CaptainPatch

ADDENDA/ERRATA. Upon closer examination I discovered that I was not seeing some enchantments being weaker, but the others were instead stronger. One of my mods altered the Skill trees for perks. And one of those perks was that necklaces and headware received a +25% strength boost. It just happened that the first two items I enchanted were getting that +25% boost while the other two were just "normal" enchantments. "Walks like a duck and talks like a duck, but it AIN'T a duck."

Hey, folks. Long-time lurker here. Been playing Skyrim with @50 some mods, off and on every year or so. I've encountered something puzzling that I _think_ isn't necessarily a mod glitch. It goes like this: I'm going to enchant 4 items. I have a potion of Fortify Enchanting +25% for 60 seconds. I have the set of 4 Ahzidal items for Enchanting +10 (DLC). I have a dragon priest mask for +30% Enchanting (DLC). I have a "use flawless gem for +25% item strength Enchanting (mod). And I have +10% Enchanting from a deck of Fate cards (mod). These are my CONSTANTS. Sooooo, I start enchanting and can safely enchant TWO items within the 60 second lifespan of the potion. Those first two items produce Alchemy +30 each. HOWEVER, when I drink a second potion (or wait until the first potion has clearly expired before continuing), the next two items to get enchanted are ONLY +_23_. What gives? Why, under identical parameters, don't I get the same results? This is a conundrum that I'm hoping at least one of you can explain.

ADDENDA: The dragon's name is Stunmahwuld. I can't find that name via any Searches online. Anyone know anything about this particular dragon? If I can locate its origin (probably a mod), it might give me some insight as to how to kill it. FURTHER ADDENDA: It looks like Stunmahwuld is the school mascot for the Dragons Keep mod, and as such, is not allowed to be killed.

I'll point out up front that my Skyrim SE is HEAVILY modded. But still.... In my current game at Level 58, I've been fighting a named dragon. For over two hours. It took me about half an hour to whittle him down to just one HP (his health is just a red sliver on its health bar), so it is manifestly obvious that the dragon CAN take damage. But not enough to kill it. I have assailed it with a wide variety of weapons. I have tried a wide assortment of spells. I have used a wide variety of poisons on my weapons. I can visibly stagger the dragon with a variety of weapons and spells, so my weapons and perks appear to be working. But NOTHING seems able to inflict that last hit point of damage. Has anybody ever encountered something like this? Was there any kind of solution that I have overlooked? Does anyone know of a workaround or console command that can kill the damn thing? I really, really need the dragon soul, so just reloading an earlier Save to avoid the fight is not a preferred option.

This will take awhile.... Fallout.esm DLCRobot.esm DLCworkshop.esm DLCCoast.esm DLCworksop02.esm DLCworkshop03.esm DLCNukaWorld.esm Homemaker.esm Scrappable_Commonwealth.esm ArmorKeywords.esm SimSettlement.esm M82a.esp Scrapper Corpse Highlighting.esp EasyLockpicking.esp EasyHacking.esp 10% Fusion Core Drain.esp MoBettaScrap.esp Scrap ThatMisc.esp BetterGenerators.esp Generators 1.1.esp GoodGenerators.esp FusionGenerators.esp LongerPowerLines3x.esp Power Conduits and Pylons - Increased Radius.esp Simple Intersections.esp ExpandedSettlementBuildings.esp keyNuker_cards_en.esp keyNuker_keys_en.esp More Where That Came From Diamond City.esp Classic VATS.esp SkjAlert._DLC01+.esp SkjAlert_RS+.esp BetterItemSorting-AID.esp BetterItemSorting-APPAREL.esp BetterItemSorting-JUNK.esp BetterItemSorting-MISC.esp BetterItemSorting-WEAPONS.esp BetterItemSorting-esp StartMeUp.esm DD_I_Ran_Out_Of_Funny_Names.esp DDP_Elevators_mark 1.esp DD_why_am_i_doing_this.esp Flags of the Old World.esp DD_All_the_COncrete.esp Workshop Shipments Rebalanced.esp CCOFO4 - Traits and More Perks.esp PrefabHouses.esp Extended weapon mods.esp G3.esp R91M.esp AK2047.esp M2216.esp DD_Prelude_273.esp Extra_Tracks_Diamond.esp MoreBipodAndSniperBarrel.esp Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch,esp DD_1x1_Foundation_blocks.esp DDP_Ramps_mark 1.esp VendorCaps_5000.esp RansackedRelay.esp WeightlessAid.esp WeightlessJunk.esp Nuka World Bottle Fix.esp WeightlessSpecialAmmo.esp Craftable Animal Glue -- Adhesive Recipes.esp ScrapDeadThings.esp K9TacticalHarness.esp BetterSettlers.esp BetterSettlersNoLollygagging.esp SettlersRename.esp nvvault1080.esp EnclaveX02.esp Homemaker - Streetlights Use Passive Power.esp Homemaker - Unlocked Institute Objects.esp AnS Wearable Backpacks and Pouches.esp AnS Wearable Backpacks and Pouches - Ballistic Weave.esp AnS Wearable Backpacks and Pouches - No Crafting Perks.esp AnS Wearable Backpacks and Pouches - Power Armor Carry Capacity.esp DOOMDesertEagle.esp ClassicSniper.esp OWR_CraftableDecor.esp OWR_CraftableDecor_CW.esp OWR.esp mso_sms.esp LootableWorkbenches.esp WoodenPrefabsExtended.esp AES_Renovated Furniture.esp DogBed.esp CompanionBugfix.esp NirShor-MusicalLore.esp Fallout Suite.esp Armorsmith Extended.esp FarHarborAmmo_Commonwealth.esp Nuka-World Collectable Markers.esp CommChemExpanded.esp DD_Khassar_De_Templari_Increased_build.esp PortableRecycler.esp IncreasedSettlementPopulation50.esp PreWarSafes.esp ShipwreckIsle.esp MoreShipments_20.esp ShipmentSize_50.esp ImmersiveScrapping.esp SpringCleaningCompatibilityPatch.esp GeniusGamePerk.esp More detailed perk description.esp GunNut5.esp RepairSanctuary.esp DV-Armored Pilots.esp DV-Very Durable Vertibirds.esp AA FusionCityRising.esp OutcastsAndRemnants.esp 3DNPC_FO4.esp Scrap Everything - Ultimate Edition.esp SSEX.esp CraftableAmmo.esp CraftableAmmo_plus.esp ModelRobotDisplay.esp AA 50 Ways To Die.esp Snappy_HouseK.esp Snappy_DLC03.esp ... deetadee, That's All Folks! (For now.)

Thanks for the Bug Fix mod name. Installed and fixed the graphics all right. HOWEVER, that just brought me to what is actually the REAL bug. Any suggestions to get past the Cola Cars battle?

Hello to everyone still playing FO4. (Thank goodness for FREE mods!) As is likely, I have a LARGE number of mods integrated into my game. One or more of them seems to have glitched my Nuka-World seriously.

According to Steam, I've put in 2485 hours on FO4. That accounts for about a dozen playthroughs. I think it was after the second or third of those I simply stopped going to Lexington = no start of the Minutemen quest line. It really, really, really bugged me that _I_ built up Sanctuary (and sometimes other sites as well), _I_ did all the settlement building and settler recruiting. But as soon as I connected with the Minutemen, everything _I_ built became theirs. I'm more interested in building MY own empire. (Only fair. If I do ALL the work, I should get total ownership. That's only fair, isn't it?) Furthermore, for all my playthroughs, I have yet to complete a single game. I absolutely hate how Bethesda deliberately locked us into some very narrow, very extremist behavior patterns. The ONLY faction I actually want to exterminate is

Actually, Fallout is derived from an earlier Interplay videogame titled Wasteland, which was released in _1987_. That game was set in the Mojave and covered much of the AZ/NM/NV area. Much of the initial lore was based on 1950s SciFi movies like Them!, even though by 1987 the mutations depicted in those movies were pointedly impossible. (King Kong? Godzilla? Giant ants?) The idea was impractical but nonetheless FUN! to play with. Being a transformation from an Interplay concept to an improved gaming platform, it isn't at all surprising that Interplay carried over A LOT of their 1987 lore into the 1997 Fallout. Besides, one of the current day SciFi is embodied in TV shows like Walking Dead and movies like World War Z. Where's the realistic Science foundation for zombies? Science Fiction doesn't have to be Hard Science to qualify as SciFi. Quite often just being Science Make Believe is enough.

If you boil it down to "getting more bang for your buck", then by all means, buy it. (Especially now that the price has dropped to Bargain Bin level.) Make sure to buy the Season Pass as well! Most videogames boil down to $X/hour of gameplay. I guarantee that with FO4, even if you don't like everything that it contains, even if you Speed Run the game and ignore all the peripheral stuff, you WILL be looking at the minimum to be enjoying tens-of-hours/dollar spent. More than likely it will be hundreds-of-hours/dollar spent. That should be a GREAT DEAL in anyone's book.

I've heard some speculation that it may have been VAULT-TEC that caused the first button to be pushed. It stands to reason that after having gone to the bother of setting up @100 social experiments, The Powers That Be at Vault-Tec would have been getting anxious about whether that HUGE investment in resources wasn't about to be used any time soon. It is documented in several places that Vault-Tec had been running recurring drills for the imminent A-Day (Apocalypse Day) happening. And that the drills had started to come more frequently.... like someone at Vault-Tec knew something BAD was about to happen. There were literally tens of thousands of buttons scattered about the globe. (President's "football" or no.) All it would take is ONE of those buttons to be pushed, after which EVERYONE else sitting on a button would push theirs for fear that they might not launch in time before a nuke landed on them. All Vault-Tec had to do was manage to somehow control whoever had control of that ONE button.

Hmm. You just gave me a fascinating thought. Undoubtedly, there would be numerous countries/places where NO nukes impacted. Therefore, in those places, there would be negligible physical damage. HOWEVER, the entire world would have the impact of a TREMENDOUS amount of radioactive fallout, dispersed around the entire globe like a thick layer of pancake syrup, raining down on the planet for decades to come. And naturally that much fallout would practically annihilate the entire human race. Survivors (capable of passing on their genes, not having been sterilized by the sharp upsurge of background radiation), would be those relatively few people that had adequate shelter from the radioactivity. Now, what those places that did NOT have nuke strikes anywhere nearby would be missing are those pockets of intense radioactivity that became the primary reason many, many ghouls were created. So you would have places like Iceland, which most likely did not become a place where any nukes detonated. So practically everything would have remained intact... and no ghouls, feral or otherwise to contend with. What a great place to go scavenging! An entire little country with practically ALL pre-war stuff still intact! Heck, forget about scavenging. Just up and move there! That's a train of thought that I am sure occurred to many, many, many people living in the shattered ruins of the world's superpowers over the generations that came and went after the Great War. Now, what might those places be like in 2287?

Preservatives. Like how A 20-year-old Twinkie is just the same as one opened the day after it left the factory.

??? That a ridiculous assertion. Can YOU show any documentation (other than other broad-sweeping assertions made by others ) to support such a claim? EVERY time there has been a major ideological shift, there has been violent excesses. It can't be avoided. Those in power previously resist the change with everything they have, and the incoming Power does what is necessary to force its way in. HOWEVER, after the new Powers That Be have settled in and are confident that the recidivists can't reverse the situation to go back to The Way Things Were, then is when you can clearly see the true character of the new Powers That Be. This has been true after the American Revolution -- are you familiar with the Whiskey Rebellion and all the Troubles the new democracy was experiencing? -- and the French Revolution (which returned to a monarchy because of the excesses of the Republicans) and the Russian Revolution (which was followed by the Russian Civil War). As alternate examples, look at Tito in Yugoslavia, Castro in Cuba, and, yes, even the Red Chinese. [The Cultural Revolution was NOT directed towards The People in general, but rather represented a power struggle between the various Communist leaders. Looking at the Cultural Revolution objectively, it was Mao flexing his muscles to assure that the then-Powers That Be did NOT follow the example of Stalin. And as a result The People got a MUCH better deal than the Russian people did under Stalin. The Changes that occurred then has directly led to the China of Today being one of THE most powerful Economies in the world Today. (Red China is, in fact, the largest holder of US debt outside of the US. And in case you didn't notice, the US government exists because it is allowed to continue despite being $19 trillion in debt... with that debt increasing by hundreds of billions annually, with no end in sight where the trend reverses.)]

I pretty much always play a Nice Guy character. The raiders of Nuka World are universally about as far from "Nice Guy" as you can get. So every time I do a run-through of Nuka World, I planning to exterminate every last raider ASAP. (This last play-through, I wiped out the raiders before I even cleared out any of the other parks.) "I hate raiders. I kill them every chance I get."

If you are going to suggest that inhumanity is inherent to Communism, why not go all the way back to Karl Marx who inspired 20th century Communism? What in The Communist Manifesto mandates that the Communist leaders MUST be inhumane towards everyone that wasn't a Communist leader? The kinds of abuses that you described earlier have likewise occurred under other political systems as well. Yet, I don't hear you railing against them as well. I get the impression that you lived much of your life pressing up against Communism and have therefore equated all the evils you witnessed as being endemic to Communism itself. It's a very short step to arrive at Communism = EVIL, period. But a broader study of political systems across time and the world will reveal that those evils can be found wherever there are evil people in charge. Sometimes it doesn't even require them to be dyed-in-the-wool evil. (Just look at assassination by drone and warrantless incarcerations and renditions in the name of the War on Terror.) All it takes for evil deeds to be done is people in the right place at the right time willing to commit those Evil deeds... and Good people failing to do anything to halt the evil deeds. The context wherein those deeds occur can be most anything.

even in theory one must be colossal moron to call it fine, there is nothing remotely fine about it, it's an ideology that defies all logic back to the matter at hand do you know why red army actually fights to the death for their oppressors aka government? not because they're all indoctrinated, they're all batshit scared, if not for themselves it's for their family, would you obey if you were told to do as you are told to or your wife and 8 year old daughter shall die after days of rape and torture? that's communism in reality, you theorist As I said, except for the corruption of the leaders. Most governments are corrupt, to some extent. It's hard to avoid, since "Absolute Power corrupts absolutely". Further back in History, most monarchs kept their Head Torturer busy 24/7. Does that indicate that ALL monarchies are/were deplorable and inhumane? Even many democracies were beset with perverted and corrupt leaders. Should Democracy therefore be discarded? Authoritarian leadership comes in about as many "flavors" as there are people. Some good, some bad. Some even significantly worse than bad. You have cases like Pol Pot in Cambodia with mass graves all over. Idi Amin in Uganda doing much the same earlier (and probably inspiring Pol Pot). Hitler was inspired and encouraged to conduct the Holocaust because he saw what the Ottoman Turks got away with when they conducted the Armenian Genocide during WW1. On the other hand, you had Franco in Spain and in post-Spanish Civil War he managed to unify and improve Spain dramatically... despite the fact that he was a dictator. The same might be said for Tito in Yugoslavia -- and he was managing to unify ethnic groups that absolutely LOATHED each other (to the other people's deaths if they could get away with it). It just happened that in the Communist USSR and its satellites the Top Dogs were mostly absolute sociopaths that deemed other people's lives to be utterly expendable and unworthy of any humane treatment. Balancing them was Communist Yugoslavia (previously mentioned) and Communist Cuba. Despite whatever abuses happened when Cuba transited to Communism, Castro's rule was nowhere near as inhumane and decadent as the Baptista "democracy" that preceded it. Were there instances of inhumanity to found there? Undoubtedly. But show me the History of ANY nation where there was NEVER something just as bad happening at some time or another. Even in the ever-so-wonderful democratic USA, the leaders over more than a century deliberated and with malice aforethought worked to exterminate EVERY Native American tribe... and nearly succeeded. Governments, no matter the political theory being applied, are operated by human beings.... and human beings are susceptible to the lure of Greed and Power. And EVERY government can only be as good as the people running, no matter what political theory is applied. But then, that's just one moron's opinion. As for citizens in abject fear of those that rule them, check out this video at about 2:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgRyLz47liM

Actually, it seems to me that even in vanilla, you can get Nick to wear Power Armor and use other weapons. What you can NOT do is get him to ditch his trench coat for a better skin suit and layered armor.

Just a side note: The theory of Communism works just fine. It is, after all, essentially just "Share and share alike" mixed with "All for one and one for all!" Unfortunately, its Achilles heel is that if the people in charge are corrupt or become corrupted, the equitable distribution becomes not at all equitable, with the bulk of Wealth going to the people in charge. However, there ARE ways that The System could minimize the chances of that happening, especially in a high-tech society. [Hook the leader up to a polygraph and ask him, every day, "Have you served The People, honestly and with dedication to them every minute of the last 24 hours? Have you misdirected any resources to other than where they are most needed by The People?" Any indication that he's being not entirely honest leads to an intensive (and painful) investigation that may very well end at the end of a rope.] UNFORTUNATELY, it's kind of obvious the corrupt people were already in charge, and undoubtedly took measures to make sure they stayed in charge. A polygraph isn't reliable enough, but we are talking about a setting where you can do a brain scan on a cop and backup his entire mind. You could simply propose an actual mind reading machine. Maybe: they got one of these in the shelter to use it the workers, but at some point they rebelled, and made it so that the leaders are the ones who have to take the test. But, you don't really have to go that far, imo. In a small community, where everyone knows everyone else, it will most certainly "just work", without any actual leaders. Of course that won't be true communism, it would be just the way a small village works, but the people could believe that it's still communism. Also, some form of "communism" might work if you make it more democratic. That is: real elections, no authoritarian leaders. Fun fact: in russia, it wasn't democracy which was considered to be the evil thing from the west, it was capitalism. That means, you will probably be able to sell the idea of democracy to communists way easier than an average cold-war-era amercan might think. It's the whole capitalism and especially the private corporation thing which is fundamentally incompatible. But I can't tell if a system like this could actually work, that's pure speculation. I _did_ say "high-tech". 60 years from now (2077), we WILL more than likely have an infallible (or damn close to infallible) Truth detection system. [Which, more than likely, The Powers That Be will most likely use to root out anyone plotting to overthrow them.] Similarly, most all Communist countries DO have elections. They just limit choices to the one (Communist) Party. [but when you stop and think about it, isn't the USA just as bad? People are convinced that ONLY a Democrat or Republican can win -- and those Parties -- the leadership people thereof actually -- are the ones that decide just who can or can't be candidates for their Party. So even here in the USA, We The People really don't have total freedom of choice, other than choosing from those candidates that We are permitted to vote for. (The ones with an actual chance of winning that is.) And it's pretty obvious that BOTH Parties are in the pocket of Big Money.]

Just a side note: The theory of Communism works just fine. It is, after all, essentially just "Share and share alike" mixed with "All for one and one for all!" Unfortunately, its Achilles heel is that if the people in charge are corrupt or become corrupted, the equitable distribution becomes not at all equitable, with the bulk of Wealth going to the people in charge. However, there ARE ways that The System could minimize the chances of that happening, especially in a high-tech society. [Hook the leader up to a polygraph and ask him, every day, "Have you served The People, honestly and with dedication to them every minute of the last 24 hours? Have you misdirected any resources to other than where they are most needed by The People?" Any indication that he's being not entirely honest leads to an intensive (and painful) investigation that may very well end at the end of a rope.] UNFORTUNATELY, it's kind of obvious the corrupt people were already in charge, and undoubtedly took measures to make sure they stayed in charge.

Just where are you getting your numbers? 95% of the population would be ghoulified? In North America, by my guesstimate, only about 10-20% of the existing population has been ghoulified, and that is a constantly shrinking percentage. Have you factored in the aspect that GHOULS CAN'T REPRODUCE. (Same goes for Supermutants; they are made, not born, by converting an otherwise normal human being.) Ghouls are literally products of a very specific environment. And what few new ghouls that might be created represent a small percentage of normal humans that were subjected to the conversion process. For example, if 100 humans were subjected to the conversion process, MAYBE as many as 10-20 would successfully ghoulify AT MOST. Greater than 99% of 2287 humans are third, fourth, fifth, or more generations descendants from the Great War survivors. That means that from whatever humans survived the initial bombs, they represent a GROWING population. Conversely, since ghouls don't reproduce in the traditional manner, they represent a constantly SHRINKING population. As for the underwater premise, I don't see any reason why so much more of China would be submerged than how much of North America got flooded. We can surmise that despite climate change and rising oceans, in 2277 ocean levels were approximately the same as they were in 2077. The indicator of this is the Poseidon Energy oil drilling platform where the US Prez fled to just before the bombs fell. An oil drilling platform sits X feet above the normal water level, allowing for wave action to NOT wash over the platform, even in a hurricane. In 2277 that platform was still in use and presumably a safe height above the ocean. Ergo, ocean rise didn't amount to much over that 200 year span.

I think you are overlooking the Chinese leaders' mindset. For over a decade, they were locked in a war with the Americans TO THE DEATH. Going into their version of a Vault, they would be thinking of what Life would be like when they (or more likely, their descendants) came OUT of the Vault. The Chinese espionage network was so extensive, they MUST know that the Americans had over a hundred community-sized Vaults either already built, or under construction and probably soon completed. Now if YOU were a Chinese leader, how would the thought sit with you that when your Vault finally opened up to the Brave New World, it would be to the same world where there was >100 American Vaults opening up? [i believe it is a safe assumption that they would be unaware of the Vault-Tec social experiments.] Just to have a fighting chance at world domination post-Apocalypse, the Chinese leaders would most likely use their numerical superiority, greater manpower, more bodies to fill military uniforms, and extensive civilian production base to overwhelm those anticipated American survivors when the time came. And that would require LOTS of Vaults to accommodate all of <<those^^ people to restore "the Chinese Way of Life".

My Must-Have list: MacCready -- ONLY to get the Killshot perk Deacon -- His comments keep me laughing most of the time. Especially if you have a high CHA to break through the cocoon of lies he wraps himself in. (If he's saying anything 99% of the time, he's stretching the Truth to within a whisker of its breaking point.) Nick Valentine -- His assortment of comments frequently saying, "Right on!" ["Who do you think really won the war? Nobody I guess."]

If Communist China was indeed as American propaganda painted it, then there's waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy too many Chinese in both RL and FO pre-Apocalypse. A billion Chinese is about 600 million more "useless mouths to feed" -- and to keep control of! -- than what the Communist leadership would view as "optimal". Stalin orchestrated the Holodomor -- which was the deliberate starvation in the Ukraine -- specifically because he found the Ukrainians to be unruly. The closest thing that the Red Chinese did was the Great Leap Forward... which was a sincere effort to quickly industrialize and improve techniques in the agricultural sector. It's just unfortunate (for the roughly 50 million people that starved to death) that the Communist leaders were new to managing sooooooooooo many people and laying out effective policy. [Note: It is usually overlooked as to just how many Chinese most likely have died in the same time frame if Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China which had an ongoing policy of executing people by the thousands in case they might rebel.] Once the Communists had worked out most of the kinks, the most genocidal pogrom conducted by the Communists was the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which, though it was a MAJOR shakeup of the Chinese power hierarchy, was a tea party compared to Stalin's Holodomor. On topic: The major upshoot of all this is that unlike the Capitalist USA, Red China had literally hundreds of millions of cheap workers to build THOUSANDS of Vault-equivalents if the Chinese leadership deemed that it would be a Good Idea. [And given the penetration of the Chinese espionage network, learning that the USA was building over a hundred Vaults for what would be surmised as an effort to promote "the American Way of Life" post-Apocalypse, I can't see the Chinesse leaders NOT concluding that several hundred Vault-equivalents would be a Good Idea.] And as pointed out, it is unlikely that the Chinese leaders would essentially waste soooo many resources on social experiments that would produce who-knows-what kind of results (with a heavy probability of "not all that worthwhile").

However, you are thinking of the historical perspective in THIS Reality. In the FO timeline, Red China successfully invaded Alaska. And later still, just before nukes went off, Red China also successfully blanketed the continental USA with paratroopers whose descendants crop up all over North America.