What Video Games Have You Been Playing? #23: Lost in Shalebridge Cradle

[EgonSpengler]

• What Video Games have you been playing I: My Muffintop Expands!
• What Video Games have you been playing II: Have you finished that backlog?
• What Video Games have you been playing III: You're gonna need a bigger boat.
• What video games have you been playing? 4
• What video games have you been playing V: the return of the subtitle
• What Video Games Have You Been Playing VI: Because There Are No Elections In Video Games
• What Video Games Have You Been Playing VII: The Real Ending is Locked Behind a Paywall
• What Video Games Have You Been Playing? Eight times I've died...
• What video games have you been playing IX: Now with 4K VR!
• What Video Games Have You Been Playing, Part 10: Or; A Shameful Display!
• What Video Games Have You Been Playing #11: I should go
• What Video Games Have You Been Playing #12: Rage Quit - ain't my thing
• What Video games have you been playing #13 Now with CGA graphics!
• What Videogames are you playing? ΙΔ - Meet your doom
• What Video Games Have You Been Playing #15: Computer not on fire yet? Better add more mods!
• What Video Games Have You Been Playing #16: Retirement Party For The Active Mind
• What Video Games Have You Been Playing XVII: REMAIN INDOORS!!
• In What Electronic Entertainment Have You Been Partaking #18: Reticulating Splines
• In What Electronic Entertainment Have You Been Partaking #19: Cyberpunked
• What Videogames have You Been Playing XX: Virtual Imperialism
• What Video Games Have You Been Playing XXI: Going for the Platinum!
• What videogames have you been playing? version 1.22: What's with that plural?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Path of Exile.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I started a new game of Fallout 4, with only about 40 mods, the most significant of which is Sim Settlements 2. Almost all of the mods I'm using are pretty old, from when I last played this, but so far they seem to be holding up. I'd played Sim Settlements a little, back when. I don't know yet what Sim Settlements 2 does, although there's a "chapter 2" and a "chapter 3" that seem to have an ongoing story of some kind, featuring a conflict between the Minutemen and the Gunners. I also snagged something called South of the Sea, which purports to expand and add depth to the Glowing Sea. I focused on INT, PER & CHR at character creation. I'm thinking of leaning into energy weapons later, just because I didn't do that the last time. I told myself I didn't want to do the "stealth sniper" thing again, and of course that's exactly what I've ended up doing, at least in the early game.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I also snagged something called South of the Sea, which purports to expand and add depth to the Glowing Sea.

The fixed version?

 

[EgonSpengler]

The fixed version?

Yes, I think it was that one.

EDIT: iirc, it let you increase the radiation damage taken while in the Glowing Sea when installing the mod. I wasn't sure what a good setting for that was, so I just chose "2x" kind of arbitrarily.

I'm thinking of leaning into energy weapons later, just because I didn't do that the last time. I told myself I didn't want to do the "stealth sniper" thing again, and of course that's exactly what I've ended up doing, at least in the early game.

I want to get Nuclear Physicist. At rank 3 (level 26) it doubles the life of your fusion cores, so once I get a nice suit of power armor, I can bomb around in that all day. I forget what it's called now, but I'm also using a mod that makes Power Armor rarer but better. In the places where you would normally find whole suits of armor, you'll find just a piece, or some other nice bit of gear instead. Nuclear Physicist also increases the damage of radiation weapons (balancing against the number of nasties who are unbothered by radiation damage).

 

[PhroX]

I'm currently trying to breed a queen for my giant genetically modified carnivorous bees that I'm using to make honey. It's annoying. Each cycle takes a bunch of complex inputs and several minutes to run and only has a 1% chance of success. And even when I get a queen, each future cycle of breeding normal bees has a 1% chance of losing the queen, so I'll have to make another. I could research an upgrade that would give me a guaranteed, albeit slow, route to making a queen, but that would a) take a lot of research and b) lock me out of a pretty significant efficiency upgrade for the bees.

Well, I guess while I'm waiting I can do some of the many other things on my to-do list, like producing ammonia based compounds from large volumes of alien poop.

pYanodons is weird. And insanely complex. And a hell of a lot of fun.

 

[Arakhor]

I maintain that the thread title is a horrifying place to be. I never completed Thief: Deadly Shadows, as the occasionally spooky stealth game suddenly turned into a full-on horror survival game in that very level.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I maintain that the thread title is a horrifying place to be. I never completed Thief: Deadly Shadows, as the occasionally spooky stealth game suddenly turned into a full-on horror survival game in that very level.

I know it's a little early for Halloween-themed thread titles, but since these threads go on for months, I figured 'close enough.'

I got really turned around in that place. I don't know how long I was stuck in there. For a while I thought the rooms were actually moving around.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Fallout 4. Sanctuary Hills; November 17, 2287.

I'm at level 18, with almost a complete suit of T-45D power armor. I'm just missing the legs. I'm using the legs off a suit of Raider armor, in the meantime. For some reason, I thought the Power Armor mod I'm using reduced the number of fusion cores in the game, but I've already got 18 of them. I might not need that Nuclear Physicist perk, after all.

I'm no longer doing the 'stealth sniper' thing, now that I've got a functional suit of power armor and the skills to repair it. I think there's an upgrade for the power armor that reduces the damage taken from explosives, which at least partly makes up for not having Sneak. I've also swapped the 10mm for a laser rifle as my main weapon.

I've got 16 settlers at Sanctuary, 5 at Red Rocket and 5 at Abernathy Farm, and have trade routes going between them. I've got Gray Gardens, Tenpines Bluff and Oberland Station on board, but I haven't started developing them yet, and they're not connected to my supplies network. I've also cleared out Starlight and Hangman's Alley, but they're empty. I got a mod that opens the interiors of two of the buildings that face onto Hangman's Alley, so you get more space to build (I think the mod also gives you a rooftop door in one of the buildings). I've started to play with Sim Settlements 2 a little, just setting some residential plots for new settlers to build shacks in and some industrial plots that folks're using for scavenging junk.

Small recon parties of 3-4 Super-Mutants have attacked Red Rocket twice now, and 2 settlers from Sanctuary have been kidnapped by Raiders. Gray Gardens got attacked by Raiders once, but the robots took care of business without me. I don't remember these attacks happening so frequently before, which makes me think it's part of Sim Settlements 2. I'm a little worried about Tenpines and Oberland Station now, which still just have 2 people and no defenses.

I spotted Sunshine Tidings, which I'd completely forgotten existed, but I skirted around it and didn't clear it. That might be the next settlement I go after. I remember it had some nice buildings.

I traveled with Preston until I got the United We Stand perk, then switched to Piper. That's exactly what I did the last time I played, but I haven't met very many potential companions yet. I met Paladin Danse and helped him retrieve the part he needed from ArcJet, but I haven't decided whether I want to join the Brotherhood. Probably will. I don't remember that joining them obliged you to do much, or conflicted with the Minutemen, and they do give you a set of power armor that I think is more advanced than the T-45. Preston doesn't like them, and I would guess that Piper doesn't either, so I'm gonna hold off on that at least until I get Piper's perk, even though I don't remember what it is (I'm not going to Google it, I'd rather be surprised).

I haven't been into the city too much yet. I went to Diamond City and had to retrieve a kidnapped settler, but that's it so far. I have a mod that dramatically expands the subway, but I haven't been down there yet. Preston wants me to lead his team in retaking The Castle, which I think is way too premature.

Thinking about increasing the Difficulty a step, see what happens.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Starfield
I dont understand why buying an apartment cost more then a destroyer sized starship ? Or why selling an assault is worth less then a loaf of bread ?
Also you can goto prison for stealing a 5 credit item and be forced to be a super spy for the government in order to not goto prison for life

 

[Broken_Erika]

I spotted Sunshine Tidings, which I'd completely forgotten existed, but I skirted around it and didn't clear it. That might be the next settlement I go after. I remember it had some nice buildings.

That's a really good spot, there are 5 intact cabins that i usually put 4 beds into each of them giving me 20 beds, and the long building makes a nice marketplace. I also usually build a power plant on top of the center building so i can wire up the whole settlement.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I've got 16 settlers at Sanctuary, 5 at Red Rocket and 5 at Abernathy Farm, and have trade routes going between them.

You have to be careful with those three settlements as they're so close together developing all three can make the game crash.

Understanding CTDs in The Triangle of Death (Sanctuary, Abernathy Farm, and Red Rocket)

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following individuals for contributing to, influencing, or otherwise informing this guide, and everyone who replied to the original thread and provided feedback: SmkViper Sclerocephalus GA_Darkerside damanding wim95 GamerPoets Blick Mondoo Yagisan...

www.simsettlements.com

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I tried Armored Core 6 and really didn't enjoy it. And I am not just saying this because I am a Souls fan and it's definitively not a Souls game. I didn't expect or want it to be. But the whole game feels oddly paced, wrongly balanced and has some very questionable design choices. Like for example the camera which is so annoyingly placed that you can easily obscure enemies with your own mech leading to the fact that if you are flying half the time you are just holding down the left mouse button using autoaim to kill enemies you can't see because your own body is in the way. Or the way enemies are pitifully too weak and not a real challenge leading to basically no feeling of threat or enjoyment to killing them. Hell, the developers even acknowledge this by adding checkpoints before bosses which are the only decent part of the game. Even they acknowledge that the run to the boss is no fun. And overall the game just feels very unpolished and oddly balanced and paced.

Overall the game kind of makes me feel like how people describe the original Dark Souls 1 without any patches only less fun.

 

[EgonSpengler]

You have to be careful with those three settlements as they're so close together developing all three can make the game crash.

Understanding CTDs in The Triangle of Death (Sanctuary, Abernathy Farm, and Red Rocket)

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following individuals for contributing to, influencing, or otherwise informing this guide, and everyone who replied to the original thread and provided feedback: SmkViper Sclerocephalus GA_Darkerside damanding wim95 GamerPoets Blick Mondoo Yagisan...

www.simsettlements.com

I've got 3 Sim Settlements plots and 3 automated guns at Red Rocket and Abernathy. I don't mind leaving those as they are and just letting them be smaller outposts. I definitely plan to make Sanctuary a proper town, though. Just have to cross my fingers, I guess. Can existing Sim Settlements plots be demolished? I assume they can. Maybe it'd be better to remove the plots at the 'outposts' and replace them with regular beds.

---

Settlements I'm thinking of making into proper towns, using a combination of Sim Settlements 2 and my own construction:
Sanctuary
Starlight
Sunshine Tidings is kind of out of the way, but it's such a big, nice space, it would feel like a waste not to make it something.
Fort Independence
Spectacle Island

Hangman's Alley is a little cramped, but I remember it being a good location, given that you can't get Diamond City or Goodneighbor as player Settlements. If you build it up yourself, you can go vertical, but I don't know if Sim Settlements 2 lets you do that with its plots. I did notice that the Sim Settlements UI has "interior plots", which could be perfect for those 2 buildings that are made available from the other mod (and hopefully there's no conflict between the two mods).

Bunker Hill and Covenant are also in good locations, but already have a lot of stuff. Neither seems like a good choice for a Sim Settlements 2 town, so I'll probably leave them mostly as they are and only build what I need for myself (e.g. crafting stations & defenses).

Settlements I'm thinking of as just 'outposts':
Red Rocket
Abernathy
Gray Gardens
Oberland Station
Tenpines Bluff

That's about all of the settlements I can remember, right now. I think there's 25 or 30 altogether, but I don't know if I used more than a half-dozen of them in my previous game(s). I remember thinking that Copley Square and the Public Library looked like a good spot for a town, but there was no official settlement there. There was a mod that let you build Settlements other than the ones the game gives you, but I never tried it. I remember in my previous game I got kinda sick of building Settlements after a while. Sanctuary, Starlight, and Fort Independence were bustling towns, and everywhere else just had to fend for themselves, because I got tired of having to build everything myself. I think a bunch of them just sit empty if you don't build them up. That was my primary motivation for using Sim Settlements.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I've got 3 Sim Settlements plots and 3 automated guns at Red Rocket and Abernathy. I don't mind leaving those as they are and just letting them be smaller outposts. I definitely plan to make Sanctuary a proper town, though. Just have to cross my fingers, I guess. Can existing Sim Settlements plots be demolished? I assume they can. Maybe it'd be better to remove the plots at the 'outposts' and replace them with regular beds.

I think plots can be demolished through the ASAM.

 

[Zardnaar]

Fallout 4. Sanctuary Hills; November 17, 2287.

I'm at level 18, with almost a complete suit of T-45D power armor. I'm just missing the legs. I'm using the legs off a suit of Raider armor, in the meantime. For some reason, I thought the Power Armor mod I'm using reduced the number of fusion cores in the game, but I've already got 18 of them. I might not need that Nuclear Physicist perk, after all.

I'm no longer doing the 'stealth sniper' thing, now that I've got a functional suit of power armor and the skills to repair it. I think there's an upgrade for the power armor that reduces the damage taken from explosives, which at least partly makes up for not having Sneak. I've also swapped the 10mm for a laser rifle as my main weapon.

I've got 16 settlers at Sanctuary, 5 at Red Rocket and 5 at Abernathy Farm, and have trade routes going between them. I've got Gray Gardens, Tenpines Bluff and Oberland Station on board, but I haven't started developing them yet, and they're not connected to my supplies network. I've also cleared out Starlight and Hangman's Alley, but they're empty. I got a mod that opens the interiors of two of the buildings that face onto Hangman's Alley, so you get more space to build (I think the mod also gives you a rooftop door in one of the buildings). I've started to play with Sim Settlements 2 a little, just setting some residential plots for new settlers to build shacks in and some industrial plots that folks're using for scavenging junk.

Small recon parties of 3-4 Super-Mutants have attacked Red Rocket twice now, and 2 settlers from Sanctuary have been kidnapped by Raiders. Gray Gardens got attacked by Raiders once, but the robots took care of business without me. I don't remember these attacks happening so frequently before, which makes me think it's part of Sim Settlements 2. I'm a little worried about Tenpines and Oberland Station now, which still just have 2 people and no defenses.

I spotted Sunshine Tidings, which I'd completely forgotten existed, but I skirted around it and didn't clear it. That might be the next settlement I go after. I remember it had some nice buildings.

I traveled with Preston until I got the United We Stand perk, then switched to Piper. That's exactly what I did the last time I played, but I haven't met very many potential companions yet. I met Paladin Danse and helped him retrieve the part he needed from ArcJet, but I haven't decided whether I want to join the Brotherhood. Probably will. I don't remember that joining them obliged you to do much, or conflicted with the Minutemen, and they do give you a set of power armor that I think is more advanced than the T-45. Preston doesn't like them, and I would guess that Piper doesn't either, so I'm gonna hold off on that at least until I get Piper's perk, even though I don't remember what it is (I'm not going to Google it, I'd rather be surprised).

I haven't been into the city too much yet. I went to Diamond City and had to retrieve a kidnapped settler, but that's it so far. I have a mod that dramatically expands the subway, but I haven't been down there yet. Preston wants me to lead his team in retaking The Castle, which I think is way too premature.

Thinking about increasing the Difficulty a step, see what happens.

I only play Survivor mode. Higher difficulty you get mire legendary weapon drops.

If you're doing the settler thing pimping out Sanctuary hills with lvl 4 merchants is the way to do it.

Power armor is generally easy mode but finding the perfect set of normal armor might take 100 levels. Perfect set of armor generally better the perfect setbis generally 5 or 6 pieces of same legendary effect. Eg a set granting +5 perception/ability or strength+endurance or vat reduction.

Power core won't matter late game you'll find 4 in a box or can buy them easy enough.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I only play Survivor mode. Higher difficulty you get mire legendary weapon drops.

If you're doing the settler thing pimping out Sanctuary hills with lvl 4 merchants is the way to do it.

Power armor is generally easy mode but finding the perfect set of normal armor might take 100 levels. Perfect set of armor generally better the perfect setbis generally 5 or 6 pieces of same legendary effect. Eg a set granting +5 perception/ability or strength+endurance or vat reduction.

Power core won't matter late game you'll find 4 in a box or can buy them easy enough.

Yeah, survival mode was almost what I wanted. I liked the tougher combat. The Hard & Very Hard difficulty modes seem to just give your enemies more Hit Points, so fights simply take longer and use more resources, they're not really harder, per se. Very Hard was just tedious, a lot of the time. But most of the survival aspects of survival mode were annoying, rather than interesting. I find that to be true in most games that put a layer of survival mechanics over their other stuff. Subnautica, for example, was so much more enjoyable when I shut off the hunger & thirst mechanics. There's a mod that lets you quicksave in Fallout 4's survival mode without needing a bed, which is the single worst part of survival mode for me, but I still got bored of having to manage hunger, thirst & sleep.

There have been two exceptions, games where survival is the entire focus, and it isn't just a complicating/frustrating/aggravating layer over the base game: The Long Dark of course, but also the Frost total conversion mod for Fallout 4. If you haven't played the latter, I highly recommend it. It's gleefully brutal, and it's almost purely survival & exploration. After playing regular Fallout 4, you really have un-learn and re-learn combat in Frost.

Anyway, I'm hoping that Sim Settlements 2 on Normal or Hard difficulty will present an interesting game, even though I'm basically a superhero. I'm using the 'mortal settlers' option from a mod, and I've already lost two people to a Raider attack on Sanctuary. I'd like to find a mod that adds kids & elderly people - Settlers who use resources but don't do as much work and don't contribute to the defense of Settlements. I think at some point Sim Settlements 2 becomes almost a strategic game, with larger and larger incursions by Raiders, Super-Mutants and Gunners. There's a "Chapter 2" and a "Chapter 3" which I think is about a full-blown war with the Gunners (I didn't look closely, to avoid spoilers).

 

[Senethro]

Hell, the developers even acknowledge this by adding checkpoints before bosses which are the only decent part of the game. Even they acknowledge that the run to the boss is no fun.

Haha what?

Also sounds like you should be using the harder lockon that centers the enemies so that they don't drift behind the player model.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Anyway, I'm hoping that Sim Settlements 2 on Normal or Hard difficulty will present an interesting game, even though I'm basically a superhero. I'm using the 'mortal settlers' option from a mod, and I've already lost two people to a Raider attack on Sanctuary. I'd like to find a mod that adds kids & elderly people - Settlers who use resources but don't do as much work and don't contribute to the defense of Settlements. I think at some point Sim Settlements 2 becomes almost a strategic game, with larger and larger incursions by Raiders, Super-Mutants and Gunners. There's a "Chapter 2" and a "Chapter 3" which I think is about a full-blown war with the Gunners (I didn't look closely, to avoid spoilers).

I haven't played Chapter 3 and only got a part of the way through Chapter 2, but I did go through the war with the Gunners. So many Gunners would appear in a single settlement that it would often make my game crash. It might've been fixed since then.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I haven't played Chapter 3 and only got a part of the way through Chapter 2, but I did go through the war with the Gunners. So many Gunners would appear in a single settlement that it would often make my game crash. It might've been fixed since then.

Hm. Well, fingers crossed. My game already crashes from time to time, but I haven't figured out what's doing it.