I've spent the last four days in a bit of a blur, without much in the way of clear and distinct goals, and more of a mish-mash of things I've been doing while bouncing back and forth between different locations and settlements. I'm going to try and give a rough run down of the highlights though.
Outside vault 81 the wasteland gives me a nice welcome back radstorm greeting.
I'm going to head back north to dump some of my collected junk and do a little building and what not. Sheffield has arrived at the drive-in, but he doesn't seem to have the sense to assign himself to farming, so he has no food. I need to go and set the place up.
In the dark I notice the bright glow of a Nuka Cola Quantum. It's sitting in plain view on a wall of the shell of a building by the Corvega plant. Funny how you can pass a place a dozen times and never notice a thing like this.
After a short run I reach the drive-in. I'm using some crystal to add a recruitment beacon. Soon I'll be establishing supply routes between my bases, and I'll want a bit of a population here which can support my logistic network.
We quickly get a new recruit who is assigned as a guard. We also have Sheffield, who I found in Diamond City earlier.
It seems that lots of relatively high level enemies spawn under the train bridge outside the drive-in. I'm not sure if they spawn already dead, or get shot by my turret thats nearby, but I'm finding a lot of bodies. Oh well, free meat and gear.
After a bit of tinkering around I hit red rocket and grab my last spare fusion core. I think I'll be needing this eventually, maybe to do the Confidence Man quest. Might just head south again to see about getting on with that.
I get a bit of Radstag hunting done on the outskirts.
And I'm back in the vault again.
The suit still has a little juice in it. The extra spare cell should easily be enough for the brewery anyhow.
I go and park the suit behind some rocks right near the brewery. I'll be back for it eventually.
I decide to head back north again. I'm really bouncing back and forth here. The reason is though that I realize I need a proper combat shotgun if I want to do some close combat in the brewery later. I did have one before, but I must have accidentally sold it at some point like an idiot, thinking I was selling a double-barreled one. I know that there is a combat shotgun in the station near the drive-in, so that's my target. There should only be a few ghouls left. First though I grab a bit of lead at the diner. Time to make some more .308 rounds.
I also can't resist fighting a few more ghouls at Lexington and picking up some scrap.
Back at Sanctuary I make some ammo, grind some scrap down, organize a few settlers and get some rest.
I hit the station in the morning.
In the end there was only a single ghoul left in the place! I quickly grab the gun and some more scrap, then it's time to go back to Sanctuary yet again to modify it up to spec. So much running around!
It's looking pretty impressive these days I think. I really like my new wall style.
I now have 72 .308 rounds, a good 50 or so 10mm rounds, and 20 or more shotgun rounds. Nice. With this kind of loadout I think I can visit the boathouse east of Covenant.
Along the way I pay a visit to a Feral Ghoul Roamer. One critical shot finishes him off. Feeling a bit bad ass.
I stop by the memorial bridge to the south east of Covenant, blowing up a few mines and a bunch of cars with them, and generally squishing lots of bugs for some nice easy xp.
Nearby two raider psychos and another slightly lower raider are threatening some farmers. Love to help you guys, but thats a bit more than I can handle still... Back away slowly.
Up by the boathouse I go to war with a dozen bloodbugs and bloodbug hatchlings. The dog does great as a distraction.
I'll be spending the night here, and doing a bit of renovation in the morning.
Finishing off the final bug gets me to level 19. Sweet.
It's finally time to get the local leader perk. As I start to unlock ever more distant settlements I really need to have access to all my junk across big distances. This perk will let me start to set up supply lines.
In the morning I set up a basic wall around the place. No supplies to make power generators or turrets just yet. But I'll return in a week or so to do it up properly.
Heading back to the drive-in I run into a super mutant under that darn bridge. Leading him to the turret and my guard we clean him up. A little bit dangerous because he had some grenades, but we were ok.
The scariest part was when I ran up to stimpack my dog. Doing this without being careful killed me last time, and it nearly did so again! Just as I pressed E and locked myself into the stimpack animation, I realized that the car just near me was on fire. Too late. I could only pray that I wouldn't get killed by the blast. It was very, very close, but I must have been just outside the damage radius. Ffffffff....
I make Sheffield my first ever supply line guy. He can link up the drive-in to the boathouse.
Back at Sanctuary there is a new guy who looks a bit tough and leathery. He can run supplies to Red Rocket.
With all the concrete supplies at Sanctuary now available at Red Rocket, I make some basic walls around it. While I'm doing so a lone raider turns up nearby, but my turret takes her out.
I also feel like rewarding myself a bit for making it this far without another death by adding a bunker to Red Rocket with the bunker mod. It has a bit of loot inside (some drugs, scrap etc.), which makes it a bit of a cheat, but I think it's reasonable enough. Down here I can have enough room to start storing my bobble heads and figurines, rare guns and other memorabilia.
I'll just throw a bed down for now anyway and get some sleep. I've covered a lot of miles the last few days and done a lot of random odd jobs. Maybe tomorrow I can finally go back to Diamond City and help out Travis in the bar fight.
It's been 32 days since I left the vault. I'm now level 19, and I've been "badly wounded" once.Thoughts: Looking back over this period, I think the vault 81 quest and hitting level 18 seems to have been another significant milestone for this character. Although I'll leave off any real celebration till I hit level 20 without another death, it already feels like I've graduated being some kind of scavenger, and become something more. At least as far as the north-west of the world is concerned, I'm not longer living in as much fear of my life every second. I still have to watch out of course. A careless engagement with a super mutant or raider psycho could easily kill me. But the list of things that seriously scare me has gotten a decent amount shorter. A regular raider, a feral ghoul roamer or a bloodbug I can now take down pretty handily, while once they would have put me quite a bit on edge. Having that bit more breathing room really feels nice, I gotta admit.
I'm also really happy to have stuck with a "no-dying" style of play, even if I have died once. I still act like my life counts. I'm really keen to try and advance as far as I can without dying again, which keeps the suspense high, and my style cautious.