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[SOLDIER First]

Then you should definitely see if it's the mod. I'd also recommend saving it for tough encounters, like if you get to a Super Mutant base and you know you can't handle it without the armor.

[Yolan]

like if you get to a Super Mutant base and you know you can't handle it without the armor.

This is where I'm hoping a high level bit of power armor and some very heavy weapons will do the trick. I don't mind being a bit of a walking tank when I'm level 50 or 60 and have excellent quality power armor with all the mods. I just want to have to work for it. Now is too soon. ;-)

[Yolan]

Days 38-40 - "New" armor, Bunker Bustin, New Mods

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Morning in Hangmans Alley. I discover that when I set up some turrets here they somehow attracted the nearby supermutants blocking easy access to Diamond City. They came and made a frontal assault, and all died. Including the fellow with the mini nuke, and the legendary skirmisher guy. Nice.


Something bugged out with my old power armor though. Maybe because I removed the power armor mod I was using. When I went to Diamond City to look at it, it had changed into T60. Awaaa?? Well obviously I don't want to abuse this, so I've gone back to get the other rusty T45 from Concord. Fixing this costs more adhesive, but it can't be helped.


After that I decide to go and hit the satellite station.


The raiders there are actually pretty weak against my shotgun. I also protect my back with a bottlecap mine, which worked well.


The mini-gun wielding boss was a bit scary, but some fire kept him occupied, and it only took a few shotgun rounds to finish him off.


I get another fusion core to cover my expenses.


And a locket to bring back to the folks at Abernathy Farm.


I also get a second mini-nuke. I'll store it and the other one with my Fatboy launcher in my Red Rocket bunker. Saving these for a rainy day. Maybe for assaulting the water treatment plant in the future?


I also clear up some nearby raiders lurking about not far from Sanctuary.


I add some extra water to Abernathy, add a few turrets, and link it up with a caravan.


I also add a motorbike here too. Probably wont need to use it, but I like having them at every base.


The next day I replenish my ammo a little at the diner. Notice that I'm wearing some Dreadnaught armor, which has been tweaked a bit by the Raider mod to make it tougher. Not bad defense.


Heading south I hit a Gunner outpost and take out a few of them. A liiitle bit scary at a few points, but as usual I'm feeling pretty darn strong these days and they don't present too much of a threat.


At Diamond City I buy a new combat armor chest piece that is better than the metal one I was wearing.


And fight some raiders in some nearby apartments.


Then I bike it back to Sanctuary. Love the fast travel. Although it does use oil for the fuel. Some construction gets me up to level 23.


I put another point in intelligence.

It's been 40 days since I left the vault. I'm now level 23, and I've been "badly wounded" once.

Note: I've really noticed that the game has become significantly, almost weirdly easier over the last four or five levels. To the extent that I've even started wandering if one of my realism mods has stopped working properly or something. I'm guessing this is not actually the case, but is more likely due to game balance issues like overpowered perks etc. kicking. As my early game was so much harder, this just makes growing stronger stand out even more.

So, I've decided to take some action to deal with this. It definitely feels kind of game breaking to be seriously afraid of bullets hitting me one day, and only a few days later be able to withstand bullets quite merrily. A few perks, some armor, and some drugs, shouldn't make -that- much of a difference.

I've got three mods I'm going to start using to see if they bring back the challenge more.

1. Some Assembly Required - Makes power armor super rare. I wont be stumbling on suits standing around here and there like in vanilla. If I want T60 I'll have to join the brotherhood.
2. Nerfed Perks for Survival - Goes through and nerfs a lot of the perks a fair bit. For example, the wasteland wanderer damage reduction lowered from 30% to 20%.
3. Difficult and Realism Overhaul: Adjusted Player Health - This is an optional part of a mod I was already using. This one basically limits how much health you can get per level. So at later levels I won't be walking around with a massive amount of health for some unrealistic reason.

We'll see how things go with these. Hopefully together they help bring back a bit more tension and difficulty to my game.

[Yolan]

Days 41-43

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It looks like I lost a sessions worth of screenshots. Maybe I was too tired and pressed on delete instead of upload on Steam after I finished playing. ><

To summarize, I did a bit of trading and tinkering around here and there, then decided to go and hit the police rationing center just south of Diamond City. I'd never been there in past games, so it was quite a bit of fun to explore it. The high level molerats gave me a bit of a fright, but I could safely take them out. I've also spotted a locked chest that I found out how to reach, but I can't get to it for now. Underground there is a connection to a larger tunnel system, which I started to explore, but then got swarmed with bloody ghouls. They just kept coming. After killing six I thought it would slow down, but my firing just kept attracting more. Then a bloody glowing one turned up. That was about when I ran and abandoned my dog again...

So I needed to go back to Red Rocket to get my dog and more ammo from the local traders. I also wanted to get my armor and use my extra fusion cores to finally try the Brotherhood of Steel mission. With that in mind I used my bike to fast travel to Hangman's Alley, thinking I could walk north along the bridge to get to the Cambridge Police Station...


But there are super mutants on the bridge. More ranting at Bethesda: (RANT) I'd heard from some NPC that the super mutants like to ambush people here, but I'd never seen it. Maybe because my level was too low. This is something I don't really like about how this world has been designed. Certain hot spots randomly spawn things depending on your level. Give me a real dynamic map instead please. Have places where the bad guys live, and have them move between them, going on skirmishes from them. Rather than just appearing at set static points. Speaking of which, why the heck are the people in Diamond City so freaked out about some shadowy institute, when it seems that super mutants are all over the bloody place? Sure, cover the map with super mutants if you want Bethesda. But at least have the NPC world speak in such a way that it reflects that reality. Maybe mention how they never used to be all over the place, but turned up a few months ago looking for something. I don't know. But a basic minimum of lore would be nice....
(/RANT)


Thanks Dogmeat.


Even back at Hangman's Alley I'm getting attacked by super mutants again. This whole area isn't exactly safe. Notice the settler by the way. I've sent two people here from Sanctuary. One to farm, one as a guard.


So I'm pretty annoyed that I can't walk my suit to the brotherhood to do a quest. I'm all dressed up and nowhere to go. But I think, maybe this would be a good opportunity to walk east a bit through the city, maybe clear a few threats and open up a bit of a corridor of sorts to the station where our future detective friend is being held. Maybe poke my nose around a little and see how tough the fighting is now that I've made a few adjustments mod-wise.


Maybe luck, but I get to Boston common without meeting anything to fight at all. Kind of surprised me, but then I was intentionally avoiding digging around in ruins.


I've never been to Goodneighbour in any previous game, and I know it's close. So I think about trying to visit it. I guess I'm too weak to handle any quests there, but at least I can discover it for the xp, enjoy the scenery, and maybe do a bit of shopping. Along the way I first hit a bunch of ghouls. Yet again they are lurking in a graveyard. Why not just rename them Radzombies and be done with it??


All the vertical space down here can get quite claustrophobic. This is a tough one for me. I've successfully avoided dying now for eight levels in a row, and I know that wandering in here blind could be very dangerous. But as I've never been here I'm also exceedingly curious.


I end up running into a few raiders, and they actually packed a bit of damage. Either they are stronger than the raiders I'd been meeting elsewhere, or my tinkering with my mod loadout has made the game harder again. I unload a heck of a lot of ammo taking them down, and need to use a few drugs too. It feels much more tense. I'm kicking their ass, because I am in power armor after all, but I still have to strategise a bit, aim carefully, heal, use some jet.


It looks like I missed the entrance to Goodneighbour and I'm just skirting around it. Worse is that there are just heaps of super mutants all over the place, and I simply can't expect to be able to take them on. I backtrack to the station entrance at the commons.


I've been here in a past game, and I know the Triggermen are pretty tough. But I also know I can fight the guys at the entrance area without it calling on the whole pack. So, let's see how my armor holds up. As you can see my torso is already pretty damaged. Actually because of my new power armor mod I am unable to repair it at all, even with the right supplies, until I have the basic science perk. This is going to be my last harrah in this suit for a little while.


I'm not able to sneak in a headshot on one of them. It's straight to a gun fight from the start.


There are four of these guys and they pack a punch. My torso gets pretty damaged but it holds up. Just. I have to hide behind a column and get some drugs into me. Down to nearly 60% health. That's the lowest I've been in a long time. Feels good actually. I -should- get hurt fighting these guys with submachine guns at such close range, in this not-so-powerful power armor.


Eventually I finish them all off, but it wasn't easy. I'm addicted to a few chems now I think. My ammo is low. And my power armor torso is close to being destroyed. Time to go home. Well, at least I got some experience. I'll have to be a lot stronger before I can think of going further down and trying to rescue Valentine.


I park my power armor in my bunker under Hangman's Alley. It might be a pretty long time before I can repair it and use it again.

It's been 43 days since I left the vault. I'm now level 23, and I've been "badly wounded" once.

Thoughts: For a while there I was getting the weird feeling that the game had suddenly become too easy. Now, either because I've been coming up against stronger opponents, or because I've made some changes mod wise regarding power armor and other things, its feeling more like a real challenge again. Probably its a mixture of both. So I'm happy about that. Also, I've got that feeling not just of combat being harder, but of having to "survive" again. Because of two reasons. One, I've actually started to run out of some basic materials at my settlements. Wood is quite low. But metal is also very low. I'm now actually scavenging for steel now, which I would have totally ignored before. Two, I can't repair my power armor without science. And my intelligence is still too low to unlock that. And regardless, I'm pretty much out of fusion cores, can't afford any more, and don't know any more locations where I can just pick some up (I did get one in the tunnel underneath the rationing station, but I've mostly used it already fighting those Triggermen). So, no power armor for maybe quite some time. So I have tough fights, scarcity, and vulnerability. I'm back to surviving again, rather than squishing humanoid bugs. I'm excited that I'm going to have to engage that part of my mind once more. Thinking of some strategy to crawl ahead with minimum risk. Let's see if I can keep this streak going and make it to level 30 without dying.

[Yolan]

Day 44 - House Keeping, Level 24

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Up and at em. Today I'm going to do a bit of house keeping. On the menu:

- Sell extra weapons, buy ammo and adhesive
- Scavenge for extra scrap
- Head back to do some checking on my settlements, a few are bugging out and thinking they don't have things that they do have.
- Upgrade some of my weapons


Up above ground its nice weather this morning.


Diamond City first for the trading.

Let's take a quick look at the state of my weapons.


My long range rifle. Not bad.


This gun gets the job done too.


Shotty is not bad, but needs an upgrade.


Bang Bang is the kind of surplus gun I keep around to use for the ammo I find for it. But it has saved my bacon a couple of times. I guess I'll alternate between it, my assault gun, and my lazer rifle. Depending on how ammo is going.


This is also a relatively new gun for me. Needs plenty of work done.


I get some cooking done.


Yikes.


Take the last of my money why don't you.


So long Diamond City. It actually might be a while until I return here.


No super mutants on the bridge today.


But I do run into a few raiders to the north of it.


I also take a detour to fight a few in a nearby building. Regular raiders aren't much of a threat anymore it seems. Maybe I should test out the perimeters of the Corvega plant some time to get a feel for it. Although I really don't want to go inside without my armor.


I loot a diner.


And meet some drug dealers.


At Cambridge square I find a bit more loot. And also a ghoul reaver. Nice.


Woah. That caught me a bit by surprise. Level 24. That's a 9 level streak since the last time I died.


While I'm only one point of intelligence away from unlocking the ability to get Science, I can't resist investing a second point in Gun Nut. My weapons need some loving.


And on we go.


Here's the current situation at the drive-in. Not bad. I have one of them scavenging, some guards, and the rest on food. Also, two are hauling gear to Red Rocket and the boathouse.


I do a second sweep of some houses in Concord for extra loot. This time I'm picking up steel too.


Finally back at Red Rocket. Dogmeat, I missed you buddy! Sorry about that thing with the super mutant strapped to a mininuke.


Now I have adhesive and Gun Nut 2 I can do some upgrades. Long Shot gets a more powerful receiver.


Shotty a hardened automatic receiver, a long stock and a drum magazine. This should really pump out the pain now. If only I ever had enough ammo for the thing.


And here is the state of affairs at Sanctuary, my main settlement. Not a bad population. I have three scavengers there now.


As I'm popping by Abernathy to inform them that they don't have only 1 water but 3 (need to go there to reset them for some reason, its a bug), another radstorm begins to roll in. So I started the day waking up in a bunker and enduring a radstom, so I end the day enduring a radstom and then...


...doing to bed in a bunker.

Goodnight wasteland.

It's been 44 days since I left the vault. I'm now level 24, and I've been "badly wounded" once.

Thoughts: Leveling up was great, but otherwise a pretty uneventful day really. That should do it for some housekeeping anyway. And if you were interested, now you have a better idea of my weapons and what is going on at my settlements.

I am a bit short on .308 ammo still, but I am very broke. I might see what kind of money I can scrounge up by selling my large reserves of purified water. I keep making fresh stuff with bottles I find anyway so its not like I need 60 bottles sitting around. I could also sell a bit more of my drugs, as I'm probably finding them faster than using them. At least for certain types. Once I have bought more ammo I might test out the strength of the raiders inhabiting the quarry. I dropped a couple of them on my way back from the satellite bunker the other day and they didn't seem all that tough. With most raiders now it seems that I really just have to watch out for grenades. Otherwise so long as I'm mildly careful to keep a bit of range and not to have too many on me at once, I can fight without much danger. If things get a little tough a few drugs and a little bit of a strategic retreat to the rear does fine.

[Yolan]

Days 45 - 47 - Quarry, Corvega Plant, Running Away

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well yet again I've lost my screenshots. This time though it wasn't my fault. My computer decided to upgrade to windows 10 mid play session. I also lost 20 minutes of play since I last slept in a bed...

So here is a brief summary.

0. I made myself a pair of gloves. 2 points of defense, and they look nice. I also modded them so that they slightly reduce the amount my scope moves when zoomed in.

1. I cleared out the raiders at the quarry. They went down really easily.

Related Rant:

I finally realized what annoys me most in Bethesda's take on Fallout. They have transplanted their fantasy RPG logic into what is a more realistic setting. In Skyrim, if I'm a level 25 I don't mind absolutely crushing low level punks. I'm hitting them with my magical weapon while wearing magical armor. I'm also slowly turning into some kind of mythic god like character anyway. Being 10, 20 times stronger than my opponent makes some kind of sense in that world. Today when I wiped out the raiders at the quarry I realized that this was what I was now. Some kind of god like person compared to your average "low-level" human. But these "low level humans" are still shooting real bullets at me. So no matter how skilled I might get, what kind of armor I am wearing (power armor excluded) I should still get hurt somewhat. But they can barely touch me. It's fantasy logic. And it really brings me out of it. And this is with realism mods installed! I guess there is only so much the mods can do. So, yeah I can't help but feel how weird it is that they cant really hurt me.

/Rant

2. I decided to clear out some of the raiders on the outside of the Corvega plant. They also went down easily. As I was skirting around the back though I saw down below that some children of atom were fighting some of the Gunners. I couldn't help but go in for a closer look. My thinking was that maybe I could finish off a few survivors after the fight and get all the loot. I engaged a Gunner towards the rear of the fight too early though. Although I was winning, I didn't realize that her buddies had finished off the enemy and were all coming for me. A hail of bullets and lazer fire almost cut me down on the spot. I had to use a few jets and med-x and run like crazy, and only just got away with 20% health. That was the closest I had come to dying since my level 15 death in the Super Duper Mart. This is more like it. But why the crazy gap between the damage these guys can pull and the damage a raider psycho can pull?? Sigh.

3. Finally, I did some poking around near the boathouse. To the south east was a coolant plant where I found a book on tumblers. Heading back outside a couple of mirelurk hunters jumped out of the ground, and I nearly crapped myself (sorry). More jet, more running. I get across the river and think myself safe when another appears right next to me! So they are kind of like Molerats in that manner. More jet, more running, more crying.

4. After I calm down I try exploring a bit of the east of Cambridge to see if I can get a bit of scrap or some kind of loot. My xp was also nearly full, and I wanted to finish off my session with a new level (level 25). I barely get into town though when no less than a Deathclaw appears, coming right for me. More jet, more running and crying.

Sooo, not so much achieved for the last day there. Mostly running away. But taking out all those raiders in the quarry and around the outside of the plant has got me close to level 25. I actually did hit it just before the windows update reset my machine, so I'll have to do that part again. I'll be going for another point in leadership I think, so that I can build market stalls and stuff in my settlements.

It's been 47 days since I left the vault. I'm now level 24, and I've been "badly wounded" once.

[Yolan]

The End....



Sorry guys, but it looks like restartitis has hit again. I've been getting increasingly frustrated with the play experience over the last 10 levels or so, as some enemies increasingly feel like sponges, while others become crazily weak. It looks like my mods were not up to the job. I have found a new one however which looks really nice. I'm going to give it a try. I -really- enjoyed the first 10 levels or so of this play through, and what I'm looking for is something which can help keep that feel going for as much of the game as possible. It's a pretty harsh looking mod, and combined with Arbitration and Some Assembly Required (power armor becomes rarer and harder to maintain/upgrade), might just do the trick.

I'm not sure I have the energy to blog all over again what I'll be doing, especially as a lot of it will be a lot of the same stuff. Thanks for following so far. I might make a few posts down the road to talk about how well this mod load has worked out.

[BFEL]

Well, hope you have fun in the next round.

Also, you noted that you haven't been to Goodneighbor before? Oh baby that place is experience city. There's a magazine that increases XP when you have a companion and a quest from a shopkeep that takes you to the place you get the intelligence bobblehead.

Also if you go to the bar then you can get awesome new songs for the radio. Magnolia is great.
Oh, and one of the better companions is there (he has a stupidly OP friendship perk. Makes it nigh impossible to miss heads in VATS.)

[Yolan]

Thanks for the advice. I might be able to make it there easier this time if the bullet sponge issue with super mutants is partially resolved with this mod.

Once I'm somewhere with this character that is close to where I am now I'll probably write some updates and talk about how I found this mod by comparison.

[Yolan]

OK, so I started again with a different realism mod that is supposed to address the whole bullet sponge issue more aggressively. Hopefully with this mod regular raiders will still be able to hurt me with their bullets when I get up to around level 20. So far it is looking pretty promising.

Here is the mod in question.

Let me include a list of detailed changed with some key points in bold.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

-Nerfed HARD the health per level of NPC (from 5 to 1.5)
-Redone the damage localization of all creatures so that weakspot do consistently more damage (on humanoids headshot is X5 damage instead of X2) added the torso as a "softspot" (for 1.25 damage) on most living things. (Not robots, not feral ghouls).
-NPC now uses ammo. Or your companions have infinite ammos too. The choice is yours.
-Nerfed the HP of NPC sponges  (Some gunners had way over 1200 hp...)
-Some ennemies (Behemot, Deathclaws, Hermit Crabs) are still difficults to kill because EPICNESS.
-Nerfed the player hp per level to 0 per level. Only END above one give HP now (0.5 per END per lvl). To compensate, starting SPECIAL have been increased. Investing end from the start is now worthwhile.
-Ennemies are less spamming molotov and grenades.
-Some immersion breaking fix : Vertibirds especially do serious damages and are much more sturdy. You should see them crashing in flame less often. Shoot them in the engine if you want to take one down.
-Rebalanced the damage of guns (Mostly increased the damage and reducing the gap between each weapon). Also each ammo should have more or less the same damage in every gun now. (Excepted the pipe guns whichs does less : raiders have them so indirect player buff, and real life pipe gun are TRASH).
-Rebalanced weapon mods. Now a gun can only be improved up to around +30% damage for ballistic weapons, or +60% for energy weapons. Down from more than double damage in the base game.
-Improved automatic weapon at low level : nearly no damage per hit reduction over the basic non-automatic receiver = huge dps boost. Early game automatic weapons are now deadly and not just spray and pray ammo wasters.
-Automatic weapons do around 90% dph of their same tier-reciever non auto counterpart. (instead of 55%)
-Thanks to their increased damage, automatic weapons are now very competitive midgame weapons. (instead of being endgame weapons used to dump old ammo on sponges).
-Nerfed molotov impact damage. Due to reduced health for everyone, they are still VERY dangerous on impact but now it's the sticky fire that will kill.
-Nerfed damage dealing perks. Now a 0 perk player will do only around half the damage of a fully perked player, instead of around 6 time less in vanilla.
-Improved the non-damage bonus of secondary perks such as black widow and lady killer. It's a huge bonus in survival mode where save scumming is not  as easy to do.
-Power armor kinda buff : Because weapons do overall more damages, armor is overall less effective than before. Power armor are much more powerful compared to the rest of brutality, tank much more damage than vanilla, but still tank less bullets than in vanilla.
-Nerfed ranged stealth damage to 1.5xdmg (from 2.0 in vanilla)
-Melee weapons and perk unchanged from vanilla. Because of buffed base guns damage, melee character start very vulnerable, and then thanks to the humongous vanilla scaling can deals tons of damage.
-Companions aim better and do more damages
-Changed survival setting damage done to and from you to 1.0 (To enjoy the 1.5 beta). This mod balance is done around damage ratio set to 1. Fights are BRUTAL, and hence changing the damage done by you and to you do not change the amount of ammo you need to take a foe down/your consumption of stimpack (such difficulty, woah, gz bethesda), but instead is the difference between you getting one shot or one shooting foes.
-Changed damage done and received scaling : Below normal, the player does increased damage, and below Very hard, the player receive less damage. Also works with the new survival mode (True Survival as called by Bethesda).
-Console enabled in survival mode.

Also I'm using the Some Assembly Required Mod. Getting that first suit of power armor is going to be much more difficult. I might have to actually use some raider armor mixed with power armor to start with! This should help quite a bit.

------

So, I've played for a bit, and got myself to level 9 already. It's a familiar pattern with my first play through, getting low risk XP, scavenging, scrapping and building a lot. Here's a summary with screenshots anyway.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here we go. Yet again I am Furiosa.


This mod gives you some extra perk points at character creation. So its a bit closer to classic fallout. I guess this is partially to make up for how little endurance you get with this mod. Only 0.5 per end per level. My str is pretty low at 3, my luck at 2, but I've got charisma to 5 and intelligence at 6 already. Perception, endurance and agility are also pretty good. I decided to invest towards better trading right from the start. Money is important.


I guess I used to be some kind of civil engineer. I spend the first few days just clearing up the ruins of Sanctuary, turning it all into scrap. I wont be reusing the ruined houses.


It took a lot of work, but you get a nice blank canvas.


Then instead of junk walls I'm using these shack foundations. On top of these I build regular walls. With all the houses scrapped I have plenty of concrete and steel for the job.


I also get the Gun Nut perk, and the Action Girl perk. Plenty of XP for building. Having higher intelligence from the beginning means I'm leveling up really fast.


Eventually I have a nice basic compound like this. For vegetables I'm only going to grow mutfruit, corn and tatos. The basic ingredients in making my own adhesive.


I boost Charisma up to 6. I'd like to be able to build stalls and stuff as soon as I can. I've never had them before, and I'd really like to get some kind of steady income from my settlers that I can use to buy stuff. If fighting is as tough with this mod as I have been led to believe, then I really need to try and find some edge like this that lets me progress in some fashion without getting into too much fighting early on. It is called "BRUTALITY" in caps after all. If it is anything like the Call of Pripyat "MISERY" mod then I won't end up feeling like this "easy" early experience will really give me an unfair advantage so much as a necessary helping hand to survive.


I do a bit of looting nearby, shooting some dogs, bugs, roaches etc. And I hit the hut for this magazine. If I shoot a radstag in the head with my 10mm its pretty much a guaranteed kill. That X5 damage bonus this mod gives is really terrifying. It feels easy, but then I just imagine that the same thing will happen to me if I get shot in the head.


I also have a bunker down below Sanctuary. In my last game I set up my main bunker under Red Rocket, but I had some issues with corruption/game crashing around there, so I'm seeing if I can avoid living there this time, in case its an area specific issue.


I also get power and water going.


And hit level 7. I invest in sneak.


Looking pretty secure from outside.


I also make some housing for future settlers. Each little house is four "hut sections" in size, with 8 wall sections, 3 beds, some storage, a table, electric light, and a few trinkets as I collect them. Pretty darn luxurious. They even get a front door. And I designed the roof cleverly so that it doesn't leak when it rains. La-dee-dah.


A few turrets.


Level 8, local leader perk.


I get a couple of settlers. I found crystal for the beacon in the same place as before, from a magnifying glass in a ruined house in Concord.


I also get a scavenger hardness from a dead raider. This is looking familiar.


I grab the pipe rifle .308 shooter in Concord and use it to kill the punks at the diner. They go down really easily. I do a bunch of trade. I've got quite a lot of caps as my terms of trade are better due to higher charisma and the trading perk.


Modifying the musket I picked up in Concord I get to level 9.


I choose science.


Which lets me make this. A four-crank, focused, long-ranger heavy hitter. I think I can use this to blow the heads off Super Mutants. We shall see.


I also take out the raider just north of Sanctuary. That's three human kills.


Later I hit the drive-in and clear it out. I step on a mine and die, but I'm not counting this as a legit death. Reason being it turns out its a randomly spawning mine, while I assumed that it was static. The location was different to my previous play, according to which I thought I could charge in with no fear of death as the mine was in a different location. Dirty. So, so-far, death count is = 0 as far as I am concerned.


I also killed a Stunted Yaoguai. While one-shotting Raddeer in the head with my 10mm pistol felt a bit OP, this guy felt about right. I shot him three times with my .308, each doing a good deal of damage. And then finally I finished at close range with my shotgun. That seems right to me.


The scariest part of my play-through so far was having a gun battle with some raiders who had appeared near the bill board where you first meet Clara the trader. They appeared as they do when I climbed up on top to loot some of the containers behind the bill board (I thought I had to sleep there for them to appear, but apparently not). First thing I did was run like heck to get some distance. I had seen how powerful bullets were with this mod, and I knew that if any hit me I was going down for sure. After I was far enough away I worked up the courage to try scoping them. I used a crit to take one down in vats, while the other I took out manually. They got a few shots back in my direction, but I was sure to keep enough distance so that they didn't have much chance of hitting me. Still, it was pretty tense. If this mod can keep firefights feeling like this instead of sponge vs. sponge I'll be very happy. We shall see, but so far it looks promising.

And thats it for now. What I might do going forward for a while is just give some brief highlights, rather than go into any real detail. That might change once I catch up to where my last game is when I felt it was getting really unbalanced.

Incidentally, I have died one time so far to a frag mine at the drive-in, but I'm not counting it. This is because I walked into it based on my previous experience of there not being one in that particular spot. Apparently it is randomized. And when I reloaded and went back there, this time it was gone. I'm calling BS on this one.

So, so far, death count = 0. Level 9. I'm about 10 or 11 days in.

[BFEL]

Oh, another thing you might want to note. I noticed in your last playthrough you picked up the perception bobblehead. Did you know that if you wait till lvl 10 in a SPECIAL attribute that the bobblehead will put you permanently over to 11? Its pretty handy. Might wanna consider it for Endurance especially, seeing what the mod does with that.

[Yolan]

Wow. I did not know that. Handy to know. So regular clothing buffs all level out at 10?

[Yolan]

Levels 10 and 11.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here are my current stats, including buffs from my clothing and glasses. Perception is nice and high at 9. Agility could be better. I've invested plenty into the sneak perk, which should help make up for it a bit, but it is a concern. Given that my early game strategy revolves around not being seen by people with guns who could shoot me.


My drink cabinet in my Sanctuary bunker.


I reach level ten while starting work on a wall around the drive-in. I got with the Lone Wanderer perk. My dog doesn't get annoyed at me for abandoning it, which I need to do quite often in order to avoid dying at all. I've never really got into having a companion in any Bethesda game though to be honest. Notice that I am only getting a 10% reduction in damage here instead of 15%. It's been nerfed by this mod. Good.


Three soft-shell Mirelurks spawned near the drive-in. I already had a turret set up on the roof, so I risked shooting at them. I found that with this mod I could one-shot them with a .308 round if I hit their face. Their shells etc. of course are much tougher. Feels good to me. Regular Mirelurks probably won't go down so easily.


I also cleared Bedford station. With enemies having less health/bullets doing more damage with this mod, I could one-shot most of the low level ghouls with my rifle. Pretty low stress. But I need all this easy XP to toughen up for later.


One-shotting the mirelurks in the face at the quarry.


Hit the settlement north east of the quarry and the armor seller was there. I grabbed my first bit of dreadnought armor. I love this stuff.


Taking out some bugs got me to level 11. I get the armorer perk.


A legendary vicious mongrel dropped this. Very nice. But nowhere near as strong as the dreadnought armor I just purchased. My armorer skill is also still too low to upgrade it to dreadnought. Soon though. Soon.


Back home.

[Yolan]

Levels 12 to 17.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[spoiler]
I decide to hit Diamond City. As I'm skirting around the east side of the Corvega plant the same building as last play has a fight breaking out between ghouls and raiders. The raiders get taken down to one guy yet again, who I finish off. A bit of loot there.

[spoiler]
Again I grab the scoped rifle at the Red Rocket by Lexington, and then go help the BoS. That gets me another level, and a point invested in leadership. Now I can build my own stalls! I've never had this before actually.

[spoiler]
Up by Diamond City I help the guards fighting the super mutants. They are much less spongey with this mod, and the guards by themselves were doing a bit of damage before they get nuked. I clean up one on my way through with a single shot. I get the remaining ones on my way out later. Feels a bit too easy compared to before, as due to high weapon damage they die in one shot and never get the chance to shoot back. This is a general problem with this mod early on maybe. The AI is not good enough to see me before I see them, or to prevent themselves from being sniped. Buffing them enough to survive a few shots is one way of getting around that, and this mod has taken that away. Still, my feeling is that as I start fighting stronger enemies, or enemies with weapons in higher numbers, I'm going to have a much harder time than with the other mod.

[spoiler]
After getting a haircut and talking with people in town, I get back to Sanctuary and some building. This levels me up again, and I go for toughness.

[spoiler]
I've turned the space around the tree into a kind of market. Heh.

[spoiler]
Upgrading my armor a bit I decide to hit Concord museum finally. I've got a decent bit of protection. Given that at this stage this mod is actually kind of easy I think I can do it.

[spoiler]
And heres the armor. Due to the Some Assembly Required mod, all I get is the frame and the torso.

[spoiler]
The deathclaw gets caught in a car explosion, and my minigun finishes it off. The minigun is very strong in this mod.

[spoiler]
Thanks to my investment in science I can upgrade the chest part to type D. Later I guess I might add some raider power armor to the other slots. Then maybe try and get the power armor chest in the labs.

[spoiler]
Sanctuary population is now 12 with the new survivors.

[spoiler]
I also killed some raiders down at Walden pond for a quest. And unlocked the bench at Sunshine Tidings coop for another quest. Every going pretty smooth. Way easier still than with the previous realism mod. But then again, on my way back home across the dam I had a fight with a few raiders that I walked into accidentally. They got a shot in and took my health down 25% or 30% right away before I finished them. And that is with some decent early armor, and perks invested in lone wanderer and toughness. Not bad. With the other mod I wouldn't have been able to shoot them down as easily or quickly, but then they also wouldn't have been able to hurt me as much I think. To get that type of damage with the earlier mod I would have to have been fighting Triggermen or something. We'll just have to wait and see how this plays out.

[spoiler]
Another point in Lone Wanderer at level 17.

[Yolan]

After a bit more playing I've found that this mod is much too easy after all. I've been able to one-shot my way through all the starting areas and easily get to level 20 without ever really risking anything... Sure it probably would get harder later, but the initial bonus PERKS it gave me unbalanced things too far as well methinks.

On the plus side the power armor mod "Some Assembly Required" works pretty nice. Shooting it out with the raider on the boat earlier was a lot of fun. I ended up with a combination of the first piece of chest armor, and the raider power armor stuck on my frame. Brilliant.

Anyway, so... now I'm experimenting with a different mod load out. I'll leave any reporting on it until after I figure out how it goes. Probably going back to the realism mod I was using earlier, but combining with a few other things like the Real World Damages mod, to further try and prevent myself from being godlike to low level characters, and to reduce bullet spongeiness of high level characters. And also the Rebalancer Mod, to make experience even harder to get. Finally, I'm going to nerf my starting SPECIAL points a little.

Man, what a major case of restartitis I've got on my hands. One of the worst. I think this is restart number 4 now? Endlessly replaying the first 15 hours of the game, like Sisyphus. Never again, I swore. I'm going to push on and play through it. But I just cant. I'm too much of a purist. ;-) Gah. Is it so much to ask though? That I can play a game that is both hard in a realistic manner, but also balanced? I had a run that was hard, but feeling increasingly unrealistic and unbalanced. Now a game that was arguably more realistic, but way too easy...

Once I've given the next loadout a run through to see how things feel and how the mods work together I'll probably just make a new thread for that game.