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Inspired by Melth's excellent Skyrim Let's Play, I'm going to play through Fallout 4 on Survival difficulty while challenging myself not to use the most powerful game mechanics. On Survival, all enemies deal four times more damage, which means even basic enemies can instantly kill the player at low levels. You need to eat, drink, and sleep, and can catch diseases from exposure to wild animals or unclean food. This will be a screenshot LP, although I plan to post some gifs of interesting highlights. Even on Survival difficulty, there are many tricks that can make the game trivially easy. If you know the right tricks, you can become an untouchable god in Power Armor without fighting anything more fearsome than a Radroach. So I'm going to set some ground rules now to set aside all the easy routes to victory: 1. No VATS. The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System takes over your aim automatically while also making you temporarily (almost) invulnerable. Any boss fight is trivial when a character with enough Agility and Luck can use VATS for an infinite chain of critical hits. 2. No stealth. While Fallout 4's enemies are smarter than the ones in Skyrim, they can still be utterly baffled by a stealthy player crouching right behind them in darkness. It also tends to make the game slow and boring when the best strategy is to hide behind everything. 3. No Power Armor. Power Armor makes you invulnerable to everything except explosives and large wild animals. It requires expensive fusion cores that get depleted extra-fast when you sprint anywhere, which makes Power Armor gameplay a matter of slowly stomping around getting bored. 4. No crafting. Crafting your own guns and armour lets you have the best equipment in exchange for many hours of tiresome micromanagement. Building settlements can give you literally millions of caps in exchange for, again, many hours of tiresome micromanagement. 5. No out-of-character knowledge. I'll try to play my character realistically, rather than looking up the best weapons and running off to grab them. Of course, my character build will be fine-tuned for maximum chance of survival. In the interest of actually exploring instead of bumrushing the main quest, I intend to ignore the main story and focus on exploring the wasteland. 6. Permanent death. If my character dies, I'll have to restart the LP. Before building a character, the two big questions to consider are weapon type, and whether you plan to have a follower. Rifles, machine guns, and shotguns are all decently viable on Survival difficulty - with grenades as a long-range weapon if you aren't using Rifles. Followers help out in combat, but the Lone Wanderer perk reduces incoming damage by about 20% if you don't have a follower, so there's no clear winner. The last question is whether to be male or female - Nate's voice actor is trying to be a very serious late 2000s video game protagonist, while Nora's lines sound like she's actually having fun. I'll put these three decisions up to a thread vote, then I'll post the first update tomorrow! Rifles or Automatics or Shotguns? Follower or Lone Wanderer? Nate or Nora?
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Oct 30, 2019 04:00
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| # ? May 8, 2024 11:47 |
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You are never ever going to pull this off, and the restarts will infuriate you. Not so bad when you get one shot by a Molotov early on, but when a suicider wrecks 20 hours of gameplay? Sheesh. Lone Wanderer, Rifles, don’t care. Godspeed.
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Oct 30, 2019 04:43
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I managed to catch some of Melth's Skyrim LP and it was great, I'm gonna have go and take another look at it sometime. Definitely gonna be here to see this one through, though! We've just gotta hope a stray bullet or a suicider, as Fair Game said, doesn't end the game on the spot. I'll vote for Lone Wanderer, Automatics, and Nora. Voting Nora just because in what I've seen of FO4, people don't usually pick her.
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Oct 30, 2019 05:06
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Rifles, Follower, Nate
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Oct 30, 2019 07:26
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Followers, Rifles, Nora
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Oct 30, 2019 07:33
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wedgekree posted:Followers, Rifles, Nora Yeah this, pretty much.
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Oct 30, 2019 12:32
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Auto Follower Nora
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Oct 30, 2019 12:50
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Autos, Lone Wanderer, Nora Autos because I hate them and want to see them work. Lone Wanderer because I still figure you can use Dogmeat, the best follower, and Nora because I like Nora.
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Oct 30, 2019 21:55
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Looks like I'm going with a Follower, using Rifles, and playing as Nora. Nora is living her idyllic 2070s life with Codsworth the robot butler, when a man from Vault-Tec comes by to ask her name and some personal statistics to register her for a spot in a fallout shelter. Here's the stats I chose: Strength 1 Perception 1 Endurance 10 Charisma 1 Intelligence 10 Agility 1 Luck 4 Almost everything is a dump stat except Endurance and Intelligence. This gives me a starting HP of 130, plus 7 with every level up. In a no-death run, pumping up HP is easily the most important stat. The high intelligence lets me level up quickly to get that sweet HP boost and extra perks - levelling up does power certain enemies, but overall the game gets easier the more you level up.  Mere minutes after securing a place in the Vault, the nuclear war begins. Good thing Luck wasn't a dump stat! (No, it doesn't work that way)  Nora rushes to the vault while some of her neighbours are held back at gunpoint from entering.  She heads in and is ushered into a "decontamination pod", which turns out to be a cryogenic storage chamber!  While Nora's thawing from her frozen sleep, some thugs kidnap a baby and shoot another Vault resident right in front of her. (Nate? Who's that? Ignoring that these characters are married is the only way the open-world exploration makes any sense)  Released from the cryogenic chamber, Nora heads out and proceeds to safety... But first, she has to club some giant mutant roaches to death. As you can see, I lost a big chunk of health from these basic introductory enemies.  Luckily the Vault has pure water to nurse her wounds. Nora fills all the empty beer bottles she can find. (Drinking a bottle of Purified Water destroys the bottle, which makes collecting old bottles an annoying constant in Survival mode)  Moving forward, she finds a gun and opens the escape tunnel, blasting her way through another swarm of radroaches. Nora exits Vault 111 with nothing but the clothes on her back, a gun, some healing Stimpacks, and eight bottles of water.  Going home through the blasted remnants of the apocalypse, Nora finds a book in her house that grants +1 to the stat of my choice, which I invest in Luck. Finding the old suburb gives just enough experience to reach Level 2. Level 2 perk: Idiot Savant (5 Luck) Idiot Savant gives a 10 INT character a 1 in 40 chance of gaining triple experience for any event, and it's the most efficient way to get extra EXP for characters of any intelligence. A genius with IS will gain about one extra level per ten, and a 1 INT character with Savant will get roughly two extra levels per ten, making it always worth taking on dumb characters. It's only viable with this 10 INT Nora because she's using rifles, which don't require carrying around 20 pounds of ammo like shotguns and automatics do, so her strength is 1 and carrying weight is 85 pounds.  Nora heads to Concord, finding the remains of a fight to the death between a man and dog. After stealing the man's clothing, she then finds a much friendlier dog!  After a friendly greeting pet, this stray is happy to follow Nora around. Maybe he belonged to that guy back there. There's no option to give him a name here, so Nora's companion will be known as Dog.  Dog will go for the throat on enemies with low HP, pinning them down and killing them. What a good boy!  Nora proceeds to the Museum of Freedom in Concord after hearing gunfire and screams for help. She gets shot in the head but her hard hat cushions the blow, so despite being a lawyer with no combat training, she uses her looted handgun to effortlessly blow away three raiders who are attacking the museum. The trauma of killing a fellow human being for the first time gives enough experience to reach level 3! Level 3 perk: Nerd Rage Nerd Rage causes time to slow down, and gives a nice boost to damage output, when Nora's HP reaches 20% or less. I hope I'll never use it, but the slowdown gives enough of an edge in combat to save Nora's life if I ever get desperate and have to either shoot a bad guy or run from a monster at very low HP. Shooting Raiders like a pro Nora blasts her way through the museum with a pipe pistol looted from a dead Raider, which uses the plentiful .38 ammunition. Pipe weapons have low damage output, but it's more than enough if you just point at a Raider and pull the trigger fast.  Preston Garvey, leader of the settlers trapped by this attack, explains his plan to activate an old suit of Power Armor and use it to battle the Raiders attacking the museum. Unfortunately, Nora won't be using Power Armor, so she waltzes out the front door with her dinky pipe pistol and a powerful Laser Musket. The laser musket deals about six times more damage than a pipe pistol, but every shot takes a long time to reload. The battle through the museum has already brought Nora to level four, and she just found a Bobblehead to increase her Perception, so it's time to upgrade her laser musket. Level 4 perk: Rifleman (2 Perception) The Rifleman perk gives an extra 20% damage with non-automatic long guns and is, of course, essential for any Rifle build.  Thanks to all that Endurance, Nora is much tougher than these raiders and shoots them dead easily. But then, a mutated implacable death lizard emerges from a hole in the ground - a Deathclaw! After watching it maul two men to shreds while ignoring their pistol fire, Nora runs for cover inside a building. The Deathclaw sees that it can't reach her, and stalks off to hide in ambush. Die, Deathclaw, die! Nora lures it to the building by standing just out of range of its deadly claws, while Preston shoots from above with his laser musket. A Deathclaw's thick armor means that pipe pistols only do 20% of their normal damage against it, while laser muskets deal 40% of their usual damage, so the laser musket is the weapon of choice here.  A Stimpak heals Nora's loyal dog, who tried to maul the Deathclaw to death even after being to "Stay!" Companions can't die in this game, but they get quickly incapacitated in any major fight.  The good boy finds a police baton while Nora is looting the bodies. She recovers some good armor from the aftermath of the battle, including a lightweight welded raider chestpiece, giving her an early-game-respectable total of 14 damage resistance.  Preston leads his band of refugees to Nora's old home suburb, and the successful quest gives Nora's big brain another hefty chunk of experience. Level 5 perk: Lifegiver (3 Endurance) The Lifegiver perk gives +20 HP, bringing Nora up to 180 at the point where a typical character would have around 125 HP. We need all the survivability we can get.  Having met our new friends, Codsworth offers to accompany Nora as she further explores the wasteland. He has a power saw and an industrial kitchen flamethrower. On that note, I'll end this update with a question: Should we go adventuring with Dog or Codsworth? P.S. I haven't done an LP in many years, so feel free to critique my formatting/anything else. The program I'm using for Gif highlights is lowering my framerate, should I keep using it?
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Oct 30, 2019 22:01
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Download a more followers mod and travel with both  And your format's fine, if you ask me.
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Oct 30, 2019 22:05
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CommissarMega posted:Download a more followers mod and travel with both This idea sounds fun, but I suspect it would make things too easy. It's always been silly that in the base game, one follower calls you "General" and wants you to recruit more members for your army, but still refuses to travel in a group any larger than two.
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Oct 30, 2019 22:09
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I vote for  Dog .Codsworth's flamethrower is nice and all, but he's not Dogsworth. Edit: Dog brought you a police baton, what has Codsworth brought but more irrelevant connections to some dude named Nate?
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Oct 30, 2019 22:58
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Chamale posted:This idea sounds fun, but I suspect it would make things too easy. IIRC there's a mod that allows you to bring Dogmeat and one other follower, which I always thought should've been the default. I think that'd be a great balance between difficulty and roleplaying.
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Oct 30, 2019 23:04
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I'd vote for Codsworth. Also, you don't need to timg every image, expanding each of them gets annoying after a while.
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Oct 31, 2019 03:49
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Codsworth is actually REALLY handy and will one-shot mots things while you cower early on. Voting him, because while I still think you're nuts and will fail due to something out of your reasonable control, I'd like you to succeed. Are you going to do any settlement building, if for no other reason than you can squeeze out several levels' worth of xp? You said no CRAFTING, but that seems more like workbench stuff than "build some houses" or whatever. I always liked building a nice little base on top of the Red Rocket, and it'd usually get me to level 6 or 7 after doing the Concord stuff. At which point it's safe to start doing other local quests.
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Oct 31, 2019 04:02
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FairGame posted:Are you going to do any settlement building, if for no other reason than you can squeeze out several levels' worth of xp? You said no CRAFTING, but that seems more like workbench stuff than "build some houses" or whatever. Nope. With this EXP-maximizing build, I could hit level 10 and make thousands of caps without ever leaving Sanctuary, but that would involve very little actual gameplay.
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Oct 31, 2019 04:20
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 Nora leaves the painful memories of Sanctuary behind and finds a grizzled travelling merchant named Trashcan Carla. She sells Carla about 20 pounds of assorted trash, bullets, and mutated wildflowers. Merchants will pay at least 1 cap for any piece of junk, which makes trash that weighs 0.1 pounds, like tin cans, deceptively valuable. Armed gunmen confronting a family? Not on Nora's watch! Shooting first and asking questions later is an important part of staying alive in the Wasteland. Companions will get mad and stop accompanying you if you murder an innocent in cold blood, but they generally approve, or only mildly disapprove, of taking the initiative against somebody who's waving a weapon around. This clever use of a hand grenade gets Nora up to Level 6. Level 6 perk: Medic (2 Intelligence) Medic makes Nora heal twice as fast, and twice as much, from Stimpaks. Stimpaks heal slowly, so they won't save your life unless you're already behind cover, but it can still make all the difference in a firefight against multiple opponents.  The beds where some scavengers were devoured by feral ghouls seem like a good place to sleep for the night. Codsworth optimistically says that if Diamond City is anything like the name, it should be quite beautiful.  Nora emerges to rain and a poignant sunrise.  On the way to Diamond City, she picks up a radio distress call. Someone needs help! She heads towards Cambridge Police Station, but soon discovers that the way is littered with landmines. She advances anyway, with a plan to back up quickly if a mine is about to go off in front of her. The plan doesn't work too well. That would have been an instant kill if I hadn't invested everything I could in hit points.  After healing and slowly advancing through the minefield, Nora finds a man in Power Armor named Paladin Danse, who doesn't seem to need help in his fight against feral ghouls.  For her minor contributions with a laser musket, Nora is allowed to loot the corpses on the battlefield and take all the ammunition lying around. No one ever complains when you strip their friends of clothing and weaponry. This was true in history, when clothing was much more expensive than it is now, but you'd think someone would demand to split the loot or something. Nora finds a Laser Rifle on the dead man, which deals half as much damage as a laser musket, but can shoot almost as quick as she can pull the trigger. Level 7 perk: Scrounger (2 Luck) Scrounger gives Nora a 30% chance to find extra ammunition in most containers - including corpses. It's not an essential perk for a Rifleman, but it provides a helpful source of income and emergency ammo in the early game.  Danse explains his plan to find a long-range transmitter at Arcjet Systems and use it to signal for help. Nora and Codsworth happily tag along.  The group stumbles across some raiders who just ambushed a caravan, who are quickly dispatched while feebly bouncing bullets off Danse's armor.  Nora is able to strip the caravan of its valuables (a bit of currency, and a lot of ammunition).  Inside of Arcjet Systems, Danse finds that the security robots have already been destroyed by Institute Synth's. He doesn't explain exactly what they are, but he warns Nora to be prepared.  After hacking a computer terminal - by using the password reset command from another computer in the same room - Nora unlocks an electric door to find a squad of synths waiting behind it!  They are easily destroyed with overwhelming laser rifle fire. Synths carry fusion cells, which means Nora's ammo concerns are about to be over for a long time.  The trio proceed through the facility, with Codsworth only mildly impressed by its high technology. Danse finds an elevator that would take him to the floor he wants, but the power's out.  That's a big rocket engine. Nora heads to a room underneath it, and restores power to the building. But as soon as the lights turn on, Paladin Danse is assaulted by a massive army of synths! He's surrounded by dozens of metal men armed with lasers and shock batons while Nora watches from the blastproof engine observation chamber. Ooh, what does this button do?  The Synths are cooked to ashes, while Danse is safe in his Power Armor. The trio then take the elevator to the top floor, looking for the transmitter. As they approach the room, a group of Synths spot them and arm their laser pistols. A single melee attacker rushes Nora with a shock baton. It whacks her once, breaking her arm because enemy melee damage is outrageously high on Survival difficulty. Nora decides the safest path is to retreat, but with two huge tin cans behind her on the narrow catwalk, she can't run backwards at all. Nora is beaten with a stun baton. Nora dies. I hosed this one up. Codsworth is great in combat, but he's also super bulky, and I forgot how he can make retreat impossible in a narrow space. Also, I can't aim for poo poo with a low framerate, so I'm going to start a new run and unfortunately won't be able to post gif highlights. I just scratched the surface of this build's potential, so I could try the same strategy or go for something new. Rifles, Automatics, or Shotguns? Followers or Lone Wanderer? Nate or Nora? If I go with followers again, Dog or Codsworth?
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Oct 31, 2019 23:09
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For the true roguelike experience, you ought to try the same strategy again 
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Oct 31, 2019 23:42
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Nora seems like the kind of woman who’d wander over to see if there were any kindly farmers she could help level up with before tackling synths.
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Oct 31, 2019 23:49
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Yeah, try the same build again.
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Nov 1, 2019 03:39
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Dog wouldn't have gotten you killed- he's a good boy. ...But yeah, go for the same build again. Nora needs a more heroic end, if not success.
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Nov 1, 2019 05:22
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The strategy is good, it was only my execution that botched it. I will set out with the same plan and do better this time. Everything from Vault 111 to killing the Deathclaw is basically the game's tutorial, and once you figure out the importance of cover, it's trivial. Nora sprinted through that whole segment this time around. Vault: Escaped.  Dog: Good Boy.  Deathclaw: Killed.  Codsworth: Recruited.  Short peaceful walk to Drumlin Diner: Wait, ow, gently caress. Nora got ambushed by a Mr. Gutsy, the military version of Codsworth's line of robots. Its powerful laser almost killed her in two shots, triggering Nerd Rage, which gave her an opportunity to jump over a guard rail and run for her life. The Mr. Gutsy is distracted by a Super Mutant that also happens to be attacking it, and during this distraction, Nora uses her window to blow up the two ruffians sticking up the diner.  After the robot kills the Super Mutant, Nora, and her new friends Trudy and Patrick, rush to help Codsworth in the battle against his evil twin.  Nora's Pipe Rifle destroys the rampaging robot and the day is saved. There are two spots between Vault 111 and the Cambridge Police Station that spawn random encounters, and those random encounters can feature friendly characters, mundane enemies, or high-level enemies even if the player is at a low level - hence the importance of rapid levelling.  One lucky difference from last time, however: Trudy has a set of Army Fatigues to sell, an excellent piece of equipment that raises Nora's carry weight from 85 to 95 pounds. Rifle users don't have to carry as much ammo as other builds, but it's still a handy way to carry more loot to the market.  In the house containing the other random encounter, Nora meets Ron Staples the travelling alcohol merchant, then sleeps for a few hours on a filthy old mattress. Onward!  Look above the tree at the centre of the screen - that's a car falling off the overpass. The map designers positioned it slightly below the roadway, so every time a new character comes close enough to that car to make the physics engine pay attention, the car falls through.  Anyway, Nora meets Paladin Danse and the trio is off to Arcjet Systems. This battle between Raiders and a caravan isn't random - it's always there when the player first enters this area, and shows off Paladin Danse's ludicrous fighting ability compared to everyone else in this game.  The caravan contains an even better piece of clothing than the army fatigues - a green shirt and combat boots. This boosts Nora's Endurance by 1, lifting her HP from 182 to 190. I've already had one Nerd Rage trigger, so I need to make Nora as tough as she can get.  Inside Arcjet Systems, Codsworth is disabled by a squad of baton-wielding Synths! He's a self-repairing robot, and fixes himself as soon as we're out of combat, unlike other followers who need a Stimpak injection to recover.  Codsworth's buzzsaw arms are great in combat as long as he doesn't get overwhelmed by two or more enemies.  Nora and Codsworths watch Synths die from the safety of the blast chamber, and take the elevator to the control room.  Codsworth saws a baton-wielding Synth to death, then Danse and Nora fill the room with laser fire. Nora finds the transmitter Danse wanted and they take the elevator back to the surface world.  Danse throws some light shade about Nora's combat abilities - maybe he didn't enjoy being blasted with a rocket engine to get the Synths off his back.  He also rewards Nora with a unique laser rifle, the Righteous Authority. It has the same stats as a regular Laser Rifle, which makes it roughly four times better than any other gun Nora has seen. Since Nora has no military experience, she never learned how to use a Pipboy in combat and she won't be using the Righteous Authority's special ability, but that's OK.  Finally, Paladin Danse offers Nora a chance to join the Brotherhood. All she knows at the moment is they're secretive and militaristic and they love technology. Should she join the Brotherhood of Steel or explore Diamond City? Technical note: My computer is still running like poo poo, so it's probably not the screen recorder that was causing the low framerate. Hopefully I can solve the problem and be able to play without lag.
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Nov 1, 2019 07:11
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gently caress the BOS, let's go to Diamond City.
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Nov 1, 2019 07:40
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Ninurta posted:gently caress the BOS, let's go to Diamond City. Seconding this. If the BOS are the same in this game as they always are, then they're pretty much there to get you power armor- which we aren't using. City might be more productive long-term.
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Nov 1, 2019 14:01
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You know what they say, Diamond City is a gal's best friend... 
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Nov 1, 2019 15:22
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I'm a little worried about you dying on the way to Diamond City. But yeah, let's give that a shot.
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Nov 1, 2019 16:27
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Yeah, let's go see if the city lives up to its name.
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Nov 1, 2019 16:41
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Nora is off to Diamond City! Level 7 perk: Bloody Mess (3 Luck) Level 8 perk: Lifegiver 2 (Level 8, 3 Endurance) I took Bloody Mess this time around because a Rifleman build doesn't need piles of extra ammo. Bloody Mess deals an extra 5% damage, with a small chance of shredding enemies into tiny pieces when they die. Every last piece of damage helps.  But first, she finds this man being held at gunpoint by two travellers. They claim he's a Synth and has been spying on them for weeks, but he looks human. Nora tries to convince them to spare his life, but Charisma is one of her several weak points. Codsworth likes that she is trying to find a peaceful solution (All followers except Dogmeat have opinions about Nora's actions).  Nora could probably take these guys, but she reluctantly backs off and they kill the Synth. Searching his body reveals plastic components, proving that he really was a machine built by the mysterious Institute.  On the way to Diamond City, Nora finds a friendly farm run by robots. She offers to look into the nearby water purifying plant, but it's in the wrong direction from Diamond City so that'll have to wait.  Nora encounters a small travelling group. They don't seem immediately hostile, and could be traders, but when they get too close their leader opens fire.  Nora shoots three and Codsworth saws one to death. A letter on the leader's body explains his approach: "I see a stranger, I kill them. It's for the good of the group."  Just outside of Diamond City, three guards are battling Super Mutants and their giant green dogs. Nora rushes in to help with her trusty laser rifle, which is much more effective at long range than the guards' automatics. The min-max approach to this fight is to hide until one of the guards dies, because then you can loot their body for some high-level armour, but Nora doesn't know that.  Diamond City turns out to be built in the remains of Fenway Park, the iconic Boston Red Sox stadium. The guards wear umpires' equipment, which protects them better than most of the cobbled-together armour worn throughout the wasteland. Nora meets a reporter, Piper, who's been locked out of the city on orders of the mayor! But Piper tricks the gate guard and gets back in.  Codsworth has a conversation with the noodle chef. Although he can only repeat "May I take your order?" in Japanese, he somehow communicates to Codsworth that his name in Takahashi, he has a broken voice unit, and he wishes someone would repair him. It's interesting that the pre-war consumer robots and the human-looking Synths all seem to have their own desires and personalities, while the metallic Synths seem only built for combat.  Nora heads to the Inn for a night's sleep. This may be the last time she sleeps for many days - in Survival, killing enemies grants a damage bonus until you next go to sleep. Drinking caffeinated Nuka-Cola to go days without sleep is the best way to maintain that bonus, which maxes out at a ludicrous 50% extra damage.  In the morning, Nora finds a man being held at gunpoint by his own brother, who is frantically shouting about Synth infiltrators. The guards shoot down the gunman before he can hurt the alleged Synth. The whole city is clearly on edge. Nora sells her extra weapons and ammo in the market and does some odd jobs around town.  Cleaning the water filters!  Being asked to fetch some antique baseball equipment!  Buying some sweet armour, putting her at 45 damage resistance!  Told the last known location of a missing detective! Level 9 perk: Rifleman 2 (Level 9, 2 Perception) Two level of Rifleman give Nora an extra 40% damage and 15% armour penetration with rifles. The armour piercing is basically bonus damage, putting the perk around 50% extra damage.  Nora goes to the hardware store to mix some green paint for the Wall. Someone outside the store lures her into it, in an ambush so obvious even Codsworth sees it coming. Nora goes in and points her laser rifle at a closed door, ready to shoot whoever comes through.  The leader of the ambushing raiders almost kills Nora, but she triggers Nerd Rage and shoots him in the head repeatedly. He's carrying a short Combat Rifle, a weapon that deals even more damage than the Laser Rifle, though it's less effective at rapid fire because of the heavy recoil.  Nora loots the raiders, finds the bodies of several people who fell for the ambush, and brings green paint back to the maintenance man.  In Diamond City's classy bar, Nora finds a man confronting the bartender for screwing his wife.  Unfortunately, Paul can't take a punch. When he comes to, he asks Nora for help with revenge.  Paul pulls a gun, and Nora can't convince him to resolve things peacefully. The bartender shoots back with a double-barrel shotgun, a weapon that only deals damage at a range of 35 feet. It's a joke weapon in most circumstances, but a tiny bar is the right place for it. Nevertheless, Nora shoots him dead. On searching his body, she finds a note describing an upcoming drug deal. There will be a large amount of money and chems there, and no one else knows that the bartender is dead. Paul hasn't seen the note yet. Level 10 perk: Aquagirl (5 endurance) The Aquagirl perk lets Nora swim without absorbing radiation, and breathe underwater. It provides a lot of shortcuts across the filthy river, and jumping into water is a handy way to escape from dangerous animals (or anything that can't attack at long range).  Piper is willing to travel with Nora, after Nora told her about life in the vault and her impression of the wasteland. Piper carries a 10mm pistol and, like all human companions, can be equipped with any weapons and armour that Nora finds. Should Nora travel with Codsworth or Piper? Should she ambush the drug deal herself or get Paul Pembroke's help?
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Nov 1, 2019 21:00
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Gonna vote for Codsworth this time because he won't need to dip into your stimpack supply for healing. Next time I'll vote for Piper, but I think for now having Codsworth be a tank is working out well enough for you. Also, get the dude's help for the deal. We're going in blasting anyways, I figure, and he seems pretty gun-happy.
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Nov 1, 2019 21:25
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Keep Codsworth and get Paul to do the drug thing.
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Nov 1, 2019 21:26
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Grab Piper because you need friends who can fight at range. Leave Paul at home. and, uh...I really hope you know what you're doing (or will just not even bother engaging in dialogue) because the drug dealer quest is bugged as hell in terms of resolution.
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Nov 1, 2019 21:43
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 Nora tells Paul about the upcoming chems deal. The two of them (and Codsworth) set off to ambush the rich boy gangster importing these drugs into Diamond City.  The dealers outnumber the group, but a surprise Molotov Cocktail makes for a nice weenie roast.  The leader of the chem sellers survives the fight, and tells Nora about the location of the lab. It's filled with feral ghouls, who don't attack Trish's crew because they're all ghouls themselves. It also has an elaborate secret password to enter. Nora pushes for the password, but Trish runs for it. Nora isn't about to commit murder, so she lets Trish escape and splits the loot. Paul takes the chems, and Nora takes the money - the chems would be worth twice as much as the 1000 caps, but no one has enough money to buy them in bulk, so it would create a whole subplot of becoming a travelling dealer. FairGame posted:and, uh...I really hope you know what you're doing (or will just not even bother engaging in dialogue) because the drug dealer quest is bugged as hell in terms of resolution. I'm not sure what you mean, this has never been a problem for me. I know there's one path that takes a couple in-game weeks to finish, but that's not the one I've chosen.  While heading off on another quest, Nora finds three dead raiders and a few jars of mysterious food paste. A letter on one of the corpses begins "You've been eating a lot of that food paste that we got from that Suffolk school. It's affecting you. Like, in a real bad way, man." Looks like the weird paste made one of the raiders get violent against his friends when they tried to make him stop eating it.  Nora reaches the estate of Coach "Quitting is for Punks" Westing, and finds that it's been taken over by Mirelurks. Their shiny carapaces reflect laser rifle fire, but a long enough barrage brings them down.  Baseball aside: This signed baseball card of Matt "The Missile" Murtaugh has some implications about Fallout's culture staying mired in the 1950s. Despite Murtaugh being a pitcher, the card lists his batting stats, which implies the American League never created the Designated Hitter, as they did in 1973 in our timeline. Murtaugh's impressive hitting implies he was really a two-way player, like Babe Ruth was when the Red Sox sold Ruth's contract to the Yankees in exchange for enough cash to fund a play called My Lady Friends. This created the Curse of the Bambino, and in Fallout's world, the Red Sox never won the World Series again. The day the bombs fell in 2077, Matt Murtaugh was one game away from leading the team to World Series victory. Anyway, Nora goes back to Diamond City and sells the baseball artifacts for a total of 300 caps.  On the search for Diamond City's missing detective, Nora arrives at Boston Common. A torn letter found on a dead man warns her to stay away.  On a quick detour to the exclusive Boylston Club for politicians and wealthy donors, Nora finds the remains of a suicide pact. After the bombs fell, they drank poisoned wine in a final toast to the world that was.  She finds a dapper hat for Codsworth to wear.  Next, Nora heads in to the hideout where the missing detective was last known to be investigating, and finds it to be full of film noir gangsters armed with tommy guns.  On the way into the subway station, Codsworth gets stuck in a narrow turnstile. Nora presses on by herself.  A swarm of gangsters ambushes her, and almost shoot her to death! While in a state of Nerd Rage, Nora throws a well-placed hand grenade to dispatch the group. Level 11 perk: Idiot Savant 2 (Level 11, 5 Luck) I take the second rank of Idiot Savant, which increases the random experience boost to a 5x multiplier. If it ever triggers on a quest completion, Nora will be jumping several levels at once.  After fighting through a few more gangsters, Nora finds the door to Vault 114 and heads on in.  At long range, rifle users like Nora truly shine. In the open space of this underground construction site, the laser rifle deals maximum damage while submachine guns are inaccurate and barely harmful. But after this gunfight, she switches to a pistol for smaller battles because of ammo concerns.  Nora ambushes a gangster through a hole in the floor. This is what it looks like when Bloody Mess triggers - nothing left but guts, a couple limbs, and a hat. Level 12 perk: Scrounger (2 Luck) I was wrong about a Rifle character not needing an extra source of ammo. I picked Scrounger now to keep Nora's laser rifle well-supplied. The best way to fight at close range typically involves poking out of cover and pulling the trigger at lightning speed, rather than taking carefully aimed shots.  Here's the lost detective - and it turns out he's a Synth! Nora tells Nick that his secretary, Ellie, was the one who sent her to find the metal private eye.  The group makes their way to the surface, only to be confronted by Skinny Malone and his girlfriend Darla. It turns out the missing woman Nick wanted to find wasn't kidnapped, she had fallen in love with the gang leader.  Seeing that a fight is about to break out, Nora takes the initiative and shoots Malone in the face.  With that, the detective is rescued, and he gratefully makes his return to Diamond City.  Nora and Codsworth investigate the bar called the Combat Zone after hearing rumours from Diamond City Security.  It turns out to be a gladiatorial arena, full of Raiders watching a fight to the death! Nora assesses the violence-loving crowd and opens fire. The Raiders have much worse aim than the late Skinny Malone's gang, and she shoots them all to death.  In the arena, it turns out the winning fighter's agent is not happy with the bloody dismemberment of the entire audience. Cait's drug habit will be harder to maintain if the two of them don't have any caps coming in. He makes a suggestion: Cait can join up with Nora instead.  Codsworth sounds like an American trying to fake an English accent. Cait sounds like a Scot trying to fake an Irish accent.  Should Nora stick with Codsworth, or team up with Cait? Also, should she eat the mysterious food paste, or throw it away? Chamale fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Nov 3, 2019 |
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Nov 2, 2019 23:55
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Are your images saved in an incorrect aspect ratio? It seems like they are squashed, the text in particular is looking really weird.
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Nov 3, 2019 00:20
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steinrokkan posted:Are your images saved in an incorrect aspect ratio? It seems like they are squashed, the text in particular is looking really weird. My monitor is 1280x1024, I don't think it's distorting the actual gameplay but the text might be stretched because this game wasn't designed to be compatible with 5:4 resolutions.
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Nov 3, 2019 00:31
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I personally have never played with Cait tagging along, so maybe you could educate me 
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Nov 3, 2019 00:47
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It's Cait time! Eat the paste
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Nov 3, 2019 01:31
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Sure, why not? Bring Cait. If Codsworth getting stuck on something is going to happen again, then maybe we need to change out now before we repeat our first death. He's done his job getting us this far, but long range encounters suit us better.
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Nov 3, 2019 02:09
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Eating Paste is always the right thing to do! Normally I'd vote for Nick Valentine, that lovable detective, but fuckit let's go with Cait because I've never used her.
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Nov 3, 2019 15:38
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I like Cait. Apparently her Irish accent might not be all that fake, since her VA's Scottish; that counts, right? 
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Nov 4, 2019 01:30
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| # ? May 8, 2024 11:47 |
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 Nora hands Cait some upgraded armour and a submachine gun, and Codsworth returns home to Sanctuary Hills.  At Boston Common, they find this intriguing message, a cryptic number written on a plaque, and a red line drawn along the ground.  The red line leads past a Super Mutant camp. Cait loves to fight at close range, and she decides it's a good idea to charge the building. She kills one mutant in a flash but the others knock her down.  Nora shoots the remaining mutants and comes to the rescue.  The line on the ground then leads to a large town called Goodneighbor. Some jamoke in a leather jacket tries to bully her into paying "insurance" money.  Two heavily armed and armoured women don't deter Finn from his blackmail scheme. The best way to be intimidating is not to carry a big gun - it's being well-dressed and drunk to buff your Charisma.  Nora shoots the man in the face, a choice that earns approval from Cait and the town's ghoul neighbor, Hancock.  At the local shops, Nora sells her pile of loot and buys the Destroyer's Leg, a piece of armour that makes her run 10% faster. She also gets a pair of combat rifles. (This gun was originally supposed to fire high-powered rifle rounds, but it was changed at the last minute to make it fire the same rounds as the submachine gun. It deals about 33% more damage than anything else using those bullets, which are plentiful and cheap.)  With their improved equipment, the pair keep following the Freedom Trail. Level 13 perk: Bloody Mess 2 (Level 9, 3 Luck)  Cait has an up-close encounter with a Super Mutant Suicider. These kamikaze mutants can be instant killers - they carry a Mini Nuke and will rush any human they see, while also being tougher than a regular Super Mutant. Fortunately, they can't run as fast as Nora, especially now that she has some sprinter's armour to wear.  Another mutant in the area was carrying a Missile Launcher. Explosive weapons have the best damage output by far, but they're not very useful for Nora because she can blow herself up. Followers given one of these weapons will fire them without any consideration for the blast radius, and will inevitably kill Nora with them. There's a perk that prevents all damage from followers, but it requires a lot more Charisma than what this build has.  At journey's end, follow freedom's lantern. The clues left along the trail spell out a message: R A I L R O A D. What could it be?  This decoder ring puzzle is probably really hard for the average wastelander. There are schools in Diamond City, but who knows how bad the Commonwealth's literacy rate is.  Behind the secret entryway, the leader of the Railroad confronts Nora with heavily-armed backup. Nora explains that she followed the trail to reach them, killing every mutant along the way. One of the Railroad, Deacon, seems to know about Nora's track record and vouches for her.  Desdemona says she can tell Nora wasn't sent by the Institute with their army of Synth. She asks if Nora would risk her life to save her fellow man, even if that man is a synth. So far, Nora has killed a dozen Synths in battle, watched another Synth shot dead in front of her by a frightened settler, and saved Nick Valentine who turned out to be a Synth. So, would she risk her life to save a Synth or not? Chamale fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Nov 4, 2019 |
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Nov 4, 2019 02:05
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