Final Countdown Sunday
Aug. 8th, 2021 11:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYes, there is only one more day of freedom left after tonight. :( Ah well. Vacations can't last forever, no matter how much I wish they might. And it has been a good ten days off (well, nine right at the moment, but you get what I mean). I got pretty much everything I wanted to get done, done, even with my period dragging me down the first couple of days. And it's just been nice to hang out at home and chill with my YouTube videos and my video games and whatnot. Much needed break from all the bullshit at work.
As for today -- well, turned out to be more Simmy than I expected. Take at look at this to-do list:
1. Work on those Sims 4 challenges (I want to at least see if I can finish the VTMB one): Check! I didn’t finish the VTMB one, but I did make a start on the FO4 one (doing the premise and setting up a few of the rules), and I did also come to a conclusion about how I want to do vampire powers for the VTMB one.
Namely, that I’ve got to do it by the spirit of the clan rather than the letter of their Disciplines. Mostly because, while fiddling with that again and trying to figure out whether or not “Dampened Emotions” would be a good fit for “Fortitude” (it might with the V5 version of the Discipline), I abruptly realized that, the way I was going about things, the clans were going to be very unbalanced about when they could buy their powers. Like, some clans would have absolutely nothing in the lower levels, while others would have almost nothing in the higher, and – yeah. The fact that Sims 4 works on a tier system means that fitting specific powers to specific Disciplines is going to make it so a Brujah, for example, wouldn’t even get to take any powers from the very first level and thus would have a harder time leveling up. So instead I’m gonna look at each clan and try to pick like one specific power for each level that fits the general feel of the clan (like, Gangrel can definitely get “Bat Form” because they’re the clan known for being close to animals and shapeshfiting). This should work a lot better and finally get me over that damn hump in the challenge.
2. Keep up on YouTube Subs and Jon's latest FO4 YOLO episode: Check – hell, more than check, as I also cleared out some videos in my Recommendeds instead of letting them clutter up my Watch Later. Trying to keep that nice and clean so I can start filling it up again when I go back to work. :p But yeah, lots of videos today –
A) Started with Plumbella’s latest upload today, “Reacting to YOUR unpopular Sims opinions...u did not hold back” – she asked for unpopular opinions on the game(s) on Twitter and read a few key ones out! Such as (paraphrased) “Sims 4 is not worth almost $800 for the full experience” (she agrees since she wouldn’t be buying all the packs if she wasn’t a GameChanger; I agree because it’s an expensive hobby and I really hate the stupid “kits” micro-transaction stuff – I admittedly have bought more content for this game than I have for Sims 2, but I think that veers into the “Sims 4 base game can’t hold its own” argument, so. . .); “Sims 4 has the ugliest Sims” (Plumbella disagrees because she thinks Sims 4 vanilla Sims look better than Sims 3 ones, which is an opinion I totally agree with (I LOATHE the Sims 3 art style) – custom content can make a huge difference though, which, fair); “Sims 3 is better than Sims 2 because of story progression and the Generations pack” (Plumbella agreed because she likes people aging up around her and whatnot; I’ve always been more mixed about this, as I rather liked in older games that the Sims would stay how they are – I think this might come down to “do you prioritize one family or do rotational gameplay,” and I’ve done plenty of the latter); and “Get Together is the worst pack when it comes to gameplay” (from onlyabidoang, no less! – Plumbella disagreed because she actually uses it a fair bit in off-camera gameplay, but allowed that it kind of depends on what you’re looking for – I personally don’t use clubs a lot in my own gameplay, but I agree that Windenberg spoiled us for worlds, place looks great). Interesting video, especially to see what various people do and don’t like in the game!
B) Then, because she popped up in my Recommendeds, I went ahead and watched The English Simmer muse about the news from the recent livestream, and which game packs could use a “refresh” like the one they’re saying is coming. She’s all for visually fixing the townies and adding to the lore, but would like to see sentiments refreshed at the same time so they stay “locked” for Sims you’re not playing, and have longer cooldowns and suchlike (like the “furious” state from Sims 2). As for game packs, she’s like me in thinking that calling it a “relaxing” refresh means it’s coming to either Outdoor Retreat or Spa Day – she’d mainly like the spawners from Outdoor Retreat unlocked so you could place the bugs in the residential worlds and make catching them easier (I am all for this), and maybe add a career (Yoga Instructor or Massage Therapist) to Spa Day (I’d be okay with that). As for the other packs, she’d just like the bugs fixed in Dine Out and Dream Home Decorator; feels Vampires is fine as it is; wants more family stuff but feels like that would be better suited to a new pack than adding onto Parenthood; figures adding a toggle to turn on/off the story in Strangerville would be good; doesn’t want any more effort put into Journey To Baatu; and would like spellcasters to become more powerful and have more specialization in Realm Of Magic (she mentioned how you can concentrate on being a good vampire, a family vampire, or a master vampire in Vampires thanks to the aspirations; maybe what RoM needs is a good/bad axis added to the three schools of magic?). So yeah, we’ll see what happens with the game and this “refresh!” Hopefully it doesn’t completely break the thing they’re trying to update. . .
C) Then after my own Sims 4 session and beanbags (see below), it was time for James Turner and his “Every Lot Challenge,” er, challenge. This is the save file where his self Sim is living in StrangerVille, on a lot with EVERY lot challenge enabled, PLUS “Cat Hangout,” “Dog Hangout,” and “Vampire Nexus,” PLUS it’s a Haunted House. Fun! (It’s also worth noting that Semaj’s traits in this LP are “Slob,” “Lazy,” and “Clumsy” for extra fun). Things remain completely chaotic in this LP – Semaj basically relies on his job to feed him, because the “Cursed” lot challenge means that almost every time he makes food, he sets himself and the stove on fire. Also his outdoor bin keeps getting knocked over, and Temperance is now showing up regularly in the haunted house, so. . . However, on the plus side, while he can’t advance in his job (he can’t get the logic skill for it), he still HAS the job, he’s started a semi-lucrative career painting on the side (even got a tiny bit of fame for it!), and his handiness is going way up as he upgrades the hell out of all of his objects – including his new wind farm, as James bought a bunch of turbines in a desperate attempt to solve his power problem. XD And he got that phone call where, if you answer a certain way, you can get a chunk of money for marrying someone within a week – Semaj ended up speed-wooing Tina Tinker via the medium of photography, convinced her to leave her spouse, married her, got $23,000, then instantly divorced her and sent her back to live with her ex-wife with half the money ($11,500). So that was – something. And he’s started feeding the strays that come by, because why not? XD So yeah, things are mental, but in a good way. XD
D) Then, after supper, it was time for Call Me Kevin and The Complex, which appears to be one of those “interactive movie” games where the storyline depends on the choices you make. This one was all about Dr. Amy, working on “nanocell” technology (I think it’s some sort of special disease), only to find herself in lockdown in her own underground lab after a terrorist plant tried to kill her and her coworker (and the intern infected with the nanocells currently in a bio-containment unit), with more bad guys trying to breach the lab – and then it’s revealed her boss has committed crimes against humanity by helping the “Supreme Leader” of I-believe-North-Korea-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off (they call it “Kindar”) kill a whole village of people with the nanocell stuff. Kevin tried to make his patented horrible decisions (like taking more questions at a meeting when she’d been summoned to deal with the intern downstairs, and dropping the scientist down a hole she made after smashing apart a toilet in an escape attempt), and he did end up sacrificing the intern and her ex-boyfriend scientist after they both got infected (admittedly the intern volunteered to go out and activate lab security to take care of the one remaining bad guy they didn’t get after they managed to reactivate the vacuum outside the lab, and she didn’t actually kill her ex-boyfriend, just threatened to so the real bad guys would let her go – they didn’t want anything happening to the infected guy), but he actually got a good ending where the boss was arrested by MI6 and Amy APPARENTLY didn’t get infected despite hurting her finger around a bunch of people with nanocell infection that spreads by blood-to-blood contact. It even called him “altruistic,” which is weird for Kevin! XD Makes me curious what the other endings are. . .
E) After that was GrayStillPlays and more Guess Who, the weird game where you have to choose who either dies first or wins in certain, probably-kinda-fucked-up scenarios. XD We had more fun with the king and his retinue in this episode, wandering through the woods, eating people’s food, and trying to assault their women (and getting their asses kicked for it, happily). Also some rando killing wolves, but fortunately his attempt to kill two at once resulted in him getting eaten (to Gray’s delight). Also there was a dragon who invaded the royal treasury and managed to send everyone packing until the King managed to get his hands on The One Ring Emoji and turned himself and his soldiers invisible so the poor dragon could get stabbed in the tail. Also also there was a random set of levels that were just all about death traps, which Gray disliked because it forced him to use his brain. And the game started with a guy running over someone in the movie theater after her boyfriend killed an usher for trying to make them shut up. This game has everything, is what I’m saying. XD
F) One last Sims 4 video from the Recommends, with onlyabidoang talking about 10 Sims 4 NPCs that people may have forgotten exist! Most of them I did actually know about (Patchy, the Sulani Elementals, the RepoPersons, Temperance, etc.), but I had genuinely forgotten that this game had the Tragic Clown! He’s a random NPC summoned by looking at his painting, and he just makes your Sims miserable. ...I really want to bring him to the attention of James Turner for the “Every Lot Challenge” videos. XD
G) And then, finally, it was time for Jon’s Fallout 4 You Only Live Once episode! We rejoined Miss Finalley in the Nucleus Command Center, with Jon ranting about how much he hates robots and how anxious he is about completing this section. As you might imagine, the laws of irony then assured that it went really smoothly. Granted, Finalley ended up having to face TWO Legendary Assaultron Dominators instead of just one (there is one guaranteed spawn in the final room, but the other Assaultron a little earlier on in the tunnels ended up being the EXACT SAME THING – Finalley ran away from it JUST BEFORE it spotted her), but she was able to kill both without taking a lick of damage. The first one went down to a sneak attack boosted by a critical AND Calmex Silk from Nuka-World (which adds another 20% onto sneak attack damage) and yielded an Unyielding Combat Armor Left Leg (Jon isn’t currently sure if this is amazing or another duplicate – I think if it IS a dup, it’s better than what he’s got stored away, so it’s worth keeping); the second, the guaranteed “boss” of the area, was exploded by three bottlecap mines and a cryo mine Finalley left for it at its spawn point and only provided a Punishing Metal Right Arm for all that stress (Jon didn’t even bother picking it up).
But yeah, with them and all the other robots in the area taken care of with careful creeping and sneak attacks, it was time to play DiMA’s Minecraft Memories! AKA my first look at the minigame you do to get access to DiMA’s forgotten memories in the sub! It is indeed very Minecraft in how it looks, though apparently the actual puzzles (making a path for electronic buggos while getting rid of obstacles with lasers and turrets) aren’t too difficult – the only tough ones are the bonus two at the end, which Finalley didn’t bother with. She instead focused on the three plot-important memories, then headed back to her power armor to get back into the Children of Atom’s base. Where Jon outlined the possible endings to this DLC. On the one hand, he could go and get proof of DiMA replacing a key member of Far Harbor with a synth, either giving this to Far Harbor and getting them to attack Acadia or – with the right amount of influence – just execute DiMA for his crimes, or going to DiMA and helping him do kill and replace #2 on the Children of Atom’s leader. On the other hand, he could go and get the nuclear launch codes for the Nucleus sub, and then convince Tektus to bring his cult to Division and blow themselves up, stopping any potential war between them and Far Harbor and letting Far Harbor live in blissful ignorance. Both decent options – except that they both involve fighting Super Mutants, an enemy type Jon’s been avoiding, and neither results in the kind of perk Jon wants (a perk that just gives you extra damage or extra defense if you hit low health, and is a one-off boost).
On the third mutant hand. . .yup, I knew it. Jon’s siding with the Children of Atom, killing Far Harbor’s fog condensers and thus Far Harbor and getting the Children of Atom perk – which gives an increasing damage boost with increasing rads, up to double damage once the health bar hits 90% rads. And given that Finalley already has enough rads to get a 40% damage boost. . .yeah, Jon decided this is the way forward. (I think he’ll also be getting the rad hammer weapon out of this, but he probably can’t use that as guaranteed unique item/legendary.)
Of course, first things first – Finalley had to GET to the kill switch code for the wind farm that powers Far Harbor’s fog condensers. And that little cache was buried on a tiny island, way on the other side of an island covered with trappers, anglers, gulpers, ghouls, and Super Mutants. What is a girl to do when she’s trying to avoid losing any more of her health bar?
Why, remember she has the first rank of “Aqua Girl,” carefully make her way over to a safe spot to jump into the ocean, then abandon her power armor, swim AROUND the island of danger to DiMA’s cache, then just go ahead and swim all the way back to Far Harbor along the top of the map. XD Yeah, okay, Finalley picked up Parasites from all that swimming, and she was Overtired so the risk of becoming overencumbered was always there, but she made it, even tagging Longfellow’s Cabin and chatting with the man himself along the way (who was impressed she made it to Acadia on her own). We ended with her selling a few things to Brooks to get just enough caps to rent a bed for the afternoon, and getting some well-earned sleep. XD So yeah, next week, she works on making use of her new kill switch – and maybe wanders around the Island a little more. Because a girl needs XP if she wants to get a jetpack for the spare set of power armor she has back home, and there might be a few less-than-deadly places on the Island to get some. We’ll see. XD
3.Either play more Bloodlines or take the leap on Fallout 4: SUBSTITUTION – after seeing the Plumbella and English Simmer videos pop up in my Recommendeds, plus the James Turner “All Lot Challenges” video in my Subs? Yeah, I decided I actually wanted to play a bit of Sims 4 instead of either of those games. XD Went back to the Chill Save Valice pair for a brief time, where they had to balance celebrating Spookfest with doing all their final exams, final presentations, and – in Alice’s case – submitting her final term paper. They managed, though – I had them do all their school stuff first, and it paid off pretty well. Alice has kept a total GPA of A+, while Victor’s has slipped to an A thanks to getting a B- in one of his classes – it happens, Victor! I promptly signed up for the final term for both of them – another in-game week, and they’ll finally have their degrees, yay. :) After that, I finally got around to celebrating Spookfest – they put up a few banners and streamers on the house; Victor dressed up as a mailman (which – did weird things to his hair on one side - he had a couple of white stripes a-la Sweeney Todd; suspect this is something like that “certain hairstyles make Sim teeth go weird” glitch that was a thing earlier) and Alice as a pizza girl; they both carved pumpkins (Alice a white cat, Victor a pale orange spooked face); and they both gave out a few treats to visiting kids and teens. :) Mortimer Goth also came by – he fixed their broken toilet, but also stole Victor’s snapdragons and apples, so. . .I guess the latter could be construed as payment for services rendered, but even still. :P Fun times, even if they do keep me on my toes!
4. Get in a workout: No check today – I ended up getting more invested in my videos and did a skip. We’ll just get back on the old bike tomorrow!
5. Work on tumblr queues: Check if only because I had to do one for Valice Multiverse tonight – and in contrast to yesterday, it was absolutely dead there, so I found some stuff to reblog featuring Alice and Victor and slapped that in there. So maybe a half-check.
Additionally:
-->Despite it being actively sprinkling when we started (I seriously thought it was going to turn to proper rain), we did still play beanbags. Another “all three of us won” day, though without any really spectacular throws – I got 3-2-2-W-3; Dad W-W-3-2-W; Mom 2-3-W-3-2. I might have had the second game if I’d thrown more than a four on my final go – Dad got a seven and ended up one point ahead of me, meeh. :( But at least we all did win, so I’m satisfied. I just don’t like it when somebody sweeps the whole thing.
So yeah, maybe not a day where I did all the things I was EXPECTING to do, but still productive and fun. I did want to see the Chill Save Victor and Alice one more time before my vacation ended. :) And I do still have one last day off, so let's get the to-do list for that day sorted:
1. Continue working on the Sims 4 challenges
2. Keep up on YouTube Subs
3. Play Bloodlines and finish off a few more Santa Monica missions
4. Get in a workout
5. Work on tumblr queues
Yeah, I started off this vacation with an extra day with my challenges, so I shall finish it off the same way. :p And I already know that I want to do the Stanley Gimble fight before going back to work, so yeah, definitely Bloodlines tomorrow. Maybe one day I will also get myself over the Fallout 4 hump. . .or I could just keep watching Jon. :p Night all!
As for today -- well, turned out to be more Simmy than I expected. Take at look at this to-do list:
1. Work on those Sims 4 challenges (I want to at least see if I can finish the VTMB one): Check! I didn’t finish the VTMB one, but I did make a start on the FO4 one (doing the premise and setting up a few of the rules), and I did also come to a conclusion about how I want to do vampire powers for the VTMB one.
Namely, that I’ve got to do it by the spirit of the clan rather than the letter of their Disciplines. Mostly because, while fiddling with that again and trying to figure out whether or not “Dampened Emotions” would be a good fit for “Fortitude” (it might with the V5 version of the Discipline), I abruptly realized that, the way I was going about things, the clans were going to be very unbalanced about when they could buy their powers. Like, some clans would have absolutely nothing in the lower levels, while others would have almost nothing in the higher, and – yeah. The fact that Sims 4 works on a tier system means that fitting specific powers to specific Disciplines is going to make it so a Brujah, for example, wouldn’t even get to take any powers from the very first level and thus would have a harder time leveling up. So instead I’m gonna look at each clan and try to pick like one specific power for each level that fits the general feel of the clan (like, Gangrel can definitely get “Bat Form” because they’re the clan known for being close to animals and shapeshfiting). This should work a lot better and finally get me over that damn hump in the challenge.
2. Keep up on YouTube Subs and Jon's latest FO4 YOLO episode: Check – hell, more than check, as I also cleared out some videos in my Recommendeds instead of letting them clutter up my Watch Later. Trying to keep that nice and clean so I can start filling it up again when I go back to work. :p But yeah, lots of videos today –
A) Started with Plumbella’s latest upload today, “Reacting to YOUR unpopular Sims opinions...u did not hold back” – she asked for unpopular opinions on the game(s) on Twitter and read a few key ones out! Such as (paraphrased) “Sims 4 is not worth almost $800 for the full experience” (she agrees since she wouldn’t be buying all the packs if she wasn’t a GameChanger; I agree because it’s an expensive hobby and I really hate the stupid “kits” micro-transaction stuff – I admittedly have bought more content for this game than I have for Sims 2, but I think that veers into the “Sims 4 base game can’t hold its own” argument, so. . .); “Sims 4 has the ugliest Sims” (Plumbella disagrees because she thinks Sims 4 vanilla Sims look better than Sims 3 ones, which is an opinion I totally agree with (I LOATHE the Sims 3 art style) – custom content can make a huge difference though, which, fair); “Sims 3 is better than Sims 2 because of story progression and the Generations pack” (Plumbella agreed because she likes people aging up around her and whatnot; I’ve always been more mixed about this, as I rather liked in older games that the Sims would stay how they are – I think this might come down to “do you prioritize one family or do rotational gameplay,” and I’ve done plenty of the latter); and “Get Together is the worst pack when it comes to gameplay” (from onlyabidoang, no less! – Plumbella disagreed because she actually uses it a fair bit in off-camera gameplay, but allowed that it kind of depends on what you’re looking for – I personally don’t use clubs a lot in my own gameplay, but I agree that Windenberg spoiled us for worlds, place looks great). Interesting video, especially to see what various people do and don’t like in the game!
B) Then, because she popped up in my Recommendeds, I went ahead and watched The English Simmer muse about the news from the recent livestream, and which game packs could use a “refresh” like the one they’re saying is coming. She’s all for visually fixing the townies and adding to the lore, but would like to see sentiments refreshed at the same time so they stay “locked” for Sims you’re not playing, and have longer cooldowns and suchlike (like the “furious” state from Sims 2). As for game packs, she’s like me in thinking that calling it a “relaxing” refresh means it’s coming to either Outdoor Retreat or Spa Day – she’d mainly like the spawners from Outdoor Retreat unlocked so you could place the bugs in the residential worlds and make catching them easier (I am all for this), and maybe add a career (Yoga Instructor or Massage Therapist) to Spa Day (I’d be okay with that). As for the other packs, she’d just like the bugs fixed in Dine Out and Dream Home Decorator; feels Vampires is fine as it is; wants more family stuff but feels like that would be better suited to a new pack than adding onto Parenthood; figures adding a toggle to turn on/off the story in Strangerville would be good; doesn’t want any more effort put into Journey To Baatu; and would like spellcasters to become more powerful and have more specialization in Realm Of Magic (she mentioned how you can concentrate on being a good vampire, a family vampire, or a master vampire in Vampires thanks to the aspirations; maybe what RoM needs is a good/bad axis added to the three schools of magic?). So yeah, we’ll see what happens with the game and this “refresh!” Hopefully it doesn’t completely break the thing they’re trying to update. . .
C) Then after my own Sims 4 session and beanbags (see below), it was time for James Turner and his “Every Lot Challenge,” er, challenge. This is the save file where his self Sim is living in StrangerVille, on a lot with EVERY lot challenge enabled, PLUS “Cat Hangout,” “Dog Hangout,” and “Vampire Nexus,” PLUS it’s a Haunted House. Fun! (It’s also worth noting that Semaj’s traits in this LP are “Slob,” “Lazy,” and “Clumsy” for extra fun). Things remain completely chaotic in this LP – Semaj basically relies on his job to feed him, because the “Cursed” lot challenge means that almost every time he makes food, he sets himself and the stove on fire. Also his outdoor bin keeps getting knocked over, and Temperance is now showing up regularly in the haunted house, so. . . However, on the plus side, while he can’t advance in his job (he can’t get the logic skill for it), he still HAS the job, he’s started a semi-lucrative career painting on the side (even got a tiny bit of fame for it!), and his handiness is going way up as he upgrades the hell out of all of his objects – including his new wind farm, as James bought a bunch of turbines in a desperate attempt to solve his power problem. XD And he got that phone call where, if you answer a certain way, you can get a chunk of money for marrying someone within a week – Semaj ended up speed-wooing Tina Tinker via the medium of photography, convinced her to leave her spouse, married her, got $23,000, then instantly divorced her and sent her back to live with her ex-wife with half the money ($11,500). So that was – something. And he’s started feeding the strays that come by, because why not? XD So yeah, things are mental, but in a good way. XD
D) Then, after supper, it was time for Call Me Kevin and The Complex, which appears to be one of those “interactive movie” games where the storyline depends on the choices you make. This one was all about Dr. Amy, working on “nanocell” technology (I think it’s some sort of special disease), only to find herself in lockdown in her own underground lab after a terrorist plant tried to kill her and her coworker (and the intern infected with the nanocells currently in a bio-containment unit), with more bad guys trying to breach the lab – and then it’s revealed her boss has committed crimes against humanity by helping the “Supreme Leader” of I-believe-North-Korea-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off (they call it “Kindar”) kill a whole village of people with the nanocell stuff. Kevin tried to make his patented horrible decisions (like taking more questions at a meeting when she’d been summoned to deal with the intern downstairs, and dropping the scientist down a hole she made after smashing apart a toilet in an escape attempt), and he did end up sacrificing the intern and her ex-boyfriend scientist after they both got infected (admittedly the intern volunteered to go out and activate lab security to take care of the one remaining bad guy they didn’t get after they managed to reactivate the vacuum outside the lab, and she didn’t actually kill her ex-boyfriend, just threatened to so the real bad guys would let her go – they didn’t want anything happening to the infected guy), but he actually got a good ending where the boss was arrested by MI6 and Amy APPARENTLY didn’t get infected despite hurting her finger around a bunch of people with nanocell infection that spreads by blood-to-blood contact. It even called him “altruistic,” which is weird for Kevin! XD Makes me curious what the other endings are. . .
E) After that was GrayStillPlays and more Guess Who, the weird game where you have to choose who either dies first or wins in certain, probably-kinda-fucked-up scenarios. XD We had more fun with the king and his retinue in this episode, wandering through the woods, eating people’s food, and trying to assault their women (and getting their asses kicked for it, happily). Also some rando killing wolves, but fortunately his attempt to kill two at once resulted in him getting eaten (to Gray’s delight). Also there was a dragon who invaded the royal treasury and managed to send everyone packing until the King managed to get his hands on The One Ring Emoji and turned himself and his soldiers invisible so the poor dragon could get stabbed in the tail. Also also there was a random set of levels that were just all about death traps, which Gray disliked because it forced him to use his brain. And the game started with a guy running over someone in the movie theater after her boyfriend killed an usher for trying to make them shut up. This game has everything, is what I’m saying. XD
F) One last Sims 4 video from the Recommends, with onlyabidoang talking about 10 Sims 4 NPCs that people may have forgotten exist! Most of them I did actually know about (Patchy, the Sulani Elementals, the RepoPersons, Temperance, etc.), but I had genuinely forgotten that this game had the Tragic Clown! He’s a random NPC summoned by looking at his painting, and he just makes your Sims miserable. ...I really want to bring him to the attention of James Turner for the “Every Lot Challenge” videos. XD
G) And then, finally, it was time for Jon’s Fallout 4 You Only Live Once episode! We rejoined Miss Finalley in the Nucleus Command Center, with Jon ranting about how much he hates robots and how anxious he is about completing this section. As you might imagine, the laws of irony then assured that it went really smoothly. Granted, Finalley ended up having to face TWO Legendary Assaultron Dominators instead of just one (there is one guaranteed spawn in the final room, but the other Assaultron a little earlier on in the tunnels ended up being the EXACT SAME THING – Finalley ran away from it JUST BEFORE it spotted her), but she was able to kill both without taking a lick of damage. The first one went down to a sneak attack boosted by a critical AND Calmex Silk from Nuka-World (which adds another 20% onto sneak attack damage) and yielded an Unyielding Combat Armor Left Leg (Jon isn’t currently sure if this is amazing or another duplicate – I think if it IS a dup, it’s better than what he’s got stored away, so it’s worth keeping); the second, the guaranteed “boss” of the area, was exploded by three bottlecap mines and a cryo mine Finalley left for it at its spawn point and only provided a Punishing Metal Right Arm for all that stress (Jon didn’t even bother picking it up).
But yeah, with them and all the other robots in the area taken care of with careful creeping and sneak attacks, it was time to play DiMA’s Minecraft Memories! AKA my first look at the minigame you do to get access to DiMA’s forgotten memories in the sub! It is indeed very Minecraft in how it looks, though apparently the actual puzzles (making a path for electronic buggos while getting rid of obstacles with lasers and turrets) aren’t too difficult – the only tough ones are the bonus two at the end, which Finalley didn’t bother with. She instead focused on the three plot-important memories, then headed back to her power armor to get back into the Children of Atom’s base. Where Jon outlined the possible endings to this DLC. On the one hand, he could go and get proof of DiMA replacing a key member of Far Harbor with a synth, either giving this to Far Harbor and getting them to attack Acadia or – with the right amount of influence – just execute DiMA for his crimes, or going to DiMA and helping him do kill and replace #2 on the Children of Atom’s leader. On the other hand, he could go and get the nuclear launch codes for the Nucleus sub, and then convince Tektus to bring his cult to Division and blow themselves up, stopping any potential war between them and Far Harbor and letting Far Harbor live in blissful ignorance. Both decent options – except that they both involve fighting Super Mutants, an enemy type Jon’s been avoiding, and neither results in the kind of perk Jon wants (a perk that just gives you extra damage or extra defense if you hit low health, and is a one-off boost).
On the third mutant hand. . .yup, I knew it. Jon’s siding with the Children of Atom, killing Far Harbor’s fog condensers and thus Far Harbor and getting the Children of Atom perk – which gives an increasing damage boost with increasing rads, up to double damage once the health bar hits 90% rads. And given that Finalley already has enough rads to get a 40% damage boost. . .yeah, Jon decided this is the way forward. (I think he’ll also be getting the rad hammer weapon out of this, but he probably can’t use that as guaranteed unique item/legendary.)
Of course, first things first – Finalley had to GET to the kill switch code for the wind farm that powers Far Harbor’s fog condensers. And that little cache was buried on a tiny island, way on the other side of an island covered with trappers, anglers, gulpers, ghouls, and Super Mutants. What is a girl to do when she’s trying to avoid losing any more of her health bar?
Why, remember she has the first rank of “Aqua Girl,” carefully make her way over to a safe spot to jump into the ocean, then abandon her power armor, swim AROUND the island of danger to DiMA’s cache, then just go ahead and swim all the way back to Far Harbor along the top of the map. XD Yeah, okay, Finalley picked up Parasites from all that swimming, and she was Overtired so the risk of becoming overencumbered was always there, but she made it, even tagging Longfellow’s Cabin and chatting with the man himself along the way (who was impressed she made it to Acadia on her own). We ended with her selling a few things to Brooks to get just enough caps to rent a bed for the afternoon, and getting some well-earned sleep. XD So yeah, next week, she works on making use of her new kill switch – and maybe wanders around the Island a little more. Because a girl needs XP if she wants to get a jetpack for the spare set of power armor she has back home, and there might be a few less-than-deadly places on the Island to get some. We’ll see. XD
3.
4. Get in a workout: No check today – I ended up getting more invested in my videos and did a skip. We’ll just get back on the old bike tomorrow!
5. Work on tumblr queues: Check if only because I had to do one for Valice Multiverse tonight – and in contrast to yesterday, it was absolutely dead there, so I found some stuff to reblog featuring Alice and Victor and slapped that in there. So maybe a half-check.
Additionally:
-->Despite it being actively sprinkling when we started (I seriously thought it was going to turn to proper rain), we did still play beanbags. Another “all three of us won” day, though without any really spectacular throws – I got 3-2-2-W-3; Dad W-W-3-2-W; Mom 2-3-W-3-2. I might have had the second game if I’d thrown more than a four on my final go – Dad got a seven and ended up one point ahead of me, meeh. :( But at least we all did win, so I’m satisfied. I just don’t like it when somebody sweeps the whole thing.
So yeah, maybe not a day where I did all the things I was EXPECTING to do, but still productive and fun. I did want to see the Chill Save Victor and Alice one more time before my vacation ended. :) And I do still have one last day off, so let's get the to-do list for that day sorted:
1. Continue working on the Sims 4 challenges
2. Keep up on YouTube Subs
3. Play Bloodlines and finish off a few more Santa Monica missions
4. Get in a workout
5. Work on tumblr queues
Yeah, I started off this vacation with an extra day with my challenges, so I shall finish it off the same way. :p And I already know that I want to do the Stanley Gimble fight before going back to work, so yeah, definitely Bloodlines tomorrow. Maybe one day I will also get myself over the Fallout 4 hump. . .or I could just keep watching Jon. :p Night all!
