Extremely Rainy Sunday
Sep. 10th, 2023 11:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickLike, it was just BUCKETING down most of the day. We had a flash flood warning for a good chunk of the afternoon. O.o Fortunately my family lives on a bit of a hill, so we have less to worry about on that front, but still -- never pleasant to see the road in front of you practically turn into a river. And we're supposed to get EVEN MORE rain tomorrow, which is -- yeah. We'll see how THAT goes. O.o I'm just hoping the rumbles of thunder we heard around lunchtime chased away some of the humidity out there. . .
Fortunately, despite the bad weather, and the fact that I just had blood practically GUSHING out of me all day (heavy period day was heavy!), I had a pretty good Sunday overall -- we had a great Football Sunday lunch (breaded artichoke hearts! Little pigs in blankets! Homemade chips with dip! Leftover pizza! Tortilla cups with steak! Mini churros!), and I got a good chunk of stuff done --
Tumblr: Managed to have a productive day over here, yay –
Victor Luvs Alice – Two major accomplishments on this blog:
I. Spent the time before lunch and the half-hour after lunch catching up on my tracked tags and putting a BUNCH of stuff in my drafts – one recreation of the Santa Monica haven from VTMB in Sims 4 (without using custom content – just in-game stuff both regular and debug); three sets of awesome A:MR fanart (Alice and Cheshire through the years, an “Alice’s dresses in A:MR” set, and a shot of Alice in Cardbridge); and one cool Corpse Bride tattoo of Emily and Scraps, one post of how the CB trio should have been poly (hard same), and one funny Tik-Tok video of someone illustrating Emily telling Victoria Victor doesn’t want her because she’s “mean and evil” while Emily is “nice and sweet and pure” before telling her to fuck off as she drags Victor back to The Land Of The Dead. XD So I’ve got potential reblog content for days! Also reblogged somebody’s cool video showing how they were able to add literal light coming in through the window to various drawn scenes of theirs via specially-made “lightboxes” – it’s hard to describe, so just check it out!
II. And as for the post I WANTED to work on (“Sims 4 Valicer Outfit Fun II – Custom Content Edition”), I got all the pictures into the post with a bit of starter text between them, did all the alt text for the images, and finished up the first paragraph on Smiler’s first outfit. A very good start, and I think I should be able to wrap this one up tomorrow! :)
Valice Multiverse – Just one ask reply tonight to slap into the queue, which is fine with me – my Sundays have felt a little overstressed lately, so I’ll take the quiet!
Fallout 4: Despite the worrying rumbles of thunder, I was able to accomplish exactly I wanted to in old FO4 today –
A) Finding the Railroad! Yeah, turns out the catacombs under the church were NOT as dangerous and scary as I thought – while there was a lot of glowing splatters around indicating that there WAS a Glowing One feral ghoul down there at some point, I never actually encountered one. In fact, I only encountered like three ghouls down in the tunnels, and was able to take them all out with sneak attack shots from the Two-Shot. *shrug* I mean, not complaining. At any rate, Victor and Ada were easily able to reach the false wall and the decoder ring that opened it, and it was the work of a moment for Victor to put in the incredibly-obvious password. XD That opened the wall and brought him, after a moment, face-to-face with Desdemona (the leader of the group), Drummer Boy, and Glory (the latter two aiming guns at the newcomer), where he calmly let a suspicious Dez know that he was not her enemy, and that he heard about the Railroad while in Diamond City (which, true – he picked up the quest from overhearing a convo there). Deacon showed up about then to let Dez know that Victor was the General of the Minutemen and that they wanted him on their side, and once Victor explained about his kidnapped kid, Dez promised that the Railroad would help him however they can. Though she wanted to know his opinion on synths first, naturally – Victor said he’d heard rumors and let her tell him the Railroad’s side of the story – about how the latest synths are functionally indistinguishable from humans, but the Institute only sees them as tools. Victor agreed that sounded like slavery, and said that he would indeed risk his life to save a synth when she asked (hell, he already has, if you count him going up against Skinny Malone’s gang to save Nick Valentine!). She told him that they’d help with his missing kid, and that he could help them with odd jobs in the meantime, as they didn’t have the time or resources to train him up as a full agent, and that Deacon would fill him in.
Cue Deacon going “sorry about the icy reception, please don’t sell us out to the Institute now that I’ve vouched for you, and we TOTALLY need to make you a full agent – want to do a wild and crazy job with me that’ll prove you’re the kind of person we need and don’t actually need training?” Victor was like “yeah, sure,” and thus Road To Freedom ended and Tradecraft began, with Victor needing to meet Deacon out by a highway near Lexington to start the mission. Looking forward to heading there and helping him raid the old RR HQ for the Deliverer! :D
B) But before that, we had our other big event of the day – Doing A Silver Shroud Mission! :D Yeah, after settling things with the Railroad for now, backtracking up into the main church, exploring the steeple (nothing up there but a cap stash, some bobby pins, and a view that probably would have been nicer if it hadn’t been both raining and night in-game), and camping out in the rubble of the main hall for the night, Victor and Ada headed back out into the North End the next morning, and I turned on the radio to the Silver Shroud station to pick up the first mission – killing Wayne Delancey! I had Victor and Ada promptly start heading back to Goodneighbor to fulfill the brief –
But, along the way, realized “oh wait, I never actually updated the Silver Submachine Gun, did I?” So I paused in that little street vendor area between Fanueil Hall and the Old Corner Bookstore and had Victor pull out his portable workbench and grab the gun off Ada. Had to loot her again midway through for some more oil, but I managed to upgrade it to a Powerful Receiver, a Short Light Barrel, A Recoil Compensating Stock, a Reflex Sight, and a Large Quick-Eject Drum Magazine – unfortunately, I lacked the adhesive to do anything for the muzzle. *shrug* Once that was done, though, I had Victor put on the Silver Shroud costume and hat –
Which rendered poor Victor SO overweight. Like, DRAMATICALLY overweight. Because the costume doesn’t have fifty million pockets like all his other stuff. (At least he was able to keep all his backpacks and bandoliers and whatnot!) I had him unload as much as he could onto Ada, then dump a few more things in a nearby cash register so he’d be able to keep moving, then continued on to Goodneighbor. Once in the settlement, I had Victor start following the quest marker toward Wayne –
Only for him to end up overweight AGAIN halfway there, because I’d forgotten for a second his carryweight had actually been boosted by a bit of Grilled Radstag before. *facepalm* Well, food got me into this situation, so food could get me out of it – one modded-in cram sandwich, and suddenly Victor had +200 plus carryweight to spare. Ah, I love my food mods. XD
Anyway – with that sorted, it was into the alley behind the Hotel Rexford to find Wayne, crouched down over his latest victim. Victor’s first attempt to kill him went – poorly (I attempted to VATS him with the gun, only to end up peppered with gunfire as Ada attempted to laser him), but fortunately I’d saved right before confronting him, and the second attempt, where I just held down the trigger on the submachine gun and pointed it at him manually, went a LOT smoother. XD Have to remember that automatic weapons are not the best for VATS! I had Victor leave the calling card, then he and Ada left to go get his stuff back from the cash register and have him swap into his regular clothes again (after a brief look at him in the Grognak costume, just because XD). One mission, complete with goofy awkward Shroud line, down!
And with that, I decided that the next logical thing to do would be to go and get the Public Library cleared out for Daisy, then come back and do some more Silver Shroud stuff. :p So Victor and Ada are currently parked at a playground on their way to the library (Victor was scouting it for goodies when he suddenly needed a bathroom break – on the plus side, we found a little power armor station nook nearby where he could use his port-a-potty, AND crack open some tool chests for duct table and Wonderglue). Next week – getting to the Boston Public Library and taking on those super mutants!
Writing: Updated the Playthrough Progression doc with the events of today’s playsession, appropriately altered where necessary –
A) The gang actually getting to Railroad HQ happened pretty much exactly how it did in the game, though with more snark over the password when they reached the fake wall. Naturally, though, when they were confronted by Desdemona, Deacon vouched for both Victor AND Alice, explaining how Victor was both the Minutemen General AND the guy who made the USS Constitution, and how Alice was a vampire who was FRIGHTENINGLY good at killing people so maybe stay on her good side. XD Victor also straight-up told Dez he’d already risked his life to save a synth when he saved Nick Valentine from the Park Street Station vault, and that he’s the kind of guy who believes firmly in robot rights, so synth rights are not a problem. :) You’d think that Dez would have recruited him right then and there, but nope, still gotta go through Tradecraft first – fortunately, that should be much easier in the fanfic universe, where we have the world’s most awesome invisible vampire on our side!
B) The Silver Shroud mission was somewhat more different – mostly because, upon hearing Kent’s broadcast, Victor didn’t actually have the costume yet. More realistic universe where fixing up the costume actually took a little bit of time, remember? At any rate, Victor, Alice, and Ada went straight back to Goodneighbor, where Victor got the costume from Kent and did some upgrades to the gun straight in the Memory Den (we’ll assume he whipped out the portable workbench in Kent’s room and not the main one XD), then the three of them headed into the alleys and took out Wayne before sneaking down another side alley, changing back into “civilian mode,” and reporting to a gleeful Kent. Victor’s chosen to do the library mission because Kent’s told him he already has a guy in mind for the next mission, he just needs to see if he’s in town, and he kind of feels bad for not clearing it out for Daisy earlier, so – yeah, trio on their way to deal with that now! We’ll see how they do next Sunday! :D
YouTube: Usual Sunday two in the can, I’m happy to say –
A) First up, from the Subs, we had GrayStillPlays and “When doing the laundry ends lives,” aka Gray plays Hide My Proof! This is one of those mobile puzzle games all about erasing something, or drawing in a missing object, or otherwise altering a scene – only this time the theme is very often MURDER. As in, you’re helping killers get away with their crimes. Thieves too, but mostly murderers. XD And you do some pretty fucked-up stuff in this game to hide that proof – you can stash a murder knife in a guy’s fish tank, and the fish will cover it up for you! You can transport a dead body wrapped in a rug on top of your car (next to your sleeping cat), and the cop that stopped you won’t mind as long as you hand her some flowers! You can have a dead body SHOVED INTO A WASHING MACHINE next to a cop sorting his socks and cover it up with a whole bottle of detergent’s worth of suds with no problem! And let’s not even get into what you can do to help flush a gun that’s not going down the toilet. . . (Hint – it does NOT involve using the plunger, but it DOES involve using something from the medicine cabinet.) Gray found the entire game absolutely ridiculous and marveled at how each scene was worse than the last, all while taking the opportunity to turn exit doors into alligators and bed sheets into lassos every time the game unwisely handed him a virtual pencil. XD Ah, I do love these stupid mobile puzzle games – Gray always finds the weirdest ones! (Though I will give this one a few points for having actual production values – the animations on all of the characters were very smooth!)
B) And second up, from Many A True Nerd, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - How To Rebuild The Commonwealth!” Jon playing the mega three-chapter mod “Sim Settlements 2” to show off its special personal campaign and how it completely changes up settlement building! I’ve heard of this mod and how it basically turns settlements into Sim City within Fallout 4, but I’ve never actually seen it in action, so this is a treat. :) Jon’s character for this one is the Rare Male MATN Fallout Protagonist – Mayor Bob! An older chap with a big gray mustache and matching combover, as that’s what Jon pictures when he thinks “Mayor.” XD His starting stats were Strength 3, Perception 2, Endurance 3, Charisma 6, Intelligence 3, Agility 6, and Luck 5 (Jon was sweating over that low Luck and Endurance, given that he’s playing in Survival Mode as he likes to do with Fallout 4, but felt that it was very important to Mayor Bob’s character that he have the high Charisma), and here’s how he got on once he made it out of Vault 111 past all the radroaches –
I. First change straight off the bat was a new magazine on the workbench in Sanctuary – a Robco magazine that provides the instructions and all the supplies for building your own recruitment radio beacon, without having to unlock it by doing the Minutemen questlines! Mayor Bob cheerfully built one of those on the roof of one the houses (getting his first level-up in the process), and attracted a few curious people to his settlement –
II. Including the Stranger, a fellow who seemed to know a LOT about building settlements, and who gave Bob a new toy to play with – the ASAM! In-universe, this is a Robco product that allows ordinary citizens to easily build their own houses, farm their own food, and search for their own scrap metal as an “alternative employment opportunity;” out-of-universe, this is how you set up Sim City-style plots to designate certain areas as residential, agricultural, or industrial. The Stranger showed Mayor Bob how the house-building plot worked once Bob cleared an area for him (with a little meta poking fun at how the protagonist is expected to build everything for the settlers in the unmodded game), then asked if he was interested in more ASAMs once he’d finished building his little starter shack. Mayor Bob was, but asked what was the catch, and the Stranger admitted that he only had ONE ASAM on him, with the rest being in his workshop in Concord. Which had been overrun by raiders while he was out on a trading trip. His price for giving Bob more ASAMs and showing him how to use the other types was help in clearing out the raiders that had set up shop there, which Mayor Bob agreed to.
III. However – one cannot go out and fight raiders without the proper equipment, and Bob was a bit lacking in that department. So it was time for a quick scavenge through Sanctuary, which was VERY fruitful – Mayor Bob found Shaun’s old “You’re SPECIAL!” book and was able to up his Agility to 7 for free; found antibiotics in someone’s bathroom mirror (great because disease is no joke in Survival mode); and discovered military fatigues (the rare outfit that leaves all the armor slots open, AND further ups your Agility by 2), a clean gray suit (ups Charisma by 2 and is just very appropriate for our new mayor), AND a sea captain’s hat (ups Endurance by 2 and Jon just loves the look of it). This is looking like a blessed run!
IV. After sorting through the goodies and having a good night’s sleep, the next morning, Mayor Bob and the Stranger were off to Concord! With a stop at the Red Rocket along the way to pick up Dogmeat, of course. :) Jon was a bit annoyed to find that the mod did NOT get rid of Preston Garvey (thinking maybe that, since this is a mod that changes how settlement-building works, it doesn’t really need the Minuteman) – and was even MORE annoyed to discover that the Stranger was VERY INSISTENT that he help the people inside the museum, because there were raiders in there and those people needed our help! Mayor Bob reluctantly went in and started killing raiders (getting himself a double-barreled shotgun in the process), then tried desperately to avoid chatting with Preston Garvey by going out onto the balcony after grabbing the Perception Bobblehead –
V. Only to discover that 1, Preston had followed him out there, and 2, Gristle and the rest of his gang had spawned in. And when he went back inside, being “all right, I’ll do this thing properly,” Preston did not follow him. Mostly because Preston was now very into shooting the raiders outside. XD Jon was slightly concerned he may have somewhat broken Fallout 4, especially when his attempts to talk to Sturges just triggered generic “you should be getting the fusion core from downstairs” dialogue, and then the Stranger just randomly teleported in, and Bob’s attempts to talk to HIM just brought up the “trade” menu (Bob was TEMPTED to steal his scarf, but left it alone). However, he pressed on, mostly because he already knew what to do – grabbing the fusion core, getting the power armor, then running around the edge of Concord away from the raiders to loop back around, trigger the deathclaw bursting from the maintenance tunnels, and then get out of the way as the enemies fought each other. There was a little trouble near the end when, after killing the raiders, the deathclaw ended up glitching into a wall, but a quick pop into the local speakeasy got it to respawn outside again (AND got Bob another sea captain hat which he gifted to the Strang – JAKE. The guy’s name is JAKE. He hasn’t formally introduced himself yet, but the trade menu made clear his name is JAKE), and Bob was able to kill it. Not by coolly blowing it up with a car like he’d hoped, but Jake was deeply impressed nonetheless. :p
VI. Anyway, with the raiders and deathclaw dealt with, Jake brought Bob to his workshop (which appears to be the very general store Bob was hiding in to kill the deathclaw) and gave him a box of ASAMs to play with, which included the “City Planner” holotape that serves as the mod’s configuration holotape. He then headed back to Sanctuary to wait for Bob’s return and show him how the other available plots worked, and Bob went inside the museum to see what happens if you HAVEN’T properly greeted Preston Garvey before taking out all the enemies. Turns out, he DOES have a special belated “Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minuteman” greeting if you didn’t talk to him before! Bethesda is not a great company by any means, but that is a nice bit of attention to detail. Bob consented to have him and his other settlers come live in Sanctuary with all the other settlers being attracted by the beacon, and then after setting the difficulty of the mod (currently at “City Simulator,” which requires you to keep an eye on the city’s resource needs and make sure it has enough caps and junk to keep improving and expanding – there’s also a “Hardcore” mode, but Jon’s going to leave that for later), headed back to Sanctuary himself, limping home across the bridge once his power armor ran out of power. But he got there before Preston and that’s all he cares about. XD
VII. Once back in Sanctuary, Jake showed off how farm plots and industrial plots worked to Mayor Bob, with them setting up a little (floating, whoops) farm and a little “factory” for junk scavenging and storage. This attracted the attention of wandering old man Old Paul, who was curious about the building going on and the strange doohickeys that were helping to fuel it – Jake suggested that Bob have Paul move in to prove how useful the ASAMs were, and Bob did just that. Jake then took his leave, explaining he had personal family business to attend to, heading back to Concord and leaving Bob to set up his settlement how he liked (with Old Paul pointing out the obvious about how they needed more food, houses, and places to work, to Bob’s annoyance). Bob got busy setting up more plots for food, housing, and industry, and Jon got busy showing off a few other features of the mod, like how you can change the look of anything built on a particular plot if you like (style of house, type of farm, etc) – you just have to pay the building costs to have it redone the way you want (oh, and if you’re trying to fix a floating farm, sometimes it just explodes. Not sure what happened there, and I’m not sure Jon is either XD). Also, since the only plots currently available for use were for housing, food production, and junk scavenging, it was up to Bob to fix the water and defense situations. Fortunately, a purifier in the water helped with that, as did stringing wires around all the various generators he’d set up to try and provide the citizens with enough power –
VIII. And then another new family showed up, led by the daughter Lily. Who began asking for a place to stay, as they’d had to flee their last settlement because of sickness. Mayor Bob was naturally rather worried about these potential sick people, but Lily assured him that THEY weren’t sick, they left so they wouldn’t catch it, and Bob decided to let them stay. Even if Sanctuary was already getting VERY crowded – with the new family, they were up to 13 people! So yeah, getting enough food, water, and beds for everyone was becoming a bit of a concern. . .
But that was a concern for Next Episode Mayor Bob, as Jon ended it there! Next time, it’ll be time to bulk up Mayor Bob’s new little city, and go and see Jake again to kick off more of the plot (and maybe get him to ACTUALLY FORMALLY INTRODUCE HIMSELF). Looking forward to it! :D
Workout: Back on the bike this week, and back to James Turner’s High School Years Rags To Riches Generational Epic with “I bought this abandoned warehouse! High School Years (Part 44)” We’re back to Breanne in the “main” LP, trying to become a famous fashion photographer in San MyShuno and earn enough money to move out of her crummy starter apartment and into the abandoned warehouse down the street so she can convert it into a photo studio. I watched about 3/4’s of the episode with my ride, and here are the highlights –
A) Breanne has actually successfully completed a couple of gigs – while her very first one timed out before it could be completed (thanks to James spending a few days with Addison over in the “Dine Out Reloaded” LP), the two that she’s completed so far have gone smoothly – though, admittedly, Breanne has to visit the cafe/library in Newcrest in order to upload her approved photos to I guess the “official” fashion Simstagram accounts of her employers, as she has to do that via a computer and she doesn’t have one of those at home. But she’s successfully shown off some lovely everyday outfits of Sims out in the world (like Isaac Bigwallet, Brady Vatore, and Vladislaus Straud), and done a cool photo shoot in front of the fancy animated backdrop screen with the librarian at the cafe/library lot (James was not happy about having to buy more expensive animated backdrop screens, thinking Breanne’s original yellow backdrop was much better XD). He’s also learned how to game the system, as a commenter told him that you can send multiple photos off to be approved for a gig, then use the spare approved photos to complete other gigs. . .we’ll see how that works on the final one he’s working on now!
B) Things with Kirk are going – interestingly. James is still not impressed by this guy’s personality (he likes Lullabies Radio as his favorite music, which is a bit weird), but Kirk and Breanne get on very well (having had another lovely dinner date at Addison’s restaurant) and have lots of positive sentiments, so he’s trying to keep an open mind. And he HAS allowed Kirk to move in with her – not in an official “playable Sim” capacity, but as her nonplayable roommate, sleeping in a single bed in her room. Mostly because James took a look at the apartment across the way where Kirk was living with his family and found six Sims and two dogs living there. XD Yeah, I wonder how he ended up a Paranoid Loner Dog-Lover in THAT situation. . . XD There’s a little romance, but it hasn’t yet blossomed into anything particularly exciting – we’ll see if that changes later!
C) Oh, and Breanne also visited the Festival Of Lights in Mt. Komorebi to take some pictures of the lanterns on the water. . .only to forget her tripod and fancy camera at home and have to take the shots using her cellphone. XD Whoops. On the plus side, she got a nice golden Simmie and a pretty festival kimono from the trip too, so that’s something!
*nods* Not too shabby! I look forward to seeing the episode wrap up tomorrow. . .and then moving onto Addison’s LP and the Addison/Hilary wedding. :) All James Turner all the time for now to wrap up his HSY/DOR stuff – we’ll see how many workouts it takes me to complete it all!
Yeah, not too bad, especially with me feeling a little out of it all day thanks to my period (both for the usual reasons and because I woke up early needing to pee, discovered I also needed to change my pad, then never really got back to sleep). So now it's time to go to sleep and see what Monday brings. And keep an eye on what's gonna happen with Lee later in the week. *grimaces* Night all!
Fortunately, despite the bad weather, and the fact that I just had blood practically GUSHING out of me all day (heavy period day was heavy!), I had a pretty good Sunday overall -- we had a great Football Sunday lunch (breaded artichoke hearts! Little pigs in blankets! Homemade chips with dip! Leftover pizza! Tortilla cups with steak! Mini churros!), and I got a good chunk of stuff done --
Tumblr: Managed to have a productive day over here, yay –
Victor Luvs Alice – Two major accomplishments on this blog:
I. Spent the time before lunch and the half-hour after lunch catching up on my tracked tags and putting a BUNCH of stuff in my drafts – one recreation of the Santa Monica haven from VTMB in Sims 4 (without using custom content – just in-game stuff both regular and debug); three sets of awesome A:MR fanart (Alice and Cheshire through the years, an “Alice’s dresses in A:MR” set, and a shot of Alice in Cardbridge); and one cool Corpse Bride tattoo of Emily and Scraps, one post of how the CB trio should have been poly (hard same), and one funny Tik-Tok video of someone illustrating Emily telling Victoria Victor doesn’t want her because she’s “mean and evil” while Emily is “nice and sweet and pure” before telling her to fuck off as she drags Victor back to The Land Of The Dead. XD So I’ve got potential reblog content for days! Also reblogged somebody’s cool video showing how they were able to add literal light coming in through the window to various drawn scenes of theirs via specially-made “lightboxes” – it’s hard to describe, so just check it out!
II. And as for the post I WANTED to work on (“Sims 4 Valicer Outfit Fun II – Custom Content Edition”), I got all the pictures into the post with a bit of starter text between them, did all the alt text for the images, and finished up the first paragraph on Smiler’s first outfit. A very good start, and I think I should be able to wrap this one up tomorrow! :)
Valice Multiverse – Just one ask reply tonight to slap into the queue, which is fine with me – my Sundays have felt a little overstressed lately, so I’ll take the quiet!
Fallout 4: Despite the worrying rumbles of thunder, I was able to accomplish exactly I wanted to in old FO4 today –
A) Finding the Railroad! Yeah, turns out the catacombs under the church were NOT as dangerous and scary as I thought – while there was a lot of glowing splatters around indicating that there WAS a Glowing One feral ghoul down there at some point, I never actually encountered one. In fact, I only encountered like three ghouls down in the tunnels, and was able to take them all out with sneak attack shots from the Two-Shot. *shrug* I mean, not complaining. At any rate, Victor and Ada were easily able to reach the false wall and the decoder ring that opened it, and it was the work of a moment for Victor to put in the incredibly-obvious password. XD That opened the wall and brought him, after a moment, face-to-face with Desdemona (the leader of the group), Drummer Boy, and Glory (the latter two aiming guns at the newcomer), where he calmly let a suspicious Dez know that he was not her enemy, and that he heard about the Railroad while in Diamond City (which, true – he picked up the quest from overhearing a convo there). Deacon showed up about then to let Dez know that Victor was the General of the Minutemen and that they wanted him on their side, and once Victor explained about his kidnapped kid, Dez promised that the Railroad would help him however they can. Though she wanted to know his opinion on synths first, naturally – Victor said he’d heard rumors and let her tell him the Railroad’s side of the story – about how the latest synths are functionally indistinguishable from humans, but the Institute only sees them as tools. Victor agreed that sounded like slavery, and said that he would indeed risk his life to save a synth when she asked (hell, he already has, if you count him going up against Skinny Malone’s gang to save Nick Valentine!). She told him that they’d help with his missing kid, and that he could help them with odd jobs in the meantime, as they didn’t have the time or resources to train him up as a full agent, and that Deacon would fill him in.
Cue Deacon going “sorry about the icy reception, please don’t sell us out to the Institute now that I’ve vouched for you, and we TOTALLY need to make you a full agent – want to do a wild and crazy job with me that’ll prove you’re the kind of person we need and don’t actually need training?” Victor was like “yeah, sure,” and thus Road To Freedom ended and Tradecraft began, with Victor needing to meet Deacon out by a highway near Lexington to start the mission. Looking forward to heading there and helping him raid the old RR HQ for the Deliverer! :D
B) But before that, we had our other big event of the day – Doing A Silver Shroud Mission! :D Yeah, after settling things with the Railroad for now, backtracking up into the main church, exploring the steeple (nothing up there but a cap stash, some bobby pins, and a view that probably would have been nicer if it hadn’t been both raining and night in-game), and camping out in the rubble of the main hall for the night, Victor and Ada headed back out into the North End the next morning, and I turned on the radio to the Silver Shroud station to pick up the first mission – killing Wayne Delancey! I had Victor and Ada promptly start heading back to Goodneighbor to fulfill the brief –
But, along the way, realized “oh wait, I never actually updated the Silver Submachine Gun, did I?” So I paused in that little street vendor area between Fanueil Hall and the Old Corner Bookstore and had Victor pull out his portable workbench and grab the gun off Ada. Had to loot her again midway through for some more oil, but I managed to upgrade it to a Powerful Receiver, a Short Light Barrel, A Recoil Compensating Stock, a Reflex Sight, and a Large Quick-Eject Drum Magazine – unfortunately, I lacked the adhesive to do anything for the muzzle. *shrug* Once that was done, though, I had Victor put on the Silver Shroud costume and hat –
Which rendered poor Victor SO overweight. Like, DRAMATICALLY overweight. Because the costume doesn’t have fifty million pockets like all his other stuff. (At least he was able to keep all his backpacks and bandoliers and whatnot!) I had him unload as much as he could onto Ada, then dump a few more things in a nearby cash register so he’d be able to keep moving, then continued on to Goodneighbor. Once in the settlement, I had Victor start following the quest marker toward Wayne –
Only for him to end up overweight AGAIN halfway there, because I’d forgotten for a second his carryweight had actually been boosted by a bit of Grilled Radstag before. *facepalm* Well, food got me into this situation, so food could get me out of it – one modded-in cram sandwich, and suddenly Victor had +200 plus carryweight to spare. Ah, I love my food mods. XD
Anyway – with that sorted, it was into the alley behind the Hotel Rexford to find Wayne, crouched down over his latest victim. Victor’s first attempt to kill him went – poorly (I attempted to VATS him with the gun, only to end up peppered with gunfire as Ada attempted to laser him), but fortunately I’d saved right before confronting him, and the second attempt, where I just held down the trigger on the submachine gun and pointed it at him manually, went a LOT smoother. XD Have to remember that automatic weapons are not the best for VATS! I had Victor leave the calling card, then he and Ada left to go get his stuff back from the cash register and have him swap into his regular clothes again (after a brief look at him in the Grognak costume, just because XD). One mission, complete with goofy awkward Shroud line, down!
And with that, I decided that the next logical thing to do would be to go and get the Public Library cleared out for Daisy, then come back and do some more Silver Shroud stuff. :p So Victor and Ada are currently parked at a playground on their way to the library (Victor was scouting it for goodies when he suddenly needed a bathroom break – on the plus side, we found a little power armor station nook nearby where he could use his port-a-potty, AND crack open some tool chests for duct table and Wonderglue). Next week – getting to the Boston Public Library and taking on those super mutants!
Writing: Updated the Playthrough Progression doc with the events of today’s playsession, appropriately altered where necessary –
A) The gang actually getting to Railroad HQ happened pretty much exactly how it did in the game, though with more snark over the password when they reached the fake wall. Naturally, though, when they were confronted by Desdemona, Deacon vouched for both Victor AND Alice, explaining how Victor was both the Minutemen General AND the guy who made the USS Constitution, and how Alice was a vampire who was FRIGHTENINGLY good at killing people so maybe stay on her good side. XD Victor also straight-up told Dez he’d already risked his life to save a synth when he saved Nick Valentine from the Park Street Station vault, and that he’s the kind of guy who believes firmly in robot rights, so synth rights are not a problem. :) You’d think that Dez would have recruited him right then and there, but nope, still gotta go through Tradecraft first – fortunately, that should be much easier in the fanfic universe, where we have the world’s most awesome invisible vampire on our side!
B) The Silver Shroud mission was somewhat more different – mostly because, upon hearing Kent’s broadcast, Victor didn’t actually have the costume yet. More realistic universe where fixing up the costume actually took a little bit of time, remember? At any rate, Victor, Alice, and Ada went straight back to Goodneighbor, where Victor got the costume from Kent and did some upgrades to the gun straight in the Memory Den (we’ll assume he whipped out the portable workbench in Kent’s room and not the main one XD), then the three of them headed into the alleys and took out Wayne before sneaking down another side alley, changing back into “civilian mode,” and reporting to a gleeful Kent. Victor’s chosen to do the library mission because Kent’s told him he already has a guy in mind for the next mission, he just needs to see if he’s in town, and he kind of feels bad for not clearing it out for Daisy earlier, so – yeah, trio on their way to deal with that now! We’ll see how they do next Sunday! :D
YouTube: Usual Sunday two in the can, I’m happy to say –
A) First up, from the Subs, we had GrayStillPlays and “When doing the laundry ends lives,” aka Gray plays Hide My Proof! This is one of those mobile puzzle games all about erasing something, or drawing in a missing object, or otherwise altering a scene – only this time the theme is very often MURDER. As in, you’re helping killers get away with their crimes. Thieves too, but mostly murderers. XD And you do some pretty fucked-up stuff in this game to hide that proof – you can stash a murder knife in a guy’s fish tank, and the fish will cover it up for you! You can transport a dead body wrapped in a rug on top of your car (next to your sleeping cat), and the cop that stopped you won’t mind as long as you hand her some flowers! You can have a dead body SHOVED INTO A WASHING MACHINE next to a cop sorting his socks and cover it up with a whole bottle of detergent’s worth of suds with no problem! And let’s not even get into what you can do to help flush a gun that’s not going down the toilet. . . (Hint – it does NOT involve using the plunger, but it DOES involve using something from the medicine cabinet.) Gray found the entire game absolutely ridiculous and marveled at how each scene was worse than the last, all while taking the opportunity to turn exit doors into alligators and bed sheets into lassos every time the game unwisely handed him a virtual pencil. XD Ah, I do love these stupid mobile puzzle games – Gray always finds the weirdest ones! (Though I will give this one a few points for having actual production values – the animations on all of the characters were very smooth!)
B) And second up, from Many A True Nerd, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - How To Rebuild The Commonwealth!” Jon playing the mega three-chapter mod “Sim Settlements 2” to show off its special personal campaign and how it completely changes up settlement building! I’ve heard of this mod and how it basically turns settlements into Sim City within Fallout 4, but I’ve never actually seen it in action, so this is a treat. :) Jon’s character for this one is the Rare Male MATN Fallout Protagonist – Mayor Bob! An older chap with a big gray mustache and matching combover, as that’s what Jon pictures when he thinks “Mayor.” XD His starting stats were Strength 3, Perception 2, Endurance 3, Charisma 6, Intelligence 3, Agility 6, and Luck 5 (Jon was sweating over that low Luck and Endurance, given that he’s playing in Survival Mode as he likes to do with Fallout 4, but felt that it was very important to Mayor Bob’s character that he have the high Charisma), and here’s how he got on once he made it out of Vault 111 past all the radroaches –
I. First change straight off the bat was a new magazine on the workbench in Sanctuary – a Robco magazine that provides the instructions and all the supplies for building your own recruitment radio beacon, without having to unlock it by doing the Minutemen questlines! Mayor Bob cheerfully built one of those on the roof of one the houses (getting his first level-up in the process), and attracted a few curious people to his settlement –
II. Including the Stranger, a fellow who seemed to know a LOT about building settlements, and who gave Bob a new toy to play with – the ASAM! In-universe, this is a Robco product that allows ordinary citizens to easily build their own houses, farm their own food, and search for their own scrap metal as an “alternative employment opportunity;” out-of-universe, this is how you set up Sim City-style plots to designate certain areas as residential, agricultural, or industrial. The Stranger showed Mayor Bob how the house-building plot worked once Bob cleared an area for him (with a little meta poking fun at how the protagonist is expected to build everything for the settlers in the unmodded game), then asked if he was interested in more ASAMs once he’d finished building his little starter shack. Mayor Bob was, but asked what was the catch, and the Stranger admitted that he only had ONE ASAM on him, with the rest being in his workshop in Concord. Which had been overrun by raiders while he was out on a trading trip. His price for giving Bob more ASAMs and showing him how to use the other types was help in clearing out the raiders that had set up shop there, which Mayor Bob agreed to.
III. However – one cannot go out and fight raiders without the proper equipment, and Bob was a bit lacking in that department. So it was time for a quick scavenge through Sanctuary, which was VERY fruitful – Mayor Bob found Shaun’s old “You’re SPECIAL!” book and was able to up his Agility to 7 for free; found antibiotics in someone’s bathroom mirror (great because disease is no joke in Survival mode); and discovered military fatigues (the rare outfit that leaves all the armor slots open, AND further ups your Agility by 2), a clean gray suit (ups Charisma by 2 and is just very appropriate for our new mayor), AND a sea captain’s hat (ups Endurance by 2 and Jon just loves the look of it). This is looking like a blessed run!
IV. After sorting through the goodies and having a good night’s sleep, the next morning, Mayor Bob and the Stranger were off to Concord! With a stop at the Red Rocket along the way to pick up Dogmeat, of course. :) Jon was a bit annoyed to find that the mod did NOT get rid of Preston Garvey (thinking maybe that, since this is a mod that changes how settlement-building works, it doesn’t really need the Minuteman) – and was even MORE annoyed to discover that the Stranger was VERY INSISTENT that he help the people inside the museum, because there were raiders in there and those people needed our help! Mayor Bob reluctantly went in and started killing raiders (getting himself a double-barreled shotgun in the process), then tried desperately to avoid chatting with Preston Garvey by going out onto the balcony after grabbing the Perception Bobblehead –
V. Only to discover that 1, Preston had followed him out there, and 2, Gristle and the rest of his gang had spawned in. And when he went back inside, being “all right, I’ll do this thing properly,” Preston did not follow him. Mostly because Preston was now very into shooting the raiders outside. XD Jon was slightly concerned he may have somewhat broken Fallout 4, especially when his attempts to talk to Sturges just triggered generic “you should be getting the fusion core from downstairs” dialogue, and then the Stranger just randomly teleported in, and Bob’s attempts to talk to HIM just brought up the “trade” menu (Bob was TEMPTED to steal his scarf, but left it alone). However, he pressed on, mostly because he already knew what to do – grabbing the fusion core, getting the power armor, then running around the edge of Concord away from the raiders to loop back around, trigger the deathclaw bursting from the maintenance tunnels, and then get out of the way as the enemies fought each other. There was a little trouble near the end when, after killing the raiders, the deathclaw ended up glitching into a wall, but a quick pop into the local speakeasy got it to respawn outside again (AND got Bob another sea captain hat which he gifted to the Strang – JAKE. The guy’s name is JAKE. He hasn’t formally introduced himself yet, but the trade menu made clear his name is JAKE), and Bob was able to kill it. Not by coolly blowing it up with a car like he’d hoped, but Jake was deeply impressed nonetheless. :p
VI. Anyway, with the raiders and deathclaw dealt with, Jake brought Bob to his workshop (which appears to be the very general store Bob was hiding in to kill the deathclaw) and gave him a box of ASAMs to play with, which included the “City Planner” holotape that serves as the mod’s configuration holotape. He then headed back to Sanctuary to wait for Bob’s return and show him how the other available plots worked, and Bob went inside the museum to see what happens if you HAVEN’T properly greeted Preston Garvey before taking out all the enemies. Turns out, he DOES have a special belated “Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minuteman” greeting if you didn’t talk to him before! Bethesda is not a great company by any means, but that is a nice bit of attention to detail. Bob consented to have him and his other settlers come live in Sanctuary with all the other settlers being attracted by the beacon, and then after setting the difficulty of the mod (currently at “City Simulator,” which requires you to keep an eye on the city’s resource needs and make sure it has enough caps and junk to keep improving and expanding – there’s also a “Hardcore” mode, but Jon’s going to leave that for later), headed back to Sanctuary himself, limping home across the bridge once his power armor ran out of power. But he got there before Preston and that’s all he cares about. XD
VII. Once back in Sanctuary, Jake showed off how farm plots and industrial plots worked to Mayor Bob, with them setting up a little (floating, whoops) farm and a little “factory” for junk scavenging and storage. This attracted the attention of wandering old man Old Paul, who was curious about the building going on and the strange doohickeys that were helping to fuel it – Jake suggested that Bob have Paul move in to prove how useful the ASAMs were, and Bob did just that. Jake then took his leave, explaining he had personal family business to attend to, heading back to Concord and leaving Bob to set up his settlement how he liked (with Old Paul pointing out the obvious about how they needed more food, houses, and places to work, to Bob’s annoyance). Bob got busy setting up more plots for food, housing, and industry, and Jon got busy showing off a few other features of the mod, like how you can change the look of anything built on a particular plot if you like (style of house, type of farm, etc) – you just have to pay the building costs to have it redone the way you want (oh, and if you’re trying to fix a floating farm, sometimes it just explodes. Not sure what happened there, and I’m not sure Jon is either XD). Also, since the only plots currently available for use were for housing, food production, and junk scavenging, it was up to Bob to fix the water and defense situations. Fortunately, a purifier in the water helped with that, as did stringing wires around all the various generators he’d set up to try and provide the citizens with enough power –
VIII. And then another new family showed up, led by the daughter Lily. Who began asking for a place to stay, as they’d had to flee their last settlement because of sickness. Mayor Bob was naturally rather worried about these potential sick people, but Lily assured him that THEY weren’t sick, they left so they wouldn’t catch it, and Bob decided to let them stay. Even if Sanctuary was already getting VERY crowded – with the new family, they were up to 13 people! So yeah, getting enough food, water, and beds for everyone was becoming a bit of a concern. . .
But that was a concern for Next Episode Mayor Bob, as Jon ended it there! Next time, it’ll be time to bulk up Mayor Bob’s new little city, and go and see Jake again to kick off more of the plot (and maybe get him to ACTUALLY FORMALLY INTRODUCE HIMSELF). Looking forward to it! :D
Workout: Back on the bike this week, and back to James Turner’s High School Years Rags To Riches Generational Epic with “I bought this abandoned warehouse! High School Years (Part 44)” We’re back to Breanne in the “main” LP, trying to become a famous fashion photographer in San MyShuno and earn enough money to move out of her crummy starter apartment and into the abandoned warehouse down the street so she can convert it into a photo studio. I watched about 3/4’s of the episode with my ride, and here are the highlights –
A) Breanne has actually successfully completed a couple of gigs – while her very first one timed out before it could be completed (thanks to James spending a few days with Addison over in the “Dine Out Reloaded” LP), the two that she’s completed so far have gone smoothly – though, admittedly, Breanne has to visit the cafe/library in Newcrest in order to upload her approved photos to I guess the “official” fashion Simstagram accounts of her employers, as she has to do that via a computer and she doesn’t have one of those at home. But she’s successfully shown off some lovely everyday outfits of Sims out in the world (like Isaac Bigwallet, Brady Vatore, and Vladislaus Straud), and done a cool photo shoot in front of the fancy animated backdrop screen with the librarian at the cafe/library lot (James was not happy about having to buy more expensive animated backdrop screens, thinking Breanne’s original yellow backdrop was much better XD). He’s also learned how to game the system, as a commenter told him that you can send multiple photos off to be approved for a gig, then use the spare approved photos to complete other gigs. . .we’ll see how that works on the final one he’s working on now!
B) Things with Kirk are going – interestingly. James is still not impressed by this guy’s personality (he likes Lullabies Radio as his favorite music, which is a bit weird), but Kirk and Breanne get on very well (having had another lovely dinner date at Addison’s restaurant) and have lots of positive sentiments, so he’s trying to keep an open mind. And he HAS allowed Kirk to move in with her – not in an official “playable Sim” capacity, but as her nonplayable roommate, sleeping in a single bed in her room. Mostly because James took a look at the apartment across the way where Kirk was living with his family and found six Sims and two dogs living there. XD Yeah, I wonder how he ended up a Paranoid Loner Dog-Lover in THAT situation. . . XD There’s a little romance, but it hasn’t yet blossomed into anything particularly exciting – we’ll see if that changes later!
C) Oh, and Breanne also visited the Festival Of Lights in Mt. Komorebi to take some pictures of the lanterns on the water. . .only to forget her tripod and fancy camera at home and have to take the shots using her cellphone. XD Whoops. On the plus side, she got a nice golden Simmie and a pretty festival kimono from the trip too, so that’s something!
*nods* Not too shabby! I look forward to seeing the episode wrap up tomorrow. . .and then moving onto Addison’s LP and the Addison/Hilary wedding. :) All James Turner all the time for now to wrap up his HSY/DOR stuff – we’ll see how many workouts it takes me to complete it all!
Yeah, not too bad, especially with me feeling a little out of it all day thanks to my period (both for the usual reasons and because I woke up early needing to pee, discovered I also needed to change my pad, then never really got back to sleep). So now it's time to go to sleep and see what Monday brings. And keep an eye on what's gonna happen with Lee later in the week. *grimaces* Night all!
