Fallout 4 Discussion

[Huntn]

Fallout 4 Playthough 2024- GOG version, No NextGen Patch
This time after rendezvouing with the Minutemen in Concord and establishing Santuary, I back to Concord to help Stella find Murphy in Fallon Admin Offices, part of the Depravity content mod. This quest has been significantly streamlined since the last time I played which is ok.

Depravity impresses the hell out of me, because it goes from simple, “go help this settlement” from Preston Garvey to a big picture description of the Commonwealth (by Murphy, a ghoul) and who the real every day threats are, raiders, specifically The Gunners. This talk offers awareness, a new perspective, and ratchets up in your head what is going on in the Commonwealth. You can also pick up a Companion there, Roxy, Eden, or Harley (spitting image of a DC Comics heroine). Yes, there are always rollback saves, but I’ll mention this- when you help Harley with an issue, go with her instincts or make a save before the confrontation, in case you don’t like the results.

Harley​

Depravity - A Harmless Bit of Fun

Large quest/companion mod with evil RPG options for the vanilla main story. Aug 2019 Mod of the Month. 40 quests, 13 companions, around 20 hours of content.

www.nexusmods.com

 

[Huntn]

Mods Installed on my 4May24 Playthrough:

Considered but not Installed

• Realistic Flying Insect Health- have not installed because my weapons are strong enough

Armor

• Act- 5May Eli’s Armour Compendum - 2.1.0 CBBE Body and BodySlides-22431-2-1-0-1709115070.7z
• Act-5May NCR Ranger Veteran Armor-0.41-9034-0-41.rar
  • Found in Kellog’s House Diamond City

Character

• Act- Caliente’s Beautiful Body v2.6.3-15-2-6-3-1587299180.7z
• Act- Eye of Beauty Fallout Edition
• Act- Loving Cait- v7915-1-0-3.7z
• Act- Ponytail Hairstyles by Azar- vBA2-8126-v3-0-10ths 713010119.zip
• Act- Girly Animation-V4.3.1-21914-4-3-2-2543423967.zip (No Vortex download offered) Manual DL.
  • In Vortex Select Install from File, navigate to file location, tell it to install. It installed without issue

Companions

• Act- 5May Companions Can Sneak Ada Added-5612-3.7z
• Act- Companion Infinite Ammo- Single-6233-1-3.zip
• Act- 6May Visible Companion Affinity v4.15 EN-10660-4-15-1707914809.rar
• Content (Quests and Adventures)
  • Act- Depravity- A Harmless Bit of Fun (119MB)-Depravity-35513-1-0-1593666667.zip
    • Requires Outcast and Remnants
  • Act- Outcasts and Remnants (847MB)- v21469-1-51-1590968168.zip
  • Act- Project Valkyrie(57.4MB)- V28085010301578417676.zip
    • Requires Outcast and Remnants

Environment

• Act- Another Pine Forest- v54027-0-3-1633872743.rar
• Act- True Storms-V1.4.2-4472-1-4-2-1674962307.rar
  • Look for Holotape for Settings
• Act- Santuary Hot Springs 1.6 (Performance Pass)- 17575-1-6-1641930957.zip

Gear

• Act- Lowered Weapons- 1.1-522-1-0.rar
• Act- FN- Five-seveN V2.1c-16332-2-1c.rar (Pistol)
• Deleted- IF-88 Tactical Shotgun REDUX (77MB)-v1.1a-19290-1-1a.zi.
  • Covered in the Skibadaa Weapon Pack Redux
• Act- M82a3 Beta Version- v9433-1-00b.rar
  • Spawn in game: Type “help m82 4 and use the code it says. A list of weapons parts shows up. You want the one that is 09000813.
  • Open Consol (~) Type player.additem 09000813 1.
• Act- Sporty Underwear (Installer)- CBBE 15513-1-5.7z
• Act- 5May Skibadaa Weapon Pack Redux v1.2d-23064-1-2d.zip

Settlement

• Act- 5May Advanced Settlement Turret Set - All in One Installer Complete Version-8115-v2-5,.rar
• Act- 5May SolarPowerGenerators-6199-1-2.zip
• Act- 5May Repaired Sanctuary Bridge 1.0b-7722-1-0b.zip
• Act- 5May Hookers of the Commonwealth Settlement Edition- HotC SE- v.0.95d-22074-0-95d.rar
• Act- 5May Modular Kitchen.zip- Found this online at ModdingHaven.com, downloaded from MediaFire, scanned with BitDefender, clean. 16MB. Disabled this before testing when I found the Renovated Furniture 5.2 mod.
• Act- 5May Rebuild-Modular Sanctuary Pre-War Build Set- SantuaryParts v0.98-15773-0-98.7z
• Act- 6May Renovated Furniture 5.2 Loose Files-9463-5-1.rar (128.6MB)
  • GOT A WARNING that Outcasts and Remnants has possible conflict with Renovated Furniture 5.1 which was added today. I used the suggestion but if there is an issue, Selected Outcasts and Remnants load after this. I can change load order or remove Renovated furniture.
• Act- 6May CWSS Redux v4.01 UA-66568-4-01-1669885158.7z
  • Bathroom Fixtures. Note the English Version was taken down. I found it on Mediafire.com CWSS.Redux 4.01.

Utility

• Act- M82a3 Sound Replacer- v36307-1-0-1544262861
• Act- Weightless Junk and Other Items-NMM Installer-v1.2-2482-2-3.rar
  • Except I used Vortex, and the mod offered Vortex as a method.
• Act- Armor and Weapon Keywords Community Resource v8.6.0-6091-v8-6-0-1578253623.rar. (for Expanded Ballistic Weave Mod)
  • Possible Conflict-! Note Armor and Weapon Keywords seems to have 4 same files at CBBE, and Vortex wants me to choose, saying the newer files loading last will override older files the loaded first. So I chose suggested, and it looks like it will have CBBE load first…?
• Act- Expanded Ballistic Weave- v6681-2-0.zip
• Act- 5May (Gameplay) SKKGlobalStashScrapping_009-41511-009-1698860331.zip
• Act- 5May Scrap Everything V5320-2-5-51563721401.zip
• Act- 5May TabsMissingFix-22205-1-1.7z
  • Used to reacquire missing workshop menu tabs.
  • Go to a Chem Workbench, in “utility” then “Missing Tab Fix”, you find some new recipes.
  • Select the Tab that needs fixing to restore and rebuild.
  • Be sure you are in First Person Mode to avoid a bug reported by some users.
  • Consume the new chems you added and save.
  • Deactivate Mod after you do this.
• Act- 5May Improved Map with Visible Roads 2.0-1215-2-0.zip

 

[Huntn]

Another Pine Forest should be working pretty much everywhere for you, but the FO4VR and regular FO4 game executables have diverged *considerably* as FO4VR is essentially abandonware with only the fan community supporting it (despite still being sold as a 'complete' product somehow.) It's very possible that what is working for me in FO4VR simply isn't going to work the same in flat FO4.

Most likely, however, is that you've got something else lower in load overwriting it, or for some reason it hasn't actually activated, so double-check both of those things. (You probably already knew that, since you are using a lot of mods.)

True Storms weather will cycle. You can control a lot of aspects of that, but there is no setting to make it stick to a specific weather only. Just wait it out a bit and the weather cycles should start. IIRC you can even control how fast the weather cycle. The TrueStorms rad storms are freaking amazing if you have the GPU to push all the eye-candy (god rays, etc.)

I've got both Another Pine Forest and True Storms working, they both look great! It's so nice to get away from forests of mostly dead trees...

 

[maflynn]

I'm nearing the end of my play through. I'm fighting through the main quest, siding with the Railroad. I'm not doing any of the DLC, i.e., Nukaworld. Maybe in the near future when I do another play through

One thing I noticed with this update is some new bugs. For instance doing the Rockets' Red Glare where the railroad attacks the BOS. I started the quest w/o Deacon even though he's part of the questline, it was just Tinker Tom and myself - Deacon magically appeared once I entered the police station. Also Deacon was not in his BOS uniform, he's in his leisure suit.

Other bugs including quests not moving forward, I couldn't get into the vertibird until I saved the game, quit and restarted the game.

One interesting play through was getting to the prydwen and stealthy planting the charges - the outcome is different and in some ways more challenging. I went through about 6 stealth boys. I'm going to opt for this again, while killing everything in sight yields lots of XP, and loot, it was pretty fun doing it this way

I'm in the institute and I'm dead in the water, hoping that the trick of saving the game, quitting and restarting will fix it. I'm at the point where tinker tom needs to say that the we're in lockdown and I need to reach father to end lockdown - yet that's not happening, even though I cleared out the main floor of the institute

Speaking of bugs, Bethesda is updating FO4 again, so Bethesda being Bethesda made some things worse with this bug fix.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1788947199734305235

 

[Huntn]

I'm nearing the end of my play through. I'm fighting through the main quest, siding with the Railroad. I'm not doing any of the DLC, i.e., Nukaworld. Maybe in the near future when I do another play through

One thing I noticed with this update is some new bugs. For instance doing the Rockets' Red Glare where the railroad attacks the BOS. I started the quest w/o Deacon even though he's part of the questline, it was just Tinker Tom and myself - Deacon magically appeared once I entered the police station. Also Deacon was not in his BOS uniform, he's in his leisure suit.

Other bugs including quests not moving forward, I couldn't get into the vertibird until I saved the game, quit and restarted the game.

One interesting play through was getting to the prydwen and stealthy planting the charges - the outcome is different and in some ways more challenging. I went through about 6 stealth boys. I'm going to opt for this again, while killing everything in sight yields lots of XP, and loot, it was pretty fun doing it this way

I'm in the institute and I'm dead in the water, hoping that the trick of saving the game, quitting and restarting will fix it. I'm at the point where tinker tom needs to say that the we're in lockdown and I need to reach father to end lockdown - yet that's not happening, even though I cleared out the main floor of the institute

Speaking of bugs, Bethesda is updating FO4 again, so Bethesda being Bethesda made some things worse with this bug fix.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1788947199734305235

Are you playing the Next Gen Patch? I’m playing the last previous version. I remember once on the Prydiwen, not being able to get on a vertibird, and I think a save and restart fixed it.

As I’ve said an insurmountable plot line in the vanilla game is blow up the Institute or side with the Institute. I did it twice, blow up the institute and it made me feel stupid. And I’m sure as hell not going to side with the Institute at least not as it existed when I appeared. The only answer is to take over the Institute which can only be accomplished via a mod, which made my day! 🥳

That said if the Vanilla game allowed me to hijack the Institute and neuter the BOS, I would like take this route. The thing is, the Institute has the tech, the BOS had the muscle, bringing them together on behalf of the Commonwealth would be the best outcome if that were possible. And again the magic mod allows a coup in BOS which leads to that possibility. 😀

 

[maflynn]

Are you playing the Next Gen Patch

Yep, that's the reason for this play through.. While I have played with mods in the past, I found that I'm mostly content to play completely vanilla. I have no doubt that mods can extend and enhance the game, but my experience has been an increase in instability. I will try the fallout london mod (though its more of a dlc), but overall I just enjoy playing the game vanilla.

My next playthrough will include the official DLCs, I've not done Far Harbor in years, and Nukaworld in almost a year.

As I’ve said an insurmountable plot line in the vanilla game is blow up the Institute or side with the Institute.

I played FO4 a few months back and I sided with the Institute, I usually side with the railroad, that seems the most satisfying and lore friendly ending. The most disappointing and generic ending is siding with the minutemen.

The thing is, the Institute has the tech, the BOS had the muscle, bringing them together on behalf of the Commonwealth

That goes directly against the very ethos of the Brotherhood of steel.

The Brotherhood's core purpose is to preserve advanced technology and regulate its usage. This is because they believe humanity cannot be trusted with the means to destroy itself, and they acquire technology to prevent another apocalypse

Their guiding principle is to prevent the the annihilation of mankind

 

[Huntn]

Yep, that's the reason for this play through.. While I have played with mods in the past, I found that I'm mostly content to play completely vanilla. I have no doubt that mods can extend and enhance the game, but my experience has been an increase in instability. I will try the fallout london mod (though its more of a dlc), but overall I just enjoy playing the game vanilla.

My next playthrough will include the official DLCs, I've not done Far Harbor in years, and Nukaworld in almost a year.


I played FO4 a few months back and I sided with the Institute, I usually side with the railroad, that seems the most satisfying and lore friendly ending. The most disappointing and generic ending is siding with the minutemen.


That goes directly against the very ethos of the Brotherhood of steel.



Their guiding principle is to prevent the the annihilation of mankind

That’s why a coup is necessary. There is the “technology is evil” argument, but we by our nature crave technology, so destroying it, just knocks us down the ladder we are climbing, a couple of rungs.

I’m no authority on the BoS other than my F4 exposure, but they strike me as fascists. And how can you trust the Brotherhood of Steel over The Institute or vice a versa? * The both seem to operate towards the same goal, control. And it is inexcusable that the choice to destroy the greatest repository of technical knowledge (The Institute) would be chosen over its overthrow.

And arguably as simplistic as the mods make these events, conducting 2 coups, they add a lot of emotional depth to the story and are satisfying at least to me. For the BoS, you help a daughter of a former leader, one who is more tolerant, take over from Elder Maxum. Would it actually be this simple? No.

* So you went with the Railroad, my understanding is that the Railroad can exist with the Minutemen. Honestly if forced to choose just one faction, it would be the Railroad. One interesting aspect of the Depravity Mod is that it turns Preston Garvey (Minute men) into a bad guy, based on his history, the Quincy massacre.

Regarding Next Gen- Does it feel different? How so? The sad reality is that the vast library of mods for this game will not be updated and there are too many things I’d miss without them.

So far, running almost 40 mods installed by Vortex, I’m not having any stability issues. Before I was using both Nexus Mod Manager, and Bethesda’s mod management, which may not completely play nice together. The huge advantage of Vortex is that it mostly manages mod load order for you.

 

[maflynn]

Regarding Next Gen- Does it feel different?

The biggest change I noticed is that it provides support for ultrawide monitors, so no need to load any mods for that support. Game play, the update introduced a lot bug fixes, but as I mentioned it seems to introduced new bugs. I finished the main quest, but the final cut scene crashes the game. I'm waiting for the next patch to see if it fixes the cutscene problem.

Overall the game plays decently, there's some minor differences but nothing that you can point your finger at.

 

[maflynn]

I finally got beyond the final cutscene. I had to continually hit the T key just as the loading screen ends

Here's another for instance (I think). I have over a 1,000 hours of steam time in Fallout 4. I probably have even more from the playstation platform. In all of the years of playing and the majority of myy play-throughs have been siding with the Railroad. I've always had the quest Operation Ticonderoga - The quest that Desdemona gives you because the Ticonderoga Safehouse has gone dark. Until now.

I just noticed that I didn't get that quest, and I show up to Ticonderoga and everyone is alive including Highrise. Maybe this one play through was so different and unique I missed the quest and so no coursers showed up - seems odd that with the amount of play time that happened. Seems more likely it never triggered, especially since I had trouble having other quests getting triggered.

Another oddity is the numerous legendaries showing up. I play on very easy and that usually limits how many legendary creatures show up - it should be a rarity, but right now nearly every encounter with a group or horde will have 1 legendary creature.

 

[Huntn]

I finally got beyond the final cutscene. I had to continually hit the T key just as the loading screen ends

Here's another for instance (I think). I have over a 1,000 hours of steam time in Fallout 4. I probably have even more from the playstation platform. In all of the years of playing and the majority of myy play-throughs have been siding with the Railroad. I've always had the quest Operation Ticonderoga - The quest that Desdemona gives you because the Ticonderoga Safehouse has gone dark. Until now.

I just noticed that I didn't get that quest, and I show up to Ticonderoga and everyone is alive including Highrise. Maybe this one play through was so different and unique I missed the quest and so no coursers showed up - seems odd that with the amount of play time that happened. Seems more likely it never triggered, especially since I had trouble having other quests getting triggered.

Another oddity is the numerous legendaries showing up. I play on very easy and that usually limits how many legendary creatures show up - it should be a rarity, but right now nearly every encounter with a group or horde will have 1 legendary creature.

Is that part of a Railroad quest line about checking on a string of safe houses and/or escort missions? I don’t remember the exact flow. I remember placing multiple monitoring devices for Tinker Tom, and don’t remember if it actually accomplishes anything. 🤔 When it comes to infiltrating the Institute, I usually choose the Minute Men because there is a convienent location in Santuary to set up the equipment. One of the best mods is Scrap Everything. This allows me to remove several of the totally collapsed homes in Santuary leaving clean concrete slabs.

With the Depravity Mod, you can actually make a deal with Kellogg to help you find your son. No way, this guy killed my spouse and kidnapped my son… I’m impressed that the mod creators actually got the voice actors to play these expanded roles. At least that’s my impression.

 

[maflynn]

Is that part of a Railroad quest line about checking on a string of safe houses and/or escort missions?

The first RR quest is the escort, then there's a series of quests for the railroad's Randolf safe house.
What I'm getting at is really more of the railroad's institute quest line. (working with patriot and Z1-14). At somepoint back in the RR HQ, Desdemona will tell you that Ticonderoga has gone quiet and check on it.

I've always had that quest, so its really odd that it didn't come up. Also the agent (Highrise) and snyths are all alive in the safehouse. So that quest never happened.

 

[Huntn]

The first RR quest is the escort, then there's a series of quests for the railroad's Randolf safe house.
What I'm getting at is really more of the railroad's institute quest line. (working with patriot and Z1-14). At somepoint back in the RR HQ, Desdemona will tell you that Ticonderoga has gone quiet and check on it.

I've always had that quest, so its really odd that it didn't come up. Also the agent (Highrise) and snyths are all alive in the safehouse. So that quest never happened.

If I remember when it happens, I’ll report back with the pre-Next Gen patch, I’ll assume it will be there for me. 🤔

So far, I unlocked the Sanctuary Hot Springs settlement, established the Minutemen in Santuary, helped Abernathy Farm and Ten Pines Bluff, grabbed a Gunner weapons stash for Murphy, picked up Piper, found some green paint, , rescued Nick, took care of Kellogg, helped Harley find a Harley Quinn jacket and baseball bat. And I just started the Freedom Trail quest. I have been getting the request for assistance transmission from BoS, but I usually let that lay there for a while. I’m looking for the location of the Caravan distress call, which is not appearing on my map, and there is the tower distress transmission, plus Finch Farm and Good Neighbor are both on my list. After I max out Piper’s affinity, I’ll head to the Combat Zone. 🥳

 

[Huntn]

I've got both Another Pine Forest and True Storms working, they both look great! It's so nice to get away from forests of mostly dead trees...

@panjandrum @maflynn The question is would these run under the Next-Gen patch??

 

[Huntn]

Screens May 2024

Good News, Bad News



Siren... Evacuation



In Line at the Vault



Close One



Welcome to 111



Old Neighborhood some time later
(Note: This is before the Another Pine Forest Mod kicked in and started working)​

 

[maflynn]

The question is would these run under the Next-Gen patch??

For me I have no clue, I run vanilla so I can't really provide any info

 

[panjandrum]

@panjandrum @maflynn The question is would these run under the Next-Gen patch??

Absolutely no idea, sorry. The modding community on Nexus will surely have good knowledge of this entire situation by this time. There is also a release on Nexus specific to easing the process downgrading to the non-NG version (my limited understanding suggests that the Next-Gen patch did very little for PC users; it is mostly a benefit to console-version users.)

As I now play the VR version I will likely never even fire-up the flat version again.

 

[Huntn]

Absolutely no idea, sorry. The modding community on Nexus will surely have good knowledge of this entire situation by this time. There is also a release on Nexus specific to easing the process downgrading to the non-NG version (my limited understanding suggests that the Next-Gen patch did very little for PC users; it is mostly a benefit to console-version users.)

As I now play the VR version I will likely never even fire-up the flat version again.

This is my impression too. I’ve seen 2 mods designed to 1)Fool Steam into thinking you have the Next-Gen Patch installed but don’t or 2)Revert the Steam version back to pre-patch. I see both of these as problematic. Like what happens if you have to do a file check due to an issue? Maybe not a big deal others that if your Steam version where you have fooled Steam into thinking it was updated, there is no way to ressurect the pre-patch version, at least at Steam.

The GOG version is the way to go in my mind. My understanding is they don't have the Next Gen patch available yet, but will get it and of note, GOG allows you to not update it (Steam forces you to) and is supposed to offer a pre-patch version to download. And of note, I had zero issue with the resolution of the game (monitor size) installing the newest pre- Next Gen patch Version.

I might be tempted to try the VR version, other than I utilize the consol a lot and my impression is that this would not be easy in VR.

 

[panjandrum]

I might be tempted to try the VR version, other than I utilize the consol a lot and my impression is that this would not be easy in VR.

The VR version is truly trash. Don't bother with it if you are happy with the flat version. Don't get me wrong, it's a ton of fun to play in VR, but it is an incredibly poor, and abandoned, port. Just getting it nominally functional to the point where it is actually enjoyable takes a lot of patience, and no small number of mods. GOG is great IMHO. I've actually re-purchased a handful of older titles (FO3 and Dragon Age Origins among them) because the GOG versions are so much less problematic.

 

[CerebralHawks]

OP, are you playing this on a PC? Or on an Intel Mac via BootCamp (so, via Windows)? My Macs are both M2 (Apple Silicon), and the game runs poorly on my Xbox (Series X). If I buy the game on Steam, I can play it via Nvidia GeForce Now, which limits me to 1080p60 for an hour. Not too too bad, but it takes like 5-10 minutes to get in, and if you play a lot, you know that's not much time in the Wasteland. If I pay them $10 a month, I can get up to my monitor's 1440p and play for 6 hours, and no wait to get in. Problem is, I can't run a lot of mods, I'd have to load them from Bethesda.net (via the internal Mods menu option) every session, and keep my load order simple. Which is fine, I really just wanna do Sim Settlements 2, so that's like 4 mods (Chapters 1-3 and Workshop Framework).

Kind of mad that I can't just play them on Xbox with GamePass (which I have another year banked). I kinda wish Bethesda would port their games to macOS, but I guess they can't now that they're owned by Microsoft/Xbox.

 

[madeirabhoy]

OP, are you playing this on a PC? Or on an Intel Mac via BootCamp (so, via Windows)? My Macs are both M2 (Apple Silicon), and the game runs poorly on my Xbox (Series X). If I buy the game on Steam, I can play it via Nvidia GeForce Now, which limits me to 1080p60 for an hour. Not too too bad, but it takes like 5-10 minutes to get in, and if you play a lot, you know that's not much time in the Wasteland. If I pay them $10 a month, I can get up to my monitor's 1440p and play for 6 hours, and no wait to get in. Problem is, I can't run a lot of mods, I'd have to load them from Bethesda.net (via the internal Mods menu option) every session, and keep my load order simple. Which is fine, I really just wanna do Sim Settlements 2, so that's like 4 mods (Chapters 1-3 and Workshop Framework).

Kind of mad that I can't just play them on Xbox with GamePass (which I have another year banked). I kinda wish Bethesda would port their games to macOS, but I guess they can't now that they're owned by Microsoft/Xbox.

have you tried it on your M2 with either crossover or whisky? ive read reports of both working perfectly fine. some people have sound problems with whisky but others say theres an easy fix.

 

[CerebralHawks]

I'll check out the video, but I was looking at VMWare Fusion Pro because it's (newly) free and they say Fallout 4 doesn't work there.

I know Crossover is better than VMWare Fusion, but it's paid (and includes a Windows license, IIRC). All in all not a bad deal if you want to run Windows on your Mac, and in the future I might consider that, but for now, as a new Mac user (1 year ago), I'm inclined to shy away from "just use Windows," even if it is a super elegant solution.

Whisky on the other hand is intriguing since it's using WINE and GPTK.

 

[madeirabhoy]

I'll check out the video, but I was looking at VMWare Fusion Pro because it's (newly) free and they say Fallout 4 doesn't work there.

I know Crossover is better than VMWare Fusion, but it's paid (and includes a Windows license, IIRC). All in all not a bad deal if you want to run Windows on your Mac, and in the future I might consider that, but for now, as a new Mac user (1 year ago), I'm inclined to shy away from "just use Windows," even if it is a super elegant solution.

Whisky on the other hand is intriguing since it's using WINE and GPTK.

At the moment I’m happy replaying the game on my ps5. For the main game experience that’s best for me. But when fallout London finally if ever comes out I’ll need to decide whether to try whisky on my m2 MacBook or use boot camp on my old iMac.

 

[maflynn]

I'll check out the video, but I was looking at VMWare Fusion Pro because it's (newly) free and they say Fallout 4 doesn't work there

It seems parallels may be a better option: https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/14nrnr4
In the past it was always given that if you wanted any game playing in a VM, parallels is the better option, between Fusion and parallels.

I believe they offer a trial version, so you can decide for yourself

 

[Huntn]

OP, are you playing this on a PC? Or on an Intel Mac via BootCamp (so, via Windows)? My Macs are both M2 (Apple Silicon), and the game runs poorly on my Xbox (Series X). If I buy the game on Steam, I can play it via Nvidia GeForce Now, which limits me to 1080p60 for an hour. Not too too bad, but it takes like 5-10 minutes to get in, and if you play a lot, you know that's not much time in the Wasteland. If I pay them $10 a month, I can get up to my monitor's 1440p and play for 6 hours, and no wait to get in. Problem is, I can't run a lot of mods, I'd have to load them from Bethesda.net (via the internal Mods menu option) every session, and keep my load order simple. Which is fine, I really just wanna do Sim Settlements 2, so that's like 4 mods (Chapters 1-3 and Workshop Framework).

Kind of mad that I can't just play them on Xbox with GamePass (which I have another year banked). I kinda wish Bethesda would port their games to macOS, but I guess they can't now that they're owned by Microsoft/Xbox.

Unfortunately from a Mac perspective, I am playing on a PC. Until 2015 I did play on an Intel MBP via Bootcamp, when I was traveling (often), but have relied on a PC for the majority of my gaming since about 2000. I prefer my Mac for routine computer tasks, but for gaming it has to be a PC. You can build one for $1400.

The vanilla game is good, but I was always irritated with how the story forces you to make some choices I hated. I don’t want to spoil it. If you play this game, there are 4 factions and you‘re put in the position of choosing factions you want to survive, although you will have likely made friends with all of them, although there is a way to mitigate some of these choices by simply not completing certain quest lines. Look for “the Fallout 4 best ending” video on YouTube which does not mitigate that hidden choice below, but it does keep most of the factions alive.

One choice I could not abide by was:

Spoiler: Plot spoiler

Be with the Institute or blow it up.

But I recommend for the first play though, just experience it, and make your choices. For future playthoughs, there are some mods that seriously open up the game, and the endings, who is alive and who is not.

 

[madeirabhoy]

Enjoying my revisit, not actively avoiding the factions, but not in a rush to make any big decisions. doing all the independent quests, and the creation club new ones, and mostly if im honest, flitting between the save xxx farmstead quests and building up those settlements, and creating water and food. and in between every quest im therefore generally hitting every settlement once, collecting my rent (water and food) and adding a few things. The money you can make from just having a decent water production in every camp is huge, not that im sure what im going to do with it all.

One thing ive noticed is that unlike other games, i apply certain rules to my gameplay, some without seeing them as rules.

1. power armour. i never use, its too over powered. i have only two acceptable cases for use. firstly, in the very rare situation where ive tried the mission a few times and came to the conclusion its too hard without a suit, but i think thats happened once. most of the time i would go away and come back much later. the other situation is, that i allow myself if i find a power armour in the middle of a mission, im allowed to put it on and use it until i get back to sanctuary. Similar to this, less of a rule, but im not so keen on using fat boys or other heavy weaponry, unless i really feel they deserve it and its needed.

2. i never like to fail a settlement, so any time it pops up xxx is under attack, i stop what im doing and go. and if i miss one and i only notice it when it fails, im looking at my autosaves to go back.

3. I sell every weapon except unique and legendary ones. And also, i never sell any unique clothing or armour, inluding anything with someones name on it, or from a mission. not sure what im going to do with it, but in my house i have separate lockers for different types of clothing and weapons.