Actually, I don’t know. There’s no good reason. Meanwhile, here’s a screenshot of me at level 107.
I’m very pleased with my Junior League yuppiette hair-do and my brown newsboy cap (which is one of the few hats you can infuse with Ballistic Weave). Actually, I like myself so much that I might get whatever DLC lets me clone myself. Robert has provided inspiration:
For some reason, I’ve ignored all the islands in Fallout 4 — until now. I think it’s because I never wanted to bother with swimming and, consequently, getting irradiated. I have to say, though, that Spectacle Island is worth swimming out to. Here’s a little video where a chap discovers the island:
I guess one reason I wanted to see this place is that I reached character level 105 and was at something of a loss regarding what perk to choose. I noticed that Aqua Girl does two things: (1) it lets you breathe underwater (good-bye, mirelurk cakes), and (2) it makes you immune to rads when swimming. At this point in the game, I couldn’t think of a reason not to take it. Plus, it would give me a good excuse to look at some of those islands.
The video gives you a fair idea of where Spectacle Island is located and how big it is. There are plenty of basic workshop resources, especially wood, but perhaps the best two things are that it has its own power generator and it doesn’t have the settlement-building altitude limitation commonly found on the mainland. Let me explain. When you build settlements in the normal mainland areas of the Commonwealth, you can’t make your structures too tall. The game imposes a limit on how close your structures can get to the skybox. On Spectacle Island, there’s still a limit, but it’s more relaxed, so if you want to build that ten-story hotel made out of junk plywood and old tires, you can. You just need lots of wood and old tires, which the island supplies. Well, you need lots of other things, too, but whatever the island doesn’t supply, you can get it by sending a provisioner and linking to your other settlements. At first, I thought they’d have to swim, but it turns out that once you establish a settlement, a boat becomes available for ferrying back and forth. Not that you actually get to use the boat; it’s just an explanatory conceit for fast-traveling.
Which brings me to another discovery. Did you know that you can make Jun and Marcy Long into provisioners? You can’t kill them and, as far as I know, you can’t easily move them to someplace like Starlight Drive-in, but you can make them useful and have the satisfaction of knowing they’ll be attacked over and over as they schlep around on their supply routes. I didn’t want to overdo the supply thing, so I had to choose between Jun and Marcy. This was a no-brainer. I would much rather have Marcy in Sanctuary because her temperament is more like mine would be in a real Fallout world. I can’t stand criers and whiners, so Jun is out there, fighting the good provision fight and getting shot over and over, which makes me really happy.
As you can see in the video, some settlers tried to occupy the island and were soon harassed by raiders. Both parties died because the place is infested with mirelurks. At level 105, the puniest ones are Glowing, Savage, Uber-Spikey and whatnot. Their numbers are matched by Kings, Hunters, and a Mirelurk Queen, all appropriately leveled, so buyer beware.
Turning on the generator not only supplies power; it also lets you switch on a special siren that emits a high-pitched sound designed to drive mirelurks to the outer shore areas. It doesn’t always work, but it makes the place generally habitable. Fortunately, my maxed Sneak allowed me to turn on the generator and make it to the siren without being seen. This kept the mirelurks from mobbing me, but they were still a problem. Fortunately, I had brought with me a couple of maxed Exterminator weapons that did 50% extra damage to bugs and mirelurks, so even the Queen went down with one shot.
Now I need to go back to see if my supply line is working and start building my luxury plywood/old tire hotel. By the way, here’s another video where a guy built a very ambitious settlement (sadly, he uses some mods, but you can imagine what’s possible even without them):
It was only a matter of time before Robert discovered Nuka World and upset gorilla lovers everywhere:
Having established his new Raider settlement, Robert took the next logical step, which was to destroy Sanctuary and turn the most annoying NPCs into Soylent Green. Yes, even Preston:
In both videos, observe Robert’s excellent bowling ball cannon technique. Warning: his beloved alien companion dies in the second one but is lovingly memorialized, along with the gorilla.
Last night, I felt all Joan-Crawfordy when I got into a gunfight at Finch Farm. Actually, in Johnny Guitar, Joan only squares off against Mercedes McCambridge, so my gunfight was much better.
By Republic Pictures (source) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Anyway, you may recall that Finch Farm sits in a very troubled zone. It’s surrounded by enemies on three sides. First, you have the super mutant satellite station to the south (I’m not sure about the exact directions). Then, across a river to the east you have a Gunner camp. Finally, to the north there’s an abandoned plant occupied by Forged raiders. This omits all the wildlife that wanders in from various directions.
To make matters worse, the river is a favorite travel guide for provisioners and caravans, who for some reason pass right beneath the Forged plant and within spitting distance of the Gunner camp. This goes on all the time, so they constantly draw fire.
So I was visiting the farm last night to install a robot workshop. I had just finished a really nasty bot when some shots rang out. A caravan guard had attracted the attention of a gunner on an overpass above their camp. This alerted the Forged raiders, who also started shooting at the guard and a new arrival — one of my provisioners. Of course, everyone from Finch Farm ran over to the river to participate, which resulted in a giant mess. Everybody was shooting everybody.
In the midst of all this, a nearby Brotherhood of Steel platoon was engaging the super mutants to the south, and yet another passing provisioner got mixed up in the fight.
I’ve never seen anything like this. The entire area was lit up. Total pandemonium. It was one of those insane moments when I wished I could record a video because it’s the kind of thing you don’t believe until you see it. My robot went nuts and started massacring every enemy it could find. I lost track of it and still don’t know whether or not it survived.
Somehow the provisioner in the BoS/mutant fight got hit in such a way that he went hostile on me, so at this point I decided to run away and hide. After a very long time, the fight was over and the Finch Farm people went back to farming and sitting on the porch. I was about to leave when I started receiving fire. It was the idiot provisioner again. The guy had a real grudge for some reason. I must have hit him accidentally and he hadn’t gotten over it. So I ran away again and barely escaped.
There are times when I love this game. If you haven’t done so already, be sure to populate Finch Farm and send lots of provisioners on that route.
I’ve been busy playing two of Fallout 4’s DLC offerings. As I was disinclined to spend $50 for the season pass (or even $30 before the price hike), I decided to wait until the most interesting items went on sale. Steam obliged me during their July-something extravaganza, during which Far Harbor and Automatron had some nominal money knocked off, so I got ’em.
Far Harbor
Me standing on Far Harbor’s dock
I won’t go into the plot except to say that it involves a conflict among three factions — synths, the Children of Atom, and the residents of Far Harbor township. I would like to say that one of these groups is less annoying than the other two, but that would be untruthful. They’re all equally in need of extermination by the island’s indigenous lifeforms, which include cryptobiological curiosities like gulpers, anglers, and my favorite: the giant hermit crab, which lies in wait for victims by using a seafood catering van as its shell. Otherwise, the fauna is collectively pedestrian. There are wolves, super mutants, and a new raider faction called “trappers,” and that’s pretty much it.
The island is a very large land mass, so Bethesda was telling the truth about that. Unfortunately, it’s mostly deserted. I haven’t seen everything, but I’ve covered enough ground to know that if you’re looking for a new theme park on the order of the original Commonwealth, you’ll be disappointed. Mostly you’ll be schlepping around in dark brushy areas — that is, when you’re not wading through swamps. There’s very little to discover, and when you do discover it, the loot is not worth collecting. The most prevalent feature is the radioactive fog that covers pretty much every square inch of this depressing megabog, so bring your power armor or biosuit or plenty of Rad-X and Radaway.
If anything stands out, it’s how much talking you have to do. Practically every interaction with every NPC involves passing a speech check, so you’ll want high Charisma. I think mine is 7 or thereabouts, and I constantly had to climb out of my power armor and don a sequin dress for the Charisma boost. Not infrequently, this wasn’t enough, so I had to pop a berry grape Mentat or some other chem to raise the stat even further. It’s a very talky business, especially if you want to reconcile all the disputing factions, which I did. This struck me as the most profitable course because I wanted access to all the fast-travel landing pads I could get. Not using fast travel was unthinkable, at least for me. There was nothing to see and no sense of adventure in walking around this soggy mess. You may feel differently.
I will say that you can get some pretty neat armor. It’s called Marine Recon and comes in three flavors, none of which are distinct enough to worry about. The stats are quite good, though. You can buy the armor at various merchants for a staggering sum, or you can find it by doing a miscellaneous quest, or you can get it for free as I did, but I won’t spoil that. Here’s a pic of the armor:
Me in the Marine Recon armor. This is the “Assault” version.
Rating: 5/10 bobbleheads (would advise waiting for a deep discount)
Automatron
This DLC was considerably cheaper and, to my way of thinking, far more entertaining. There’s not much of a plot. Basically, rogue robots are committing various depredations and you have to get to the bottom of the mystery. The ending is quite funny, sort of sweet in a non-sappy way, and you get to make robots.
Here is one of the robots I made at Warwick Homestead:
One of my robots. For some reason, you can’t name them.
If you have enough Science, Robotics Expert, and certain other skills, such as Gun Nut or Blacksmith, you can make some extremely formidable bots. The process is pretty intuitive and fun, and you can collect lots of spare parts when you kill enemy machines. There’s also a new raider faction called the Dust Devils, who run around with their own bots, but otherwise they’re not very unique apart from their armor, which I did not especially covet.
Rating: 8/10 bobbleheads (again, wait for a sale)
Finally, Bethesda has announced what it’s up to with DLC for Fallout 4.
You can go here if you want:
If you’d prefer to skip the age gate (no idea why they do that), I have copied some things:
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Automatron
Price: $9.99 USD | £7.99 GBP | $16.95 AUD
Release: March 2016
The mysterious Mechanist has unleashed a horde of evil robots into the Commonwealth, including the devious Robobrain. Hunt them down and harvest their parts to build and mod your own custom robot companions. Choose from hundreds of mods; mixing limbs, armor, abilities, and weapons like the all-new lightning chain gun. Even customize their paint schemes and choose their voices!
Wasteland Workshop
Price: $4.99 USD | £3.99 GBP | $7.95 AUD
Release: April 2016
With the Wasteland Workshop, design and set cages to capture live creatures – from raiders to Deathclaws! Tame them or have them face off in battle, even against your fellow settlers. The Wasteland Workshop also includes a suite of new design options for your settlements like nixie tube lighting, letter kits, taxidermy and more!
Far Harbor
Price: $24.99 USD | £19.99 GBP | $39.95 AUD
Release: May 2016
A new case from Valentine’s Detective Agency leads you on a search for a young woman and a secret colony of synths. Travel off the coast of Maine to the mysterious island of Far Harbor, where higher levels of radiation have created a more feral world. Navigate through the growing conflict between the synths, the Children of Atom, and the local townspeople. Will you work towards bringing peace to Far Harbor, and at what cost? Far Harbor features the largest landmass for an add-on that we’ve ever created, filled with new faction quests, settlements, lethal creatures and dungeons. Become more powerful with new, higher-level armor and weapons. The choices are all yours.
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Also, they’re planning more DLC later, including some free items. Be warned that they’re raising the price of the Season Pass from $29.99 to $49.99 as of March 1.
I’m not sure what to make of all this. I certainly welcome robots because robots are the best enemies ever in any game. I loved every robot in Borderlands 2.
Everybody loves the Children of Atom. They’re such an interesting faction because they chant meaningful religious things all day and use radiation weapons, which don’t work against at least half the enemies in the Commonwealth.
I can’t get enough of the Institute. If I could live in an alternate universe, I would pick the Institute hands-down because they’re also so very interesting.
Well, I guess I’d better hurry or I’ll miss out on my $20 discount.
This worthy creature went through a lot of scripted off-screen stomping and screaming before making its appearance. I believe this was intended to build up the ter-roar you’re supposed to feel. What the poor thing never figured out was that it was locked in a small building with the most dangerous monster in the Wasteland, namely me.
It was oblivious of its peril because (1) it never saw me and (2) it died instantly with one shot. It was one of those “never felt a thing” merciful deaths.
Enlarged:
I don’t know how many hitpoints it was supposed to have, but it just wasn’t up to a gauss gun with over 500 damage multiplied by 6.3.
The lesson here is never send a deathclaw to do a tyrannosaurus rex’s job.
Well, I think I’ve done just about all I can do.
My girl is at level 85 and has killed pretty much everything. Deathclaws, mirelurk kings and queens, super mutant warlords — all die ignominiously at my hand. The only enemies who are remotely problematic are bullet-sponge Gunners, but they just take a couple of extra shots. The ground trembles where I walk. If something doesn’t fear me, it hasn’t got the memo.
I’ve gotten nearly all my settlements into respectable shape. I haven’t gone crazy with this aspect yet. Maybe I will. I do admire some of the ridiculously ambitious places I’ve seen on youtube, so I may do more research and improvement.
I may also make another character, possibly a melee type. Necro’s uber-amazon sort of inspires me.
Meanwhile, as I plot and plan, my shadow looms large across the wasteland. Maybe I’ll finally visit that deathclaw at the Museum of Witchcraft. Since I haven’t been there, he should be something of a menace by now.
Now that I’ve discovered cutting fluid, which lets me craft oil, I am following through with my plan to start oil farms by putting water purifiers in every settlement I can. Sadly, I have to find bones, steel, and something else — I forget what it is. Oddly, steel is the thing I use up fastest. I never thought I would run out of it. For ages, I ignored anything made out of steel when looting because it was so common. Now I collect every wrench and bucket.
Of course, I can also make my own adhesive, thanks to my industrious planting of mutfruit and tatoes all over the place. For some reason, in spite of my obsessive tato farming, I can never have enough of these things. Maybe settlers don’t like to tend them.
Another odd thing I sometimes get short on is cloth. These settlers spawn like flies and I’m always running short of beds. So now I hoard all the prewar money I can find for this purpose.
Anyway, I’m now going around to previously ignored settlements and installing every modern convenience. Weird places like Nordhagen Beach and Country Crossing are getting big doses of civilization. Places that seem susceptible to attacks are getting major infusions of defense. These include the two infamous farms — Abernathy and Finch — as well as the boggy insane places like Murkwater Construction.
I mostly ignore walls because attackers can always somehow find their way inside. Instead, I try to position turrets strategically and load up the settlers with assault and combat rifles.
Speaking of strategic placement, I was quite disappointed in my setup at the Castle last night. I spent quite a long time building a wonderful tower of death in the center of the yard. It was bristling with missile and heavy machine gun turrets. They were all elevated on really high platforms and covered every angle of the yard. If anything got in, it would perish in seconds. I was about to quit for the night when I got a notice that the Castle was being attacked. Anxious to see my death tower in action, I hurried over there and watched with amazement as all my settlers rushed out the main door to confront a group of raiders. About half of my guys got shot to pieces because, you know, they didn’t stay in the Castle yard where all the turrets were. I don’t think my death tower got off a single shot. If I hadn’t been there, things would have gone badly. So now I have to disassemble my tower and move all the ordinance to the battlements, which is going to be a giant pain in the ass. I must go around and see if defenses in other settlements need to be rearranged.
Well, we live and learn. Never underestimate the stupidity of settlers when setting up your defenses.
These people are without a doubt the best faction in Fallout 4. They have a great Red Rocket base and speak the coolest lingo in the Commonwealth. They seem to be inspired by the innumerable beach party surf/hotrod movies of the early ’60s. They live on a beach and would probably be working on Corvega hotrods all the time, but at some point they became obsessed with power armor. If you complete an insultingly simple quest and help them defend their Red Rocket compound against a Gunner attack, you can become one of the gang.
Advantages include but may not be limited to:
I can’t imagine a better social life. If you haven’t found these cheerful hoodlums, their garage is located on a peninsula northeast of the Quincy Ruins. So join today and become a crazy cool cat or bird. Don’t be square. Be an Atom Cat, ya dig, daddy-o?
