Alright, so as I mentioned in a prior post I let my fiance fiddle around with Norine and really build Hangman's Alley into something that, for me, truly defies expectations for this cramped settlement. He took my ideas and used his better controller skills and came up with a new layout. I will chronicle this in the next session as I'd like to take some pictures. He actually wants to copy my Hangman's Alley for his game and he's thought about me doing a video tour of the settlement. I personally think it's too haphazard and colorful for current Youtube settlement tastes, but we'll see. Maybe.
Well anyway, this session ins't about Hangmant's alley though. I actually do other things besides build things. I kill things. That which creates, destroys. Tehehe, very Padomay (wrong game).
After I had purchased Home Plate and used the scrap from it to fix Hangman's, I decided to actually explore Diamond City and a lot of the quests I took were centered on Diamond City with one notable exception.
Paint the Town - Abbot from Diamond city was running out of paint so Norine asked for some caps (asking for more failed, lol, crappy charisma) and she journeyed to Hardware Town to get some. I had actually completed this prior to the building of Hangman's
Attempt One - Demo owned my ass. Happens sometimes. The mistake was missing the opportunity to kill the "settler in distress". I missed and Demo rushed out with three other raiders, which was bad for me as I was still not quite rocking the best armor yet.
Attempt Two - I owned Demo's ass. This time I nailed the fake settler and was able to take down several raiders before Demo showed up and he did get me good, but I got him better. I made green paint and got the cap bonus. You can make different colors though. I will remember that for another playthrough, where the town shall maybe be painted either blue or yellow.
I made a mistake though, I thought Hardware Town was the place with the potted plants Picket Fences, but no, it's the one with the fancy lamps Picket Fences. Which is why I have the awesome lamps at Hangman's.
Story of the Century - I picked all the snarky and sarcastic answers. Tehehe, that article the next day was a hoot to read. :D Piper is now available as a companion and blah, didn't take her. But I did take all the now free stuff from her house.
Find Caps - this misc quest took me to Backstreet Apparel to look for a large stash of caps. It also allowed me another opportunity to secure materials for Hangman's Alley. And yes, I laughed at Toilet Teddy. Stash wasn't all that big, but I'm really starting to score some good guns and armor now from raiders and I use this to arm my settlers at Hangman's Alley This was my final quest before I journeyed back to Sanctuary Hills briefly.
So yes, I went back to Sanctuary Hills. I decided to go back to what had been an original component of the build. I retrieved Dogmeat and started using him again. I wanted to see if it was perhaps me making mistakes in early SMode that really hindered my use of him in the beginning. Now that my character is stronger, perhaps adding Dogmeat back to the picture would be a smart move. Did a test run with him at a respawned Museum of Freedom and was satisfied.
Dogmeat glitch - No, not the duplication one. Dogmeat's default carryweight in SMode is 25. That is part of the reason why I let him go. However, if you equip him with gear, like a bandana and/or goggles, his carryweight shoots up to the standard follower 150. This, along with his Attack Dog perks in Charisma makes him WAY more viable.
Continued...
Confidence Man - Lol, I had not done this quest before and laughed when I actually killed the two goons hired to "rough up" Travis in the staged bar fight. Well, I didn't intend to kill them, but my cryo arm froze them and they died. Yadim wasn't too happy with me, but I did manage to get his idea to hook up Scarlett and Travis right. No one was frozen in that exchange. Then Yadim gets himself kidnapped and it's off to the Beantown brewery to rough up some raiders and rescue Yadim. This was the first mission with Dogmeat and not gonna lie, he was, finally, very useful. Great to have an extra 150 carry weight. Saved me a trip back to Hangman's Alley.
OMGERD! Stuff went to pot when on our last supply transfer back to Hangman's, Oberland was attacked by a ton of ghouls. Dogmeat and I intercepted them and they overwhelmed us in the night, separating us. I have a ton of stuff from Beantown, I'm in the water down to near zero health and Dogmeat is down. I get the notification that he is returning to Hangman's Alley. This is a good learning point for me. I learned that when you don't heal a follower, they go back to your residence and you have to "rehire" them. At least Dogmeat's affinity is such that he doesn't hold it against me that I abandoned them to the ghouls.
Fun with beer. Man, about 100 bottles or some ridiculous number like that? I have enough dirty water for the rest of the game. Lol, I did have to reload once, now that I remember, but not because I died, I got stuck trying to get all the bottles. Behind some crates.
Fens Sewers - OH! If you've not gone down there, do it. What a moody, moody place. Followed the trail of a serial killer and the detective that tried to bring him to justice. Some of the most dark images I've seen from the game so far. The place is dark, dusty, creepy, and crawling with flies and ghouls. I got a legendary knife there, something with frenzy, or something like that. I can't keep all my legendaries straight now. I'll post a list of them soon. The glowing one almost got me, but I was able to defeat him. Just a cool, cool place to go. Go there, especially if you need skulls and bones for Raider architecture.
Fire Support - It was time to head north to Cambridge police station and answer their distress call. The ghouls were kind of scare. Ghouls are always kinda scare, you know? The sounds they make and their speed. Just Ewww! The plan with the factions is to proceed and do a few quests for all of them before I decide to advance the mainquest further. So yes, I need to go back to Sanctuary Hills yet again and tell Preston "Yes". Dammit. Right now in the Main quest I'm only as far as Unlucky Valentiine, but I'm not gonna rescue him yet. Took an additional trip to lug all the free stuff from the Cambridge Police station back to Hangman's Alley. I rest, fixt up Hangman's Alley some more, which you'll see the results of in the next session. I'll also go into more detail about Hangman's defenses and how I continue to approach the settlement.
Call to Arms - I follow Paladin Danse to ArcJet. Poor Danse, the fool in Power Armor had to wait for me to fetch just about everything that was scrappable along the path. Sighs, well, this build is heavily built around scrapping and recycling, so everything is picked up. Dogmeat willingly stored it all and I was already figuring in my brain how many trips it would take ot bring all the shit back from ArcJet, remembering how much crap was there last time I was there in a previous playthrough.
*sighs* I really dislike forced followers on quests. I play really slow and Dogmeat now seems to hang back until I really actually need him to engage, usually when the HUD says "danger". When it says "caution", he doesn't engage unless I engage. Paladin Danse on the other hand... Oh boy, you really could just let him kill everything and you'll be fine. But barging in, it's just not the way I'm playing in this playthrough. Would love to one day don power armor and take a baseball bat to everything. Lol, it would better convey how followers tend to fight. *rolls eyes*
I mean, I barely get a chance to engage the synths. Really I just clean up after Danse, which irks me a bit. Yes, I could adopt a more aggressive combat, but I clear stuff out very well on my own. His fighting style actually almost gets me killed a few times, whereas when I play alone, I can emerge from a situation like that without a scratch. I do get some really good shots in.
The first time I did this, back in my other playthrough, I blew myself up in the final room. This time, I knew better and only blew up Danse. He's fine. Dogmeat and I watched. BOOM!
I will say, that I find the man endearing in his awkward earnestness. He barely uses contractions and he is quite Albeesque in many ways. And the whole flipping his PA helmet to put it on is kinda cute. I thought him creepy before, but he's kinda winning me over now and I find him less annoying than Preston. I still say "no" to the Brotherhood and then...
He just stands there...
Oh my god, like a freaking lost, big stupid puppy dog in Power Armor. Just stands at ArcJet in the back area. Doesn't head back to the station. I wait, even go and start loading for another trip to Hangmans. Come back, and gah, he's still there. I do this for all my trips to bring the loot and scrap back to Hangman's and he's not budged, waiting. Okay, I can't resist the lost little puppy anymore and call me "sucker" but I told him I'd join the Brotherhood. I can't help it. I'm a sap and he took a nuclear blast for me and Dogmeant AND he gave him his very gun. At least Preston patrols Sanctuary if you don't join, you know guards the settlement, tends to crops, pretends to repair things, so he looks like he maybe has a life, but Danse? He just stood there. It was pretty pitiful.
I'll devote the next session to Hangman's Redux and afterwards, I'll cover a few more quests and then I'll post a level 31 stats update and a Legendary item update. Again, thanks for looking and very sorry for the late update. Also, my apologies for pulling from the Event. While I like the song Survival, this build has this strange dichotomy that makes picking a song hard. Yeah, she shot the Abernathy's, hates followers, but at the same time, she's decorating with pretty lamps. IMO, she's a solid build for Survival, in spite of my avoidance of Local Leader and Science and I like her scraper, make something out of nothing elements. I just can't find a song that really fits that. Maybe the accentuate the positive, eiliminate the negative one, but gah, dunno. That's the only one that I can think of that plays well to her more quirky, yet murderous spirit. And I'm a musician, you'd think I'd find something, but it's overload, you know? I know too many songs and can't find one that really fits her. I've listened to everything from Vangelis to Eminem. Just not feeling it.
Alright, so as I mentioned in a prior post I let my fiance fiddle around with Norine and really build Hangman's Alley into something that, for me, truly defies expectations for this cramped settlement. He took my ideas and used his better controller skills and came up with a new layout. I will chronicle this in the next session as I'd like to take some pictures. He actually wants to copy my Hangman's Alley for his game and he's thought about me doing a video tour of the settlement. I personally think it's too haphazard and colorful for current Youtube settlement tastes, but we'll see. Maybe.
Well anyway, this session ins't about Hangmant's alley though. I actually do other things besides build things. I kill things. That which creates, destroys. Tehehe, very Padomay (wrong game).
After I had purchased Home Plate and used the scrap from it to fix Hangman's, I decided to actually explore Diamond City and a lot of the quests I took were centered on Diamond City with one notable exception.
Paint the Town - Abbot from Diamond city was running out of paint so Norine asked for some caps (asking for more failed, lol, crappy charisma) and she journeyed to Hardware Town to get some. I had actually completed this prior to the building of Hangman's
Attempt One - Demo owned my ass. Happens sometimes. The mistake was missing the opportunity to kill the "settler in distress". I missed and Demo rushed out with three other raiders, which was bad for me as I was still not quite rocking the best armor yet.
Attempt Two - I owned Demo's ass. This time I nailed the fake settler and was able to take down several raiders before Demo showed up and he did get me good, but I got him better. I made green paint and got the cap bonus. You can make different colors though. I will remember that for another playthrough, where the town shall maybe be painted either blue or yellow.
I made a mistake though, I thought Hardware Town was the place with the potted plants Picket Fences, but no, it's the one with the fancy lamps Picket Fences. Which is why I have the awesome lamps at Hangman's.
Story of the Century - I picked all the snarky and sarcastic answers. Tehehe, that article the next day was a hoot to read. :D Piper is now available as a companion and blah, didn't take her. But I did take all the now free stuff from her house.
Find Caps - this misc quest took me to Backstreet Apparel to look for a large stash of caps. It also allowed me another opportunity to secure materials for Hangman's Alley. And yes, I laughed at Toilet Teddy. Stash wasn't all that big, but I'm really starting to score some good guns and armor now from raiders and I use this to arm my settlers at Hangman's Alley This was my final quest before I journeyed back to Sanctuary Hills briefly.
So yes, I went back to Sanctuary Hills. I decided to go back to what had been an original component of the build. I retrieved Dogmeat and started using him again. I wanted to see if it was perhaps me making mistakes in early SMode that really hindered my use of him in the beginning. Now that my character is stronger, perhaps adding Dogmeat back to the picture would be a smart move. Did a test run with him at a respawned Museum of Freedom and was satisfied.
Dogmeat glitch - No, not the duplication one. Dogmeat's default carryweight in SMode is 25. That is part of the reason why I let him go. However, if you equip him with gear, like a bandana and/or goggles, his carryweight shoots up to the standard follower 150. This, along with his Attack Dog perks in Charisma makes him WAY more viable.
Continued...
Confidence Man - Lol, I had not done this quest before and laughed when I actually killed the two goons hired to "rough up" Travis in the staged bar fight. Well, I didn't intend to kill them, but my cryo arm froze them and they died. Yadim wasn't too happy with me, but I did manage to get his idea to hook up Scarlett and Travis right. No one was frozen in that exchange. Then Yadim gets himself kidnapped and it's off to the Beantown brewery to rough up some raiders and rescue Yadim. This was the first mission with Dogmeat and not gonna lie, he was, finally, very useful. Great to have an extra 150 carry weight. Saved me a trip back to Hangman's Alley.
OMGERD! Stuff went to pot when on our last supply transfer back to Hangman's, Oberland was attacked by a ton of ghouls. Dogmeat and I intercepted them and they overwhelmed us in the night, separating us. I have a ton of stuff from Beantown, I'm in the water down to near zero health and Dogmeat is down. I get the notification that he is returning to Hangman's Alley. This is a good learning point for me. I learned that when you don't heal a follower, they go back to your residence and you have to "rehire" them. At least Dogmeat's affinity is such that he doesn't hold it against me that I abandoned them to the ghouls.
Fun with beer. Man, about 100 bottles or some ridiculous number like that? I have enough dirty water for the rest of the game. Lol, I did have to reload once, now that I remember, but not because I died, I got stuck trying to get all the bottles. Behind some crates.
Fens Sewers - OH! If you've not gone down there, do it. What a moody, moody place. Followed the trail of a serial killer and the detective that tried to bring him to justice. Some of the most dark images I've seen from the game so far. The place is dark, dusty, creepy, and crawling with flies and ghouls. I got a legendary knife there, something with frenzy, or something like that. I can't keep all my legendaries straight now. I'll post a list of them soon. The glowing one almost got me, but I was able to defeat him. Just a cool, cool place to go. Go there, especially if you need skulls and bones for Raider architecture.
Fire Support - It was time to head north to Cambridge police station and answer their distress call. The ghouls were kind of scare. Ghouls are always kinda scare, you know? The sounds they make and their speed. Just Ewww! The plan with the factions is to proceed and do a few quests for all of them before I decide to advance the mainquest further. So yes, I need to go back to Sanctuary Hills yet again and tell Preston "Yes". Dammit. Right now in the Main quest I'm only as far as Unlucky Valentiine, but I'm not gonna rescue him yet. Took an additional trip to lug all the free stuff from the Cambridge Police station back to Hangman's Alley. I rest, fixt up Hangman's Alley some more, which you'll see the results of in the next session. I'll also go into more detail about Hangman's defenses and how I continue to approach the settlement.
Call to Arms - I follow Paladin Danse to ArcJet. Poor Danse, the fool in Power Armor had to wait for me to fetch just about everything that was scrappable along the path. Sighs, well, this build is heavily built around scrapping and recycling, so everything is picked up. Dogmeat willingly stored it all and I was already figuring in my brain how many trips it would take ot bring all the shit back from ArcJet, remembering how much crap was there last time I was there in a previous playthrough.
*sighs* I really dislike forced followers on quests. I play really slow and Dogmeat now seems to hang back until I really actually need him to engage, usually when the HUD says "danger". When it says "caution", he doesn't engage unless I engage. Paladin Danse on the other hand... Oh boy, you really could just let him kill everything and you'll be fine. But barging in, it's just not the way I'm playing in this playthrough. Would love to one day don power armor and take a baseball bat to everything. Lol, it would better convey how followers tend to fight. *rolls eyes*
I mean, I barely get a chance to engage the synths. Really I just clean up after Danse, which irks me a bit. Yes, I could adopt a more aggressive combat, but I clear stuff out very well on my own. His fighting style actually almost gets me killed a few times, whereas when I play alone, I can emerge from a situation like that without a scratch. I do get some really good shots in.
The first time I did this, back in my other playthrough, I blew myself up in the final room. This time, I knew better and only blew up Danse. He's fine. Dogmeat and I watched. BOOM!
I will say, that I find the man endearing in his awkward earnestness. He barely uses contractions and he is quite Albeesque in many ways. And the whole flipping his PA helmet to put it on is kinda cute. I thought him creepy before, but he's kinda winning me over now and I find him less annoying than Preston. I still say "no" to the Brotherhood and then...
He just stands there...
Oh my god, like a freaking lost, big stupid puppy dog in Power Armor. Just stands at ArcJet in the back area. Doesn't head back to the station. I wait, even go and start loading for another trip to Hangmans. Come back, and gah, he's still there. I do this for all my trips to bring the loot and scrap back to Hangman's and he's not budged, waiting. Okay, I can't resist the lost little puppy anymore and call me "sucker" but I told him I'd join the Brotherhood. I can't help it. I'm a sap and he took a nuclear blast for me and Dogmeant AND he gave him his very gun. At least Preston patrols Sanctuary if you don't join, you know guards the settlement, tends to crops, pretends to repair things, so he looks like he maybe has a life, but Danse? He just stood there. It was pretty pitiful.
I'll devote the next session to Hangman's Redux and afterwards, I'll cover a few more quests and then I'll post a level 31 stats update and a Legendary item update. Again, thanks for looking and very sorry for the late update. Also, my apologies for pulling from the Event. While I like the song Survival, this build has this strange dichotomy that makes picking a song hard. Yeah, she shot the Abernathy's, hates followers, but at the same time, she's decorating with pretty lamps. IMO, she's a solid build for Survival, in spite of my avoidance of Local Leader and Science and I like her scraper, make something out of nothing elements. I just can't find a song that really fits that. Maybe the accentuate the positive, eiliminate the negative one, but gah, dunno. That's the only one that I can think of that plays well to her more quirky, yet murderous spirit. And I'm a musician, you'd think I'd find something, but it's overload, you know? I know too many songs and can't find one that really fits her. I've listened to everything from Vangelis to Eminem. Just not feeling it.
