Fallout 4

So, usually I play as a quasi-Lone Wanderer, because I like Dogmeat and despise the nagging from most NPCs. Also, they get in the way. But there’s a ton of cool stuff the companion NPCs offer, I have to admit.

For instance, on my current playthrough (Very Hard, stealth/suppressed weapon focus, Nuka World “bad”), I’m tooling around Far Harbor with NIck Valentine, and finally get friendly enough with him that he offers a quest I’ve never seen before, that ties in with stuff I’ve seen a ton of times, but recontextualizes it amazingly well. Makes me want, on my next run through, to try to get as many companion stories/perks as I can.

On the PIP, in the Inventory screen for Armor, at the bottom there is what looks like a “C” in a circle, with a number next to it? What does that represent?

Judging from this screenshot I found:

I think that’s credits, as in how much money you have.

Ohhhhh! Duh! I was thinking purely of stats. And I could not find it on Google. Thanks!

C stands for Caps, bottle caps.

Ah ok. I kept thinking bottlecaps started with a b, so that’s why my mind went to credits. I thought maybe they had finally phased out bottlecaps being far enough ahead of the apocalypse.

Seems I answered my own question vis a vis Nuka-World:

[spoiler]Yes, you can do the bad guy quest (at least, I did it through setting up four of the eight settlements in the Commonwealth that it says you need to get a tribute chest), then turn around and wipe out the raiders (including the settlements) and keep the perks you got from the main “bad” quest line. At least, the perks are still in my perk list.

It was funny, too. When I went to wipe out the raider settlements, the first one I came to was under heavy assault by a big force of BOS guys. Like, half a dozen in power armor and two vertibirds. They were kind of indiscriminate in their laser fire, too, sometimes it seem shooting at my companion (Cait). Weirdly, their fire never killed the Operators at the settlement, but always left them with one health. I was able to wax them though.[/spoiler]

Oh, and Preston continues to deliver…if by deliver you mean “deliver hilarious and shallow sentimentality coupled with the awareness of a dead beetle.” [spoiler]After getting a dressing down from him for leading the raiders and taking over settlements in the Commonwealth, I go and wipe out the bad guys. On my return, I talk to him…and he delivers the exact same spiel that he did after Concord oh so many levels ago, asking me to be the leader of the Minutemen! It’s like it’s a total reset.

I told him no. Again.[/spoiler]

But jeez, I have said this before, but man, this game has so much stuff in it. I continue to find new dialog, new locations, new quests, and new things. Yeah, I may not be the most adventurous player so it might take me longer to find stuff, but the content in this game just keeps on giving.

Unfortunately, the side quests, companion stuff, and ephemera are often excellent, including some great voice acting, while the main quest is simply dreadful. It’s almost as if, in defiance of logic, they turned over the main quest line stuff to the interns and let the pros handle the side jobs. Luckily, the side stuff is vastly more voluminous and engaging in the long run, so maybe this wasn’t a bad idea after all…

Probably already been mentioned but the Silver Shroud and Pickman quests are really fun and in the latter case really creepy.

What I love about this game is that you get the feeling that you are discovering secret content even though it’s not always that accidental.

What I hate is that feeling that you have to go look up the wiki entry for every place you go to so that you don’t miss a magazine or other such special item. It’s a real dilemma for me. I want to be spontaneous and have serendipity lead the way but I don’t ant to miss my special perks.

I play every open world game I can get my hands on and that includes Oblivion, Skyrim, all the Fallouts. But for this one I’m trying something that goes against my anal retentive nature - I’m trying to avoid Wiki and other guides and I’m just exploring. I read some starting tips and “things I wished I had known” articles to start, and some guides on how to do the crafting, but in terms of finding “stuff” and right decisions on quests, I’m going to try to relax, not worry about “winning” and just wing it.

We’ll see how long that lasts, LOL!

That’s exactly what I am trying to do. Mostly just quicksave and let the dice roll. Almost a self imposed iron man mode.

It would be nice if they could randomize where the comics, magazines and bobble heads appear. Not in any random burned out car but rather by general POI.

I have had to fight my lawnmowering tendencies as well as my propensity to be a packrat. I’m sure I miss bobbleheads and mags, but eh, there are a bajillion things to find and it’s not hard to get enough experience to do most of what you want no matter where you go.

I keep telling myself that I should try a run with zero crafting, period, only found stuff, other than cooking. Usually I can’t resist loading up on the abilities to mod stuff because it makes such a huge difference. But then, you rarely find anything other than the best legendaries or uniques that is even worth using in that case.

Breakin’ in here to ask whether anyone has an inkling on when Bethesda might make a pack out of FO4 and it’s extra content ala Skyrim’s Legendary Edition (now Special Edition)? Is it about 2 years after release, 3 years? I’m on a crusade to avoid most games that have season passes and or DLC that nickle & dime players to an empty wallet until collections start appearing that bring it all together. Hasn’t been an issue for the most part, but I’m looking ahead to the timing of a possible FO4 entry.

No clue on a FO4 bundle; I picked up the DLC on a steam sale though so I’m guessing the next step would be some sort of compilation eventually.

They’ve done it on every other game, right? Why wouldn’t they on Fallout 4?

I recently started playing as well. I tried vanilla and just kept hitting “well that doesn’t make sense” walls a bit too much so I threw in some vanilla-ish mods and they have really made the game much more enjoyable. I recommend these.

Framework Underlay for a few of the following Mods:

Armor and Weapon Keywords Community Resource (AWKCR)

Inventory management:

DEF_UI - You can also modify the UI with this one but I liked the vanilla. The real draw for me is the extended inventory lists.
Valdacil’s Item Sorting - I am a Fallout hoarder and this helps sorting all my non-junk items into their appropriate boxes, never to be seen again.

Why can I only put armor on Rugged Leather?

Armorsmith Extended

Graphics:

Enhanced Blood Textures - Because it exists it must be used
True Storms - Wasteland Edition - This one is fabulous. After a restless night you set off early. The fog is so thick you cannot even see across the street… you hear gun shots in the distance…

Achievements:

Fallout 4 Script Extender (F4SE) - This one cannot be done through the nexus installer and the next mod requires it.
Achievements - Adds back the Steam Achievements to a modded game because I must have it. Honestly this is why I kept trying and failing at playing an unmodded version.

So I’m still in the starting phase, PS4, got the Minutemen to Sanctuary. and now I’m just wandering around. I thought the quest of helping the Minutemen in Sanctuary would be a tutorial, but nope. They don’t tell ya anything. I’m not sure how Bethesda expects you to know things like how to assign a settler to work crops, for example - do they just assume you’ll look things up on the internet?

But for now I’ve just wandered close to Sanctuary and Red Rocket, just in the woods around there, found a little camp of raiders, found the Bethesda style body next to something with just hints for you to figure out what happened. I think this will scratch my open world, “just give me a world to explore” itch.

I am actually enjoying clearing Sanctuary out, but I don’t want to have to spend the game always having to tend after settlements needing more food, more this, more that. I’m a loner in style in these games. But my plan is to set up Sanctuary, then I think I want to really work in setting up Red Rocket as my true “home.” Surround it with a wall, set up all kinds of protection, build myself a nice house, a dog house (I am a loner but I like Dog Meat.) Make that my fort and refuge. In my role playing mind, Sanctuary would be too painful to live in.

So - if I don’t want to set up settlements all over the map, how will the game punish me for that? I just don’t want the busywork of having to take care of everyone else.

Wow. You’re good. I played the game for about 20 hours or so around launch on a rented copy, and this was the hardest part of the game in the first 20 hours for me. I still can’t believe they had it so early in the game. One swipe from the enemy still destroyed me even in Power Armor. And I basically had to use all my ammo, including explosives to finally succeed.

One thing I found very useful in that first battle in Concord, where you have the power armor, is to use chems. Liberally. Jet, Buffout, and Psycho make the fight oh so much easier. Even if you never use that junk again, it might be worth it this once. First one’s free.

I suggest you do put up with Preston and his quests on your first play through, simply because they introduce you to various parts of the map and give you experience. But on pretty much all of my subsequent runs I’ve ignored Preston to one extent or another. In my current game I have done zero for him after getting him to Sanctuary. I hate the whole settlement “oh noes the big bad raiders are here, halp me HALP ME!” bullshit and the need to micromanage tato crops.