A Somewhat Better Sunday
Jun. 23rd, 2024 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickThe weather was still pretty ick (alternating dark clouds and sun, and really nasty humidity requiring us to hide in the AC), and I'm pretty sure I'm PMSing, which isn't doing great things for my mood, but there were no major ups-and-downs like there were yesterday. And I once again got everything I really wanted to get done, done --
Tumblr: Pretty typical Sunday over here, honestly – I got four out of five Chill Valicer Save update posts sorted with image alt text before lunch today (well, almost – I had to do the alt text for the very last picture in the fourth after) on Victor Luvs Alice, then didn’t have anything to do over on Valice Multiverse, so that’s just staying blank for the time being. *shrug* Them’s the breaks, I guess! I’ll finish off that final Chill Valicer Save post tomorrow, and then we’ll be good to go for Wednesday, yay.
Fallout 4: Victor and Ada have escaped Rust Devil HQ! It took some doing, a lot of creeping around, and taking out the one remaining Rust Devil in their way, but they managed! Here’s how it went –
A) Started with Victor and Ada hiding out in Ivey’s room, having taken out a protectron and some turrets on the upper level of the big tank storage/building room they were in and taken a look at her terminal (to discover she hates the Mechanist pretty much as much as they do). After confirming that all enemies up top were indeed down, and that there was no one left to threaten them in the main room, I had Victor creep out and start looting the place, exploring everywhere he could find (getting drugs out of open transport vehicles and straw pillows out of lockers shoved into a shady corner, for example). Over on the left he found a mag-locked security door with a lockdown terminal next to it – Victor popped it open to find more power armor stations inside, along with toolboxes with more duct tape and wonderglue and a whole bunch of tools. :) As you might imagine, Victor had to do some inventory rearranging with Ada afterward to make sure he didn’t go over capacity. XD Once all his spare legendary guns and armor were safely stowed on her person, though, it was back to the loot, wandering around all the big environmental crates and going around the back and up on top of Ivey’s little personal room to see if there were any goodies to be found (some ammo in a footlocker behind, but nothing on top). Once I’d gotten all the good junk Victor could carry, it was over to the stairs on the right of the room, up atop the big concrete bunkers that he and Ada had emerged from –
B) To find the only path to the left absolutely COVERED with moving laser tripwires and Assaultron totems. D: I had Victor hastily take out the first one pair, then – after Ada got a little too close to the second set for my liking – had her come back around and stay put for a little while so Victor could take out all the rest of the traps. Fortunately all the laser tripwires had limited range of movement, and Victor was able to sneak up on the sides of them and disarm them with no trouble. And of course the Assaultron totems just kind of stood there – not entirely sure what they do, but I’m sure it’s lasery and painful. Definitely not the kind of thing Victor needed, especially with his exhaustion creeping up on him again...
C) Anyway, with the path clear and Deliverer in hand (as I didn’t want to take chances with my lessened AP), I had Victor collect Ada, then head left up and up the stairs into another little workshop area atop the bunkers. Fortunately the only enemy in this room was already dead, possibly taken out by Victor and Ada while they were fighting the turrets – Victor thus was free to do some solid looting (getting some fans and tools and of course every bit of adhesive he could find) and to crack the terminal in the far corner without worry (though it proved just to be the turret control – which, you know, was now useless that Victor and Ada had blown up all the turrets. Nice chunk of XP though). Through a little corridor and past the dead Rust Devil was another room with desks and file cabinets and more junk – Victor snatched up typewriters, desk fans, and duct tape, then chugged another Nuka-Cola as the in-game clock went past midnight so he and Ada could continue on out the door to the left. Poor guy hasn’t had to rely so much on caffeine since the early days of his adventure! But I really didn’t think it was smart for him to sleep just yet, so… *shrug* Anyway, he and Ada headed out to an open area (where Victor found a microscope to steal), then headed up some stairs to a catwalk overlooking the whole room – going down the length of the catwalk revealed it just led to the roof of the workshop room, where the remains of the turrets rested, so I had Victor double back and head through the security door on the right instead. This led to another short catwalk, with another security gate at the other end –
D) And this is where the [HIDDEN] brackets started shuffling, just a little. Jezebel chose this moment to pipe up that she’d run the numbers, and that their current chances of getting out of here stood at 65%, which was not optimal. So if Victor could put in a little more effort, please? XD I had Victor ignore the brain and continue on into the next room, which was a big empty storage space, with stuff like various testers and mechanical equipment and cigarette machines on shelves. I had Victor creep down the stairs as slowly as possible, keeping a wary eye out for danger, then did a sweep of the room for good junk (never forget the military-grade duct tape!) before proceeding through the security gate at the bottom of the room. This led to another big empty space atop some sort of concrete structure overlooking another room, with a catwalk bridge on the other side to some suspended offices –
E) With more laser tripwires and Assaultron totems. And oh – as Victor got close, Jezebel apparently spotted Ivey, leader of the Rust Devils and the one who ripped her head off, and demanded that Victor rip her head off in turn. All in good time, Jezebel… Victor had Ada keep back for a bit while he disarmed the tripwires (fortunately all the stationary kind) and the totems, then grabbed her and slipped across the catwalk and into the room next to where Ivey was hanging out without incident. So much without incident, in fact, that he was able to use the weapon workbench by the doorway without the game going “but there are enemies nearby!” :D We love a bit of good sneaking… Anyway, since I had a bunch of fiber optics and crystal and such from disarming all those traps, I had Victor upgrade the Resolute Laser Rifle with an improved sniper barrel and a long scope, then equipped it so he could give it a try in the upcoming battle. He then started to creep forward, hoping to get the drop on Ivey –
F) Only for Ada to get her attention first. Well, her attention –
And that of the ASSAULTRON SUICIDER with her. What’s that, you ask? Well, it’s an Assaultron with a skull for a head, lots of spikes, and no compunctions about using its laser in close quarters. Fortunately Victor was able to take it out with the laser rifle, and shortly afterward Ivey too in her special Tesla power armor (I think it makes energy spark off you when people hit you?). And while the Resolute did decent work, I wasn’t really impressed with the “final round chambered” slow time effect – it seemed to mostly make it so Victor RELOADED in slow motion. Add into that that I do prefer to use VATS when I can (though for some reason was having trouble today remembering in what order I had to pull the trigger button and then press (A)), and – yeah, I think I’m going to end up selling this thing to Arturo, or maybe giving it to a Settler who can make better use of it. It’s just not for me.
G) Anyway – with Ivey and her robot dead (and Jezebel offering up a perfunctory “good work, human”), I had Victor eat some food to help heal the wounds he’d taken in the fight, then grab the Tesla Rifle off Ivey’s corpse (potentially fun electric gun? Of more use to me than the power armor bits, since those are only T-60 and I’ve already got a full set of X-01 baaa-beee) and raid the office area she’d been stomping around in (finding some more good junk and a creepy mannequin tucked in a corner) before heading out into the pillared area full of security doors on the left. One door was Expert-locked, and Victor broke a bunch of bobby pins in it before he could get it open (I guess he WAS tired) – though all that was inside was a Fat Man, some mini-nukes, and some ammo in a cabinet. I don’t use Fat Men, but I did take the Mini-Nukes as a potential sale item. (KLE0 would probably like ‘em.) The second door was wide open and contained a soldier skeleton curled up next to the “You Win!” chest, which itself contained the Salvaged Assaultron Head (a unique weapon which is, well, an Assaultron head, which fires a more powerful beam the more you charge it; the downside is that it HEAVILY irradiates you, so unless your build is BASED around that… Yeah, another curiosity to sell, or maybe hang on Victor’s wall), some caps, and some more weapons and armor that I didn’t want (an Assaultron blade and a Mr. Handy saw didn’t do non-melee Victor much good, and while there was a nice piece of metal armor in there, I’m not QUITE ready to give up the Champion left arm just yet). And third door –
Was the unopenable door at the beginning, taking us back to where we came in! I had Victor open it with the terminal and immediately head up the stairs and back out into the Commonwealth just as dawn was starting to break! :D Mission Get Out Of Rust Devil HQ – accomplished!
H) Well, mostly – while Victor did make it out of HQ, the minute he was outside, Jezebel reminded him that he wasn’t out of the woods yet with her – she wasn’t cooperating until he gave her a body up to her specifications, and the game prompted him to have a chat with Ada. So, while he was absolutely bone-tired (and, as I quickly found out, busting for a pee after all that Nuka-Cola), I had him turn around and press (Y) to talk to his robot daughter. He handed over the radio beacon from Jezebel’s head to Ada, who took it off and added it to her collection – then Ada asked why Victor felt the need to keep the head, given that robobrains, were, to put it gently, a pain in the ass. XD I had Victor ask her what she knew about robobrains (the first successful attempt from General Atomics to fuse human and machine, with the brains serving as the ultimate control center and data storage for the robot – unfortunately, they proved to be a little, uh, unhinged when they were brought on line), then commented that the fusion of human and machine made them sound like synths (Ada disagreed, saying that robobrains were made for a different purpose – to speed up the decision-making process in robots, and to create more obedient, more efficient soldiers. The increased aggression and general nastiness was a bug, not a feature). Victor finally explained that they needed Jezebel to help track down the Mechanist, with Ada realizing “oh yeah, we probably WILL need her expertise to find the place – even if I can find it with the radar beacons, there’s probably more security measures” and apologizing for not thinking of that –
And for being a burden. A shocked Victor asked why she said that, and she admitted that she’d been feeling like a failure ever since Jackson and her caravan got killed, stating she was the one who chose the route and that if she’d picked a different one, maybe they’d still be alive. And then she said that maybe it would be better if her personality mode – the thing that makes her act like HER – was permanently set to “off,” instead of “on” like Jackson designed her. D:
Well, that wasn’t going to stand! I had Victor step away from the conversation, chug a bottle of “grape juice” for Charisma, then return and inform her that she is an individual, and that she shouldn’t wish to not be her. Fortunately, Ada agreed, saying she wouldn’t want to lose the experiences she’s had as “Ada.” She then thanked him, saying she was pretty sure she needed to hear that from another person. :) Yay.
I) And then, with heartwarming conversation over, I dragged Victor over to a nearby flat area, had him use his port-a-potty, then set up his tent and sleep for 12 hours, 6:30 AM to 6:30 PM. XD Because, well, caffeine crash – I figured he’d be suffering from one! XD I left it with him overlooking the Commonwealth from the entrance to the base – next week, since we’re still relatively close to Natick Banks, I’m going to run over to the Red Rocket there and have Victor put his final X-01 leg on his power armor and upgrade it as far as he can (I’ve been trying to make sure I’ve got enough rubber and ceramic for the job!), then it’s back to the Red Rocket by Sanctuary to build Jezebel a new body and get this portion of the Automatron quest line done! :D Then maybe we can start thinking of hunting down a courser…
Writing: Another Sunday, another update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression doc – and, as per usual with these smaller missions, the fanfic version was pretty much the same as the game version, above, with some minor tweaks (namely designed to make sure Alice gets properly represented in the otherwise two-person-focused action) –
A) For example, as they worked their way through the final few rooms of the HQ, Alice helped Victor disarm a bunch of the traps along the way (because her Celerity helps her get around some of them faster); helped kill Ivey by shoving the Tal’Mehe’Ra blade into the gap between her power armor helmet and torso (because hell with it, might as well make Jezebel happy by LITERALLY whacking the woman’s head off – Jezebel was appreciative); and unlocked the security door with the Fat Man behind it at the end (since I headcanoned that Victor breaking all those bobby pins was the result of exhaustion, and Alice decided it was easier and better for her to take over then). Having a third member of the team DOES make life so much easier sometimes for Victor!
B) Other major change was to the conversation at the end, when they finally stumbled out of HQ into the pre-dawn light – Jezbel told Ada directly that she could take the radar beacon now, but that there would be no other information until she got her body, and Ada’s question about why they we keeping the head was more about robobrains just being a pain than her straight-up forgetting that they needed her help to get into the facility. A few bits of the conversation happened in a different order too – with Victor asking about robobrains and comparing them to synths after reminding Ada “Jezebel has knowledge we need to get into the Mechanist facility, even if she is a pain” and Ada using telling him about them as a jumping-off point to admit that she thinks it would be better for her personality mode to be turned permanently off (saying that they’re an excellent example of why it’s sometimes bad to give a robot a personality). Victor and Alice weren’t having that, though, with Victor insisting that she’s an individual and that he loves her like family, and Alice pointing out Jackson gave her a personality for a reason and that she’s sure her caravan family did not blame her for picking the route that got them killed – after all, there’s no guarantee any route they would have picked would have been safer, after all. And fortunately Ada did agree with them, saying she would not want to lose the experiences that made her Ada and thanking them for being kind. :) And then Victor fell asleep on her after hugging her, because caffeine crash. XD Had to explain that twelve-hour snooze somehow!
So yeah – that, Victor and the gang getting surprised by Ivey and her Assualtron Suicider while he was finishing up his hasty upgrades to his new laser gun (rather than Ada getting their attention in true “wandering companion” fashion immediately afterward), and a little extra snark from Victor and Alice toward Jezebel whenever she started getting mouthy (like the “65% chance of getting out of here” bit) was what differentiated the fanfic-verse from the game-verse this time around. I left it with Ada and Alice complaining about Victor forcing them to go through “Chaos Junction” again to get back to Natick so he could put his new X-01 leg on his power armor (with them joking that if Victor intends it as a punishment for them letting him sleep for twelve hours, it’s a bad one because HE’S getting punished with them – “It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.” XD). We’ll see how that goes and if I can down there and then back to the Sanctuary Red Rocket in one session...maybe if I go ahead and use one of those vertibird grenades sitting in my inventory…
YouTube: Well, there’s two new Sims 4-related videos chilling in my Watch Later (the next episode of Petey Plays It’s Super Sim series, and a video on the recent “login rewards patch” from onlyabidoang), but I at least also got through my regular Sunday Two without issue –
A) First up, from the Subs, we had GrayStillPlays and “When the sun gets bigger every minute,” aka Gray plays more Universe Sandbox 2! Today’s experiment featured Gray deciding to make the Sun bigger so that everyone, including gamers like himself, could get more of it without going outside. However, since he didn’t want a black hole event, Gray decided that what he needed to do was to lock the mass of the Sun at its starting point, and just increase the radius – doing things like going to 1.25, to 1.50, to 2.50, to 5, to 10, all the way up to “getting the surface of this thing as close to the Earth as I can without the sun eating it, like it did Mercury and Venus.” XD What were the results of all this fiddling? Well, as to be expected, at the beginning the Earth’s temperature kept jumping up, until it leveled out around 25 degrees C –
But the SUN’S temperature, at least on the surface, started going down, presumably because, since its mass wasn’t changing, it was getting more and more spread out and thus wasn’t properly doing the important nuclear stuff inside a star that keeps it generating heat and light. (The comments suggested, in fact, that Gray inadvertently simulated a “brown dwarf star” with his experiments, since they too don’t have the oomph to do the proper fusion of hydrogen into helium.) To the point where it went from the familiar yellow, to a sad orange, to an even sadder red, to straight-up GRAY. Which even Gray himself didn’t seem good. Even swallowing up Mercury and Venus once it got big enough didn’t seem to affect it –
But putting up almost right next to Earth did, as the minute Gray finished adjusting it, it suddenly FLARED with heat for a little while. Not very long, at least not in universal time, but for a while there things were suddenly EXTREMELY HOT. Gray could NOT figure out why (the comments had trouble too, though there were some suggestions that it did have to do with the Sun eating the previous two planets.) And then it cooled off again, and everything seemed like it might just be all right with Earth –
And then Earth randomly developed a hot spot and vanished. Just “blooped” out of existence before Gray could slow the simulation down. XD Gray thus decided “Fuck it” and doubled the radius of the Sun again, causing IT to bloop out of existence and the Solar System to collapse. XD So yeah – if the Sun’s radius starts increasing, we are screwed. It’ll take a little while for us to be FULLY screwed, admittedly, but we are, indeed, screwed. Science! XD
B) And, from Many A True Nerd, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 40 - The Fog Of War!” AKA “Future God-King of the Commonwealth Mayor Bob thinks it’s a great idea to start the ‘Boston After Dark’ quest in the middle of the ‘Battle Of Bunker Hill’ quest!” How did that work out for him? Well –
I. Bob started out at his HQ, where he took a moment to get the Medical Lab moving in the right direction (though he didn’t have quite enough resources for the Bio Lab Cassandra wanted right afterward) and to tell his Facilities team that he wanted a “welcoming courtyard” and a nicely-decorated entrance, damn it, get this junk cleaned up, before setting off to the dead drop location! He easily retrieved the holotape, and even took out a Legendary Mirelurk lurking nearby without any trouble. (Chameleon gear, incidentally, which is good but better for early levels than later ones, so Bob left it.) Everything seemed to be going nice and easy-peasy for old Bob –
And THEN, and only THEN, did it properly occur to Jon that he was going to have to try and talk to Stockton in a war zone. XD Still, he knew he had to take care of the “Battle of Bunker Hill” quest anyway, so he went and met with his courser contact, X4-18, then proceeded into battle!
II. Where he proceeded to spend quite a lot of time on the sidelines just seeing if any of the combatants were Legendary and trying to sneak in and steal their gear when they inevitably got killed by another faction. Because the Battle of Bunker Hill is weird in that, under normal circumstances, you should be neutral to all three factions involved (Institute, Railroad, AND Brotherhood of Steel), and thus none of the people fighting are going to be shooting at YOU. I mean, you can certainly get caught up in the collateral damage happening all over the place (as Bob found out when he got too close to a bomb and temporarily broke his head), but other than that, no need to shoot anybody if you don’t want to! So Bob just chilled out, seeing if there was any good gear to be had on anyone (there was not), then went and sought out Old Man Stockton, cowering behind his counter. Jon was curious if Bob could initiate his “Boston After Dark” dialogue when he was currently hiding from the chaos all around –
And he totally could! XD Cue Bob hearing all about the latest “package” that needed “delivery” while the two were standing (well, standing/cowering) in a literal war zone. *facepalm* Go home, Fallout 4, you’re drunk. XD
III. With that done, Bob figured he might as well wrap up the war by doing the thing he came here to do and took X4-18 into the utility bunker nearby so they could find those escaped synths, dodging the various other fights (and taking out a few turrets, the only combatants actually angry at Bob) along the way. And because he’d just agreed to help another escaped synth, Bob decided to spare the four synths hiding under Bunker Hill as well, luring X4-18 into the room and taking him out with a couple of headshots with Deliverer (which – the FIRST shot wasn’t a sneak attack, but the SECOND somehow was. Jon was confused too). :) He thus left the synths to slip away with the Railroad and headed back up to the surface, rehearsing his “we were totally ambushed” story for Shaun and grabbing a nice Gauss rifle off a dead Railroad Heavy along the way. Might as well get the good guns where he can (especially since he apparently missed a LEGENDARY one earlier because the body it was tied to despawned before he could get to it! Shame)!
IV. Okay, “Battle of Bunker Hill” almost wrapped up – now time for Bob to do “Boston After Dark,” a quest that logically should come MUCH EARLIER in the game. XD But then again, Bob’s been doing all sorts of fuckery with the Railroad’s questline (remember him storming the Switchboard with Deacon – AFTER becoming friendly with the Institute? Fun times…). Anyway, as it was already night, and the Brotherhood of Steel was still hanging around to take care of any threats nearby, he figured he could run straight to the church and just get the whole thing done in one shot. He thus made his way over there, cleared out the raiders (and one feral ghoul) inside, waited around –
And then H2-22 appeared...but Stockton did not. Turns out he was half-in a bit of wrecked vertibird, still in his cowering state, refusing to talk. Jon initially thought it was because Bob was still in [CAUTION] from something nearby, but even after the threat either died or left, Stockton was refusing to talk. Bob EVENTUALLY managed to prompt him to say his lines, then ran back into the church to hear H2-22 say his, and all seemed like it might be well...but then Stockton was VERY slow to actually get up and light the signal lamp. And then didn’t actually LIGHT the lamp. And then just stood there staring at Bob with H2. Cue Jon realizing “oh shit, maybe I really broke this quest starting it in the middle of ‘The Battle Of Bunker Hill.’” :p
It’s okay, though! After a few off-screen restarts of the conversation, Bob was FINALLY able to get Stockton to say his lines AND correctly light the lamp, thus getting the quest to proceed properly and High Rise to show up to escort him and H2-22 to Ticonderoga Safehouse. Granted, the big run through the streets over there happened just as dawn was starting to break, meaning Jon felt really weird about the whole thing (it’s supposed to be “Boston After Dark,” after all) – but on the flip side, the Brotherhood soldiers hanging around effectively took care of all the raiders in the way, and did NOT start opening fire on the Railroad Agent escorting an escaped synth through the streets (apparently not realizing that’s who they were – I guess it’s not really that obvious from the outside!). So in the end Jon declared the whole mess one big old success because he only had to shoot one raider. w00! XD
V. With that sorted, Bob took a moment to collect the “Guns & Bullets” magazine available at Ticonderoga and use the weapon workbench there to check on what he needed perk-wise to upgrade his new Gauss Rifle (mostly “Gun Nut,” which he has, though the damage upgrades need “Science!” which he doesn’t (low INT build, remember?), so he’ll need to hope a shop carries the mods he needs), then headed straight to Railroad HQ to turn in “Boston After Dark” to Carrington and get the next quest on the good doctor’s list – “Butcher’s Bill,” the one where you investigate the state of Augusta Safehouse, aka Kendall Hospital. However – Bob had no intentions of doing “Butcher’s Bill,” at least not yet. He just needed to get the quest assigned to him so he could pick up another quest –
Namely, “Mercer Safehouse” from PAM! Because before you get “Butcher’s Bill,” PAM won’t talk to you – apparently you’re not enough a part of the Railroad before then. (Also, this is where I learned that nobody in the Railroad “introduces” you to PAM – you just go and talk to her on your own, apparently. Dunno why I got it in my head that an introduction was necessary...well, it FEELS necessary, so Victor will probably be getting one in the fanfic universe regardless!) Bob wanted to get “Mercer Safehouse” because once you’ve got that quest sorted, then PAM can start assigning OTHER quests, including the “Jackpot!” quest that gets you access to ballistic weave, one of the best protective items in the game. AND, because Pam chooses the settlement for the safehouse at random, there’s a chance that she can pick one that’s already settled, meaning the quest will simply auto-complete. So Bob went over and said hello, getting the quest and rolling the dice…
Only for Pam to pick Coastal Cottage as the new safehouse. Welp, uh, at least you recently learned where that particular settlement even is, Bob? XD
VI. Well, nothing for it but to get over there and get it up to the Railroad’s (admittedly low) standards! Bob decided to go right away so he didn’t forget (as he didn’t know when he’d next be in that part of the world), and took a vertibird taxi over there, just managing to avoid any nonsense from the Automatron kill squads and the like. :p Once there, he claimed the workbench and cleared the area for materials –
And then ran into a problem. Namely, the only materials native to Coastal Cottage are wood and steel. Which wouldn’t be TOO much of a problem, but in order to properly set up Mercer safehouse, the Railroad requires the player to set up a certain number of defenses. And with only wood and steel, the only defenses you can build are guard posts – which don’t work if there are no guards.
Guess how many citizens Coastal Cottage, as a brand-new settlement, actually has. Fortunately, Bob had almost all the stuff he needed to build some turrets – he just needed gears. So after an unsuccessful trip to a nearby shop (which had NOTHING in the way of junk beyond Jangles The Moon Monkey dolls and toy aliens), Bob went over and looted nearby Salem, which got him enough gear that he could build two heavy machine gun turrets, which satisfied the requirements. And a Railroad flag, which did not but which Bob wanted to put up anyway. XD (Seriously, why is that in the game when the Railroad is all about secrecy? XD)
VII. With the safehouse done, Bob decided to hold off talking to PAM again in favor of heading over to the Institute and talking with Shaun! Had to lie to his elderly son about what exactly happened at Bunker Hill in such a way that he didn’t admit fault and didn’t lose access to his teleporter. Shaun was deeply suspicious of his “we were ambushed” story, but did not kick Bob out of the Institute, instead inviting him to join the next Directorate meeting, where they were discussing something of great import to his future in the Institute. He thus teleported back inside –
VIII. And Bob went “I’ll check in on that later” and ran off to check on the status of his OWN HQ. XD Unfortunately, when he arrived at the plaza, he discovered that the main room was still a trashy mess (he had no idea if Facilities had done anything at ALL). Fortunately, though, he also discovered that they finally had the materials to set up Cassandra’s Bio Lab, and so got THAT project rolling. Over the course of – well, I’m not sure how long it took, as this was technically a “tutorial quest” for SS2 and thus probably took less time than usual, but it was at least a day or so – Bob got the Bio Lab finished, upgraded it so it had plenty of weird things floating in tanks, then moved a few people back over to the science team so they could officially Cure Influenza! Nice. :) He also discovered during the process that the Facilities team had done up the courtyard with some flowers and a nice fountain, so that was something. Still didn’t know why the main room was so messy, though (apparently he needed to set up a separate “clean” task instead, as per the comments). Once he checked in with Cassandra and confirmed all the medical stuff was done, he then took a 72-hour nap to allow the necessary materials to come in so he could set the team looking at the components for the Comm Array. Fortunately, it didn’t take them long to study them, and soon Bob was able to check with Cassandra about their status –
And learned that one component had been cunningly booby-trapped, so it was a really good thing that he had the team examine them! Fortunately Cassandra disabled the trap without any damage to anything (beyond poor Cedric’s nerves), and even turned it into a neat new paralysis grenade for Bob to use! So that was fun. XD Bob went and chatted to Jake about the good news, and after encouraging him not to think about why the Gunners booby-trapped one component (though Jon had a theory that it had to do with the Gunners being divided internally and one group maybe trying to attack or sabotage the other), Bob officially got access to the work task that would let him install all the safe components into the Array!
A job that requires not only a lot of materials, but also 75 “power” in Engineering AND 75 “power” in Science. Meaning Bob didn’t have the skilled personnel available to actually do the job yet. So next week, the plan is for Bob to go around, make sure he can get EVERY COMPANION, from Danse to Deacon, to join his HQ team (along with the Mr. Handsy Former Sexbot, because apparently the damn thing has amazing stats – and not just in the bedroom XD), and assign them appropriately so that they can tackle the project and get Act 2 of Sim Settlements 2 completed! So we should be in for an exciting time next Sunday. :D Looking forward to it!
Workout: Back on the bike today, and back tonight with Squid’s Baldur’s Gate III Cutscene Movie Starring Their Wizard Runa, Act 2 Part 1! The chunklet tonight was focused around Runa and her compatriots wandering around Last Light Inn and catching up with everyone there, including Dammon (the tiefling infernal blacksmith, who was able to use one last bit of infernal iron to dampen Karlach’s blazing infernal engine heart to the point where she could actually touch people, but had to give her the bad news that, as of right now, her only hope of survival was to return to Avernus – Karlach right now is firm that she’d rather die than go back); Rolan (the tiefling wizard, who apparently saved a bunch of the refugees from the Absolute cultists who’d captured them once they entered the shadow-cursed lands – but lost his brother and sister, so he’s spending his time in the inn getting drunk); Alfira (the tiefling bard behind “The Weeping Dawn,” who is naturally rather shook up about all the death and horrors she’s seen – fortunately Runa has a bit of the Bard in her too, and was able to use a song to help calm her down); Florrick (one of Grand Duke Ravengard’s top advisors, who relayed the bad news that Ravengard – Wyll’s dad, by the by, so this is very personal to one companion – has been captured by the cultists and taken to Moonrise Towers, with Wyll certain that he’s going to be infected; she also revealed that one Lord Gortash has risen to prominence in Baldur’s Gate by inventing the Steel Watch, robots to help protect the city – shame he’s also Karlach’s old employer and the one who sold her to Zariel, the devil who ripped out her heart in the first place); Raphael (the devil who previously offered to help remove the tadpole, playing the local chess equivalent with Mol – Astarion wanted to talk to him about a deal to translate the infernal contract on his back, with Raphael being willing, but needing time to come up with the task Astarion can do in trade for him); and Mol (the tiefling kid who runs a gang of kid thieves – the group wanted to warn her off making a deal with Raphael, but she’s determined to keep her gang safe, and if Raphael can do that (and get her to head of the Thieves’ Guild in the process)…) So yeah, busy chunklet! Left off with the gang having met back up with Deep Gnome Baracus, who is giving them some new smokepowder he’s cooked up in exchange for them helping rescue his friend Wulfbren and all the other Deep Gnomes in Moonrise. We’ll see how things progress from there probably next Sunday!
Not too bad, not too bad. And I'm not wrapping this entry up at like 12:30 AM or so, which is even better. :p And now it is time for me to head to bed, as I have work tomorrow. We'll see how that goes and how boring and/or stressful it is. Hopefully not too much of either...night all!
Tumblr: Pretty typical Sunday over here, honestly – I got four out of five Chill Valicer Save update posts sorted with image alt text before lunch today (well, almost – I had to do the alt text for the very last picture in the fourth after) on Victor Luvs Alice, then didn’t have anything to do over on Valice Multiverse, so that’s just staying blank for the time being. *shrug* Them’s the breaks, I guess! I’ll finish off that final Chill Valicer Save post tomorrow, and then we’ll be good to go for Wednesday, yay.
Fallout 4: Victor and Ada have escaped Rust Devil HQ! It took some doing, a lot of creeping around, and taking out the one remaining Rust Devil in their way, but they managed! Here’s how it went –
A) Started with Victor and Ada hiding out in Ivey’s room, having taken out a protectron and some turrets on the upper level of the big tank storage/building room they were in and taken a look at her terminal (to discover she hates the Mechanist pretty much as much as they do). After confirming that all enemies up top were indeed down, and that there was no one left to threaten them in the main room, I had Victor creep out and start looting the place, exploring everywhere he could find (getting drugs out of open transport vehicles and straw pillows out of lockers shoved into a shady corner, for example). Over on the left he found a mag-locked security door with a lockdown terminal next to it – Victor popped it open to find more power armor stations inside, along with toolboxes with more duct tape and wonderglue and a whole bunch of tools. :) As you might imagine, Victor had to do some inventory rearranging with Ada afterward to make sure he didn’t go over capacity. XD Once all his spare legendary guns and armor were safely stowed on her person, though, it was back to the loot, wandering around all the big environmental crates and going around the back and up on top of Ivey’s little personal room to see if there were any goodies to be found (some ammo in a footlocker behind, but nothing on top). Once I’d gotten all the good junk Victor could carry, it was over to the stairs on the right of the room, up atop the big concrete bunkers that he and Ada had emerged from –
B) To find the only path to the left absolutely COVERED with moving laser tripwires and Assaultron totems. D: I had Victor hastily take out the first one pair, then – after Ada got a little too close to the second set for my liking – had her come back around and stay put for a little while so Victor could take out all the rest of the traps. Fortunately all the laser tripwires had limited range of movement, and Victor was able to sneak up on the sides of them and disarm them with no trouble. And of course the Assaultron totems just kind of stood there – not entirely sure what they do, but I’m sure it’s lasery and painful. Definitely not the kind of thing Victor needed, especially with his exhaustion creeping up on him again...
C) Anyway, with the path clear and Deliverer in hand (as I didn’t want to take chances with my lessened AP), I had Victor collect Ada, then head left up and up the stairs into another little workshop area atop the bunkers. Fortunately the only enemy in this room was already dead, possibly taken out by Victor and Ada while they were fighting the turrets – Victor thus was free to do some solid looting (getting some fans and tools and of course every bit of adhesive he could find) and to crack the terminal in the far corner without worry (though it proved just to be the turret control – which, you know, was now useless that Victor and Ada had blown up all the turrets. Nice chunk of XP though). Through a little corridor and past the dead Rust Devil was another room with desks and file cabinets and more junk – Victor snatched up typewriters, desk fans, and duct tape, then chugged another Nuka-Cola as the in-game clock went past midnight so he and Ada could continue on out the door to the left. Poor guy hasn’t had to rely so much on caffeine since the early days of his adventure! But I really didn’t think it was smart for him to sleep just yet, so… *shrug* Anyway, he and Ada headed out to an open area (where Victor found a microscope to steal), then headed up some stairs to a catwalk overlooking the whole room – going down the length of the catwalk revealed it just led to the roof of the workshop room, where the remains of the turrets rested, so I had Victor double back and head through the security door on the right instead. This led to another short catwalk, with another security gate at the other end –
D) And this is where the [HIDDEN] brackets started shuffling, just a little. Jezebel chose this moment to pipe up that she’d run the numbers, and that their current chances of getting out of here stood at 65%, which was not optimal. So if Victor could put in a little more effort, please? XD I had Victor ignore the brain and continue on into the next room, which was a big empty storage space, with stuff like various testers and mechanical equipment and cigarette machines on shelves. I had Victor creep down the stairs as slowly as possible, keeping a wary eye out for danger, then did a sweep of the room for good junk (never forget the military-grade duct tape!) before proceeding through the security gate at the bottom of the room. This led to another big empty space atop some sort of concrete structure overlooking another room, with a catwalk bridge on the other side to some suspended offices –
E) With more laser tripwires and Assaultron totems. And oh – as Victor got close, Jezebel apparently spotted Ivey, leader of the Rust Devils and the one who ripped her head off, and demanded that Victor rip her head off in turn. All in good time, Jezebel… Victor had Ada keep back for a bit while he disarmed the tripwires (fortunately all the stationary kind) and the totems, then grabbed her and slipped across the catwalk and into the room next to where Ivey was hanging out without incident. So much without incident, in fact, that he was able to use the weapon workbench by the doorway without the game going “but there are enemies nearby!” :D We love a bit of good sneaking… Anyway, since I had a bunch of fiber optics and crystal and such from disarming all those traps, I had Victor upgrade the Resolute Laser Rifle with an improved sniper barrel and a long scope, then equipped it so he could give it a try in the upcoming battle. He then started to creep forward, hoping to get the drop on Ivey –
F) Only for Ada to get her attention first. Well, her attention –
And that of the ASSAULTRON SUICIDER with her. What’s that, you ask? Well, it’s an Assaultron with a skull for a head, lots of spikes, and no compunctions about using its laser in close quarters. Fortunately Victor was able to take it out with the laser rifle, and shortly afterward Ivey too in her special Tesla power armor (I think it makes energy spark off you when people hit you?). And while the Resolute did decent work, I wasn’t really impressed with the “final round chambered” slow time effect – it seemed to mostly make it so Victor RELOADED in slow motion. Add into that that I do prefer to use VATS when I can (though for some reason was having trouble today remembering in what order I had to pull the trigger button and then press (A)), and – yeah, I think I’m going to end up selling this thing to Arturo, or maybe giving it to a Settler who can make better use of it. It’s just not for me.
G) Anyway – with Ivey and her robot dead (and Jezebel offering up a perfunctory “good work, human”), I had Victor eat some food to help heal the wounds he’d taken in the fight, then grab the Tesla Rifle off Ivey’s corpse (potentially fun electric gun? Of more use to me than the power armor bits, since those are only T-60 and I’ve already got a full set of X-01 baaa-beee) and raid the office area she’d been stomping around in (finding some more good junk and a creepy mannequin tucked in a corner) before heading out into the pillared area full of security doors on the left. One door was Expert-locked, and Victor broke a bunch of bobby pins in it before he could get it open (I guess he WAS tired) – though all that was inside was a Fat Man, some mini-nukes, and some ammo in a cabinet. I don’t use Fat Men, but I did take the Mini-Nukes as a potential sale item. (KLE0 would probably like ‘em.) The second door was wide open and contained a soldier skeleton curled up next to the “You Win!” chest, which itself contained the Salvaged Assaultron Head (a unique weapon which is, well, an Assaultron head, which fires a more powerful beam the more you charge it; the downside is that it HEAVILY irradiates you, so unless your build is BASED around that… Yeah, another curiosity to sell, or maybe hang on Victor’s wall), some caps, and some more weapons and armor that I didn’t want (an Assaultron blade and a Mr. Handy saw didn’t do non-melee Victor much good, and while there was a nice piece of metal armor in there, I’m not QUITE ready to give up the Champion left arm just yet). And third door –
Was the unopenable door at the beginning, taking us back to where we came in! I had Victor open it with the terminal and immediately head up the stairs and back out into the Commonwealth just as dawn was starting to break! :D Mission Get Out Of Rust Devil HQ – accomplished!
H) Well, mostly – while Victor did make it out of HQ, the minute he was outside, Jezebel reminded him that he wasn’t out of the woods yet with her – she wasn’t cooperating until he gave her a body up to her specifications, and the game prompted him to have a chat with Ada. So, while he was absolutely bone-tired (and, as I quickly found out, busting for a pee after all that Nuka-Cola), I had him turn around and press (Y) to talk to his robot daughter. He handed over the radio beacon from Jezebel’s head to Ada, who took it off and added it to her collection – then Ada asked why Victor felt the need to keep the head, given that robobrains, were, to put it gently, a pain in the ass. XD I had Victor ask her what she knew about robobrains (the first successful attempt from General Atomics to fuse human and machine, with the brains serving as the ultimate control center and data storage for the robot – unfortunately, they proved to be a little, uh, unhinged when they were brought on line), then commented that the fusion of human and machine made them sound like synths (Ada disagreed, saying that robobrains were made for a different purpose – to speed up the decision-making process in robots, and to create more obedient, more efficient soldiers. The increased aggression and general nastiness was a bug, not a feature). Victor finally explained that they needed Jezebel to help track down the Mechanist, with Ada realizing “oh yeah, we probably WILL need her expertise to find the place – even if I can find it with the radar beacons, there’s probably more security measures” and apologizing for not thinking of that –
And for being a burden. A shocked Victor asked why she said that, and she admitted that she’d been feeling like a failure ever since Jackson and her caravan got killed, stating she was the one who chose the route and that if she’d picked a different one, maybe they’d still be alive. And then she said that maybe it would be better if her personality mode – the thing that makes her act like HER – was permanently set to “off,” instead of “on” like Jackson designed her. D:
Well, that wasn’t going to stand! I had Victor step away from the conversation, chug a bottle of “grape juice” for Charisma, then return and inform her that she is an individual, and that she shouldn’t wish to not be her. Fortunately, Ada agreed, saying she wouldn’t want to lose the experiences she’s had as “Ada.” She then thanked him, saying she was pretty sure she needed to hear that from another person. :) Yay.
I) And then, with heartwarming conversation over, I dragged Victor over to a nearby flat area, had him use his port-a-potty, then set up his tent and sleep for 12 hours, 6:30 AM to 6:30 PM. XD Because, well, caffeine crash – I figured he’d be suffering from one! XD I left it with him overlooking the Commonwealth from the entrance to the base – next week, since we’re still relatively close to Natick Banks, I’m going to run over to the Red Rocket there and have Victor put his final X-01 leg on his power armor and upgrade it as far as he can (I’ve been trying to make sure I’ve got enough rubber and ceramic for the job!), then it’s back to the Red Rocket by Sanctuary to build Jezebel a new body and get this portion of the Automatron quest line done! :D Then maybe we can start thinking of hunting down a courser…
Writing: Another Sunday, another update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression doc – and, as per usual with these smaller missions, the fanfic version was pretty much the same as the game version, above, with some minor tweaks (namely designed to make sure Alice gets properly represented in the otherwise two-person-focused action) –
A) For example, as they worked their way through the final few rooms of the HQ, Alice helped Victor disarm a bunch of the traps along the way (because her Celerity helps her get around some of them faster); helped kill Ivey by shoving the Tal’Mehe’Ra blade into the gap between her power armor helmet and torso (because hell with it, might as well make Jezebel happy by LITERALLY whacking the woman’s head off – Jezebel was appreciative); and unlocked the security door with the Fat Man behind it at the end (since I headcanoned that Victor breaking all those bobby pins was the result of exhaustion, and Alice decided it was easier and better for her to take over then). Having a third member of the team DOES make life so much easier sometimes for Victor!
B) Other major change was to the conversation at the end, when they finally stumbled out of HQ into the pre-dawn light – Jezbel told Ada directly that she could take the radar beacon now, but that there would be no other information until she got her body, and Ada’s question about why they we keeping the head was more about robobrains just being a pain than her straight-up forgetting that they needed her help to get into the facility. A few bits of the conversation happened in a different order too – with Victor asking about robobrains and comparing them to synths after reminding Ada “Jezebel has knowledge we need to get into the Mechanist facility, even if she is a pain” and Ada using telling him about them as a jumping-off point to admit that she thinks it would be better for her personality mode to be turned permanently off (saying that they’re an excellent example of why it’s sometimes bad to give a robot a personality). Victor and Alice weren’t having that, though, with Victor insisting that she’s an individual and that he loves her like family, and Alice pointing out Jackson gave her a personality for a reason and that she’s sure her caravan family did not blame her for picking the route that got them killed – after all, there’s no guarantee any route they would have picked would have been safer, after all. And fortunately Ada did agree with them, saying she would not want to lose the experiences that made her Ada and thanking them for being kind. :) And then Victor fell asleep on her after hugging her, because caffeine crash. XD Had to explain that twelve-hour snooze somehow!
So yeah – that, Victor and the gang getting surprised by Ivey and her Assualtron Suicider while he was finishing up his hasty upgrades to his new laser gun (rather than Ada getting their attention in true “wandering companion” fashion immediately afterward), and a little extra snark from Victor and Alice toward Jezebel whenever she started getting mouthy (like the “65% chance of getting out of here” bit) was what differentiated the fanfic-verse from the game-verse this time around. I left it with Ada and Alice complaining about Victor forcing them to go through “Chaos Junction” again to get back to Natick so he could put his new X-01 leg on his power armor (with them joking that if Victor intends it as a punishment for them letting him sleep for twelve hours, it’s a bad one because HE’S getting punished with them – “It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.” XD). We’ll see how that goes and if I can down there and then back to the Sanctuary Red Rocket in one session...maybe if I go ahead and use one of those vertibird grenades sitting in my inventory…
YouTube: Well, there’s two new Sims 4-related videos chilling in my Watch Later (the next episode of Petey Plays It’s Super Sim series, and a video on the recent “login rewards patch” from onlyabidoang), but I at least also got through my regular Sunday Two without issue –
A) First up, from the Subs, we had GrayStillPlays and “When the sun gets bigger every minute,” aka Gray plays more Universe Sandbox 2! Today’s experiment featured Gray deciding to make the Sun bigger so that everyone, including gamers like himself, could get more of it without going outside. However, since he didn’t want a black hole event, Gray decided that what he needed to do was to lock the mass of the Sun at its starting point, and just increase the radius – doing things like going to 1.25, to 1.50, to 2.50, to 5, to 10, all the way up to “getting the surface of this thing as close to the Earth as I can without the sun eating it, like it did Mercury and Venus.” XD What were the results of all this fiddling? Well, as to be expected, at the beginning the Earth’s temperature kept jumping up, until it leveled out around 25 degrees C –
But the SUN’S temperature, at least on the surface, started going down, presumably because, since its mass wasn’t changing, it was getting more and more spread out and thus wasn’t properly doing the important nuclear stuff inside a star that keeps it generating heat and light. (The comments suggested, in fact, that Gray inadvertently simulated a “brown dwarf star” with his experiments, since they too don’t have the oomph to do the proper fusion of hydrogen into helium.) To the point where it went from the familiar yellow, to a sad orange, to an even sadder red, to straight-up GRAY. Which even Gray himself didn’t seem good. Even swallowing up Mercury and Venus once it got big enough didn’t seem to affect it –
But putting up almost right next to Earth did, as the minute Gray finished adjusting it, it suddenly FLARED with heat for a little while. Not very long, at least not in universal time, but for a while there things were suddenly EXTREMELY HOT. Gray could NOT figure out why (the comments had trouble too, though there were some suggestions that it did have to do with the Sun eating the previous two planets.) And then it cooled off again, and everything seemed like it might just be all right with Earth –
And then Earth randomly developed a hot spot and vanished. Just “blooped” out of existence before Gray could slow the simulation down. XD Gray thus decided “Fuck it” and doubled the radius of the Sun again, causing IT to bloop out of existence and the Solar System to collapse. XD So yeah – if the Sun’s radius starts increasing, we are screwed. It’ll take a little while for us to be FULLY screwed, admittedly, but we are, indeed, screwed. Science! XD
B) And, from Many A True Nerd, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 40 - The Fog Of War!” AKA “Future God-King of the Commonwealth Mayor Bob thinks it’s a great idea to start the ‘Boston After Dark’ quest in the middle of the ‘Battle Of Bunker Hill’ quest!” How did that work out for him? Well –
I. Bob started out at his HQ, where he took a moment to get the Medical Lab moving in the right direction (though he didn’t have quite enough resources for the Bio Lab Cassandra wanted right afterward) and to tell his Facilities team that he wanted a “welcoming courtyard” and a nicely-decorated entrance, damn it, get this junk cleaned up, before setting off to the dead drop location! He easily retrieved the holotape, and even took out a Legendary Mirelurk lurking nearby without any trouble. (Chameleon gear, incidentally, which is good but better for early levels than later ones, so Bob left it.) Everything seemed to be going nice and easy-peasy for old Bob –
And THEN, and only THEN, did it properly occur to Jon that he was going to have to try and talk to Stockton in a war zone. XD Still, he knew he had to take care of the “Battle of Bunker Hill” quest anyway, so he went and met with his courser contact, X4-18, then proceeded into battle!
II. Where he proceeded to spend quite a lot of time on the sidelines just seeing if any of the combatants were Legendary and trying to sneak in and steal their gear when they inevitably got killed by another faction. Because the Battle of Bunker Hill is weird in that, under normal circumstances, you should be neutral to all three factions involved (Institute, Railroad, AND Brotherhood of Steel), and thus none of the people fighting are going to be shooting at YOU. I mean, you can certainly get caught up in the collateral damage happening all over the place (as Bob found out when he got too close to a bomb and temporarily broke his head), but other than that, no need to shoot anybody if you don’t want to! So Bob just chilled out, seeing if there was any good gear to be had on anyone (there was not), then went and sought out Old Man Stockton, cowering behind his counter. Jon was curious if Bob could initiate his “Boston After Dark” dialogue when he was currently hiding from the chaos all around –
And he totally could! XD Cue Bob hearing all about the latest “package” that needed “delivery” while the two were standing (well, standing/cowering) in a literal war zone. *facepalm* Go home, Fallout 4, you’re drunk. XD
III. With that done, Bob figured he might as well wrap up the war by doing the thing he came here to do and took X4-18 into the utility bunker nearby so they could find those escaped synths, dodging the various other fights (and taking out a few turrets, the only combatants actually angry at Bob) along the way. And because he’d just agreed to help another escaped synth, Bob decided to spare the four synths hiding under Bunker Hill as well, luring X4-18 into the room and taking him out with a couple of headshots with Deliverer (which – the FIRST shot wasn’t a sneak attack, but the SECOND somehow was. Jon was confused too). :) He thus left the synths to slip away with the Railroad and headed back up to the surface, rehearsing his “we were totally ambushed” story for Shaun and grabbing a nice Gauss rifle off a dead Railroad Heavy along the way. Might as well get the good guns where he can (especially since he apparently missed a LEGENDARY one earlier because the body it was tied to despawned before he could get to it! Shame)!
IV. Okay, “Battle of Bunker Hill” almost wrapped up – now time for Bob to do “Boston After Dark,” a quest that logically should come MUCH EARLIER in the game. XD But then again, Bob’s been doing all sorts of fuckery with the Railroad’s questline (remember him storming the Switchboard with Deacon – AFTER becoming friendly with the Institute? Fun times…). Anyway, as it was already night, and the Brotherhood of Steel was still hanging around to take care of any threats nearby, he figured he could run straight to the church and just get the whole thing done in one shot. He thus made his way over there, cleared out the raiders (and one feral ghoul) inside, waited around –
And then H2-22 appeared...but Stockton did not. Turns out he was half-in a bit of wrecked vertibird, still in his cowering state, refusing to talk. Jon initially thought it was because Bob was still in [CAUTION] from something nearby, but even after the threat either died or left, Stockton was refusing to talk. Bob EVENTUALLY managed to prompt him to say his lines, then ran back into the church to hear H2-22 say his, and all seemed like it might be well...but then Stockton was VERY slow to actually get up and light the signal lamp. And then didn’t actually LIGHT the lamp. And then just stood there staring at Bob with H2. Cue Jon realizing “oh shit, maybe I really broke this quest starting it in the middle of ‘The Battle Of Bunker Hill.’” :p
It’s okay, though! After a few off-screen restarts of the conversation, Bob was FINALLY able to get Stockton to say his lines AND correctly light the lamp, thus getting the quest to proceed properly and High Rise to show up to escort him and H2-22 to Ticonderoga Safehouse. Granted, the big run through the streets over there happened just as dawn was starting to break, meaning Jon felt really weird about the whole thing (it’s supposed to be “Boston After Dark,” after all) – but on the flip side, the Brotherhood soldiers hanging around effectively took care of all the raiders in the way, and did NOT start opening fire on the Railroad Agent escorting an escaped synth through the streets (apparently not realizing that’s who they were – I guess it’s not really that obvious from the outside!). So in the end Jon declared the whole mess one big old success because he only had to shoot one raider. w00! XD
V. With that sorted, Bob took a moment to collect the “Guns & Bullets” magazine available at Ticonderoga and use the weapon workbench there to check on what he needed perk-wise to upgrade his new Gauss Rifle (mostly “Gun Nut,” which he has, though the damage upgrades need “Science!” which he doesn’t (low INT build, remember?), so he’ll need to hope a shop carries the mods he needs), then headed straight to Railroad HQ to turn in “Boston After Dark” to Carrington and get the next quest on the good doctor’s list – “Butcher’s Bill,” the one where you investigate the state of Augusta Safehouse, aka Kendall Hospital. However – Bob had no intentions of doing “Butcher’s Bill,” at least not yet. He just needed to get the quest assigned to him so he could pick up another quest –
Namely, “Mercer Safehouse” from PAM! Because before you get “Butcher’s Bill,” PAM won’t talk to you – apparently you’re not enough a part of the Railroad before then. (Also, this is where I learned that nobody in the Railroad “introduces” you to PAM – you just go and talk to her on your own, apparently. Dunno why I got it in my head that an introduction was necessary...well, it FEELS necessary, so Victor will probably be getting one in the fanfic universe regardless!) Bob wanted to get “Mercer Safehouse” because once you’ve got that quest sorted, then PAM can start assigning OTHER quests, including the “Jackpot!” quest that gets you access to ballistic weave, one of the best protective items in the game. AND, because Pam chooses the settlement for the safehouse at random, there’s a chance that she can pick one that’s already settled, meaning the quest will simply auto-complete. So Bob went over and said hello, getting the quest and rolling the dice…
Only for Pam to pick Coastal Cottage as the new safehouse. Welp, uh, at least you recently learned where that particular settlement even is, Bob? XD
VI. Well, nothing for it but to get over there and get it up to the Railroad’s (admittedly low) standards! Bob decided to go right away so he didn’t forget (as he didn’t know when he’d next be in that part of the world), and took a vertibird taxi over there, just managing to avoid any nonsense from the Automatron kill squads and the like. :p Once there, he claimed the workbench and cleared the area for materials –
And then ran into a problem. Namely, the only materials native to Coastal Cottage are wood and steel. Which wouldn’t be TOO much of a problem, but in order to properly set up Mercer safehouse, the Railroad requires the player to set up a certain number of defenses. And with only wood and steel, the only defenses you can build are guard posts – which don’t work if there are no guards.
Guess how many citizens Coastal Cottage, as a brand-new settlement, actually has. Fortunately, Bob had almost all the stuff he needed to build some turrets – he just needed gears. So after an unsuccessful trip to a nearby shop (which had NOTHING in the way of junk beyond Jangles The Moon Monkey dolls and toy aliens), Bob went over and looted nearby Salem, which got him enough gear that he could build two heavy machine gun turrets, which satisfied the requirements. And a Railroad flag, which did not but which Bob wanted to put up anyway. XD (Seriously, why is that in the game when the Railroad is all about secrecy? XD)
VII. With the safehouse done, Bob decided to hold off talking to PAM again in favor of heading over to the Institute and talking with Shaun! Had to lie to his elderly son about what exactly happened at Bunker Hill in such a way that he didn’t admit fault and didn’t lose access to his teleporter. Shaun was deeply suspicious of his “we were ambushed” story, but did not kick Bob out of the Institute, instead inviting him to join the next Directorate meeting, where they were discussing something of great import to his future in the Institute. He thus teleported back inside –
VIII. And Bob went “I’ll check in on that later” and ran off to check on the status of his OWN HQ. XD Unfortunately, when he arrived at the plaza, he discovered that the main room was still a trashy mess (he had no idea if Facilities had done anything at ALL). Fortunately, though, he also discovered that they finally had the materials to set up Cassandra’s Bio Lab, and so got THAT project rolling. Over the course of – well, I’m not sure how long it took, as this was technically a “tutorial quest” for SS2 and thus probably took less time than usual, but it was at least a day or so – Bob got the Bio Lab finished, upgraded it so it had plenty of weird things floating in tanks, then moved a few people back over to the science team so they could officially Cure Influenza! Nice. :) He also discovered during the process that the Facilities team had done up the courtyard with some flowers and a nice fountain, so that was something. Still didn’t know why the main room was so messy, though (apparently he needed to set up a separate “clean” task instead, as per the comments). Once he checked in with Cassandra and confirmed all the medical stuff was done, he then took a 72-hour nap to allow the necessary materials to come in so he could set the team looking at the components for the Comm Array. Fortunately, it didn’t take them long to study them, and soon Bob was able to check with Cassandra about their status –
And learned that one component had been cunningly booby-trapped, so it was a really good thing that he had the team examine them! Fortunately Cassandra disabled the trap without any damage to anything (beyond poor Cedric’s nerves), and even turned it into a neat new paralysis grenade for Bob to use! So that was fun. XD Bob went and chatted to Jake about the good news, and after encouraging him not to think about why the Gunners booby-trapped one component (though Jon had a theory that it had to do with the Gunners being divided internally and one group maybe trying to attack or sabotage the other), Bob officially got access to the work task that would let him install all the safe components into the Array!
A job that requires not only a lot of materials, but also 75 “power” in Engineering AND 75 “power” in Science. Meaning Bob didn’t have the skilled personnel available to actually do the job yet. So next week, the plan is for Bob to go around, make sure he can get EVERY COMPANION, from Danse to Deacon, to join his HQ team (along with the Mr. Handsy Former Sexbot, because apparently the damn thing has amazing stats – and not just in the bedroom XD), and assign them appropriately so that they can tackle the project and get Act 2 of Sim Settlements 2 completed! So we should be in for an exciting time next Sunday. :D Looking forward to it!
Workout: Back on the bike today, and back tonight with Squid’s Baldur’s Gate III Cutscene Movie Starring Their Wizard Runa, Act 2 Part 1! The chunklet tonight was focused around Runa and her compatriots wandering around Last Light Inn and catching up with everyone there, including Dammon (the tiefling infernal blacksmith, who was able to use one last bit of infernal iron to dampen Karlach’s blazing infernal engine heart to the point where she could actually touch people, but had to give her the bad news that, as of right now, her only hope of survival was to return to Avernus – Karlach right now is firm that she’d rather die than go back); Rolan (the tiefling wizard, who apparently saved a bunch of the refugees from the Absolute cultists who’d captured them once they entered the shadow-cursed lands – but lost his brother and sister, so he’s spending his time in the inn getting drunk); Alfira (the tiefling bard behind “The Weeping Dawn,” who is naturally rather shook up about all the death and horrors she’s seen – fortunately Runa has a bit of the Bard in her too, and was able to use a song to help calm her down); Florrick (one of Grand Duke Ravengard’s top advisors, who relayed the bad news that Ravengard – Wyll’s dad, by the by, so this is very personal to one companion – has been captured by the cultists and taken to Moonrise Towers, with Wyll certain that he’s going to be infected; she also revealed that one Lord Gortash has risen to prominence in Baldur’s Gate by inventing the Steel Watch, robots to help protect the city – shame he’s also Karlach’s old employer and the one who sold her to Zariel, the devil who ripped out her heart in the first place); Raphael (the devil who previously offered to help remove the tadpole, playing the local chess equivalent with Mol – Astarion wanted to talk to him about a deal to translate the infernal contract on his back, with Raphael being willing, but needing time to come up with the task Astarion can do in trade for him); and Mol (the tiefling kid who runs a gang of kid thieves – the group wanted to warn her off making a deal with Raphael, but she’s determined to keep her gang safe, and if Raphael can do that (and get her to head of the Thieves’ Guild in the process)…) So yeah, busy chunklet! Left off with the gang having met back up with Deep Gnome Baracus, who is giving them some new smokepowder he’s cooked up in exchange for them helping rescue his friend Wulfbren and all the other Deep Gnomes in Moonrise. We’ll see how things progress from there probably next Sunday!
Not too bad, not too bad. And I'm not wrapping this entry up at like 12:30 AM or so, which is even better. :p And now it is time for me to head to bed, as I have work tomorrow. We'll see how that goes and how boring and/or stressful it is. Hopefully not too much of either...night all!
