Completed the vast majority of the game and all dlcs. I started off with 5 strength and perception, 7 intelligence, 4 endurance, 3 agility and charisma and 1 luck. In retrospect, I could have put 1 or 2 of those int points into per or agility for better results. I like my Elder Scrolls type games very challenging so I settled on Very Hard difficulty right from the start. I considered Survival difficulty and had to look up online to see what it does. Restricting saving and fast travel? No thank you. I will just use mods for another playthrough at some point to get Survival difficulty without those stupid restrictions.
The early game was quite difficult and I ended up using Dogmeat for a while because I could not figure out how to remove companions. I used a police baton, 10mm pistol, sawed off shotgun and pipe rifle. I soon found the mini gun and power armor by following the main quest, but god damn that death claw was hard to kill. From this point on I more or less explored areas from north to south, west to east. It took quite a long time before I found any shops and eventually I decided I had to go straight to Diamond City so I could buy and sell stuff. I must say it was a very interesting experience relying entirely on the drugs, food and ammo I found to stay alive. I used the red rocket station as my base and set up a few containers to sort out my stuff. I used a registry edit to turn off mouse acceleration, which was pissing me off.
I played around with settlement creation with the red rocket and Sanctuary. I first fortified the red rocket with shack steel walls, some guard towers, stairs going up to the roof with the small guard ramparts all along the edges and a powered door with a switch and wind turbine. I actually found settlement building somewhat interesting, but only the scavenging of loot and building defenses. I did not really care about anything else. I liked the extra xp I got from building and would often spread out adventuring with building until I got a level up. I eventually finished Sanctuary with a very long series steel shack walls and guard towers. My goal was to make good defensive positions for me personally shooting at enemies on the outside without regard to realism. The ultimate test was whether or not I could get inside the settlement, because if I can’t there is no way an npc can. For the rest of the settlement needs, I just slapped down whatever. Food for farming, basic water pumps, hospital beds crammed in so tightly that one would not be able to reach most beds without crawling over someone else, mattresses on the walking spaces and sleeping bags crammed wherever mattresses would not fit. Some of the sleeping arrangements I made had so many people sleeping in such a tiny area that it was ridiculous. Especially the poor suckers in the sleeping bags. I put up machine gun turrets near the door and at high places. That was the general formula I used for each settlement, though I switched to wooden walls for other places. A couple settlements had such little pre built shelter that I built the large prefab shack. I put a decontamination arch in my main base and barely needed rad away afterwards. In Far Harbor I discovered the junk fence, and though it makes more sense it does not snap together like the shack walls so I did not bother to use them.
My armor was hodge podge for the early game until I got a full set of metal armor. Even though energy using enemies were more dangerous, I found ballistic using enemies far more common. I eventually killed a Gunner commander with a full set of heavy combat armor and used that for most of the game. It was quite late game when I finally got the Armorer perk and upgraded that armor to the max. I put asbestos on the torso for energy resist, stabilized on 1 arm, braced on the other and deep pockets on both legs. I wore wrap around goggles until I found a synth helm which had better protection. Later I got a legendary combat helm with less action point cost. I kept a safecracking leather arm for lockpicking, hazmat suit, lab coat and charisma suit with black rimmed glasses. By very late game I started using power armor and stopped carrying around so much armor. I only kept my charisma set: the glasses, reginald’s suit (which I put ballistic weave in to the max) and the LT’s hat. My timing for using power armor was for the main quest going to the Glowing Sea, so I set to max out the best possible armor. I made a full set of X01 mark 6 armor with lead lining. I later changed it to prism for energy resist since the lead lining was only for the glowing sea. I put emergency protocols on the torso, targeting HUD (which was the best thing ever) and bright headlamp on the head, calibrated shocks on the legs and optimization on the arms. At the very end of playing I got the special quantum armor from Nuka World but was very disappointed that I could not put prism on it, so tossed it in storage.
My melee weapons went to tire iron, bladed tire iron (which was awesome at the time) to stun baton. The stun was so good that I kept using it for a very long time until I was high enough level to get max blacksmithing to make a stun sword. Then I used a legendary radioactive revolutionary sword with the stun upgrade. At very late game I had the crafting skills to make a maxed out sledgehammer and that thing was a beast with stun to boot. In Far Harbor I found a legendary sledgehammer with bonus limb damage.
My guns motivated me to get the gun nut perk early on so I could put on scopes and suppressors. That initial pipe rifle stayed with me for the entire game and I realized just now that I never bothered to switch it to one of the legendary pipe weapons I have found. Oh well I don’t think any were that good. That pipe was the only weapon I used enough to almost run out of ammo. I found a hunting rifle early and carried that around, but it did not have as good a scope so I used it for sneak attack head shots. I later made it 50 caliber and got a legendary incendiary. Later found a 2 shot legendary and that was my main weapon for the rest of the game. Damn that was a good gun. Especially when I got mr sandman and put a suppressor on it; I could kill almost anything in a single sneak shot. I kept other rifles in my base but never got low enough on 50 caliber ammo to worry. I also carried a gauss rifle, which was much better at one shotting things but I did not use it that much. I kept the righteous authority legendary laser rifle and set it up for sniping as my backup. I used it against hard targets, like robots, and for mid range fighting when I was detected.
I did use a 10mm smg early on but after I found my first combat shotgun I ditched every other short range weapon. I later found a legendary one, le fusil terribles, and even later found a 2 shot legendary, which was a beast! I used molotovs and frag grenades in open combat, and sometimes put down traps before a fight. I made caltrops in the early game but never used them much. Later on I made bleeding bear traps and made sure to carry a few. By the end of the game though, my weapons were so powerful and my character so hard to kill that I more often than not just sniped until I was discovered and then ran into melee. Never bothered to use better explosives (other than pulse for robots), the fat man or the syringer.
My carried weapons:
+50% limb damage Sledgehammer with heavy shocking sharp rocket, 446 damage.
2 shot combat shotgun with: advanced receiver, long ported shielded barrel, marksman stock, quick eject drum mag, dot sight, suppressor, 516 damage.
2 shot hunting rifle with: 50 caliber receiver, long ported barrel, marksman stock, large quick eject mag, long recon scope, suppressor, 381 damage.
Dead eye gauss rifle with: shielded barrel, recoil stock, capacitor coil, long recon scope, suppressor, 724 damage.
Double crit damage laser rifle with: overcharge capacitor, improved sniper barrel, marksman stock, long recon scope, fine tuned beam focus, 217 damage.
Pipe rifle with: calibrated powerful receiver, long finned barrel, recoil stock, quick eject drum mag, long night vision scope, suppressor, 71 damage.
Weapons that I did not use and have in storage (which are modded like my main weapons)
+25% damage 10mm pistol
Unlimited ammo 44 revolver
Ignore 30% armor radium rifle, 45 caliber, 226 damage
+10% damage while aiming AK, 7.62mm, 256 damage
Double crit damage alien blaster
+25% damage assault rifle (not automatic), 5.56mm, 222 damage
Broadsider
+25% damage combat rifle, 308 caliber, 245 damage
2 shot fat man with optional nuka nukes or bowling ball mods
Unlimited ammo gatling laser (Aeternus)
Ignore 30% armor harpoon gun
+10% damage while aiming institute sniper laser, energy cell, 135 damage
Junk launcher
+25% damage lever sniper rifle, 45-70 caliber, 324 damage
Lorenzo gamma gun
Ignore 30% armor missile launcher
Nuka quantum squirter
+150 armor while reloading plasma shotgun, 270 damage
Railway rifle, 301 damage
Bleeding western revolver
Tesla gun
Incendiary minigun
Unlimited ammo hunting rifle
Silver submachine gun
I finished the game at level 89 and my perks more or less in the order that I got them were:
Toughness
Life giver
Rifleman
Big leagues
Locksmith (only 2 points)
Hacker (only 1 point)
Lone wanderer (only 3 points)
Gun nut
Blacksmith
Sneak (only 4 points)
Science
Armorer
Refractor
Ninja
Mr sandman
Strong back (only 2 points)
Demolition expert
Better criticals (only 2 points and I regret getting this)
Bloody mess
Medic
Adamantium skeleton
I relied heavily on life giver level 3 for health regen, and had so much protection that I rarely needed to use healing items. When I did need healing I ate lousy food. I only used a very small amount of stat boosting food and drugs (including stimpacks). Never used companions unless I had to. Used god mode and no clipping liberally to save time (not for combat benefits) and looted everything that was not nailed down. Used console commands to max out affinity for Codsworth (for the energy resistance because I was often one shotted by assaultrons) and Cait to romance her. It was taking way too long to do it legit. I knew I was going to side with the Brotherhood of Steel before even starting the game because I am all for knights, paladins, military and fascism. After finding out about the central conflict, I agree that synths are an abomination to be destroyed. I worked with all factions as far as I could and kept the Minutemen in line. Murdered 1 or 2 non hostile synths, killed all of the railroad and institute, Danse and let both “sons” die. Completed the vault and mechanist dlcs along the way, and found the random fights against the robot using raiders to be among the hardest fights in the game. Did Far Harbor next and sided with the town against the synths and children of atom. Persuaded Dima to turn himself in, let him be killed and did nothing to discourage the town from attacking the synths. Killed Kasumi myself. Convinced the children of atom to nuke themselves. I had one of the most difficult fights in the game here, where I fast traveled to my settlement to find 10 super mutant warlords inside the walls. Last I did Nuka World. I planned to kill the raiders from the start but I played along just long enough to get the rewards (after looking everything up online). The Operators were somewhat cool while the Disciples were too evil to be allowed to live. Coincidentally, the rewards from the Operators and Pack were the best for me. I did not want to sacrifice any of my built up settlements so I looked online and found some that I had completely missed, so not a soul had to die for me to follow the silly raider storyline. All the raiders died afterward though. I sniped both Operator leaders on the road while they were still walking back from the power plant. Not sure how the Pack leader made it back so much faster than them. Killed Gage and liberated the entire park and those few settlements. These fights were quite challenging due to the relatively high damage of their weapons. The most interesting thing that happened was when I was looting a random shack with 2 cats. I just mashed the button to get everything and barely noticed the red text on a cat bowl. “You have been caught stealing and the owner is now hostile.” What?! Who owns the bowl… the cat? Meanwhile the cat walks up to me and “Cat bowl has been removed”. Hahahaha.
Since Fallout 3 is my all time favourite game (with New Vegas being a VERY close 2nd), I immensely enjoyed this game. But this game is not as good as those. I do appreciate many of the game mechanic changes and the overall gameplay and story are great. I especially liked the new perk and weapon mod systems but the hardcoded console keybindings are unacceptable and by far the worst aspect of the game. The game still has some of the problems of earlier games and ends up wasting a lot of the player’s time. The things that annoyed me the most (other than keybindings) were merchants not being able to buy all of my loot (as if inventory management is not already too tedious), respawning loot and lack of supply scarcity. I wanted to have to rely on the other weapons that I never used due to a lack of 50 caliber ammo.
At some point I will play the game again with heavy mods: survival mode, no respawning loot, severe resource scarcity and anything else that seems fun.
