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.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Mar 16 2017, 02:30 AM

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.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Mar 18 2017, 05:32 PM

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?

This post has been edited by Rihanae: Mar 27 2017, 03:04 PM

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...

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Aug 26 2017, 12:26 AM

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?!

This post has been edited by TheCheshireKhajiit: Aug 26 2017, 10:45 PM

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.

This post has been edited by TheCheshireKhajiit: Aug 28 2017, 04:06 PM