Fallout X: Back after those messages

[LibraryOgre]

Continued from the dead thread...

Since I'm playing Fallout 4 again, I want to talk about it, so we get a new thread.

So, I'm mostly concentrating on building good settlements and maxing affinity this time. I've maxxed Codsworth, Piper, Preston, and Cait. Started Curie, but have to progress further in the main quest. Working on MacCready, since I haven't had him before and I don't have to get stuck behind the main quest to manage him. Finished Vault 88, which I always do in the nicest way.

Finishing Vault 88 was kind of fun, actually. There's the two really hard fights... the Sentry Bot and the Alpha Deathclaw. I made them incredibly simple. I built myself a Large Generator, four missile turrets... and then removed the wall. Instead of fighting little old me and my trusty shotgun, they faced a fusillade of missiles... the sentry bot lasted longer, but neither lasted long. I actually built a proper Vault, though the living quarters are a bit more cramped than some would like. I've got the quest to kill Marowski, but I'm going to wait until I've picked up Strong... who I might wind up taking to NukaWorld, if I can, because he just wants violence and murder.

[DigoDragon]

When you say you built a "proper vault", do you mean a benevolent one or one with some crazy social experiment? My idea of proper differs a lot from Vault-Tec's idea. XD

[Spriteless]

I saw the title of this thread and thought: "Did I miss 5-9?"

[Triaxx]

The best vault of course is one where all of their potential needs are taken care of. And then it's run entirely on cycle power.

[MCerberus]

The best vault of course is one where all of their potential needs are taken care of. And then it's run entirely on cycle power.

Cycling addicts hopped up mind control juice they drink while compulsively gambling: the ideal society

[Lord Raziere]

that reminds me, I need to look up theories on Vault 21 survived aside from thematic luck reasons, because thats the only thing I can think of that allowed Vault 21 to work as long as it did.

I'm replaying new Vegas on a luck build with mods. combat is certainly better now that I can actually crit rather than my Int 10 character. not having high scores in the right skills does impact me in some places though, such as not being able to spare the Think Tank. I've basically modded the game so I don't have to worry about weapon/armor durability, massively increased my carrying capacity, and have a lot of ammo so I don't have to worry about running out. durability is fine for a first playthrough, but I wouldn't want to deal with it again. also in this playthrough I killed Caesar during the "activate the robot fort" quest. it was harder than I thought it'd be but eventually the power of Duplet shotgun pulled through.

I'm gonna do Dead Money next. yes I'm crazy enough to do Dead Money again, but the mod I have makes sure I don't lose any of my stuff when I go in, so I'm not going in defenseless having to scrounge about for stuff like my first time around. after that, its lonesome road.....

[Rynjin]

Didn't Vault 21 survive for the same reason EVEYRTHING in the Mojave survived? House redirected the majority of the bombs away, leaving the Mojave largely untouched, Vegas in particular. I'm pretty sure Vault 21 opened up not too long after the bombs fell, much like Vault 13.

[Lord Raziere]

Didn't Vault 21 survive for the same reason EVEYRTHING in the Mojave survived? House redirected the majority of the bombs away, leaving the Mojave largely untouched, Vegas in particular. I'm pretty sure Vault 21 opened up not too long after the bombs fell, much like Vault 13.

Nope. Vault 21 opened in 2274, 197 years after the bombs fell and had a society where all disputes were resolved by gambling and a layout that made everything incredibly symmetrical so everyone felt society was fair. This was the same year Mr. House decided to come out of hiding himself. So the opening of Vault 21 is relatively recent as of the time of New Vegas. and its not even the bombs I'm talking about, its the fact that out of all the vault experiments, Vault 21 is somehow an experiment that was successful while many others either died or were unworkable in some manner not because of the bombs, the Vaults DO function for shielding people from those, but because Vault-Tec deliberately made the vaults to be crazy experiments and not to save anyone they succumbed to their own built in social problems and flaws.

[Grim Portent]

There wasn't really anything bad about Vault 21 is the thing, everyone has a roughly equivalent lifestyle, disputes are primarily handled by random chance with no bias, unless they choose a game with elements of skill, so on average everyone wins as many disputes as they lose. There's not really a reason for the vault dwellers to get upset about much because all things considered they were equal and had nothing to gain through escalating conflict.

Most of the vaults that collapsed due to social problems had really dysfunctional social experiments going on, like mind control experiments, sabotaging drug rehab progress, human sacrifice, giving crazy people authority over a group of people who all have good reason to think they'd be better leaders, class based oppression and so on. Without those extreme pressures the vaults seem to be able to last for ages just fine.

Hell, in theory Vault 21 is better even than the more 'normal' vaults, because the normal vaults were run by an Overseer with dictatorial authority curtailed only by the loyalty of their security forces, while 21 was a form of communal democracy with gambling as the final arbiter between groups.

[Triaxx]

Weirdly as I struggle through AWoPified areas, because I'm a lunatic doing a melee run, I figure Dead Money will be an absolute cakewalk compared to the rest of the game.

[GloatingSwine]

Most of the vaults that collapsed due to social problems had really dysfunctional social experiments going on, like mind control experiments, sabotaging drug rehab progress, human sacrifice, giving crazy people authority over a group of people who all have good reason to think they'd be better leaders, class based oppression and so on. Without those extreme pressures the vaults seem to be able to last for ages just fine.

The extreme pressures were, of course, the point.

The vaults weren't intended to "succeed", they were intended to study different ways a closed loop society could fail so that they could be avoided by the people who really mattered.

[Grim Portent]

Well yeah, but weirdly enough some of the experiments, like Vault 21 actually worked. It was a functioning, if somewhat strange, society that lived in peaceful isolation before being asked to open up by Mr House and deciding to do as requested and then getting screwed over.

It was presumably a case of Vault-Tec and the nascent Enclave thinking 'clearly this would never work, but let's see how long it takes to collapse,' only to turn out to be a pretty decent set up.

[MCerberus]

Well yeah, but weirdly enough some of the experiments, like Vault 21 actually worked. It was a functioning, if somewhat strange, society that lived in peaceful isolation before being asked to open up by Mr House and deciding to do as requested and then getting screwed over.

It was presumably a case of Vault-Tec and the nascent Enclave thinking 'clearly this would never work, but let's see how long it takes to collapse,' only to turn out to be a pretty decent set up.

From a story-telling standpoint Vault 21 worked because the narrative needs to show an example of something that has been lost in the name of progress. I know it isn't quite what we were talking about, but it's really smart writing. The residents lost their home, but the player's primary interaction with the vault 21 residents is someone whose art flourishes because of the exposure to new things because of it.

[factotum]

I'm currently on another playthrough of Fallout 4, since my PC under the TV is (just!) capable of running it. (Apart from that one part of the Nuka-World Gauntlet which has enemies standing above you on a grid--for some reason it *really* hated that part). The game works really well with a controller, too, although I do wish they'd allow you to press A on the controller to start the game from the launcher so I don't have to mess with the mouse to do it!

[Triaxx]

Take a jetpack to the Gauntlet and you can snipe most of the enemies that would shoot down at you from the barn just before you go into the maze.

[factotum]

Or you can just walk through in stealth mode and none of them ever see you, which is what I did. The problem is, the frame rate was tanking something fierce there, to the point that input lag was becoming an issue, so I wanted to clear it as quickly as possible. It did the same when I went back to the top side after clearing the Gauntlet to pick up any loot from the couple of people I did kill before I gave it up as a bad job.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Trying to get TTW to work through Linux is a bigger hassle than I envisioned. I can play the base F:NV and FO3 just fine. I can even mod either one, although that involves a few hoops to jump through for the mod manager. But TTW installer does NOT like files not being where they are supposed to be, so running through WINE is problematic as it recognizes the files being on a Z: drive, and it freaks out.

[Triaxx]

Put a Windows VM in wine and run it that way?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Put a Windows VM in wine and run it that way?

Eats up too many resources to run it in a VM, otherwise I'd do that. Also, VM's handle USB wonky because there's no passthrough directly.

VM and WINE would be mutually exclusive since they both achieve roughly the same thing, although WINE is much less load-intensive as it is simply a compatibility layer rather than an entire OS emulation.

[GloatingSwine]

After enough arsing around you realise that you would be quicker just dual booting in the first place....

[Triaxx]

I don't mean to actually run the game. Just to convince the installer to function. Should be okay in just WINE once it's installed.

[factotum]

Got to love the way legendary items get generated in Fallout 4. I've had a Cunning (+1 Per and Agi) left arm since quite early on in the game, quite useful for a stealthy sniper build. I just found another Cunning item while going through the Kiddie Kingdom in Nuka-World. Guess what? It was another ruddy left arm! I mean, it was at least an upgrade for the one I already had, but it would have been *so* much better if it had been a piece I could wear in addition to that one...

[LibraryOgre]

When you say you built a "proper vault", do you mean a benevolent one or one with some crazy social experiment? My idea of proper differs a lot from Vault-Tec's idea. XD

I do the benevolent version, to be sure. But, this time, I built a Vault that looked like a Vault, with corridors and cielings and such, not just "Let's slap enough beds in a giant open space and call it a day."

However, I now ran into a problem. I played through Far Harbor and got into Nuka World, did most of Nuka-World... and found out that now I have to establish raider settlements over my Minutemen settlements. So, I either have to mess that up, or pass up on the two perks you get from Power Play... or just start over. Again. After about 144 hours in that playthrough. So I kinda hit a conceptual wall.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I do the benevolent version, to be sure. But, this time, I built a Vault that looked like a Vault, with corridors and cielings and such, not just "Let's slap enough beds in a giant open space and call it a day."

However, I now ran into a problem. I played through Far Harbor and got into Nuka World, did most of Nuka-World... and found out that now I have to establish raider settlements over my Minutemen settlements. So, I either have to mess that up, or pass up on the two perks you get from Power Play... or just start over. Again. After about 144 hours in that playthrough. So I kinda hit a conceptual wall.

And if you accept ANY position with the raiders in Nuka-World, then Preston basically tells you to shove it and refuses to deal with you until the end of the game.

The 'best' way to handle Nuka-World is to skip Preston's introduction entirely, go straight for Nuka-World, do the whole Nuka-World thing, then once you've gotten the two out of three perks you want, THEN go rescue Preston from the Deathclaw. Then he'll point out that he doesn't want to deal with a raider boss, so if you want to prove yourself, you can go off them and reclaim the settlements for the Minutemen. Which means talking to the slaves and enacting that whole quest to kill the raiders.

[MCerberus]

However, I now ran into a problem. I played through Far Harbor and got into Nuka World, did most of Nuka-World... and found out that now I have to establish raider settlements over my Minutemen settlements. So, I either have to mess that up, or pass up on the two perks you get from Power Play... or just start over. Again. After about 144 hours in that playthrough. So I kinda hit a conceptual wall.

I know there's a quest for going murder-hobo on the place but it doesn't reward any perks or anything?

[LibraryOgre]

I know there's a quest for going murder-hobo on the place but it doesn't reward any perks or anything?

So, there's two options: Power Play and Open Season. Power Play involves going through the entire questline, and gives you the option of getting Gage's trust (by picking a lot of locks and doing very few drugs) but, when you complete it, you pick up two perks depending on who you support... I was angling for the Pack and the Disciples, because I like their perks. My plan was to do Power Play, get the perks, then do Open Season.

But doing THAT requires going through Home Sweet Home, where you have to go mess up some settlements. Which is FINE if you didn't spend the first 50 hours or so doing just settlement help and reclamation quests from Preston. About the only option I really have at this point is to go back to just before I got Piper's perk (since she gives double XP for finding places, I was avoiding finding places), then go an do Nuka-World, then on to the rest of the game.

That's A LOT of hours. And I'm contemplating putting it off some more, because I am that sort of completitionist.

[Triaxx]

Or... make a save now. Do Power Play, then wind back and do Open Season and give yourself the Perks.

[LibraryOgre]

Or... make a save now. Do Power Play, then wind back and do Open Season and give yourself the Perks.

Breaks the perfect game. Brain won't allow it.

[factotum]

I gave up on getting the perks once I remembered that I needed to get *three* Raider settlements set up. I did the first one, but decided I just could *not* be bothered with the second two, so I killed all the raiders at that point. Note that, while Preston Garvey technically hates me for setting up that first settlement, he's quite happy to give out Minutemen quests still, so "refuses to deal with you until the end of the game" is not actually the case.

[Triaxx]

I think Open Season overrides Power Play starting.