Definitely like being near merchants. Red Rocket is good because TCC travels by there on her way to Sanctuary and Abernathy, and also because you can sell stuff at Abernathy. Hangman's is good because it's really close to DC without actually being in DC. Can hardly wait to get into Hangman's with my revamped scrap mods and get rid of that shack that was previously unscrappable.

Keep in mind that if you have six Charisma and both perks of Local Leader you can build shops and assign settlers to them. Gives you all the merchants you'll need.

This is true, but what lvl does Local Leader 2 open up at?

It opens up at

player.addperk 4d88d
player.addperk 1d2468



I really don't care for managing settlements, recruiting settlers, or any of that Sims stuff. So I have no desire to create shops or set up supply routes. I just want to explore the wasteland and get in adventures. I typically use the console for the Local Leader perk so I can build crafting benches. (I think it is ridiculous that you need that in order to build a working stove). One of these days I will just create a mod that removes the perk from the requirements to build crafting stations.

OTOH, Hecate finally got to the northern part of the map. Wow, it is like a completely new game. Ghouls die with one shot instead of three.

Lol, Khajiit has never understood why they locked cooking stations behind Local Leader. It's just dumb!

Fair enough! I just always end up getting it at some point because I usually do the MM ending. Usually around the mid 30's, I start putting up shops.

Then the hunt for level four merchants begins!

I'm thinking of doing a survival playthrough with Matty. The ONLY thing turning me off is that saving is limited so I'm hoping there's a PS4 mod which allows saving anywhere.

I think this time round, as the game will be more difficult, I'll incorporate stealth into my perk list. I've heard stealth with Melee isn't the best but I'm going to try it out. Along with this I'll probably post videos of my survival play through.

It's more because I want to roleplay. Eating, drinking, sleeping, realistic carry weight, disabled fast travel is something I can't do unless I'm forced to as I have no will power!

I'm also going to be a bit more realistic with dialogue choices. I always chose the nice options as I didn't want Piper to hate me, but as I know Matty's character like the back of my hand, I'm going to make more realistic choices for him.

Anybody else playing/have played survival?

I found stealth combined with melee to be purest form of awesome in the game. Besides being able to sneak up on people, the Stealth perks also make you immune from mines, tripwires, and other floor-based traps. So it is worth taking with any character just for the latter. Combine with the Ninja perk and your sneak attacks will be doing x15 their normal damage. You will be easily doing 2,000 - 3,000 points of damage with every strike. Nothing in the game can survive one hit of that.

I have no problem with the eating and drinking. Ever since New Vegas I have loved using food and water for healing. My character would probably all be a bunch of whales in the real world, given how much they eat!

The whole one save thing never made any sense to me in so many games and their Survival modes. I guess they want to keep you from trying something, deciding you didn't like that, and reloading your most recent save. But the fact is that save games get bloated and corrupted. When your one save game is trashed after 50+ hours of playing, you lose everything. F you very much Mr Game Developer.

Khajiit loves Survival mode! In some cases the game is actually a bit easier because you deal more damage to the enemy. Stealth is a very good idea because you want to pick and choose your battles. Never rush into a fight and search the potential battlefield for landscape features you can use to your advantage. For perks, anything that helps you get criticals is a good idea, whether it be Ninja for better stealth crits or the ones that let you save up or alter your activated crits (remember: the activated crits are guaranteed hits regardless of the number VATS is showing, so aim for an enemy's head for maximum damage). The save thing isn't as bad now since it has the "exit save", but definitely get a mod that lets you save anywhere, Bethesda games are too buggy to rely on both the exit save and hoping to find a mattress or sleeping bag to take an hour nap on. That said, if you see a mattress, go ahead and save. Khajiit has always felt the save limit was stupid, it just seems so arbitrary. The necessity management is a bit better than New Vegas' "hardcore mode" and the illnesses you can contract add a new dimension to the gameplay. Once, one of Khajiit's characters caught an infection and couldn't find any antibiotics anywhere so they had to make a mad dash to DC to get healed by the doc before they died from the infection! Oh, and your carry weight limit is severely restricted too, so pocketed armor and maybe the "Strong Back" perk is a good idea. In conclusion, Survival mode is a much slower paced experience that makes you manage your resources better and by doing so makes the game more meaningful, imo; Khajiit finds that he cares more about his characters and every victory, whether it be against Raiders or an illness, is more satisfying.

So my survival playthrough with Matty has been going am. But I've made some changes.

I've scrapped his no gun lore as I found it almost impossible to so strictly melee. However the only gun he uses is a sniper rifle and an energy pistol.

Also this time round he's friendzoned piper. And he makes sure she spends more time at home with Nat.

When he's not with Piper he travels with Danse. Due to his military background he joined the BoS, but abandoned them after a certain quest in which it was revealed one of their ranks was a synth. He's now somewhat helping the railroad now he knows that just because someone's a synth doesn't mean they deserve to die and they're not any less human.

However he's going to complete the MQ with the minutemen.

Oh, and I changed Matty's look. I added a mod which adds Pipers face to the presents and edited Nora with her face. I wanted a logical reason as to why Matty would connect with Piper so quickly... What better than her reminding him of his late wife?

Yeah this one can't imagine trying to be pure melee in Survival. That would be insanely difficult! You'd definitely need high agility to get the "Blitz" perk and high luck probably wouldn't hurt either for the critical hit enhancer perks. Then again you'd also need decent strength and endurance too. Nightmare.

Welp, with ESO down for server maintenance, Khajiit spent some time with Kim-Ly working on her fortress at Red Rocket. We added a concrete wall that met up with end of the bus we parked in connection to the hedge to the left of the billboard. Along the wall we added a scaffold walkway slightly shorter than the top of the wall and put two short cinder block crenellations on top of the wall for some cover. We also added a gate house with a powered garage door that will eventually be the only entrance point for the compound (unless Khajiit decides to put a back door into it). Then we added a radio beacon to the top of the generator room and made part of the inside of the generator room a radio station. Lastly we put a guard post beside the entrance to powered gate and assigned one our two new settlers to walk between there and the pill box under the billboard. We'll get some screens together when Khajiit gets home tonight and post a tour of the new additions in the Gallery thread.

After 3 days, 9 hours, and 2 minutes Hecate has explored all of the vanilla Commonwealth. She is level 60. I have done most of the side quests, but none of the faction quests or the main quest. She did do the Mechanist questline though. At this point I am debating what to do next - Far Harbor or Nuka World. There is no way Hecate is going to become a Raider, so Nuka World will probably just a straight sweep and clear. I might save that for last.

Yeah eliminating the Raider threat at Nuka World would be a fun end of game thing to do. Joining them is definitely not for all characters.

Loviatar is devouring the Commonwealth. She finally decided to tackle Concord. This time I took a page from Victoria's book and explored the Municipal Sewers first, then climbed the church and jetpacked across to the roof of the museum. You were right Khajiit, it was a really easy fight going from the top of the museum down. Especially in powered armor.

When she reached Garvey and the others Loviatar tried to kill them. But it turns out they are all essential. And it turns out that even if you don't really want to help them get to Sanctuary, you kind of do anyway. Loviatar is hoping that they lose their essential status once they are ensconced in Sanctuary.

Still, taking on the Raiders alone in Concord more than doubled the number of Loviatar's Corpses Eaten stat... So it was very nutritious...

Khajiit downloaded a mod that turned all of Garvey's crew killable, including Garvey. One of Victoria's early runs through the museum utilized this mod, and it worked beautifully. She tossed a grenade through the open door and that alone killed Sturges. She then got her Powerful Bolt Action Pipe Rifle out and head shot killed Garvey. The rest she killed with her 10mm. She couldn't complete that part of the main quest so it was permanently stuck on that and the horde of Raiders and the deathclaw didn't show up either. We probably could have talked to Garvey first and then killed them all to trigger the Raider/deathclaw battle.

I tried making my own mod that changed Preston and the others from Essential to Protected. But I still could not kill Preston, Sturges, or Codsworth. They must have a script attached to them because they are quest-givers that still makes them unkillable. So I reloaded and left them alone, for now...

In other news Loviatar has been lairing in the Red Rocket. But she just found the Starlight Drive-In. I think she might move there, since it has that big radioactive pool in the center. Plus it is more centrally located on the map.

Oh yeah, forgot you need to add this line to your .ini:
[GamePlay]
bEssentialTakeNoDamage=0

It worked for Khajiit when he added the line. May want to delete as soon as you kill off the character you want though. This one has a feeling Garvey's crew's continued presence in Sanctuary Hills will prove too offensive for Victoria to ignore, so we may be trying this again soon. Hope this helps!


Starlight is awesome! Lovi will love it! Anyone care for a dip in the nuclear waste hot tub?!

New Vegas is by far the best when it comes to essential NPCs. You can kill anyone but then you have to bear with consequences. I prefer this over everyone-is-essential bullshit.

Yeah, unkillable NPCs are a big problem Khajiit has with modern Bethesda Game Studios games. In Morrowind you can kill everybody. Hell, you can even kill Lord Vivec if you are powerful enough. You would even get a cool little message telling you (in so many words) that you f-ed up your game by killing someone important, lol! Even still they did write in a "back door" you could use to complete the MQ.

Persephone killed Vivec in Morrowind. It was a long time coming.

I have been playing Aurora - a new F4 character - and was working on fortifying Sanctuary. I started with putting up a stone wall with a doorway in it at the bridge, and a few gun turrets. Then moved on building walls around the entire settlement. I was almost all the way back when I heard gunfire. Really close.

Aurora ran over to the bridge and found two Raiders were attacking. The gun turrets were giving it back, but one got knocked out. Aurora put the Raiders down with her institute rifle. That is the only time anyone has ever attacked Sanctuary in one of my games.

No pics?!!

Khajiit always thought that if he ever has a daughter, Aurora would be an awesome name! Yeah, this one has had Raiders attack Sanctuary a few times, but we get far more attacks on Red Rocket, from both Raiders and Muties. Great Cernunnos how Khajiit hates those Muties!

Annie has been doing the Minuteman questline. I have always liked helping the settlements. Pretty much all my characters do that even without doing the Minuteman stuff. There was not much more to it than taking the Castle, which my characters have often done without the MM questline as well.

But since I did the MM questline, after clearing the Castle I had to get Radio Freedom up and running. I thought I had done it after building power and connecting it to the radio transmitter. While I was doing all the building I scrapped the big door sealing off the Armory, which gave me instant access to it, the artillery schematics, and the artillery flares. Which in retrospect was not good.

The Old Guns quest started a few days later. But it was out of ordered because I had already gotten the schematics and flares (and even built some artillery). My first time trying to test out the artillery I got a CTD. Then I realized that Radio Freedom was not working. It didn't show up in my pipboy, and all I heard was static around the Castle.

So I did some digging, and found that Radio Freedom being down is a known bug. The Minuteman who is supposed to man the radio just stands there, rather than sitting down and actually using it. I tried assigning other Minutemen to the radio, but it did not work. I tried assigning the regular operator to the radio, but the game literally would not allow me to assign him to anything. I tried about twenty times, but it just would not work.

I tried a console command I found on the internetz that is supposed to allow you to assign people to the transmitter. You select the transmitter and type in "setpapyrusvar bAllowPlayerAssignment True". Then I tried both assigning a new Minuteman and the original to the radio. Still no luck. You cannot use the artillery without Radio Freedom, so I was disappointed. But after that I gave up.

A day later I opened my pipboy and noticed that Radio Freedom was working! Annie was attacking Quincy, and I took full advantage. I found the main door to the place and tossed an artillery flare into the area behind it. It was a little slow, but I got the acknowledgement from Radio Freedom that they saw the flare. After a little while the artillery came in. I had built two guns, so it was impressive. Each gun must have fired at least 5 or 10 rounds. Annie pulled out her Fat Man (I have been saving up mini-nukes all game for a special occasion like this), and added to the destruction. It was a magnificent display of explosives!

So something got Radio Freedom working. I do not know if it was the console command. Or spamming the assign command to the normal radio operator. Or if it just takes a few days for it to work.

I think the full solution is this:


I have always like clearing Quincy too. I just wish there was a quest associated with it to wipe out the Gunners there, and turn it back into a settlement. It seems like it should be part of the Minutemen questline. That would be a great way to finish it.

Speaking of the Minutemen questline, I have wrapped up all I can do without doing main quest/Institute. There are a few settlements left to bring up in the far south, but that won't be any different from the other settlement quests. From what I see in the wiki, the MQ stuff is the same no matter what faction you do to start with, until you meet Father. It looks like as the Minutemen I don't have to join the Institute (like you do with the Railroad). Apparently you can kill Father right there and go right to wiping out the Institute.

I don't know if I want to do all that. One thing I don't like about the MQ is that finishing Act I brings in the Brotherhood. I liked them in Fallout 3. But in New Vegas they were just a bunch of dicks, and my impression of them in F4 is no better. It is probably undeserved, but the way their vertibirds constantly go all over the map picking fights with everything they see just annoys me. It strikes me as a naked act of aggression, and makes me think things have gotten worse in the Commonwealth, not better.

All in all I am really underwhelmed by the Minutemen questline. Preston wanting to make you general just seems ridiculous, since he is the one doing all the actual leading and planning. You are just along for the ride. A figurehead at best. It is another example of how Bethesda seems to think they have pander to every player's ego by making them the leader of everything in the game.

The rest of the questline is really sparse. I enjoy helping the settlements, but those are not really very complicated or varied, and they don't even require truly joining the Minutemen. The Castle as a settlement does not do anything for me. The artillery was fun to use. But it takes a long time to call it in, which makes it useful only a few situations where you are attacking a fixed position, and the defenders are not aware of you (otherwise they come out and attack you, and are out of the field of fire).

So I don't see me ever doing the Minutemen again.

It feels like a bad dream but if it were a mere dream, then "Snake" Logan would wake up already. But so far he hasn't, and the harsh reality of what had happened to him and his family, hit him like the bombs hit the world 200 years ago.

Walking among the ruins of the place he had called home, despair is seizing "Snake" Logan yet if some drug addict of the Minutemen has a sight she claims to have, then his son should still be alive. Because of that, "Snake" Logan refused to further help Preston and his company, instead deciding to head south - to Diamond City.

His wife and son meant everything to him but with them gone, Logan yet again feels depressed as he had felt so many times before he met his future wife more than 200 years ago. He's a loner and as such, he declined Codsworth's offer to accompany him to the wastes. Perhaps the dog will tag along if he wants to, but even if he doesn't...the snake is used to being alone.

You assume correctly. It also leads to one of the most reviled features of this game. A settlement is under attack!

The settlements are all out there already. When you find each, the people living there will ask for your help clearing out some nest of baddies nearby, usually Raiders, Ferals, or Super-Mutants. Sometimes you will get a quest to open up a new settlement by killing all the critters lairing there. Usually it is Taffington Boathouse.

After you help the settlement they will join the Minutemen. This happens regardless of whether you help Preston and do the Minutemen questline or not. I think Bethesda just assumes every player will do the Minutemen questline, so they never made any option for helping the settlements without doing it.

In any case, once you help a settlement you can use their workshop to build things. I always build a wall around it and a few gun turrets for defense. Transfer Settlements is great for that. Once you do each settlement with one character, you can use it to save the layout, and then just import it with other characters. You can live in the settlement if you want. Or just ignore it for the rest of the game.

You will get occasional attacks on the settlements you helped. An attack being triggered depends on how good its defenses are compared to its output of food and water. The game will give you a warning, and if you want you can fast travel there and appear in time to fight in the battle. Or you can ignore it, and the game basically auto-resolves it.

If you do the Minutemen questline there is always another settlement in danger that you are being sent to. Bethesda thinks you constantly have to be running around like crazy putting out fires that way. After all, it is not like people play open-world games just to wander around and explore the world... There are mods that tone down the insanity of the Minutemen questline though.

Thanks for some explaining, now it sounds even less to my liking. Logan might help an occasional settlement, we'll see about that, but ATM I don't have any interest in building defenses etc...the game will have to auto-resolve those attacks when they occur, also because I don't fast travel.

You can try slow travel then. But I don't know if you would get there in time or not. You might.

Personally, Khajiit likes the Settlement system, for the most part. It eliminates the need to mod in a player home, unless your character is very specialized (wants to live in a tomb, for example). Building your home base any way you want is a nice feature that Khajiit really hopes makes it into future BGS titles (Starfield, TES6, etc). That said, this one does think they went a little too far with it in some respects, and not far enough in others.

Having an own home sounds nice, I agree. Live in a tomb? LoL, maybe some future character.

Knowing myself, I'll try this feature out at some point but not yet. Too many other things about Fallout 4 attract me more.

Well hey, Khajiit and Subbie both had characters that would be right at home in a nice cold crypt so you never know!

One day this one wants to try a character that is just all about building and survival. No lost sons, no pesky factions.

At least you are open to the idea. I agree, it has to be the right character though. I'm curious what you'd come up with for a settlement, you are super-creative with interiors, for instance.

Persephone's home...

...is a nice cozy tomb

I like the way you can craft in the settlements too. Some of the blueprints for Transfer Settlements that people have put on the Nexus are mind-blowing. I still make my own player homes for certain character who want a lair that is not in one of the vanilla settlement locations. But now I make my home mods settlements, where you can craft furniture, buildings, workbenches, etc... The only thing I have not quite figured out is how to dismiss companions to the modded homes.

I just created a new player home on a tugboat. I was inspired by the Red Wave mod. But I did not like how that mod forces you to go to Far Harbor to get it, and how it forces an NPC first mate on you. So I put one of the big tugboats near Bunker Hill and the USS Constitution. I made a workshop and turned it into a settlement, and added in some basics - crafting stations, a bed, and 3 power boxes.

Yeah it really sucks you have to go to Far Harbor to get Red Wave. Should be able to delete the NPC in the CK, yeah?

Also, Khajiit would be interested in that tugboat file, if you don’t mind sharing.

I got the impression that you needed the first mate to do things like move the ship. Though I could be wrong.

My tugboat house is still pretty rough. I just discovered that I need to navmesh it, as companions won't set foot on it.

Well keep us posted on your progress. Your tug boat home sounds cool!

The first mate for Red Wave appears to be nothing more than a nod to the original mod author. As far as Khajiit can tell, he has no effect on the functions of the ship. You can still move it by using the “ships controls”. That said, it does make sense that you would have someone watching the ship while you are ashore. On the other hand, it’s fubar that you can just pop into Fah Hahbah, waltz onto the ship, and take it without any opposition from the first mate guy. Khajiit supposes you could pretend that you struck a deal with the guy, but if you deleted him you could just straight up steal the ship Jack Sparrow style.

Logan and Dogmeat made it to Diamond City. So far, so good - the most challenging fight was with Super Mutants in some location north of Diamond City, because a group of them attacked from different sides at once. After the battle was over, Logan switched a laser musket for a pipe bolt rifle (it has some mods equipped so I don't recall its full name). The musket was powerful but manual reloading after every hit didn't help much in the situation against Super Mutants.

Crossing the river, they ran into a group of raiders which weren't that tough to bring down though their leader was wearing Power Armor so he was quite resistant to damage.

After finally getting some rest on a proper bed in the Dugout Inn it's now time to talk to certain individuals of this most friendly town.

"Laser musket"

... just so you know Lopov, musket guns are basically old technology, used mostly during our Revolutionary War, which happened way back in the 1770s. It was how America got free from England's reign. Boston was a major player in this war.

Anyway. Nobody uses musket guns anymore (at least not that I know of, other than war reproduction campaigns) so the idea of a 'laser musket' is pretty much Beth's twisted sense of humor. They could have called it a laser rifle, but wanted to have that old-timey name associated with them.

Well the laser musket is basically a makeshift laser rifle, kind of like how the pipe guns are makeshift ballistics weapons. But yes, it was called that to fit in with the whole revolutionary war theme the Minutemen have.

I first heard of the term "musketeers" when my brother was playing the very first Sid Meier's Civilization with me watching him, and one of advances was called Gunpowder. Once learned, one could build musketeers that were quite powerful town protectors. Here's a Wiki article about them (from the first game).

I find the hand crank on the laser musket to be annoying. I always forget about it, so go to fire and *dunk* nothing. OTOH, being able to crank it up multiple times to overcharge your shot is an awesome idea. I think it would work good in fiction. But in the game I never use one.

Exactly.

Today Logan switched the pipe rifle for the Institute rifle and he also took Kellogg's gun from its owner's corpse but because the required ammunition seems to be rare (and probably expensive too), he'll keep the gun for later use. Since Kellogg won't be coming back to Diamond City, Logan will use his house as a place to store stuff and rest while in the town. Following Dogmeat to Kellogg's hideout was so far the best experience in the game, one that'll be hard to beat. I wonder what happens though, if one doesn't have Dogmeat as a companion.

Hmm that’s a good question. It’s assumed that you will follow the road out of Sanctuary and run into doggy but there actually are a couple of alternate paths that can take you to Concord while bypassing Red Rocket altogether. Khajiit may have to try this one day.

Not sure how many mods you are running or what you'd be into, but this mod lets you swap out the .44 receiver for a .38, giving you access to basically unlimited rounds for it.

I spoiled myself by checking the Wiki on this particular quest but looks like whoever wrote the article, assumed you'll have Dogmeat as your companion. But surely there must be another way because one could leave Dogmeat behind or not even recruit him in the first place.

Thanks, I'll take a look at that.

Most of the time when Khajiit did that quest he had one of the humanoid companions with his character (usually Nick Valentine). Dogmeat would be “summoned” from whatever settlement he was waiting at to follow the trail. Wonder if it would be something similar to that.

If you don't have Dogmeat with you but, have met him, he will show up when you leave Kellog's House automagically.

If you've never met him, Nick somehow knows about Dogmeat, and summons him to meet you for the first time, and lead you on.

Wow really? That’s ridiculously convenient, with an emphasis on ridiculous.

Tell me about. I'm going to go look for a mod that makes you go find Dogmeat, if you haven't already or have him assigned somewhere.