*skids in and faceplants into the floor*
Feb. 19th, 2023 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickOkay, so I had a MUCH busier night than I anticipated, so I'm gonna just have to throw the list at you and head to bed --
Tumblr: Caught up on Victor Luvs Alice’s dash-and-tags and did the initial quick drafts of the five Chill Valicer save posts for this week before lunch; got the full text of the first three posts done after finishing up the FO4 Playthrough Progression; and then spent most of the night exchanging messages with Marie and getting two thread replies, three ask replies, and three "@"s (one post of fake text messages from Marie’s OC Madeline to Victor and Alice, and two Tik-Tok videos she labeled as being relevant to Madeline and her relationship with her parents) into the Valice Multiverse queue. It – well, I’m still wrapping it up now. I have GOT to figure out a better time management system for days like these. :(
Fallout 4: Had a very nice day in the Commonwealth Wasteland today! :D Let me tell you all about it –
A) Started with Victor and Nick in the bathroom of Poseidon Energy, where they’d holed up for the night to keep away from their enemies – with Victor all refreshed and ready to go, I sent the pair back around, across the main plant floor and through the rooms they’d explored last time (another storage room with robots and the “kitchen” for the raiders) to get back to the catwalks up to where Cutty and his gang actually were hiding. Along the way, I was surprised to see what looked like a random dog wandering into the room ahead of Victor and Nick – though I guess that explains the source of the growling that I heard last week when I played! The boys and the dog must have just missed each other then. . .at any rate, I didn’t see the dog when I got back up to the catwalks, so I had Victor sneak his way up and scan the area above –
B) And then somebody started shooting at SOMETHING. However, Victor was still hidden, and all the sparks were coming from a catwalk above his head, so I just had him wait it out. The “Raider Survivalist” who was doing the shooting finally calmed down as per the subtitles, admonishing himself for wasting bullets. . .and stupidly chose to linger by a window up top, allowing Victor to get a bead on him with VATS. I swapped to the Mighty Sniper and took him out with a shot to the arm, then had Victor retreat and hide behind a pillar for a moment to avoid detection. Everyone was getting quite agitated upstairs, though, so I had him retreat further –
And then, suddenly, Victor was in [DANGER] and the dog was lunging at him! Don’t know WHERE the attack pooch came from, but it was right up in Victor’s face! I had him switch to the Two-Shot to take it out (with Nick’s help), but by then all the raiders knew where Victor was – and joy of joys, their leader, Cutty, had power armor. Ugh! I tried to get the crew lined up in VATS for a few pot shots, but before Victor could fire, he was taken out and sent crashing into the scenery in amusingly ragdolly ways. XD Damn.
C) Fortunately, I had been very smart and happened to save RIGHT AFTER I sniped off Mr. Survivalist, so I loaded in with Victor just hiding behind the pillar again. THIS time, I had him wait there until everyone had calmed down. I switched out the Mighty Sniper for Righteous Authority, which is a little quieter when it fires, then started sneaking out again –
Just in time for the damn dog to find Victor and Nick once more. This time, however, it was taken down rather more easily and with much less fuss, and Victor was able to get some meat off it AND avoid detection. I had him loop under the catwalk for a moment to disable a frag mine I’d spotted under there (better safe than sorry) and take a peek over the wall – nothing of interest, and no really good opportunities to see Victor’s opponents. *shrug* Worth a look!
D) With that all taken care of – it was time to go up. Victor and Nick proceeded up the catwalk, looping around until they came to a straight section. Victor was able to get a bead on a wandering Veteran and take him out with Righteous Authority, then hid until the pressure was off and he and Nick could continue on. They continued along the catwalk into an office that at least one of the raiders had set up as a little home, looting everything useful along the way (and doing some inventory management with Nick, since, of course, Victor just can’t stop himself picking up shit XD). Once that was sorted, it was out the other side, along another catwalk – Victor sniped off a couple more raiders, then made it into a partially-collapsed room, then into the “upstairs kitchen” (more cooking pots and food and whatnot). Through the doorway to the left, he spotted a turret – and Cutty himself, in his power armor (with headlamp, which explains the light I kept seeing bouncing around up here while I was on the ground). I had him go back to the Mighty Sniper and take out the turret, then retreat – he got away with it, but Cutty and his remaining friend panicked over the broken turret and started looking around for trouble. Victor managed to get Cutty in his sights as he wandered around his little “office” area and sniped him –
E) But, well, power armor – even two good shots weren’t enough to take him down, and he quickly sussed out Victor’s location. Fortunately, Victor and Nick were by the doorway into the broken-down room and were able to fall back a bit and get some cover, and Nick kept him busy with the shotgun while Victor swapped to his beloved Two-Shot Combat Rifle and took Cutty down with that beast. And then quickly ate some food before doing the same to Cutty’s cage-armored friend. Whew! That deserved a save!
F) With Cutty and his friends gone, Victor and Nick were free to explore a bit and pick up the loot. And boy, was there some good loot – apart from all the very useful junk (including LOADS of aluminum cans and canisters), and the key to the front door/roof entrance on Cutty, when the boys moved into Cutty’s little “office” area (complete with a “throne” made out of an armchair on some palettes, with “Glory” and a bunch of question marks written behind it, and what looked like some weird plans on a chalkboard nearby, with lots of “OK?”s on it – don’t ask me, I don’t know what it means), I found the Endurance Bobblehead (now up to 9 with all Victor’s various boosts!) and a Tesla Science magazine (+5% to critical damage with energy weapons!). So THAT was well worth it! Victor explored the whole area, top and bottom (literally, he went up on the roof to loot the stuff that was up there, including the pile of ashes of one of the raiders he sniped), grabbed everything he could, then headed back inside to plop down his portable workbench, scrap some of the leather armor he’d picked up (because it’s never bad to have more leather!), and start really upgrading the Advanced Combat Shotgun – with all the aluminum he’d picked up, he was able to give it a long, ported, and shielded barrel AND a recoil compensating stock. :D Plus have some aluminum left over for later. . .
G) After a glug of milk to satisfy his thirst, Victor then backtracked through the office and the “upstairs kitchen” so he could see where the other doorway out of the room went – that one led to another little catwalk, which led to a storage room with some more useful junk (and rad-away) and a chem bench! As Victor had picked up a lot of drugs from these guys, I had him stop for a second to combine a bunch of them to save some space (and make some money next time he came across an appropriate trader). Then it was onward, up another little catwalk to another office –
H) Where Victor very nearly just walked straight in on two Raider Psychos. Hilariously, though, the two were UTTERLY OBLIVIOUS to Victor’s presence, and he was able to quickly take them out without either of them getting a proper chance to react. Victor looted the room and checked the ways out – one led back to Cutty’s office, the other led up some stairs to the roof. I wasn’t interested in going that way, so I had Victor and Nick head back down to finish exploring the main plant floor. There wasn’t much left now that they’d killed everyone and picked up every last bit of aluminum in the place – a bit more useful junk in a side corner, a Vault-Tec lunchbox hidden beside the final reactor down a few stairs (though all it dropped was a Nuka-Cade token), and one last frag mine to disarm. I had Victor drop the portable workbench again to give the Advanced Combat Shotgun a Quick Eject Drum magazine (for best ammo capacity and reload speed) and a nice long scope for accuracy, then sent him and Nick back around again to unlock the front door with their key – and then, because it was getting late and I’d already had to caffeinate Victor up once during all his adventures, I had him set up the tent behind the main Poseidon Energy sign and get some shut-eye.
I) Next morning, Victor was up bright and early, and I decided that I might as well get to Warwick Homestead before stopping for the day! Right up the road, after all. So Victor and Nick packed up the tent and set out, following the road past a beach just SWARMING with bugs (glowing bloatflies and infected bloodbugs, yech), and the stranded Norwegian ghoul ship that we will be taking on later for the Agility bobblehead. They reached the Homestead with no issue, fortunately – and even nicer, a trader was there! Cricket, she who loves her big booms – Victor consented to trade, and after checking her stock and seeing nothing I wanted, had him instead just sell her ten of his frag mines. XD
And so the session ended with Victor and Nick parked at the entrance of the Warwick Homestead! Next week, the boys will actually chat with Roger Warwick and learn where his problematic super mutants are coming from!
Writing: Another Sunday, another chunk of the FO4 Playthrough Progression! Today’s entry was pretty much identical to what happened above with the biggest change being letting Alice have a kill by using her Tal’Mehe’Ra blade to take out Cutty’s friend/second-in-command while Nick and Victor blasted away at Cutty himself, and Victor doing all of his shotgun upgrades in one go instead of two separate bursts. But yeah, otherwise, it was all the same creeping around catwalks, sniping off raiders, and looting all that sweet sweet aluminum as in my game! :) We’ll see if things deviate from the norm any more next week!
YouTube: Well, I wasn’t able to COMPLETELY catch up on my videos, but I did get the two most important ones watched, in my opinion –
A) First up, yesterday’s GrayStillPlays offering – “Completing the most painful dares in GTA 5!” Alex dove into the comments on previous videos to find more pain to put Gray through, and the commenters delivered, forcing Gray to do such things as skydive into HIMSELF while skydiving (a process that involved mind-switching between two Gray clones and Gray coming really close to braining himself a lot); defeat a tank in a ramp buggy with no weapons (Gray eventually got the tank flipped when it was up against the wall of their battle arena and then just waited until it blew itself up); jump a bike into both a boat sailing on the water and a boat being towed on a road (both were difficult, but the latter was much more difficult as Gray had to really think about where the boat needed to be on the road – and he was distracted by such things as the boat despawning, the train coming up behind him on the tracks, and Meaty Bits running alongside the road); jump and float a bike over the local military base in a certain spot (required Gray to do some serious floating to get both enough speed and height to make it); fly as a seagull through the blades of a wind turbine and then land on top (seagulls in this game are very fragile, and even when he figured out how to get through the blades, it took him a couple of tries to stick the landing); and DO A WALL RIDE IN AN INVISIBLE CAR (easily the hardest one, featuring Gray fighting for his life and sanity as he screamed around a wall ribbon with gaps, a punchy fist going up and down, and a wall transfer – he said, no joke, it was definitely the hardest wall ride he’s ever done). An excellent show of just how freaking DETERMINED Gray really is to complete any challenge set in front of him.
B) And then, of course, we had the big one – Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout: Tale of Two Wastelands - Part 17 - Overkill Or Be Killed!” An episode all about grabbing two of the most overpowered weapons in the game – one just straight up overpowered, and made ludicrously so by the combination of Fallout 3 with Fallout: New Vegas, and one that is overpowered if you know how to use it. What are these weapons and how do you acquire them? Well, Jon showed us:
I. The Experimental MIRV – this is the end result of doing the unmarked quest to find out what happened to the Keller family, whose transcripts you find dotted about the Capital Wasteland as you do your business. Jon had picked up three during his previous travels, so he went ahead and grabbed the other two because he knew exactly where they were (he’d actually walked past them both previously) – one from a couple of hostile ghoul wastelanders living under an old radio tower, recorded by the brother who originally got the code to the bunker to help save his family, telling his sister Candace to get home so his entire family could get to safety together in said bunker (which gives you the location, the National Guard Depot at the very edge of the map, just outside the DC Ruins); and one from an old army camp in the DC Ruins themselves, sneaking it away from a tent taken over by a Super Mutant Overlord after kiting him outside and a little bit away (Jon tried to save the captive, but the game wouldn’t let him while Wanda was in combat, so he just grabbed the tape and left the poor guy to die as he ran away from the Overlord), in which the OTHER brother revealed that he hated his dad so much that he was NOT going to go and spend the rest of his life in that bunker with the guy, so here’s his digit of the code, he’s walking into the mushroom cloud (completing the code needed to get into the place). Yeah, family dynamics in Fallout tend to be like that.
Anyway, with the complete code and the location in hand, Jon headed to the National Guard Depot – after loading up on pulse grenades, because while he doesn’t have any proof this is the longest and hardest dungeon in the game, he feels like it’s up there. Reason? Well, the Depot is at least half-collapsed, and the door you need to get through to access the armory and the bunker has to have the power restored before it will open. Meaning most of the dungeon is spent crawling through the ruins and what bits are still standing looking for the switch that will restore power to the door. All while having to fight some really tough robots, including Mr. Gutsys, Protectrons, Army Robobrains, a variety of turrets, and at least THREE Sentry Bots. Though, hilariously, while trying to figure out the best way to kill all these metal assholes hunting Wanda’s tender flesh, Jon discovered that the pulse grenades were nearly useless (thanks to them bouncing off all the debris at weird angles and just not disabling the bots) – but his shotgun, combined with his “And Stay Back!” perk that gives it hella knockback, worked a treat! And that combining that with some armor-piercing rounds in That Gun, AND learning that getting up close and personal with sentry bots meant that you could just run around them in circles so they never got the line of sight necessary to fire on you meant that – yeah. The robots remained TOUGH, but Jon was able to take them out a lot easier than he thought he might. He was even able to just straight up PUNCH a couple of sentry bots to death with his electrified power fist! Which, one has to admit, is pretty damn cool.
But yes, Jon slogged his way through all the robots and was able to get the door open and get into the armory (which does have its fair share of goodies, including a missile launcher and a minigun if you want them), and from there into the bunker. Where he found the remains of the Kellers – three skeletons and one Glowing One, fortunately neutralized by Wanda’s Ghoul Mask – and the Experimental MIRV. What is that, you ask?
It’s a Fat Man that, instead of firing ONE mini nuke at a time, fires UP TO EIGHT AT ONCE. Should you have that many in your inventory. Yeah, this thing is a destruction machine – and Jon knew how to make it even BETTER. Firstly, by taking it to be repaired up to full condition, thus giving it even MORE damage potential, and secondly – by using the special ammo types for the mini nuke from F:NV. Because there’s Big Boys and Tiny Tots – the first being larger and hitting harder than your standard mini nuke, and the second being mini nukes that SPLIT INTO MORE MINI NUKES WHEN YOU FIRE. I believe one becomes eight, and when you’re ALREADY firing eight. . .yeah, is it any wonder than when John tried to use Tiny Tots in the MIRV, he just kept blowing Wanda up, even when he fired straight at the sky? XD (According to the comments, this is because the cone of fire is such that even when you point it straight up, some nukes hit the ground.) The Big Boys worked a treat, though, allowing him to rain horrible nuclear death upon the raider “settlement” of Evergreen Mills. . .
II. The Terrible Shotgun – the location of his other ridiculously overpowered weapon! Yes, after killing pretty much all the raiders outside with his nuclear death launcher (and then using his combat shotgun’s knockback against the super mutant behemoth they’d captured once it started going after him), Jon headed inside to kill all the raiders there too (and espouse his theory that Evergreen Mills was supposed to be something more than just some generic raider dungeon, given that it has a bunch of stuff that a regular old town should have – including a bazaar with shops and a red light district (complete with two raiders that fight you in their underwear as you interrupted their sexy times). He thinks that it was supposed to be a raider town you could infiltrate in the early days, but for whatever reason the mission associated with it was cut and the town turned into just a kill-all spot). All but one, that is, because Evergreen Mills is the home of one “Smiling Jack,” a friendly shopkeeper who will sell you weapons even if you’ve killed everyone around him! Because he doesn’t have a problem with you – or, at least, not your caps. :p
Unfortunately for him, Jon had a problem with him, because the one weapon Jon wanted, he didn’t sell – turns out its his personal weapon and you only get it by killing him. So Jon killed him and looted it from his body. XD And that personal weapon was The Terrible Shotgun, which is a shotgun that lives up to its name in two ways. Firstly, the gun is just plain terrible at range – the spread is awful. You cannot hit anyone with this thing unless you’re close up to them. But, secondly, if you ARE close up. . .well. This thing does a fair whack of damage, and you can get all sorts of bonuses on all those shells if you’ve got the right perks. Especially if you’ve got that knockback perk. Basically, this thing is rubbish if you’re far away, and a BEAST if you’re up close. Which Jon demonstrated handily by going to a certain location on the map and triggering a super mutant trap (releasing a teddy bear from its shopping cart cage) to spawn another super mutant behemoth –
And then running around behind it and just NAILING it with the Terrible Shotgun. The knockback meant that it was knocked flat and COMPLETELY UNABLE TO GET BACK UP as Jon unloaded into its head again and again and again until it was dead. Maybe it doesn’t have as much raw destructive power as the MIRV, but the Terrible Shotgun definitely has its place in Wanda’s arsenal just for that! And Jon intends to prove it, as next time, he’s heading up north into a much more dangerous quadrant of the map, to show off some stuff that he thinks most people watching the series have never seen, even if they have played FO3 before. I’m definitely looking forward to that. :D
Workout: Getting back to my usual six-days-a-week schedule (well, semi-usual, me skipping a Sunday is far from unheard of), getting on the treadmill today and starting the next Oxventure in the list – “Big Deck Energy!” This one was an “Arcane Sponsorship Deal” – Wizards of the Coast, the company that is currently in charge of DnD, had recently released some new Magic: The Gathering decks, and had called upon the Oxventurers to help advertise. So Johnny had grabbed one of the decks at random and decided to build an adventure around it! All they knew for certain was that the team would be fighting one of the commander planeswalkers (the magicians from M:TG, who go around all sorts of different planes of existence), but the rest of the adventure would be constructed from drawing random cards from the deck. Basically, Johnny knew even less than usual what was going to happen. Mike/Egbert promptly predicted total party wipe. XD
Anyway – the adventure actually started with the gang (all five of them this time; this adventure took place in June, so Ellen was better again) having a nice picnic in a field – a picnic interrupted by a clap of thunder and the arrival of one Binbag the wizard! Corazon tried to fire his crossbow at him, but Binbag easily dodged and mocked him for it. XD He attempted to warn the group of a strange new presence on this world that was going to cause some real problems for everyone –
And then was promptly taken down by a giant dreadwolf and dragged off. Merilwen was horrified; Corazon was gleeful; the rest of the group was like “eh,” to the point where Dob just resumed informing everyone on how to make a daisy chain. Corazon rolled for Dex to slit the stems right and got a sixteen, causing Dob to praise him. XD Fortunately for Merilwen’s sanity, a woman came running up to them and asked if they’d seen the wolf – turns out she was Faldorn, the Dread Wolf Herald! Dob immediately pointed out she was very bad at her job. XD Faldorn gave them the exposition that Binbag couldn’t – namely, one of the other planeswalkers, Captain N'ghathrod – a mindflayer pirate dude with a dimension-hopping pirate ship – had arrived on G’eth, and his very PRESENCE was warping reality and slowly turning the place into a nightmare realm. And now someone needed to go banish him before things got completely out of hand. Faldorn was planning on doing it herself, but now that her dread wolf had run off, she had to focus her energies on catching him. Corazon and Dob were like “not before he gets to eat Binbag,” but Faldorn was NOT picking wizard out of the wolf’s teeth. XD She told the gang that N'ghathrod was a straight shot that-away and headed off to get her wolf, and the Oxventurers packed up their picnic and headed off themselves (yes, even Prudence – while she is intrigued by the potential for nightmare realm, she also wants mindflayer pirate treasure).
Right off the bat, they crested a hill and came across a Consuming Abomination ripping up the landscape with its tentacles. XD Corazon attempted to get a huddle going to see how they were going to deal with it, only for Dob to promptly rush in and cast Shatter on its single eyeball. XD It succeeded the saving throw and only took half damage, meaning it felt like someone had gently poked it in the eye. Fortunately, this DID provide a bit of a distraction for Prudence to step up and Banish it temporarily to its home plane of existence (with Dob thinking his Shatter had somehow done the trick), and the group booked it down the hill to where a temple had spawned in! It was actually a very nice temple, though, even if it was to a false god (Corazon immediately accused it of being one to Le Vauche Mauve, getting a “hey!” out of Egbert), and Johnny said that if the gang wanted to take an eight-hour long rest there, they could have that for free. The gang did take that long rest, which was spent watching Dob eating a pine cone that he’d flavored like a nice sandwich. XD Once they were sufficiently rested, they went to leave, but Corazon insisted on looking for treasure first –
Cue him opening a door into a big old swamp and flooding the place. XD Poor Corazon fell face-first in the water – fortunately Dob was there to help clean him up and make him smell of ripe figs and the sea air (“my usual smell,” Corazon insisted). Egbert asked if Dob was using his spell slots unwisely (forgetting Prestidigitation is in fact a cantrip), and Dob made him smell like ultra-swamp in revenge. XD However, the gang DID actually find something akin to treasure within the swampy rooms – a giant hunting horn, big enough that two people would have to carry it! Corazon promptly blew on it to see what it summoned, and out from the depths of the swamp came –
Grazilaxx, mindflayer scholar! Dob was very curious, being this was the first friendly mindflayer they’d met, and started peppering Grazilaxx with questions, starting with what did minds taste like? Graz (as I shall be calling him forthwith) said that it depended on the mind, and that he had a personal preference for scholars and geniuses, so which one of you has the highest IQ? Dob promptly outed Prudence as the most likely candidate. XD Fortunately, when Graz went for an exploratory sup, he found that while Prudence WAS very intelligent, she was also very SPICY thanks to all her eldritch leanings, and he can’t handle spicy brains. The others said that he should come along with them and maybe eat N'ghathrod’s brain instead – unless that was some sort of cannibalism taboo? Graz promptly said that they don’t talk about that. He did consent to come along with them for the time being, though, and even to answer Dob’s incessant questions about mindflayer biology, starting with “no, we can’t get acid reflux from brains, we don’t have a diaphragm.” XD And so they started trudging their way through the swamp. . .
Only to run into ANOTHER FREAKING MINDFLAYER. It’s just mindflayers for DAYS in this particular campaign. This one was Guiltfeeder (or possibly just A guiltfeeder), who, well, naturally feeds on guilt. Not a problem for a couple of the Oxventurers, but rather a bigger one for Egbert (and his search for atonement) and Dob (and all those orphans). Graz said that maybe they could just think happy thoughts; Dob suggested instead that he do something that made HIM feel guilty so the Oxventurers could slip past. Graz agreed –
And cast Shatter on Dob’s crotch. Fortunately Dob succeeded in his spell save and only took half damage (or, as Egbert put it, one ball), though that was still nine points of damage and him feeling pretty damn crummy! The plan did work, though – Guiltfeeder went after Graz, who shoved him off and reminded him of the taboo. Guiltfeeder apologized, then promptly got distracted by someone who had lost a puppy and felt guilty about it. XD I ended the episode with Graz, genuinely feeling bad, giving Dob a big spiky chalice of something that would make him feel better, with a strict caution that, because of the spikes, it was NOT to be applied topically. XD Oh boy, this is gonna be a CHAOTIC one, I can already tell you THAT. How many more mindflayers are they going to meet? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see. . .
Yeah, busy day -- anything I didn't get to today, I will doing my best to get to tomorrow! Again, have GOT to figure out a better time management system going forward, especially for nights like these. Night all!
Tumblr: Caught up on Victor Luvs Alice’s dash-and-tags and did the initial quick drafts of the five Chill Valicer save posts for this week before lunch; got the full text of the first three posts done after finishing up the FO4 Playthrough Progression; and then spent most of the night exchanging messages with Marie and getting two thread replies, three ask replies, and three "@"s (one post of fake text messages from Marie’s OC Madeline to Victor and Alice, and two Tik-Tok videos she labeled as being relevant to Madeline and her relationship with her parents) into the Valice Multiverse queue. It – well, I’m still wrapping it up now. I have GOT to figure out a better time management system for days like these. :(
Fallout 4: Had a very nice day in the Commonwealth Wasteland today! :D Let me tell you all about it –
A) Started with Victor and Nick in the bathroom of Poseidon Energy, where they’d holed up for the night to keep away from their enemies – with Victor all refreshed and ready to go, I sent the pair back around, across the main plant floor and through the rooms they’d explored last time (another storage room with robots and the “kitchen” for the raiders) to get back to the catwalks up to where Cutty and his gang actually were hiding. Along the way, I was surprised to see what looked like a random dog wandering into the room ahead of Victor and Nick – though I guess that explains the source of the growling that I heard last week when I played! The boys and the dog must have just missed each other then. . .at any rate, I didn’t see the dog when I got back up to the catwalks, so I had Victor sneak his way up and scan the area above –
B) And then somebody started shooting at SOMETHING. However, Victor was still hidden, and all the sparks were coming from a catwalk above his head, so I just had him wait it out. The “Raider Survivalist” who was doing the shooting finally calmed down as per the subtitles, admonishing himself for wasting bullets. . .and stupidly chose to linger by a window up top, allowing Victor to get a bead on him with VATS. I swapped to the Mighty Sniper and took him out with a shot to the arm, then had Victor retreat and hide behind a pillar for a moment to avoid detection. Everyone was getting quite agitated upstairs, though, so I had him retreat further –
And then, suddenly, Victor was in [DANGER] and the dog was lunging at him! Don’t know WHERE the attack pooch came from, but it was right up in Victor’s face! I had him switch to the Two-Shot to take it out (with Nick’s help), but by then all the raiders knew where Victor was – and joy of joys, their leader, Cutty, had power armor. Ugh! I tried to get the crew lined up in VATS for a few pot shots, but before Victor could fire, he was taken out and sent crashing into the scenery in amusingly ragdolly ways. XD Damn.
C) Fortunately, I had been very smart and happened to save RIGHT AFTER I sniped off Mr. Survivalist, so I loaded in with Victor just hiding behind the pillar again. THIS time, I had him wait there until everyone had calmed down. I switched out the Mighty Sniper for Righteous Authority, which is a little quieter when it fires, then started sneaking out again –
Just in time for the damn dog to find Victor and Nick once more. This time, however, it was taken down rather more easily and with much less fuss, and Victor was able to get some meat off it AND avoid detection. I had him loop under the catwalk for a moment to disable a frag mine I’d spotted under there (better safe than sorry) and take a peek over the wall – nothing of interest, and no really good opportunities to see Victor’s opponents. *shrug* Worth a look!
D) With that all taken care of – it was time to go up. Victor and Nick proceeded up the catwalk, looping around until they came to a straight section. Victor was able to get a bead on a wandering Veteran and take him out with Righteous Authority, then hid until the pressure was off and he and Nick could continue on. They continued along the catwalk into an office that at least one of the raiders had set up as a little home, looting everything useful along the way (and doing some inventory management with Nick, since, of course, Victor just can’t stop himself picking up shit XD). Once that was sorted, it was out the other side, along another catwalk – Victor sniped off a couple more raiders, then made it into a partially-collapsed room, then into the “upstairs kitchen” (more cooking pots and food and whatnot). Through the doorway to the left, he spotted a turret – and Cutty himself, in his power armor (with headlamp, which explains the light I kept seeing bouncing around up here while I was on the ground). I had him go back to the Mighty Sniper and take out the turret, then retreat – he got away with it, but Cutty and his remaining friend panicked over the broken turret and started looking around for trouble. Victor managed to get Cutty in his sights as he wandered around his little “office” area and sniped him –
E) But, well, power armor – even two good shots weren’t enough to take him down, and he quickly sussed out Victor’s location. Fortunately, Victor and Nick were by the doorway into the broken-down room and were able to fall back a bit and get some cover, and Nick kept him busy with the shotgun while Victor swapped to his beloved Two-Shot Combat Rifle and took Cutty down with that beast. And then quickly ate some food before doing the same to Cutty’s cage-armored friend. Whew! That deserved a save!
F) With Cutty and his friends gone, Victor and Nick were free to explore a bit and pick up the loot. And boy, was there some good loot – apart from all the very useful junk (including LOADS of aluminum cans and canisters), and the key to the front door/roof entrance on Cutty, when the boys moved into Cutty’s little “office” area (complete with a “throne” made out of an armchair on some palettes, with “Glory” and a bunch of question marks written behind it, and what looked like some weird plans on a chalkboard nearby, with lots of “OK?”s on it – don’t ask me, I don’t know what it means), I found the Endurance Bobblehead (now up to 9 with all Victor’s various boosts!) and a Tesla Science magazine (+5% to critical damage with energy weapons!). So THAT was well worth it! Victor explored the whole area, top and bottom (literally, he went up on the roof to loot the stuff that was up there, including the pile of ashes of one of the raiders he sniped), grabbed everything he could, then headed back inside to plop down his portable workbench, scrap some of the leather armor he’d picked up (because it’s never bad to have more leather!), and start really upgrading the Advanced Combat Shotgun – with all the aluminum he’d picked up, he was able to give it a long, ported, and shielded barrel AND a recoil compensating stock. :D Plus have some aluminum left over for later. . .
G) After a glug of milk to satisfy his thirst, Victor then backtracked through the office and the “upstairs kitchen” so he could see where the other doorway out of the room went – that one led to another little catwalk, which led to a storage room with some more useful junk (and rad-away) and a chem bench! As Victor had picked up a lot of drugs from these guys, I had him stop for a second to combine a bunch of them to save some space (and make some money next time he came across an appropriate trader). Then it was onward, up another little catwalk to another office –
H) Where Victor very nearly just walked straight in on two Raider Psychos. Hilariously, though, the two were UTTERLY OBLIVIOUS to Victor’s presence, and he was able to quickly take them out without either of them getting a proper chance to react. Victor looted the room and checked the ways out – one led back to Cutty’s office, the other led up some stairs to the roof. I wasn’t interested in going that way, so I had Victor and Nick head back down to finish exploring the main plant floor. There wasn’t much left now that they’d killed everyone and picked up every last bit of aluminum in the place – a bit more useful junk in a side corner, a Vault-Tec lunchbox hidden beside the final reactor down a few stairs (though all it dropped was a Nuka-Cade token), and one last frag mine to disarm. I had Victor drop the portable workbench again to give the Advanced Combat Shotgun a Quick Eject Drum magazine (for best ammo capacity and reload speed) and a nice long scope for accuracy, then sent him and Nick back around again to unlock the front door with their key – and then, because it was getting late and I’d already had to caffeinate Victor up once during all his adventures, I had him set up the tent behind the main Poseidon Energy sign and get some shut-eye.
I) Next morning, Victor was up bright and early, and I decided that I might as well get to Warwick Homestead before stopping for the day! Right up the road, after all. So Victor and Nick packed up the tent and set out, following the road past a beach just SWARMING with bugs (glowing bloatflies and infected bloodbugs, yech), and the stranded Norwegian ghoul ship that we will be taking on later for the Agility bobblehead. They reached the Homestead with no issue, fortunately – and even nicer, a trader was there! Cricket, she who loves her big booms – Victor consented to trade, and after checking her stock and seeing nothing I wanted, had him instead just sell her ten of his frag mines. XD
And so the session ended with Victor and Nick parked at the entrance of the Warwick Homestead! Next week, the boys will actually chat with Roger Warwick and learn where his problematic super mutants are coming from!
Writing: Another Sunday, another chunk of the FO4 Playthrough Progression! Today’s entry was pretty much identical to what happened above with the biggest change being letting Alice have a kill by using her Tal’Mehe’Ra blade to take out Cutty’s friend/second-in-command while Nick and Victor blasted away at Cutty himself, and Victor doing all of his shotgun upgrades in one go instead of two separate bursts. But yeah, otherwise, it was all the same creeping around catwalks, sniping off raiders, and looting all that sweet sweet aluminum as in my game! :) We’ll see if things deviate from the norm any more next week!
YouTube: Well, I wasn’t able to COMPLETELY catch up on my videos, but I did get the two most important ones watched, in my opinion –
A) First up, yesterday’s GrayStillPlays offering – “Completing the most painful dares in GTA 5!” Alex dove into the comments on previous videos to find more pain to put Gray through, and the commenters delivered, forcing Gray to do such things as skydive into HIMSELF while skydiving (a process that involved mind-switching between two Gray clones and Gray coming really close to braining himself a lot); defeat a tank in a ramp buggy with no weapons (Gray eventually got the tank flipped when it was up against the wall of their battle arena and then just waited until it blew itself up); jump a bike into both a boat sailing on the water and a boat being towed on a road (both were difficult, but the latter was much more difficult as Gray had to really think about where the boat needed to be on the road – and he was distracted by such things as the boat despawning, the train coming up behind him on the tracks, and Meaty Bits running alongside the road); jump and float a bike over the local military base in a certain spot (required Gray to do some serious floating to get both enough speed and height to make it); fly as a seagull through the blades of a wind turbine and then land on top (seagulls in this game are very fragile, and even when he figured out how to get through the blades, it took him a couple of tries to stick the landing); and DO A WALL RIDE IN AN INVISIBLE CAR (easily the hardest one, featuring Gray fighting for his life and sanity as he screamed around a wall ribbon with gaps, a punchy fist going up and down, and a wall transfer – he said, no joke, it was definitely the hardest wall ride he’s ever done). An excellent show of just how freaking DETERMINED Gray really is to complete any challenge set in front of him.
B) And then, of course, we had the big one – Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout: Tale of Two Wastelands - Part 17 - Overkill Or Be Killed!” An episode all about grabbing two of the most overpowered weapons in the game – one just straight up overpowered, and made ludicrously so by the combination of Fallout 3 with Fallout: New Vegas, and one that is overpowered if you know how to use it. What are these weapons and how do you acquire them? Well, Jon showed us:
I. The Experimental MIRV – this is the end result of doing the unmarked quest to find out what happened to the Keller family, whose transcripts you find dotted about the Capital Wasteland as you do your business. Jon had picked up three during his previous travels, so he went ahead and grabbed the other two because he knew exactly where they were (he’d actually walked past them both previously) – one from a couple of hostile ghoul wastelanders living under an old radio tower, recorded by the brother who originally got the code to the bunker to help save his family, telling his sister Candace to get home so his entire family could get to safety together in said bunker (which gives you the location, the National Guard Depot at the very edge of the map, just outside the DC Ruins); and one from an old army camp in the DC Ruins themselves, sneaking it away from a tent taken over by a Super Mutant Overlord after kiting him outside and a little bit away (Jon tried to save the captive, but the game wouldn’t let him while Wanda was in combat, so he just grabbed the tape and left the poor guy to die as he ran away from the Overlord), in which the OTHER brother revealed that he hated his dad so much that he was NOT going to go and spend the rest of his life in that bunker with the guy, so here’s his digit of the code, he’s walking into the mushroom cloud (completing the code needed to get into the place). Yeah, family dynamics in Fallout tend to be like that.
Anyway, with the complete code and the location in hand, Jon headed to the National Guard Depot – after loading up on pulse grenades, because while he doesn’t have any proof this is the longest and hardest dungeon in the game, he feels like it’s up there. Reason? Well, the Depot is at least half-collapsed, and the door you need to get through to access the armory and the bunker has to have the power restored before it will open. Meaning most of the dungeon is spent crawling through the ruins and what bits are still standing looking for the switch that will restore power to the door. All while having to fight some really tough robots, including Mr. Gutsys, Protectrons, Army Robobrains, a variety of turrets, and at least THREE Sentry Bots. Though, hilariously, while trying to figure out the best way to kill all these metal assholes hunting Wanda’s tender flesh, Jon discovered that the pulse grenades were nearly useless (thanks to them bouncing off all the debris at weird angles and just not disabling the bots) – but his shotgun, combined with his “And Stay Back!” perk that gives it hella knockback, worked a treat! And that combining that with some armor-piercing rounds in That Gun, AND learning that getting up close and personal with sentry bots meant that you could just run around them in circles so they never got the line of sight necessary to fire on you meant that – yeah. The robots remained TOUGH, but Jon was able to take them out a lot easier than he thought he might. He was even able to just straight up PUNCH a couple of sentry bots to death with his electrified power fist! Which, one has to admit, is pretty damn cool.
But yes, Jon slogged his way through all the robots and was able to get the door open and get into the armory (which does have its fair share of goodies, including a missile launcher and a minigun if you want them), and from there into the bunker. Where he found the remains of the Kellers – three skeletons and one Glowing One, fortunately neutralized by Wanda’s Ghoul Mask – and the Experimental MIRV. What is that, you ask?
It’s a Fat Man that, instead of firing ONE mini nuke at a time, fires UP TO EIGHT AT ONCE. Should you have that many in your inventory. Yeah, this thing is a destruction machine – and Jon knew how to make it even BETTER. Firstly, by taking it to be repaired up to full condition, thus giving it even MORE damage potential, and secondly – by using the special ammo types for the mini nuke from F:NV. Because there’s Big Boys and Tiny Tots – the first being larger and hitting harder than your standard mini nuke, and the second being mini nukes that SPLIT INTO MORE MINI NUKES WHEN YOU FIRE. I believe one becomes eight, and when you’re ALREADY firing eight. . .yeah, is it any wonder than when John tried to use Tiny Tots in the MIRV, he just kept blowing Wanda up, even when he fired straight at the sky? XD (According to the comments, this is because the cone of fire is such that even when you point it straight up, some nukes hit the ground.) The Big Boys worked a treat, though, allowing him to rain horrible nuclear death upon the raider “settlement” of Evergreen Mills. . .
II. The Terrible Shotgun – the location of his other ridiculously overpowered weapon! Yes, after killing pretty much all the raiders outside with his nuclear death launcher (and then using his combat shotgun’s knockback against the super mutant behemoth they’d captured once it started going after him), Jon headed inside to kill all the raiders there too (and espouse his theory that Evergreen Mills was supposed to be something more than just some generic raider dungeon, given that it has a bunch of stuff that a regular old town should have – including a bazaar with shops and a red light district (complete with two raiders that fight you in their underwear as you interrupted their sexy times). He thinks that it was supposed to be a raider town you could infiltrate in the early days, but for whatever reason the mission associated with it was cut and the town turned into just a kill-all spot). All but one, that is, because Evergreen Mills is the home of one “Smiling Jack,” a friendly shopkeeper who will sell you weapons even if you’ve killed everyone around him! Because he doesn’t have a problem with you – or, at least, not your caps. :p
Unfortunately for him, Jon had a problem with him, because the one weapon Jon wanted, he didn’t sell – turns out its his personal weapon and you only get it by killing him. So Jon killed him and looted it from his body. XD And that personal weapon was The Terrible Shotgun, which is a shotgun that lives up to its name in two ways. Firstly, the gun is just plain terrible at range – the spread is awful. You cannot hit anyone with this thing unless you’re close up to them. But, secondly, if you ARE close up. . .well. This thing does a fair whack of damage, and you can get all sorts of bonuses on all those shells if you’ve got the right perks. Especially if you’ve got that knockback perk. Basically, this thing is rubbish if you’re far away, and a BEAST if you’re up close. Which Jon demonstrated handily by going to a certain location on the map and triggering a super mutant trap (releasing a teddy bear from its shopping cart cage) to spawn another super mutant behemoth –
And then running around behind it and just NAILING it with the Terrible Shotgun. The knockback meant that it was knocked flat and COMPLETELY UNABLE TO GET BACK UP as Jon unloaded into its head again and again and again until it was dead. Maybe it doesn’t have as much raw destructive power as the MIRV, but the Terrible Shotgun definitely has its place in Wanda’s arsenal just for that! And Jon intends to prove it, as next time, he’s heading up north into a much more dangerous quadrant of the map, to show off some stuff that he thinks most people watching the series have never seen, even if they have played FO3 before. I’m definitely looking forward to that. :D
Workout: Getting back to my usual six-days-a-week schedule (well, semi-usual, me skipping a Sunday is far from unheard of), getting on the treadmill today and starting the next Oxventure in the list – “Big Deck Energy!” This one was an “Arcane Sponsorship Deal” – Wizards of the Coast, the company that is currently in charge of DnD, had recently released some new Magic: The Gathering decks, and had called upon the Oxventurers to help advertise. So Johnny had grabbed one of the decks at random and decided to build an adventure around it! All they knew for certain was that the team would be fighting one of the commander planeswalkers (the magicians from M:TG, who go around all sorts of different planes of existence), but the rest of the adventure would be constructed from drawing random cards from the deck. Basically, Johnny knew even less than usual what was going to happen. Mike/Egbert promptly predicted total party wipe. XD
Anyway – the adventure actually started with the gang (all five of them this time; this adventure took place in June, so Ellen was better again) having a nice picnic in a field – a picnic interrupted by a clap of thunder and the arrival of one Binbag the wizard! Corazon tried to fire his crossbow at him, but Binbag easily dodged and mocked him for it. XD He attempted to warn the group of a strange new presence on this world that was going to cause some real problems for everyone –
And then was promptly taken down by a giant dreadwolf and dragged off. Merilwen was horrified; Corazon was gleeful; the rest of the group was like “eh,” to the point where Dob just resumed informing everyone on how to make a daisy chain. Corazon rolled for Dex to slit the stems right and got a sixteen, causing Dob to praise him. XD Fortunately for Merilwen’s sanity, a woman came running up to them and asked if they’d seen the wolf – turns out she was Faldorn, the Dread Wolf Herald! Dob immediately pointed out she was very bad at her job. XD Faldorn gave them the exposition that Binbag couldn’t – namely, one of the other planeswalkers, Captain N'ghathrod – a mindflayer pirate dude with a dimension-hopping pirate ship – had arrived on G’eth, and his very PRESENCE was warping reality and slowly turning the place into a nightmare realm. And now someone needed to go banish him before things got completely out of hand. Faldorn was planning on doing it herself, but now that her dread wolf had run off, she had to focus her energies on catching him. Corazon and Dob were like “not before he gets to eat Binbag,” but Faldorn was NOT picking wizard out of the wolf’s teeth. XD She told the gang that N'ghathrod was a straight shot that-away and headed off to get her wolf, and the Oxventurers packed up their picnic and headed off themselves (yes, even Prudence – while she is intrigued by the potential for nightmare realm, she also wants mindflayer pirate treasure).
Right off the bat, they crested a hill and came across a Consuming Abomination ripping up the landscape with its tentacles. XD Corazon attempted to get a huddle going to see how they were going to deal with it, only for Dob to promptly rush in and cast Shatter on its single eyeball. XD It succeeded the saving throw and only took half damage, meaning it felt like someone had gently poked it in the eye. Fortunately, this DID provide a bit of a distraction for Prudence to step up and Banish it temporarily to its home plane of existence (with Dob thinking his Shatter had somehow done the trick), and the group booked it down the hill to where a temple had spawned in! It was actually a very nice temple, though, even if it was to a false god (Corazon immediately accused it of being one to Le Vauche Mauve, getting a “hey!” out of Egbert), and Johnny said that if the gang wanted to take an eight-hour long rest there, they could have that for free. The gang did take that long rest, which was spent watching Dob eating a pine cone that he’d flavored like a nice sandwich. XD Once they were sufficiently rested, they went to leave, but Corazon insisted on looking for treasure first –
Cue him opening a door into a big old swamp and flooding the place. XD Poor Corazon fell face-first in the water – fortunately Dob was there to help clean him up and make him smell of ripe figs and the sea air (“my usual smell,” Corazon insisted). Egbert asked if Dob was using his spell slots unwisely (forgetting Prestidigitation is in fact a cantrip), and Dob made him smell like ultra-swamp in revenge. XD However, the gang DID actually find something akin to treasure within the swampy rooms – a giant hunting horn, big enough that two people would have to carry it! Corazon promptly blew on it to see what it summoned, and out from the depths of the swamp came –
Grazilaxx, mindflayer scholar! Dob was very curious, being this was the first friendly mindflayer they’d met, and started peppering Grazilaxx with questions, starting with what did minds taste like? Graz (as I shall be calling him forthwith) said that it depended on the mind, and that he had a personal preference for scholars and geniuses, so which one of you has the highest IQ? Dob promptly outed Prudence as the most likely candidate. XD Fortunately, when Graz went for an exploratory sup, he found that while Prudence WAS very intelligent, she was also very SPICY thanks to all her eldritch leanings, and he can’t handle spicy brains. The others said that he should come along with them and maybe eat N'ghathrod’s brain instead – unless that was some sort of cannibalism taboo? Graz promptly said that they don’t talk about that. He did consent to come along with them for the time being, though, and even to answer Dob’s incessant questions about mindflayer biology, starting with “no, we can’t get acid reflux from brains, we don’t have a diaphragm.” XD And so they started trudging their way through the swamp. . .
Only to run into ANOTHER FREAKING MINDFLAYER. It’s just mindflayers for DAYS in this particular campaign. This one was Guiltfeeder (or possibly just A guiltfeeder), who, well, naturally feeds on guilt. Not a problem for a couple of the Oxventurers, but rather a bigger one for Egbert (and his search for atonement) and Dob (and all those orphans). Graz said that maybe they could just think happy thoughts; Dob suggested instead that he do something that made HIM feel guilty so the Oxventurers could slip past. Graz agreed –
And cast Shatter on Dob’s crotch. Fortunately Dob succeeded in his spell save and only took half damage (or, as Egbert put it, one ball), though that was still nine points of damage and him feeling pretty damn crummy! The plan did work, though – Guiltfeeder went after Graz, who shoved him off and reminded him of the taboo. Guiltfeeder apologized, then promptly got distracted by someone who had lost a puppy and felt guilty about it. XD I ended the episode with Graz, genuinely feeling bad, giving Dob a big spiky chalice of something that would make him feel better, with a strict caution that, because of the spikes, it was NOT to be applied topically. XD Oh boy, this is gonna be a CHAOTIC one, I can already tell you THAT. How many more mindflayers are they going to meet? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see. . .
Yeah, busy day -- anything I didn't get to today, I will doing my best to get to tomorrow! Again, have GOT to figure out a better time management system going forward, especially for nights like these. Night all!
