Fallout IX: Nuclear Cash Cows Go MMOoooooo!

[Haruspex_Pariah]

It's also really good for various scrap and components. Lousy with scrap metal and electronics, batteries... all kinds of goodies.

Yeah, it’s one example of how lore and gameplay mesh perfectly. Manny indicates to you that the salvage from the facility is economically important for the Novac folk, and when you get in it’s chock full of exactly those types of components.

[Balmas]

Whoops, I meant to post this earlier today!

Spoiler: Ghouls and Gangers

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[sihnfahl]

I've been replaying Fallout 4 in VR, and I'm beginning to notice something:

Which reminds me - how does Pickman's Gallery look in VR?

[Balmas]

And with that, Gabriel is finally ready to leave Goodsprings. We have armor, we have ammo, we have good weapons. All that's left is to take care of those Powder Gangers that have been harassing the town, and repay our debt to the town at the same time.

Spoiler: A Debt Repaid

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Which reminds me - how does Pickman's Gallery look in VR?

I haven't been there yet, actually! If I had to take a guess, though, experience suggests that it will feel a bit like things are incorrectly proportioned, and with textures that feel much worse when you blow them up to life-size in a VR headset.

[RagingKrikkit]

So, I need to decompress, and I guess that here is as good a place as any.

Seven years ago, I first had the Fallout recommended to me, actually on this board of all places. Two years later, on the recommendation of multiple men I met in basic training, I picked up both Fallout 3 and New Vegas for Xbox, and immediately developed a preference for the latter. I don't know if it was writing quality, the touch of Western flair, the lack of a green filter or simply the presence of working ironsights, but while I hardly made it out of Megaton before abandoning 3, New Vegas kept me enraptured all the way to Freeside, before the influx of disposable income that comes with having room and board covered by the taxpayers led me to acquire a decent computer. This in turn led to a new game on said computer, taking me into the second act proper before the loss of my autosave file cost me a particularly egregious amount of time since my previous manual save.

This more or less killed my investment into New Vegas for the next several years, only returning to it last year as I first tried my hand at modding. Or perhaps I should say killed my investment in playing it. Those years spent not playing New Vegas were spent relentlessly spoiling myself on it. Quests, companions, endings, the whole nine yards. Except for one thing.

For some reason, there was one corner of New Vegas that I refused to be spoiled on, a corner that got me to click away from anything as quickly as I could. I wasn't always fast enough, but I was largely content that I had done a decent job of remaining ignorant. Earlier this year, I finally returned to New Vegas and made it stick. I roamed the wastes, I sent ghouls to space, I raised a bomber from the depths, I shot a man in the head with his own gun because irony demanded it, I took copious amounts of drugs and killed a ghost bear that was on fire with a knife, I lead a two-man assault on the most fortified position in the Mojave, I had my brain ripped out, but yesterday, I finally learned the last secret of New Vegas, the one I had spent so long avoiding, so that I might see it myself. The secret that got me to unsubscribe from Oxhorn a full year before it became cool to do so.

Yesterday, I walked that Lonesome Road, and after realizing that trying to summarize the entire experience would take hours, I guess I should just summarize the two major things I took away from it. Firstly, that it was truly grueling. A mix of very hard difficulty, hardcore mode and my particular flavor of combat mods that doesn't massively decrease time to kill, but does severely nerf healing items turned the Divide into every bit the brutal hellscape I had heard it to be.

Secondly, and, more importantly, my trip down that road did something that years of debate, argument, jingoism and general memery had failed to do: it got me to change sides. I've long discounted the Yes Man option, the sheer amount of "well, my Courier" inherent to the path making it largely incompatible with the other three when trying to make any objective comparison of which ending is best. But there, in the ruins of what once was, I found something new. A new symbol, and the shadow of a nation. Neither Bear nor Bull, not damned by the all-consuming drive to expand. When, at long last, I finally set foot upon the great Dam, it shall not be as conqueror, but as liberator, driving away the failing flags and replacing them with something new, perhaps better, and maybe, just maybe, something that can be called home.

Spoiler

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[halfeye]

(in signature) wrote:

Formerly known as YakYak

Are you aware that's a website?

http://www.yakyak.org/index.php

http://www.yakyak.org/viewforum.php?...5132cb2528bfed

[RagingKrikkit]

No, I wasn't. I ripped it from an offhand line in one of the newer OotS strips at the time, and given that I have a talent for talking at length about things of little import ("yaking on"), it felt appropriate at the time. Thanks for reminding me to update the sig, though.

[RagingKrikkit]

Oh, by the way, apparently nobody else ever did this, so have all of the ways one can fail checks with Lanius: https://youtu.be/ptbsauKMDsg

[Balmas]

Wow, I am nearly a week late in posting the video. Plum forgot about it.

Spoiler: Making Friends

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In other news, the Ivanpah maintenance tunnel complex from AWOP is absolute torture. It's not fair for a mod author, after an hour's worth of dungeon crawling, to throw you at four sentry bots with names like Annihilator, Exterminator, and Destroyer. The only thing worse is getting to the end of the dungeon, looking at the briefcase holding your reward for going through that... and realizing you don't have the 100 lockpick necessary to open it.

[Triaxx]

At least you can say, that the mod is not false advertising. I always laugh seeing people go into it the first time.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Protip for AWOP: If you run into a Lockpick 100 lock, it means there's a key somewhere that opens it for you.

[Balmas]

Hey look! Casinos!

Spoiler: More Gabriel

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So, in my downtime, I've been watching Many a True Nerd's New Vegas YOLO playthrough, and I've reached the point in the series where Jon's running through Dead Money. He points out many times that Dead Money is a test of how well you've memorized the game, and that if you're playing through for the first time, you're all but guaranteed to experience a popped head.

DM is plentifully mean when it comes to trollishly-placed traps¹. The bigger issue, though, is the radios--hang around in a certain radius around each radio for too long, and your bomb collar goes off, killing you instantly. The problem is that there's basically no way to know where the radius starts and ends, or which direction you need to head to escape the radio, or what kind of radio you're dealing with, or if there will be a safezone where your collar can reset its timer. The only way to advance, in essence, is to know in advance what kind of radio you're dealing with--to remember that in this instance, you need to shoot a wall-mounted radio behind you as you pass under this archway, but that in the next instance, it's a shielded radio that you just need to run past in order to reach the shutoff terminal, and then the next one you sprint past the radius of the radio to find a safezone in a dressing room.

How do we fix this?

It may sound simplistic, but honestly, I think that an audio cue for the radio would be a good start. I recognize that you already get a beeping noise when you're in the radius, but I'm talking about making it so that radios... well, so that radios make noise, like they do in the base game. You're walking along, and even before you enter the danger zone around the radio, you can hear the sounds of a radio going off. This could even be used to distinguish which kind of radio you're dealing with; a desk radio might emit Sierra Madre music, while a damaged radio could have a harsh static buzzing due to its partially destroyed nature. That alone would allow the player to know where and what they're dealing with, and which way to head to get out of the deathzone.

Boys, I think I have an idea for a new mod.


1. Think a room full of toxic 40-hp-drained-per-second cloud, with the quickest route through thoroughly covered in bear traps, or a radio shut-off terminal that's placed in such a way that if the player wants to get to it before their bomb collar goes off they have no choice but to blunder through a tripwire that drops a grenade bouquet in their lap.

[Ailurus]

It may sound simplistic, but honestly, I think that an audio cue for the radio would be a good start. I recognize that you already get a beeping noise when you're in the radius, but I'm talking about making it so that radios... well, so that radios make noise, like they do in the base game. You're walking along, and even before you enter the danger zone around the radio, you can hear the sounds of a radio going off. This could even be used to distinguish which kind of radio you're dealing with; a desk radio might emit Sierra Madre music, while a damaged radio could have a harsh static buzzing due to its partially destroyed nature. That alone would allow the player to know where and what they're dealing with, and which way to head to get out of the deathzone.

Boys, I think I have an idea for a new mod.


1. Think a room full of toxic 40-hp-drained-per-second cloud, with the quickest route through thoroughly covered in bear traps, or a radio shut-off terminal that's placed in such a way that if the player wants to get to it before their bomb collar goes off they have no choice but to blunder through a tripwire that drops a grenade bouquet in their lap.

Throw in slightly muffled/distorted but still recognizable music for the shielded ones (call it the shielding interfering with the output or something) and I approve. Better than my usual approach of trying to do it legit, getting frustrated and then installing the mod that just negates the speakers entirely.

[SZbNAhL]

... radio shut-off terminal that's placed in such a way that if the player wants to get to it before their bomb collar goes off they have no choice but to blunder through a tripwire that drops a grenade bouquet in their lap.

You do know that you can shoot tripwires from a distance, right?

[Triaxx]

If you can see them you can. Fun thing: the Hyper Frequency emitter from Project Nevada has it's ammo removed, but it regenerates it.

[Balmas]

You do know that you can shoot tripwires from a distance, right?

In theory, yes. This tripwire is particularly cruel, though. It's in the segment leading up to Christine's segment in the Switching Station. In one corner of a large room is a shielded radio; in order to get to the radio shutoff computer, you need to run along a catwalk that runs along the edge of the room, under the radio, and then into an industrial control booth. Even with Christine's Signal Interference perk, you'll have barely enough time to get to the shutoff computer. The trip wire is set up around the corner, inside the industrial booth, where you don't have a line of sight to the tripwire until you're already past the point of no return. In essence, you have maybe half a second to spare to notice, pick out, and disarm the tripwire, and then you need to rush on towards the shutoff computer.

In theory, I suppose you could huck a grenade through the doorway and then retreat to safety while your collar resets, but you could only do that by already knowing that it's there.

[SZbNAhL]

In theory, yes. This tripwire is particularly cruel, though. It's in the segment leading up to Christine's segment in the Switching Station. In one corner of a large room is a shielded radio; in order to get to the radio shutoff computer, you need to run along a catwalk that runs along the edge of the room, under the radio, and then into an industrial control booth. Even with Christine's Signal Interference perk, you'll have barely enough time to get to the shutoff computer. The trip wire is set up around the corner, inside the industrial booth, where you don't have a line of sight to the tripwire until you're already past the point of no return. In essence, you have maybe half a second to spare to notice, pick out, and disarm the tripwire, and then you need to rush on towards the shutoff computer.

In theory, I suppose you could huck a grenade through the doorway and then retreat to safety while your collar resets, but you could only do that by already knowing that it's there.

Oh, I thought you meant the one in the casino vault. It's been a few months.

[DigoDragon]

but you could only do that by already knowing that it's there.

Eeyup, tagline of the dlc.

When I went through there, I just sprinted and soaked the splash damage, being just lucky enough to not die.

[Triaxx]

The one in the casino vault, is also a nasty bugger. Because that one has bear traps in the fog on the bottom.

[Balmas]

So, real talk time. The quests in New Vegas? Really good. Lots of choice in how you do things. But boy, is there a bunch of walking to do.

Spoiler

Show

Case in point. In the most recent video, we need to get a sheriff for Primm. Of the three options, the town fares best under the rule of a former-sheriff-presently-convict, Meyers. But in order to get him to work for the town, you need to hoof it to the NCRCF, then back to the Mojave Outpost, and then back to Primm. That's effectively a full round trip from Goodsprings to the Mojave Outpost, along roads that you've already cleared. Lots of walking to do.

Then again, I suppose that if you look at Fallout 2, it comes by its fetch-quest roots honestly...

[Triaxx]

Yeah, but disassembling the prison one shot at a time is my one of my favorite bits of FNV.

[SZbNAhL]

So, real talk time. The quests in New Vegas? Really good. Lots of choice in how you do things. But boy, is there a bunch of walking to do.

Spoiler

Show

Case in point. In the most recent video, we need to get a sheriff for Primm. Of the three options, the town fares best under the rule of a former-sheriff-presently-convict, Meyers. But in order to get him to work for the town, you need to hoof it to the NCRCF, then back to the Mojave Outpost, and then back to Primm. That's effectively a full round trip from Goodsprings to the Mojave Outpost, along roads that you've already cleared. Lots of walking to do.

Then again, I suppose that if you look at Fallout 2, it comes by its fetch-quest roots honestly...

I recommend the van mod.

[Balmas]

I'm rewatching MATN's Fallout 3 YOLO run, and something occurred to me: Operation Anchorage's many quirks actually make a lot of sense when you consider the simulation as a form of American propaganda as well as a training sim.

Why do you refill your ammo all at once? Because, of course, America has all the resources it needs to have ammunition for everyone on demand.

Ditto for the health stations--why bother with puny stimpacks that you need to carry with you, when American SCIENCE! can heal any wound instantly?

Chinese general commits Japanese seppuku? Well, they're all the same, aren't they, in the minds of American soldiers, right?

Even the DLC's linearity--walk down this corridor, shoot everything in sight, make no meaningful moral choices--makes sense when you think of this as a training sim for soldiers, where obedience to orders is a key value.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Of interesting note for probably no one other than myself, there's now a Lutris installer for the Vortex Mod Manager (Nexus's replacement for the old NMM) that seems to be able to work through WINE and has an install script through Lutris which can handle 64 bit installations of Fallout: New Vegas that are run through Steam Play and Proton.

In other words, I may be able to have my cake and eat it too. After the NVSE and Large Address Aware patches are applied, I should have much better performance out of the old game, which I can then mod all to hell and back.

Balmas's most current playthrough has been really interesting, and there's a few mods from it I may try out that I haven't before.

[Balmas]

Of interesting note for probably no one other than myself, there's now a Lutris installer for the Vortex Mod Manager (Nexus's replacement for the old NMM) that seems to be able to work through WINE and has an install script through Lutris which can handle 64 bit installations of Fallout: New Vegas that are run through Steam Play and Proton.

In other words, I may be able to have my cake and eat it too. After the NVSE and Large Address Aware patches are applied, I should have much better performance out of the old game, which I can then mod all to hell and back.

So, does that actually make the program 64-bit, or just enable the 4gb patches?

Balmas's most current playthrough has been really interesting, and there's a few mods from it I may try out that I haven't before.

Glad to hear that. Out of curiosity, which mods are those?

Incidentally, it's monday, which means new episode time!

Spoiler: Armor Ailments

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Having an amazing-looking armor that you can't wear is worse, by far, than having good gear that looks stupid. Sorry not sorry, but if I'm going to die in the wasteland, I'm doing it in style.

I will note that I'm having a curious issue with the let's play, which is how to avoid becoming overpowered. I've noticed that in bethesda games, you tend to hit a point where you can just steamroll anything and everything in your path, and that means that it's only a certain amount of time before combat becomes boring. So right now I'm trying to figure out, "Oh crap, Gabriel's found NCR armor and a stupidly powerful energy sniper, how do we put that off for later, crap..."

[DigoDragon]

I've noticed that issue a lot with fallout 3/nv, but apparently the mods I got in Skyrim have helped fix some of that.

Specifically, my sneaking is godly, but I rarely kill on a sneak attack. It's kinda nice actually. Makes me consider hiding spots and exit strategy.

My last play thru of nv I remember just taking a standard laser rifle and nothing else after getting to level 30 or so, yet still was vaporizing everything that got in my way within 2 hits.

[Triaxx]

No stealth. Or only until the first Engagement. As soon as you fire that first shot, and the fight starts you must stand up. Or just go into an AWOP area. They're supposed to be punishingly hard.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

So, does that actually make the program 64-bit, or just enable the 4gb patches?

It runs through a 64 bit instance, although you still have to use the Large Address Aware Patch because the game itself doesn't know what to do with more than 4gb.

Glad to hear that. Out of curiosity, which mods are those?

The F4 loot thing looks really interesting, but I can't seem to get it to work. I'm suspecting there's an issue with DarnUI.

The ability to fix up places is really interesting, thematically. If your character is wanting to rebuild the Mojave and actually make a meaningful difference in people's lives instead of just go on a revenge rampage, it's really nice. So that schoolhouse in Goodsprings, and now the Steve Bison casino.

Incidentally, it's monday, which means new episode time!

Spoiler: Armor Ailments

Show

Having an amazing-looking armor that you can't wear is worse, by far, than having good gear that looks stupid. Sorry not sorry, but if I'm going to die in the wasteland, I'm doing it in style.

I will note that I'm having a curious issue with the let's play, which is how to avoid becoming overpowered. I've noticed that in bethesda games, you tend to hit a point where you can just steamroll anything and everything in your path, and that means that it's only a certain amount of time before combat becomes boring. So right now I'm trying to figure out, "Oh crap, Gabriel's found NCR armor and a stupidly powerful energy sniper, how do we put that off for later, crap..."

Some ideas:

* Decline to wear any Faction Gear, which includes the NCR Ranger kit. Besides, I never found them to be particularly impressive since they are Medium armor which doesn't have any perk synergy.
* Which weapon did you pick up that was a 'stupidly powerful energy sniper'? The Homemade Plasma Rifle is NOT such a weapon. And, really, neither is the Plasma Defender. The problem with any plasma weapon is that the projectiles take a while to get to target, which limits their sniping capabilities. The only weapon that I would truly classify as a 'stupidly powerful energy sniper', other than the Gauss Rifle and unique variant thereof, is the Holorifle. Which, yanno... ya need to go *there* to get.
* You've done a good job of your character making stylistic choices rather than purely stat-based choices. Continue with that. Perhaps he simply doesn't want to be arrested for impersonating a Ranger. And doesn't like klunking around in power armor. Maybe he prefers something that lets him retain his mobility, preferring quick wits and quick reflexes over defensive capability. If something seems too overpowered, simply wave it off with 'Nah, doesn't really match my style' or something similar. Maybe he wants to ensure that he looks presentable, like a successful mercenary and courier, rather than wearing something that makes him look untrustworthy. If it's some energy weapon that is too powerful, try something like 'Yanno, if I keep using tech like this, the Brotherhood is going to start coming after me...'.
* If you are feeling cocky... head into AWOP areas, like the Underground. It'll serve you a slice of Humble Pie pretty rapidly. Also, there's a specific mod AWOP for Dead Money. It includes several new areas in the Sierra Madre that are... really bad. The ghost people in them are *SIGNIFICANTLY* harder, and far more inclined to headcap you. However, you can find ammo codes for the vending machines in all different calibers, which can keep your favorite toys loaded. It also has a few energy weapon ammo codes, and you can use Vigilant Recycler to convert to whichever you prefer.

[Triaxx]

AWOP for Dead Money was very crash last I knew. Particularly if they killed you.

[Balmas]

The F4 loot thing looks really interesting, but I can't seem to get it to work. I'm suspecting there's an issue with DarnUI.

Do I have Fallout 4 Looting written down? There's actually two mods that do the same thing, and the better one is actually called Quickloot.

The ability to fix up places is really interesting, thematically. If your character is wanting to rebuild the Mojave and actually make a meaningful difference in people's lives instead of just go on a revenge rampage, it's really nice. So that schoolhouse in Goodsprings, and now the Steve Bison casino.

I believe there's also a mod called Nipton Rebuilt which allows you to, well, become the new mayor of Nipton. I'm not playing with that one because, frankly, it's not built to the same standard as Afterschool Special or the New Bison Steve.

* Which weapon did you pick up that was a 'stupidly powerful energy sniper'? The Homemade Plasma Rifle is NOT such a weapon. And, really, neither is the Plasma Defender. The problem with any plasma weapon is that the projectiles take a while to get to target, which limits their sniping capabilities. The only weapon that I would truly classify as a 'stupidly powerful energy sniper', other than the Gauss Rifle and unique variant thereof, is the Holorifle. Which, yanno... ya need to go *there* to get.
* You've done a good job of your character making stylistic choices rather than purely stat-based choices. Continue with that. Perhaps he simply doesn't want to be arrested for impersonating a Ranger. And doesn't like klunking around in power armor. Maybe he prefers something that lets him retain his mobility, preferring quick wits and quick reflexes over defensive capability. If something seems too overpowered, simply wave it off with 'Nah, doesn't really match my style' or something similar. Maybe he wants to ensure that he looks presentable, like a successful mercenary and courier, rather than wearing something that makes him look untrustworthy. If it's some energy weapon that is too powerful, try something like 'Yanno, if I keep using tech like this, the Brotherhood is going to start coming after me...'.
* If you are feeling cocky... head into AWOP areas, like the Underground. It'll serve you a slice of Humble Pie pretty rapidly. Also, there's a specific mod AWOP for Dead Money. It includes several new areas in the Sierra Madre that are... really bad. The ghost people in them are *SIGNIFICANTLY* harder, and far more inclined to headcap you. However, you can find ammo codes for the vending machines in all different calibers, which can keep your favorite toys loaded. It also has a few energy weapon ammo codes, and you can use Vigilant Recycler to convert to whichever you prefer.

Roughly in order:

There are two weapons that I worry about, and they're both modded. The Tesla Rifle really isn't an issue, I don't think. It fires tesla cannon blasts from a rifle-sized package, but its recharger-rifle nature and painfully slow recharge rate means that I'm probably only going to get off eight-to-ten shots before it's empty. It's great for popping up and dumping about four hundred damage downrange in three seconds, but if you blow your load and they're still standing you're going to be in trouble.

The one I worry about is the VT-191 Murdelizer. It's basically a recharger gauss rifle. 150 damage per shot, one round in the mag, takes two seconds to recharge. It's a great weapon, one that I can easily see Gabriel falling in love with because it means he doesn't need to pay for all those microfusion cells. It's just that this is very much mid-to-end-game level gear, and Gabriel is only level 20 as of the most recent recording. It feels weird to have all that, even in AWOP areas. Maybe it's just that it's a modded weapon and I'm always leery of modding in more powerful weapons, but it almost feels cheaty.

That would make a ton of sense, though, seeing as I just picked up Veronica. Okay, we can't use the good stuff around the scribe, don't trust her, leave the bazooka at home kind of deal.

Believe me, AWOP is still keeping me plenty humble. You get cocky, and then a Lost Legion squad just up and murders your face off.