Emasher

I picked this up a few days ago, and I'm really enjoying it so far. As far as performance goes, the game runs pretty well. I'm running it on an i7 4790K @4GHz, a superclocked 970, and 16GB RAM. I'm running it at 1080p, with everything on maximum settings except LOD level and shadow quality are set to high, anti aliasing is completely turned off, and motion blur is turned off. For the most part, I'm getting a constant 60FPS, but it drops down a little bit when there's a LOT going on on screen, and I really mean a LOT. Noticeable frame drops at those settings are incredibly rare, even when blowing stuff up. I was able to run it fairly well with LOD level and shadow quality on very high, but frame drops were much more common, sometimes to as low as 30. I didn't even try to play the game with anti aliasing on, but motion blur caused huge frame drops constantly (although, I normally turn that one off anyway). In terms of stability, the game isn't completely bug free. I've had one outright crash, and the lighting seems a bit flickery sometimes. I also encountered a bug where I liberated the first region completely before the story mission to disable the "FOW", and the game didn't recognize the region as liberated after completing that mission (I actually ended up restarting the game because of that, but it's going a lot quicker now that I know all the tricks). There was a patch released today, so that may have fixed some of these. Anyone who's been following this thread from the beginning will know that I had huge problems with the controls in Just Cause 2, and was a bit skeptical about this game because of that. For the most part however, Just Cause 3's controls are much better. Guns no longer seem really laggy, and are actually quite fun to use now. The controls for on foot, and in different vehicles are now no longer tied together, which was a huge issue I had with 2, since the configuration I want for on foot is not necessarily the same as in a jet. Unfortunately, gamepad controls aren't configurable. I don't know why it's so uncommon to offer re-configurable gamepad controls; I've used the xinput API before, and it's pretty trivial to do. Fortunately, I'm just using a gamepad for controlling vehicles, as the keyboard and mouse work just fine for when on foot, and the transition is seamless, as it has been in most recent games. Another complaint I have about the controls is that when using the keyboard and mouse, certain actions are bound to the same key, rather than giving the user the option to configure them to separate keys. For instance, in Just Cause 2, hopping on to the top of the vehicle you're currently in, and quickly ejecting yourself with the parachute were separate keys, in Just Cause 3, they're the same key, and the second action requires holding it down. Using explosives is the most annoying example of this, where you have to press a key to go into explosives mode (as opposed to gun mode), instead of just having laying explosives mapped to a separate key like grenades. I understand why this is the case on consoles, but it really should have been corrected for the PC version. I should probably note that none of these issues are even close to game breaking. Just Cause 3 is by no means a deep or interesting game, but it doesn't try to be, and doesn't need to be. The Spiderman-with-a-parachute mechanics are still really fun, as is blowing stuff up. The wingsuit is a very welcome addition, and solves the problem of quick horizontal travel when too far away from the ground to use the grappling hook to accelerate that Just Cause 2 had. As I mentioned, the gun play has had a major upgrade as well and it actually feels fun to just shoot people now. Another extremely important addition in my opinion is that one of the fighter jets now has the ability to drop bombs, as opposed to just shooting missiles. This of course lead to me spending some time taking out a military base using only a plane, which was a lot of fun. It's something I always felt was missing from Just Cause 2. There are also player controlled corvettes, and I don't mean the sort that are made by General Motors. When I fist played it Just Cause 2 had one of the most beautiful worlds I had ever experienced in an open world game. Not only were the visuals good (they still stand up pretty well today), but it had a very diverse world with lots of different areas to explore. While Just Cause 3 has significantly better visuals, the different islands aren't quite as diverse. You still have snowy mountains, but the rest of the world is pretty much the same, aside from some areas being more agrarian, and some being just wilderness. There are subtle differences, but don't expect to move between a jungle and a desert. This is understandable due to the game being set in the Mediterranean rather than East Asia, but it would have been nice to have at the very least, a larger urban area like Just Cause 2 had. The world is still very beautiful though, and while in some ways it does feel like a downgrade from 2, it probably won't have that big an impact on your enjoyment of the game. Just Cause 3 is very much a game where you have to make your own fun. The game provides a lot of neat toys, and a sandbox to play with them in, but it's up to the player to use them in an interesting way. About 15-30 minutes into the game, after you get the ability to tether things together with your grappling hook, you have a mission where you have to steal a scooter, and get it to a nearby town to be processed. Not long after the mission starts, you'll drive by a helicopter, just sitting there. In my opinion, players who think to tether the scooter to the helicopter and fly it to the town are the ones who are going to enjoy the game, whereas if you just drive it there, you're probably going to get bored with the game before getting your money's worth.

No argument there.

They've certainly always had unrealistic stuff in them, but a magical fire pistol just goes a little too far in my opinion. I can accept something that doesn't make sense that still fits in with the game, but there is a line. It's going to be different for everyone though, so if a magical fire pistol makes sense to you in Fallout, then have fun with it. It's certainly not the biggest design flaw in the game anyway.

To sum up what I'm saying: 1) There are too many immersion breaking bonuses on the legendary weapons. For example: It doesn't make any sense for a gun to cause conventional ammunition to burst into flames when it hits its target. Stuff like that falls into the category of magic, and that destroys suspension of disbelief in a world that doesn't have magic. A mutated mosquito carrying a piece of armour doesn't make much sense either. 2) You're right, there are certainly lots of good legendary weapons that do fit in with the world. And yes, all legendary weapons are objectively better than non-legendary weapons. Those are both objective facts, and I'm not denying either of them. The majority of ones I've found though have had such specific bonuses on them that they're almost never going to have an advantage over the normal ones. For instance, a hunting rifle that does extra damage against ghouls (pretty much useless since there are much better types of weapons for killing ghouls). You get stuff like this because the legendary weapons are randomly generated rather than actually being designed like in previous games in the series. While this in itself doesn't make the game worse, in my opinion, it would have been better to actually design legendary weapons and make them rewards for doing something significant, rather than extremely common, and just something you come across at random. My opinion is that this would be more rewarding to the player.

I just see no point in having the useless ones in the first place. Yes, a legendary sniper rifle that does +50% damage as a reward for some quest, or at the end of a large difficult dungeon would be great, but that's not what you typically see with the system. Legendary weapons in Fallout 4 are treated like enchanted weapons were in Skyrim (they almost certainly share the same code). It just doesn't make any sense in the Fallout universe as opposed to a world full of magic and that sort of thing. I suspect it was just a re-skin of that system to cut development costs, rather than designing something that actually makes sense.

The main problem with legendary weapons and armour is that they're randomly generated, meaning you end up with a lot of pretty much worthless equipment that you can't really make use of beyond just selling it. Seeing as there's quite a lot of non-legendary equipment that's already quite valuable, it makes legendary equipment pretty much meaningless. Fallout 3 and New Vegas both had a unique version of each weapon which had some bonus compared to the standard one. They were put in specific locations, and were usually a reward for completing a significant task. For example, as a reward for completing Fallout 3's Point Lookout expansion's main quest, you got a rifle that had the same design as ones commonly found in Point Lookout, but it didn't have certain debuffs that the common ones had. Unique weapons in those games were specific rewards for accomplishing specific tasks, which made them quite satisfying to find. Contrast this with the randomly generated weapons that often don't make sense in Fallout 4 (I have a 10mm pistol that magically makes whatever you shoot catch fire, despite just using standard 10mm ammo), that you find in just about every location. When everything's special, nothing is.

Well, I seem to have gotten "ghosted" again after a first date. This time I wasn't really expecting it, as it seemed to go better than most of the other dates I've been on. It seemed like every other thing said by either of us was "me too." Disappointing, but I feel a lot better about it now that I've admitted it and am moving on. That said, if someone spends four hours of their time trying to get to know you, and they buy you dinner, you'd think the least you could do is reply with a "Sorry, but I'm just not interested." instead of pretending they don't exist.

To be fair, there are some very heavy sniper rifles, and some very light rocket launchers in real life. I don't know what the weapons you have in Fallout 4 are based on (or if they're based on any real ones to begin with), but, according to Wikipedia, an RPG-7 (a very common Soviet-designed rocket launcher), weighs only 7 kg, and while that would be pretty heavy for a sniper rifle, they do exist. When loaded and with a scope attached, an American M24 Sniper Rifle is 7.3 kg. If we look at really heavy sniper rifles, the Barrett M82 (commonly just called a "50 Caliber Sniper Rifle" in games), they can get up to 14 kg. To answer your question though, I haven't found a good use for .38 rounds yet. I tried maxing out a pipe rifle at one point just to see if I could make an effective weapon for killing lower level stuff while conserving more valuable ammo, but even that wasn't good enough (although, it might have been better if I made it automatic and gave it a huge magazine). As far as I know, your best bet might be to just sell it and buy more useful stuff.

Anyone pick up anything interesting in the Steam sale yet? I ended up buying Axiom Verge, Toki Tori 2, and one of the Endless Legend DLCs that I didn't have yet. They weren't huge deals, but I've been waiting for Axiom Verge to go on sale for quite some time now. Brilliant game, quite possibly the most fun I've had with a game this year so far.

I found a note on a super mutant that I killed called "Super Mutant Orders". It was just a piece of paper with "Kill Loot Return" scribbled on it. It pretty much sums up my experiences with the game so far. I've found very few non-hostile settlements at this point, and I've only found a single quest (keep in mind I've pretty much ignored the main story since getting to Diamond City for the first time) that was actually interesting, where there was a real moral dilemma, and your decision had real consequences.

Looks like there are already mods that expand settlements: http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1145/? http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1490/? Obviously console compatible mods aren't going to be a thing until the official modding tools come out though.

You haven't jumped it by that much at all. Settlement building is introduced...

For those playing the PC version who want to see the full dialog options in conversations: http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1235/?

To be honest, I'm not sure I've really encountered many items worth duplicating yet. Without the repair mechanics, you just need one of pretty much all equipable items. Ammo and aid items seem to be pretty common, especially once you grab a few luck perks and start cooking. I suppose you could duplicate valuable items, but I'm finding caps to not be all that important compared to previous games (so far anyway). That really only leaves rarer junk items like stuff that yields adhesive, and exploring to find that stuff would be a much more pleasant use of time than trying to figure out the exploit anyway.

Ah, that's good then.

Armour can be broken down at an armour workbench, while weapons can be broken down at a weapon work bench. It has to be actual armour though, so normal clothing won't work. Unless you need leather and steel, you're probably better off just selling or storing weapons and armour though, until you get the perk that lets you salvage more components from them anyway. I believe there's also an exploit where you can drop items on the ground in a settlement area, and then salvage them in workshop mode and get more components out of them. I have no idea if this still works though, as the game has had patches. I don't think there's any reason to keep clothing that you genuinely don't need, but before you get rid of it, keep in mind that certain clothing items give you stats boosts while wearing them. Suits and various types of hats, for instance, give you significant boosts to charisma, while glasses give you a boost to perception, etc. I usually carry a set of clothing around besides my armour that I can change into while in settlements in order to boost my charisma while talking to people.

Just when I was starting to find things a little too easy, the game seems to have increased the difficulty on me significantly when I reached level 20. I had about 300 ammo for each of my guns, but managed to burn through all of my laser ammo when the game threw an alpha deathclaw at me out of nowhere. I do wish they had gone with location based difficulty, having locations further away from the original vault (and maybe a few dungeons closer by to give you an incentive to go back) having increased difficulty, rather than just scaling everything discretely with your level. That's certainly not something that's out of the question with mods though. Once you can access a particular, workshop in a settlement area it will be persistent (not sure about random crafting stations outside settlement areas though), so you can always go back and get the stuff if you had to leave something a bit more rare there, like stuff that breaks down into adhesive. As far as I can tell, all containers in settlement areas (ones you build, or pre-existing ones) are persistent. What I've been doing though is just dropping the least needed (or least valuable if you're selling stuff rather than scrapping it) junk and weapons and armour I've picked up, finishing the dungeon (and repeating if I find other stuff I want to pick up), and then fast traveling back to my base to dump everything when I'm done. If you're having serious problems with carry weight, there's a perk under strength that gives you a reasonably significant increase there. You may also want to consider adding pocketed (or once you have the required perk, deep pocketed) modifications to your armour. I'd also recommend auditing the "Aid" tab of your inventory. It's easy to pick up a lot of stuff you don't need in that category, and just forget about it because individual items are so light, but it adds up. Beverages are particularly bad because they have a weight of 1. Even stuff that weighs 0.5 and 0.1 can add up though if you find a lot of them, so it would be a good idea to find a place to store such things, or just sell them as they can be worth quite a lot. Don't forget about combining things at chem stations and cooking stations either, as even seemingly worthless foods and chems can become fairly valuable healing items when cooked.

My understanding is that a lot of people also tend to break up around new years. Wanting a fresh start or something I suppose.

They tend to be pretty dry between September and December (although, the last couple years have been particularily bad since Tinder became popular). The end of the year is the biggest time for break-ups, so you'll see a lot more people sign up shortly after that.

Think about how you'd feel if you were in his shoes. One thing to keep in mind though is that women do lie about having boyfriends from time to time. So perhaps you should find out for sure first. Maybe ask your friend about it.

You know, I'm not sure that's quite true here. This is a tragedy only because we value the people that were lost in the first place. There may be evil humans, but that doesn't mean it's true for all humanity.

I haven't done a female playthrough yet, but I've heard there isn't much difference this time around. You can 'romance' certain companions (in the usual asexual Bethesda manor), but I haven't heard anything about having children at this point. As far as I know, Fallout Shelter has way more sex in it than Fallout 4 does.

I think the settlements really depend on what you want to get out of them. If you want to build a decent base with all the amenities that you need for crafting, etc, and still do a bit of customization on top of that to make it feel like your own, then it's great. If you want to invest a bit of time and resources to build up a few settlements and establish a trade network to get some decent stuff down the road, it's not bad. If you want to do any real management, there are plenty of strategy games in various sub-genres (management sims, city builders, 4X, grand strategy) which do that sort of thing much better. If you just want to build a cool looking town, or make pixel art, go play Minecraft or similar. There are plenty of settlements beyond Sanctuary which provide more natural spaces to build, and where the prefab structures fit in a little better as well.

Ah, okay. Fair enough.