#melis plays fallout 4

[melisusthewee]

Real tempted to side with the Institute simply because they have clean linens and proper beds. EVERYTHING IS SO CLEAN OH MY GOD. I feel like my Sole Survivor would pretty much just sit in the corner with her face pressed against freshly laundered towels and just cry for a little while because OH MY GOD AMENITIES I NEVER WANT TO LEAVE THIS PLACE EVER.

[melisusthewee]

Before I head out to run some errands, I wanted to share what I spent my morning working on. I am not a master builder by any means, and I find the whole settlement construction rather overwhelming, but the more I work at it, the more I seem to be able to finally put things together that look... neat. As I've been restoring Sanctuary, I've had to decide what to do with the empty lots. I turned one into the generator shed, built a cabin on another, and a Minutmen museum/armoury on another (which is a WIP, really, and right now just a fancy storage space). In the cul-de-sac, I originally built this sort of open air cafe/market/bar which was hastily thrown together and rather drab in the rain, but was insanely popular with everyone in the settlement. But as I started watching more and more settlement build videos and started picking up a few things, I decided it was time to tear the whole thing down and start again. So here is the first actual bar I've created: The Pip Boy. It has a large open air patio because I really enjoyed that aspect from my first scrapped build and has kind of a ramshackle saloon look to it. Hancock is currently assigned as the bartender because we all know he's the life of any party. I didn't share any shots of the inside because right now it looks a little too... uniform. I realized that after I finished decorating. I need to mix up some of the furniture to make it look a little more cobbled together and eclectic. As you can tell, the night shot was taken before I'd decorated the inside. I used the rug glitch to get the bar shop wedged inside, but no matter how many times I tried, I couldn't get it completely flush with the wall. But eventually I decided, "Meh, good enough." I also originally had candles on the tables, but ended up going with the oil lamps because I was reminded of some places I'd been where they had little tiny oil lamps lit for ambience. At first I also didn't have any electric lights inside, and put wall sconces around to try and give the place that sort of dim and smokey atmosphere you tend to experience in a lot of pubs. But doing so prevented me from putting any decorations on the walls and it all seemed a bit... spartan. So while I left some of the wall sconces up, I ended up hanging two strings of lights in the middle of the interior which added just enough light to make the place bright, but still shadowy in the corners.

[melisusthewee]

Folks, you have no idea how proud I am of my boxcar apartment building at Starlight Drive-In. SO PROUD. I'm not all that great at decorating (I don't have the patience for it at the moment), but even still, I want to take a whole bunch of pictures because it looks JUST THAT GOOD. I finished wiring up all the lights and built the last building for now. I'm finding the settler pathing is all sorts of wonky though and the settlers won't use their assigned beds inside the apartment complex, preferring to sleep in the hospital instead I suppose. My tractor trailer bar is unfinished still, mainly because I don't have the caps to put in a tier 3 bar (since Starlight is the northern merchant hub, my plan is to have all top tier shops and the unique level 4 merchants). I maxed out four companions while building the settlement though. Okay, well 3.5... (I have to complete Cait's personal quest) so all in all it was pretty great. The place still needs some proper decorating and I'd like a defensive system that's more planned out and less "let's just slap some shit down and let the defence rating go up". But first I think I'll go back to actually progressing in the game for a while.

[melisusthewee]

I spent a lot of my day building and then tearing down structures at my Starlight Drive-In settlement. I wanted to build residential units in front of the screen, but nothing I was doing seemed to be working for me. So I took to Youtube to scour for build ideas. The problem I found was that a lot of apartment block builds don't really look lore-friendly. (I mean, the hospital I built in the settlement doesn't look like something you'd really find in the wasteland but whatever... the rest of my settlement does.) Then I found Oxhorn's box car tower and I realized THAT'S what I wanted! So I built two towers, each three levels high for a total of nine little apartments. I removed the stairs after I'd built it and put an elevator in instead. I haven't fully decorated it... only slapping down some furniture for my settlers. I figure I'll decorate most of the settlement once it's all built. I'd wanted Starlight to feel a little more cramped and Diamond City-ish, but the build is coming along well enough anyway with no severe drops in frame rate yet so... I guess that's good. With the apartments done, that really only leaves the farm, better defences, and a clothing shop left to build. Then the beast is done and I'm likely not building another settlement in this game ever.

[melisusthewee]

Installs SimpleGreen/Yellow/Red/White mod. In game calendar is February so switches to White for ambience. Heads from Starlight Drive-In back to Sanctuary to switch companions. Rad storm triggers mid-conversation because that's what ALWAYS happens whenever I'm with Preston Garvey. Rad storm crashes the game. Amazing.

[melisusthewee]

As I progress through Fallout 4, I'm slowly ticking off my list of settlements. I first thought of just slowly building them up as I moved across the map, but then I realized I didn't know what to do with most of them. So as things stand, I've currently done the following:

Sanctuary - walled-in gated community, mostly just restored houses with backyard gardens, The Pip Boy saloon, small central cul-de-sac market

Red Rocket Truck Stop - super mutants seem to love this place so there's walls around the back and turrets lining the roof; Rocket 69 rooftop bar and barracks; mostly just a meagre farm and supply stop

Abernathy Farm - major agricultural hub in the northwest; has some weird spawn points so we're just going to have to deal with it; mostly tatos, but branching out into corn and mutfruit, maybe eventually will have a lower field of razorgrain; home to Mary's Rest tavern and bunk house for provisioners

Hangman's Alley - the slums/shanty town; a collection of small shacks built upon small shacks; community outhouse; a place where settlers plant carrots in heaps of trash; due to a glitch that wouldn't let me remove the gateway in the center of the alley, the far end is the security barracks; went with a BoS theme for guards and decorations because I figured they wouldn't be too concerned with the living conditions of peasants; the settlement I'm pleased with the most so far, only I don't have enough caps to finish the bar I've built right now

I have to do something with Greygarden, Tenpine's Bluff, and Outpost Zimonja but don't really have any ideas for themes right now. Also the layout of Greygarden seems like kind of a terrible challenge to me. Oberland Station was discovered accidentially and is a terrible place that I pretty much am intending only to be like this tiny little checkpoint. I built some walls and turrets and gave the two women there more water and so far have just left them to their tatos.

Because of its location, I want to turn Starlight Drive-In into something like a grand bazaar with all sorts of shops, a bar, a restaurant, and some big communal housing structures, but I don't have the caps to put in any vendors anywhere right now.

I have some leather pieces for my Ylissean Summer Robin freshly dyed and drying right now, so I think the next place I tackle will be the Castle... mainly because I unlocked it last night. I don't think I have any real grand plans but to sort of restore it in a way that would suit the Minutemen. So... rebuild the walls as best I can and then go through each of the rooms and try and figure out what they were used for and go from there.

[melisusthewee]

So I finally ventured out into the Glowing Sea...

I'd been putting it off because radiation storms scare the ever loving crap out of me and all I've ever heard is that it's crawling with horrific monsters. But, I figured since the weather was crappy today and Fabricland is having a massive sale on Saturday so I'll go cosplay shopping then... may as well finally take the plunge. It was really... neat? I think the way you enter the Glowing Sea the first time is really impressive. In my game the weather was sunny and clear, and the world was just... really quiet. I really liked how I was following the road and you could just see the environment begin to slowly change. Ahead of you, these hills and mountains begin to rise up on the horizon, but all you see is driftwood and barren trees littering the landscape here and there. And then the road in front of you just... ends. The pavement melts away into churned up earth, and there's debris everywhere. My geiger counter starting pinging and Nick (who was my companion at the time) warned me that there was a spike and we were soaking up an awful lot of rads (how much, I don't know... hazmat suit and power armour kept it low). And then almost as if on cue, you hear that eerie and almost mechanical sound that warns of an oncoming radiation storm. And sure enough it just... slowly settles in until you're walking through a hazy yellow landscape of churned up earth and radioactive puddles, and the type of devastation and ruin you really would expect to see at ground zero. I think it worked so well with me because it was a gradual transition. I was kind of expecting the sort of sudden environment change I've come to expect from most games. Take a few steps forwards and okay the sky is yellow now. Backtrack a little and it'll be suddenly blue again. But it kicked up like a storm (and when I was done I fast travelled the hell out of there so I dunno what kind of transition you get leaving the area). Also as empty as that area of the map is with only a handful of markers and landmarks, it's probably the first area in this game where I've actually been interested in wandering around and exploring (at least until my power armour became badly damaged). So... yeah... I'm impressed with the Glowing Sea. I think it's the most interesting part of the game's map and I've only explored maybe half of the area. But then I went and installed some mods and have spent the rest of my time building Sanctuary.

[melisusthewee]

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I'm not sure what's funnier - that Nick is sassing MacCready from the rooftop or that Hancock walks by right in the middle of the two of them sassing each other.

[melisusthewee]

TFW Paladin Danse causes a chain reaction that blows up every car in the parking garage of the Boston Airport.

[melisusthewee]

So I've finished with building in Sanctuary for the most part. I set up a recruitment beacon to call in some more settlers to - ideally - make more consistant shop keepers. I mean, someone has to man the tavern when Hancock is away. All I've done with Abernathy Farm is expand the farmland and built an inn. I've kind of left it alone until Bethesda works out their mod problem and I can have access to my USO mod again (the beds I laid down are locked because the mod is gone... I can't even scrap them as junk!) The really frustrating thing for me though is that there's a spawn point right at the bottom of the field. I haven't quite figured out how I want to design my build around that... or to try and accomodate that. So instead I wandered down the road to Red Rocket and spent my evening constructing something there. When I was looking around for ideas, it seemed to me that everyone pretty much turned it into a concrete bunker. Which is cool if that's your thing but it seemed a) too boring (especially since I haven't installed Automatron yet so I can't go for the robotics theme so many people tend to do), and b) too much work. Right now I have a couple ideas for big settlement builds at Starlight Drive-In and Nordhagen Beach... although I'm working my way across the map and want to just... get settlements operating as I build my Minutemen Empire. So I'm trying not to get bogged down at every single stop otherwise I'll burn out. I decided to build simple. I built a junk wall around the back perimeter of the truck stop. Maybe I'll extend it further up the hill and towards the road at some point, but there are so many objects on the lot that my settlement capacity is limited. And junk walls are so finnicky on uneven ground that once I finished and realized I could have expanded it further, I decided to hell with it. (I might expand it at a later date if I need to expand my garden as the settlement grows.) I didn't make use of the actual truck stop all that much, at least not right now. I boarded up the windows and stuck some beds inside hastily just so people wouldn't gripe. Eventually, I think I'll clear the lower section out and turn it into just lounge/seating area. Outside I used my walled off area to begin planting crops, and placed turrets in a few key areas. Using scaffolding, I then built up to the roof where I've placed a pre-fab shack and filled it with beds for the time being, and a second pre-fab which I've turned into a bar. (All my settlements will have a bar or tavern... that's going to be my thing.) I lined the roof with turrets as well and put in a few guard posts. I used prefabs because building on the roof is something I'll need to take time to figure out. The whole thing is uneven so I'm not quite sure what to do. Maybe I need to build scaffolding over the roof itself and then build on that? Oh well, it will do for now. Now I have to drag my ass across the map to Overland Station because I discovered it accidentally and the two idiots who live there are starving, have no water, and are constantly being raided. And Tenpines Bluff needs some turrets so they'll stop being unhappy. The one cool thing though is that I have a supply line running from Red Rocket to Abernathy Farm, and from Abernathy Farm to Sanctuary. (I might run a supply line from Red Rocket to Sanctuary, not because I need it but because they're so close it makes sense to do so from an RP standpoint.) And I just noticed as I was wandering the area that there's now a Minutemen patrol along the supply line routes. So now I have BOS vertibirds in the air and Minutemen on the ground.

[melisusthewee]

MACCREADY HAS A FAMILY?! AND A SICK AND DYING SON?! Well holy shit! I feel like my Sole Survivor would really connect to that saving your kid thing. ...Oh my god. They are so meant to be best buddies. They both like long coats and scarves. They're both riflemen/snipers. My Sole Survivor has a better moral compass but that's good. They're both trying to save their sons. You guyyyyyyysssssss!!!

[melisusthewee]

There is something deeply poetic about wandering the Commonwealth on a beautiful cloudless day when the radio DJ tells the story of Billy and the Fridge as a segue into Billie Holiday and MacCready just randomly spouts, "Nice day today. Perfect for traveling." ...Yes, I traded in Paladin Danse. Kinda sick of the Brotherhood right now. Trying to clear up my quest log right now.

[melisusthewee]

Okay, friends, I have a question for you all. Despite this game being several years old, I am still going through this mostly blind and completely spoiler free. So I have to ask... Is there anywhere I can make some facial adjustments to my Sole Survivor? When I made the character (who is beginning to grow on me as the game sort of unfolds her story on its own), I pretty much just made basic suburban lawyer mother. She was clean and prim, all of that. Then the prologue happens and the game asks you once last time if you want to make any adjusments to your character before you exit out into the nuclear wasteland. So I thought... sure. This woman has been through two hundred years of hell in a matter of moments. Right now she's a grieving widow who is about to enter a world completely changed and alien to her, desperate to find her infant son. She has to look it! So I gave her a small scar (maybe some debris got her in the initial bomb drop, I dunno... she was put right into cryosleep that no one really noticed), and fiddled around with things until I got someone who I felt looked like I do when I haven't slept well in too long and am just so wound up and stressed. Also she's been asleep for 200 years so her make-up hasn't exactly stood the test of time. Sure I put bruises around her eyes instead of actual make-up, but it gave the effect I was looking for. But... things are changing for Mrs. Riley Quartermain. Running into Piper and genuinely finding a new friend in the world helped. Preston Garvey was nice and all, but he was more concerned about rebuilding the Minutemen and Sanctuary Hills than who she was and needing to find her son. So really it was just Riley and Dogmeat until she found her way to Diamond City. But then there was Piper, who was peppy and upbeat and wanted to help in the search for her son. And after that was Nick Valentine who - once you got past the oh my god he's a robot - was a genuinely good and caring personality who more importantly wanted to accompany my Sole Survivor during what promised to be emotionally difficult journeys (finding Kellogg, for example). They were really in it together. Then, of course, more recently is her relationship with MacCready. Two people with similar families and similar tragedies and struggles brought together. Her son is still out there somewhere, but I feel like my Sole Survivor is starting to sleep better, and cope just a little better with the world she's found herself in. And her look needs to reflect that. But while there are barbers in and around the Commonwealth, I can't find anywhere to get rid of those damn bruises around her eyes! There's gotta be a face changer in this game... right?

[melisusthewee]

So you know how you can rename weapons that you modify at workstations in FO4? My SS has her favourite sniper rifle, the really slick and powerful one that just keeps progressively getting the better and better mods. And I thought, "Hmmm... what should I name it?" And I thought maybe she'd name the gun after her husband. Only Nate is a pretty lame name for a loaded weapon so I decided to go with the full version and named the rifle Nathaniel. And then I realized that the shotgun she was carrying was named Justice. I'm thinking I should name her emergency pistol Oghren in honour of my Warden's opening party in Awakening.

[melisusthewee]

I understand why everyone loves Nick Valentine.

[melisusthewee]

While I'm still not really into settlement building, I've started to gradually build up Sanctuary. At first I simply patched up my Sole Survivor's house, reasoning that she'd want a little bit of normality, even tidying up the nursery because Shaun will need a place to sleep when she finds him. Then I just left and never looked back. But all my followers are there now. And so every time I stop in to Sanctuary to unload all my scavening and gear, I see characters I actually like and care about just kind of wandering around these sad ruins. Preston still prefers to patrol up and down the streets, and Codsworth just floats around, but Danse is almost always loitering around in one of the two houses furthest into the cul-de-sac and Nick is almost always lounging on one of the sofa's in the house across the street. I know it's just the AI doing its thing but I feel kind of bad that these characters have left good sound buildings and houses to just kind of wander around places where all but one of the buildings has leaky ceilings. They also contribute towards the settlement's population and therefore its happiness. So I feel like maybe I should actually turn the neighbourhood into a proper settlement and home. I used up all the steel I had building a generator shed where the collapsed house was at the top of the cul-de-sac. I've decided that's my power focal point, and have been slowly building towers along the street in order to run power lines to the houses. I didn't get very far, but it's a start. It would be nice if the game had street lamps as a buildable option, but oh well.