Relativelybest

Possibly related issue: When using hotkeys my game is sometimes prone to get confused about which weapon I am using, and will momentarily try to hold melee weapons as if they were guns, and so on. I have also seen the gun I'm trying to use getting "mixed up" with parts of the one I used before, creating some very weird visuals. On occasion it will take several seconds to produce the weapon, which is a bit scary when I try to switch during combat and find myself defenseless. This is thankfully somewhat rare. I don't believe this is caused by mods, since I only have a handful of them and non that would affect weapon animations, I think. Possibly just some kind of lag. Goodness knows Fallout 4 is pushing the limits of what my computer can handle.

Last night I was exploring the northernmost edge of the map when I ran into a Super Mutant Behemoth. For reference, I'm level 40 (possibly 39 at the time), playing what I call a "swashbuckler build" meaning that my offensive skills are split evenly between melee and pistols, currently with four ranks in each due to level restrictions. Since I'm pathologically incapable of backing down from a fight, I charge the big guy with my sword. It didn't go well - I had barely injured him at all when he took my head clean off with his hydrant club. So I reload from my last save and decide to go ranged instead, equipping my .44 revolver. My plan was to shoot at him from far away hoping to wear down his HP as much as possible before he got in range, and then improvise. The first shot hit, but he's too far away for me to see how much damage it did. I take another shot and he falls over dead. I look down at my gun and is like: "What the hell just happened?" Sure, it's a powerful gun with maxed out mods, but nowhere near that powerful. It's not even a Legendary or anything. Looking up the stats for the Behemoth, I apparently did at least 500 damage per shot at great distance. Somehow. And that's factoring in his armor ratings. Notably, during the same expedition I also killed a Mirelurk Queen with the same gun, and it took a lot of running around, firing wildly, plus several plasma grenades. And Mirelurk Queens are actually somewhat weaker than Behemoths. So, yeah. I don't know how that happened. It was some kind of miracle.

Can I just say, "retrofuturism" is an oxymoron if I ever saw one. Oh well, different words for basically the same thing. *shrug* I would argue that zeerust is an aesthetic (though only in retrospect) and retrofuturism is the artistic choice to invoke it. I don't think there is any practical difference in the actual results.

So today, I was hanging around the Red Rocket gas station when I heard gunfire from Sanctuary. Assuming it's raiders, I run over there and see a pack brahmin by the bridge, and a short distance down along the river I find Trashcan Carla, just standing there among some rocks and bushes. No enemies in sight, not even their corpses. Here's the strange part: For some reason, Carla was super radioactive. Like, I'm talking 20-30 rads per second radioactive. I lost nearly half my health just walking over to her before I figured out what was happening. So I take a couple steps back and after a few moments the rads are gone. Carla acts like nothing happened.

There's a word for this: It's called "zeerust", referring to the particular irony of things that were meant to seem futuristic becoming very dated, not just because of actual technological advancement but also changing cultural context.

Fun fact: Cats purr at a frequency that promotes healing and pain relief. Apparently it has the same effect on humans. HP regen!

They also don't need food or beds. So, really, they are actually superior to human settlers in every way. I exploited this to build an infinite junk machine. Basically I went to an empty settlement, built a big concrete cube full of scavenging stations, staffed them all with the most basic robots, and sealed them in. Then I periodically check in to empty the workstation of junk so it can refill.

So, basically a normal cat, then? Seriously, I've lived with cats my whole life and I'm reasonable sure they are literally magical.

Personally, I think Fallout 4 is the best Bethesda game I've played so far. It's not flawless, and admittedly limited as a roleplaying game, but I played it to level 80 before I even thought about modding it - even now I only have a couple of mods - because for the first time they made me a game without any particular issues I wanted to fix. I didn't even bother to figure out which button opened the dev console until very recently.

Actually, I really like Fallout 4. More than I liked Fallout 3, and I liked that one a lot. My character is level 90 and I've only started modding the game now, because for the first time Bethesda managed to make a game that - in my opinion - doesn't really need a lot of fixing. It's just a bit weird that the entire world of Fallout has been standing still for two centuries even though so much technology and knowledge survived. I mean, that was weird in the older games as well - things should have gotten better over time. Fallout 4 just makes it really obvious, because a considerable part of it really feels like a game about rebuilding the world. I don't even think this is Bethesda's fault, rather it's sorta built into the concept from the start. They can't really take it to its logical conclusion, because then it isn't Fallout anymore. I dunno, this is pretty much what I expect from them. Bethesda builds great worlds, but I wouldn't say they are that good at world building. They make delightful sandboxes full of interesting stuff to find and play with, but it's not like I expect all of it to make sense when I take a step back and think about it. Kinda like Elder Scrolls, eh? Of course, I never liked New Vegas. I mean, I get why other people do, but it just didn't have any of the stuff I really love about Bethesda's games. I don't really care about factions or even the story at the end of the day. I just want to adventure around an open world and explore old ruins for no reason other than curiosity - something New Vegas seemed to be actively discouraging.

I think this is a roleplaying issue - it's all vague enough that you can decide for yourself. I mean, DiMA even said that this is more or less how it actually works: There's no safe way to tell for sure, so if you think you may be a synth, you need to decide for yourself whether or you are one. They basically went out of their way to establish that you can't know for sure. That said, despite the fact that you are not really given an option to have memories of your past life during that particular conversation, this is contradicted by other parts of the game. I can recall two, maybe three times where my character mentioned remembering something from before the war. So, obviously waking up in the vault wasn't really her earliest memory. Personally, I say my version of Nora - who is actually named Jenny - is perfectly human, just a very unusual specimen. I actually really like the idea that this ex-lawyer housewife woke up in the post-apocalypse and found that she just happens to be extremely talented at killing. I also assume that she doesn't comment on the gas station and other such stuff because she is familiar with it.

In theory, the Institute are best equipped to rebuild the world. They could have done it a long time ago, given that they basically have Star Trek technology and an army of robot soldiers, except they are evidently run by an idiot. Frankly, I find the idea of destroying them very distasteful, as it's a waste of incredibly valuable resources. Of course, given what it's already possible to do in the game as the player - and other stuff, like working electricity and water purifiers being standard, and the fact that even the damn raiders are literate - it kinda doesn't make sense that the Commonwealth is in as bad a shape as it is anyway. Two centuries should have been enough for everyone to strip Boston down for parts and build a whole new city, rather than resorting to living in old ruins or improvised shacks. Then there's the Automatron and Contraption Workshop DLCs, which makes it possible to build automated industrial machines. With enough elbow grease they could build a bunch of robots to run automated farms or gather resources - something I have already done in the game - and generally just clean the place up. It's like the player character is the only one who isn't completely apathetic about the situation. (And the Mechanist, even though that didn't turn out so well.) But I digress. In general, the problem isn't in the factions themselves but rather that they refuse to get along because most of them have unhealthy ideologies. The Institute needs to use their tech to actually make the world better, rather than messing with people who already live fairly terrible lives. It's very possible they could rid the Commonwealth of radiation, figure out how ghouls work and prevent them from going feral, and turn the super mutants friendly. They just can't be bothered. The Brotherhood, while based on a good idea, are too zealous and close-minded: They could be very useful as a regulatory organization for preventing abuse of technology, and as a general military bulwark against the mutant threat until a more lasting solution can be found. Just, that would require them to genuinely care about other people. It's kinda sad they've turned more extremist since Fallout 3 - I get the feeling that with the right leader, they could be a force for good. They should allow technology to flourish, while serving as a reminder of how easily it can get out of hand. The Minutemen are a force for good, but they are basically just regular people trying to keep it together. They don't actually have the resources or knowledge to fix everything that's wrong. They are however a good network for keeping the communities in their territories relatively safe, and encourages cooperation. And the Railroad basically only exists because of how synths are being treated by everyone else, including their own creators. If the Institute and Brotherhood were more benevolent and peaceful with each other, and to the Commonwealth as large, there wouldn't really be a need for the Railroad. What I would really like to do is take control of the Institute, revise their entire policy, go public and run some heavy public relations to calm everyone down, and then form an alliance with the other factions. The Minutemen would be easy, just go: "The Institute are on our side now, since we are lead by the same person and everything, so don't fire on the synths and everything will be fine. Here, have some cool new armor and guns. We'll basically be kicking all the raider ass now." Then I'd tell the Railroad: "Hey, it's cool. We're not going to hunt you guys anymore, and I'm working on making things better for the synths. So, like, lets not shoot at each other anymore." The Brotherhood would be troublesome, but it might be possible to at least establish a cease-fire and work together on fighting off the super mutants and raiders. In the long run, they might come around. Like I said, it seems to depend a bit on who is currently leading them. They probably need to replenish their numbers fairly regularly, so their policies are likely to sway over time. (Especially if, after a time, they would start getting members who are used to friendly synths.) The ideal scenario is that the Institute provides technology and manpower in the form of synths, the Brotherhood make sure they stay in line while benefiting from upgraded tech, the Minutemen act as a kind of police force, and the Railroad work on human-synth relations. Of course, it seems the story-line unfortunately doesn't actually allow that. Would really love a mod that made it possible. To be fair, helping synths is pretty much their entire thing. They care about synths because nobody else does, and given that they are constantly under attack and have very limited resources, it's no wonder they have to prioritize. I doubt they have anything against humanity progressing, it just isn't their job to make sure that happens.

If I try to reach certain rooftops in the financial district with the jetpack, I instantly get teleported to Goodneighbor for some reason.

Tried to play as a werewolf once or twice. Didn't like the way it actually made me weaker, as opposed to stronger, which is sorta the whole point. I could see it be somewhat useful very early in the game, but once you have good weapons and armor, and have invested heavily in the combat perks, it's sort of a downgrade to throw it all off and start clawing people.

I always found it interesting - if a bit confusing - that while the gods in Elder Scrolls obviously exist, the various mythologies are designed to resemble the way real world myths evolve and change between different cultures, making them unreliable. We have a ton of lore to work with but we can't say for sure what is and isn't true, or to what degree it is true, because it was all written by people who were fallible and may have gotten things mixed up and confused over the centuries. Like, obviously Alduin and Akatosh are not the same entity (which begs the question if Auri-El and Akatosh are also different gods) and while there may have been some truth to the Malacath/Trinimac story, IIRC Malacath himself once implied it wasn't entirely correct. So, really, who knows? You know, it just occurred to me that the whole Thalmor vs Lorkhan thing seems to be heavily based on Gnosticism. The Thalmor view the material world as basically a prison of imperfection that is keeping them from being the pure spiritual beings they are supposed to be, which would make Lorkhan the demiurge. And like the Gnostics, this leads to conflict with those who revere Thalos as a god. (Except in the real world, the Gnostics were the ones persecuted for suggesting that God is actually evil.) I kinda wonder how much of that was deliberate on Bethesda's part.