homepage Forums Land & Armor Combat Tactical Simulations - General Re: Fallout 4 (now with extra New Vegas!...and a dash of 76)

I liked the modding aspect but was otherwise not impressed by the weapons mechanics, and found most of the models to be awkward and ugly. I had hoped that Bethesda would haved used New Vegas as their main inspiration instead of Borderlands.

Kiloton is good weapon, I wish I had found it a lot sooner, although I think it may have accompanied me to Nuka World.

It sure is, the Kiloton. If I can find an advanced receiver for it, or take another two points in Gun Nut to build one, it will be even better. That is a big boost, even over the 'Powerful' receiver it has now. As it stands it does around 160 damage, plus the radiation and explosive damage. I don't know how those bonus damage types are affected by the perks like sneak attacks/Ninja, Demo Expert and Sandman, but the sum of all that damage is pretty high.

I hit level 71 and spent two points to train up Intelligence to 8. I'll spend one more point here to get to level 9, and then invest in the Nuclear Phycisist perks. First rank is +50% damage with radiation weapons (like Kiloton) and second rank doubles damage. Would that mean 320 base damage plus the rad and explosive damage? Good grief. In addition, filling out that perk doubles the life of fusion cores. A very nice perk all around. Situational yes, but if you're using radiation weapons and wearing power armor it's really strong.

If I get a receiver upgrade it will be well over 400 ballistic damage. Not much can stand up to that.

I'm at the point now where I'm ready to enter the end game. I might still keep playing even after the ending, but I'm trying to set that all up now. I broke tradition and researched this, rather than just let it play out. I wanted to get a feel for which decisions and actions lead to which factions I end up friendly or enemy with, and how to shape my post-ending game world. I think I've got a plan. I intend to side with the Minutemen, while keeping good relations with BoS and RR, and blowing up the Institute. When it's done I will hopefully remain allies with everyone else.

So I think I can accomplish this by informing BoS and RR of the Institute's plans at Bunker Hill. Once that battle begins I stay neutral by not engaging anyone. When it's over, free the synths, and kill the Courser. On the roof talk to Father and tell him he is nuts, and reject the Institute which will get me banished, leading to the Defend the Castle mission. Once that's over I can then infiltrate the Institute, plant the explosives and Bob's your uncle.

Oh yes, I forgot to add that Borderlands is one of my favorite series ever. Especially BL2 and 3. It's interesting you drew that comparison and it's true. The weapons are a bit Borderlands-like, especially energy, gamma and radiation weapons. I like how it's done in Fallout though, and most weapons look the part, from pre-war firearms that look as though they've been through an atomic event to newer weapons that have the look of something cobbled together out of available parts.

The gun play is the best in the series too, even if I probably would prefer a more RPG-like experience, like the previous games. But I quickly acclimated to FO4 being more shooter than RPG, it works well for me as it is. The improved accuracy outside of VATS is a big shift, and allows real long-range sniping that was difficult in the other Fallout games due to how dispersion worked.

So yeah, overall I can;t find too much fault in how Bethesda implemented this, even if it feels less Fallout as a result.

I wonder which ending will be canonical?

While it seems that most players opted to destroy the Institute, doing so would pretty much eliminate them as a future faction beyond some scattered remnants.

That's a great question and I don't know the answer. maybe once I've been through the ending sequences I might have a different perspective. As it stands now I'd probably guess that exactly what I am setting up would be it. But there are plenty of holes in this argument, not least of which is the Minutemen are a weak faction. As I said earlier I can't imagine these people having any long term success without my help. Too disorganized and they have no special tech to help them (that I've seen), unlike all the others.

The problem for the Railroad is that if the Institute is indeed destroyed, the Railroad loses its purpose, and would probably fade away.

BoS is a good candidate, but too extreme. But I might have thought the same about the Enclave, and their ending was canonical in FO3.

The Institute is evil, right? That's what everyone says but I have not dived deep enough to really see this, it's more a hunch as I talked about earlier, born of a lifetime of suspicion and mistrust in others

I did indeed follow through on that plan, and it seems to be working out. After finishing Synth Retention, the Battle of Bunker Hill followed. I informed both BoS and RR of the Institute's intentions, then did the mission. The battle was a massive firefight between the Institute, RR and BoS. I stayed on the fringes, not engaging anyone in order to maintain my alliances. Surprisingly it was the Railroad left standing at the end. They brought some units called heavies which I had not seen previously. I expected the essential escorting Courser would prevail, but he collapsed in a heap in a corner, alive but out of the fight.

I freed the synths, then needed to kill that Courser who was still down so it was easy and I went to meet Father on the roof of the CIT ruins. I told him I wanted out and that I was disappointed in him, and was banished from the Institute, making enemies of them. Eventually I found my way back to the castle for the Defend the Castle mission. I needed to build defenses. I already had ten turrets there, and built another half dozen or so, laid out some mines and the battle started. It was hard! Coursers were teleporting in, to suddenly be behind me, plus they have stealth boys. Synth striders and elites too, and it was a hell of a battle. I died twice and had to replay it. Third time was a charm (I got in to my BoS PA suit and popped Med-X).

Victorious, I started the Nuclear Option mission. Now to talk to Sturges to get the plan which leads to the main quest ending. It looks like the plan to keep three allies is working, which will be good for the post-ending world. Of course I'm not sure how much I'll keep playing after that point, I've dropped 350 hours in to this game over the past couple of months. Maybe at that point I can go all-in with Nuka World and become the raider overlord I've never wanted to be.

Hit level 73 and was disappointed to discover that the Nuclear Physicist description, "Increased damage of radiation weapons", does not apply to the weapon necessarily, only to the radiation damage it does. So the ballistic damage of Kiloton got no boost, only the +50 radiation damage which became 75. Far from what I expected, I misunderstood the perk bonus, but the way it is worded is misleading in my view. The increased duration of fusion cores is nice though.

Maybe the best thing to come out of this sequence of big battles was the acquisition of a Gauss rifle off a fallen combatant. It does 288 damage stock. I'll take it to a workbench and see if I can't customize it and make it even better. The ammo's precious (2mm), but I've stockpiled a few hundred rounds now. With Kiloton not reaching the lofty heights I expected, I plan to give the Gauss a go and see how it performs.

I sure you've discovered by now that the gauss rifle is best suited to sniping, although settlers seem to do well with them as a more general purpose weapon.

I believe my Castle had a 384 defense rating when it was attacked, I did not have to do much fighting. The Institute is probably a tougher opponent than the BoS was in that particular scenario admittedly.

Most of my play time and enjoyment came after I beat the main quest, this was partially due to the fact that a lot of content was added only after I'd beaten it, relatively early, but regardless there's still plenty to do. I actually lost a lot of interest in the main quest after I'd reached the Institute.

I haven't actually fired the gauss rifle. I didn't take it with me to Fort Independence for the battle. I left it at Sanctuary to be tinkered with later. Kiloton still wrecks, even if it does not wreck to the extent I thought it would wreck

I reconfigured OG as my sniper rifle and it is fantastic. It's 236 damage before any adrenaline, and 271 with three levels of it, as an example. And of course that is before Ninja, Sandman and the sort. It's quiet, accurate and has a 20-round magazine. I'll give the gauss a go and see how it handles and go from there. I need about 10 weapon mods to get the achievement for it.

I bet BoS was a tough nut too, but yeah I found the synths and coursers put up a very strong fight. That invisibility is a b!tch. And on survival especially they hit hard.

You finished the main quest in the early 30's right? I think after that's done is a good time to do Nuka World so we'll see.

For some reason I'd expected Liberty Prime to be part of the attacking force, so I totally went totally overboard on my defenses.

As it turns out I was hardly able to get a shot off at the attackers. Since the BoS can't teleport inside the walls, and their vertibirds were getting annihilated as soon as they came into range, there was nothing they could do.

Yeah I think I was only level 31 going into the last battle against the BoS, it was tough, especially since as I later found out, Institute synth soldiers are not on par with their Brotherhood counterparts until you hit higher levels. They were getting plastered, only the Coursers could hold their own.

At one point I had to resort to throwing a Nuka grenade at a mass of enemies in front of me just to buy me a little breathing room, and even with that they had me down to a tiny sliver of health.

I would have expected that too. So where and when does he appear?

I finished the main quest. It all went according to plan, with the Institute going boom. Honestly I did it this way for a certain outcome, or post-quest state of affairs. But I never really found the Institute all that objectionable. Sure they were treating humanity as an experiment, but that's how you find the limit, how you test your theories. And honestly the world is pretty fooked up at this point, and there's plenty objectionable to find. So the Institute doesn't really stand out all that much. But perhaps there's some stuff I never discovered. I did very little of their quests before lighting them up.

The upshot is that I still am allies with BoS and Railroad, and have their quests and especially vertibird travel still at hand. So my end-game path was done more with these things in mind rather than any moral judgement or alignment. The Institute really was humanity's best hope for a better future. That's over now.

This game has been a lot of fun, I've really enjoyed it. I spent $10 on this and have played for 350 hours, about 2 cents per hour lol. Good bang for the buck. I think I'll set it aside for now, and maybe return later to play more of Far Harbor and Nuka World.

Hit level 76. I spent three accrued points to max out Gun Nut.

Liberty Prime makes a notable appearance in the BoS quest to end the Institute.

You played a lot more hours concurrently than I did, my total play time was broken up by a couple of lengthy breaks.

It's no wonder that you are a little burnt out on it at this point.

LOL No kidding. Everyone is different of course but I'm always rotating between several different games. Sure, I may play one game for 3 hours in one sitting but I'm always rotating it with other games on my schedule.

Not so fast! While my gaming habits ARE suspect, I found I had not burnt out quite enough. I wanted to do two more things. One, I wanted to see what the gameworld looked like after the big boom. And indeed, the Minutemen have spread out across the land, with squads posted at checkpoints around the map. And one unforseen consequence was the fact the Institute explosion formed a huge crater where M.I.T. C.I.T. used to be. This includes the western end of the Riptide Bridge, which was my usual route in to the city from the northwest. I can jump off if headed west, but the path is now blocked heading in to Boston. That bomb made big boom.

Two, I wanted to take advantage of having Gun Nut 4. Now I could actually build advanced receivers and other high end mods, rather than hoping to find them in the wild. And with even more powerful weaponry in hand, I decided to head off to Nuka World for a second time. First time, I had given it up as a bad job when I died in the gas room. I made it through the gauntlet this time, but that is no joke on Survival. After defeating the overboss I was actually at max adrenaline, and my rifles were hitting for 300-400 per shot. That helped with the overboss. He is tough, but a combination of a squirt gun, Kiloton and psychojet made short work of him.

I made it as far as Fizztop mountain, and got that sweet PA from the overboss fight. But I'm not too interested at the mo in leading the raiders, just wanted to check out the place and brew up some Nuka Cola like PM has been talking about. I'll have a look about and see what's what. Maybe find some good gear, but I have no plans to lead these factions. After all I went through to lead the Minutemen to a brighter end game, it doesn't follow to now throw that all away.

The huge mess that the destruction of the Institute causes is a major negative IMO.

Anyway you may find these interesting:

No worries and like I said before, everyone is different. When it comes to gaming there really isn't anything that I would call "suspect".

Which is?

Thanks for the links I'll check 'em out later.

My gaming habits are indeed suspect, but thanks for the cover. So much so I am seriously considering going for a run down New Vegas. Turns out they released some DLC after I played, which is news right? It might be worth a return, with the DLC and raised level cap. It's not on sale though dammit

Wonder if it's worth it after all this time? Must be, right? Only one way to find out

I reinstalled FNV. Everything I read talks about frequent crashes, so before I buy any DLC I thought I'd play it a bit and see if it affects me. When I fired it up I saw it said 'continue'. My old saves! I loaded the most recent one, from 2013, and found I was level 17 when I stopped playing (this was a second run). So I had to decide whether to start over. I think I'll just continue from here, having played through the hobo phase. My SPECIALS aren't ideal, making CHR a dump stat. Instead I have 5 points in it, but it's not the end of the world, even if I'd do it differently if I were to begin anew. I can tell I wasn't min-maxing or reading internet guides then haha.

This save is Hardcore mode, and of course I'm wearing a Duster and Sheriff's hat. I didn't actually play as I spent so much time reacclimating to the pip boy. Having just played FO4 it is striking how different this is, how much more info, especially statuses, and things that aren't in FO4 at all, like challenges. Forgot all about those. Guns degrade, and it's interesting that I am carrying a couple copies of each of my weapons in order to have a fresh one to swap to.

Leveling is also way different, with skills that you drop points in to, instead of the perk-only system in FO4. Just looking through the pip boy it's striking how much more RPG FNV is. We knew this, but it still jumps out at me.

But it looks pretty rough. I'm not one who puts graphics over gameplay, which I'm sure is true of you guys too. But the terrain, and weapons look their age no doubt. What I find is that while this stands out having just played a better looking game, I undergo a sort of sensory adaptation effect through time, and after a number of hours it becomes the new normal in a sense, and this is really not noticed any longer.

I must say that finding these old saves blows my mind. I just didn't expect it. I often turn cloud saves off in games, but I guess sometimes I don't, and it's cool to have it pay off so many years down the line. There was another game I played recently where this happened as well. It was RDR2, which I had bought on Epic at release. Now I had bought it on Steam and just didn't expect my saves to be there on a different platform. But they were. That was a much shorter interval than the 8 years since I fired up New Vegas though.

My inventory is a mess. Can't believe all the crap I was carrying. Gotta take care of that.

I tried going back to New Vegas briefly last year while waiting for Cyberpunk and just couldn't do it, the primitive shooting mechanics, lack of settlement building and yes, outdated graphics, killed it for me.

I still think New Vegas was the better game for its time though.

Agreed. I think it has the best story and most interesting characters of any Fallout game.

Now if Bethesda one day decided to remake New Vegas with the graphics engine currently used by F76 I would buy it in a heartbeat.

It's the Fallout game we'd expect from Obsidian, isn't it? Even though I've played it before, a couple of times evidently, I'm still finding it striking how much more robust the systems are in FNV than FO4. A different approach to things, and for me they both work.

I'm just a few hours in to my return to FNV and I'm having fun with it. leveled up a couple times. I had made a couple of choices with the character build before that I wouldn't if were I to start again now, but it's nothing I can't live with.

No crashes so far. If that continues I'll drop some cash on the DLC. I have the thing called the Caravan pack but that was probably either free or maybe a pre-order bonus. The rest I do not have yet.

Hardcore mode is pretty simple. Just gotta eat and drink now and then, and companions can be killed. But I can also quick save and fast travel. It doesn't feel like it imparts and combat bonuses to the NPCs, or at least not like Survival in FO4.

It's totally stock at this point, no mods at all.