Fallout 4

Somebody made a character build guide for Rick Grimes. I like this one, and I'm hoping to find more like it.

As it turns out, Fallout 4 IS worth having if you don't have the stupid 60 G of textures, most of which is metal and wood grain. 60 gigs to have some fancier rust and dirt on the bullshit in the background that most people don't even look at. Character models aren't enhanced at all, I don't think.

Ironically the fan-made hi-res texture packages were more effective at prettying up the game. Bethseda just addressed the most obviously muddy and ugly textures, such as the metal building vents, desks, large trash dumpsters, lockers, etc. Still, they're pretty beefy packages, but in terms of memory usage, I guess there's no way getting around how difficult it is to have good-looking graphics. Certainly explains why Destiny 2 looks so good, yet takes up so much space.

BTW, did anyone confirm if Bethseda got rid of that annoying issue where they duplicated the files from the Creation Shop in two separate file locations? I don't believe it's doing that anymore but I wouldn't be surprised if the file names were renamed upon being downloaded into some jibberish path-name.

edited 4th Jun '18 8:15:57 PM by SgtRicko

Yeah, we looked at actual installed file sizes a little while back and they match up with the size of the game and its dlc so far.

So, replaying this with Sim Settlements. And MY GOD is it a pain to set that up. Each plot needs a crafted item, which uses very specific crafting items?!

But seeing the things build is pretty cool. Just need to work out how to get the settlements to grow organically. I can't see me setting up every settlement to that standard - maybe a couple of commercial plots, or agri plots.

But in wider terms, I think it's probably something to use to setup decent mains settlements. Pondering which areas to focus on.

The latest addon to Sim Settlements added an option that makes settlements build themselves over time based on some premade templates made by the community.

edited 11th Jun '18 10:41:13 AM by Kiefen

Got the up to date mod. Still looking at the planning table. Doubt I'll touch much of the raider, cages or weird manufacturing... yet.

Will just have to tinker and see what k have to do to build things.

Oh good. I can't wait to install this mod. God knows I need my settlers to do some of their own damned construction for once.

And you can set it so all you do is build the plots and they seem to be able to manage themselves. Give them material and a factory to generate scrap. Enjoying it a fair bit. I loved building a settlement but it became busy work and so fiddly. This way it feels more organic.

Only bit I may do is set up the trade routes to ensure supply chain. And then I just need to see about making Fibre optics for the sensors you need for plots.

Just wish I could clear bloody BUSHES. Also have the improved Minutemen mod so they also feel a bit more fleshed out.

The Spring cleaning mod allows you to clean brushes and most other stuff that wasn't scrapable before.

So I started playing my latest campaign again in prep for 76. This is fun. I'm trekking to the Castle for the first time ever, and stopped in at Diamond City on the way. I've been doing a lot of narrating to myself out loud like a Let's Player, and I've gotta say I'm enjoying it.

Really that's the only way TO play.

My character's not impressed with Diamond City. At all. I mean, the city itself is impressive for what they've managed to do with a baseball diamond, but the people are just annoying to him. "What's that, you're a trader up from Quincy?" "Um, you didn't even ask me who or what I am? I look like a fucking mercenary, and Quincy . . . My second in command was surprised I didn't know about the fall of that place. You're supposed to be a reporter! Why don't you know? Make up a believable lie, or get the truth. I could be a trader. I have purified water. I'm down from Sanctuary, you nit."

The mayor: "You look like Diamond City material." "I'm armed and I look like an old Pre-War general like Patton. Are you sure I'm Diamond City material right from the start?"

Of course, he's also not surprised about any of this. We've got a junkie psychic and a woman literally named Trashcan Carla pointing him to Diamond City, it doesn't seem like it would be that great a place to start with. But he keeps these things to himself. Also his doubts about being the General of the Minutemen, considering Preston does so much ordering him about instead of, you know, TAKING ORDERS. He thinks he's just being used as a front man for whatever Preston's really about. Which right now means standing around outside the Castle waiting for me to catch up to him.

Is going to go full raider down the line after being Thoroughly Done With This Shit?

I hadn't thought of that, but probably not. My goal is to play the four factions off each other until decision time, then merge the Minutemen and Railroad into an Alliance. He's not a bad guy, he just wants the old world back and knows the best way to get there is to A. get everyone to stop fighting and B. save as much tech as he can. Toward that end, he WILL be getting the evacuation codes from Shawn and he WILL be using them so the Institute's people don't die. It's like the US and USSR after WWII. All those German rocket scientists got snapped up by governments to work on the space race.

Probably not. Most natural reaction is to become King of the Wastelands.

People's sense of scale is really fucked up, innit? Like, a baseball diamond is considered a whole city. Whereas you grew up in the Old World, and likely have Old World sensibilities. Someone with even a little ambition might be able to find some real opportunities from the resources, human and material, that they find in the wastelands.

I really love how this game embraces that instinct in people. Bethesda does learn from the mods, don't they? Skyrim had High King of Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas had a settlement building mod, Fallout 3... I never played, actually.

The way I and Nathaniel Hawke, my character, see it, is that the Brotherhood is proof that there's other nations, and they have an interest in the Commonwealth. So he's gotta unite the place. Everyone's got a hobby, and Hawke's Pre-War hobby was history, focusing on the world after his great great grandfather's time during WWII. So he knows all about the Cold War and how the world went during that. He knows Preston is the one calling the shots, but he's going to milk his Face of the People status for all its worth.

Worth getting some of the minutemen mods to get more "control" over them. For the life of me I don't get why games that give you ostensible leadership roles don't lean into it more, beyond just having temporary companions.

Where's a mini war table / menu that allows you to prioritise defences, or deploy troops, or an investment system. Hell the mods have shown that sort of thing is possible.

Instead it's micromanagement and feeling like an Almighty Janitor.

Control mods, you say?

See, if the game got hard enough, I was going to kit out five or six settlers in combat armor and laser gear, and send them from settlement to settlement with me tagging along. As a sort of bodyguard unit. Now I need to look into those control mods . . . Right now I'm using two mods. One that ups the starting SPECIAL to 40 like the old games had, and one that gives double perk points. I wanted to mix Fudgemuppet's General and Paladin builds to get a power armor wearing, settlement building maniac build going. I'm keeping those mods but if I find some control mods I like, I might just restart with those in mind and give you guys a proper textual Let's Play out of it.

Have any recommended mods for that?

We are the Minutemen:

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/6443?tab=description

Basically, levelled Minutemen, redoes their uniforms and (Once you retake the castle) allows you a command table to recruit minutemen as settlement guards. Also, the actual minutemen themselves get better gear as you level, so its not always some guys with muskets; you find them with power armour or decent layered armour as well.

Not tired this one, but this one has Minutemen specific defence items for settlements as well:

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/13115/?tab=description

Helps make them feel a bit more "present"; but doesn't QUITE solve that feeling of being a gopher.

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/6648

This one looks more like it. Basically it allows you to recruit people to follow you into combat. Including all those Minuteman patrols you see running around.

edited 13th Jun '18 1:57:23 PM by Journeyman

Apparently there is a mod that lets you wield the Prydwen as a melee weapon.

Awesome work from the mod creator. Fact is I'm not surprised by this at all, since we've seen other mods just as ridiculous in other Beth games. Like making dragons into Macho Man Randy Savage or Thomas the Train Engine.

But the ever important question is: Can I whip it out while standing on the Prydwen so I can hit the Prydwen with the Prydwen and win the war against the Brotherhood in one shot? Because while my gaming self is attracted to a high powered, highly structured military force working with me, I am not at all amused in real life with assholes like that coming in and hunting people they don't like. Granted, the ones being hunted are generally dangerous, but there's good exceptions and I'm not down with killing the good guys along with the bad. Besides, I'm Jewish. I hear a group of well armed militants attacking a particular set of ethnicities on sight without remorse, it gives me the urge to shoot something.

That's a fucking hilarious mod.