Busy Sunday Evening, As Usual
Jun. 16th, 2024 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYou know how it is, I got to the YouTube a bit late and now I'm scrambling to finish up my thoughts on Jon's latest SS2 video so I can update. . .damn you time management! *shakes fist* But I will say here and now that I had a good Father's Day -- Dad like the card I made him (printed off a fun template at work), and we all just hung out and chilled at home, with him reading his new books, Mom doing a lot of baking, and me doing my usual Sunday stuff --
Tumblr: Well, didn’t get a heck of a lot done over here too – nothing at all happening on Valice Multiverse, for example – but I did properly write up my “Tiny Town Challenge” post for this Wednesday in the drafts over on Victor Luvs Alice, complete with me nattering on about where I would like to do it (the Crumbling Isle in Windenburg); my ideas for potential citizens; and wondering how the fuck you do a chemist in Sims 4 without putting them in the Scientist career (I mean, I’m sure Smiler would rock it, but still). So that’s ready to go for the middle of this week, yay~
Fallout 4: Today proved to be a day of constant reloads in old FO4, but I did make some progress on getting Jezebel the robobrain out of Rust Devil headquarters –
A) Picked up in the big room where Jezebel and the boss monster (a big spiky sentry bot named Ahab) behind her lives – after doubling back into the previous room to confirm that I hadn’t missed anything there (and picking up a couple more goodies from the med bay – plungers have rubber, after all, and I’m going to need that to upgrade my new power armor leg, after all), I had Victor and Ada venture inside, into the “pit” in the middle of the room. Which had some very creepy stuff in it, let me tell you – a bunch of mannequins gathered around and “tending” a Jangles The Moon Monkey toy in a wheelchair; some dead soldier skeletons slumped next to a dumpster; various robots under construction next to more of those creepy torches with the human/robot hybrid things tied to them with barbed wire. On the plus side, it also had multiple weapons workbenches and lots of tools and other good junk (plus a cooler with iguana bits and wine in it, which I just thought was kind of funny for some reason XD). After exploring the area, I headed up the stairs on the left side of the room, up to the catwalk that overlooked the whole place – there wasn’t much on the left side, but over on the right, across an extendable bridge, I found a junction leading to another weapons workbench with a PACK of duct tape on it (fucking score), some more toolboxes with goodies in them, a bottlecap mine, and a whole-ass missile launcher (I guess if you want to make the fight with Ahab really easier – I didn’t trust myself not to blow Victor up, though). I grabbed all the goodies and stopped at the bench to see if there was anything I could do to the Resolute Laser Rifle I’d picked up – a few things, but all the really good stuff was locked behind me getting more crystal, fiber optics, fiberglass, and gold. I had Victor check Ada’s inventory, but while she had items with the fiberglass and crystal I needed, she didn’t have anything with gold or fiber optics. So I decided to hold off on the upgrades, both because of that. . .and because there was a Mechanist bot playing the latest holotape on a CONTINUOUS LOOP nearby. *wince* Yeah, that – that got annoying fast.
B) Anyway – after checking out the other branch of the catwalk to the right (loaded with Carlisle typewriters, nice), I had Victor and Ada head back toward the stairs, then hop over the railing of said stairs to land on the elevated portion that contained Jezebel and Ahab and all that. However, Victor happened to land in front of the entrance to another room with an earth mover of some kind in it –
A room that ALSO had a bunch of laser tripwires inside, moving from side to side. Figuring this would be the way out of the HQ once Victor had Jezebel, I decided to go ahead and disarm them early so I wouldn’t have to deal with them later. The first one, right in front of Victor on the side wall, proved easy – it didn’t go back far enough to actually hit Victor, so all he had to do was creep up to it and disarm it.
The other two, on the other hand. . .well. The one attached to the crate on the other side of the room actually wasn’t too bad once I could get to it – it was another one with a fairly limited range of motion, and there was an angle where Victor could get up to it without triggering any of the lasers. The one on the opposite wall near the door, however, had a VERY wide arc that it continually swept through (rather jerkily, but still), meaning it was very hard to get near it without triggering it. My first attempt to disarm it by outrunning its sweep ended in Victor getting VERY blown up, while my second attempt to sneak up on it from behind the earth mover (since Victor could jump up and around the back of it) ended in Victor not getting the prompt to actually disarm it in time and getting his arm broken by a shower of grenades while poor Ada got her legs basically blown off. *wince* Fortunately, the third attempt was the charm, with Victor managing to approach at just the right moment and focusing his eyes in just the right spot for me to hit (A) and get the damn thing deactivated. Whew! Got me some free fiber optics too, nice. :)
C) With all the killer laser traps deactivated, I had Victor peek into the room just beyond – this proved to be a generator room that was also being used as a bedroom and workshop by some of the Rust Devils. Specifically, there was one raider who was using a chem bench to make Jet with fertilizer; one who was apparently into Nuka-Cola judging by the bottles strewn around their space; and another with some fancy circuit boards they were working on near the window overlooking the next room. I had Victor steal just about everything not nailed down, then sent him to investigate the terminal and safe that I’d spotted in the upper right corner of the room. The terminal proved to be the Rust Devil’s gaming terminal, with a copy of the in-game version of “Automatron” loaded and a message from Ivey telling all the Rust Devils that the terminal was off-limits until the asshole who wiped the Scores page owned up. As Victor wasn’t a Rust Devil, I had him play a few rounds – it’s basically a “shoot all the robots in each wave” turret defense game, except your turret can move around freely (I guess you’re a tank) – it took me a while to figure out because while you move with one joystick on the controller, you shoot AND spin yourself around with the OTHER joystick. Doesn’t make navigating very easy! But I did get a couple of new high scores, and had Victor take the in-game holotape with him for later. :P As for the safe, that was relatively easily picked, and contained such goodies as a cryomine, some molotovs, a mechanical Buttercup pony leg, and some gold items – maybe I’m closer to upgrading the Resolute Laser Rifle than I think. :) Anyway, I had Victor grab all the stuff, quicksaved, then prepare to leave the room –
D) Only to suddenly hear barks from unseen enemies, and see Ada suddenly firing through the window above where the circuit board tinkering was happening. A few moments later, an Assaultron Devil and a Legendary Mr. Handy War Machine came storming through – at the EXACT SAME TIME that I got a message from the game saying Victor REALLY needed to use the bathroom. *facepalm* I promptly reloaded the quicksave I’d made above, then had Victor leave the corner with the safe crouched so he didn’t set off any alerts. He had his toilet break in a nice quiet corner among the generators, then proceeded back to the main room to check on his ability to upgrade the Resolute Laser Rifle at one of the workbenches there (in the dip, farthest away from the constant Mechanist loop). Unfortunately, Victor was STILL slightly short on fiber optics, meaning that the Improved Sniper Barrel (the mod that REALLY ups the damage on a laser rifle) was still out of reach. I decided to save my resources. . .
E) And instead proceeded up to where Jezebel and Ahab waited! The ramp led me up to the right side of the room, where I found more tools, a terminal, and an eyebot in a cage – the eyebot being the one broadcasting the loop of the Mechanist swearing to take out Victor as a “scourge” on the Commonwealth. I took all the goodies, then checked out the terminal – it was a pretty simple one, with entries on the “brain” (Ivey demanding that they find a way to make it talk so they’d get a lead on how to reach the Mechanist), the “eyebot” (Ivey saying it was okay just to shut the damn thing down, as SHE was sick of the loop too – though she wanted to put some mods in it, so be careful) and the “schematics” (just junk data). There was also a holotape labeled “Jezebel Interview” – I took that and ran away from the constantly-repeating eyebot so I could listen to it in peace near the entrance. Turned out to be a recording of a conversation between Jezebel and a Rust Devil named Jagger, with Jagger threatening Jezebel to find out what made her tick, and Jezebel trying to cut a deal with him, saying she’d tell him everything she knew about her construction so long as Jagger didn’t destroy her brain and put her back on her body. Jagger was open to the first clause, but not the second, saying he was going to keep her stuck to the machine she was currently on just so she didn’t try any funny business. Which – smart, but does make you feel a little bad for Jezebel. She’s not a good person, but this is still a sucky thing to happen to her!
F) Fortunately, part of the quest line DOES involve rescuing her, so it was time to head up to Jezebel’s area and actually talk to her! Though, before I actually approached her computer array, I decided that it might be a good idea to prep for the fight with Ahab the creepy sentry bot with a deathclaw skull on it. So I dropped a save, dropped a bottlecap mine on the ramp in front of it. . .
And then noticed that you could actually SPEAK to Ahab. Curious, I decided to try it –
Aaaand that just activated him early. And showed that his flamethrower-loving ass could JUMP over shit to try and wreck up Victor and Ada. O.o Yeah, that was – worrying. Good thing I saved before Victor could get very far with his plan! I thus reloaded and had Victor start the conversation with Jezbel instead –
Only to realize that the damn eyebot’s loop was playing OVER HER DIALOGUE. *grimaces* I promptly reloaded and had Victor shoot the damn thing in its cage to shut it up – but as I approached the cage, I noticed that the door could be picked. Curious if you could somehow get the eyebot on your side if you freed it, I reloaded AGAIN and had Victor pick the door first –
Aaaand nothing. The eyebot just sits there, playing the same holotape over and over. And Victor couldn’t hack it to shut it up, despite his best efforts, so yeah. Got a bullet to the speakers. *shrug* At least it provided a tiny bit of extra XP!
G) With THAT finally sorted, it was time to talk to Jezebel! I had Victor greet her, which had her note that he didn’t look like a Rust Devil – Victor told her straight out they were looking for a radar beacon, and she calculated that he was looking for the Mechanist. She told him that he needed more than the beacon if he wanted to find the Mechanist – he also needed access to the facility where the Mechanist was holed up. And Jezebel was willing to provide both if Victor got her out of Rust Devil HQ and gave her a new body. Victor was willing to cut a deal, and grabbed her brainpan off the machine that the Rust Devils were keeping her on. This of course activated Ahab, who came down his ramp flamethrower blazing –
Aaaand it turns out I should not have been worried about this guy, as three shots from Victor’s Two-Shot Combat Rifle took him down. :D Even Jezebel was impressed. XD What do I always say – Two-Shot beloved!
H) Unfortunately, defeating Ahab was only step one of getting out of Rust Devil HQ – step two was getting past all the rest of the Rust Devils! Including the Assaultron Devil and the Legendary Mr. Handy War Machine (remember them?) that stormed the room as Victor was getting ready to go. Fortunately both were taken out with a minimum of fuss (though the Devil was able to use its Assaultron laser on Victor, and the Handy get in a couple of shots on poor Ada) – unfortunately, not only did Victor get a mere Nocturnal Hunting Rifle off the Handy’s corpse (decent gun, but the special effect of getting stronger at night doesn’t REALLY do it for Victor), while Victor was getting said gun, SOMETHING blew up nearby and dosed him with a ton of rads, forcing him to do some Rad-Away, then eat some food to heal up (I specifically chose something that would help refresh his action points faster, because I need those for VATS). *shakehead* I guess Ahab’s flamethrower managed to fry something explodable and I didn’t notice – you get the last laugh, spiky evil jumpy sentry bot!
I) Anyway, once Victor was de-radded and healed, the gang proceeded onward, through the earth mover room (VERY glad I cleared those traps early!) and the generator room (where Victor got the drop on two Protectron Devils near the door that had the bad luck to be facing away from him). They then entered another big room with lots of elevated concrete bunker bits and more tanks and crates, where Victor and Ada were met with a Rust Devil –
And in taking them out, Victor accidentally shot Ada. D: Sorry, Ada, your arm was in the way! I had Victor heal her up with one of the repair kits and proceed further into the room – while he found no further human Rust Devils, trying to get across into the makeshift bedroom someone had built atop a platform alerted a Protectron Devil and a couple of turrets high up on the wooden hallways and such the Rust Devils had built in the room. Fortunately, they were pretty easily taken out with the Two-Shot, and Victor and Ada were able to make it into the bedroom –
Which proved to be Ivey’s room! Which had a few goodies and a terminal with some recent logs of what’s been happening with the Rust Devils – apparently, they captured Jezebel while trying to raid Pioneer Park for the four special Protectrons there, only to get jumped by a Mechanist robot squad AND a local deathclaw. *wince* I know you’re my enemy, Ivey, but – well, that sounded genuinely rough and I am sorry. At least it put Pioneer Park on my map?
And so my session ended with Victor and Ada hanging out in the bedroom, with Victor having just swigged another Nuka-Cola to fending off encroaching tiredness so he and his robot daughter can get OUT of this place. Next time, we work on leaving Rust Devil HQ so we can take Jezebel back to the Red Rocket to give her her new body and learn how to access the Mechanist’s lair!
Writing: Updated the FO4 Playthrough Progression this afternoon/evening (around beanbags, my workout, and supper) with the latest happenings in the game – and while the most obvious difference between game-reality and fanfic-reality is that “Victor of course didn’t have to deal with anything that made me reload, like accidentally getting the attention of a bunch of Rust Devils leaving the generator room or activating Ahab early,” there were a few other differences as well –
A) Victor and company never did any backtracking like I did at the start – Victor, notorious pack rat in this world, already made sure to grab everything he wanted. Smart boy.
B) Alice was the one to go up the stairs and get the goodies up on the catwalk while Victor was poking around in the lower section of Jezebel’s room – she turned down the missile launcher because Wonderland told her picking it up would lead to bad times, but she made damn sure to get all that duct tape. She and Victor also took on the laser tripwires in the earth mover room together (Alice using her Celerity to get the trickiest one) and explored the generator room together, because teamwork makes the dream work.
C) Victor obviously didn’t pause and play any games on the Rust Devil’s gaming terminal once he determined that’s what it was, and he didn’t stop repeatedly at the weapon workbenches to start upgrading his laser rifle, then stop when he realized he didn’t have enough materials – dude’s got much more important things to do! (Though he did take a bathroom break in the generator room, because obviously he DOES have bodily needs. :p)
D) Ada went ahead and got the Jezebel interview holotape, looked at the workshop terminal, and shot the eyebot in the cage while Victor and Alice were in the generator room, because why just have her standing there idle while the rest of them were exploring? Gotta give our favorite robot daughter something to do!
E) And Alice was the one to kill the Legendary Mr. Handy War Machine and claim the Nocturnal hunting rifle (with the Legendary effect explained as a Tremere enchantment) – given her current condition, it’s actually USEFUL for her!
But yeah, other than that, pretty much the same as what happened above, including Victor happily making a deal with Jezebel to get her out of Rust Devil HQ and give her a new body in exchange for information about how to get into Mechanist HQ; Victor taking down Ahab the Spooky Sentry Bot with three blasts to the torso from the Two-Shot; and the gang fighting their way to Ivey’s bedroom during their escape from HQ (with Victor accidentally shooting Ada, which he was VERY apologetic about). Good stuff. Next time, hopefully they manage to get out of the Rust Devil’s headquarters and start the journey back toward the Sanctuary Red Rocket!
YouTube: Ran a little longer than I would have liked this evening, but I did get in my usual Sunday Two –
A) First up, back from his little vacation yesterday, we had GrayStillPlays and “Which car has the best spoiler in GTA 5?” This Torture Board saw Gray having to take sets of matched cars – one, in pink, without a spoiler, and the other, in green, with a spoiler – through four different evil challenges to see which one performed the best, and the difference the spoiler made on each car to traction, downforce, and control. The challenges were as follows –
I. Sharpening Corners But You Don’t See Where To Turn – Gray had to make it through a twisty-turny course where all the twisty-turny bits actually took a moment to pop into visibility (meaning if you hit them too fast you wouldn’t see where to go) in 60 seconds! Oh, and to prevent him from cheating, the cars all poofed if Gray touched the curb for too long or with too many tires – can’t have him curb-boosting the non-spoiler cars to victory, after all!
II. Wall Rides But They Get Straighter And Straighter (also, you have to jump between Reginald’s legs) – Gray had to make it through a trio of Minecraft-themed wall rides – the pickaxe wall ride, the regular axe wall ride, and the diamond sword wall ride – each one tilted at a steeper and steeper angle to try and throw him off. Oh, and at the end of each wall ride, he had to jump through the legs of a giant Reginald. Though, more often, he just CRASHED into the legs of the giant Reginalds. XD At least this one wasn’t timed!
III. Enforced Downforce But Sometimes You Get Yeeted Down – Gray had to navigate a roadway with a lot of sharp turns and an extended tightrope section UPSIDE-DOWN (with the hell of a script circle power-up), all while avoiding the hydraulic yeeters scattered throughout the course. If he got yeeted, it was game over, man – though, really, what Gray had the most trouble with I think was all the turns being backwards compared to what he THOUGHT they should be. XD
IV. Mega Ramp Thingy – Gray had to jump into a teleporter, then hit the Full Acceleration script circle and somehow hug this absolutely giant curving ramp as it turned over on itself to hit the win! If he couldn’t stay on the road, the car was not the winner.
So, how did things go? Well, Gray very quickly learned that the spoiler really DOES make a difference – even for the cars that couldn’t complete certain challenges (like the Phoenix being unable to get through the first “Corners” challenge, or the Feltzer being unable to make it past the third wall ride – oh, and shout-out to editor Zack for actually INCLUDING THE NAMES OF THE CARS in this video), the one with the spoiler ALWAYS did better than the one without. The only pink car that came close to doing as well as its green counterpart was the pink version of the ultimate winner, the re-7b car – and THAT was because that car’s base model comes with a spoiler. The green one just had a BETTER one. XD But yes, the re-7b sport car completed all challenges with relative ease, and the green fancy-spoiler variant managed to stick to that ludicrous ending ramp to get the win! So yeah, if you need that extra downforce or traction – get the fucking spoiler. It really does help!
B) And second up, back at his usual time on Sundays, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 39 - The Sex Bot!” Which largely featured Mayor Bob going off to find – well. Look at the title. XD More specifically, Bob’s journey today took him across the northeast edge of the map, hitting up places like the Bottom Feeder Brothel, the Boston Airport and the Prydwen, Nordhagen Beach, and Libertalia. How did all of this go? Well –
I. Right from the start, things got a little weird with Jake calling Bob as he was starting off from the Marina – to talk about improving the antenna on top of the HQ. As if Bob doing that and helping him record a new message for his daughter hadn’t even happened. Uh – Sim Settlements 2, are you feeling okay? Keeping track of what quests Bob has done and hasn’t done? I hope this isn’t a sign of more glitches to come. . .
II. And then, right after that, Bob stumbled across a new shop nearby that he’d never noticed before – Tiny Box Tim’s Box Store. Run by a kid ghoul who apparently survived the war in a tiny box (obviously a joke on “Kid In A Fridge”) and now sells stuff for people to sit on (when he’s not filling them with rubber ducks for a laugh). Bob was very confused, but consented to look through his wares –
Turns out Tiny Box Tim sells fucking loot boxes. XD A massive variety too, ranging from “Freemium” to “Earthquake Proof.” Bob bought one of the latter and got a bunch of middling junk, along with a scrap of “Wasteland Wisdom” – “A watched plot never advances,” which he thought was amusing because the plot of SS2 WILL just occasionally stop sometimes to let you do the base game stuff. XD But yeah, Tiny Box Tim is apparently here to make fun of silly quests and aggressive loot box sales by gaming companies – and to serve as a reference to something from Markiplier’s YouTube channel, if I’m understanding the comments correctly. *shrug* I don’t watch the guy, so I don’t know what the specific reference is, but the Mark fans seem to be happy!
III. Okay, enough faffing about with game glitches and joke characters – it was time for Mayor Bob to claim a sex robot from a brothel so it could somehow help The Ventilator draw up and purify water! (Jon was certain that this was all leading to some sort of horrible smutty pun but wasn’t sure what it could be. He was also pretty sure the robot was going to be an Assaultron, since their chassis gives them natural “boobs” for some bizarre reason. XD) Bob thus worked his way around Mass Bay Medical and found the door into the Bottom Feeder Brothel –
Only to find everyone inside very, very dead, murdered by some unknown assailant. He also found a note on the door to the back room, stating that a mysterious someone had taken their robot as an “interest payment” since they were late AGAIN with – I’m guessing the rent or something – and that they knew where to find them. Bob was like “but I don’t know where to find you!” and entered the room to try and search for clues –
IV. Only to be jumpscared as he turned to leave by an arriving Legendary Synth Leader! Seems the Institute has taken an interest in scanning this place for the bot as well. Jon correctly deduced that he normally would be tasked with killing this guy and claiming the stuff off his corpse, but as he and the Institute were chill, the synth and his patrol weren’t hostile. And Jon still didn’t want to risk Bob pissing off the Institute by killing the patrols, so instead he went to Mass Bay and dropped a nap save, then came back and stole the holotape he needed off the leader (ignoring the Legendary gear he had on him – just a piece of Super Mutant Slayer armor, not worth bothering with). The holotape revealed that the bot was the Human Service Bot Mr. Handsy (seriously XD) and that they’d been looking for it a few different places for – unknown reasons. The next place they were considering searching was Fenway Park, aka Diamond City, so Bob headed over there –
And found someone new hanging about – a woman named Darsenia! He attempted to talk to her, but she just ignored him. Bob decided to leave her to it (though he didn’t rule her out as being important to the quest) and instead followed his quest marker to a DC security report resting on the noodle stand in the center of town, which indicated that the security team had taken the robot into custody and put it in the local lock-up after some sort of, uh, commotion in town. Bob thus headed over to DC security to see if he could find the robot –
V. Only to find, instead, a holotape regarding the “Mr. Handsy Evidence” on a shelf in one of the back rooms instead. The holotape proved to be a message from a dude named Marv, talking to a friend about how he’d taken the robot to his scavenger camp and had updated its program, and how it was going to make them rich. Concerning! But that gave Bob a new lead to chase, so he left Diamond City and headed in the direction of the camp –
VI. Only to pass by Wattz Consumer Electronics and discover that he had a quest telling him to go inside. Now, normally Wattz is just a place to stop by if you want the Protectron “Total Hack” magazine, but apparently the Next Gen update forcibly dumped some former Creation Club content into the game, and visiting Wattz is how you start the quest “Speak Of The Devil.” Bob entered cautiously, and found a display with a huge lit-up poster of “The Black Devil,” a mysterious radio, and a note from someone named Connie. Said note was all about how Connie learned of a super hero, “The Black Devil,” who used to roam the Commonwealth keeping all the raider gangs at bay, only to disappear about a year before the start of the game, from their Pa – then discovered a couple of mysterious radio stations linked to specific relay towers in the Commonwealth. Connie was hoping that if they got the relay towers working and broadcast the right music to the right radio, they could summon the Black Devil back again to take care of all the raiders. Jon wasn’t PARTICULARLY interested in this (as he is rather annoyed with the Next Gen update and the shit it shoved into the game), but as one of the relay towers was on the way, he figured he could get Bob to check it out.
VII. Okay, new quest picked up and Protectron Total Hack got – time to continue searching for Mr. Handsy! XD Fortunately, Bob discovered the Scavenger camp that had him was relatively nearby. He managed to snipe off the scavvers hanging around the camp, then discovered a box containing the mysterious Mr. Handsy. Interacting with the box just caused it to disappear into his inventory, and a relieved Bob turned to go –
Only to get jumpscared by the synth patrol arriving on the scene. Having apparently followed either the same trail as he had or him directly. Bob decided he didn’t WANT to know why the Institute wanted a sex bot (Jon had already come up with the groaner pun that it was “good at pumping”) and scurried off to continue his errands. XD
VIII. Next destination – the first of the Black Devil relay towers, since it was on the way to Boston Airport and the Prydwen. Bob headed over to see what all that was about – and was deeply annoyed to discover it was some Enclave Remnant idiot in a harness and a fedora. Jon, on the other side of the screen, was like “why is it ALWAYS the bloody Enclave in this Creation Club stuff?!” Anyway, he shot the guy, uploaded the necessary data to the tower, and found the dead body of Richie, Connie’s – friend? Brother? Something like that, neither Jon nor I was paying that much attention – who had a note on him saying that the Enclave had taken Connie off to interrogate them –
At BADTFL. You know, the place that the CPD had taken over recently as their new headquarters. Bob wandered over that way just to check, but when he arrived, there was no quest marker, presumably because the quest only existed in the original interior cell, which was no longer accessible. Jon couldn’t say he was that upset about it, though, especially when he went inside the BADTFL and toured the newly renovated interior. He was beyond thrilled at the care and attention that the SS2 team had put into building the new interior space and dressing it up appropriately as, you know, A PLACE PEOPLE COULD LIVE. Blows Bethesda’s stuff out of the water, definitely! So yeah – if it comes to a fight between completing Bethesda’s Creation Club quests or continuing with the SS2 stuff, Jon’s going to pick the SS2 stuff every time. (Though, apparently, there IS supposed to be an intercom on the front of the building that will reload the original interior cell if Jon really DOES want to do the rest of the quest, but. . .somehow, I don’t think he’ll bother. :p)
IX. With the Creation Club content denied him, Bob got back to business, heading to Boston Airport to give the Institute info holotape to Ingram and report to Maxson about the trip and the return of Dr. Li (and to get “Liberty Reprimed” started, since helping build the giant deathbot would help make the Brotherhood more favorably inclined toward helping with the SS2 stuff) – and to move Paladin Danse over to the Marina, because Bob kind of forgot the guy existed, honestly. XD From there it was over to Nordhagen Beach, to defend it from a contingent of pretty tough Gunners (including one Legendary – fortunately the Two-Shot did good work once again, and Jon passed up the Legendary’s Hitman’s Combat Rifle because he didn’t think it would be better) and set up some more Industrial plots there to get the parts he needed for the science lab back at HQ –
X. And then it was over to Libertalia! Where Jon discovered that, if you come in from the north instead of the usual meeting point, X6-88 will actually just go ahead and teleport over to meet you. XD Hell of a time to learn that trick, Jon! Anyway, the pair stormed Libertalia (which was a bit easier from the north too), with Bob making sure to take out the one watchman with a Fat Man and to grab the Le Fusil Terribles (a unique shotgun with 25% more base AND limb damage, but worse recoil – Jon figured it was SLIGHTLY better than the Mighty one he’d found previously and made a note to change over the next time he was at base), before using the recall code on Gabriel to shut him down and complete that mission. He then headed back to the Institute, ready to claim X6-88 as a companion and make him part of the HQ Companions Team –
Only to discover that, uh, X6 hadn’t been unlocked as a companion yet. Because he doesn’t actually become available as a companion until AFTER you do the Battle of Bunker Hill and do the whole thing with accepting the new directorate from Father. This is actually one of my biggest pet peeves about the game, because it means anyone who decides to tell Father to go fuck himself after the Battle rather than take over the Institute completely loses out on X6 as a companion. He should unlock after the Libertalia quest – and while I’m on the subject, the Battle of Bunker Hill quest should happen LATER in the Institute’s quest line. It’s basically the SECOND mainline quest for them! It’s ridiculous! Yes, most people will do all the option quest stuff with the other scientists first, but that is not a guarantee, and – I dunno, it just makes me really annoyed. >( And I haven’t even gotten to that point in my own game! It just cheeses me off because I know that Victor SHOULD tell Father to go fuck himself after Bunker Hill, but if I want him to get to know X6-88, he HAS to take the directorate. . . *grumbles*
XI. Anyway. With his attempt at getting X6-88 to join his team temporarily stymied, Bob instead teleported out of the Institute and headed back home – dodging an Automatron kill squad along the way, because ooops, the big Mechanist fight by BADTFL and Wattz finished while Jon was making sex bot jokes and now the DLC is in full proper swing. Fortunately he was able to take out the robots without much too much trouble, and he made it back to base to turn in Mr. Handsy to Mr. Ventilator!
. . .Turns out Mr. Ventilator thought Mr. Handsy was a REPAIRMAN bot, not a sex bot, and was as creeped out by the Mr. Handy with a sultry voice and self-lubricating appendages as Bob. Since a deal was a deal, he agreed to still help with the water purification efforts (unlocking the Advanced Water Plant plot type), but he said Bob could keep the bot, which Bob was not keen on –
XII. And then the bot insisted on chatting with him, and started playing a recording from the deceased Marv! Turns out he’s a very chill guy who, even after DYING, was willing to let bygones be bygones and congratulated the new owner of Mr. Handsy on their cool upgraded bot! As it happens, he actually erased the holotapes full of sex-bot stuff (one was called “Super Mutant,” eeep) and put in a new program that turned Mr. Handsy into a full-on scavenging bot, who leaves stashes around the world of good junk for its master to find. Marv encouraged Bob to go ahead and collect the first stash and officially claim the bot, assuring him that he was pretty sure he’d wiped out all the creepy “Master” sex-related stuff from the bot’s tapes! Bob checked his Pip-Boy, learned the first stash was over at Walden Pond, and went “I’ll get it if I’m in the area, I’m closing the door to this building now and going, bye.” XD
XIII. And so the episode ended with Bob back at HQ, flush with parts to build the official Medical lab! :D Once that was set up, he moved Piper over to the science team to help Cassandra with her disease research, and together they diagnosed and helped cure all the people in the facility who had that stomach flu going around. Though, checking out their terminal, Bob discovered that that wasn’t the ONLY disease going around – apparently the empire is suffering from something called Needle Spine too, ew. Jon thus decided that upgrading the medical stuff was priority number one at the moment – so next week, we should see more done with that! And possibly more bonkers weirdness too, because we love bonkers weirdness. XD
Workout: Back on the bike again this week, this time starting a new GrayStillPlays compilation video – “I spent the last 4 years breaking bones repeatedly!” Which, as you might imagine, is a compilation of some of his favorite bone-breaker games (again). I’ve gotten through the two Skate 3 videos, where he used his balding physics teacher with a gland problem to break both bones and the game (learning how to shoot his dude both into the stratosphere and down into the depths of under-the-map hell), and am currently watching one of the many “Stickman Dismount” games that he’s played over the years (this was one of the superhero ones – he was torturing off-brand Spider-Man with sawblade-based agony when I paused for the night). Should be a fun couple of days with this one. :p
Other: Had another forty-minute-odd session with the beanbags today – and, as I guess was only fitting, Dad was today’s ultimate champion, coming second in the first two games before utterly crushing me and Mom in the last three. Fortunately, Mom and I both won a game each before the massacre, so it wasn’t ALL bad! Final scores were me W-3-3-3-2; Dad 2-2-W-W-W; and Mom 3-W-2-2-3. *nods* I guess I’ll take that – though I would have liked to have gotten second a BIT more often. We’ll see what tomorrow brings!
Whew! Lot going on today, not gonna lie. And now I have to go to bed and prepare for not a lot probably going on at work tomorrow. :p Night all!
Tumblr: Well, didn’t get a heck of a lot done over here too – nothing at all happening on Valice Multiverse, for example – but I did properly write up my “Tiny Town Challenge” post for this Wednesday in the drafts over on Victor Luvs Alice, complete with me nattering on about where I would like to do it (the Crumbling Isle in Windenburg); my ideas for potential citizens; and wondering how the fuck you do a chemist in Sims 4 without putting them in the Scientist career (I mean, I’m sure Smiler would rock it, but still). So that’s ready to go for the middle of this week, yay~
Fallout 4: Today proved to be a day of constant reloads in old FO4, but I did make some progress on getting Jezebel the robobrain out of Rust Devil headquarters –
A) Picked up in the big room where Jezebel and the boss monster (a big spiky sentry bot named Ahab) behind her lives – after doubling back into the previous room to confirm that I hadn’t missed anything there (and picking up a couple more goodies from the med bay – plungers have rubber, after all, and I’m going to need that to upgrade my new power armor leg, after all), I had Victor and Ada venture inside, into the “pit” in the middle of the room. Which had some very creepy stuff in it, let me tell you – a bunch of mannequins gathered around and “tending” a Jangles The Moon Monkey toy in a wheelchair; some dead soldier skeletons slumped next to a dumpster; various robots under construction next to more of those creepy torches with the human/robot hybrid things tied to them with barbed wire. On the plus side, it also had multiple weapons workbenches and lots of tools and other good junk (plus a cooler with iguana bits and wine in it, which I just thought was kind of funny for some reason XD). After exploring the area, I headed up the stairs on the left side of the room, up to the catwalk that overlooked the whole place – there wasn’t much on the left side, but over on the right, across an extendable bridge, I found a junction leading to another weapons workbench with a PACK of duct tape on it (fucking score), some more toolboxes with goodies in them, a bottlecap mine, and a whole-ass missile launcher (I guess if you want to make the fight with Ahab really easier – I didn’t trust myself not to blow Victor up, though). I grabbed all the goodies and stopped at the bench to see if there was anything I could do to the Resolute Laser Rifle I’d picked up – a few things, but all the really good stuff was locked behind me getting more crystal, fiber optics, fiberglass, and gold. I had Victor check Ada’s inventory, but while she had items with the fiberglass and crystal I needed, she didn’t have anything with gold or fiber optics. So I decided to hold off on the upgrades, both because of that. . .and because there was a Mechanist bot playing the latest holotape on a CONTINUOUS LOOP nearby. *wince* Yeah, that – that got annoying fast.
B) Anyway – after checking out the other branch of the catwalk to the right (loaded with Carlisle typewriters, nice), I had Victor and Ada head back toward the stairs, then hop over the railing of said stairs to land on the elevated portion that contained Jezebel and Ahab and all that. However, Victor happened to land in front of the entrance to another room with an earth mover of some kind in it –
A room that ALSO had a bunch of laser tripwires inside, moving from side to side. Figuring this would be the way out of the HQ once Victor had Jezebel, I decided to go ahead and disarm them early so I wouldn’t have to deal with them later. The first one, right in front of Victor on the side wall, proved easy – it didn’t go back far enough to actually hit Victor, so all he had to do was creep up to it and disarm it.
The other two, on the other hand. . .well. The one attached to the crate on the other side of the room actually wasn’t too bad once I could get to it – it was another one with a fairly limited range of motion, and there was an angle where Victor could get up to it without triggering any of the lasers. The one on the opposite wall near the door, however, had a VERY wide arc that it continually swept through (rather jerkily, but still), meaning it was very hard to get near it without triggering it. My first attempt to disarm it by outrunning its sweep ended in Victor getting VERY blown up, while my second attempt to sneak up on it from behind the earth mover (since Victor could jump up and around the back of it) ended in Victor not getting the prompt to actually disarm it in time and getting his arm broken by a shower of grenades while poor Ada got her legs basically blown off. *wince* Fortunately, the third attempt was the charm, with Victor managing to approach at just the right moment and focusing his eyes in just the right spot for me to hit (A) and get the damn thing deactivated. Whew! Got me some free fiber optics too, nice. :)
C) With all the killer laser traps deactivated, I had Victor peek into the room just beyond – this proved to be a generator room that was also being used as a bedroom and workshop by some of the Rust Devils. Specifically, there was one raider who was using a chem bench to make Jet with fertilizer; one who was apparently into Nuka-Cola judging by the bottles strewn around their space; and another with some fancy circuit boards they were working on near the window overlooking the next room. I had Victor steal just about everything not nailed down, then sent him to investigate the terminal and safe that I’d spotted in the upper right corner of the room. The terminal proved to be the Rust Devil’s gaming terminal, with a copy of the in-game version of “Automatron” loaded and a message from Ivey telling all the Rust Devils that the terminal was off-limits until the asshole who wiped the Scores page owned up. As Victor wasn’t a Rust Devil, I had him play a few rounds – it’s basically a “shoot all the robots in each wave” turret defense game, except your turret can move around freely (I guess you’re a tank) – it took me a while to figure out because while you move with one joystick on the controller, you shoot AND spin yourself around with the OTHER joystick. Doesn’t make navigating very easy! But I did get a couple of new high scores, and had Victor take the in-game holotape with him for later. :P As for the safe, that was relatively easily picked, and contained such goodies as a cryomine, some molotovs, a mechanical Buttercup pony leg, and some gold items – maybe I’m closer to upgrading the Resolute Laser Rifle than I think. :) Anyway, I had Victor grab all the stuff, quicksaved, then prepare to leave the room –
D) Only to suddenly hear barks from unseen enemies, and see Ada suddenly firing through the window above where the circuit board tinkering was happening. A few moments later, an Assaultron Devil and a Legendary Mr. Handy War Machine came storming through – at the EXACT SAME TIME that I got a message from the game saying Victor REALLY needed to use the bathroom. *facepalm* I promptly reloaded the quicksave I’d made above, then had Victor leave the corner with the safe crouched so he didn’t set off any alerts. He had his toilet break in a nice quiet corner among the generators, then proceeded back to the main room to check on his ability to upgrade the Resolute Laser Rifle at one of the workbenches there (in the dip, farthest away from the constant Mechanist loop). Unfortunately, Victor was STILL slightly short on fiber optics, meaning that the Improved Sniper Barrel (the mod that REALLY ups the damage on a laser rifle) was still out of reach. I decided to save my resources. . .
E) And instead proceeded up to where Jezebel and Ahab waited! The ramp led me up to the right side of the room, where I found more tools, a terminal, and an eyebot in a cage – the eyebot being the one broadcasting the loop of the Mechanist swearing to take out Victor as a “scourge” on the Commonwealth. I took all the goodies, then checked out the terminal – it was a pretty simple one, with entries on the “brain” (Ivey demanding that they find a way to make it talk so they’d get a lead on how to reach the Mechanist), the “eyebot” (Ivey saying it was okay just to shut the damn thing down, as SHE was sick of the loop too – though she wanted to put some mods in it, so be careful) and the “schematics” (just junk data). There was also a holotape labeled “Jezebel Interview” – I took that and ran away from the constantly-repeating eyebot so I could listen to it in peace near the entrance. Turned out to be a recording of a conversation between Jezebel and a Rust Devil named Jagger, with Jagger threatening Jezebel to find out what made her tick, and Jezebel trying to cut a deal with him, saying she’d tell him everything she knew about her construction so long as Jagger didn’t destroy her brain and put her back on her body. Jagger was open to the first clause, but not the second, saying he was going to keep her stuck to the machine she was currently on just so she didn’t try any funny business. Which – smart, but does make you feel a little bad for Jezebel. She’s not a good person, but this is still a sucky thing to happen to her!
F) Fortunately, part of the quest line DOES involve rescuing her, so it was time to head up to Jezebel’s area and actually talk to her! Though, before I actually approached her computer array, I decided that it might be a good idea to prep for the fight with Ahab the creepy sentry bot with a deathclaw skull on it. So I dropped a save, dropped a bottlecap mine on the ramp in front of it. . .
And then noticed that you could actually SPEAK to Ahab. Curious, I decided to try it –
Aaaand that just activated him early. And showed that his flamethrower-loving ass could JUMP over shit to try and wreck up Victor and Ada. O.o Yeah, that was – worrying. Good thing I saved before Victor could get very far with his plan! I thus reloaded and had Victor start the conversation with Jezbel instead –
Only to realize that the damn eyebot’s loop was playing OVER HER DIALOGUE. *grimaces* I promptly reloaded and had Victor shoot the damn thing in its cage to shut it up – but as I approached the cage, I noticed that the door could be picked. Curious if you could somehow get the eyebot on your side if you freed it, I reloaded AGAIN and had Victor pick the door first –
Aaaand nothing. The eyebot just sits there, playing the same holotape over and over. And Victor couldn’t hack it to shut it up, despite his best efforts, so yeah. Got a bullet to the speakers. *shrug* At least it provided a tiny bit of extra XP!
G) With THAT finally sorted, it was time to talk to Jezebel! I had Victor greet her, which had her note that he didn’t look like a Rust Devil – Victor told her straight out they were looking for a radar beacon, and she calculated that he was looking for the Mechanist. She told him that he needed more than the beacon if he wanted to find the Mechanist – he also needed access to the facility where the Mechanist was holed up. And Jezebel was willing to provide both if Victor got her out of Rust Devil HQ and gave her a new body. Victor was willing to cut a deal, and grabbed her brainpan off the machine that the Rust Devils were keeping her on. This of course activated Ahab, who came down his ramp flamethrower blazing –
Aaaand it turns out I should not have been worried about this guy, as three shots from Victor’s Two-Shot Combat Rifle took him down. :D Even Jezebel was impressed. XD What do I always say – Two-Shot beloved!
H) Unfortunately, defeating Ahab was only step one of getting out of Rust Devil HQ – step two was getting past all the rest of the Rust Devils! Including the Assaultron Devil and the Legendary Mr. Handy War Machine (remember them?) that stormed the room as Victor was getting ready to go. Fortunately both were taken out with a minimum of fuss (though the Devil was able to use its Assaultron laser on Victor, and the Handy get in a couple of shots on poor Ada) – unfortunately, not only did Victor get a mere Nocturnal Hunting Rifle off the Handy’s corpse (decent gun, but the special effect of getting stronger at night doesn’t REALLY do it for Victor), while Victor was getting said gun, SOMETHING blew up nearby and dosed him with a ton of rads, forcing him to do some Rad-Away, then eat some food to heal up (I specifically chose something that would help refresh his action points faster, because I need those for VATS). *shakehead* I guess Ahab’s flamethrower managed to fry something explodable and I didn’t notice – you get the last laugh, spiky evil jumpy sentry bot!
I) Anyway, once Victor was de-radded and healed, the gang proceeded onward, through the earth mover room (VERY glad I cleared those traps early!) and the generator room (where Victor got the drop on two Protectron Devils near the door that had the bad luck to be facing away from him). They then entered another big room with lots of elevated concrete bunker bits and more tanks and crates, where Victor and Ada were met with a Rust Devil –
And in taking them out, Victor accidentally shot Ada. D: Sorry, Ada, your arm was in the way! I had Victor heal her up with one of the repair kits and proceed further into the room – while he found no further human Rust Devils, trying to get across into the makeshift bedroom someone had built atop a platform alerted a Protectron Devil and a couple of turrets high up on the wooden hallways and such the Rust Devils had built in the room. Fortunately, they were pretty easily taken out with the Two-Shot, and Victor and Ada were able to make it into the bedroom –
Which proved to be Ivey’s room! Which had a few goodies and a terminal with some recent logs of what’s been happening with the Rust Devils – apparently, they captured Jezebel while trying to raid Pioneer Park for the four special Protectrons there, only to get jumped by a Mechanist robot squad AND a local deathclaw. *wince* I know you’re my enemy, Ivey, but – well, that sounded genuinely rough and I am sorry. At least it put Pioneer Park on my map?
And so my session ended with Victor and Ada hanging out in the bedroom, with Victor having just swigged another Nuka-Cola to fending off encroaching tiredness so he and his robot daughter can get OUT of this place. Next time, we work on leaving Rust Devil HQ so we can take Jezebel back to the Red Rocket to give her her new body and learn how to access the Mechanist’s lair!
Writing: Updated the FO4 Playthrough Progression this afternoon/evening (around beanbags, my workout, and supper) with the latest happenings in the game – and while the most obvious difference between game-reality and fanfic-reality is that “Victor of course didn’t have to deal with anything that made me reload, like accidentally getting the attention of a bunch of Rust Devils leaving the generator room or activating Ahab early,” there were a few other differences as well –
A) Victor and company never did any backtracking like I did at the start – Victor, notorious pack rat in this world, already made sure to grab everything he wanted. Smart boy.
B) Alice was the one to go up the stairs and get the goodies up on the catwalk while Victor was poking around in the lower section of Jezebel’s room – she turned down the missile launcher because Wonderland told her picking it up would lead to bad times, but she made damn sure to get all that duct tape. She and Victor also took on the laser tripwires in the earth mover room together (Alice using her Celerity to get the trickiest one) and explored the generator room together, because teamwork makes the dream work.
C) Victor obviously didn’t pause and play any games on the Rust Devil’s gaming terminal once he determined that’s what it was, and he didn’t stop repeatedly at the weapon workbenches to start upgrading his laser rifle, then stop when he realized he didn’t have enough materials – dude’s got much more important things to do! (Though he did take a bathroom break in the generator room, because obviously he DOES have bodily needs. :p)
D) Ada went ahead and got the Jezebel interview holotape, looked at the workshop terminal, and shot the eyebot in the cage while Victor and Alice were in the generator room, because why just have her standing there idle while the rest of them were exploring? Gotta give our favorite robot daughter something to do!
E) And Alice was the one to kill the Legendary Mr. Handy War Machine and claim the Nocturnal hunting rifle (with the Legendary effect explained as a Tremere enchantment) – given her current condition, it’s actually USEFUL for her!
But yeah, other than that, pretty much the same as what happened above, including Victor happily making a deal with Jezebel to get her out of Rust Devil HQ and give her a new body in exchange for information about how to get into Mechanist HQ; Victor taking down Ahab the Spooky Sentry Bot with three blasts to the torso from the Two-Shot; and the gang fighting their way to Ivey’s bedroom during their escape from HQ (with Victor accidentally shooting Ada, which he was VERY apologetic about). Good stuff. Next time, hopefully they manage to get out of the Rust Devil’s headquarters and start the journey back toward the Sanctuary Red Rocket!
YouTube: Ran a little longer than I would have liked this evening, but I did get in my usual Sunday Two –
A) First up, back from his little vacation yesterday, we had GrayStillPlays and “Which car has the best spoiler in GTA 5?” This Torture Board saw Gray having to take sets of matched cars – one, in pink, without a spoiler, and the other, in green, with a spoiler – through four different evil challenges to see which one performed the best, and the difference the spoiler made on each car to traction, downforce, and control. The challenges were as follows –
I. Sharpening Corners But You Don’t See Where To Turn – Gray had to make it through a twisty-turny course where all the twisty-turny bits actually took a moment to pop into visibility (meaning if you hit them too fast you wouldn’t see where to go) in 60 seconds! Oh, and to prevent him from cheating, the cars all poofed if Gray touched the curb for too long or with too many tires – can’t have him curb-boosting the non-spoiler cars to victory, after all!
II. Wall Rides But They Get Straighter And Straighter (also, you have to jump between Reginald’s legs) – Gray had to make it through a trio of Minecraft-themed wall rides – the pickaxe wall ride, the regular axe wall ride, and the diamond sword wall ride – each one tilted at a steeper and steeper angle to try and throw him off. Oh, and at the end of each wall ride, he had to jump through the legs of a giant Reginald. Though, more often, he just CRASHED into the legs of the giant Reginalds. XD At least this one wasn’t timed!
III. Enforced Downforce But Sometimes You Get Yeeted Down – Gray had to navigate a roadway with a lot of sharp turns and an extended tightrope section UPSIDE-DOWN (with the hell of a script circle power-up), all while avoiding the hydraulic yeeters scattered throughout the course. If he got yeeted, it was game over, man – though, really, what Gray had the most trouble with I think was all the turns being backwards compared to what he THOUGHT they should be. XD
IV. Mega Ramp Thingy – Gray had to jump into a teleporter, then hit the Full Acceleration script circle and somehow hug this absolutely giant curving ramp as it turned over on itself to hit the win! If he couldn’t stay on the road, the car was not the winner.
So, how did things go? Well, Gray very quickly learned that the spoiler really DOES make a difference – even for the cars that couldn’t complete certain challenges (like the Phoenix being unable to get through the first “Corners” challenge, or the Feltzer being unable to make it past the third wall ride – oh, and shout-out to editor Zack for actually INCLUDING THE NAMES OF THE CARS in this video), the one with the spoiler ALWAYS did better than the one without. The only pink car that came close to doing as well as its green counterpart was the pink version of the ultimate winner, the re-7b car – and THAT was because that car’s base model comes with a spoiler. The green one just had a BETTER one. XD But yes, the re-7b sport car completed all challenges with relative ease, and the green fancy-spoiler variant managed to stick to that ludicrous ending ramp to get the win! So yeah, if you need that extra downforce or traction – get the fucking spoiler. It really does help!
B) And second up, back at his usual time on Sundays, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 39 - The Sex Bot!” Which largely featured Mayor Bob going off to find – well. Look at the title. XD More specifically, Bob’s journey today took him across the northeast edge of the map, hitting up places like the Bottom Feeder Brothel, the Boston Airport and the Prydwen, Nordhagen Beach, and Libertalia. How did all of this go? Well –
I. Right from the start, things got a little weird with Jake calling Bob as he was starting off from the Marina – to talk about improving the antenna on top of the HQ. As if Bob doing that and helping him record a new message for his daughter hadn’t even happened. Uh – Sim Settlements 2, are you feeling okay? Keeping track of what quests Bob has done and hasn’t done? I hope this isn’t a sign of more glitches to come. . .
II. And then, right after that, Bob stumbled across a new shop nearby that he’d never noticed before – Tiny Box Tim’s Box Store. Run by a kid ghoul who apparently survived the war in a tiny box (obviously a joke on “Kid In A Fridge”) and now sells stuff for people to sit on (when he’s not filling them with rubber ducks for a laugh). Bob was very confused, but consented to look through his wares –
Turns out Tiny Box Tim sells fucking loot boxes. XD A massive variety too, ranging from “Freemium” to “Earthquake Proof.” Bob bought one of the latter and got a bunch of middling junk, along with a scrap of “Wasteland Wisdom” – “A watched plot never advances,” which he thought was amusing because the plot of SS2 WILL just occasionally stop sometimes to let you do the base game stuff. XD But yeah, Tiny Box Tim is apparently here to make fun of silly quests and aggressive loot box sales by gaming companies – and to serve as a reference to something from Markiplier’s YouTube channel, if I’m understanding the comments correctly. *shrug* I don’t watch the guy, so I don’t know what the specific reference is, but the Mark fans seem to be happy!
III. Okay, enough faffing about with game glitches and joke characters – it was time for Mayor Bob to claim a sex robot from a brothel so it could somehow help The Ventilator draw up and purify water! (Jon was certain that this was all leading to some sort of horrible smutty pun but wasn’t sure what it could be. He was also pretty sure the robot was going to be an Assaultron, since their chassis gives them natural “boobs” for some bizarre reason. XD) Bob thus worked his way around Mass Bay Medical and found the door into the Bottom Feeder Brothel –
Only to find everyone inside very, very dead, murdered by some unknown assailant. He also found a note on the door to the back room, stating that a mysterious someone had taken their robot as an “interest payment” since they were late AGAIN with – I’m guessing the rent or something – and that they knew where to find them. Bob was like “but I don’t know where to find you!” and entered the room to try and search for clues –
IV. Only to be jumpscared as he turned to leave by an arriving Legendary Synth Leader! Seems the Institute has taken an interest in scanning this place for the bot as well. Jon correctly deduced that he normally would be tasked with killing this guy and claiming the stuff off his corpse, but as he and the Institute were chill, the synth and his patrol weren’t hostile. And Jon still didn’t want to risk Bob pissing off the Institute by killing the patrols, so instead he went to Mass Bay and dropped a nap save, then came back and stole the holotape he needed off the leader (ignoring the Legendary gear he had on him – just a piece of Super Mutant Slayer armor, not worth bothering with). The holotape revealed that the bot was the Human Service Bot Mr. Handsy (seriously XD) and that they’d been looking for it a few different places for – unknown reasons. The next place they were considering searching was Fenway Park, aka Diamond City, so Bob headed over there –
And found someone new hanging about – a woman named Darsenia! He attempted to talk to her, but she just ignored him. Bob decided to leave her to it (though he didn’t rule her out as being important to the quest) and instead followed his quest marker to a DC security report resting on the noodle stand in the center of town, which indicated that the security team had taken the robot into custody and put it in the local lock-up after some sort of, uh, commotion in town. Bob thus headed over to DC security to see if he could find the robot –
V. Only to find, instead, a holotape regarding the “Mr. Handsy Evidence” on a shelf in one of the back rooms instead. The holotape proved to be a message from a dude named Marv, talking to a friend about how he’d taken the robot to his scavenger camp and had updated its program, and how it was going to make them rich. Concerning! But that gave Bob a new lead to chase, so he left Diamond City and headed in the direction of the camp –
VI. Only to pass by Wattz Consumer Electronics and discover that he had a quest telling him to go inside. Now, normally Wattz is just a place to stop by if you want the Protectron “Total Hack” magazine, but apparently the Next Gen update forcibly dumped some former Creation Club content into the game, and visiting Wattz is how you start the quest “Speak Of The Devil.” Bob entered cautiously, and found a display with a huge lit-up poster of “The Black Devil,” a mysterious radio, and a note from someone named Connie. Said note was all about how Connie learned of a super hero, “The Black Devil,” who used to roam the Commonwealth keeping all the raider gangs at bay, only to disappear about a year before the start of the game, from their Pa – then discovered a couple of mysterious radio stations linked to specific relay towers in the Commonwealth. Connie was hoping that if they got the relay towers working and broadcast the right music to the right radio, they could summon the Black Devil back again to take care of all the raiders. Jon wasn’t PARTICULARLY interested in this (as he is rather annoyed with the Next Gen update and the shit it shoved into the game), but as one of the relay towers was on the way, he figured he could get Bob to check it out.
VII. Okay, new quest picked up and Protectron Total Hack got – time to continue searching for Mr. Handsy! XD Fortunately, Bob discovered the Scavenger camp that had him was relatively nearby. He managed to snipe off the scavvers hanging around the camp, then discovered a box containing the mysterious Mr. Handsy. Interacting with the box just caused it to disappear into his inventory, and a relieved Bob turned to go –
Only to get jumpscared by the synth patrol arriving on the scene. Having apparently followed either the same trail as he had or him directly. Bob decided he didn’t WANT to know why the Institute wanted a sex bot (Jon had already come up with the groaner pun that it was “good at pumping”) and scurried off to continue his errands. XD
VIII. Next destination – the first of the Black Devil relay towers, since it was on the way to Boston Airport and the Prydwen. Bob headed over to see what all that was about – and was deeply annoyed to discover it was some Enclave Remnant idiot in a harness and a fedora. Jon, on the other side of the screen, was like “why is it ALWAYS the bloody Enclave in this Creation Club stuff?!” Anyway, he shot the guy, uploaded the necessary data to the tower, and found the dead body of Richie, Connie’s – friend? Brother? Something like that, neither Jon nor I was paying that much attention – who had a note on him saying that the Enclave had taken Connie off to interrogate them –
At BADTFL. You know, the place that the CPD had taken over recently as their new headquarters. Bob wandered over that way just to check, but when he arrived, there was no quest marker, presumably because the quest only existed in the original interior cell, which was no longer accessible. Jon couldn’t say he was that upset about it, though, especially when he went inside the BADTFL and toured the newly renovated interior. He was beyond thrilled at the care and attention that the SS2 team had put into building the new interior space and dressing it up appropriately as, you know, A PLACE PEOPLE COULD LIVE. Blows Bethesda’s stuff out of the water, definitely! So yeah – if it comes to a fight between completing Bethesda’s Creation Club quests or continuing with the SS2 stuff, Jon’s going to pick the SS2 stuff every time. (Though, apparently, there IS supposed to be an intercom on the front of the building that will reload the original interior cell if Jon really DOES want to do the rest of the quest, but. . .somehow, I don’t think he’ll bother. :p)
IX. With the Creation Club content denied him, Bob got back to business, heading to Boston Airport to give the Institute info holotape to Ingram and report to Maxson about the trip and the return of Dr. Li (and to get “Liberty Reprimed” started, since helping build the giant deathbot would help make the Brotherhood more favorably inclined toward helping with the SS2 stuff) – and to move Paladin Danse over to the Marina, because Bob kind of forgot the guy existed, honestly. XD From there it was over to Nordhagen Beach, to defend it from a contingent of pretty tough Gunners (including one Legendary – fortunately the Two-Shot did good work once again, and Jon passed up the Legendary’s Hitman’s Combat Rifle because he didn’t think it would be better) and set up some more Industrial plots there to get the parts he needed for the science lab back at HQ –
X. And then it was over to Libertalia! Where Jon discovered that, if you come in from the north instead of the usual meeting point, X6-88 will actually just go ahead and teleport over to meet you. XD Hell of a time to learn that trick, Jon! Anyway, the pair stormed Libertalia (which was a bit easier from the north too), with Bob making sure to take out the one watchman with a Fat Man and to grab the Le Fusil Terribles (a unique shotgun with 25% more base AND limb damage, but worse recoil – Jon figured it was SLIGHTLY better than the Mighty one he’d found previously and made a note to change over the next time he was at base), before using the recall code on Gabriel to shut him down and complete that mission. He then headed back to the Institute, ready to claim X6-88 as a companion and make him part of the HQ Companions Team –
Only to discover that, uh, X6 hadn’t been unlocked as a companion yet. Because he doesn’t actually become available as a companion until AFTER you do the Battle of Bunker Hill and do the whole thing with accepting the new directorate from Father. This is actually one of my biggest pet peeves about the game, because it means anyone who decides to tell Father to go fuck himself after the Battle rather than take over the Institute completely loses out on X6 as a companion. He should unlock after the Libertalia quest – and while I’m on the subject, the Battle of Bunker Hill quest should happen LATER in the Institute’s quest line. It’s basically the SECOND mainline quest for them! It’s ridiculous! Yes, most people will do all the option quest stuff with the other scientists first, but that is not a guarantee, and – I dunno, it just makes me really annoyed. >( And I haven’t even gotten to that point in my own game! It just cheeses me off because I know that Victor SHOULD tell Father to go fuck himself after Bunker Hill, but if I want him to get to know X6-88, he HAS to take the directorate. . . *grumbles*
XI. Anyway. With his attempt at getting X6-88 to join his team temporarily stymied, Bob instead teleported out of the Institute and headed back home – dodging an Automatron kill squad along the way, because ooops, the big Mechanist fight by BADTFL and Wattz finished while Jon was making sex bot jokes and now the DLC is in full proper swing. Fortunately he was able to take out the robots without much too much trouble, and he made it back to base to turn in Mr. Handsy to Mr. Ventilator!
. . .Turns out Mr. Ventilator thought Mr. Handsy was a REPAIRMAN bot, not a sex bot, and was as creeped out by the Mr. Handy with a sultry voice and self-lubricating appendages as Bob. Since a deal was a deal, he agreed to still help with the water purification efforts (unlocking the Advanced Water Plant plot type), but he said Bob could keep the bot, which Bob was not keen on –
XII. And then the bot insisted on chatting with him, and started playing a recording from the deceased Marv! Turns out he’s a very chill guy who, even after DYING, was willing to let bygones be bygones and congratulated the new owner of Mr. Handsy on their cool upgraded bot! As it happens, he actually erased the holotapes full of sex-bot stuff (one was called “Super Mutant,” eeep) and put in a new program that turned Mr. Handsy into a full-on scavenging bot, who leaves stashes around the world of good junk for its master to find. Marv encouraged Bob to go ahead and collect the first stash and officially claim the bot, assuring him that he was pretty sure he’d wiped out all the creepy “Master” sex-related stuff from the bot’s tapes! Bob checked his Pip-Boy, learned the first stash was over at Walden Pond, and went “I’ll get it if I’m in the area, I’m closing the door to this building now and going, bye.” XD
XIII. And so the episode ended with Bob back at HQ, flush with parts to build the official Medical lab! :D Once that was set up, he moved Piper over to the science team to help Cassandra with her disease research, and together they diagnosed and helped cure all the people in the facility who had that stomach flu going around. Though, checking out their terminal, Bob discovered that that wasn’t the ONLY disease going around – apparently the empire is suffering from something called Needle Spine too, ew. Jon thus decided that upgrading the medical stuff was priority number one at the moment – so next week, we should see more done with that! And possibly more bonkers weirdness too, because we love bonkers weirdness. XD
Workout: Back on the bike again this week, this time starting a new GrayStillPlays compilation video – “I spent the last 4 years breaking bones repeatedly!” Which, as you might imagine, is a compilation of some of his favorite bone-breaker games (again). I’ve gotten through the two Skate 3 videos, where he used his balding physics teacher with a gland problem to break both bones and the game (learning how to shoot his dude both into the stratosphere and down into the depths of under-the-map hell), and am currently watching one of the many “Stickman Dismount” games that he’s played over the years (this was one of the superhero ones – he was torturing off-brand Spider-Man with sawblade-based agony when I paused for the night). Should be a fun couple of days with this one. :p
Other: Had another forty-minute-odd session with the beanbags today – and, as I guess was only fitting, Dad was today’s ultimate champion, coming second in the first two games before utterly crushing me and Mom in the last three. Fortunately, Mom and I both won a game each before the massacre, so it wasn’t ALL bad! Final scores were me W-3-3-3-2; Dad 2-2-W-W-W; and Mom 3-W-2-2-3. *nods* I guess I’ll take that – though I would have liked to have gotten second a BIT more often. We’ll see what tomorrow brings!
Whew! Lot going on today, not gonna lie. And now I have to go to bed and prepare for not a lot probably going on at work tomorrow. :p Night all!
