It’s a complicated process, but it’s a riddle that’s Bethesda designed for players to solve. “What you’re trying to do in the game is make something that someone could reasonably solve with pencil and paper and so you have to keep it simple,” Zimmermann said.
Players have already created a number of tools to streamline this process. The most time consuming part is waiting for the revelation of the key word, but a Reddit user named Waffle_cop has already built a program called Nukacrypt that will generate strings of possible numbers based on the letters already revealed. Nukacrypt allows players to both skip the hassle of working out these problems longhand and generates possible launch codes before the week’s full keyword is fully revealed. Essentially, players are partially hacking through what little protection Bethesda put around the codes to get nukes faster.
“I wouldn’t say it was too complicated,” Waffle_cop told me on Reddit. “I spend a lot of time completing programming puzzles, so this was just another puzzle. I built it so that I could be the first person to drop a nuke on live servers, a race to be the first. I realized however that this could be a great community tool, helping others achieve the end game quests.”
With a list of numbers to try, players can approach the nuclear launch keypad and enter in numbers until they hit the right sequence and launch a nuke. Every attempt requires a nuclear keycard that’s consumed regardless of whether the nuke fires, but the keycards are not that hard to acquire—players have to down a flying cargobot and pick a lock on its corpse to grab a keycard. Players are already walking into nuclear silos armed with a pile of them to burn through.
From all the streams I’ve watched, it doesn’t seem like there’s really any PvP going on. You hardly ever run into anyone else, and when you do, it looks like everyone just ignores each other or helps out.
I have been attacked a few times. Once early on when I was still in the single digits, a couple of people kept plinking at me but I just fast traveled away. Another time I accidentally became Wanted when I tried to help out a player but the shotgun spread hit him as well as the ferals; a high level player in full power armor collected that bounty fast. But mostly it’s either we ignore each other or help out with tough mobs.
One thing I’ve discovered, though, and I think this is how it works, is that monster levels are determined by the level of the person entering the spawn zone (and modified I think by the area itself, perhaps). So if a high level character is going ahead of you and triggering spawns, and then running off without killing all of them, you will run into their spawns first, then generally the mobs that spawn for you. So I’ve run into mobs in the sixties when I’m half that level, because some high-level dude ran through in front of me. Luckily, with enough kiting and ammo, I’ve been able to kill most of them too.
what stussers say. It change a zone into a high level area for limited time. Also lol if your questline want you to visit the area and you are a lowbie (But hazmat gear are not rare, and they give you 1000Rad protection, that basically make you inmune, but you may not have this information if you are newbie).
Theres … some… potential for griefing here, but launching a missiles takes a lot of effort for 4 high level players, is not something you do for the lol of it, because is too high time and resources inversion.
What I’ve seen is that when people hit higher levels–50 is the soft cap in terms of gaining SPECIAL points, though you continue to get Perk cards–they tend to think of more and more PvP-ish things to do, because there doesn’t seem to be that robust of an endgame yet.
I’ve watched some people do it, and this is an understatement. First you have to gather a bunch of keycards from rare world enemies, then you have to do a scenario in the launch center that takes a while, at least an hour I think. I can’t imagine people doing it to grief others, and even then, there’s a three-minute warning at the detonation site so plenty of time to get out.
