Doomguy Plays: Fallout 3\New Vegas :COMPLETE!:

Whew, well looks like I'm in the clear. I think this sums up the kind of battle I was having with the game

Spoiler

So after intensive testing I have changed the setting of my game to better suit me. First off, I needed to nuke my mods. I had over 130 mods. This is past the "unofficial" mod limit. There isn't a hard cap or anything but the game gets weird with too many mods. I have clumsily merged together many mods to shrink the list to about 80. I have also completely redone the graphics on my game. NO MORE FLICKERING TEXTURES! It seems Nevada Skies doesn't play nice without a proper ENB loadout. ENB is a very intensive graphic overlay to the game. It makes it look better but it's too much for my system.

I was getting pissed off with the weird artifacts without it though. Since my mod loadout needed it I put the tamest ENB preset I could find. After much tweaking there is a very slight improvement to the Fallout world. More importantly I haven't noticed any FPS drops. Getting greedy, I decided to add the Wasteland Streetlights mod. It is what it sounds like. It adds lights outdoors. Now urban centers have lights so I'm not blind as a bat during nighttime operations. Also nights are slightly brighter due to the ENB changes. Very subtle but good.

Not all is bed and roses though. I introduced some side effects. The first is the most annoying one.
Purge Cell Buffers. Otherwise known as PCB. For some reason I have to type in PCB in the console because my game is now running into problems "looting stuff". When I try to loot an item there is a very large pause in the action. This happens after playing for a while. It seems my mods are finally starting to take a toll on the engine as it struggles to keep up. I have to manually tell the system to clean up after itself. There are mods that auto clean the cells but I hear bad rumors on how it plays with TTW...

Another annoying issue has reared it's head. It regards the ammo in the game. I tried to combine two ammo mods, CASE and CALBR. You aren't actually supposed to do this but some people say it works if you tweak around with it. Only one is required but CASE had some really fun ammo types not available for CALBR. Explosive ammo anyone? How about pulse powered shotgun shells?
Anyway what ended up happening was that 5.56 ammo somehow got screwed up and no matter how much I edit it keeps screwing up. The default Full Metal Jacket round has no special characteristics to speak of. However now I'm getting a special -10 to Damage Threshold per bullet. That's broken as hell. It's basically a free Armor Piercing bullet (Which has -15). Kind of makes the game easy.
Also I had this weird scenario where a raider equipped with a 12 gauge pulse shotgun kept stunning me in place. I had to reset. I hope that shell type doesn't cause problems because it looks cool.

I would forge myself a Mini Nuke Grenade but the EVE mod super buffs the nuke radius. Playing with ammo is fun

Here are some pics!

Spoiler

Streetlight mod in action. The best part is that you can see them from really far away. It's cool


Yes that's me cheating. Yes that's a Deathclaw. This specific type is from the Marts Monster Mod. They are the hardest regular enemy in the game. Fast, deadly, and a rather large HP pool. They come with the Enclave troops. Using a grenade launcher here was a stupid move on my part. I didn't want to do this part again so I cheated. Just this once!


No matter what you do, the game will do weird stuff like this. Seems like this mutie became one with the directions. Speaking of directions, these maps are useless. I with they told you where you are on the map.








This is what happens when you don't heed the warnings of The Wasteland Preacher
Seriously that guy killed me so many times. It wasn't until I popped a stealth boy until I could snipe his face. Telling the captive to trigger the explosion killed me too. That EVE mod is awesome.

I'm off to the the Anchorage DLC! (Since I'm close I might as well)

But where the hell is it!? I have Delay DLC mod on and unless I get close the game won't tell me. Where the heck are these people? I searched nearly every street in D.C. What side of the river is it on? Maybe it's south of Megaton near Arlington? Did I really miss it in the ruins? I hate these metro tunnels. Every tunnel is blocked off and makes it frustrating to know where I am.
I'll just keep looking.

 

Oh right, here's some more pics of the new and improve look of my game

Spoiler

You can see the streetlights now! Cool stuff


On top of the Rivet City Aircraft Carrier. You can't go that way but for something that's simply eye candy and not accessible that's not too bad. The skyscraper mod is really good! Really would recommend it and it's light on any performance hit.

So I was searching the wrong side of the river for Operation Anchorage. It's actually located south of Megaton near the Red Racer factory. Even that was hard to find because the metro sign was kind of obscured by my vision if you come from north to south. Well at least I cleaned out both sides of the river in any case. I've covered a lot of ground in this game. I set the mod setting for enemies to respawn two weeks after dying. This seems like a good time span to make you feel like your are clearing the wastes. Then after a long time they come back again but by then hopefully you are done with your business.

So after taking the metro tunnel you emerge at Bailey's Crossing where you help out some BoS outcasts in fighting off Super Mutants. The bossman there has taken an interest in my Pipboy computer on my wrist. It's necessary to access the computer simulation of the battle of Anchorage Alaska.Completing it unlocks the armory door.

Now before you do this I suggest clearing out your loot and leave room for the armory goods.
Once ready enter the simulation.

This DLC if pretty heavy on action and rather straightforward. It was kinda tough to find some decent screenshots for this place. It's a bunch of snow. Yeah...snow and mountains. And sometimes your inside tunnels so it's not exactly worth a screenshot.

The first part requires you to sneak around the mountains and take out some artillery guns. Btw the health and ammo system gets changed in this simulation. You have to find health and ammo dispensers. Also you get a hard cap on max ammo. This is annoying but there are plenty of dispensers. After destroying the arty guns the army is now ready to push the attack. You get promoted by General Chase and ordered to lead a squad of hand picked units to two different mission objectives.
I usually go full assault team since they use assault rifles and more allies means more meatshields.
Also I should mention I'm using the TTW mod known as Anchorage Customization. It gives me more options to customize my load out. You can choose your load out at the HQ. I opt to carry around a heavy machine gun that looks like a B.A.R.

So here's some pics. Unfortunately the good parts got obscured by either a winter storm, night time, or both. It was really cool but difficult to show off to you.

Spoiler

The third objective takes you to the trenches.


Overhead the U.S Airforce pounds the Chinese defenses. Those are unique looking planes. Looks like a cross of the P-38 and a B-1


After turning off the Pulse Field in the final objective the Power Armor soldiers attack the refinery. You can see they brought along some Fatman Mini Nuke launchers to breach the walls

Inside the refinery you mop up the rest of the enemy and do battle with General Chang who has a shiny electrical sword. It does obscene damage so I had to kill him quickly. Once you do that General Chase congratulates you for completing the simulation and then you wake up back in the armory with the outcast people.

Spoiler

After the stuff Moira has been making me go through I don't know what I got breeding on me either

Alright! I open the armory door and allowed to get first dibs on the goods inside (actually you can loot the whole place). However...
It seems some of the outcast people don't want to share. They attempt to kill me and the other outcast people. Since I'm RP'ing a character trying to turn slightly more evil I decide to hide in a corner while the outcasts kill themselves off. Then after they do the dirty work for me I kill them. More loot for me

For whatever reason the outcasts up in the surface act like nothing happened so I ignore them and go on my way.

Time to search for more stuff to do![/spoiler]

 

I feel like I'm getting closer to wrapping up Fallout 3. Next DLC to tackle is Mothership Zeta. An alien spaceship is on the other side of the highway northeast of Paradise Falls. Once you get close you should pick up the radio signal. Now before you do get close I strongly suggest you empty out your inventory with the exemption of your armor of choice and a favorite gun.
The amount of loot you can find here is over the top but you can't take it all with you. It's a one time thing so carry light. Also if playing Hardcore mode make sure to bring plenty of water since there is none there.

Okay so this DLC is very different in theme. It has aliens and space stuff. I like the change of pace, it has a decent length. I think I took over two hours and had fun with the interesting audio logs you find. However the difficulty of this DLC is BRUTAL. Apparently this is one of those places where the higher your level the tougher the enemies. I'm level 24. That's 4 levels higher then what the vanilla game even allows. My game is heavily modded and combat is generally tougher too.
Quite frankly it was just too hard for me. The weapons were overkill and the enemies were meatshields. I quit and went into FNVEdit to tweak their parameters. What was really pissing me off were those shielded aliens. Due to the TTW mod they had both a high DR and a high DT. I nerfed everything across the board and was able to get a better gameplay.

Anyway as soon as you find the crashed ship you get beamed up by a blue light. You wake up in the worst position

Spoiler

The needles close in on you...

You pass out (thankfully) and get thrown in a cell with a fellow wastelander. You scheme together and break out of the jail cell picking up some little girl from back in time during the days the bombs first fell. Got to ask though, how come she never ages? It's implied Sally breaks out on the ship all the time to go exploring. In that case how come she doesn't age? She's not in a cyro tube or anything. Speaking of which you release some people from their frozen slumber.

Spoiler

Alright so to make progress inside the giant alien space ship we have to destroy three generators. Before you do that make sure you explore the Engine Room and the Cargo Hold areas. It's very easy to miss these doors and it would suck not to get the full experience of the DLC. The Cargo Hold specifically has some unique weapons and the almighty Buttercup Horse God

Spoiler

Beware the Horse God!

For some reason the aliens have an entire section of their ship dedicated to every girl's favorite toy. Don't ask me, I searched for clues but couldn't fathom the reason. Maybe I just didn't want to.

Anyway after taking along the survivors through the three sections of the ship I progress to the space walk. I have to leave the ship and enter a different section from the outside.
Just don't wander too far from the central part of the ship or this happens

Spoiler

After fighting the strange aliens and their human experiments

Spoiler

Eventually you make it to the bridge. This part always gets kind of glitchy for me. Everyone is supposed to join up with you but sometimes they don't show forcing me to reload the save. Anyway another alien ship shows up to do battle! Get to the controls in front of the captain's chair and alternate between full powered shots/low shield to high shields/low power shots. Keep in mind you fire slightly faster then the enemy so abuse that! Also keep an eye on enemy counter attacks on board your own ship.

Spoiler

Full power to the death ray laser! By the way earlier I have to disable this ship's death ray laser. So why am I allowed to fire this now?


Take that! Notice the earth btw, looks like the radioactive fallout really screwed up the beauty of the planet

And there we have it. Not lots to say since there is lots of action in this DLC. Sally tells you she found a way to beam us back to earth. You can travel back and forth through a beacon that is placed near that crashed spaceship wreckage. The only reason to do so is to grab freebie alien materials that Sally will find. I go back to earth and find an Alien Blaster, a unique weapon that uses Alien Power Cells. I was wondering what those cells were for. I found other ammo types on the alien ship. My go to weapon this time was the alien Drone Cannon. I start my journey back to Megaton on foot. I don't fast travel unless I know for sure there will be no enemies along the way (A side effect of this game engine. Can't exactly introduce an encounter system without it being flatout annoying on the load times.

Thought I could make it to the minefield homes before it got too dark but a random thunderstorm comes out of nowhere.
Oh yeah and a Deathclaw Matriarch jumps me in the darkness

Spoiler

Aim for the legs! Knock out one of their legs and you should have enough speed to keep them away from you. Good thing I'm wearing light armor and have good agility. Also got lucky with a few leg critical hits

Game is great!

What to do now...

 

No joke edition! Time to wrap up the Fallout 3 portion of my Fallout3/New Vegas TTW playthough.
A quick look on what I have done so far

• The main plot now wants me to search for the G.E.C.K. Dad is dead and the Enclave are on the move. It's located underneath Lamplight Cavarns.
  
• As far as DLC goes I have done everything except Broken Steel. However Broken Steel is the end of the Fallout 3 game.
• I am level 25. I have over 100,000 caps and a crapton of ammo and supplies. I have crafted so much junk that I can make mini nukes if I wanted. Basically I have end game content before the end game
• I have explore nearly everything south of Megaton including the D.C Ruins. I know the metro system like the back of my hand now. And trust me, I'm sick and tired of going through Metro Central only to realize that the passage to Seward Station is caved in. Time to go the the unmarked "Flooded Metro". This game could use a rework of the metro map...
• I have scouted all of the northeast part of the map including the "Republic of Dave". However I didn't do anything or go into anything yet. This part is pretty scarce.
• I avoided that Deathclaw town that's northeast, it's part of the Broken Steel DLC and frankly going there during night time is suicide.
• Northwest remains unexplored. WIth the exception of those three satellite buildings, I went into those.
• The road up to Arefu and the road going up to the Germantown Police HQ were explored. Also Paradise Falls. However I followed the roads and stayed off the beaten path as much as possible
• I still haven't found Dogmeat. Yes I know, I'm a bad person. He's in the junkyard, I keep forgetting where it was. Apparently it's much more towards the west then I thought.
• Speaking of companions, I go solo. Something I take Jericho in previous playthoughs because I like the raider taunts he has.

So what now? It's time to travel to the west! The TTW mod has built a train station for me to use. In order to find it you have to take the metro station behind the National Archives building in the D.C Mall. In the metro one of the tunnels should have cleared debris leading to a door. This is your clue that the mod is working! (Which you should have known already by this point)
Follow along until you surface at Columbus Circle.

Spoiler

Be careful! This will trigger an Enclave attack and Super mutants infest the area. That's why you should be prepared for these sorts of fights before going to New Vegas.

Anyway here's the inside of the train station

Spoiler

Before you can use the train you have to reactivate the station. Do so to open the blastdoors. Eventually you'll find a working train with a terminal. It cost 500 caps for a one way trip to New Vegas. Go ahead and buy a ticket.
Now all you have to do is enter the train and flip the switch. This will load Fallout : New Vegas, thus starting you at the begging of that game! Very cool stuff! You can travel back to D.C by a train station in Freeside. Going back and forth is hassle free!

Before doing that though I fast travel back to my safehouse in Megaton. Time for some important decisions
First off, I have WAY to much crap to take. In fact If I went into New Vegas with these weapons the game would be too easy. So my decision is a simple one.

I strip.

I strip it all

I stuff ALL my gear into a locker in my house. The only exception are these things

• One stimpack
• One Med-X
• One RadAway
• One Doctor Bag
• Colt 1911 pistol
• Four Clips of .45 ACP ammo (28 bullets)
• Glasses
  
• Wastelander clothes
• Some skill magazines for science and lockpicking.

That's it. I do retain my level and perks. Time to take a journey far away! Here are my parting thoughts on the game Fallout 3. Keep in mind I will come back here but by then it's to tie up loose ends.

• Three Dog the radio disc jockey is amusing. Use the "GNR Enhanced" mod to not only add a superb collection of lore friendly songs. You can't even tell it's not from vanilla! It also fixes Three Dog because sometimes he repeats too much crap
• This guy really wants me to buy something
  Spoiler

  
• This song is AMAZING!
  Spoiler
  How the heck did this pass my attention before!? This is BOSS! I can't believe it's an actual song, eat your heart out 60's American censors! I practically lol'ed at the two minute lyrics. Oh man... and the second movement is even more intense. Seriously the electric chair!?

Sorry I can't stop shaking my head in amazement...
Next post is from Vegas[/spoiler]

 

?
...What?...Why?...Argh...
*Facepalm
Well, that was ridiculous. What is wrong with the men's restroom?

So I take it the men's restroom is broken.

Seems like a fitting place, considering the environment.

I was expecting it to load up, but without the mods in your inventory. Good thing that went well.
Bethesda game and their instabilities...

 

I couldn't find it

Eventually I saw that the men's bathroom is far away from the ramp leading up. Unlike the women's which is right next to my home storage and the ramp. It's just more convenient so yeah...lol

============================

Correction from before, it was "NIpton" that got razed to the ground by the Legion. The mayor sold out to a Legion Operative and was killed himself.
Novak is our next location to go to. I'm not well equipped yet, I have a Varmint Rifle which is okay for long range combat but not much else. Also I'm really low in .357 magnum ammo. That's really weird because that ammo type is suppose to be common here like how 9mm was common in D.C. On the flip side I'm getting a large amount of .45 ACP ammo. It may have something to do with my high level. Gun selection has been crappy so far, that's about to change soon.

I plan on looting the remains of the bodies of the soldiers who get in skirmishes between the NCR and the Legion. Like a real pro scavenger of the waste. You would think they would get pissed off at me for doing that but apparently the game isn't that detailed in regards to looting equipment that still technically belongs to NCR. Oh look! There's a battle now! Let me just sit in the sidelines and wait it out...

Spoiler

Who needs guns when he can fight in his underwear and bare hands?

Twice now. Okay I did something wrong. We'll fix that later, for now let's go to Novak

Spoiler

A number of quests open up to me now. The best on in the entire game and probably series is the "Come Fly with Me" quest. I love this one! Well minus the fetch quest at the end but that's easy to get by.
Let's just cut to the chase, we have to get the ghouls out of the Repcon facility by any means necessary. They want to blast off to space with some rocket ships. First I have to clear out the basement of Night Kin SuperMutants. The leader can talk and worships a bone skull he calls Antler. Anyway I do that stuff and then do a fetch quest for materials needed for the blast off. I convince the human scientist to sabotage the rocket and he tells me to find three sugar bombs (a pain in the ass).

The result?

Spoiler

Back at Novak I learn that some of the people who jumped me are at Boulder City. On the way there the underwear bug props up again

Spoiler

Okay I'm fixing that. It seems I made a mistake merging some mods that were not supposed to be merged. After breaking the merged mod apart everything went back to normal. That includes the Legion troops as well. Not to mention they got new guns again.

At Boulder City there is a hostage standoff with the Khan Gang and NCR. One of the Khans was with the bastard that shot me, Benny. Benny is the guy I have to find but he's at the heart of Vegas, the strip. In order to end the hostage standoff I start killing the Khans myself which triggers the attack by NCR. Truth was, I wanted the shotguns the Khan's had with them and planned on using NCR firepower to get it. Yeah I'm bad. Oh yeah NCR suffered casualties too. More 5.56 ammo for the taking

So the game finally opens up at this part. There are a lot of quests to do for the NCR and the Vegas people. Most of them are not really violent and is mostly talking. Getting any sort of screenshots for this section is difficult due to the nature of the quests.

In a nutshell,
I make it to New Vegas but have to earn my way into the Strip by doing favors for "The Kign". He runs Freeside which lays in the outskirts. I could simply bribe the security robot with caps or pass a weird science check but I don't want to do that yet. In fact DON"T DO THAT. Make sure you get all the quests you can get done BEFORE entering the strip. You'll see why in the next post.

Oh yeah, make sure you buy stuff from this guy

Spoiler

GunRunners sell awesome weaponry. If you were doing the quests like I said so you should have scrapped up enough caps to buy guns or ammo. 5.56 ammo is cheap and I found a rifle that uses it. My equipment is now mid tier stuff. I'm lacking a decent energy gun though. Also I'm using a regular Hunting Rifle with a scope for sniper action. That's good for soft targets but not good enough for a Deathclaw.

Well it is but...what If it sees me and rushes me? I don't exactly have a backup.
Anyway time to clear up the mounting quest log before tackling the main quest at the Vegas Strip. Feel free to kill whoever you want and don't worry about Legion or NCR reputation yet. Right now the Legion is sending assassins after me which is good because I want something to shoot at. NCR is mixed opinion of me.

 

So you end up being a good guy (or at least lost no karma), either way? That is what the video seems to show.

I look forward to looting the Legion soldiers, for their spears. For some reason, my character, who only has a strength level of 1 in the S.P.E.C.I.A.L., can remove the head of an enemy with a single spear while sneaking. And I felt better after getting hit by a group of their assassins when I looted a thermic lance from them.

"And that was the seeds to the lyrics of death and heavy metal were sown."

 

I passed the speech check with the human scientist guy (the one who thinks he's a ghoul) to sabotage the rockets. It's not shown here but it's identical to the "evil" choice where basically the rockets blow up. Got bad karma for that one. Also pushed my character into evil disposition.

My modded game gives them new weapons too. They got plenty of spears and now I noticed some of them have a broad sword. It looks like something from Skyrim or Oblivion. There's also this crazy hammer looking thing that shoots sparks out of the iron head. These guys are tough to fight now. Only thing NCR has going for them is their armor.

Sure you can look at it that way. Or look at it the..other way :whistle:

Last screenshots for the night

Spoiler

Farewell to Rose of Cassidy Caravan


Epic walk


Van Grahf double crosses the Legion. Shootout at abandoned warehouse

That's why the EVE mod is awesome

 

Fun with Deathclaws, Muties, and dancing girls edition!

Not a lot to report, like I said the sidequests in New Vegas are really not worth a screenshot. It kind of sucks that so much of New Vegas is rather peaceful. One thing I did was finally enter the New Vegas strip where Dean Martin's "Ain't That a kick in the Head" plays in the background. Got to love that intro to the strip. Don't get a chance to wander far when one of the robots from the Lucky 38 casino tells me Mr. House wants to see. Oh the robot happens to be Victor who was obviously keeping an eye on us from back in Goodsprings.

We enter the Lucky 38, the only people in recent memory to ever do so to speak with Mr.House

Spoiler

He's a computer! Nah, he's apparently still human somehow and is in the building somewhere. He communicates to us like this. Anyway he wants us to recover the Platinum Chip from Benny who's hiding out in the Tops Casino. This chip is apparently one of the most important things in the world right now. We need to get it from Benny at all costs.

When you leave the Lucky 38 a representative from NCR tells us to report to the embassy. Let's go ahead and do that. The ambassador tells us that ALL of our sins have been forgiven! Yay! That's why it's important to screw up the NCR as much as you please before getting to this point. Anyway he wants us to figure out what's the deal with this group called the Boomers. We'll do that later. Let's confront Benny!

Spoiler

There are SO MANY ways to do this right now. The screenshot you see is NOT the way I did it, (The way I did it was too bloody a mess to show). It's at this point the story branches and let's you do all sorts of scenarios. In my run through the game I was able to convince Benny's second, Swank, that his boss is a traitor. We laid a trap that would lead Benny back to his room privately.
As soon as Benny returned to his room I confronted him about the chip and killed him. This isn't most cruel way to kill him (there's one way to get the legion to crucify him). I just wanted the chip already. Anyway next to Benny's room there's a robot called Yes Man who tells us that the chip could be used to shape the future of Vegas. It seems it might be a way to control all the machines here. Interesting.

A new questline pops up alongside the one that House gives us, the "Wild Card" quest. The House one is called "The House Always Wins". I forgot what the NCR one said.
See the pattern?
As soon as I leave the Lucky 38 a representative of the Legion shows up and...you guessed it, he forgives all our sins
He wants us to report to their fort and meet with Ceaser. I believe this opens up their simultaneous quest line (or maybe that's when I get there).

I decide not to jump the gun and report back to House. He shows us that the chip was actually a software upgrade for his robots. Now with the chip at hand he is able to significantly upgrade his robot army. He's not done yet though, he wants us to take the chip to an underground bunker where Ceaser's Legion is hanging out. Ah good, that's where we wanted to go next anyway.

For now though I put to rest that little plot line. Let's tackle some of the "Wild Card" plot lines. It want's us to check out the various groups in New Vegas and determine their role in the future. Let's take it easy and check with the families in the strip first. The gangster styled Omerta's and the creepy cannibalistic White Glove Society guys.

After uncovering secrets, helping out prostitutes (for unpure reasons but then realized too late the game didn't give me...fun...options) and then discovering a vault full of trees, I decide to strike out south and travel dangerous roads

Spoiler

Oh crap he saw me!!!


Damn Cazadores! I hate this guys! They are so hard to hit! Incredibly fast, and they poison you. It's best to pick them off at a distance and wait patiently until one of them flies straight into your crosshair. They dont' follow a set path but it's pretty close most of the time. I also notice they stop for a second if you fire a shot near them. A quick second shot would make them pay for their curiosity. If all else fails, spray and pray and aim for the wings


Behold the mighty Anti-Material Rifle which fires gigantic .50 BMG rounds. You really thought I'll do the Quarry Junction with a hunting rifle? Lol. It's best to do this from the north where a Great Khan watch crew are standing atop the high mountains. Some mountain climbing will get you this excellent position. You can literally see everywhere. Which is apparently too much for my computer to handle since as you can see the level of detail has taken a severe hit in the graphics department. Strange, I thought I solved all my graphic issues at this point. For some reason the New Vegas portion of my playthough has been lacking in the graphical department. It's has to be a LOD issue.

I kill many Deathclaws with High Explosive .50 ammo and successfully return back to Goodsprings

I now have incredibly powerful weapons once again. Oh yeah, I took out the mutants in Black Mountain as well.
So what's going on back in Vegas?

Spoiler

Because dancing around dead people in underwear is okay

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas

 

Tried to fix up those LOD issues

Spoiler

Not great by any means but I did a side by side comparison with different settings and this was the best I could do. The mountains come out okay but they are supposed to be more detailed then that. Something strange with the water though. I was tempted to upping the ugrid to load to something really high like 9 or 11 but I'm afraid that would crush my fps and there's really no way going back from that. Makes a hell of a difference though but the fps cost is too high.
I'll just deal with it.

I go ahead and decide to meet with this "Caesar" guy.

Spoiler

They want me to disable whatever it is that Mr.House has set up in his bunker. Caesar already knows that the platinum chip must have something to do with the bunker since it has the same symbol.
I enter the underground bunker and decide to activate the chip instead.

Spoiler

Now there's a robot army hiding beneath the Legion camp, all of it under the control of Mr. House. When I go back up to speak with Caesar he stupidly thinks the "loud noise" was the destruction of the bunker.

Now I'm not here to criticize bizarre story plot holes but...

Why didn't he just send a guy to see that's NOT what I did!?
I know why, it's in fact my biggest criticism of this game. The simple fact is...

Why join the legion? This entire game up to this point has either forced you to serve the NCR or yourself. There is ZERO incentive to help the Legion. In fact it's incredibly difficult to find any work for you to do for them. At this point the game is trying to show you that it's possible to join them even this late into the main quest. Had the legion discovered that you didn't blow up the bunker then you'll be locked out of the legion ending. What a bummer, you literally had one chance and blew it. Meanwhile all the other factions get a million chances. It's only now at this very late junction that you can finally do some "legion stuff". And even that is really lacking since you are basically hamstrung into doing a single questline which is to do whatever Caesar wants you to do. The NCR on the other hand has a large cast of different characters to interact with. Mr. House is a single plotline however it runs concurrent with the "Wild Card" plot that has the Courier winning out in the end.
NCR is also similar but up to a certain point.

Anyway, I'm now on Caesar's good terms. At least for the time being. I do miss being ambushed by assassin squads though. My Karma is now "Neutral" and I have a positive or mixed reputation with everyone but the Powder Gangers (I kill them on sight).
I report back to Mr. House who now wants to solve issues with some of the various small groups that inhabit the Mojave Wasteland. His next target is the "Boomers". Ah...the NCR wants to negotiate with them too. At last it's time to make some judgement calls.

Practically every time I play this game I always side with Mr. House. To be honest I still feel like siding with Mr. House. I blame the script people in this game, he just makes a far more persuasive argument for his side then any other group. The NCR doesn't seem to care much about you and the Legion is the obvious "bad guys" choice. You could go solo but I don't think that would fit our current playthough. Remember...

We still have work to do in Washington D.C!

Can't be two places at once. I'm leaning Mr. House :again:
If someone really wants me to do something different now is the time to tell me about it.
Mr. House, NCR, Legion, or Yes Man (myself). What's it going to be? I'm really leaning House with Yes Man being last place. If Legion I have to kill House to proceed. The others could wait on that

I'll let that float in your minds for a bit. Let's tackle some DLC's shall we? I'll be perfectly honest, this is the first time I'm playing any New Vegas DLC. That's right! You are getting a first hand account on what I think of the DLC's! I have no idea what order I should do it, I think by order of release seems reasonable.
First one up...

Dead Money! I have no idea what I'm going up against. The usual pre-DLC setup applies, I'll travel light and won't take too much with me.

 

Time to play "Dead Money"! Like I said, I have no idea what I'm getting into here. There's a radio signal that tells me to go to some kind of abandoned BoS Bunker. Always wondered what that did. Any way I don't get the chance to explore very far because it's a trap!
Some gas knocks me out and I wake up in some deary looking place with this guy talking to me

Spoiler

That sounds fair

This guy's name is familiar, I think Veronica (someone who could join you in wandering New Vegas) mentioned this guy. He's some crazy Brotherhood of Steel guy. Might have a few nuts loose in the head. He does come off as a bit crazy. Anyway long story short (This DLC didn't hold back in dialogue or story tidbits) I'm told to gather up three other people who were also like me.

First off I decide to find "Dog". He's hold up in a police station. This is very difficult because it seems everything I have was stripped from me. Playing with a modded game that makes things harder this is very tricky. I resort to using "sneak" tactics and melee. Let me tell you stealth boys are really useful when using my modded game. I can turn them on and off since they use a "charge". Even then these "Ghosts" are really hard since I don't have any healing items. Another thing I have to look out for are this transmitters. If I stay too close to one my bomb collar blows up. Run by them quickly, shoot them up, or some could be disabled. That sprint mod is kinda cheaty...

Anyway I find Dog in a cell.

Spoiler

Well he's not Dog now...

It seems Dog is actually God. Or Dog. Okay based on some skill checks it seems this guy is a schizophrenic. Since his more rational version, God, refuses to be ordered around I use the holotape I found to turn him back to Dog. Dog is the dumb version and doesn't seem like he wants to rip me to shreds. I tell him to stay at the fountain.

Next up, I have to find Dean

Spoiler

I escort the ghoul back to the fountain where all that's left is Christine. I somehow forgot to take a screenshot of her when I find her stuck inside a Med Doc machine. Maybe it's for the best, she looks like a human Frankenstein monster. Completely bald and apparently she had her vocal cords torn out of her.

One thing I noticed so far in this DLC, it might be really important to have your skills as high as possible. I've been facing some challenging skill checks, Barter, Speech, Medicine, that sort of thing. I don't have my skill magazines with me either. I'll hate to miss anything interesting, I am level 29 (about to be 30) and all my skills are over 50. Still only a few are maxed out.
Unfortunately all the skills in world don't give you a more powerful pistol

Spoiler

These guys are tough! I keep thinking I forgot a shotgun somewhere because I keep finding shotgun ammo. However neither the vending machines or the buildings I go to seem to have a shotgun. That Holorifle is useful but the throwing spears is kinda awkward to use. Fighting these guys in melee is dangerous

After rounding up the "Heist Crew", Elijah tells us the only way into the casino is to set off the opening celebration. I take the crew to their locations. Starting with Dog, I take him to the electrical switches. Seriously shut up about being hungry. Once he's there I had to cheat and look up the internet because he wouldn't stay there. It seems I have to use the holotape again in order to turn him back into God.
Wait...
I could have done that the entire time...?
See what I mean about first time playthough? Anyway I convince his other self to stay put and do what I say. I won't...betray him. Actually I plan on doing this DLC in the most complete way I can. If possible I do it the "good guy" way but like I said, I have no idea what's in store for me.

I then take the ghoul to his spot. Shut up about your back. Seriously these companions don't shut up. I activate some holograms to scare off the ghost people. That will convince the ghoul to stay in his spot.

I then take the mute girl to her spot. Guess what? She needs to shut up too!

Spoiler

Are you serious?


See that tripwire? Maybe she's trying to warn me...still fell for it and got blown up

I take her to some computer thing. She doesn't want to go down the elevator so I rewire the controls up top so she can use it. Alright, time for my part. I have to go to the bell tower. Lots of fighting on the way there but now I'm starting to get accustomed to how things work in this place. You got poison red clouds that you have to cross quickly or ignore, hidden radio transmitter things you have to track down and destroy quickly, and weird ghost people you have to blast away in the face.

Eventually I make it to the bell tower and ready to start the opening ceremony of the casino!

Spoiler

Now I have to hightail it to the casino


Oh oh. Looks like that woke up the neighborhood

I definitely don't want to fight these guys again. On the way back the area is flooded with more Ghosts. I decide to just run right past them. That's what the drawings on the wall say anyway. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to go find the others or not. I looked in on Dog since he was close but he wasn't there anymore. Alright onto the casino!

I get treated with a warning that I can't return to the Villa area if I enter the casino. Guess that means I'm done here. As soon as I enter the casino some kind of security thing goes out and once again I'm knocked out.

I think I'll stop here. I'm still in the process of doing the next few...stuff. I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing but so far I'm really liking this DLC. Don't spoil me! Actually surprise of the interesting backstory so far...

 

So some kind of security system knocked me out but I'm okay. Elijah tells me the others were taken to other places as well. Alright so what I have to do is reactivate some stuff in the casino. It's pretty tricky now because those invincible hologram security things are patrolling the area. After some scouting around and looking for computers and locked doors I'm able to reactivate the casino floor

Spoiler

Roulette anyone?

You can actually gamble a bit and trade your chips for prewar cash. I take the opportunity to trade in all my surplus guns and armor for over 150 prewar cash. I needed the space and besides the holograms here don't give you regular caps.
Moving on, it seems Dog is locked away somewhere in the kitchens. I can hear his voice through the bathroom stalls, he's having an argument to himself. He's threatening to blow up and burn this place down. That's not good, from various terminals I learned that a gas leak is prevalent throughout the casino. If it ignites everything blows up.

Using a key I found I'm able to go down to the kitchens where Dog is pacing around

Spoiler

Don't let him see you!

Through some trial and error I discovered there is a few ways to do this. There is three gas valves you have to turn off without being spotted. However in any case you have to confront Dog so I go ahead and do that before he could blow us all up. Using some high level speech checks I'm able to...cure? I cure Dog and was able to merge his personality back into one. The new Dog seems to suffer amnesia and is no longer any sort of threat to the casino. Elijah wanted me to kill him but screw that Elijah guy, he's more of a nutcase then the "FEV Reject". I just know that guy is going to betray me soon. Heck I think he said he would do so anyway.

After that is dealt with now I have to find Dean in the theater.

Spoiler

Whoa...

Okay so here's an interesting tidbit behind the scenes of this place. Before we get to that, when I get to the theater I'm locked in with Dean who plans to backstab me. Now remember Dean is a ghoul so he actually lived back then during the time this place was built. So apparently he had this plan set up to backstab Sinclair (the builder of this whole place). Sinclair has this huge crush on Vera Keyes and Dean was using her as a way to steal all of Sinclair's wealth in one huge upsetting scandal. Well before the bombs fell anyway.

Anyway Vera, the same women who this place is fashioned after, was being blackmailed by Dean. Vera was addicted to some drugs and stuff. You can figure all this stuff out from the various terminals and some holotapes lying around. It's a pretty interesting backstory to this place. Kind of felt bad for the Sinclair guy despite the fact I never knew him in game. Vera...well Vera was being used and it seemed like she wanted out of this scheme. Dean however...
Screw that guy, I'm going to put him out of commission. He even told me he was the one who put the Christine woman in the auto doc. He transferred Vera's voice to Christine so he can use it to unlock the vault below.
What a scumbag!

I blow his head off and quickly escape the theater because if you don't your collar will blow up. Apparently the casino walls will prevent the transmissions from activating your collars. Alright, now to find Christine.

Oh right I forgot to mention, in the lobby those "ghost" people somehow got inside the casino. This is the first real plot hole I noticed. Didn't security lock the doors again? What "alternate" route did they use to get in? Meh
I got into the suites where Christine is holed up.

After navigating the rooms and finally finding a shotgun (yay) I find Christine. Oh yeah, she can talk again! Seems she's here to kill that Elijah person. She was taken to Vera Keyes room. If you look in the bedroom you can see the skeletal remains of the starlet with some drugs around her. That's kind of sad to be honest. That's how she spent the last days in the apocalypse?

In order to gain access to the vault underneath I'm going to have to find the password and have Christine say it to the voice recognition lock. That's easy enough, with my high skill stats I picked up all sorts of goodies. I go back down to the lobby and nab the required stuff from the lobby computer. I go back up to Vera's room and get Christine to unlock the door. I'm able to convince her that I will "take care of Elijah".

Underground is now open and all the players have left the stage. It's now me, Elijah, and the treasure of the casino

Spoiler

Whoa wait what? Wow nice trap Sinclair! It seems the only way to proceed in this underground security place is to send the elevator back up with no way to call it back down. Now I understand those cryptic computer logs about the insane security of this place. Sinclair designed this place for a one way trip down or a two man job. Seeing no other way to proceed I click yes and progress through the area. Eventually you find the entrance to the "Vault"

Oh nice!

Spoiler

Look at the value of those gold bars! There's a whole bunch in this room! But...35 WG!? Oh man, I can only take about 5 with me. There is a computer terminal nearby. This is the place.

When I activate the terminal I look into the message that Fredrick Sinclair left behind. There's actually two messages, both are depending on what "Vera" did. The proper one is as follows

...

Well I won't print it all out here. Apparently Sinclair knew he was being used by Dean and Vera. However he still built this place for her. A modern day Taj Mahal, how romantic. She didn't love him back but she meant no malice. The whole thing was due to her addictions to the drugs. Dean was the one to truly be despised it seems. Sinclair left a "special" message just for him. Whatever you do...don't read that message!

Of course I saved my game beforehand and read that message
It's a scathing last message to Dean. In it condemns that ghoul and promises him that he will never leave this place. Once the message is read the doors lock behind you and you get a special gameover screen. Interesting.

I ignore that message and turn off the computer. As soon as I do Elijah shows up in a hologram in front of my face. I do more talking and figure out that Elijah just wants to blow everyone up with the hologram technology and even the red clouds
Enough of this, I threaten to steal everything for myself unless the lunatic comes down to face me. Even that requires more skill checks. This DLC has a lot of skill checks!

Spoiler

What's Lyons doing here in Nevada!? Oh wait wrong game


Wait hold on, this is happening too fast!

Oh darn it! So that's what the game was getting at! I have to escape from here from the elevator Elijah came down from or I'm going to get blown up with the rest of this vault!
Nooooooo! My treasure!

Let go

Ah...so that what those words meant. To begin anew, to "let go". I'm left with no choice but to run for my life out of this place leaving behind a huge stash of gold bars.
As soon as I get to the elevator I'm taken to...

The villa fountain!?
Okay...that was random. Believe it or not that seems to be the end of this DLC. It was kind of anti-climatic to be warped back to the fountain. Thought I could at least speak to Dog and Christine. Seeing that I have nothing left to do I attempt to leave through the gates that says goes back to the Mojave. Game tells me there is no return here. Okay then.

Wait up, now the game tells me what happened to the others. It shows you one of those "end game slides" that details what the fate of the others were. Dog would forget everything that happened, even me. He vaguely mentions something about "two couriers"?
Dean is dead, his hologram is still singing songs in the casino.
And Christine stayed in the area to explore some more I guess. There was this strange tidbit of info though...

Spoiler

Divide? Battle? Two couriers? Okay what's this about? No no! Don't tell me!

I get the feeling that's something one of the DLC will cover.

I return to the bunker in the Mojave. I'm greeted with a somber radio message, the same voice that got me here. Now I know the voice is the real Vera Keyes. A somber parting and farewell. I turn off the radio and reclaim my original equipment. Of course I'm overweight with the gold bars, guess some trips to the house is needed.

So that's it! That was Dead Money! I wasn't able to do everything unfortunately. Based on that achievement thing that pops up I did miss a couple of things. Not much though, I think I got a very nice impression of the truth of the Sierra Madre Casino.

Storywise, I think this is the best DLC I played from both Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Really rewards you for hunting down those computer logs and talking to your crew. Most of the times in these games I didn't care too much what happened to the fates of the prewar people leading up to the bombs. In this case though, it felt a little more real. I don't know, I kind of felt bad for the Vera woman. Poor Sinclair, love makes us all blind. Even in the end he didn't seem to regret one bit though.
Dean though, I wish I could have locked him in the vault like you apparently could do to Elijah. That would have been epic.

Gameplay wise however was not really my thing. Too skill checks needed to get a full grasp of things. There should be a skill check just to enter this place. Fighting those ghost people was annoying too, it took far too long to find a shotgun which was the only thing that could really bring them down. Of course by the time I found one it was in the casino which by then you had to deal with holograms. The ghost people were afterthoughts.

The holograms were cool though. I only died once. It was that hot woman hologram in the rooms. I had no idea she was security until she turned red when I was checking her out
Damn I should have screenshot that

So yeah, pretty cool stuff.
Next up is another DLC. This time I'll do Honest Hearts. Like before I have no idea what I'm getting into.

 

Really have no idea what I'm getting into here. So after listening to the radio broadcast looks like some caravan up north wants someone like me to help them out. I go to the north passage and get told that I have to carry light. I'm already packing light, about 74 wg but apparently the limit is 75.

Oh...
That freaked me out. I was able to pass a speech check but then I got nervous. I go back to the Lucky 38 and dump almost everything that had weight. Also I got freaked out by the guy saying I shouldn't "complain that I didn't bring my super laser gun" or something like that. Needless to say I got nervous about this DLC so I brought my favorite hand gun the P228 pistol and the very versatile Brush Rifle. That fires 45-70 government rounds. An older rifle round but the lever action rifle is customized with a scope and fires pretty quick. I have a lot of ammo for it.

Let's get this started!

That's what I want to say but this DLC got REALLY BUGGY! A few game weeks pass by and I arrive near the outskirts of New Canaan. Tribal people ambush the group and I have to fight them off. But the game and the quest get stuck! There's a couple tribal guys who somehow glitched into walls and others are immune to damage and are basically frozen. Another weird thing is how everyone in the caravan get's stuck in some kind of script thing.
Game just got really buggy. Not a good first impression. I'm forced to look up what the heck is supposed to happen.

So apparently it's a known issue. I got no indication on what to do with the stuck people. Another thing which was supposed to happen was the caravan getting wiped out.
But...they didn't?
What I did was cross this bridge

Spoiler

and that seemed to force the story script to continue. The tribal guys became "unstuck" and wiped out the caravan. Now I'm free to kill the rest of them and mop up. I'm now alone in the wilderness of...where am I again? Was this Utah or Arizona? I'll get back to you on that. Either way I'm stuck in the canyons with no companions.

That is until some friendly tribal guy called "Follows-Chalk" fills me in on the details. Seems like those "White Legs" tribe guys screwed me and the caravan over. This guy called Joshua wants to see outsiders like me. Lead the way then!

Spoiler

Nice scenery

It's a straightforward trip to his tribal place. I find Joshua Graham

Spoiler

Again with the other courier.


It's cool how he keeps checking the guns out when you speak to him

This guy is the fabled "Burned Man". He used to be Caesar's second in command until his failure in the first battle of Hoover Dam. Caesar had him set on fire and thrown off the dam as punishment.
Well he's still alive! I knew he had to be, every sign back in the Mojave pointed at his survival. So this is the DLC that has him...hmm
The burned man,, Joshua is not the sort of guy I expected from a former Caesar guy. Seems like a deeply religious dude now, based on some information gathered by Follows Chalk and Joshua it seems he's trying to turn a new leaf here.

Huh.

In any case I can't go back to the Mohave without a map. They won't give me that map until I help them out around this place called Zion. That's fine, why would I cut this DLC in half

I have to find some equipment from prewar buildings and give it to Daniel at his tribal camp. They all have these funny names. I think his was Sorrow Horse or something. The tribals are afraid of prewar stuff which is why I have to fight my way to them. Once I got all that stuff I meet Daniel

Spoiler

Right "Dead Horse"

Might as well mention that both Josh and Daniel are both from New Canaan so they are more civilized then the Native American inspired tribals here. The both of them have roots here and both are quite deeply attached spiritually to this place. Daniel wants to lead his people out of this place away from the White Legs. He's no pacifist, he would defend himself but he would rather not fight an offensive war against the leader of White Legs. I forgot that guy's name but it seems Daniel has plans against the heathen.

Wait Daniel can teleport now?

Spoiler

Holy war against White Leg? Sign me up!

I'm so picking this choice. Please let me wage holy war against White Leg.

A whole bunch of quests and stuff is open now. Daniel in particular wants me to scout out some area. I'm going to have to explore this place some more. It was an excellent idea to bring the Brush Rifle, it has the power to stop a Yui Gui and those blasted Cazadores. Oh man the later...

Time to play some more

 

This DLC doesn't want to play nice with my game. More on that later.

I fulfilled a few quests, nothing particular interesting. Here's a few screenshots of the best bits though

Spoiler

Find the baby bighorn without killing any of them. Yeah...let's just stack the rocks with these guys then


Find the ghost bear thing and lay it to rest. Oh yeah, we'll drug you out before you set out to do battle. My CPU loved this quest, it tanked my fps to the bottom because of the wonky graphics. Not to mention the trippy colors gave me a headache


I have to kill three Yui Gui who are on fire.

Another quest needed me to destroy a Yui Gui cave. A couple other quests were easy enough, just had to destroy the locations of those white leg camps.
Honestly this place was starting to wear a bit thin for me. I had a couple places I haven't explored but didn't feel the need to do so. I just didn't feel any kind of reward for exploring these mountains. The surprise attacks by those Cazadores just pissed me off. Do you know how annoying their poison is?

I probably missed a bunch of other stuff in this DLC but it just wasn't interesting to me so far. The only semi interesting lore thing going on is something to do with Vault 22. Unfortunately I couldn't find a whole lot to it and just didn't feel like scouring the mountain for the odd terminal that detailed the adventure of some survivalist guy.

Before doing the war thing with Joshua I wrap up with the two companions I got, Follow Chalk and Waking Cloud. I convince Chalk to go ahead and pursue his dream of seeing "Civilization". For Waking Cloud I tell her the truth about what happened to her husband. Daniel was keeping it away from her. No doubt he was worried about "fueling her need for revenge" or something like that. Game dropped the ball since she just took in in stride.

Seriously I'm trying to stir up discontent and resentment here. We are about to fight the White Legs!

Spoiler

He doesn't buy it. He will take the people he can and that's that. It's up to Joshua, his warriors, and me to bring down Salt Upon Wound (White Leg leader)

Game time advances to night and a storm appears over head. Joshua tells me to start the battle and invade their camp. I realize I didn't even explore the area I'm about to go to. I did a really shoddy job exploring in this DLC, this isn't my best effort I admit. Anyway night time in the mountains is practically suicide with the mod setup I have. I could barely see that far in front of me, I really wish I brought that stupid flashlight headband from that mod. It has a longer reach then the pipboy.

Good news though is that I don't get ambushed by Cazadores or Yui Gui. I'm not even sure if the former is active at night, I don't recall ever being attacked by them at night now that I think of it. I do get attacked by White Legs but it's not a big deal. I have Joshua with me and the guy doesn't miss with his Colt .45. I make my way to the White Leg camp. No fast travel! Anytime I know enemies are between my destination and me means no cheating like that.

Eventually after making my way through a very dark mountain pass Joshua bails on me and decides to go solo. I fight through some more White Legs but for the most part this is a mountain jog. The warriors from Sorrow Horse make short work of the White Legs.

Then the game craps out on me again in this DLC

Spoiler

Enableplayercontrols

Yeah you just stand there Josh and do absolutely nothing while I'm stuck in a script with no controls. Seriously this DLC has been really poor, twice now I had to bail the game out like this. Enable the player controls and speak with Salt Upon Wounds. I wanted to kill him outright but what ended up always happening was that everyone turned their guns on the motionless Josh who ALWAYS died. That failed the entire questline and reverted to the fail quest line of simple escape.

Seriously?

Well I do have 100 speech now. I ended up speaking with the leader and agreed to "speak with Josh". Doing so triggers the dialogue and I'm able to convince him to show mercy and let the enemy flee. Well that's okay, Joshua seemed like he was at peace with that choice.

That is actually the end of this DLC. Seemed short, then again I probably skipped some stuff. One of those end game slides showed the result of my choices.
White Leg ran away but ended up being assimilated by some other tribe
Follow Chalk disappeared never to be seen again
Waking Cloud remarried
Joshua continued to lead the Sorrow Horse and became a sort of spiritual leader
Daniel desperately tried to preach a more pacifist way to run things but found that the tribes gravitated towards the more violent Josh
The tribes themselves won back Zion but became increasingly...violent.
Both Josh and Daniel frequently mediated them

All in all I agree with everything I did.

I end the DLC the same way I came in. Before I leave I notice a footlocker that has a bunch of goodies. Really now? They just give me this stuff without me trying?
Huh.

Well I take the passage back to the Mohave

I don't have a high opinion of this DLC. I had to fight some really annoying enemies and got nothing interesting in return. Story was short but not bad. Joshua came across as persuasive and Daniel sympathetic. I have no idea about White Leg. Are they a choice I wonder? Well I wouldn't have helped them anyway.
Gameplay might be tailored to a Hardcore run. Maybe that's why this DLC didn't appeal to me. I did a Hardcore run before. That was back in vanilla though.

Overall...meh.
Next!

No wait, actually how about we put the breaks in the Mohave? How about we go back now to the D.C ruins? We got a quest to find the G.E.C.K and a lot of time has passed. I think at this point it might be safe to assume that our character has grown both physically and mentally. It makes perfect sense to me that realistically someone like him would want to go back home and finish his business.[/spoiler][/spoiler]

 

Hmm, that's not good. I think I'm starting to hit the limit on the size of my game. Loading is starting to take longer and now my fps is starting to tank to the low 20's. Also those artifacts and blinking textures are coming back again. This time I may have to really dial back the graphics to get smooth gameplay. I now have 140 hours of gamplay between Fallout 3 AND Fallout New Vegas. The game is heavily modded with tons of new stuff and new and improved textures.

It's just too much. Doable before but I'm not exactly running a GTX 980 Ti here (Gotta admit though this dinky 640 is doing okay for a placeholder).
I'm going to try to wrap up both games now. The good news is I'm almost to the finish line. The order of things left to do.
Beat FO3 completely. This includes Broken Steel. I'm going to wrap up this side of the game here and now. No more exploration needed, I have done almost everything with the exeption of the slavers (and that is tied to the main plot anyway)

• Finish the New Vegas DLC. As much as I can. I believe one of them is a post game thing though
• Beat New Vegas
• Then do that last bit with the post game. I think there is a post game DLC right? Like Broken Steel? We'll cross that bridge when we get there
• I have to wrap up this game soon before it becomes unplayable.

Welcome back to the D.C ruins!

Spoiler

I miss this place, already I underestimated the difficulty of climbing out of the Union Station. At level 34 every enemy pretty much spawns with everything. The Muties here are wielding crazy Grenade Machineguns and M60 machineguns. Armor is useless against that onslaught. It shoot first or die out here.

Good. Time to put the big guns to use then!

I bought something called a "T.H.O.R" at Mick and Ralph's back in Vegas. It's this crazy laser cannon thing that burns up 24 MF Cells for a weaker mini nuke explosion like effect. Hell Yeah.
That set me back a good 20,000 caps. That's fine, I left a whole bunch of stuff in Megaton. I try to make it to Rivet City at the very least but fighting in these streets is really tough!

Spoiler

Can't even see them but a three way fight broke out between Talon, Muties, and Enclave


Cars are blowing up which helps because now I could sort of see a few guys


Don't see em but who cares? I know he's out there, I throw dynamite like crazy

More to come

 

Okay then an update. Good news! I added a real graphic card this time to my computer. A GT 640 isn't cut out for this sort of thing. That was a temp thing anyway that I took out of my parents computer since they had no need for it.
I couldn't wait anymore for the next gen of graphics to come out so I bought something cheap but much better, an Radeon R7 360. It's a much better upgrade and it only cost me around 130$. I could have went all the way but I'm still waiting for the next gen cards to be released. If on the off chance the hype is to be believed then those are the harbingers of 3D gaming and 4K resolution gaming.
130$ will set me back a bit but not too much.

Enough on that, my game now runs at the full 60 FPS. Maybe mid 40's if it's really crowded outdoors.

Of course it doesn't matter what hardware you have, these games will give you physics bugs like that guy with his arm stuck on the ceiling. Some things will never change.

On the way to vault 87 I stumble upon a ruined fort that's inhabited by the Talon Company. I spent the better part of a couple hours completely cleaning house. I am no longer holding back on my arsenal of destruction, this is the late game and I'm going all out. My loadout is as follows with these hot keys

1-(GRA) Katana. Trying to figure this out. See I'm using a crafting mod that lets you make all sorts of fancy weapons. A Katana was required for some fancy "laser beam sword" thing. I really wanted to try that out for lolz. Unfortunately it seems that the (GRA) weapons don't count towards that (Gun Runners Arsenal). That makes me sad.

2-Switch ammo. I have every ammo type in the game now. For the most part though I stick with the default Full Metal Jacket rounds for everything.

3-Forget the name, a Remington pump action shotgun. Only reason I like it is because it has a nice chrome finish and aim down sight animation. Also I like pump shotties, it's a Doom gaming thing

4-G36C. Modern assault rifle with a high rate of fire. Not quite as accurate at longer ranges but I got other guns for that. Also comes default with a nighvision scope that has saved by butt a few times already

5-Automatic Grenade Launcher. This one had a name I forgot too. It fires 40mm grenades in rapid succession. I have over 200 40mm grenades of three types. Useless inside the bunkers but really cleared the outside area good

6-M14. Love this gun, brings down many enemies with it's powerful .308 rounds. It's a semi auto rifle but it fires quick enough to bring down charging muties. I still can't find a damn scope for this thing though!

7-Forget the name again (I wrote this post a few days later). It's that same auto laser rifle from before

8- Gauss Rifle


Not your run of the mill type however! This special gun from one of the weapon mods is crazy good. Almost broken how good it is honestly. It one hit kills Super Mutant Overlords even! It's even ammo efficient but it has a very slow rate of fire and sniping is difficult especially on the second shot. (That first shot kicks the gun way up)

As a backup I brought along a Fat Man and Missle Launcher too. Due to all sorts of buffs and perks I can now carry over 300 wg. Not to mention I lowered the weight with the modifications you can put on some guns.

Unfortunately....

This is where I must stop for a while. I'm going to take a break from this game. See my second harddrive is having problems. It's not dead (yet), but I'm worried about some of those files so I'm going through a bunch of stuff, moving files and stuff. This game is on a small capacity SSD. I need to move my heaviest file onto the harddrive. That file is my modded Fallout game which is taking over 40 GB

As of now, I successfully moved that folder over. I didn't uninstall anything, just a simple cut and paste. There is a real possibility I will lose that folder if my harrdrive throws another error my way. My Fallout Data folder is going to have to survive the apocalypse of the F:\Harddrive until I'm done with the main harddrive and can move that stuff to something else.

TL;DR
Taking a break. Will continue later​

 

It was fun while it lasted. Hope something doesn't happen in the meantime.

 

Yeah I know, I really dropped the ball on this one. That harddrive fiasco made me lose my entire mod set up. I could fish up the save file but fiddling with the mods again...
Urgh.

I put in about 80+ hours so it was worth the ride. Shame because I was almost done too. Just had a couple DLC for the New Vegas portian and the Boomer quest. FO3 was nearly finished.

Who knows? I might go another run and try to pick up where I left off.

 

I really can't ignore the calls to me this game makes. Once again I'm trying my luck, this time I probably know more then your average modder in regards to how this game works.

Starting from scratch again, this time I don't plan on making so many changes during gameplay since I know exactly what works and what doesn't.. I'm easily averaging 60+ frames with the previous mod loadout. Speaking of mods I was able to find out which ones I used and downloaded since Nexus keeps track of that sort of thing. Somewhat invasive but the only thing they have is my email so it's all good and payed off big time here.

Anyway reinstalled those mods and even added MORE! I think I have added over 500 weapons by now. I'm a gun nut. Unfortunately...
154. 154 is my games mod limit. No matter what if I add more then that my game crashes. Using a merge plugin tool I was able to shrink it to 120. That's better but obviously kind of high. I'll slowly merge more until I get an idea on what could be merged and what can't.

Those weapon mods though...
Escaping the vault at the beginning of the game had me fighting security guards armed with Winchester shotguns and Thompson M1A1's. So cool
Although one of the Lyons Pride people had some kind of Gauss Rifle machine gun that obliterated the Super Behemoth.
Ahh...maybe a bit OP lol.
I won't repeat myself from before but if something amusing happens I'll screenshot it. I bumped up the rag doll craziness so I'm sure something funny would happen.

 

Good news! I've made very good progress through the D.C ruins. My weapon mods in this place are working great and I have seen so many variations that it's making my head spin.With the exception of some naked Talon Company and a missing spear texture. The Talon company bug is a common problem with weapon mods that mess with the level lists. For the most part it's rare when one of them shows ups with no armor.
The missing spear is definitely a repeat bug from the last playthrough that I fixed. I just forgot how. I'm going to have to fix it by the time I make it to New Vegas since it affects the NCR and Legion the most.

Anyway graphic wise looks really ugly. Ugly as in "this is how the D.C ruins should look like!". Best part is when the fog rolls in. That used to crush my fps before buying a proper gpu. Had to disable "Detailed Shadows" since that was causing weird bugs. Also lighting settings aren't exactly perfect yet.
All this stuff could be tweaked on the fly with no issues.

Anyway funny pic of the day goes to this guy.


Who takes a bath with a toaster!?