Another Fucking Rainy Day
Sep. 24th, 2023 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickSeriously, the amount of rain that we're getting here lately is INCREDIBLE -- it was pouring SO HARD this afternoon! Which, not only do we not need any more rain at this point in general, my parents are really worried about this ruining the new walkway they put in on the side of the house, because the water isn't draining right from there yet (they're not QUITE done with it). Ugh. I am so sick of all this lousy weather. Especially since it does NOT portend a nice winter. . . *sigh* Still, made good progress on the old to-do list, I suppose --
Tumblr: Had a decently productive day over here –
Victor Luvs Alice – Got my drafts for the six posts for this week’s Chill Valicer Save update sorted with all the pictures and the main text done – tomorrow, we’ll get through the tags and the image alt text!
Valice Multiverse – Had three thread replies from Brynlee Marie to shoot into the queue – I did these before watching my YouTube, below, though I had to go searching for some specific Smiling Jack dialogue before I could complete the “Malkavian vs Malkavian” fight scene reply. Let’s just say Madeline is about to severely regret pissing Alice off. . .
Fallout 4: Accomplished exactly what I set out to do today in the Commonwealth, which was get back to Daisy and do some more Silver Shroud stuff – but I also ended up starting another mission a bit by accident. ^^; I am a side quest magnet, what can I say! Here’s what happened –
A) First goal, “get back to Daisy and turn in the ‘Public Knowledge’ quest,” went nice and smoothly – Victor and Ada left the library to head into the Back Bay, and I used my Pip-Boy to plot the best route back to Goodneighbor (past Shanley’s Oyster Bar and through the Commons) while running into as little trouble as possible. I even put on some Atomic Radio for the walk, listening to some music, a commercial for lightly-irradiated makeup (you know for sure you’ve gotten it all off when the Geiger counter stops clicking!), and a radio play with a gas station attendant who apparently moonlights as a lawyer and tried to prove a maid couldn’t have seen his client kill her husband if she couldn’t even tell how many fingers he was holding up (she refused to say as she considered it an obscene gesture XD). Client got life without parole, as you might expect! Only incidents of note along the way were Victor and Ada having to kill some prowling mongrels when I couldn’t sneak around them; the pair meeting a wandering band of chem traders (Stash, Lexa, and Simon – given they ALL had names, I suspect they were added by one of my mods), and Victor selling Stash a bunch of the drugs he had on him in exchange for 10mm ammo, blueberries, and a bunch of caps; and a super mutant shooting at Victor and Ada from the super mutant diner near Goodneighbor, and Ada taking him out before Victor could fire a single shot. XD But yes, the pair reached Goodneighbor safe and sound, and Victor was able to tell Daisy that the library had been cleared, getting her thanks for making it safe again and 200 caps. :) Another quest complete, w00!
B) After a little trading (selling booze and food to Daisy in exchange for some duct tape, wonderglue, and a good number of caps, and trading the Irradiated Boxing Glove (which she was only willing to pay me THREE caps for! XD I mean, I can’t blame her, world’s dumbest weapon) and a whole bunch of frag grenades to KLE0 for more .50 and .308 ammo), it was time for Goal #2 – do some more Silver Shroud stuff! Well, uh, AFTER I figured out Victor’s inventory woes – dude always has SOO much stuff on him, and the Silver Shroud armor doesn’t have any pockets, unlike his normal kit. I ended up heading outside the town for a minute to dump some of the heaviest stuff in a nearby trashcan (couldn’t put it down INSIDE Goodneighbor, as I was worried I’d immediately lose possession of it and trying to get it back would be considered stealing), and then managed to get Ada to carry a few more items once I went back in, changed clothes, and realized I was STILL slightly overweight. *shakehead* I gotta get to a settlement and dump some of this shit. . .
ANYWAY – once that was done, Victor turned on the Silver Shroud radio and listened to a broadcast from Kent featuring a guy named Jerry, who had the inside scoop on a local chem dealer, AJ. Turns out AJ had decided to sell to children in order to open up a new lucrative market. Kent was disgusted and said the Silver Shroud would definitely be taking that guy out – Jerry at first didn’t understand what the problem was (thinking maybe the Shroud wanted in on the chem market), then was unimpressed by Kent’s moral stance against kids doing drugs. Victor was not, though, and I had him go and confront AJ as the Shroud in the alleyway behind Daisy and KLE0’s shops, Silver Submachine Gun in hand! Victor refused AJ’s (comically small) bribe when offered, and opened fire on him and his two bodyguards –
And, well, he got ONE guy, but the other guard and AJ managed to take him down. Welp. Fortunately, I’d saved right before going to talk to AJ – the second time, I went in with the old Two-Shot, and while one of the bodyguards got in a good couple of hits, I was able to take them all out without any issue. Gotta love the Two-Shot! :D Dropped the calling card on AJ’s corpse, and that was another Silver Shroud mission done!
C) With my two named goals completed, I was ready to go out and start heading toward Deacon in Lexington. . .but then I got intrigued by the door in the wall behind the corpses. Was that a visitable building? What goodies might lie inside? I had Victor approach to check it out –
And was promptly startled by a little window opening up in it and a ghoul asking Victor if he wanted some work. Turns out I’d forgotten that this side alley is ALSO where you start “The Big Dig,” a side quest featuring Bobbi No-Nose trying to break into a storeroom under – well, she says it’s under Diamond City. . . I decided “hell with it, I can start this,” had Victor accept the offer of work and follow her inside (after a change of clothes), chat with her a bit about what he’d be doing (just some digging for now, as they were after “buried treasure” of a sort), and then head into the actual dig. He arrived just in time for the two workers already in there to break through a wall, and then promptly flee in fear from a trio of mirelurks. Victor and Ada took the three out and gathered up their meat and eggs (along with some glowing fungus), then told Bobbi what had happened when she came in to demand to know what was going on in her tunnel. Bobbi promptly “promoted” Victor to her hired gun, told him that they really just needed ONE guy for the job, an old friend with a love of gadgets and money (and who would want a fair cut, but she saw where being cheap had got her), and told him she’d meet him in Diamond City later. Victor agreed, and I went to leave –
Only for Victor to get the “you have to go to the bathroom” notice. “Okay,” I thought, “I’ll just drop the port-a-potty down here on this bit of flat – shit, that wasn’t flat. Shit, now I’ve kicked it into the water. SHIT NOW IT’S STUCK ON THE SCENERY–”
Aaand that is where I reloaded, right outside Bobbi’s place. *grumble* I redid everything that I’d previously done with her – but this time, when I went into the tunnels, one of the mirelurks that spawned was a LEGENDARY GLOWING mirelurk. Which was pretty hard to take out even with the Two-Shot! Victor took a few nasty hits, but fortunately Ada and her lasers served as a good distraction, and they eventually got it down and got a Poisoner’s Synth Chest Piece (adds protection AGAINST poison, as it’s armor) off it. Victor redid his conversation with Bobbi, agreed to meet her in Diamond City later, then got the heck out of there before the need to use the toilet hit him. XD
D) After that, it was just time to wrap things up for the day – Victor turned on the Silver Shroud signal again, but Kent had no new missions for him, so I had him sell KLE0 the Poisoner’s Synth Chest Piece he’d just picked up (which got a decent price from her), use the port-a-potty in the back corner of her shop (flat ground AND privacy!), then head out onto the streets to retrieve his stuff from the trash can and start toward Deacon! Fortunately, finding him isn’t going to be hard, as it just involves following the elevated highway that actually goes by Goodneighbor over to the meeting spot. I had Victor start his journey by going past the old Corner Bookstore and over in the general direction of Cabot House –
But when he neared the bridge he needed to cross, I found there were a bunch of raiders on it. And then Victor started to get tired. And then the apple pie he ate last time finally wore off, leaving him overweight again. I took that as a sign, parked him in a safe spot, and saved and quit. XD Next time – we’ll figure out his weight situation, get past those raiders, have a nap, then go meet Deacon! Maybe not necessarily in that order, but those all WILL happen. :p
Writing: Another day with Fallout 4, another day updating the Playthrough Progression with the events of the playsession! Victor, Alice, and Ada had almost an identical day in their world as Victor and Ada had in the game to start, with the one major difference happening when Victor changed into his Silver Shroud stuff to do Kent’s latest mission against AJ (with Ada kindly taking his spare junk to a trash can outside the city limits to protect it). I mean, obviously apart from him avoiding dying to AJ and his gang like I did in the game (he took the Two-Shot straight in and wasted the guys no sweat – he does NOT like anyone who harms children!). :p In THIS world, Bobbi offering him a job was prompted by her seeing him slaughter the trio and thinking “I want this guy on my side,” and Victor ended up going inside the tunnel and taking out the mirelurks alone. And still dressed as the Silver Shroud. He probably doesn’t like that I did that, given he still had to face a Legendary Glowing Mirelurk. XD But he made it through, and when he told Ada and Alice about it afterward, Alice told him Wonderland thinks he should see the job through, as it’ll have a good end result. “Good end result” here being defined as “we’ll unlock Hancock as a companion.” XD I left it in the same place as the game – the trio heading to see Deacon, only to find their way across the bridge blocked by some raiders. We’ll see how they handle them next time!
YouTube: Got to my usual Sunday Two a bit later than I might have liked, but get to them I did –
A) Started in the Subs with GrayStillPlays and “When you put a skull under infinite pressure,” aka Gray Plays Stickman Physics Simulator! Yup, Gray has found himself another one of those “smash up this stick figure as hard as you can for points and coins to unlock new boards” games, and MAN this was a good one! The boards included things like “Happy Pinwheels” (featuring so many deadly spinning wheels and blades) and “What The Hole” (featuring a murder staircase with holes full of punchers, bombs, and steam); the vehicles included things like the traditional shopping carts and sport cars along with office chairs, rocket bikes, and the Infernal Motorcycle (with genuine glowing wheels!) – AND you could drive them yourself manually if you so wanted! – and the figures included Average Stickman, StickParasite (aka discount Tom Hardy in Venom), and StickDevil to go with the motorcycle. Gray had a truly delightful time throwing StickDevil into spinning wheels of death, spinning BLADES of death, rocket turrets, arrow turrets, punchers, bouncers, and steam blasters to launch him into the whole mess all over again, all to see if he could break the maximum number of bones and get infinite points. And he succeeded in the board called “Happy Yoga” – a board that basically catapulted the stick and its chosen vehicle into a giant tube of bouncy balls, where the various pieces of the vehicle would start bouncing off the walls at light speed, ensuring that the stick would suffer infinite pain. And if you got yourself CAUGHT in one of those pieces, especially if that piece had a rocket attached to it. . . XD Yeah, great to see a return to these kinds of games on the channel – Gray needs the opportunity to start inflicting the torture on innocent video game characters again, instead of having it constantly inflicted on HIM. XD
B) And then it was over to Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 3 - When All You Have Is A Hammer…” Featuring the adventures of Mayor Bob as he looked for more ASAM sensors (any place but Jake’s workshop, since apparently there’s whole boxes of them there). XD Today’s episode was all about braving the terrors of West Everett to see if he could find a box there – here’s how it went –
I. First up, before Mayor Bob could go anywhere, he had to prepare for his journey! Because he lives in Survival Mode, and that means you DEFINITELY need supplies whenever you head out anywhere (if you’re not using a campsite mod like me). He couldn’t mod his guns to give him better damage, unfortunately (all the gears had gone into providing the town with power), but he was able to make himself a few doses of Psycho Jet (he even leveled up off it!), and of course he went and grabbed the gold bars out of the root cellar behind that one house in Sanctuary so he’d have something nice and solid to trade with. After that, all he needed was a good night’s sleep –
Aaand he woke up feeling Weak, because the game is mean about giving you illnesses if you go to bed thirsty and hungry, which Jon did. Fortunately Bob had some antibiotics on him, so he took a dose of that to cure his illness, hydrated at his personal water pump, had a deathclaw steak breakfast, took “Ninja” as his latest perk (only for Jon to immediately realize “LONE WANDERER, should have taken THAT”) and off he went!
II. First stop on the road – going back through Concord and around the Museum of Freedom to meet up with Trashcan Carla at her usual resting spot and get her caravan moving. Mayor Bob of course flirted with her for a discount – though a mongrel attack meant that trading had to wait until the dogs were dispatched. Carla had some good stuff on her, though – mainly, a handful of ASAMs of her own, some molotovs, and some ammo. All very important to Mayor Bob!
III. From there it was up the road to the Drumlin Diner, where Mayor Bob realized that the nice lady inside the diner was having some real problems with the people outside of it – so he ran around the side of the diner, hid from Wolfgang and Simone, then set them on fire with a molotov before working with Dogmeat to finish them off. A grateful Trudy gave him some caps and XP, and Mayor Bob happily bought a few more ASAMs and a suppressed pipe bolt-action pistol from her, as it’s one of the few guaranteed good early-game guns. And he needs guaranteed good early-game guns for sure!
IV. From there it was straight east to Starlight Drive-In to do a little bit of looting in the back building under the main screen, then over to the Mystic Pines retirement home at the edge of Lexington to clear out the bugs there so Mayor Bob could get a nap in one of the beds and drop a save point. Immediately after doing so, though, Jon realized “wait a second, I’m right by Covenant – why don’t I sleep in a nice clean bed surrounded by actual people there?” And so he did, after getting a little lost and getting through the test at the door (with Jon taking a moment to point out that, even if you give the answers that you later learn synths are most likely to give (like answering “catcher” for your position on the baseball team), you CANNOT fail this test – because you are the player character and thus you must get in for potential quest and settlement claiming reasons). In addition to the nap, Mayor Bob also got to yoink a desk fan from the guest house, and buy some fashionable glasses from the shop to increase his natural charisma even more. XD AND, on the way out, he ran into one of the members of one of the OTHER factions now roaming the Commonwealth – the Nightingales! A group of traveling doctors in plague masks, it seems, with a potential hospital base somewhere downtown if I read the incidental dialogue as Bob ran by the guy right. It’ll be interesting to see how we interact with THEM later on. . .
V. However, Bob had a mission to get himself more ASAMs, so he continued on from Covenant over to West Everett Estates – but on the way there, he was presented with a problem. Mainly, West Everett is decently close to Malden, and Malden is ALSO pretty heavily populated with super mutants. Bob wanted to deal with as few super mutants as possible, so he elected to cut through the nearby settlement (I forget the name of this one, but it has some dead people inside who were killed by the bugs infesting it) and just take out the bloodbug hatchlings inside.
This proved to be a major mistake, as there was one actual full-grown bloodbug in there – and once it managed to land on him, it literally SUCKED HIM DRY. As in, Bob died from being bitten by it. O.o Major horror movie vibes right there!
VI. Fortunately, Bob HAD just saved at Covenant, so once he reloaded and got back there again, he went instead for the sneaky route, squeezing past the house and avoiding the notice of the bloodbugs. This went well, and he was able to get across the river and to the other shore, where he got a look at what he was facing –
Super Mutant Skirmishers. Jon was very salty about facing them this early in the game. He did manage to find a good choke point with a big old wall to hide behind near the estate, but his fight agaist the super mutants who did find him was pretty damn chaotic, with Bob having to dose himself up with Psycho Jet to survive the initial assault, and then pepper the “choke point” with molotovs so he could escape the mutants trying to chase after him. Also Dogmeat ran in to help, got hurt, and was left alone without being healed for so long that he went “fuck this” and went back to the Red Rocket, presumably to wait for a better Sole Survivor. XD Everything was very much NOT coming up Bob –
VII. Until Jon looked at the local map in Bob’s Pip-Boy and realized that a) the ASAMs were apparently through a door somewhere on the property and b) that door was on the OPPOSITE side of the part of the estates the super mutants were congregating around. Bob thus used the distraction of the molotovs to sneak around to said other side, and encountered a building site under construction that is very much not there in the vanilla game, along with a door leading into a basement. Bob headed inside to see what was what –
And encountered more super mutants. However, these were NAMED super mutants in green, meaning that Bob actually had a chance of talking to them. The trio of mutants proved to be Skout, Hammer, and Sickle, and when asked about the ASAMs that were in the estates, they confirmed that they had the “blinkies” and that they considered them good luck, so they weren’t about to give them up. Bob inquired if he could make it worth their while, and Sickle said that if Bob could find Hammer’s lost brother Nail (who’d apparently gone out to make friends with a bear somewhere in the Commonwealth) and bring them back, they’d consider paying him with some. Bob was very much up for that, and sprinted back to Covenant to drop down a new nap-save.
VIII. So – new mission was to find Nail! Bob went back around Lexington, keeping his eyes peeled for any likely places that the super mutant might be – he did spot a junkyard that seemed to have a new building attached to it, but as it was getting quite late, he decided he wasn’t going to investigate yet and instead ran ahead to Cambridge to help out Paladin Danse with his ghoul problem to get the opportunity to sleep in the police station! He, uh, got a little blown up along the way because Jon forgot where a certain land mine was (mood, Jon), but with the help of a stimpack he got there and happily cheesed the fight from that one little fenced-in area off to the side where you can pick off ghouls but they can’t get to you. XD (Gotta remember that if I do another playthrough at some point! Though I expect this one to take long enough that it’ll probably be my only one.) Danse did let Mayor Bob kip in the station after helping them with the fight, though Mayor Bob was very sad to see that all that was available for beds were sleeping bags – he can only sleep for three hours in those, as per survival rules! But at least it was another save laid down.
IX. After Bob’s short nap, it was time to hit the road again – though before he left, Bob discovered that Jake was trying to contact him. The signal was pretty shitty (Jake wasn’t even sure if it was broadcasting), but Bob was able to make out that Jake wanted to meet him at his workshop. Bob decided he’d swing by after he finished off this “Nail” business and left the station, sending Danse off to ArcJet in the process with the intent of meeting back up with him later –
And then doubling back and following Danse to ArcJet because Jon looked at his Pip-Boy map again and realized, “Wait, I think ArcJet is super close to the place the game is telling me Nail is.” XD So yes, Danse got Bob to ArcJet, and then Bob abandoned him there to creep over to the spot where Nail supposedly was (working his way through a LOT of radstags in the process) –
Only to find one very dead Nail, and a stunted Yao Guai nearby who apparently had NOT wanted to be friends at all. Bob very quietly looted the body and took his leave, as he was VERY MUCH not keen on fighting any bears.
X. All right, so Nail was dead – time to go back and report this to Sickle’s little tribe! Bob worked his way back to their basement in West Everett (taking out the nearby turret and mutant hound that threatened to give him away) and told them the news. Sickle decided this probably meant the ASAMs weren’t so lucky and handed them over, then, in typical blunt super mutant fashion, told Hammer the news and implied that it was because Nail was stupid, like Hammer. Hammer immediately decided that meant SICKLE had killed him and attacked – Bob helped Sickle and Skout take out Hammer, and Sickle, flush with victory, decided that Bob could join the team in Hammer’s place because he had a super mutant’s heart. Bob was like “yeah, sure, if it gets me ASAMs.” XD And in fact, Sickle proved willing to trade even more of the “blinkies” to Bob if Bob did him a favor – find him some chalk. Seems Sickle suffers from some tummy troubles and eating chalk helps settle his stomach, but he doesn’t want Skout or any other mutants to know because, well, he’ll be laughed at, if not worse. Bob was up for that – better than trading PEOPLE, that’s for sure! (Though Jon indicated earlier he’d be willing to offer up Lily for the crime of kicking the ASAMs. XD)
And so the episode ended with Bob having gotten some more ASAMs, become part of a super mutant tribe, and learned that Jake needs him for some reason! Next week, we visit Jake and continue working on becoming the best and most popular mayor the Commonwealth has ever had! Looking forward to it – this mod is so much fun. :D
Workout: Did a long walk on the treadmill today for a change of pace (har har), watching the following –
A) “I have $10,000 to enlarge this house” by James Turner – the renovation video he did for Addison and Hilary’s place in the “Dine Out Reloaded” series! He actually ended up having about $14,000 to play with via selling various objects (including all the produce that ended up in the household inventory – he explicitly refused to sell the things that Addison accidentally “stole” from their dads, though), and that was enough to make the entire house a little bit bigger; divide the one big kids’ room into two separate bedrooms and decorate them so they’d be baby-and-toddler appropriate; rejigger the kitchen and dining area so it looked better and had stuff for kids to do; add a tiny bathroom by the stairs downstairs and furnish the bathroom in the refurbished “garage” (which will eventually be a home gym); and get about half of the living room done – setting up a study nook and kids’ play area, and getting some better couches for the actual “living room” spot. It’s all looking a lot better than it was – hopefully Addison, Hilary, Quinn, and Rye will agree once he gets back to the actual series itself!
B) “16 Growing Together Gameplay Ideas To Try | The Sims 4 Guide” by Petey Plays It! Just a selection of stuff to try in the Growing Together pack – from small things like earning a few extra simoleons on the side completing and selling puzzles and using the new sleeping bags to both host slumber parties and go camping without a tent, to bigger stuff like having a Sim live in a treehouse as part of a Rags-To-Riches/Homeless Sim challenge, or starting a legacy save to take advantage of the more generational gameplay. Though the one that stuck out to ME was his mention that if you complete the “Creative Genius” aspiration as a child, you’ll get a special trait, “Ideas Person,” that SIGNIFICANTLY speeds up how long Sims take to do things like program, write books, and write songs. As songwriting takes a RIDICULOUSLY LONG time in this game for no good reason – yeah. If I ever DO start my “long haul” save with all my characters as children, I’m DEFINITELY making sure Victor completes THAT!
*nods* Not bad, not bad at all -- AND the Patriots won their game today (by a hairsbreadth, but they did win!), so that was nice too. I just wish the vibes hadn't tanked in the afternoon/evening as a result of all the damn rain! *heavy sigh* And watch, it won't even think about getting nice again until I go back to work on Tuesday. . .
Well, unfortunately, nothing I can do about that. I'm gonna go chill with TV Tropes for a while, then head to bed. Got one more day off, with my goals being to complete as many tags and alt text on my Chill Valicer save posts for this week as I can; play some Sims 4 and get the gang through Winterfest before the Home Chef Hustle patch; write some more "Home Sweet Lair" with the Valicer In The Dark trio; get in a workout and start the "Extinction" arc of Oxventure; and keep up with my YouTube Subs. I feel like all of these are doable, but we will see how the day goes. *shrug* Night all!
Tumblr: Had a decently productive day over here –
Victor Luvs Alice – Got my drafts for the six posts for this week’s Chill Valicer Save update sorted with all the pictures and the main text done – tomorrow, we’ll get through the tags and the image alt text!
Valice Multiverse – Had three thread replies from Brynlee Marie to shoot into the queue – I did these before watching my YouTube, below, though I had to go searching for some specific Smiling Jack dialogue before I could complete the “Malkavian vs Malkavian” fight scene reply. Let’s just say Madeline is about to severely regret pissing Alice off. . .
Fallout 4: Accomplished exactly what I set out to do today in the Commonwealth, which was get back to Daisy and do some more Silver Shroud stuff – but I also ended up starting another mission a bit by accident. ^^; I am a side quest magnet, what can I say! Here’s what happened –
A) First goal, “get back to Daisy and turn in the ‘Public Knowledge’ quest,” went nice and smoothly – Victor and Ada left the library to head into the Back Bay, and I used my Pip-Boy to plot the best route back to Goodneighbor (past Shanley’s Oyster Bar and through the Commons) while running into as little trouble as possible. I even put on some Atomic Radio for the walk, listening to some music, a commercial for lightly-irradiated makeup (you know for sure you’ve gotten it all off when the Geiger counter stops clicking!), and a radio play with a gas station attendant who apparently moonlights as a lawyer and tried to prove a maid couldn’t have seen his client kill her husband if she couldn’t even tell how many fingers he was holding up (she refused to say as she considered it an obscene gesture XD). Client got life without parole, as you might expect! Only incidents of note along the way were Victor and Ada having to kill some prowling mongrels when I couldn’t sneak around them; the pair meeting a wandering band of chem traders (Stash, Lexa, and Simon – given they ALL had names, I suspect they were added by one of my mods), and Victor selling Stash a bunch of the drugs he had on him in exchange for 10mm ammo, blueberries, and a bunch of caps; and a super mutant shooting at Victor and Ada from the super mutant diner near Goodneighbor, and Ada taking him out before Victor could fire a single shot. XD But yes, the pair reached Goodneighbor safe and sound, and Victor was able to tell Daisy that the library had been cleared, getting her thanks for making it safe again and 200 caps. :) Another quest complete, w00!
B) After a little trading (selling booze and food to Daisy in exchange for some duct tape, wonderglue, and a good number of caps, and trading the Irradiated Boxing Glove (which she was only willing to pay me THREE caps for! XD I mean, I can’t blame her, world’s dumbest weapon) and a whole bunch of frag grenades to KLE0 for more .50 and .308 ammo), it was time for Goal #2 – do some more Silver Shroud stuff! Well, uh, AFTER I figured out Victor’s inventory woes – dude always has SOO much stuff on him, and the Silver Shroud armor doesn’t have any pockets, unlike his normal kit. I ended up heading outside the town for a minute to dump some of the heaviest stuff in a nearby trashcan (couldn’t put it down INSIDE Goodneighbor, as I was worried I’d immediately lose possession of it and trying to get it back would be considered stealing), and then managed to get Ada to carry a few more items once I went back in, changed clothes, and realized I was STILL slightly overweight. *shakehead* I gotta get to a settlement and dump some of this shit. . .
ANYWAY – once that was done, Victor turned on the Silver Shroud radio and listened to a broadcast from Kent featuring a guy named Jerry, who had the inside scoop on a local chem dealer, AJ. Turns out AJ had decided to sell to children in order to open up a new lucrative market. Kent was disgusted and said the Silver Shroud would definitely be taking that guy out – Jerry at first didn’t understand what the problem was (thinking maybe the Shroud wanted in on the chem market), then was unimpressed by Kent’s moral stance against kids doing drugs. Victor was not, though, and I had him go and confront AJ as the Shroud in the alleyway behind Daisy and KLE0’s shops, Silver Submachine Gun in hand! Victor refused AJ’s (comically small) bribe when offered, and opened fire on him and his two bodyguards –
And, well, he got ONE guy, but the other guard and AJ managed to take him down. Welp. Fortunately, I’d saved right before going to talk to AJ – the second time, I went in with the old Two-Shot, and while one of the bodyguards got in a good couple of hits, I was able to take them all out without any issue. Gotta love the Two-Shot! :D Dropped the calling card on AJ’s corpse, and that was another Silver Shroud mission done!
C) With my two named goals completed, I was ready to go out and start heading toward Deacon in Lexington. . .but then I got intrigued by the door in the wall behind the corpses. Was that a visitable building? What goodies might lie inside? I had Victor approach to check it out –
And was promptly startled by a little window opening up in it and a ghoul asking Victor if he wanted some work. Turns out I’d forgotten that this side alley is ALSO where you start “The Big Dig,” a side quest featuring Bobbi No-Nose trying to break into a storeroom under – well, she says it’s under Diamond City. . . I decided “hell with it, I can start this,” had Victor accept the offer of work and follow her inside (after a change of clothes), chat with her a bit about what he’d be doing (just some digging for now, as they were after “buried treasure” of a sort), and then head into the actual dig. He arrived just in time for the two workers already in there to break through a wall, and then promptly flee in fear from a trio of mirelurks. Victor and Ada took the three out and gathered up their meat and eggs (along with some glowing fungus), then told Bobbi what had happened when she came in to demand to know what was going on in her tunnel. Bobbi promptly “promoted” Victor to her hired gun, told him that they really just needed ONE guy for the job, an old friend with a love of gadgets and money (and who would want a fair cut, but she saw where being cheap had got her), and told him she’d meet him in Diamond City later. Victor agreed, and I went to leave –
Only for Victor to get the “you have to go to the bathroom” notice. “Okay,” I thought, “I’ll just drop the port-a-potty down here on this bit of flat – shit, that wasn’t flat. Shit, now I’ve kicked it into the water. SHIT NOW IT’S STUCK ON THE SCENERY–”
Aaand that is where I reloaded, right outside Bobbi’s place. *grumble* I redid everything that I’d previously done with her – but this time, when I went into the tunnels, one of the mirelurks that spawned was a LEGENDARY GLOWING mirelurk. Which was pretty hard to take out even with the Two-Shot! Victor took a few nasty hits, but fortunately Ada and her lasers served as a good distraction, and they eventually got it down and got a Poisoner’s Synth Chest Piece (adds protection AGAINST poison, as it’s armor) off it. Victor redid his conversation with Bobbi, agreed to meet her in Diamond City later, then got the heck out of there before the need to use the toilet hit him. XD
D) After that, it was just time to wrap things up for the day – Victor turned on the Silver Shroud signal again, but Kent had no new missions for him, so I had him sell KLE0 the Poisoner’s Synth Chest Piece he’d just picked up (which got a decent price from her), use the port-a-potty in the back corner of her shop (flat ground AND privacy!), then head out onto the streets to retrieve his stuff from the trash can and start toward Deacon! Fortunately, finding him isn’t going to be hard, as it just involves following the elevated highway that actually goes by Goodneighbor over to the meeting spot. I had Victor start his journey by going past the old Corner Bookstore and over in the general direction of Cabot House –
But when he neared the bridge he needed to cross, I found there were a bunch of raiders on it. And then Victor started to get tired. And then the apple pie he ate last time finally wore off, leaving him overweight again. I took that as a sign, parked him in a safe spot, and saved and quit. XD Next time – we’ll figure out his weight situation, get past those raiders, have a nap, then go meet Deacon! Maybe not necessarily in that order, but those all WILL happen. :p
Writing: Another day with Fallout 4, another day updating the Playthrough Progression with the events of the playsession! Victor, Alice, and Ada had almost an identical day in their world as Victor and Ada had in the game to start, with the one major difference happening when Victor changed into his Silver Shroud stuff to do Kent’s latest mission against AJ (with Ada kindly taking his spare junk to a trash can outside the city limits to protect it). I mean, obviously apart from him avoiding dying to AJ and his gang like I did in the game (he took the Two-Shot straight in and wasted the guys no sweat – he does NOT like anyone who harms children!). :p In THIS world, Bobbi offering him a job was prompted by her seeing him slaughter the trio and thinking “I want this guy on my side,” and Victor ended up going inside the tunnel and taking out the mirelurks alone. And still dressed as the Silver Shroud. He probably doesn’t like that I did that, given he still had to face a Legendary Glowing Mirelurk. XD But he made it through, and when he told Ada and Alice about it afterward, Alice told him Wonderland thinks he should see the job through, as it’ll have a good end result. “Good end result” here being defined as “we’ll unlock Hancock as a companion.” XD I left it in the same place as the game – the trio heading to see Deacon, only to find their way across the bridge blocked by some raiders. We’ll see how they handle them next time!
YouTube: Got to my usual Sunday Two a bit later than I might have liked, but get to them I did –
A) Started in the Subs with GrayStillPlays and “When you put a skull under infinite pressure,” aka Gray Plays Stickman Physics Simulator! Yup, Gray has found himself another one of those “smash up this stick figure as hard as you can for points and coins to unlock new boards” games, and MAN this was a good one! The boards included things like “Happy Pinwheels” (featuring so many deadly spinning wheels and blades) and “What The Hole” (featuring a murder staircase with holes full of punchers, bombs, and steam); the vehicles included things like the traditional shopping carts and sport cars along with office chairs, rocket bikes, and the Infernal Motorcycle (with genuine glowing wheels!) – AND you could drive them yourself manually if you so wanted! – and the figures included Average Stickman, StickParasite (aka discount Tom Hardy in Venom), and StickDevil to go with the motorcycle. Gray had a truly delightful time throwing StickDevil into spinning wheels of death, spinning BLADES of death, rocket turrets, arrow turrets, punchers, bouncers, and steam blasters to launch him into the whole mess all over again, all to see if he could break the maximum number of bones and get infinite points. And he succeeded in the board called “Happy Yoga” – a board that basically catapulted the stick and its chosen vehicle into a giant tube of bouncy balls, where the various pieces of the vehicle would start bouncing off the walls at light speed, ensuring that the stick would suffer infinite pain. And if you got yourself CAUGHT in one of those pieces, especially if that piece had a rocket attached to it. . . XD Yeah, great to see a return to these kinds of games on the channel – Gray needs the opportunity to start inflicting the torture on innocent video game characters again, instead of having it constantly inflicted on HIM. XD
B) And then it was over to Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 3 - When All You Have Is A Hammer…” Featuring the adventures of Mayor Bob as he looked for more ASAM sensors (any place but Jake’s workshop, since apparently there’s whole boxes of them there). XD Today’s episode was all about braving the terrors of West Everett to see if he could find a box there – here’s how it went –
I. First up, before Mayor Bob could go anywhere, he had to prepare for his journey! Because he lives in Survival Mode, and that means you DEFINITELY need supplies whenever you head out anywhere (if you’re not using a campsite mod like me). He couldn’t mod his guns to give him better damage, unfortunately (all the gears had gone into providing the town with power), but he was able to make himself a few doses of Psycho Jet (he even leveled up off it!), and of course he went and grabbed the gold bars out of the root cellar behind that one house in Sanctuary so he’d have something nice and solid to trade with. After that, all he needed was a good night’s sleep –
Aaand he woke up feeling Weak, because the game is mean about giving you illnesses if you go to bed thirsty and hungry, which Jon did. Fortunately Bob had some antibiotics on him, so he took a dose of that to cure his illness, hydrated at his personal water pump, had a deathclaw steak breakfast, took “Ninja” as his latest perk (only for Jon to immediately realize “LONE WANDERER, should have taken THAT”) and off he went!
II. First stop on the road – going back through Concord and around the Museum of Freedom to meet up with Trashcan Carla at her usual resting spot and get her caravan moving. Mayor Bob of course flirted with her for a discount – though a mongrel attack meant that trading had to wait until the dogs were dispatched. Carla had some good stuff on her, though – mainly, a handful of ASAMs of her own, some molotovs, and some ammo. All very important to Mayor Bob!
III. From there it was up the road to the Drumlin Diner, where Mayor Bob realized that the nice lady inside the diner was having some real problems with the people outside of it – so he ran around the side of the diner, hid from Wolfgang and Simone, then set them on fire with a molotov before working with Dogmeat to finish them off. A grateful Trudy gave him some caps and XP, and Mayor Bob happily bought a few more ASAMs and a suppressed pipe bolt-action pistol from her, as it’s one of the few guaranteed good early-game guns. And he needs guaranteed good early-game guns for sure!
IV. From there it was straight east to Starlight Drive-In to do a little bit of looting in the back building under the main screen, then over to the Mystic Pines retirement home at the edge of Lexington to clear out the bugs there so Mayor Bob could get a nap in one of the beds and drop a save point. Immediately after doing so, though, Jon realized “wait a second, I’m right by Covenant – why don’t I sleep in a nice clean bed surrounded by actual people there?” And so he did, after getting a little lost and getting through the test at the door (with Jon taking a moment to point out that, even if you give the answers that you later learn synths are most likely to give (like answering “catcher” for your position on the baseball team), you CANNOT fail this test – because you are the player character and thus you must get in for potential quest and settlement claiming reasons). In addition to the nap, Mayor Bob also got to yoink a desk fan from the guest house, and buy some fashionable glasses from the shop to increase his natural charisma even more. XD AND, on the way out, he ran into one of the members of one of the OTHER factions now roaming the Commonwealth – the Nightingales! A group of traveling doctors in plague masks, it seems, with a potential hospital base somewhere downtown if I read the incidental dialogue as Bob ran by the guy right. It’ll be interesting to see how we interact with THEM later on. . .
V. However, Bob had a mission to get himself more ASAMs, so he continued on from Covenant over to West Everett Estates – but on the way there, he was presented with a problem. Mainly, West Everett is decently close to Malden, and Malden is ALSO pretty heavily populated with super mutants. Bob wanted to deal with as few super mutants as possible, so he elected to cut through the nearby settlement (I forget the name of this one, but it has some dead people inside who were killed by the bugs infesting it) and just take out the bloodbug hatchlings inside.
This proved to be a major mistake, as there was one actual full-grown bloodbug in there – and once it managed to land on him, it literally SUCKED HIM DRY. As in, Bob died from being bitten by it. O.o Major horror movie vibes right there!
VI. Fortunately, Bob HAD just saved at Covenant, so once he reloaded and got back there again, he went instead for the sneaky route, squeezing past the house and avoiding the notice of the bloodbugs. This went well, and he was able to get across the river and to the other shore, where he got a look at what he was facing –
Super Mutant Skirmishers. Jon was very salty about facing them this early in the game. He did manage to find a good choke point with a big old wall to hide behind near the estate, but his fight agaist the super mutants who did find him was pretty damn chaotic, with Bob having to dose himself up with Psycho Jet to survive the initial assault, and then pepper the “choke point” with molotovs so he could escape the mutants trying to chase after him. Also Dogmeat ran in to help, got hurt, and was left alone without being healed for so long that he went “fuck this” and went back to the Red Rocket, presumably to wait for a better Sole Survivor. XD Everything was very much NOT coming up Bob –
VII. Until Jon looked at the local map in Bob’s Pip-Boy and realized that a) the ASAMs were apparently through a door somewhere on the property and b) that door was on the OPPOSITE side of the part of the estates the super mutants were congregating around. Bob thus used the distraction of the molotovs to sneak around to said other side, and encountered a building site under construction that is very much not there in the vanilla game, along with a door leading into a basement. Bob headed inside to see what was what –
And encountered more super mutants. However, these were NAMED super mutants in green, meaning that Bob actually had a chance of talking to them. The trio of mutants proved to be Skout, Hammer, and Sickle, and when asked about the ASAMs that were in the estates, they confirmed that they had the “blinkies” and that they considered them good luck, so they weren’t about to give them up. Bob inquired if he could make it worth their while, and Sickle said that if Bob could find Hammer’s lost brother Nail (who’d apparently gone out to make friends with a bear somewhere in the Commonwealth) and bring them back, they’d consider paying him with some. Bob was very much up for that, and sprinted back to Covenant to drop down a new nap-save.
VIII. So – new mission was to find Nail! Bob went back around Lexington, keeping his eyes peeled for any likely places that the super mutant might be – he did spot a junkyard that seemed to have a new building attached to it, but as it was getting quite late, he decided he wasn’t going to investigate yet and instead ran ahead to Cambridge to help out Paladin Danse with his ghoul problem to get the opportunity to sleep in the police station! He, uh, got a little blown up along the way because Jon forgot where a certain land mine was (mood, Jon), but with the help of a stimpack he got there and happily cheesed the fight from that one little fenced-in area off to the side where you can pick off ghouls but they can’t get to you. XD (Gotta remember that if I do another playthrough at some point! Though I expect this one to take long enough that it’ll probably be my only one.) Danse did let Mayor Bob kip in the station after helping them with the fight, though Mayor Bob was very sad to see that all that was available for beds were sleeping bags – he can only sleep for three hours in those, as per survival rules! But at least it was another save laid down.
IX. After Bob’s short nap, it was time to hit the road again – though before he left, Bob discovered that Jake was trying to contact him. The signal was pretty shitty (Jake wasn’t even sure if it was broadcasting), but Bob was able to make out that Jake wanted to meet him at his workshop. Bob decided he’d swing by after he finished off this “Nail” business and left the station, sending Danse off to ArcJet in the process with the intent of meeting back up with him later –
And then doubling back and following Danse to ArcJet because Jon looked at his Pip-Boy map again and realized, “Wait, I think ArcJet is super close to the place the game is telling me Nail is.” XD So yes, Danse got Bob to ArcJet, and then Bob abandoned him there to creep over to the spot where Nail supposedly was (working his way through a LOT of radstags in the process) –
Only to find one very dead Nail, and a stunted Yao Guai nearby who apparently had NOT wanted to be friends at all. Bob very quietly looted the body and took his leave, as he was VERY MUCH not keen on fighting any bears.
X. All right, so Nail was dead – time to go back and report this to Sickle’s little tribe! Bob worked his way back to their basement in West Everett (taking out the nearby turret and mutant hound that threatened to give him away) and told them the news. Sickle decided this probably meant the ASAMs weren’t so lucky and handed them over, then, in typical blunt super mutant fashion, told Hammer the news and implied that it was because Nail was stupid, like Hammer. Hammer immediately decided that meant SICKLE had killed him and attacked – Bob helped Sickle and Skout take out Hammer, and Sickle, flush with victory, decided that Bob could join the team in Hammer’s place because he had a super mutant’s heart. Bob was like “yeah, sure, if it gets me ASAMs.” XD And in fact, Sickle proved willing to trade even more of the “blinkies” to Bob if Bob did him a favor – find him some chalk. Seems Sickle suffers from some tummy troubles and eating chalk helps settle his stomach, but he doesn’t want Skout or any other mutants to know because, well, he’ll be laughed at, if not worse. Bob was up for that – better than trading PEOPLE, that’s for sure! (Though Jon indicated earlier he’d be willing to offer up Lily for the crime of kicking the ASAMs. XD)
And so the episode ended with Bob having gotten some more ASAMs, become part of a super mutant tribe, and learned that Jake needs him for some reason! Next week, we visit Jake and continue working on becoming the best and most popular mayor the Commonwealth has ever had! Looking forward to it – this mod is so much fun. :D
Workout: Did a long walk on the treadmill today for a change of pace (har har), watching the following –
A) “I have $10,000 to enlarge this house” by James Turner – the renovation video he did for Addison and Hilary’s place in the “Dine Out Reloaded” series! He actually ended up having about $14,000 to play with via selling various objects (including all the produce that ended up in the household inventory – he explicitly refused to sell the things that Addison accidentally “stole” from their dads, though), and that was enough to make the entire house a little bit bigger; divide the one big kids’ room into two separate bedrooms and decorate them so they’d be baby-and-toddler appropriate; rejigger the kitchen and dining area so it looked better and had stuff for kids to do; add a tiny bathroom by the stairs downstairs and furnish the bathroom in the refurbished “garage” (which will eventually be a home gym); and get about half of the living room done – setting up a study nook and kids’ play area, and getting some better couches for the actual “living room” spot. It’s all looking a lot better than it was – hopefully Addison, Hilary, Quinn, and Rye will agree once he gets back to the actual series itself!
B) “16 Growing Together Gameplay Ideas To Try | The Sims 4 Guide” by Petey Plays It! Just a selection of stuff to try in the Growing Together pack – from small things like earning a few extra simoleons on the side completing and selling puzzles and using the new sleeping bags to both host slumber parties and go camping without a tent, to bigger stuff like having a Sim live in a treehouse as part of a Rags-To-Riches/Homeless Sim challenge, or starting a legacy save to take advantage of the more generational gameplay. Though the one that stuck out to ME was his mention that if you complete the “Creative Genius” aspiration as a child, you’ll get a special trait, “Ideas Person,” that SIGNIFICANTLY speeds up how long Sims take to do things like program, write books, and write songs. As songwriting takes a RIDICULOUSLY LONG time in this game for no good reason – yeah. If I ever DO start my “long haul” save with all my characters as children, I’m DEFINITELY making sure Victor completes THAT!
*nods* Not bad, not bad at all -- AND the Patriots won their game today (by a hairsbreadth, but they did win!), so that was nice too. I just wish the vibes hadn't tanked in the afternoon/evening as a result of all the damn rain! *heavy sigh* And watch, it won't even think about getting nice again until I go back to work on Tuesday. . .
Well, unfortunately, nothing I can do about that. I'm gonna go chill with TV Tropes for a while, then head to bed. Got one more day off, with my goals being to complete as many tags and alt text on my Chill Valicer save posts for this week as I can; play some Sims 4 and get the gang through Winterfest before the Home Chef Hustle patch; write some more "Home Sweet Lair" with the Valicer In The Dark trio; get in a workout and start the "Extinction" arc of Oxventure; and keep up with my YouTube Subs. I feel like all of these are doable, but we will see how the day goes. *shrug* Night all!
