can be done right? What is the optimal path here?

Do Grand Tour, then Home Sweet Home? Then start Open Season?

When do the faction perks get awarded?

Ace Operator is +25% damage to all silenced weapons and -10% visibility. Both of these are perfect synergy for my build.

In one of my playthroughs I have Raiders taxing most of my Commonwealth settlements.

The resulting easy income is huge, although at this point there's not much left to do with the money besides buying resources to build a bunch of combat robots to serve as provisioners and settlement guards, and also rebuilding some of my earlier settlements with concrete and DLC objects that weren't available initially.

I might have to go that route too, because Nuka World is hard on survival. The thought of battling through all these raiders in this mode is daunting.

I've cleared and flagged two parks so far, Dry Gulch and the Bottling Plant.

I had nearly cleared the Galactic Zone. I spent probably two hours methodically working through it, and as I neared the final area I got hit by a freakin' courser! Killed me dead as I panicked when he started lobbing plasma grenades or something. Not only does he lob the grenades, he runs after them. A violent assault and I wilted in the face of it. Lost all that time, a level and plenty of kit that was found as I went through the facility. That's survival.

I was so disheartened by this that I left NW and went back to the CW, where I did a few quests, but I'm back in NW now. I think that courser is there because of a quest I have called Variable Removal. There are like 20 possible locations for him to be and of course here he was.

A time or two Panzer had mentioned the Nuka mixing and yeah, this is great. Some of these flavors are amazing, and any of them that restore health and don't give rads are great in this mode.

Hit Level 78

Level 78 -- Commando 3. More damage from automatics.

Nuka World isn't that hard really. The courser maybe made it feel that way, and the Kiddie Kingdom's radiation too. But it's not easy either. I came back to NW and forewarned with the location of that courser I laid out a few bottlecap mines. Got his attention (with a Nuka grenade!) and went the other way. He followed and set off a few mines and that was that. I've now cleared all the parks aside from Kiddie Kingdom, where I've cleared out the outside, with the buildings yet to come.

Hit Level 83 (I think).

Levels 79 and 80 -- Commando 4 and 5. Maxed out. Automatics do double damage and have higher stagger chance.

Level 81 -- Fortune Finder 2. Since starting to carry the Splattercannon (7.62 ammo) money's a little more precious. The description says "More caps in containers" but I think "Caps in more containers" is more accurate. Gotta have the cash for the bullets.

Level 82 -- Medic. It's survival mode and the struggle is real. More healing and rad removal per use.

Level 83 -- Hacker. Can hack Advanced terminals. More routes and loots.

No level cap is great, and more games should be like this.

That was good. I like how he detonated when he fell on the stairs. Very Fallout

Hit level 85 and spent the points in Hacker 2 and Hacker 3 so I can access any terminal. I looked at the stats, and even though I've now played for nearly 400 hours, I've only hacked 40 terminals. I can hack more of them now, (adding expert and master hacks) but it shows how rare it is. Maybe not the most efficient choice, but think it'll pay off. And anyway, I've already got all the perks I wanted.

I've been spending time back in the Wealth, running miscellaneous quests for the Railroad mostly. Bunch of freeloaders. With the Institute gone I'd think these layabouts would break up, but they're still down there smoking cigarettes and making me do everything. Bunch of nutters.

I've been rocking the same get up for so long now I've got the itch to mix it up. I'm wearing ballistic weave fatigues with ultralight shadowed combat armor and a ballistic weave newsboy cap. Light and stealthy. I wonder what other choice I might have that would change it up a bit but not forfeit the good sneak? What's the Commando armor like? Anyone else have a favorite light armor?

Marine Armor, although I don't think that can be classed as light, at least not out of the box.

Otherwise, the Courser uniform.

That's a great suggestion, as it's really good armor that can be bought. The legendary or whatever effects are strong too. However it's the most expensive stuff in the game isn't it? and I can't afford it. Plus it's heavy, one arm piece weighs about as much as my entire get up. I think it's too expensive to try and find it's not for me, but I could always just reload a save I suppose. If I could afford it! Have you used it Crane? I read you can upgrade it to even better (heavier) armor called Inquisitor or Zealot, I forget.

Commando armor's out, as I think there's only a helmet and chest piece, and it looks silly. I'd love a good duster like the ones from Lonesome Road or Fallout 3. What I'm wearing now feels like the best compromise between ballistic protection and light weight stealth. Just don't like how it looks.

The lightweight mods really bring the weight down to a reasonable level on the Marine armor.

I used the Inquisitor version on one of my playthroughs, it's good aside from not being able to wear it under Power Armor IIRC.

All things considered, it's hard to beat a Courser uniform with maxed out ballistic weave though.

I have one of them. Do you happen to know what the ratings are with full weave on it? I'll have to look that up

Oh wait, I tried this a couple days ago. I couldn't put armor pieces over it and I think with full weave the Courser uniform is only a little better than a plain set of fatigues with full weave.

Yeah, I looked it up. Courser uni with full weave is 140 Ballistic, 135 Energy, 15 Radiation, +1 Perception and +1 Endurance. That's pretty good, but without being able to put armor over it is way behind what I am wearing. Outside of Survival I'd be fine with it. But I need more protection haha.

Yeah, I don't think a better alternative is in FO4 for me honestly. Which game did I play recently where you could make any armor look like any other armor? I need that.

I took a look at what I am wearing and the weights.

Fatigues 3
Chest piece 1.5
Arms .8 x 2
Legs .8 x 2
Newsboy cap .4

Total 7.3

That is super light. Ultra-light, technically With the weight of the armor affecting stealth I wanted to go as light as possible while still getting decent protection. The numbers on this get up are 279/320 ballistic/energy with 15 radiation. That's good protection from kit so light I think, plus each piece of armor has Shadowed on it to further enhance the stealth and visibility. The chest piece does not have Shadowed, although I have one with it. But I'm rocking a BoS piece that grants increasing DR in inverse proportion to remaining health.

Of course this is only possible with ballistic weave, which is one of the most OP things in the game.

I thought my arm pieces would weigh the same, after all they are identical. The right side one is .8, but left is 3.4? Maybe it matters the order you do the modifications? Like could this have been caused by putting ultralight on before shadowed instead of the other way around? Don't want to be heavier than I need to be so I want to see what's going on.

Just patrolling around south of the city where I haven't been in a while so the repop cooldown had cooled down so it's busy, lots of targets. Carrying just a .308 OG after swapping the scope for a reflex, and Deliverer. Gained two levels pretty quick and points unspent. Survival mode offers double XP on kill, and with Idiot Savant firing occasionally, combat is a fast XP earner in this mode. I'm closing in on level 90 and I'd guess I'd be well short of that in a different mode. Combat is a massive part of it so the double XP must add up to a lot.

Anyone taken the Ricochet perk? I like the sound of it, as it grants a chance an enemy's ranged attack could bounce back and kill him. But I wonder how often it fires? It's also possible that friendly fire could result in you having caused the death of the friendly, turning them hostile? Or it can kill a companion?

The companion thing doesn't worry me as I only use the dog, and he's got no weapons. But I could see answering the call to the many checkpoint defense battles in the post-main quest world causing me to turn them hostile if someone tries to shoot through me. Plus I'd have to sink three points in to Luck to reach it. I'd like to test it but it's too steep to do that.

All this Fallout 4 talk has given me some interest in reinstalling it. Maybe I'll do so after I finish up a couple of my current games. I went with supporting the Institute during my playthrough so if I play a second time I may end up supporting either the Freedom Railroad faction or the Brotherhood of Steel. I think the only achievements I missed out on are the mission-specific ones for supporting those factions.

If I could ever bring myself to do another playthrough, it would be with extensive mods.

There's only so much you can do in the vanilla game.

I agree but quite honestly I wouldn't know what I would want modded. I really have no complaints about the game. I guess an enhanced graphics/textures mod would be nice. I know for a fact that Fallout 76 looks better than Fallout 4.

That's the thing, there are too many choices!



At the very least I would go with something that improves the combat mechanics, and expands the existing gameworld a bit. For example there are many mods that improve the factions and some that add new ones.

Or, you could wait for something like Fallout Miami.

I just can't see that working. For the Fallout experience you really need a varied topography which incudes mountains, valleys, caves, plateaus, etc. Miami has none of that.

Yes sir. I'd highly recommend doing a survival run. Mod it if necessary, but for me straight vanilla's in a good place. The combat alone is worth playing this way I think and the double XP is sweet to build a more robust character..

I finished the Grand Tour quest in Nuka World. Cleared all four parks and assigned them to factions. Two to the Operators and two to the Pack, the Disciples got nothing and don't like it. Done this way for the faction perks, which I might not get, because I read that if you do Home Sweet Home not only does Preston hate you (I knew this) but the Minutemen turn hostile (which I didn't know). The way I did the end of the main quest was to achieve a certain state in the post-quest world, and the minutemen have established checkpoints all around the map, and I'd like to keep them friendly. I'd also like to select which settlements become raider, and I left a number untouched through the game for this purpose. But I don't think I'll get to choose, instead handed a list. I have yet to talk to Shank and went back to Far Harbor for a bit.

Grand Tour was pretty tough. Especially Kiddie Kingdom which I broke in to three parts. The radiation is insane. The park had mist water sprayers to keep park-goers cool before the war, and now the water coming out is radioactive and it's everywhere. In survival this is a b!tch because radaway and rad-X cause all sort of issues, like thirst, insomnia, illness and fatigue. It was quite the challenge but I finally made it through yesterday. Had a good time, but it was no walk in the park.

Hit level 92!

Level 86 -- Big Leagues. +20% Melee damage.

Level 87 -- Blitz. This gives more range for VATS melee attacks. I don't use melee much, but these two points just spent give it a boost

Level 88 -- Spent one point in Luck (8)

Level 89 -- Used that point to take Grim Reaper's Sprint which grants a 15% chance to refill AP on VATS kill

Levels 90 through 92 -- Spent three points in Perception (8) to get to Concentrated Fire at level 10

I don't think the real life Boston area has particularly varied terrain.





Yeah there some mountains way off in the distance, but it's hardly Skyrim were you've got a different biome every 5 minutes walking distance.

Fallout 4 wasn't just Boston but also a considerable area west of the city. The entire State of Florida would be pretty dull geographically speaking for a Fallout game in my opinion.

Personally, where these games are set isn't important, as it's all smashed up anyway. It could be set anywhere, and I'd be OK with it. The actual place is rather inconsequential to me. It;s neat to see the local flavor, like Fenway, the Strip or the Washington Monument, but this could be true of anything they choose to do. Even a Fallout game set in a completely fictional location would work. This formula would work anywhere.

But think of the fauna in a Florida Fallout. You got spiders, gators, snow birds, hogs, sharks, snakes, and florida men.

Okay, so maybe two of those are just wacky character types, but someone could make it work.

I forgot to mention the "decrepit industrial town" aspect. All Fallout games have had towns featured which were once hubs of heavy industry whether it be automobile plants, oil refineries, steel mills, etc. The nuclear post-apocalyptic theme works perfectly with these industrial towns since you see first hand how things were destroyed (ie the rust belt effect). Florida doesn't have that aspect at all since it's not an industrial state.

New Vegas didn't have that. Or where is the industrial part you are talking about?

I think Fallout would work anywhere, as long as the smashed bits resembled not-smashed bits as they were before the bombs fell. It could be in the mountains, along the sea, under the sea even. For me settings are like a stage here, a backdrop that adds flavor and place names. But you could replace them all with other ones and the game would still feel the same. FO3 in DC has become iconic, but if FO3 had been set in say, Dallas or Prague or Wemadeitupville it still would have been a great game, just with different scenery.

Of course these famous locations ground the game, and give a broad base of players some common ground with locations we all know, I don't think it would have hurt the game if it was set somewhere else, even Florida. Wormfood's point about the creatures, and how they could be re-imagined as mutated, is actually quite enticing now that he put that thought in to my head. Death-egrets.

I'd like to see an installment that focused on the post-apocalyptic Fallout world some distance away from ground zero. It think there is a lot of license there. How a region not directly impacted by the detonations still fell in to disorder and survival even if it wasn't an irradiated hellscape.

Fallout 76 almost started with that. Except there were still mutated creatures and a weird plague that killed off everyone and caused further mutations.

New

That was kind of New Vegas, with only a handful of nuke impacts in the Vegas area.

Yes, you could say that New Vegas falls in the middle of this scale. Still plenty of radiation. And now that I think about it, the radiation is too central. A region without it would struggle to justify mutated creatures, and what's Fallout without the mutants?

But that's what fallout is, literally, right? Bombs falling over there cast their radiation over here and it could still mutate over that distance, theoretically and in Fallout's world.

I've come this far, so I'll keep on. Picked this game back up for a bit.

I'll need to figure out what I picked at level 93.

Level 94 -- Cap Collector 1. There isn't much I still want to purchase in the tree, so Cap Collector will let me start to build the higher level stores. Cap Collector 2 is the one I'm aiming for. This should hopefully let me get a settlement to 100% happiness and the achievement for doing so. I built a store in Sanctuary and gave Vault Tec Rep a job

There are few open worlds in gaming that I like as much as the one in Fallout 4. And double so in Survival mode. How the world exists outside of the player, that firefights happen in the distance and patrols can be encountered anywhere and any time. The aftermath is encountered and you wonder what went down here. Scoop the loot and onward.

Two games stand out for me as being perfect for the 'patrol' sort of gameplay I like so much. those are Fallout 4 and the Misery mod for Stalker Call of Pripyat. The sort of open worlds where I can just head out with no objective, no destination and patrol the environs, and find it all compelling.

I got the Homerun achievement and how did I not just get this before? Diamond City continues to surprise me

Hit level 95 but point unspent as I have no idea what to do. I'll probably gather three of them and raise Perception in order to take Concentrated Fire.

Gunner's Plaza is a b!tch in survival. I had never been there, but found out the small guns bobblehead is there. I think there are radiant BOS quests available to go there too, but I have yet to get one. I prepped for the mission and went there carefully. Got within 100 yards or so and started plinking gunner noggins and boom, blown up by a Fatman. In survival that sends you back to the last time you slept. So I prepped again, this time with a sniper rifle (.50 cal suppressed) and when I got close a blanket fog set in, and I wasn't going to approach the place in the fog. I'll need to go back later.

I now have about 450 hours in this game, and probably 400 in this run, and I've never been to vault 88. I think I should.

Hit level 97.

Levels 95-97 -- Spent two points in Perception (10) and the third point on Concentrated Fire 1. This grants a +10% accuracy bonus to each successive VATS shot against the same body part. Level 2 will be 15%. Level 3 is +20% accuracy but also +20% damage. This will be strong, especially with a weapon like Deliverer which I use constantly. And with Perception maxed I can go back and take Sniper and Penetrator if I want.

Having had my ass kicked at Gunner's Plaza the previous day, I devised a new plan. This time I came down from the city, through the abandoned town, and along the railroad tracks where there is a small tower I could use to snipe the gunners on the rooftops. Took out several this way, including two who were wielding Fatmans or missile launchers. These are mostly very high ranking NPCs, tough bastages, and worth a lot of XP, especially if Idiot Savant procs. The whole building is full of NPCs like this.

With the roof more clear I went up the fire escape on the west side and climbed to the roof, looting and finishing off any other gunners I found. I came back down the stairs at the front and cleared the outside from above. Went back up the stairs and entered the building through the elevator there. This took me to the basement. Once in, I methodically worked my way through the structure. My build is very high stealth and I was able to clear it without taking any damage at all. It really could not have gone any better. This was one of the hardest spots on the map, or it should be, and I was quite pleased with myself. In survival, one mistake is lights out and all of the effort would be erased. If any kill alerted other NPCs I would retreat to a safe spot until [Caution] cleared and then proceed. Using a combination of a suppressed shotgun, Deliverer, OG and grenades I cleared the place.

And it was quite profitable indeed. Caps in virtually every container with my recently picked perks. But the real profit was the small guns bobblehead (+25% critical damage) and another Guns and Bullets magazine, which grant +5% critical damage per copy you find. So I came out of the place with 30% more crit damage than I went in with. Since my build is crit heavy (sneak attacks) this was a fantastic mission. The plan, the execution, the loot were all excellent. Very satisfying to have pulled this off, albeit at the second time of asking.

I may have asked before, but has anyone here played this game and taken Ricochet? How often does it proc? It sounds like a great perk, but if it never triggers it's a wasted point. Like I took Mysterious Stranger a long time ago I think it has triggered twice. Very disappointing. But if this triggers a lot more often I would take it. Idiot Savant by comparison has proc'd 372 times for me so far.

So yeah, earlier I said there weren't too many more perks I wanted, but that's not true. There are a number of them I still want. One of my goals was to hit level 100, but I didn't think I would. Nearly there!

Hit level 99!

Levels 98 and 99 -- Concentrated Fire 2 and 3. Evidently the description is wrong, and level two also increases damage (but only level 3 says this). This is a fantastic perk. You need to dump 10 points (or 9 plus bobblehead) in to Perception to get it. For VATS builds like mine, or any build really where VATS is used, it is strong. The increasing accuracy of successive shots virtually eliminates low accuracy at range. An attack that would normally be 3% is 95% before the shots run out. Add to that extra damage and this perk is really quite strong indeed. Combined with other perks like Gun-Fu it makes VATS especially effective.

I decided to see if I could hunt down all the bobbleheads as an objective. Now up to 17 out of 20 I think. Still need medicine, unarmed and one more. Turns out I had walked past several earlier in the run, and had to go back. Medicine is done though the mission called Hole in the Wall in vault 81. I read about it. Its the mission where you unlock Curie as a potential companion. During the mission the player has to fight off hordes of mole rats. If the player (or companion or friendly protectron) get bit at any point during the mission, the player picks up a permanent health loss of 10 points. 10 points is nothing when you have 700, but its the principle of the the thing haha. I don't want to pick it up, but I've also never played this mission before. I wonder how easy it would be to get through without getting bit? No reloads on survival. I'm now way higher rank than what the mission is designed for.

I cleared vault 75 last night, first visit there. It's interesting to see the details of each vault. What their purpose was, how they went about it, and discovering how it all turned out. Vault 75 was especially sinister. No vault was intended to actually save people, aside from the control vaults I suppose. The lore and all the context and details throughout Fallout 4 is very nicely done.

Levels 100-102 -- Spent two points in Luck (10) and the third point on Ricochet. This gives a chance that any enemy's ranged attack ricochets and instantly kills the attacker. It has yet to fire, but I haven't been in firefights since taking it. Whether this was worth it is entirely down to how often it triggers. But especially in survival it could be the difference between life and a reload at the last time I slept. If nothing else the points in Luck will fill my critical meter faster.

The point for level 103 is unspent while I weigh the opportunity cost of the many ways I want to spend it.

So yeah, level 103! Hard to believe. I'm sure there are players who are level 1800 or whatever, but this is far higher than I ever expected to get. And I'm no where near done. The main catalysts are survival mode since it gives double combat XP compared to normal, and Idiot Savant, which if it procs at the right time can be a massive injection of XP. At level 2 it is a 5x multiplier. Not much when it triggers cooking a meal. But a big shot when it triggers turning in a quest.

Having no level cap is fantastic, and with Ricochet (Luck) I now have three level 10 perks (Gun-Fu (Aglity) and Concentrated Fire (Perception)), all of which require 10 points in the corresponding SPECIAL, which is a big investment of your points. But that's what having no cap can do for you.

I'm now 480 hours in and found something I didn't even know about. An Unstoppable magazine, each copy of which grants a permanent +1% chance to ignore all damage from any attack. I'll need to find out where the rest are.

I finally went and checked out Vault 88, which I see now is a DLC. It's essentially a big vault settlement (which you have to build) and has a lot of potential. Comes with 150 power already available. And frankly I needed a sleep/save/resupply point in the southeast corner of the map, so this is good. But it's quite a task to get it all up and running.

I wonder when that DLC came out? That one did not exist when i was playing the game. The Nuka World DLC was the last one to come out when I was still actively playing.

According to this page it was released in July of 2016, called Vault-Tec Workshop DLC.

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Vault-Tec_Workshop

It's pretty cool, repurposing an old, partially-built vault as a settlement. There is a lot of room to build and tons, literally, of stuff to scrap, like train cars and the like. Lots of concrete and steel to build with. There is just one entrance which can be attacked by raiders or other miscreants, so it's relatively easy to secure. Two other entrances/exits exist through tunnels to give multiple access points at different parts of the map. One is a man-hole near Milton General Hospital and the other a pharmacy in University Point.

And actually, Vault-Tec was in July and Nuka World in August of that year.

There's a lot of uranium in there too. Couple of entrances and if you place everything right, you can build a vault in all the sections. It's a bit fiddly and sometimes when it's attacked the NPCs will spawn in, in the zone, but outside of the vault between your walls and the underground walls. It's fun, but not really recommended.
It also added a ton of things you could craft. The quest chain and missions I didn't care for.

Yeah, patrol dynamics and exploration are what make an open world for me.

Crane knows what I'm talking about. They did a good job with the A-Life equivalent, to keep with the Stalker theme. The various factions encounter each other while they themselves patrol the landscape. Firefights break out. Or a group of Minutemen will be battling a deathclaw. A vertibird circles overhead firing its mini-guns at mutants below before taking too much fire and crashing, forcing me to dash or be struck by the falling debris. The troopers it disgorged are now taking on the mutants who shot down the bird.

And all of this stuff happens independently of the player. I can choose to snipe at the periphery, go charging in, sit and observe or skeddadle on my way, thankful for the distraction. Over time you learn where the hotspots are. Certain places have a high incidence rate, while others are mostly free of potential conflict, like the riverfront on the east side of the Charles. The trek from say Hangman's Alley to Freedom HQ is always a peaceful one. Turn in toward the city for a block or two and it's like open rebellion.

It all adds up to a really nice blend of free-roam gameplay and quest hunting.

Level 103 -- Action Boy 3. 75% faster AP refill (up from 50% rank 2). Not crucial, but the sort of thing that pays off in the most desperate situations. I don't sprint much so this is about refilling AP to get more shots and sooner in VATS.

Level 104 -- Medic 2. Stimpaks and Radaway restore/remove 60% (up from 40% rank 1). A quality of life perk. In Survival, using any chem has a number of side effects, and getting more benefit for each jab is nice.



Yeah, the associated missions do suck. But it's a neat workspace, and of all settlement locations probably the one a player can go most crazy with. I'm rather a minimalist settlement manager, so I won't be doing too much, but it's fun to experiment with some of the options. Vault 88 is safe, secure, massive and has it's own working reactor. When the missions are done I'll dismiss the overseer and prreside over my kingdom (and get the achievement)

I've been scooping up all the uranium yes, Lots of scrap around this joint.

Freedom HQ. Haha. It's Railroad. I mix up Freedom from Stalker and the Railroad in my head all the time. Same dudes really.

Exploring ominous abandoned places does it for me also.

As a kid I used to love exploring the many abandoned buildings and compounds that were around back then.

We'd often build crude "forts" everywhere, including on some of these abandoned properties.

One time we were checking out an abandoned warehouse and had to hide when a bunch of "raiders", rough looking stereotypical '80s punks with spray painted mohawks and spiked leather, showed up and started violently trashing the place.

We were lucky that our sneak skill was up to par!

I had the same childhood

Although where I grew up was probably more rural. But we built forts and explored dark places like abandoned train stops and underground spaces that were used for who knows what all those years before.

I completed the Vault 88 questlines. The overseer left, I guess because the parameters I chose for the experiments did not suit her. So she left the vault to me, and I got the Oversight achievement. Thanks Barstow for not forcing me to give you a 10mm sleeping pill.

But Clem is still around and he now is fully armed and armored. Gave him a vault 88 jumpsuit and pip-boy. All the residents here will wear this uniform. That gave another achievement called Vault Dweller. And finally, I cleared the tunnels and got Better Living Underground too. I had read there is a leveled legendary deathclaw in one of the sectors, but not for me. There was a mirelurk queen though. I've got some broad plans for Vault 88. I haven't done much to build most settlements, just focusing on keeping every one happy, fed and defended. But I think I'll try and make Vault 88 a more impressive facility.

A question about supply lines.... How does it work exactly? I connected Vault 88 to my network, linking it to the Castle, which is linked to Hangman's Alley which is linked to Sanctuary. I guess I thought that would make everything stored at say 88 accessible at Hangman's. But it doesn't. Does this grow over time, or is just some of it shared. For example in Vault 88 I have 2000+ steel, but when I look at Hangman's the steel available is far less, like 50. So I'm not clear on how materials at one linked settlement are shared with others linked to it. Anyone know the scoop?

I'm now nearly 490 hours in, and there are still many locations I've yet to explore. When I went to return to Vault 88 yesterday I used the manhole near the hospital. And I thought, I don't think I've ever been in Shaw High School which is nearby. I thought maybe I would find a magazine to boost some stat. And there was another Unstoppable mag. Never knew about this and now found two in two days. Never know what you'll find when having a look about.

Level 105 -- Spent one point in Endurance (5) with a view to take Aquaboy next level

When I was doing the Vault 88 experiments I think it gave me a (temporary) boost to endurance, but it went away. Anyone know how that works and if I can get these bonuses back?

Everyone can stop researching the answer, because to get the vault 88 buffs it just requires using the experimental prototype you built for the Clem tests. Like if I use the overseer's desk I get +1 to INT or the cycle it's +1 to END. Can have only one active at any time.

Level 106 -- Aquaboy 1. Ignore radiation while in water and breathe under water. I probably should have taken this earlier. It makes shortcuts of any body of water, where I would have circumnavigated the hazard before. Radiation is more annoyance than true problem, but ignoring it is nice. I used it to good effect when I found the Atom Cats garage last night. Ran a mission for them and the Aquaboy perk surely cut 10 minutes off the quest. They were a delight, the Atom Cats, maybe the most friendly people in the Commonwealth. Too bad they are so far out of the way. But now that I am using vault 88 more they're not so far away. For power armor users they are definitely people you want to meet. I rarely use it myself. I approached their facility locked and loaded and saw they were green in VATS. So I walked up to one who was in power armor and he's like, what's happening daddy-o? Didn't expect these cats.

Level 107 -- Penetrator. In order to get Concentrated Fire I had to go to 10 Perception, and hopped over Penetrator on the way. I thought why not sink a point? Sometimes in VATS a target is moving behind some railings, or saplings or whatever and maybe this would help me get some more hits in, waste fewer rounds.

The description says "In V.A.T.S. you can target an enemy's body parts that are blocked by cover, with a decrease in accuracy." But that sells it short. It's a top-tier skill. You can hit power cores through the front of power armor or enemies like sentry bots, resulting in a mini-nuke detionation. You can send rounds through one enemy to hit another behind. Creatures like mirelurks are no longer saved by its shell. Any limb can be targeted from all angles, and the shell's armor ignored. Radscorpions and the like lose their advantage (although the bastages can still burrow). Hit targets underground.

And then there's the fact you can shoot through cover like it says. There are limits. Structures cannot be penetrated, except maybe by a critical. But fences, interior walls, guard posts, windows and that sort of thing are no barrier. And since I've gotten it every shot seems more powerful. Every head shot it seems is now a catastrophic event for the head wearer and it explodes in to a fountain of blood. Quite grisly, but effective. The second rank in the perk eliminates the accuracy penalties of targeting enemies behind cover. That is useful, but since I have concentrated fire only the first shot or two are low accuracy.
So yeah, it's a fantastic perk and makes the Sole Survivor much more effective against the best armored enemies. But only works for ballistic fire. It's like getting tungsten carbide rounds for every ballistic weapon.

Coming out of Vault 88 through the pharmacy exit I came to DB Technical School, and with the recent find at Shaw HS I thought, no not here too. In I went. Full of raiders with a boss in the basement. Goes by the name Bosco. Terminals reveal his madness. Anyway, when I spotted him he had a skull next to his name. I'm level 107! What the hell is he to outrank me by so much? He was in full power armor and just two rounds from Splattercannon took him out. Penetrator is strong. And yep, I found Unstoppable mag number 3 in there.

I went and cleared out Vault 95, which is at the far southwest corner, near Somerville Place which I had recently brought up to standard. Vault 95 was another rather sinister experiment. Spoilers probably aren't needed, but maybe someone will read this who would have preferred to have discovered these stories on their own



I also want to mention I finally tried out the SMG Spray and Pray. I had been carrying a really strong freezing shotgun for interior room clearing. Quite good, but I decided to give the SMG a go and wow. I have the automatic perks now, and it only does 85 damage per round (chambered in .45) plus 15 explosive radius damage per shot. But man does it wreck at short range. Very high cyclic rate, spits rounds out like a MG 42. And each explosion seems to perma-stagger the target so they just die in a hail of exploding .45 caliber slugs. You do have to be careful not to shoot at target near arm's length or get caught up in it yourself. Of course each round fired does way more damage than 85 due to perks like Sandman, Operator's perk, Demo Expert and so on. It's suppressed, with a 100 round drum mag. I modified the barrel and put on a reflex sight. Top weapon.

Level 108 -- Four Leaf Clover. Each VATS shot has a chance to refill critical meter. Sometime over the last 10 or 20 levels there was a significant spike in enemy rank. Mutants are now warlords, gunners are majors and brigadiers and so on. Having more criticals is useful as the enemy ups their game Criticals do more damage of course and also always hit. Most of my attacks are sneaks and therefore automatic critical, but I also have a few in my pocket to deploy when needed outside of stealth.

Level 109 -- Critical Banker 2. Can now bank two criticals. See above.

Went back to Far Harbor for a bit and knocked out some quests and gathered a couple achievements. I don't care for Far Harbor (or Nuka World for that matter) as much as many seem to, but it's more content and changes things up a bit. It's really the only time I wear power armor. Maybe I would have liked Far Harbor more if I could have Nick Valentine with me.

And Bosco did not wear power armor as I had said. It was the heavy raider armor that sort of looks like power armor. From a distance.

Fallout 4 has been a great game. I mostly ignored it for years. It came out in 2015. It wasn't until August 2021 that I finally gave it a go when the GOTY edition was on sale for ten bucks and this thread was started. Since then I have clocked north of 500 hours in this game. 500! That puts FO4 ninth in my all-time Steam list, placing it among very illustrious company indeed. That is some serious bang for the buck. Survival mode must take some of the credit, I know I wouldn't have played it so long in normal mode. The combat is the draw, retaining a level of challenge beyond what normal could be. The other aspects of survival are fine, even no manual saves and no fast travel. But it's the fantastic combat balance that keeps me going (and no level cap). And of course the fact it is absolutely stuffed with content. Even after 500 hours there are many places I have yet to explore.

It's on sale by the way, US $9.99 for the GOTY edition on Steam, just like I started with.

Fallout 4 Steam Sale

Steam summer sale. Can't really let one of these slip past without picking up a game or two.

Ran the rule over a sh!tload of games. Amazing how many games I don't want to play. Even the thirty or forty games on my wishlist didn't really trip my trigger.

But I did pick up Fallout 76. I had so much luck dropping a tenner on FO4 that the likelihood of doing the same with 76 is like super high.

And if it doesn't suit me so well, little is lost. But I think I will like it a lot.

Installed it, but haven't fired it up. Doing some recon over the finer points. What advice have you got Panzer for the low level noob?

PM's been recommending this one for a few years, but I don't think I really knew what it was. But now that I've given it a proper look I see I can treat it just like I do Forza 5. People around, but do my own thing, unaffected. No non-consensual PvP. Join up for community events when the mood strikes. Return to populated solo when it's over. Obviously it will be tuned to grant the best returns for joining others and I probably will. But mostly I like to do my own thing. For this price it's worth a punt. But after all I've just read I'm sure I'll dig it. Like how perks are handled, being able to change them up on the fly seems so liberating. Whether I like it in the end is to be seen, but the leveling and perk system looks cool. It gives you like 50 levels to mess around and find your center. Sounds good to me.

I'll have to alter the thread title again.

Kicked off my Appalachian adventure. Gained a level, found some stuff, talked to some folks. Too early, but I like it so far. Need to learn more about how things work, what to focus on, build priorities and the sort. It's like FO4 but with everything changed in some way. Perks, VATs, Pip-boy, camps, events, weapons. All this stuff and more is changed in some way, so I'll need to adjust to the new mojo. But so far it's hitting the right chords with me. And literally too as I picked up a guitar and rather than strum discordant chords like most games, I was ripping licks. As a guitar player in real life I could appreciate this touch. I was always disappointed in Metro that I couldn't jam on the guitars I came across.

Had trouble getting started, could not create an account through the game. But once I did so at Bethesda's site, I could then log in through the game. It's fun to have a new Fallout World to discover.

I put more time into Fallout 4 than any game I've played since the early 2000s, until Cyberpunk 2077 came along that is.

That's interesting. For me, Fallout has more playtime in it than Cyberpunk did. I liked Cyberpunk, love Fallout.

I finally pick up 76 and Panzer's nowhere to be seen

Played FO76 quite a bit yesterday, enough to hit level 7, just tooling around the starter region and doing quests. The other players I've encountered have been rather the friendly sort. They drop kit for the noobs to pick up. It's all been pretty chill really. It's rather surprising in a sense, since MP setups like this usually display the worst in humanity, my enjoyment affected by how much people suck. But so far in 76 I've found nothing but cool players going about their business, which to be fair is probably because it's structured to make shooting other players a waste of time in normal play. I see lots of noobs too. The sale brought in a lot of new players.

In 76 there's not settlement building like in FO4, but each player gets a couple CAMPs (Construction and Assembly Mobile Platform) which can be placed just about anywhere, and can be moved too. I have yet to find the right spot, even though it doesn't matter much where you place it. But I am on the hunt for that spot where I say this is it. Somewhere relatively secure, with perhaps a nice river or creek, inspiring view, sunrise or sunset. I'll keep looking.

Evidently players can launch nukes. The first time the announcement came I found it all so exciting, not knowing what was happening. A nuclear weapon was inbound, Sirens blaring. A countdown timer on the screen. I sought shelter and waited. But it detonated far away, though it sounded much closer

Having fun with this one so far.

I found a spot for my first camp. A little pond near vault 76, set up on the rocks for the view. Can eventually get a purifier running here, if I stick around. It's the starter area and I probably wont be here long, so maybe hold off for now on building too much. Need more mats and especially blueprints anyway.

Since this is an online game, VATS doesn't slow time, nor it seems can I target multiple enemies in a single VATS. So mostly I've been ignoring it and just using free aim. I wonder how important VATS will prove down the line. Is it something to consider not investing in? Or will I need it against certain enemies and regret it if I don't carry some perk cards for it down the line? I was using concentrated fire, which is superb in FO4, but dropped it and replaced it with something else since I hardly use VATS. Since you can swap your perks in and out it can be experimented with. You don't have to commit too much to a build path, although SPECIALs are limited and will shape the build regardless. Re-spec is possible too.

The player starts with all SPECIALs at 1. Each level you can spend another SPECIAL point in to any of the categories (up to level 50), and pick a perk. Each perk has a point value. You can combine two or three of the same perk card to raise its rank. For example one lead belly card will reduce rads 30%. Combine two and now it's 60%. That rank 2 card now uses two points instead of one.

So let's say you have 3 points in Endurance. You could use that 2-point Lead Belly card and one more 1-point card, say a rank 1 Life Giver. Total between the two cards is 3 points. SPECIALs can be raised to a maximum of 15. So you could theoretically use 15 1-point perks in any category, or five 3-point perks, or any combination in between. It's a very versatile system, and since you can swap them in and out, you could for example activate your lockpicking perks just for picking locks, and swap them out for exploration or combat perks when done. In this way you can tailor your character to any situation on the fly, according to which perk cards you have obtained.

In the early stages your choices are rather a bit random, depending on which cards you draw. Later on you have more control over selection.

Bobbleheads and magazines work differently too. They spawn continuously around the map, but can be grabbed before you get there by other players. And the bonuses they grant are temporary, not permanent.

Hunger and thirst are a thing. The meter depletes pretty fast and I wish it were somewhat slower. Weapons degrade as well, although this rate feels about right. Slow enough not to be annoying. Weapons and armor can be crafted and modded.

Hit level 11, doing the quests around Morgantown. I used to go here as a younger man, to party at WVU. It looks different in Fallout

Its all clicking along nicely. Level 11 as I said, and have yet to die. Got down to like 30% health one time, but survived. As the gear gets found and crafted, my survivability will only increase. More dangerous foes await, so I'm not thinking it won't happen eventually. But I think it points to the early game being rather easy. It's a soft landing in Appalachia.

Being a MMO-lite was a thing which I didn't know if I would get on with. But I have to say it's really good in this game. Noobs will come along and light me up. A level 2 stood next to me shooting at me while I was crafting some armor last night. But with pacifist mode on they can't do any damage and are just wasting ammo. There will always be folks like this in this sort of set up. But the majority of the players I encounter are cool. They are helpful, friendly. At times they are helping me, even if it isn't intentional. We're just in the same area, going about our respective business, but helping each other indirectly as well. You can visit player camps and they often sell items for far less than a NPC vendor too.

Players can create public casual teams. I suggest always joining one of these. There can be four on a team, and each one grants bonuses like extra intelligence, which in turn increases XP gain. You don't have to play together, as a matter of fact it's expected that you won't, and everyone will be doing their own thing. When a team member completes a quest I get caps, which is nice. In my research I had read the event called Leader of the Pack drops some very good gear, so I set off to give it a go. As I got to the event area it started, and almost immediately completed. Stuff flashed across the screen saying it was done, and I got extra for completing it as part of a team. I had done absolutely nothing except arrive. But still got all the rewards, including some armor pieces that doubled my armor rating. Sweet. So yeah, always join casual teams when you can. There's no drawback and plenty to gain.

Hey DBond, it's great that you finally hopped on the Fallout 76 wagon! What's your player name in the game? I'll have to look for you next time I'm online.


What impresses me the most about F76 is how seamlessly it merges the single player story with the multiplayer events. The early stages of Fallout 76 are indeed a bit on the easy side as long as you don't run into a deathclaw or a scorchbeast.

I am ExitOversteer

Ha! I'm TheEldenLord72. I should be online tonight.

OK, I will be too I am sure. I'll look for you, but I reckon the chances of landing on the same server are slim, and anyway you're probably level 440. There is an achievement for having a friend, so if you don't mind at least temporarily adding me that would be great. You can cancel it after the achievement fires haha. I won't be looking to add many friends, so this is a good shot at it.

I'm level 1071. Now before you think that's a lot, you will eventually run across players who are level 3k and above! The highest I've personally seen is in the 7K range.

Yeah, no. That is a lot however you slice it! Wow, impressive to reach so high.

One question.... what stuff might I find at this stage that I want to save for later? The game encourages the player to sell, discard or scrap everything (I have no 1st account) but surely there are things like materials which I will regret getting rid of later in the run.

For example I found a level 45 side by side shotgun. I have no use for it now, and by the time I reach 45 I won't be using double barrel shotguns I don't think. What should I do with it? I've seen advice to save legendaries for something later.

Or which materials are vital later and I should keep on hand? Any tips of this sort so I can avoid future regret? Or does it not really matter and I'll find so much stuff anyway. Like, save all your nuclear material for when you unlock the Discombobulator later.

Wow, where do I begin? lol I'll try to be as succinct as possible.


When it comes to crafting materials you definitely want to hoard aluminum. It's much rarer than steel and lead which are plentiful and aluminum is used for a lot of different vital things like modding ranged weapons, crafting grenades and crafting many melee and ranged weapons. Nuclear material is important if you want to make your own mini-nukes and certain power armor mods require it.

Are you into the whole cooking meals and crafting drinks aspect? If yes I'll let you know which materials are rare for that activity.

As for shotguns, I'd say scrap them all unless you get something like a legendary gauss shotgun or one of the unique shotguns that have a special name. You can often win those by participating and winning some of the events.

Yeah, I've been cooking and brewing. Of course I've just come out a FO4 survival so it is second nature..

What's the best stuff to cook or brew? Been brewing up stuff like soot tea and cooking whatever I kill. It spoils though, so a better approach here could save some time and effort, focusing on those things that are easy to find/make, have good nutritional and thirst value and don't spoil too fast. I need to find a water purifier plan too. Are generators the way to go (found medium gen plan yesterday), or what is your preferred power source?

I cook and make drinks quite often and I've found these recipes to be the most effective:

Mixed Scorchbeast Stew: It gives you +1 to several categories like Endurance, Strength and Agility for 1 hour. It also replenishes a ton of hit points. I forget the exact amount.

Pepperoni Roll: Gives you +30 to carry weight for 30 minutes. I make this all the time.

Brain bombs: Gives you +3 intelligence for 90 minutes.

Granny''s Tea: Gives you health regen for 90 minutes.



And concerning food and drinks spoiling too fast there's a perk card called "Good with Salt" which slows down the spoiling process. I always use that perk card and have it maxed out to level 3 which means that food and drinks spoil 90% slower.

Thanks, that's helpful. But I would have to imagine that Scorchbeast Stew requires scorchbeast? I might not have much of that for a while

Good point but believe it or not, I've seen scorchbeast meat dropped by other players. Always be on the look out for those loot containers you may see on the ground.

I will be on the lookout, thanks for the tips. Anything to learn at this stage that makes progression smoother is good.

I am playing cards that help with this stuff. One that makes food effects last longer. One that does the same for water. The one you mentioned and one to reduce rads from food and water. It has been better since I played these cards, yes.

I would play with you guys but I don't have a gaming computer and won't buy one until after I complete my long distance move.

Ah, I wish you were able. Have you played 76 Crane? We'd be close in level if you haven't.

Just turned level 15, and this is where it should start to pick up as I will start to see proper combat weapons. Bolt action .308s, pipes and 10mm pistols have been the mainstay so far. Level 15 brings the 5.56 handmade rifle which can be an endgame weapon, one you carry all game and build around. But to do so you have to invest in the gunsmith perks, which I always do in Fallout, and build a shi!tload of them to turn around and scrap them to learn the mods to make it better. It's an odd mechanic, the way mod plans work in 76, but at least it means you aren't waiting for drops or too focused on caps because you can't afford it. Mats are everywhere and since its online everything repopulates all the time, so every day you can raid the same toolbox or ammo crate or whatever. Where I built my camp I have two raiders who spawn every time I return I can just kill them over and over and take their stuffs. Anyway, as long as you're semi-dedicated to always be stashing materials and going in on the crafting perks (which can be swapped out for combat or exploration) then you can control what weapon you focus on, make it great and support it, especially if you go automatic/commando.

I'll see what sort of drops I get, or if I can find the plan for it and see whether I want to go rifleman or commando. No sense in splitting your potential, and should pick one or the other I think. Players seem to think DPS is king, and I guess it always is in a sense, so a VATS commando build is the meta. But that might mean a lot of ammunition crafting and VATS, which I'm not using much so far. So I'll see if I can try both before going too deep on either path. Ammo has not been an issue so far. Panzer, do you have a set loadout you roll with?

The handmade looks a lot cooler than the funky assault rifle, which kind of looks like a water-cooled 1919 like they used on Guadalcanal. Same one as FO4 and before. Not the sort of thing you want to be carrying around. Well, I don't anyway. Takes up too much screen too.

The Fixer rifle is another one I think will suit me, so commando might be the way to go in advance of that weapon. Of course you can drop points in to both, but then you won't have either be as strong, or you'll reach it at later level with some opportunity cost on other perks. But if you get as high as Panzer has, you'll have every possible perk anyway and can totally change every part of the build if you want on the fly.

Just before hitting level 15 I was given the main quest task of meeting the Overseer. Since leaving vault 76 I have been on her trail, finding her stashes and holotapes. The main quest leads you along like this, taking you around the map. When I finished talking to her she was all like, go away and come back when you can handle the next job. So don't come back until you are level 20. Didn't expect that, but I guess I appreciate it? I don't want to saunter off in to certain death, so thanks for the warning. I will guess i will be leaving the Forest for the next stage of the main quest, and I'm in no hurry.

But at least at my stage, there are many quests open and available so I'll find plenty to do. And anyway, you don't have to do quests at all. Just go your own way and see what you can stir up. Some players hadn't met the overseer even past level 100. It's not quite clear which way to turn, whether to focus on the main quest, or certain sub-main quests like Wayward, or to do side quests. So I just mix it up, catch as catch can. A little of this and a little of that, occasionally doing events and daily ops. There's so much possible, it feels a bit jumbled really. I worry that certain quests will have a very nice gear reward, but I don't want that at low level I don't think. To get an amazing rifle now, which I will outlevel shortly, seems less than ideal. Level 50 is when gears stops leveling, so ideally you want your best gear then. But I still need good stuff now too.

Maybe another player will take pity on me and drop a level 15 handmade and save me a lot of trouble

Hopped on last night and kept an eye out for Panzer, but didn't see him, and frankly I could have missed him as I focus on whatever I am doing at the mo. Servers are max 24 players. The map is big, about four times as big as Fallout 4. So those 24 players have a lot of territory in which to spread out, but I still encounter them all the time. Last night I was doing a quest in a building and encountered a level 20 player in power armor. We just moved through the buidling, each covering our sectors and taking out the ghouls we found in the hallways and rooms through the facility. It's was entirely organic, there's no text chat, just some emotes to try and communicate. Or voice chat, but I'm not keen. When we reached the final room we saluted and set off in opposite directions. That sort of emergent co-op is fun. And I'm not bogged down trying to have a conversation, reading and answering questions.

Looking at the Steam charts, FO76 averages around 6,000 players, so that's 250 servers if all were full to 24. Chances of encountering any one player are remote I reckon. And even then I'd need to actually be paying attention haha.

Holy smokes. Level 15 is a big spike. The very first raider I killed after leveling, one of the ones I can shoot from my deck, dropped a nice .308 sniper rifle with a scope. Much better weapon than any I had seen so far. I then set off to finish a quest to the north, either convincing a bandit leader to stop tormenting the local pub, or just rub him out. Stopped off along the way to raid a deathclaw nest of its egg, and went to drop it off to the dude who asked for it. At the fairgrounds. Before level 15 I could slowly crouch my way through, taking out scorched in a few shots, then move on, and take the next one mostly unawares. But this time, I shot one, and every single scorched at the fairgrounds was on me. Running, shooting, taking far more hits than before. I was on the run. It's such a massive change in how the combat has worked. The game essentially plays nice until 15 and the gloves come off. And it's actually rather what I was expecting from the start. The game just decides to ease you in to it, which is smart, because people stick around when they aren't immediately frustrated. Ease them in, get the hooks in.

When I hit the lumber yard where the bandits were I just went in and shot them. More XP than negotiating I would think, and takes care of the problem permanently. But the real reason I took this route is a chance to get the handmade rifle to drop. And I got three. Sweet. Unfortunately I only got 14 rounds of 5.56, and they are all automatics. So it might be a bit before I can start using one. 5.56 will be a world drop for me now so I'm sure to find it. But the way it seems to work in this game is the ammo drops are heavily weighted toward the weapon you are using, which is another good design decision. I'll need more ammo to then start getting more ammo. But I have the rifle I wanted and am already learning mods for it. I might have been lucky, but cultists and the blood eagles carry it so I should find more if I hunt these down.

On the way to turn the quest in I was moving low down a road I've taken many times, always peaceful. This time there was a deathclaw. A pretty abrupt shift in how dangerous the world is, but it's offset by new weapons opening up. I think it will be a race to 50, with the gear always lagging a bit behind. Maybe the deathclaw was looking for the egg I stole.

I have a harder time recommending anything to start out with. Since the perks you get are kinda random, you have to just adapt and roll with what you're given.

Also, the game level scales, so playing with other people higher/lower level than you isn't a big deal anymore.
At least last time I played, December 2021 according to Steam.

I've never played 76.

I may give it a try but there are so many new games coming out this year I'd rather play first.

Yeah, that's totally understandable. Maybe if Stalker had come out I never would have gotten back on this Fallout kick I've been on. I had only spent 10 bucks on 76 in the summer sale. But I liked it enough at the start to buy the Pitt DLC just before the sale ended. Honestly I didn't know that I wanted it or needed it. But I decided I'd rather have it and not use it at half price than to decide I need it and pay full price haha. So I'm in to it for about 23. I've been impressed by the community so far too. Compared to other shooter sort of games I've played online, FO76 stands out. It's not a PvP game really, although it's there and some dig it. But overall it feels mostly like a co-op game without much co. Or just enough co, and take it as you want which is the sort of balance I like. I compared it to Forza 5 before and it's the same sort of mojo for me.




Yeah, that's very true. perk packs are all over the place. And what you wear and shoot will be dependent on what you find. I'll kind of go with the flow a bit through to 50. But I feel like I should pick a weapons path, and it was never a question. I'm a light armor, sneak, rifleman sort of player. Power Armor is for radiation, not combat, but we'll see how long I think that's true in 76. I knew which armor and weapons I wanted just from reading forums. What's open is the rifleman/commando conundrum. Got the gun now, but maybe it needs a receiver change. What weapons did you roll with wormfood?

About the scaling... I had read that if you enter a building instance after a higher level player had entered that it would scale to the first one through the door. But I guess they changed that right? Yeah, that's how it's been working but I only recently saw it in action when I started hooking up with other players in the same areas.

I looked for you Friday night but did not find you. I'll try again this week.

Concerning the perk cards, I am a well-oiled machine by this point. I have a perk card set for at least 3 or 4 different tactical situations.

I have about 3 or 4 different loadouts. I have the heavy weapon loadout so using the level 3 "Bear Arms" perk card is a must. I'd say about 70% of the time I'm using a heavy weapon (flame thrower, 40mm grenade launcher, plasma gatling gun, .50 cal machine gun, gauss gun, etc.).

The other 30% of the time I'm using a rifle, pistol or shotgun. I use VATS a lot with these weapons since it greatly increases their accuracy and since these are not rapid fire weapons they don't burn up my AP in an instant like the auto heavy weapons do.

Played 76 a lot yesterday, up to level 24 now. Still have not kicked the bucket. I wonder how long I can go without dying? That is a new side mission.

And yeah, commando is my choice. It didn't take long to start gathering ammunition. I roll with one level of Scrounger, so find enough 5.56 to support the weapon. I did a few runs through the lumber company to hunt handmade rifle drops. I've found only about 5 so far, and these resulted in semi-auto receiver mods when scrapped, so I have not been able to make many improvements to it yet. But so far it's lethal stock with a reflex sight. The handmade rifle is excellent, just what I was looking for. Recoil is very controllable, it works very well outside of VATS.

The enemy has stepped up their game, but this weapon has done the same for me. Once I get it modded up it will carry me for a long time. I plan to carry this and the Fixer, with the handmade as my carry rifle and the Fixer for clearing tight spaces and mobs. One shoots 5.56 and the other .45 so that should work out nicely indeed. My armor does feel like it is falling behind a bit, so that's something to work on. The Chinese stealth suit is my next goal there, with maybe secret service or scout armor down the line. Does weight affect stealth in 76 like it works in the previous games, or is it not a factor? I'm not so keen on the stealth suit aesthetics, but I love the features and it also has 1000 radiation protection which is like wearing a hazmat suit. Should serve me well for a long time until I can get the top suits. I sneak everywhere already, so this will all dovetail nicely indeed.

For build what I've done is invest at least three points in every SPECIAL while focusing on Perception, Agility, Intelligence and Luck. I plan to max Perception and Agility, those will be my main perk trees for stealth and weapons. But by having a few points in everything I can roll with a number of quality of life cards, striking a nice balance. Commando, Sneak and Gunsmith are all at 3. These are my core abilities, one to kill, one to survive and one to make my rifle as badass as possible.

One man army! That is some serious firepower. I'd like to find you one day and follow in your wake haha. Thanks for the reply, I was curious what you favored.

In my view I think the entire stealth aspect/approach has some merit when you are low level and don't want to engage too many enemies at once but I'd estimate and say that once you are about level 100 and above the entire stealth aspect goes out the window. I say this because the way the player events are structured it doesn't encourage stealth play at all. They are all "mow down waves of enemies" deals and the enemies always know where you are anyway. I personally use the Brotherhood Recon armor and it's fantastic. It's one of the top 10 rated armor sets in the game along with the Secret Service armor set.

I hear you, and don't doubt you have a great point. But I'll be light armor to the end. It's not a matter of optimal play, but one of roleplaying and doing what appeals to me. Heavy armor is not my jam. That doesn't mean I won't rock some power armor for certain missions or events I suppose. I'll be sure to have a nice set to use. But I'll rarely wear it I think. I have a mishmash of T-45 and raider pieces now, but they are stored and I have yet to try them on.

I'd say you can get by most of the time without using any power armor but there are a couple of events like "Radiation Rumble" and "Scorched Earth" where having power armor on is a HUGE benefit. Both of those events have dangerously high levels of radiation and the enemies are pretty tough.

Noted. I appreciate your insight as you've seen and done it all in 76 obviously. And any other tips or thoughts you want to share would be helpful.

Do you have a screenshot of your CAMP? Mine is pretty lame. But it's mine. A bed, a small water purifier, armor and weapons benches, a campfire for cooking, a stash box, a turret. That's all I've done so far. Quite utilitarian. I reckon it will be a while before I've unlocked enough plans to build a proper camp. One good thing about that Pitt DLC I didn't know if I wanted is it has a fusion core recharger which seems a nice gadget indeed. I won't need it, but I will build it I am sure. What's the deal with the shelter? I unlocked that through a quest, it gives you an underground space? Are you using that Panzer?

Can scrapping produce a weapon plan? Can I get the handmade rifle plan from scrapping, or will it only ever result in modification plans? I found a super mutant trader, named Grahm I think. He had the plan but it was 1900 caps which was too rich for my blood. Caps have been hard to come by, but now I am starting to see them in drops more often, and I have the perk that raises it by 33% so I'm slowly starting to amass some money. I have bought nothing at all so far (aside from small water purifier plans) just some fast travel now and then.

HA! My camp is purely practical with zero aesthetics so it's nothing to look at. Making the most awesome looking CAMP just isn't my priority so I just have the basic stuff like the armor and weapon benches as well as the chemistry station and a few of the kiosks where you can buff your attributes. Having said that, I have come across some player CAMPS that were very impressive to look at and it must have taken them dozens of hours to build it.

You can't get plans from scrapping unfortunately. You'll just have to save up the caps for it and when you are low level you will be quite cap poor for a while. It wasn't until I was around level 150 where the caps just kept rolling in with no problem.

OK, same. Some camps are fantastic. I should start checking their stores. Maybe someone will be selling the handmade plan on the cheap. It is probably like a yard sale, and you never know what you'll find or how insane the price may be (either way). I have yet to inspect a player's store.

Too bad we can't tempt Crane to give this a go and join the discussion. But I can't see dropping 1500 on a new PC just to play it. Well I can, but I understand others might not want to It would be cool to have another low level to talk about the game with. But the way the levels are rolling, it won't be all that long until I no longer am. I reckon by level 100 I can say I'm no longer a noob. I've averaged about 4 levels a day since I bought it a week ago, and while that pace will slow somewhat, I do feel like leveling is coming fast. I'm a statistics guy, and FO4 was around one level about every 4 hours. In FO76 it's been one every hour and a half so far. But levels do come faster at the start and I expect the ratio to converge over time. But if I start to do events I think that pace can be maintained probably. I'm in no hurry anyway, but it's fun to build it out and keep gaining new perks. I still have quite a few I want.

Maybe we can tempt wormfood in to giving another go. What level did you reach wormfood before you moved on?

Players lean heavily in to VATS and criticals. I sure did in FO4. But so far in 76 I am having a great time in free-aim, and use VATS when things get a little too spicy, like a ghoul mob rush. They say the Fixer has some serious kick to it, so we'll see when I get that weapon. Maybe I'll prefer VATS then.

This a very handy site for planning your build. I use it to see which perks will unlock on the next level up to plan ahead a bit


Nukes and Dragons FO76 Build Planner

I plan to go full commando, explosives, sneak and crafting. One thing I am debating is how far to go in commando. It works like this (and does for all weapons types with the respective perk category)

Full auto rifles get a damage boost from the Commando perk,as always. It is three ranks. First rank is +10%, but the second and third are +5%, for 20% total if you invest in all three. But then later at level 25 you can get Expert Commando, which works exactly the same, 10, 5 and 5. And at level 45 you can take Master Commando. So to get the full 60% increase it costs nine points. But what if I went 3 points in to Commando, but just one point in to both Expert and Master? That would mean +40% damage for a five-point investment, leaving four points free for something else. Is it worth four points for 20%? That will be the question.

I have a 3 star legendary Fixer but I don't use it very often. It's heavy (11 lbs) and it does indeed have a lot of kick so VATS is really a must for this rifle.


Concerning the player stores at their CAMPS, most of them have cheaper prices for things compared to the NPC vendors so definitely check those out when you can. Bear in mind that many of these players have been playing the game for a long time like me so they probably have all or almost all of the plans available in the game so what they have in their stores they will usually sell cheap since they want to get rid of it.

Oh one other tip which I don't think has been brought up yet.

Be careful about committing a crime and becoming "wanted". If you are Wanted that overrides the "pacifist" mode setting. Anyone can shoot and kill you when you are wanted.


Certain things like picking the lock on something at another player's camp will make you wanted. Also if you pick the lock on something at a workshop that has already been taken over by another player.

I bought this game on Steam sale last week.
Just got started.
When someone in this forum plays a 8 year old game and still have discussions about it in the forum I guess it is a sign of quality.

The initial launch of F76 8 years ago was a total disaster but through multiple huge content updates and patches the game was vastly improved.

Well, it's me. I talk about whatever game I'm on, endlessly. And that drives the discussion, or I hope it does. Look at Elite. That forum here is dead unless I'm playing, in which case the discussion picks back up because I post about it. Crazy.

But I am happy to know there's another noob! What's you name in the game Wigean? I'm ExitOversteer so look out for me. I hope you find it suits you, FO76. I'd be interested to know what you are up to and talk about whatever come to mind.

Just occurred to me that Wigean may be talking about FO4 since 76 came out five years ago.

R


Right. (I think)

Without reading the whole thread I need some clearifiction.

Are we talking Fallout 4, Fallout 4 + add-on or Fallout 76?

This thread started with Fallout 4, but I realise there could be some twists and turns somewhere hidden in the 42 pages?

This thread started with FO4, then added New Vegas and is now on 76. It's all in the thread title haha.

But yeah, FO4 is part of the discussion and a game I like a lot. The last couple of pages have been about 76 however.

In these pages is every perk I've taken in FO4, every point spent (except level 93 haha). I hope it helps!

Ah ok, that explains it. I think it's just the case that I FEEL like I've been playing FO76 for 8 years.

This definitely would not have been the case 10 years ago or further back when SimHQ's posting traffic was probably about 4 or 5 times more than what it is now.

Thank you for the added consumer information.

I will now go back to my room and contemplate if I will continue with F4 and be happy, or following this thead and be lured into buying F76 . (After the sales.)

Then we have Starfield and Stalker 2 coming up.

So many choices....

Yeah, maybe so. This is a forum populated mostly by former simmers and gamers, or so it seems. That's what brought us all together, but I reckon many no longer play anything, and even fewer choose to discuss it. It's why I come here, so I make the sort of threads I do because its the sort of thing I like to read. More of this would be great. Personally I don't care to watch videos to learn about a game. I want to read about it, see what features and challenges it has, the player's reasoning in making decisions and that sort of stuff. I feel I can learn so much more this way. Like how I wanted you to do a thread like this on Steel Division 2

There was a thread about Grand Tactician and someone posted a bit about it. I wanted to know more about what he thought of it and he said he would. That was the last post. Never heard another word. It is what it is. But here we have over 20 pages of Fallout and I think anyone who takes the time to read through it will gain a good understanding of exactly these things I mentioned. You know, so is Concentrated Fire a good perk? It's all in here.

Don't let me spend your money Wigean, and I'm happy to talk about any of the games. I can now say I've played them all. But yeah, if you get 76 that would be acceptable

Starfield I will definitely buy in September when that comes out. Don't hold your breath on Stalker 2 though. Steam shows a release date of December right now but I'm 95% sure that will not happen considering current geopolitical realities.

Oh I would have except that the game failed to grab me. I put about 10 hours into it but it just wasn't doing it for me. I eventually figured out that I should stop forcing myself to like the game.

Yes, I know. I wouldn't make a thread about a game I didn't like either. Totally understandable.

The question now becomes, is there anyone we can tempt to get in to 76 again? Are you currently playing this game Panzer?

LOL! I play it daily.

I wasn`t sure if FO fgames were something for me.
I just noticed the activity here and got interested.

I`m very happy that you keep posting DBond.
I hope you will continue, as it is valuable even if I or others don`t answer all your posts.
Just looking at my post count and member time just shows that I am not the most vocal person here.
If there was a count of how many threads I read, it would be something else.

Don't be too harsh on yourself. I think you are the second top poster from Norway on SimHQ. Only semmern is ahead!

Norway top two is nice.

I won't stop posting, god willing. I long ago gave up connecting perceived value to replies. I just say what I want to say and there ya go. Panzer and Crane though have both actively participated in this thread, and I'm thankful for that as they've given me a ton of good advice. Wormfood too, but he's not as active in this one.

I think all Fallout games are good. I recently returned to FO4 and dropped another 100 hours in it. But I reached the point where I was starting to feel like I had done it all so I started looking at 76. Panzer had recommended it several times. Gave it a punt and it's working out nicely. But yeah I got it for a tenner and it's back to full price now? Yeah 40 bucks American. Still worth it I think, but that's a personal choice.

Panzer, do have a 1st account? And glad to know you're still active. I'll keep looking for you.

Believe it or not I don't! Had I known from the beginning that I was going to drop over 3,000 hours into this game I would have signed up for F1 right away. I did look for you yesterday on the server I was on but didn't find you.

I was debating getting that account and maybe I will. But more likely I won't. It doesn't take all that long to fill your storage, which they conveniently sell a solution for.

Just about hit level 28. Now I'm getting in to some of the best perks. I want to make explosives a key part of my build, and it's odd how they separated it in to both intelligence (demolition expert) and perception (grenadier and fire in the hole). But I plan to take all three perks, even if I don't max them out.

I saw a level 2 who had just left the vault, and was tentatively making their way to Wayward. I had picked up a level 1 10mm auto pistol. I went back to my camp, which is close to vault 76 and repaired it to full condition then tracked down the new player. Dropped the auto pistol, 60 rounds of ammo and a couple stimpaks. She was so happy and it felt good to pay it forward a bit. A weapon like that and ammo would have been very nice straight out of the vault and that was cool.

I continue to try to improve my rifle. I did a few farming runs of the lumber company. The Free Radicals there drop the handmade. Got quite a few but still no powerful automatic receiver. I want that and the stinging magazine, which increases capacity and armor piercing. I learned the piercing mag, but that cuts capacity in half to 10, which is too low. The levels are coming so fast that I quickly outleveled my first level 15 handmade, so had to farm a while to get a level 25 automatic. All this means that there's not much point to heavily mod weapons before level 50, when weapons stop leveling. Why spend all those mats to be scrapping it in a few hours? But I do like a reflex sight, and I'll make a magazine when I learn the right one. I'd like to learn suppressor too of course. Just about doubled my caps last night and maybe its time to head off to Whitesprings, where I've yet to go, and find the handmade rifle plan at a vendor there. If I can build them and scrap them I'll learn all the mods quickly.

I need better armor.

I had asked earlier about good items to pick up. Some items have much better value to weight ratio. Pencils are good. No weight at all and each gives one lead. If you craft ballistic ammo these are great. Tin cans have lead in 76.

A couple of questions

In this build what are the SPECIAL numbers with a plus sign next to them? How are these builds using perk cards beyond the SPECIAL points spent? Does it come from gear or how does it come about?

Build

The other question I have is is there a way to have two perk arrangements preset to swap between them? Like could I have a combat build and a lockpicking/hacker/crafting build and avoid having to move individual perks in and out? Looking at the build I linked there are cards separated by double arrows which suggests this is what it is showing.

Thanks for sharing that great story Dbond about the level 2 player!


Concerning explosives, I use all three of those cards you mentioned and I use level 3 for each of them. Between the 40 mm grenade launcher, the Fat Boy and hand thrown grenades I use explosives quite a bit in my day to day playing. I used to make mines for a while but stopped because there's a very annoying game design flaw in my opinion. The mines you lay can be set off by other human players getting too close to them so you end up wasting a bunch of mines. You are also limited to laying 2 mines at a time. If you lay a third one, one of the previously laid mines goes off.

That's good to know. No Hansel and Gretel trails leading to my position. Did a lot of that in FO4, but I guess not really more than two all that often. I had noticed that I never encounter armed mines just laying around like in FO4. Maybe I will when I go east? I've found a few set traps, but no armed mines so far. I'm thinking its another design decision to limit player frustration, but maybe I just haven't been to the right locations yet. Does VATS spot armed mines in 76?

Yeah, I like explosives in this game too. Lots of fun in Fallout.

Just went to log in and server's down for maintenance. New patch?

I also see there's an Atlantic City thing coming? That's like next door to me. That would be the first time I've played a game set near my home I think. What's the scoop with that?

I think it's a case that not many players use mines and if they do, they never stick around for very long because they are set off either by another human player or an AI enemy before too long.


VATS does indeed lock on to mines and grenades for that matter.

Yeah, there's a big patch today which I believe will be adding the Atlantic City "expedition". The expeditions work just like the events but they are player-initiated events instead of automatically showing up every 20 minutes. The expeditions are somewhat story based and have a limit of 4 players.

Thanks PM. I don't yet know what expeditions are. But it sounds fun to light up ghouls on the boardwalk. I'll have a look in to what this entails.

I've hit about level 33 now in FO76. At the point where I need to plan out my build so I spend the SPECIAL points in the right places to end up with the perks I want. I can respec anyway so not a big deal to get it wrong. But I'd rather just get it right. Perception and agility are the key attributes, probably max them out and distribute the rest. Many players go heavy in to luck for criticals, but so far I'm not finding it all that necessary. Criticals are great in Fallout, but I've played this far while completely ignoring them. You have to build up your critical meter, then command a critical to fire once the meter is full. Most of my shooting is free aim anyway. Controlled bursts. The handmade rifle has good recoil and high cyclic rate.

I said there was little sense in modifying my weapon too much since I would be scrapping it shortly after I outleveled it, but I didn't follow that advice. Swapped to a focused automatic receiver, swift magazine, true stock, reflex sight and a suppressor. The next tier for this weapon is level 35 when I'll need to build another one. I've gone Expert Commando and Tank Killer and this rifle is very effective. Short bursts take out ghouls and scorched with no issue. The suppressor has made it all more survivable. The mobs have a harder time finding me now. But I do miss that wonderful crack from the unsuppressed handmade. It sounds great. I have lost some accuracy at range. More dispersion with the suppressor it seems, but it's fine. A tradeoff, accuracy versus survivability. With ammo not an issue at this stage I can live with it for the ability to avoid pitched battle which is more likely without a suppressor as the mobs home in on the sound of the gunfire.

I finally went to Whitesprings and bought the handmade rifle plan. 1700 caps was a steep price to pay. But it means I can craft the weapon and scrap it for mods. But then I quickly ran out of copper and springs. It's a grind.

Two missions I've come across that I don't like. One is the one to join the fire department or something. You have to do a 'physical exam' which is running a course through the ruins and mutants. I failed. Need to watch a video I guess and see where I'm supposed to go. The other one was at Whitesprings, helping the chef make stew. Ugg. Burned the stew and won't be doing that again.

LOL! Ah yes, Esme the French chef. How did she end up in post -apocalyptic West Virginia anyway??

The XP reward from that event isn't much anyway and the main reward you get is 50% less hunger and thirst for an hour. Big deal.

I was wrong about the patch yesterday. It does NOT include the Atlantic City expedition. That will come out later in August. The patch yesterday was just bug fixes and improvements.

Yeah, I read the patch notes and not much seems to affect me. Atlantic City will have to wait.

Two questions. One is, there are items in the Atomic store I don't want that are free. Problem is, they are always marked as free so I duly click it to see what is new. But it's just the thing I don't want. Any way to mark them as seen so the New marker goes away?

And what's the deal with the scoreboard? Are there some tactics here or things I should know? Or is it just redeem as they go? Don't care about stuff like gold weapon skins, but the atoms and money and stuff is good. What is the lunch box for, what does it do? It says open near friends.

I had asked earlier what I should do with legendaries. Deposit them in the machines at train stations to convert them to scrip i the right answer. As I understand it, that scrip will later be used to roll legendary weapons.

As far as I know there's no way to mark them as seen but I would just claim all the free stuff and if you don't want it you can usually sell it to an NPC vendor.

The scoreboard shows you the rewards you get as you complete challenges and rank up to the next level. There are daily and weekly challenges that you can look up from the main menu. The lunchbox gives you 25% bonus to XP for an hour plus a random buff like slower thirst and hunger. You can also use up to 4 lunchboxes so that you will have a 100% bonus to your XP progression for an hour. When you open a lunchbox near other players they also get the benefits from it.


As for the legendary weapons and armor, when I was lower level I would keep most of it until I decided which gear I wanted to use. Now that I'm higher level I just get rid of it all for scrips because I pretty much have all the legendary gear I want.

Thanks for all the answers PM. Very helpful.

By the way, I think perk packs are tuned to decipher all the perks you'll never use and then hand you four of them.

LOL! It does seem that way. The good thing is that you can scrap unwanted perk cards for perk coins which you then use to level up the Legendary cards.

Good to know, thanks. Looks like the answer to the question I asked earlier, about the +5 SPECIAL numbers in the build link I posted, is they are from legendary perks, some of which grant +5 SPECIAL points it seems.

I had a go at planning out my build. I've left out all the crafting, lockpicking and hacker cards aside from Gunsmith which reduces weapon degradation so needs to be played. It sure is a pain to have to swap these in and out according to the task at hand. I need two sets of perks to swap between. So this is more what I envision walking around with. Any thoughts?

Possible build

Once I get legendary perks I can add stuff, and probably all the crafting and lockpicking stuff I left out! Commando, explosives, sneak are the core parts of the build. Ricochet is said to work a lot better in 76 than FO4. But I don't really know. If it fires often it could be a great perk to carry. Less damage taken and more damage dealt. And everyone one that fires counts as a tag for team events. But this is just theoretical so I have a roadmap for how to spend my SPECIAL points. Eventually I'll have all perks I reckon, so can experiment, test and swap as desired.

I see now I left one point unused in perception. Probably take Master or Expert Commando to rank 2 for another 5% of damage with automatics.

You don't really need to plan out your build. It's easy and simple to swap you stats and perks around. It's not an issue until you're maxxed at 50 and need to consider doing raids and expeditions. Until then, just roll with what's available and don't sweat it so much.

Yup, that's exactly it. I have all of the SPECIAL legendary cards equipped except for intelligence and they are all at level 3 so I get that +5 bonus. My other legendary card is called "What Rads?" and it gives me +300 radiation protection plus it removes rads. I can't remember the exact rate but it means that in the game I can essentially shrug off any and all radiation hazards with the exception of those two events I mentioned previously. I still have to wear my power armor in those events.

You don't know me very well haha. Of course I need to plan it out. What's this crazy talk?

But yeah, you're right, but that's not how I roll.

Have you guys used Ricochet? I'll use it if it procs often. I like perks like this, if they work often enough to be worth it.

If you have Ricochet at level 3 you have an 18% chance of deflecting ranged attacks coming at you. I'll sometimes use it when I'm not wearing my power armor but I often swap it out for my level 3 card that gives me a 35% chance of replenishing my action points if I get a kill in VATS. So when I'm using VATS I'm not using Ricochet! IMHO, Ricochet is only worth using if you have it at level 3.

Thanks. If it works often enough I'm good. I use FO4s Mysterious Stranger as my barometer. In about 400 hours, and thousands of VATS attacks, that perk fired four times. Four! So incredibly not worth it.

But of course I looked up opinions on how it works and the replies were quite positive indeed with how often if fires in 76. But as wormfood alluded to, in 76 I can just try it. It's a level 38 perk so I have to wait five levels to get there. Maybe my next perk pack will finally shine on me.

Doesn't the Mysterious Stranger perk just use a guy who has a pistol? That can't be very much damage it inflicts on enemies. I've never bothered to use that perk.

It's a .44 revolver yes, and when he does appear, which for me was super rare obviously in 4, he seals the deal. Doesn't matter what you're up against or how much damage you've done. if Mysterious Stranger shows up the fight is over. Problem is, he doesn't show up. Worked better in 3 and NV for sure. I only dropped one point into the perk in FO4, but if I had spent more points and tripled its proc rate that would have been 12 times and even more not worth it for three points instead of one!

Ah ok. I didn't know the Mysterious Stranger had a "one shot one kill" sidearm. Good to know! I've seen a couple of players in F76 use that perk but it's VERY rare.

I don't know the numbers in FO4, but either in FO3 or NV his damage was something like 10,000 per shot. That will get it done tout suite.

Level 35 now, which couldn't come fast enough. Weapon levels have 10-level spreads. The Handmade Rifle for example can be level 15, 25, 35 or 45. So when I was at level 33 I was finding it slipping as the enemies auto-level and I'm still shouldering a level 25 weapon. So you need to get to the next tier to bring your weapon in line with the game world. I could still kill fine, but it took more and more shots to do so. Had a mission to go to the dam, and used up a quarter of my rifle's condition just clearing the outside. More shots, more degradation. So I left before entering the facility, intending to return once I built a new rifle. In anticipation of the need to craft an entirely new weapon (mods cannot be removed and used on another weapon) I had been focusing on picking up the right loot so I'd have the mats to modify the weapon in one go. Need a cool skin for it. And a name. Got to name my rifle.




I've been hard farming the handmade at the lumber company and have most of the mods opened now, but still no powerful auto receiver or stinging magazine. Focused receiver is good, but I want the armor-piercing of the magazine. Should just take scrapping a few more drops to get it.

One thing that has taken me by surprise with 76 is how much content there is to be done solo. It's really a complete single player game set in a multiplayer world. I had had a quest on the books for a while, In to the Mystery. Went there last night and it's crazy how this explodes in to more content. I expected to go there. clear the place and get whatever I was after. Instead it drills deeper and deeper, not only this location, but it triggers a long quest chain. The game is full of stuff like this. I certainly expected 76 to be more centered around MP stuff, and the players left to their own devices after completing some fluff at the start. But its not that at all.

Yeah, that's how I would describe it as well. In fact, I like this new Fallout setup so much that I don't think I could ever go back to a purely single player experience like what you have in Fallout 4.

Just to give you an idea of how disastrous the initial launch was for F76, NONE of the single player missions you have been doing were part of the game. Those were added later. The original vision for F76 was to be a purely multiplayer experience with the events and such. There weren't even any NPC's in the game at launch!

Interesting, and maybe that's part of why I am surprised. FO76 WAS the thing I expected it to be now, but no longer is. I may have known this, and that's what made me expect it to be a certain way. Well, they made a good choice to add this stuff then, because it got its hooks in me, and not sure I'd like it as much if I were limited to events and that sort of thing.

I really like doing my own thing, and then randomly and organically joining other players along the way. Last night I was in Charlestown. A pair of level 19s were obviously friends and playing together, following one another through the rubble. I kept a little distance, moving along with them, taking the high ground. I let them initiate combat with the ghouls and mutants so they would get their XP. But if they got swarmed I was right there to shoot the enemy off them. Like a guardian angel.

After we had moved through the town I saluted and continued on my way.

Very cool story indeed. It's stuff like that which makes this game so enjoyable. By the way, what outfit are you wearing? You're not still wearing the Vault 76 jumpsuit right? LOL

I'm wearing the vault 76 suit with the party hat

For the first 30 levels I wore the pastor's vestments with ranger hat. Now I'm sporting the surveyor's outfit with the same ranger hat.

One thing that irks me about weapon modding in 76 and probably fallout in general is longer barrels have less recoil in the real world, not more. Fallout says the opposite.

Panzer asked what duds I have on. I found something I like finally, the Drifter Outfit. So this is what I am wearing now. Now you know who you're looking for haha.

Very cool outfit Dbond! I'll look for you online tonight. There are two outfits that I alternate between. The Nuka World cowboy duster with sheriff hat and the Confederate soldier uniform with kepi.

Do you recall how or where you found the duster? That was my jam in both FO3 and New Vegas. Lucas Simms made an impression on me I guess

1. You can buy the plans for the duster from a human vendor. You may also find a human vendor selling the actual apparel items. I've seen quite a few human vendors selling apparel items.

2. You can be awarded the plans for the duster and sheriff hat by doing some of the Nuka World events like "Spin the Wheel" and the one where you do the shoot out against robots in the mock up Old West town. I can't recall what it's called right now.

OK thanks, I'll keep an eye out for it. But this Drifter outfit has the right mix of cobbled and cool. Gloves yeah. I wonder what I have on my feet. I should have a look. If it is boots we are good to go. It was another good design decision to make apparel wearable over armor and to make all of them weigh .1

It lets the players experiment and get the look they want.

I did a couple more lumber company farming runs and the drops did not shine on me, but I did manage to learn the powerful automatic receiver for the handmade, though I have not installed one yet. I might stick with focused which is less damage but better accuracy. Still no stinging magazine dammit. It will be the last unlock. Now some scraps are producing no plan at all. What a disappointment when that happens.

Do you sell plans and weapons at your camp Panzer? Any hot deals?

My store inventory is pretty much all plans and recipes. I have a good mix of armor, weapon, chem and furniture plans as well as some food recipes. I've noticed that my armor plans usually sell quickly so it may be time for me to up the prices on those.

If I ever see it I'll stop by to browse for sure. I've been doing more of this and you never know what you'll find, like plans for free. Worth a couple minutes to stop by and have a look.

I farmed the lumber company again a few times last night and finally scrapped out a powerful automatic receiver plan, but still no stinging magazine. For now I'll stick with focused receiver. Less damage but better accuracy. Stinging will probably be the last plan to appear. The game would rather give me no plan from scrapping than the magazine I want it seems.

And I think I'm at the level now where I'll start to find modded weapons, so maybe I'll get lucky with a drop.

Sounds good! My camp is right next to the Pumpkin house in the Northeastern part of the map.

I have yet to venture up that way. I've hardly crossed the divide aside from going to top of the world and whitespring. But I'm starting to get more quests in that area so maybe it's time to head out in my new duds and explore. I invited a female settler to hang out at my camp to play guitar for some ambience and she gave me a mission called Lucky Find. I wonder if there's a good weapon or armor waiting there for me? But it is far to the east near where players are detonating their nukes all the time. As I pass level 40 I think I need to be going to these places and seeing what's out there. No rush.

I'm glad you brought this up since it will give me another opportunity to share my F76 knowledge!

Certain events require the launching of a nuke. There are three of them:

Scorched Earth - located on the far southeastern corner of the map (SE of Watoga).
Seismic Activity - located just NE of Nuka World.
A Colossal Problem - located near the Monongah Mine.

Thanks. I've not done any public events like those. I do the stuff like Tea Time, Leader of the Pack and Grafton Parade Day or whatever it is called. They say don't worry about it, no drawbacks to dying in these, and plenty to gain. But I've yet to die and want to see how long I can keep that going. Any takers? Placing bets. I'm level 37 now. What level will DBond die? Three to one odds on 38

Speaking of dying, the ONLY thing you have to worry about is if you are carrying any "Junk" items. Those are dropped when you die and they can potentially be picked up by other players.

Yes indeed. Once I break the seal I won't care any longer, but this is now a personal challenge for me. I only get one shot at not dying. I don't expect anyone else to care, but these little goals propel me.

Fallout 76: Spring Collector is the version I play. Can't keep enough springs on hand it seems. Repairing, crafting and modding the weapons uses a lot of springs.

Level 42 now, and a few comments.

I'm disappointed in grenade damage. They seem underpowered in 76, compared to previous games. I have a couple ranks of Demo Expert and still my hand grenades do less than 200 damage. All they do is make the enemies mad. Makes me question whether to go deeper in to this perk. But I love explosives so I'll have to look at maybe crafting better ones. I have the +100% blast radius and have Fire in the Hole now too for the throwing arc and improved range. which I great. I just need to boost my explosive damage.

Another thing is I need to learn how to roll legendaries. Any tips? I have some scrip, but only about 200 or so. At level 45 I will be making my final version of the Handmade Rifle, and I'll want to start attempting to apply legendary effects to it. I now have learned all but like six of the Handmade mods, but still no stinging mag. Game's trolling me. I did swap the focused receiver to a powerful auto to help make up the slipping gap as my level 35 rifle gets farther behind. It's an extra 5 base damage per shot, which isn't much. But it fires fast and that extra damage adds up I reckon. It does make the rifle heavier and reduces accuracy slightly, but not enough to matter. With such high Perception (I'm at 14 currently) VATS accuracy is not a problem and it's not noticed in free aim.

I took three ranks of Ricochet and it's already firing, so this looks worth it. There are few perks that improve damage output and survivability at the same time. Plus it makes a ricochet sound when it procs. Cool perk. And like I mentioned earlier any time it hits it tags the enemy for team events. In order to take these ranks I had to drop more points in to Luck, and I hope that pays off with better drops as I approach level 50. It has made a massive difference in the condition of weapon drops already. Now I need to start finding legendaries in common drops, not just as quest rewards.

I mentioned the Lucky Find ally quest I had from my camp follower. Went there and got a really nice mutant slayer mini-gun, but I don't use mini-guns or any heavy weapon so I turned it in to scrip. I now have Beckett in the camp to do his quest line, but once done I'll try to do more of these Lucky Find quests. I would guess they work like radiant quests in Fallout 4?

Both springs and screws are in short supply in the game world. I very often ran out of both when I was lower level and I was modding and crafting weapons. One good source for screws are desktop fans. You get one screw for each fan you scrap. There's even an inside joke from one of the NPC's where she mentions "why would anyone want to be carrying around fans?".

I'm glad you are getting good results with the ricochet card. I use the level 3 card all the time and that 18% deflect chance triggers more often that you would expect.

Concerning rolling legendaries, it's pretty straight forward. You have to roll all three traits at the same time. Unfortunately you can't keep ONE trait that you really like and then just roll two. You just have to keep rolling all three until you get a combo that you find acceptable.

Up to level 48 now. So just two SPECIAL points left to spend, and at 50 weapons stop leveling, so that's the point at which any drop can be end-game, and I can then get back to doing the main quest. I've rather been off doing other stuff, in anticipation that any good drops or mission rewards should wait until 50 so I don't regret getting one I really like only to have to drop it because it has been outleveled. There's plenty to do in this game off track.

I made a new Handmade rifle at level 45, fully tricked out with my preferred mods. It's quite effective and I feel like I'm well armed. The rifle has 20% armor piercing from the stinging magazine, plus more from Tank Killer perk, and is doing the business so far. Maybe my armor still lags behind a bit. And we'll have to see who the pool winner was because I died. Whoever had level 45 is the winner. I had made the new rifle and decided not to add a suppressor right away since not doing so gives the rifle better range and sounds great. I was crossing the divide and came across a floater. I opened fire from long range but didn't kill it outright, and it came for me. With five friends. Two were the fire floaters and they have good range and hit hard. I got boxed in and down I went. But that was a good run to survive so long haha.

I named my rifle Poison Whiskey, and I built a level 45 10mm auto pistol for a secondary, called Snakebite. These two weapons cover me, and I use the pistol for trash mobs like mole rats and radroaches, and it's very effective against ghouls and scorched as well. This way ammo consumption is split, and weapon degradation too, which is something I've found to be problematic. This main issue is I repair my weapons so often, and the materials cost is steep, especially in springs and screws. So much so that I'm always running low, can't build my stocks. So I'm now running two ranks of Luck of the Draw, which grants a chance that any shot you take will repair your weapon a little. That is a massive help and now the weapons sort of maintain themselves.

I can do that because I've decided not to spec in to criticals, which frees up a few Luck points. Criticals are meta, they hit hard and never miss. But I don't use VATS much, and when I do I never think to shoot off criticals (you have to hit space). I still get critical meter building and can shoot them off, but no perks to increase their rate or damage. But I can always respec down the line if I decide to.

My remaining two SPECIAL points will be in Agility, for the Adrenaline perk, which grants increasing damage for 30 seconds for each kill, and each kill resets the timer. So it's the sort of perk that pays off in the heaviest combat situations.

One cool thing about FO76 is any shots you take in photo mode get used for your loading screens. It's a neat touch and in a sense the loading screens give you a snapshot history of your time in the game. Pretty cool.

Nice screenshot DBond and yeah, I use a level 3 Adrenaline perk card. That card really shines in big events where you are fighting large groups of enemies. Adding up to 45% extra damage to whichever weapon you are using is a huge deal.

Thanks. I had missed your other post since the site is so slow today. Took me that hour just to get my post posted haha.

About the legendaries.... I bought the modules, but don't have the core. Is the only way to get those doing public events?

So when I roll my weapon the legendary effect is random? If so I guess you'd want to roll legendary first before putting other modifications on. I want something like anti-armor or two-shot, lower AP cost. Don't care about anti-mutant and a bunch of other ones. Is it simply down to RNG?

When I went to the Rusty Pick I bought a legendary ranged, but got a missile launcher which I turned right around and scrapped in the machine. Is everything there just RNG?

You can buy cores at the Rusty Pick with script and you also get them from many events as rewards.

Really, I've missed that twice then. Free travel there so I'll check it out. Thanks.

The legendary effect I get is random RNG? I need to look in to how to roll all three stars at the same time. But I'm fine with level 1 for now I reckon. Yeah, I have little idea how this works yet. And honestly I've not needed more hitting power, but I've two levels to go for the rifle to recede. Right now it rips up super mutants in half a mag or less and that's fine. With 5.56 plentiful and the weapons fixing themselves it's in a good place. Since going auto pistol though I've run out of 10mm. She's hungry.

Did you do the Nukashine quest Panzer? After your bender it spawns you in some random place around the map. For me it was in a tree house on the east side of the map, where I had yet to go since that's where the baddies are. But here it worked out great because I could now discover a few fast travel locations there to save the long trek. The only spots I have yet to go are the far northeast corner but that is next. I am looking now for my second camp location, and it makes sense to have one on each side of the divide I reckon. Yours is up there right? Northeast corner?

This thread has made me curious.

Are you guys playing Fallout 76 standalone now, or with add-ons?

I am itching to add it to my collection.

Oh yes, I did do the nukashine quest as well as every other single quest in the game. I don't quite remember though where I ended up after the hangover. That was a good 3 years ago or so when I did that mission!


If you see a landmark near the Northeast corner of the map called "Pumpkin House" that's where my CAMP is.

It's a persistent online world so all additional content/DLC's are automatically downloaded in Steam.

Ok. Thanks.

I`ll go and buy it now.

Yay!

Thanks for the replies Panzer, always very helpful.

I'm stoked Wigean is going to jump on board. I hope you like it and have a lot of questions and stuff so we can talk about it!

With level 50 fast approaching -- I should hit it tonight -- I have my first Legendary perk coming. I am pretty sure I'll take master infiltrator, but wanted to ask Panzer, or anyone else who has played FO76, if they would have a different recommendation, and why.

Master Infiltrator, which I just discovered, replaces all your lockpicking and hacking cards so you can free those slots and avoid having to perk-swap. This perk-swapping was giving me angst, and here is the perfect solution. But maybe there's a better first legendary so I'm just hunting for opinions.

I also like Follow Through and the SPECIAL boosting ones.

Master Infiltrator was in fact the very first legendary card I used, it was just such a huge advantage in being able to pick any and all locks in the game especially when you are still a relatively low level character. My next legendary perks were all of the SPECIAL ones so I could boost them with an additional 5 points each. After that I got the "What Rads?" legendary card which is used all the time now. I essentially can ignore radiation 95% of the time.

Thanks, that is the same path I plan to take, except maybe Whats Rads, although that is a good pick.

About Wigean's DLC questions. Panzer's got it right. All the expansions and updates are just automatically integrated at no charge. However, there is the Pitt DLC that is not included. I doubt anyone would call it essential. But if you're a power armor user the DLC does have a power core recharger which would be quite useful indeed. I bought this DLC a couple days after getting started. It was still on sale and as I said then, I'd rather not need it at half price than want it at full price, or something lol. And there is also the subscription service call 1st. It's US $13 per month which isn't cheap. It has a lot of advantages, not least of which is unlimited storage. You also get more free stuff and free currency on a regular basis. You can subscribe monthly or yearly for a bit of a break on the price. I'm considering taking a look at this, at least for a month. I never do stuff like this, but I'd like to check it out and get some of the freebies. Like on the scoreboard, I have some claims coming where the 1st membership is paying bullion and other things I will find hard to get at my level.

And that level is 50! Yeah, I made it. 90 hours to level 50. And that's 90 hours in a little more than two weeks, so I've been mainlining 76. Level 50 is when gear stops leveling and I have all my SPECIAL points. And I did take Master Infiltrator as my first legendary perk which instantly freed up five perk slots (or puts an end to perk swapping for the less lazy).

Now that I'm 50 I'll go back to the Rusty Pick in case this is level locked, but when I checked yesterday there were no cores for sale there. What the purveyor had for sale was legendary modules, 500 of some sort of scrap, and then one star, two star and three star legendaries. Like ranged, melee, energy and so on. When I click one of these I don't get a core, I get a really nice weapon. I've done it twice (for 50 scrip) and got a missile launcher and a radium rifle (semi auto), neither of which fit my build. There is nothing in his list that says core. What am I missing or doing wrong? Do cores only appear at level 50? I hope so. But I must be missing something obvious.

I want to get some underarmor. I wonder which one would be the best fit for me? And how to get it?

Oh yeah, and I waited too long to start sharing perks with my teammates, but I'm doing it now. Are there any perks you should not share since it would foul up someone's build? Which shared perks are frowned upon? I've been mixing it up and have shared Thru-hiker, adrenaline, good with salt and a couple more.

Don't share any of the perks that take away RADS since many players use mutations and those mutations require that they have a certain level of RADS in order to be effective. I share the "Action Boy" perk which increases the rate at which action points replenish.

I have just started and I am scratching the surface of the game.
Pretty steep learning curve as I have no previous experience from earlier Fallout games.
I have got some perk cards, boiled some water and made me a ribeye steak.
I have crafted a pistol as well.
Guess the first missions are tutorials.

So now my mission is to walk to Morgantown Airport and investigate there.
But I am out of ammo and need some better weapons.
So I guess the main mission now is to build a character that is strong and also get weapons to be capable to handle what`s ahead.

Then there is some language problems. Not that it is something major, just the flow and casual way the game talks to me.

I just looked on the official Bethesda website and it says the game supports the following languages besides English:

French
German
Italian
Spanish
Japanese

Sorry, no Norwegian.