Decent Enough Sunday
Feb. 4th, 2024 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickI got a little more sleep, and while I had some stupid anxiety issues (see the Fallout 4 entry on the list) and was grossed out by one of my videos (see GrayStillPlays's YouTube entry), I still had a good time for the most part --
Tumblr: Had a good, productive time over here –
Victor Luvs Alice – Finished off the Sims 4 VITD Lookbook posts in my drafts! We have commentary, we have image alt text, we have links, we have tags. :D So that’s good! Now I just have to think about what I want to do for the rest of the week. . .
Valice Multiverse – Got one anon ask this evening about someone getting stuck in a sewing machine – I made it a Touched getting stuck in their new sewing machine invention, prompting Marty to ask Doc to help come figure out how the hell they did that and Victor to go get some grease to pop their head out. XD Just felt like the kind of thing that would happen over in Secundus!
Fallout 4: Yup, ended up falling on the FO4 side of the potential game divide today. . .after PLANNING to play Baldur’s Gate III, going onto Nexus Mods to check for mod updates, discovering an update to one of the major mods I use, then finding a new dye mod with a color combo that would be PERFECT for Smiler – and promptly giving myself anxiety about the whole “adding a new mod to a game in progress” thing. Because the people who made the BG3 mod manager put in a line about how “changes to your load order require a game restart” and my stupid brain can’t help but wonder if BG3 is one of those games where you have to have all of your mods ever in the game right away or shit is gonna go wrong. *facepalm* It’s a fucking DYE MOD, brain. . . *sigh* Anyway. Got annoyed with myself and decided to just play some FO4 and get that damn chem stash out of Kendall. Here’s how that went –
A) Picked up where I left off last week with Victor and Deacon hiding out from potential raiders one of the hospital kitchens, near the nursery room – I had Victor loop back through the nearby reception area and then back into the nursery to grab some more junk, took a moment to offload a bunch of stuff onto Deacon, then headed out the hole at the back of the nursery toward a big pair of blue double doors with raider barks behind it. I carefully opened them, staying back in case of trouble –
And saw a raider base basically built over a giant pit – the middle of all the floors beyond those doors had collapsed, leaving just small platforms around the edges, and the raiders had connected those platforms and built new ones with ladders and scavenged wood and suchlike. Kind of like the giant pit in the middle of the new Boston State House. Spotting a raider all the way across the room, I had Victor switch out Deliverer for the Mighty Sniper and pick him off –
B) But, well, I’ve never put a silencer on the Mighty Sniper because I don’t want it fucking with the range. Meaning, naturally, all the raiders were immediately alerted as to trouble. Fortunately, only one was on the same level as Victor and Deacon, and he had a tire iron, so he was easily dealt with. Unfortunately, Deacon, in running forward to help, managed to run right off the ledge and fall down a few floors deeper into the pit. *facepalm* The AI in this game sometimes. . . Anyway, Victor headed into the base proper and began picking off everyone he could with the Mighty Sniper – he took a few hits, but these were really low-level raiders, so they didn’t do much damage and were all taken down with a single shot. It wasn’t long until the majority of them were all dead. Victor promptly began exploring, looking for goodies and a way to rendezvous back up with Deacon (who fortunately was all right after his little tumble). He found some decent junk, and a good lot of ammo and drugs, as you might in fact expect with raiders. He also found that the very first guy I sniped off in fact had a missile launcher, so uh, good thing I took him out first! That could have been REALLY bad. O.O
C) Anyway – after a bathroom break, Victor kept exploring, slowly working his way down deeper into the pit on the hunt for loot. He and Deacon caught back up with each other at about – the third level down? – and continued on together, working their way past some dead raiders and their dog and around to a little office area. And, while exploring the desks and file cabinets over there, Victor located a holotape called “Augusta Safehouse Last Report.” And when he picked that up, the game IMMEDIATELY updated the “Butcher’s Bill” quest to act like he’d already visited the dead drop to get his instructions to find out what happened to the safehouse! :D So I don’t need to go get the dead drop after all – I just need to report back to Carrington the next time I’m in this part of the world! Nice! Thank you for letting me skip forward in this quest, FO4! (Oh, and I also listened to the holotape – it’s literally just a few lines of a guy reporting that the safehouse is under attack and not going to make it, and that “they” knew right where they were. I’m ASSUMING the intent is that the safehouse was FIRST hit by synths, who were immediately followed by the raider gang currently occupying the place. So basically Augusta was screwed twice over, poor bastards. :( )
D) With THAT sorted, all that remained was to pick up the chem stash, which the game was indicating was down at the bottom somewhere. So Victor and Deacon continued going down, looping around and around via the various platforms and killing a few last raiders along the way (including one guy wielding a pool cue and two who REALLY should have seen Victor coming – one in particular was running around, then walked through a hole DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF VICTOR and stopped and looked around like he wasn’t sure if anyone was there. XD Seriously, dude). Victor also picked up a lot more junk (including more caps, pre-War money, and chems) and sucked down a Nuka-Cola to make sure he didn’t pass out before reaching the bottom. After some very thorough exploration, he and Deacon finally made it to the lowest level of the pit, where they found some dead raiders, some dead Railroad agents (one in a cage, poor guy) –
AND ONE VERY ALIVE DEATHCLAW. WHO MANAGED TO SNEAK UP ON ME WHILE I WAS RAIDING ONE OF THE CORPSES. In terror, I hit the VATS button and lined up a bunch of shots with Deliverer, pretty certain I was about to be mauled –
AND KILLED THE FUCKER IN ONE VATS ROUND. SERIOUSLY. I – could not believe it either. I’m assuming it was a pretty low-level deathclaw, as the raiders were pretty low-level too, but – yeah. That was accidentally badass. Made sure to save right afterward, though!
E) Okay, with THAT sorted, it was finally safe to loot. I got everything I wanted off the corpses, yanked a fusion core out of a nearby generator, found myself some duct tape in toolboxes, and then located the marker for the chem stash – behind a big old pair of security doors opened by a button. Going near the security doors revealed that the room beyond was VERY radioactive, though, so I had Victor pop a Rad-X to lessen the blow before hitting the button.
And getting an “insufficient power” message. O.o “Uh-oh,” I thought, “was I not supposed to take that fusion core out of the generator yet?” So I reloaded the save right after I killed the Deathclaw, redid my looting EXCEPT for taking that fusion core, popped the Rad-X, and hit the button.
Still “insufficient power.” Hmmmm. Fortunately, at this point I remembered that I’d seen some machinery over on the OTHER side of the room (where the deathclaw had appeared), and that one of the bits had a gray box on it. Running over there confirmed that said box was a circuit breaker, and Victor was able to turn the power on and get through the doors! The room beyond WAS pretty damn radioactive, even with Rad-X helping (+6 rads per second at one point!), so I had Victor loot fast, grabbing glowing fungus, duct tape, everything from the desk and file cabinet in the area, and of course everything out of the big trunk containing the chem stash (which had chems, a mini nuke, AND a bit of nice armor – not as good as what Victor’s currently wearing, though). There was also a side door out of the area and back into Cambridge itself to the left – I had Victor double back briefly to grab that fusion core, then he and Deacon got out of there. The door led to a sort of little antechamber, with another door right in front of them – the barred door on the side of the hospital that the quest marker had tried to point me at before! All right then! I had Victor remove the bars and exit out into the emergency entrance area again, then – after listening to some nearby gunfire and making sure it wasn’t going to be an issue – take a bunch of Rad-Away to clear his rads before setting up his tent and going to bed for the night at 11:18 PM. Nothing like a good night’s sleep to heal all wounds!
F) Victor woke up bright and early around 6 AM, ready for another day’s adventures – I had him check his quest log and make “talking to Preston to finish off ‘Old Guns,’” “going into the Glowing Sea,” and “looking for tech at the Boston Mayoral Shelter” the active quests (if you’re wondering about the third one, the shelter is actually near Fort Hagen, so I can stop by on my way), then prepare to set out and get back on track with the main quest!
. . .though not before investigating the parking garage right next to the hospital. XD I mean, you never know if there might be something interesting in there! Alas, all there was in this one was wrecked, unlootable cars, with the only thing of note happening being the pair somehow pissing off a nearby garbage squirrel and Victor having to snipe it from the roof of the garage. I had the boys thus descend back to ground level, work their way over to the garbage squirrel to get its precious meat, then work their way through some of the wreckage to a location that my compass indicated was very close by and that I figured I could mark on my map for the XP – the Cambridge Campus Diner! Not – entirely sure why this is an “official” location instead of an unmarked one – it’s an extremely tiny diner with a bit of food and junk in it (forcing me to AGAIN offload onto Deacon – sorry, buddy, you’re traveling with a pack rat XD) – but well, at least Victor got some stuff out of it, and the XP for finding it!
G) With the diner looted, Victor and Deacon exited out the back into the rain, where I checked their location, determining they weren’t far from Fraternal Post 115 and the Cambridge Police Station. I thus worked my way around the rubble of the nearby buildings (pissing off ANOTHER garbage squirrel in the process – fortunately its companion ran away rather than pick a fight) until I was on the road again, then headed up and around through the new BOS checkpoint to the police station! Reason? Now that the place was properly swarming with new Brotherhood of Steel scribes and suchlike (like it would have been before, had I properly cleared up things with Danse instead of leaving him hanging for in-game months about whether or not Victor was joining the BOS), I knew that the safe in the back office could be picked open again. But why would that safe reset?
Because the Brotherhood had apparently put all-new goodies in it, including a fresh copy of Guns & Bullets! :D So Victor picked that up along with the rest of the ammo and suchlike. :) Thanks, BOS, I appreciate the extra skill magazine!
And that is where I wrapped it up for the day! Next time, Victor and Deacon continue onward back toward Sanctuary and the Red Rocket, to clear up the last of “Old Guns” and get Victor’s power armor prepped for the assault on the Glowing Sea! Should be fun. :)
Writing: You guessed it, another update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression! And another one that was pretty similar to what actually happened in the game, barring these relatively minor differences –
A) Deacon still fell into the pit, but he TRIPPED while trying to get a better firing position instead of, you know, just blindly running off the edge like his AI self. Twisted his ankle, but after a stimpack, he was just fine.
B) Alice of course helped take out the raiders, using her 10mm and her fangs – the unfortunate guy with the pool cue ended up becoming her snack for the night. Unlucky, Pool Cue Raider!
C) Deacon, Alice, and Victor took a moment to theorize after finding the Augusta holotape about what happened when the place got attacked and came to the conclusion that the initial synth attack on the place (as indicated by the few synth bodies they found) was interrupted by the raiders seeing an opportunity and just overwhelming everyone with sheer force of numbers. Victor also gave the tape to Deacon to give to Carrington later, as it’s likely Deacon will be heading back to HQ WAY before Victor does. *nods* Logic!
D) Wonderland actually gave Alice advance warning that the chem stash was on the bottom, and that it was protected by “two kinds of death” – the deathclaw and the radiation. However, because Wonderland was a cryptic little shit, this did NOT stop Victor from being surprised by the deathclaw. Fortunately the Deliverer in his universe worked as well against it as it did in the game!
E) Victor made the same mistake I did in thinking that the fusion core needed to be in the generator for the button controlling the security doors to work (and unlike me, he could just slot it back in rather than having to reload the entire universe) – Alice was the one who spotted the circuit breaker and activated it to get the power running to the right spot. (Though, admittedly, I did imply that the fusion core needed to be in the generator so that the CIRCUIT BREAKER worked – it is weird you can take those out of generators and not have the power in an area immediately go out.) Victor also intended to just quickly brave the rads alone to get the chems inside and then rejoin his companions, but after finding the door back out into the emergency entrance area, he instead got them to sprint through and meet him so they didn’t have to climb all the way up again.
F) Victor investigated the parking garage specifically because he remembered the death maze lot and just wanted to make sure this one didn’t have any weird surprises – Deacon followed him in and helped look to get that story.
G) And rather than Victor having to break into a safe in the Cambridge Police Station to get the Guns & Bullets magazine, he just met up with Haylen, who gave it to him because she was done with and thought he might like it. :)
So yeah – lot of little changes this time, but nothing that majorly changed how the trip into Kendall played out. We’ll see if there’s any bigger changes from the game the next time I play!
YouTube: Got THREE videos in today, yay – granted, one was super short, but still, always nice to get a bonus on a Sunday –
A) Started, of course, with the latest GrayStillPlays – “Taking surgery to dangerous extremes,” aka Gray plays Help Me: Tricky Story! This was a terrible mobile game about “helping” people by doing things like removing giant larvae from their heads or armpits, popping their pimples with a needle, dragging their cat out of a snake’s digestive tract, cleaning their teeth with a pick that then got stuck in their lower lip, making them expensive civet-poop coffee (by dragging the coffee out of the civet itself), and yanking photorealistic fish out of a cartoon bear’s rectum. It was – genuinely a bit stomach-turning at times (though I am kinda sensitive to stuff like bugs being in people’s flesh – even very cartoony bugs in cartoony flesh). Gray at least had fun with the “drag this item around and hope that it doesn’t get stuck somewhere in the scenery thanks to Physics” gameplay, and his commentary was on point as usual (“I am helping NO ONE” he kept declaring, and honestly given what often resulted after his assistance, he was right), but – ugh. *shudder* I preferred it when he just had to “out the spike.”
B) Then I managed to sneak in a little bonus video – “Rollercoaster Restaurant Show Footage - Alton Towers Resort” by Attraction Resort! This is apparently a video that plays in the Rollercoaster Restaurant at Alton Towers (which sends your food to you via little rollercoasters, in fact), highlighting the most famous coasters of the park – past AND present, which I learned when the section for Oblivion transitioned into one for Black Hole (the coaster that was previously in the spot the Smiler now occupies). It looks like mostly repurposed ad footage (with some occasional additional animations), but it was still very cool. :D Makes me want to go and eat there to see it up close and personal!
C) And finally, we had our usual Sunday Jon episode – “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 22 - Support News / Hate Newspapers!” Which, I don’t know why it’s called that because, while we do check in on Alyssa (setting up her “Voice Of The Commonwealth” paper) a couple of times, she’s hardly the most important thing in the video. Here, let me explain –
I. After abandoning Jake outside the Gunner vault so he could take a vertibird back to Sanctuary (poor Jake, denied the proper companion status that would let him climb aboard), Jon had Bob increase the number of people allowed to live in Sanctuary through the workbench (there’s a special “Manage” option that lets you do this), then had him check in with the Red Rocket group – only to discover they didn’t have any water or power. Annoyed, Bob built them some water pumps, and that got them going on the power plant again. XD He also discovered one of the local settlers, Theresa, had basically ALL the SPECIAL (the only thing she was middling in was Strength), so he made sure she was the one in charge of the newly-constructed power plant. Because while he respects their desire to be a largely-independent society, if they’re going to miss obvious shit like “we need to have water supplies” and “we need to have the smartest person in the settlement running the power plant,” Bob is going to step in and help, damn it.
II. From there, it was into Concord itself, where – after stopping to give Alyssa her nuclear printing press schematics (resulting in a level up and Bob getting Penetrator 2 to shoot at enemies behind cover) – Bob and Jake (who’d caught up with him via the special teleportation companions have) headed toward Jake’s workshop. . .only to find a Gunner squad there trying to recruit some of the local settlers (and doing a pretty bad job of it, as the squad leader insisted on flirting with the ladies). Jake was not happy about this, but Bob convinced him to try and talk them into leaving instead of starting another fight, slapped on his pretty red dress, and went over to chat. For some reason, despite Bob’s look, the Gunner leader thought he was reinforcements from base. XD Then again, as was quickly proved, this particular Gunner was NOT the brightest bulb in the box – all Bob had to do (thanks to his Idiot Savant trait) was fake panicking over some unknown danger, and the Gunner panicked right along with him and ran away with his squad. Jon was very pleased at Bob’s ability to say completely random shit that confuses/frightens people into going away. XD
III. Unfortunately, that did NOT prove to be the last of the Gunners – after taking stock of Jake’s wrecked hardware shop (and Bob reassuring Jake that he’d get Berman back for ruining the Vault-Hub and Jake’s terminal), Jake saw the lights flickering and realized someone was in the plutonium well trying to get the power back on, and figured it was more Gunners poking around down there. And he was right – almost the minute they got down there, they had to fight their way through the various corridors, taking out a bunch of (fortunately low-level) Gunners. Who had, annoyingly, managed to block the main entrance into the actual well, meaning Bob and Jake had to go the long way around. But they made it, shooting their way through all the bastards and getting into the actual well, where they found –
Technician Lupe! Apparently a friend of Jake’s who he thought had died in the Quincy Massacre (I thought for a split-second it was his ex-wife and Jon had been right to surmise it was said ex-wife on the tape he found, but apparently not). Turns out she’d been forcibly conscripted at gunpoint into the Gunners instead to do mechanical work for them. Fortunately for Bob and Jake, though, her superior officer was Algernon, meaning she was the technician he’d sent them to meet. Jake apologized for possibly gunning down any friends of hers in the corridors and passed along Algernon’s orders to her – turns out he’d given her a nice leave of absence to “work at her own discretion” as long as she gave Jake and Bob a hand! She was happy enough to join the team and come help Jake in the hardware store, and the pair of them began talking about setting up defenses around town to better protect the place. Jake was eager to do it using the ASAMs, but then admitted that, with the CommHub gone, they might not be able to make Martial plots anymore. . .he’s gonna try to jury-rig something with ASAMs that had already updated with the new plot type, but Jon saw that little convo as a good reason for him to start working on getting that CommHub back sooner rather than later. He does not want his ability to build cool shit to be curtailed, damn it.
IV. Anyway – with Lupe officially recruited as part of the team, and the Gunners taken care of for a moment, Bob slept through a radstorm to avoid getting too radioactive, then went over to check in with Local Murderer – err, Detective Caleb. Caleb was very excited as he’d found the location of Bombface’s red right hand man, Grizzly – he told Bob that it was unlikely Grizzly was carrying anything incriminating on his person, though, so this guy he’d have to interrogate. And asked if he had a set of pliers. *wince* Bob lied and said he was good to go (with Jon hoping to rely on Bob’s incredible red dress to get in with Grizzly instead), and then took a moment to read through Caleb’s CPD terminal. Where he found Caleb’s e-mails with Captain Forseti (who was – a little concerned that Caleb’s suspects kept dying because they “resisted arrest”), notes on some new recruits (including former Diamond City security guard Laura Norder – I hope you guys get the pun faster than me and Jon did), and notes on the locals in Concord. Including a few lines on “Harriet,” a reformed thief who’d moved into town. Bob was like “I don’t know this woman!” and set off to find her, stumbling across a previously-unoccupied house on the edge of town. . .
And finding two unnamed settlers living inside. Because in this mod, even if you’re a generic NPC, you get a nice place to live, apparently. That’s – actually rather sweet. :)
V. All right – with the defenses going up around Concord (Bob was initially like “seriously?” at the first gate to go up near Caleb’s house (which could go go right around), but grew more and more impressed as more and more of the various gaps around Concord got filled in) and Lupe having traded in her Gunner uniform for a proper mechanic’s outfit and a Jake Scarf of her own (Bob tried to get one too, but unfortunately wasn’t able to as either it wasn’t available to be crafted, or he’d already had it crafted and put it away somewhere that he couldn’t remember, and he couldn’t have it made again – he ALMOST settled for Jake’s holster, only to learn it took up a leg armor slot and he wasn’t giving up his Sprinter’s armor for ANYTHING), Bob felt good about heading out and finding Grizzly. He used his last vertibird signal grenade to head to the Prydwen to buy more grenades and get in a nap (which resulted in him getting a mission to check in with Alyssa once he woke up), then headed from there over to see what was happening at the flooded East Boston Police station, which now had a floating bridge, a Protectron, and a couple of officers wandering around (no Laura Norder, sadly). Once he was sure they were set, he then headed over to the bridge that basically links East Boston Preparatory with Country Crossing –
And saw Grizzly, hanging out in a little campsite on the far bank. Who went hostile as soon as he noticed Bob’s presence. Bob knocked him down with a solid shot from his laser sniper, then put on his fancy dress and went to interrogate him. Grizzly was initially reluctant to tell him anything about his boss, but after a few threatening statements from Bob, said that they all communicated through notes, handing over the latest one, and that there was a guy in Concord that Bob could talk to to learn the full story – someone named Edmund.
As in PASTOR EDMUND. THE FUCKING PRIEST. Bob was – naturally a little startled by this. But Grizzly’s latest note confirmed this, as Bombface informed him that HE had gone to live among the enemy (after saying there were holes in their own organization. . .and that they needed to make sure “Madison” got where she was going. Which was – interesting, as Caleb’s late wife was ALSO named Madison. Bob thus made a note to get back to Concord and confront Edmund about this nonsense –
VI. But first, as he was in the area, he decided to swing by Goodneighbor and do the Memory Den main FO4 plot quest, because Jon has decided that, nice as vertibirds are, what he REALLY wants for fast travel purposes is the Institute teleporter. XD Once that was done, he prepared to head back out into the world and get back to Concord –
Only to be met at the door of the Den by a courier. Who had a note for him from Old Paul, asking Bob to come and meet him to get a little gift. Bob was immediately like, “well, that is nice, most people rely on my Protagonist Sense to let me know to come and see them” and promptly flew back to Sanctuary to meet up with the old dude. As it turns out, the gift from Old Paul was a custom rifle – Margeret, which has a +50% damage against synths legendary effect! Bob wasn’t – THAT impressed, but decided it was situationally-useful enough for him to keep it. He was much more excited by the fact that Old Paul was looking to get back into the gunsmithing trade and hoped to open up his own shop soon – now THAT could be interesting!
VII. However, Bob had much more important things to do in this general area than get nice named guns. So, after another stop at Alyssa’s to see how she was coming along (she wanted Bob’s help in getting some stories from her paper from people whose lives had been affected by super mutants – Bob took the list and put it in his “low priority side quests” pocket, basically), and a stop over at Caleb’s to see if he was ready to talk (he wasn’t), he went and confronted Edmund over at the church, handing over Grizzly’s note to try and get him to talk about Bombface and Madison. Edmund was initially reluctant to say anything, but once Bob put on his red dress, he realized he was serious and dropped the bombshell –
Madison is indeed Caleb’s supposedly-dead wife. As it turns out, she’d noticed that Caleb was a little bit murder-happy and came to Edmund to get his help in getting away from him, as she was terrified he was going to turn on her eventually. Edmund apparently helped her escape by putting her in with Bombface’s crew (possibly after faking her death in the original attack?). He, however, did not seem to have any particular loyalty to Bombface, as he happily gave Bob the guy’s location – his idea was that, if Caleb killed Bombface, he’d have his “revenge” and closure, and Madison could continue her escape on her own, knowing her husband believed her dead. He also warned Caleb not to mention HIS name when he talked to Caleb, because it sure would be a shame if Caleb’s enemies learned Madison’s location. . .
And so the episode ended with Bob returning to Caleb and doing what Edmund had asked – giving him Bombface’s location, but NOT telling him about Madison. Because, well, Jon too was well-aware that Caleb was a little murder-happy and couldn’t blame Madison for wanting to get away. Caleb was thrilled to learn about Bombface and told Bob just to give him a few hours to prepare and they could go out and waste the guy. So it looks like next week, we’ll have the final confrontation with Bombface and see how Caleb’s storyline wraps up! Plus, since Jon wants a teleporter, Bob might be venturing once again into the Glowing Sea. . . I just hope next Sunday being, you know, SUPER BOWL SUNDAY doesn’t completely wreck my ability to watch it!
Workout: Back on the bike this week, and back to the GrayStillPlays compilation “Testing 100 Cars in GTA 5!” Finished off the “inverted super-ramps” episode (with Gray conquering the “go through the fake drink thumbnail hole” challenge (where he had to first jump from platform to platform by going through the fake drink props without crashing into the food props, then get around a carousel going the wrong way, again avoiding the food props and going through the drink props) and the “transfer loops” challenge (where he had to do a series of loops, transferring and flipping over each time he completed a curve) and being rewarded with the steepest hill making him go so fast he basically left the game and took all the color with him); and got through the entirety of the “jumping world wonders” video (where Gray had to jump things like Stonehenge (being pulled apart by aliens), the Titanic (avoiding the spinning iceberg behind it), and the pyramids of Giza (timing it so he didn’t get teleported by the beams periodically coming off their caps)). Next Sunday, we finish things off with the “jumping completely random shit” board – should be a good time!
*nods* Not bad at all. And now it is time for me to hit the sheets and get ready for another week of work. *sigh* Hopefully it isn't too stressful. . .night all!
Tumblr: Had a good, productive time over here –
Victor Luvs Alice – Finished off the Sims 4 VITD Lookbook posts in my drafts! We have commentary, we have image alt text, we have links, we have tags. :D So that’s good! Now I just have to think about what I want to do for the rest of the week. . .
Valice Multiverse – Got one anon ask this evening about someone getting stuck in a sewing machine – I made it a Touched getting stuck in their new sewing machine invention, prompting Marty to ask Doc to help come figure out how the hell they did that and Victor to go get some grease to pop their head out. XD Just felt like the kind of thing that would happen over in Secundus!
Fallout 4: Yup, ended up falling on the FO4 side of the potential game divide today. . .after PLANNING to play Baldur’s Gate III, going onto Nexus Mods to check for mod updates, discovering an update to one of the major mods I use, then finding a new dye mod with a color combo that would be PERFECT for Smiler – and promptly giving myself anxiety about the whole “adding a new mod to a game in progress” thing. Because the people who made the BG3 mod manager put in a line about how “changes to your load order require a game restart” and my stupid brain can’t help but wonder if BG3 is one of those games where you have to have all of your mods ever in the game right away or shit is gonna go wrong. *facepalm* It’s a fucking DYE MOD, brain. . . *sigh* Anyway. Got annoyed with myself and decided to just play some FO4 and get that damn chem stash out of Kendall. Here’s how that went –
A) Picked up where I left off last week with Victor and Deacon hiding out from potential raiders one of the hospital kitchens, near the nursery room – I had Victor loop back through the nearby reception area and then back into the nursery to grab some more junk, took a moment to offload a bunch of stuff onto Deacon, then headed out the hole at the back of the nursery toward a big pair of blue double doors with raider barks behind it. I carefully opened them, staying back in case of trouble –
And saw a raider base basically built over a giant pit – the middle of all the floors beyond those doors had collapsed, leaving just small platforms around the edges, and the raiders had connected those platforms and built new ones with ladders and scavenged wood and suchlike. Kind of like the giant pit in the middle of the new Boston State House. Spotting a raider all the way across the room, I had Victor switch out Deliverer for the Mighty Sniper and pick him off –
B) But, well, I’ve never put a silencer on the Mighty Sniper because I don’t want it fucking with the range. Meaning, naturally, all the raiders were immediately alerted as to trouble. Fortunately, only one was on the same level as Victor and Deacon, and he had a tire iron, so he was easily dealt with. Unfortunately, Deacon, in running forward to help, managed to run right off the ledge and fall down a few floors deeper into the pit. *facepalm* The AI in this game sometimes. . . Anyway, Victor headed into the base proper and began picking off everyone he could with the Mighty Sniper – he took a few hits, but these were really low-level raiders, so they didn’t do much damage and were all taken down with a single shot. It wasn’t long until the majority of them were all dead. Victor promptly began exploring, looking for goodies and a way to rendezvous back up with Deacon (who fortunately was all right after his little tumble). He found some decent junk, and a good lot of ammo and drugs, as you might in fact expect with raiders. He also found that the very first guy I sniped off in fact had a missile launcher, so uh, good thing I took him out first! That could have been REALLY bad. O.O
C) Anyway – after a bathroom break, Victor kept exploring, slowly working his way down deeper into the pit on the hunt for loot. He and Deacon caught back up with each other at about – the third level down? – and continued on together, working their way past some dead raiders and their dog and around to a little office area. And, while exploring the desks and file cabinets over there, Victor located a holotape called “Augusta Safehouse Last Report.” And when he picked that up, the game IMMEDIATELY updated the “Butcher’s Bill” quest to act like he’d already visited the dead drop to get his instructions to find out what happened to the safehouse! :D So I don’t need to go get the dead drop after all – I just need to report back to Carrington the next time I’m in this part of the world! Nice! Thank you for letting me skip forward in this quest, FO4! (Oh, and I also listened to the holotape – it’s literally just a few lines of a guy reporting that the safehouse is under attack and not going to make it, and that “they” knew right where they were. I’m ASSUMING the intent is that the safehouse was FIRST hit by synths, who were immediately followed by the raider gang currently occupying the place. So basically Augusta was screwed twice over, poor bastards. :( )
D) With THAT sorted, all that remained was to pick up the chem stash, which the game was indicating was down at the bottom somewhere. So Victor and Deacon continued going down, looping around and around via the various platforms and killing a few last raiders along the way (including one guy wielding a pool cue and two who REALLY should have seen Victor coming – one in particular was running around, then walked through a hole DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF VICTOR and stopped and looked around like he wasn’t sure if anyone was there. XD Seriously, dude). Victor also picked up a lot more junk (including more caps, pre-War money, and chems) and sucked down a Nuka-Cola to make sure he didn’t pass out before reaching the bottom. After some very thorough exploration, he and Deacon finally made it to the lowest level of the pit, where they found some dead raiders, some dead Railroad agents (one in a cage, poor guy) –
AND ONE VERY ALIVE DEATHCLAW. WHO MANAGED TO SNEAK UP ON ME WHILE I WAS RAIDING ONE OF THE CORPSES. In terror, I hit the VATS button and lined up a bunch of shots with Deliverer, pretty certain I was about to be mauled –
AND KILLED THE FUCKER IN ONE VATS ROUND. SERIOUSLY. I – could not believe it either. I’m assuming it was a pretty low-level deathclaw, as the raiders were pretty low-level too, but – yeah. That was accidentally badass. Made sure to save right afterward, though!
E) Okay, with THAT sorted, it was finally safe to loot. I got everything I wanted off the corpses, yanked a fusion core out of a nearby generator, found myself some duct tape in toolboxes, and then located the marker for the chem stash – behind a big old pair of security doors opened by a button. Going near the security doors revealed that the room beyond was VERY radioactive, though, so I had Victor pop a Rad-X to lessen the blow before hitting the button.
And getting an “insufficient power” message. O.o “Uh-oh,” I thought, “was I not supposed to take that fusion core out of the generator yet?” So I reloaded the save right after I killed the Deathclaw, redid my looting EXCEPT for taking that fusion core, popped the Rad-X, and hit the button.
Still “insufficient power.” Hmmmm. Fortunately, at this point I remembered that I’d seen some machinery over on the OTHER side of the room (where the deathclaw had appeared), and that one of the bits had a gray box on it. Running over there confirmed that said box was a circuit breaker, and Victor was able to turn the power on and get through the doors! The room beyond WAS pretty damn radioactive, even with Rad-X helping (+6 rads per second at one point!), so I had Victor loot fast, grabbing glowing fungus, duct tape, everything from the desk and file cabinet in the area, and of course everything out of the big trunk containing the chem stash (which had chems, a mini nuke, AND a bit of nice armor – not as good as what Victor’s currently wearing, though). There was also a side door out of the area and back into Cambridge itself to the left – I had Victor double back briefly to grab that fusion core, then he and Deacon got out of there. The door led to a sort of little antechamber, with another door right in front of them – the barred door on the side of the hospital that the quest marker had tried to point me at before! All right then! I had Victor remove the bars and exit out into the emergency entrance area again, then – after listening to some nearby gunfire and making sure it wasn’t going to be an issue – take a bunch of Rad-Away to clear his rads before setting up his tent and going to bed for the night at 11:18 PM. Nothing like a good night’s sleep to heal all wounds!
F) Victor woke up bright and early around 6 AM, ready for another day’s adventures – I had him check his quest log and make “talking to Preston to finish off ‘Old Guns,’” “going into the Glowing Sea,” and “looking for tech at the Boston Mayoral Shelter” the active quests (if you’re wondering about the third one, the shelter is actually near Fort Hagen, so I can stop by on my way), then prepare to set out and get back on track with the main quest!
. . .though not before investigating the parking garage right next to the hospital. XD I mean, you never know if there might be something interesting in there! Alas, all there was in this one was wrecked, unlootable cars, with the only thing of note happening being the pair somehow pissing off a nearby garbage squirrel and Victor having to snipe it from the roof of the garage. I had the boys thus descend back to ground level, work their way over to the garbage squirrel to get its precious meat, then work their way through some of the wreckage to a location that my compass indicated was very close by and that I figured I could mark on my map for the XP – the Cambridge Campus Diner! Not – entirely sure why this is an “official” location instead of an unmarked one – it’s an extremely tiny diner with a bit of food and junk in it (forcing me to AGAIN offload onto Deacon – sorry, buddy, you’re traveling with a pack rat XD) – but well, at least Victor got some stuff out of it, and the XP for finding it!
G) With the diner looted, Victor and Deacon exited out the back into the rain, where I checked their location, determining they weren’t far from Fraternal Post 115 and the Cambridge Police Station. I thus worked my way around the rubble of the nearby buildings (pissing off ANOTHER garbage squirrel in the process – fortunately its companion ran away rather than pick a fight) until I was on the road again, then headed up and around through the new BOS checkpoint to the police station! Reason? Now that the place was properly swarming with new Brotherhood of Steel scribes and suchlike (like it would have been before, had I properly cleared up things with Danse instead of leaving him hanging for in-game months about whether or not Victor was joining the BOS), I knew that the safe in the back office could be picked open again. But why would that safe reset?
Because the Brotherhood had apparently put all-new goodies in it, including a fresh copy of Guns & Bullets! :D So Victor picked that up along with the rest of the ammo and suchlike. :) Thanks, BOS, I appreciate the extra skill magazine!
And that is where I wrapped it up for the day! Next time, Victor and Deacon continue onward back toward Sanctuary and the Red Rocket, to clear up the last of “Old Guns” and get Victor’s power armor prepped for the assault on the Glowing Sea! Should be fun. :)
Writing: You guessed it, another update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression! And another one that was pretty similar to what actually happened in the game, barring these relatively minor differences –
A) Deacon still fell into the pit, but he TRIPPED while trying to get a better firing position instead of, you know, just blindly running off the edge like his AI self. Twisted his ankle, but after a stimpack, he was just fine.
B) Alice of course helped take out the raiders, using her 10mm and her fangs – the unfortunate guy with the pool cue ended up becoming her snack for the night. Unlucky, Pool Cue Raider!
C) Deacon, Alice, and Victor took a moment to theorize after finding the Augusta holotape about what happened when the place got attacked and came to the conclusion that the initial synth attack on the place (as indicated by the few synth bodies they found) was interrupted by the raiders seeing an opportunity and just overwhelming everyone with sheer force of numbers. Victor also gave the tape to Deacon to give to Carrington later, as it’s likely Deacon will be heading back to HQ WAY before Victor does. *nods* Logic!
D) Wonderland actually gave Alice advance warning that the chem stash was on the bottom, and that it was protected by “two kinds of death” – the deathclaw and the radiation. However, because Wonderland was a cryptic little shit, this did NOT stop Victor from being surprised by the deathclaw. Fortunately the Deliverer in his universe worked as well against it as it did in the game!
E) Victor made the same mistake I did in thinking that the fusion core needed to be in the generator for the button controlling the security doors to work (and unlike me, he could just slot it back in rather than having to reload the entire universe) – Alice was the one who spotted the circuit breaker and activated it to get the power running to the right spot. (Though, admittedly, I did imply that the fusion core needed to be in the generator so that the CIRCUIT BREAKER worked – it is weird you can take those out of generators and not have the power in an area immediately go out.) Victor also intended to just quickly brave the rads alone to get the chems inside and then rejoin his companions, but after finding the door back out into the emergency entrance area, he instead got them to sprint through and meet him so they didn’t have to climb all the way up again.
F) Victor investigated the parking garage specifically because he remembered the death maze lot and just wanted to make sure this one didn’t have any weird surprises – Deacon followed him in and helped look to get that story.
G) And rather than Victor having to break into a safe in the Cambridge Police Station to get the Guns & Bullets magazine, he just met up with Haylen, who gave it to him because she was done with and thought he might like it. :)
So yeah – lot of little changes this time, but nothing that majorly changed how the trip into Kendall played out. We’ll see if there’s any bigger changes from the game the next time I play!
YouTube: Got THREE videos in today, yay – granted, one was super short, but still, always nice to get a bonus on a Sunday –
A) Started, of course, with the latest GrayStillPlays – “Taking surgery to dangerous extremes,” aka Gray plays Help Me: Tricky Story! This was a terrible mobile game about “helping” people by doing things like removing giant larvae from their heads or armpits, popping their pimples with a needle, dragging their cat out of a snake’s digestive tract, cleaning their teeth with a pick that then got stuck in their lower lip, making them expensive civet-poop coffee (by dragging the coffee out of the civet itself), and yanking photorealistic fish out of a cartoon bear’s rectum. It was – genuinely a bit stomach-turning at times (though I am kinda sensitive to stuff like bugs being in people’s flesh – even very cartoony bugs in cartoony flesh). Gray at least had fun with the “drag this item around and hope that it doesn’t get stuck somewhere in the scenery thanks to Physics” gameplay, and his commentary was on point as usual (“I am helping NO ONE” he kept declaring, and honestly given what often resulted after his assistance, he was right), but – ugh. *shudder* I preferred it when he just had to “out the spike.”
B) Then I managed to sneak in a little bonus video – “Rollercoaster Restaurant Show Footage - Alton Towers Resort” by Attraction Resort! This is apparently a video that plays in the Rollercoaster Restaurant at Alton Towers (which sends your food to you via little rollercoasters, in fact), highlighting the most famous coasters of the park – past AND present, which I learned when the section for Oblivion transitioned into one for Black Hole (the coaster that was previously in the spot the Smiler now occupies). It looks like mostly repurposed ad footage (with some occasional additional animations), but it was still very cool. :D Makes me want to go and eat there to see it up close and personal!
C) And finally, we had our usual Sunday Jon episode – “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 22 - Support News / Hate Newspapers!” Which, I don’t know why it’s called that because, while we do check in on Alyssa (setting up her “Voice Of The Commonwealth” paper) a couple of times, she’s hardly the most important thing in the video. Here, let me explain –
I. After abandoning Jake outside the Gunner vault so he could take a vertibird back to Sanctuary (poor Jake, denied the proper companion status that would let him climb aboard), Jon had Bob increase the number of people allowed to live in Sanctuary through the workbench (there’s a special “Manage” option that lets you do this), then had him check in with the Red Rocket group – only to discover they didn’t have any water or power. Annoyed, Bob built them some water pumps, and that got them going on the power plant again. XD He also discovered one of the local settlers, Theresa, had basically ALL the SPECIAL (the only thing she was middling in was Strength), so he made sure she was the one in charge of the newly-constructed power plant. Because while he respects their desire to be a largely-independent society, if they’re going to miss obvious shit like “we need to have water supplies” and “we need to have the smartest person in the settlement running the power plant,” Bob is going to step in and help, damn it.
II. From there, it was into Concord itself, where – after stopping to give Alyssa her nuclear printing press schematics (resulting in a level up and Bob getting Penetrator 2 to shoot at enemies behind cover) – Bob and Jake (who’d caught up with him via the special teleportation companions have) headed toward Jake’s workshop. . .only to find a Gunner squad there trying to recruit some of the local settlers (and doing a pretty bad job of it, as the squad leader insisted on flirting with the ladies). Jake was not happy about this, but Bob convinced him to try and talk them into leaving instead of starting another fight, slapped on his pretty red dress, and went over to chat. For some reason, despite Bob’s look, the Gunner leader thought he was reinforcements from base. XD Then again, as was quickly proved, this particular Gunner was NOT the brightest bulb in the box – all Bob had to do (thanks to his Idiot Savant trait) was fake panicking over some unknown danger, and the Gunner panicked right along with him and ran away with his squad. Jon was very pleased at Bob’s ability to say completely random shit that confuses/frightens people into going away. XD
III. Unfortunately, that did NOT prove to be the last of the Gunners – after taking stock of Jake’s wrecked hardware shop (and Bob reassuring Jake that he’d get Berman back for ruining the Vault-Hub and Jake’s terminal), Jake saw the lights flickering and realized someone was in the plutonium well trying to get the power back on, and figured it was more Gunners poking around down there. And he was right – almost the minute they got down there, they had to fight their way through the various corridors, taking out a bunch of (fortunately low-level) Gunners. Who had, annoyingly, managed to block the main entrance into the actual well, meaning Bob and Jake had to go the long way around. But they made it, shooting their way through all the bastards and getting into the actual well, where they found –
Technician Lupe! Apparently a friend of Jake’s who he thought had died in the Quincy Massacre (I thought for a split-second it was his ex-wife and Jon had been right to surmise it was said ex-wife on the tape he found, but apparently not). Turns out she’d been forcibly conscripted at gunpoint into the Gunners instead to do mechanical work for them. Fortunately for Bob and Jake, though, her superior officer was Algernon, meaning she was the technician he’d sent them to meet. Jake apologized for possibly gunning down any friends of hers in the corridors and passed along Algernon’s orders to her – turns out he’d given her a nice leave of absence to “work at her own discretion” as long as she gave Jake and Bob a hand! She was happy enough to join the team and come help Jake in the hardware store, and the pair of them began talking about setting up defenses around town to better protect the place. Jake was eager to do it using the ASAMs, but then admitted that, with the CommHub gone, they might not be able to make Martial plots anymore. . .he’s gonna try to jury-rig something with ASAMs that had already updated with the new plot type, but Jon saw that little convo as a good reason for him to start working on getting that CommHub back sooner rather than later. He does not want his ability to build cool shit to be curtailed, damn it.
IV. Anyway – with Lupe officially recruited as part of the team, and the Gunners taken care of for a moment, Bob slept through a radstorm to avoid getting too radioactive, then went over to check in with Local Murderer – err, Detective Caleb. Caleb was very excited as he’d found the location of Bombface’s red right hand man, Grizzly – he told Bob that it was unlikely Grizzly was carrying anything incriminating on his person, though, so this guy he’d have to interrogate. And asked if he had a set of pliers. *wince* Bob lied and said he was good to go (with Jon hoping to rely on Bob’s incredible red dress to get in with Grizzly instead), and then took a moment to read through Caleb’s CPD terminal. Where he found Caleb’s e-mails with Captain Forseti (who was – a little concerned that Caleb’s suspects kept dying because they “resisted arrest”), notes on some new recruits (including former Diamond City security guard Laura Norder – I hope you guys get the pun faster than me and Jon did), and notes on the locals in Concord. Including a few lines on “Harriet,” a reformed thief who’d moved into town. Bob was like “I don’t know this woman!” and set off to find her, stumbling across a previously-unoccupied house on the edge of town. . .
And finding two unnamed settlers living inside. Because in this mod, even if you’re a generic NPC, you get a nice place to live, apparently. That’s – actually rather sweet. :)
V. All right – with the defenses going up around Concord (Bob was initially like “seriously?” at the first gate to go up near Caleb’s house (which could go go right around), but grew more and more impressed as more and more of the various gaps around Concord got filled in) and Lupe having traded in her Gunner uniform for a proper mechanic’s outfit and a Jake Scarf of her own (Bob tried to get one too, but unfortunately wasn’t able to as either it wasn’t available to be crafted, or he’d already had it crafted and put it away somewhere that he couldn’t remember, and he couldn’t have it made again – he ALMOST settled for Jake’s holster, only to learn it took up a leg armor slot and he wasn’t giving up his Sprinter’s armor for ANYTHING), Bob felt good about heading out and finding Grizzly. He used his last vertibird signal grenade to head to the Prydwen to buy more grenades and get in a nap (which resulted in him getting a mission to check in with Alyssa once he woke up), then headed from there over to see what was happening at the flooded East Boston Police station, which now had a floating bridge, a Protectron, and a couple of officers wandering around (no Laura Norder, sadly). Once he was sure they were set, he then headed over to the bridge that basically links East Boston Preparatory with Country Crossing –
And saw Grizzly, hanging out in a little campsite on the far bank. Who went hostile as soon as he noticed Bob’s presence. Bob knocked him down with a solid shot from his laser sniper, then put on his fancy dress and went to interrogate him. Grizzly was initially reluctant to tell him anything about his boss, but after a few threatening statements from Bob, said that they all communicated through notes, handing over the latest one, and that there was a guy in Concord that Bob could talk to to learn the full story – someone named Edmund.
As in PASTOR EDMUND. THE FUCKING PRIEST. Bob was – naturally a little startled by this. But Grizzly’s latest note confirmed this, as Bombface informed him that HE had gone to live among the enemy (after saying there were holes in their own organization. . .and that they needed to make sure “Madison” got where she was going. Which was – interesting, as Caleb’s late wife was ALSO named Madison. Bob thus made a note to get back to Concord and confront Edmund about this nonsense –
VI. But first, as he was in the area, he decided to swing by Goodneighbor and do the Memory Den main FO4 plot quest, because Jon has decided that, nice as vertibirds are, what he REALLY wants for fast travel purposes is the Institute teleporter. XD Once that was done, he prepared to head back out into the world and get back to Concord –
Only to be met at the door of the Den by a courier. Who had a note for him from Old Paul, asking Bob to come and meet him to get a little gift. Bob was immediately like, “well, that is nice, most people rely on my Protagonist Sense to let me know to come and see them” and promptly flew back to Sanctuary to meet up with the old dude. As it turns out, the gift from Old Paul was a custom rifle – Margeret, which has a +50% damage against synths legendary effect! Bob wasn’t – THAT impressed, but decided it was situationally-useful enough for him to keep it. He was much more excited by the fact that Old Paul was looking to get back into the gunsmithing trade and hoped to open up his own shop soon – now THAT could be interesting!
VII. However, Bob had much more important things to do in this general area than get nice named guns. So, after another stop at Alyssa’s to see how she was coming along (she wanted Bob’s help in getting some stories from her paper from people whose lives had been affected by super mutants – Bob took the list and put it in his “low priority side quests” pocket, basically), and a stop over at Caleb’s to see if he was ready to talk (he wasn’t), he went and confronted Edmund over at the church, handing over Grizzly’s note to try and get him to talk about Bombface and Madison. Edmund was initially reluctant to say anything, but once Bob put on his red dress, he realized he was serious and dropped the bombshell –
Madison is indeed Caleb’s supposedly-dead wife. As it turns out, she’d noticed that Caleb was a little bit murder-happy and came to Edmund to get his help in getting away from him, as she was terrified he was going to turn on her eventually. Edmund apparently helped her escape by putting her in with Bombface’s crew (possibly after faking her death in the original attack?). He, however, did not seem to have any particular loyalty to Bombface, as he happily gave Bob the guy’s location – his idea was that, if Caleb killed Bombface, he’d have his “revenge” and closure, and Madison could continue her escape on her own, knowing her husband believed her dead. He also warned Caleb not to mention HIS name when he talked to Caleb, because it sure would be a shame if Caleb’s enemies learned Madison’s location. . .
And so the episode ended with Bob returning to Caleb and doing what Edmund had asked – giving him Bombface’s location, but NOT telling him about Madison. Because, well, Jon too was well-aware that Caleb was a little murder-happy and couldn’t blame Madison for wanting to get away. Caleb was thrilled to learn about Bombface and told Bob just to give him a few hours to prepare and they could go out and waste the guy. So it looks like next week, we’ll have the final confrontation with Bombface and see how Caleb’s storyline wraps up! Plus, since Jon wants a teleporter, Bob might be venturing once again into the Glowing Sea. . . I just hope next Sunday being, you know, SUPER BOWL SUNDAY doesn’t completely wreck my ability to watch it!
Workout: Back on the bike this week, and back to the GrayStillPlays compilation “Testing 100 Cars in GTA 5!” Finished off the “inverted super-ramps” episode (with Gray conquering the “go through the fake drink thumbnail hole” challenge (where he had to first jump from platform to platform by going through the fake drink props without crashing into the food props, then get around a carousel going the wrong way, again avoiding the food props and going through the drink props) and the “transfer loops” challenge (where he had to do a series of loops, transferring and flipping over each time he completed a curve) and being rewarded with the steepest hill making him go so fast he basically left the game and took all the color with him); and got through the entirety of the “jumping world wonders” video (where Gray had to jump things like Stonehenge (being pulled apart by aliens), the Titanic (avoiding the spinning iceberg behind it), and the pyramids of Giza (timing it so he didn’t get teleported by the beams periodically coming off their caps)). Next Sunday, we finish things off with the “jumping completely random shit” board – should be a good time!
*nods* Not bad at all. And now it is time for me to hit the sheets and get ready for another week of work. *sigh* Hopefully it isn't too stressful. . .night all!
