Better Sunday Fortunately
Jun. 30th, 2024 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickMy period is on its way out, meaning so is my extreme moodiness; I got a bit more sleep last night, and didn't wake up to a bunch of chores staring me in the face; and I was able to get just about everything I wanted to get done, done, even with the shittier weather --
Tumblr: Got a few things done here, which is nice –
Victor Luvs Alice – Caught up on my dash before lunch, then prepared some reblogs for this week’s updates – namely, updating the “Valice/Valicer Wedding Stuff Masterpost” with the links to the Valicer Wedding from last year, and my original Tiny Town post with some updates regarding what I’d want to do for that particular save file (specifically, doing a multifandom tiny town with community lots for each fandom represented as well). The latter isn’t FULLY finished yet, but it’s almost there! I’ll have it ready in time for Wednesday, at least.
Valice Multiverse – Had one anon ask to drop in the queue today, asking what “Classical” music was called when it was new – even after doing some research, I wasn’t sure, so neither was Victor. *shrug* For all we know, it was ALWAYS called Classical music! (Though what WE think of as “classical” typically also involves Baroque and Romantic music, so that helps muddle the question even further...)
Fallout 4: Had a shorter-than-usual session in the Commonwealth today thanks to having to stop early because of thunderstorms (fortunately they only kept me off the computer for about an hour), but I did accomplish my main goal for the session –
A) I started with Victor and Ada just outside Rust Devil HQ in the Fort Hagen Satellite Array, having cleared it out last session and rescued Jezebel the robobrain from its clutches so she can tell them all about how to get into the Mechanist’s lair in exchange for a new body. However, before I made any further progress on that, there was one thing that I wanted to get out of the way first – namely, get the X-01 Mk. III right leg Victor found in the HQ onto the power armor he’d left in Natick Banks (nice and close to the Glowing Sea) so he could have a full X-01 set! So I turned Victor and Ada away from the Red Rocket with Victor’s robot-creation station for the time being and had them set back out across the wastes to Natick, passing by the Boston Mayoral Shelter (I had Victor pause nearby and check his junk list – however, it looked like he was good on rubber for power armor upgrades, so I chose not to stop in and try and raid the gym again) and the various military construction sheds with all the power armor stations on the side of town (where I did have Victor grab one plunger for its rubber while looking to see if there had been any loot respawns in any of the containers – it was just lying around, after all!) before approaching the most dangerous place in all of Fallout 4, at least for me personally – the spot I am now calling Chaos Checkpoint! Because the junction where I have SO MUCH Mechanist-related nonsense spawn is right below one of the checkpoints leading into and out of Fort Hagen, and we do like our alliteration. :p Anyway, the pair approached the hill cautiously, but it appeared that things were actually quiet this night. Somewhat relieved, but still keeping an eye out, I had them head straight down the hill through the blasted trees down to the edge of the lake, then loop around the water before coming back up to the road by the side of Poseidon Reservoir –
B) Where some Mechanist-related nonsense spawned in. Specifically, a tankbot and a trio of eyebots. *shakehead* Okay, maybe the Reservoir is the real chaos point… Fortunately, they didn’t notice Victor and Ada right away, allowing Victor to use the Two-Shot to get some sneaky early hits in – and when they DID notice the danger, they zeroed in on Ada, allowing her to serve as a distraction while Victor picked off the robots at his leisure while avoiding getting zapped. Nice. :D He looted the robot bodies he could find (one eyebot went missing) and prepared to move on past the Reservoir onto the motel –
When something exploded, and exploded good, at the house up the hill across from the Reservoir. (Chaos Checkpoint!) Startled and curious, I had Ada and Victor go and investigate, and found a whole BUNCH of raider and super mutant corpses lying around, plus one dead settler (wearing a snazzy Coast Guard hat). I quickly sussed out that what must have happened was that a super mutant group (possibly with a settler prisoner) and a raider group had started tussling in the back yard of the house, and that mutant group’s Suicider had blown them all up because that’s what they DO.
I immediately had Victor take advantage of the situation and strip the bodies of all their ammo and stimpacks. XD Hey, they’d just be going to waste otherwise! He also found one Settler’s Note on the body of the settler, but that proved to just be a warning not to go near the Boston Mayoral Shelter because of the synths there. Already been, already shot ‘em, unnamed settler! Sorry I didn’t show up in time to save you from whatever nonsense you got involved in.
C) With that sorted, it was time to move on – after a quick loop of the house, Victor and Ada proceeded over the hills around to the back of the church on the side of Natick, and from there to the Red Rocket station on the side of town where Victor’s power armor was parked. I had him swap out the T-45f series right leg for the X-01 Mk. III series right leg, then – after taking a moment to dump the old T-45f leg in a file cabinet in the back and drop his port-a-potty in a safe corner temporarily so the game didn’t try to use it for parts (I don’t think it can be destroyed, but I didn’t want to take the chance) – go ahead and improve the X-01 leg to Mk. VI, giving it a coat of Hot Rod Shark paint (so the armor increases his agility when worn) and giving it Kinetic Servos (which increases Action Point refresh speed while moving – I was GOING to go for the Calibrated shocks which improve carry capacity, but I think it’s better for Victor to travel light in the Glowing Sea and instead worry about keeping his AP up so he can take out all the fun enemies around him). I also took a moment to hit up the nearby weapons workbench to take a look at the Tesla Rifle he picked up off of Ivey, the head of the Rust Devils – this thing looks like it could be a super-powerful electric shotgun (almost 300 damage!) if I could build the right barrel for it, but Victor didn’t have the fiber optics or fiberglass necessary to do so, and neither did Ada, meh. Hopefully he’ll have the stuff he needs back at Red Rocket or Sanctuary!
D) Anyway, with Victor’s power armor fully upgraded and ready to keep him safe during any future adventures in The Glowing Sea, it was time to start heading back to the Red Rocket and getting Jezebel set! I had Victor and Ada head back out and around the back of the police station (taking a moment to raid a dumpster there for junk), then head to the water’s edge to see if I could just skirt around there to get back and maybe avoid further chaos at the checkpoint/reservoir –
Only for Victor to get stuck on a slope above a collapsed bit of building and have to jump into the heavily-irradiated water to get free. And then be unable to climb back up to the road when I tried to direct him there because the slope was a little bit too steep. Hmmm. Bit worrying. What do?
E) Pop some Rad-X and swim across the lake, of course! Because I’ve actually been meaning to check out the other side for a while now anyway. XD As an extra bonus, this finally allowed Victor to Officially Discover the lake, which is Lake Cochituate, apparently. I was WONDERING where I needed to go to make the name pop… Anyway, he swam across safely, surfacing near a house on the other side and managing to avoid the notice of a mirelurk bumming around –
Only to turn around and realize he and Ada were right next to a house with some raiders camping out in it. Victor managed to get a sneak attack on the first guy, standing obliviously on the porch, then – after a bit of kiting around and somehow avoiding the notice of a Rust Devil on the road nearby – got inside and made it up to the roof to take out the psycho up there, while Ada took care of an attack dog at ground level. I had Victor loot the bodies, check out the boat that had ended up on the house’s porch, then start considering where to go next –
Aaaand that’s when it started seriously thundering, and I realized, “time to go!” So that’s where I left off for the moment, with Victor and Ada hanging around the recently-cleared house and preparing to continue onward, back to more familiar territory. :) Next time, we’ll try to get them at least closer to the Red Rocket and getting Jezebel her new body! And maybe explore the other side of the lake a little, because I AM curious about it.
Writing: Another Sunday, another update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression – and, as per usual, what happened in the fanfic reality was pretty close to what happened in the game reality, with just a few tweaks here and there –
A) I had Ada ask Victor if he needed any rubber while passing the Mayoral Shelter (as she was the one who gave him shit for not immediately going back there and getting a kickball when he needed rubber the LAST time), and Alice be the one to notice the latest Mechanist patrol coming up when they reached the Reservoir on their travels (and also suggest “Chaos Checkpoint” as a new name for their favorite “there are always so many killer robots here” junction XD). Gotta keep them involved in the action somehow!
B) I put a Brotherhood of Steel scribe, Hardy, at the Red Rocket in Natick, as I’d already established the place as a BOS area of interest (I mean, it is in-game too, I keep getting BOS patrols dropped off there when I visit), and had him take Victor’s unwanted T-45f leg when Victor did the swap for the X-01 model (because the Brotherhood is the big “power armor” faction – fortunately the guys Victor have met so far have been cool with Victor having his own X-01 set). Also had Victor comment that he MIGHT take his X-01 set up to the Prydwen once, just to make Danse jealous, which might be fun to write in the future. XD
C) Victor getting stuck by a collapsed building on the edge of Lake Cochituate and having to jump into the water to free himself became him accidentally falling in slipping in the mud down there, and him swimming across to avoid having to deal with Chaos Checkpoint/Poseidon Reservoir yet again became him and Alice towing a hastily-repaired boat with Ada, Jezebel, and all their gear on it across the lake. Because, well, Victor’s pockets are rather less magic in a more real-world setting and thus he needs carts and duffel bags and whatnot to stow all his gear, and Ada can’t just teleport over to his location in this slightly-more-grounded-in-real-world-rules reality! (I say “slightly” because – well, we have vampires, for a start.)
D) And I had Alice take care of the Rust Devil that was near the raider house while Victor and Ada took care of the raiders, though that is subject to change depending on what happens when I next load into the game. :p
*nods* Nice. And so the trio (plus Jezebel’s head) are on the other side of the lake, preparing to head out and do a bit of exploring on their way back to the Red Rocket. We’ll see how that all goes next time. :)
YouTube: Got in the usual Sunday Two, which was good –
A) First up, from the Subs, we had GrayStillPlays and “I hacked duck evolution,” aka Gray plays Duck Life 4! A return to the games where you raise a duck (who looks like a chicken) to be the best at running, swimming, flying, and climbing, only this time you’re actually doing an entire TEAM of ducks – you need at least three to compete in all of the tournaments. Gray thus hatched and trained up DevilPoultry (a bright green duck with a hat with an emergency light on it and red eyes), Meaty (a teal duck with red checks on his bottom like he’d been run through a grater and a sweet hairstyle), and HelpMe (a darker green duck with a muddy bottom and a spiky haircut that made him look like he lived in a wind tunnel) to be the best of the best! And when he tired of playing the various minigames and earning levels the legit way (which, admittedly, is pretty easy – once you get the hang of the games you can earn a LOT of levels VERY quickly), he hacked the game to give his ducks the stats he wanted. And the SIZE he wanted, because it turns out that you can change THAT too – he played around with giant ducks for a while (making them so big that they basically just turned into flickering backgrounds on the courses), then made them all as tiny as possible (which resulted in ant-sized ducks nyooming around). And then he hacked DevilPoultry to be as fast as the speed of light, which resulted in him going so fast the game couldn’t even figure out where he was anymore and thus didn’t give him a place. As Gray put it, only then was he satisfied with what he’d done. XD Good stuff – hopefully there are more ridiculous duck shenanigans in our future!
B) And second up, from Many A True Nerd, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 41 - Commonwealth Rising!” Featuring Mayor Bob attempting to assemble a crack team of companions to help build up his headquarters and complete the improvements to the Comm Array, only to get sucked into another mission to help the Nightingales with a problem… Here’s how that went –
I. While considering his options to get more companions, Bob noticed that Fiona wanted to speak to him and headed over to the hospital to see what was up. Turns out, Ellis, the most idealistic of the doctors, was missing – he’d overheard Fiona talking to a raider who’d wanted a Nightingale house call and went out to help them, despite Fiona initially telling the messenger they’d have to come to the hospital to be treated. He hadn’t come back yet, and Fiona was worried. Worse, Raphael had gone after him to try and track him down (he seemed to recognize the description of the messenger, and Fiona was worried it was an old friend or enemy, possibly even someone from his old gang), so he was missing in action too. Bob promised to track them down and got Raphael’s last known location from Fiona so he could see what the Nightingale’s guard knew, along with some emergency medical supplies in case he needed them.
II. First things first, though – Bob had a couple of companions to grab for his engineering and science teams! Specifically, X6-88 (who Bob got by teleporting to the Institute, attending the directorate meeting Shaun had invited him to – and then immediately getting up and running away from the meeting so it would end early and an annoyed Shaun would just give him the bullet points, finishing the “Mankind Redefined” quest and finally opening up the courser to be recruited) and MacCready (who Jon apparently always forgets exists in this game – getting him was just a matter of finding him at the Third Rail and paying him his fee, though Jon was deeply amused to see Ham and Magnolia FINALLY complete their exchange for the “Emogene Takes A Lover” quest and give Bob the “Pillars of the Community” cult flier when Bob finished that quest ages ago and Emogene was in fact hanging around in the Third Rail). He also swung by the railroad to turn in the “Mercer Safehouse” quest to PAM while he was in the area, and was rewarded with the “Jackpot: Ruined Skyscraper” mission, which sent him around the corner into Boston to work his way into a skyscraper, kill the Gunners in there, and retrieve a secret cache of DIA (the Fallout equivalent of the CIA) materials. Which finally got him access to ballistic weave, yay! He can’t use it to its full potential yet (he doesn’t have enough materials or ranks in Armorer) but he can get his fatigues up to Mark III and add like 65 points of damage resistance to his outfit. Good stuff!
III. With companions recruited and weave in hand, Bob got back to Nightingale business by tracking down Raphael to his last known location – an old ruined house near Bunker Hill that the game called a “hideout.” Exploring revealed that there was a secret passage in the back into the sewer system – Jon was initially concerned that the raiders were trying to attack the nearby CPD headquarters, but instead the tunnels seemed to lead ultimately into the subway system, where Bob found Raphael fighting some mole rats (and accidentally shot him trying to help XD). Once the mole rats were defeated, Bob talked with Raphael, who confirmed that yes, the messenger whom Ellis had gone off with was indeed from his old gang – led by his oldest friend, Cain, the guy who left him to die after that failed caravan ambush that introduced him to the Nightingales. He was hoping to find them here, at their old hideout, but it seems like they’d packed up and left, and Raphael wasn’t at all sure where they’d got to. He encouraged Bob to do some detecting, and after chasing down a few clues (like a deathclaw head trophy that Raphael was surprised Cain would leave behind, suggesting they left in a hurry, and an empty box of medical supplies, suggesting the gang was REALLY hurt when they left), Bob found a holotape with a note from someone named “J.” castigating Cain for not teaching his men the meaning of “dead drops” and instead coming directly to them to pester them for chems in advance. Raphael realized that this was probably former member Jade, who left the gang officially when things started getting really rough, but continued associating with them as a go-between, taking their loot and trading it for caps and chems. Raphael admitted that they weren’t on the best of terms right now, but she might help out, for old time’s sake –
IV. So it was back to the Third Rail to track her down and see what she knew! (With a Plasma-Infused Hunting Rifle sitting in Bob’s pocket thanks to a Legendary Radroach he found on the way to Raphael, nice.) Jade wasn’t exactly happy to see Raphael, bitterly telling him “I told you so” about Cain and revealing that the gang they both used to run with wasn’t a raider gang until Cain put himself in charge, and that Raphael just stood by and let it happen, like a coward – but when they explained that they were trying to track down a possibly-kidnapped Nightingale, she was reluctant to tell them the location both for her own sake (didn’t want Cain’s wrath on her head) or Raphael’s (didn’t want the guy killing him after he’d gotten a second chance with the Nightingales). Bob managed to convince her to tell them by saying she wasn’t actually going to be sticking her neck out, and she marked the location on their map – the Greater Mass Blood Clinic over by Fort Hagen, of all places. Well, Raphael did say they would probably want out of the Commonwealth thanks to how raider-unfriendly Bob had made it… So the pair proceeded over there –
V. And were able to just walk into the base without bloodshed, to Raphael’s surprise and relief. Though it wasn’t all sunshine and roses, as things were tense between Raphael and Cain when they encountered the gang leader in the next room (Raphael admittedly still bitter about the whole “being left to die” thing, naturally). However, when Raphael angrily told Cain to let Ellis go, Cain explained that Ellis was here of his own free will – and indeed, when Ellis appeared on the scene and got Cain to let them have a private chat, he confirmed that he came to the hideout to help because that’s what a Nightingale does, and he wasn’t ready to leave yet because he was still treating patients. His problem was that he was running low on supplies, and he wasn’t exactly keen on telling the gang about this because he didn’t want to think about how they would get new ones. Raphael was all for just killing all the gang members because they were dangers to society, but Ellis was determined to help if he could. Which left Bob with an interesting dilemma – he actually had the supplies Ellis needed, courtesy of Fiona, but didn’t know if helping Ellis or siding with Raphael was the better choice. Because on the one hand, he wanted to keep the Nightingales happy, and they do help EVERYONE, regardless of creed or personal danger – but on the other hand, these are RAIDERS, and the rest of the game encourages you to shoot them on sight. He decided that, since the game was already encouraging him to do so, he’d go to talk to Cain to see if learning more about him and his future plans would sway him one way or the other –
And he did indeed learn some interesting things about the guy. One, that Cain considered Bob just the leader of the biggest and most successful gang around, and his whole “join our settlements and be safe and protected” thing just another protection racket (Jon delightedly accused him of making a “we’re not so different” villain speech). Two, that BECAUSE Bob is the biggest gang leader, Cain did NOT want to mess with him – while he didn’t know what his future held after Ellis finished treating his guys, he did not plan on attacking any of Bob’s settlements (and no, he was not interested in just joining up with the Empire, apparently considering it weak or something). And three, that caravan ambush where he apparently left Raphael to die? He only left him because he had no idea how to treat the guy’s wounds – and in fact told one of the other gang members to alert the Nightingales to his location so he’d have a chance! And he was still convinced that Raphael, as his oldest friend, would eventually come back to the gang once he was bored with bodyguard work. Poor Jon was like “this didn’t help the moral dilemma at all!” XD So what did he decide in the end?
VI. To side with Ellis, because he wanted to try and solve this without violence and keep the Nightingales happy. So he handed over the supplies to the young doctor so he could continue his work. Raphael wasn’t exactly happy (insisting he was going to wait outside for Ellis, and that if he wasn’t allowed to leave by tomorrow, he was killing everyone outside), but when he and Bob talked about it outside, Raphael admitted that, as stupid as he though Bob’s actions were, he really didn’t want to kill one of his oldest friends. Even if he was an asshole. He also admitted that the whole situation made him feel like hurting people, but noted that running with the Nightingales had actually made that feeling a lot quieter as of late, causing him to believe it was Cain, just getting under his skin again. And so he thanked Bob for his help and said that he would see him at Mass Bay Medical – and that he owed him more than a few favors, so if he needed someone to watch his back in the future… Bob, going “companion?? :D” promptly zapped him with the Vit-o-Matic to see what his stats were and if he’d make a decent Engineer or Scientist (good Strength, Perception, and Agility, so yes to the former). XD
And so the quest ended with Bob traveling back to Mass Bay to report everything to Fiona – only to discover Ellis already there (quite the feat given Bob used the Institute teleporter to shorten the trip a bit). XD Fortunately, the kid was doing fine – he admitted that it could be tough to treat raiders, but that he always remembered Cassandra’s words about how the Nightingales are not mediators or judges – their only role is to help people, and that’s what he was going to do. Even if he was glad to be back home at the hospital. :) Pleased, Bob then went to see Raphael and confirmed that he was indeed now recruitable as a companion to follow him around –
But not recruitable as labor for his beloved Plaza HQ, damn it. Ah well, Bob tried. XD
VII. With that all sorted, Bob swung back to Egret Tours Marina to grab up some companions to become Engineers and Scientists (notably Danse, X6-88, and Nick Valentine) and had them start the project to get the Comm Array sorted –
Only to be blindsided by Lupe and Jake having some sort of idea for the whole set-up involving a memory lounger that they needed his help finishing. Like, game, that would have been nice to warn him about previously! So he reluctantly accompanied Lupe back to Goodneighbor and the Memory Den to get a chair off of Irma – it cost Bob 2,000 caps, but fuck it, he had the money, and he wanted to get this damn quest done already. And then it was back to HQ to set that up – turns out what they were doing was setting up a way to remotely control ASAMs and build up settlements, with Bob getting his own virtual living space to wander around and a holo-grid that allowed him to see all the different plot types in a specific settlement of his choosing and manipulate them from there. Cool stuff, but Bob was REALLY EAGER to close out the quest and Act II of the mod, so after giving it a little test run to close off that quest, he took a moment to step outside the HQ –
VIII. And was immediately called back inside by Jake because of a “situation.” What situation? Well, turns out the Comm Array is working almost TOO well – it’s picking up all sorts of signals from all around the Commonwealth, and it seems like EVERYBODY is talking about Bob and his group, and what they’ve done for the place – which is good in that they’ve made a difference, but bad in that they’ve drawn a LOT of attention to themselves. Much more worrying, though, is one particular Gunner signal that the Array picked up...which revealed that the Gunners have assembled an ARMY to march on the Commonwealth and take back what they consider to be rightfully theirs from Bob and his allies. Meaning that, in order to repel them, Bob’s going to have to set up an army of his own. So next week, we start on that! Should be very, very interesting indeed...
Workout: Back on the bike this week, and back with my friend Squid’s Baldur’s Gate III Cutscene Movie Starring Runa The Wizard, going through Act II! This chunklet saw Runa and company meet one of Mol’s gang of kid thieves who proved to be a Karlach fan (and didn’t know at all who Wyll’s “Blade of Frontiers” was, ouch); get Halsin to visit that Flaming Fist muttering about Thaniel (confirming that he’s met the spirit of the forest there – now they just have to get him to snap out of his partially-catatonic state); meet Isobel, the cleric of Selune protecting Last Light Inn, and get a blessing from her to get to Moonrise Towers – and then have to save her from an attack by a traitor in their ranks (this is apparently super hard as Isobel has dumb AI, but Squid didn’t show that bit :p); discover Mol was taken in the attack on the Inn ( D: )and promise the rest of her gang that they’d save her; get a surprise message from Mizora telling Wyll that he needs to rescue a devil from Moonrise (she doesn’t want to admit she got HERSELF captured, but Runa managed to pick up on the desperation in the order), with Runa managing to convince her to release Wyll from his pact as the boon she would bestow as payment (Wyll, rightly, figures she will find a way to screw him over); have another chat with the Dream Visitor talking about how hard they’re working on keeping them safe from the Absolute (apparently they’re having a rough time resisting all those damn orders – given what I know, though, this may be bullshit intended to make them look good); gotten the Harper’s help in ambushing a cultist caravan and discovering the method the cultists use to traverse the worst parts of the cursed lands, a special lantern containing a trapped pixie (Runa smartly freed the little foul-mouthed delight and got herself and her companions a blessing to keep them safe); and encounter a mysterious tiefling boy, Oliver, who wants very much to play with them. I left it off with Runa agreeing to a game – we’ll see how that works out the next time we visit this video!
Whew! Good to actually ACCOMPLISH some stuff -- even if I've stayed up too late again summarizing it all. I really have to stop doing the full recaps of the YouTube videos... Ah well. Night all!
Tumblr: Got a few things done here, which is nice –
Victor Luvs Alice – Caught up on my dash before lunch, then prepared some reblogs for this week’s updates – namely, updating the “Valice/Valicer Wedding Stuff Masterpost” with the links to the Valicer Wedding from last year, and my original Tiny Town post with some updates regarding what I’d want to do for that particular save file (specifically, doing a multifandom tiny town with community lots for each fandom represented as well). The latter isn’t FULLY finished yet, but it’s almost there! I’ll have it ready in time for Wednesday, at least.
Valice Multiverse – Had one anon ask to drop in the queue today, asking what “Classical” music was called when it was new – even after doing some research, I wasn’t sure, so neither was Victor. *shrug* For all we know, it was ALWAYS called Classical music! (Though what WE think of as “classical” typically also involves Baroque and Romantic music, so that helps muddle the question even further...)
Fallout 4: Had a shorter-than-usual session in the Commonwealth today thanks to having to stop early because of thunderstorms (fortunately they only kept me off the computer for about an hour), but I did accomplish my main goal for the session –
A) I started with Victor and Ada just outside Rust Devil HQ in the Fort Hagen Satellite Array, having cleared it out last session and rescued Jezebel the robobrain from its clutches so she can tell them all about how to get into the Mechanist’s lair in exchange for a new body. However, before I made any further progress on that, there was one thing that I wanted to get out of the way first – namely, get the X-01 Mk. III right leg Victor found in the HQ onto the power armor he’d left in Natick Banks (nice and close to the Glowing Sea) so he could have a full X-01 set! So I turned Victor and Ada away from the Red Rocket with Victor’s robot-creation station for the time being and had them set back out across the wastes to Natick, passing by the Boston Mayoral Shelter (I had Victor pause nearby and check his junk list – however, it looked like he was good on rubber for power armor upgrades, so I chose not to stop in and try and raid the gym again) and the various military construction sheds with all the power armor stations on the side of town (where I did have Victor grab one plunger for its rubber while looking to see if there had been any loot respawns in any of the containers – it was just lying around, after all!) before approaching the most dangerous place in all of Fallout 4, at least for me personally – the spot I am now calling Chaos Checkpoint! Because the junction where I have SO MUCH Mechanist-related nonsense spawn is right below one of the checkpoints leading into and out of Fort Hagen, and we do like our alliteration. :p Anyway, the pair approached the hill cautiously, but it appeared that things were actually quiet this night. Somewhat relieved, but still keeping an eye out, I had them head straight down the hill through the blasted trees down to the edge of the lake, then loop around the water before coming back up to the road by the side of Poseidon Reservoir –
B) Where some Mechanist-related nonsense spawned in. Specifically, a tankbot and a trio of eyebots. *shakehead* Okay, maybe the Reservoir is the real chaos point… Fortunately, they didn’t notice Victor and Ada right away, allowing Victor to use the Two-Shot to get some sneaky early hits in – and when they DID notice the danger, they zeroed in on Ada, allowing her to serve as a distraction while Victor picked off the robots at his leisure while avoiding getting zapped. Nice. :D He looted the robot bodies he could find (one eyebot went missing) and prepared to move on past the Reservoir onto the motel –
When something exploded, and exploded good, at the house up the hill across from the Reservoir. (Chaos Checkpoint!) Startled and curious, I had Ada and Victor go and investigate, and found a whole BUNCH of raider and super mutant corpses lying around, plus one dead settler (wearing a snazzy Coast Guard hat). I quickly sussed out that what must have happened was that a super mutant group (possibly with a settler prisoner) and a raider group had started tussling in the back yard of the house, and that mutant group’s Suicider had blown them all up because that’s what they DO.
I immediately had Victor take advantage of the situation and strip the bodies of all their ammo and stimpacks. XD Hey, they’d just be going to waste otherwise! He also found one Settler’s Note on the body of the settler, but that proved to just be a warning not to go near the Boston Mayoral Shelter because of the synths there. Already been, already shot ‘em, unnamed settler! Sorry I didn’t show up in time to save you from whatever nonsense you got involved in.
C) With that sorted, it was time to move on – after a quick loop of the house, Victor and Ada proceeded over the hills around to the back of the church on the side of Natick, and from there to the Red Rocket station on the side of town where Victor’s power armor was parked. I had him swap out the T-45f series right leg for the X-01 Mk. III series right leg, then – after taking a moment to dump the old T-45f leg in a file cabinet in the back and drop his port-a-potty in a safe corner temporarily so the game didn’t try to use it for parts (I don’t think it can be destroyed, but I didn’t want to take the chance) – go ahead and improve the X-01 leg to Mk. VI, giving it a coat of Hot Rod Shark paint (so the armor increases his agility when worn) and giving it Kinetic Servos (which increases Action Point refresh speed while moving – I was GOING to go for the Calibrated shocks which improve carry capacity, but I think it’s better for Victor to travel light in the Glowing Sea and instead worry about keeping his AP up so he can take out all the fun enemies around him). I also took a moment to hit up the nearby weapons workbench to take a look at the Tesla Rifle he picked up off of Ivey, the head of the Rust Devils – this thing looks like it could be a super-powerful electric shotgun (almost 300 damage!) if I could build the right barrel for it, but Victor didn’t have the fiber optics or fiberglass necessary to do so, and neither did Ada, meh. Hopefully he’ll have the stuff he needs back at Red Rocket or Sanctuary!
D) Anyway, with Victor’s power armor fully upgraded and ready to keep him safe during any future adventures in The Glowing Sea, it was time to start heading back to the Red Rocket and getting Jezebel set! I had Victor and Ada head back out and around the back of the police station (taking a moment to raid a dumpster there for junk), then head to the water’s edge to see if I could just skirt around there to get back and maybe avoid further chaos at the checkpoint/reservoir –
Only for Victor to get stuck on a slope above a collapsed bit of building and have to jump into the heavily-irradiated water to get free. And then be unable to climb back up to the road when I tried to direct him there because the slope was a little bit too steep. Hmmm. Bit worrying. What do?
E) Pop some Rad-X and swim across the lake, of course! Because I’ve actually been meaning to check out the other side for a while now anyway. XD As an extra bonus, this finally allowed Victor to Officially Discover the lake, which is Lake Cochituate, apparently. I was WONDERING where I needed to go to make the name pop… Anyway, he swam across safely, surfacing near a house on the other side and managing to avoid the notice of a mirelurk bumming around –
Only to turn around and realize he and Ada were right next to a house with some raiders camping out in it. Victor managed to get a sneak attack on the first guy, standing obliviously on the porch, then – after a bit of kiting around and somehow avoiding the notice of a Rust Devil on the road nearby – got inside and made it up to the roof to take out the psycho up there, while Ada took care of an attack dog at ground level. I had Victor loot the bodies, check out the boat that had ended up on the house’s porch, then start considering where to go next –
Aaaand that’s when it started seriously thundering, and I realized, “time to go!” So that’s where I left off for the moment, with Victor and Ada hanging around the recently-cleared house and preparing to continue onward, back to more familiar territory. :) Next time, we’ll try to get them at least closer to the Red Rocket and getting Jezebel her new body! And maybe explore the other side of the lake a little, because I AM curious about it.
Writing: Another Sunday, another update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression – and, as per usual, what happened in the fanfic reality was pretty close to what happened in the game reality, with just a few tweaks here and there –
A) I had Ada ask Victor if he needed any rubber while passing the Mayoral Shelter (as she was the one who gave him shit for not immediately going back there and getting a kickball when he needed rubber the LAST time), and Alice be the one to notice the latest Mechanist patrol coming up when they reached the Reservoir on their travels (and also suggest “Chaos Checkpoint” as a new name for their favorite “there are always so many killer robots here” junction XD). Gotta keep them involved in the action somehow!
B) I put a Brotherhood of Steel scribe, Hardy, at the Red Rocket in Natick, as I’d already established the place as a BOS area of interest (I mean, it is in-game too, I keep getting BOS patrols dropped off there when I visit), and had him take Victor’s unwanted T-45f leg when Victor did the swap for the X-01 model (because the Brotherhood is the big “power armor” faction – fortunately the guys Victor have met so far have been cool with Victor having his own X-01 set). Also had Victor comment that he MIGHT take his X-01 set up to the Prydwen once, just to make Danse jealous, which might be fun to write in the future. XD
C) Victor getting stuck by a collapsed building on the edge of Lake Cochituate and having to jump into the water to free himself became him accidentally falling in slipping in the mud down there, and him swimming across to avoid having to deal with Chaos Checkpoint/Poseidon Reservoir yet again became him and Alice towing a hastily-repaired boat with Ada, Jezebel, and all their gear on it across the lake. Because, well, Victor’s pockets are rather less magic in a more real-world setting and thus he needs carts and duffel bags and whatnot to stow all his gear, and Ada can’t just teleport over to his location in this slightly-more-grounded-in-real-world-rules reality! (I say “slightly” because – well, we have vampires, for a start.)
D) And I had Alice take care of the Rust Devil that was near the raider house while Victor and Ada took care of the raiders, though that is subject to change depending on what happens when I next load into the game. :p
*nods* Nice. And so the trio (plus Jezebel’s head) are on the other side of the lake, preparing to head out and do a bit of exploring on their way back to the Red Rocket. We’ll see how that all goes next time. :)
YouTube: Got in the usual Sunday Two, which was good –
A) First up, from the Subs, we had GrayStillPlays and “I hacked duck evolution,” aka Gray plays Duck Life 4! A return to the games where you raise a duck (who looks like a chicken) to be the best at running, swimming, flying, and climbing, only this time you’re actually doing an entire TEAM of ducks – you need at least three to compete in all of the tournaments. Gray thus hatched and trained up DevilPoultry (a bright green duck with a hat with an emergency light on it and red eyes), Meaty (a teal duck with red checks on his bottom like he’d been run through a grater and a sweet hairstyle), and HelpMe (a darker green duck with a muddy bottom and a spiky haircut that made him look like he lived in a wind tunnel) to be the best of the best! And when he tired of playing the various minigames and earning levels the legit way (which, admittedly, is pretty easy – once you get the hang of the games you can earn a LOT of levels VERY quickly), he hacked the game to give his ducks the stats he wanted. And the SIZE he wanted, because it turns out that you can change THAT too – he played around with giant ducks for a while (making them so big that they basically just turned into flickering backgrounds on the courses), then made them all as tiny as possible (which resulted in ant-sized ducks nyooming around). And then he hacked DevilPoultry to be as fast as the speed of light, which resulted in him going so fast the game couldn’t even figure out where he was anymore and thus didn’t give him a place. As Gray put it, only then was he satisfied with what he’d done. XD Good stuff – hopefully there are more ridiculous duck shenanigans in our future!
B) And second up, from Many A True Nerd, we had Jon and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 41 - Commonwealth Rising!” Featuring Mayor Bob attempting to assemble a crack team of companions to help build up his headquarters and complete the improvements to the Comm Array, only to get sucked into another mission to help the Nightingales with a problem… Here’s how that went –
I. While considering his options to get more companions, Bob noticed that Fiona wanted to speak to him and headed over to the hospital to see what was up. Turns out, Ellis, the most idealistic of the doctors, was missing – he’d overheard Fiona talking to a raider who’d wanted a Nightingale house call and went out to help them, despite Fiona initially telling the messenger they’d have to come to the hospital to be treated. He hadn’t come back yet, and Fiona was worried. Worse, Raphael had gone after him to try and track him down (he seemed to recognize the description of the messenger, and Fiona was worried it was an old friend or enemy, possibly even someone from his old gang), so he was missing in action too. Bob promised to track them down and got Raphael’s last known location from Fiona so he could see what the Nightingale’s guard knew, along with some emergency medical supplies in case he needed them.
II. First things first, though – Bob had a couple of companions to grab for his engineering and science teams! Specifically, X6-88 (who Bob got by teleporting to the Institute, attending the directorate meeting Shaun had invited him to – and then immediately getting up and running away from the meeting so it would end early and an annoyed Shaun would just give him the bullet points, finishing the “Mankind Redefined” quest and finally opening up the courser to be recruited) and MacCready (who Jon apparently always forgets exists in this game – getting him was just a matter of finding him at the Third Rail and paying him his fee, though Jon was deeply amused to see Ham and Magnolia FINALLY complete their exchange for the “Emogene Takes A Lover” quest and give Bob the “Pillars of the Community” cult flier when Bob finished that quest ages ago and Emogene was in fact hanging around in the Third Rail). He also swung by the railroad to turn in the “Mercer Safehouse” quest to PAM while he was in the area, and was rewarded with the “Jackpot: Ruined Skyscraper” mission, which sent him around the corner into Boston to work his way into a skyscraper, kill the Gunners in there, and retrieve a secret cache of DIA (the Fallout equivalent of the CIA) materials. Which finally got him access to ballistic weave, yay! He can’t use it to its full potential yet (he doesn’t have enough materials or ranks in Armorer) but he can get his fatigues up to Mark III and add like 65 points of damage resistance to his outfit. Good stuff!
III. With companions recruited and weave in hand, Bob got back to Nightingale business by tracking down Raphael to his last known location – an old ruined house near Bunker Hill that the game called a “hideout.” Exploring revealed that there was a secret passage in the back into the sewer system – Jon was initially concerned that the raiders were trying to attack the nearby CPD headquarters, but instead the tunnels seemed to lead ultimately into the subway system, where Bob found Raphael fighting some mole rats (and accidentally shot him trying to help XD). Once the mole rats were defeated, Bob talked with Raphael, who confirmed that yes, the messenger whom Ellis had gone off with was indeed from his old gang – led by his oldest friend, Cain, the guy who left him to die after that failed caravan ambush that introduced him to the Nightingales. He was hoping to find them here, at their old hideout, but it seems like they’d packed up and left, and Raphael wasn’t at all sure where they’d got to. He encouraged Bob to do some detecting, and after chasing down a few clues (like a deathclaw head trophy that Raphael was surprised Cain would leave behind, suggesting they left in a hurry, and an empty box of medical supplies, suggesting the gang was REALLY hurt when they left), Bob found a holotape with a note from someone named “J.” castigating Cain for not teaching his men the meaning of “dead drops” and instead coming directly to them to pester them for chems in advance. Raphael realized that this was probably former member Jade, who left the gang officially when things started getting really rough, but continued associating with them as a go-between, taking their loot and trading it for caps and chems. Raphael admitted that they weren’t on the best of terms right now, but she might help out, for old time’s sake –
IV. So it was back to the Third Rail to track her down and see what she knew! (With a Plasma-Infused Hunting Rifle sitting in Bob’s pocket thanks to a Legendary Radroach he found on the way to Raphael, nice.) Jade wasn’t exactly happy to see Raphael, bitterly telling him “I told you so” about Cain and revealing that the gang they both used to run with wasn’t a raider gang until Cain put himself in charge, and that Raphael just stood by and let it happen, like a coward – but when they explained that they were trying to track down a possibly-kidnapped Nightingale, she was reluctant to tell them the location both for her own sake (didn’t want Cain’s wrath on her head) or Raphael’s (didn’t want the guy killing him after he’d gotten a second chance with the Nightingales). Bob managed to convince her to tell them by saying she wasn’t actually going to be sticking her neck out, and she marked the location on their map – the Greater Mass Blood Clinic over by Fort Hagen, of all places. Well, Raphael did say they would probably want out of the Commonwealth thanks to how raider-unfriendly Bob had made it… So the pair proceeded over there –
V. And were able to just walk into the base without bloodshed, to Raphael’s surprise and relief. Though it wasn’t all sunshine and roses, as things were tense between Raphael and Cain when they encountered the gang leader in the next room (Raphael admittedly still bitter about the whole “being left to die” thing, naturally). However, when Raphael angrily told Cain to let Ellis go, Cain explained that Ellis was here of his own free will – and indeed, when Ellis appeared on the scene and got Cain to let them have a private chat, he confirmed that he came to the hideout to help because that’s what a Nightingale does, and he wasn’t ready to leave yet because he was still treating patients. His problem was that he was running low on supplies, and he wasn’t exactly keen on telling the gang about this because he didn’t want to think about how they would get new ones. Raphael was all for just killing all the gang members because they were dangers to society, but Ellis was determined to help if he could. Which left Bob with an interesting dilemma – he actually had the supplies Ellis needed, courtesy of Fiona, but didn’t know if helping Ellis or siding with Raphael was the better choice. Because on the one hand, he wanted to keep the Nightingales happy, and they do help EVERYONE, regardless of creed or personal danger – but on the other hand, these are RAIDERS, and the rest of the game encourages you to shoot them on sight. He decided that, since the game was already encouraging him to do so, he’d go to talk to Cain to see if learning more about him and his future plans would sway him one way or the other –
And he did indeed learn some interesting things about the guy. One, that Cain considered Bob just the leader of the biggest and most successful gang around, and his whole “join our settlements and be safe and protected” thing just another protection racket (Jon delightedly accused him of making a “we’re not so different” villain speech). Two, that BECAUSE Bob is the biggest gang leader, Cain did NOT want to mess with him – while he didn’t know what his future held after Ellis finished treating his guys, he did not plan on attacking any of Bob’s settlements (and no, he was not interested in just joining up with the Empire, apparently considering it weak or something). And three, that caravan ambush where he apparently left Raphael to die? He only left him because he had no idea how to treat the guy’s wounds – and in fact told one of the other gang members to alert the Nightingales to his location so he’d have a chance! And he was still convinced that Raphael, as his oldest friend, would eventually come back to the gang once he was bored with bodyguard work. Poor Jon was like “this didn’t help the moral dilemma at all!” XD So what did he decide in the end?
VI. To side with Ellis, because he wanted to try and solve this without violence and keep the Nightingales happy. So he handed over the supplies to the young doctor so he could continue his work. Raphael wasn’t exactly happy (insisting he was going to wait outside for Ellis, and that if he wasn’t allowed to leave by tomorrow, he was killing everyone outside), but when he and Bob talked about it outside, Raphael admitted that, as stupid as he though Bob’s actions were, he really didn’t want to kill one of his oldest friends. Even if he was an asshole. He also admitted that the whole situation made him feel like hurting people, but noted that running with the Nightingales had actually made that feeling a lot quieter as of late, causing him to believe it was Cain, just getting under his skin again. And so he thanked Bob for his help and said that he would see him at Mass Bay Medical – and that he owed him more than a few favors, so if he needed someone to watch his back in the future… Bob, going “companion?? :D” promptly zapped him with the Vit-o-Matic to see what his stats were and if he’d make a decent Engineer or Scientist (good Strength, Perception, and Agility, so yes to the former). XD
And so the quest ended with Bob traveling back to Mass Bay to report everything to Fiona – only to discover Ellis already there (quite the feat given Bob used the Institute teleporter to shorten the trip a bit). XD Fortunately, the kid was doing fine – he admitted that it could be tough to treat raiders, but that he always remembered Cassandra’s words about how the Nightingales are not mediators or judges – their only role is to help people, and that’s what he was going to do. Even if he was glad to be back home at the hospital. :) Pleased, Bob then went to see Raphael and confirmed that he was indeed now recruitable as a companion to follow him around –
But not recruitable as labor for his beloved Plaza HQ, damn it. Ah well, Bob tried. XD
VII. With that all sorted, Bob swung back to Egret Tours Marina to grab up some companions to become Engineers and Scientists (notably Danse, X6-88, and Nick Valentine) and had them start the project to get the Comm Array sorted –
Only to be blindsided by Lupe and Jake having some sort of idea for the whole set-up involving a memory lounger that they needed his help finishing. Like, game, that would have been nice to warn him about previously! So he reluctantly accompanied Lupe back to Goodneighbor and the Memory Den to get a chair off of Irma – it cost Bob 2,000 caps, but fuck it, he had the money, and he wanted to get this damn quest done already. And then it was back to HQ to set that up – turns out what they were doing was setting up a way to remotely control ASAMs and build up settlements, with Bob getting his own virtual living space to wander around and a holo-grid that allowed him to see all the different plot types in a specific settlement of his choosing and manipulate them from there. Cool stuff, but Bob was REALLY EAGER to close out the quest and Act II of the mod, so after giving it a little test run to close off that quest, he took a moment to step outside the HQ –
VIII. And was immediately called back inside by Jake because of a “situation.” What situation? Well, turns out the Comm Array is working almost TOO well – it’s picking up all sorts of signals from all around the Commonwealth, and it seems like EVERYBODY is talking about Bob and his group, and what they’ve done for the place – which is good in that they’ve made a difference, but bad in that they’ve drawn a LOT of attention to themselves. Much more worrying, though, is one particular Gunner signal that the Array picked up...which revealed that the Gunners have assembled an ARMY to march on the Commonwealth and take back what they consider to be rightfully theirs from Bob and his allies. Meaning that, in order to repel them, Bob’s going to have to set up an army of his own. So next week, we start on that! Should be very, very interesting indeed...
Workout: Back on the bike this week, and back with my friend Squid’s Baldur’s Gate III Cutscene Movie Starring Runa The Wizard, going through Act II! This chunklet saw Runa and company meet one of Mol’s gang of kid thieves who proved to be a Karlach fan (and didn’t know at all who Wyll’s “Blade of Frontiers” was, ouch); get Halsin to visit that Flaming Fist muttering about Thaniel (confirming that he’s met the spirit of the forest there – now they just have to get him to snap out of his partially-catatonic state); meet Isobel, the cleric of Selune protecting Last Light Inn, and get a blessing from her to get to Moonrise Towers – and then have to save her from an attack by a traitor in their ranks (this is apparently super hard as Isobel has dumb AI, but Squid didn’t show that bit :p); discover Mol was taken in the attack on the Inn ( D: )and promise the rest of her gang that they’d save her; get a surprise message from Mizora telling Wyll that he needs to rescue a devil from Moonrise (she doesn’t want to admit she got HERSELF captured, but Runa managed to pick up on the desperation in the order), with Runa managing to convince her to release Wyll from his pact as the boon she would bestow as payment (Wyll, rightly, figures she will find a way to screw him over); have another chat with the Dream Visitor talking about how hard they’re working on keeping them safe from the Absolute (apparently they’re having a rough time resisting all those damn orders – given what I know, though, this may be bullshit intended to make them look good); gotten the Harper’s help in ambushing a cultist caravan and discovering the method the cultists use to traverse the worst parts of the cursed lands, a special lantern containing a trapped pixie (Runa smartly freed the little foul-mouthed delight and got herself and her companions a blessing to keep them safe); and encounter a mysterious tiefling boy, Oliver, who wants very much to play with them. I left it off with Runa agreeing to a game – we’ll see how that works out the next time we visit this video!
Whew! Good to actually ACCOMPLISH some stuff -- even if I've stayed up too late again summarizing it all. I really have to stop doing the full recaps of the YouTube videos... Ah well. Night all!
