Another Late Sunday, As Per Usual
Jun. 18th, 2023 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickBut fortunately I did get through everything on my to-do list, and in a way that didn't make me feel overly stressed --
Tumblr: Reasonably productive day on the old tumblrs, at least when it came to drafts –
Victor Luvs Alice – Pleased to say I did indeed finish off all the initial Chill Valicer Save update post drafts before hitting the sheets last night. . .and then proceeded to, once I got up and dressed, get FIVE of them fully completed before playing Fallout 4 (three and a half before lunch, then the other half and a post after)! So that was very nice. :) Also answered some additional stuff from Stretch-Time, who is working on their own coaster OC to be a friend to Smiler. Looking forward to seeing that! :)
Valice Multiverse – Pretty simple evening over here, fortunately – just one ask reply, with Alice reacting to a hunter and a Tremere atop a speeding train arguing about whether it’s “Big-D’s” right to buy a blender for 99p. She was like “this is weird but also I would not trust a 99p blender at ALL.” XD
Fallout 4: I made myself a promise to get to the General Atomics Factory today, and I fulfilled that promise! :D I have yet to clear it out, admittedly, but I’m there and working through it. Let me tell you how I got there –
A) Started off in the Hotel Rexford, with Victor having just woken up, ready for a new day. I had head him outside and prepared to leave Goodneighbor – then had a thought, checked Ada’s inventory, and instead led her over to the shops so I could clear out some of the unused armor and various weapon/armor mods she had on her and free up some inventory. KLE0 was at her station, and happily accepted my Assassin’s Metal Chestpiece, my Blostering Leather Right Arm, Right Leg, and Shadowed Left Arm, my Cunning Synth Left Arm, and a bunch of old mods for my old metal helmet and combat shotgun and whatnot, all in exchange for 24 .50 bullets. (Yes, that is what I got as an exactly even trade in cap worth.) I ended up keeping my Destroyer’s Chestpiece – it’s not as good as what I’m currently wearing, but I’m a bit attached to it, and anyway I paid good money to get it – maybe I’ll give it to a settler instead. Really need to get some of them some proper armor. . .
B) Anyway, with trade completed and inventory managed so I had a little more looting space, it was time for Victor and Ada to leave Goodneighbor and make their way to the General Atomics Factory! After checking his Pip-Boy map for the best route, I had him and Ada do a little U by the Mass Fusion building so they were facing in the right direction, then sneak past the nearby super mutant camp and down the street past the wrecked bus and the cemetery to the entrance to Park Street Station. I had Victor readjust, then went left toward a Red Rocket billboard that had fallen between two buildings and behind that into a section of the city that was as creepily orange-red and dusty as NYC was during the Canadian brushfire smoke days. O.o I guess that portion of the city had recently had a dust storm? I crept forward, taking out a ghoul before pausing at the sounds of a nearby fight –
C) And good thing I did, too, because my framerate just TANKED for a second there! I’ve heard this can be an issue in the actual “city of Boston” portions of the map, but it’s almost never been an issue with me – though possibly that’s because I’ve never had the BOS flying around the city before. The fight certainly sounded like between a vertibird and some other people. . .anyway, I waited, [HIDDEN], until the framerate recovered and the noises of the fight abated, then continued forward a bit to try and figure out a good turning point for where I wanted to go –
D) And then I realized Ada was getting into a scrap behind me, and heard raider barks coming from the same area. Turns out the parking garage she and Victor had paused next to had a handful of raiders in it, along with a ghoul or two. I went ahead and helped her take out the ones at ground level (Two-Shot doing the good work, as always), then found the stairs and went aaaall the way to the top to take out the ones on the roof (who, by the time Victor got up there, though he and Ada had just fled). Looted the bodies, the chest up there, and all available floors, then took a moment to consult the Pip-Boy map on the best way to go.
E) As it turned out – dead across from where we started, over the rubble and between two buildings! So stopping to kill those raiders was actually quite a good idea. :) I continued on, directing Victor and Ada through a little backyard area, past a building with a GNN billboard and some signs of super mutant activity (fortunately no super mutants outside), down a little side street full of business advertising various foodstuffs (and one beauty salon), past Mass Bay Metro and Medical Center, out by Hester’s Robotics, then down between what I presume were the remains of onramps and offramps to loop by the water’s edge as I worked my way toward the Wicked Shipping truck I’d opened some time ago and Andrew Station. Fortunately a completely uneventful trip!
F) With that, I did another check of my Pip-Boy, then headed past Andrew Station on the right, where I could see a vertibird in the distant sky, fighting SOMETHING. I left them to it and started into the slightly flooded street nearby, hoping to cut through without too much rad damage –
Only to get +3 Rads going. Which refused to go away when I got Victor out of the water. Ugh, radstorm! I had Victor pop some Rad-X as he paused down a side street, then – seeing a Rust Devil bot going down the street nearby – decided to try and wait out all this nonsense. Fortunately, Victor and Ada were already by a cleared-out raider camp – UNFORTUNATELY, when I had Victor sit down inside, he got no “(Y) Wait” prompt, AND there was an absolutely massive explosion nearby, which I presume was the vertibird going down. I decided that it was probably better just to keep moving and take some Radaway later. O.o
G) Back on the move, I sent Victor and Ada up a side street out of the raider camp, and came up to a little plaza area – right near Parker Quinn, nice. I found a bus stop nearby and again tried to have Victor sit and wait, and again came up short. The stop was still useful, though, as when I consulted the Pip-Boy map again, I discovered that all I had to do was go dead ahead and I’d be on the right path to get to General Atomics (rather than going to The Castle). Even better, as Victor and Ada headed out that way, the radstorm transitioned into normal rain, yay! I had Victor take a bit of Rad-X to clear the rad damage, then he and Ada snuck past the Gwinnet Brewery and its super mutant presence and along a road lined with shipping containers on one side. . .
H) And then, just as the sun came out, dead ahead in front of them was the General Atomics Factory! Yes! :D I had Victor pop into the nearby shed first quickly to look for goodies (none, boo), then had him officially “find” the factory, did a save, then sent him and Ada inside!
They were almost immediately set upon by some angry junkbots, eyebots, and servomechs, one of which was just murderlating Victor. Victor managed to take a couple down with the Two-Shot, and eat some food to help up his damage and keep him alive for a bit longer, but upon stopping briefly to repair a busted Ada, he was set upon by some freaking robot with what had to be a machine gun arm and died right after repairing her. Damn.
I) Okay, hmm, let’s try that again. First things first, I had Victor top off his health OUTSIDE, chowing down on an airborne roast to get a little extra Perception and Agility. Then, upon heading back in, I made sure to keep Victor in the back corner, out of the immediate sight line of any robots. He managed to sneak attack the eyebot that had alerted everyone to their presence previously, then hit a couple other early comers with a pulse grenade. That thinned them out and moved them back enough that Victor was able to properly line up all his shots and take out the enemies one by one, hooray! Much better. :)
J) With that sorted, Victor and Ada went around looting all the good junk and mods off the bodies (Victor having a drink of mutfruit juice along the way, which temporarily gives him All The Agility), then went around the main floor looking for anything interesting. The bathrooms had a bit of good loot, mostly in the form of the skeletons of former employees who’d been doing drugs when the bombs hit I guess. :p With those sorted, and the big security door next to them unable to be unlocked, I had Victor and Ada check out the second floor. The little employee lounge area didn’t have much to offer, but there was an Expert-locked door beside it which, when picked, opened up onto a little office with some decent loot (always gotta grab your desk fans) and “Kincaid’s terminal,” which detailed the guy’s “promotion” to looking after the General Atomics Galleria, and his bitching that he didn’t WANT to babysit the automated staff, he wanted to help run the factory and that this was just ageism. Which, it very much might have been, but also if I remember what’s going on at that Galleria right, sir, your job ended up being anything but boring. . . Anyway, I got what was good out of there, then proceeded into the next room, which was basically just the employee work “pit,” full of desks with occasional good loot inside – and a Tesla Science magazine! :D Another +5% damage to energy weapons on crits – not that I ever USE crits, honestly, but it’s still good to have. :P
K) And with that sorted, Victor stopped for a moment for a quick bathroom break, then headed back downstairs onto the main factory floor, where sneaking around the conveyor belts led him to a Novice terminal in front of some security doors. Victor was able to hack it and get it open – but by that point, I’d noticed the time and realized that I needed to get off (especially as my parents, who’d just gone grocery shopping, were due to come home at any minute – and indeed, they arrived just minutes after I quit for the day), so I had Victor quickly retreat into a side room a safe distance away from any robots who might be beyond the door, saved, and quit.
And yeah, that’s where I left it off, with Victor and Ada working their way through the factory, ready to figure out what’s going on! Fairly simple playsession, I suppose, but I had fun, and I’m very glad I’m starting to properly learn how to read this map and not get lost. :) Next week, we’ll finish clearing the factory out, then head back to Goodneighbor, freeing Drinking Buddy and getting the Silver Shroud costume along the way! Sounds good to me, anyway. . .
Writing: Another Sunday, another update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression! Again, it was pretty much largely identical to what happened above – selling spare armor and mods to KLE0, sneaking around downtown Boston, killing the raiders in the parking garage, sneaking out of Boston and into the outskirts through a radstorm (and hearing a vertibird have a very bad day), finding the General Atomics factory, and clearing out the first room and doing a bit of looting both downstairs and up before proceeding into the factory proper and opening up the next door – only with Alice present and Victor not dying the first time he tried getting into the factory. In fact, I had mine take a moment to have lunch in the shed outside and make a plan with Ada and Alice before going in, to represent how eating an airborne roast and playing things a little sneakier worked out much better on my second attempt to get inside. :p The trio are currently holed up inside of a little office area after having cracked that door into the next room, only to hear more robots inside – we’ll see how things continue to go for them next week!
YouTube: Kept up with Gray and Jon, as usual, AND while I didn’t have time for the OXBox list waiting in my Watch Later, I found a DIFFERENT OXBox video from a few years ago that I could watch that was better suited to Fallout Sunday anyway –
A) Started just before my workout with said old OXBox video – “So You Think You Know Fallout? - Fallout 4 Quiz!” This was made seven years ago, and tested Andy (100s of hours in the game) versus Mike (hadn’t yet finished the main quest by the time of the quiz, with Jane serving as quizmaster. Questions included:
I. “Which companion approves the most of nudity” (Mike guessed Nick Valentine, Andy guessed STRONG of all people/super mutants – Jane was looking for Cait, who ironically was Andy’s main squeeze in the game)
II. “Which companion approves the least of nudity” (Mike guessed Dogmeat (because the junk would be at dog-face level) and Andy guessed Piper – for some reason, Jane’s “correct” answer was Hancock, which is actually completely wrong, Hancock LOVES the player being nude – Piper WOULD have been a better answer, though I think someone in the comments indicated X6-88 particularly hates it)
III. “Best way to build affinity with Strong” (Mike and Andy both guessed “murdering people,” with Andy getting docked half a point for specifying “raiders” when Strong actually likes you killing non-hostiles – and while that is correct, Strong’s favorite thing is CANNIBALISM. Eat corpses and he’ll like you more. Mike and Andy were horrified)
IV. “What does G.O.A.T. stand for” (Mike and Andy both got this one, the Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test (well, Mike said “General” but they gave it to him). This question puzzled me because, while I know the test makes an APPEARANCE in FO4 – it’s the test they give you at the gates of Covenant – I’m pretty sure it’s only named the G.O.A.T. in Fallout 3, the previous entry)
V. “Who is Magnolia’s (the singer at the Third Rail) voice actress” (hilariously, both Mike and Andy ended up guessing TROY BAKER, a MALE voice actor with apparently incredible range – it’s Lynda Carter, aka Wonder Woman! Andy was particularly disappointed as he used to have a crush on her)
VI. “What are these food items” (Jane showed the boys the in-game models, and they had to guess what they were; in order they were a ribeye steak (they both got steak, but Andy never guessed which kind, and Mike thought it was deathclaw), a sweetroll (Andy got this, while Mike thought it was queen mirelurk meat because, well, it looks nothing like the delicious volcano-like pastry from Skyrim), and a mirelurk cake (Mike thought it was mole rat, while I don’t think Andy ever got it – Jane offered to give them a point if they could list all four ingredients in it, and both only got a quarter of a point for “mirelurk meat” (the other ingredients are oil, razorgrain, and a mirelurk egg))
VII. “What are these chems” (same as the above, only with chems – we had Turbo (both thought it was Jet, which, to be fair Jet’s clearly a component as per the model, it’s just stuck in a can of hairspray) and Jet itself (as you might imagine, both got THAT XD)
VIII. “Name this legendary weapon” (Jane showed some footage of a specific serrated sword being used in combat – Mike got half a point for identifying that it was a Chinese officer’s sword, while Andy got three-quarters of a point for getting the name ALMOST right, calling it “General Xao’s Sword” as per his pronunciation – it’s “General Chao’s Revenge” and does extra damage against robots)
IX. “What happens next?” (Jane showed the last dialogue option you get with Kellogg before you officially start his fight – Mike gleefully recounted how he’d nuked Kellogg at point-blank range, then said that you kill him, go up onto the roof, and see the “SHIELD helicarrier” fly over and attempt to nuke it repeatedly, reluctantly clarifying he meant the arrival of the BOS in the Commonwealth; while Andy talked about how he’d hid under a desk like a coward during that fight and let Nick Valentine do most of the work, then called the Prydwen a VERTIBIRD instead of a zeppelin because he had vertibirds on the mind and got docked half a point by Jane XD)
Final scores – Mike – 3 ¾ points, Andy 4 ¼ points! So Andy and his 100s of hours in the game DID win, but noooot by much! XD Though, as I said, one of Jane’s answers was straight-up wrong, and another didn’t really apply to Fallout 4. . .fortunately I think they do some better QC on the quizzes they do for each other today! :p
B) Then, this evening, it was time for GrayStillPlays and “I consumed all life on earth” – yup, we had another episode of Tasty Planet Forever, this time with Gray playing an all-consuming penguin! A – flying all-consuming penguin who started out mere millimeters long outside of what I presume to be the alley behind a couple of takeout places. I mean, the setting eventually was revealed to be explicitly futuristic, with hovercars and cyborgs running around, so – *shrug* Sure, whatever? XD But hey, you know the drill – Gray’s penguin started small, eating things like fruit flies and tapioca pearls from bubble tea, and gradually ramped up to bricks and cinderblocks, cardboard boxes, the aforementioned cyborgs and their human companions, hovercars of all stripes (including rusty old cops and flying garbage trucks), entire apartment buildings, entire cities, and finally all of the floating islands everyone was living on. XD A very simple formula, but it remains very fun, especially with Gray’s delighted commentary on everything he can eat. XD We’ll see how many more creatures he can get to consume the planet as time goes on! I mean, there’s already more scenarios to play through in this game than I ever thought. . .
C) And finally, we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout: Tale of Two Wastelands - Part 34 - The Stuff Of Legends!” Which saw Wanda, having kicked things off with the Enclave after escaping Raven Rock and setting up the final major confrontation in the main Fallout 3 base game quest, going, “you know what, I need another vacation” and running off to New Vegas and the Mojave again to go big game hunting! Specifically, she was there to complete the challenge “. . .The Harder They Fall” to kill the game’s five Legendary creatures (which, unlike the Fallout 4 ones, are fixed special variants of specific creatures in fixed locations). Her loadout included That Gun for the crits; the Dart Gun for the crippling; The Terrible Shotgun for the knockback; Sydney’s “Ultra” SMG for the fire rate; Paciencia for the bonus crit power; and as much hollow point ammo as she had, because hollow point doubles damage in exchange for trebling something’s armor, but almost no creature in the game HAS armor (being, you know, animals), so it’s just straight up extra damage there, especially if you can crit. Oh, and the “Animal Friend” perk via console commands, so Jon could show us a few weird quirks in the game system. XD This episode saw her take on the four base game legendary monsters, with Jon giving us locales, stats, and the occasional trip off the beaten path along the way –
I. First on the list – the Legendary Nightstalker that lives in Bloodborne Cave past Raul’s Shack and the Brotherhood of Steel Safehouse. (Nightstalkers, if you’re not familiar, are roughly canid-shaped but have the faces and tails of rattlesnakes thanks to genetic experimentation in the mad scientist crater you visit in Old World Blues – they kinda define “ugly cute.”) These buggers were one of the main reasons that Jon wanted Wanda to have “Animal Friend” because, at least for the purposes of the perk, they count as animals (the other categories are “insects” and “abominations”). If you have that perk, they won’t attack you when you come rocking up, and you don’t want them attacking you because they can be NASTY little buggers. So, with the perk, Wanda was able to just wander in and explore the place without getting savaged. Which is handy, because there’s a nice stash of post-war money in a box behind a locked gate in this cave – you just have to REALLY mind the tripwire hidden at the bottom of said gate so you don’t get hit by a bunch of grenades falling from the ceiling! As for the Legendary Nightstalker herself, she was first because she’s the most weaksauce – not only is her health only a fraction more than that of your standard Nightstalker Den Mother anyway, she was ENTIRELY outclassed when Old World Blues came along and introduced its OWN special named Nightstalker with more hit points and more damage. Her main defense, at least in Jon’s game, was glitching herself into the ground so Wanda couldn’t pull off a headshot – all of them just hit the sand. Once Jon reloaded, though, a critical shot from Paciencia one-shotted the poor girl. Damn. Poor baby.
II. Second up was the Legendary Fire Gecko that lives in Fire Root Cavern near the road to Cottonwood! Though Wanda didn’t go right there – instead, Jon first had her go back to Goodsprings and start doing some of Sunny Smiles’s tutorial quest to go gecko hunting. Reason? To show that REGULAR geckos count as animals and therefore won’t hurt Wanda (even when she ends up killing them for food). However, he explained that, in this game, sometimes different variants of creatures are classed as different things – and FIRE Geckos are in fact ABOMINATIONS, meaning “Animal Friend” won’t work on them. Though a quick trip to the fire geckos lurking around near Novac revealed that they DO count toward the “Animal Control” challenge perk you can get for killing loads of animals. So it’s very complicated what geckos are. (Amusingly, the comments revealed that the nightstalkers above in fact are kind of the opposite – they count as abominations for everything BUT the “Animal Friend” perk. New Vegas just can’t make up its mind.)
Anyway – killing the Legendary Fire Gecko in Fire Root Cavern turned out to be pretty much a breeze, as Wanda had the high ground and a fast-firing machine gun that just tore through the LFG’s health, all while it ran into a cliff trying to get up to her. XD Jon praised it as being the only Legendary that wasn’t embarrassed in any way when the DLC came out, in that it still has the most health of any in-game gecko, but that’s pretty faint praise given how easily Wanda took it down. It also has some of the more interesting loot, as its cave is the location of the “Evil Gnome,” a gnome with the face of developer Scott Everts (who worked for both Obsidian AND Interplay, so he has some background with the Fallout franchise). Jon took it with him and said that he’d try to use the Rock-It Launcher to launch it at a Legendary enemy at some point.
III. Third was the Legendary Cazador in Silver Peak Mine, where things started getting truly nasty because Cazadors are NO JOKE, y’all – Wanda fought a regular one on the way (trying to demonstrate how crippling their wings makes them easier to fight), got stung, and lost a decent chunk of her health to their poison. Certainly puts bloodbugs and stingwings in perspective. . . Anyway, in the mine, Jon showed off some good ways to take down cazadors in general – using the dart gun cripples their wings because they’re kind of “technically” tagged as legs (never mind that the cazadors have ACTUAL legs and will use them if their wings no longer work), and if you can cripple their antennae, they’ll frenzy and attack each other, allowing you to pick them off more easily – then summoned the Legendary Cazador. Because this one, unlike the others, isn’t bumming around in the cave – it only appears when you kill all the other cazadors in there, and it at least TRIES to do a dramatic entrance through a nearby hole in the wall. Jon thought it deserved points for that! However, once again, Wanda having the high ground and a fast-firing gun, and the enemy on the lower level being unable to find the correct path up to her, meant that the Legendary Cazador died pretty fast. The combination of Paciencia and Sydney’s Ultra SMG, especially with Hollow Point rounds, is no joke! (Oh, and if you were wondering how it stacks up against DLC variants – while it’s slightly hardier than the giant cazadors of Honest Hearts, Specimen 73 in Old World Blues outclasses it in health – but not in DAMAGE. Apparently the Legendary Cazador hits harder. So it’s got that going for it!)
However, the most interesting thing in the cave isn’t the cazador – it’s what’s behind a certain gated door on the upper level. Specifically, a skeleton next to a BOS Remnant power armor helmet. This is the only way to get the helmet without doing the Remnants’ quest – but where’s the power armor itself?
IV. Why, in a tiny hidden area of the map that you’d never know about if you didn’t go to this one Cliffside Prospector’s camp and look out across the map from the lawn chair sitting in the middle of it! :D Yeah, Wanda took a little side trip before going to defeat the final base game legendary and showed us all where you can find the missing Remnant power armor – in a deathclaw nest on the other side of the Colorado River, the ONLY spot on the opposite side of the river that the PC can reach (everywhere else, the Colorado acts as a barrier, showing the edges of the map. How many deathclaws you have to fight is determined by your level, meaning poor Wanda, at level 30, had to fight off quite a few before getting the opportunity to pop a stealth boy. Fortunately she had JUST enough darts in her dart gun to cripple them, and she was able to use the opportunity to show off something unique about deathclaws – they alone of all creatures have built-in armor, meaning hollow point doesn’t work as well against them. You need armor piercing to do proper damage to them! (Jon also took the opportunity to note that New Vegas probably has the absolute MOST deathclaws in any game in the franchise, with huge groups and nests all over the place! Surely the NCR or the Legion or House should have done something about that by now. . .)
Anyway – after getting past all the deathclaws (and getting level 31, allowing her to max out her Sneak), Wanda finally came across what she was after – a pair of dead prospectors by the deathclaw nests, one of which was wearing the Remnant power armor. The only set in the game not tied to their quest. Jon’s personal theory is that the prospector found the dead Remnant member in the cazador caves and looted the power armor, leaving behind the helmet for some reason, then set up his camp, went investigating this place, and got himself and his buddy killed by the deathclaws. He can’t prove that was the intended story, but it DOES make sense, so – I’m willing to accept it!
V. And finally, fourth on the list of Legendary Base Game Creatures was, of course a Legendary Deathclaw, who lives in Dead Wind Cavern, past Camp Charlie and an old train tunnel, with a whole bunch of other deathclaws. Including a Deathclaw Mother, which Jon specifically showed off to explain how they have a unique mechanic related to other deathclaw variants – specifically, if you kill a Young Deathclaw in front of one, it gets a hell of a lot tougher, not in the least because it suddenly picks up the Adamantium Skeleton perk that makes it REALLY hard to cripple its limbs. Basically, kill a baby in front of Mama, and Mama gonna take you down – and she hits HARD, as Jon accidentally showed off! But Wanda managed to best her and find the Legendary Deathclaw – who has one thousand hit points. O.o Fucker is a TANK, that’s for sure! But, as it turns out, he has the opposite problem of the Legendary Cazador – he doesn’t hit as hard other deathclaws, to the point of being sometimes outclassed by his fellow Mothers. Wanda still took no chances, using the dart gun to cripple him and the Terrible Shotgun’s knockback to down him and keep him down. And what was her reward for taking on the bastard?
Mercy – a grenade launcher found on a BOS Paladin corpse in the cave that shoots 40mm grenades with incredible speed and power, making it a BEAST against anything in your general vicinity. The only trouble is keeping it going, as 40mm grenades are not exactly common. . .but if you really need to blow it up now, then Mercy is your gun. It even comes with its own lore, as “Hei Guai, bye bye” is painted on its side – Jon revealed that this was pre-War graffiti, meaning the gun was used against Chinese agents using stealth suits. Presumably by hitting the area around them with so many grenades they just had no choice but to die. :p
VI. However, the episode wasn’t quite over yet – because, while the actual fifth Legendary Creature lives in the DLC (specifically, it’s in Old World Blues, which kind of makes sense given that’s a horrific den of mad science), Jon wanted to introduce us to a special Legendary creature that only lives in the console commands – Gojira, a GIANT Fire Gecko the devs made as a special treat for themselves to unleash against Camp McClaren and cause chaos for the NCR. This Godzilla expy has EIGHT THOUSAND hit points and a nasty breath attack – and, better yet, it counts as an ANIMAL due to the way its coded, so it would see Wanda as a friend and not attack her! Jon spawned it in and waited for the chaos –
Only for practically nobody to show up because apparently everyone took one look at Gojira and was like “NOPE.” Except for one guy on the wall, who had the high ground that Gojira couldn’t get to and thus was able to open fire on the unfortunate gecko. Jon was very underwhelmed by it all. XD
But yes, that was the first four Legendary Creatures on Wanda’s big game hunt! Next week, Wanda extends her vacation further by traveling into the Old World Blues DLC and giving us a tour of the horrible mad science crater on her way to take care of that final Legendary Creature! I look forward to seeing her adventures against the terrors of science the doctors have cooked up!
Workout: Another night on the bike, and I started the week off with a couple of Sims 4 videos, as is my new wont –
A) “33 MORE Must Know Trait Tips And Features [Base Game] | The Sims 4 Guide” by Petey Plays It! A quick guide to some of the quirks and features of a bunch of base game traits, including what activities they may let you do (like Childish Sims can still play with children’s toys and Foodie Sims can browse the web specifically to look for new recipes) and what moodlets they may gain under what circumstances (like Goofball Sims will occasionally get playful for no real reason, and Loner Sims get tense around strangers). Nothing groundbreaking here, but it’s good general information to have while working out your Sims’ personality, I suppose!
B) “I tried this cursed build challenge” by James Turner! James trying out Plumbella’s “Cursed Build Random Generator,” which generates house builds with a specific style type, a dominant color theme, floor and room limitations, a specific budget, the minimum number of Sims it can house, and a specific disadvantage. James hit the button three times, and got a McMansion-style build with the dominant color scheme being gray, with only one floor and only four rooms, a budget of $54,856, that must house three Sims, and must be built on the smallest lot type in the game, 20x15. James was like “yup, that’s a cursed build all right.” XD But he persevered, using all the build tricks he knew to make a truly awful tiny McMansion in Newcrest (using taller walls, putting a platform on top to make it look like another level, scaling down some trees and bushes to make the place look bigger, and taking advantage of using dividing walls to break up the main living space without making it into a bunch of separate rooms. In the end, he had a probably-usable house with two bedrooms, a central bathroom, and a living area that was divided into a hallway, a kitchen, a dining room, and a very flammable living room via those interior walls. He spent all the money in his budget AND checked off everything on his list – EXCEPT, technically, the house had five rooms, because the front porch counts as a room as per the game. He refused to think of it as a room, though, as it was on the outside and really couldn’t be used as such. *waggles hand* I guess I’ll give it to you, James. :p And it WAS very funny to see him go ham in trying to make the place look as gaudy and “trying too hard” as possible. XD
*thumbs up* Not bad, not bad at all. And now I have to go to bed because, no, I do not get Juneteenth off. *grumbles* At least the traffic should be decent. . .and once I get past these next couple of weeks, I'm into half-day Friday land, woohoo~ Just gotta make it until then -- night all!
Tumblr: Reasonably productive day on the old tumblrs, at least when it came to drafts –
Victor Luvs Alice – Pleased to say I did indeed finish off all the initial Chill Valicer Save update post drafts before hitting the sheets last night. . .and then proceeded to, once I got up and dressed, get FIVE of them fully completed before playing Fallout 4 (three and a half before lunch, then the other half and a post after)! So that was very nice. :) Also answered some additional stuff from Stretch-Time, who is working on their own coaster OC to be a friend to Smiler. Looking forward to seeing that! :)
Valice Multiverse – Pretty simple evening over here, fortunately – just one ask reply, with Alice reacting to a hunter and a Tremere atop a speeding train arguing about whether it’s “Big-D’s” right to buy a blender for 99p. She was like “this is weird but also I would not trust a 99p blender at ALL.” XD
Fallout 4: I made myself a promise to get to the General Atomics Factory today, and I fulfilled that promise! :D I have yet to clear it out, admittedly, but I’m there and working through it. Let me tell you how I got there –
A) Started off in the Hotel Rexford, with Victor having just woken up, ready for a new day. I had head him outside and prepared to leave Goodneighbor – then had a thought, checked Ada’s inventory, and instead led her over to the shops so I could clear out some of the unused armor and various weapon/armor mods she had on her and free up some inventory. KLE0 was at her station, and happily accepted my Assassin’s Metal Chestpiece, my Blostering Leather Right Arm, Right Leg, and Shadowed Left Arm, my Cunning Synth Left Arm, and a bunch of old mods for my old metal helmet and combat shotgun and whatnot, all in exchange for 24 .50 bullets. (Yes, that is what I got as an exactly even trade in cap worth.) I ended up keeping my Destroyer’s Chestpiece – it’s not as good as what I’m currently wearing, but I’m a bit attached to it, and anyway I paid good money to get it – maybe I’ll give it to a settler instead. Really need to get some of them some proper armor. . .
B) Anyway, with trade completed and inventory managed so I had a little more looting space, it was time for Victor and Ada to leave Goodneighbor and make their way to the General Atomics Factory! After checking his Pip-Boy map for the best route, I had him and Ada do a little U by the Mass Fusion building so they were facing in the right direction, then sneak past the nearby super mutant camp and down the street past the wrecked bus and the cemetery to the entrance to Park Street Station. I had Victor readjust, then went left toward a Red Rocket billboard that had fallen between two buildings and behind that into a section of the city that was as creepily orange-red and dusty as NYC was during the Canadian brushfire smoke days. O.o I guess that portion of the city had recently had a dust storm? I crept forward, taking out a ghoul before pausing at the sounds of a nearby fight –
C) And good thing I did, too, because my framerate just TANKED for a second there! I’ve heard this can be an issue in the actual “city of Boston” portions of the map, but it’s almost never been an issue with me – though possibly that’s because I’ve never had the BOS flying around the city before. The fight certainly sounded like between a vertibird and some other people. . .anyway, I waited, [HIDDEN], until the framerate recovered and the noises of the fight abated, then continued forward a bit to try and figure out a good turning point for where I wanted to go –
D) And then I realized Ada was getting into a scrap behind me, and heard raider barks coming from the same area. Turns out the parking garage she and Victor had paused next to had a handful of raiders in it, along with a ghoul or two. I went ahead and helped her take out the ones at ground level (Two-Shot doing the good work, as always), then found the stairs and went aaaall the way to the top to take out the ones on the roof (who, by the time Victor got up there, though he and Ada had just fled). Looted the bodies, the chest up there, and all available floors, then took a moment to consult the Pip-Boy map on the best way to go.
E) As it turned out – dead across from where we started, over the rubble and between two buildings! So stopping to kill those raiders was actually quite a good idea. :) I continued on, directing Victor and Ada through a little backyard area, past a building with a GNN billboard and some signs of super mutant activity (fortunately no super mutants outside), down a little side street full of business advertising various foodstuffs (and one beauty salon), past Mass Bay Metro and Medical Center, out by Hester’s Robotics, then down between what I presume were the remains of onramps and offramps to loop by the water’s edge as I worked my way toward the Wicked Shipping truck I’d opened some time ago and Andrew Station. Fortunately a completely uneventful trip!
F) With that, I did another check of my Pip-Boy, then headed past Andrew Station on the right, where I could see a vertibird in the distant sky, fighting SOMETHING. I left them to it and started into the slightly flooded street nearby, hoping to cut through without too much rad damage –
Only to get +3 Rads going. Which refused to go away when I got Victor out of the water. Ugh, radstorm! I had Victor pop some Rad-X as he paused down a side street, then – seeing a Rust Devil bot going down the street nearby – decided to try and wait out all this nonsense. Fortunately, Victor and Ada were already by a cleared-out raider camp – UNFORTUNATELY, when I had Victor sit down inside, he got no “(Y) Wait” prompt, AND there was an absolutely massive explosion nearby, which I presume was the vertibird going down. I decided that it was probably better just to keep moving and take some Radaway later. O.o
G) Back on the move, I sent Victor and Ada up a side street out of the raider camp, and came up to a little plaza area – right near Parker Quinn, nice. I found a bus stop nearby and again tried to have Victor sit and wait, and again came up short. The stop was still useful, though, as when I consulted the Pip-Boy map again, I discovered that all I had to do was go dead ahead and I’d be on the right path to get to General Atomics (rather than going to The Castle). Even better, as Victor and Ada headed out that way, the radstorm transitioned into normal rain, yay! I had Victor take a bit of Rad-X to clear the rad damage, then he and Ada snuck past the Gwinnet Brewery and its super mutant presence and along a road lined with shipping containers on one side. . .
H) And then, just as the sun came out, dead ahead in front of them was the General Atomics Factory! Yes! :D I had Victor pop into the nearby shed first quickly to look for goodies (none, boo), then had him officially “find” the factory, did a save, then sent him and Ada inside!
They were almost immediately set upon by some angry junkbots, eyebots, and servomechs, one of which was just murderlating Victor. Victor managed to take a couple down with the Two-Shot, and eat some food to help up his damage and keep him alive for a bit longer, but upon stopping briefly to repair a busted Ada, he was set upon by some freaking robot with what had to be a machine gun arm and died right after repairing her. Damn.
I) Okay, hmm, let’s try that again. First things first, I had Victor top off his health OUTSIDE, chowing down on an airborne roast to get a little extra Perception and Agility. Then, upon heading back in, I made sure to keep Victor in the back corner, out of the immediate sight line of any robots. He managed to sneak attack the eyebot that had alerted everyone to their presence previously, then hit a couple other early comers with a pulse grenade. That thinned them out and moved them back enough that Victor was able to properly line up all his shots and take out the enemies one by one, hooray! Much better. :)
J) With that sorted, Victor and Ada went around looting all the good junk and mods off the bodies (Victor having a drink of mutfruit juice along the way, which temporarily gives him All The Agility), then went around the main floor looking for anything interesting. The bathrooms had a bit of good loot, mostly in the form of the skeletons of former employees who’d been doing drugs when the bombs hit I guess. :p With those sorted, and the big security door next to them unable to be unlocked, I had Victor and Ada check out the second floor. The little employee lounge area didn’t have much to offer, but there was an Expert-locked door beside it which, when picked, opened up onto a little office with some decent loot (always gotta grab your desk fans) and “Kincaid’s terminal,” which detailed the guy’s “promotion” to looking after the General Atomics Galleria, and his bitching that he didn’t WANT to babysit the automated staff, he wanted to help run the factory and that this was just ageism. Which, it very much might have been, but also if I remember what’s going on at that Galleria right, sir, your job ended up being anything but boring. . . Anyway, I got what was good out of there, then proceeded into the next room, which was basically just the employee work “pit,” full of desks with occasional good loot inside – and a Tesla Science magazine! :D Another +5% damage to energy weapons on crits – not that I ever USE crits, honestly, but it’s still good to have. :P
K) And with that sorted, Victor stopped for a moment for a quick bathroom break, then headed back downstairs onto the main factory floor, where sneaking around the conveyor belts led him to a Novice terminal in front of some security doors. Victor was able to hack it and get it open – but by that point, I’d noticed the time and realized that I needed to get off (especially as my parents, who’d just gone grocery shopping, were due to come home at any minute – and indeed, they arrived just minutes after I quit for the day), so I had Victor quickly retreat into a side room a safe distance away from any robots who might be beyond the door, saved, and quit.
And yeah, that’s where I left it off, with Victor and Ada working their way through the factory, ready to figure out what’s going on! Fairly simple playsession, I suppose, but I had fun, and I’m very glad I’m starting to properly learn how to read this map and not get lost. :) Next week, we’ll finish clearing the factory out, then head back to Goodneighbor, freeing Drinking Buddy and getting the Silver Shroud costume along the way! Sounds good to me, anyway. . .
Writing: Another Sunday, another update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression! Again, it was pretty much largely identical to what happened above – selling spare armor and mods to KLE0, sneaking around downtown Boston, killing the raiders in the parking garage, sneaking out of Boston and into the outskirts through a radstorm (and hearing a vertibird have a very bad day), finding the General Atomics factory, and clearing out the first room and doing a bit of looting both downstairs and up before proceeding into the factory proper and opening up the next door – only with Alice present and Victor not dying the first time he tried getting into the factory. In fact, I had mine take a moment to have lunch in the shed outside and make a plan with Ada and Alice before going in, to represent how eating an airborne roast and playing things a little sneakier worked out much better on my second attempt to get inside. :p The trio are currently holed up inside of a little office area after having cracked that door into the next room, only to hear more robots inside – we’ll see how things continue to go for them next week!
YouTube: Kept up with Gray and Jon, as usual, AND while I didn’t have time for the OXBox list waiting in my Watch Later, I found a DIFFERENT OXBox video from a few years ago that I could watch that was better suited to Fallout Sunday anyway –
A) Started just before my workout with said old OXBox video – “So You Think You Know Fallout? - Fallout 4 Quiz!” This was made seven years ago, and tested Andy (100s of hours in the game) versus Mike (hadn’t yet finished the main quest by the time of the quiz, with Jane serving as quizmaster. Questions included:
I. “Which companion approves the most of nudity” (Mike guessed Nick Valentine, Andy guessed STRONG of all people/super mutants – Jane was looking for Cait, who ironically was Andy’s main squeeze in the game)
II. “Which companion approves the least of nudity” (Mike guessed Dogmeat (because the junk would be at dog-face level) and Andy guessed Piper – for some reason, Jane’s “correct” answer was Hancock, which is actually completely wrong, Hancock LOVES the player being nude – Piper WOULD have been a better answer, though I think someone in the comments indicated X6-88 particularly hates it)
III. “Best way to build affinity with Strong” (Mike and Andy both guessed “murdering people,” with Andy getting docked half a point for specifying “raiders” when Strong actually likes you killing non-hostiles – and while that is correct, Strong’s favorite thing is CANNIBALISM. Eat corpses and he’ll like you more. Mike and Andy were horrified)
IV. “What does G.O.A.T. stand for” (Mike and Andy both got this one, the Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test (well, Mike said “General” but they gave it to him). This question puzzled me because, while I know the test makes an APPEARANCE in FO4 – it’s the test they give you at the gates of Covenant – I’m pretty sure it’s only named the G.O.A.T. in Fallout 3, the previous entry)
V. “Who is Magnolia’s (the singer at the Third Rail) voice actress” (hilariously, both Mike and Andy ended up guessing TROY BAKER, a MALE voice actor with apparently incredible range – it’s Lynda Carter, aka Wonder Woman! Andy was particularly disappointed as he used to have a crush on her)
VI. “What are these food items” (Jane showed the boys the in-game models, and they had to guess what they were; in order they were a ribeye steak (they both got steak, but Andy never guessed which kind, and Mike thought it was deathclaw), a sweetroll (Andy got this, while Mike thought it was queen mirelurk meat because, well, it looks nothing like the delicious volcano-like pastry from Skyrim), and a mirelurk cake (Mike thought it was mole rat, while I don’t think Andy ever got it – Jane offered to give them a point if they could list all four ingredients in it, and both only got a quarter of a point for “mirelurk meat” (the other ingredients are oil, razorgrain, and a mirelurk egg))
VII. “What are these chems” (same as the above, only with chems – we had Turbo (both thought it was Jet, which, to be fair Jet’s clearly a component as per the model, it’s just stuck in a can of hairspray) and Jet itself (as you might imagine, both got THAT XD)
VIII. “Name this legendary weapon” (Jane showed some footage of a specific serrated sword being used in combat – Mike got half a point for identifying that it was a Chinese officer’s sword, while Andy got three-quarters of a point for getting the name ALMOST right, calling it “General Xao’s Sword” as per his pronunciation – it’s “General Chao’s Revenge” and does extra damage against robots)
IX. “What happens next?” (Jane showed the last dialogue option you get with Kellogg before you officially start his fight – Mike gleefully recounted how he’d nuked Kellogg at point-blank range, then said that you kill him, go up onto the roof, and see the “SHIELD helicarrier” fly over and attempt to nuke it repeatedly, reluctantly clarifying he meant the arrival of the BOS in the Commonwealth; while Andy talked about how he’d hid under a desk like a coward during that fight and let Nick Valentine do most of the work, then called the Prydwen a VERTIBIRD instead of a zeppelin because he had vertibirds on the mind and got docked half a point by Jane XD)
Final scores – Mike – 3 ¾ points, Andy 4 ¼ points! So Andy and his 100s of hours in the game DID win, but noooot by much! XD Though, as I said, one of Jane’s answers was straight-up wrong, and another didn’t really apply to Fallout 4. . .fortunately I think they do some better QC on the quizzes they do for each other today! :p
B) Then, this evening, it was time for GrayStillPlays and “I consumed all life on earth” – yup, we had another episode of Tasty Planet Forever, this time with Gray playing an all-consuming penguin! A – flying all-consuming penguin who started out mere millimeters long outside of what I presume to be the alley behind a couple of takeout places. I mean, the setting eventually was revealed to be explicitly futuristic, with hovercars and cyborgs running around, so – *shrug* Sure, whatever? XD But hey, you know the drill – Gray’s penguin started small, eating things like fruit flies and tapioca pearls from bubble tea, and gradually ramped up to bricks and cinderblocks, cardboard boxes, the aforementioned cyborgs and their human companions, hovercars of all stripes (including rusty old cops and flying garbage trucks), entire apartment buildings, entire cities, and finally all of the floating islands everyone was living on. XD A very simple formula, but it remains very fun, especially with Gray’s delighted commentary on everything he can eat. XD We’ll see how many more creatures he can get to consume the planet as time goes on! I mean, there’s already more scenarios to play through in this game than I ever thought. . .
C) And finally, we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout: Tale of Two Wastelands - Part 34 - The Stuff Of Legends!” Which saw Wanda, having kicked things off with the Enclave after escaping Raven Rock and setting up the final major confrontation in the main Fallout 3 base game quest, going, “you know what, I need another vacation” and running off to New Vegas and the Mojave again to go big game hunting! Specifically, she was there to complete the challenge “. . .The Harder They Fall” to kill the game’s five Legendary creatures (which, unlike the Fallout 4 ones, are fixed special variants of specific creatures in fixed locations). Her loadout included That Gun for the crits; the Dart Gun for the crippling; The Terrible Shotgun for the knockback; Sydney’s “Ultra” SMG for the fire rate; Paciencia for the bonus crit power; and as much hollow point ammo as she had, because hollow point doubles damage in exchange for trebling something’s armor, but almost no creature in the game HAS armor (being, you know, animals), so it’s just straight up extra damage there, especially if you can crit. Oh, and the “Animal Friend” perk via console commands, so Jon could show us a few weird quirks in the game system. XD This episode saw her take on the four base game legendary monsters, with Jon giving us locales, stats, and the occasional trip off the beaten path along the way –
I. First on the list – the Legendary Nightstalker that lives in Bloodborne Cave past Raul’s Shack and the Brotherhood of Steel Safehouse. (Nightstalkers, if you’re not familiar, are roughly canid-shaped but have the faces and tails of rattlesnakes thanks to genetic experimentation in the mad scientist crater you visit in Old World Blues – they kinda define “ugly cute.”) These buggers were one of the main reasons that Jon wanted Wanda to have “Animal Friend” because, at least for the purposes of the perk, they count as animals (the other categories are “insects” and “abominations”). If you have that perk, they won’t attack you when you come rocking up, and you don’t want them attacking you because they can be NASTY little buggers. So, with the perk, Wanda was able to just wander in and explore the place without getting savaged. Which is handy, because there’s a nice stash of post-war money in a box behind a locked gate in this cave – you just have to REALLY mind the tripwire hidden at the bottom of said gate so you don’t get hit by a bunch of grenades falling from the ceiling! As for the Legendary Nightstalker herself, she was first because she’s the most weaksauce – not only is her health only a fraction more than that of your standard Nightstalker Den Mother anyway, she was ENTIRELY outclassed when Old World Blues came along and introduced its OWN special named Nightstalker with more hit points and more damage. Her main defense, at least in Jon’s game, was glitching herself into the ground so Wanda couldn’t pull off a headshot – all of them just hit the sand. Once Jon reloaded, though, a critical shot from Paciencia one-shotted the poor girl. Damn. Poor baby.
II. Second up was the Legendary Fire Gecko that lives in Fire Root Cavern near the road to Cottonwood! Though Wanda didn’t go right there – instead, Jon first had her go back to Goodsprings and start doing some of Sunny Smiles’s tutorial quest to go gecko hunting. Reason? To show that REGULAR geckos count as animals and therefore won’t hurt Wanda (even when she ends up killing them for food). However, he explained that, in this game, sometimes different variants of creatures are classed as different things – and FIRE Geckos are in fact ABOMINATIONS, meaning “Animal Friend” won’t work on them. Though a quick trip to the fire geckos lurking around near Novac revealed that they DO count toward the “Animal Control” challenge perk you can get for killing loads of animals. So it’s very complicated what geckos are. (Amusingly, the comments revealed that the nightstalkers above in fact are kind of the opposite – they count as abominations for everything BUT the “Animal Friend” perk. New Vegas just can’t make up its mind.)
Anyway – killing the Legendary Fire Gecko in Fire Root Cavern turned out to be pretty much a breeze, as Wanda had the high ground and a fast-firing machine gun that just tore through the LFG’s health, all while it ran into a cliff trying to get up to her. XD Jon praised it as being the only Legendary that wasn’t embarrassed in any way when the DLC came out, in that it still has the most health of any in-game gecko, but that’s pretty faint praise given how easily Wanda took it down. It also has some of the more interesting loot, as its cave is the location of the “Evil Gnome,” a gnome with the face of developer Scott Everts (who worked for both Obsidian AND Interplay, so he has some background with the Fallout franchise). Jon took it with him and said that he’d try to use the Rock-It Launcher to launch it at a Legendary enemy at some point.
III. Third was the Legendary Cazador in Silver Peak Mine, where things started getting truly nasty because Cazadors are NO JOKE, y’all – Wanda fought a regular one on the way (trying to demonstrate how crippling their wings makes them easier to fight), got stung, and lost a decent chunk of her health to their poison. Certainly puts bloodbugs and stingwings in perspective. . . Anyway, in the mine, Jon showed off some good ways to take down cazadors in general – using the dart gun cripples their wings because they’re kind of “technically” tagged as legs (never mind that the cazadors have ACTUAL legs and will use them if their wings no longer work), and if you can cripple their antennae, they’ll frenzy and attack each other, allowing you to pick them off more easily – then summoned the Legendary Cazador. Because this one, unlike the others, isn’t bumming around in the cave – it only appears when you kill all the other cazadors in there, and it at least TRIES to do a dramatic entrance through a nearby hole in the wall. Jon thought it deserved points for that! However, once again, Wanda having the high ground and a fast-firing gun, and the enemy on the lower level being unable to find the correct path up to her, meant that the Legendary Cazador died pretty fast. The combination of Paciencia and Sydney’s Ultra SMG, especially with Hollow Point rounds, is no joke! (Oh, and if you were wondering how it stacks up against DLC variants – while it’s slightly hardier than the giant cazadors of Honest Hearts, Specimen 73 in Old World Blues outclasses it in health – but not in DAMAGE. Apparently the Legendary Cazador hits harder. So it’s got that going for it!)
However, the most interesting thing in the cave isn’t the cazador – it’s what’s behind a certain gated door on the upper level. Specifically, a skeleton next to a BOS Remnant power armor helmet. This is the only way to get the helmet without doing the Remnants’ quest – but where’s the power armor itself?
IV. Why, in a tiny hidden area of the map that you’d never know about if you didn’t go to this one Cliffside Prospector’s camp and look out across the map from the lawn chair sitting in the middle of it! :D Yeah, Wanda took a little side trip before going to defeat the final base game legendary and showed us all where you can find the missing Remnant power armor – in a deathclaw nest on the other side of the Colorado River, the ONLY spot on the opposite side of the river that the PC can reach (everywhere else, the Colorado acts as a barrier, showing the edges of the map. How many deathclaws you have to fight is determined by your level, meaning poor Wanda, at level 30, had to fight off quite a few before getting the opportunity to pop a stealth boy. Fortunately she had JUST enough darts in her dart gun to cripple them, and she was able to use the opportunity to show off something unique about deathclaws – they alone of all creatures have built-in armor, meaning hollow point doesn’t work as well against them. You need armor piercing to do proper damage to them! (Jon also took the opportunity to note that New Vegas probably has the absolute MOST deathclaws in any game in the franchise, with huge groups and nests all over the place! Surely the NCR or the Legion or House should have done something about that by now. . .)
Anyway – after getting past all the deathclaws (and getting level 31, allowing her to max out her Sneak), Wanda finally came across what she was after – a pair of dead prospectors by the deathclaw nests, one of which was wearing the Remnant power armor. The only set in the game not tied to their quest. Jon’s personal theory is that the prospector found the dead Remnant member in the cazador caves and looted the power armor, leaving behind the helmet for some reason, then set up his camp, went investigating this place, and got himself and his buddy killed by the deathclaws. He can’t prove that was the intended story, but it DOES make sense, so – I’m willing to accept it!
V. And finally, fourth on the list of Legendary Base Game Creatures was, of course a Legendary Deathclaw, who lives in Dead Wind Cavern, past Camp Charlie and an old train tunnel, with a whole bunch of other deathclaws. Including a Deathclaw Mother, which Jon specifically showed off to explain how they have a unique mechanic related to other deathclaw variants – specifically, if you kill a Young Deathclaw in front of one, it gets a hell of a lot tougher, not in the least because it suddenly picks up the Adamantium Skeleton perk that makes it REALLY hard to cripple its limbs. Basically, kill a baby in front of Mama, and Mama gonna take you down – and she hits HARD, as Jon accidentally showed off! But Wanda managed to best her and find the Legendary Deathclaw – who has one thousand hit points. O.o Fucker is a TANK, that’s for sure! But, as it turns out, he has the opposite problem of the Legendary Cazador – he doesn’t hit as hard other deathclaws, to the point of being sometimes outclassed by his fellow Mothers. Wanda still took no chances, using the dart gun to cripple him and the Terrible Shotgun’s knockback to down him and keep him down. And what was her reward for taking on the bastard?
Mercy – a grenade launcher found on a BOS Paladin corpse in the cave that shoots 40mm grenades with incredible speed and power, making it a BEAST against anything in your general vicinity. The only trouble is keeping it going, as 40mm grenades are not exactly common. . .but if you really need to blow it up now, then Mercy is your gun. It even comes with its own lore, as “Hei Guai, bye bye” is painted on its side – Jon revealed that this was pre-War graffiti, meaning the gun was used against Chinese agents using stealth suits. Presumably by hitting the area around them with so many grenades they just had no choice but to die. :p
VI. However, the episode wasn’t quite over yet – because, while the actual fifth Legendary Creature lives in the DLC (specifically, it’s in Old World Blues, which kind of makes sense given that’s a horrific den of mad science), Jon wanted to introduce us to a special Legendary creature that only lives in the console commands – Gojira, a GIANT Fire Gecko the devs made as a special treat for themselves to unleash against Camp McClaren and cause chaos for the NCR. This Godzilla expy has EIGHT THOUSAND hit points and a nasty breath attack – and, better yet, it counts as an ANIMAL due to the way its coded, so it would see Wanda as a friend and not attack her! Jon spawned it in and waited for the chaos –
Only for practically nobody to show up because apparently everyone took one look at Gojira and was like “NOPE.” Except for one guy on the wall, who had the high ground that Gojira couldn’t get to and thus was able to open fire on the unfortunate gecko. Jon was very underwhelmed by it all. XD
But yes, that was the first four Legendary Creatures on Wanda’s big game hunt! Next week, Wanda extends her vacation further by traveling into the Old World Blues DLC and giving us a tour of the horrible mad science crater on her way to take care of that final Legendary Creature! I look forward to seeing her adventures against the terrors of science the doctors have cooked up!
Workout: Another night on the bike, and I started the week off with a couple of Sims 4 videos, as is my new wont –
A) “33 MORE Must Know Trait Tips And Features [Base Game] | The Sims 4 Guide” by Petey Plays It! A quick guide to some of the quirks and features of a bunch of base game traits, including what activities they may let you do (like Childish Sims can still play with children’s toys and Foodie Sims can browse the web specifically to look for new recipes) and what moodlets they may gain under what circumstances (like Goofball Sims will occasionally get playful for no real reason, and Loner Sims get tense around strangers). Nothing groundbreaking here, but it’s good general information to have while working out your Sims’ personality, I suppose!
B) “I tried this cursed build challenge” by James Turner! James trying out Plumbella’s “Cursed Build Random Generator,” which generates house builds with a specific style type, a dominant color theme, floor and room limitations, a specific budget, the minimum number of Sims it can house, and a specific disadvantage. James hit the button three times, and got a McMansion-style build with the dominant color scheme being gray, with only one floor and only four rooms, a budget of $54,856, that must house three Sims, and must be built on the smallest lot type in the game, 20x15. James was like “yup, that’s a cursed build all right.” XD But he persevered, using all the build tricks he knew to make a truly awful tiny McMansion in Newcrest (using taller walls, putting a platform on top to make it look like another level, scaling down some trees and bushes to make the place look bigger, and taking advantage of using dividing walls to break up the main living space without making it into a bunch of separate rooms. In the end, he had a probably-usable house with two bedrooms, a central bathroom, and a living area that was divided into a hallway, a kitchen, a dining room, and a very flammable living room via those interior walls. He spent all the money in his budget AND checked off everything on his list – EXCEPT, technically, the house had five rooms, because the front porch counts as a room as per the game. He refused to think of it as a room, though, as it was on the outside and really couldn’t be used as such. *waggles hand* I guess I’ll give it to you, James. :p And it WAS very funny to see him go ham in trying to make the place look as gaudy and “trying too hard” as possible. XD
*thumbs up* Not bad, not bad at all. And now I have to go to bed because, no, I do not get Juneteenth off. *grumbles* At least the traffic should be decent. . .and once I get past these next couple of weeks, I'm into half-day Friday land, woohoo~ Just gotta make it until then -- night all!
