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

[Smellincoffee]

Nothing that 5 million DLCs can't fix ^^

It will be interesting to see what direction they take them in. I'd hope they don't invent a mechanic and then keep doing different versions of that mechanic, like they did with industries/parks/universities/etc. They were all just different variants on the same theme.

I'm still playing Undead Nightmare. Going into Mexico, where I assume I will find answers.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Fallout 4: Survival Mode

I finally got killed last night. 17 hours, level 21. When I started this new game, I considered doing a "permadeath" run, just to ratchet up the tension, but the early parts of this game aren't great, imo, and I didn't want to have to start over. It's not like The Long Dark, where the beginning is often the best part, and after a while you kind of wish the game could kill you so you could start a new game without having to abandon a game that's going well. So I'm glad I decided not to do that. I wouldn't want to have to start over now.

One of the mods I use adds random travelers to the map that you can meet, going to and fro. You'll run across hunters and scavengers that you can trade with, pairs of Minutemen on patrol, small groups of Super-Mutants, etc. The benign ones will show up to your settlements too, just visiting, kind of like the traveling merchants in the vanilla game (Trashcan Carla, et al). There was one time I encountered 2 Super-Mutants who had a captive Settler. I don't know if the mod is so dynamic that a wandering Settler actually ran into a wandering Super-Mutant patrol and they captured him. Probably it was scripted as "two Super-Mutants with a captive Settler", but I like to imagine it's actually capable of an interaction like that. You do sometimes see opposed groups meet each other, and they'll start fighting and you can just sit and watch them kill each other. I think that's in the base game, though, and the mod just adds more people out in the Wasteland. I once saw Raiders attacking a traveling merchant, and I couldn't quite get there in time to rescue the merchant. I was worried it was one of my caravans - I use another mod that allows my Settlers to be killed in combat - but it turned out it was just one of the randos. I have to admit to feeling a little relieved that the poor sod wasn't one of mine. I also took a lot of stuff off of his dead Brahmin. I always try to outfit my caravaners well, and it's paid off at least once: I met one of my people on the road one time, and he'd just killed 3 feral ghouls by himself.

Anyway, last night Paladin Danse had sent me in search of the missing recon team, far to the East. I had hardly set foot outside of the Northwest quadrant of the map (I had specifically avoided answering the distress call for quite a while - I could hear the gunfire every time I got near Cambridge Police Station, and it must have been going on for a week, just waiting for me to arrive and 'save the day'). I didn't think I was ready to go too far East yet, but I decided to explore in that direction a little. As I crept East out of Cambridge, I stumbled upon a patrol of 3 Gunners and an Assaultron. I barely had time to shout "what the [frankfurter]!" before I was dead. I don't know for sure that it was a product of the mod, but I kind of like the idea that it was. When I played Dungeons & Dragons back in the day, my players used to refer to the "Wandering Monsters" table as the "Wandering Damage" table.

One strange thing, and I don't know if this is a bug or if there's something more interesting going on: I've assigned two Settlers to relocate to Graygarden from other settlements, and neither of them ever showed up. On the map, it still shows the population of Graygardens with 2 more settlers, though. I wonder if something happened to those Settlers as they made their way to Graygarden, if they've been captured by Raiders in some sort of dynamic, emergent event. That would be cool. After the first Settler disappeared, I actually started to follow the second one as she slowly - so slowly - walked to Graygarden. I got distracted by something, and then she disappeared too. Could just be a bug, like they both got stuck on a piece of a terrain and could be found walking robotically into the trunk of a tree or something, if I only looked hard enough.

 

[Kyriakos]

I am continuing the They are Billions campaign, but with tech improvements the game rapidly becomes basic (and boring).

 

[EgonSpengler]

I am continuing the They are Billions campaign, but with tech improvements the game rapidly becomes basic (and boring).

Definitely give survival mode a try before you put it away.

 

[Kyriakos]

Definitely give survival mode a try before you put it away.

What's that about? (cosplaying we aren't on the internet because lazy )

 

[Senethro]

Survival is the actual game made first. The campaign was a bit tacked on.

 

[Kyriakos]

But won't you have access to all (potential) techs at the start of each survival game?
The problem is that already with (a bit less than) half the tech tree researched, I don't even have to pay much attention to what is happening.
I am playing in average difficulty, though... (didn't make sense to start with hardest when I didn't even know the game).

 

[EgonSpengler]

But won't you have access to all (potential) techs at the start of each survival game?
The problem is that already with (a bit less than) half the tech tree researched, I don't even have to pay much attention to what is happening.
I am playing in average difficulty, though... (didn't make sense to start with hardest when I didn't even know the game).

You should have no trouble with survival mode, then...

Spoiler :

 

[Kyriakos]

At least the lucifer unit is funny. Although it can burn friendly units too

 

[EgonSpengler]

Fallout 4: Survival Mode

Following the trail of the missing Brotherhood of Steel recon team, I got murked again, and I'm not even sure what got me this time. I was heading north from the satellite array and spotted a little bunker I'd never seen before. I thought I was approaching carefully, but suddenly there was a fusillade of laser fire and down I went. So naturally I'm planning to go straight back there, next time I play.

I really need to get my T-45 power armor suit up and running. You don't have too go far outside the Northwest quadrant of the map before [stuff] gets wild. But I found three T-45 pieces at the Federal Ration Stockpile, and two more at the National Guard Training Yard (that Sentry Bot was a son of a gun - had to use 5 hand grenades on him - but it was worth it, just for the armor pieces). I only need a right arm, now. I actually have a full suit of Raider power armor that I could be using, but that [crap] is ugly. I ain't gonna look like no low-budget Raider. I think the T-45 is pretty cool looking, though. I actually think the T-51 is a downgrade, aesthetically. I need to get Armorer 2 and Nuclear Physicist 1 to be able to repair and upgrade the T-45, but I think I may have 3 unused Perk points.

 

[Kyriakos]

You should have no trouble with survival mode, then...

Spoiler :

For a while now I don't really care about the zombies. I just casually design a fortress and then build an army and recruit mercs. No sense of dread ^^

The campaign isn't very well made. The most difficult mission came relatively early - something like 6000 running zombies, 100 of which were level 2 (obese). And I needed ballista towers to barely make it.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Fallout 4: Survival Mode

Following the trail of the missing Brotherhood of Steel recon team, I got murked again, and I'm not even sure what got me this time. I was heading north from the satellite array and spotted a little bunker I'd never seen before. I thought I was approaching carefully, but suddenly there was a fusillade of laser fire and down I went. So naturally I'm planning to go straight back there, next time I play.

It was a small bunker with laser turrets on the roof and a subterranean level that had a yao-guai living in it.

I'm getting really sick of my companions. Last night, Preston ran right in front me just as I was throwing a hand grenade. The grenade bounced off his back and I had to dash out of cover to get away from it. I think I'm going to look again at the list of Companion Perks to see which ones I really want or need, and then go Lone Wanderer. I'd like to be able to get their individual Missions too, but I guess I could just ditch each of them as soon as it's convenient. As a nice bonus, you can still have the dog with you if you're using Lone Wanderer, so you have somebody to talk to besides the radio.

I really need to get my T-45 power armor suit up and running. You don't have too go far outside the Northwest quadrant of the map before [stuff] gets wild. But I found three T-45 pieces at the Federal Ration Stockpile, and two more at the National Guard Training Yard (that Sentry Bot was a son of a gun - had to use 5 hand grenades on him - but it was worth it, just for the armor pieces). I only need a right arm, now. I actually have a full suit of Raider power armor that I could be using, but that [crap] is ugly. I ain't gonna look like no low-budget Raider. I think the T-45 is pretty cool looking, though. I actually think the T-51 is a downgrade, aesthetically. I need to get Armorer 2 and Nuclear Physicist 1 to be able to repair and upgrade the T-45, but I think I may have 3 unused Perk points.

...and of course last night I found all of the remaining pieces I need to assemble a full T-51 suit. I'm not able to get all of the Perks I need to upgrade and repair the T-51 yet, though: Armorer 3, Science 2, and Physicist 1 (the T-45 requires Armorer 2 and Science 1, not Physicist, I had that wrong). I still need a right arm for the T-45, but I could use the Raider right arm I already have. It'll look junkyard, but it might be good enough. The best upgrades are in the helmet and torso anyway, and the carrying-capacity upgrade is in the legs.

 

[Zardnaar]

It was a small bunker with laser turrets on the roof and a subterranean level that had a yao-guai living in it.

I'm getting really sick of my companions. Last night, Preston ran right in front me just as I was throwing a hand grenade. The grenade bounced off his back and I had to dash out of cover to get away from it. I think I'm going to look again at the list of Companion Perks to see which ones I really want or need, and then go Lone Wanderer. I'd like to be able to get their individual Missions too, but I guess I could just ditch each of them as soon as it's convenient. As a nice bonus, you can still have the dog with you if you're using Lone Wanderer, so you have somebody to talk to besides the radio.


...and of course last night I found all of the remaining pieces I need to assemble a full T-51 suit. I'm not able to get all of the Perks I need to upgrade and repair the T-51 yet, though: Armorer 3, Science 2, and Physicist 1 (the T-45 requires Armorer 2 and Science 1, not Physicist, I had that wrong). I still need a right arm for the T-45, but I could use the Raider right arm I already have. It'll look junkyard, but it might be good enough. The best upgrades are in the helmet and torso anyway, and the carrying-capacity upgrade is in the legs.

The companions are a Pita and chew through your ammo and run stealth/get in the way.

They're really only God if you're a power armor type or have a robot one in automation DLC.

Piper can be sonehat useful along with Nick Valentine. Their perks are nice if you beeline for them Earl and know how to farm it.

Strong can ve a good pack mule and equipped as melee beats stick with a good legendary weapon.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The companions are a Pita and chew through your ammo and run stealth/get in the way.

A funny bit with a companion being a complete dip[stick] was when I was in the fistfight with the thugs in the bar in Diamond City, which was all a setup for Travis, and Piper just drew her gun and shot them dead. I mean, WTH... (That was in my previous game. In my current game, I'll have either Piper or Valentine as a companion by then, and I use a mod that allows you to send your companions to wherever they live instead of to one of your settlements, so I can just tell them to wait for me at home while I do that mission.)

 

[Zardnaar]

A funny bit with a companion being a complete dip[stick] was when I was in the fistfight with the thugs in the bar in Diamond City, which was all a setup for Travis, and Piper just drew her gun and shot them dead. I mean, WTH... (That was in my previous game. In my current game, I'll have either Piper or Valentine as a companion by then, and I use a mod that allows you to send your companions to wherever they live instead of to one of your settlements, so I can just tell them to wait for me at home while I do that mission.)

Nurderbit companions designed to carry lots are decent.

They can solo death claws etc.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Nurderbit companions designed to carry lots are decent.

They can solo death claws etc.

I've somewhat mitigated the carrying capacity issue of traveling solo with a Salvage Beacons mod (link to Nexus Mods). (And if you use Sim Settlements 2, that mod eventually gives you an even better version, where the salvage team will actually scour an area that you've cleared of bad guys and collect everything for you.) I've used a beacon about a half-dozen times now, and it's worked well each time. However, I've barely stretched my legs outside the northwest corner of the map. I think the distance you dispatch the salvage team does affect how long it takes for them to arrive back at your settlement with your stuff, but I don't know if they're vulnerable to any dangers along the way, and I don't know if the beacons work on whole other maps, such as Far Harbor and Nuka-World (I also have a mod that adds a waterfront ferry to Point Lookout, from Fallout 3).

Do the robots mess with the Lone Wanderer perk? If I could have a robot that literally just carried stuff and defended itself, that might be worth it. I also think there's a mod that lets you manipulate your companions' behavior, in some way. If I could just get to be more passive, that might help. A lot of the times they [torque] me off is when they run in front of me, or when they start a fight that I haven't started myself yet. Sometimes that's useful, but if I could just shut that behavior off, make them stay behind me and shoot when I shoot, it might be a net gain.

 

[FredLC]

Finished, a couple days ago, a playthrough of "Pillars of Eternity", on "hard". Something I decided to do after finishing tyranny on "path of the damned".

In retrospect, I could have finished Pillars on PotD as well. Save for 3 fights (the Master Below, Conceulhaut and Thaos), the game was actually quite manageable, and you should expect some difficulty spikes every now and then (and even then, save for the master bellow, that took 5 attempts, I won those on first try; only by the skin of my teeth).

But as this was not a NG+, I decided not to max the difficulty level.

My impressions of the game improved quite a lot in this second playthrough; because I was not as lost in the first act - a rare instance in which being spoiled helped the narrative - and because I understood the systems much better now, and engaged much more with the puzzle aspect of each fight (how to disable the foes, buff my team, and exploit synnergies).

Now I begun a playthough of Pillars 2, also on hard, for consistency sake. I am still very early on, and had reached a roadblock, but only because I still didn't have a full roster - and then for the first time I hired "mercenaries" to complete the team, and bang - the game is as easy, if not easier, than the first.

That said, by beggining the second game just after the first, I can appreciate much more the mechanical improvements and graphical evolutions of the series. And the leap is greater than I remembered.

So, great series. It will take me a while to move on - they are very large games for those who like to complete the quest log - but I am having fun, and that is what matters here.

Regards .

 

[Kyriakos]

I don't think it's the final swarm (maybe that will come in day 70 something), but it might as well had been.

 

[PhroX]

Finished, a couple days ago, a playthrough of "Pillars of Eternity", on "hard". Something I decided to do after finishing tyranny on "path of the damned".

In retrospect, I could have finished Pillars on PotD as well. Save for 3 fights (the Master Below, Conceulhaut and Thaos), the game was actually quite manageable, and you should expect some difficulty spikes every now and then (and even then, save for the master bellow, that took 5 attempts, I won those on first try; only by the skin of my teeth).

But as this was not a NG+, I decided not to max the difficulty level.

My impressions of the game improved quite a lot in this second playthrough; because I was not as lost in the first act - a rare instance in which being spoiled helped the narrative - and because I understood the systems much better now, and engaged much more with the puzzle aspect of each fight (how to disable the foes, buff my team, and exploit synnergies).

Now I begun a playthough of Pillars 2, also on hard, for consistency sake. I am still very early on, and had reached a roadblock, but only because I still didn't have a full roster - and then for the first time I hired "mercenaries" to complete the team, and bang - the game is as easy, if not easier, than the first.

That said, by beggining the second game just after the first, I can appreciate much more the mechanical improvements and graphical evolutions of the series. And the leap is greater than I remembered.

So, great series. It will take me a while to move on - they are very large games for those who like to complete the quest log - but I am having fun, and that is what matters here.

Regards .

Some of the hardest fights in Pillars 2, at least on high difficulties, are on the first island. Pre-DLC, there were probably only a couple of areas in the game as tough as Grocery Street unless you leave it and come back with some levels under your belt. Things smooth out later, but the early game difficulty is weirdly out of whack.

 

[Zardnaar]

I've somewhat mitigated the carrying capacity issue of traveling solo with a Salvage Beacons mod (link to Nexus Mods). (And if you use Sim Settlements 2, that mod eventually gives you an even better version, where the salvage team will actually scour an area that you've cleared of bad guys and collect everything for you.) I've used a beacon about a half-dozen times now, and it's worked well each time. However, I've barely stretched my legs outside the northwest corner of the map. I think the distance you dispatch the salvage team does affect how long it takes for them to arrive back at your settlement with your stuff, but I don't know if they're vulnerable to any dangers along the way, and I don't know if the beacons work on whole other maps, such as Far Harbor and Nuka-World (I also have a mod that adds a waterfront ferry to Point Lookout, from Fallout 3).

Do the robots mess with the Lone Wanderer perk? If I could have a robot that literally just carried stuff and defended itself, that might be worth it. I also think there's a mod that lets you manipulate your companions' behavior, in some way. If I could just get to be more passive, that might help. A lot of the times they [torque] me off is when they run in front of me, or when they start a fight that I haven't started myself yet. Sometimes that's useful, but if I could just shut that behavior off, make them stay behind me and shoot when I shoot, it might be a net gain.

Robots count as companions. You can customize them so a pack mule bot with twin galling lasers would probably be best bet with power armor build.

Your stealth doesn't matter and it's carry capacity plus kill ability is impressive.

I may have played this game a lot.