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I'm currently playing with Deacon as a companion and he's constantly coming up with wise cracks.

While I was looting a body as we were clearing a raider infested building he commented something like "Grab all you can.  It will make for a good payday.  Uhh... I do get paid...  Right?"


But the best laugh out loud moment I had in game so far was a result of my setting up strong defenses for each new settlement that allows me to go into construction mode.  I'd just completed a phalanx of heavy machine guns, power generators, heavy laser cannons, and missile launchers on high elevated platforms for one such settlement.  Walking the workshop's available construction perimeter looking for weak spots in my defense structure I noticed that a nearby location had several super mutants who were themselves working their own near by farm.

I potshotted one of the super mutants off his outlook perch and the rest of them (howling and screaming) along with their two mutant hounds came boiling across the road that separated the two adjacent properties.  At first I didn't know what was happening and wondered what kind of hornets nest I'd kicked when the air around me began to sizzle with live fire.

Then I noticed that none of the wall of destruction was aimed at me but rather the super mutants and company.  None of them made it across the road other that the various bits and pieces that were blown off of them.  >:D

I spent quite a bit of time after that walking the settlement's perimeter non fatally shooting every various fo4 denizen that showed itself to draw them into range.  Bugs, mongrel dogs, and I was even able to lure one of those mutant bear things and I guffawed every time each and every one of them fell before my wall-o-death! 

sounds as if you've got a pretty decent fortress :-D

Haha, I love it when my automated defenses do the dirty w@&k for me. I was out having fun when I got a message that one of my places was being attacked by ghouls,  and I fast traveled back there. When I arrived, I heard the sounds of miniguns spinning down and the last few shots from a turret and got the message that I'd helped save the settlement. Nice w@&k me, I thought, just by arriving, they turn tail and run. More likely they got shot to pieces, but you get the drift.

Mandru, what settlement was that with super mutants so close? I just set up Finch Farm and the gunners at the Hub City wrecking yard make good target practice from the elevated highway that you can build on from that settlement.

If memory serves it was Breakheart Banks that was the super mutants farm and I think it's Greentop Nursery that's just across the road S.W. from there.

I just recently revisited that area and the map said Breakheart Banks had been cleared.  As of yet no super mutants have respawned and there is not a workshop or the ability to turn on construction mode at that location or I would have set up defenses to smear any intruders that tried to resettle.  >:D

Ah, Breakheart, OK I know that place. I had actually cleared it quite a while ago, and just recently got a quest from a settler clear across the map who said they were having problems with the mutants from there. Not Greentop who are right next door, but I think it was Abernathy or even Sanctuary who were having problems with them. That part of the game is kinda weird, like the time Abernathy said they were having problems with ghouls - all the way from Four Leaf Fishpacking. You almost can't get further away.

Yeah the goofballs at Greentop send you all the way over to Jamaica Plain as if it's a personal threat.  ::)

Funny can also mean weird, right?


I've been avoiding running out the story line in favor of exploring, building stats, rounding out buffs through perks, and picking up all the side missions I can find.  Following that process left me with a character leveled up to somewhere in the 70's before I'd gotten around to turning on the radio to see what was going on with that part of the game.  My thought was to run down the distress calls and shut of those transmitters to clear up the air waves.

I'm still having trouble with locating transmitters sources once I am close enough to pick up a signal.

From what I've encountered so far the source is an auto-repeat and the person or family sending a call for help are 200 years dead.  I get the louder and crisper signal reception for being closer to the source.  But a simple method of being able to zero in on a transmitter would be a lot easier that the trial and error method I've been using of first establishing a point along an X axis (North/South) for signal strength and then wandering back and forth on the Y axis (East /West) to find a radio that may be in a tunnel underground with a far distant point of access.

The process of finding the strongest signal and then walking in an expanding spiral to investigate possible points of access can be pretty time consuming.  That said, back home in Sanctuary which is the last place I thought I'd encounter distress call.  I picked up a fairly easy to use straight forward proximity ping where the closer you are to the source the faster the pings sound in the pip-boy and that's where it got weird.

There was no vocal element to the signal just the varying ping as I moved about trying to figure out what was going on.  It seemed that the signal was leading me to the Armor Workbench but that didn't make any sense.  I opened and closed the workbench both in build and transfer modes a few times but there wasn't an system announcement or any indication that I'd met some obscure requirement.

Finally in small degrees of fine tuning my search effort I established that the ping was centered on the last thing I expected.

Possible but unresolved spoiler

Mama Murphy!  ???

Upon her request I'd built her favorite chair found in the "Special" section (it pops up as a new category leading the familiar construction line-up options once she asks for her comfortable chair) and once it was in place she's planted herself in it and not moved since.  She now just sits there expecting me to provide drugs so she can engage the "Sight" which I've been avoiding and as yet I've not added the perks to be able to persuade her to go clean.  She gets quite angry with me when I push her on it so it looks like I'll need Lady Killer and more charisma to get her to go clean.

It's possible the ping is coming from that special chair but excluding that it seems that Mama not only has access to being able to glimpse the future but is capable of emitting a distress beacon.  :o

That is weird, I never got a radio ping that I noticed, from that source. But I only turn on the radio when I get the message that a new signal has been found, or turn on a radio booster tower. I still have to find a few of them, and matter of fact, the two skeletons on the mattress picture I posted in the screenshot thread was one of them.

But going back to the source of your signal,

Spoiler

giving Mama Murphy drugs only really helps in one case. She will give you some information that will come in very useful much later in the main quest line. After that, if you give her the last drug she asks for, she dies. Also, Preston doesn't like it when you give her drugs, so do it late at night when he's asleep.

Here's another weird and mildly annoying situation that arises in FO4.  Preston delivers yet another of the seemingly unending mission of a settlement in need of help but the 'talk to the settlers' mission marker is nowhere near the settlement you're supposedly trying to help.  ???

I had to fast travel to previously discovered locations 2 or 3 times to get close enough to the constantly moving mission marker to then be able to hoof it to the marker's location.  This is where I found out the the settler I needed to talk to was one of my assigned Provisioners on the trail between his appointed rounds.  Then I had to do that all over again to report back to him on completing the mission.

I've now had this occur a few times for different settlements since that first occurrence.

I think you should murder Preston, mandru.  I've never trusted people with the name "Preston"  :angel:

Hmm...  Partnered up with Preston, lead him somewhere with no witnesses and pop him with a mini-nuke or three or four.  :-D

Good idea except for the fact that companions are basically immortal and heal up on their own given enough time.  He'd limp himself back into Sanctuary and rat me out as a turncoat.  :(


It appears that after you've liberated the Minutemen's Castle it looks like the additional settlement rescue missions are transacted through the now operating Liberty Radio Broadcasts and are purely optional as to whether or not you want to tune in on them.  If that works out to be true it means I can go back to free roving and maxing out affinity with some of the other possible companions.

The mayor of Goodneighbor has offered to become a running buddy and I think he would be a real hoot.  :-X

The problem with the Castle radio transmissions, if you don't turn it on, eventually Preston will say "Hey the Castle has been trying to get you on the radio". Not that you have to turn it on, even then, but if you don't, settlements will start to be unhappy for no reason that you can see by looking at their stats. And when you do travel to them to see why they are so unhappy, someone will talk to you about getting kidnapped or having problems with attacks, etc.

I was trying to do a brotherhood quest last night, and I'd travel to the point to start, then get a message about an attack at Sanctuary, go clear that up, then try to start the mission again, arrive, get a message about the Slog getting attacked, clear that up, travel back, get a message about Sanctuary again, fix that, go back, then get a message about Taffington Boathouse. So eventually I did the quest, and was traveling somewhere and for some reason went past Finch Farm only to find them under attack (no message this time) and during that attack, the provisoner for them got killed, so I have to get another one. Luckily with the Automotron DLC, I can just build one.

Robo-Provisioners?   :o

Look in the dictionary for coolness and they show robots running supply routes equipped with a Fatman in one hand and a Spray and Pray in the other.  >:D

Something like that, you can actually equip robots with fat man launchers, but they tend to be unstable and break. Laser guns and nail guns are my favorite, though a friend swears by dual laser gatling guns. On the sentry bots, you can have ranged weapons on the shoulder slots, plus melee or more ranged weapons on the arms.

Quote from: PZ on April 10, 2016, 09:27:03 AM
I think you should murder Preston, mandru.  I've never trusted people with the name "Preston"  :angel:

I've only ever known one Preston and he was a dick, so you're probably onto something PZ :-()

I've not yet come across any Preston so far but I can imagine how that might go:

- Hi, I'm Preston.

- *BANG* Sorry, not interested in making your acquaintance mate. However, I'll have the following inscribed on your tombstone: "Just extended some heartfelt greetings from PZ and fragger."

Would you trust these boys in a dark alley?  One of them is Preston, and the other is Eustace

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 ??? ??? ???

They look like they're straight out of Deliverance ????

 :laugh: :-X

Scary part is that these are real people, not actors, and their names really are Eustace and Preston  ???

bloody hell, so true :laugh:

I'm currently partnered up with Hancock the ghoul mayor of Good Neighbor and I'd come across a comment that he and one of the other (female, I forget who) companions are into semi-nudity (doesn't matter to them if you're male/female) as a fast way to build up their affinity level.

The plan hinges on passing through a door that forces a scene change.  The door is the trigger where upon after 10 or so minutes you can go through the door again and receive another notice that (in my case) "Hancock liked that" but that long of a wait in real time is punishing so there is a w@&k-around  hack.  If you can sit somewhere and select the "Wait" option for 3 hours you can pass back right back through the door and trigger another affinity notice.  One of the best places to rinse and repeat this routine ("Your mission should you choose to accept it...") is in Diamond City moving between the sofa in Piper's living quarters and the red sofa in the Barbershop next door with as previously stated a "Sit and Wait" between.

I tried putting this into action.  So with Hancock in tow starting from Piper's I stripped to my skivvies and was out the door receiving a +1 from Hancock.  Passing through the barbershop elicited nothing but the typical sales pitch to set me up with a stunning new haircut and after the "Wait" I walked back into Piper's and yes I received another +1 from Hancock.

What I didn't expect was the "Ho ho ho... What I'd give for a camera right now!" from Piper as I strolled in.  :o

I maybe went back and forth 20 or 30 times and there were a few other gems from Piper Like "Blue!  Where are your pants?" and even some of her baseline comments took on a-whole-nother connotation considering the circumstances.

"Nothing stays covered up forever, at least if I have my way."  :laugh:

Haha, that's pretty funny, I'll have to try that once I get Hancock, or Cait, as she is the other one that likes people being naked.

so they found a way to make it more interesting for you old pervs. :-()

Modesty is one thing but points are points.  \:/


:-D

 :laugh:

You guys are probably to young to remember, but I do>
http://www.westernclippings.com/remember/sgtpreston_doyouremember.shtml (http://www.westernclippings.com/remember/sgtpreston_doyouremember.shtml)

We're probably an older group of chaps than you think, KingRat - I remember Sgt. Preston  :-X

I wasn't around when it was actually made but I ws born very soon after. I do remember seeing re-runs when my age was in single-digits in the early sixties, along with shows like Broken Arrow, Ripcord and Hawaiian Eye :-D

My parents didn't buy a TV until late in 1959 so I never got to see the first run of a lot of the action shows of that era.  However our local channels would stuff rerun episodes of the old classics into what would have been the frequent dead air spots where the national network feeds would experience technical difficulties or cut out all together so I did get to see a lot of them.

I never really related to Sgt. Preston as I've always had a natural aversion to any place that could snap so cold your ears would break off in your hand when you tried to warm them if you went outside without head wear.  But Sea Hunt, Sky King and The Real McCoys were big favorites.  :)

This kind of cracked me up but first instructions on finding it.

If you've done a few missions you've encountered Gunner's Plaza which can be found by following the one railroad line running North from the bottom of the map and to the East of the rail line it's the first significant structure bristling with highly aggressive Gunners you'll encounter.  On the East side of Gunner's Plaza there is a road that at first runs South and then meanders to the South East which will bring you to the Suffolk County Charter House (the pink slime school) where from the South West corner of that property if you look off to the South West there are four small concrete structures (squat pylons)  that are being protected by a heavy sentry bot.

One of the pylons has a door that contains a variable surprise that I've only encountered during game night time (it's not there when I've checked in daylight).  Other than a possible chuckle the only reward for running this down will be anything valuable you can strip off the defeated sentry bot.  ;)

 Peek or don't, it's your call

At night the door opens to reveal that the entry is blocked by a cinder block wall with one of the typical grinning red demon skull Halloween decorations and a message scrawled in by what appears to be blood reading either "Looking Good" or "You Look Great Today".

The first time I tried to go back and show this in game gag to Mrs. mandru it was of course during in game daylight hours so a message failed to appear
making me look like a bit of a dope.  :o   :laugh:   

I'm pretty sure I've seen that during the day, I'll have to go back and look. Murkwater (best name for that dank place, yuck) is right nearby too, and you can sleep there to get the right time of day. That is, after you defeat the mirelurk queen who made the place her home. The only reason I built anything there is to have artillery to cover the southern end of the map, and yes, Gunner's Plaza, so I can bomb them whenever I go by. The dude on the roof with the fatman is a real jerk :-0

 >:D

I'm playing in my typical post-game rampage mode in a story line setting where I sided with the Railroad when the news arrived that the Brotherhood of Steel was going to attack the freewill Synths.  I'd betrayed the BoS by blowing up the airship Prydwen (I gave General Maxson's battle jacket to Mama Murphy to increase her armor rating  :-D ) making that faction the designated enemies of the entire Commonwealth.  I'm accepting a lot of Railroad missions to eliminate BoS scouting parties and their BoS Vertibird attacks.  The BoS will attack my settlements every bit as quickly as they do super mutants, ghouls and synths.

But then that shouldn't be too surprising considering that the prevailing sentiment among most members of the BOS is "If you're not Brotherhood You're nothing."

In these Railroad missions to save the freewill seeking synths who managed to escape from the Institute before the "Nuclear Option" was enacted there's a lot of repetition back to the same few locations but I've determined to spice things up through exploring different ways to assault each of the areas while experimenting with and gaining at least fair proficiency the wide assortment of weapons available.

All that to say I still get a good chuckle every time I'm sent to rescue a synth and deliver their care package (including instructions on how to flee the Commonwealth safely) at the D.B. Technical High School.  ^-^

 :laugh:

 :laugh:

There appears to be endless opportunity to experiment in FO4.  That's one of the best aspects of the game.

 :laugh:

My latest funny experience had more to do with my own actions instead of the game's behavior.

Yesterday had been very busy day including a lot more walking and lifting than I've been accustomed to some time.  Along with going out for a few errands and making several stops for shopping and dropping off a few watches for new batteries and service.  Back home I then had to wrestle a box that was really too big to have have fit into the backseat (to start with) out of the car, lug into that house. 

Once inside I then assembled my new office chair.  Any assembly job is always a challenge for me as I've mentioned elsewhere that I'm maldextrous or in simple terms equally bad with both hands.  I replaced the (admittedly) cheap desk chair that's been giving me some punishing back pain from using it for years.  It was basically a stool after the poorly designed back broke off and I'd developed the habit of hunching forward to rest my forearms on the desk when at the computer.

This new chair is now admittedly the most comfortable piece of furniture on our apartment.  It has a wide variety of adjustments to custom fit its user but one of the most appreciated is the higher lift of the chair height to accommodate the length of my leg knee to floor.  Also having the range of motion for the seat tilt function selectively locked to or separate from the movement of the back tilt adjustments means that I can adjust firm thigh support with out experiencing having my feet lifted off the floor when reclining.  Maybe it's too comfortable.

I logged into FO4 for what I figured would be an hour worth Settlement management.  As I was walking from my settlement at Kingsport Lighthouse to the one at Coastal Cottage I nodded off with my finger heavily on the forward movement button (PC key "W") and when I became aware again I found that I'd wandered out into the surf and was steadily making my way towards Africa.  ::)

I guess I was lucky that I'd long ago enabled the breath underwater perk but it was enough to make me wrap up early and get to bed.  I fast traveled back to Kingsport and will pick it up again later at a point before that where I wandered off.

 :laugh:

Similar has happened to me more than once  :-()

I have also done that, nodded off while walking in a game, only to awaken and find my character has spent the last few minutes bashing his head against the wall I walked into, or wandered off into the wilderness. Luckily I've never had a character die because of it.

By the time I found out that I had done that, it'd usually have been about six hours after I started to do it. Means usually: get up, get a coffee, and finally go to bed. For, say, half an hour.

Actually, it's like this: I'm sitting in front of the PC and think to myself, "I think.. I'm a bit.. dozy." CHRchrchrchrchrZzzzZZzzzzz
The next thing is I realise something is wrong. Strange sounds from the PC speakers pull me back into reality but my left eye and my right eye are not yet working together -- however, they are starting to. And then the world around me starts to shape and becomes recognisable again. Then one eye starts to shut itself again and I don't do anything about it. CHRchrchrchrchrZzzzZZzzzzz. "Mmmmh?" is all you can think when you open one eye and instantly close it again when you realise it's actually daylight blinding you. Time to get off the chair and into bed.

 :laugh: :-X

Nice to know I'm not the only one - some people might call that kind of gaming an addiction  :-()

whatever they call it, I can't get enough of it.

 :laugh: I can relate to these stories.

I'd been making a document in Word when I woke up with my head on the keyboard after typing about 80 pages of "hjk" with my forehead. When I went into the bathroom I saw myself in the mirror and I had part of a keyboard embossed on my upper face :-() I looked like a Star Trek character.

I've also woken up during Civ (which has auto-scroll) to find myself endlessly circumnavigating the map as a result of me slumber-pushing the mouse pointer to the edge of the screen. I've also awakened to the sound of a "clomp-clomp-clomp" in Half-Life 2 to find Gordon Freeman apparently trying to run his way through a corridor wall.

I've yet to fall asleep standing up, but it's probably just a matter of time...

Btw, congrats on your new sit, mandru :-X A good chair makes a world of difference.

 :)

 :laugh:

I'm afraid we are all in the same boat when it comes to computers!

More weirdness in the form of settlement troubles.  ::)

I came across a Steam forum post that stated don't bother trying to reach 100% leadership status with any settlements that have named NPCs so I've accepted that Sanctuary Hills and Warwick homestead are throwaways along with Starlight Drive-in which has always been problematic forever hoovering between 98 and 99% even with dozens of hours fine tuning and tweaking all of the amenities that have put other settlements over the top.  These three locations have become the dumping grounds for former companions and named wanderers that you can pick up in your travels.

The real weirdness kicks in with Croup Manor and Green Top.

In Green Top while the four NPCs assigned to farming for the 24 food resources to meet maximum settlement size are real troopers and stay busy as worker bees each and every settler assigned to one of the shops are gadabouts who rarely are to be found at their assigned positions.  It's more likely that I will find them wandering outside the settlement perimeters drawing attention of the super mutants across the way at Breakheart Banks or off to the west tangling with the stingwings that spawn there.  One time when I checked in with them several of them were getting the snot kicked out of them by the Deathclaw in nearby Old Gullet Sinkhole.  :D


The settlers at Croup Manor (which sits up well on a bluff overlooking the waterfront) on the other hand have their own distinct quirks.  When I first started developing the settlement I went through the existing building and laid down all new flooring covering up all of the holes and installed 24 beds, planted 24 mutfruits and then cheated using the No Clip console hack to bury two of the biggest water purifiers underground to reach the lower water level in anticipation of turning on the recruitment beacon.

The first problem that I encountered with the Croup Settlers is that there were times I would find that half of them would wander off the edge of the steep bluff drop down into the water and gather up in a cluster on a small spit of sand at its base all staring off across the bay at Kingsport Lighthouse
which happens to be a settlement that all but put itself together and tagged the 100% mark in jig time and has stayed there ever since.

What?  The grass is greener over there?

The bluff is too steep to climb back up so they get stuck there.  Because they are outside the build zone I can't give them orders to return them to w@&k.  The only to retrieve them is by ringing the community gathering bell.  Yesterday I got fed up with it and tossed up a junk wall along the entire face of the bluff so I've yet to see if it that provided any deterrent for this behavior

Trying to trouble shoot the quirk above (and the one I'll get to) I worked my way down my settlement happiness list.

A habit I adopted early on is when settlers (for all settlements) trickle in called by the recruitment beacon I screen them to weed out synths.  New arrivals all wear dirty or wastelander clothing, carry a pipe weapon of some sort, and .38 rounds so newbies are easy to spot.  When I find a new settler I get a face to face Save point and they are killed on the spot to see if they are carrying a synth component which is always hidden if they are alive.  This of course freaks out everyone else so after checking them I reload the Save point and anyone Clear gets re-outfitted with the best weapons and armor I can give them and assigned to a task and bed.

Synths when detected get a sack hood to make them stand out and are assigned to w@&k at a shop that is intentionally out in the open and can be sniped from a safe distance to remove them.  If the settlers can't detect you they don't get bent out of shape even if they are standing next to your target when the hit occurs.  Then I come in and strip the intruder and dump the body outside the build zone.

So I know there are no synths in the settlement but almost immediately I noticed that the settlers even though individually were assigned to beds they refused to wrap things up at the end of the day and go to sleep.  ???

Ok, so what?  The manor is haunted and new sleeping arrangements need to be made?  Maybe because there are holes in the walls and the sleep area can't be secured with a closing door?

Knowing that I would need a building to house the required shops for an expanding population I created a large structure stilted up on both ends with stepladders nestled between the manor and the statue plinth out front.  That level was set up with half new beds and half shops that would be assigned as additional settlers arrived but no dice.  Everyone still refused to sleep in their now newly assigned beds.  :'(

Hmm, maybe they don't like beds on the same floor as the shops so I stripped out the ceiling of that structure then added another level above the first and moved all the beds up yet another floor. At that point I had 48 beds in the settlement as I'd not bothered to recycle the first set in the manor.

Still, like three year olds jacked on Fanta red creme soda they would not go to bed.  :D

So in frustration I slapped down yet another 24 beds (72 total at this point) in the open air on bare ground under the footprint of where I'd intended for them to sleep in the building above and accepted that when it came to sleep my efforts would be met with failure.

Having a full compliment of 22 settlers (with 4 of them farming for 26 food to meet that requirement) I took off from Coup Manor for quite a while to check on my other settlements and to just enjoy thrashing and harassing the bad guys in the game to blow off some steam.

After several game time days I returned to Croup Manor well after midnight (their time) to check on them.

Well... They had taken a step in the right direction as each of them had gone to their assigned beds only instead of sleeping they were all standing on their beds fully wide awake (I've see a glitch with a sleeper standing up on a bed but this was completely different from that.  Their eyes were wide open and would make the typical comment as I walked past them.

Time to throw my hands in the air and give up on that bunch of boneheads.  :angry-new:

 :laugh: :-X

Nice read, mandru!

yep :-X :-D

I did the bare minimum with settlements once I realized how wonky they were. I also don't agree with that 100% happiness can't be achieved with named NPCs. The only place I have gotten that is at Longfellow's cabin and he's the only one there. He tends his own crops, has a generator for some lights, a couple machine gun turrets for defense, one bed in his cabin and two dogs and two cats. Happy as a clam, 100% in a few game days.

That is interesting D-B, but I'm playing the vanilla version of the original release with no expansion packs.  It's possible that the conditions surrounding hitting that 100% may have been modified with the additional add-on packs.

But it is fortuitous that you brought the topic up of those expansion packs as I have been wondering about them lately.  My chief question is does adding the additional game content packs force you to restart a new play through or will it allow you to continue with the character build you have in play?

I'm still on my first character build/play through and I've grown quite fond of the ugly mug as well his hard earned accompanying stats.   :-D

Spoiler

I've been on this round of play so long Shawn's now a teenager and has started giving Mama Murphy the eye.  :o

The DLCs don't make you start a new game, the notifications for them will just show up the next time you run the game. Most of them don't auto-start until you are at a certain skill level, as they are considered a bit more difficult than the main game, at least at the beginning of the main game. But, this also doesn't mean you can't just start the DLC at any time you want, you just have to go to the place that triggers the quest. I did a test on an old save game and started the Far Harbor quest immediately after leaving the vault at level 1. Of course, the initial battle in Far Harbor was almost impossible with just a 10mm pistol and 80 rounds of ammo!

Far Harbor is by far the best one in both scope and content. Nuka World is OK, but it's raider-centric story may not agree with you if you like your settlements. It's main story requires you to take over your settlements with raiders which gets Preston mad at you. There's a mod that lets you skip that section, so there's an option. I ran through it both ways to get all the story from it, then went back to a save game and used the mod to skip that section and continued from there.

Automatron is fun, but short, but also allows you to build custom robots that you can use for pretty much any purpose. The other DLCs add a lot of settlement building stuff which you might find interesting, a season pass would be best, especially if you can find it on sale this holiday season.

The season pass sounds good, especially if we can get it at bargain prices  :-X

Far Harbor purchased and loaded today.  I'll get into it later.

D_B you guessed right about me and Nuka World.  I'm not wanting to bust up my settlements after all the elaborate planning and development I've plowed into them just to turn the properties over to the same scum I've been butchering for several months now.

The season pass would be a bit of a wasteland waste for me.  :-D

The console command "killall" would do that easily enough if that was what I really wanted.  ;)

That's why I played Nuka World all three ways, once as the raider (mostly to get the achievements) then back up to a save game and killed them all, which leaves the parks empty. Then backed up the save game again and used the mod.

Far Harbor was definitely the best, though again, like Nuka World, would have been better if more closely integrated to the main game. There are a few things you can do back on the mainland that effect what goes on there, but they aren't all that special.

I've not yet accessed the Far Harbor content so I was seriously surprised earlier today when in an effort to tie up a few loose ends with my settlements I killed a raider who had a legendary speargun with a bonus against animals I'd never seen before tucked away in his inventory.  It was later I found that when in build mode there were several useful new additions to elements I could use in my settlements.

Spoiler

I've heard from a few preview videos and other forum posts that Far Harbor seems to have been designed to be played with Nick Valentine as the companion of choice.  There is the new DLC companion in the town of Far Harbor who is available to escort you to Arcadia (the home of the synths) but if you accept his offer to travel with you (dismissing Nick) you will be missing out on a gem box full of dialog that comes with having Nick along for the ride.

Dang, I'm looking forward to heavily modding the game like I did in FO3. Game changing mods plus the ability to easily control their interactions made playing the game lots of fun. Now I hope the same for FO4

Yes, there is a lot of extra dialog and interaction in the Far Harbor quest if you have Nick with you. You can get Longfellow as a companion as well, but you don't have to take him right away. I passed on him while I did main quests and then took him along and left Nick at the cabin when I was doing general exploration or sides quests. Nick only has extra dialog when dealing with the main story with the synths. He doesn't have anything much special when doing anything else. I had Piper with me most of the time as she gives extra XP when discovering new locations.

I had a real "What the hell?" moment while working on my Far Harbor settlements.

I started setting up the four settlements in the Far Harbor (DLC content).  While I was working in build mode on getting the raw essentials for the lumber mill built up to the point I could begin to think about installing the settlement recruitment beacon I noticed that the happiness meter had already pegged 100%.  ???

The settlement shortly after I liberated it with nothing built yet had three settlers show up.  I only noticed they even existed because I needed to travel into that area on other business and when I hovered my mouse on the map to teleport it showed me they were there.  I postponed my other business to try to make them protected and comfortable.

After Synth screening the three (save, kill, search and reload) and re-outfitting them with top grade guns and armor I quickly tossed down twelve Mutfruits (assigning one of them to farm) and in the mill's entry way I tossed up an elevated 3X5 concrete based shanty with 12 beds that could easily be expanded later on when I had more time to fuss over their settlement.  I was just getting a roof over their heads.

After assigning the three settlers beds I cleared out the cleanest space I could find in the main building's basement and set up two top tier shops, a Clinic, and Restaurant/Bar each with two stools on the display end of the counter.  That got the other two to working.

Being at near sea level gave a high build clearance so I went high up with a platform for generators and ran lower suspended scaffolding with more than enough laser canons to cover each of the potential directions of attacking.  While working out the automated defense strategy I remembered D_B had mentioned a super mutant dog merchant who stayed put and wasn't depend on random encounters.  After a quick web search I located him and had a dog sent to the mill and two of my other settlements.

Teleporting back to the mill after concluding my transactions I found that the dog had not only beat me back but was busy effectively fending off attacking trappers outside the front entrance who'd dropped by to welcome us into the neighborhood.  Six attackers and not one of them managed to set foot into the settlement's build zone.  Dog and laser canons (and I helped after I heard the ruckus and charged in) seem to have effectively sealed off that approach before the settlers even realized there was a problem.  :)  :-X
Here (while tinkering with an over looked blind spot in site security) was when I noticed this total bare bones location had reached 100%.  (;\


As soon as Erickson was restocked (three dogs per visit and for a super mutant he's much friendlier than almost all of the stiff New Englander inhabits  ::) ) the mill got a second dog and a dog house to guard the second most obvious direction of security risk.

I really do wish that there had been a few side quests (trust qualifiers + character development) for proof of being able to take good care of the dogs or whatever by Erickson as I really like his character and would have enjoyed to have taken part in assisting him in his renormalization.  He really is a decent sort of guy.  Every time I come by to visit he offers a bed and gives food.

I think Erickson would have been an excellent roll model and influence to introduce to the companion Strong.  If Erickson could have been an assignable placement point the super mutant companion I see some possibilities there.  If only Erickson could have helped Strong in his search for "The milk of human kindness" it would have made up for my not being able to provide that understanding and (for me anyway) would have been a sweet story line addition.  :(

It seems Far Harbor is an easier place to get a 100% settlement rating. I know it's super easy to do at Longfellow's cabin, which is where I got it and never bothered with any of the rest because I only wanted the achievement.

There is a little backstory to Erikson at the Vim bottling plant if you haven't been there yet. Mostly in some terminals and such and you have to read between the lines I think, as I don't recall if he's named as the one doing the writing. Fun boss fight there too, be prepared.