So I’ve become addicted to Fallout 4 like I was on jet!

Thanks to Betheseda Softworks for hosting their own video!

I’ve also really gotten into reddit!  I’m subscribed to the TMNT Legends page, the PS4 page, the Lego Dimensions page and two Fallout related subreddits – Fallout and FO4.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/

https://www.reddit.com/r/fo4/

I really wish there was a way to hide the right side bar on the Fallout subreddit as it is very busy.

I was impress when I found that Tea had its own subreddit and now I try to click on all tab to see what else is happening in the world of reddit.  I was hesitant to subscribe to PS4 as I thought it would just explode in my feed but reddit does a good job of keeping my updated on the other subreddits.

Are there other subreddits worth subscribing to or other Fallout related subreddits worth exploring?

. . .

I’ve downloaded the Fallout Shelter game app and that was fun during a lunch break but I don’t think I can fully commit to how massive it seemed to be.  So I uninstalled that.

I also downloaded the Fallout Pip-Boy app and uninstalled and now it is back on my phone again, now that I got the hang of it.  I thought it was going to be more of an aid but now I like it for how it keeps track of my progress and I’ve gotten used to how not-in-sync it is with my current game, when it is in offline mode.

I do wish there was a way to mute the Pip-Boy app.

. . .

My started my male character, as myself, and a week later, I started really regretting not making a female playthrough.  Especially with how many men are in the game, and how great it would be to have the Black Widow perk as (once maxed out) having 15% more damage being done to dumb male Raiders and such, that will come in handy.  So over the weekend I created a sarcastic female character based off of my wife.  I’m going to have her join the Brotherhood and be strictly a melee character.

If you are going to go along with a melee character, I highly recommend these two websites –

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/12/05/fallout-4-is-twice-as-fun-when-you-dont-fire-a-single-shot-the-melee-build/#1e639cf12033

Of course, I recognize that I’m in the super minority who are just now playing Fallout 4 for the first time but from what I’ve seen on reddit, I’m definitely not alone.

I just adored Fallout 3 and I passed on Fallout New Vegas though now I wished I did play that one.

Within the first two hours of playing, I got a security baton, skipped going to stupid Preston and Concord and attempted to follow the road to Diamond City, knowing that I was going to end up passing through Cambridge and Paladin Danse.  Which is pretty much as far as I wanted to get, and I was pretty impressed I was able to get there relatively find.  I got a tad lost on my way there as I meant to memorize the map better but I got there, and that’s what counts.  I also want her dressing in different outfits and not using stimpacks as much.  She’s going to be more of a napper, like my lovely wife.  She used to be quite the sleep tank prior to our son coming along.  From there, she’s going to strictly be a Brotherhood member and I’ll do all of those types of missions.  She’s also not going to be building as many settlements, if I can help it.

. . .

My male character was mostly just forged through a very organic playstyle.  I’ll take perks as needed or as I learned which ones are necessary.  Right now, in the main storyline, I’m at the part where I am supposed to be going to the Glowing Sea and meeting Virgil.  I read that I should be using weapons that do more than 50+ damage and I finally got a few (like two! a shotgun and a rifle).  I’m also super late to crafting and weapon modification.

I also just learned that I can check on the current stats of my settlements so now I’m trying to make all of those people happy and/or not disappointed in me, so that has changed my game play.

I am also in the middle of the Silver Shroud mission and just loving that costume!  I was just having him wear the Vault 111 costume with various pieces of armor but now I’m all about costumes.

I also was just going to use Dogmeat but after having Valentine as a required companion, I’m trying to make up for lost time.  I have his perk, Piper’s perk (who I really liked her), and I finally got MacCready’s ultimate perk.  I plan on getting Hancock next.

As I really like a list, I’m just going down this list here –

https://www.polygon.com/fallout-4/2016/1/13/10760088/fallout-4-companions-guide-perks

So that makes Hancock next but I was hoping to finish MacCready and move on to Hancock but Hancock won’t come with me as I haven’t activated the Big Dig side quest so I’ll do that when I get home.  So I plan on ditching MacCready for Strong (as I haven’t come across Cait as I haven’t entered the Combat Zone yet either).

So I’ll use Strong until I get access to Hancock.  Which might not be until after I get Big Dig done, Pickman’s Gallery, and Silver Shroud completed.

I naturally joined the Minutemen, but never had Preston join me, which was a mistake in hindsight.  I should either use Preston or Strong, I’ll think about that.  I’m still tempted to go with Strong but time will tell.

Joining the Minutemen was nice as it had me running around the map.  Preston gave me two missions/settlements to check out that are deep south and one to the west and the other to the east.  I already had my butt kicked going down and to the left on the map screen as I needed to check out all of those police stations for Valentine so I’m hesitant to go to the Glowing Sea at the moment.

I have also started doing some of the Railroad quests as I read that the Railroad and the Minutemen do not conflict but then I read that you have to choose one fraction at the end to success (maybe?), which makes sense so I’ve decided I’ll do a pure Railroad playthrough on a third time and an Institute one on a fourth.  Ideally, I’ll just create a hard save whenever that becomes an option and just continue my Minutemen to Institute as I can’t imagine having to do a pure vanilla playthrough skipping both Minutemen and the Brotherhood and going strictly to the Institute.  The Railroad is super easy to ignore.

I also don’t think I have four playthroughs in me though, especially as I have so many other games I really want to be playing.  I mostly set up my wife’s game so that one day I can come back to it.  I had the idea of jumping between both characters but I know I’ll get frustrated doing that with the lack of progress.

That’s the thing about Fallout 4 is that I meant to stick with the main storyline, as I really want to get my son back!, BUT, it is super hard to not to get distracted and help out people as I come across them.  For my wife’s playthrough, besides Brotherhood storylines, I want to keep her on track of the main story.

What really ruined Dogmeat for me, was that I kept losing him as I would be looting a room, he’ll get in the way and I’ll accidently tell him to stay and I’ll be almost out of the building before I realized I lost him at some point.  I was in that adapted vault, on my way to rescue Valentine and I successfully speech checked myself out of there and was up and out of there.  Then I noticed Dogmeat wasn’t around and I had to go back through that vault, had to kill that one guy and his buddies (and getting his sweet tux!) and had to go down two floors and there was Dogmeat, just being a good boy.  I’ll come back around on him but I really wanted MacCready’s broken headshot perk and that’s what got me down the companion route.

So once I have Hancock and have successfully completed the Silver Shroud plot, or first the plot and then Hancock (either way!), I’ll get back onto doing the main quest again.  Well, I may do all of those missions he originally sent me to complete but with him, and then go on the main quest, I’ll see how I feel.  His perk isn’t super interesting to how I play though.

What I should do, and this might change my overall playing now that I’m typing this, is recruit Codsworth or X6-88.  Codsworth gets me Robot Sympathy which grants +10 damage resistance against robot energy weapons.   X6-88 grants Shield Harmonics, which is +20 energy resistance.  Both of which I imagine I’ll actually need.

Danse grants 20% more damage against Feral Ghouls, Super Mutants and Synths.

Deacon grants 20% more sneak attack damage which I could use now that I really have taken to sniping dudes from a distance.

Preston’s perk grants 20% extra damage and 20% damage resistance when facing three or more opponents but that doesn’t sound great as I’m rarely up against three people at one go.

So maybe I’ll grab Codsworth when I get home and home in the game (natch!) and attempt the Glowing Sea and see how that all goes for me.  Though I believe I read somewhere that I need Valentine to complete that task so maybe the game won’t let me.  I just really need to drop MacCready so I’ll ditch him and grab Codsworth and see how it goes from there.  I’ve read that he’s amazing in fights and a real joy to have on the long road.

I really wish there was a way to have a bicycle in the game.  I know it’ll be silly to have the Sole Survivor conducting drive-bys while on a bike but it’ll make me less incline to use fast travel.  Which I rarely used unless I get encumbered, which happens a lot more that I’m carrying anywhere from five to six weapons.  What I should do is drop the missile launcher, fat man, and mini gun and that’ll save like 100 pounds.  It was also nice traveling with Valentine as he could hold those three weapons without any real effort.  MacCready can only hold so much.

. . .

Whenever my son sees me play, he really wants me to save the baby and to drive one of the cars.  If only I could do both!

I sort of got spoiled about the son and that has sort of made a disconnect from my super desire to fast track to Shaun but then I read something else recently that makes me question the thing I originally read.

Him wanting me to drive a car makes me realized how much I want a bike in this game.

My son watching me play always makes me want to just get to Shaun, as well.  He mostly just sees me walking around as I don’t want him seeing too much, head shots are fine unless they slow down the graphics and do a super bloody kill – and I’ll never get that Bloody Mess perk as I don’t really need to see people get super killed.  Which is what I like about the laser guns as they just turn people into goo.  I mostly save the Righteous Authority for Super Mutants as they seem to need the extra firepower.

. . .

It sounds like people have a blast on their PCs with mods but mods seem to really break the game, or potentially seem like they can break the game but that’s just me.  They make for good images and awesome settlements but it doesn’t feel “real” to me.

. . .

I also don’t have much interest in playing on Survival mode as that just seems stressful and I really depend on being able to save my progress on a time.  I can only really play at night, once my son and wife are sleeping, for maybe an hour or two if I’m lucky.

I do like my guns and building up my settlements as much as I can.  I doubt I’ll ever platinum the game so unless I can get one of my settlements to 100% happiness, which is one of the hardest trophies from what I’ve read, I haven’t had much interest in crafting or preparing anything 100 times.  I got the build 100 items and that came naturally.  I’ve been using stimpacks for all of my healing needs, besides straight sleeping the pain away, so I haven’t been preparing dinners or such.

One perk I highly recommend putting points in is the Strong Back, as being able to fast travel while encumbered is amazing!  I also maxed out Action Boy as that become necessary.  Now that I’m better with sniping on my own and shooting from the hip or at least aiming, I don’t need as many action points, I mainly use VATS to reload and get a free shot again.  Then I try to get two or three more shots in VATS and I go back to self aiming.

Using a shotgun has helped too as once they are that close, they go down pretty quickly, if I haven’t sniped them prior to that.  I used to really move my 10mm gun too before the foes overpowered it.  But I still like having it be my main weapon as I leave Sanctuary and once it doesn’t one shot kill someone (or even two shots) I switch it out to my mighty rifle.

My current favorite guns are –

Markman’s Harden Combat Shotgun

Mighty .50 Sniper Rifle

Suppressed Advanced 10mm Pistol

I want to like the Markman’s Powerful Pipe Bolt-Action Rifle, and next time I play, I want to change whatever it is that limits it to two shots to anything else as I’m dying out there between reloads.  I forgot how much I hated the earlier guns that had only two shots per round.

I’m bad about really knowing what those perks that deal with guns are and which guns apply to which ones.  I guess, worst case, I should place one skill point into each category and be done with it.  Some seem to be pretty straight forward and maybe I’m allowing myself to be more confused than I should be but I should look into it some more.

Referring to looking at things, I really wish there was a way to quickly look at my character from the front.  I seem to accidently do it from time to time but I think that hurts my chances of trying different outfits as it doesn’t really matter what it looks like from the back as most chest plates cover the same spots, so I used to stick with the highest protection and moved on.  I do like to wear a proper set but now that I’m more laxed about outfits, maybe I can mix and match now.  Though I’ve become quite taken with the Silver Shroud costume.  I do know I’m going to want a hazmat suit and power armor for the Glowing Sea so I know to not be too attach to wearing the costume forever.

. . .

Another thing I want to do, and maybe I will with my third playthrough, or try to do it with my wife’s character, is to run the border of the map.  I just now came across the northern most border when I was tracking distress signals and it reminded me how much I enjoyed walking the border of Fallout 3.  Heck, I might just do it during my male playthrough and I’m leveled enough to actually handle whatever comes my way.

I do like how there isn’t a level cap in Fallout 4.  Knowing and hitting the 30 level cap in Fallout 3, meant I had to very focused on how I wanted to handle my perks.  Knowing that I can eventually get all of the perks I could possibly want, is pretty relaxing.  Though, of course, there is something to be said about getting some perks before others, such as the super important tetralogy of obtaining locksmith, hacker, scrounger and fortune finder, as you’re going to want to be able to unlock every door and computer you come across and when you do get those doors open, you’re going to want to be able to find items in those boxes, such as caps or (not) junk.

. . .

Now that I think of it, it probably isn’t really that hard to go straight to the Railroad, used the same website I used before to get the code to unlock their door, as I wasn’t really keeping track of it as I figured it was Classic Fallout (3) and the password was just going to be an option that I clicked on.  That should be simple enough.

Getting to the Institute will be the harder thing to do and I think the easiest will be to use my idea mentioned above and just create a second file where I do those missions and be done with it.

I really wish I hadn’t started the railroad quests in my Minutemen playthrough as now they are just staring at me.  I mostly started them as I wanted the experience points and that they don’t conflict with the Minutemen but I’m not going to be able to realistically complete both quest lines in one playthrough.

I also didn’t know about radiant quests until I finally looked up if Preston will ever stop giving me quests and marking my map and it turns out, he never will.  So that has made me also want to stop and just concentrate one faction at a time.

Just for my own reference, here is that website for the Railroad –

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/walkthroughs/15058-Fallout-4-How-to-Join-the-Railroad-Faction-Road-to-Freedom-Quest

6. Here’s the code: 1R (fReedom) 2A (trAil) 3I (traIl) 4L (traiL) 5R (tRail) 60 (freedOm) 7A (trAil) 8D (freedom)

Which takes a while to actually do and I wish the arrow that points to the letters pointed right at the letter but it is pretty easy to tell after making the mistake twice.

. . .

Overall, Fallout 4 is an awesome game and I’m super addicted to it and I don’t see an end to it in sight.  An end to the main quest, the side quests, nor my enjoyment of the game.

Though I do want to try the Free March 2018 PSN games a tad more to see if I want to keep them loaded on my main screen or not.

I knew when my wife asked me for which games I wanted, that it was a mistake to ask for both Grand Theft Auto 5 and Fallout 4, as both are giant open world games.  That’s why I wanted an Uncharted game (or all three – Trilogy, 4, and Lost Legacy – and my incredible wife got me all three!).  At least with GTA5, I knew I wasn’t going to do that many side quests or look for hidden items or do special jumps, I stick to the main story as much as possible.  I had to stop as Franklin (and others) dropping n-bombs got a tad much, especially at the beginning of the game.  That has seemed to have stopped once I’m able to play as Michael.  I pretty much stopped right after unlocking Trevor and completing a few of his missions.  I don’t quite recall what prompted to stop that and play Fallout 4, I think my wife was asking me if I had tried most of my games and I popped Fallout 4 in and haven’t really taken it out except for the times I’ve played the Knight Rider world in Lego Dimensions.  Which now that I think of it, I haven’t played Lego Dimensions in a long time!