Fallout VIII: Another Thread Needs Your Help General

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Yep. And Hardcore mode is pretty good, in my opinion. It adds extra dimensions and difficulty to the game (ammo has weight, crippled limbs need doctor bags to heal, stimpacks heal over time, and the Courier needs to eat, drink, and sleep to remain effective). It forces you to make difficult choices on what to bring and what to leave at home, and makes firefights more intense because ammo is more limited and healing slower, but doesn't go too far as to ruin the game. Now you have a reason to cook food or carry doctor bags, and ammo has weight but not enough to be crippling. I found it really added to the experience when playing New Vegas without making it unpleasant.

Eh, it's only really relevant in the VERY early game, and even then, Gecko Steaks and Fresh Water will keep you going until you get established. Once you hit NOVAC and save the rancher's brahmin, you pretty much have unlimited steaks from there on out. Plus you can put together Caravan Lunches pretty easily. The biggest thing is ammo weight, really, and even then only for Honest Hearts. It means you are actually careful about storing ammo you aren't using, and that's about it.

It's not bad, but it's not particularly challenging after the early game.

[Calemyr]

Eh, it's only really relevant in the VERY early game, and even then, Gecko Steaks and Fresh Water will keep you going until you get established. Once you hit NOVAC and save the rancher's brahmin, you pretty much have unlimited steaks from there on out. Plus you can put together Caravan Lunches pretty easily. The biggest thing is ammo weight, really, and even then only for Honest Hearts. It means you are actually careful about storing ammo you aren't using, and that's about it.

It's not bad, but it's not particularly challenging after the early game.

That's kind of the point. NV's Hardcore mode is set up to add to the game. "Hmm, I probably should eat before I tackle that dungeon. Fortunately, I have some efficient and transportable meals handy that will take care of it." It is a complication, yes, but it's not a burden.

Fo4's Survival mode is set up to dominate the game. "Okay. Okay. *wheeze* I'm about... a quarter? Really? Crap. A quarter of the way to Diamond City and I've already burnt ten pounds of food and water. I really hope I kill something I can cook before I hit Oberland Station, or I'm screwed." This most definitely is a burden. Food is scarce, heavy, and deplenishes too quickly. I know it's realistic. I don't mind realism. I like realism in my games. But games are supposed to be fun, not realistic. Don't make the game a chore just because you want some extra realism. I'm fighting big green mutants and zombies with laser guns and heavily armored, nuclear powered humanoid tanks in post-apocalyptic Boston where transistors were never invented. Realism isn't exactly what's happening, here.

[Triaxx]

Depends on how heavily you invest in Survival. I rarely bother because there are so many more important things to get. That said, there are always enemies around and they always have loot just waiting to be taken and consumed. Also scavenging the desert will often give you everything you need to survive.

I'm fine with Fallout 4's Survival Difficulty. It's not that big of a deal. And my preferred character's a power armor user, so weight is no problem, though I did add Salvage Beacons to haul junk back and a mod to let me jump out of Vertibirds. Otherwise it didn't bother me. I knew where things were and how to get what I needed to survive.

[Brookshw]

Agreed, Hardcore/Survival mode in either game gets trivial pretty quick. If you want a hard time of it consider the mods Dust for NV or Frost for F4, they're immensely harder and more challenging, expect to die a lot and be resource starved.

[GloatingSwine]

New Vegas' survival mode is mostly good for making healing take place over time and giving ammo weight.

The needs bars are mostly not so relevant.

[Triaxx]

It does help to play with Project Nevada, which increases the speed the bars go up, but not to the point it's impossible to keep up with them, but to make them more of a pressing concern without being the 'most important thing'. It also has the option to remove healing from food.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Once I'm done with my current character I'll probably give it a shot. Mostly for the achievement, as mentioned, but it will be interesting to have stimpaks become HOTs and ammo have weight. My normal characters have so much ammo it can effectively be used as coinage. And food might actually be useful?

Now for a lore question of sorts. I don't need to spoiler any of this, right?

Running through Old World Blues largely blind, I was genuinely taken aback by the final confrontation with Mobius. He was more like a sad, lonely old man clearly suffering from excess chem usage instead of the bombastic supervillain I had come to expect from his broadcasts.

And then I find out he's been keeping the Think Tank locked in the MT by (as I understand it) altering their memories and perceptions. One of Ulysses logs I found in Lonesome Road seems to imply that even if you can get through to the Think Tank (they recognise his flag and tell him stories about America), they'll forget soon afterward. And that to me is effectively a living nightmare. When I brought the dog bowl to that guy who had a dog (Borous?) it seemed to actually affect him, but then he just pushes it aside. Would it stick, if his mind hadn't been altered? If Mobius really believed them to be a threat to the world, he could have just killed them for real. Or maybe by that point his own mental state had been too compromised, or maybe he still considered them friends and didn't want to.

I ended the DLC by tricking them into thinking I was Mobius, and though the ending slides seem to lean toward this being a good ending, I'm not so sure. Did we actually break through their delusions, or are their minds still stuck in the loop that Mobius put them in?

[Serenity]

They haven't broken out of the loop--that's the point. Left to their own devices, they would subject the entire Mojave and eventually beyond to their Science!, and the stuff that's already slipped out passively in limited quantities is bad enough. There actually was a cut 'bad ending' for OWB in which you join the Think Tank and let them loose:

"In the decades following the Battle of Hoover Dam, the Big Empty remained a desolate stretch of wasteland, where few travelers dared venture.

In time, however, a strange blue field began to grow, slowly spreading across the Big Empty.

Lightning-blue fields of force danced on the horizon, like electrical storms.

People whispered of "floating spheres," flickering like a rainbow of torches in the desert like Old World wisps.

Then communities began to vanish.

Goodsprings was crushed beneath bizarre hexcrete blocks that stacked to the sky. The inhabitants of Primm winked out, flesh-fried into X-ray silhouettes, their arms raised in surrender.

A satellite fell on Jacobstown, beaming a kaleidoscope of bright blue equations into the deranged Nightkin minds, driving some berserk, paralyzing others.

Black Mountain Radio began broadcasting a strange staccato static as hordes of giant man-eating battle Brahmin began to swarm from its peak.

Camp Searchlight became a garden of giant carnivorous plants, and the Colorado river... "shrugged" one day, drowning several communities as its contours adjusted themselves.

The Gomorrah became home to a particularly virulent vegetation-based STD that grew like a fungus within victim's genitalia until their bodies burst open like pods.

The Legion East were systematically brain-scrubbed and rebuilt so that all the inhabitants believed they were in ancient Rome... on the moon.

...and the human cattle of NCR were re-educated into believing they existed in perpetuity in a nation-wide version of someplace called "Tranquility Lane."

In the end, no one was sure who had cracked the Dome of the Big Empty, although it was clear someone had been playing with forces they did not understand.

Throughout all this, the Think Tank was industrious, confident these experiments were all for the best, the results of the data they obtained - incredible.

They marveled that all of this had been waiting for them to come along and experiment since the war.

Humanity certainly was persistent, no matter what experiments, nuclear holocaust or otherwise, it inflicted on itself."

Would killing them be more merciful? Perhaps so. But they were Mobius' friends for all they were insane, and to his mind, at least this way they were alive and, after a fashion, happy.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

In light of that 'bad ending' I can see why Mobius would be concerned. Though in this case, the jailor is losing his mind as much as the prisoners are. Guess that's why pretending to be him was the option presented.

Also a rather funny and anti-climactic thing happened on my way to Mobius. During the battle with the giant robot scorpion, I managed to kill it after only activating the distraction robots and shooting it a few times. It went from 70 or 80% health to exploding.

Later I searched the issue and found out that Sonic Emitter - Tarantula has an auto-kill chance (the report involved the Legendary Bloatfly, another creature that can be considered a "boss" of sorts). I didn't notice before because I had only used it on regular enemies, not paying as much attention to their health bars, and had assumed the crits were just bonus damage. So yeah, the final battle (unless you fight Mobius and/or the Think Tank I guess) where the stage is filled with various terminals and tricks to be used against the super tough boss just ends on a lucky crit.

I was literally standing there for a minute in the burning wreckage of the scorpion, like, "wtf just happened".

While obviously pretty useful for the player wielding it, it feels like being able to crit a boss from 70% health to death is an unintended result.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

In light of that 'bad ending' I can see why Mobius would be concerned. Though in this case, the jailor is losing his mind as much as the prisoners are. Guess that's why pretending to be him was the option presented.

If you explore his dialogue, he points out that he is keeping the Think Tank within the Big MT because they could do untold damage out in the larger world. And they are quite intelligent, being the Think Tank and all, and what mankind can encode, it can also eventually decode, so a prison would be of limited use. So the trick was to make them forget about anything outside of Big MT, and remove temptation at the source.

Is it unethical? Sure. But it beats what would happen if the Think Tank were unleashed on the world at large. Heck, Cazadores were invented at Big MT, and only a few specimens escaped... and look at how dangerous they are out in the Mojave.

Also a rather funny and anti-climactic thing happened on my way to Mobius. During the battle with the giant robot scorpion, I managed to kill it after only activating the distraction robots and shooting it a few times. It went from 70 or 80% health to exploding.

Later I searched the issue and found out that Sonic Emitter - Tarantula has an auto-kill chance (the report involved the Legendary Bloatfly, another creature that can be considered a "boss" of sorts). I didn't notice before because I had only used it on regular enemies, not paying as much attention to their health bars, and had assumed the crits were just bonus damage. So yeah, the final battle (unless you fight Mobius and/or the Think Tank I guess) where the stage is filled with various terminals and tricks to be used against the super tough boss just ends on a lucky crit.

I was literally standing there for a minute in the burning wreckage of the scorpion, like, "wtf just happened".

While obviously pretty useful for the player wielding it, it feels like being able to crit a boss from 70% health to death is an unintended result.

Try being a sniper build with Christine's rifle, and killing it in five shots before it even has a chance to power up. Since it can't see you while it is powering up, sneaking gives auto-crits, and Christine's is a silenced weapon, so every single round is a critical hit. With Better Criticals perk... yea, you can kill it in five shots, empty the magazine before the thing ever starts moving.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Finally finished Lonesome Road.

Thought it was cool how Ulysses echoes the concept of one person deciding the fate of nations. Unless you drop into the DLC really early, your character is likely on the way to deciding the future of Vegas, NCR and Legion as well. Maybe not via nukes, but still.

Also, question regarding the laser warhead detonator. Those aren't nuclear warheads are they? Because you can stand surprisingly near them with no ill effects when they go off. At first I thought that maybe you blow up the warhead "safely", without triggering the detonation that they were meant to release. But each explodes with enough force to change the shape of the environment, and breaking open a nuclear warhead should leave a serious amount of radiation (more than a few leaky barrels, I'd guess, though I'm no nuclear physicist).

[factotum]

Nukes in Fallout games don't seem to work quite as they do in the real world. For example, when you blow up a nuclear-powered car in Fallout 4 it goes up in a mini-mushroom cloud that temporarily irradiates the immediate surrounding area but which fades quite quickly. So yes, I think the warheads you're destroying in Lonesome Road *are* supposed to be nukes, they're just not really big ones!

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Finally finished Lonesome Road.

Thought it was cool how Ulysses echoes the concept of one person deciding the fate of nations. Unless you drop into the DLC really early, your character is likely on the way to deciding the future of Vegas, NCR and Legion as well. Maybe not via nukes, but still.

Also, question regarding the laser warhead detonator. Those aren't nuclear warheads are they? Because you can stand surprisingly near them with no ill effects when they go off. At first I thought that maybe you blow up the warhead "safely", without triggering the detonation that they were meant to release. But each explodes with enough force to change the shape of the environment, and breaking open a nuclear warhead should leave a serious amount of radiation (more than a few leaky barrels, I'd guess, though I'm no nuclear physicist).

Fun fact, there is a way to NOT kill Ulysses, but it is a single path of discussion, with many many options leading you to a fight. Assuming for some reason you don't want to kill him.

Also, at least in my personal headcanon, Ulysses was nucking futs. Specifically, he was a Legion Courier, and he was the one who took the activation code to the town because Caesar basically tricked him and didn't tell him that was what was in the package he was delivering there. So here's Ulysses, showing up in a town, and actually feeling like this is a place he could actually live in. Then oops. And he literally cannot admit, even to himself, that he was the one responsible. So he blames Courier 6 instead, because that's easier for him to handle.

[Triaxx]

Amusingly, for all the build up, and how tough the fight can be, a single Sneak Attack Critical with the AMR, or Christine's instantly kills him.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Well, I committed that character to the path of negotiation so I had to try talking Ulysses down. Got it on the first try, luckily.

For my next character, I decided to try playing as myself. Instead of doing the heroic thing, or the things that I only know to do because of guides, I try to really put myself into the world. I don't normally play games that way, and it makes me think about myself in ways I normally don't.

I also tried to construct a realistic form of myself with SPECIAL, tagged skills, and traits. More self reflection lol, and I had to bend the truth a little to fit the game mechanics.

[Balmas]

As some of you know, I run a youtube channel that focuses on roleplaying game Let's Plays. One of my favorite things to do to fill the silence is to rag on the game elements: what's done well, what's done poorly, what doesn't make sense, and so on.

Today, Charlie finally made it to Little Lamplight in Fallout 3. It's just as much of a non-sequitur factory as I remembered. Where do the children come from? How does Little Lamplight maintain itself? Either children make their way there by themselves after their parents die, or they are left there by parents who cannot care for them, or they've got pre-teens breeding like rabbits. None of these options make a whole lot of sense when you consider that abandoned children are effectively slave bait at best, and food for monsters at worst.

However, the more I looked at Little Lamplight itself, the less I could find to critique it. That's because unlike most of the towns in the Capital Wasteland, Bethesda actually put some thought into how the town would support itself.
Where do they get their food? In addition to having scavenging teams, they harvest the fungus that grows naturally in the caves.
What about water? The Grand Cavern has a sinkhole in the center full of the stuff, and then the cave fungus purges any rads they might have accumulated.
Shelter and beds? Check and check. Don't ask me how they figured out enough carpentry to make the suspended mess in Great Cavern, but they have it.
Well, they're all kids! How do they know how to do anything? They found a small library's worth of books, and preserved them for teaching.

So far, that's food, water, shelter, and teaching. The Little Lamplighters have a pretty swell setup going for them, inasmuch as they actually have most of the basics of Maslow's pyramid of needs.

So how come nobody's stolen it yet? If you take a look at the other settlements in the wasteland, you'll see that most of them don't measure up. Most of them are missing a reliable source of food (Megaton, Rivet City, Tenpenny Tower), a clean source of water (Republic of Dave, Paradise Falls, Big Town, Arefu), and some of them don't even have spots to sleep (most Raider encampments, literally every single Enclave Outpost).

(Seriously. It baffles me to this day that the Enclave can manufacture armor, gatling lasers, and vertibirds, but still somehow fail to send troops out into the field with so much as a sleeping bag. What, were the vertibirds too full of energy ammo and turrets to fit a boxspring and mattress?)

Anyway. You'd think that you'd have all kinds of unsavory sorts gunning for a spot there, right? Nope, apparently not. See, if you go talk to MacCready, he tells you that kicking people out when they get too old isn't just a matter of hating mungos; instead, he gives this line:

People change when they grow up, and we don't trust mungos living down here. So we leave for a place called Big Town before we get too old. At least, that's the line Joseph teaches. But, really, we simply don't have enough space or food for everyone to stay here forever. So I've got to exile some to avoid ruining the whole town. It's a ****ing hard brutal choice to make, but that's the way we stay alive.

It's not purely a matter of disliking grownups, but a simple fact that the caves can't support too many people, especially when those people are adults.

It's a pleasant surprise to find Bethesda actually making sure that the details are accounted for. Congratulations, Bethesda; you did A Worldbuild. Well played.

[Lord Raziere]

I've gotten to level 4 in New Vegas, on the trail of those guys who shot me. so far I've killed powder gangers in Goodspring, went down to Primm, rescued the deputy then reprogrammed the robot into being the new Sheriff- hooray for easy quest completion- then I'm on my way to Novac, and boy was it a long, trek filled with multiple deaths. some of which my own.

With my current build, my best way to kill most things is with guns. and boy do I have to make sure I use my ammo wisely, cause these things will kill me and I have only a five in strength, my machete will only kill so much. of course between 10 Int, and low luck and charisma with like 7's in a couple other things and 5s in other things, my strengths lie in being smart and such. when I get to level six, I'm finally going to take that perk to get exp faster after Cherchez La Femme and 2 more skill points perk. between bandits, scorpions, legion troops, there is no shortage of guys to kill me, and I'm starting to figure out that the best way to use my skill points is just to dump all of them into one skill at a time to get them real high so that I become competent at them, real quickly, and its best to start by getting real high in guns so I can shoot people to death real well then worry about everything else.

so far I've accidentally killed some guy named Tomas because he was running up to me while combat music was playing so I though he was a bandit, then I went into Neptin (Noptin?) and found that the Legion had massacred the rest of them. then I looked at his journal seeing him proclaim himself lucky. Yup. poor ol' Tomas survived what I assume is the Legion lottery of massacre only to run out to me and get shot to death because of an honest mistake, thats some sort of black comedy joke if I ever saw one. and of course I got bad karma because of it. of course I heard the Legion guy go "spread the world of our horribleness!" and I'm like "well you outnumber me sir, and I'm not a combat monster, so yes I will tell people of your atrocities you freaking idiot. I will tell them and someday, your entire Legion will be killed. To the man." I of course have to make it up to Tomas. consider it my redemption arc to eventually destroy the Legion.

so of course I eventually got up to Novac, talked to some yellow beggar paranoid conspiracy theorist who of course was crazy and said Mr. Checkers (thats who I'm calling the guy who shot me until I have name) talked to some other guy with a mustache, talked to him and now I'm gonna go kill some ghouls at a place after lying to him that Mr. Checkers was my friend. knew putting some skill points into persuading was a good idea. hey, I can't be sure- mr. mustachio mcsniper might be on friendly terms with Mr. Checkers since he was talking to him and wouldn't rat him out if he knew I was gunning for him. so yeah, that was a journey. as for those ghouls next time well.....I have guns.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I've gotten to level 4 in New Vegas, on the trail of those guys who shot me. so far I've killed powder gangers in Goodspring, went down to Primm, rescued the deputy then reprogrammed the robot into being the new Sheriff- hooray for easy quest completion- then I'm on my way to Novac, and boy was it a long, trek filled with multiple deaths. some of which my own.

Welcome to the club!

With my current build, my best way to kill most things is with guns. and boy do I have to make sure I use my ammo wisely, cause these things will kill me and I have only a five in strength, my machete will only kill so much. of course between 10 Int, and low luck and charisma with like 7's in a couple other things and 5s in other things, my strengths lie in being smart and such. when I get to level six, I'm finally going to take that perk to get exp faster after Cherchez La Femme and 2 more skill points perk. between bandits, scorpions, legion troops, there is no shortage of guys to kill me, and I'm starting to figure out that the best way to use my skill points is just to dump all of them into one skill at a time to get them real high so that I become competent at them, real quickly, and its best to start by getting real high in guns so I can shoot people to death real well then worry about everything else.

If you stick to the roads, you encounter fewer issues, but that then results in being under-leveled when you get to certain areas. I tend to prefer to start picking off a few Radscorps if I can find a weapon decent enough to do it, from Goodsprings Cemetery, where the bugs can't get up to me. 50 xp per big 'scorp, nets you a few levels pretty easily.

so far I've accidentally killed some guy named Tomas because he was running up to me while combat music was playing so I though he was a bandit, then I went into Neptin (Noptin?) and found that the Legion had massacred the rest of them. then I looked at his journal seeing him proclaim himself lucky. Yup. poor ol' Tomas survived what I assume is the Legion lottery of massacre only to run out to me and get shot to death because of an honest mistake, thats some sort of black comedy joke if I ever saw one. and of course I got bad karma because of it. of course I heard the Legion guy go "spread the world of our horribleness!" and I'm like "well you outnumber me sir, and I'm not a combat monster, so yes I will tell people of your atrocities you freaking idiot. I will tell them and someday, your entire Legion will be killed. To the man." I of course have to make it up to Tomas. consider it my redemption arc to eventually destroy the Legion.

Nipton. Yea, that whole piece was basically set up as 'Legion is evil for the evlulz, don't feel bad about killing these guys'. Tomas, if you actually talk to him, informs you that he was a powder ganger (and you already know how THOSE fellows are), and if you read the Mayor's journals, you begin to piece together an even more unsettling setup. In effect, don't feel bad for killing Tomas. You've accidentally done a good turn, because now he won't spread word of atrocities to act as a demoralizing agent. Also, if you actually talk to him, he's ****ing annoying, and just makes you want to cap him anyway.

But yes, killing Legion is never bad. Later on, after you've leveled up a bit and gotten some decent weapons, you'll find that Caesar will want to try to assassinate placate you by sending Assassination Loot Squads after you to shower you with stupidly expensive and hard to find equipment in the hopes that you will be appeased.

so of course I eventually got up to Novac, talked to some yellow beggar paranoid conspiracy theorist who of course was crazy and said Mr. Checkers (thats who I'm calling the guy who shot me until I have name) talked to some other guy with a mustache, talked to him and now I'm gonna go kill some ghouls at a place after lying to him that Mr. Checkers was my friend. knew putting some skill points into persuading was a good idea. hey, I can't be sure- mr. mustachio mcsniper might be on friendly terms with Mr. Checkers since he was talking to him and wouldn't rat him out if he knew I was gunning for him. so yeah, that was a journey. as for those ghouls next time well.....I have guns.

You can actually get Mustache McSniper to talk to you without the speech check. Conversation turns out a bit differently. Did you get to have a nice chat with the entirely too friendly cowboy stalker-bot while you were in town?

Also, you are about to embark on one of the most amusing quests it has ever been my privilege to encounter, short of the science fiction double feature.

Also, head back up to the Dinosaur after shift change and talk to the other sniper. Trust me, once you figure out what his deal is, you'll be more than happy to help him.

Oh, and don't forget to have a nice long conversation with the merchant in the Dinosaur. He's got some good things for sale. Maybe he's got something in that back room too?

[Triaxx]

After finding the journal in Nipton, swing back east to the gas station and root around for the second act of it.

Sure your name shouldn't be Shneekey the Looter? (He asks, believing if it's not an immovable static it belongs to him.)

Also swing a bit north up the road to the nice lady at the junkyard. She has some cool toys.

[Anteros]

I'm sure if Raziere wanted a step by step guide to everything interesting in the game they could find that easily. Half the fun in these games is exploring and finding stuff crazy unexpected stuff. At least for me it is.

[Triaxx]

Which is why I'm trying to only give general directions. (Also he's playing vanilla and I play so heavily modded the lists of what's available are certainly different.)

[Lord Raziere]

1. oh. Tomas is jar-jar and a powder ganger besides, and the game gave me bad karma for doing a good. whelp. screw Tomas then.

2. the only thing I want advice is how to do repairs. I like my western cowboy look and I don't want to have to use armor from those rome cosplayers who should get the hell out my western. though how to get more ammo would also be great unless its intended to be limited for wasteland accuracy/challenge aspects?

3. I'm sure I'll do all of that when I feel like it and can get my directions straight amidst this endless tan desert.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

1. oh. Tomas is jar-jar and a powder ganger besides, and the game gave me bad karma for doing a good. whelp. screw Tomas then.

Pretty much.

2. the only thing I want advice is how to do repairs. I like my western cowboy look and I don't want to have to use armor from those rome cosplayers who should get the hell out my western. though how to get more ammo would also be great unless its intended to be limited for wasteland accuracy/challenge aspects?

For weapons, you can repair them with other weapons that are very similar to one another. There are also Weapon Repair Kits you can use while equipping the weapon to be repaired.

For armor, it's a little more difficult. In general, you have 'clothing', 'leather', and 'metal' armor, and in most cases, you can repair within that designation.

In both cases, there's a perk called Jury Rigging, which requires a Repair skill of 90, which broadens the category of cross-repairing.

If you want to dress Western-ish, there's some good options, but most of them require getting into some difficult places. Some of the best iconic dusters come from following the message that Ulysses sent you, but that lonesome road is a perilous one. Hooking up with the Happy Trails Caravan can also net you one if you look really hard, but that's another perilous journey.

The easiest way to get a seriously protective and very western suit of armor is to befriend the NCR. Getting to Liked or higher will net you a key to a safehouse. While not the safest place to go, it has a suit of NCR Ranger Combat Armor which is as western as you could ask for, with 20 DT.

3. I'm sure I'll do all of that when I feel like it and can get my directions straight amidst this endless tan desert.

Don't worry. Getting lost can lead to some of the most interesting of stories to tell 'round a campfire. Enjoy yourself, and your experience.

[Triaxx]

For repairing Armor, I assume you're wearing the Sherriff's Duster from Primm? If so, the random bandits you find in Raider Badlands armor should be okay to repair it with. Look south of town, to the left facing south, and there'll be an encampment of Vipers who should be wearing gear you can use to repair your armor. Just have to 'acquire' it.

For ammo, from the entrance to the motel compound, look south and you'll see a garage. In there is a Workbench and Ammo bench. The ammo bench will let you break down ammo you're not using, and convert it into ammo you are. The merchant in the dino usually sells some cases, or you can buy the bulk ammo from him and break it down to obtain cases.

Best way to find your way around is to use the roads as markers. Walk around and see 'how far away can I see this road from'. Personally I just go chasing the 'point of interest' arrows.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Also, in general, it isn't too hard to keep your loads loaded. Buy ammo of appropriate types from vendors, break down ammo that is of a similar types (for example. .38 and 10mm ammo share the same powder and primer), and you should be able to keep yourself going.

There's a perk called Hand Loader which might be relevant to your interests if you enjoy making ammo that gives your badda-boom more bang for your buck.

[DigoDragon]

It's not purely a matter of disliking grownups, but a simple fact that the caves can't support too many people, especially when those people are adults.

It's a pleasant surprise to find Bethesda actually making sure that the details are accounted for. Congratulations, Bethesda; you did A Worldbuild. Well played.

Little Lamplight internally seems functional, but it still doesn't answer where replacement children come from. Or why they haven't been eaten by super mutants. I doubt they could hold against a siege of a few mutants. Maybe if the entrance was better hidden and didn't have strings of lights pointing the way inside.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

I believe that even without Jury Rigging, most hats are cross-repairable, though not all. I've repaired cowboy hats with pre-war hats, for instance.

[Lord Raziere]

So this tale today was of course, going to Repcon to see what the ghouls are all about. So I got in there, killed a few, got to their place, talked with Jason Bright, yup crazy ghoul cult, and apparently some nightborn people are underneath attacking them so I went down to check on them, ask whats up, and apparently Davison is leading an even crazier antler skull worshipping cult and after a few deaths I just decided to kill all the nightborn with their own clubs and cheese out the healing through rest, then let the one ghoul know about his dead crush. I checked the storage room after all thats done, turns out the stealth boy shipment those nightborn were aiming for? were sent back centuries ago and only five were left anyways, so I feel as if I was expediting what was going to happen anyways since Davison is a crazy violent nightborn guy who probably wouldn't like being told that his quest for buried treasure was all for naught, so killing for him for his sword I feel is okay.

so next I help the cult, which Jason Bright claims is led by visions yet somehow sane enough to realize that Chris, their human, wouldn't survive even through the rockets probably won't work anyways. so I get the parts and a radioactive suit which is good lootin' cause I'll probably need a radioactivity protection at some point, get back and start the launch sequence, I look at them go and hear the ride of the valkyries.....and think: "wow, how majestic. They're probably all going to crash and die somewhere in Arizona. if they're lucky." and I go back to Novac and see Chris sad that he didn't get to die in a rocket while he walks to his hotel room.

interesting case study in three insanities. I like how I point out all the facts to these people and yet none of them listen and I basically just help them destroy themselves with their own forms of crazy. had I been patient enough, I just know I'd probably just end up leading Davison to his own death to, so I'm just speeding up the inevitable and getting a cool bumper sword out of it. I end it with accepting Boone's quest to get revenge for his wife who is Totally Dead. because seriously. Screw The Legion. and of course I got the swift learner perk so, leveling up is just a tiny bit easier now. but yeah, this story of people having some crazy belief that completely clashes with the reality of the situation and you just sitting there watching these people attempt it anyways and crash and burn because of it is a story that Fallout seems to do often and well. It says something about humanity and false idols, but I'm not sure what. All I know is that when I'm done achieving being a cowgirl-mad scientist-seductress....I will take up this bumper sword, and become the anime as well.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

After trying out Hardcore mode for a bit, I think I can state my opinions on it.

Staying fed, hydrated, and rested isn't all that hard. It's the limb healing, stimpak healing-over-time, and ammo weight that makes it "hardcore" in my opinion. Maybe the Ultimate Edition skews that a little by giving you that magic canteen, though I don't think it removes all your need for water.

I almost never use Doctor's bags in the normal game. Heck, I probably spent more doctor's bags on quests as opposed to myself. In hardcore mode, I'm desperately searching for them. Hydra too, (insert hail hydra here). And TIL Hydra does have an addiction chance, guess I got lucky. I know that doctors and sleeping in an owned bed can fix limbs, but having your gun arm crippled in the middle of a firefight calls for immediate treatment.

And ammo, damn. In the normal game ammo is just like caps, bobby pins, or pre-war money; you can pick it up without even thinking. It's feasible to run around with seven different guns hotkeyed. In hardcore, I actually have to think about how much ammo I'm carrying around. And make some decisions about what guns are really important to me.

So in conclusion, I think it's pretty cool. It makes things like doctor's bags and food items more relevant. Considering that you can flip the combat difficulty up and down at will, I can see hardcore mode being the default setting for all my future playthroughs.

[MCerberus]

So I'm going to go ahead and board the hype train.