Fallout VII - Vault-Tec calling

[Avilan the Grey]

I've never found it worth my while to plunder a location without the added incentive of a quest for XP, personally. But then I tend to be insanely thorough in my cleaning out of locations, hence my regular use of vertibird signal grenades. Then again, I'm also not a very aggressive builder, my minimalist settlements are designed to keep me in the field as much as is feasible. That said, I really do want to get a vacuum hopper set up in my main settlement, so as to improve my quality of life.

The one thing I'll say in favor of a water purification plant, it's not mutually exclusive with scrap stations or farming. In light of this, what are peoples' designs for turret towers and other planned fortifications? I mostly just perch machine gun turrets on convenient rooftops.

I do that, plus usually make simple gun towers by using the "floor with stilts" and put four turrets on it. I have also started using a "gatehouse without a gate" version where I connect two of those with one or two floors (like a bridge) across entrance roads and then stick turrets on them.

[Togath]

Hey... does luck, by itself, affect loot at all?
Or do you need perks to improve stuff?

[The_Jackal]

Hey... does luck, by itself, affect loot at all?
Or do you need perks to improve stuff?

Nope, you need the perks.

[Balmas]

The one thing I'll say in favor of a water purification plant, it's not mutually exclusive with scrap stations or farming. In light of this, what are peoples' designs for turret towers and other planned fortifications? I mostly just perch machine gun turrets on convenient rooftops.

That depends on the settlement, but generally it's some variation of wall. Sanctuary has a 3-high concrete wall all the way around. Turrets rest on 1x2 platforms held up with struts.

Other times I just say "Screw it," and build a walled-in 2x2 trap platform where enemies spawn. Of course, it doesn't help if you're not there, but I can pretend that they'll spawn and immediately get impaled.

Oh btw speaking of farming or getting money to buy shipments...
Another thing is to take advantage of the loot respawn and go plunder a vault every 7 days. tend to have tons of rare stuff.

Eh. I'll be honest, it kind of bothers me that locations respawn at all. Every time I come through an area and go, "How nice of the raiders to restock all the cash registers with pre-war money," it's another little immersion-breaking niggle.

I mean, I can understand why they do it. Gotta make sure that players never run out of things to shoot, loot, and retrieve, or else the game would get dull even more quickly.

[Triaxx]

I'm partial to two approaches: Option A) later in the game is curved Concrete walls, with the curved top pieces on the top. Place Heavy Machine Guns up there and put them in a triangle and there's no room for enemies to take cover at the base, because it's not got corners.

Option B) is using the scaffolding from Wasteland Workshop, with a floor, and the gun of my choice on top. It's much cheaper using only steel and wood, plus the turrets. It does make running power easier, but also is more vulnerable, since the power is left hanging out.

I really wish there was more turret variety, without being just nastily over powered.

[Togath]

Hmm... assuming I don't use console commands, does starting with a 10 in a stat cripple my others too much early on?

[factotum]

Hmm... assuming I don't use console commands, does starting with a 10 in a stat cripple my others too much early on?

Depends on what build you're going for. Some builds require heavy investment in a single stat, some you can get away with spreading the points around a bit more. However, you know about the "You're SPECIAL" book in your old house that will boost one of your stats by 1 point, right? Since that's there you can max out a stat at 9 and know you'll be able to top it off when you come out of the Vault.

What you really want to be doing is figuring out how your perk progression fits in, though. Generally I'll only spend a level-up on increasing a stat if I don't have any useful perks to assign at that level, and that can be tricky if the build you're doing has a lot of required perks.

[Togath]

Admittedly, I have been torn between spreading my stats or... well, trying to exploit stuff to get at least one to 11-12(supposedly you can debuff yourself and the use that "You're Special" book to hit a 12)...
...but I'm starting to think a run with fewer/no "exploit one or most stats past cap" things might be more fun. And way less monotonous(looked it up, and a full "six 11s + one 12" build would require waiting until level 44 to get your first non-stat perk).

[Mando Knight]

Depends on what build you're going for. Some builds require heavy investment in a single stat, some you can get away with spreading the points around a bit more. However, you know about the "You're SPECIAL" book in your old house that will boost one of your stats by 1 point, right? Since that's there you can max out a stat at 9 and know you'll be able to top it off when you come out of the Vault.

What you really want to be doing is figuring out how your perk progression fits in, though. Generally I'll only spend a level-up on increasing a stat if I don't have any useful perks to assign at that level, and that can be tricky if the build you're doing has a lot of required perks.

On the other hand, boosting a stat to 12 is only possible by getting it up to 10 before adding the SPECIAL book or the stat's associated Bobblehead.

[tonberrian]

Can you still get the multiple You're SPECIAL glitch working?

[Triaxx]

Basically you want to use withdrawals to artifically depress the stats, to get you down from the eleven to at least 9. Though INT is easier since booze will drop it handily, and so will a couple other drugs I believe.

[Avilan the Grey]

WOrrying:
I just had the "Robot loses all its parts and defaults to naked protectron" glitch happening. In the commonwealth, not connection to far harbor. Admittedly it was a freshly built robot; I released it from the workbench and sent it off to a settlement. When I fast traveled there it was naked, so I had to cheat myself enough material to rebuild it. After that it stayed okay.

[The_Jackal]

Hmm... assuming I don't use console commands, does starting with a 10 in a stat cripple my others too much early on?

Not a bit. I started my survival game with 10 int, then did the beer/special book trick to get 11. I'm level 47 now and going strong. Don't let your endurance go too low, however.

[Avilan the Grey]

I have decided that the only way to get an unique uniform, so to speak is to switch to Vault suits. SO I have edited the scripts.

The rules are now simple:
Everyone gets Vault 111 (new) suits except people actually from other vaults (Curie etc) that get their suits. Including settlers from 88 who get 88 vault suits (new).

This includes salesmen.

The only difference is guards, who get the vault suit + full robot armor including assaultron helmets.

[Triaxx]

I've taken to swapping all the settlers into Road Leathers, or Cage Armor for guards. The helmeted variety for the guys with Miniguns. Later on, I go with Military Fatigues and Sentry Helmets for the Minigunners with full Sturdy Combat Armor, or Light Combat Armor and Assaultron Helmets for my snipers.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You know, I really don't like how FO4 cheats with enemy placement. No, I'm not just talking about spawning rules, that's easy enough to exploit. I'm talking about how if you build a wall around your settlement with a single well-guarded gate, the enemies will just spawn inside your base, without bothering to spawn at their 'normal' spawn points.

You'd figure a wall would make your settlement safer, but nooooo... it actually makes things ridiculously dangerous for everyone if you build a wall.

Would seriously like to have a mod to fix that.

[Avilan the Grey]

You know, I really don't like how FO4 cheats with enemy placement. No, I'm not just talking about spawning rules, that's easy enough to exploit. I'm talking about how if you build a wall around your settlement with a single well-guarded gate, the enemies will just spawn inside your base, without bothering to spawn at their 'normal' spawn points.

You'd figure a wall would make your settlement safer, but nooooo... it actually makes things ridiculously dangerous for everyone if you build a wall.

Would seriously like to have a mod to fix that.

There are mods to fix that, I think.

However, there are a few things that you have to keep in mind:

1. Certain places have actual spawn points inside the settlement (Hangman's alley, there is a mod that forces the spawnpoints outside the buildable area).
2. If you make the settlement unreachable from a spawn point (closed gates, covering the whole settlement in a building with locked doors) the game will move the spawn to a point where there's a theoretical chance the enemy can hurt you. *
3. This means even though it is not the most aesthetical choice, it is always better to leave a clear path in that is reachable from all spawnpoints around a settlement. You can always make a maze and a tower defense system if you prefer to just have an open hole in a wall.

Edit: To clarify, this also means cases where you have a hole in the wall in one place, but one spawn point can't reach it (due to environment blocking) enemies spawning at that spawnpoint will be moved closer.

[Triaxx]

The game also cheats if you fast travel. If you have a save with a settlement under attack, and run there, say Sanctuary to County Crossing, you'll find the enemies still pushing in from the spawn points. But if you fast travel, they'll have scaled the walls somehow. Which is why Turret towers are so much better in most cases.

[Balmas]

I think that's what Shneekey is talking about, though. It's incredibly frustrating that if you make a settlement that makes sense--where raiders have no chance of threatening your settlement because of good wall design and strategically placed turrets--the game will cheat. Because screw you, you need to care about your settlements more.

[Triaxx]

Just the hazard of fast traveling.

Though I am amused by people now complaining Fast Travel has an effect, when for many years, the complaints were all about nothing happening when the player wasn't around as a witness.

[Mutazoia]

The game also cheats if you fast travel. If you have a save with a settlement under attack, and run there, say Sanctuary to County Crossing, you'll find the enemies still pushing in from the spawn points. But if you fast travel, they'll have scaled the walls somehow. Which is why Turret towers are so much better in most cases.

Things like walls and such, don't actually "exist" until you enter the cell. This keeps the load on the CPU to manageable levels. Think of a time when you fast traveled into Sanctuary Hills, and saw a pack Brahamin inside one of the houses, despite not being able to fit through the door.

Basically all the mobs (mobile objects such as settlers or raiders) move around freely, until the walls are rendered (by necessity) by your entering the cell, one way or another. So it really doesn't matter if you fast travel or not, you're going to get the same effect. The Devs just made "Fast Travel" actually take time in the game, as if you really ran that distance, rather than making it a form of teleportation

[Avilan the Grey]

For a stealth-blade assaultron... What damage type am I going for? Radiation is out because it basically only hurt humans. I have tesla coil torso. BUT, am I going for pure melee damage, or poison or bleed?

[Triaxx]

Yes and no on walls. See if you fast travel, Fallout 4 calculates the time taken and the speed a Raider can move and then places them there, meaning they can teleport through the walls. But if you come back on foot or via a Vertibird, the Raider does not move forward from their initial spawn point because they don't exist until you're in range either. So for the purpose of Fast Travel, walls don't exist. But for traveling on foot, Raiders don't either, until you arrive, and since the game has not then calculated their movement, they haven't moved past the spawn point.

Go Bleed, not only does it stack, but it stacks on things that shouldn't bleed at all, like Robots, or Ghouls. I assume you're using head lasers to stack on additional damage?

[Togath]

Nya, settings question. What is most likely to be behind textures turning in to a rainbow-pixel-mess at a distance meow?

[Mando Knight]

Nya, settings question. What is most likely to be behind textures turning in to a rainbow-pixel-mess at a distance meow?

Is this similar to what you're seeing? If so, some people running into the same problem have reported that adjusting the graphics driver settings (disable Surface Format Optimization, and possibly Texture Filtering Quality to Performance) or reinstalling/rolling back the drivers helped.

[Togath]

That is indeed it!.
Are those settings in the driver itself, or ones from the game?

[Mando Knight]

That is indeed it!.
Are those settings in the driver itself, or ones from the game?

Those settings should be in your driver's control panel, wherever it handles the settings for 3D rendering.

[thirsting]

Oh dang it. Should have paid attention when people have been complaining about 4th Fallout not feeling like Fallout. It's.... basically Borderlands with bits of Minecraft thrown in?

Is there anything like Enderal (Skyrim total conversion mod) for it yet? As is, I don't really want to play it (after ~12 hours).

[Spore]

Oh dang it. Should have paid attention when people have been complaining about 4th Fallout not feeling like Fallout. It's.... basically Borderlands with bits of Minecraft thrown in?

Come on, it's at least not as tedious as Borderlands, and creatively more restricting than Minecraft....uhm. FO 4 is a shooter with story elements.

Is there anything like Enderal (Skyrim total conversion mod) for it yet? As is, I don't really want to play it (after ~12 hours).

I don't think so. The mod community is pretty small compared to Skyrim.

[Triaxx]

Give it a bit, it grows on you. The only TC I know of is FROST, which turns it into a just post bomb survival Sim.

Edit: Forgot about Horizon, which is a complete game overhaul, though I'm not fan of it's methodology.

And Youtube flagged this for me: http://www.falloutcascadia.com/ Which looks kind of hilariously as though it's doing the same thing as Frontier that we've also been waiting for but taking a Fallout 4 take on it.