What is your typical playthrough?

[Neodarkside]

On 10/20/2021 at 5:44 AM, Heinz01 said:

Hi there,

 

i thought i like to share my current setup with you for inspiration. It took a long way to get this seup to what it now is. As some posts above, i really like the combination of survival, loot reduction and aaf hardship. Although this already has an impact to the games compared to vanilla survival, it still is to "easy" for me. 

 

I want to achieve playing a noname female scavenger with no special skills and less educated. I imagine a world of horror, brutality, depletion, lack of food and ammo and overall poverty. As humans being humans, many will try to take advantage of others and make their lives worse to make their own situation a little bit better. In this world the female protagonist, starting as a newbie, is weaker than all possible enemys, except for radroaches or similar low threats.

 

I use a buch of mods and made some own patches to finetune things:

1. Damn Apocalypse This mod greatly reduces loot. It also dramatically reduces the availability of power armor. If you happen to find one or even only some parts, then your happy. Even the free PA in concord will be removed from the game after you killed the enemies in concord. This mod also addresses the problem with bullet sponge enemies. Although with a big level difference between player and enemy it still happens, that one needs multiple headshots. But i am fine with that. Many may prefer Horizon instead, but Damn Apocalypse fits my playthrough better.

I made an patch to greatly reduce the amount of caps in loot. Finding more than 2 caps in a container is extremely rare. Most times its nothing. 

2. True Storms This is not only providing a more dramatic weather, it also makes radstorms more dangerous (you can adjust the rads when installing). You can also enable Feral Ghoul Hordes at Radstorms (very adjustable)

3. Darker Nights It does, what it says. Also comes with detection addon to avoid being nearly invisible for enemies, when your out at the dark.

4. Flashys Crime and Punishment (no link, because he removed it from nexus. He wrote he would upload it somewhere else, but i dont know where). This really adds a lot to the game. You can gain positive and negative karma. This has influence to many things, like prices, persuade chances etc. It also adds consequneces like revenge from enemies after clearing a raider outpost. Also many roleplay additions like robbing (you can threat any other npc with your drawn weapon and rob them). It also has a basic prostitution feature. Everything is voiced.

5. Flashys Gun for Hire (same reason for no link) Not really necessary. But it feels nice to earn reputation and get some interesting bounty jobs. I start with 0 Reputation Points, so this is for later game.

6. Reverb and Ambience Overhaul This is a must have. It makes the Sound of explosions, gunfire etc so much better and enjoyable. 

7. Survival Options I use this only to reduce my outgoing damage. Standard on Survival is 2x incoming damage and 1,5x outgoing damage. I use 0,75 outgoing damage and will compensate that with investing in perks. See my original premise. I want to start as a less skilled character. Guns would realistically do the same amount of damage, regardless who is using the same Gun. But i consider it of being more able to land more damaging shots. 

8. You are NOT Special This is very intimidating as it removes all perks from your skillchart except for the basic special perks (strength etc). You have to find books. If you pick them up, you learn the skill and can then put a perk point on it (if you meet the minimum requirements like charisma 6 for local leader). It changes the tree a little bit and removes level requirement. 

The books are originally handplaced in fix locations. I didnt like that and removed most of them from the cells. Instead i made a leveledlist in which every book is stored and added the leveled list to steamer trunks and some safes. So i need to go to unsafe places to be able to find them randomly. Funny thing is, many trunks and safes have advanced locks or more dfficult. And at the start you dont have access to the lockpicking perk. This creates a sitiuation where the skillbook for lockpicking is locked in a safe you cannot open without that skill. Thats where another mod (sex attributes, see more below) helps and this adds very much value. 

9. AAF and requirements (you dont need a link )

10. Hardship  This is in my Opinion the most well thought Mod i ever saw. It really adds a lot of roleplaying possibilities. 

11. Usable Cigarettes and Less Cigarettes in Loot Great for saving without sleeping. But they must be rare. You can use HArdship to get more, if you need.

12. Violate  Dont attack, what you cant kill. Otherwise its going to be bad. I only let human enemies use this though. 

13. Sex Attributes  This adds wear and tear for sexual activities tec. It also has some psychlogical mechanics. It also provides the use of Willpower to achieve different things. Like opening locks, which you cant due to lack of skill. Set the Willpower use very high, so it doesnt feel like a cheat. This helps with the created problem on the skillbooks. And this makes it important to maintain a good amount of willpower. Your Willpower will be gone fast when you are playing a prostitute with Hardship and get unwanted attention of DC guards for example.

14. All in one - Realisting Constraction Recipes This raises the amount of junks and other items needed to create things like a generator, cooking station, turrets etc. 

15. Start me up I dont want to play Nate or Nora. I like to start with only clothes and the small frame perk (more likely to being crippled) at the boylston club.

16. Combat Strip Lite After being hit, it may unequip an armor item. And then a timer must go by before you can requip it. Sounds a bit weird, but imagine thats the time it needs to be fixed after being hit. You can also add a chance that the item is destroyed.

17. Sexual Harassment I use it only in conjuction with Combat Strip Lite. And maybe also the Blackmail feature. Fan Approaches, Hypno, Devoius and Flirts are disabled.

18. No food for You  Removes "handplaced" food items. You still may find some, especially in locations with broken respawn (some are respawning even within minutes, its a FO4 bug). Should be at the bottom of the Load order.

 

Further adjustments in an own patch: 

    a) less perk Points. Originally you have 28 special points at level 1 (7 are already spent to have 1 in any base special stat and 21 can be spent by yourself). I reduced it to 14. So i have 7 points at level 1. Feels a lot weaker and more plausible of being unskilled and uneducated

    b) reduced carry weight: Originally you have 90 lbs with strenght 1 and gain 10 for every additional point in strength. I have 60 and only get 5 for additional strength. More tough decisions when collecting loot.

    c) Reduced sell prices. Originally you sell with a facter of 0,8. I reduced it to 0,2. Less money for selling junk

 

It is really recommended to load the complete Load order in FO 4 to check any conflicts and make a patch if necessary.

 

When I start at the Boylston Club i try to go either to Goodneighbour, Bunker Hill or DC. If i find one, i carry only 1 handgun and a few rounds ammo. This is just for self defense againt menacing raiders, who are going to use violence against me. I try to not attract any attention just some looting here and there. If necessary i earn caps at an Inn. I can also use Hardship to gain access to raider camps. Just dont rush in, you will find yourself crowded by raiders and if one wants to be viiolent against you, you dont have many options. I instead wait at the entrance for the first raider to run at me. Offer him to be a whore. If he accepts, then he is safe for futere visits. If he wants violence then i shoot him in the head, thats why i carry a good small gun (like a .44) and then run away and come back later. This way you can access the bossroom eventually. Maybe you are up to the bounty on the boss head. Or just want to look in the streamer trunk, if it has a nice skillbook. 

 

Recently i gave the Nuka Ride Mod a try. It fits perfectly to what i have in mind. So i start near Vault 111, go to the protectron and do the Nukaride Questline. At the end i get an apartment there but there is nothing left to do as a low level character, so i take my posessions, go to DC and access the Gun for Hire office (its like i exchanged the Nuka Apartment for that office). Then i remove all free junk from the workbench in that office and try to move on (with still low level, almost no skills etc). The story should be: 

Origin at NukaRide Quest.

Taking advantage of what i ahve learned and done there to survive in the commenwealth if necessary via Hardship

Becoming more skilled, stronger and a long time later maybe a professional bounty hunter

Then going for the FO4 mainquest a lot later.

 

If you are interested in some of my personal changes, i made some clean versions (my original ones have more dependencies):

 

SurvivalEdits (reduced carry weight, less skill points, lower sell prices) Survival Options is required

SurvivalEdits.esp 939 B · 0 downloads

 

 

RandomSkillloot (handplaced skillbooks from You are NOT Special are removed from indoorcells and all of them can be found randomly at steamer trunks) Requires "You are NOT Special" Mod

randomskillbookloot.esp 289.79 kB · 0 downloads

 

 

If you want to change them, you can easily do it with FO4Edit. These are very simple edits and almost self explanatory

 

Definitely giving Combat strip a try tonight. From what little play testing I did with it, I think it will be a welcome improvement, I like the idea about being slowly worn away at defenses plus its another layer of protection vs instakills or just a "OH SHIT, I SURRENDER!" moment. I like the idea that also I can't just re-equip whatever was disabled right away, it will take time.

[Sgt. Marge]

14 hours ago, Neodarkside said:

 

Definitely giving Combat strip a try tonight. From what little play testing I did with it, I think it will be a welcome improvement, I like the idea about being slowly worn away at defenses plus its another layer of protection vs instakills or just a "OH SHIT, I SURRENDER!" moment. I like the idea that also I can't just re-equip whatever was disabled right away, it will take time.

 

I was having some trouble figuring out how to configure combat strip light, as the slots didn't seem to line up with what the armor had listed when I looked at it via FOEdit.  If you are using plain vanilla clothes, the torso slot (i.e. slot 33) is number 3 on the slider in Combat Strip.  Here's a list of all the translated slots: https://www.creationkit.com/fallout4/index.php?title=Biped_Slots

[Neodarkside]

8 hours ago, Marg597 said:

 

I was having some trouble figuring out how to configure combat strip light, as the slots didn't seem to line up with what the armor had listed when I looked at it via FOEdit.  If you are using plain vanilla clothes, the torso slot (i.e. slot 33) is number 3 on the slider in Combat Strip.  Here's a list of all the translated slots: https://www.creationkit.com/fallout4/index.php?title=Biped_Slots

 

One of the mods I use tells me what every slot I have equipped is. Its a mod that causes your body size to change depending on rads absorbed (Lena's rad something). It has a button in the MCM that pops up what each slot is that is currently filled, so then I just went into Combat Strip and made sure each piece of armor is enabled to be removed, quite helpful.

[Nuka Cherry]

I like playthroughs where Nora is not the hero and ends up lowest of the low - based on mods like Hardship, Nuka Ride, Raiders Pet, captive tats, etc. I finally figured out the one thing that was really annoying me - how I could make Settlements much more punishing - they are far too easy with free food, free water, free beds, safety, etc.  Not any more! After building beds in a settlement I run round and use the following command on the beds in console:

 

Setownership 000337F3

 

This sets the bed as owned by settlers (or workshop faction as it is called).

 

I run the M.G.C. mod as it includes a simple "rent or have sex" to sleep in owned beds and you can set the cost. This means that Nora needs to pay for safety. I disable most of the MGC mod as I run other, more focused mods like Human Resources, Combat Strip Lite(CSL), edited Violate (so it works with CSL). The way I see it, Nora helps at the start, but then the settlers grow food, maintain the camp and do all the actual hard work. Nora has to pay, one way or the other, for the use of the camp.

 

I am still searching for more limiting mods, especially food and water (to force her to buy from the bars).

 

This might fit @Heinz01 playthrough style, looking above.

[Heinz01]

58 minutes ago, Nuka Cherry said:

I like playthroughs where Nora is not the hero and ends up lowest of the low - based on mods like Hardship, Nuka Ride, Raiders Pet, captive tats, etc. I finally figured out the one thing that was really annoying me - how I could make Settlements much more punishing - they are far too easy with free food, free water, free beds, safety, etc.  Not any more! After building beds in a settlement I run round and use the following command on the beds in console:

 

Setownership 000337F3

 

This sets the bed as owned by settlers (or workshop faction as it is called).

 

I run the M.G.C. mod as it includes a simple "rent or have sex" to sleep in owned beds and you can set the cost. This means that Nora needs to pay for safety. I disable most of the MGC mod as I run other, more focused mods like Human Resources, Combat Strip Lite(CSL), edited Violate (so it works with CSL). The way I see it, Nora helps at the start, but then the settlers grow food, maintain the camp and do all the actual hard work. Nora has to pay, one way or the other, for the use of the camp.

 

I am still searching for more limiting mods, especially food and water (to force her to buy from the bars).

 

This might fit @Heinz01 playthrough style, looking above.

Thats a nice idea. I was already thinking of adding MCG. Nice to know it works without problems together with other AAF mods (that concern was holding me back from trying it)

 

 

[Nuka Cherry]

58 minutes ago, Heinz01 said:

Thats a nice idea. I was already thinking of adding MCG. Nice to know it works without problems together with other AAF mods (that concern was holding me back from trying it)

 

 

 

It is a sadly no longer maintained mod, but was solidly built and the mod author designed it to be highly modular - you can switch everything and anything off. So I run just what I need (the rent & infamy system).

[Heinz01]

20 hours ago, Nuka Cherry said:

I am still searching for more limiting mods, especially food and water (to force her to buy from the bars).

 

 

I found a pretty easy solution for this. I made myself a patch which locks every "free" recipe (even workshop items, lowlevel gunmods etc), which we have on gamestart behind perks. You just need to add a conditon via FO4Edit like
"Has Perk - Lead Belly" Equal to 1, Reference is player. For example my purified water is locked away by even two perks and has much higher material costs than vanilla (the description may be confusing because my game is in german):

 

 

just loadup FO4Edit, open the fallout4.esm tree (or the mod that already makes changes to the water recipe, if you use one), then the constructible items tree, find co_food_waterpurified, rightclick on it and choose "copy as override into..." then you can make a new esp. Then open the new esp tree find that recipe again and change it, however you like. 

 

If you use "give me my bottle back", you have to drag the CNAM - Created Object "aGMMBBCFakeWaterpurified..." to your new water recipe (like in my first screenshot at the bottom) otherwise the recipe would be broken.

 

As i also use the "You are not special" Mod which makes the skillchart empty and i have to learn knowledge of the perks first by finding specific books, i am pretty locked away from making my own water.

 

EDIT: I was already thinking of sharing my recipelockout. I cleaned it, so it only needs FO4 and the DLCs. There are some recipes, which i didnt touch. Some are oversights (like Vault DLC Dresser), some are intentional (like squirrel bits on stick, because it is just a stick of wood added to the bits) and some i was too lazy for, like FarHarbor cooking recipes (i never was there and i assume you would already be skilled enough when going there anyway) and decoration items:

LockedRecipes.esp

Yo still need to patch it, if you use mods that already change some recipes (like "give me my bottle back" as described above)

Edited October 30, 2021 by Heinz01

[Nuka Cherry]

I think I left recipes alone - but I run a perk tree that is very different from vanilla, so I am not sure what will happen. I will save it for another playthrough, cheers.

[Heinz01]

Just necroing this inspiring thread.

 

I recently roleplayed with Hardship. Having Mr Raymond in the Rexford Hotel as a pimp and i took the room which you can rent as my own (i changed ownership on the two containers there, so i could store some stuff). Now i stumbled over a really nice Mod which makes that room into a settlement: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/39461

 

Now i can decorate that room, like placing a babybed if needed etc. This mod still has some quirks, but they can all be solved:

-the bed must be stored and placed again to gain ownership and you still must "setownership" on the two containers

-send out the vaulttec man and any other possible settler (like from SotC) out of the hotel before installing this mod, otherwise they stay there and sandbox in that room (which is annoying when this is your working place)

-The permit for the "settlement" is sold by Daisy, the merchant in GN. You might want to edit the price for it in FO4Edit, because 6000 is to high. (i set it to 1 cap and use that only as part of the deal with Mr Raymond)