Started up my new game last night. Did a little spring cleaning around the homestead and then at the nearby Red Rocket just to dip my toes back in. First thing I did in each place was whip up and place a higher quality bed, I had forgotten that with survival you can’t sleep a full 8 hrs in a low quality one. Looking forward to jumping back in tonight and seeing how it goes!
I don’t think they dropped the DT, I think they upped the damage - in fact I’m pretty sure they did. Hmm, didn’t think about the ammo for Far Harbor guns. That would appear to be an oversight, they probably assumed that people would play Far Harbor after the main story and wouldn’t need such ammo for the mainland. They should do something about that for those that do it earlier and those that just want to keep playing.
You know --I am not sure the DT was lowered, or health. I rarely use automatic weapons for two reasons really: I am not sure that its very accurate in VATS (and I tend to use VATS a lot, esp in survival) and because auto weapons sorta require you to load up on more ammo – and weight is a REAL issue in survival. As for kill effectiveness I am not entirely sure. Yeah no ammo crafting but ammo has weight. I tend to for semi auto rifle for the armor penetration and a great middle-to late combat rifle that’s relatively easy to access.
A KEY part of survival strategy is bed location/crafting. I even scout a whole area to find a bed before I start anything serious. The differences in bed quality is why settlements are even more important now.
This is probably not anything you all don’t already know.
POSSIBLE SPOILER
Here’s IS a good survival tip: At level 15 if you have the robot expansion loaded, you’ll get a distress call quest. IF you trigger that quest at level 15 by going to the hotspot, you trigger mechanical robots and rust devils etc that can really ruin your level 15 life on survival. And they are EVERYWHERE. So avoid that for a few levels or until after a point there is another friendly faction helping.
Sarkus
4040
I just secured my first settlement but it’s a fair distance from where you start. If there is a close bench then I’ve missed it and as far as I know I’ve done at least the initial quests that are available in town.
Speaking of the first settlement, I did have an odd experience after I opened it up. I arrived and immediately had a settler tell me the condensers were down, at which point a whole bunch of high level mobs showed up. Including at least two legendary creatures slightly above my level (which is 80). I eventually died, though in retrospect I think I was supposed to run around and fix the condensers. At any rate, the game loaded me back up but in an odd spot, not at my last load screen point. When I went back to the settlement I spawned a different quest and I was free to start developing the area right away.
Survival Fallout Tip (what am I at? 3?):
Learn to COOK – you need meat. You need to hunt. You need to cook. You guys who do beer dogs in the microwave will not work! Learn the attributes of the food, and recall this most important point: You do NOT get the bonus stuff until you are NOT hungry. So have some filler food before you pop the good stuff. Eat the mongrel chops until you aren’t hungry THEN pop the food bonus.
Grilled Radstag is great (plus 25 weight) but radscorpian steak (plus 25 energy res) and yau tou (bear) steak (plus 15 damage res) is also awesome.
Purified water – This is essential – do NOT think it isn’t. Try taking a stimpack, or a radx – they make you very thirsty. You can get purified water by BOTTLES and clicking on wells you make at settlements, though really they generate in your workshop if you have water purifiers etc. Purified water is TOO important to ignore – I wouldn’t range out without 15 or so in my inventory. On survival mode you really need to collect beer bottles (lightest sort mostly) and use them to at your wells.
Don’t use them to heal – just pop em when you get de-hydrated -which is often if you use a lotta chems.
Stay alive! You will die a LOT on survival – but hey – that’s the fun. Especially after two hours of running around doing silly crap and forgetting to bed down — makes you want to take hard drink when you forget to find a bed.
Next tip: Stealthy and why its essential.
Bateau
4042
How important are damage perks on Survival in your experience Kristi? In vanilla version on Hard (I think, one before Survival) I rushed them because the damage was pitiful otherwise. With the shift towards deadlier combat in the new version I think that rushing the DT perks in END tree might be a better idea - thoughts?
What kind of build are you running anyway (starting SPECIAL, key perks)?
B --and anyone interested:
It seems damage perks are still essential, because FAST kills are often the best strategy. You want to end combat quickly, as lengthy combat scenarios have a tendency to end in mishap. (car explosion anyone? or my favorite --the back handed, left armed throw of a grenade by a super mutant). ATM, I am running this to start: (pardon if it is not mathematically correct but its emphasis at least)
1 str
5 perc
1 end
6 int
5 cha
5 agi
3 luck
This makes me fragile, I concede, but quick and accurate in vats --and I go slow in the early areas. High intel for quick chemist perk.
Combat rifleman, chemist, stealth, lockpicking, gunnut. I’ve been working cha up for local leader, strength up for armourer, and then luck luck luck! Better crits, etc. I consider chemist and stealth x3 to be essential perks for survival. I went rifles for the armor penetration this time, though normally I am a pistols gal. I’ll grab science and upgrade my power armour a bit soon, but till now (lev 19 with this try) I’ve not used power armor at all except for concord. I do intend on using it later in the game.
Now that I’ve laid that out --and this is about the 4th time I’ve started on survival – I consider that sorta a standard build. Nothing beats the luck stuff for finishing combat quickly. Your idea of a more “end” build has some merit, especially combined perhaps with a power armor-ish build. That would curtail a few of my messier deaths, I’ll warrant. If a mirelurk kills me again I may throw my keyboard out the window and take up golf.
ps yes damage in the form of perk and gun nut increases.
One area where I had a lot of trouble at Launch Fallout 4 was killing that first Deathclaw. I was playing at the highest difficulty, which is perfect for the rest of the game, but during that fight it meant that power armor didn’t help much against that Deathclaw. Eventually I lucked upon a cheat where the Deathclaw fell in a hole and I just kept shooting it until it died and he couldn’t get to me so I was safe. But until I lucked into that situation, I spent hours just dying, dying, dying.
How is that fight handled in the new Survival mode? Do you have to use the same technique to trap the Deathclaw, or is there a legitimate way to kill it now that weapons are deadlier? Back at launch that fight seemed to be required before you get your first settlement.
You’re making this too hard. Easy, there are 2 buildings that you can run into where the deathclaw can’t get you. Just shoot him from the doors or windows, or 2nd floor balcony in one case. Easy as pie.
Any suggestions for mods? I just got this along with the season pass. Mouse and keyboard, and the computer ui is really awful.
KristiGaines, please stop posting* and making me want to try Fallout 4’s survival mode.
-Tom
- By which I mean, keep the impressions coming! This is very encouraging stuff to read.
I think i’d like survival mode, but without the limited save. Wonder how feasible that is.
There is a mod for almost anything! --I took the mods off and started over. Admittedly I look better with the mods but what are you gonna do?
Fallout survival tip --uh – 4?: Ok so let’s discuss the bed save. This “bed” save in survival mode separates the ladies from the girls – You can ONLY save the game at a bed. And you can only get a full night sleep in a nice, fluffy bed. And WORSE. If you sleep a one hour save-game sleep in a ratty sleeping bag, you burn an hour of your “wake time” and also encourage a disease.
Fallout Survival mode is a cascade of difficulty interlinked with its systems. You can’t just wander around and sleep in any bed – you either have to build bases and then nice, fluffy beds-- or save on the occasional crappy bed and make it back to a real bed.
I find that going ahead and developing bases in a minimalistic fashion (eg, not getting carried away with stuff) and linking them local leader-wise and slowly spreading my network is the best way. It’s almost like a 4x game – get a hub, spread out, link with other hubs, and spread influence. I don’t do any fancy base building – but I want a nice, fluffy bed (as in I can sleep 8 full hours).
Also – while this isn’t a night/day difficulty game like Far Cry: primal or whatevs, nighttime IS more difficult – I suggest getting a good night sleep and getting up at 7 am or so and heading out in daylight.
Finally the key to beds is to FIND some around the area you are gonna attempt to assault. FOR EXAMPLE: There is a very important bed near both Arcway and the water purification plant. On the safer side of the Charles. Find the bed first --save – burn that hour of wakefulness – get in and then get out. Save again! Never know when a radscorpion will pounce on you! (they do sorta pounce).
Next up: Why the Stealth perk is so important --or --“where did my light step perk go?”
ps --the bed save thing is a little weird really. But it builds suspense for sure, and is the key to the difficulty in survival.
pss-- Tom you know you want to try it.
Oh, you don’t have to convince me I want to try it! I do want to try it. The only reason I’m not reinstalling immediately is that I’ve got a few other things on my plate, including another open world game (Homefront).
I knew Bethesda was adding survival mode, but what little I know about it is from your posts. I’m particularly glad to hear it has the impetus of hunger, thirst, and fatigue. Which I guess is to be expected, especially given how New Vegas worked. As much as I liked the survival mode in Far Cry Primal, it was weird playing a survival game without hunger, thirst, and fatigue.
Looking forward to reading about stealth. That’s a system I barely touched in my Fallout 4 pre-survival playthrough.
-Tom
All this talk of survival mode has me interested in firing up Fallout again… even though I didn’t finish the storyline the first fricking time. KristiGames, I’ll echo Tom and say you’ve done a great job of describing your adventures in a tantalizing way.
Regarding mods: I always without fail say to myself “I’m going to do this without mods, so I can have the experience the developer wanted.” Then I bog down, or don’t lose interest, or something else shiny comes along, and I stop playing. So it effectively means I never play with mods! And as shallow as it may be, I don’t want to do anything to turn off achievements.
So all that said, are there some must-have mods out there? I’m ok with things that improve appearance but I’m more interested in stuff that tweaks gameplay to remove dumb decisions and annoyances that get in the way of enjoying the game.
First question is this: should I enable the “beta” tag for the game or not? I had it on, but I figured I probably should turn it off. So I did, and Steam re-downloaded the game. So then I go to the community hub and the first post I see says they just updated the beta to add some functionality for mods. So beta or no?
About Mods: Really, I usually play with them. But I’ve noticed through the years that besides the dress-up doll mods, I tend to use mods that make the game harder. Skyrim and Requiem for example, or Fallout Wanderers Edition for F and F:NV. Bethesda must have (surprisingly) gotten that we do that, because survival mode out of the box does all that already, and more, really.
When I play modded I tend to use “Spring Cleaning” to make things neater around settlements; “easy hacking” cause whos got time to play that silly minigame? and "better sorting " or something like that to give me some help with inventory management. I think I also use the diamond city mod that ties your workbench with the work benches in the marketplace. There are some nice crafting mods, and one that allows more clothes under armor (cause that vault suit starts getting embarrassing after awhile).
As for that beta tag I dunno what the deal is with that – some days (after it went final) I have it on my game name in steam, others I don’t. I wasn’t aware there was another beta patch. Survival is now final I thought. Far Harbor was also a trick to dl this last week. Nothing has affected the games I had loaded (with or without mods) before and after the patch went final, though. BTW my WITHOUT mods game has really been more stable --and lordy, you don’t want to crash in this game 20 feet from a bed! I would enable the beta.
Next time: “Stealthy” and why it’s for everyone, not just sneakers.
Oh, and man, that Bethesda.net mod menu in the game is awful.
I just did this set (most of it)
Sarkus
4056
It may have been obvious to others, but it just occurred to me and its doable - you can connect your settlements in Far Harbor back to the Commonwealth. So you have access to everything there as well. Makes building the new settlements much easier, especially since you can go back and stock up on shipments whenever you need to.
