Saturday!
(Note from Maribou: The following essay deals with Fallout 4. Again. While I sort of suspect that any of you who will be playing the game HAVE been playing the game, I still wanted to warn that there be (trivial, non-plot-related) spoilers ahead.)
While I’ve mentioned that I miss the old Karma system in the game, I’ve found that there’s, kind of, a next best thing. Companions can approve (or disapprove) of the various things you do. Codsworth likes it when you upgrade one of your weapons (give your handgun a comfort grip? Codsworth digs that sort of thing.) Piper likes it when you break into stuff with a hairpin (she’s a reporter? I guess?) *BUT* also likes it when you are “nice” (in the pre-war sense of the term). She doesn’t like it when you eat corpses. There are a lot more companions out there who are more than happy enough to judge you for stuff you do (and some of them approve of really weird stuff).
Anyway, while you won’t get the omniscient game to approve or disapprove of any of your actions, it’s nice to know that the game still has ways to give you a thumbs up or a thumbs down for doing the right (or wrong) thing. Well, if you’re with one of the likable companions, anyway.
But after you’ve got one of them as a companion, you should dress them up!!! You already know that you can make your companions accessorize, right? It’s a little tricky insofar as you can’t just give them the outfit you want them to wear, you also have to equip it for them. (Triangle if you’re playing on the PS4.) While you are probably already down with the whole “put halfway decent armor on your human companions” protip, I’ve learned that Dogmeat can wear welding goggles (AWESOME) and Codsworth can wear one of the triggermen bowler hats (EVEN MORE AWESOME).
As such, I’ve decked them out accordingly.
So… what are you doing in Fallout 4? (Or are you playing something else?)
(Picture is “Untitled” by our very own Will Truman. Used with permission.)
I’m still playing Thea… I can’t really review the midgame because like all 4x games (and roguelikes, which it also resembles) – you can’t really experience the midgame until you’ve mastered the beginning, and then you can’t experience the endgame until you’ve mastered the midgame…
Also like a roguelike, it’s tuned pretty hard. Maybe not “Dark Souls” hard, but it’s damn unforgiving. Keep your eye off of the resources you need, or try to tackle a tougher foe than you are capable of (or even too many foes at your level) and you will pay.
It’s kept me rapt for more than 24 hours played, which puts it ahead of the Wasteland reboot and behind only the XCOM reboot and the Shadow Warrior reboot on my list for the past year.
On that note, when will we ever see an Interstate ’76 reboot?Report
I didn’t realise you could re-equip your followers.Report
If you give them a gun, you also need to give them ammo. So don’t forget the ammo!Report
I just leave them their default gun, because infinite ammo for that one. 🙂
I often change their equipment, though.
I’ve taken to putting hats on settlers when I assign them a job. (Currently I have just enough on food, with everyone else working scavenging stations).
I’m also playing my way through Knights of the Old Republic II, with the Sith Lords restoration mod. 🙂Report
I’ve taken to putting hats on settlers when I assign them a job.
Oh, my gosh. This is brilliant.Report
(Currently I have just enough on food, with everyone else working scavenging stations).
See, that seems like a clever plan, but in reality scavenging stations are not very helpful. You have to constantly check back and grab the stuff and scrap it, too, or its use is restricted to just that settlement. (Settlements can share supplies, not other junk.)
What you actually want is caps. And if you want random junk, just *buy* random junk, or even better, buy the random junk that is useful stuff…or, even better than that, just buy the ‘Shipments’ of things.
It all comes together when you realize that ‘shops’ times ‘people _not_ assigned to jobs’ equals ‘caps’.
I have, basically, a mall in operation at the driveup movie place. (Hint, it’s the *barrels* that are radioactive, not the water. Just scrap the damn barrels.) A shop of every kind, and 12 or so idle people to shop.
I’m not sure where they’re getting the money from, but it’s a few hundred caps every time I wander by.Report
I don’t have the ability to make shops OR move supplies between settlements. I’m only level 13 or 14 and I’ve been prioritizing other perks. (Luck ones, Gun Nut, hacking/lockpicking, Armorer, Scrapper, Science!).
The Local Leader stuff is next. I want stores in Sanctuary.Report
It’s too bad, however, that you can’t exclude their equipped weapons from the “take all” function. If I load them up with all my extra junk, I have to take everything, then re-initiate a conversation and select trade and give them back the weapon and equip it. Either that or have to take dozens of items one at a time.
Outfits are excluded from this. They are worn and become invisible from the inventory. Armor works like weapons.
I’m hoping a mod will come out to fix this.Report
I hit level 51 last night. If I replay FO4, there’s two actions I will do differently (mid-game spoilers):
1. I will completely avoid the Travis quest. I greatly preferred when the radio host was fumbling and nervous. It was too late to revert to a previous save by the time I decided I didn’t like his new personality as much.
2. I will delay triggering the arrival of the BoS. They have a tendency to get into fights at the place I’m going to and steal my kills. Not to mention the vertibirds constantly falling out of the sky. OTOH, I was able to pick up a full set of power armor from one of their corpses. I have a nice collection of unused power armor sitting in Sanctuary.Report
Oh, good! I was worried that level 50 was the cap and I was getting stingy with my points. I can spend them like water again!Report
There’s no set level cap and from what I understand some quest givers will give out random quests indefinitely.
I went kinda nuts after I found out that the amount of XP you receive was determined by your intelligence. I started with Intelligence at 10, and with gear, bobblehead, and 2nd rank Night Person, I’m usually sitting at 17. Due to Night Person, I generally do most of my adventuring at night, so I sleep a lot and usually also have Well Rested or Lover’s Embrace.Report
There’s no set level cap and from what I understand some quest givers will give out random quests indefinitely.
Which is fine when it’s something like ‘Find the doodad in a building’ and you can just choose to not talk to them to get the next quest.
It’s a bit more annoying when it’s people getting goddamn kidnapped all the time.Report
That’s why they included the “pay the danegeld” option. Show up. “HERE’S 300 CAPS JEEZ”. Leave.Report
I have moral objections to paying kidnappers.
I just keep hoping that, logically, within this universe, some raider is going to say ‘Maybe we shouldn’t kidnap people from Minutemen protected settlements anymore? Or try to extort them? Because literally everyone that has ever done that has ended up dead? So maybe a different plan?’
Of course, at this point, I don’t even bother killing them all anymore. A quarter of the kidnappings are in a place where I just walk in and don’t have to kill anyone, just turn to the left twice and untie a guy. And another quarter just have the guy down some stairs.
And a strange amount are at the Medford Hospital, by *Super Mutants*, which means I can shoot the dumbass Suicider, plow straight up the stairs, and get the guy. The real question is, WTH did Super Mutants start kidnapping people for *ransom*? Huh?
What I’ve recently discovered is that while the kidnapping, and all other settlement things, *do* have a timer (I’ve read it’s three days, dunno.), what you can do is do them, talk to the Settlement quest giver, but then *not* talk to Preston again. (Don’t not talk to the Settlement quest giver, or you will auto-fail when time expires, even if the settler did make it back?!)
And I don’t mean ‘turn in the quest to Preston, but run away before he can give you another’. Just don’t talk to him at all. You won’t get another of the same type until you turn it in to him, or until the quest auto-completes when the timer expires. This is why I keep him up at Sanctuary instead of where I keep everyone else(1), at Red Rocket.
1) Well, I don’t keep *all* my companions there, considering that a few of them are working for opposing sides in this three-way war I’ve accidentally become two double agents in, and the real question is how long I can string along the BoS and the Institute before they figure out I’m actually working for the Railroad. Also, why was I (as I expected), able to betray at least one of the Institute’s plans to the RR, but have failed to even have the *chance* to explain to the RR that I’m spying inside the BoS *also*? Maybe this comes later, but I’d sure like their advice about, since the BoS somehow figured out I got into the Institute (Which is *really* weird for them to have figured out and making me paranoid of spies), whether or not I should give the BoS access to the Institute like they want? I feel if I don’t do that, they won’t trust me, and such a thing *could* be helpful to the plan, but the RR really *needs to know* the BoS has access or that could be a complete cluster.
Also, technically, are you a triple agent if you are spying on A, and telling B you’re spying on A for them, but in reality you’re working for C and spying on A (and B) for them? Or is it only a triple agent if you’re spying on A for B but actually working for A?Report