Time to go shopping... Super-Duper Mart

Let me press play on the Vangelis Blade Runner Soundtrack video on YouTube and give you an update. It was truly time to test my combat mettle. For me, besides the Museum of Freedom, the Super-duper Mart offers the player a lot for a nearby settlement and a good opportunity to test how your skills are working for you. Starlight needed supplies and it was my responsibility to go. 

They were okay, yes, however, I felt that their beds were too cramped in their quarters in that pre-made room under the movie screen, so I wanted to build them an expansion. I hate, cramped beds. I'll never make a settlement that I myself wouldn't be okay and comfortable in and nobody likes being crammed like sardines. 

Tehehe, before I even begin. So I scanned the area, right, did a bit of recon and looting of the surrounding areas before I actually go and find the amor bench at the Red Rocket there and then the weapons workbench at the house just opposite. I also do the parking lot, killing the ghouls there. Before I'm overencumbered, I then grab the four cans of Mr. Handy fuel and go back to Star light. I sleep and come back the next day. 

Hehehe, there they are, four more cans of Mr. Handy Fuel. Sometimes, peeps, it pays to not go inside. Apparently, you can trigger respawns of exteriors if you don't venture into the cell. So now EIGHT cans of Mr. Handy Fuel. I decide not to take advantage of the glitch though and stash my Mr. Handys in a room in the parking lot. My fiance and I both do this. We make stashes of loot in places we can later find. 

The enemy being faced are feral ghouls, which were very easy for me in my regular playthrough, met hitting up Super-Duper Mart as early as level 4 or 5, basically whenever I arrived at Lexington, but Survival naturally makes me more cautious and it's the first time I've tried this place without relying on a pistol. I'm going full rifles this time, having my combat shotgun and my sniper rifle, which could use upgraded mods. The goal in this first sweep is to just kill everything inside and loot the bodies, because those disappear after a while.  I think I was around level 13 or perhaps 14 when I tried this. Close to grabbing rank two of gunnut and armorer.

Yes, I use VATS, I think, frankly that you can save yourself a lot of hurt in FO 4 Suvival, especially if you're not the best at FPS, which I'm not, if you use it. I am also by myself, no followers.  It's a game mechanic, enjoy it. I use it two ways. 

1. To target enemies. Mostly when I'm using my shotgun. When I'm using the sniper rifle, I use the scope.

2. To scan the area for hostiles. Teineeva once commented in our chats that it's a bit like using Radar. :D 

My perception is pretty good. I did four for the lockpicking, but once I hit that hurdle in leveling where I've picked all the perks I want and then have to wait for the next set of perks to be available, I may start training up perception once I have the perks I need allotted. I'd love to pick up sniper down the road. Doing Museum of Freedom gives me the Bobblehead, so less to get to sniper. 

The scariest moment is in the bloody bathroom. OH GOD! Watching them crawl through the windows always gives me the bloody heebee jeebees. I think it's the sound they make if you know what I mean. And it always reminds me of the Walking Dead. You know the areas I'm talking about in the store. There are two. One is is the room that leads to the bathroom and another is just past the fusion core container thing. Yes, technincal term dammit! You can hear them, but you can't see them because I was smart and hung back in the room with the caged Teddy Bear (everybody shed a tear and say "awww, poor Teddy") and the espresso machine. I waited for them with their awful sounds to come  towards me and then I shots them deads. And yes, my heartrate did go up, making my fiance laugh. Hey, I watch the Walking Dead, Feral ghouls will always do it to me. Like I said, HEEBEE JEEBEES! Like Rad roaches! Ewwwwww, just ewwwwwwww. 

The biggest challenge was the legendary ghoul near the small diner in the store. He totally caught me by surprise because he spawned when I already thought the place was cleared. Showed clear on my map, but sometimes you miss one. He dropped some sort of legendary pipe pistol thing that I was like "meh, I'll keep it, because I love keeping and collecting Legendary stuff, but I'd rather stick with me guns, thank you for dying though." 

The fusion cells are more useful than the laser muskets, but as I make my way through the store, like I said, I only picked up things that I thought would disappear, the junky trader thingy and I still had to make several small deposits throughout the store so I wouldn't become overencumbered. I don't even touch the loot in containers yet or the scrap, but I dids it. I survived the Super-Duper Mart and I didn't die, not once. Go me!

Oh gods above and demons below! It takes 7 bloody trips to haul all the shit (pardon my French) from Super-Duper Mart back to Starlight and that's WITH me stuffing my face full of grilled Radstag and Bourbon. Of course I find out I'm addicted to alcohol when I'm done. Why not? Bottoms up. I'd drink too if I just cleared a store full of ghouls and harvested all the rusty shopping baskets and old radiated food.

I will admit, I go a little crazy with Starlight Drive In afterwards. Well, crazy for me because I've seen some of the settlements people come up with. Mine isn't really technically crazy, but I do have a lot of fun decorating the place with crazy lights and stuff. I then also create the second structure on the right side of the compound if you're facing the screen. 

I nearly pull my hair out when in a super mutant attack of my settlement, I accidently shoot a settler and had to revert to an earlier save, losing all the construction I had done. Thank goodness I didn't lose the Super-Duper Mart stuff or the mass carting of supples. It was still a pain though. 

My front door, tehehe, lights, and yes, I'm the boss. The Nuka mixer is a nice thing and finally I actually start using a bit of Newka cola. 

You can see the structure behind the row of razor grain. It's on the wooden stilts and is two floors with higher ceilings based on an asymmetrical design,featuring the warehouse motif. Fun to build and now there are less beds in each place. The other room got a nice facelift with an added couch and television. In addition, I build another structure that you can't see out of a small railroad cart that houses a machine gun turret. The area has a defense of like 38 now. When I finish, I am stopped by one of my settlers. Apparently, I have been assigned to clear the way for Starlight Diner. I need to clear Taffington Boathouse. Which was hugely funny because my fiance had been just talking to me about that place and how strategic it was for water purification. 

The next session will be interesting. I face, as I capture Taffington boat house, a moral dilemma and I start to use certain items to my advantage. And I make good on my plan. At least to a point. Again, thanks for look and man, thanks for the show of support. I'm not an especially good player so that you all are reading this is very cool. :D At least I'm suriving. 

I like how you're focusing on a real settlement construction in this playthrough. 

I also highly anticipated you getting crushed by that legendary at the corner diner, as I have myself many times. Kudos on...ya know...surviving :)

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/MottySkills]Mottyskills[/url] said:[/b]

I like how you're focusing on a real settlement construction in this playthrough. 

I also highly anticipated you getting crushed by that legendary at the corner diner, as I have myself many times. Kudos on...ya know...surviving :)

[/blockquote]

Thanks, Motty. Well my fiance has now level 10 charisma, so he can go way farther with this settlements than I can, but I've got some food and water production down at least and good security. I'd rather have only a few more populated settlements and then the rest be just for me to use as resting points. My last playthrough, I was really going crazy trying to defend a huge amount of discovered settlements and that was WITH fast travel. It just isn't feasible now.

I completely forgot about him. Sometimes a site is listed as cleared when you access the "boss" chest. I only survived, I think, because I didn't use a pistol. That combat shotgun packs a punch in the early game and you can fire it WAY more than a double barrel. In the next session, I nab something just as good. And I get gunnut 2.

Nice - don't suppose that feral dropped you a nice useful legendary did he? I always get like 'totally useless radier arm' hehe

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/MottySkills]Mottyskills[/url] said:[/b]

Nice - don't suppose that feral dropped you a nice useful legendary did he? I always get like 'totally useless radier arm' hehe

[/blockquote]

Hehe, no. He gave me a dumb Legendary pipe pistol that I don't use. My other legendary weapon is, I think, a double barrel shotgun that I don't use either. Both Legendary items are on display in my "office" at Starlight Drive In, cause it is cool to display shit. Yeah, what happened was that I got a combat shotgun rather early in the game and then I got a combat rifle. Really those two weapons are going to serve me well until easily mid game. So anything I get that's Legendary that doesn't match that damage is going to be "meh", especially among the ballistic weapons. Yes, there are weapons that do more damage, but sheeet the rate of fire for the combat versions of the rifle and shotgun far outweigh any damage output from their non combat versions. Why do 78 damage and can only fire three times when you can do 68, yeah, 10 points less, but fire way more before reloading. And yes, they have a slower fire rate than pistols do, but I only need to worry about one perk group instead of two if I start using pistols. And I can't be carrying 5-6 different weapons. There are legendary versions of those weapons. When I find those, then those will be tricked out, but by then, I may have already moved on to the assault rifle for the sniper weapon.

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Amornar]Amornar[/url] said:[/b] Nice post and update on your experiences Lissette! Really enjoying everything so far and you keep picking my itch to play survival and build some settlements![/blockquote]

Thanks. I'm enjoying the playthrough quite a bit. The neat thing is that I'm essentially playing the way I did in my previous playthrough, which means I didn't lose much in that regard. 

Bug hunt... Taffington Boathouse

So I got the mission from one of my settlers to clear Taffington Boathouse of bugs. Bloodbugs, which are ewwww. I decide that a smart tactic for heading to the boat house is to take a water route. If you go east from Starlight, just under the overpass is a connection to a body of water. I dive in and then swing north after crossing the Memorial bridge that is above you. But first, I notice in the deep pool as I first enter the water the remnants of a crashed, what looks like a Vertibird to me. I go below (thank you Aquagirl) and see an outline of a power armor suit. Lol, seems I'm going to have power armor before I even meet Preston Garvey. I make note of the location and continue south in the water. 

There are parts of the journey where I'm above water and where the water is too shallow for me to be submerged. I have to be very careful in those critical moments when I'm exposed. I immediately enter stealth. It is quite a dramatic swim as I'm doing it at night and I hear gunshots all around me in the overpasses above my head as I swim. Another moment of tension is when a Mirelurk explodes from the ground nearby and I race to outswim it. Am I being too cautious by swimming? Perhaps? Should I be more aggressive like my fiance is? Perhaps, but man, so awesome sometimes when you get to a location and you've not spent a single bullet until you actually get there. It adds something, like you only kill when you need to instead of the game turning into a shoot 'em up. Adds purpose to the killing, which you'll see in Session Eight, where I turn this into something quite dark. Lol, my fiance laughs at me, when he hears gunshots, he runs towards them, I run away. But what would someone alone in the Wasteland do? Especially when there are settlers that now depend on her. 

I approach Taffington under the shroud of nightfall, emerging from the water quietly a bit away from the actual house. I want to approach from the front, so I start crouching along slowly. On the hunt, my sniper rifle ready.  They are pretty easy to see in the night, their slender orange bodies like little streaks of neon in the dark blue as they feed upon a dead brahmin.  I am on the opposite street and they don't see me. I don't dare put on my pip boy. Yeah, I can probably put it on, but again why? Why break the stealth? I aim my rifle carefully, hold my breath and shoot. 

The two feeding on the brahmin don't even know what hit them, but I hear the buzz, literally, of activity coming from the house and a slender black form emerges from the house. This is no hatchling, but an adult and quite a bit different, all black. An adult. I change from sniper to shot gun, ready for a more "close encounter". Two more hatchlings are flanking him and I use VATS to take them down, knowing that the shotgun is most effective when they are quite close. 

I am only hit by them once, a hatchling, and I'm able to shrug off the damage. Then I proceed into the house, noticing the second dead brahmin cattle. More bloodbugs inside, a mix of hatchlings and adults, but my trusty shotgun doesn't fail me. :D

Gah! Lol, I love how they did the bugs in FO 4. Yeah, they are typically quite weak, but sheeeet, are they creepy. I'm normally not a squeamish person. Lots of lizards and things are native to FL and the wild roaches where I live make the normal city cockroaches look like little flies. We're talking some being nearly 3 inches long and I'm not afraid of them, but gah FO really adds new dimension to the creepiness for me. 

When I finish clearing the house, I'm approached by two settlers who thank me for clearing the boathouse, however, I see the brahmin downstairs and the body of the girl upstairs, knowing that they are unable to be removed via console comands. Console commands are disabled in Survival. The presence of dead bodies affects the happiness of a settlement, so I make a decision as there are only two. I send these two settlers to Starlight Drive In. I have the beds for them, they will be more comfortable, and I'd prefer to use Taffington only as a safehouse for me and possibly a water production facility down the road. If I'm going to develop a settelment in that area, Covenant is a stronger choice. 

Once I send the settlers to Starlight, I proceed the scrap the area. As it is only a safehouse I decide that is is safer to reside up stairs, so I scrap the bottom portion, store the gourds, and install a water well. I move the cooking station upstairs. Afterwards I do some wall and roof work. I am actually able to partially seal the roof using the warehouse roofs and tricky placement of the wooden stairs. It's not perfect, but I'm not going for perfect in my safehouse, just functional. I also seal the upstairs with a door fix the gaping wall in the second floor by adding a wall with a doorway so I have more privacy. 

I give myself the bare essentials; drinking fountain, a bed, some storage, using mostly what I salvaged from the house. I scrap the rest of the beds for the cloth. As you ca see from the image above, it is very simple, but functional. No power yet. When I am more secure in this area, I'll see about establishing power, fencing the location, and installing turrets so the water purifiers have some protection. I throw her body into the lake, but I know she'll be back.That is just ewww, Bethesda! 

After a good night's sleep, water, and food, I decide to explore the area around the house and come across a nest of bloodbugs leading to a drainage pipe. I eliminate them, cook their meat, and then make plans to head back to Starlight Drive in to complete the quest, but there is one thing I need to pick up on my way back. 

Under the water, close to where I entered it from near Starlight Drive In to begin my swim to Taffington, I stumbled across that crashed Vertibird and found that suit of Power Armor. I had only passed it before, but this time I stopped. Hehehe Aquagirl, such a nifty perk. I discover that the armor, a T45, is missing an arm and a leg, but it has its fusion core intact and at full juice. I step into the armor and continue my journey back to Starlight Drive In. What am I gonna do with the armor? I don't know. I'm not really going to be using it in this playthrough as I think it really goes against the "sneakiness" of this build and by late game, many of my rad issues will be resolved. I could sell it though, so it's stupid not to grab it. Right now, it's parked against a fence at Starlight, the fusion core removed, in case anybody gets any bright ideas in my settlement. 

With Taffington secured, I complete the quest and proceed to make plans. See, I had a wee bit of a revelation at Taffington, which we were starting to see manifest in my settlements update two sessions ago. I really like the idea of having settlements, but of two varieties, but I always hated where Preston sends you first, Tenpines Bluff. That place is darn near useless and yet you're stuck with a crummy two person settlement. Well, what if it didn't have to be that way? Another problematic one is Abernathy, which is way too close to Red Rocket and Sanctuary hills. If I'm going to develop a settlement, it needs to be in a location that's worth my while from a strategic standpoint. If Preston is going to eventually send me somewhere, why not have him send me somewhere that will serve me better from a gameplay perspective? Somewhere farther south would be great. Oberland perhaps which is close to Greygardens and can benefit from that settelments resources. 

In order for him to do that, I need to eliminate some of these early, more northern settlements from his list of potential settlements.

Claim them for myself... At all costs. 

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/MottySkills]Mottyskills[/url] said:[/b] Yes DPS is everything in SMode! It's actually why I (and Ponty) ended up with the deliverer/overseers guardian combo for our builds. The only way I got through the courser was delivere plus jet. Full dps badassery. But the combat shotty early find is total gold. I love it.[/blockquote]

I benefit also somewhat from Lone Wanderer, sneak multipliers, and eventually Bloody Mess, which I'll grab when I nab the luck bobble head. Sniper down the road will also help. I want to avoid drugs if at all possible, save stimpaks, addictol, antibiotics, the herbal remedies, and the occasional stout to help me with my shopping.  I actually sell most of the other drugs.  I still feel I want to avoid pistols because of weight issues and heavier perk investment needed, though I can definitely see the appeal of the Deliverer and actually early game really had me debating pistols versus rifle precisely because of Deliverer. Lol, then I found the combat shotty and my decision was set. It's pretty neat watching your enemy fly across the room once you've hit him with that bad boy. Overseer's Guardian is on the list though, as is Les Fusil Terribles (shot gun) and then also December's Child. I've actually not perked many groups in this playthrough, so I'm curious what I can end up doing with the extra perks that I know I'll have once I start reaching the 30s as some of my level 5 ranks will not be available until the forties.