Fallout 4 Post-Release Bullshit

[Yegolev]

I've basically never been a console gamer, so I need to ask: has there been an expectation that mod support would ever come to a console system for any game with strong mod support on PC?

Not on my side.  I play console games so I don't have to fuck with mods or whatnot.  I'm really OK with this.

[Bunk]

It surprised me that it ever happened, but now that it has I guess it set a precedent?

Listening to the modders on Nexus though - it sounds like the general experience has been that console users looking for mods are generally rude, entitled dipshits.

[Yegolev]

Probably because console players expect shit to Just Fucking Work out of the box.

[Venkman]

Ok.

And yea, even as a non-consoler, I'd have grown through years of expecting things to work. Unfortunately consoles have "caught up" (descended to) PCs with their ability for development missteps to be covered up by day one mega-patches and ongoing patches.

[Yegolev]

I agree.  QA has slid off the far side of the table and is possibly going to be lost.  Then again, cartridge games had bugs, too.

[Sky]

Software has grown too complex to actually work 100% correctly in any acceptable release schedule. It joins the rest of disposable society.

[Merusk]

Until it too becomes automated.

Then people become the problem and the machines fix that.

 

[Venkman]

Ya know, we'll all probably alive when the day comes that we're watching televised broadcasts of robots playing games designed and developed by AI.

I just wonder why the robot overlords would bother though.

And I never got the Matrix "scorched sky" thing requiring human batteries. You've got antigravity and unlimited manufacturing capacity within a finite atmosphere. Couldn't the machines just made some skyhooks with mounted solar panels?

[Torinak]

Ya know, we'll all probably alive when the day comes that we're watching televised broadcasts of robots playing games designed and developed by AI.

I just wonder why the robot overlords would bother though.

And I never got the Matrix "scorched sky" thing requiring human batteries. You've got antigravity and unlimited manufacturing capacity within a finite atmosphere. Couldn't the machines just made some skyhooks with mounted solar panels?

The original idea was that the machines were using human brains as organic computers. I guess that was too hard for moviegoers to understand, so it got dumbed down into "batteries".

[Venkman]

Hmm, that would make more sense. But yes, also hard to get across.

[Kail]

And I never got the Matrix "scorched sky" thing requiring human batteries. You've got antigravity and unlimited manufacturing capacity within a finite atmosphere. Couldn't the machines just made some skyhooks with mounted solar panels?

And ignoring the whole thermodynamics issue, if people did somehow put out enough body heat to power Cybertron, why wouldn't you use, like, cows or something instead of people?  Puts out more heat, has lower nutritional requirements, isn't likely to reach kung-fu enlightenment and become a cyberwizard or whatever, what's the down side?

The original idea was that the machines were using human brains as organic computers. I guess that was too hard for moviegoers to understand, so it got dumbed down into "batteries".

One theory I heard (back when The Matrix was still worth making theories about) was that the humans were the point of the whole thing.  Like, humanity had completely screwed itself by turning off the sun, so the machines decided that rather than commit genocide, they'd build this little virtual theme park where humans could live and be happy and have normal lives without getting dragged into a ridiculous suicide spiral on a world doomed to die by by their mad desire to get vengeance on their toasters.

[apocrypha]

like, cows or something

Be honest though, a movie about kung-fu enlightened cyberwizard cows would be pretty rad.

[Father mike]

Be honest though, a movie about kung-fu enlightened cyberwizard cows would be pretty rad.

Summer, 2018 -- What is the Mootrix

[Merusk]

like, cows or something

Be honest though, a movie about kung-fu enlightened cyberwizard cows would be pretty rad.

Send the idea to Steve Odekirk so he can include it in Kung Pow 2.

[Torinak]

like, cows or something

Be honest though, a movie about kung-fu enlightened cyberwizard cows would be pretty rad.

Maybe Blizzard can add them as a new secret level to whatever version of Diablo goes full VR.

[Venkman]

 

Back to the game a sec:

I've reached the stupid build limit on my main settlement. So I've done the console thing of increasing the triangles, and the much easier trick of dropping weapons from my inventory and then storing them in the workbench.

Apparently I did that just one too many times because the game just starts crashing. I'm OCD about quicksaves, so I only had to go back 5 minutes before the latest round of buffing the build limit. No loss except I'm annoyed I reached the liimit.

But here's the question: other than trial and error, is there a way to tell when I've reached the real game-will-crash build limit?

[Father mike]

One thing that helped me was to install the Spring Cleaning mod
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/4640

It lets you scrap all the shrubs, leaf piles, debris, etc. that are cluttering up your settlement.  Aside from making your settlements more tidy, it makes item budget almost a non-issue, since all those dirt piles, pebbles, scraps of paper count toward the build limit.

Just be careful.  It will allow you to scrap ALL THE THINGS.  Like some existing structures, or rock piles that cover holes in world geometry (this is especially bad in Vault 88).

[Venkman]

Thanks! But quick question: does this mod just save me the time of removing the things myself? Or does it remove things that I can't actually remove?

I ask because another part of my OCD is to have literally cleaned up every interactible object in Sanctuary (and Castle and Abernathy, where I'm also reaching the population and object limits). This includes stuff in the water you can only see by having the cursor hit the hitbox

So, if this removes all the things I can't remove manually (trees and shrubs and building foundations and curbs, bridge parts, etc), and those count towards the building limit (which I think is a function of the number of triangles in the geometry and I guess a memory limit thing?, then great!

[Father mike]

It doesn't remove things for you. It makes vastly more things into yellow-interactable.  I've been running it so long, I dont remember what the original item set was limited to, but now, almost everything can be scrapped.  So, yeah, OCD-Ahoy!

In Abernathy, this includes most elements of their existing house.  So be careful unless you want to build a new structure for them.

Oh, and in the Castle, there was a bug where you could scrap living Minutemen    Dont do that!

Like I said above, in Vault 88, you can scrap huge sections of the geometry that block access to the train tunnels; this leads to big open holes that take you outside the world.

In one of the northeastern settlements, you can scrap that truck the fell into a sinkhole, but there's not much you can do to fill the hole afterwards.

if you're deeply OCD about it, there's a console command "scrapall", but it tends to break quests if used in the Castle and Sanctuary (and sometimes Red Rocket, it will bleed back into Sanctuary since they're so close).  I'd definitely save before using it.

[Jimbo]

Hey you guys and gals, you can also use Scrap Everything mod:
Scrap Everthing
Same thing as far as scrap things and making part of the world disappear, so save often! I also change my road so it is really black by using realistic roads mod--Realistic Roads

To make your settlement size bigger, drop your extra weapons on the ground, then scrap them from the ground.

Scrap Everything and Spring Cleaning are really nice, but do be cautious, as you can scrap certain settlers in Covenant and the Castle. But it is great if you want to get rid of all the trash and junk laying around and make it look nice.

[Venkman]

It doesn't remove things for you. It makes vastly more things into yellow-interactable. 

Win! Will get. Thanks!

Jimbo: yea, I've used that trick often, but seem to run into a memory related issue because after doing it the umpteenth time two nights ago, I crashed out of the game within minutes in Sanctuary. I also used the getav/setav console commands to increase triangle count.

[Jimbo]

Oh btw, it doesn't make you able to scrap everything, there are still some bushes you can't scrap (there is the console command to get rid of those if you're a stickler-but that really opens up the possibility of creating a hole in the world). And Scrap Everything gives you a bunch of materials too (you can change the setting if you want less materials).
There are Spring Cleaning Combo mods that will have them do the clean up for you, but I like being in control of what gets done, I didn't care for Spring Cleaning, but both have a mods have a large following. One thing, put Spring Cleaning or Scrap Everything at the very bottom of your load order.

I never run into memory problems yet (knock on wood), but I have seen of some mods to fix it, not sure if it makes the game sluggish in that area for you though.

[Riggswolfe]

It really fucks me off that *this* gets people riled up and bad press for Sony, when the fact that Skyrim and New Vegas are literally broken products (still!) on the Ps3 was passed over.

I wonder if you see a common denominator here? PS3...PS4...

Bethesda makes buggy games but the PS3 was a notoriously difficult console to program for.

[Venkman]

Oh btw, it doesn't make you able to scrap everything, there are still some bushes you can't scrap (there is the console command to get rid of those if you're a stickler-but that really opens up the possibility of creating a hole in the world).

The other night I had tried "disable" and "markForDelete" but neither seemed to do anything. Is there another command?

I'm oddly reticent to jump on the mods wagon. The game's out and I think Nuka is the last expansion, so it's not like the code will change and therefore require modders update their stuff anytime soon. But still, I can't get myself to do it just yet.

[Venkman]

Dumb question i feel like I asked, or at least meant to at some point:

Is the Workshop between settlements shared regardless of how the supply lines are connected?

Like, if I have a supply line from: Sanctuary to Abernathy to Sunshine to Graygarden, is that the same workshop inventory sharing setup as Sanctuary to Abernath plus Sanctuary to Sunshine plus Sanctuary to Garygarden?

Or is the workshop inventory in the first senario only shared between pairs (Sanc to Ab, Ab to Sunshine, Sunshine to Gray)?

[Merusk]

You don't have to create all the connections. Connect the Workshop at Red Rocket to Sanctuary and then Red Rocket to Abernathy and all three share the same resources.

The game will make the settler you tag walk between the settlements, but I've never had one die so I had to relink it. Just in case I always made the route short anyway, linking to the next-closest settlement, but I could have had them all route through the Drive-In if I really wanted and it would have been the same result.

[Venkman]

Ah awesome. Right now it's purely hub (Sanctuary) and spoke (everything else). I'll start redirecting everything tonight. That'll be a few hours at least. And, like, totally worth it or something 

[Father mike]

Here's a map that optimizes provisioner routing


It's an older map and doesn't have paths to Far Harbor, the Mechanist's Lair, or Vault 88.

And it's probably best to have the Mechanist's Lair on its own spur; settlers seem to have problems negotiating the elevator and the provision link breaks.

[Merusk]

Man, tons of places on the east side I missed/ didn't unlock. I did Kingsport Lighthouse but didn't find a workshop, too.

Guess that gives me something to do when I start up again this winter. Still haven't tried the Nuka-Cola DLC.

[Venkman]

Here's a map that optimizes provisioner routing


It's an older map and doesn't have paths to Far Harbor, the Mechanist's Lair, or Vault 88.

And it's probably best to have the Mechanist's Lair on its own spur; settlers seem to have problems negotiating the elevator and the provision link breaks.

Nice. But here's what I don't understand:

If all workshops instantly connect to any other workship in a chain, then what difference does it make whether Provisioners are on optimal or suboptimal paths?

Or in other words, what actually does the Provisioner NPC itself actually do? All I know is they clog up my houses until I figure out how to block them from entering them

[Father mike]

If you get deep into settlement building, you start to run out of settlers.  Just farming/food production for a decent sized settlement uses a lot of them up.  When you add in shops, artillery, defense, and specials (castle radio freedom, etc.) you really don't have 3-4 settlers standing around anymore like you do when it's 6 beds and a hut.  Plus the places you make into provision hubs tend to be the places you want to build up, so sending out everyone from a hub means that there's no one left to man the stores, walls, artillery, etc.  I guess you could send everyone TO the hubs from the boonies, to distribute the load.

Provisioners just walk back and forth from the two settlements they link with a brahmin in tow.  If they can't path, the link will break and you have to re-assign it (the provisioner will be waiting in one of the two linked settlements for you to come re-assign him).   I don't THINK combat can break them (Ive seen a provisioner walk between a Deathclaw vs Sentry bot fight, and just keep tooling along), but *I* have killed them by mini-nuking a firefight they were bogged down in.

I try to put a mining helmet on them, because it lets you identify them at a distance.  You can see that lamp forever!

[Bunk]

Exactly, provisioners still count as population on one end of the route. If you run everything out of Sanctuary you can end up with max pop and no one in town.

Also - a common tactic used it to setup tough robot provisioners on the routes you find yourself travelling a lot (especially in survival). Since they actually walk the route, you wind up with bonus robot bodyguards patrolling the roads for you.

[Venkman]

Hmm, ok so I'm not playing survival but I think I can see where that'd be helpful.

Right now I'm at the population cap in Castle and Sanctuary even with my hub/spoke supply line (got distracted from redirecting them), and everyone's working. I've got Settlement Beacons at those places, Jamaica Plain and two other places I can't remember, and happiness consistently in the 80s and 90s most places (seems like I spent half my night baby kissing like a politician ).

Love the idea of mining helmets for the settlers. Easier to track them down. But I also teleport everything simply to save time (I guess not a feature in Survival?)

I have seen my provisioners in combat, but I've never seem them outright killed by NPCs. I end up saving them and they just truck right on. I haven't seen any chains break. I guess this too relates to not playing Survival?

Final question: doesn't artillery require i be out there dropping smoke? Or are they automatic if staffed like guard posts?

Wait that wasn't the final question, this one is: are there ever real invasions? Nothing's getting past what I've got setup at Castle, Sanctuary, Jamaica, and Abernathy, but I'd really like to see them try  Last time I saw an invasion was on a radiant quest out of Castle, but even those are now "go visit place, talk to settlers about where badguy home base is, go to home base and wipe it out".

[PalmTrees]

I try to put a mining helmet on them, because it lets you identify them at a distance.  You can see that lamp forever!

Heh, I do that too.

Playing on normal I think provisoners are essential and can't be killed except by your own friendly fire. I've seen them kneeling but not dying a couple of times I've come across their fights.

[Father mike]

For artillery, you have to have to be within 5 map squares of a manned gun for it to activate; otherwise you'll get an "out of range" message.  If you tune to Radio Freedom, they'll interrupt the fiddle music to declare the strike.  If you are in an area that has artillery coverage, throw a smoke grenade at the target and wait for the thundah!

If you are within range of multiple guns, you'll get more than the standard 3 shells, but I'm not sure exactly how it scales.

I've noticed some odd interactions between overpasses and artillery.  If there's an overpass between the target and the gun, there's a decent chance the radio will announce the strike, but nothing will happen.

You probably also want the Better Signal Flares mod
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/11203/?
This fixes the "invisible wall" effect and has options to fix other artillery issues.

Edit:  Yeah, there are real invasions.  You'll get a message that says something like "The Castle is under attack by Super Mutants". you then have a set amount of time to travel there and watch your defenses maul the hell out of 4-7 of whatever spawned (Raiders, Gunners, Synths, Super Mutants).  Attackers will spawn at 2-3 places INSIDE the settlement, so don't bother with walls or trying to create chokepoints.  Just put a bunch of the best turrets you can afford (not missiles, they do obscene amounts of collateral damage!) on an elevated, central structure with good lines of fire to most of the settlement.  For max happiness, you should have 1.5 or 2 times as much defense as the sum of your food+water production.