Fallout Shelter

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Hidden Agenda

Posted by John Klein III on October 23, 2018
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games, Websites. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

In my anticipation of Supermassive Games’ Man of Medan, I actually bought Hidden Agenda for the PS4.  Walker Dennis really wanted the latest Ghostbusters game, and after seeing it for $15, I bought it as well.  I had planned on buying Hidden Agenda but I figured it’ll be one of those things I plan on buying but don’t really follow through.  But I did it and I’m super happy I did.

I’ve read people saying it isn’t worth $20 as it is only two hours of content but for $15 and it being three hours of content, I think it is pretty worth it.

Thanks to PlayStation Europe for hosting the reveal trailer.

The game uses the PS4 PlayLink, so you have to download the free app and you use the PS4 controller to select menu settings but once you are ready to start either Story mode or Competitive mode, you start using your handheld device.  I used my Android and my Kindle, which was pretty nice.  I had put the app and the app for Knowledge is Power on my wife’s phone but I’ll probably delete this app from her phone as she doesn’t have to play with me anymore.

I was able to use my phone and the Kindle at the same time and I didn’t really notice it being all that difficult.  I really wanted the trophies that are required with a Competitive play so on my second night with the game, I did all of that.

My very first gameplay, I went with Story mode, to experience the full aspect of the game.  I only committed an hour to it and when I came back the second night, I found out I was so close to finishing the first chapter.

I’ll say the second chapter is the shortest as I’ve spent two different nights finishing the final two chapters and the first chapter seems to take up my limited hour of gaming (sometimes I can get an hour and a half a night).

There have only been two real gripes I’ve had with the game.  One is when you are looking for clues, it takes a long time for the cursor to register on the screen, so you lose like five seconds of the twenty you are given.  Which is great when you have two player mode (in either Competitive or Story (two player Story is required for one specific trust trophy) mode) as either you get more time to find them all or moving two different devices at the same time, gives you more opportunity to go around the room.

The only clue I ever missed was due to whatever delay that is caused between clues.  I couldn’t find the magnifying glass (that represents where the clue is), it is on the police uniform.  The other two are the pictures of Becky in the middle and the rat trap below the pictures, next to the pink box.

My second gripe is a real bummer for a huge Until Dawn fan.  We get the option again to look at Global Statistics, so if you want a run where you pick all of the least proper choices, you can do that.  But if you have to turn off the game and come back to it later, the option is still selected as “On” but you no longer get the stats.  Every time I came back to the game on the next day, I’ll get an error message.  I’ll try to experiment if I quit the game proper, if I can still get the stats to continue but it was a real shame losing those as I continued.  So I had to just choose the opposite choice or the choice that would lead to a trophy as I was aware of which ones I’ll need after my first playthrough.

The motion captures and voice talent (I’m not sure if they are one and the same) are amazing.  Like a very limited Until Dawn, they hired Katie Cassidy (from Arrow fame) to be Detective Becky Marney.

Christy Choi plays Felicity Graves, the other main character, who is the District Attorney to the Trapper’s case.

The two of them have great chemistry together, and there were times I thought about shipping them together but thought that was silly.  My first playthrough, I had them look at case files at night together.

They seemed to be very friendly, but none of my other playthroughs required them to look at the case together, which was a shame.

Olivia Carass wrote this fun article commenting on it as well:

http://newnormative.com/2018/01/22/hidden-agenda-or-gay-agenda/

So at least I’m not alone with the thought.

Here they are in the rain, sharing an umbrella:

Even when there is a miscommunication

They can resolve their issues and get a beer together

But be mindful if Becky should have that beer or not.

The only real legit suspenseful part of the game was when this lady joined Becky at the bar:

She just shows up, sits there and watches as Becky passes out.  We get a glimpse of her, well I guess two glimpses of her prior and never again (as far as I can tell), so she shows up, gets the job done, and we never see her again.  I was like, who is this?!  And then with what happens after that, oh boy!

The entire cast is very well done.  Leonard Roberts is Tom, Becky’s police partner.  I know him as DL from Heroes, who had the phasing power and dated Ali Larter’s character.  He is King Idri of Loria on Magicians, a show I really want to start watching.  He’s also been on Mom and The Client List.

Tom was my favorite of her partners, if you make a different decision in the very beginning of the game, you get Karl Carter as her partner, but he always feels an alternate choice to me.  West Liang does a great job but I always got Tom as my main partner.

If Karl is your partner, that means Tom is your sergeant which is another shame as Sergeant Riggs is such a great police sergeant.  Riggs is played by Chris McKenna.  Apparently McKenna and Roberts were on Major Crimes together, during the Conspiracy Theory arc, so I should try to watch that to see if they have any scenes together.

In one playthrough, my final one actually, Becky had to do something horrible to Riggs that made me happy that it wasn’t also Tom in the role.  But still bad.

I got the platinum for the game within five days of playing it, and four playthroughs.  This makes my eleventh platinum, as my tenth is Fallout Shelter (which is why I’m able to finally play other games).

PlayStation Trophies was a great website to help with the proper playthroughs:

https://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/hidden-agenda/321055-hidden-agenda-trophy-walkthrough.html

I did one on my own, I attempted an unpopular decisions play (but being aware of other trophies), a third one, the Rat in the Trap, and Antitrust.

Another fun hold over from Until Dawn was that the writers of Until Dawn wrote this game and Larry Fessenden came back to portray Vernon Lemay, a brother to one of the Trapper’s victims.  Feessenden co-wrote the game and was the Stranger in Until Dawn.  Graham Reznick is the other co-writer, I’m not sure why he doesn’t lend his voice to a character.

There are three other actors that make up the main cast.

Yan Feldman plays Jonathan Finn, who Becky arrests as The Trapper.  He’s been in various things but nothing I recognized him in.

Chad Michael Collins is Jack Calvary, who was the detective on the Trapper case that Becky closed for him.  They do not get along.  He’s a jerk with a heart of jerk so it is easy to take Becky’s side in every exchange.  But there is also, not a charm, but charisma about him too.  He’s confident.  He’s been in things too that I may have recognized him if I rewatched them.

Finally, there is a Gabriel Miller as Simon Hillary, the police medical examiner.  He’s credited as Gabriel Schwalenstocker but imdb lists him as Miller.  I didn’t recognize any of his credits.

Something I did recognize in the game, and once I recognized it, I couldn’t stop seeing it.  As that the game will flick or have a delayed pause, like I could tell when the game was choosing either Response A or Response B, which was smoother for Until Dawn.  Also, a character would be talking at one angle, and then Response B would be chosen, be shown at a different angle, and then go back to the original angle to go back to the main plot.  I wouldn’t say it was distracting but something that I did notice.

Maybe if I did one playthrough a week and didn’t spend so much time with the game, I wouldn’t have noticed it as much but it is hard to unsee once you have seen it.

Overall, such a fun experience, even the gripes I have, are minor and I would clearly recommend the game to anyone interested in it.  I love Until Dawn, I really enjoyed this, and I’m eagerly anticipating Man of Medan.

. . .

As I foretold, once I got the platinum in Fallout Shelter, I haven’t gone back.  I have thought about it but like Fallout 4, just spending ten minutes in the game, makes me want to spend an hour in the game.  So I’m distracting myself with other games.  I did start a new character in Fallout 4 to play on Survival mode to get myself prepared for Fallout 76 but I modeled him after our son and he just wanted to play instead so that took up my 30 minutes.  I wished I could have made the character shorter and more younger looking but Walker Dennis thought it looked enough like him to get into it.  He’s gotten much better at controlling the character.  Of course, he immediately went looking for Dogmeat, and that was pretty cute.  I’m filling his memory banks with unimportant things like the map of Fallout 4 but he pretty much went from the vault to Sanctuary (spending no time there) and going to Red Rocket to get Dogmeat.  Ideally, I’ll play him as a Railroad member but I’ll also not play at all.

It is easy to be a prophet of your own actions.

Someone on the Trophies subreddit got the RiME platinum and I realized I should pick that game up and figure out where I left off.  I was in Chapter 2 and I had unleashed the second windmill and realized I didn’t do the first windmill.

Which, again, was a complicated puzzle that I had made harder than it had to be.  I saw several YouTube videos that had completed everything within 30 to 45 minutes and I must have made that level a two hour affair.  Someone was nice enough to inform me that the next three chapters are super easy compared to two and they were definitely right about that.  So we beat the game, Walker Dennis and I hugged for maybe four minutes after beating the game, it was a long and good hug (it may have been more like a minute of silence) but even he recognized that it was a sad but hopeful moment.  I had it originally spoiled for me, conceptually, but actually playing the game and seeing the actual content, hit me on a different level I wasn’t quite ready for.  We’ve gone back and did all of the trophies for Chapter 1 and gotten all of the collectibles.  I also started a YouTube playthrough for Chapter 4 and just did it along with the video, it still took me an additional 10 minutes but that was more on me than the video.

Thanks Sylvain LUCE for hosting such a good video!  We couldn’t have done it without you.

So ideally, we just need Chapters 2 and 3 and we’ll have our 12th platinum.  I promised to not play without Walker Dennis there, who is really good at the game.  So we’ll probably play on the weekend but still follow a guide.  We’ll get the platinum during Chapter 3, at some point, as typically, people get it during their second playthrough when they unlock a costume in Chapter 4 and have to go back to Chapter 2 and we’ll be doing that next.

Looking over PSN Profile’s Trophy Guide

https://psnprofiles.com/guide/7077-rime-trophy-guide

We got all of the collectibles from Chapter 4 but we definitely need two trophies and once we find all of the white shades (I believe we only need three’s now), we need to replay Chapter 5 as well.  So all of my assumptions were wrong.  But like they say, when you make an assumption, you are right the bulk of the time.

As I got the platinum at around 11pm for Hidden Agenda, I didn’t want to make all of the noise of ejecting the disc, opening Arkham Knight’s case, and inserting that game into the system (it is louder than you think it would be).  So I started Heavy Rain again, did the section with the FBI guy (I have to learn their names eventually) and that section ends with the father informing the police.  I clearly didn’t remember what his shirt was, after a few months of not playing, but I got the rest of the questions right, there were no ellipses during the other responses like the shirt response got.

Last night, I did get to play Arkham Knight for a while, and I’ll probably be sticking with that game for some time.  I got a little further in The Perfect Crime and the firefighter storyline.  I ended the session with attempting a Militia Watchtower but a drone was stopping me from making any real progress.  I read I have to hack the drone but I haven’t gotten the hacking device just yet.  I also made a little progress in the main storyline as Barbara Gordon caused Arkham Knight’s car to crash and that was a very fun sequence to play.  I felt like a real detective, an overly financed one, but a detective nonetheless.

I still need to unlock that third island, so I can get the Batmobile over there, as there are so many threats still.  I can access it but the bridges are still up.

It felt great coming across the body in Bristol all on my own, I knew the district it was in but I had to figure it out on my own.  That’s the case I’m trying to focus on at the moment, as it was the first case presented to me.  So my main goal right now is to get the hacker device so I can get that one particular watchtower completed.

https://segmentnext.com/2015/06/24/batman-arkham-knight-occupy-gotham-watch-towers-locations-guide/

Looking at this website, not the one I found last night, apparently I should just go to the Watchtower by Ryker Heights on Founders’ Island as that’ll give me access to Stagg’s Airship, which is the mission that gives me the hacker device.

. . .

Okay, I’ve typed “hacker” so many times that it triggered something I’ve been wanting to look up on YouTube for too long.

Walker Dennis is obsessed with Chad Wild Clay’s Hacker storyline, he’s on the prowl for the Hacker and the Game Master and I’m either overhearing the YouTube videos or just hearing the word “hacker,” like all of the time.

Thanks to Chad Wild Clay for hosting his own video.

It is this massive (and maybe never ending?!) crossover with other YouTubers like Steven Sharer and his siblings (who I haven’t heard about in a while).

I’ve been meaning to look up if there is a conclusion but I’ll have to watch this video to see what is happening.  I’ve heard one video at least six times, where they are looking for clues in their basement.  I can’t seem to find the basement video but in my searches, there is at least six or seven different YouTubers who are continuing this massive crossover.  I was looking for a video with a blonde lady with glasses but not having much luck.

Well, I’m clearly down this rabbit hole.  Rebecca Zamolo is her name.

Thanks to Rebecca Zamolo for hosting her video.

It is the Gamemaster who has a secret tunnel in her house.  Though I get the feeling it is a second video where she’s telling another peep about the tunnel and she’s going back in the second time.

Like the Sharers, she has an entire industry with her

Thanks to Matt and Rebecca for hosting their video.  Whoever Matt is, he doesn’t appear to have his own video series.

Every time Walker Dennis starts one of their videos, I think about Netflix’s Alexa and Katie as they share the same theme song (somehow).

Thanks to Netflix Kids & Family for hosting the video.

Turns out, they don’t but it sounds similar.  Or it did until I listen to both of them.

Wow, there’s research I did that only satisfied me.  But seriously, I’m always hearing about the hacker and the game master but I get it now as one video sort of leads into a second video and from there, you’ve seen six videos in thirty minutes.

. . .

According to that Arkham Knight website from forever ago above, the Watchtower I’m currently on (to end this on a video game note) is

Watchtower 19
Location: Founders’ Island – Otisburg, east of Port Adams

You will come across 2 Gun Emplacements in the northeast edge of the area in addition to 3 armed soldiers including a Boa Sentry Operator. It is advised to deal with the Boa Sentry Operator before rest of the thugs to make things a tad easier.

I remember it being near Port Adams but I was doing a search for drone but eventually found it on the page.  I was throwing explosive gel at the drone and batarangs at it but I clearly need that hacker device.  Which is officially called the Remote Hacking Device, which was called the Cryptographic Sequencer, but I imagine most people called it “the hacker device” and why try harder?

Trying Watchtower 19, I was being painfully reminded that Founders’ Island is further along in the story than I should probably be at as there were tanks all over the place and the Batmobile couldn’t get there as the bridge is still up.

I believe this will be my second Watchtower and I stopped the first one that introduced the threat.

Amazingly, I still don’t know who the Arkham Knight is.  Unfortunately, for this post, I had to get the Perfect Crime spoiled for me as I couldn’t remember the mission name and when I found it, the helpful website listed who the boss was but that is what happens when you are a patient gamer.

The bridge will come down eventually as I make progress in the story, I don’t want to just do the story, I like to spice it up with side quests, keep it fresh.  The only reason I went to that particular Watchtower was due to it being the closest mission after I did The Perfect Crime event and I wasn’t quite ready to call it a night.

I’ll probably get in the habit of doing one main story point and then a side thing, with a focus on The Perfect Crime.  The latest victim was from Tucson, Arizona, which was pretty cool as a guy from Arizona.

http://arkhamcity.wikia.com/wiki/Lisa_Mendes

Thanks to Agent E-NYGMA for hosting the video!

I will avenge you, Lisa Mendes!

noclip’s Fallout Shelter Documentary

Posted by John Klein III on October 12, 2018
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Thanks to redditor, Iceblast24, for telling me that noclip made a Fallout Shelter documentary.

The Making of Fallout Shelter – Noclip Documentary from foshelter

So I had quit playing Fallout Shelter for the night, at 11:30pm, and figured at 26 minutes, I can stay up a little longer and enjoy a terrific documentary.

Thanks to noclip for hosting their own videos.

I knew the game was pretty old but I hadn’t really thought about it being as old as Fallout 4, which I came too late so the idea of the game coming out, I hadn’t given much thought too.  Sounds like they had a blast creating it and it really is fun to play.

I can’t believe how many people have played it, more than the combination of all of the games Bethesda has released.  I mean, it makes sense as it is a free game to download and simple enough to understand.  It isn’t like you have to be Oxhorn and be well into the lore of Fallout to understand it.

I figured I’ll subscribe so I can be aware of other excellent documentaries that they create.

I’ve seen the Making of Fallout 76:

and The History of Bethesda Game Studios:

I wished I had paid more attention (and had the money) as I would have loved to have supported the Fallout Shelter video.  I’m just really enjoying the game.

They have 78 videos up, as of now, and unfortunately, none of them are appealing to me at the moment as I play Grand Theft Auto V but not online, I haven’t played any of the Witcher games, Horizon Zero Dawn (I would like too), Final Fantasy XIV, Doom, Frog Fractions, Rocket League (another game I want to play though).

Just a note for myself really, but I should watch their Future of noclip video, to see what they have planned:

I really should get back into watching documentaries again as I do miss watching those.

. . .

For yet another personal Fallout Shelter progress, I finally got the 50 raiders “Get Off My Lawn” trophy!  That was a huge relief!  I am creating crafting my final theme, Institute Diner, so my vault will officially be part of the Institute, not great but that’s just how we landed.   I ended up only having to pay for one theme to unlock it, the rest came naturally.  I choose to pay the nine Quantums to get the highest missing amount.  I have no recreates.  But since I didn’t need to store Quantums, I started spending them like crazy.  I went from 60 to 30 so quick that I had to stop myself.  I wanted to ensure I had ten ranked Intelligence in my weapon crafting room, so I sped up the training on a few people to get them from 9 to 10.  Then I did the same for a few to get them ranked from 9 to 10 in Strength for my outfit training room.  Once my final theme is done, I’ll destroy that room (as I don’t need it anymore) and replace it with a storage room, most likely.

I have 14 legendary outfits and 12 legendary weapons, and I need 20 of each for two trophies.  So maybe in another week or two, I will have those two completed.  Once I don’t need six dwellers in my theme room, I am going to start training all of them in Strength, Intelligence, and Agility, probably in that order too.  Or I’ll swap out the 8s and 9s with whatever 10s are in the theme room currently.  That’ll definitely happen as I tried to make sure all three crafting rooms were balance.  I’m not even really caring about what I craft, just as long as I can craft them quickly.  I have three fire hydrant bats but I have to craft a legendary baseball bat (hopefully that is an option) so that I can send someone on a level 15 quest.  I had thought I had kept one baseball bat but I must have sold it or scrapped it for parts.

I also need 100 quests too.  I know I have 60 completed as that was another trophy and I must have gone on ten quests since then, so another 30?  I have committed to two teams of three for my questers.  My main team that is going up the quests, which I am currently on the level 26 quests, the final one of those too, with plenty of level 27s in my future.

Then I have my level 50 questers who do the dailies, unless it is Deathclaw related, then I have them taking on the quests that I know will reward a legendary outfit or weapon.  Last night, I had them do a daily and a quest that resulted in legendary junk, as I’ll need more legendary junk to craft legendary weapons and outfits.

I have one Heavy Merc Gear and once I finish whatever outfit I’m currently crafting, I’ll get them started on my second of three Heavy Merc Gear.  I need five Yao guai hides and four teddy bears, which I have plenty of teddy bears but barely (pun intended!) eight Yao guai hides so I can make one safely and hope one of my ten lady explorers can find me two more in the meantime.  My basic questers are finally being trained in Charisma, so even they are finding legendary junk on their quests.  Or!  They are being rewarded with legendary junk and I’m forgetting those were the rewards for doing the quest but I don’t think so as they are finding a lot more legendary junk than before I started training them exclusively in Charisma.  But it could also be that quests with a bare minimum of level 25 dwellers started providing legendary junk too.

I just now pieced together that Heavy Merc Gear is 100% bear related as Yao guai is Fallout’s version of mutated bears and plush teddy bears are combined to make the outfit.  That’s cute and fun.  They are not cute nor fun, if you see them in the Commonwealth or the Wasteland, do not approach them unless you want a fight!  Or their hide.

I imagine they will be in the Appalachia as well, which is the name of the map used in Fallout 76.

I keep going back and forth on if I want Fallout 76 for Christmas or at all.

I keep going back to now there are no animal companions and how much I love Dogmeat in 3 and 4.  A dog companion is as much to me in Fallout as war never changing in Fallout.  During Oxhorn’s video of his time at Greenbrier (as he was one of the lucky ones invited to play the game), he was able to ask about taming animals or simply animal companions.

Thanks to Oxhorn for hosting his own videos on YouTube.

The Bethesda developer said they don’t have any plans of animal companions at launch, which sounds like they might be able to be patched in later.  Which is a shame but the more I think about it, the more I don’t want to play without a dog companion.  I recognize that is silly but I’m not really in the market to buy a $60 game anyways.

For Christmas, I have a pretty bare bones wishlist of $60 renewal to the PSN, $15 renewal of my GameStop card (I’ve really enjoyed getting my issue of GameInformer every month), and maybe one new game.  Either that will be Spider-Man or Marvel Lego Superheroes 2 Deluxe Edition (I just really want to play as Scarlet Spider in at least one game!).

I already only play games between 1030pm and midnight so I’ll be playing with other night owls or early morning risers, and for such a limited time, that I’m not going to be able to go on 45 minute quests.  I do like how there are plenty of quests, which I’ll need as I so love quests in Fallout, and that’ll be my main objective in the game.  I kept meaning to start a survival playthrough in Fallout 4 to get used to the idea of having to eat and drink as that is another function of Fallout 76, that I’m not completely thrilled with.

So I’m not going to really play with others, no animal companions (imagine how keen it would be to tame a Deathclaw?!), having to maintain surviving with food and drink, are three pretty big negatives.

The giant map, and more side quests that Fallout 4 with potentially even more quests being added all of the time (or at least during the first year) with daily, weekly, and monthly quests being a thing, and a main quest line that is nearly as long as Fallout 4’s, are huge pluses, also it just being a proper Fallout game, makes me add it to my wishlist but it is a clear 2nd or 3rd game for me, at this time.  I really want that Spider-Man game.  People are platinuming it all of the time!  New content comes on October 23 and New Game Plus will happen at that time or soon afterwards, which I love NG+ since Chrono Trigger perfected it.

Once I get the platinum on Fallout Shelter, I’ll stop playing it and pick up Batman Arkham Knight, as I clearly can’t do two games at once.

. . .

In my pre-hype for Supermassive Games’ Man of Medan, I did end up buying Hidden Agenda, it is  huge file on my phone now but I really want to do it in one sitting which I’ve read is like a two hour game, give or take, so it’ll probably be like four hours, but I want to dedicate at least a proper hour to it.  My wife was kind enough to let me download that game on her phone and I took the time to download Knowledge is Power on her phone too.  I think combined it was one GB as her phone went from 18GB to 19GB, whereas, I’m having to fight to keep my phone under 25/30 GBs as I continue to be way behind on my podcasts.

Walker Dennis was with me and he insisted on getting Ghostbusters, and I foolishly walked over to see if they even had a Ghostbusters game on PS4.  Which they of course did and I ended up spending five more dollars and getting two less games than I originally had planned on buying.  A few months back, GameStop had a “Buy Four Games for $20” deal that I saw they moved to include Wii games but no longer PS4 games.  So both games cost me $25 as I got the Elite Pro membership, a slight humble brag.  The employee told me the Elite Pro didn’t do what they were hoping so they are canceling it after this year.  My renewal is up prior to Christmas (I bought it when I was told we were getting a PS4, on the DL).  That’s when I knew I had to add my renewal to my wishlist.  So $75 for a bare minimum for a Christmas list isn’t too bad.  I’m a guy who wants really little and I’m all about spoiling my wife and son (plus his birthday is two weeks prior to Christmas (it was supposed to be three weeks prior but whatevs)) so I’m all for not spending money on myself and treating my family.  That’s the maturity that comes about with age, in my 20s, I would have been a big pain about all of the things I do and other nonsense but I’m not that guy anymore, if I ever really was.

Plus, and please don’t tell him this, but he’s getting a slew of Lego Dimensions sets and I know he’s getting at least the Doctor Who level pack (I keep pushing for the Cyberman/Dalek fun pack and the Mission Impossible level set) so I’m benefiting from his presents too.  He’s going to have a great Birthday/Christmas, we’re still deciding how to divide presents.  He’s also getting the Ghostbusters level pack so that should be fun and he really wants that one too.  That’s the biggest want for him, he also wants Slimer and Stay Puft Man but those things are like $20 or $25 each and we can get proper level packs for that much and get a level, a character, and a vehicle so the content isn’t there to justify it but he’ll probably get one more of those, probably Slimer as he wants him more but he really wants all three.  It really is a balancing act.

Plus, all of the other side stuff too, like my beautiful wife is usually nice enough to get me two really great work shirts that I appreciate.  I probably make a face of “clothes?” as it is hard to shake off those childhood memories of getting clothes but they really are nice shirts and I need work shirts.

. . .

The annoying thing but not that annoying, is that Walker Dennis doesn’t even want to play the Ghostbuster game as much.  I can get him to play Foul Play on the PS4 but he still wants to focus on Lego Dimensions.  Which also cuts into my desire for Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 as he probably doesn’t need to bounce between two Lego games, which is why Spider-Man ranks higher than my other two games but then Fallout 76 edges LMSH2 on some days.  I’m definitely giving this more thought that I should.  I really do want my PSN to be renewed as that thing pays for itself after three months with the free PS4 games and they throw in the crossplay Vita games so those are a nice bonus (and what I’ve been looking forward to as some of those are really fun).

I wished Fallout Shelter was on the Vita, then I could play Fallout Shelter on the Vita at lunch and on the PS4 at night.  Knowing my luck though, it’ll be two different files and that isn’t what I want.  I still dread the day I click Uncharted 1 or 2 on the trilogy remaster when I play 3 and start a new file for 1 or 2.  I have 2 platinumed and 1 closed but I’ll never get it, but knowing I have the new file will make me want to replay those games.  I got God of War 3 as a free game but my PS3 version of that game sits at 55% so I’ve been tempted to not attempt the remaster as I doubt it’ll get more completed or I fear it’ll be less completed.  These are the rules and thoughts that clutter my noggin.  Just the way I’m wired I guess, I blame this on my comic book roots.

I really need to get back into Uncharted 3 as well.  That was a fun game but I got distracted and sidelined with my desire for Fallout 4 and now Fallout Shelter.  Which is another thing that makes me want to play Fallout 76, as what type of fan would I be if I don’t play every new Fallout game?  That’s bonkers that I finally buy a new Fallout game, not day one but you know, month three and I’m not willing the desire into action.

I’ve also been looking on craigslist to see if I can buy a cheap PS3 and a copy of New Vegas Ultimate Edition, but I’ve seen the prices being either $60 or $80 or crazy $120 (but with a slew of games) but all of that is too rich for my blood but that’s probably what it will cost me.  I’ve read online that I should just pay for PlayStation Now and rent it through that service.  Which is probably the way I do it if we don’t get a remaster eventually.  But there are no rumors of that ever becoming a thing.

. . .

I just have this vision of traveling with a dog in Fallout 76 and let’s say I get it in December and play it throughout January.  They add dogs in March, I guess I could create a second character and make that my main file but am I going to want to do all of that over again but this time with my good boy?  I enjoyed my second character in Fallout 4 but the pressure of doing the main quest wasn’t there, not like I made her for the main quest, I just wanted to be a member of the Brotherhood.  There’s just this disconnect I’ll feel during the second time and I might as well wait.

The nice thing for me is that I don’t buy anything for myself pretty much from November to February as those are prime gift receiving (and giving) months with our wedding anniversary in late November (29), Christmas, my birthday in January (31), and Valetine’s Day.  Then we get our tax refund in March/April and I usually get the one present I haven’t received yet – it just times out right – for either Easter or just cause but mostly for Easter.  Which I had forgotten about when I started this paragraph.  So November to March/April as Easter bounces around.  Not like I spend the other six months buying myself presents but I’m more apt to if I have the money, desire, and an item to spend money on.

I also have Knack to play too as I want to type I was just starting Chapter 5-3 when I got obsessed with Fallout Shelter or whatever game I was playing prior to that one. I have a backlog of years so I can wait until games are $30.  I’m also excited to look for Black Friday / Cyber Monday deals too as I usually never have anything in mind for myself.

I’m telling ya, the whole “will I, won’t I” of getting Fallout 76 has been weighing on me but it was nice to write all of this down and out of my head.  Watching the Greenbrier footage of several YouTubers, it does look like an awesome game, and I’ll get it eventually.  I, of course, won’t turn it down if someone wanted to buy me a copy of it but I have other games to occupy my headspace.

Foul Play has this fun atmosphere and I like how it just feels like a classic side scroller.

I also was really getting into Heavy Rain, so I’m definitely forming some sort of list in my mind of what games to get back into and what order to play them again.  Just looking at my trophy list, below are the games I’ve given some time too.

Ghostbusters – I’m pretty much committed to just playing this when Walker Dennis wants too.
Batman Arkham Knight – This will definitely be the next game I commit too
Sparkle 2 – This was pretty fun, it is a game where you match three colors but instead of a grid like Candy Crush, it is more of a string of multiple colors that you have to match up.  There is a trophy for playing the game for four hours that sounds like it’ll take a long time to achieve, like four hours.
Foul Play – Another game I’m completely fine with waiting for my son to want to play.
Heavy Rain – I was really getting into the story and the characters, I hadn’t met the lady character yet so I’m only at the beginning.
Grand Theft Auto V – Michael’s family had just left him but I don’t feel super compelled to get back into this one so it’ll be towards the bottom of the list.
Knack – I should look into where I’m at in this game and how close am I to finishing it, it feels like I’m still at the beginning though.
RiME – I’m stuck at this place where I come up out of the water, in the desert world, with a walkway that is floating on the water with some lights in the first area and the walkway leads to a deadend but I have to figure out the lights but I will swear that I tried all of the combinations but clearly I haven’t.  I’ve been putting off looking up walkthroughs I imagine once I do, I’ll be watching videos for the rest of the game.
Uncharted 3 – I like the idea of this game not being an open world game with a more structured plot.
Darksiders II – my first free game through the PSN+ and I wouldn’t mind finishing it.

I also subscribed to the PS4 Trophies subreddit so I’m starting to see all of these nice folks who are getting the platinums on the free games which makes me want to get further in them too.

. . .

Proofing I am a glutton for punishment, I re-subscribed to the Fallout 76 subreddit.  I was thinking that I would like to know when animals get patched in and the best way to do that would be to subscribe.  It would probably hit the Fallout proper subreddit or on PS4 subreddit but I might as well be connected to the source as well.

Gameplay of Scarlet Spider in PS4’s Spider-Man

Posted by John Klein III on October 10, 2018
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Gosh, I really want that new Spider-Man game on the PS4!  I keep thinking of either asking for Spider-Man or Fallout 76 for Christmas, and then getting the other for my birthday in January.  But if dog companions are not an option in Fallout 76, then I might just pass on that game entirety.  I’m that committed to the concept.  I keep wanting to get a PS3 so I can finally play New Vegas but they are still typically a hundred dollars, so that’s not happening any time soon.

In my anticipation of the new Spider-Man game, I’ve been watching a slew of Scarlet Spider gameplay videos.

This was the first video I saw of actual gameplay:

Thanks to GhostRobo for hosting the video.

It looks like so much fun!

This was my second video I found that also added to my hype for the eventuality of me owning it.

Thanks to DVESF for hosting their video.

I prefer the videos that show a few missions as opposed to strictly being free roam videos but both are very nice.

Thanks to kwingsletsplay for hosting their video.

Thanks to Beautiful O.B. for hosting their video too.

There are not that many videos featuring the Scarlet Spider suit so I’ll just upload the other two videos I’ve seen as well.

Thanks to KabukiSage for hosting this video.

Thanks to MaximumGuarded for hosting this video.

I saw there was an All Cut Scenes with Scarlet Spider but I’m trying my best to not spoil the actual game for myself.  Even the ones above, I’ve only seen like the first ten minutes or so.  It isn’t easy for me to watch videos unless I do it at lunch or once everyone is asleep.  But at lunch, I’m trying to catch up with my podcasts (I’m like two weeks behind thanks to Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum, I’m finally caught up on his show now) and at night, I play my games.

I’m currently bouncing between Fallout Shelter (still!) and Batman Arkham Knight.  I figured if I really wanted to play Spider-Man, I might as well play the other superhero game that I actually already own.  This is another hard game to play as Walker Dennis just likes to take the controller and drive the Batmobile around town, but we’re getting into a nice groove of him wanting to unlock something or those militia tanks show up and I get to take those out, which adds to the progress.  He can’t glide at all, so I’m not sure how he’ll fare with Spider-Man but who knows, he’s getting to become quite the little gamer.  He’s going to be Batman for Halloween, so that’s really added to my wanting to play the game too.

I’m tempted to get a $20 PlayStation card so I can finally get the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle DLC for LittleBigPlanet and I’ll probably throw two dollars and buy Batman too.  I also want to get $20 card and buy the season pass to Batman Arkham Knight, as well.  If the Fallout 4 Season Pass wasn’t still $40, I’ll add that to my wishlist too but if I bought that, I wouldn’t get much play out of my other games.  I’ve been wanting to pick up Uncharted 3 again but my backlog is intense at the moment.

. . .

For a quick update on Fallout Shelter, I’ve made huge strides in that game.  I’m finally getting close to maximizing an elite group of ten lady dwellers to start searching the wasteland for legendary materials.  I have like five legendary outfits and weapons created so eventually I’ll get 20 of each for those two trophies.  I’m 12 more Raider attacks from getting that trophy.  Once I have that one, I’ll relax a bit as that’s the only trophy that is outside of my control.  I just feel like I’m in the back end of the game.  I finally earned the 60 Quests trophy, so 40 more of those and I’ll get the 100 Quests.  I haven’t achieved the 100 Objectives trophy yet, but I feel like I should be close to that one as I feel like I’ve done a slew of those by now but the PS4 doesn’t seem to track how many and there wasn’t a “Complete 50 Objectives” trophy so I don’t have a real sense of progress for that one.  I just keep doing them.

I’m currently have three of them that are going to be time consuming, like successfully put out 45 incidents (I’m at 25 now, I believe), craft 7 weapons (I’ve done two but since I’m strictly doing legendary, the wait times are days long), and send out 10 dwellers to the wasteland (which I’ve done twice now as I’m maxing out Charisma for the other eight).

I finally got my first dweller, Sarah Lyons, to have found 100 items in the wasteland, not a trophy, but most times, they died before getting the total before they come back on their own. So I’m feeling pretty good about all of the progress.

I’m getting into the habit of doing one quest, having them come back, I have a cat that speeds up the return trip by 40% so it usually costs one Quantum to bring them back.  Once they are back, I have Alexander, Andrea, and Ashley train in either Perception, Agility, or Luck rooms.  I have them on a cycle.  Now they all have the rank of six in each of those, so by the time I turn the game off at midnight and turn it back on between 6 and 7 in the morning, they haven’t ranked up yet to the next tier but they are getting there.  I’m getting to the point where the rest of my dwellers don’t have a weapon weaker than an 8 attack stat, so incidents are easily to handle.  I finally have my first male reach level 50 so now he’s guarding the vault door.  He needs a stronger weapon but that’ll come with time.

On reddit, someone made a reference to Heavy armors, which is the highest tier of an outfit, so my next goal is to make three Heavy Merc Outfits.  Those will be counted towards my legendary outfits trophy, plus, that is my preferred outfit for my quest squad.  One of my ladies has a missile launcher which does decent damage the first round, as it is an area effect weapon, so it hits everyone the same in the room.  Which is nice when there are only two enemies but if there are four, it is more of a tickle than anything.  Second round, it usually kills everyone.  So I’m debating about switching it out to another single target weapon but I’m about to create my fourth legendary weapon (I was given the Lone Wanderer, a 10mm gun, earlier), so I have 16 more hours to think about it, plus the time before I can play the game again.

Once I wake up and click on everyone so I have gathered resources, leveled up whomever leveled up, and acknowledged the training as been completed, I sent my quest squad onto another mission so by the time I can play at night, they are already there.

I have 55 Quantums, so now I feel safe in using them, I was trying to bank at least 25 but Bottle (of Bottle and Cappy) has been kind and started giving me bottles and I’ve been finding more on quests as well.

I’m doing quests per level so I’m finally on level 22 and my squad is at level 34 so I have some time before having to force level them so they can be my official team on quests until the end of the game.

For my wasteland explorers, I’ve been concentrating on getting them maxed on Charisma, as that’s what makes finding legendary junk possible.  From there, I’ll max them out on Endurance and Luck.  Endurance to combat radiation and Luck for caps.  Though I have well over 200,000 caps so I really am not hurting for caps anymore, which is another huge benefit.  I’m also able to keep my resource bars green and usually pretty full, except for power, but it is usually never lower than the halfway mark.  Now that I am filling up my Weapon and Outfit workshops with six dwellers each, and the well trained ones at that, the turn around time went from eight days to four days.  I’m also working on the Brotherhood of Steel Diner theme, so that’s taking another six dwellers and two more days.  Once I have that completed, those six can go back to a buddy system and the Nuclear Reactor rooms can produce at twice the speed.  That or they will go back to either being trained for Strength or Intelligence as I could use a few more of those at rank 10, so I’m not relying on the same ones.  My goal of getting all of my dwellers to a minimum of five ranked in Luck is slowly coming along too.  I’m halfway down my vault, playing for five minutes at a time on the weekend has really helped with that.

As soon as one of my ladies reaches level 50, they go off to Charisma, unless that is full, then Endurance and then Luck.  For whatever reason, my three wide Endurance room only tolerates four dwellers when it should be six.  My Charisma room allows six but not endurance, which I wasn’t expecting that.  So I have a good number of dwellers in both Endurance and Luck as I await Charisma training to max out.  I definitely want Charisma to be maxed before sending them out to explore.  It is a lot of prep work that is also time consuming but now that the goals are being met and I’m cycling through dwellers rather well, it is all coming together.

I’m trying to be patient with waiting for theme pieces but after getting three duplicates in a row, I might bite the bullet and speed Quantums to buy theme pieces as I want to continue building all of the themes for that trophy.  I keep telling myself that I have plenty of time as I wait for raider attacks.  Those do seem to be coming more frequently so that’s been nice.  I did end up creating a second vault that I will not get more than 30 dwellers in, as that’s when mole rats start appearing but raiders were not coming any faster over there. It is all random but I’m so close to 50 on my main vault, I might as well stick with it.  It was fun and nice to just make an efficient vault with a three wide power/food/water rooms and one of each of a medlab and science room.  I had to buckle down to get a storage room but I’m hoping to stop there.  I don’t worry about the resource rooms turning red as clicking on one room once it is ready essentially fills up the bar again.  It was nice having a proper vault that isn’t so cluttered.

Fallout Shelter is such a fun game and I’m allowing myself to be addicted to it but it is all in good fun.

I was leading up to describing my other goals with legendary outfits.  Once I have the three Heavy Merc Outfits, someone on reddit wrote that  there is a level 40 quest that requires Institute jumper and an Institute rifle.  I already have one rifle and one jumper so I need to create two more jumpers and another two rifles in anticipation for that mission.  There was a daily quest, also a level 40 something, that required having a minimum rank of six Intelligence so I got my squad to that level.  They are not leveled enough for it at the time, they still are not, but at least they have 6 Intelligence when that time comes.  I lost a day of doing a quest but I like having them prime for when that happens.

There is another quest, like level 24, that requires only one dweller with a junk jet to go on.  I already have the dweller who was equipped with the junk jet prepped for that mission.  I’m tempted to level up the Overseer’s Office at that time so I can start two quests at once.  It is that or just pick one of my squad members to go on their own, take that other dude’s junk jet for the one mission and then swap weapons again once they have come back.  I imagine it is just easier to upgrade the office and have two quests going at once and then not do that again.  I have the caps for the upgrade and that one dweller has a minimum of rank 5 in Perception, Agility, and Luck (PAL), which are the skills you need raised for quests.  PAL.  ECL, Endurance, Charisma, and Luck, is needed for exploring the wasteland.

In terms of SPECIAL inside of the Vault, S for Strength is great for Power Stations/Nuclear Reactors, Perceptive is great for Water/Purification rooms, Endurance helps with Nuka Cola rooms, Intelligence is great for MedLabs (Stimpacks) and Science Labs (Radaways), and Agility is great for Diners/Gardens.  Charisma doesn’t help inside the vault from what I can tell.

In terms of crafting, I have only needed dwellers with high Strength and Intelligence, thus far.  So I need to start training more people to 5s once I’m done getting Luck to where I want it to be.  My eyes got big when I put my first dweller in a craft room and it stated eight days to build something.  With cats and dogs that take a percentage of time off of crafting, and five more dwellers, I got those numbers down to four days, and that’s mostly as I’m being foolish with not making sure the dwellers in the crafting room are the highest trained ones, which I might take the time to do that once I get home tonight.

I guess that wasn’t quite the quick update I thought it was going to be and it is much longer than my Scarlet Spider initial post.

. . .

In Batman Arkham Knight, I don’t feel like I’m far enough in to make a proper post about it yet.  It definitely is a fun game, I haven’t committed a lot of time with it.  We got the second island opened up, Catwoman has been taken by the Riddler, Walker Dennis somehow found the first race that gave us the first key of nine (for her nine lives, I imagine).  We completed the two firemen rescues of the first island, and found the two bandaged bodies on the first island, I’m wanting to do this mystery as my official quest but I’m not having much luck figuring out where the opera music should be coming from on the second island.  I do like how the game will piece meal clues for us, so I know the body should be found somewhere along a room in the Kingston district.  I’ll figure it out eventually, I know I have to listen for opera music and look for spotlights.  My son, on a rare run along roof tops, came across Man-Bat and that spooked him real good and he attempted to chase him for a good about of time and then got distracted or wanted to drive the Batmobile, so we have that side quest unlocked as well.  Barbara is still a hostage of the Arkham Knight, I’ve been lucky enough to not have his identity spoiled for me and I have a suspicion who it could be but I’ll let the game unfold the mystery.  I’m a tad worried about it being spoiled but not worried enough to commit more to the game.

I really need to learn the names of the islands.  The first island, I took care of all of the militia tanks and I believe we no longer have the two ground bombs to contend with.  I do have another militia side quest with towers.  They work for the Arkham Knight so it makes sense they have a slew of side quests of tanks, bombs, and signal towers.  I think that’s everything I have going on at the moment.  I bought Batgirl’s DLC and the 1989 Batman/Batmobile DLC, as well as downloaded all of the free items of other suits and Batmobile skins, as well as the avatars.

I’ve triple checked that there is no Calendar Man holiday trophies so that’s nice to know I haven’t foolishly missed out on a year’s worth of holidays.  That was a lot of fun in Arkham City but I get them not continuing with that.

We have stumbled across a few Riddler trophies/riddles, my son isn’t great about not attacking the green highlighted thug nor interrogating him so I’ve missed out on three tips (not like I’m counting).

I keep trying to write my opinions on the Batmobile but I keep not doing it.

We got him the Arkham Knight Batmobile a long time ago, I just bought it as it had Batman and Hot Wheels and I’m trying to raise him, not specifically on comics but make him aware of those superheroes.  If I had a Local Comic Shop, I would love to get him comics and into that hobby but we live in a world where cartoons, television series, and movies are a thing, so he’s aware of so many of them.  So he’s a big fan of Batman, which makes sense.

After playing the game and driving the Batmobile around, the design of it triggered my memory and I started looking for it, he has quite the collection of Batmobiles once I got them all lined up.

I probably could have arranged it so the black vehicles were not on the black part of the carpet.  The purple car is a regular car but I’ve always referred to it as Joker’s car so it had to be included and the light blue one is Bruce Wayne’s car.  My favorite has to be the 90s Animated Batmobile.  It is so sleek!

So that was my first interaction with the Batmobile.  It reminds me of the Nolan Batmobile where it is more tank than car.  Which I’m fine with as it makes sense and has that certain cool factor about it.

The driving of it feels no different than say Grand Theft Auto V, which is saying a lot, as it just feels like you are driving a regular car.  I feel horrible when I crash into buildings or I watch a cute four year old crash into buildings and anything else on his way to wherever he’s going.  Battle mode is cool, and I’m finally getting a hang of using the Vulcan gun and the rockets and trying to build up my special attacks with the missiles.

Arkham Knight, outside of the Ace Chemical building, kept destroying the Batmobile while he was in his fighter jet, so I had to update its defense but besides that, I haven’t updated the Batmobile nor Batman or any of the gadgets.  I’m just keeping all of those points for when the game requires me to upgrade certain items, or I can’t make any more progress as I keep dying.  I know I need to update the batrangs to three batrangs, I should upgrade so I can do combos at five hits instead of eight and get disruptors for Riddler clues but all of that can come naturally.  I just learned my lesson from Asylum and I know better than to do upgrades as I want to do them, as the game has other intentions and it takes a bit to level up.

Fallout Shelter

Posted by John Klein III on August 23, 2018
Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Games, Websites. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

I’ve been obsessed with Fallout Shelter for so long now!

Thanks to PlayStation hosting the video!

I attempted two times prior to play this on my phone and I just didn’t get it, it felt too much like watching an ant colony and I kept feeling like I wasn’t doing it right.

I figured I’ll get it on the PS4 as it came with a free PSN package which comes with a pet carrier, a Mr. Handy, a six pack of Nuka-Cola Quantum, and five lunchboxes.

Thanks to the following link from Playstation’s website for having the contents information.

https://www.playstation.com/en-ae/explore/playstation-plus/this-month-on-ps-plus/

For providing what was exactly in the pack as I knew it had lunchboxes but that was about it.

Last night, I finally got 50 dwellers and I performed my first haircut and got my second one started so I can get the trophy to get ten hairstyles and then I’m done with that room.

I wasn’t even tempted to play it when Todd Howard announced at the end of the Bethesda E3 conference that Fallout Shelter was coming to PS4 but then I saw people were getting the platinum for the game already and I was like, trophies?!  So I looked into and downloaded and again, had a rough start to it.

Then I got my 18th dweller and the game changed completely for it.  With 18 dwellers, you get the Overseer’s Office and can start sending people on quests.  Which meant the game finally became a Fallout game in my mind.  I got guns and outfits and I’m finally figuring out how to maximize my vault.

Pressing X had this great series of super helpful tips for the game.  They are all great episodes but the baby post was the one I found the most helpful –

As I’m not trying to get the best items or best outfits or be overly powerful in the game, but trying to make the best vault possible is something I stumbled to get accomplished.  I think I’m finally got a good spot with it.  The weakest weapon I have for my vault is a minimum of six, I finally got the handle on what outfits to put on people.  At first, I wanted to put everyone in the handyman outfit for the plus three Agility but then I finally understood the “best room for your dweller” mechanic.  So people who are operating a Power Station, should be wearing clothes with a focus on Strength.  People in cafeterias should be wearing Agility outfits, and people working on RadAway and Stimpacks should definitely be wearing Intelligence outfits.

I have tried to play on my phone again, just because I get the game now but since I can’t cross play with my PS4 vault and my mobile phone, the stakes are not as high for me or my phone doesn’t feel real in my mind, there is a disconnect there.  I would say, my vault on my phone got higher gear faster than on the PS4.  I had three pretty great weapons rather quickly.

The game can go on forever but I’m just playing until I get the platinum, and I’m not sure if I’ll go longer than that as I’m already feeling the itch to play other games.  The game really should be played for like 20 minutes and then try another game but I find myself playing for a solid hour and then having a hard time getting away from it.

I finally also got a handle on rushing a room, and when the best time to do that is.  You’ll collect a resource, either Power, Food, or Water, and the best time to rush a room, which means to try to get more resources, is right after collecting from that same room.  Don’t rush the same room more that the one additional time.  I have a hard time keeping my power high enough, I can get my food and water fully green but power seems to be the resource I’m constantly attempting rushes with.  I also don’t rush rooms if the percentage of failure is over 35% and now I’ve started only doing it as high as 31% failure rate as now I’m dealing with radscorpions, which they start appearing once you have 50 dwellers.  Which knowing that, I was putting off getting up to 50 until I got them decent weapons and now, I don’t worry too much about radscorpions, pending on where they appear, it is either a prolonged fight or a rather quick one but I have to monitor the fight to cure my dweller of radiation or to give them stimpacks for their health.

I don’t get attacked by Raiders as much as I like, I’ve read that is most people’s last trophy to accomplish.  They start appearing at 61 dwellers.

Which I should add, another great resource for the game is this website:

https://github.com/therabidsquirel/The-Fallout-Shelter-FAQ/wiki

Which is a great resource to read and review, I would credit them for finally helping me click with all of the information and then Pressing X was great for the visual element.

A fun habit I’ve gotten into is timing the game so that I can send people out on a quest, saving my Quantums – which in this game, speeds up travel times – and by the time I wake up or can play again the next evening, they are at the quest and ready for me to play.  Or they are on their way back to the vault and I can get them ready the next morning though that doesn’t seem to be working out for me irl.  I’ve been tending to be staying up later and hitting my snooze button too many times and lose my window to play the game but still, they are there when I need them when I get to play again.

I’m finally at a place where my stimpacks are at 55 and my RadAway is at 35, which I don’t tend to need RadAways as much but now that I’m doing quests or sending one person to the Wasteland, I’ve learned I can only send them out with a maximum of 25 so I wanted to make sure I could at least have over 55 stored.  I was giving my person who goes into the Wasteland like five or ten but now I’m going to start giving them the full 25 and seeing how far out they can do.  That lady finally hit level 50 so now I have to take her power armor, her gun (a flame torch), and her dog and give it to another lady to start getting leveled up and gathering caps and resources for us.

One eye opening situation was sending a team out to do a quest and one of them died, like quickly, and I had to start taking the game more seriously, which is what spurred me trying to figure out what hazards I was going to come up against.  I had to start gathering guns and now I can craft weapons so now I regret all of those items I scrapped or sold as I was desperate for money and for storage space.  Now, I have plenty of storage space, I have 112 items and a maxed of 200 and I can easily build up another storage room.  I have a tap of 65 dwellers so my plan is to open another living quarters to get that number just over 100 as I need 100 dwellers to build one of each room and from there, I’ll probably stop building rooms.

I do like how many of the trophies are for things you will do anyway, just that you need to do more of them to get more trophies like complete 60 quests.  One of the harder ones is to scrap 500 items but doing quests and sending folks out to the wasteland, should help with that, I’m only sending the one person out to the wasteland at a time, besides my quest team, eventually, I might send out two, if I could get a second suit of power armor.

I haven’t built a theme so I don’t really know what that entails, I have the room to do it but I don’t have all of the fragments to make a theme much less, have enough to make all four themes so that’ll take a while too.

The collect 20 legendary weapons and outfits, should be easier now that I have stimpacks for days but I’ll want to make another Medlab so I can get more of those as 55 will go rather quickly.

I need to do better to skip an objective with my free daily pass as I’ve been sitting on the same three for days now.  Two of them, I’ll eventually do, complete six quests and send five people out to the wasteland, which I could have easily done and maybe I will once I get home.  I’m sort of at this awkward place where I have 50 rooms and 50 dwellers so each room has a person in it.  Well, it might be like 55 rooms but I don’t have anyone in the storage rooms or the living quarters unless I’m trying to make babies, then I have people in the living quarters.  I’m doing this thing where I’m having all of the babies be born from Mr. Cook but I have a hard time remembering who the original mothers were but I think I finally figured that part out.  I have at least five ladies who will give him more children so I went from 45 dwellers to 50 in pretty quick succession, especially once I learned that giving him higher charisma helped with the speed of making babies so he’s always set in the training rooms.

I like the training rooms as it gives me five people who I can use to help out in case of an incident like a fire breaks out, radscorpions, mole rats or radroaches – all due to a rush failing.  If I’m attacked by raiders or ghoals, my top floors crew take care of those threats.  I was doing it wherein whoever was in the neighboring rooms would help with the incidents but I started noticing that they got XP from assisting with the threat.  If they are training, they increase in their SPECIAL stats but were not getting any XP so they were not leveling up.  Since learning that, I’ve started only using my training crew to help with incidents so that they can earn whatever small amount of XP that is, as I know I’ve started doing that for a week now and none of them have leveled up, as far as I can tell.

I can’t express how thrilling it was to get that Overseer’s Office open and started doing quests, it was so much fun and my learning curve for this game was like, super low.  Which I don’t now why, as the tips and the in game tutorial seemed pretty straight forward but it just wasn’t clicking with me.

So I can send my training peeps out in the wasteland and get that one objective fixed in a hurry.  Pretty much, whenever I send someone to the wasteland, when I turn the game on again, I know that person will be dead so another thousand caps to relive them and then they come back to me.  Apparently they will auto return once they have 100 items but I haven’t had that happen yet.  I didn’t get the trophy for the lone wanderer reaching level 50 but I’m hoping it will trigger once she’s back in the vault but maybe it has to be someone in the vault actually leveling 50 or she wasn’t one of my original folks but I believe I’ve only ever been given one dweller who didn’t start at 1 so who knows.  I’ll get it eventually.

With quests, I’ve started just doing the lower ranked ones and working my way up, I was going to do it by one mission at a time, as there are like eight story quests where each one has like seven chapters per over all mission.  But then that one guy died so quickly that I had them all come back and changed out I approached quests.  You are given a daily quest and a weekly quest to work on but my dwellers are not there yet to take those on.  We’ll get there eventually but my highest weapon only goes up to 15 damage, maybe 22 but it isn’t much.

Even if a dweller who was sent out to the wasteland got 100 items, I wouldn’t have enough space for all of those items but I’ll just build more storage in that scenario.

. . .

This is the habit I’ve gotten into.  I turn on the game, I load Vault 129 (Kitty Pryde’s first appearance!), and I quickly gather all of my resources, from top to bottom, leveling up people as I snake my way from floor to floor.  My two Mr. Handys are on the top floors but I usually get to those before they collect the resources on the floor for me.  When I earn my third Mr. Handy, I’m going to send him out to the Wasteland, all it can gather is 5,000 caps but I’ll be happy to get 5,000 caps every two or three days and then he’ll auto returned and I’ll just send him right back.

I had 22,000 caps and then I hit 50 dwellers and put into place my plan to open a three wide power station, one medlab, one science lab, the barber shop, and another power station (I really need more power).  All of that, plus the two elevators, cost me essentially 12,000 caps.  I got the trophy to increase 20 rooms to level 3 so now I’m no longer increasing rooms as with each increase, if an incident is to occur in the room, that room is either doubled or tripled the threat.

I had thought I had to leave a person in the barber shop, to be the official barber, but there is a machine that does the styling, so now I do have a bonus dweller who I might just put to the wasteland or into another room to get her experience.  Right now, she’ll go to whichever room the person I grab to get their haircut next was in so that I can get the 10 haircuts trophy but after that, she’ll either be in her own official room or sharing a room or outside doing her thing.

My next floor, when I get 10 more dwellers, probably all from making babies, will consist of storage (probably a two wide), living quarters (another two wide, or whichever gives me 100 dwellers as an option, so a two wide but increase it by a level or two until the 100), another medlab, I’ll hold off on a science room and then whatever that room is that you unlock at 60.

60 dwellers unlocks Nuclear Reactor, which will replace my power generator rooms.
70 dwellers unlocks Garden, which will replace my cafeteria
80 dwellers unlocks Water purification, which will replace my water treatment rooms
100 dwellers unlocks Nuka Cola Bottler, which will replace both my food and water resource rooms

Some people take the time to destroy rooms and replace those rooms with the higher tier rooms but I imagine I won’t do that.  Mainly because it is extremely expensive to do so, as I’ve been tempted to destroy my left side of the vault to put elevators on that side.  I accidently clicked a new elevator on the right side and was going to destroy it but I had enough money to go all the way up and it has been hugely beneficial having it on that side.  But the reaction time to get someone from the middle to the top floor isn’t that bad, plus my training rooms are on the right side so it all works out.

Typical me, I’ve become quite obsessed with this game too.

So I’ll gather all of the resources, which pretty much is in every room.  I was crafting weapons and outfits but I’ve built the ones I wanted and now I’m awaiting resources to make even better weapons.  I’ve made all of the outfits that I didn’t already have, I should double check to make sure I have all of the weapons crafted as the game keeps track of weapons, outfits, pets, and dwellers that are obtainable.  I’ll click on people to level them up and give birth in those circumstances.

So gather resources, try to craft new weapons or outfits, I’ll add new haircuts for the next eight times, I’ll start watching for any rooms to provide a new resource so I can start rushing those, if I don’t have water completely filled up, then I’ll rush those rooms but I definitely rush food and power rooms and food almost always gets filled during a game session.  Power though, if I stay in the game for like two hours, it’ll be close or fully filled.

I’ve since learned that if an outfit as luck, there is a high chance of getting caps from collecting a room, so now I’m trying to change outfits to incorporate a luck stat.

I do all of that so that I can check on my two outsiders.  I make sure my quest team is ready for the quest, and then I check my wanderer, who is most likely dead.  If dead, I revive them and recall them back to the vault.  Then I’ll check on the vault, as a few rooms will be ready within a minute or two.  Once every room has been collected again or I have dealt with any incidents, then I finally check on my quest team and start the quest.  Do that and come back to my vault and recollect all resources.  From there, it is a waiting game to try to earn another thousand caps and call it a night.

I play on mute as the sounds can get pretty loud and repetitive so I rely on the controller vibrating to let me know the mysterious stranger has arrived.  If you click on him, you can get bonus caps.

Thanks to FlyingScull for providing the above image on DeviantArt.  I wanted to find an image that had the bars at the top, they have 11 more dwellers than me but around the same happiness level of 84 to 86%.

I haven’t played on Halloween or Christmas but apparently there are special events on those days, including outfits.

I’ve also found the game to be so much easier to play on the PS4 than on my phone, I blame my giant man hands or lack of nails for that.  You don’t need a huge reaction time but you do need to have the ability to press a person and then be able to move them to another room.  Not being able to do that can cost you a person and reliving them can be as cheap as 100 caps or as expensive as 800 caps, pending on gear and level – from what I can gather.

Here is what my upper vault looks like –

Sorry for the poor quality, I have to figure out how to do screen grabs through the PS4 and then upload them to Twitter, as that’s how I’ve read others have done it.  One would think there would be a mode within the game to take a screencap of your vault to share with the community but maybe there is and I haven’t found it yet.

I’m suffering for power and I keep adding more and more three room power sources.  I finally made another three room storage to have a total of 230 but I’m at 150 items right now so I’ll probably be making another three room storage again relatively soon.  I also made a three room residence so I can have up to 106 dwellers so that’s one less room I have to make going forward.  I also got my ten haircuts trophy so I don’t need that room either but I’ll keep it for keeping its sake.

I keep getting attacked by radscorpions due to having to attempt so many rushes to get my energy into the green bar again.  I need to make at least five more babies, to man a few more power generators.  I’m trying to keep those new ones at the first tier so they can handle the threats.  I definitely don’t think I’m ready for deathclaws yet so I have to get better weapons by the time I get 60 dwellers.

I unlocked Sarah Lyons so I have 51 dwellers and she’s in power armor, naturally, so she is out in the wasteland.  I keep sending my one gal at level 50 which I like that idea, so I think I’ll keep doing that with my level 50 peeps as they should be able to handle themselves in the wilderness.  I’m going to have to make another medlab so I can get more Stimpacks but I do enjoy how everything is finally coming together, I just need more power!

. . .

Edited on August 24, 2018

I figured out how to upload from the PS4 to my Twitter account.

I had to had another storage unit as my three wasteland peeps did not end up dying and are rocking out there and gathering so much so I have 203 items with 300 total capacity.  I really have to start getting rid of stuff but I don’t want to until I can figure out what I really don’t need.  I try not to keep any outfits that I have more than four of, so I’ve been scrapping those and any weapon with a power of six and under.  I keep getting low on power so I had to upgrade my power generators from tier one to tier two.  I’ll have to make like five more babies and just go crazy with power generators.  I just don’t want any of my rooms to go dark.

I’ll pump up my other storage unit to a second tier as well as that will give me 346 total space which doesn’t seem like much so I’ll have to either spend the additional 1500 for more space after that or make another three wide storage unit.

. . .

Shopko has this travel mug that I can’t seem to find anywhere online.

For $12, it isn’t that bad.  It is too tall for my coffee maker but I could simply transfer from the mug to the Fallout Shelter Travel Mug.  Even Bethesda’s official site doesn’t have it on there.  Shopko also got a magnet and an air freshener, both five dollars. I bought the magnet but I go back and forth on the air freshener.

I was slated to buy the travel mug with my next paycheck but now I really want to save up for Gamestop’s exclusive Dogmeat statue.

https://www.gamestop.com/collectibles/toys/fallout-1-6-scale-dog-meat-statue/163480

Forty dollars for this great looking statue seems super reasonable to me!  My wife has already politely told me she won’t buy it for me, which I get, I already have twenty put aside so next payday, put another twenty aside and go straight to Gamestop to reserve it.  I imagine doing it through the store means no shipping so it would be a straight forty and it looks amazing!

After that, I’ll get the travel mug.

I still go back and forth on Fallout 76, it sounds amazing, I’m way into the Fallout franchise, to the point where not owning it seems like an odd thing for me not to do.  My issues with griefers seems to have been handled, I just probably won’t get it day one or heck, by month two (unless as a Christmas present).  By the time I can own it, it’ll be well tested.  I’ve been pretty loud about how all I really want for Christmas is a sixty dollar PSN card so I can renew my subscription as that thing pays for itself after the third month of free games.  But if I can get the $80 game, that would be a swell present!