Fallout 4 Thursday
May. 21st, 2020 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYes, I went pretty much all in on that game today, in two key ways:
-->First, my YouTube watching was entirely themed around the game --
A) Another Fluffy Ninja Llama video – companion reactions to skeletons in a support group circle in Vault 95 (where the experiment was to take a bunch of chem addicts, get them clean. . .and then reveal a hidden stash of chems and see what happened. Result: everyone dead from either fighting over the chems or trying to hole up away from the violence and failing). A few companions expressed confusion, a couple cracked jokes – and a lot of them ended up WALKING INTO THE SKELETONS. Like, I know, pathing, but come on! Little respect for the dead :p
B) Another compilation of nonsense from the Commonwealth from this one guy I occasionally see post in the #fallout4 tag on tumblr – enjoyable to see someone who kind of plays like I do. XD Though he's modded Ada into an absolute beast of a robot, and I haven't because I rather like her original form. :p
C) Two videos from Juicehead:
1. One about cut content from Fallout 4, and mods that either find ways to restore it (like modders rebuilding the original purpose of the Combat Den, which was to host arena fights the Sole Survivor could bet on or even participate in), or at least give you some of the same flavor (like a couple of mods to add sea life and an underwater base to the Atlantic, where a quest to save an underwater vault from a sea monster would have been). Interesting stuff, though I was surprised not to see the most obvious choice – mods that restore one of the original endings for "Blind Betrayal," where you can instead challenge Maxson for Brotherhood leadership and save Danse as a BoS member (the only option to keep him alive in-game is to talk them into exiling him, and after that point he'll be shot upon by all Brotherhood of Steel soldiers if you run into them with him around). But maybe it was left off FOR being obvious – I dunno.
2. And one about things you can do in the game that most players might not know about, like killing Kent Connolly in the Silver Shroud quest (you're supposed to try your best to SAVE him, and the entire gang is DUMBFOUNDED if you kill him first), or finding a way into the Mechanist's private quarters through a sneaky elevator hack (which – still involves fighting most of her robots in her lair to collect the necessary holotapes and doing a whooole lot of backtracking. Doesn't seem worth, honestly). Fun stuff, even if I WAS aware of most of them before.
D) Two "can you beat Fallout 4" videos from Paul from Mitten Squad – one on if you can do so with only legendary weapons (yes, though it does rather depend on expanding the definition to "any weapon with a legendary effect" (that is, unique weapons as well as those dropped by Legendary enemies) so you can get one given to you – Righteous Authority from Danse); and one if you can do so without taking any damage (yes, though it is VERY HARD, requires a LOT of sneaking, and people in the comments kept wondering if the radiation damage he took during a couple of quests counted). Interesting stuff, as usual – but Paul's insistence on calling a character with amputated legs who is important in the Brotherhood variations on "Captain Cripple" in the second video REALLY got under my skin, so – yeah, LAST videos I'm watching of his as well. Ugh.
E) And finally, the Spiffing Brit returns with more Reanu Keeves goodness in the Wasteland! Today's adventure? Using glitched-out modding again to create the world's deadliest melee weapon with a Ripper chainsaw and a spiked baseball bat! And then upping the damage to TERRIFYING levels with Yao Guai Roast – a bear-meat steak that THEORETICALLY gives you upped HP and +10 melee damage for about an hour. What it REALLY does is PERMANENTLY boost your HP and gives you 500% melee damage for an hour. Combined with an unhealthy amount of drugs and VATS, and Reanu was killing LEGENDARY MYTHIC DEATHCLAWS and NUKALURK QUEENS in moments. It was delightful – especially in the early parts where poor Reanu wasn't QUITE so overpowered and so things could occasionally go wrong for him. XD Hoping he does a "here's how to glitch out the leveling system" video next – I am le curious!
-->Second, I fired up the game and did some more mod testing! And get this -- I added in more than one mod! Yes, today I added in:
A) A mod that stops friendlies and companions from getting aggroed from you jumping down in power armor near them (I tested this by building some elevators at the Red Rocket near Sanctuary and jumping down from them in my Minuteman-themed power armor stored there) -- neither Preston, Ada, or Dogmeat seemed to care, so yay?)
B) A mod that fixes/prevents the elevator buttons from ending up hovering miles in the sky when you build them (preventing you from using elevators -- I didn't run into the glitch while making my elevators, and now hopefully I never will)
C) A mod that updates the "Strong Back" perk so that it improves carry weight massively out of power armor (which I sort of already had with my rad-powered stuff that ups my strength -- seriously, I can carry more outside of power armor than inside it!), and -- much better -- MAKES ARMOR WEIGHTLESS AT RANK 2. I tried this out by checking out my carry weight in my Pip-Boy upon reloading my save -- I already had rank 1 of the perk, which with the mod halves the weight of apparel, and was delighted to see that suddenly I had a lot more room to carry junk! And then I went and did a quick quest for a guy over at Thicket Excavations to level up again and get the next rank. SO SATISFYING to see my carry weight JUMP, and my clothing weight just vanish. :D
D) And a mod that adds an apple and pear orchard to the game, near the top of the map, along with apple and pear-based recipes. I was expecting to have to go searching for this thing, but it turns out the location was just added to my Pip-Boy, so I was able to march on over there. It's a really nice little place, with actual green grass and brahmin cows hanging around, with a Mr. Handy to tend things. In my case, I ended up with a Yao Gaui and an angry Radstag Doe on my back, so it wasn't as peaceful as it COULD be. . .but I got lots of apples and pears, cooked up some apple pies and whatnot, and even planted an apple and a pear tree over at the Abernathy farm (as they had the fertilizer I needed). Fun fact -- eating apple pie gives you +5 experience. XD I did run into some potential glitches (I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be able to find the orchard naturally; I couldn't talk to the Mr. Handy tending the place, but then again he was semi-stuck on a brahmin so), but nothing horrible.
So yeah, so far so good with the modding! Nice to actually make some PROGRESS with that, and even do a quest or two. I'm gonna keep adding in lighter mods and bug fixes, then finish up with what I feel are my "heaviest" mods -- "We Are The Minutemen," which makes some major overhauls to the Minutemen faction; and "Tales from the Commonwealth," which is a big old quest mod with original characters. Might take a little while still until I'm satisfied with my load order and my game, but -- it's coming along! :)
Only other things of note today were:
-->Played another few rounds of the beanbag toss game with the parentals -- and shock of shocks, I actually won the first game! :D That was satisfying. Dad came in second, then proceeded to win the next two games -- Mom came in second on the second one, and I came in second on the third. So that was all very nice. :)
-->Did some more on Chapter 8 of "Secundus 2" -- covered the gang having a bit of trouble with the regular dancing (mainly blending in and not colliding with people), but then having fun when they transition to a called dance. Though Victor and Alice have admitted privately that they're not very keen on Hill Valley even in the good moments. Can't blame them; it hasn't really shown them its best face. And the festival's due to take a dark turn in a few pages. . .
So yeah, that was my Thursday off -- good times. :) Nice to have another day that's just for me. Tomorrow is remote working day -- hopefully not too much will come in through the inbox! Right now, I have to finish up my Valice Multiverse queue and answer my inbox comment before heading to bed. *nods* Night all!
-->First, my YouTube watching was entirely themed around the game --
A) Another Fluffy Ninja Llama video – companion reactions to skeletons in a support group circle in Vault 95 (where the experiment was to take a bunch of chem addicts, get them clean. . .and then reveal a hidden stash of chems and see what happened. Result: everyone dead from either fighting over the chems or trying to hole up away from the violence and failing). A few companions expressed confusion, a couple cracked jokes – and a lot of them ended up WALKING INTO THE SKELETONS. Like, I know, pathing, but come on! Little respect for the dead :p
B) Another compilation of nonsense from the Commonwealth from this one guy I occasionally see post in the #fallout4 tag on tumblr – enjoyable to see someone who kind of plays like I do. XD Though he's modded Ada into an absolute beast of a robot, and I haven't because I rather like her original form. :p
C) Two videos from Juicehead:
1. One about cut content from Fallout 4, and mods that either find ways to restore it (like modders rebuilding the original purpose of the Combat Den, which was to host arena fights the Sole Survivor could bet on or even participate in), or at least give you some of the same flavor (like a couple of mods to add sea life and an underwater base to the Atlantic, where a quest to save an underwater vault from a sea monster would have been). Interesting stuff, though I was surprised not to see the most obvious choice – mods that restore one of the original endings for "Blind Betrayal," where you can instead challenge Maxson for Brotherhood leadership and save Danse as a BoS member (the only option to keep him alive in-game is to talk them into exiling him, and after that point he'll be shot upon by all Brotherhood of Steel soldiers if you run into them with him around). But maybe it was left off FOR being obvious – I dunno.
2. And one about things you can do in the game that most players might not know about, like killing Kent Connolly in the Silver Shroud quest (you're supposed to try your best to SAVE him, and the entire gang is DUMBFOUNDED if you kill him first), or finding a way into the Mechanist's private quarters through a sneaky elevator hack (which – still involves fighting most of her robots in her lair to collect the necessary holotapes and doing a whooole lot of backtracking. Doesn't seem worth, honestly). Fun stuff, even if I WAS aware of most of them before.
D) Two "can you beat Fallout 4" videos from Paul from Mitten Squad – one on if you can do so with only legendary weapons (yes, though it does rather depend on expanding the definition to "any weapon with a legendary effect" (that is, unique weapons as well as those dropped by Legendary enemies) so you can get one given to you – Righteous Authority from Danse); and one if you can do so without taking any damage (yes, though it is VERY HARD, requires a LOT of sneaking, and people in the comments kept wondering if the radiation damage he took during a couple of quests counted). Interesting stuff, as usual – but Paul's insistence on calling a character with amputated legs who is important in the Brotherhood variations on "Captain Cripple" in the second video REALLY got under my skin, so – yeah, LAST videos I'm watching of his as well. Ugh.
E) And finally, the Spiffing Brit returns with more Reanu Keeves goodness in the Wasteland! Today's adventure? Using glitched-out modding again to create the world's deadliest melee weapon with a Ripper chainsaw and a spiked baseball bat! And then upping the damage to TERRIFYING levels with Yao Guai Roast – a bear-meat steak that THEORETICALLY gives you upped HP and +10 melee damage for about an hour. What it REALLY does is PERMANENTLY boost your HP and gives you 500% melee damage for an hour. Combined with an unhealthy amount of drugs and VATS, and Reanu was killing LEGENDARY MYTHIC DEATHCLAWS and NUKALURK QUEENS in moments. It was delightful – especially in the early parts where poor Reanu wasn't QUITE so overpowered and so things could occasionally go wrong for him. XD Hoping he does a "here's how to glitch out the leveling system" video next – I am le curious!
-->Second, I fired up the game and did some more mod testing! And get this -- I added in more than one mod! Yes, today I added in:
A) A mod that stops friendlies and companions from getting aggroed from you jumping down in power armor near them (I tested this by building some elevators at the Red Rocket near Sanctuary and jumping down from them in my Minuteman-themed power armor stored there) -- neither Preston, Ada, or Dogmeat seemed to care, so yay?)
B) A mod that fixes/prevents the elevator buttons from ending up hovering miles in the sky when you build them (preventing you from using elevators -- I didn't run into the glitch while making my elevators, and now hopefully I never will)
C) A mod that updates the "Strong Back" perk so that it improves carry weight massively out of power armor (which I sort of already had with my rad-powered stuff that ups my strength -- seriously, I can carry more outside of power armor than inside it!), and -- much better -- MAKES ARMOR WEIGHTLESS AT RANK 2. I tried this out by checking out my carry weight in my Pip-Boy upon reloading my save -- I already had rank 1 of the perk, which with the mod halves the weight of apparel, and was delighted to see that suddenly I had a lot more room to carry junk! And then I went and did a quick quest for a guy over at Thicket Excavations to level up again and get the next rank. SO SATISFYING to see my carry weight JUMP, and my clothing weight just vanish. :D
D) And a mod that adds an apple and pear orchard to the game, near the top of the map, along with apple and pear-based recipes. I was expecting to have to go searching for this thing, but it turns out the location was just added to my Pip-Boy, so I was able to march on over there. It's a really nice little place, with actual green grass and brahmin cows hanging around, with a Mr. Handy to tend things. In my case, I ended up with a Yao Gaui and an angry Radstag Doe on my back, so it wasn't as peaceful as it COULD be. . .but I got lots of apples and pears, cooked up some apple pies and whatnot, and even planted an apple and a pear tree over at the Abernathy farm (as they had the fertilizer I needed). Fun fact -- eating apple pie gives you +5 experience. XD I did run into some potential glitches (I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be able to find the orchard naturally; I couldn't talk to the Mr. Handy tending the place, but then again he was semi-stuck on a brahmin so), but nothing horrible.
So yeah, so far so good with the modding! Nice to actually make some PROGRESS with that, and even do a quest or two. I'm gonna keep adding in lighter mods and bug fixes, then finish up with what I feel are my "heaviest" mods -- "We Are The Minutemen," which makes some major overhauls to the Minutemen faction; and "Tales from the Commonwealth," which is a big old quest mod with original characters. Might take a little while still until I'm satisfied with my load order and my game, but -- it's coming along! :)
Only other things of note today were:
-->Played another few rounds of the beanbag toss game with the parentals -- and shock of shocks, I actually won the first game! :D That was satisfying. Dad came in second, then proceeded to win the next two games -- Mom came in second on the second one, and I came in second on the third. So that was all very nice. :)
-->Did some more on Chapter 8 of "Secundus 2" -- covered the gang having a bit of trouble with the regular dancing (mainly blending in and not colliding with people), but then having fun when they transition to a called dance. Though Victor and Alice have admitted privately that they're not very keen on Hill Valley even in the good moments. Can't blame them; it hasn't really shown them its best face. And the festival's due to take a dark turn in a few pages. . .
So yeah, that was my Thursday off -- good times. :) Nice to have another day that's just for me. Tomorrow is remote working day -- hopefully not too much will come in through the inbox! Right now, I have to finish up my Valice Multiverse queue and answer my inbox comment before heading to bed. *nods* Night all!
