Fallout 4 Catch-All 2.0

^ I've been meaning to give Vortex a go. Hmm.. And 10-4, so not new to the rodeo I see!

The addon (IIRC) for Sim Settlements, Rise of the Commonwealth, aims for that(?) Here's the short description "Make your settlers build and upgrade entire settlements, and get back to being the sole survivor instead of the sole builder!" I haven't played much with RotC myself but seems a good candidate.

aside: looping back to the first post and combat, if you want something simpler you might wish to eyeball 'Create Your Own Difficulty Rebalance'. I think that's the one that just let's you set separate incoming and outgoing damage. I don't think it accounts for helmet on\off or DR and\or DT type stuff though.

OK. Vortex? How is it?

Coming from Nexus Mod manager it was a bit difficult to understand at first. I still dont quite understand what "deploy mod" means rather than install mod. But I must admit the final results is a drastic reduction in CTDs. Overall I like it. I wonder in Gopher has made a nice intro video yet?

Yes!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Brownypoints wrote:

Coming from Nexus Mod manager it was a bit difficult to understand at first. I still dont quite understand what "deploy mod" means rather than install mod. But I must admit the final results is a drastic reduction in CTDs. Overall I like it. I wonder in Gopher has made a nice intro video yet?

Yes!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

He did? Nice!

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/so1tFXU.jpg)

HAH ! finally found the thread !

Pinkdino reminded me about building in F4 today so thought I would dust of my old builds...

This was the one I was most happy with....

The Birdcage.

And this museum though fun was absolute bloody murder to wire up...

Strangeblades wrote:
Brownypoints wrote:

Coming from Nexus Mod manager it was a bit difficult to understand at first. I still dont quite understand what "deploy mod" means rather than install mod. But I must admit the final results is a drastic reduction in CTDs. Overall I like it. I wonder in Gopher has made a nice intro video yet?

Yes!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

He did? Nice!

Oh man, I missed the activity after my last post. Btw, thanks to Brownypoints for the Vortex nudge! I made the jump and have found Vortex superior to NMM.

It took me a while to understand why the separate deploy option was (occasionally) handy; then again, I was also slow to pick up on the basics, like how Vortex handles its load order conflicts across mods as opposed to an older style, 'dumb', A-then B-then C order overwrite.

I also appreciate the visual chart it creates, wherein you can break the linking arrows for past load priorities, which you don't always remember weeks later, when you are setting new load orders for recently added mods and end up with cyclic nonsense between part of an old group vs a new group of load-order-specific mods.

Jeem wrote:

HAH ! finally found the thread !

Pinkdino reminded me about building in F4 today so thought I would dust of my old builds...

This was the one I was most happy with....

The Birdcage.

And this museum though fun was absolute bloody murder to wire up...

AWESOME! I also especialy love seeing what people can create in unmodded games!

Alas, but quote is not edit!

Spectacular builds, Jeem. I am in awe of your dedication!

Been loving Fallout 4, my first proper Fallout hole I've fallen into. All thanks to Piper and then Cait.
Been using Nexus for cosmetics. Eli's costume mods are simply jaw dropping, along with the Azar hair. Lots and lots and lots of hairstyles.

IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/vZQGxkxN/Fallout-4-Screenshot-2019-01-05-21-26-26-20.png)
Modded Cait

IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/h4LF8MnW/Fallout-4-Screenshot-2019-01-02-20-38-51-04.png)
IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/hGkwTQ3t/Fallout-4-Screenshot-2019-01-02-21-53-00-87.png)
IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/yd0GP6wX/Fallout-4-Screenshot-2019-01-02-21-55-42-37.png)
Sanctuary Bar and Veranda

I have one silly achievement left to get on steam. One. So annoying. On the other hand, it gives me an excuse for another playthrough!

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Underg...

This time I am going to avoid meeting Garvey until after I complete Nuka World.. so that should give me a nice end game I can plug away at forever.

*Looks at this thread for the first time in a long time. Hmmm ... what's Vortex? Downloads Vortex. Wow this is a lot nicer than NMM. Well, let's just re-download the game and tinker. Eight hours later is at the rock bottom of a mod-installing binge.*

and you will play a fraction of the time you spent modding
yup been down that hole too many a time

^ Buckle up, comrades! If we can't save Skyrim\Fallout then how can we ever hope to save the whales?!

When I get my PC back from guest-computer duty...

Heretk wrote:

*Looks at this thread for the first time in a long time. Hmmm ... what's Vortex? Downloads Vortex. Wow this is a lot nicer than NMM. Well, let's just re-download the game and tinker. Eight hours later is at the rock bottom of a mod-installing binge.*

Yup. I was like, Vortex? An improvement on NMM? Do I have time in my life for the dive that awaits? *checks life* Nope. Sigh.

Bumping this thread, since I’ve dropped about 35 hours into Fallout 4 in the last couple of weeks and I want to jot down some of my thoughts. It's got hooks deep in me like Bethesda games usually do, I just never got around to this one before since I lacked a machine that could play it. I've done a good mix of exploration, main story, and sidequests (got the achievement for completing 10 sidequests recently) (I loved how far the game leaned into the Silver Shroud quest), so I have a good feel for the game now.

Midgame story spoilers for where I’m at:

Spoiler:

Just went through the radiation sea, and am now off to find a courser to kill so I can enter the Institute. Did the sea without power armor, just a couple of levels of radiation resistance, plus some Rad-x. Most of the fights were simple, but there were a couple of deathclaws running around. Ran from one, killed the other. Loved the atmosphere there. Also wandered into the nuclear bunker, and there has to be another mission there or something. That place seems to important than for me to just wander through and not really learn anything about the lore.

The whole map feels smaller than 3 or New Vegas, but that also means it’s a bit easier to explore. It’s also a lot easier to get around the city of Boston than DC and all it’s tunnels and invisible walls.

I’ve thought about the perk system, and I think I like it. The previous system of upgrading skill stats was fine for what it is, but Bethesda (with Skyrim and Fallout 4) seem dedicated to streamlining the level up system as much as possible. I liked more fiddly systems when I was younger, and I appreciate the more streamlined systems now since I have less time and interest for fiddling.

The limited dialogue options is a let down, however. That was often a high point of previous games in the series, but I’m guessing the introduction of voice acting is the culprit here.

Settlements seem like they could be fun. Honestly, I’m not really doing too much with them, other than building them up where I can to get them growing, because I’m assuming it’ll be necessary for a quest or something at some point for the Minutemen. The routine goes: get a new settlement on my side, put in a power source, radio transmitter to grow the population, throw down food and water if needed, add a barn and put beds in it, put up some turrets, and leave, rinse and repeat. I have a dozen 8+ pop settlements now, although I don’t know if I have the need or interest in doing any more with them than simply getting them established. Unless a quest asks it of me. I have had to go back and defend one before, but the turrets dropped the raiders before I even saw them. I also added the mod that makes all junk and materials weightless, so I just grab everything for use later. I can’t imagine playing without it. I also glanced through this thread, and learned that I could set up supply lines between the settlements, which I had no idea about. Probably since my charisma is low, so I’ve never even looked at those perks.

Also, is it just me, or is the soundtrack significantly hornier than in 3 and New Vegas? I thought back to the previous soundtracks, there just seems to be more per capita in this game than before. Or maybe I just get 60 Minute Man and Rocket 69 plus the two Butcher Pete songs on loop more than normal.

Butcher Pete is sexual? I am perturbed.

...Butcher Pete is about a cannibal serial killers though?

For real though Fallout 3 had around 20 tracks and Fallout 4 has over 30. Some are the same across both games, and I liked a lot of the additions for Fallout 4. But some are not nearly as good. 60 Minute Man and Rocket 69 I definitely didn't like so I understand where you're coming from.

Personally I liked New Vegas' offerings more because I just enjoyed that 'rat pack' style of music more and Fallout 76 has the most songs out of all games and a fairly good collection too.

There's some mods out there to add other radio stations and music to F4, so that might be something you can look into. A classical music station is nice to have in that game.

So I had the same impression of the Butcher Pete songs until I googled it a couple of years ago, and the meaning of the song became a bit more clear in the second song (which wasn't in fallout 3) when a bunch of the women come to bail him out of jail.
Here's a bit more on where I got that from:
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Butc...

I have the Atomic City radio mod, and have that on about 25% of the time. I like the radio plays, and sort of like the advertisements. They keep a bunch of the same songs from Diamond City radio, just play them less frequency.

It's funny, I liked NV's soundtrack as well for a lot of the same reasons. And Big Iron was on one of my Dad's old cassette tapes, so that was a blast from the past hearing.

I've noticed that Fallout 4 doesn’t have many deathclaws randomly show up like dragons did in Skyrim, which is both good since fighting deathclaws midgame can sometimes still be a struggle (if they're high level or ambush you), and bad since it also means there will be less deathclaw related hijinks.

Skyrim turned into a “what if dragons showed up” simulator for me, with dragons doing the following:
1. Showed up while I was fighting raiders in a small village, which turned the whole fight to chaos as I was running door to door, trying to use the walls as cover while trying to snipe the raiders with arrows. But then a couple of mastodons got aggroed as well and started fighting the dragon, in a massive all vs. all kerfuffle. I finished off everyone involved once they were sufficiently weakened, and got a couple of levels out of it.
2. Spawned during the sidequest when I was taking a ghost woman to her husbands grave, which resulted in a ghost lady taking out a knife and yelling at the dragon before chasing after it.
3. Dropped in the middle of the mage college, and was killed within about 3 seconds when everyone started dumping magic on it.

But I have some deathclaw comedy in my wandering. Minor location spoilers.

1. I was wandering towards the Dunwich Quarry to wipe out some raiders for one of my settlements, and saw two deathclaws fighting over territory in a ravine. I first planned to wait until both were weakened to kill both for the experience bump, but a check of health was showing me that the battle was entirely one sided with one beating the other down, and eventually the loser limped off with like 20% health while the victor was still over 60%. The however, the loser limped right into a bunch of nearby Assaultrons who were were chilling nearby. Both deathclaws got gibbed in record time. I went to go loot the deathclaws, and then the Assaultrons saw me and started the chase. I got away only by making it all the way to the quarry, but if they hadn’t given up the chase I was going to try to get them into a fight with the raiders as well.

2. Another time was at the Robotics Pioneer Park. I stumbled on it on my way southwest towards the radiation sea, and killed off a couple of nearby ghouls. I wandered into the first house, and four protectrons in storage. I woke them up and put them “on parade,” since I figured they could secure the town while I grabbed everything. Come to the third house, I saw a deathclaw head glitch through a house, and then it went around the house, and revealed itself to be of the glowing, particularly nasty variety. I bailed out of there, and put the protectrons between myself and the deathclaw to try to buy some time while I ran. But the team lit up the deathclaw and froze it solid in a chilling wave, and it went from 75% health to zero before I even realized what had happened. Then the guardians of mankind resumed their patrol around the city, with nary a scratch or concern.

The second deathclaw example is a static spawn, iirc. Each time the cell resets it'll have a deathclaw there.

Well the GOTY version finally fell into that I-just-gotta-buy-it price.... so I bought it.

Last Fallout I played was New Vegas, probably 4-5 years ago. I'm coming into Fallout 4 hot off the heels of a Witcher 3 playthrough, and I can already see some unfavorable comparisons.

Math wrote:

Well the GOTY version finally fell into that I-just-gotta-buy-it price.... so I bought it.

Last Fallout I played was New Vegas, probably 4-5 years ago. I'm coming into Fallout 4 hot off the heels of a Witcher 3 playthrough, and I can already see some unfavorable comparisons.

Basically Bethesda took a loved RPG and turned it into a shooter with light RPG elements. Is it fun to play? Yes. Does it do Fallout any justice? Not at all.

strangederby wrote:
Math wrote:

Well the GOTY version finally fell into that I-just-gotta-buy-it price.... so I bought it.

Last Fallout I played was New Vegas, probably 4-5 years ago. I'm coming into Fallout 4 hot off the heels of a Witcher 3 playthrough, and I can already see some unfavorable comparisons.

Basically Bethesda took a loved RPG and turned it into a shooter with light RPG elements. Is it fun to play? Yes. Does it do Fallout any justice? Not at all.

Ahem... Nice hot-take. I assure you there are millions of gamers who feel that F4 does a wonderful job of expanding the Fallout universe.

Not one for the F4 fans, but this sums up Bethesda Fallout for me so perfectly:

RawkGWJ wrote:

Ahem... Nice hot-take.

That was not a hot take, it was a conciliatory broad consensus take, bordering on excessively rosy.

THIS is a hot-take: Fallout 4 is the best Fallout game by far.

Fight me!

Spoiler:

Milder take: it's my favourite by a largeish margin, but I can understand the distaste other people have.

Saying it's not an RPG is ridonculous though.

I'm just hoping this conversation doesn't degenerate into the distastefulness found on the NMA site. As much as I love the Fallout games (ALL of them), that's one site I very intentionally avoid.

I love the old Fallout games, but I also love Bethesda style games, so I was very happy to have a combination of the two. Sure, they are not like the older Fallout games, but they shouldn't be, and I for one am perfectly capable of highly enjoying each game and each style of game as they are.

And yes, they are all RPG's. I find the "not an RPG, etc." to be a very tired argument that completely falls flat in the face of reality.