Wednesday, January 25th - Lovely deadlift, positive doctrine lives on, FO4 textwall

 25.01.2023

Nice day. On monday I created another savegame in FO4 Survival. This time I turned off as many mods as possible, leaving only some of my favorites. I'm gonna get all settlements and establish a proper caravan network - that's the plan, at least.

My build in it is really unoptimized - low endurance/health, low agility and luck, high strength, average everything else. My typical flavor-rp build, thinking it's closer to me. Playing rifleman mostly, after getting the hunting rifle with good mods, then getting better mods and replacing them, then getting a legendary hunting riflt with "never ending" effect. A lot of things were so unreasonably hard, especially since I was using vanilla weapons. Mod weapons kind of ruin survival experience, imho. Get them after you're level 50. And don't get OP weapons, like Overseer's Guardian and Pray n' Spray. If you wanna have a "fun" Survival mode playthrough - just don't get them xD

It was mostly average, just doing Minutemen and SS2 quests. Somehow, at this point, I really don't regret starting this again. I've got even more random events I've never seen before in this game! Playing for a... long time by now and so much I still haven't seen.

Basically, I did the starting thing - Sanctuary, Red Rocket, Concord, then I went along with one of the SS2 quests - Abernathy's Farm, Trudy's Diner (my cahrisma was too low and this time I couldn't convince Wolfgang to ask smart), quickly got Starlight and built a barn there, then USAF Station Olivia, then Tenpines Bluff and Lexington/Corvega Assembly Plant (the infamous fatman raider did not get me this time, since I already got a hunting rifle lol). Came back to Sanctuary and got Into the Fire (Finch Farm quest) and Greentop Nursery radiant quest, which was to clear the scary quarry. That's when it really got hard! The scary quarry starts with B... Can't remember... Dunwich Borers. Hehe. I cleared out the raiders but could not bother doing the scary quest again (heh, now that I say it out loud, I may want to do it, just bring someone else beside Dogmeat this time, so I don't piss my pants as hard hehehe). Dogmeat both helpful and helpless. I had to heal him dozens of times already. He keeps falling down too. But he is really great for a melee build, cause he grabs the enemies and you can run up and cut em up in this time. Yeah, this time I'm not using the Boston traditional armament (baseball bat), but instead I got a legendary penetrating/sharpened Machete (play Machete soundtrack here hehe). It was called Broad Machete in FNV. "Machete" is still a pretty legendary movie. But don't forget it's a lighthearted comedy too, hehe. My friend was so bothered with all the B-movie nods in the second movie. Rodrigues can't allow himself to take himself seriously.
Anyway, I died at least 5-8 times while clearing Dunwich Borers - the winning tactic was to take the highest possible ground and keep sniping. My Agility in game is low. Agility sort of represents your explosive strength/ability to focus your nerve. The whole S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system is *sigh* so unrealistic, built around silly stereotypes. FNV did it a little better imho (and FO3, for that matter). But it's still fun, food for thought and entertainment. Actually, believe it or not, FO76 did it the best. That is the most "fair" system for an RPG game, imho. Of course, a lot of the perks cards are bad and boring, compared to singleplayer ones, but still, it's the most fair. Most importantly, the fact that you can't get everything.
Anyway, after the quarry I went to rest at the Slog, which earlier also gave me a quest - an easier one. Slog was surrounded by a variety of animals and other enemies which killed me about 5 times as I tried to get out of there. Some of the Forged also got involved, but they were easily defeated by the near-immortal (lol) caravan guards (the ones working for Lucas Miller), even though I managed to get some damage in as well. I think that's when I got the Never Ending Hunting Rifle. Hmm. Capitalization.
Went back to Greentop Nursery, they joined the minutemen, got killed about three times as I tried to get out of there to clear the... Natick Banks? former settlement of Super Mutants. It was easy, cause they were big, some of them stuck inside of the hut, got them sniped, some got blown up with my mines (mostly their Super Mutant dogs). Seeing this captured settlements breaks my heart every time. And there's an even more heartbreaking mini quest somewhere in the game, either in SS2 or one of the Kris Takahashi mods. About a lady who regrets sending her relatives to live in this place. Made it back to the Slog carefully, and they joined the Minutemen. How must it feel for someone to come over to your house/place of business and provide the help you yearned for for so long? And then they start to clear up all of the junk - tires, metal scrap, fallen trees and building a bunch of shanty huts, and then about twenty other wastelanders move in? Heh. Doesn't sound like the most correct way to do it. I think this time I'd prefer to keep a degree of authenticity with each settlement spot.
Then I carefully went around to Finch Farm and got their typical quest. Talked to Daniel Finch for first time and heard some stuff from him I've never encountered before. So many bugs that are meant to be fixed, eh? Hehe. He really gave a further perspective on what it's like to live in Commonwealth. In fact, I'm gonna quote the whole dialogue, I think...

 Sole Survivor: "That's one way to put it."
Daniel Finch: "He says he collects all the scrap because he likes to tinker, but I think it's more than that." "I think he's curious about the past, and he wants to hold on to it."
Sole Survivor: "It's hard enough just dealing with the present."
Daniel Finch: "That's part of it, sure, but it's also true that things were pretty bad for awhile out here." "We've got it pretty good compared to those days."
Sole Survivor: "I'm glad to hear that things are better for you."

That's some of the dialogue from the wiki. Not all of it. The player - and the main character - are obviously much more eager to make things different for the wastelanders, while they themselves just don't care as much.

Small break. Looked after my little brother doing homework. Made coffee. Greeted my younger brother. I wish I was nicer to him after our father died. I did not pay enough attention to him. I was massively selfish and still undeveloped back then. Hypothalamus or something, they say, does not fully develop until age 25. That's why young are stupid in life decisions, impulsive. "Why" and "because" aren't really correct words. They're not complex enough words.

My life can be summed in a dozen pages or so. What does that mean? Doesn't matter. I've experienced this thought enough. Just wanted to make a note of it.

Having the second coffee. Somehow, it is 8/10 tasty today. Maybe cause the stove got cleaned and the fire is bigger? I'm not sure if it actually got cleaned, though.

Back to FO4. The Saugus Ironworks - the place I headed after the Finch Farm - proved to make how curious and complex the Survival mode can be. Some enemies were tough. Inside the factory, there was one tough gal with a flamethrower. Luckily, she was closest to the entrance. I still got killed more than 5 times as I tried to clear the first hall. Because somehow the Molotov cocktails were oneshotting me - unless I had full health. Once I was survived that one throw I took care of the remaining raiders.

Then there was the final room - where you have a conversation with the raider boss and Jake Finch. I did it around 8 times, surviving twice. The conventional "fair" methods don't really work in Survival. You have to use/abuse the game mechanics, and that's not really lore friendly or realistic, but Survival mode isn't realistic either, so we're going to agree that it's okay.

The only way I could actually survive this encounter is if I absolutely abused the consumables. There was another high damage flamethrower gal - I saved up a crit hit, convinced Jake to be nice, then oneshot her under effects of Psychojet (not tried to oneshot the boss, cause you can't and he's not as dangerous). There's a weak pipe gun raider on top - oneshot him too, a melee raider comes up - dealt with him. Then paid attention to Slag - he was doing high damage, unless I had various food buffs healing me. The problem was that Jake was trying to attack him too with his freshly stolen flamethrower. Once I accidentally slashed up Jake, had to reload, then I did the whole thing again, except this time Slag went upstairs and I had the opportunity to shoot him enough times to finish with off with a crit headshot again. Not smart not to wear a helmet, no matter how cool you end up looking! He he. Then told Jake to go home. He acted as if he was fighting against me - not enough voice lines. Hm. There are two prisoners. Not really possible to save both of them when you're weak and can't regularly oneshot power armor enemies (the boss). One prisoner got saved - I was really wondering where he goes after being freed. Can't find any info. His name is "Settler" and that means if you catch him in one of your settlements you can make him your own settler. Gave the settler prisoner some raider armor, Slag's laser pistol and some stimpaks. Went out onto the roof - heck, that was a strangely hard fight on the roof, but I managed. Then went back inside after reading the wiki and pciked up the bobblehead, the magazine and the unusual quest item. I always miss those, eh? Most magazines, however, end up making you way too overpowered. Well, Nuka World magazines do. Such a silly DLC. It it was any kind of online game it'd be massively P2W. But it's singleplayer, so you have a choice of not becoming too overpowered. Honestly, I'm really oversaturated with Nuka World, so i'm not gonna be playing it any time soon. Far Harbor, on the other hand - haven't been there since 2019. Haven't seen it on a powerful enough PC!

After that quest I visited Country Crossing, got a quest for Taffington Boathouse there, then I went to Bunker Hill, saved the game there, then I went and did that quest in SS2 where you go into Vault-Tec's Regional HQ. Fun quest, a little boring. I had way too much junk in my inventory by that point. Way too many random legendary weapons, too. AND I spent a large amount of my money/savings/ammo buying the nice chestpiece in Bunker Hill. Thought of buying the leg armor, but came to conclude that since I'm not actually trying to speedrun the awesome looking unique chestpiece would be better (Black Ops Chestpiece).
After the SS2 quest I was really tired, and it was so late it was early. I looked up the bed map and managed to save my game on top of a building near Hallucigen Inc.. Next I'll be going to Diamond City and doing the main quest again after all, I guess. And I definitely need to clear Hangman's Alley if I want to establish a full caravan network. Hmm.

Oh man, I wish it doesn't bug out this time. The resource complexity difficulty setting is massively nonsensical in this mod. The resources should be accesible to the player, not to virtual storage. It wouldn't have been such a problem if the Caravan Network functioned. Created another thread in SS2 forum. Hmm. Well, one day things will be less conflicted, eh? Heh heh.

A couple screenshots - Corvega and Bunker Hill, like once before.

~~~

It's close to 10 PM again. I don't have a very hard workout today. 217,5 kgs for 4 sets of 6 in deadlift. That's what I'm gonna be doing. And 247,5 for a "clean single".

Workout

Warmup - intense, mostly lower body, various liber dance moves to engage the small muscles

Deadlift - sets of 6

20 - 70 - 120 - 160 - 190 warmup, quick. Cut out the new straps, made of backpack stropes. Cut one end in an arrow-like fashion.

207 for 1 and 217,8 for 5 - forgot one plate. Easy, like warmup.

217,8 for 6 - nice, swift, listening to Conan - Righteous Alliance (it's a song form their latest album, I think)

217,8 for 6 - nice, about the same, a little harder, feeling my hamstrings. Must be from monday squats.

217,8 for 7 - I was sure I've done 6 when I did, but I had a hint of doubt, so i did 7. Harder than previous sets, of course, but it moved faster, cause I was really hyped, still listening to Conan's banging tunes.

I gotta write the same kind of song as Conan - Levitation Hoax. Both verse and chorus slappin hard!

One song as my typical melodic hymn, one monoriffal, one banging like this... What other ideas do I have? One structureless? Hm...

274,8 for 1 - nice, swift, feeling positive. Do not forget the positive anabolism doctrine! Did not put the bar on the floor, instead I waddled forward and racked it, and it's possible that that's why I tore my calluses xD EVEN the middle finger callus on my left hand! It never tore before! (in a long time)

That's what you get for using new, unseasoned straps. I guess I gotta mash them up and stew them in some kind of gluey compound. I think that'd keep them elastic, but make them smoother and lougher.

~~~

They deleted my thread on SS2 forum asking for help with caravan network. Maybe I should not have mentioned the name of the developer, asking him for help. That must have looked silly.

Meanwhile, I'm also having fun discussing FO4 lore in ChatGPT. Not with it, but in it.

I have a gut feeling that this is the root of my problems (from SS2 forums):

Possible Script Lag
If none of the above apply then just be patient and wait in your settlement doing nothing (don't use pipboy or workshop menu) for 10-15 minutes for scripts to finish processing. Staring at ground will also help. Seriously. If you're running on lower end hardware (especially CPU) OR have a lot of script/quest heavy mods such as other big quest mods, some companion mods, major game overhaul mods then you may end up with a lot of script lag. You can either reduce your mod load and start a new save game or just plan on spending more time in your settlements. Don't "bounce dive" and spend less than 5 minutes in a settlement.

I guess I'll finally give my character a chance to do nothing and rest for a while. I assume a normal person would get severe PTSD if they actually went through the same things as the main character in this game. There's a "sanity system" in a mod like Frost, I think. Kinda funny. Okay, I'm writing this after my main DL warmup. Time to go and do the first set with 217 kgs.

~~~

Random pic of the day - nice brick bulding