Tired Sunday
Aug. 25th, 2024 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickYeah, uh, I got distracted last night and ended up getting to bed MUCH later than I'd planned (around 2:30 AM), meaning I have had the tired distracted much of the day. *shakehead* Note to self -- REALLY try to get to bed even on weekends by about 1 AM. You'll feel better about life.
Even with that hanging over my head, though, I got plenty done today --
Tumblr: Didn’t do much over here, I admit – though there wasn’t really anything to do on Valice Multiverse, as everything was quiet over there. As for Victor Luvs Alice, I caught up on my dash this morning, then got most of my planned Wednesday post about the Ministry of Joy nightclub build sorted before lunch – I have to finish up the main text and add in the tags, but I can get that sorted tomorrow. It should definitely be done by the time I add it into the queue!
Fallout 4: Back in the Commonwealth today, baby, and I had a very fun day going around checking on settlements and trying out a certain new gun –
A) Started where I left off a couple of weeks ago, with Victor and Ada preparing to hike across the Commonwealth and clear up a few quests on their way to destroy The Mechanist! The pair left the Red Rocket at around 4:30 AM in-game time, in the middle of a rainstorm – after checking the map, I decided that the pair should go over and check on Tenpines Bluff, a settlement that had been stuck at 30% happiness after an attack for a while, then maybe swing down to CIT and see about that courser. Victor and Ada thus headed down the hill to the road, took a left and skirted by the edges of Concord, then climbed the nearby hill toward the houses above to cut through their backyards (and see if there was anything worth investigating up there – not really), then continued on past Thicket Excavations (with the two mirelurks still chilling in their pen there). As I was having Victor work his way past it, though, I spotted a fire in the distance and went to investigate, wondering if it was traders or raiders or something like that. It turned out to just be a little cookpot fire at one of the random encounter rest stops along the way. I went “oh, okay” and prepared to leave again –
B) And then got a message stating “Starlight Drive-In is under attack!” Now, I’ve been completely ignoring these lately because Victor has never been near any of the settlements under attack and thus couldn’t actually help – but THIS time, I looked at the map and realized that Starlight was in fact right down the road. So I had Victor start hurrying in that direction, with Ada on his tail –
Only for laser fire to start coming out of seemingly nowhere, along with the Mechanist’s voice proclaiming that she once again had to warn the Commonwealth of the “Scourge” among them. Gosh darn it, DLC, not now! XD I eventually managed to get Victor pointed in the right direction to find an eyebot coming up on him fast from behind, spewing propaganda – fortunately, the good old Two-Shot took it down pretty quick, and Victor and Ada were able to raid the corpse and get back on track to Starlight –
C) Where they found a whole BUNCH of Mechanist swarmbots and junkbots attacking the settlers! Well, shit. D: Fortunately, the Two-Shot always does the work, and while Victor took a few hits from angry robots, he was able to put all of them down pretty damn effectively. *nods* Two-Shot fucking beloved. <3 Anyway, once the bots were all taken care of and the settlers getting back to their usual routines, I figured “might as well get some food while I’m here” and went to go harvest the crops –
And found a bunch of them had been wrecked! Those damn robots trampled all my corn and mutfruit and razorgrain! >( And while I was able to “repair” most of the plants (either with the crops I had in my inventory or with crops taken from undamaged plants nearby), the poor gourds and razorgrain had to stay broken because I didn’t have any of either, and neither did the settlement – their workbench is essentially full of nothing but meat because of their little hunting post. I guess the settlers here are not “vegetable” people. *shakehead* Ah well. I did what I could to fix things up (including repairing a couple of turrets, since I had the parts for THAT), paused a moment to make some Grape Mentats at the chem bench (why not), then decided that I might as well head on back up the road to Tenpines because now I had an even more legit reason to visit them – to see if they had any of the crops necessary to repair the ones here! So I headed out of the Drive-In and up the nearby hill –
D) And, upon passing the remains of someone’s house and desk, was immediately attacked by radroaches. One of whom got a nip in because they were behind a wall when I tried to VATS them. *shakehead* I quickly put both down with the Two-Shot, collected the meat, then made my way back to the cookpot to reorient myself towards Tenpines (pausing a moment to talk to a settler who had followed Victor and was getting stuck on the nearby rocks – turns out I’d forgotten to let the Starlight residents thank Victor for his assistance. You’re welcome, my dudes!). To my surprise, there was someone by the pot when I arrived – a Chem Vendor sleeping on a nearby mattress. Intrigued, I had Victor wake her, then do some bartering – namely, buying a couple of bottles of Rad-X in exchange for selling her a bunch of Buffjet and some Berry Mentats. Hey, that’s what Victor’s chems are all FOR – he doesn’t use them, he’s not that kind of guy!
E) With that transaction completed, I had Victor and Ada continue onward, through the little shack nearby, across the road, and up the hill to Tenpines Bluff! I got somewhat nervous when I headed over to the workbench to check on the status of all their stuff, only to hear gunfire nearby – fortunately, it never actually came anywhere near the settlement itself, and Victor was allowed to poke around without issue. Fortunately there was nothing actually broken at the farm, and once Victor had done the cursory inspection the game wanted, happiness started going up again –
Unfortunately, the only thing the pair living there grow is tatos. Meeh. I had Victor harvest them all (HE can use them at least), then traded some of his “buttered wild corn” to one of the settlers in exchange for a thistle she had on her (which I’m pretty sure can be used in one of his drinks). With nothing else really to do up here, I decided that Victor would head over to Wildwood Cemetery next to check out things there (he’s visited before, but it was a WHILE back – plus, in the fanfic verse, there’s other vampires living there secretly, so it only makes sense to swing by now that he’s got Alice!). So he and Ada set off in that general direction, down the hill, across a crude bridge strung between two massive rocks on either side of the train tracks below, and towards the wreck of the elevated highway nearby (which had some interesting structures set up on it on one side – methinks Gunners, but who knows for sure). Around this time, I remembered to take out my new Tactical Telsa Charging Shotgun, because I did want to test it out and see what it could do –
F) And then I saw that we were near a plane crash! A big one too. Well, I had to investigate that, didn’t I? I thus had Victor and Ada head down into the rocks to check out the smashed-up airliner (Skylines Flight 1981, if you’re curious) –
Only for a Servomech Swarmbot to pop out of the scenery and start firing. I quickly scrambled a little closer to it and fired on it with the Tactical Tesla –
THING GOT OBLITERATED. Like, the electricity hitting it was a SIGHT to see. :D I was absolutely delighted – and even more so when more Mechanist bots started popping up, allowing me to blast them too. Now, granted, the Tactical Tesla isn’t a PERFECT gun – it doesn’t have great range, as evidenced by VATS continually telling me I had zero chance to hit when I was trying to line up shots from what I felt was a reasonable distance away – but oh, the way it fires. Oh, the electrical mayhem it can cause. :D Just for how COOL it looks when you fire it at an enemy, this thing is becoming a regular part of my loadout. :D
G) Anyway – with the Mechanist bots taken care of, Victor and Ada were free to explore the plane wreck and see what they could find in all the various chunklets! Mostly, what there was to find were suitcases with novice locks that had bobby pins and clothes in them (which, hey, XP), but they did stumble across a handful of more interesting things –
I. An expert-locked safe with lots of ammo, a decent laser gun, some pre-War cash, and a lighter inside
II. A master-locked hidden compartment in the back of the plane with five 10mm pistols and a bunch of ammo, a bunch of Buffout, some Rad-X, some more pre-War money, and a manifesto from some smugglers on the plane who’d loaded up said secret compartment (just listed the things Victor had already found in there – I also listened to the latest Mechanist holotape while I was there and looking through the MISC tab in my Pip-Boy’s inventory, where she said she was doubling production of her robots and soon would have even MORE patrols – lady, could you NOT)
III. A few areas that were mysteriously rad-heavy – I think they were near the engines? Either way, poor Victor picked up a not-insignificant number of rads wandering around trying to find ways into some of the less-accessible parts of the plane –
IV. A robobrain hiding out in one of the upper chunklets that Victor found while trying to access the main body and wings from above (he attempted to jump into the wing section, failed, but ended up landing near the path to that particular chunklet and went “okay, we’ll check THIS bit out instead”) – it got in a few good shots with its weirdass “energy ball that makes the screen go dark” weapon, but Victor did manage to get around it and fry it with the Tactical Tesla
V. A bunch of drugs in one of the bathrooms behind the robobrain, and a copy of Astoundingly Awesome Tales in the other (“Attack Of The Fishmen,” which gives +5% damage against mirelurks, nice)
VI. A little pond with a bunch of bloodleaf in it at the end of a little path under the wing (which is good, as Victor generally needs bloodleaf for his special teas, so I like collecting it when I can)
VII. And, once he got into the actual wing area CORRECTLY (by finding a way onto top of that particular plane chunklet and then dropping down), a bunch more drugs and a creepy Jangles The Moon Monkey doll. Because you have to have your creepy Jangles dolls in the middle of plane crashes to make them even more eerie. :p
H) With the plane thoroughly explored (and one quick reload under my belt after Victor attempted to leap from the wing portion of the plane to another chunklet, failed, and broke both of his legs – this is why you quicksave, people), I decided that it was time for Victor and Ada to head out – I wanted them to reach Wildwood before I ended my session. I thus had them head out, up, and loop back around the plane (picking up some mutated ferns growing nearby along the way – now I have some to give to the drug seller in Diamond City, should I so choose), then work their way down the slope to the cemetery. It was already getting dark by the time they reached it, so I had them go into crouch mode so I could get the lay of the land in case anything nasty was inside –
And it’s a good thing I did, because there were a whoooole bunch of feral ghouls in the middle of the cemetery, gathered around a Glowing One sitting in the center. “Well, that’s not good,” I thought, concerned –
I) And then I remembered that the Tactical Telsa’s electricity actually jumps from enemy to enemy when you use it in groups. Cue me delightedly blasting the Glowing One and watching as the current arced to all the ghouls around it. XD Now, it took a good few more shots to kill all the ghouls (especially since the Glowing One managed to revive a few that I killed before I could take it out), but the Tactical Tesla did the job, and soon I was happily sorting through the corpses for goodies. Got nuclear material, a viable blood sample, some useful junk, and a Blazing Pool Cue (a pool cue that might inflict fire damage on an enemy if you block their attack with it) off a pile of ash that used to be a Legendary. XD Game, WHY are you giving me Many A True Nerd-level Legendaries, seriously. :p Anyway, I finished mopping up the corpses, reminded myself that one of the masoleums has a weird and creepy altar in it for some reason (well, I guess it’s true the Bethesda Fallout games have never shied away from weird and creepy shit – reminds me, I still need to get to Dunwich Borers…), then had Victor set up camp for the night among the tombstones as he’d just gotten tired while fighting the ferals.
And the session with ended Victor getting a good eight hours worth of shut-eye after getting rid of his rads, waking up at 3 AM refreshed and ready to continue his adventures! :) Next time, we’ll see about heading down to CIT to find that courser, and see how the Tactical Tesla does against some other enemies. Still need to properly test out the charged shot function, after all…
Writing: Back to playing Fallout 4 on Sundays means back to updating the FO4 Playthrough Progression on Sundays with the fanfic version of what I did in my game! And while the basics were all the same – the gang going to check on Tenpines, detouring to help Starlight Drive-In with a Mechanist attack, finding that chem vendor, getting to Tenpines at last, finding the wreckage of Skylanes Flight 1981 nearby, and clearing the Wildwood Cemetery of ghouls with Victor’s new Electric Death Gun, there were a few small but significant differences –
A) The reason Victor and company ran to help Starlight is that Victor heard a Minuteman broadcast on his Pip-Boy asking all available Minutemen to get there to repel the robots. Victor immediately got worried that the Mechanist had figured out who he is and was attacking settlements in retaliation, and ended up listening to the Mechanist’s latest holotape there at Starlight to see if that was true – it wasn’t, but he did learn a bit earlier that the Mechanist is doubling robot production and sending out new patrols, meaning he was Concerned to find another patrol in the wrecked plane.
B) Since you can’t “repair” crops in the non-video-game worlds, Victor going to Tenpines was just to see if they could simply send some of their excess veggies over to Starlight as they recovered from the robot attack – Tenpines was more than happy to send some tatos their way. They’re good neighbors. :)
C) Victor was actually intending to look at what was going on over on the elevated highway when he stumbled across the plane crash (well, I say “stumbled,” it’s hard to miss), rather than going directly to Wildwood Cemetery like I was planning (though I admit, I AM curious as to what’s up there...maybe we’ll check it out later). I also implied that he spent a lot less time than I did picking open people’s old suitcases because he doesn’t need the lockpicking XP. XD He did get the safe, the hidden compartment, and the Astoundingly Awesome Tales, though!
D) And when the gang bunked down in Wildwood post-ghoul-electric-murder-party, Victor woke up in the middle of the night to find two creepy figures standing over him grinning – because, as indicated above, Wildwood is where I’m putting the main vampire population of the Commonwealth, and he’s just come to the attention of the Malkavian twins Mallory and Kevin (aka the fem and masc versions of The Fledgling). XD I haven’t gotten past that point yet in my write-up, but as you might imagine, next Sunday’s update is going to have a rather large digression as Victor deals with them, and meeting the rest of the Kindred population of the cemetery! I will have to budget my time accordingly. *nods*
YouTube: Once again, it all ran a little late, but I got in the usual Sunday Two –
A) First up, we had GrayStillPlays and “Taking world peace to unrealistic extremes,” aka Gray plays more Happy Wheels! Which featured the usual compliment of weird levels, including a multi-stage bottle flip (full of quotes, memes, and watermelons being thrown at Nixon’s face); a troll level for Pogo Guy designed to make Gray quit playing (including buttons of sadness, falling toilets, and its fair share of harpoons); a “the floor is lava” level for Pogo Guy where he had to leap on chains, toilets, and spikes to reach the win (when he wasn’t trying to cheat the whole thing with the power of land mines); a mini-games compilation for Pogo Guy featuring a pogo fight, a pogo crawl, and a pogo obstacle dodge (along with a secret flowery win and a regular win that seemed to have a habit of crashing Gray’s game); a simple level for Bike Dad and Tom Hardy that involved avoiding harpoons and crossbows while trying to find the real win (Gray ended up winning twice by grabbing the coin AND the ending flag); a blue ball-themed rope swing for Nixon (which saw him have to transfer straight from a rope to a conveyor belt and which he completed with one arm thanks to falling at JUST the right angle to get the win); and the Dylan Snider board of the video, Pogo Guy having to leap through protesters wielding ultra-high tridents while avoiding their very dangerous burning pile of free money and being crushed by the SWEAT team van (because they couldn’t afford a proper SWAT team – Gray suffered a loooot with this one, mostly because he had to get all of his bounces pitch perfect to avoid getting spiked in the head). Very much a “torment Pogo Guy” day today, it seemed – wonder what he did to make so many level designers mad at him? XD
B) And second up, we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 49 - Rally The Troops!” Featuring the continuing adventures of Mayor Bob and his fight against the Gunners in the Commonwealth! Because post-apocalyptic Massachusetts is HIS God-Kingdom, damn it. XD And fortunately, this episode saw him making some serious progress in taking back said God-Kingdom, such as –
I. Assaulting and successfully securing the Mass Pike Interchange, as per Salvador’s intel regarding it being a key base for the Gunners to refuel their Stingray bombers! Mostly because Bob smartly spent some time going around the newly-Outposted Marina getting new recruits and kitting them up with stolen Gunner fatigues and a bunch of his unused Legendary items (like the staggering minigun and the terrible shotgun) before going to meet Salvador over there, meaning that when he called in his forces THIS time, they were actually an army to be reckoned with (well, mostly – a few regular settlers showed up as well because the plots they worked at turned into things like Watchtowers and the like, so they figured they were soldiers now). Add in a Brotherhood vertibird showing up while Bob was marking the place for his troops and killing a bunch of the Gunners on the ground before exploding, and taking the lower part of the Interchange was trivially easy, to the point where Bob was like “...was that it??” when the game told him the battle was all sorted. XD Clearing the UPPER part was a little more difficult, as the game expected him and Sal to do that by themselves, but with the help of Bob’s silenced weaponry, explosive sniper, and the army below shooting anyone who came into view, they did it without too much issue. Hell, not even being bombed by a Stingray could bring Bob and Sal down (to Jon’s bafflement, because he’d seriously expected ONE of them to be hurt there)! Even better, they secured some valuable intel regarding the Gunner’s plans for their operations, AND Sal was able to locate where the Gunners were getting their fuel and recommend it as a place Bob could capture to get the remaining spoils for himself – the old Mass Fusion Dumping Grounds between Natick Banks and the Glowing Sea! Leading to –
II. Assaulting and successfully securing the Mass Fusion Dumping Grounds from the super mutants that lived there! Which Bob did all on his own because Sal was now confident that he could properly lead his troops on any offensive operation that he wished to execute. :) It was a pretty easy win, all things considered – admittedly, Bob’s army spawned in right next to some heavily-radioactive barrels, which was not great, but they took out the super mutants without any major trouble (helped massively by Bob running on ahead so he could use his Explosive Sniper freely), and Bob was able to drop a few people off there to guard the place so they could make use of its supplies – whatever those really were, I admit I don’t always understand all the different types of “stuff” the game makes you keep track of. :p And with THAT win under his belt, Bob moved onto his main project of the day –
III. Assaulting and successfully securing Jamaica Plain! Which, uh, took a couple of tries, because when Bob FIRST arrived at the settlement, when he attempted to summon the army to take it, he was told he didn’t have enough supplies for the assault. Never mind that the only people there at the moment were the captives, Bob having murdered everyone else. XD Fortunately, running back to the Marina and building himself a War Planner’s desk there allowed Bob to actually see what supplies he needed to retake Jamaica Plain – and donate a bunch of his own stuff to the war chest to make sure they had enough, as he was SWIMMING in spare ammo and suchlike. THEN he was able to set up a liberation campaign, send his troops there, and lead the fight against a bunch of respawned Gunners, because you can’t liberate a settlement without someone to liberate it from. XD But the fight went well – another S-tier victory – and Bob was thrilled to FINALLY officially get his settlement back. Been a while coming, that’s for damn sure! (And I’m sure the captives were glad to finally be officially freed too, since Jon never seemed to figure out how to do it on his own.) And with Jamaica Plain back under Commonwealth Curator control, Bob was free to move onto the next thing –
IV. Getting his military properly outfitted and supplied! Which involved Bob going back to HQ to check in with Sal and see how he was getting on. After a little tension with Aiden (nothing serious, just Aiden’s a suspicious guy and Sal is new and unfamiliar) and a discussion of how Sal would need experienced officers to help him run things at SOME point (maybe after a few more fights), Sal explained that he had two proposals for Bob to consider implementing – one, setting up recruiting offices to handle the day-to-day filling out of the ranks and supplying them with a list indicating the basic armor and weaponry that those recruits would need (sparing Bob from having to personally recruit and kit out every soldier in his army); and two, setting up a system where captured locations could be turned into “vassals” (meaning those locations could be self-governing, but give the Commonwealth Curators supplies in exchange for their protection in times of trouble). Bob was like “sure, those both sound like good ideas” and got them implemented (juggling a few people around between departments to make sure everyone had enough manpower) –
And then Theresa called him and Sal up for a meeting to go “uh, boneheads, have you thought about where your soldiers are gonna sleep and where they’re going to get their supplies?” (Jon: “Yes, actually, I am not happy that they turned all the farm plots in the Marina into watchtowers.”) XD Fortunately both problems were pretty easily handled – Bob just had to make sure every outpost had enough beds for its inhabitants, and so long as the outposts were near settlements with surpluses, they could share those settlements’ food and power. Bob thus headed back to the Marina to make sure there were enough beds for all his soldiers and to set up a proper recruiting office, leading into the final bit of the episode –
V. Assaulting and securing Vault 95! Because at the end of the meeting with Theresa, Sal had let him know that the Gunners had set it up as a communication hub for their Stingrays and thus it needed to be taken from them! Bob was keen on that, so once he had all of his ducks in a row, he set up the mission, made sure they could pay the ammo cost, and headed on over to marshal his troops (killing another group of Gunners along the way because the Commonwealth is a dangerous place these days). This assault was a little more chaotic than the previous ones – mostly because a Legendary Glowing Mongrel and its pack joined the fight halfway through, distracting everyone – but the army persevered, took out the defenders, and prevented reinforcements from taking the place back right afterward, earning themselves a B+ grade on the attack and control over Vault 95’s door. But, as Sal said, the control room of the whole enterprise is probably the overseer’s office inside, which means they have to secure that as soon as possible… Meaning next week, we get to see Bob, Sal, and possibly Bob’s Army doing just that! Should be a fun time! Well, fun for us viewers, anyway. XD
Workout: Back on the bike again, and back with the GrayStillPlays compilations, starting “100 Ways to Destroy the Planet,” a collection of “Gray wrecks Earth and also other worlds in various video games!” We naturally started with a Solar Smash episode (where Gray turned Mars into a pancake and played around with Block World, Blockier Block World (aka Block World properly cubed), Donut Block World, and Water World, testing out the new defensive lasers and space doges), and I got most of the way through one of his more recent Universe Sandbox 2 experiments (the one where he kept raising the surface temperature of the Earth and turned the atmosphere into boiling steam). XD Looking forward to seeing what other instances of planet-wrecking chaos we get to see in this one!
Not too shabby! And it was really nice to get back to Fallout 4 and try out my new gun. :D I do love an electric death machine! But now it is time for me to head to bed, because I have work tomorrow and I REALLY need to get some sleep. Night all!
Even with that hanging over my head, though, I got plenty done today --
Tumblr: Didn’t do much over here, I admit – though there wasn’t really anything to do on Valice Multiverse, as everything was quiet over there. As for Victor Luvs Alice, I caught up on my dash this morning, then got most of my planned Wednesday post about the Ministry of Joy nightclub build sorted before lunch – I have to finish up the main text and add in the tags, but I can get that sorted tomorrow. It should definitely be done by the time I add it into the queue!
Fallout 4: Back in the Commonwealth today, baby, and I had a very fun day going around checking on settlements and trying out a certain new gun –
A) Started where I left off a couple of weeks ago, with Victor and Ada preparing to hike across the Commonwealth and clear up a few quests on their way to destroy The Mechanist! The pair left the Red Rocket at around 4:30 AM in-game time, in the middle of a rainstorm – after checking the map, I decided that the pair should go over and check on Tenpines Bluff, a settlement that had been stuck at 30% happiness after an attack for a while, then maybe swing down to CIT and see about that courser. Victor and Ada thus headed down the hill to the road, took a left and skirted by the edges of Concord, then climbed the nearby hill toward the houses above to cut through their backyards (and see if there was anything worth investigating up there – not really), then continued on past Thicket Excavations (with the two mirelurks still chilling in their pen there). As I was having Victor work his way past it, though, I spotted a fire in the distance and went to investigate, wondering if it was traders or raiders or something like that. It turned out to just be a little cookpot fire at one of the random encounter rest stops along the way. I went “oh, okay” and prepared to leave again –
B) And then got a message stating “Starlight Drive-In is under attack!” Now, I’ve been completely ignoring these lately because Victor has never been near any of the settlements under attack and thus couldn’t actually help – but THIS time, I looked at the map and realized that Starlight was in fact right down the road. So I had Victor start hurrying in that direction, with Ada on his tail –
Only for laser fire to start coming out of seemingly nowhere, along with the Mechanist’s voice proclaiming that she once again had to warn the Commonwealth of the “Scourge” among them. Gosh darn it, DLC, not now! XD I eventually managed to get Victor pointed in the right direction to find an eyebot coming up on him fast from behind, spewing propaganda – fortunately, the good old Two-Shot took it down pretty quick, and Victor and Ada were able to raid the corpse and get back on track to Starlight –
C) Where they found a whole BUNCH of Mechanist swarmbots and junkbots attacking the settlers! Well, shit. D: Fortunately, the Two-Shot always does the work, and while Victor took a few hits from angry robots, he was able to put all of them down pretty damn effectively. *nods* Two-Shot fucking beloved. <3 Anyway, once the bots were all taken care of and the settlers getting back to their usual routines, I figured “might as well get some food while I’m here” and went to go harvest the crops –
And found a bunch of them had been wrecked! Those damn robots trampled all my corn and mutfruit and razorgrain! >( And while I was able to “repair” most of the plants (either with the crops I had in my inventory or with crops taken from undamaged plants nearby), the poor gourds and razorgrain had to stay broken because I didn’t have any of either, and neither did the settlement – their workbench is essentially full of nothing but meat because of their little hunting post. I guess the settlers here are not “vegetable” people. *shakehead* Ah well. I did what I could to fix things up (including repairing a couple of turrets, since I had the parts for THAT), paused a moment to make some Grape Mentats at the chem bench (why not), then decided that I might as well head on back up the road to Tenpines because now I had an even more legit reason to visit them – to see if they had any of the crops necessary to repair the ones here! So I headed out of the Drive-In and up the nearby hill –
D) And, upon passing the remains of someone’s house and desk, was immediately attacked by radroaches. One of whom got a nip in because they were behind a wall when I tried to VATS them. *shakehead* I quickly put both down with the Two-Shot, collected the meat, then made my way back to the cookpot to reorient myself towards Tenpines (pausing a moment to talk to a settler who had followed Victor and was getting stuck on the nearby rocks – turns out I’d forgotten to let the Starlight residents thank Victor for his assistance. You’re welcome, my dudes!). To my surprise, there was someone by the pot when I arrived – a Chem Vendor sleeping on a nearby mattress. Intrigued, I had Victor wake her, then do some bartering – namely, buying a couple of bottles of Rad-X in exchange for selling her a bunch of Buffjet and some Berry Mentats. Hey, that’s what Victor’s chems are all FOR – he doesn’t use them, he’s not that kind of guy!
E) With that transaction completed, I had Victor and Ada continue onward, through the little shack nearby, across the road, and up the hill to Tenpines Bluff! I got somewhat nervous when I headed over to the workbench to check on the status of all their stuff, only to hear gunfire nearby – fortunately, it never actually came anywhere near the settlement itself, and Victor was allowed to poke around without issue. Fortunately there was nothing actually broken at the farm, and once Victor had done the cursory inspection the game wanted, happiness started going up again –
Unfortunately, the only thing the pair living there grow is tatos. Meeh. I had Victor harvest them all (HE can use them at least), then traded some of his “buttered wild corn” to one of the settlers in exchange for a thistle she had on her (which I’m pretty sure can be used in one of his drinks). With nothing else really to do up here, I decided that Victor would head over to Wildwood Cemetery next to check out things there (he’s visited before, but it was a WHILE back – plus, in the fanfic verse, there’s other vampires living there secretly, so it only makes sense to swing by now that he’s got Alice!). So he and Ada set off in that general direction, down the hill, across a crude bridge strung between two massive rocks on either side of the train tracks below, and towards the wreck of the elevated highway nearby (which had some interesting structures set up on it on one side – methinks Gunners, but who knows for sure). Around this time, I remembered to take out my new Tactical Telsa Charging Shotgun, because I did want to test it out and see what it could do –
F) And then I saw that we were near a plane crash! A big one too. Well, I had to investigate that, didn’t I? I thus had Victor and Ada head down into the rocks to check out the smashed-up airliner (Skylines Flight 1981, if you’re curious) –
Only for a Servomech Swarmbot to pop out of the scenery and start firing. I quickly scrambled a little closer to it and fired on it with the Tactical Tesla –
THING GOT OBLITERATED. Like, the electricity hitting it was a SIGHT to see. :D I was absolutely delighted – and even more so when more Mechanist bots started popping up, allowing me to blast them too. Now, granted, the Tactical Tesla isn’t a PERFECT gun – it doesn’t have great range, as evidenced by VATS continually telling me I had zero chance to hit when I was trying to line up shots from what I felt was a reasonable distance away – but oh, the way it fires. Oh, the electrical mayhem it can cause. :D Just for how COOL it looks when you fire it at an enemy, this thing is becoming a regular part of my loadout. :D
G) Anyway – with the Mechanist bots taken care of, Victor and Ada were free to explore the plane wreck and see what they could find in all the various chunklets! Mostly, what there was to find were suitcases with novice locks that had bobby pins and clothes in them (which, hey, XP), but they did stumble across a handful of more interesting things –
I. An expert-locked safe with lots of ammo, a decent laser gun, some pre-War cash, and a lighter inside
II. A master-locked hidden compartment in the back of the plane with five 10mm pistols and a bunch of ammo, a bunch of Buffout, some Rad-X, some more pre-War money, and a manifesto from some smugglers on the plane who’d loaded up said secret compartment (just listed the things Victor had already found in there – I also listened to the latest Mechanist holotape while I was there and looking through the MISC tab in my Pip-Boy’s inventory, where she said she was doubling production of her robots and soon would have even MORE patrols – lady, could you NOT)
III. A few areas that were mysteriously rad-heavy – I think they were near the engines? Either way, poor Victor picked up a not-insignificant number of rads wandering around trying to find ways into some of the less-accessible parts of the plane –
IV. A robobrain hiding out in one of the upper chunklets that Victor found while trying to access the main body and wings from above (he attempted to jump into the wing section, failed, but ended up landing near the path to that particular chunklet and went “okay, we’ll check THIS bit out instead”) – it got in a few good shots with its weirdass “energy ball that makes the screen go dark” weapon, but Victor did manage to get around it and fry it with the Tactical Tesla
V. A bunch of drugs in one of the bathrooms behind the robobrain, and a copy of Astoundingly Awesome Tales in the other (“Attack Of The Fishmen,” which gives +5% damage against mirelurks, nice)
VI. A little pond with a bunch of bloodleaf in it at the end of a little path under the wing (which is good, as Victor generally needs bloodleaf for his special teas, so I like collecting it when I can)
VII. And, once he got into the actual wing area CORRECTLY (by finding a way onto top of that particular plane chunklet and then dropping down), a bunch more drugs and a creepy Jangles The Moon Monkey doll. Because you have to have your creepy Jangles dolls in the middle of plane crashes to make them even more eerie. :p
H) With the plane thoroughly explored (and one quick reload under my belt after Victor attempted to leap from the wing portion of the plane to another chunklet, failed, and broke both of his legs – this is why you quicksave, people), I decided that it was time for Victor and Ada to head out – I wanted them to reach Wildwood before I ended my session. I thus had them head out, up, and loop back around the plane (picking up some mutated ferns growing nearby along the way – now I have some to give to the drug seller in Diamond City, should I so choose), then work their way down the slope to the cemetery. It was already getting dark by the time they reached it, so I had them go into crouch mode so I could get the lay of the land in case anything nasty was inside –
And it’s a good thing I did, because there were a whoooole bunch of feral ghouls in the middle of the cemetery, gathered around a Glowing One sitting in the center. “Well, that’s not good,” I thought, concerned –
I) And then I remembered that the Tactical Telsa’s electricity actually jumps from enemy to enemy when you use it in groups. Cue me delightedly blasting the Glowing One and watching as the current arced to all the ghouls around it. XD Now, it took a good few more shots to kill all the ghouls (especially since the Glowing One managed to revive a few that I killed before I could take it out), but the Tactical Tesla did the job, and soon I was happily sorting through the corpses for goodies. Got nuclear material, a viable blood sample, some useful junk, and a Blazing Pool Cue (a pool cue that might inflict fire damage on an enemy if you block their attack with it) off a pile of ash that used to be a Legendary. XD Game, WHY are you giving me Many A True Nerd-level Legendaries, seriously. :p Anyway, I finished mopping up the corpses, reminded myself that one of the masoleums has a weird and creepy altar in it for some reason (well, I guess it’s true the Bethesda Fallout games have never shied away from weird and creepy shit – reminds me, I still need to get to Dunwich Borers…), then had Victor set up camp for the night among the tombstones as he’d just gotten tired while fighting the ferals.
And the session with ended Victor getting a good eight hours worth of shut-eye after getting rid of his rads, waking up at 3 AM refreshed and ready to continue his adventures! :) Next time, we’ll see about heading down to CIT to find that courser, and see how the Tactical Tesla does against some other enemies. Still need to properly test out the charged shot function, after all…
Writing: Back to playing Fallout 4 on Sundays means back to updating the FO4 Playthrough Progression on Sundays with the fanfic version of what I did in my game! And while the basics were all the same – the gang going to check on Tenpines, detouring to help Starlight Drive-In with a Mechanist attack, finding that chem vendor, getting to Tenpines at last, finding the wreckage of Skylanes Flight 1981 nearby, and clearing the Wildwood Cemetery of ghouls with Victor’s new Electric Death Gun, there were a few small but significant differences –
A) The reason Victor and company ran to help Starlight is that Victor heard a Minuteman broadcast on his Pip-Boy asking all available Minutemen to get there to repel the robots. Victor immediately got worried that the Mechanist had figured out who he is and was attacking settlements in retaliation, and ended up listening to the Mechanist’s latest holotape there at Starlight to see if that was true – it wasn’t, but he did learn a bit earlier that the Mechanist is doubling robot production and sending out new patrols, meaning he was Concerned to find another patrol in the wrecked plane.
B) Since you can’t “repair” crops in the non-video-game worlds, Victor going to Tenpines was just to see if they could simply send some of their excess veggies over to Starlight as they recovered from the robot attack – Tenpines was more than happy to send some tatos their way. They’re good neighbors. :)
C) Victor was actually intending to look at what was going on over on the elevated highway when he stumbled across the plane crash (well, I say “stumbled,” it’s hard to miss), rather than going directly to Wildwood Cemetery like I was planning (though I admit, I AM curious as to what’s up there...maybe we’ll check it out later). I also implied that he spent a lot less time than I did picking open people’s old suitcases because he doesn’t need the lockpicking XP. XD He did get the safe, the hidden compartment, and the Astoundingly Awesome Tales, though!
D) And when the gang bunked down in Wildwood post-ghoul-electric-murder-party, Victor woke up in the middle of the night to find two creepy figures standing over him grinning – because, as indicated above, Wildwood is where I’m putting the main vampire population of the Commonwealth, and he’s just come to the attention of the Malkavian twins Mallory and Kevin (aka the fem and masc versions of The Fledgling). XD I haven’t gotten past that point yet in my write-up, but as you might imagine, next Sunday’s update is going to have a rather large digression as Victor deals with them, and meeting the rest of the Kindred population of the cemetery! I will have to budget my time accordingly. *nods*
YouTube: Once again, it all ran a little late, but I got in the usual Sunday Two –
A) First up, we had GrayStillPlays and “Taking world peace to unrealistic extremes,” aka Gray plays more Happy Wheels! Which featured the usual compliment of weird levels, including a multi-stage bottle flip (full of quotes, memes, and watermelons being thrown at Nixon’s face); a troll level for Pogo Guy designed to make Gray quit playing (including buttons of sadness, falling toilets, and its fair share of harpoons); a “the floor is lava” level for Pogo Guy where he had to leap on chains, toilets, and spikes to reach the win (when he wasn’t trying to cheat the whole thing with the power of land mines); a mini-games compilation for Pogo Guy featuring a pogo fight, a pogo crawl, and a pogo obstacle dodge (along with a secret flowery win and a regular win that seemed to have a habit of crashing Gray’s game); a simple level for Bike Dad and Tom Hardy that involved avoiding harpoons and crossbows while trying to find the real win (Gray ended up winning twice by grabbing the coin AND the ending flag); a blue ball-themed rope swing for Nixon (which saw him have to transfer straight from a rope to a conveyor belt and which he completed with one arm thanks to falling at JUST the right angle to get the win); and the Dylan Snider board of the video, Pogo Guy having to leap through protesters wielding ultra-high tridents while avoiding their very dangerous burning pile of free money and being crushed by the SWEAT team van (because they couldn’t afford a proper SWAT team – Gray suffered a loooot with this one, mostly because he had to get all of his bounces pitch perfect to avoid getting spiked in the head). Very much a “torment Pogo Guy” day today, it seemed – wonder what he did to make so many level designers mad at him? XD
B) And second up, we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and “Fallout 4: Sim Settlements 2 - Part 49 - Rally The Troops!” Featuring the continuing adventures of Mayor Bob and his fight against the Gunners in the Commonwealth! Because post-apocalyptic Massachusetts is HIS God-Kingdom, damn it. XD And fortunately, this episode saw him making some serious progress in taking back said God-Kingdom, such as –
I. Assaulting and successfully securing the Mass Pike Interchange, as per Salvador’s intel regarding it being a key base for the Gunners to refuel their Stingray bombers! Mostly because Bob smartly spent some time going around the newly-Outposted Marina getting new recruits and kitting them up with stolen Gunner fatigues and a bunch of his unused Legendary items (like the staggering minigun and the terrible shotgun) before going to meet Salvador over there, meaning that when he called in his forces THIS time, they were actually an army to be reckoned with (well, mostly – a few regular settlers showed up as well because the plots they worked at turned into things like Watchtowers and the like, so they figured they were soldiers now). Add in a Brotherhood vertibird showing up while Bob was marking the place for his troops and killing a bunch of the Gunners on the ground before exploding, and taking the lower part of the Interchange was trivially easy, to the point where Bob was like “...was that it??” when the game told him the battle was all sorted. XD Clearing the UPPER part was a little more difficult, as the game expected him and Sal to do that by themselves, but with the help of Bob’s silenced weaponry, explosive sniper, and the army below shooting anyone who came into view, they did it without too much issue. Hell, not even being bombed by a Stingray could bring Bob and Sal down (to Jon’s bafflement, because he’d seriously expected ONE of them to be hurt there)! Even better, they secured some valuable intel regarding the Gunner’s plans for their operations, AND Sal was able to locate where the Gunners were getting their fuel and recommend it as a place Bob could capture to get the remaining spoils for himself – the old Mass Fusion Dumping Grounds between Natick Banks and the Glowing Sea! Leading to –
II. Assaulting and successfully securing the Mass Fusion Dumping Grounds from the super mutants that lived there! Which Bob did all on his own because Sal was now confident that he could properly lead his troops on any offensive operation that he wished to execute. :) It was a pretty easy win, all things considered – admittedly, Bob’s army spawned in right next to some heavily-radioactive barrels, which was not great, but they took out the super mutants without any major trouble (helped massively by Bob running on ahead so he could use his Explosive Sniper freely), and Bob was able to drop a few people off there to guard the place so they could make use of its supplies – whatever those really were, I admit I don’t always understand all the different types of “stuff” the game makes you keep track of. :p And with THAT win under his belt, Bob moved onto his main project of the day –
III. Assaulting and successfully securing Jamaica Plain! Which, uh, took a couple of tries, because when Bob FIRST arrived at the settlement, when he attempted to summon the army to take it, he was told he didn’t have enough supplies for the assault. Never mind that the only people there at the moment were the captives, Bob having murdered everyone else. XD Fortunately, running back to the Marina and building himself a War Planner’s desk there allowed Bob to actually see what supplies he needed to retake Jamaica Plain – and donate a bunch of his own stuff to the war chest to make sure they had enough, as he was SWIMMING in spare ammo and suchlike. THEN he was able to set up a liberation campaign, send his troops there, and lead the fight against a bunch of respawned Gunners, because you can’t liberate a settlement without someone to liberate it from. XD But the fight went well – another S-tier victory – and Bob was thrilled to FINALLY officially get his settlement back. Been a while coming, that’s for damn sure! (And I’m sure the captives were glad to finally be officially freed too, since Jon never seemed to figure out how to do it on his own.) And with Jamaica Plain back under Commonwealth Curator control, Bob was free to move onto the next thing –
IV. Getting his military properly outfitted and supplied! Which involved Bob going back to HQ to check in with Sal and see how he was getting on. After a little tension with Aiden (nothing serious, just Aiden’s a suspicious guy and Sal is new and unfamiliar) and a discussion of how Sal would need experienced officers to help him run things at SOME point (maybe after a few more fights), Sal explained that he had two proposals for Bob to consider implementing – one, setting up recruiting offices to handle the day-to-day filling out of the ranks and supplying them with a list indicating the basic armor and weaponry that those recruits would need (sparing Bob from having to personally recruit and kit out every soldier in his army); and two, setting up a system where captured locations could be turned into “vassals” (meaning those locations could be self-governing, but give the Commonwealth Curators supplies in exchange for their protection in times of trouble). Bob was like “sure, those both sound like good ideas” and got them implemented (juggling a few people around between departments to make sure everyone had enough manpower) –
And then Theresa called him and Sal up for a meeting to go “uh, boneheads, have you thought about where your soldiers are gonna sleep and where they’re going to get their supplies?” (Jon: “Yes, actually, I am not happy that they turned all the farm plots in the Marina into watchtowers.”) XD Fortunately both problems were pretty easily handled – Bob just had to make sure every outpost had enough beds for its inhabitants, and so long as the outposts were near settlements with surpluses, they could share those settlements’ food and power. Bob thus headed back to the Marina to make sure there were enough beds for all his soldiers and to set up a proper recruiting office, leading into the final bit of the episode –
V. Assaulting and securing Vault 95! Because at the end of the meeting with Theresa, Sal had let him know that the Gunners had set it up as a communication hub for their Stingrays and thus it needed to be taken from them! Bob was keen on that, so once he had all of his ducks in a row, he set up the mission, made sure they could pay the ammo cost, and headed on over to marshal his troops (killing another group of Gunners along the way because the Commonwealth is a dangerous place these days). This assault was a little more chaotic than the previous ones – mostly because a Legendary Glowing Mongrel and its pack joined the fight halfway through, distracting everyone – but the army persevered, took out the defenders, and prevented reinforcements from taking the place back right afterward, earning themselves a B+ grade on the attack and control over Vault 95’s door. But, as Sal said, the control room of the whole enterprise is probably the overseer’s office inside, which means they have to secure that as soon as possible… Meaning next week, we get to see Bob, Sal, and possibly Bob’s Army doing just that! Should be a fun time! Well, fun for us viewers, anyway. XD
Workout: Back on the bike again, and back with the GrayStillPlays compilations, starting “100 Ways to Destroy the Planet,” a collection of “Gray wrecks Earth and also other worlds in various video games!” We naturally started with a Solar Smash episode (where Gray turned Mars into a pancake and played around with Block World, Blockier Block World (aka Block World properly cubed), Donut Block World, and Water World, testing out the new defensive lasers and space doges), and I got most of the way through one of his more recent Universe Sandbox 2 experiments (the one where he kept raising the surface temperature of the Earth and turned the atmosphere into boiling steam). XD Looking forward to seeing what other instances of planet-wrecking chaos we get to see in this one!
Not too shabby! And it was really nice to get back to Fallout 4 and try out my new gun. :D I do love an electric death machine! But now it is time for me to head to bed, because I have work tomorrow and I REALLY need to get some sleep. Night all!
