SallyNasty's Game Club - Fallout 4! Open format for the month of January! Game on!

After taking some time to find components and mod up my weapons and armor, I finally cleared the raiders out of Lexington and wandered all over my little corner of the map. I have a couple more things I want to do, and then it's time to... gulp... cross the highway. I can't decide if I want to go south or east, though.

SallyNasty wrote:

I need to really do some main questing but I just can't stop exploring.

When I finally stopped exploring I began crafting, deconstructing, building, and planning trade routes. I then began answering calls to defend settlements. I burned out after 75 hours having barely touched the main quest. I did regret my chosen path as I wanted to uncover the story and see the areas that appeared in the previews. I could not look at Fallout 4 any longer, though. If I return I would quest first and undertake everything else as a secondary interest, if not discard some altogether. I wanted to see the story. I was too easily distracted.

I need to realize I have a drop off point and that I cannot walk the completionist path. It costs me many a game.

This thread convinced me to give the game another go. I dropped it very shortly after launch as it was a buggy mess for me and made me not want to go back. Seems to be working alright so far. I'm going to have to force myself into mostly following the main path or I'll never finish though. I'm easily distracted.

Dang, I inderstand why but having mods disable achievements is a bummer. I only loaded up the ones that fixed bugs and showed dialog options.

Got way ahead of myself last night, felt properly underpowered and died a fair few times - am working on modding some armour / weapons before heading down to Lexington and a mission to the south again. Have picked up the armour / weapon modder perks and life giver to help with survivability - with his charisma build, Huck Fuzz lacking in those other depts a little.

Also an underwater side mission - swimming = awful.

I really need to put some time in with the main quest but all these options keep popping up to explore!

Combat is particularly annoying because a 6 CHA is nearly required to make the game not a pain in the butt, which means you need the crafting perks to keep up with damage output and resistance.

obirano wrote:

Dang, I inderstand why but having mods disable achievements is a bummer. I only loaded up the ones that fixed bugs and showed dialog options.

But having the improved in-game experience is way better than chasing cheevs, right? Right??

Freyja wrote:

Combat is particularly annoying because a 6 CHA is nearly required to make the game not a pain in the butt, which means you need the crafting perks to keep up with damage output and resistance.

What do you get for 6 CHA?

Ability to pass speech checks. You can find Charisma gear early on by scavenging so if you wear them during conversations you can hit 8 or 9 charisma easily, which is enough to pass pretty much every speech check in the game.

Also the Local Leader perk, which you need to make supply routes and vendors at settlements.

I just fail speech checks and shoot people.

benign1 wrote:
obirano wrote:

Dang, I inderstand why but having mods disable achievements is a bummer. I only loaded up the ones that fixed bugs and showed dialog options.

But having the improved in-game experience is way better than chasing cheevs, right? Right?? :cry:

Sure. I didn't turn those mods off.

Spoiler:

I totally did.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I just fail speech checks and shoot people. :)

I'm aiming for charisma 10 and intimidation so I can just get people to shoot each other.

Later on anyhow. +1 to charisma with the You're Special book just added, takes me to 9... tbc.

Full updated character journal is here. Below is a couple recent entries I thought were kind of funny.

Character journal wrote:

December 6, 2287

...

[x] Thicket Excavations: a guy said he needed to drain the quarry so he could search for "salvage". Sure. Anyway, I helped him fix the pump -- pissed off some mirelurks in the process -- but I guess it's going to take a while to drain. I should check back later.

...

December 9, 2287

I went back to Thicket Excavations. Sully had turned it into a raider camp. Quick too: it's only been 3 days and he had 2 dozen men, shacks, even domesticated Mirelurks. Should have realized he was shady.

I found Sully at the bottom. Weirdo was running around in othing but his underwear, skull facepaint, and that ridiculous hat of his.

WARNING: Disabling a Mr. Gutsy's arms so it can't shoot at you is a very bad idea. It will chase you down and detonate its core. I barely escaped.

I remember that quest! There's a terminal in that area with some of Sully's notes on it that spell out his intentions and from his dialogue I got the whiff that he was up to no good. I probably should have just capped him right there but maybe I won't.

I started to do that quest, and the water was too irradiated. Guess I can skip it now.

Freyja wrote:

I remember that quest! There's a terminal in that area with some of Sully's notes on it that spell out his intentions and from his dialogue I got the whiff that he was up to no good. I probably should have just capped him right there but maybe I won't.

I found that terminal after I shot him. o_o

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I started to do that quest, and the water was too irradiated. Guess I can skip it now. :)

I waited until I could get level 1 of Aqua Girl. Trying before then seemed pointless. There's nothing really interesting down there though, so it's skippable. Some junk. some fenced in mirelurks. That's about it.

one of the defenders was a Legendary raider, but those are random spawns, so not a guarantee.

The Mr Gutsy thing was in a different area afterward. That was a fun surprise. "Huh, it only has one arm. guess I'll disable it... wait, why is it glowing? ... ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrap"

Codsworth is such a wet blanket. Dogmeat doesn't care if I cap a scavenger who aggro'd on me and steal their stuff.

After you bring Preston's group of survivors to Sanctuary Hills, if you talk to Mama Murphy she'll ask for chems. Bring her some and you'll get some XP and a prophecy. Then build her chair. Every 8 hours or so of game time she'll ask for a different kind of chem and you can repeat the process.

Look, Codsy, they were Red in VATS. I don't know what you expect from me.

If there weren't colored outlines in VATS, would you be more likely to approach cautiously in case they're peaceful or to shoot first in case they're hostile?

I've missed it. How do I switch to previous companions? Do I have to go find them again?

ClockworkHouse wrote:

If there weren't colored outlines in VATS, would you be more likely to approach cautiously in case they're peaceful or to shoot first in case they're hostile?

I'd love a version of the game with this. And chances to talk to people, where the bullets don't start flying the second you are in firing range.

I kinda bounce back and forth between just blasting anything hostile in the face (which is what the game encourages) vs trying to stay out of aggro range if I see a gun fight in progress, or just a group of people from a hostile faction just chillin.

If the mechanics supported it better I'd be much more diplomatic.

Ahh. First game crash last night, thought I'd do some exploring directly south of the Vault... A skirmish, bit of scavenging, and found trader... Took an age trading spare weapons and gear for her leather and cloth shipments... exited trade, tried to go back in but a random walked past and game froze on their trade options instead... No alternative but to load up the last save back at the vault. Grrr... 20-30 mins wasted.

Not that it helps you get this particular 30 minutes back, but there is a quick save feature that's really useful.

Also, unrelated aside from being part of the save system, the game will make an exit save when you quit. No "unsaved data will be lost" dialog. No need to make a manual save first.

Garden Ninja wrote:

Not that it helps you get this particular 30 minutes back, but there is a quick save feature that's really useful.

Yeah, I'll be using that a little more from now on.

Have managed to get in a couple decent Fallout 4 sessions this week...

Corvega Assembly Plant cleared. Preston onboard as my companion. Power Armour flaming go-fasta paint job sprayed. Super duper rifle with a name so long I can't remember it has been crafted. Champion arm purchased. Bowler hat and spectacles donned. Next session will be heading south.

Still bouncing around Sanctuary / Concord. Spent a good bit of time cleaning up the rubble in Sanctuary and planting some crops. Ventured out towards Tenpines and ran into Sully at the quarry, handled that mini quest. This game is starting a bit slow, and a good bit of that is that I am somewhat overwhelmed by the (poor) interface. There are simply so many things that are not / are poorly explained in the interface. I have figured some out and found some guides online for others, but the lack of a true manual (even in PDF) is pretty disappointing.

Are there any sites out there at the level of the UESP Wiki for Oblivion/Skyrim that the group can recommend? I don't necessarily want a walkthrough or quest guide, but I would like to know how to do things and what the various icons that appear in my HUD are (icons on the compass, little icons in the lower-right corner, etc).

I am not in love with weight limits.

I've kinda washed up on crafting as the main gameplay loop for this one. I loot an area for supplies so that I can craft better stuff so that I can go into new areas to loot them for supplies. I've scraped together a full set of pocketed studded leather armor, a nice 10mm pistol, and a decent sniper rifle. I've also started upgrading my power armor, although because it's breakable I've been reluctant to actually take it out and use it.

The main annoyance, like Sally said, are carry limits. I'm sure you can mod them out, but I'm trying to play the game vanilla. I spend most of my time in the game trucking my stuff back to the Red Rocket so that I can scrap it and go back to where I was. I need to start remembering that I can scrap weapons at any crafting table, but I'm always a little annoyed when I'm only half-finished looting an area and can't carry anything else.

Ha, we are playing exactly the same.