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[Gabeux]

I've finished it at level 50.

I'm not sure how people can have a problem with the writing here and look back at FO3 as a positive example. Unless they miss the goofyness, I guess.

Now, if I put together everything correctly (since I couldn't really just ask anyone directly about these things), the true villain of the story is

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Railroad.

A bunch of idiot "fight the power" types who believe synths are people even though they completely erase and rewrite their minds when "liberating" rogue synths, thus eliminating whatever human-like sense of self they could've had (which begs the question what's the rogue synth's motivation at this point. Do they really just want a human-like synth that isn't actually them, just their body, running around the wasteland? What's the rationale behind this?).

The Institute then goes after these synths, who are convinced they're human, with false memories and all, and get them, making it seem as though they're kidnapping regular people and replacing them with synths when really they're just getting back their synths.

Not to mention these morons implant the synths with personalities that lead them to do horrible things like become raider leaders. What heroes.

Think I'll replay it with a melee build, see how viable that is since I spent most of the game creeping around and shooting headshots.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

While the Railroad is not the most heroic faction of all time, I think you're being seriously unfair. The Railroad gives memory transplants to those who want them - the synths who want to live normal, safe lives. I admit, this is pretty vague in-game, but I didn't get the impression they were forcing anyone. Even if they are... Letting them into the synth-paranoid Commonwealth when they're still acting like newborns would likely get them all killed. There's also still synths like Glory who haven't taken false memories and are wholly embraced by the Railroad.

And the Institute is kidnapping mostly regular people, in the name of science or control over the Commonwealth - there's plenty of logs on their terminals that go into this.

I don't know why the Raider leader went the way he did. Maybe he just had a naturally vicious personality - the SRB logs imply even compliant synths vary in personality - or maybe the Railroad fucked up. Would've been nice to hear the Railroad's side of things.

The false memories thing is kinda iffy, I admit. Couldn't they, say, just give them a lot of training on how to pass as human? In my perfect headcanon, the Railroad and the Minutemen start working on making the Commonwealth less hating on synths after the Institute is dealt with, eliminating the need for the memory stuff.

The Railroad also makes you commit mass murder, including children (they atleast mention evacuating unarmed civilians from the Institute, but the Prydwen doesn't even get a chance for that...), so definitely not exactly heroic.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I don't remember exactly, but I don't think the Raider guy got his memories through Railroad processing.
None of the factions are heroic:
- Institute: kidnaps normal humans and replace them with synths, the humans they kidnap are used in a variety of tests, including tests with FEV - trying to turn them into Super Mutants and back, or even worse. On the FEV Lab terminal, you'll notice Virgil (and/or other researchers) mention they never even had any reason or progress with the FEV research. They were gaining nothing from it, but kept the atrocities for years.

- Railroad: Way too radical and way too focused on helping synths. Deacon mentions Desdemona never accepts mission requests that focus on helping humans exclusively. Therefore, the actual details that make Railroad seem not-so-nice are omitted in the game. The memory stuff is optional - there's a synth you save that even leaves you a Goodbye Holotape and he mentions he feels sadness and fear that he has to forget his new friends, but he knows he won't survive long if he doesn't do the wipe (or it's implied. Can't remember exactly).

- Brotherhood: I don't even have to say. They'll subdue civilians and pulverize anything that stands in their way. Shoot first ask later. The side mission about Danse shows how fucking insane and radical Maxson is.

- Minutemen: I didn't go after Minutemen backstory and lore, but I'm pretty sure some can be found on the south of the map (somewhere around Quinn). Once their general died, every group decide to fend for itself and hit each other, some of them became Raiders, and some even joined the Gunners. No wonder Preston and the old lady (from The Castle, NOT Mamma Murphy) are the only ones left from the old times (IIRC).
E: What I mean with this is that it feels like the Minutemen never were such a good or great faction. For a leader to die and everyone run for their gun, it makes you wonder what kind of people this faction was comprised of.

I think it's entirely acceptable that no one are complete paragons, heroes, or "the good guys". It's the post-apocalyptic survival Earth we're talking about.
However, the Institute and Brotherhood, to me, are the most overtly insane in this game. At least the Institute has got the tech and resources to demand people to leave them alone, though (if they decided to help the people), but the Brotherhood just played the bully.

Of course, this is my view, and I may be missing info.

[Flying Dice]

That's why Obsidian really needs to get that sequel to New Vegas in gear...

Christ, no. Get them to team up with Bethesda. Bethesda does everything except the writing for quests, characters, the main plot, &c., which is handled by Obsidian. New Vegas was far buggier and more unreliable than FO3 (at least in my experience), and Bethesda have evidently made strides on that front.

[Gabeux]

By the way, if anyone is trying to get the Benevolent Leader achievement, or wants to experiment or play around with settlements, here's a tip:
- Open the console and target (click) your settlement's Workshop.
- Enter "getav WorkshopRatingHappinessTarget".
- This is the value your happiness will reach after the 'ticks' happen. I'm not sure how long it takes to refresh, and it didn't seem like sleeping or waiting affected it, but happiness seem to grow little by little, like 5 every 'tick'. You want this target to be 100.

This command helps because you can know exactly how much happiness your settlement has potential to achieve. Then you can make changes, and wait for the ticks.
This also helps if you want to experiment how much you lose/gain happiness based on how many stores you have, how much resource production affects happiness, if placing decoration affects happiness at all, how much killing settlers affect potential happiness, and all that sort of stuff.

I decided to find a way to discover how much actual happiness my settlement had and what affected it after I spent too much time with 98 happiness. That frustrated me too much. 
Turns out a crap-load of stores really do the job. It still took a lot of caps and resources to make it, though.

[redwallzyl]

That's why Obsidian really needs to get that sequel to New Vegas in gear...

Christ, no. Get them to team up with Bethesda. Bethesda does everything except the writing for quests, characters, the main plot, &c., which is handled by Obsidian. New Vegas was far buggier and more unreliable than FO3 (at least in my experience), and Bethesda have evidently made strides on that front.

it was mainly buggy because it was rushed and they also had to cut big parts of their plans. its an unfair label that they have been strapped with. pillars of eternity wasn't plagued with bugs.

[Rolan7]

Weird...  Bracketed short barrels seem purely better than non-bracketed (which can't hold a muzzle slot) but they require the same parts.  They're worth slightly more caps too, apparently.
Probably an oversight, since bracketed *long* barrels require slightly more resources than non-bracketed ones.
Edit:  Wait what, they actually require LESS glass and circuitry!  And one more adhesive...  So strange, since again, they seem to be a straight upgrade.  And we can literally grow adhesive.

So of course this Assassin's laser musket I'm modding doesn't have brackets, so I have to reforge the barrel anyway   ...  I think I'll make it long while I'm at it.  I heard laser muskets can make very deadly sniper weapons, and with +50% against human enemies, it may be a bit OP.  At least for one shot!

@Gabeux
That's good to know...  I've mostly been neglecting my settlements, building the bare minimums and leaving.  But I've never been good at making constructions pretty (in Minecraft modpacks, mostly).  Just space-optimized (;

[Virtz]

I've finished it at level 50.

I'm not sure how people can have a problem with the writing here and look back at FO3 as a positive example. Unless they miss the goofyness, I guess.

Now, if I put together everything correctly (since I couldn't really just ask anyone directly about these things), the true villain of the story is

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Railroad.

A bunch of idiot "fight the power" types who believe synths are people even though they completely erase and rewrite their minds when "liberating" rogue synths, thus eliminating whatever human-like sense of self they could've had (which begs the question what's the rogue synth's motivation at this point. Do they really just want a human-like synth that isn't actually them, just their body, running around the wasteland? What's the rationale behind this?).

The Institute then goes after these synths, who are convinced they're human, with false memories and all, and get them, making it seem as though they're kidnapping regular people and replacing them with synths when really they're just getting back their synths.

Not to mention these morons implant the synths with personalities that lead them to do horrible things like become raider leaders. What heroes.

Think I'll replay it with a melee build, see how viable that is since I spent most of the game creeping around and shooting headshots.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

While the Railroad is not the most heroic faction of all time, I think you're being seriously unfair. The Railroad gives memory transplants to those who want them - the synths who want to live normal, safe lives. I admit, this is pretty vague in-game, but I didn't get the impression they were forcing anyone. Even if they are... Letting them into the synth-paranoid Commonwealth when they're still acting like newborns would likely get them all killed. There's also still synths like Glory who haven't taken false memories and are wholly embraced by the Railroad.

And the Institute is kidnapping mostly regular people, in the name of science or control over the Commonwealth - there's plenty of logs on their terminals that go into this.

I don't know why the Raider leader went the way he did. Maybe he just had a naturally vicious personality - the SRB logs imply even compliant synths vary in personality - or maybe the Railroad fucked up. Would've been nice to hear the Railroad's side of things.

The false memories thing is kinda iffy, I admit. Couldn't they, say, just give them a lot of training on how to pass as human? In my perfect headcanon, the Railroad and the Minutemen start working on making the Commonwealth less hating on synths after the Institute is dealt with, eliminating the need for the memory stuff.

The Railroad also makes you commit mass murder, including children (they atleast mention evacuating unarmed civilians from the Institute, but the Prydwen doesn't even get a chance for that...), so definitely not exactly heroic.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I don't remember exactly, but I don't think the Raider guy got his memories through Railroad processing.
None of the factions are heroic:
- Institute: kidnaps normal humans and replace them with synths, the humans they kidnap are used in a variety of tests, including tests with FEV - trying to turn them into Super Mutants and back, or even worse. On the FEV Lab terminal, you'll notice Virgil (and/or other researchers) mention they never even had any reason or progress with the FEV research. They were gaining nothing from it, but kept the atrocities for years.

- Railroad: Way too radical and way too focused on helping synths. Deacon mentions Desdemona never accepts mission requests that focus on helping humans exclusively. Therefore, the actual details that make Railroad seem not-so-nice are omitted in the game. The memory stuff is optional - there's a synth you save that even leaves you a Goodbye Holotape and he mentions he feels sadness and fear that he has to forget his new friends, but he knows he won't survive long if he doesn't do the wipe (or it's implied. Can't remember exactly).

- Brotherhood: I don't even have to say. They'll subdue civilians and pulverize anything that stands in their way. Shoot first ask later. The side mission about Danse shows how fucking insane and radical Maxson is.

- Minutemen: I didn't go after Minutemen backstory and lore, but I'm pretty sure some can be found on the south of the map (somewhere around Quinn). Once their general died, every group decide to fend for itself and hit each other, some of them became Raiders, and some even joined the Gunners. No wonder Preston and the old lady (from The Castle, NOT Mamma Murphy) are the only ones left from the old times (IIRC).
E: What I mean with this is that it feels like the Minutemen never were such a good or great faction. For a leader to die and everyone run for their gun, it makes you wonder what kind of people this faction was comprised of.

I think it's entirely acceptable that no one are complete paragons, heroes, or "the good guys". It's the post-apocalyptic survival Earth we're talking about.
However, the Institute and Brotherhood, to me, are the most overtly insane in this game. At least the Institute has got the tech and resources to demand people to leave them alone, though (if they decided to help the people), but the Brotherhood just played the bully.

Of course, this is my view, and I may be missing info.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I still maintain that, at the very least, the Railroad people are incredibly stupid.

Like how do you go "synths are just like people!" and then in the following sentence "oh, and we need to wipe this one's entire memory and personality and replace it with a totally artificial one. So that he can be free!"? Like how's that different from putting a bullet in the back of his head while he's not looking, other than ending up with a new synth that thinks it's human, wandering the wasteland only to either go berzerk due to faulty programming, get murdered when people notice it's a synth, or get hunted down and deactivated by the institute?

I'd also say the BoS is right to fear synths. Having entities that can infiltrate you with minimal chance of detection and are easy to program to think or do anything (to a point where a bunch of sewer-dwelling morons were able to do it) sounds incredibly dangerous. Like do you imagine something like that existing in the real world without legal regulations? We're already scared of the wrong people having access to nuclear weapons. Imagine someone having access to something that could infiltrate any organization and press the launch button.

[ShoesandHats]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Why does the Institute even bother making human-like synths, anyway? Earlier models and other robots seem to do a perfectly fine job if all you're looking for is slave labor. Plus, there's not nearly as much moral ambiguity to keeping a Mr. Handy or something for labor. If the main issue is the hardware, why can't they just use the synthetic-organic bodies and not give them human-like cognitive abilities? This'd kill two birds with one stone -- no synths would want to escape, and there'd be no Railroad to deal with.

[Gabeux]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

To be honest, I'm not 100% sure on where I stand about Synths and AI in the first place. The game really threw me off since I had never put any thought into those questions.
I'd rather have synthethic life never be developed. I never see the point. Aren't the Mr Handys, Protectrons and Assaultrons, and Gen 1 Synths enough?
But once the mistake is already made, I wasn't given a reason to feel like terminating them.

I think the most interesting story is Deacon's. I'll put a separate spoiler for that, but it made me less prone to run for a gun when synths where involved.
It's not their fault they were made, and if there was a way to guarantee that they couldn't be reprogramed, it would be fine.

I also found the choice to keep or abandon the child synth Shaun really cool. The reactions were awesome. Some people just got enraged and went "I'm not your father!", some went with their protective instincts, etc.
In my case, I kept him because he was a gift from the real Shaun. It was not him - but it was part of him and of his work (that even twisted, was still sincere..and was still the protagonists' son).
I found it funny that Shaun says that on the holotape he tells the child to give you, which I suppose you only get if you keep him.
But it was a hard call to make...such a fucking perversion of technology, science and everything human.

Anyways, my opinion is a bit weird. Even though they are just machines, there are evidence of free will, feeling, etc.
I don't want more to be made (I don't think they should've been built at all), but I don't think they all should be destroyed either.

Spoiler: Danse and Deacon's Backstory (click to show/hide)

Deacon had a wife once, and he only discovered she was a synth AFTER they were married. He loved a synth and hey, she didn't try to kill him.
But to me, Danse's the biggest evidence that there's no reason for synth genocide. He himself recognizes that he's a machine and that something like that shouldn't exist. Even if he was repurposed to think like the Brotherhood, wanting to be destroyed (bypassing self-preservation) and sacrifice himself in order to protect and help mankind can't just be programming.

I still have to process everything, though, as it was quite a lot.

E:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think that there was very little explanation, as others mentioned, about the institute reasons' behind kinappings, replacing humans, experimenting stuff on humans and the like.
You can't even ask about that to anyone there. There's little info on Railroad and Minutemen background too. It almost feels deliberate.

[Frumple]

I'd also say the BoS is right to fear synths. Having entities that can infiltrate you with minimal chance of detection and are easy to program to think or do anything (to a point where a bunch of sewer-dwelling morons were able to do it) sounds incredibly dangerous. Like do you imagine something like that existing in the real world without legal regulations?

We have those, actually. They're this thing we call "people"

[SOLDIER First]

People can be persuaded to switch allegiance. You can't bribe a machine like you can a human, nor can you torture something that doesn't feel pain.

[Virtz]

I'd also say the BoS is right to fear synths. Having entities that can infiltrate you with minimal chance of detection and are easy to program to think or do anything (to a point where a bunch of sewer-dwelling morons were able to do it) sounds incredibly dangerous. Like do you imagine something like that existing in the real world without legal regulations?

We have those, actually. They're this thing we call "people"

Yeah, all those undetectable programmed people out there that suddenly just replace other people without a trace.

[Rolan7]

Huh I actually identified Tuvok's voice actor, I'm usually really bad at that.

Spoiler: Blimp (click to show/hide)

Just arrived on the blimp and, predictably, I'm a little sad and conflicted :/
Particularly since Nick is with me haha

But seriously, great, the BoS is fucking technophobic now?
Uuurgh no no it's a flawed faction, with flawed people, there will be issues, that's *better* than them being perfect goody-goodies.

...  I guess it kinda makes sense, given their inception at Mariposa.  Yeah.

But Nick is cool!!  But he could be a sleeper Cylon??  Argh, okay this is good conflict.

Worth noting, the Brotherhood let Nick on board, and the main NPCs didn't comment...  But one of the random crew called him an abomination or something, and he snarked back at her.  That was cool.

[forsaken1111]

They will comment on him sometimes, like "better keep you pet synth on a short leash! "

[stabbymcstabstab]

I'm pretty sure the only reason they didn't kill him is because, one he's with you and Bethesda probably felt that wouldn't end well for that storyline, and two he openly a synth and isn't trying to infiltrate and replace people. 

[TheDarkStar]

I'm pretty sure the only reason they didn't kill him is because, one he's with you and Bethesda probably felt that wouldn't end well for that storyline, and two he openly a synth and isn't trying to infiltrate and replace people. 

It would still be interesting to see a Bethesda game where racism/specism/technophobia has more of an effect than just what NPCs say.