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

I've come this far, so I'll keep on. Picked this game back up for a bit.

I'll need to figure out what I picked at level 93.

Level 94 -- Cap Collector 1. There isn't much I still want to purchase in the tree, so Cap Collector will let me start to build the higher level stores. Cap Collector 2 is the one I'm aiming for. This should hopefully let me get a settlement to 100% happiness and the achievement for doing so. I built a store in Sanctuary and gave Vault Tec Rep a job

There are few open worlds in gaming that I like as much as the one in Fallout 4. And double so in Survival mode. How the world exists outside of the player, that firefights happen in the distance and patrols can be encountered anywhere and any time. The aftermath is encountered and you wonder what went down here. Scoop the loot and onward.

Two games stand out for me as being perfect for the 'patrol' sort of gameplay I like so much. those are Fallout 4 and the Misery mod for Stalker Call of Pripyat. The sort of open worlds where I can just head out with no objective, no destination and patrol the environs, and find it all compelling.

I got the Homerun achievement and how did I not just get this before? Diamond City continues to surprise me

Hit level 95 but point unspent as I have no idea what to do. I'll probably gather three of them and raise Perception in order to take Concentrated Fire.

Gunner's Plaza is a b!tch in survival. I had never been there, but found out the small guns bobblehead is there. I think there are radiant BOS quests available to go there too, but I have yet to get one. I prepped for the mission and went there carefully. Got within 100 yards or so and started plinking gunner noggins and boom, blown up by a Fatman. In survival that sends you back to the last time you slept. So I prepped again, this time with a sniper rifle (.50 cal suppressed) and when I got close a blanket fog set in, and I wasn't going to approach the place in the fog. I'll need to go back later.

I now have about 450 hours in this game, and probably 400 in this run, and I've never been to vault 88. I think I should.

Hit level 97.

Levels 95-97 -- Spent two points in Perception (10) and the third point on Concentrated Fire 1. This grants a +10% accuracy bonus to each successive VATS shot against the same body part. Level 2 will be 15%. Level 3 is +20% accuracy but also +20% damage. This will be strong, especially with a weapon like Deliverer which I use constantly. And with Perception maxed I can go back and take Sniper and Penetrator if I want.

Having had my ass kicked at Gunner's Plaza the previous day, I devised a new plan. This time I came down from the city, through the abandoned town, and along the railroad tracks where there is a small tower I could use to snipe the gunners on the rooftops. Took out several this way, including two who were wielding Fatmans or missile launchers. These are mostly very high ranking NPCs, tough bastages, and worth a lot of XP, especially if Idiot Savant procs. The whole building is full of NPCs like this.

With the roof more clear I went up the fire escape on the west side and climbed to the roof, looting and finishing off any other gunners I found. I came back down the stairs at the front and cleared the outside from above. Went back up the stairs and entered the building through the elevator there. This took me to the basement. Once in, I methodically worked my way through the structure. My build is very high stealth and I was able to clear it without taking any damage at all. It really could not have gone any better. This was one of the hardest spots on the map, or it should be, and I was quite pleased with myself. In survival, one mistake is lights out and all of the effort would be erased. If any kill alerted other NPCs I would retreat to a safe spot until [Caution] cleared and then proceed. Using a combination of a suppressed shotgun, Deliverer, OG and grenades I cleared the place.

And it was quite profitable indeed. Caps in virtually every container with my recently picked perks. But the real profit was the small guns bobblehead (+25% critical damage) and another Guns and Bullets magazine, which grant +5% critical damage per copy you find. So I came out of the place with 30% more crit damage than I went in with. Since my build is crit heavy (sneak attacks) this was a fantastic mission. The plan, the execution, the loot were all excellent. Very satisfying to have pulled this off, albeit at the second time of asking.

I may have asked before, but has anyone here played this game and taken Ricochet? How often does it proc? It sounds like a great perk, but if it never triggers it's a wasted point. Like I took Mysterious Stranger a long time ago I think it has triggered twice. Very disappointing. But if this triggers a lot more often I would take it. Idiot Savant by comparison has proc'd 372 times for me so far.

So yeah, earlier I said there weren't too many more perks I wanted, but that's not true. There are a number of them I still want. One of my goals was to hit level 100, but I didn't think I would. Nearly there!

Hit level 99!

Levels 98 and 99 -- Concentrated Fire 2 and 3. Evidently the description is wrong, and level two also increases damage (but only level 3 says this). This is a fantastic perk. You need to dump 10 points (or 9 plus bobblehead) in to Perception to get it. For VATS builds like mine, or any build really where VATS is used, it is strong. The increasing accuracy of successive shots virtually eliminates low accuracy at range. An attack that would normally be 3% is 95% before the shots run out. Add to that extra damage and this perk is really quite strong indeed. Combined with other perks like Gun-Fu it makes VATS especially effective.

I decided to see if I could hunt down all the bobbleheads as an objective. Now up to 17 out of 20 I think. Still need medicine, unarmed and one more. Turns out I had walked past several earlier in the run, and had to go back. Medicine is done though the mission called Hole in the Wall in vault 81. I read about it. Its the mission where you unlock Curie as a potential companion. During the mission the player has to fight off hordes of mole rats. If the player (or companion or friendly protectron) get bit at any point during the mission, the player picks up a permanent health loss of 10 points. 10 points is nothing when you have 700, but its the principle of the the thing haha. I don't want to pick it up, but I've also never played this mission before. I wonder how easy it would be to get through without getting bit? No reloads on survival. I'm now way higher rank than what the mission is designed for.

I cleared vault 75 last night, first visit there. It's interesting to see the details of each vault. What their purpose was, how they went about it, and discovering how it all turned out. Vault 75 was especially sinister. No vault was intended to actually save people, aside from the control vaults I suppose. The lore and all the context and details throughout Fallout 4 is very nicely done.

Levels 100-102 -- Spent two points in Luck (10) and the third point on Ricochet. This gives a chance that any enemy's ranged attack ricochets and instantly kills the attacker. It has yet to fire, but I haven't been in firefights since taking it. Whether this was worth it is entirely down to how often it triggers. But especially in survival it could be the difference between life and a reload at the last time I slept. If nothing else the points in Luck will fill my critical meter faster.

The point for level 103 is unspent while I weigh the opportunity cost of the many ways I want to spend it.

So yeah, level 103! Hard to believe. I'm sure there are players who are level 1800 or whatever, but this is far higher than I ever expected to get. And I'm no where near done. The main catalysts are survival mode since it gives double combat XP compared to normal, and Idiot Savant, which if it procs at the right time can be a massive injection of XP. At level 2 it is a 5x multiplier. Not much when it triggers cooking a meal. But a big shot when it triggers turning in a quest.

Having no level cap is fantastic, and with Ricochet (Luck) I now have three level 10 perks (Gun-Fu (Aglity) and Concentrated Fire (Perception)), all of which require 10 points in the corresponding SPECIAL, which is a big investment of your points. But that's what having no cap can do for you.

I'm now 480 hours in and found something I didn't even know about. An Unstoppable magazine, each copy of which grants a permanent +1% chance to ignore all damage from any attack. I'll need to find out where the rest are.

I finally went and checked out Vault 88, which I see now is a DLC. It's essentially a big vault settlement (which you have to build) and has a lot of potential. Comes with 150 power already available. And frankly I needed a sleep/save/resupply point in the southeast corner of the map, so this is good. But it's quite a task to get it all up and running.

I wonder when that DLC came out? That one did not exist when i was playing the game. The Nuka World DLC was the last one to come out when I was still actively playing.

According to this page it was released in July of 2016, called Vault-Tec Workshop DLC.

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Vault-Tec_Workshop

It's pretty cool, repurposing an old, partially-built vault as a settlement. There is a lot of room to build and tons, literally, of stuff to scrap, like train cars and the like. Lots of concrete and steel to build with. There is just one entrance which can be attacked by raiders or other miscreants, so it's relatively easy to secure. Two other entrances/exits exist through tunnels to give multiple access points at different parts of the map. One is a man-hole near Milton General Hospital and the other a pharmacy in University Point.

And actually, Vault-Tec was in July and Nuka World in August of that year.

There's a lot of uranium in there too. Couple of entrances and if you place everything right, you can build a vault in all the sections. It's a bit fiddly and sometimes when it's attacked the NPCs will spawn in, in the zone, but outside of the vault between your walls and the underground walls. It's fun, but not really recommended.
It also added a ton of things you could craft. The quest chain and missions I didn't care for.

Yeah, patrol dynamics and exploration are what make an open world for me.

Crane knows what I'm talking about. They did a good job with the A-Life equivalent, to keep with the Stalker theme. The various factions encounter each other while they themselves patrol the landscape. Firefights break out. Or a group of Minutemen will be battling a deathclaw. A vertibird circles overhead firing its mini-guns at mutants below before taking too much fire and crashing, forcing me to dash or be struck by the falling debris. The troopers it disgorged are now taking on the mutants who shot down the bird.

And all of this stuff happens independently of the player. I can choose to snipe at the periphery, go charging in, sit and observe or skeddadle on my way, thankful for the distraction. Over time you learn where the hotspots are. Certain places have a high incidence rate, while others are mostly free of potential conflict, like the riverfront on the east side of the Charles. The trek from say Hangman's Alley to Freedom HQ is always a peaceful one. Turn in toward the city for a block or two and it's like open rebellion.

It all adds up to a really nice blend of free-roam gameplay and quest hunting.

Level 103 -- Action Boy 3. 75% faster AP refill (up from 50% rank 2). Not crucial, but the sort of thing that pays off in the most desperate situations. I don't sprint much so this is about refilling AP to get more shots and sooner in VATS.

Level 104 -- Medic 2. Stimpaks and Radaway restore/remove 60% (up from 40% rank 1). A quality of life perk. In Survival, using any chem has a number of side effects, and getting more benefit for each jab is nice.



Yeah, the associated missions do suck. But it's a neat workspace, and of all settlement locations probably the one a player can go most crazy with. I'm rather a minimalist settlement manager, so I won't be doing too much, but it's fun to experiment with some of the options. Vault 88 is safe, secure, massive and has it's own working reactor. When the missions are done I'll dismiss the overseer and prreside over my kingdom (and get the achievement)

I've been scooping up all the uranium yes, Lots of scrap around this joint.

Freedom HQ. Haha. It's Railroad. I mix up Freedom from Stalker and the Railroad in my head all the time. Same dudes really.

Exploring ominous abandoned places does it for me also.

As a kid I used to love exploring the many abandoned buildings and compounds that were around back then.

We'd often build crude "forts" everywhere, including on some of these abandoned properties.

One time we were checking out an abandoned warehouse and had to hide when a bunch of "raiders", rough looking stereotypical '80s punks with spray painted mohawks and spiked leather, showed up and started violently trashing the place.

We were lucky that our sneak skill was up to par!

I had the same childhood

Although where I grew up was probably more rural. But we built forts and explored dark places like abandoned train stops and underground spaces that were used for who knows what all those years before.

I completed the Vault 88 questlines. The overseer left, I guess because the parameters I chose for the experiments did not suit her. So she left the vault to me, and I got the Oversight achievement. Thanks Barstow for not forcing me to give you a 10mm sleeping pill.

But Clem is still around and he now is fully armed and armored. Gave him a vault 88 jumpsuit and pip-boy. All the residents here will wear this uniform. That gave another achievement called Vault Dweller. And finally, I cleared the tunnels and got Better Living Underground too. I had read there is a leveled legendary deathclaw in one of the sectors, but not for me. There was a mirelurk queen though. I've got some broad plans for Vault 88. I haven't done much to build most settlements, just focusing on keeping every one happy, fed and defended. But I think I'll try and make Vault 88 a more impressive facility.

A question about supply lines.... How does it work exactly? I connected Vault 88 to my network, linking it to the Castle, which is linked to Hangman's Alley which is linked to Sanctuary. I guess I thought that would make everything stored at say 88 accessible at Hangman's. But it doesn't. Does this grow over time, or is just some of it shared. For example in Vault 88 I have 2000+ steel, but when I look at Hangman's the steel available is far less, like 50. So I'm not clear on how materials at one linked settlement are shared with others linked to it. Anyone know the scoop?

I'm now nearly 490 hours in, and there are still many locations I've yet to explore. When I went to return to Vault 88 yesterday I used the manhole near the hospital. And I thought, I don't think I've ever been in Shaw High School which is nearby. I thought maybe I would find a magazine to boost some stat. And there was another Unstoppable mag. Never knew about this and now found two in two days. Never know what you'll find when having a look about.

Level 105 -- Spent one point in Endurance (5) with a view to take Aquaboy next level

When I was doing the Vault 88 experiments I think it gave me a (temporary) boost to endurance, but it went away. Anyone know how that works and if I can get these bonuses back?

Everyone can stop researching the answer, because to get the vault 88 buffs it just requires using the experimental prototype you built for the Clem tests. Like if I use the overseer's desk I get +1 to INT or the cycle it's +1 to END. Can have only one active at any time.

Level 106 -- Aquaboy 1. Ignore radiation while in water and breathe under water. I probably should have taken this earlier. It makes shortcuts of any body of water, where I would have circumnavigated the hazard before. Radiation is more annoyance than true problem, but ignoring it is nice. I used it to good effect when I found the Atom Cats garage last night. Ran a mission for them and the Aquaboy perk surely cut 10 minutes off the quest. They were a delight, the Atom Cats, maybe the most friendly people in the Commonwealth. Too bad they are so far out of the way. But now that I am using vault 88 more they're not so far away. For power armor users they are definitely people you want to meet. I rarely use it myself. I approached their facility locked and loaded and saw they were green in VATS. So I walked up to one who was in power armor and he's like, what's happening daddy-o? Didn't expect these cats.

Level 107 -- Penetrator. In order to get Concentrated Fire I had to go to 10 Perception, and hopped over Penetrator on the way. I thought why not sink a point? Sometimes in VATS a target is moving behind some railings, or saplings or whatever and maybe this would help me get some more hits in, waste fewer rounds.

The description says "In V.A.T.S. you can target an enemy's body parts that are blocked by cover, with a decrease in accuracy." But that sells it short. It's a top-tier skill. You can hit power cores through the front of power armor or enemies like sentry bots, resulting in a mini-nuke detionation. You can send rounds through one enemy to hit another behind. Creatures like mirelurks are no longer saved by its shell. Any limb can be targeted from all angles, and the shell's armor ignored. Radscorpions and the like lose their advantage (although the bastages can still burrow). Hit targets underground.

And then there's the fact you can shoot through cover like it says. There are limits. Structures cannot be penetrated, except maybe by a critical. But fences, interior walls, guard posts, windows and that sort of thing are no barrier. And since I've gotten it every shot seems more powerful. Every head shot it seems is now a catastrophic event for the head wearer and it explodes in to a fountain of blood. Quite grisly, but effective. The second rank in the perk eliminates the accuracy penalties of targeting enemies behind cover. That is useful, but since I have concentrated fire only the first shot or two are low accuracy.
So yeah, it's a fantastic perk and makes the Sole Survivor much more effective against the best armored enemies. But only works for ballistic fire. It's like getting tungsten carbide rounds for every ballistic weapon.

Coming out of Vault 88 through the pharmacy exit I came to DB Technical School, and with the recent find at Shaw HS I thought, no not here too. In I went. Full of raiders with a boss in the basement. Goes by the name Bosco. Terminals reveal his madness. Anyway, when I spotted him he had a skull next to his name. I'm level 107! What the hell is he to outrank me by so much? He was in full power armor and just two rounds from Splattercannon took him out. Penetrator is strong. And yep, I found Unstoppable mag number 3 in there.

I went and cleared out Vault 95, which is at the far southwest corner, near Somerville Place which I had recently brought up to standard. Vault 95 was another rather sinister experiment. Spoilers probably aren't needed, but maybe someone will read this who would have preferred to have discovered these stories on their own



I also want to mention I finally tried out the SMG Spray and Pray. I had been carrying a really strong freezing shotgun for interior room clearing. Quite good, but I decided to give the SMG a go and wow. I have the automatic perks now, and it only does 85 damage per round (chambered in .45) plus 15 explosive radius damage per shot. But man does it wreck at short range. Very high cyclic rate, spits rounds out like a MG 42. And each explosion seems to perma-stagger the target so they just die in a hail of exploding .45 caliber slugs. You do have to be careful not to shoot at target near arm's length or get caught up in it yourself. Of course each round fired does way more damage than 85 due to perks like Sandman, Operator's perk, Demo Expert and so on. It's suppressed, with a 100 round drum mag. I modified the barrel and put on a reflex sight. Top weapon.

Level 108 -- Four Leaf Clover. Each VATS shot has a chance to refill critical meter. Sometime over the last 10 or 20 levels there was a significant spike in enemy rank. Mutants are now warlords, gunners are majors and brigadiers and so on. Having more criticals is useful as the enemy ups their game Criticals do more damage of course and also always hit. Most of my attacks are sneaks and therefore automatic critical, but I also have a few in my pocket to deploy when needed outside of stealth.

Level 109 -- Critical Banker 2. Can now bank two criticals. See above.

Went back to Far Harbor for a bit and knocked out some quests and gathered a couple achievements. I don't care for Far Harbor (or Nuka World for that matter) as much as many seem to, but it's more content and changes things up a bit. It's really the only time I wear power armor. Maybe I would have liked Far Harbor more if I could have Nick Valentine with me.

And Bosco did not wear power armor as I had said. It was the heavy raider armor that sort of looks like power armor. From a distance.

Fallout 4 has been a great game. I mostly ignored it for years. It came out in 2015. It wasn't until August 2021 that I finally gave it a go when the GOTY edition was on sale for ten bucks and this thread was started. Since then I have clocked north of 500 hours in this game. 500! That puts FO4 ninth in my all-time Steam list, placing it among very illustrious company indeed. That is some serious bang for the buck. Survival mode must take some of the credit, I know I wouldn't have played it so long in normal mode. The combat is the draw, retaining a level of challenge beyond what normal could be. The other aspects of survival are fine, even no manual saves and no fast travel. But it's the fantastic combat balance that keeps me going (and no level cap). And of course the fact it is absolutely stuffed with content. Even after 500 hours there are many places I have yet to explore.

It's on sale by the way, US $9.99 for the GOTY edition on Steam, just like I started with.

Fallout 4 Steam Sale

Steam summer sale. Can't really let one of these slip past without picking up a game or two.

Ran the rule over a sh!tload of games. Amazing how many games I don't want to play. Even the thirty or forty games on my wishlist didn't really trip my trigger.

But I did pick up Fallout 76. I had so much luck dropping a tenner on FO4 that the likelihood of doing the same with 76 is like super high.

And if it doesn't suit me so well, little is lost. But I think I will like it a lot.

Installed it, but haven't fired it up. Doing some recon over the finer points. What advice have you got Panzer for the low level noob?

PM's been recommending this one for a few years, but I don't think I really knew what it was. But now that I've given it a proper look I see I can treat it just like I do Forza 5. People around, but do my own thing, unaffected. No non-consensual PvP. Join up for community events when the mood strikes. Return to populated solo when it's over. Obviously it will be tuned to grant the best returns for joining others and I probably will. But mostly I like to do my own thing. For this price it's worth a punt. But after all I've just read I'm sure I'll dig it. Like how perks are handled, being able to change them up on the fly seems so liberating. Whether I like it in the end is to be seen, but the leveling and perk system looks cool. It gives you like 50 levels to mess around and find your center. Sounds good to me.

I'll have to alter the thread title again.

Kicked off my Appalachian adventure. Gained a level, found some stuff, talked to some folks. Too early, but I like it so far. Need to learn more about how things work, what to focus on, build priorities and the sort. It's like FO4 but with everything changed in some way. Perks, VATs, Pip-boy, camps, events, weapons. All this stuff and more is changed in some way, so I'll need to adjust to the new mojo. But so far it's hitting the right chords with me. And literally too as I picked up a guitar and rather than strum discordant chords like most games, I was ripping licks. As a guitar player in real life I could appreciate this touch. I was always disappointed in Metro that I couldn't jam on the guitars I came across.

Had trouble getting started, could not create an account through the game. But once I did so at Bethesda's site, I could then log in through the game. It's fun to have a new Fallout World to discover.

I put more time into Fallout 4 than any game I've played since the early 2000s, until Cyberpunk 2077 came along that is.

That's interesting. For me, Fallout has more playtime in it than Cyberpunk did. I liked Cyberpunk, love Fallout.

I finally pick up 76 and Panzer's nowhere to be seen

Played FO76 quite a bit yesterday, enough to hit level 7, just tooling around the starter region and doing quests. The other players I've encountered have been rather the friendly sort. They drop kit for the noobs to pick up. It's all been pretty chill really. It's rather surprising in a sense, since MP setups like this usually display the worst in humanity, my enjoyment affected by how much people suck. But so far in 76 I've found nothing but cool players going about their business, which to be fair is probably because it's structured to make shooting other players a waste of time in normal play. I see lots of noobs too. The sale brought in a lot of new players.

In 76 there's not settlement building like in FO4, but each player gets a couple CAMPs (Construction and Assembly Mobile Platform) which can be placed just about anywhere, and can be moved too. I have yet to find the right spot, even though it doesn't matter much where you place it. But I am on the hunt for that spot where I say this is it. Somewhere relatively secure, with perhaps a nice river or creek, inspiring view, sunrise or sunset. I'll keep looking.

Evidently players can launch nukes. The first time the announcement came I found it all so exciting, not knowing what was happening. A nuclear weapon was inbound, Sirens blaring. A countdown timer on the screen. I sought shelter and waited. But it detonated far away, though it sounded much closer

Having fun with this one so far.