Fallout: 76 Catch-All

No, the thing about leaving months late was added to account for new players. The Overseer was the first to leave and she left during the party the night before reclamation day. At launch you were only half a day or so behind her when you left the vault.

I picked up the game on Steam a few weeks ago and have been sucked in deep by this game. I think my level's around mid 30's and so far I've only run across one quest that will require me to interact with someone else. The first mission to become a tadpole scout. I have to revive an ally. I may have to beg one of you guys to join me on a game one night and jump off a cliff for me. Other than that, the game has been completely solo friendly and the only interaction I've had with another player was a guy who waved at me, dropped 10 stimpaks for me, then ran off. I've been impressed.

I've been playing this for the last couple of days too and I'm really enjoying it. It's Fallout 4 through and through with just enough light survival to make it more interesting.

I also interreacted with someone just once who dropped a building a plan.

For the ally revival quest: when you see the Encryptid event pop up, do it. It's an endgame level event in a low-level accessible area, and people constantly get downed by the boss, way more than any other event. Only problem might be that people tend to get killed outright more than they get downed. There's also a pool of water right in the middle of it, so you can cross off the "revive a player in water" goal one of the scout badges has at the same time. It's not a regularly scheduled event though. Like the nukes, someone has to deliberately start it, and the server has a 3 hour cool down time before it can be started again.

I think 76 has just enough improvements over 4 to make it too hard to go back. I do really miss building settlements and managing settlers though.

I've been playing here and there on my private server and have not even been at risk of running into anyone else, which I very much appreciate! I do like that I *can* invite people if I want to though. I think that soon I'll have to organize my camp into something that resembles a real base because right now I just have a bunch of crafting machines scattered around in a circle around the camp thingee along with a turret pointed in the direction that a couple of raiders always seem to spawn.

The camp is still right next to the Wayward for now since I don't yet have a better place to put it. I'm still only level 6 and spend most of my time listening to people and to holotapes and collecting junk to put in the scrap box.

My stash is full so now I'm feeling the pain. I basically keep no backup weapons though for some reason I've held on to one copy of every outfit I've found. So far I've managed to take a photo in front of something I found interesting while wearing a different outfit in each one. I think I'm at about 30 photos now? Not exactly something I would've done in other games but the fact that your load screen is a photo you've taken makes it interesting to me.

And thanks for the advice on Encryptid. I'll keep an eye out for it. I went to a nuke drop where people were fighting the scorchbeast queen thinking I'd get a chance there but everyone else was just mowing down the enemies like they were made of paper. Meanwhile if anything looked in my direction I was dead.

Stash management is always going to be a pain. Outfits are fine since they only weigh 0.1, but I wouldn't keep backup armor or weapons in there. If you are going to keep weapons or armor in your stash, strip them down to have no mods (mods add to an items weight*), except for armor which you want to put only the ultra-light mod on. I'd highly recommend using the weight reduction perks for food and aid items and just keeping them all on you so they weigh less (weight reduction perks don't apply to things in your stash, only what's in your inventory). The Strong Back perk is far less useful than the weight reduction perks, as the most it can give you is an extra 40 weight, but the weight reduction ones will compress 400 weight down to 40. Another weight saving tip is that if you wear power armor, you don't need to carry or equip normal armor, as it's automatically removed (and none of their status effects will be applied) while you're in the power armor. I still do though because I like the look and I've got the weight to spare.

*This is how weightless legendary items can weight more than what you'd think they're supposed to, only the base item is 10% of its normal weight, any mod that gets added adds its full weight.

The Queen event is an endgame one, if you're not in power armor, you will get wiped quickly (unless you've been carefully following a specific build). Everyone there almost certainly has good legendary weapons and armor, and they've got the perk cards that complement their playstyles. The fireproof perk under Endurance and the Dense chest armor mod both reduce explosion damage and are fairly essential when fighting scorchbeasts, as their sonic attack counts as explosive damage, not energy damage.

I’m started playing this since it was on the gamepass. I decided to do the private server since I am an introvert. Anyway if anyone on Xbox wants to hop on feel free. I only have 2 other friends who play so that leaves 5 unused slots. My friends are also kind of antisocial so most likely you will not be bothered by us.

The game seems a lot more fun not having to worry about pvp, though it wasn’t all that bad really.

This is a nice trend. I played it the way I play all Fallout games: sneaky sniper. Even if I try not to. This is boring for other hypothetical people who would play with me, and is usually antithetical to playing with NPC companions too.

I tend to gravitate towards sneaky sniper as well. I also like to explore every nook and cranny, pick up all sorts of junk (even if it takes me multiple trips back and forth) and just putter around looking at things and spending time talking to NPCs and listening to all of their conversations and holotapes, reading the terminals, etc. I find this playstyle almost impossible to do with other people. It's extremely rare for me to meet anyone who has the patience for my playstyle so when I play with others, I'm usually having to go along with whatever they want to do and how they want to do it. I also never really know what's going on when playing with others because they're typically running around everywhere and I'm just tagging along completely lost.

bekkilyn wrote:

I tend to gravitate towards sneaky sniper as well. I also like to explore every nook and cranny, pick up all sorts of junk (even if it takes me multiple trips back and forth) and just putter around looking at things and spending time talking to NPCs and listening to all of their conversations and holotapes, reading the terminals, etc. I find this playstyle almost impossible to do with other people. It's extremely rare for me to meet anyone who has the patience for my playstyle so when I play with others, I'm usually having to go along with whatever they want to do and how they want to do it. I also never really know what's going on when playing with others because they're typically running around everywhere and I'm just tagging along completely lost.

100%.

I played sneaky sniper up into the 50s. I only branched out into other playstyles once I got some decent legendary weapons for them. I then spent about 100 levels running around with an instigating shotgun with a bonus to vats hits % which I used with the concentrated fire perk to get one shot kill headshots on almost everything. I've already explored the whole map several times over, so clearing out enemies quickly is more important to me than taking a slow and methodical approach. The sneaky sniper approach has pretty poor dps, so I've never gone back to it.

The game's always had balance issues that make certain playstyles severely underpowered. Pistol and one-handed melee, for example, just aren't worth doing. Unarmed weapons can be great, but only if you have the right legendary affixes for the weapon and your armor. I typically run around with two handed melee weapons and heavy weapons now, which I rarely ever used in the single player games.

I converted my sneaky sniper into a sneaky commando and things are much smoother for me. I tried going from ballistic to energy weapons but every time I'd run into a robot I'd blow half my ammo just trying to take one down. I've worked my way through all of the main quests and now I'm doing the daily reputation and bullion grind and I'm still enjoying it.

My son decided he wanted to play with me so I made a second character and this time I'm going full power armor and heavy weapons to see how different that feels. I also know it's going to be better at keeping up with my son since stealth is not his strong suit. In life or in games.

Energy weapons have been broken since launch. Many enemies have higher energy damage resistance than ballistic, plus energy damage doesn't have armor penetration from legendary effects or perks applied like it's supposed to. The laser and plasma rifles/pistols are fairly useless. The tesla rifle's only really useful in pvp, or when you want to tag lots of enemies during hectic events. The gatling laser, utlracite gatling laser, and gatling plasma are the only ones worth using, mainly due to their ammo efficiency. Their best use is against the scorchbeast queen after being modded with a prime receiver.
If you haven't already done it, you can get a very good named legendary .50 cal machine gun from completing Beckett's quest line.

bekkilyn wrote:

I tend to gravitate towards sneaky sniper as well. I also like to explore every nook and cranny, pick up all sorts of junk (even if it takes me multiple trips back and forth) and just putter around looking at things and spending time talking to NPCs and listening to all of their conversations and holotapes, reading the terminals, etc. I find this playstyle almost impossible to do with other people. It's extremely rare for me to meet anyone who has the patience for my playstyle so when I play with others, I'm usually having to go along with whatever they want to do and how they want to do it. I also never really know what's going on when playing with others because they're typically running around everywhere and I'm just tagging along completely lost.

I started playing sneaky sniper cause I refuse to leave anything behind. It is like a new mini game to see how encumbered I can be.

Also seems you have to be on my friends list to join my server when I am on.

I've completed entire missions by just sneaking in and out of places without killing a single enemy. I just have to remember to stop wearing my chinese stealth suit when I go into big events because that thing is a pain to repair. Now my playtime revolves around finding screws and springs to finish making a full set of excavator power armor.

Office environments and science facilities are great for springs via clipboards. Sugar Grove has tons of them if you've made it there yet. The Project Paradise event is also great due to the large number of yao guai that spawn during it.

Kehama wrote:

I've completed entire missions by just sneaking in and out of places without killing a single enemy. I just have to remember to stop wearing my chinese stealth suit when I go into big events because that thing is a pain to repair. Now my playtime revolves around finding screws and springs to finish making a full set of excavator power armor.

The Charleston landfill has a workshop you can claim. It has 3 junk piles you can mine. It is NW of the Rusty Pick, S from the Poseidon energy plant. I’m up to 89 gears and 103 screws after 2 days.

I love the Ammo plant workshop in the high NE. AL, Lead, Junk, Oil, and Silver, in addition to the ammo manufacturing. Plus there is usually a good deal of other resources lying about. It's a beautiful place.

Has anyone tried to play on GamePass on PC? Can't connect to the server, looks like I'm not the only one. Not sure if it's a GP issue or a Bethesda issue...

So I just learned when you claim a workshop you can scrap or just remove stuff in the area. Stuff I thought was just terrain can be manipulated. Was in the junkyard running wires when a bath tub turned green, then a truck highlighted I could get rid of it.

I only realized yesterday that visiting other people's camps could be beneficial. Several of them had set up vendor terminals with cheap ammo and tons of plans/recipes.

Also, you tend to bump into other people there more. Yesterday someone told me he just dropped a ton of legendaries he couldn't carry. He dropped ~30 legendary weapons and armor way above my level. I'm storing the ones I want to use and will sell the rest for scrip. Almost feels like cheating...

So, I started having a lot fun building yesterday. I built a modest shack with a bed, a footlocker, a couch, a couple of overhead lights, and displays for bobbleheads and magazines. Outside, I built a wraparound deck with weapon, armor, tinker, and ammo converter stations. Out front is a stash box, a cooking station, and a guitar chair. And around back are my gennies and water purifier.

The bad news is that I think I'm done building now. Completely. The problem with this game is that you can't build anything without finding or buying a plan first. I'm sure I'll find more plans as I work my way through the questlines, but I can't imagine I'll find anything substantial. I'll try all the recurring events - once. But after I'm done with all of the story-based quests and I've explored the entire map, I don't see myself continuing to play this game after that. I certainly won't be grinding or paying real money for plans.

It's a shame, because I'm still having a blast with this game - way more than I thought I would when I started it.

I may have to fire up Fallout 4 again to rebuild all of my settlements.

Yeah, eventually I find the game's online nature puts it in a place where I wish for more, but that more is me playing the game by myself and not with a group

The best way to get plans for building your camp is through claiming workshops. You get plans after every defense event. Another good way is by checking out the vending machines other players have in their camps (many players sell them super cheap compared to vendor bots). The quickest way is to head to the Whitespring shops, as almost every plan can be bought there. That will be expensive though, as the plans were meant to be a cap-sink to give something for people to grind for.
It's true that building in FO76 is far less important that it was in FO4. I haven't redesigned my camp since I first settled on how I wanted it to look. I have redecorated it when new plans get added, but the basic layout is the same as it's always been. The only major addition has been to add a place for my camp follower, which I did because I wanted to, not because they actually require it. Another negative is that anything you build in workshops is wiped out whenever you quit (technically it persists until the server is rebooted, but there's no way to pick which server you play on, so rejoining the same server you last played on is extremely unlikely). It defeats the purpose of building them up in the first place.

PaladinTom wrote:

So, I started having a lot fun building yesterday. I built a modest shack with a bed, a footlocker, a couch, a couple of overhead lights, and displays for bobbleheads and magazines. Outside, I built a wraparound deck with weapon, armor, tinker, and ammo converter stations. Out front is a stash box, a cooking station, and a guitar chair. And around back are my gennies and water purifier.

The bad news is that I think I'm done building now. Completely. The problem with this game is that you can't build anything without finding or buying a plan first. I'm sure I'll find more plans as I work my way through the questlines, but I can't imagine I'll find anything substantial. I'll try all the recurring events - once. But after I'm done with all of the story-based quests and I've explored the entire map, I don't see myself continuing to play this game after that. I certainly won't be grinding or paying real money for plans.

It's a shame, because I'm still having a blast with this game - way more than I thought I would when I started it.

I may have to fire up Fallout 4 again to rebuild all of my settlements.

If you’re on Xbox I have 2 vending machine full of plans/recipe. Currently they are all at 5 caps each but I would gladly give them away.

Thanks Brizhad. I’m on PC though.

I've found myself rebuilding my bases when I move them just to try out new designs and I'm actually having fun doing it. Never did that with FO4. One of the first things I did when I started a new character was run three events where you get a power station up and running. That gave me the plans for a large generator, windmill, and a fusion generator. Now I can claim workshops around powerplants, use my fusion generator to power the generator on site that makes fusion cores and now I have an endless supply of fusion cores for my power armor without having to get the plant running every time. My first character, I'd avoided power armor all together mainly because I wanted to sneak but also because I didn't want to have to worry about always having fusion cores on me. Now it's not an issue.

Anyone used laser gatlings that use your armor's power as their ammo? I'm wondering how fast those drain them. If it's not bad that could be a good setup. Need ammo? Just claim a power station workshop for 20 minutes or so then off you go again.

Laser gatlings drain cores fairly fast if you just hold the trigger down, but most enemies won't last long enough for that to matter. They don't use the same core your armor is using, so they don't drain your suit's power any faster. Their slow spinup makes them kind of a inefficient against minor enemies, but they're very effective against most large enemies. One core at 100% gives 500 shots, and the fire rate is comparable to the minigun. It's way easier to find a fusion core at 100% than it is 500 5mm ammo. They're affected by the Power User perk as well, so you can get 1000 shots per core with the perk maxed out.
If you use one all the time you'll want to have the Batteries Included perk that reduces the weight of energy ammo so carrying cores doesn't weigh you down. It would also help to give it a prime receiver, as you can use the ammosmith perk to turn two normal cores into three ultracite cores, even if the normal cores were almost empty. The ultracite cores will have more than 100% durability, based on your intelligence. Using the Super Duper perk as well gives you a chance to turn two into six if it triggers. Using crafted cores and the Power User perk can make it the most ammo-efficient gun in the game by far, besides the harpoon gun (a harpoon gun with the flechette mod will actually let your loot more ammo than you use if you use it right).

There is an annoying issue with weapons that use cores (both fusion and plasma) not fully draining before triggering a reload. The game uses the core with the highest durability when reloading, so you can get a bunch of mostly drained cores "stuck" in your inventory. You can always drop them, but that's kind of a waste. Every so often I'll stash my full cores so I can use up the partial ones.

Just started playing this on PC. Playing with Lightning and enjoying it. So far it feels like it strikes a good balance between survival, grinding, building, and questing. Just hit level 18 and still feeling very noobish though. Just trying to figure out what I need to keep and what I can throw away for inventory management is really the only negative so far.

I like doing melee but based on what I've seen that doesn't seem feasible for any late game content. Still a complete noob when it comes to perks as well.

Overall this is a fun game and I'm really digging the world. I've run across a lot of really nice people who are friendly and helpful.

Friend me up on PC.
Sydhart