Dad Is Home Once More
Jan. 30th, 2026 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickThough he came home later than expected -- mostly because they did his chemo late in the afternoon, and then it took forever to find someone to take out his IV line. *sigh* He was pretty annoyed, as was Mom. And then, when they did make it back home, Dad was pretty exhausted and rather out of it from his meds and everything. Didn't manage to eat much supper and kept falling asleep on the couch. :( We're hoping that he feels better tomorrow so we can have game night and get some Chinese from our favorite place, but -- we will see.
As for what I accomplished today -- well, I vacuumed the kitchen rug at Mom's request this morning (and discovered a few things left on the floor, including a coaster in the radiator -- I KNEW we had four!). And then I went online and did all of this --
Tumblr: Got stuff done on both my tumblrs, shock and awe –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Had a good productive time over here today, accomplishing three things of note:
A) First, I decided to solve the problem of “I forgot to queue something up for Friday over here yesterday; what do” by reblogging all the various “text post meme” posts that inspired the collection of “Valicer As Text Posts” pictures I made two Fridays ago (you know, when the shit hit the fan and Dad first had to be checked into the hospital) – the Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency one by thecarnivalcryptid; the Elder Scrolls one by freerainhl; the Baldur’s Gate III one by sappho-official; and the Assassin’s Creed one by of-stars-and-seas – before editing the opening of my own “Valicer As Text Posts: The Return” post to reflect my little reblog spree and posting that as well! So yeah, today ended up being “Text Post Meme Friday” over on my blog. XD Which, happily, means I can finally share my latest collection of Valicer text post memes with you all – you can see it here!
B) Then, right before lunch, I took some time and finally finished off my post on “The Miseries Of Margaret Kelman (AKA What Happened To Smiler’s Birth Mother?),” which involved –
I. Adding in a final link to a playlist I found on YouTube that has both Kelman’s “greeting” video from The Sanctuary scare maze and the “Smile. Always” mini-series that Alton Towers used to promote The Smiler to the part where I talked about who Kelman is and why I made him Smiler’s sire in the “Londerland Bloodlines” AU
II. Writing the final few paragraphs explaining poor Margaret’s fate in most of the universes she would be a part of (basically, Kelman does some immoral brain surgery when he sees her struggling with depression post-Smiler’s birth and either kills her or turns her into a vegetable), and how the worst part is that Smiler believes Margaret actually abandoned them to get away from Kelman in those universes (because Kelman is not going to own up to performing surgery on her to them!)...and how poor VITD Smiler is going to be absolutely horrified to find out the truth, to the point where they have to slip off and have a cry about it :(
III. Finalizing the tags – adding in some “medical” and “brain surgery” trigger warnings and talking about how I know that Margaret’s fate can sound a bit like the classic “woman horribly killed off to horrify man close to her and further his story” trope, but that was not my intention and it’s just how her role in most of my human Smilers’ backstories evolved, because Kelman IS the kind of person who would happily “correct” his own wife. And that I’m glad there was at least ONE universe where I could unequivocally let her get away due to how I structured it. (And that I was probably going to let her get away in “Londerland Bloodlines” too, because the poor woman deserved it.)
So that’s all set and can be dropped into a future queue to horrify everyone! Yay!
C) And finally, late tonight, I went ahead and queued up that post by shutyourmoustache, featuring the TikTok of OK Go’s iconic “dancing on treadmills” music video with added text commentary by the band (the OP said that it gave her VH1 Pop-Up video vibes, which, yeah, it does), as my Song Saturday offering. Nice and simple, and I will never say no to having more OK Go on my blog. :)
Valice Multiverse – And over here, I had one anon ask to put into the queue: “What are Modern Victor’s thoughts on pianists past the Victorian Era?” As I’m not that familiar with modern pianists, I did a little research, and eventually had my Cuddlepile!Victor (my main modern one) praise Manny Perahia, who does lovely interpretations of Bach; Yanni, who does some fun, more experimental stuff – and has a song called “Butterfly Dance” which is quite nice (Victor stressed he did not like it just because of the name XD); and Ralph Zurmühle, who is more in the traditional classical vein but composes his own work – his song “Horizon” is very pretty. :) Did not expect to find some cool new music as the result of a tumblr ask, but here we are! I’m not complaining.
Writing: Twas another day where I got two writing-related things done –
A) First, post-lunch, I edited more of Chapter 3 of “The Van Dort Vacancy,” covering –
I. Alice discovering that what she initially thought was just a hallucination of the Deluded Depths was in fact the Van Dort’s very real aquarium greenhouse full of radiant fish that Smiler could very much see too – the pair were pretty much in shock over the scale of it (the last one Alice saw only had two walls’ worth of fish – she never imagined anybody would make one where even the ROOF was part of the aquarium), and Alice pointed out that if any of the glass cracked even slightly, the Van Dorts were in serious trouble
II. The pair getting discovered by the very man they’d been tracking, who noted that, after hearing their conversation, they were as likely to be Van Dort servants as he was – that was, not at all – and asking what their game was – the pair promptly replied, “it depends on what YOURS is,” with Smiler explaining that they’d followed him in to figure out what he was up to, as they had a friend in the house and didn’t want him getting hurt or inconvenienced. The guy said he wasn’t expecting on anyone getting hurt – though he made no promises – but inconvenienced was a possibility, and asked for the friend’s name –
And I left off with Barnaby showing up right before Smiler could admit it was the Van Dort’s son. XD I’ve only got a little over a page to go in this chapter now – hoping next week we might see it posted! We’ll see what happens!
B) And second, a little after that, I added two new scene ideas to the BG3 Master Doc – Smiler admitting they’re the “discount cleric” version of a warlock (because they are trying to hype up Mar-Mal to the masses, like a cleric might with their god), and Smiler going “irony of my life – I only cast Friends on people I don’t want to be friends with.” Hopefully one day I will be able to write these!
Fallout: New Vegas: Returned to the Mojave for the final time this week, to have Courier Victor set up everything for the grand fight between Goodsprings and the Powder Gangers pursuing Ringo! Which involved reading a few skill magazines and doing a lot of talking...let me take you through it:
A) I started off where I left off – with Victor in the Poseidon Energy gas station, waiting for Ringo to wake up from his victory nap after the guy beat him at Caravan at the end of my last session. XD While he was waiting, I had him look through the various shelves at the items available to grab, and found another skill magazine that he could take – Boxing Times, which boosts one’s Unarmed skill! I – don’t think this will be particularly relevant to Victor, who will be wanting to avoid fisticuffs, but still. You never know. XD After picking that up, though, I noticed Ringo was awake and lounging on the floor by the shelves on the other side of the room, so I had Victor head over and – after grabbing another bent tin can from the floor by Ringo’s feet – ask, “Did you know there’s a man named Joe Cobb looking for you?” Ringo confirmed he did, noting, “He doesn’t look very tough, though. I hear he’s afraid I’ll shoot him down from one of the windows when I see him, and he’s right” –
But then confessed, “I’ll have a much bigger problem once his friends show up. There’s no way I could handle all of them in a gunfight.” Victor was like, “why are the Powder Gangers after you in the first place?” and Ringo explained that his caravan was returning from California, heading back to the New Vegas branch of the company he works for, when they were jumped. “Not even a ‘drop your weapons and hands up’ before the bullets started flying. We put up a good fight, but there was too many of them. I took a few of the bandits down before I ran, so I figure their friends are out for revenge.” Victor thought that made sense and asked what Ringo planned to do, and he admitted that his only plan was to “lay low for as long as I can, assuming the town doesn’t throw me to the wolves. I’ve got no chance against the gang on my own.” Which didn’t sound good –
And prompted Victor, who’d just been jumped and nearly killed by a gang of assholes himself, to offer his help. Ringo pointed out that “We'd just end up sharing the same grave if it's just the two of us” before adding, “Now, if some of the other people in town were also on board…” Victor promised to ask around and see who he could round up, and Ringo suggested starting with good old Sunny Smiles, as she’d been friendlier than most to him. Victor took that under advisement and – having finished the conversation – grabbed a fission battery and some whiskey off the nearby shelf and some BlamCo Mac & Cheese and some dirty water from a sack on the counter before heading out the door! What – a man needs his supplies before starting a gunfight. :p
B) Once outside, Victor checked his Pip-Boy, then followed the quest marker down the road to the Prospector Saloon. Stepping inside revealed that Sunny had finally arrived for her daily “listening to the jukebox with my dog” session, so – after taking a moment to listen to Mr. New Vegas talk about a clash between the NCR and the Kings in Freeside (with The King stating he wanted the NCR people in his town to be “returned to sender”) and a rumor about some super mutants holed up in a ski lodge to the Northwest (Mr. New Vegas: “If you should find it, do not – repeat, do not – belittle a Super Mutant for taking the bunny slope.” XD) – Victor approached her to talk about the situation with Ringo. Sunny greeted him with, “Hi there. Sticking around Goodsprings for a while longer?” – Victor confirmed he was and explained he planned to help Ringo against the Powder Gangers when they arrived, and that they might need her help –
And Sunny immediately went “Say no more. I’m in.” A startled Victor replied, “Just like that?” and she confirmed, “Just like that,” stating she already had a feeling that she would end up fighting the gang, so she’d rather get it over with. “Joe Cobb talks about leaving us alone if we hand over Ringo, but I know his type. He and his friends will come after the town eventually.” She then noted that she, Victor, and Ringo alone weren’t exactly a force to be reckoned with, before saying that a lot of people in town looked up to Trudy, so if Victor could convince her to join their little group, some of the other settlers might choose to join as well. Not to mention, “I know Easy Pete's got a stock of dynamite somewhere, and Chet just got a shipment of leather armor we could borrow. Talk to them as well.” She wrapped up with, “Finally, there's a good chance we'll all end up with extra holes in us, so if Doc Mitchell could cough up some extra stimpaks, that'd be great.” Giving Victor a whooole bunch of extra objectives to complete if he wanted to give their assault on the Powder Gangers the best chance possible. Victor was certainly willing to talk to everyone, and asked Sunny her advice on how to get Trudy, Chet, and Easy Pete to help (given Doc Mitchell saved his life for free, I guess he figured they could definitely count on the Doc). Regarding Trudy, Sunny said that either a silver tongue or a good plan to convince her they had a solid way to win the fight would work; regarding Chet, she admitted that the jerk probably wouldn’t give away the armor he’d gotten (“I don’t think ‘give’ is in Chet’s vocabulary”) and that Victor would have to barter with him; and regarding Easy Pete, she allowed he was rather protective of his dynamite and that Victor would have to convince him he knew something about explosives before he’d be willing to hand it over. Basically, hinting at all the skills you’ll need to have up to the correct level to win the skill checks to convince the three (well, sort of – Sunny suggesting that the Courier present a good plan of attack doesn’t really imply that a high Sneak will also convince Trudy to help you). Secure in the knowledge that he had all the skill magazines he needed to get everything, Victor prepared to talk to Trudy –
But before he left, he couldn’t help but ask, “What do you do around here?” Because, yeah, I was curious as to what exactly Sunny’s job in the town was. She explained that she mainly hunted geckos, like she and Victor did in the tutorial – “The meat's pretty good and I can always find a buyer for the hides.” She also helped keep the town clear of coyotes and radscorpions, since the town was small and the local wildlife was always trying to creep in. Nice! No wonder Doc Mitchell recommended her as the gal Victor should see to get back in the saddle. :)
C) Anyway – with that sorted, Victor said goodbye to Sunny and prepared to start getting various members of Goodsprings to help with the assault against the Powder Gangers! First up – Trudy, since, you know, she ran the very saloon Victor was standing in. XD Victor thus went over to the bar to say hello –
And Trudy revealed that she’d overheard his conversation with Sunny, stating, “So you’re planning on taking on Joe Cobb’s gang. It’s a big risk, but I suppose you have to do what you think is right.” Saved from having to bring up the topic himself, Victor promptly used his high Sneak skill to suggest a plan he thought Trudy would approve of – “Near the saloon and store are good spots to stage an ambush – if I had the help.” Happily, Trudy agreed that sounded like a good plan, and said that “...you seem to know what you're doing, so you can count me in. Let me have a word with a few other folks and I'll see if I can't round up some more members for this militia you're creating.” Yay! Though she did follow that up with adding that, while everyone in town had a gun, they could still stand to be better equipped – definitely not getting out of talking to Chet, Victor, that’s for sure. XD
Anyway, having convinced her (for a sweet 23 XP), Victor headed out onto the porch, where Easy Pete was lounging. Aware that his Explosives skill was not QUITE up to the job of convincing the old prospector to surrender his dynamite, Victor quickly read through his Patriot’s Cookbook before saying howdy and telling the guy, “I hear you’ve got dynamite. It would help us beat the Powder Gangers.” Easy Pete immediately demurred, going “Too dangerous. Gonna kill all yourselves if I let you touch it. Better to leave it buried – safer that way.” Which was probably true, but I wanted that sweet skill check XP, so – flush with the knowledge he’d gained from the Patriot’s Cookbook – Victor told him, “I’m familiar with the care and handling of explosives, dynamite included.” This was enough for Pete, who allowed it sounded like Victor knew what he was doing and promised to go dig it up and get it ready in time for the fight. Another tick on the old optional objectives, and another 23 XP for me! Victor might actually get to Level 2 sometime this century at this rate. :p Victor wrapped things up by asking what Easy Pete knew about Joe Cobb, just in case he had something enlightening to say –
Only for Easy Pete to sum him up in two words: “Bad trouble.” Victor was like, “That’s...helpful,” and Easy Pete brightly replied, “Welcome.” XD Well, I mean, he’s not wrong, so…
D) Having convinced two out of four people to aid in the fight against the Powder Gangers, Victor thus continued on to the next person on his list – Chet, owner of the General Store next to the Prospector Saloon! I had him run around for a bit outside first, just to see how long it would take for the Patriot’s Cookbook to wear off (answer: longer than I thought – it didn’t wear off until I decided, “Eh, screw it, let’s just go in” and sent him to the door), then dropped a save before stepping inside just in case Chet decided to speak to Victor immediately and I didn’t get a chance for him to read his Salesman Weekly to boost his Barter skill first. Fortunately, that was not the case, and Victor was able to flip through his magazine before heading up to the front counter and saying hi. Chet greeted him with “You must be the one Doc Mitchell was patching up. The way I heard it, I didn't think you'd be walking out of that office” –
And then immediately launched into a sales pitch, talking about how he had lots of supplies for sale, along with weapon mods and special ammo – “well worth the caps, if you ask me.” For the buyer who didn’t have a lot to spend, he also mentioned having “boxes of surplus ammo in the miscellaneous section. They're not great, but you get what you pay for.” Victor filed all of that away, then told Chet that he need supplies so his little team could fight the Powder Gangers. Chet immediately protested, going “Now just hold on. I never voted to take on the Powder Gangers. That's a thousand cap investment you're talking about” –
But Victor, flush with the power of Barter skill 27 from his magazine, retorted, “Let them take over the town, then. I'm sure your business will be much better off.” Fortunately, that got through to Goodspring’s main capitalist, and he reluctantly conceded Victor had a point and that he’d provide people with leather armor and extra ammo – starting with Victor himself, which was nice. He insisted that he’d spend the fight guarding his store, though, as he had to put his business first – not a problem, Chet. I’m sure everyone would like there to still be a general store once all this is over. Victor, satisfied with his successful Bartering, then asked Chet his thoughts on the situation –
Causing Chet to reveal, “If Ringo doesn't head out on his own, I think we should hand him over. The town shouldn't get itself mixed into the problem.” He quickly tried to claim that wasn’t “coward talk,” saying the town was full of survivors, and they’d fight hard if they had to, they just that they didn’t go looking for trouble, but – eh. I remain unimpressed by his opinion. At least Trudy was only hoping that Ringo left, not suggesting they actually turn him in! *shakehead* Anyway, Victor decided to finish off the conversation by asking what was so bad about the surplus ammo, and Chet explaining that it was a matter of “quantity over quality” – basically, the rounds would work, they just would also wear your guns out faster, forcing you to clean and maintain them more often. Okay, admittedly, that is good to know, thanks Chet. Victor filed that away and took a quick look around the shop – which sold things ranging from beer to maize to harmonicas (no, seriously, there was one for sale! In fact, let me check something on the Wiki… *checks* Aw, they’re not playable. Darn it. :( ) –
E) Then headed out and to his final destination, Doc Mitchell’s! Because the growing militia definitely needed some medical supplies. Victor made a quick detour into the clinic to grab the Today’s Physician off the desk behind the gurney, opposite the bed, then read that before catching up with Doc Mitchell as he relaxed in his chair in the living room. Doc M commented that he was hoping that Victor wouldn’t need to see him again so soon, but Victor quickly explained he wasn’t here for himself – instead, he was here to see if Doc M could lend any help with the upcoming bandit attack on the town. Doc M complained that “Seems like wherever I go it's always the same. Folks just never leave each other alone,” then admitted, “I'm not much good in a fight, with my bum leg. And my supplies are scarce. But I'll give you what I can spare.” Cue Victor scoring three stimpacks (one for himself, Sunny, and Ringo I suppose) –
But Victor, full of medical knowledge thanks to his magazine, added, “They'll be using explosives. Do you have something for more serious injuries?” And Doc M replied, “I ain't got much, but it'll do you more good out there than it will in here. Take what I got,” scoring Victor a pair of Doctor’s Bags as well! As these are one of the few ways to properly restore limb condition in Hardcore Mode, and Victor’s arms and legs are more fragile thanks to his Small Frame trait, I am definitely glad Victor managed to get them off the Doc!
Anyway – with his main business settled, Victor decided he might as well get to know the man who helped save his life a little better and asked Doc Mitchell to tell him about himself. Doc M reiterated that he grew up in a vault, then spent sometime as a traveling doctor – “Seemed like a good idea at the time. Most folks out here ain't educated, so people with medical knowhow are hard to come by. Found that I could help a lot of people with what I knew, and that was all right with me.” But eventually he went back to his vault and married his childhood sweetheart, and that was that for the traveling life. Victor, noting that this didn’t explain how he ended up in Goodsprings, noted that Doc M had said earlier he’d had something taken from him (while commiserating with Victor about what happened to him while giving him his Pip-Boy) –
But Doc M simply replied, “Well, ain't we all, right? That was a long time ago. I don't pay it much mind anymore.” And as there was no option to follow up on that – yeah, seems like you’ll have to wait a bit to hear the rest of his backstory, Victor! *shrug* Victor thus let the subject drop and instead asked Doc M about his own backstory – namely, if Doc M knew anything about the man who shot him. Doc M admitted he didn’t, though – he never saw the guy, nor who was with him. He suggested Victor ask around town, stressing to check in with Trudy – “If anyone saw anything, she'd know about it.” As Victor had already done that, though – yeah, it’s quite possible he’s learned all he can learn about his attackers at this point. Ah well.
F) With all his optional objectives complete, and all the most important citizens of Goodsprings ready to back up Victor, Sunny, and Ringo when it was time to fight, Victor wrapped up his conversation with Doc Mitchell and headed back out into town to figure out what to do next. A quick check of the time indicated that it was only 1:35 PM – I decided it made more internal sense to wait until it was a bit darker to kick off the gunfight (would make the ambush Trudy was helping to set up feel more like a real ambush, for one), but figured Victor could slap on his new leather armor to actually gets some proper protection in the meantime. And his new hat too – might as well, right? Victor could use the bonus Perception. I also decided to swap his primary weapon back over to his 9mm pistol, and used the weapon repair kit (post reading a Fixin’ Things to get his Repair skill up a bit more) to up his condition a bit. Because while I have less ammo for it, I really wanted to try using the pistol and see if it made more sense for Victor – after all, it has roughly the same damage, but fires faster, and probably uses a lot less AP in VATS! And we like weapons that don’t use a lot of AP in VATS. *nods* I tested it out against one of the bottles in the shooting range behind the saloon, then got a picture of Victor in his new fit –
Not bad, I think. :) Not quite The Silver Shroud, but unfortunately he’s not a thing in this game. Real shame, that. Ah well – if I want to Shroud it up, I can always go back to Fallout 4. (Or see if any mods exist to put the outfit at least in the game…) Anyway, after doing that, I had Victor check the time in his Pip-Boy (just after 2 PM), then his various stats –
Which made me realize that he was getting rather thirsty, poor chap. I thus sent Victor over to Victortron’s shack to get a drink from the sink...but when he arrived, I noticed Victortron himself was still hanging around outside. And I remembered that, according to my research, you can ask him to help out in the fight against the Powder Gangers. So Victor went ahead and inquired if his robotic name-twin was decent in a scrap, as he could use more firepower in the upcoming battle –
And Victortron was immediately like, “Trouble with rustlers? Count me in, pardner. Those varmints will be running home with their tails between their legs soon enough.” Very nice of him! ...A shame that he won’t actually be helping out during the fight, but that’s a topic for another time…
G) Anyway – with Victortron’s assistance supposedly secured, Victor dipped into the shack and got a nice drink from the sink, then ate some gecko steak to ensure he wouldn’t be hungry when the bullets started flying. He then went ahead and took the bullets and 9mm shell casings out of the ammo box on the bookshelves (figuring he could maybe sell some to Chet later, and convert the casings into bullets once he got all the ingredients to do so), then headed back out into the wilderness to amuse himself. I sent him up toward Doc Mitchell’s house again to see what was around the back of it – a little garden with a little corn field, though Victor couldn’t pick the maize without being a crime – then had him loop around the back of the Poseidon Energy station toward the far side of town, to investigate a couple of boarded-up houses he hadn’t checked before. One had some harvestable plants growing outside of it – a Nevada Agave in the front (which yielded TWO fruits when picked, which was a pleasant surprise), and a Banana Yucca in the back – while the other had a BB gun leaning up against the side for Victor to pick up if he wanted – I had him leave it be for now, because his inventory was already looking a bit full and it’s not really a good gun unless you have the unique Abilene Kid version for those sneak attack criticals. After that, he checked his Pip-Boy again, and saw that it was now about 4:44 PM in the afternoon, which I decided was late enough to start the fight –
But at that point, I’d been playing for a little over an hour (and been interrupted by texts from Mom a couple of times), so I decided I’d better wrap things up so it didn’t take me all night to do this write-up. ^^; So the playsession ended with Victor parked outside the gas station, ready to go in and tell Ringo the good news about most of the town being ready to fight. Next time, we’ll actually kick off the gunfight and see how things go in the great Goodsprings vs Powder Gangers battle! Hopefully well for the Goodsprings side – I’ve tried to stack the odds in their favor as much as possible!
Workout: Final night on the bike this week, final night with The Adventures of Useless Steve this week as I finished off “Fallout: New Vegas - The Worst Courier - Part 4 - The Doomsday Device!” The last chunk of which featured:
A) Useless Steve showing off one of the most obscure interactions you can have with an NPC in the game, and how complicated it is to get it! Basically, you have to be a Low Intelligence character (1 or 2 in the stat); then you have to get to the Boomers at Nellis and agree to help out around their base; then you have to go to the medical tent there and somehow convince the local doctor to let you help him with his patients (either by having a high enough Medicine skill to convince him you know what you’re doing, or a high enough Speech skill to straight up lie to him that you know more than him – Steve went with the latter option with the help of a copy of Meeting People); then get your hands on a knife or other bladed weapon (Steve managed to get one from the table in the medical tent, but DAMN did it take him a while with his pathetically low Sneak); THEN make sure you were holding it (that is, didn’t have it sheathed) when you went to check on the Boomer in the middle row of beds, with an injured leg that was probably going to need to be amputated. Then, and ONLY then, can you get the option to CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! in order to treat said injured leg –
And said wild frantic chopping actually helps enough that the guy is allowed to keep his limb. The doctor himself comments on how that was pure straight-up dumb luck. XD Jon was delighted that such an obscure thing could be found in this game.
B) Useless Steve then leaving Nellis (because he couldn’t do shit for the other two patients, they sadly have no Low Intelligence options) and locating the Brotherhood Patrol in the field just outside the fence (having been bombed by the local) so he could take their power armor and sell it to the Gun Runners Protectron at their little store – then, realizing that he was having problems both making lots of money AND getting around undetected, deciding that his best option for solving both problems was to head back to Novac and do “Come Fly With Me,” the quest to send Jason Bright and his ghoul followers streaking off into the sky. Even though all the ghouls would be detecting him like immediately thanks to his abysmal Sneak and thus he couldn’t just snipe them off. Good thing he had the Q-35 to gooify them right quick!
C) Useless Steve trekking up to the REPCONN Test Site – killing some feral ghouls and gathering useful things to sell from the little checkpoint along the way – then using the power of ARCHIMEDES II to murder two of the ferals around the front of the building because he couldn’t get a good bead on them with his BB gun sniper. XD Well, I suppose if he’s got the superweapon, he may as well USE it! Even if it’s on a couple of ferals that probably could have been taken out by easier means. XD
D) Useless Steve then clearing out the area around the building with his 10mm submachine gun before looting all the Bright Brotherhood bodies around the shop for goodies like plasma rifles – he ended up having to leave his shovel on one corpse and then fast travel back to the Gun Runners shop to sell everything to make sure he had enough carry weight to pick up things inside the main building. Got him above 2,000 caps AND completed a challenge to sell things to people using his Barter skill, though, so that was good!
E) Useless Steve then heading inside the main Test Site building to kill the ghouls, loot the Bright Brotherhood bodies, and pick up as many Stealth Boys as he could find around the place so he had an ice cube’s chance in Hell of actually SNEAKING somewhere. Oh, and also do the main quest, since that was a nice pile of XP. XD This involved:
I. An incident early on where Steve got detected by some ghouls before he could even see them, missed a 95% chance-to-hit shot at one of the ghoul’s heads in VATS, and then, while backing away so he could reload his Q-35 and shoot again, stepping into a bear trap he’d originally managed to avoid. XD Good thing he had gotten himself some good combat armor from the Boomers previously!
II. Steve discovering piles of microfusion cells on practically every Bright Brotherhood corpse he came across, and being unable to stop himself from picking them up because that’s what his beloved Q-35 used; as a result, he kept going over weight capacity (as he was picking up their guns as well to sell later), leading to him getting addicted to Whiskey again as he tried to get himself more room to pick stuff up
III. Steve completing the “Energetic” challenge to kill enemies with energy weapons while fighting some ghouls in the big room with all the stairs, earning some bonus XP and causing Jon to comment that this was probably the first time he’d ever just straight-up skipped guns and gone to energy weapons this early in the game – he enjoyed the change
IV. Steve getting lucky and getting two “random drop” Stealth Boys off some of the corpses (well, ash pile and corpse) around – which was good, because he unfortunately couldn’t get the one locked in the safe in the CEO’s office, as his lockpicking simply was not up for the job, and he needed to burn one to get past all the Nightkin in the basement so he could talk to their leader, Davison, after being tasked to clear them out by Jason Bright (Jon rather liked how the invisibility effect looked on the Q-35)
V. Steve just straight-up killing Harland, the ghoul who tasks you with finding his dead girlfriend in the Nightkin prison, because yeah, he was never going to be able to sneak around in there, and then very carefully making his way around all the guy’s traps (including “disarming” a few bombs and tripwires with the power of shooting them with a gun) so he could learn from his terminal that the Stealth Boy stockpile was never at REPCONN – the shipment was sent back (after a few sneaky employees took a few for their own use) – and also take the hunting rifle off the guy’s body, which meant he ended up over weight capacity AGAIN. XD Poor hoarder Steve, he was not built for this
VI. Steve upsetting a Nightkin RIGHT before reaching Davison to tell him about the lack of Stealth Boys in the building – fortunately, Steve made it into the room before the Nightkin could murder him, and telling Davison that they would have to look farther afield for their Stealth Boys chilled them out, so Steve didn’t get his ass handed to him by an invisible super mutant
VII. Steve doing a lot of running around to help finish off the quest (up and down the building following his employers, into Novac and over to Old Lady Gibson’s scrapyard to get the parts they needed), with Jon explaining that the reason this quest was like that was because it was the first major quest the developers worked on and thus they didn’t QUITE know what they were doing – hence, it’s kind of rough around the edges and involves going back and forth a lot. At least the trip to Novac allowed Steve to sell some of the crap he’d picked up – which was good, as he both needed the storage capacity and the caps to pay Old Lady Gibson for the parts he needed from her
VIII. Steve finishing up the quest by mashing the buttons on the navigation computer the ghouls were using to direct their rockets because it made him feel better – at least, until he managed to break it. XD Fortunately this did not seem to affect the launch of the rockets at all, and Steve successfully completed the quest, earned a good reputation with Novac, and got enough XP to level up to Level 8! Jon desperately wanted to raise Sneak, but acknowledged that he had to get Speech and Lockpick moving in the right direction too – in the end, he raised Speech to 35 and Sneak to 18, and took another round of Intense Training to get his Endurance up to 3, making him less squishy and allowing him to eventually get another implant to fix his horrible stats
F) Useless Steve then finishing up his looting in the building, grabbing more laser rifles and plasma rifles and microfusion cells (soooo many microfusion cells – Jon was like “I thought I was coming here for guns to sell and Stealth Boys, but it seems that the real treasure was all the ammo for my favorite gun”) – he ended up merging the laser rifles and using the plasma rifle to maintain his Q-35 to save on weight, and managed to get outside and fast-travel to his favorite gun shop before all his various strength-boosting stuff wore off. Very lucky break, that!
G) And Useless Steve ending the episode by traveling back to Goodsprings to store a bunch of the microfusion cells he’d picked up in the footlocker in what was once Easy Pete’s house (RIP Easy Pete, Useless Steve is still wearing your hat) and crack open the safe inside the old schoolhouse for another Stealth Boy, discovering in the process that Cheyenne the dog was still alive (and had her eyes inside her head – that’s apparently a common glitch that can happen with her, them popping out and floating next to her face) and the giant radscorpion had FINALLY moved out, yay! Some good news for a change!
And so the episode ended with Jon declaring that Useless Steve’s next moves would be to find a way to earn loads of caps (that wasn’t gambling, as that relies on your Luck stat, and his Luck is garbage) and complete a lot of surprisingly-simple quests that reward you with a surprising amount of XP. So yeah, we’ll be picking up with that next week! Looking forward to it – especially since I can hopefully use whatever I learn to help level up my Courier Victor...
Aaand I have officially stayed up waaaaay too late due to accidentally finding someone who writes some fascinating Fallout essays on tumblr and going through their blog. *facepalm* I'm off to bed -- tomorrow is a Cleaning & Laundry Saturday, and after I finish that, I'm taking a break from video games to catch up on all the videos I've been neglecting in favor of getting the write-ups finished. That is, if I don't end up sleeping the entire day away. Night all!
As for what I accomplished today -- well, I vacuumed the kitchen rug at Mom's request this morning (and discovered a few things left on the floor, including a coaster in the radiator -- I KNEW we had four!). And then I went online and did all of this --
Tumblr: Got stuff done on both my tumblrs, shock and awe –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Had a good productive time over here today, accomplishing three things of note:
A) First, I decided to solve the problem of “I forgot to queue something up for Friday over here yesterday; what do” by reblogging all the various “text post meme” posts that inspired the collection of “Valicer As Text Posts” pictures I made two Fridays ago (you know, when the shit hit the fan and Dad first had to be checked into the hospital) – the Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency one by thecarnivalcryptid; the Elder Scrolls one by freerainhl; the Baldur’s Gate III one by sappho-official; and the Assassin’s Creed one by of-stars-and-seas – before editing the opening of my own “Valicer As Text Posts: The Return” post to reflect my little reblog spree and posting that as well! So yeah, today ended up being “Text Post Meme Friday” over on my blog. XD Which, happily, means I can finally share my latest collection of Valicer text post memes with you all – you can see it here!
B) Then, right before lunch, I took some time and finally finished off my post on “The Miseries Of Margaret Kelman (AKA What Happened To Smiler’s Birth Mother?),” which involved –
I. Adding in a final link to a playlist I found on YouTube that has both Kelman’s “greeting” video from The Sanctuary scare maze and the “Smile. Always” mini-series that Alton Towers used to promote The Smiler to the part where I talked about who Kelman is and why I made him Smiler’s sire in the “Londerland Bloodlines” AU
II. Writing the final few paragraphs explaining poor Margaret’s fate in most of the universes she would be a part of (basically, Kelman does some immoral brain surgery when he sees her struggling with depression post-Smiler’s birth and either kills her or turns her into a vegetable), and how the worst part is that Smiler believes Margaret actually abandoned them to get away from Kelman in those universes (because Kelman is not going to own up to performing surgery on her to them!)...and how poor VITD Smiler is going to be absolutely horrified to find out the truth, to the point where they have to slip off and have a cry about it :(
III. Finalizing the tags – adding in some “medical” and “brain surgery” trigger warnings and talking about how I know that Margaret’s fate can sound a bit like the classic “woman horribly killed off to horrify man close to her and further his story” trope, but that was not my intention and it’s just how her role in most of my human Smilers’ backstories evolved, because Kelman IS the kind of person who would happily “correct” his own wife. And that I’m glad there was at least ONE universe where I could unequivocally let her get away due to how I structured it. (And that I was probably going to let her get away in “Londerland Bloodlines” too, because the poor woman deserved it.)
So that’s all set and can be dropped into a future queue to horrify everyone! Yay!
C) And finally, late tonight, I went ahead and queued up that post by shutyourmoustache, featuring the TikTok of OK Go’s iconic “dancing on treadmills” music video with added text commentary by the band (the OP said that it gave her VH1 Pop-Up video vibes, which, yeah, it does), as my Song Saturday offering. Nice and simple, and I will never say no to having more OK Go on my blog. :)
Valice Multiverse – And over here, I had one anon ask to put into the queue: “What are Modern Victor’s thoughts on pianists past the Victorian Era?” As I’m not that familiar with modern pianists, I did a little research, and eventually had my Cuddlepile!Victor (my main modern one) praise Manny Perahia, who does lovely interpretations of Bach; Yanni, who does some fun, more experimental stuff – and has a song called “Butterfly Dance” which is quite nice (Victor stressed he did not like it just because of the name XD); and Ralph Zurmühle, who is more in the traditional classical vein but composes his own work – his song “Horizon” is very pretty. :) Did not expect to find some cool new music as the result of a tumblr ask, but here we are! I’m not complaining.
Writing: Twas another day where I got two writing-related things done –
A) First, post-lunch, I edited more of Chapter 3 of “The Van Dort Vacancy,” covering –
I. Alice discovering that what she initially thought was just a hallucination of the Deluded Depths was in fact the Van Dort’s very real aquarium greenhouse full of radiant fish that Smiler could very much see too – the pair were pretty much in shock over the scale of it (the last one Alice saw only had two walls’ worth of fish – she never imagined anybody would make one where even the ROOF was part of the aquarium), and Alice pointed out that if any of the glass cracked even slightly, the Van Dorts were in serious trouble
II. The pair getting discovered by the very man they’d been tracking, who noted that, after hearing their conversation, they were as likely to be Van Dort servants as he was – that was, not at all – and asking what their game was – the pair promptly replied, “it depends on what YOURS is,” with Smiler explaining that they’d followed him in to figure out what he was up to, as they had a friend in the house and didn’t want him getting hurt or inconvenienced. The guy said he wasn’t expecting on anyone getting hurt – though he made no promises – but inconvenienced was a possibility, and asked for the friend’s name –
And I left off with Barnaby showing up right before Smiler could admit it was the Van Dort’s son. XD I’ve only got a little over a page to go in this chapter now – hoping next week we might see it posted! We’ll see what happens!
B) And second, a little after that, I added two new scene ideas to the BG3 Master Doc – Smiler admitting they’re the “discount cleric” version of a warlock (because they are trying to hype up Mar-Mal to the masses, like a cleric might with their god), and Smiler going “irony of my life – I only cast Friends on people I don’t want to be friends with.” Hopefully one day I will be able to write these!
Fallout: New Vegas: Returned to the Mojave for the final time this week, to have Courier Victor set up everything for the grand fight between Goodsprings and the Powder Gangers pursuing Ringo! Which involved reading a few skill magazines and doing a lot of talking...let me take you through it:
A) I started off where I left off – with Victor in the Poseidon Energy gas station, waiting for Ringo to wake up from his victory nap after the guy beat him at Caravan at the end of my last session. XD While he was waiting, I had him look through the various shelves at the items available to grab, and found another skill magazine that he could take – Boxing Times, which boosts one’s Unarmed skill! I – don’t think this will be particularly relevant to Victor, who will be wanting to avoid fisticuffs, but still. You never know. XD After picking that up, though, I noticed Ringo was awake and lounging on the floor by the shelves on the other side of the room, so I had Victor head over and – after grabbing another bent tin can from the floor by Ringo’s feet – ask, “Did you know there’s a man named Joe Cobb looking for you?” Ringo confirmed he did, noting, “He doesn’t look very tough, though. I hear he’s afraid I’ll shoot him down from one of the windows when I see him, and he’s right” –
But then confessed, “I’ll have a much bigger problem once his friends show up. There’s no way I could handle all of them in a gunfight.” Victor was like, “why are the Powder Gangers after you in the first place?” and Ringo explained that his caravan was returning from California, heading back to the New Vegas branch of the company he works for, when they were jumped. “Not even a ‘drop your weapons and hands up’ before the bullets started flying. We put up a good fight, but there was too many of them. I took a few of the bandits down before I ran, so I figure their friends are out for revenge.” Victor thought that made sense and asked what Ringo planned to do, and he admitted that his only plan was to “lay low for as long as I can, assuming the town doesn’t throw me to the wolves. I’ve got no chance against the gang on my own.” Which didn’t sound good –
And prompted Victor, who’d just been jumped and nearly killed by a gang of assholes himself, to offer his help. Ringo pointed out that “We'd just end up sharing the same grave if it's just the two of us” before adding, “Now, if some of the other people in town were also on board…” Victor promised to ask around and see who he could round up, and Ringo suggested starting with good old Sunny Smiles, as she’d been friendlier than most to him. Victor took that under advisement and – having finished the conversation – grabbed a fission battery and some whiskey off the nearby shelf and some BlamCo Mac & Cheese and some dirty water from a sack on the counter before heading out the door! What – a man needs his supplies before starting a gunfight. :p
B) Once outside, Victor checked his Pip-Boy, then followed the quest marker down the road to the Prospector Saloon. Stepping inside revealed that Sunny had finally arrived for her daily “listening to the jukebox with my dog” session, so – after taking a moment to listen to Mr. New Vegas talk about a clash between the NCR and the Kings in Freeside (with The King stating he wanted the NCR people in his town to be “returned to sender”) and a rumor about some super mutants holed up in a ski lodge to the Northwest (Mr. New Vegas: “If you should find it, do not – repeat, do not – belittle a Super Mutant for taking the bunny slope.” XD) – Victor approached her to talk about the situation with Ringo. Sunny greeted him with, “Hi there. Sticking around Goodsprings for a while longer?” – Victor confirmed he was and explained he planned to help Ringo against the Powder Gangers when they arrived, and that they might need her help –
And Sunny immediately went “Say no more. I’m in.” A startled Victor replied, “Just like that?” and she confirmed, “Just like that,” stating she already had a feeling that she would end up fighting the gang, so she’d rather get it over with. “Joe Cobb talks about leaving us alone if we hand over Ringo, but I know his type. He and his friends will come after the town eventually.” She then noted that she, Victor, and Ringo alone weren’t exactly a force to be reckoned with, before saying that a lot of people in town looked up to Trudy, so if Victor could convince her to join their little group, some of the other settlers might choose to join as well. Not to mention, “I know Easy Pete's got a stock of dynamite somewhere, and Chet just got a shipment of leather armor we could borrow. Talk to them as well.” She wrapped up with, “Finally, there's a good chance we'll all end up with extra holes in us, so if Doc Mitchell could cough up some extra stimpaks, that'd be great.” Giving Victor a whooole bunch of extra objectives to complete if he wanted to give their assault on the Powder Gangers the best chance possible. Victor was certainly willing to talk to everyone, and asked Sunny her advice on how to get Trudy, Chet, and Easy Pete to help (given Doc Mitchell saved his life for free, I guess he figured they could definitely count on the Doc). Regarding Trudy, Sunny said that either a silver tongue or a good plan to convince her they had a solid way to win the fight would work; regarding Chet, she admitted that the jerk probably wouldn’t give away the armor he’d gotten (“I don’t think ‘give’ is in Chet’s vocabulary”) and that Victor would have to barter with him; and regarding Easy Pete, she allowed he was rather protective of his dynamite and that Victor would have to convince him he knew something about explosives before he’d be willing to hand it over. Basically, hinting at all the skills you’ll need to have up to the correct level to win the skill checks to convince the three (well, sort of – Sunny suggesting that the Courier present a good plan of attack doesn’t really imply that a high Sneak will also convince Trudy to help you). Secure in the knowledge that he had all the skill magazines he needed to get everything, Victor prepared to talk to Trudy –
But before he left, he couldn’t help but ask, “What do you do around here?” Because, yeah, I was curious as to what exactly Sunny’s job in the town was. She explained that she mainly hunted geckos, like she and Victor did in the tutorial – “The meat's pretty good and I can always find a buyer for the hides.” She also helped keep the town clear of coyotes and radscorpions, since the town was small and the local wildlife was always trying to creep in. Nice! No wonder Doc Mitchell recommended her as the gal Victor should see to get back in the saddle. :)
C) Anyway – with that sorted, Victor said goodbye to Sunny and prepared to start getting various members of Goodsprings to help with the assault against the Powder Gangers! First up – Trudy, since, you know, she ran the very saloon Victor was standing in. XD Victor thus went over to the bar to say hello –
And Trudy revealed that she’d overheard his conversation with Sunny, stating, “So you’re planning on taking on Joe Cobb’s gang. It’s a big risk, but I suppose you have to do what you think is right.” Saved from having to bring up the topic himself, Victor promptly used his high Sneak skill to suggest a plan he thought Trudy would approve of – “Near the saloon and store are good spots to stage an ambush – if I had the help.” Happily, Trudy agreed that sounded like a good plan, and said that “...you seem to know what you're doing, so you can count me in. Let me have a word with a few other folks and I'll see if I can't round up some more members for this militia you're creating.” Yay! Though she did follow that up with adding that, while everyone in town had a gun, they could still stand to be better equipped – definitely not getting out of talking to Chet, Victor, that’s for sure. XD
Anyway, having convinced her (for a sweet 23 XP), Victor headed out onto the porch, where Easy Pete was lounging. Aware that his Explosives skill was not QUITE up to the job of convincing the old prospector to surrender his dynamite, Victor quickly read through his Patriot’s Cookbook before saying howdy and telling the guy, “I hear you’ve got dynamite. It would help us beat the Powder Gangers.” Easy Pete immediately demurred, going “Too dangerous. Gonna kill all yourselves if I let you touch it. Better to leave it buried – safer that way.” Which was probably true, but I wanted that sweet skill check XP, so – flush with the knowledge he’d gained from the Patriot’s Cookbook – Victor told him, “I’m familiar with the care and handling of explosives, dynamite included.” This was enough for Pete, who allowed it sounded like Victor knew what he was doing and promised to go dig it up and get it ready in time for the fight. Another tick on the old optional objectives, and another 23 XP for me! Victor might actually get to Level 2 sometime this century at this rate. :p Victor wrapped things up by asking what Easy Pete knew about Joe Cobb, just in case he had something enlightening to say –
Only for Easy Pete to sum him up in two words: “Bad trouble.” Victor was like, “That’s...helpful,” and Easy Pete brightly replied, “Welcome.” XD Well, I mean, he’s not wrong, so…
D) Having convinced two out of four people to aid in the fight against the Powder Gangers, Victor thus continued on to the next person on his list – Chet, owner of the General Store next to the Prospector Saloon! I had him run around for a bit outside first, just to see how long it would take for the Patriot’s Cookbook to wear off (answer: longer than I thought – it didn’t wear off until I decided, “Eh, screw it, let’s just go in” and sent him to the door), then dropped a save before stepping inside just in case Chet decided to speak to Victor immediately and I didn’t get a chance for him to read his Salesman Weekly to boost his Barter skill first. Fortunately, that was not the case, and Victor was able to flip through his magazine before heading up to the front counter and saying hi. Chet greeted him with “You must be the one Doc Mitchell was patching up. The way I heard it, I didn't think you'd be walking out of that office” –
And then immediately launched into a sales pitch, talking about how he had lots of supplies for sale, along with weapon mods and special ammo – “well worth the caps, if you ask me.” For the buyer who didn’t have a lot to spend, he also mentioned having “boxes of surplus ammo in the miscellaneous section. They're not great, but you get what you pay for.” Victor filed all of that away, then told Chet that he need supplies so his little team could fight the Powder Gangers. Chet immediately protested, going “Now just hold on. I never voted to take on the Powder Gangers. That's a thousand cap investment you're talking about” –
But Victor, flush with the power of Barter skill 27 from his magazine, retorted, “Let them take over the town, then. I'm sure your business will be much better off.” Fortunately, that got through to Goodspring’s main capitalist, and he reluctantly conceded Victor had a point and that he’d provide people with leather armor and extra ammo – starting with Victor himself, which was nice. He insisted that he’d spend the fight guarding his store, though, as he had to put his business first – not a problem, Chet. I’m sure everyone would like there to still be a general store once all this is over. Victor, satisfied with his successful Bartering, then asked Chet his thoughts on the situation –
Causing Chet to reveal, “If Ringo doesn't head out on his own, I think we should hand him over. The town shouldn't get itself mixed into the problem.” He quickly tried to claim that wasn’t “coward talk,” saying the town was full of survivors, and they’d fight hard if they had to, they just that they didn’t go looking for trouble, but – eh. I remain unimpressed by his opinion. At least Trudy was only hoping that Ringo left, not suggesting they actually turn him in! *shakehead* Anyway, Victor decided to finish off the conversation by asking what was so bad about the surplus ammo, and Chet explaining that it was a matter of “quantity over quality” – basically, the rounds would work, they just would also wear your guns out faster, forcing you to clean and maintain them more often. Okay, admittedly, that is good to know, thanks Chet. Victor filed that away and took a quick look around the shop – which sold things ranging from beer to maize to harmonicas (no, seriously, there was one for sale! In fact, let me check something on the Wiki… *checks* Aw, they’re not playable. Darn it. :( ) –
E) Then headed out and to his final destination, Doc Mitchell’s! Because the growing militia definitely needed some medical supplies. Victor made a quick detour into the clinic to grab the Today’s Physician off the desk behind the gurney, opposite the bed, then read that before catching up with Doc Mitchell as he relaxed in his chair in the living room. Doc M commented that he was hoping that Victor wouldn’t need to see him again so soon, but Victor quickly explained he wasn’t here for himself – instead, he was here to see if Doc M could lend any help with the upcoming bandit attack on the town. Doc M complained that “Seems like wherever I go it's always the same. Folks just never leave each other alone,” then admitted, “I'm not much good in a fight, with my bum leg. And my supplies are scarce. But I'll give you what I can spare.” Cue Victor scoring three stimpacks (one for himself, Sunny, and Ringo I suppose) –
But Victor, full of medical knowledge thanks to his magazine, added, “They'll be using explosives. Do you have something for more serious injuries?” And Doc M replied, “I ain't got much, but it'll do you more good out there than it will in here. Take what I got,” scoring Victor a pair of Doctor’s Bags as well! As these are one of the few ways to properly restore limb condition in Hardcore Mode, and Victor’s arms and legs are more fragile thanks to his Small Frame trait, I am definitely glad Victor managed to get them off the Doc!
Anyway – with his main business settled, Victor decided he might as well get to know the man who helped save his life a little better and asked Doc Mitchell to tell him about himself. Doc M reiterated that he grew up in a vault, then spent sometime as a traveling doctor – “Seemed like a good idea at the time. Most folks out here ain't educated, so people with medical knowhow are hard to come by. Found that I could help a lot of people with what I knew, and that was all right with me.” But eventually he went back to his vault and married his childhood sweetheart, and that was that for the traveling life. Victor, noting that this didn’t explain how he ended up in Goodsprings, noted that Doc M had said earlier he’d had something taken from him (while commiserating with Victor about what happened to him while giving him his Pip-Boy) –
But Doc M simply replied, “Well, ain't we all, right? That was a long time ago. I don't pay it much mind anymore.” And as there was no option to follow up on that – yeah, seems like you’ll have to wait a bit to hear the rest of his backstory, Victor! *shrug* Victor thus let the subject drop and instead asked Doc M about his own backstory – namely, if Doc M knew anything about the man who shot him. Doc M admitted he didn’t, though – he never saw the guy, nor who was with him. He suggested Victor ask around town, stressing to check in with Trudy – “If anyone saw anything, she'd know about it.” As Victor had already done that, though – yeah, it’s quite possible he’s learned all he can learn about his attackers at this point. Ah well.
F) With all his optional objectives complete, and all the most important citizens of Goodsprings ready to back up Victor, Sunny, and Ringo when it was time to fight, Victor wrapped up his conversation with Doc Mitchell and headed back out into town to figure out what to do next. A quick check of the time indicated that it was only 1:35 PM – I decided it made more internal sense to wait until it was a bit darker to kick off the gunfight (would make the ambush Trudy was helping to set up feel more like a real ambush, for one), but figured Victor could slap on his new leather armor to actually gets some proper protection in the meantime. And his new hat too – might as well, right? Victor could use the bonus Perception. I also decided to swap his primary weapon back over to his 9mm pistol, and used the weapon repair kit (post reading a Fixin’ Things to get his Repair skill up a bit more) to up his condition a bit. Because while I have less ammo for it, I really wanted to try using the pistol and see if it made more sense for Victor – after all, it has roughly the same damage, but fires faster, and probably uses a lot less AP in VATS! And we like weapons that don’t use a lot of AP in VATS. *nods* I tested it out against one of the bottles in the shooting range behind the saloon, then got a picture of Victor in his new fit –
Not bad, I think. :) Not quite The Silver Shroud, but unfortunately he’s not a thing in this game. Real shame, that. Ah well – if I want to Shroud it up, I can always go back to Fallout 4. (Or see if any mods exist to put the outfit at least in the game…) Anyway, after doing that, I had Victor check the time in his Pip-Boy (just after 2 PM), then his various stats –
Which made me realize that he was getting rather thirsty, poor chap. I thus sent Victor over to Victortron’s shack to get a drink from the sink...but when he arrived, I noticed Victortron himself was still hanging around outside. And I remembered that, according to my research, you can ask him to help out in the fight against the Powder Gangers. So Victor went ahead and inquired if his robotic name-twin was decent in a scrap, as he could use more firepower in the upcoming battle –
And Victortron was immediately like, “Trouble with rustlers? Count me in, pardner. Those varmints will be running home with their tails between their legs soon enough.” Very nice of him! ...A shame that he won’t actually be helping out during the fight, but that’s a topic for another time…
G) Anyway – with Victortron’s assistance supposedly secured, Victor dipped into the shack and got a nice drink from the sink, then ate some gecko steak to ensure he wouldn’t be hungry when the bullets started flying. He then went ahead and took the bullets and 9mm shell casings out of the ammo box on the bookshelves (figuring he could maybe sell some to Chet later, and convert the casings into bullets once he got all the ingredients to do so), then headed back out into the wilderness to amuse himself. I sent him up toward Doc Mitchell’s house again to see what was around the back of it – a little garden with a little corn field, though Victor couldn’t pick the maize without being a crime – then had him loop around the back of the Poseidon Energy station toward the far side of town, to investigate a couple of boarded-up houses he hadn’t checked before. One had some harvestable plants growing outside of it – a Nevada Agave in the front (which yielded TWO fruits when picked, which was a pleasant surprise), and a Banana Yucca in the back – while the other had a BB gun leaning up against the side for Victor to pick up if he wanted – I had him leave it be for now, because his inventory was already looking a bit full and it’s not really a good gun unless you have the unique Abilene Kid version for those sneak attack criticals. After that, he checked his Pip-Boy again, and saw that it was now about 4:44 PM in the afternoon, which I decided was late enough to start the fight –
But at that point, I’d been playing for a little over an hour (and been interrupted by texts from Mom a couple of times), so I decided I’d better wrap things up so it didn’t take me all night to do this write-up. ^^; So the playsession ended with Victor parked outside the gas station, ready to go in and tell Ringo the good news about most of the town being ready to fight. Next time, we’ll actually kick off the gunfight and see how things go in the great Goodsprings vs Powder Gangers battle! Hopefully well for the Goodsprings side – I’ve tried to stack the odds in their favor as much as possible!
Workout: Final night on the bike this week, final night with The Adventures of Useless Steve this week as I finished off “Fallout: New Vegas - The Worst Courier - Part 4 - The Doomsday Device!” The last chunk of which featured:
A) Useless Steve showing off one of the most obscure interactions you can have with an NPC in the game, and how complicated it is to get it! Basically, you have to be a Low Intelligence character (1 or 2 in the stat); then you have to get to the Boomers at Nellis and agree to help out around their base; then you have to go to the medical tent there and somehow convince the local doctor to let you help him with his patients (either by having a high enough Medicine skill to convince him you know what you’re doing, or a high enough Speech skill to straight up lie to him that you know more than him – Steve went with the latter option with the help of a copy of Meeting People); then get your hands on a knife or other bladed weapon (Steve managed to get one from the table in the medical tent, but DAMN did it take him a while with his pathetically low Sneak); THEN make sure you were holding it (that is, didn’t have it sheathed) when you went to check on the Boomer in the middle row of beds, with an injured leg that was probably going to need to be amputated. Then, and ONLY then, can you get the option to CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! in order to treat said injured leg –
And said wild frantic chopping actually helps enough that the guy is allowed to keep his limb. The doctor himself comments on how that was pure straight-up dumb luck. XD Jon was delighted that such an obscure thing could be found in this game.
B) Useless Steve then leaving Nellis (because he couldn’t do shit for the other two patients, they sadly have no Low Intelligence options) and locating the Brotherhood Patrol in the field just outside the fence (having been bombed by the local) so he could take their power armor and sell it to the Gun Runners Protectron at their little store – then, realizing that he was having problems both making lots of money AND getting around undetected, deciding that his best option for solving both problems was to head back to Novac and do “Come Fly With Me,” the quest to send Jason Bright and his ghoul followers streaking off into the sky. Even though all the ghouls would be detecting him like immediately thanks to his abysmal Sneak and thus he couldn’t just snipe them off. Good thing he had the Q-35 to gooify them right quick!
C) Useless Steve trekking up to the REPCONN Test Site – killing some feral ghouls and gathering useful things to sell from the little checkpoint along the way – then using the power of ARCHIMEDES II to murder two of the ferals around the front of the building because he couldn’t get a good bead on them with his BB gun sniper. XD Well, I suppose if he’s got the superweapon, he may as well USE it! Even if it’s on a couple of ferals that probably could have been taken out by easier means. XD
D) Useless Steve then clearing out the area around the building with his 10mm submachine gun before looting all the Bright Brotherhood bodies around the shop for goodies like plasma rifles – he ended up having to leave his shovel on one corpse and then fast travel back to the Gun Runners shop to sell everything to make sure he had enough carry weight to pick up things inside the main building. Got him above 2,000 caps AND completed a challenge to sell things to people using his Barter skill, though, so that was good!
E) Useless Steve then heading inside the main Test Site building to kill the ghouls, loot the Bright Brotherhood bodies, and pick up as many Stealth Boys as he could find around the place so he had an ice cube’s chance in Hell of actually SNEAKING somewhere. Oh, and also do the main quest, since that was a nice pile of XP. XD This involved:
I. An incident early on where Steve got detected by some ghouls before he could even see them, missed a 95% chance-to-hit shot at one of the ghoul’s heads in VATS, and then, while backing away so he could reload his Q-35 and shoot again, stepping into a bear trap he’d originally managed to avoid. XD Good thing he had gotten himself some good combat armor from the Boomers previously!
II. Steve discovering piles of microfusion cells on practically every Bright Brotherhood corpse he came across, and being unable to stop himself from picking them up because that’s what his beloved Q-35 used; as a result, he kept going over weight capacity (as he was picking up their guns as well to sell later), leading to him getting addicted to Whiskey again as he tried to get himself more room to pick stuff up
III. Steve completing the “Energetic” challenge to kill enemies with energy weapons while fighting some ghouls in the big room with all the stairs, earning some bonus XP and causing Jon to comment that this was probably the first time he’d ever just straight-up skipped guns and gone to energy weapons this early in the game – he enjoyed the change
IV. Steve getting lucky and getting two “random drop” Stealth Boys off some of the corpses (well, ash pile and corpse) around – which was good, because he unfortunately couldn’t get the one locked in the safe in the CEO’s office, as his lockpicking simply was not up for the job, and he needed to burn one to get past all the Nightkin in the basement so he could talk to their leader, Davison, after being tasked to clear them out by Jason Bright (Jon rather liked how the invisibility effect looked on the Q-35)
V. Steve just straight-up killing Harland, the ghoul who tasks you with finding his dead girlfriend in the Nightkin prison, because yeah, he was never going to be able to sneak around in there, and then very carefully making his way around all the guy’s traps (including “disarming” a few bombs and tripwires with the power of shooting them with a gun) so he could learn from his terminal that the Stealth Boy stockpile was never at REPCONN – the shipment was sent back (after a few sneaky employees took a few for their own use) – and also take the hunting rifle off the guy’s body, which meant he ended up over weight capacity AGAIN. XD Poor hoarder Steve, he was not built for this
VI. Steve upsetting a Nightkin RIGHT before reaching Davison to tell him about the lack of Stealth Boys in the building – fortunately, Steve made it into the room before the Nightkin could murder him, and telling Davison that they would have to look farther afield for their Stealth Boys chilled them out, so Steve didn’t get his ass handed to him by an invisible super mutant
VII. Steve doing a lot of running around to help finish off the quest (up and down the building following his employers, into Novac and over to Old Lady Gibson’s scrapyard to get the parts they needed), with Jon explaining that the reason this quest was like that was because it was the first major quest the developers worked on and thus they didn’t QUITE know what they were doing – hence, it’s kind of rough around the edges and involves going back and forth a lot. At least the trip to Novac allowed Steve to sell some of the crap he’d picked up – which was good, as he both needed the storage capacity and the caps to pay Old Lady Gibson for the parts he needed from her
VIII. Steve finishing up the quest by mashing the buttons on the navigation computer the ghouls were using to direct their rockets because it made him feel better – at least, until he managed to break it. XD Fortunately this did not seem to affect the launch of the rockets at all, and Steve successfully completed the quest, earned a good reputation with Novac, and got enough XP to level up to Level 8! Jon desperately wanted to raise Sneak, but acknowledged that he had to get Speech and Lockpick moving in the right direction too – in the end, he raised Speech to 35 and Sneak to 18, and took another round of Intense Training to get his Endurance up to 3, making him less squishy and allowing him to eventually get another implant to fix his horrible stats
F) Useless Steve then finishing up his looting in the building, grabbing more laser rifles and plasma rifles and microfusion cells (soooo many microfusion cells – Jon was like “I thought I was coming here for guns to sell and Stealth Boys, but it seems that the real treasure was all the ammo for my favorite gun”) – he ended up merging the laser rifles and using the plasma rifle to maintain his Q-35 to save on weight, and managed to get outside and fast-travel to his favorite gun shop before all his various strength-boosting stuff wore off. Very lucky break, that!
G) And Useless Steve ending the episode by traveling back to Goodsprings to store a bunch of the microfusion cells he’d picked up in the footlocker in what was once Easy Pete’s house (RIP Easy Pete, Useless Steve is still wearing your hat) and crack open the safe inside the old schoolhouse for another Stealth Boy, discovering in the process that Cheyenne the dog was still alive (and had her eyes inside her head – that’s apparently a common glitch that can happen with her, them popping out and floating next to her face) and the giant radscorpion had FINALLY moved out, yay! Some good news for a change!
And so the episode ended with Jon declaring that Useless Steve’s next moves would be to find a way to earn loads of caps (that wasn’t gambling, as that relies on your Luck stat, and his Luck is garbage) and complete a lot of surprisingly-simple quests that reward you with a surprising amount of XP. So yeah, we’ll be picking up with that next week! Looking forward to it – especially since I can hopefully use whatever I learn to help level up my Courier Victor...
Aaand I have officially stayed up waaaaay too late due to accidentally finding someone who writes some fascinating Fallout essays on tumblr and going through their blog. *facepalm* I'm off to bed -- tomorrow is a Cleaning & Laundry Saturday, and after I finish that, I'm taking a break from video games to catch up on all the videos I've been neglecting in favor of getting the write-ups finished. That is, if I don't end up sleeping the entire day away. Night all!
