What Video Games Have You Been Playing VII: The Real Ending is Locked Behind a Paywall

[Arakhor]

Kinggath's Sim Settlements is an absolute must if you want to take part in the settlements but don't feel like building every damn thing yourself.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Yeah, Sim Settlements is one of those things that should be officially incorporated into the game. I started a new playthrough, purely to test it out. I wished I'd had it the first time I played through the game. It seemed to impact my machine's performance when I was in "Starlight City."

If you want to do a roleplaying project with Fallout 4, I recommend looking at Alternate Start or Another Life, and Pip-Pad. The first 2 let you begin a game in a variety of locations, and with different starting gear. I didn't use either of them enough to know which one's better. The 3rd one replaces the PIP-Boy with a handheld tablet (mostly cosmetic, it functions the same except it removes the light, so you'll need a flashlight mod).

Some "QoL" mods I liked:
Towbie's Realistic Weapon Sounds
Lowered Weapons
True Storms
Darker Nights - a cool interplay between True Storms and Darker Nights was fighting enemies in a thunder storm, waiting for them to be illuminated by lightning
More Where That Came From Diamond City Radio
Fallout 4 Enhanced Color Correction
A Touch of Green
Better Settlers
Diamond City Enhanced
A Better Third Rail

All of the above are self-explanatory, I think. I would set up any new Fallout 4 player with these mods.

Basement Living - Allows you to "craft" a variety of subterranean shelters in Settlements. The shelters are "plug and play", and come equipped with beds, workbenches, and other stuff. I liked them because there's no way to get in out of rad storms with regular Settlement buildings (True Storms allows you to make radstorms really bad news, which I did). These underground shelters are instanced, so Companions will come with you, but Settlers can't get in (so they can't steal your bed, for example).

Some Assembly Required - This one makes powered armor rarer but tougher. You find pieces of power armor where you used to find whole suits, so you won't get a whole garage filled with suits of armor. Assembling a full suit of X-01 is nigh-impossible, takes forever, and I suppose it must turn you into a leviathan (I never did it, so I can only guess how good it must be). Fusion Cores are still way too common, though. There's a mod that allows you to increase (or decrease) the consumption of cores, but I'd recommend a mod that slashes the number of cores that you find instead.

The Beantown Interiors Project - This lets you access many, many of the abandoned buildings that are just boarded up in the vanilla game. Most are filled with junk, so much junk you'll never run out of junk.

Subway Runner - This makes the Commonwealth's metro/subway system accessible and fills it with monsters and loot. It should have been part of the vanilla game at launch.

There are also a couple of mods I used that added a variety of knick-knacks to Settlement building. They didn't improve the broken, maddening mechanics at all, but they added variety. There's also a mod that allows quick-saving while in Survival Mode, but I can't remember what it's called. There's also a good flashlight mod, that lets you dial it up to a friggin' blinding spotlight or down to something reminiscent of the flashlight in Half-Life 2 (I went with the latter, naturally). Again, I don't remember the name of that one.

 

[Groff]

Civilization III is free on Humble bundle (it's the steam version):
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/sid-meiers-civilization-iii-complete

 

[Synobun]

I don't know, they added a ton of stuff with the DLC.

So I'm thinking of making a narrative telling of my latest Fallout 4 play through. I've been mentally role playing as I go and I would like to write it up as a story with pictures. Is there a place and an audience for that on CFC?

The All Other Games section has been used in the past for stuff like this. I have memories of someone doing this for the Sims... I think maybe @Leonel?

Audience, however, might be a little lacking. That area doesn't get a lot of traffic.

 

[Leonel]

I did it for a Spore game

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Haha I have Fallout 4 on PS4 so the mods I can get are garbage. Thanks everyone for the suggestions though.

I'm a good writer and I enjoy the process enough that I don't think I'll care if no one reads it. I am going to focus on writing the narrative as if I'm really in the game. I don't want to play through for the stories sake, I want to play through the way I would if I were there, if that makes sense. I'll only advance the main narrative of the game as it makes sense to advance my own goals, I'll make up my own story.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'm a good writer and I enjoy the process enough that I don't think I'll care if no one reads it. I am going to focus on writing the narrative as if I'm really in the game. I don't want to play through for the stories sake, I want to play through the way I would if I were there, if that makes sense. I'll only advance the main narrative of the game as it makes sense to advance my own goals, I'll make up my own story.

Yeah, that's definitely the way to go. You can use parts of the main questline if you want your character involved with one of the main factions, or if you want to get one of the game's NPCs into your story. I kind of liked the ideas of Piper and Nic Valentine, for instance, but as soon as they join you they stop their investigations. Piper is a journalist only up until the player meets her. Occasionally, she'll ask if you'll buy her a new printing press, but that's it.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

So if they don't join you they don't stop investigations? Can't you also do things for them but reject their companionship?

One thing I am trying to figure out is how I want to balance my decisions. I want the plot to advance only because it unlocks events and some things to do but I want to make it pretty far into the game before I have to choose a side and start making decisions. I want the decisions to be made because I have some need to make them to achieve other goals, not because I want to get in cahoots with one faction or another.

For example, I played ball with the minutemen in the beginning because I want to unlock base building, not because I want to be a minuteman, if that makes sense.

If I kill everyone in a settlement that I'm not allied with, can I then unlock that settlement for myself? (Instead of doing the quest and making them join the minuteman side)

 

[Hygro]

Still on my diablo bender u guys are really missing out

 

[EgonSpengler]

So if they don't join you they don't stop investigations? Can't you also do things for them but reject their companionship?

No, I don't think many of the companions do much of anything unless they're accompanying you. From a roleplaying perspective, you can imagine that Piper is investigating and writing her newspaper while she's not accompanying you on missions. But while she's hanging out with you, her own life completely vanishes. She doesn't even want to visit her little sister.

Hey, that reminds me. Another nifty mod I used was 'Companions Go Home.' It gives you the option to have companions return to their starting location when you dismiss them, instead of only going to one of your settlements. In the vanilla game, once you select someone as a companion, except for the missions they give you, their old life is permanently over. In some cases that makes sense - Cait has nothing to go back to, for instance - but not in others. With the mod, you can send Piper and Nick back to their offices in Diamond City, Paladin Danse back to the Prydwen, and Hancock back to Goodneighbor.

One thing I am trying to figure out is how I want to balance my decisions. I want the plot to advance only because it unlocks events and some things to do but I want to make it pretty far into the game before I have to choose a side and start making decisions. I want the decisions to be made because I have some need to make them to achieve other goals, not because I want to get in cahoots with one faction or another.

For example, I played ball with the minutemen in the beginning because I want to unlock base building, not because I want to be a minuteman, if that makes sense.

Some world events are triggered by the main character's storyline. For instance, I think you have to do some of the early missions for the Brotherhood recon squad that's holed up in the Cambridge Police Station in order to trigger the arrival of the Prydwen, and in order to do those early missions you have to agree to join the Brotherhood. From a game mechanics perspective, there's no difference, but if you're roleplaying and you don't want to join the Brotherhood (and you also don't want to be someone who agrees to join and then bails) you will never get the Prydwen to arrive. So as you're crafting your own story, you'll have to (a) go ahead and join the Brotherhood, (b) take the oath without really meaning it, or (c) just not have the Prydwen in the Commonwealth.

If I kill everyone in a settlement that I'm not allied with, can I then unlock that settlement for myself? (Instead of doing the quest and making them join the minuteman side)

At least in some cases, yes. I know you can get Starlight Drive-in and Hangman's Alley just by barging in and clearing out the molerats and raiders that live there.

 

[danjuno]

The much-hyped TF2 update just came through. RIP Old Panic Attack.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, i played For The Glory (it is some kind of EuII 2.0) yesterday. Suprisingly, as the Byzantine Empire. Game is very inferior to EUIII of course, but i couldn't get that to run (missing file somewhere in win32).

Meh, i guess i am over games. Not that surprising; they devour time, and i can't identify what is going on there as fun enough to sacrifice the time if it is hours and hours.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Still on my diablo bender u guys are really missing out

Come into the light and play Path of Exile. Free to play. 10 acts that get progressively harder, so only one play through required to get to the even harder end game.

 

[Commodore]

not because I want to get in cahoots with one faction or another.

But isn't that mostly why people make decisions in real life?

 

[Hygro]

Some adventures in Diablo II, Hardcore (aka you have one life), USWest, Classic, Ladder.


Training for the glorious free for all that will be the final day of this ladder season in three weeks:

We high five:

My current ladder spot

 

[Peuri]

I've been playing Stellaris. I really enjoy the setting, the art, and all the general feel of the game, but gosh, the gameplay is soooo bad. For the life of me I can't keep up with the AI even on the easiest settings. And this is coming from a person who's been playing 4X games and Paradox games since I was in middle school. I've got over 600 hours in EU IV, but this game is so random and so hard. I even mastered Distant Worlds! I can spend 8 hours on a Stellaris campaign trying to keep up, only to be wiped out by an army 4x the power of my ships, it's pretty terrible. The AI constantly has more ships and more tech, what can a person do?

I tried to rebalance the game myself more to my liking, but that just stunted the AI, because it doesn't want to colonize systems that are too far away. My criticisms:
-There are too many colonizable planets
-There has to be more planet variety
-Terraforming has to be more complex, take a longer time and be more limited
-Building spaceships is weightless, I constantly have to churn out even battleships, which just makes them feel pretty meh
-Galaxy creation is too favourable, I mean what are the odds that you would find 2 planets exactly to your species' preference
-The game leads too easily to snowballing
-There has to be consequences to exterminating entire species
-Growing in tech, in size, and in the number of space ships is too connected, why can't some species focus more on fleet size, and others in tech

Anyone else played Stellaris? Any tips or mod recommendations?

 

[Hygro]

Sounds like you need to get better at the game and then play on a harder setting

 

[Arakhor]

You can adjust various aspects of galaxy generation in the initial game settings. As for mods, I'm a fan of the Stellar Expansion family of mods.

 

[Senethro]

Early game Stellaris is all about minerals and expansion. The lowest effort race creation would be something like Adaptable + Industrious traits, civics +10% minerals and one of +Unity, +Research Alternatives or -Building cost. On Day 1 you build your Unity building and move an energy worker to it and start unlocking the Expansion tree until you complete it. First Ascension perk should be Mastery of Nature because it basically saves you so much Society research points and time that you never have to build a Biolab, while enabling rapid development of colonies. Base rate for expansion should be at least 1 new colony per 5 years.

As for fleets its easiest to hide behind your starports for the first 20-25 years. A 1000 str HP blob can easily tank for a skeleton fleet. You just need to carefully assess when potential enemies fleet strength has made Starports irrelevent and then build up to your cap while also increasing your cap by all means available. There will come a point where all the crappy size 10 and 12 off-habitat planets become valuable for their supply contributions rather than any great economic output and you backfill colonise them and toss them immediately into a sector to be ignored.

Its better to be big than smart. Technology is an ephemeral advantage that can easily be made up with a larger fleet and persecution of small empires for delicious salvage.

 

[Lexicus]

I've been playing Stellaris. I really enjoy the setting, the art, and all the general feel of the game, but gosh, the gameplay is soooo bad. For the life of me I can't keep up with the AI even on the easiest settings. And this is coming from a person who's been playing 4X games and Paradox games since I was in middle school. I've got over 600 hours in EU IV, but this game is so random and so hard. I even mastered Distant Worlds! I can spend 8 hours on a Stellaris campaign trying to keep up, only to be wiped out by an army 4x the power of my ships, it's pretty terrible. The AI constantly has more ships and more tech, what can a person do?

Yo this is exactly my experience. I even resorted to watching Let's Plays but I just don't understand how people get their resource income and research so high so quickly. I look on the forums and people are talking about how the game is too easy even on insane difficulty and I just don't understand any of it.

Early game Stellaris is all about minerals and expansion. The lowest effort race creation would be something like Adaptable + Industrious traits, civics +10% minerals and one of +Unity, +Research Alternatives or -Building cost. On Day 1 you build your Unity building and move an energy worker to it and start unlocking the Expansion tree until you complete it. First Ascension perk should be Mastery of Nature because it basically saves you so much Society research points and time that you never have to build a Biolab, while enabling rapid development of colonies. Base rate for expansion should be at least 1 new colony per 5 years.

As for fleets its easiest to hide behind your starports for the first 20-25 years. A 1000 str HP blob can easily tank for a skeleton fleet. You just need to carefully assess when potential enemies fleet strength has made Starports irrelevent and then build up to your cap while also increasing your cap by all means available. There will come a point where all the crappy size 10 and 12 off-habitat planets become valuable for their supply contributions rather than any great economic output and you backfill colonise them and toss them immediately into a sector to be ignored.

Its better to be big than smart. Technology is an ephemeral advantage that can easily be made up with a larger fleet and persecution of small empires for delicious salvage.

Well...I do this. I expand quite fast in the early game. But I just can't build up enough mineral production to get enough ships to defend myself in the early game, which forces me to rely on defensive pacts and luck.

I also really dislike how the endgame crisis is so rng-dependent. I played one game into the lategame, and the Contingency shows up, but there was already an Awakened empire which just crushed it immediately without it becoming any kind of threat. Next game I bump the crisis strength up to 2.25x (first game it was 2x) and it's a little better- the AI can't muster up a fleet to stomp the Machine Worlds, but it immediately destroys all the offensive fleets shortly after they spawn. Next game I bump the strength up to 2.5x, and the Unbidden spawn a few star systems away from my borders, on the opposite side of the galaxy of the two fallen empires, and quickly wipes me out leading to instant ragequit. The last game would have been incredibly fun if only the Unbidden had spawned near the Fallen Empires instead of where all the weakest empires were...

Anyway I'm loving Stellaris but I still haven't worked out how to play it properly yet, or how to set up a game so that it's somewhere between way too easy and totally impossible. Also the AI makes too many defensive pacts, so that by the time I finally do get a respectable fleet capable of beating my one of my neighbors, they have defensive pacts with like 6 other AIs including several that I have defensive pacts. An interlocking series of defensive pacts usually turns most of the midgame into a snooze fest, and I have to wait for the crisis or an awakened empire to shake things up at all.