I'm not going to lie, this was a particularly frustrating entry for me. Not because of the deaths, but because I worked very hard for something and it ended up being unusable, but I'll go more into that in the gameplay notes. It was time to secure Oberland's "sister" settlement, Graygarden, a greenhouse run entirely by robots. On her way to Oberland, Norine actually passed Graygarden and took the quest to clear Weston from Supervisor White earlier, but I had wanted to secure Oberland first and then backtrack and take Graygarden. What I like about Graygarden is that it's got a sizeable amount of scrapable material, but at the same time, because they are robots, they don't require the same things as a settlement of human and ghoul settlers require. So much of the scrapable material could actually go to expand Oberland.
Graygarden is also useful because of the vendor Supervisor Greene and the continuous supply of crops.
This is a semi-submerged Water Treatment facility overrun by Super Mutants in the exterior and my favorites, Mirelurks, once you enter. I was again plagued by insomnia, but because I was so close to Oberland, I could take the time to rest.
I approached Weston carefully as I knew there was both a suicider and a super mutant with a large scale weapon, usually a missile launcher. Taking advantage of the cover of darkness and a secure location at a half sunken shit opposite to the facility, I managed to snipe most of the super mutants without being seen until, fatigue set in. After sleep, I cleared the rest of the exterior and looted the area. It took about two trips and then I had to sleep again. This disease sucks. I'm tempted to cure it, but I'm soooo close to Oberland that I don't see it as that big of a deal.
I am pretty pleased with just how efficient the sneak/rifle combot is. A good headshot will take most lower level enemies and I'm pleased with the decision I made to go in this direction as it feels more realistic to me than to just go guns blazing. The Legendary super mutant drops a freezing laser rifle, which is moderately useful, except I'm not sure I want to go Science at all. So far, my Legendary drops have been pretty lousy. A pipe pistol that has the stalker perk, a shotgun with the wounding perk, Big Jim, and this laser rifle.
With the exterior taken care of, I proceed inside.
Attempt 1: Yeah, it's bad when you see "attempt 1", eh? Lol. I've done Weston a few times in past playthroughs. There are a lot of mirelurks and then the sentry turrets. I disable those and then proceed into the flooded chamber. For the mirelurks, I switch to a VATS/shotgun combo that works extremely well. I even destory a Legendary Mirelurk that carries with it a Chameleon Metal Chest piece and my fiance and I are like "WOW!" Finally, a legendary item I can actually use. My gut says to exit the building and save, but my fiance is like, "There's only one Mirelurk left" and I listen.
We both say "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" in unison when I die to Mr. Last Mirelurk. You sink because you know Legendary drops are not guaranteed. He feels terrible, I feel terrible. My save takes me back to Oberland, after I had put the stuff away from clearling out the exterior. Shit, just shit.
Attempt 2: I try this again and my fiance and I both note how I'm more aggressive with my play, not sneaking so much, just shooting Mirelurks. I killed them all, including the Legendary one. And he drops... My controller is thrown a little and there are many explitives. :D He drops a crappy double barrel shotgun that has the more damage to super mutants perk. I rage quit. I want my bloody chameleon chest piece. I NEVER get drops that I can use! Not FAIR! :D
Attempt 3: I give it one more shot. If I don't get the armor, I'm just going to live with what I get and grumble at my bad luck forever. My own fault, I should've saved, but I'm not an especially confident gamer and I listen to people. It's not my fiance's fault either, but lol, he felt terriible. I am even more aggressive, taking out my frustration on the mirelurks! And! YES! the Chameleon chest piece drops from the Legendary Mirelurk again! I immediately run outside, ignoring all other mirelurks and save at the sleeping bag just outside the plant. And then I complete the quest. It gets a bit "buggy" - pun intended - when one of the doors doesn't open and I have to access the boss chest from the exterior elevator, but I don't care.
It takes about 3 trips to and from Oberland to clear out all of the Plant's interior. I bring a few extra supplies from Oberland, mostly glass and finer items and take them to Graygarden so I can complete the quest and fix up Graygarden to my liking.
Graygarden is not going to be populated by settlers. I wanted to keep any improvements I made to it extremely low key, ha, barring the propeller windmill power generator. I actually wanted it to look like what I did could easily have been part of the game. I decided on a small expansion of the main greenhouse that I could use as a rest stop and sleep area and I used the same building style that Graygarden uses, the warehouse model. I need to add more furniture, I think, but I am satisfied with the look of it for now. Later, as I'd prefer to invest the remaining materials in Hangman's Alley.
Eventually, I'll seal off the settlement to prevent enemies from targetting it, but the robots are a hardy bunch and do a good job defending the settlement.
It takes about 3 more trips to deliver the remaining Graygarden scrap to Oberland and I proceed to make some minor improvements, especially bolstering the security with extra turrets and expanding the settler's compound to fit 11 beds, while I sealed off access to my area by adding steps that I could climb, but they could not. Though it is still small with regard to buildable space, it now has 11 settlers and is, overall, much stronger. Another one of my "compact" settlements where settlers are comfortable, yet they are in a highly defendable space and sealed off by a fence. It really does work. For example, in one of my trips back to Starlight Drive in, I had learned that they had defended themselves from another attack while I was dealing with Weston. Again, "we sure showed those raiders" is always a good thing to hear.
Now for the frustrating part. Remember how hard I worked to get back that Chameleon chest piece? I'm excited, it fits my style of gameplay so well. I never get lucky like that. So when I've fiinished with Oberland and organized my materials in preparation for my future trip to Diamond City and Hangman's Alley, I trek back to Lexington, which is where the nearest armor workbench is. It's an easy fix, transfer the mods from my original chest piece to the chameleon one and there you go. This goes off without a hitch and I am a chameleon! I even take out the Raider in power armor that is in that bridge walkway near Corvega and I fight ghouls. Go me. And then I check my inventory.
Uh oh... I can't see it. At all. It's invisible.
Apparently, there is a bug where the Chameleon affect from the armor spills into everything you do, even Pipboy access. I try to ignore it, but man, in SMode, you need to be able to utilize your Pipboy. It's how you can check disease and stuff like that, manage your carry weight, check the map, check on your settlements... It's important. Now, I can access it, but I have to stand up. Well what the heck is having chameleon for if I have to bloody get out of it whenever I want to check my Pipboy? I try the bug fixes, but it doesn't work and I don't want to mess with my saves or install mods as I'm using this playthrough for achievements.
With a grumpy face, I trek BACK to Lexington, remove the mods from the Chameleonn armor and reattach it to my regular metal chest piece. The chameleon gear goes into a filing cabinet at Oberland, along with all my other Legendary items that I will not use. *Sighs*, one day Lis will get a Legendary item she can actually use.
On the positive, I am a solid level 20 now, have not put perks since hitting level 18 though. Next session, I will go to Diamond City and Hangman's Alley. My fiance is working on his stats. He's nearly level 40 now. Thanks for looking.
I'm not going to lie, this was a particularly frustrating entry for me. Not because of the deaths, but because I worked very hard for something and it ended up being unusable, but I'll go more into that in the gameplay notes. It was time to secure Oberland's "sister" settlement, Graygarden, a greenhouse run entirely by robots. On her way to Oberland, Norine actually passed Graygarden and took the quest to clear Weston from Supervisor White earlier, but I had wanted to secure Oberland first and then backtrack and take Graygarden. What I like about Graygarden is that it's got a sizeable amount of scrapable material, but at the same time, because they are robots, they don't require the same things as a settlement of human and ghoul settlers require. So much of the scrapable material could actually go to expand Oberland.
Graygarden is also useful because of the vendor Supervisor Greene and the continuous supply of crops.
This is a semi-submerged Water Treatment facility overrun by Super Mutants in the exterior and my favorites, Mirelurks, once you enter. I was again plagued by insomnia, but because I was so close to Oberland, I could take the time to rest.
I approached Weston carefully as I knew there was both a suicider and a super mutant with a large scale weapon, usually a missile launcher. Taking advantage of the cover of darkness and a secure location at a half sunken shit opposite to the facility, I managed to snipe most of the super mutants without being seen until, fatigue set in. After sleep, I cleared the rest of the exterior and looted the area. It took about two trips and then I had to sleep again. This disease sucks. I'm tempted to cure it, but I'm soooo close to Oberland that I don't see it as that big of a deal.
I am pretty pleased with just how efficient the sneak/rifle combot is. A good headshot will take most lower level enemies and I'm pleased with the decision I made to go in this direction as it feels more realistic to me than to just go guns blazing. The Legendary super mutant drops a freezing laser rifle, which is moderately useful, except I'm not sure I want to go Science at all. So far, my Legendary drops have been pretty lousy. A pipe pistol that has the stalker perk, a shotgun with the wounding perk, Big Jim, and this laser rifle.
With the exterior taken care of, I proceed inside.
Attempt 1: Yeah, it's bad when you see "attempt 1", eh? Lol. I've done Weston a few times in past playthroughs. There are a lot of mirelurks and then the sentry turrets. I disable those and then proceed into the flooded chamber. For the mirelurks, I switch to a VATS/shotgun combo that works extremely well. I even destory a Legendary Mirelurk that carries with it a Chameleon Metal Chest piece and my fiance and I are like "WOW!" Finally, a legendary item I can actually use. My gut says to exit the building and save, but my fiance is like, "There's only one Mirelurk left" and I listen.
We both say "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" in unison when I die to Mr. Last Mirelurk. You sink because you know Legendary drops are not guaranteed. He feels terrible, I feel terrible. My save takes me back to Oberland, after I had put the stuff away from clearling out the exterior. Shit, just shit.
Attempt 2: I try this again and my fiance and I both note how I'm more aggressive with my play, not sneaking so much, just shooting Mirelurks. I killed them all, including the Legendary one. And he drops... My controller is thrown a little and there are many explitives. :D He drops a crappy double barrel shotgun that has the more damage to super mutants perk. I rage quit. I want my bloody chameleon chest piece. I NEVER get drops that I can use! Not FAIR! :D
Attempt 3: I give it one more shot. If I don't get the armor, I'm just going to live with what I get and grumble at my bad luck forever. My own fault, I should've saved, but I'm not an especially confident gamer and I listen to people. It's not my fiance's fault either, but lol, he felt terriible. I am even more aggressive, taking out my frustration on the mirelurks! And! YES! the Chameleon chest piece drops from the Legendary Mirelurk again! I immediately run outside, ignoring all other mirelurks and save at the sleeping bag just outside the plant. And then I complete the quest. It gets a bit "buggy" - pun intended - when one of the doors doesn't open and I have to access the boss chest from the exterior elevator, but I don't care.
It takes about 3 trips to and from Oberland to clear out all of the Plant's interior. I bring a few extra supplies from Oberland, mostly glass and finer items and take them to Graygarden so I can complete the quest and fix up Graygarden to my liking.
Graygarden is not going to be populated by settlers. I wanted to keep any improvements I made to it extremely low key, ha, barring the propeller windmill power generator. I actually wanted it to look like what I did could easily have been part of the game. I decided on a small expansion of the main greenhouse that I could use as a rest stop and sleep area and I used the same building style that Graygarden uses, the warehouse model. I need to add more furniture, I think, but I am satisfied with the look of it for now. Later, as I'd prefer to invest the remaining materials in Hangman's Alley.
Eventually, I'll seal off the settlement to prevent enemies from targetting it, but the robots are a hardy bunch and do a good job defending the settlement.
It takes about 3 more trips to deliver the remaining Graygarden scrap to Oberland and I proceed to make some minor improvements, especially bolstering the security with extra turrets and expanding the settler's compound to fit 11 beds, while I sealed off access to my area by adding steps that I could climb, but they could not. Though it is still small with regard to buildable space, it now has 11 settlers and is, overall, much stronger. Another one of my "compact" settlements where settlers are comfortable, yet they are in a highly defendable space and sealed off by a fence. It really does work. For example, in one of my trips back to Starlight Drive in, I had learned that they had defended themselves from another attack while I was dealing with Weston. Again, "we sure showed those raiders" is always a good thing to hear.
Now for the frustrating part. Remember how hard I worked to get back that Chameleon chest piece? I'm excited, it fits my style of gameplay so well. I never get lucky like that. So when I've fiinished with Oberland and organized my materials in preparation for my future trip to Diamond City and Hangman's Alley, I trek back to Lexington, which is where the nearest armor workbench is. It's an easy fix, transfer the mods from my original chest piece to the chameleon one and there you go. This goes off without a hitch and I am a chameleon! I even take out the Raider in power armor that is in that bridge walkway near Corvega and I fight ghouls. Go me. And then I check my inventory.
Uh oh... I can't see it. At all. It's invisible.
Apparently, there is a bug where the Chameleon affect from the armor spills into everything you do, even Pipboy access. I try to ignore it, but man, in SMode, you need to be able to utilize your Pipboy. It's how you can check disease and stuff like that, manage your carry weight, check the map, check on your settlements... It's important. Now, I can access it, but I have to stand up. Well what the heck is having chameleon for if I have to bloody get out of it whenever I want to check my Pipboy? I try the bug fixes, but it doesn't work and I don't want to mess with my saves or install mods as I'm using this playthrough for achievements.
With a grumpy face, I trek BACK to Lexington, remove the mods from the Chameleonn armor and reattach it to my regular metal chest piece. The chameleon gear goes into a filing cabinet at Oberland, along with all my other Legendary items that I will not use. *Sighs*, one day Lis will get a Legendary item she can actually use.
On the positive, I am a solid level 20 now, have not put perks since hitting level 18 though. Next session, I will go to Diamond City and Hangman's Alley. My fiance is working on his stats. He's nearly level 40 now. Thanks for looking.
