Rainy Somewhat Tired Sunday

[crossover_chick]

Yeah, it was a miserable day out, weather-wise -- rained the entire time and never got above 60, I don't think. Fortunately, it was decently warm inside the house, so I didn't feel it too much. Though what I did feel for much of the day was tired, because, again, I stayed up entirely too late last night. *shakehead* You're pushing 40, Vic -- you can't keep going to bed at like 2:40 AM. Despite this, though, I did manage to accomplish a few things of note:

Tumblr: It was a mildly-productive day over here on the tumbls – there wasn’t anything happening over on Valice Multiverse, and I got off to a slow start on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) thanks to the aforementioned tiredness. But I did manage to make a bit more progress on my “Valicer Eats God” post –

A) After QUITE a long period of pondering, I FINALLY came up with proper “Trait Expressions” for Victor’s “Lanky Limbs” and “Sticky Steps” traits (“Fast Feet” was easy – “Running from my problems is an acceptable way to deal with them,” based on the fact that he spends most of the film LITERALLY running from his problems XD)! For “Lanky Limbs,” I leaned into Victor being portrayed as shy and awkward around other people, hanging back behind his parents when they go to meet the Everglots and behind Emily when they first head up the tower to Elder Gutknecht’s and went with “I'll be back here if you need me” (as a Victor with his extra-long reach would be able to stay out of the action while still being able to help if necessary); for “Sticky Steps,” I thought about the fact that Victor climbed that damn cliff because he was that determined to avoid Emily and decided on “There is always a way around (or over) a dead end” (especially if you’re running from your problems :P). I think they fit well enough!

B) I also tweaked one of Smiler’s “Trait Expressions,” moving “Hey! Look at me!” from their “Dizzying Display (Bright)” trait to their “Languorous Lure” trait – I thought it made a little more sense for it to be tied to the Hypnotiser wheels than the Flasher!

C) And I did some work finalizing everyone’s Muppet-esque appearances in this world, completing Victor’s write-up while making a decent start on Alice and Smiler’s. For reference, Victor’s got a sort of “mothman” look going (antennae, big solid black eyes, a light covering of white fuzz on his body, and stubby blue wings sticking out of his back – useless for flying, but good for helping propel him along if he really needs to put on a turn of speed); Alice looks a lot like she does when she’s wearing the DLC “Cheshire” dress from A:MR, only with the horns and back spikes from AMA’s Ragebox form and a modified tail that can shoot her “Menacing Missiles” projectiles; and Smiler naturally is a mini-Marmaliser from the ride (though I’m probably gonna move the face display from underneath the robot to above it), with wire-like tentacles coming out of it.

*nods* Not bad. We’ll see if I can make some more progress tomorrow!

Fallout: New Vegas: Well, it was a tough day in the Mojave for poor Courier Victor, who spent most of this particular playsession getting shot, and twice dying. But he did prevail in the end, taking out the convicts in the Bison Steve and freeing Deputy Beagle! *pumps fist* And getting some decent loot along the way, which was nice. :) Allow me to tell you how it all went down in more detail below –

A) As per usual, I picked up where I left off last time – with Victor in what I presumed was the employee break room right off the side of the main lobby, having just cracked it open via the terminal on the check-in counter and looted what goodies he could out of it. With nothing else to grab in there (besides a key to a maintenance door I wasn’t sure I wanted – lockpicking XP is pretty much always better if you can get it!), I had him head back out, sneaking along behind the counter and peeking out into the room beyond –

To see a convict sitting on a chair just past the doorway leading into the main downstairs hallway. Unfortunately, he was too far away for Victor to get a good hit on him with his trusty 9mm pistol (at least per VATS), and before Victor could venture out much into the lobby, the convict got up and walked away. At least he never actually saw Victor! Victor thus chose to explore the lobby, finding nothing in the bent old trash can by the main door and noting the barricade made with some tables pushed up against another little counter that could be useful to hide behind should the worst happen. He then ventured around the tables toward the hallway beyond –

Only to end up backtracking behind the barricade as the convict in his hockey mask came back, presumably for another sit. However, now Victor was closer, he had a better shot of hitting the guy with VATS, so I decided to have him take a couple of shots at the guy’s arm. Victor thus lined up and fired –

And neither shot connected. Because I’m pretty sure they both hit the tables. *facepalm* Naturally, this alerted the guy to Victor being there, and he started shooting – Victor took a few hits, but managed to slip around the side of the barricade and hit the guy’s leg with a couple of VATS shots, crippling it. Unfortunately, all this gun play attracted one of the guy’s buddies, who ran in to help as the original guy headed off. Victor fired a few manual shots his way as he waited for his AP to return, then ducked behind the tables as that guy ran away as well –

Only to be replaced by a THIRD guy in a red sweater who was ready to party. By this time, Victor’s AP had come back, so he was able to get a few shots in at the guy’s head in VATS, crippling it – he returned fire and got Victor pretty good as he kept popping up and down behind the barricade separating them. *wince* Victor attempted to shoot him again once he had some more AP, but, as before, the barricade blocked all his shots. *sigh* And here I thought that stupid thing was going to help me! >( Fortunately, running around the side did bring the guy in close enough for another solid headshot, and that and a couple of manual shots finally took him down. Whew! Rough start to rescuing the deputy, I must say.


B) With things temporarily quiet for five seconds, I took a moment to check on Victor’s overall condition in the Pip-Boy – it wasn’t great, with his head in particular looking very close to being crippled. I thus had him use a couple of doctor’s bags to improve his limb health – one on his whole body, and one on his head in particular – following it up with a stimpack to get his HP up to a happier level. While I waited for that to work, I had Victor loot the corpse of the guy he’d just killed, taking seven NCR $20 bills, a spare 9mm pistol, 12 9mm rounds, and two sticks of dynamite as the spoils of “war.” He then stuck himself with one of his homemade stimpacks for a bit of extra healing (while I went “?” at the XP meter suddenly appearing in the corner – Victor killed the guy about a minute ago, thanks game), noted that he was in [CAUTION], not [DANGER], then snuck into the hallway –

And spotted what I presumed to be the original hockey-masked guy he’d originally shot at not that far away down the hall! I had Victor pop into VATS and line up a couple of leg shots, taking the guy down once and for all –

And causing Victor to level up! :D Level 3 at last! However, the level-up screen didn’t appear, I presume because Victor was still considered to be in combat due to be in [CAUTION]. And indeed, as Victor retreated out of sight back into the lobby, I heard another convict come forward to investigate what was going on. He initially thought he was just getting jumpy from all the noises – but then went back on alert, through whether it was from seeing his buddy’s corpse or from Victor taking a step toward the doorway and thus just coming into his line of sight, I’m not sure. Either way, venturing out into the hallway again revealed the guy coming toward the doorway into the lobby – VATS informed Victor that he had a good chance of hitting all of the guy’s limbs, so I had him line up a shot on each arm and each leg. Turns out he only needed three to take the guy down –

Which was good, as another convict, a second red sweater guy, appeared right afterward and nailed Victor with a shot. Victor retreated into the lobby to restore his AP as Red Sweater #2 pursued him – then, once he was in a better position, scurried back into the hallway to find the guy right in front of him! This, however, allowed Victor to line up a whole BUNCH of headshots on Red Sweater #2 –

Which ended up taking his head clean off. Because Fallout: New Vegas does love a bit of improbable violence sometimes, even if you don’t have the “Bloody Mess” perk. :p Here is a screenshot I captured for posterity:



Looks rather like the guy’s trying to grab onto his own fallen head, doesn’t it? :p Yeah, that’s what you get for messing with Courier Six!

C) With all the convicts in the immediate area dead and Victor officially back to [HIDDEN], it was finally time to level up! Level 3 being an odd-numbered level, though, there was no opportunity to pick a perk – I had to settle for just figuring out which of Victor’s skills I wanted to improve. After considering my options and thinking about what I wanted, I used his 14 skill points to bump up the following:

I. Lockpick up to 25 – this one was a no-brainer, as lockpicking is a pretty important part of F:NV when it comes to opening shortcuts and claiming goodies. Getting it up to the “can pick Easy locks” threshold was definitely a priority!

II. Guns up to 30 – I briefly considered having Victor improve his Energy Weapons skill instead – but while he has a plasma pistol, it’s his trusty 9mm that’s been keeping him alive so far. So up that skill went to make him a little better at using it!

III. Survival up to 30 – in hardcore mode, Survival is a key skill to improve as it improves the efficiency of all food and drink items – plus the higher it is, the more stuff you can craft. And as I do like crafting stuff – yeah, want to get that Survival up post-haste!

IV. And Sneak up to 45 – I was tempted to bring this all the way up to 50, but I decided I wanted to spread the points out a little more and get more skills moving in the right direction. Still, Sneak is a very important part of Victor’s toolkit, and we want him to have plenty of it!

*nods* Not too bad, if I do say so myself. Victor’s slowly-but-surely getting his groove back from getting shot in the head. :p

D) And, of course, after leveling up, the next step was to loot all the bodies for anything useful! Victor thus went through the pockets of his enemies and collected:

I. A 9mm pistol, thirteen 9mm rounds, and some Hydra (which apparently restores limb condition) from the guy who’s head he shot off

II. A NCR $100 bill, eight 5.56mm rounds, and a varmint rifle off one of the hockey mask guys

III. And two NCR $20 bills, ten 5.56mm rounds, and another varmint rifle off the other hockey mask guy

*nods* We always like more guns and ammo. :) Better yet, immediately to Victor’s left was the entrance to the gift shop, so while it was quiet he ducked in there to see if there was anything good (the game informing him that he’d just started suffering Minor Dehydration as he did – damn H20 meter, going up so fast…). The room was a wreck, consisting primarily of mostly-empty shelves with a few pre-War books (both burned and not) on them and a floor covered in empty soda bottles, toy cars, and judgy teddy bears –



But after ducking behind the counter, Victor found a few useful items – namely, a bundle of pre-War money and a couple of caps on the counter itself; three more bits of pre-War money in the first cash register (second was empty); two more caps and another bundle of pre-War money on the floor –

And, atop the floor safe (which was Hard locked, so Victor will not be getting in anytime soon), a skill book! “Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor,” which, when read, will provide Victor with a permanent +3 boost to his Barter skill – or, if I wait a bit and get a certain perk, +4. :) So that’s something to look forward to! (Especially since I do want to get Victor’s Barter skill up nice and high over the course of the game – feels like a good way to reflect his past as the son of noted fish merchants. :P)

E) Skill book thus safely tucked away in the inventory, I took a moment to have Victor eat a mutfruit, a honey mesquite pod, and a barrel cactus fruit to both get a bit of healing going on and drop his H20 meter below 400 so he was no longer slightly dehydrated (the three eaten together managed to get it down from 424 to 371), then collected three more caps I spotted on the counter before having Victor leave the shop. Once outside, he spent a minute combining all of his varmint rifles into one great-condition one and merging the worst of the 9mm pistols he’d picked up from the convicts into his own to keep it maintained, then began looking around the big sitting area in the hallway for goodies. There wasn’t much, admittedly, but he scored a Sunset Sarsaparilla out of the garbage can beside a pair of non-functional doors to his right (which he promptly drank to heal himself up more and keep his H20 under control) and a Star bottle cap on one of the side tables tucked between all the chairs to the left (gotta start working toward having enough to get the treasure!). He also found the Maintenance Area door on the left wall –

Which, to my relief, was Easy locked. No need to go and get the key – Victor could pick this one! One busted bobby pin later (dang), he found the sweet spot, and the door swung open, revealing a hallway beyond, with another hallway coming off it to the right. The route straight on simply led to rubble and ruin, but the hallway to the right led to what looked like a kitchen –

With an escaped convict in it, cooking something on the stove. I hastily had Victor back up so he could consider his options – unfortunately, the convict decided once he was done with his cooking that he ought to go and check the hallway, and thus came out as Victor was backing up. A quick look in VATS proved that Victor didn’t have much chance to hit with his 9mm, so I had him switch over to the varmint rifle as he was noticed and shoot the guy in the left arm and right leg. Sadly, Victor’s bullets didn’t do much –

And even worse, while the original guy did end up falling back after another shot or two, one of his friends ran in to help him! He successfully managed to cripple Victor’s head as I tried to manually fire on him while waiting for Victor’s AP to come back – and then, once I was done reading the pop-up on how one healed crippled body parts, managed to just straight-up kill Victor before I could do anything else. >( Jerk. Though at least I did manage to see that Deputy Beagle was in there before Victor cacked it – made me realize I was going in the right direction!

F) After a loading screen, I found Victor back in the gift shop, having just collected the caps from the counter (I think the game made an autosave there, as while I did drop a save there myself, it was BEFORE grabbing those caps). I had Victor redo merging his guns together, then had him swap over to the .357 Magnum he’d picked up as a possible better weapon for the upcoming fight, as it did more damage and had a slightly better DPS than the 9mm. I then had Victor venture into the sitting area again to regrab the goodies he’d found –

But while the Star bottle cap was still on the side table, the Sunset Sarsaparilla did not appear in the garbage can this time! >( Rude. Still, Victor needed to keep his thirst down, so I had him drink one of the ones he was carrying in his inventory, then go over and crack the maintenance door again (this time WITHOUT breaking a bobby pin, since now I knew where the sweet spot was) –

But then I thought, “You know what? Maybe I should explore this area a bit more before going through there. Especially since there’s a non-zero chance Victor will die again. Let’s drop a save here and keep looking around, why don’t we?” Thusly, after jimmying the maintenance door lock, Victor actually headed to the opposite side of the room, into a little side nook to the right of the main sitting area. Where he found a garbage can with three caps in it –

RIGHT NEXT TO A WATER FOUNTAIN. Halle-fricking-lujah! :D Granted, it was irradiated water, just like in the sheriff’s house, so Victor did take some rads from drinking it, but oh yes – so worth to get the H20 meter down! Even better, there was a Nuka-Cola machine tucked into the corner that still had two Nuka-Colas in it, and an Eatotronic 3000 on the wall next to that that, when opened, provided Victor with some mentats and a pack of bubblegum. :D Delightful haul indeed! There was also a door on the far wall that, when opened, revealed a stairwell so you could go check out the upper levels of the Bison Steve. As my target was very much on the first floor, I had Victor ignore that and instead leave the nook to investigate the next room ahead. This was another sitting area/hallway, with two doorways leading into what I think was one big room, with some more knocked-over tables inside serving as barricades –

And a convict, wandering around near the left-hand doorway. I had Victor very quickly back away as the guy vaguely noticed his presence, sneaking back around the corner and into the nook – fortunately, the convict was disinclined to investigate TOO thoroughly, and after walking forward a few steps, commented, “Guess it was nothing” and headed back into his little hidey-hole. *wipes brow* Whew – close one!

G) Having discovered that there were convicts dead ahead, I had Victor head back across the big sitting area and into the maintenance halls toward the kitchen, stopping at the entrance to observe the situation. Beagle proved to be tied up on the far side of some tables on the left of the room – unfortunately, it quickly transpired that getting to him would be tricky because the doors on the opposite side of the room, where the convicts were hanging out in what was probably some sort of event room or restaurant, were wide open. Not wanting to lose my progress again, I dropped a save, then had Victor proceed forward –

And promptly was very glad that I had saved, as he was near-immediately spotted by a convict with glasses! Happily, this time Victor was bit better prepared, and with the help of VATS, took him down in three shots with the Magnum – one in each arm, and one in his leg that split it apart at the knee. Sadly, the guy’s friends heard the commotion and came in to avenge him – and as they did, I learned something very annoying about the .357 Magnum –

ITS RELOAD SPEED IS SHIT. Like, seriously, it’s so fucking slow – and Victor is Agility 9, may I remind you! He has a natural advantage when it comes to reloading his guns quickly! I think it’s probably because it’s a revolver and thus needs to be reloaded bullet-by-bullet, but DAMN. *shakehead* Victor thus took a good few shots while scrambling to refill his gun, leading to the game warning me that his armor condition was getting dangerously low as I personally noted his HP was getting dangerously low! Desperate, I had him target a guy in VATS and shoot him in the arms (crippling one, fortunately), then run for cover behind the corner near the rubble as he finally finished his damn reload. A stimpack and a Nuka-Cola got his health out of “close to dying” range, and I had him peek around the corner to see what he could do. Which revealed there was a convict rushing up to him, in good range to be taken out via VATS shots to the head –

And another behind him FLINGING DYNAMITE. D: Because, yeah, they may not be officially CALLED such thanks to the lore saying the main group isn’t supporting them, but these ARE supposed to be Powder Gangers! Well, fuck. Victor managed to take out the guy closest to him with a headshot, sending his eyeballs flying, but unfortunately then nearly got taken out himself by a stick of dynamite going off nearby, which crippled one arm, one leg, and his torso. *wince* Fortunately, he still had a doctor’s bag, so he used that to get them back up to “hurting but not totally broken” status, then stabbed himself with both a regular and an expired stimpack to get some healing one before once again trying to get to the kitchen, as the dynamite-flinger was nowhere to be seen –

Only for someone to suddenly start shooting him. Baffled, I scurried around, trying to figure out where the hell the shots were coming from so I could kill whoever was trying to kill me...but I was nowhere near quick enough figuring it out, and by the time I realized that one of the convicts had managed to get behind Victor in the hallway, it was too late, and my boy had gone down. :( At least his head didn’t explode like that one guy’s?

H) So yeah, very helpful that I saved right at the door to the kitchen, isn’t it? Upon reload, I promptly had Victor back up a bit, to avoid immediate detection by wandering criminals, then popped into the Pip-Boy and had him switch back to his 9mm because FUCK that .357 Magnum and its slow reload, seriously. >( I also checked the time, out of curiosity – 8:40 PM on 10/27/2281, if you were curious – and had him eat a gecko steak so he wouldn’t miss dinner and could heal up a bit more. Once that was done, I noted that the usual Cooking Convict had come to fiddle with the stove –

And that had put Victor in [CAUTION], because apparently he’d been just a little too close. Fortunately, he had plenty of time to scurry down the hall and around the corner to avoid notice. A quick peek revealed that, yes, he was coming down the hall again – Victor ducked out of sight, and after a bit, the convict decided it had to have been nothing, dropping Victor back to [HIDDEN]. Victor then took another peek to see where the guy was and if maybe he’d turned around –

Which put him back in [CAUTION] again, as the guy JUST saw him and continued forward to see what was going on. Happily for Victor, this also lured the guy into ideal 9mm range, allowing him to pop out and line up a whooole lot of VATS shots on the guy’s head. Sadly, only the first one connected, as after that one the convict ducked and started trying to run away – happily, that shot did cripple said convict’s head, and allowed Victor to get him with a few manual shots as he tried to flee. Cue the guy hitting the floor, and Victor going back to [HIDDEN]. Hooray! :D Victor very cheerfully stole his varmint rifle, seven 5.56mm bullets, and seven NCR $5 bills. Considering he died twice in that stupid hallway to this guy and his buddies, he EARNED those goodies.

I) With Cooking Convict dead, it was time for Victor to finally go see if he could rescue Deputy Beagle from his captivity! He snuck into the kitchen, then – not seeing any other convicts around – went over to Beagle, who was kneeling with his hands tied behind one of the tables. After Victor stood up so they could actually chat (because the game assumes that if you’re crouched by someone, you’re trying to pickpocket them – kind of wish that was something you could toggle instead of HAVING to stand in a potentially-hostile area), Beagle greeted him with, “I don't suppose you came here to rescue me? I'd cross my fingers but my hands are numb.” Victor replied that he must be the missing deputy – Beagle confirmed he was and said it was a pleasure to meet Victor, adding “I'm in a bit of a per-dicament here. I'd be most appreciative if you'd set me free.” (Yes, the mispronunciation was intentional – Beagle’s the kind of guy who uses big words he can’t pronounce to try and sound more intelligent.) Victor, however, wanted to know how Beagle ended up a hostage first – Beagle admitted that “it's been the low point of my career in law enforcement…” before revealing that he was sleeping in the sheriff’s office when the Powder Gangers stole into the town and killed the sheriff and his wife – Beagle’s sister, remember – in their bed. Prompting Beagle to –

Hide in the shadows, watching the criminals and making all sorts of notes about what they were doing. He claimed he was waiting for “the right moment to pounce and arrest the lot of them,” but given what Johnson Nash said earlier – yeah. This asshole was just a coward and let the Powder Gangers kill his sister and brother-in-law in cold blood. >( Unfortunately for him, he was then spotted and dragged off here, where apparently he’s been ever since. Victor, disgusted but sadly needing the guy’s notes regarding what happened with Benny and his Khan friends, told Beagle he’d set him free now and undid the ropes –

Prompting Beagle to go, “Oh that's just marvelous. I think I'll be making my way outside now. The air's a little close in here.” *rolls eyes* Now, Victor actually did have just enough Speech skill to convince the jerk to stay with him and help fight the remaining convicts, but I decided against him trying to convince Beagle to stay for two reasons:

I. The line provided for the successful check, “If you try to run away instead of fighting at my side, I'll kill you myself,” didn’t sound very much like Victor in my opinion

II. I didn’t think Victor would want Beagle helping him fight the convicts – both because he thought the guy wouldn’t actually help (he didn’t help HIS OWN SISTER, after all), and because, as previously stated, he needed the guy alive to question about Benny and the Khans.

As such, Victor just let him go, grumbling “Sure, run away. You don't look like you'd be much help.” (Which also didn’t sound much like a Victor line to me, but it was the only dialogue option I had – probably in a fanfic situation, I’d have Victor encourage him to get to safety, then mutter “you wouldn’t be much help anyway” when he thought the guy was out of earshot.) An annoyed Beagle snapped back, “Then I'll defer to your superior appraisal of character and prowess in contests of arms and see you outside!” and snuck off into the hallway –

J) And right on cue, one of the convicts in the next room over started shooting at Victor. Because of course he was plainly visible because he’d had to stand up to talk to Beagle. *shakehead* Victor quickly got down again and ducked behind one of the nearby ovens for cover (stealing an iguana on a stick out of it, because hey, free food) –

Only for one of them to throw a stick of dynamite that exploded close enough to Victor to cripple both his legs. *wince* This was rapidly followed by two guys running to attack Victor in quick succession – one of them trying to punch him, one of them trying to shoot him and getting in the way of punching guy. However, this did put those two in ideal VATS range for Victor, and he ended blowing off the head of the guy trying to shoot him, before taking down the guy trying to punch him right after (who was actually identified as the leader of the group, so, yay!). The final guy, one of the hockey mask fellows, stayed at range in the doorway, but a combination of VATS and a few manual shots took him down, finally clearing the convicts from at least the first floor of the Bison Steve. Victor used his final doctor’s bag to fix up his legs (cripes, I hope I can find some more of those soon...or an actual doctor, that would be nice), then limped around looting the corpses for goodies, finding:

I. Five $5 NCR bills, another 9mm pistol, ten 9mm rounds, and an expired stimpack on the guy who lost his head

II. A set of leather armor and a rawhide cowboy hat on the leader – who, as it turned out, also had an incinerator and a decent amount of fuel for it, so why he ran in and tried to PUNCH Victor to death, I have no idea (though we are all very grateful he did)

III. And another five $5 NCR bills, another 9mm pistol, fourteen 9mm rounds, and a roll of duct tape off the final hockey mask guy

And with that, Victor was done for the day – mostly because a check of the time revealed it was almost 10:30 PM in the game world, and because I’d spotted a bed shoved into the corner of the kitchen and figured it was about time Victor got some rest before his sleep meter got too high. Cue our brave Courier Sixtor having a gecko steak and some dirty water as a late supper, then climbing onto the mattress and zonking out for six hours. I ended the playsession as he woke up the next morning around 4:30 AM, feeling decently refreshed – next time, we loot the actual kitchen (as there are goodies to be had out of the fridges) and maybe go upstairs to see if there’s more convicts to clear out! I’m sure the townsfolk would appreciate it, and every kill is a little more XP...


Workout/YouTube: I’m pleased to report that Jon of Many A True Nerd uploaded the latest episode of his “Worst Wanderer” series (aka, to me, The Prequel Of Useless Steve), “Fallout 3: The Worst Wanderer - Part 2 - Laid To Waste,” early enough today that I was able to spend my entire stationary bike ride watching it! :D Though I did still have to finish up the last nine minutes after supper. Which, uh, was not a problem, trust me. XD Anyway, today’s installment of The Adventures Of Useless Steve In The Capital Wasteland revolved around him getting weapons (because Jon never got the pristine-condition 10mm pistol you’re supposed to get off Amata in the Vault 101 escape sequence, thanks to letting her keep to defend herself in her interrogation and then forgetting to ask for it before he left the vault, meaning his sole ranged option was his childhood BB gun) and money to buy the schematics for the weapon he really wanted, the Rock-It Launcher (which shoots junk at enemies), off Moira in Megaton. How did that go? Well –

A) After discovering that, for some reason, Moira wasn’t selling any proper guns in her shop, Useless Steve grabbed the bottlecap mine off her workbench for later (wasn’t even stealing! Moira’s nice like that), then headed to Moriarty’s bar to see if he could engineer a situation where one NPC killed another so he could steal the dead guy’s stuff. Such an opportunity presented itself in the form of Mr. Burke, the sleazy guy who works for Alistair Tenpenny and tries to get you to slap a fusion charge on the bomb in the middle of town so Tenpenny can blow Megaton up and stop it spoiling his view. Steve accepted the fusion charge (after failing miserably at trying to convince Burke to give him more caps for the job – 4% Speech checks are no joke :P) –

But rather than put it on the bomb, brought it to town mayor/sheriff Lucas Simms and let him know what Burke was up to. Simms promptly ran off to confront Burke, Steve following close behind –

And then, in the two seconds it took Steve to pass through the loading zone, Simms and Burke had their confrontation and Simms ended up dead. Jon was a mite confused as to why the two men didn’t do their usual back-and-forth so the protagonist could see it, but still took advantage of the opportunity to steal Lucas Simms’s duster, hat, house key, and – most importantly – his Chinese Assault Rifle! Which, unfortunately, only had 14 bullets. However, Steve was not bothered by this, because Step Two of his plan was to go and murder Mr. Burke outside for his 10mm pistol (which he had loads of ammo for) –

Except...well. It appeared that Jon spent a tiny bit too long explaining what was SUPPOSED to happen to us before looting the body, because when he stepped outside, Useless Steve could not find Mr. Burke so he could batter him to death with a baseball bat. Apparently the guy had despawned. *sigh* Well, Useless Steve is useless – it only makes sense that his world would also be useless.


B) After failing to find Mr. Burke (but successfully demonstrating how the game handles it if Lucas Simms dies before you complete “Power Of The Atom” – basically his kid Harden shows up and acts as the back-up questgiver so you still get your reward), Useless Steve went and looted the Simms house now that he was allowed inside – grabbing a sledgehammer, a hunting rifle, and a box of Sugar Bombs cereal (because apparently he would need it later), then attempted to hit up Moira to buy some more ammo for the Chinese Assault Rifle. Unfortunately, in addition to not selling guns, Moira had also chosen to not sell the ammo type that the Assault Rifle needed. Jon began to suspect that she was trying to sabotage the run. XD He ended up buying some .308 ammo instead, then headed outside to go and find a secret cache of weapons he knew was hidden outside the town. Along the way, though, he encountered some mole rats, which – in an effort to save ammunition – he attacked with his new sledgehammer –

Aaaand discovered that he only had enough AP for one single swing of the damn thing in VATS. Oh dear. As a result of that combined with his generally-terrible melee stats, the first pair of mole rats nearly managed to kill him (he JUST held them off with his desperate swings), and the second pair that showed up as he reached the special rock he was looking for DID manage to kill him. Fortunately, when Steve arrived for the Reload Rematch, he smartly tipped the odds in his favor by doing a bunch of drugs – specifically Med-X (for the damage resistance), Psycho (for the damage increase), and Jet (for +30 AP, which allowed him to get TWO swings of the sledgehammer in per VATS round) – and managed to best the mole rats by the rock! Including the extra one that showed up after Steve killed the first two because he has Sneak 5 and thus everyone detects him. XD Which scored him access to the hollowed-out rock they’d been parked near and its goodies – including a sniper rifle (though, given Steve’s terrible Small Guns skill, Jon decided he’d actually be using it as a shotgun), 10 .308 rounds for it, two stimpacks, and a stealth boy! Plus a note from whoever dropped all these goodies off to whoever was supposed to be the ACTUAL recipient of all this stuff. Sorry, E – Useless Steve DESPERATELY needs all of this more!

C) After claiming the cache of weapons (and having some food to restore his health), Steve then headed back to Craterside Supply to pick up another quest from Moira – specifically, the one where she tasked him with heading toward the ghost town of “Minefield” to brave the landmines there and bring one back for her to study! Why? Because according to her, landmines were the most profitable hazard in the wasteland – disarm one before it blows, and it can be sold for caps! And disarming a landmine does not require any skills, just pressing a button in time – so ideal for Useless Steve! He thus set out on his grand journey –

Heading north through Springvale, then west underneath an overpass with a raider camp on it, because Steve wanted to visit a few other places on the way to Minefield. Unfortunately, his trip did not go well –

I. First, while passing under the overpass, he caught the attention of a couple of raiders, and in trying to run away from them, ran straight through a heavily-irradiated puddle and took at least 16 rads.

II. Then, when two of the raiders came off the overpass and started pursuing them, he tried to lure them into the bottlecap mine he got off Moira – only for them to go straight around it, tossing grenades at him

III. Then, when he managed to hit one of the raiders with a grenade and prepared to kill him with the sledgehammer, he discovered that there were actually THREE raiders in play – one throwing grenades, one shooting poor Steve. On the plus side, he managed to kill the original guy with his sledgehammer (knocking his head CLEAN off into the sky); on the minus side, said original guy had nothing good on him

IV. Then, when he tried to lure the raiders into some wild dogs he found wandering around so the two groups would attack each other, the dogs insisted on trying to attack him

V. THEN, when he finally managed to escape the chaos and end up in a situation where he only had ONE dog to deal with (though that one dog DID nearly kill him, forcing him to use his sole remaining dose of Jet so he could hit it twice in VATS), he suddenly found himself being shot again mid-fight – turned out a bloatfly had spotted him and had decided to join the party. Fortunately he managed to take it down pretty easy once he was done with the dog, but still!

Yeah – not a fun jaunt through the Wasteland for poor Steve! Kid is burning through stimpacks like there’s no tomorrow…

D) After surviving all THAT nonsense, Steve made it to Jury Street Station, which was supposed to be an entirely safe place for him to hang out for a bit – only for a woman to run up to him and beg him to help her, as some raiders had strapped some explosives to her and she was about to blow up! Because of course. Steve did actually try to disarm the bomb, but failed – strangely enough, though, the woman did not blow up, instead just running away. Jon noted that was very lucky for her. XD Anyway, after that interlude, Steve proceeded to the first destination on his list –

Gold Ribbon Grocers! Which had a very fun little Rube Goldberg machine someone had set up inside that Steve wanted to set off. He thus stood on the indicated pressure plate, watched as a battering ram set off a domino run of various cleaner and cereal boxes, ending with the last box hitting ANOTHER pressure plate, which activated a ball-throwing machine, which was supposed to set off an explosion by hitting a specific canister –

Except, uh, something ended up off-kilter and the canister never exploded (it was next to a triggered bear trap – maybe the trap was supposed to close on it and set it off?). Because, again, the wasteland is as useless as Steve this episode! Steve attempted to explode the canister with his BB Gun, but was ultimately forced to waste a good chunk of his limited Chinese Assault Rifle ammunition to blow up the canister, which blew up some grenades, which caused a wave of fire to zip through the back of the shop, which destroyed part of the ceiling and dropped a skeleton, some missiles, a mini-nuke, and two skillbooks (“Tumblers Today” for Lockpicking and “Nikola Tesla and You” for Science). And we all know how desperately Steve needs skillbooks! He was also naturally able to pick up some old pre-War food, including a whole bunch more Sugar Bombs! Though, interestingly, Jon said that Steve would NOT be eating these – apparently they were for a different purpose altogether… Sadly, though, Steve was NOT able to hang out inside the store to wait for his wounds to heal, as apparently Fallout 3 does not have a “heals you a tiny tiny bit every in-game hour” system that some of the other games have – you need to heal by sleeping in a bed. And when he went outside to try and find one, all he found was the same woman who had explosives strapped to her (who, after begging him for help again, finally blew up, allowing him to steal her better-quality sledgehammer), and the raiders who’d done the explosives strapping, forcing him to flee lest he die yet AGAIN. *shakehead* Life is tough for Useless Steve.

E) After the trip to the grocery store, Steve set out toward the northeast – where he was promptly attacked by another vicious dog and discovered that he could also only fire his “sniper shotgun” once in VATS because of his terrible terrible AP. *shakehead* Fortunately, he also discovered that chugging booze increased his damage enough (because alcohol in these games actually increases your Strength stat temporarily for some reason) that he was able to kill the dog and get away. Even better, as he continued onward, he discovered a scavenger and his dog having it out with a protectron. The pair easily killed the robot, allowing Steve to swoop in and loot the corpse –

And then, when the scavenger told him, “hey, keep away, that Enclave stuff is mine,” SELL THE LOOTED ITEMS TO THE SCAVENGER. XD Which is such a clever little trick I’m surprised it showed up in a Useless Steve run. This scored Steve some caps and some more Med-X, which was very good, as his very next destination –

Proved to be Vault 106. AKA the vault where they released weird gas into the vents to make the people inside hallucinate and eventually go mad. However, there were some goodies inside that Jon wanted for Steve – and given that the enemies were all vault dwellers in non-armored vault suits, using melee weapons, Jon was pretty sure that even Useless Steve could take them. Or, at least, the ones on the upper levels – Jon had no interest in sending Steve down to the bottom to meet the boss, The Survivor. Anyway, he went ahead and sent Steve inside, looted a few odds and ends out of the front room, then began heading further into the vault, scoring a set of Recon armor out of a locker and dealing with a weird purple hallucination of multiple Jameses working in a science lab (because hallucinations are this vault’s thing) –

And then he ran into his first Insane Survivor and immediately started having problems. Because while the guy was trying to attack him with just a standard baton, as a melee enemy, he was in fact fairly decent at blocking Steve’s attacks with the sledgehammer (even after he loaded himself up with Vodka, Med-X, and Psycho) – and because of Steve’s general uselessness and how much the guy was dodging and weaving around, when Steve tried to shoot him with the Chinese Assault Rifle, he scored maybe two or three hits before running out of ammo for it. And then missed an 82% chance to hit the guy’s head in VATS with the sniper shotgun. Honestly, the ONLY reason Steve actually won that fight was because he somehow got the guy to drop his weapon and was able to batter him to death before he could pick it up. ...what was that about thinking Steve could take the enemies in this vault again, Jon? XD

F) After that mess (and failing to find any beds he could sleep in to try and restore his health, forcing him to use more traditional healing methods), Steve continued on into the living quarters area – where his attempt to murder a guy on the opposite side of the catwalk he found himself on by using the sniper rifle as an actual sniper rifle was interrupted by a second guy showing up to hit him with another baton. Fortunately, Steve was able to shoot him in the head, run around him, and – when his friend showed up to help – hit the pair with a frag grenade before leaping over the railing through the hole in the floor and running into the very room he was hoping to enter anyway to hide from then until they lost interest. This room just so happened to be full of ammo boxes and random spare ammunition, so Steve had high hopes when he started looting it once he returned to [HIDDEN] –

Only to find stuff like energy cells, and microfusion cells, and shotgun ammo, and darts for the dart gun. All stuff Steve couldn’t use because he didn’t have any matching guns. Jon was like “I have NEVER been so unlucky when it comes to getting ammo out of boxes.” XD Steve still grabbed it all (as it was at least shit he could sell later), picked up the couple of frag mines that were on the shelf along with some “vendor trash” items (mainly cartons of cigarettes), then prepared to head out –

Only for all his drugs to wear off. Which was a problem, as the two guys from before were still wandering around upstairs. Meaning Steve immediately went into [CAUTION] when he exited the room. However, upon nearly being noticed by one guy, Jon realized that there was actually an opportunity here and goaded the guy into seeing and coming for Steve. Reason being, Jon knew that there was only way down to Steve – through a certain corridor –

And Steve had just picked up some land mines. Cue Steve laying a trap for the Insane Survivor, then luring him over to the entrance of the ammo room and knocking off his final few hit points with his sledgehammer. And then, when the other guy showed up suddenly, Steve was able to basically toss his other mine at his feet and knock him over, allowing him to get in a bunch of free hits with his sledgehammer! Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to kill the guy, and when Steve tried to get in a VATS swing, he became like the only Fallout character on earth to miss a VATS melee attack at close range –

But fortunately, shortly thereafter, Jon remembered that blocking was something the player character could do as well, and blocked the guy’s attacks until he could finally smash him over the head and kill him. And loot six frag grenades from his body, which Jon decided made the whole trip worth it. XD

G) After that was sorted, Steve continued his trip deeper into the vault (having to go around an Easy-locked door because there was no way he was getting through it with his shitty lockpicking), going down the corridor toward the bedrooms and enjoying a hallucination where he was able to read messages from his own brain on imaginary terminals running “Brain Softworks” telling him that this place is great and that they should relax and enjoy the blue and just stay here forever (fortunately Steve was not swayed, because this was him and he has Charisma 1, Speech 5), before heading down some stairs –

And running into two more Insane Survivors with batons. Steve promptly ran back the way he’d come, dropping a grenade almost at his feet in the hopes that it would catch his pursuers in the blast radius –

And it did! And another grenade lobbed in their general direction did even more damage! The third sadly fell too far behind them, but luckily for Steve, one of the guys got distracted and ran off in a random direction, leaving him with just one to deal with. And NOW Steve knew how to handle these enemies – block, get in a few hits while the guy was staggered, block again, another few hits, then finish them off in VATS. :D He then went looking for the other guy in an adjoining room, discovering a grenade box (sadly empty – though Jon was of the opinion that the guy who had six grenades had probably taken them from that box, meaning he’d gotten the goods anyway), a mine box (with three frag mines, yay), and his target –

Merged into a bookcase. Because Fallout 3. *facepalm* Enough of him was sticking out for Steve to kill him, at least! Which, yes, does feel very much like a mercy kill, given otherwise he would have been stuck in a bookcase for the rest of his days. XD

H) After that whole detour, Steve then went back upstairs onto the catwalk and, after looting the classroom for anything useful (just a cartoon of cigarettes – gotta start ‘em when they’re young, apparently), headed around into a big old sciencey office where one last Insane Survivor lurked. Steve hit him with a grenade to cripple his legs (Jon admitting that he was coming around to grenades in FO3, which was weird because he’d always said they were shit before), then did the whole “block – hit while staggered – block again” dance with the guy until he was able to take him down (Jon being like “I should NOT be doing a melee run with this character but I guess that’s how things are going to work right now” all the while XD). And his ultimate prize for all this nonsense?

Why, no less than the Science Bobblehead, instantly adding a precious ten points to Steve’s Science skill! Which, you know, brought it up to a whole 15, but that’s better than it was, damn it. *nods* You gotta take what wins you can when you’re useless!

And so the episode ended with Steve leaving the vault, selling what junk he could to the traveling scavenger before the guy ran out of caps, then hopping up on a nearby rock to survey the landscape and hopefully not immediately get savaged by anything. Next week, Steve continues his journey northward, stopping to meet some very important people along the way who might be able to give him some tools to make him not quite as useless. Looking forward to it! :D


*nods* Not bad for a Sunday. And now I really need to go to be before I stay up til almost 3 AM again. Tomorrow, only solid plans are work on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts, get some writing done (as I need to get back to work on "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland"), and get in a workout -- we'll see what else I manage to cram in! Night all!