#fallout 4 junk items

[secondhand-lions]

one thing i don't really like about fallout 4 (of which there are many, but specifically this time) is that you can't mark junk items as "please don't scrap this"

like sometimes i just want to keep a toothbrush + toothpaste + teddy bear + pack of cigarettes in my inventory for character reasons, but ALSO! you're telling me that a WAR VETRAN (and their partner) DON'T know the importance of dogtags? i would NOT fucking scrap those!! i'm trying to find someone who knows them and deliver the news!!

especially the bos ones, those should've had a thing like with the NCR tags in fnv where you can turn them in for a small reward + karma points

(karma points being "[companion] liked that" in most cases, but i can't honestly think of a "[companion] disliked that" example. possibly because it's common fucking decency, bethesda)

[gobald]

OKAY BUT SERIOUSLY THOUGH, WHY IS THERE SO MUCH RANDOM SHIT (Badum tchh) IN TOILETS IN FALLOUT 4?!

Like every other bathroom I go to in a building has SOMETHING shoved in one of the stalls.

It's almost always either drugs, or a gun, or some random junk item.

But its nearly EVERY building with a bathroom in the game?!?!

FOR REAL, It's like a suprise box, you never know what you gonna get, but get excited when seeing one. Like if there's a bathroom and there's nothing weird in it, I get disappointed XD The Holy Trinity of The Commonwealth: 1- Weird bathroom shit

2- Teddy in random situations

3- Gary

[spiribia]

Ada is genuinely a really cool fallout 4 companion, a robot you can modify with different interchangeable parts to suit your playstyle needs. it’s an interesting extension for a game that lets you customize the features of your weapons and armor and settlements to delve into companion territory with this philosophy and also you can make Ada an absolute terror beast on the battlefield. my only grievance with her is that some companions give you little gifts like stimpaks or food items from time to time when you speak with them, saying things like Here, you look like you could use a snack. Ada gives you a heap of junk items you can use for scrap and the time she did it to me she didn’t even have any dialogue. I tried to speak to her and she wordlessly unloaded a deflated kickball and several tin cans onto me

[matrim-cauthons-hat]

there's probably folks who've said it better than i, but it's kinda annoying in fallout 4 when companions will snark at you for picking up junk items. like, one of the primary mechanics of the game is base building, and to do that you need materials, which can mostly be found in junk items. like, bethesda made it that way. you need copper for sentry turrets? adhesive and aluminum for for that recon sight for your sniper? well the companion will be mean to you about it. surely they could have had companions make comments like "hey that's a good find" or "good parts if we strip that" or something instead, like some kind of positive reinforcement for trying to use the mechanics they build into the game and want you to make use of???????

[radrage]

I've been given express permission (thanks Kate) to rant on tumblr about fallout bc iIstagram is too straight and neurotypical for that. So, here's 5 Danse headcanons that I love dearly. 1. Hairy, hairy man. Big ol' bear man. Danse is covered in hair, especially his actual hair, which, combined with years of grime and oil, is so thick that you can barely get a brush through it. That being said, his beard took years to grow, and he has the worst case of babyface without it. 2. Loves being tall. Listen, Danse is a tall guy in my books. 6'4 MINIMUM. And in my mind, when someone asks him to reach something on a high shelf, or pin up something in a out-of-reach corner, he gets a little ego boost. While he prefers being in his Power Armor, I reckon when he's out of it, he's the tallest not just in his squad, but in the Brotherhood, and I reckon he takes pride in being the resident "can you get that for me?" guy.

3. He's a junkyard KING. Growing up in Rivet City, after making a living off of junk and random crap he's found across the wasteland, you'd expect him to know a little about scrapyards and the likes. With his background in junk and scrap, I also like to think he has a tendency to hoard items. Like, you'll be out on a mission and he'll pick up a hundred little items and refuse to sell them, because "What if they appreciate in value?"

4. He has a tattoo of Cutler's holotag on his shoulder. This ties in with another headcanon I have, where the BoS makes initiates get their holotags tattooed on them in case they lose the physical copy. I reckon Danse has Cutler's on his shoulder (That being where it was on Cutler) and his is on his wrist.

5. TERRIFIED. OF. BABIES. Coming from an autistic person (yes, this means I hc him as autistic) with a fear of children, I reckon Danse shares that fear. From his years of studying social cues and mimicking those around him, which were mostly adults, when he comes into contact with a child, Danse doesn't know how to interact with one. They're unpredictable at best, and at any given moment could do the most out-of-left-field crap imaginable. Since Danse works off of prediction, a child is his worst nightmare.

[finniestoncrane]

I'll let my date decide I'm 22 years old. Pan. Genderfluid. Short and fat. I'm canonically autistic and canonically have ADHD (I'm sorry I like referring to it w=as canon). You already know that though. You already are SO FUCKING AWARE of my obsession with old monster movies. I mean... I didn't go on an hour long tangent about movie titles ibn a game, and are therefore copywrite friendly, and what films they could be meant to be for no reason. And you are so incredibly aware of the research I did for Gen-1 and Gen-2 synths, and me picking apart Nick Valentine's voice lines to determine anatomy of gen-2 prototype synths. I believe I've also told you that I'm still considering being an auto-mechanic.

What you probably don't know though is that I took an engineering class in high school and I kicked ass in competitions. Like there was this hydraulic robot arm made of wood, syringes, and plastic tubes. Despite the fact that the tubes kept falling off the syringes, my team got like... 2nd place in my class and 4th place schoolwide. There was also a competition for making a boat out of just cardboard and duct tape. Not to brag but our boat could hold 3 people (when it was only required that 2 people go in the boat) and we got the second fasted time schoolwide. We didn't even have paddles technically, unlike some groups who made carboard paddles. We had just a thick pieces of cardboard covered entirely in duct tape. Literally was my favorite class. This wasn't my decision cuz it was a group project but still.

In video games I am a sort of item hoarder because I'm terrified I'll need something later and then I never need it later. Not me having an inventory full of Junk in Fallout 4.

You are also probably aware of my insistence that ghoul cum is radioactive and how the terminal on the Prydwen proves this. Which is good for me and my item hoarding tendencies because I have so much RadAway. Cuz we all know that I'm a ghoulfucker. Also a robotfucker but that's a different story that started with Transformers and got me into cars because I wanted a way to fuck Transformers in vehicle mode because I'm just horny like that (affectionate). A weird hobby I also have is miniatures. I wouldn't call it miniature painting just yet because I have done a whole lot of not painting. I have paint for sure. I seem to be refusing to pick a color scheme and sticking with it. I have not bought primer yet. I have so many miniatures. I am preparing to get more because there's one of Cooper Howard and John Hancock and Nick Valentine and Sturges. But Sturges is in a different box from Hancock and Nick, and then Cooper is in a different one from everyone else. And the box Sturges is in is REALLY hard to find. And the box Cooper is in isn't technically out yet. Like... I already have Toad and Magento from Marvel Crisis Protocol that are unpainted. And then I have a whole bunch of Seraphons in a box that I cannot for the life of me pick a paint scheme for. And I don't even know why I bought Necrons. I don't know how to even play Wasteland Warfare. Or Marvel Crisis Protocol. Or Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. Or Warhammer 40k. I just like the models. Hell, I don't even know how to play D&D and have no one who will play with me as of right now. But I have 2 D&D books (one is official, the other one isn't) and a Fallout TTRPG pdf file with rules for how to play. It's not technically official but I think the guy got permission to make it. It was free. I was considering making a campaign for that based on where I live but then I realized I'd have to build creatures from the ground up, and find a way to play test them when I literally don't personally know enough people who even really care about Fallout in general. Also the terrain makes it hard to slap a vault anywhere.

zim my tiny beloved, i already knew who i would pair you with, but if i'd had any doubts this message would have sealed your fate because you know who else would have infodumped before explaining anything about themselves...? 💚🩷 🔞minors dni🔞 send a request • masterlist • kofi link • tag: finnie2k (to follow or to block)

Kent Connolly is literally the autistic mascot. He's the cutest, silliest, sweetest little guy, so that already tells me you'd be perfect for one another.

I think one of the best things about Kent, and you, is your ability to retain soooooo many details. You're both so passionate about learning everything you can about specific subjects, and you're both determined enough to learn everything you can.

I can picture you both either braving it to go out to the library or saving up your caps to pay for a mostly intact book that will answer a niche question you both had about Grognak the Barbarian.

You're both so brave too, willing to go through a lot for the things you love and for your happiness.

If there's one ghoul who will understand the need, and the joy, of infodumping, it is Kent. He'd be such a sweet listener, he'd ask informed questions, he'd participate respectfully in whatever lecture you were giving, and he'd do it all with the sweetest smile. And when you were ready to listen to him, he'd have a very well-written little speech all prepared.

I can't think of a happier way to spend your time in the wasteland than by sharing your interests, learning about each other and their favourite things, or just engaging in some paralell play, the autistic national sport.

And I know he'd write extra episode of the Silver Shroud for you if you just desperately needed more of that particular hyperfixation.

I just think Kent would be the kind of guy who would be appropriately impressed and appreciative of how much you know about Captain Boomerang and his entire family history, and the only person who could maybe try and know more than you on that subject.

[pretentious-art-love]

Game Reviews #2 - Fallout 76

I love this game to death, and the truth is that while it is not a game without serious flaws, it is overhated by the majority of the player base or at least compared as not even as great as any of the previous entries, but the truth is that while you can compare previous Fallout games, this one give something rather unique in comparison, and while I like this game a lot, I am not a Fallout fan myself, and I would not recommend it to other Fallout fans who are looking for a comprehensive CRPG experience.

The game does offer three types of gameplay loops, each loop being different than the other and it is what has helped keep the game so fresh for me and allowing me to spend so many hours in it, Fallout 4 was designed to be as replayable as possible and this game takes things a little bit further.

The three game loops are:

World Exploration in a vast, huge and hand-crafted Open World like previous entries of Fallout, or Elder Scrolls games since Morrowind (do not confuse it with their previous RPG aspects).

Looter shooter events and sections as well as quests and combat focused gameplay, like Fallout 3, 4 or Borderlands.

Building and crafting in your own bases and without any instances required, you can build on the world itself, like Minecraft, but its building system can be compared more with games like No Mans Sky or The Sims where you are limited to a certain amount of assets.

If you want me to rate each type of gameplay, they would go as this, 8/10 to 1, 6/10 to 2, and 5/10, respectively. My overall rating though, does not add up an average for these qualification, but it represents my emotional connection to the game and how it comes together with the sum of its parts.

There are also several aspects that affect and influence severely these gameplay loops, the main two being

Use of RPG stats to build a character that is better a certain type of combats than others, being faithful to the Action RPG label (Not the CRPG or Western RPG label).

The use of online gameplay. Most quests can be played solo, but every public event will require the participation of several groups of people, like in MMOs, people can visit your camp in the wilderness as well, whether is casually or teleporting there.

I will describe the two gameplay loops that I like less but I still enjoy quickly, and go a bit deeper into my favorite type of gameplay at the end.

First is the looter shooter aspect and the public events. Every 20 minutes a public event will pop up in every player’s screen and anybody can participate, the events range from taking some brahmin to their farms, to collect radiated ore and destroy ghouls and shoot a wendigo colossus monster for around 20 minutes while you get attacked by other creatures in the deep parts of a cave and your character can end up running away from the fear.

The enemies drop loot that varies from junk to build in your camp, to aid items and legendary and rare weapons, as well getting something as a reward for being in the event at all. Legendary weapons can be exchanged into a currency, scrip, to get legendary modules and upgrade your own weapons with effects that you get through RNG like 40% Power Damage or 250+ Damage Resist while reloading, so on and so forth. In this sense I would recommend Fallout 76 as your grind game. The events can be really fun, and can get very intense at times, my favorites being Radiation Rumble and my Test your Metal, but if you keep playing after 100 levels or so the loop becomes repetitive. You cannot pick a specific upgrade for your weapon, you have to collect the currency, either by exchanging the weapons you got on events, or getting seasonal rewards, and use that currency to get modules to roll upgrades for your weapons, every weapon gets 3 effects, getting one effect you want a lot is rare, so to get all 3 affects you want is going to take a long while. There are a lot of rare weapons you will need to pay a lot of caps for or other rare currencies the game introduces, like stamps or gold bullion. I feel this is designed to encourage you play the events over and over and make the game replayable, but if you aren’t into such mentality and want to avoid grind, you might not have a good time after a while. You can minimize the defects and maximize the strengths of your character, but a weapon with the right level and stats can be a long way in efficiency.

The second gameplay loop is the building and crafting part of the game. In this sense, the game excels itself allowing you to build anywhere you want as long it is not close to an already built location, like a place with a quest, a player can go wandering around through the world and simply find your house, which makes building a lot more worthwhile. This is where all the looting for junk comes place since you will use all the resources you find to build your own house and you can unlock a lot of plans to find something that you might like. You can farm and craft resources such as adhesive using vegetable starch, it takes a lot of time but you will find more joy in the craft if you are into building. There is a limit as how much you can build to avoid lag, but you can also build a shelter to build there as well, the difference is that shelters are instanced, and you will need to go through a loading screen to enter to them, which makes them less appealing.

You can also sell items at your camp, from aid items, to junk and even weapons and plans, which are the most purchased items between players. If you get a plan you already knew in a quest, you can sell it to someone else and get caps for it. Some players have reported getting so many caps that they don’t know what to do with them, but from my side I always run out when I buy a resource I can’t find in the map at the mall.

If this game was as great as it was in this sense, I would have rated it higher than the looter shooter section of the game, but the truth is that it gets a 5/10 from me because most of the crafting section of this game is hidden behind a paywall. If you want more than two camp slots, you will have to buy atoms for them. If you see a specific construction set you like, like an organ, haunted house walls, a well, certain type of stairs, if you want a bigger shelter, you will have to pay for it, no way around it, you will be subjected by what you find on the game and what it is on the shop, which makes construction discouraging in a certain sense, and even more when the building system is not as robust as with other games, you can’t make a diagonal wall or build a circle, unless using some very well practiced exploits.

As a side note, there are utility items that you can also buy with microtransactions, like repair kits or experience boosts lunchboxes that last for an hour, which do fall in the category of pay to win, but you can absolutely do without those in the game, and I can say that while I have spent a lot of money on the game, I can calmly say I never paid for any paid to win items at all, and I never needed them.

Now, what I like most of the game is its world. The first game-play loop I mentioned and the third one we are going to discuss. The truth is that most Fallout world building ends up really depressing for me considering all the post-apocalyptic nature of it, but this game is slightly different in its presentation.

I found previous Fallout worlds not that visually appealing, but Fallout 76 has a beautiful map composed of green areas, foggy swamps, radioactive red plain areas, several trainyards, ghost towns, castles, white valleys that look like snow, and zones covered in ash where everything is dark and brown, it is a beautiful world, and it is fantastic to explore it and sight see.

While I understand the point of the public in saying not having NPCs simply didn’t allow for any illusions for roleplay with the story itself, I have to disagree that it made the game boring. I like the idea of surviving on your own, and the environmental storytelling is incrediblyy rewarding. People will call Fallout 76 creatively bankrupt but will never get the chance to learn about all the characters hidden in the terminals and holotapes of this world. There is Lewis, the mad scientist that loved Nuka Cola and created a nuclear alcoholic beverage to continue with his obsession to get Nuka Cola merchandise. There is Shannon Rivers, the former voice actress of a comic character that formed a sisterhood with abandoned girls to fight against the raiders, there is Lucy, the ghoul that was killed by her husband when ghouls just had started to appear and people were still afraid of them, there is Jesus Sunday, who couldn’t deal with the fact that his brother was in love with a woman, and there is Cheryl, who had to escape from the bunker of her husband as he lost his sanity. I can draw a direct comparison with Bioshock, Portal 2 or The Phantom Pain, games that also uses a character that can be heard only through prerecorded audio, and the difference in reception is abysmal. In Fallout 76 you have a world for yourself, and you have to explore to find the tapes and every story, but that's what makes everything rewarding, it is an open world game, and every moment you find is a treasure.

There are just an endless number of wonderful stories you find in the world and make you feel so many things, you feel sadness, because all of the people you are listening to are dead, but you feel at least some happiness, for being at least for a moment in a part of their lives, you feel their pain, and you feel what they had to go through when the world ended in a nuclear apocalypse, it hurts, but it inspires you to survive. There is a beautiful quest where you get a list of places an old grandad wanted to visit for his daughter in her honor, and you find the list on his corpse. You can build a camera and take a photo of every place they wanted to visit. It is really beautiful and soothing in a way.

Traveling is not as impressive, since you depend on fast travel which is not only immersion breaking but also very monotone, walking through the wasteland is not as interesting as using a hookshot in Just Cause 2 and 3, or take a silt strider in Morrowind, but you can get a jetpack which allows you to climb and glide and makes the world exploring a lot more fun, you will still depend of fast travel when you are going to an event or going to an incredibly long distance, but exploring by yourself is still very enjoyable.

Wastelanders and subsequent updates added human NPCs which were the answer to a popular criticism with the game, and while I feel these changes and updates break the world building and atmosphere of the game a little bit, I do not hate them, because you can also find interesting characters in them. There is Lou, the ghoul that keeps trying to kill himself because he is afraid to go feral, there is Polly, the friendly Assaultron that you have to rescue and get a body for, and that might be in a relationship with her human male friend, a character that did speak to me a lot, and there is Sofia, the astronaut that fell from deep sleep before the war and you have to help with. These human NPC quests do have a single purpose though, and is that they are mostly used to create enemies to kill and loot to get, so you will find them limited in a way, but they do serve the purpose of giving the players that like human interaction something to experience the quest with.

After level 25 you can change your special points as you please and reorganize any perks you have picked with, this comes with the side effect of making spell checks useless since you can just leave the interaction and get the points you need to pass a check, but it helps you get a better combat build, you can get a perk card every level, so even if you are at level 500, you will still have a reason to level up so you can get more perks for different builds, or scrap them to rank up your legendary perk cards.

In a way, I do not care about the side effect of making spell check useless, since while I consider the environmental story telling very rewarding, a lot of NPC quest stories are not very good or noteworthy, they tend to me more kitsch in this sense, and long time Fallout fans will only enjoy them in an ironic/self parodying type of way, and either way, it does not focus in the appeal of choice in storytelling, and it is absolutely not a classic Western RPG or CRPG.

I can't blame Fallout 76 for not being like Fallout 1 or 2, after change in several development teams, change in companies, change in gameplay, change in ownership, and 20 years of time. Franchises change just like people do, and a name is just a name, Fallout 76 might not be the Fallout game you are looking for, but it is a good game in its own way.

There is also the seasonal content, like any other multiplayer game, there are updates every certain time, like you can see with the scoreboard of each season, you can complete challenges every day and every week and that will give you a score that will unlock limited and rare items. While it does suck that you cannot get items from previous seasons on your own and that you have to grind experience leveling up to finish it, or at least play every single day to get enough points, it is a great excuse if you want to make of this your grind game, you can learn to maximize as much as possible your build to get that rare item that you want, or you can simply play the story on your own, and let it be after that since the world on itself is fantastic and the soundtrack is sad and cathartic on its own. I do think that since we are doing this with friends, the grind is fun and rewarding.

I heard people don't usually rate live service games properly, and that is also the case here. Massive multiplayer games are often akin to a social experience or a competition and putting them through the same lens as single player games or standalone art pieces is non necessarily appropriate. We as players are part of the content, the people you meet and the players you interact with are part of the content. Sure, you will not find a deep socialization experience, that is for sure, but I do like the simplicity of the interactions when you play in games. It's like making friends like back when we were kids, "You like trains? I also like trains! Let's play together!" or in this case it's like "You like melee combat? Nice me too! Here is a cool gaunlet I found! Wanna do an expedition together? Wanna do Earl? Here is a heavy gun with heavy DPS that will help him melt in no time!" Yes, with small silly pastimes like that, when you stop doing missions, when you stop playing together at school, you will end up stop talking with a lot of people, but from all of those people you can end up finding a few you stay in contact with, you will even find someone that can turn into your friend, that's the kind of simple things where socialization just happen can give to you. In the game you can go together in missions like daily operations or expeditions and having people to do it together gives the chance of make it differently every time, say something different every time or mess around in a new way in every new iteration, and that's what makes the grinding work. In this community interactions are usually positive, there is no lack of negative experiences, but you will always find that person with so many items that will give you a super rare plan you didn’t have, or you will have a reason to pick up and do a new mission so you can continue over and over, this is a give it or take it thing, love it, or hate it.

I would recommend it to play it sooner rather than later, though. Updates also seem to be slow lately with us getting very little new content, probably with the company focusing manpower on Starfield or slowly moving on from the game at all, which makes me a little sad, but with multiplayer games it is hard to determine what is really the cost of keeping servers alive.

What I like about Fallout 76 is the sum of its parts, while the world building was taken over by the human NPCs, the looter shooter has to be taken with a grindy mindset, and the building and crafting is behind paywalls, you will still find new things to do and you can change the activity that you are realizing if you get bored, if you don’t want to do events, you can go explore, if you don’t want to explore, you can build a new shelter or base. If I want fast gameplay I can do fast gameplay, if I want to slow down, I can slow down, and this is all contained in one beautiful world full of eye candy and it is not a lonely experience, it has that kind of endless content I want the most: people. Overall, it just hits a lot of the itches I look in games, but it is not just that, but it is also the fact that it is online.

At first I was dubious about online games, but this game has won me over and I wish a lot more games did this with their campaigns, the ability to play alone if you want, to let you do your own thing, but still being multiplayer enough that you can casually meet others whereas is in the wasteland or in an event, I have had beautiful interactions with others, people that have giving me aid, people we keep killing each other with because is fun, someone who gifted me a Halloween Witch Costume when they saw my Haunted House camp, people getting dizzy at seeing my camp at the top of a monorail wagon, it adds the best elements of casual building gameplay in games like Animal Crossing or Minecraft, but now you can meet each other casually in the game itself, how beautiful is that? Not to mention the world is not cartoonified or simplified in its graphics to make construction more doable or save resources in a portable console. How beautiful would it be if you could meet with others while doing your own quest in other games? There are MMOs, sure, but having 24 people at most in a server, means it is a lot more possible someone will find you and see your camp, and the world is not split in sections you have to go around, it is all one big world you can travel on your own, and that is beautiful. There aren't any games like Fallout 76 anywhere, even when so many companies keep pushing live service games, I feel the only one that has had a chance to gain me over, is Fallout 76, allowing me to speed up and down the gameplay as much as I want, and immersing me the most in a new world I am thrilled to explore, that is why right now I want to give it 5 stars. F76 in a way, its unique, it will give you a pure single player experience with the change of meeting with others, but still not forcing you to, it is the heaven for introverted people that want to make friends in a subtle way! No need to ask someone to add you and start co op the two of you together, alone, without knowing each other. The fact that there is only voice live is an obstacle the game has but it is well complemented with the fan and official discords when looking for groups. Not to mention that this game is really overstimulating with every activity and event and that is really appealing to someone with such attention span like mine. I feel overcharged and I feel great. It is casual, over stimulating, beautiful to explore, it is funny, and it is single player but just multiplayer enough, this game is my jam, it is my heaven and safe space.

The community is really nice, and I can say that of every bad interaction I have had, I have had at least 9 great interactions with others, I love this game because aside of being very over stimulating and massive, it is a perfect casual game to make friends with, there are no leaderboards when events end, you did what you could, and you had fun, and while I know that AI generated content will change how we look this type of endless content genre of games in the future, this game as 2023 absolutely succeeded in being that massive, seemingly endless game I could sink myself in, and escape from the world, without being entirely alone. With Fallout 76 I can submerge myself in the feeling of having experienced the world end, but still finding something beautiful to go on, and a reason to live.

I want to end quoting the holotape of Miguel Caldera, one of the survivor stories that you can find in the Flatwoods.

“Even when you think everything is over… it's… it's not. It goes on. I mean it's awful too, don't get me wrong. All the people dead and hurt. But, well, those are things beyond my control, so I'm making the best of it. So, for all you future people… just know that we lived through something… horrible. But we did it. Somehow, we're alive… And if you're hearing this, then well… I guess at least some of us made it. Right? So hey, chin up, kiddo! You'll be okay. Okay?”

9/10

I'm not playing again until they let me buy The Hills Are Alive, though.

[nerdygoth77]

Hi I have come to request to collect some drabbles or headcannons on your fave fallout character reuniting with the main character? It can be your fallout OC with your romance companion or whoever you'd like! tia❤

My first request!! Thank you so much for your ask! :)

I decided to do my Fallout 4 Nuka World Overboss OC, Lilly! Paired with my favorite, Porter Gage. I did a short drabble!

Reunited

Read on AO3 here! https://archiveofourown.org/works/49325812/chapters/147352036

or just read below!

It had been two weeks and three days since Gage had last seen Lilly, and he was more than anxious for her return. He and Lilly had left on a bit of a rough note, all because Gage didn’t want Lilly to go out on her own. 

 She had been preparing for this little trip to the Commonwealth for a while now, explaining carefully that he couldn’t come, it was something that she had to handle alone. He had gotten agitated at being told to stay behind. He and Lilly had hardly been separated since she became overboss about ten months ago. She could handle herself well, but his nerves still spiked at the thought of her out there alone. They had argued about it, Lilly trying to convince Gage by telling him that Dogmeat would keep her safe. Her attempt at calming his nerves only made Gage more irate. Gage knew Dogmeat was a protective and vicious companion, but he wasn’t invincible. 

But she won anyway. Gage was left standing at the gate of Nukaworld, fuming as he watched Lilly ride off into the wasteland on her favorite horse, that dog of hers hot on their heels. Gage’s lips still tingled from her goodbye kiss, the taste of her lipstick sweet on his lips. His heart strained as he watched her, the sun just barely peeking over the Appalchian mountains. Then she was gone, slipping into the darkness of the shadows. Porter heaved a sigh before making his way back to Fizztop.

Now Porter Gage sat inside the old Fizztop Grille restaurant that he and Lilly had turned into a nice home. They had dragged out most of the tables and chairs, only leaving a few alongside the work benches. Their bed was up on a small platform, right next to an armor workbench and power armor station that was holding the Nuka T-51 power armor. It was purely for decoration and for holding Lilly’s magnet collection, Lilly and Gage both not fans of the clunky suit. Power armor always made Gage sweat and feel claustrophobic, and Lilly hated it because her agility in the suit was awful. 

The old restaurant had really become a home, even the mutt had his own corner with a soft fluffy bed and plenty of chew toys. Lilly had decorated the walls with everything from old paintings to animal skulls, a few even human. They had removed all of Colter’s “decorations” and cleaned up the place real nice. 

They had more storage than they knew what to do with, trunks, boxes, and dressers full of items scattered around the room. Most boxes were full of scrap or junk waiting to become scrap. Gage and Lilly went through a lot of scrap, using it to constantly repair their armor and weapons. 

Soft colorful rugs scattered the room. Lilly had learned pretty quickly that the floor got freezing cold in the wintertime, and that the rugs saved them from cold feet on chilly mornings. Gage thought they looked silly and frilly, but he wouldn’t dare complain to his peculiar pre-war love. A massive quilt that Lilly had made herself covered the large bed. They even had comfy pillows. Lilly really enjoyed creature comforts like softness when she could have it, not that Gage was complaining about the soft blankets or running water. He hadn’t lived this well in his whole life, and he had a beautiful woman to share it with. 

The old kitchen had been cleaned up and was a kitchen again, the fridge laying face down in the middle of the floor with the back panel ripped off. Getting the old fridge to work, along with some other appliances was on Gage’s extremely long list of shit to fix. 

Gage sat at one of his work benches, his attention entirely focused on the baseball bat in front of him. He was trying to turn one of Lilly’s many colorful “killing bats” into a spiked rocket bat. Getting the nails in had been the easy part, the rocket mechanism giving Gage a little trouble. 

The radio was playing loudly, redeye rambling about who gives a fuck. Gage just had it on for the noise, the sound and tinkering keeping him busy and from stressing over Lilly. Redeye was loud, but not loud enough for Gage to not hear the patio door open quietly and shut softly. Gage pretended like he didn’t hear a thing, waiting for the footsteps to get closer. He dropped his hands from his tools to under the table, his hand finding one of the half dozen guns that were duct taped to the underside of the table. 

Suddenly a familiar wet nose nudged at his hand, Gage looking down to see a very happy Dogmeat. He let out a sigh of relief and removed his hand from the gun, patting Dogmeat on the head. The mutt was wagging his tail so hard his body wiggled, Lucy giggling from behind Gage at the dog. “Someone missed you.” She cooed, laughing as the dog picked up his front feet repeatedly in excitement, looking like he was doing a little dance. 

Gage rubbed the dog behind his ears before he stood up and turned to look at Lilly. “You made it back!” He spoke, his eyes roving over her fit form to see she looked a little worse for wear. She looked exhausted, her bright pink hair and freckled skin filthy with the dirt and grime of the wasteland. Her dark eye makeup was smeared and running down her face, her red lipstick long gone. The bags under her eyes were large, exhaustion pulling at Lilly’s sore muscles, causing her perfect posture to falter as she slouched her shoulders under the heavy weight of tiredness. The bounty hunter duster and road leathers she wore were a bit tattered, but otherwise she seemed to be in one piece. 

“I told you he’d protect me.” She grinned, approaching Gage with open arms. “Yeah yeah yeah.” Gage grumbled, giving the dog one last pat before pulling Lilly into a tight hug. Her exhausted body relaxed against his warmth, his large chest a great pillow for her head. He rested his chin atop her head, his hands gently rubbing her back. He breathed her in, that sweet smell of her usual perfumes and scents slightly masked by the smell of the wasteland. She reeked like radiation and sweat, that metal smell lingering on her clothes 

They just stood there for a moment, holding one another. All of the stress disappeared from Gage now that she was back in his arms. Sometimes he’d get into his head about her; sometimes he felt that she was way too good for him and that one day she’d get the sense to leave him. But here she was, back in his arms. 

When she looked up, Gage ran his thumb along her bottom lip, feeling the large cut that swiped down her lip to her chin. When she flinched away he moved his hand to cup her face, “What mess did you get yourself into darlin’?” He frowned. Lilly just shrugged one of her shoulders and leaned into his touch, “Nothing Dogmeat and I couldn’t handle.” The weak smile she gave him said otherwise. Gage rolled his eyes at her, his thumb wiping a smear of dirt from her cheek. He could tell Lilly was exhausted and bruised up, and in desperate need of a bath and a good night's sleep. 

Gage pulled her into a soft kiss lingering kiss, pulling away when Lilly tried to take it a step forward. “As much as I’ve missed you baby,”  He drawled, grabbing Lilly’s hand, “I can tell you need a rest.” Lilly let out a sigh but nodded in agreement, “Yeah I do. That and a shower. I’m gross.”

He gave her hand a gentle tug, a smirk on his face. “Yeah you are, you stink.” He faked disgust, Lilly huffing and shoving at his shoulder. Lilly rolled her eyes when the solid wall of muscle didn’t budge, “No worse than you.” He mocked her dramatic eye roll and pulled her towards the bathroom. “Then c’mon.” 

Lilly let out a bemused huff and followed Gage to their bathroom, allowing him to take care of her.

Find more of Lilly and Gage on my blog and AO3

[druidgroves]

Chapter 12: Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall

Fandom: Fallout 4 Words: 9,327 Characters: Georgia Tate (Canon Divergent Sole Survivor), RJ MacCready, Piper Wright, Nick Valentine Notes: warnings for self-harm, but otherwise enjoy ! also go check out the rewritten chapter one if you haven't already! read on ao3 / read on tumblr

The days spent in the house by the river went by relatively quickly. Far too quickly for Mac’s liking, who for once was in favor of sticking to one spot for more than a day. Having a breather between taking down the Gunners and whatever came next was a blessing as far as he was concerned. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still bored, however.

Georgia seemed to pick up on his antsy energy pretty fast. With no injuries preventing bodily-movement, Mac was able to futz around the house as he pleased. Mostly, he paced in front of the broken windows, half reading a comic and half looking out at the water. It wasn’t long before his back and forth in her peripheral made Georgia delegate a task to him. When they arrived, the group had done a preliminary sweep upon arrival, clearing out the radroaches in the process, but had neglected to do a real sweep.

“If you pick over this place good enough,” she said, nodding towards the rest of the house, “my treat at Power Noodles when we’re back in the city.”

Mac perked up at something to do. “What do you want me to look for? Probably not anything good.”

Georgia gave him a doubtful look over her glasses, “You know what I like.”

Thinking of all the junk in her backpack (bar the rings he still pretended he knew nothing about), Mac knew he did. He channeled her energy during his search, and within an hour, he had every leftover knick-knack, lamp, and alarm clock from every room in the house laid out on the kitchen counter. He’d even found a few bottle caps that he pocketed cheerily. Once he was done, he not so subtly got the attention of Georgia, who had been quietly observing his comings and goings over the pages of her book.

Turning down the corner of the page, Georgia sat it on the couch next to her and peeked over the cushions. Her eyes scanned over the spread and she gestured for him to continue with a nod of her head.

Mac cleared his throat and got right into it.

“Three table lamps, with one intact lightbulb, six screws, and usable wiring,” he began, gesturing to the items as he went. “Two alarm clocks with complete circuitry and wiring—I had to bust ‘em open to check. One phone with four screws on the bottom that I could count, plus whatever’s inside. I found a camera in the hall closet with a cracked lens, but I shook it around and nothing inside sounded loose, so that’s good, right? Then I saw a mini toolbox in there I thought you’d be interested in, too. Oh, and another fan.” He paused for a moment then turned back to her. “How’d I do?”

“Not too shabby,” Georgia said with a grin. “Help me strip it all down, and I’ll even buy you a beer at the Dugout.”

“Sounds like a deal to me.”

Picking junk apart down to its base components had only occupied him for so long. Stripping metal and wires wasn’t exactly quiet work either, meaning that once they were ready to bed down and it was his turn to be on night watch, it had to be put away. Naturally, idle hands and minds were prone to wandering. On the table across from Georgia’s sleeping form on the couch, was a stack of books prime for picking through.

After the first couple pages, The War of the Worlds had been the only thing keeping Mac from falling asleep during watch out of pure fear (aliens, man). Of course, Mac would never tell her that, not in a million years. After he had read the chapter describing the extraterrestrial creature emerging from its silver tube, Mac knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that he’d actually sleep. That kind of thing had always freaked him out, and the book had only cemented that fear further into his psyche. Besides, just the two of them, out there by the river, alone where anything could snatch them up if it so chose...

But Mac had more tangible things to worry about than aliens. Didn’t stop him from staying up the rest of that night, though. Since they had nothing but time, he planned to take a couple of cat naps throughout the day to catch up on sleep, but upon noticing her stack different from how she left it, Georgia seemingly couldn’t help but pester him about it.

“I didn’t know if you were a science fiction type of guy,” she said, holding up the book, “I figured your super heroes were more your speed.”

“What can I say, I’m a complex person.”

She snorted. “So what’d you think about it? Did it leave you with anything?”

Mac raised a brow. “Huh? What do you mean?”

“Y’know,” she said, trying to find the words. “Themes, messages, commentary. Personally, I think there’s somethin’ to be said about the theme of invasion and how it can be applied to critiques the old world, though I guess hindsight gives me the ability to recognize that more than most.”

“Hindsight?” he asked, then snorted. “What, you some sort of time traveler?”

“You can travel through time with a good book is what I meant,” she replied quickly, seemingly distracted by a hangnail. “Read a lot of…first hand accounts about life before, is all.”

Boring, he refrained from saying out loud. The old world was the old world for a reason; he didn’t see the point in even thinking about it too much. It was all bombs and ghost stories now as far as he was concerned.

“Anyways,” she continued, turning the conversation back to him, “did you have any thoughts at all? The War of the Worlds is a classic. Apparently.”

Mac blanched. He hadn’t gotten past chapter six.

“It, uh…It was good,” he started, awkward and sweating under her attentive look. “Had a lot of interesting themes, but uh…I don’t think aliens are for me.”

Georgia had almost looked a little disappointed, but then waved it away as she said, “Ah, don’t worry about it, we’ll find you a book you like yet. To tell you the truth, I tend to be more of a romance kinda gal myself, but I figure it’s good to branch out into other genres to keep yourself well rounded, know what I mean?”

“Yeah, sure,” he’d agreed, if “well rounded” meant reading both Grognak and The Unstoppables. He hadn’t been much of a book guy since leaving Little Lamplight, where attempted performances of old world plays had been one of the many ways to keep themselves entertained whenever the holotape player broke for the thousandth time.

On the fourth day, they decided to move out, but only after Georgia swore up and down that her foot was fine and Mac’s own battle scars had healed enough. With generous stimpak applications for each of them courtesy of the Gunners’ loot, they were back in fighting shape again.

“I’m serious. If you fu—mess it up again,” Mac warned her once more before they left, “you’re on your own.”

“Somehow, I doubt that’s true.” He replied with a heavy roll of his eyes, making her laugh.

“Yeah, well, I’d make you work for it first. Maybe press you for that extra medic pay, huh?”

“What, is my friendship not payment enough?”

Mac laughed, then paused for a moment, thoughts turning to their contract and where it hung in the area between employment and friendship.

“Are you even still paying me technically?” he asked suddenly. He almost felt bad about asking, but not bad enough to not ask. “I mean, I know we’re friends now, but uh, a guy’s gotta get by, you know?”

“You’ll still get your fair share, that much hasn’t changed,” she assured him, “but I guess it’s more equal. It’s like we’re...partners, now, instead of a boss and an employee.”

Partners.

For days, Mac had been trying to put the discovery of the wedding rings in her pack out of his mind, but now she had brought it all back to the forefront. Before him, before Piper, before Preston, did she have a partner? Someone who watched her back and kept her alive for more do-gooder shit? Someone who could have worn one of those rings, having or holding depending on which golden band belonged to them? Who were they, and why, Mac suddenly found himself asking, did he care so much?

He spared a glance at Georgia’s hands. Her fingers were short but thin, with surprisingly well-trimmed nails that were currently tapping an anxious rhythm against her thigh, waiting for his response.

“Partners,” he repeated, nearly choking on the word. He cleared his throat and looked back up at her face. “I can work with that.”

She smiled, her nervous tapping subsiding as she reached for her pack, “Well then, partner, let’s get a move on. Diamond City awaits.”

-----

By the time the walls of the Great Green Jewel came into view, the sky was starting to fade from a dusky orange to a deep blue, with black encroaching on the horizon. It had been a quicker journey with just two people, but the closer they got to the city proper, the more Georgia appeared like she was walking to her tomb.

She still hadn’t told him what her business was with Valentine, even over the four days they’d spent cooped up by the river. He hadn’t bothered to press her for anything either, especially with the thought of the rings sitting heavy on his conscience. Mac couldn’t help but wonder what she planned to do once they got into Diamond City, how long they’d stay, what they’d do afterwards. Whatever she did, Mac just hoped her plan included having him there beside her once it was done.

Georgia nodded a greeting to every wandering guard patrol the closer they got, and to Mac’s surprise, the guards nodded back. When they came upon the outside walls of the city, though, she stopped at an aged statue of some old world swatter player and considered the gate, which was decidedly closed.

“Somethin’ must have happened for them to be closin’ the gate this early,” she muttered, shouldering off her pack to dig out her Pip-Boy from inside. The screen flashed on after a handful of seconds, illuminating them both in blinding green. “It’s not even seven o’clock. I mean, I know it gets dark early this time of year, but the market shouldn’t even be closed yet. What gives?”

“Well, whatever’s going on, we’re stuck out here until they open,” Mac shrugged, leaning against the base of the statue. “Wouldn’t recommend it, but if we were sneaky about it, Goodneighbor isn’t that much further. We could hit up the Rexford for the night, come back in the morning.”

Georgia shook her head, rolling up her jacket sleeve and slapping her Pip-Boy over the cuff of her shirt, “Uh-uh, not tonight. I told Piper and Mr. Valentine I’d be back in a month and we’re already a few days late—you know how I like to be punctual.”

“Then what do you suggest we do? Ring the doorbell and hope they let us in?” Mac quipped, crossing his arms. A look fell over Georgia like she was seriously considering the idea.

“Oh, come on.”

Georgia yanked her backpack onto her shoulders again and walked up to the speaker box outside the gate with purpose. “Just watch,” she said as they approached. Mac complied and watched as she stood up straight and pushed her shoulders back, even smoothing down the flyaway strands in her hair before taking a breath and pressing the button to speak. Oh, he thought as the speaker crackled to life, this should be good.

There was a gruff voice on the other side that said, “City’s closed. Come back in the morning.”

“And good evenin’ to the night shift,” Georgia replied with an eighteen karat grin even though the guard on the other side couldn’t see it. Her accent came out long and put upon, thicker than yao guai hide. “Is there a Mister Danny Sullivan on duty tonight? I come bearin’ gifts.”

Mac balked at Georgia, eyebrows raised and wondering where the hell all…that had come from. What was she playing at?

“Unless you’re a trader, gate don’t open until six tomorrow, sweetheart—” the voice began, but it was abruptly cut off by another.

“Don’t you worry about him. I’ll get that gate open for you in just a second, Miss Georgia,” the second voice said, sounding pleased as punch with themselves.

“Thanks, Danny, you’re a doll. See you in a bit,” Georgia replied, and did Mac just see her wink? He breathed a laugh through his nose, shaking his head in disbelief. Maybe those rings weren’t the bomb he thought they were. After that, the speakers crackled once more before going silent.

The act fell from Georgia’s face as she turned to him, a singular, scarred eyebrow lifting over her glasses, “What?”

“‘Thanks, Danny, you’re a doll,’” Mac repeated, mimicking her tone and batting his eyelashes before laughing outright, “What the heck was that?”

The gate began to creak open and Georgia pursed her lips at him, “Oh, hush up, it’s not like that. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Besides, I didn’t wanna be stuck outside all night, did you?”

“Hey, I grew up in a cave, I’ve roughed it plenty of times. You’d have nothing to worry about, though. I’m sure ol’ Danny boy would make sure of that,” he smirked with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows. A flush spread over her face, betraying the narrowed look she gave him under the security spotlights.

“Don’t say anythin’ when we go in or I swear, MacCready—”

“Hey, hey, ease up. You got us in, I’ll give you that, so go grease those wheels,” he conceded, holding up his hands, “I’m sure Mister Danny Sullivan is waiting on—”

“I will make him leave you outside!” Georgia hissed, but he just laughed and ducked her hand when she tried to swipe at him. The gate had stopped halfway and she gave him a pointed look before she ducked under. “Not a word. I’m serious, Mac.”

“Not a peep outta me, Boss.” Despite his shit-eating grin, he mimicked zipping his lips and throwing away the key.

“You little—Danny! You didn’t have to meet us at the gate, you know you were my first stop—”

Mac did his best to school the look on his face before he ducked under, biting down on the side of his tongue to keep his mouth from moving an inch. He popped up behind Georgia to see a man a little taller than she was, with ginger hair and a boyish look to him, but he couldn’t have been that much older than either of them. Either way, nothing about the man said it was any bother for him to make his way over to her.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Miss Georgia, I’m glad to see you back.” He gave a sideways glance at Mac. “With company.”

Georgia just grinned and waved off his concern. The guy definitely wasn’t subtle.

“Can’t expect a girl to roam around the Commonwealth alone, Danny. Besides, I pick up friends wherever I go. Can’t help it,” she shrugged, putting just enough emphasis on friends that Danny picked up on it quickly. That seemed to be enough for him and he grinned down at Georgia as he spoke.

“Guess that’s just part of your natural charm,” he agreed and Mac nearly broke when he saw her roll her lips between her teeth for just a second. Ol’ Danny boy had it bad, Mac could tell. He knew in that moment, Georgia was aware she may have gotten herself in too deep.

“Guess so! Now, Danny, I’d love to stay and chat, but me and my friend over here have walked from one side of Boston to the other it feels like to sell our scrap—you know, just some ammunition for Arturo and odds and ends for Myrna—so, I was thinkin’...we could skip the bag check this time?” she asked, pushing her glasses down just a touch to look up at him from under her lashes. “There could be a little treasure in it for you. I did say I came bearin’ gifts, didn’t I?”

Mac had to clear his throat to stop a laugh from escaping him and he certainly did not miss the look Georgia shot him out of the corner of her eye while Danny lit up.

“If I didn’t know you, I’d say you were trying to bribe me, but I know that isn’t your style, Miss Georgia,” he said, though he no doubt felt flattered by the notion. “I’d let you through without it because you’re you, but McDonough’s been cracking down lately and I’ve already let you past the gate. Just after you left, we had another person lose their minds in the market, accusing someone just reading the paper of being a synth. Pulled out a knife this time, but thankfully no one got hurt. McDonough thinks putting a curfew on the gate will help keep out ‘undesirables,’ but I dunno. Not everyone coming in after hours is always unwanted.”

With that, he grinned widely at Georgia, who looked perturbed by the news before switching back to a gentle, unconcerned smile.

“Oh, that’s awful to hear, but I guess I understand,” she conceded, albeit unhappily. Then she yawned, stretching her arms. “But could we still make it fast? Like I said, we’ve been walkin’ all day and would love to catch some sleep as soon as possible.”

Danny considered her for a moment, giving a deferring look towards Mac who had long ago furrowed his brow at the mention of the marketplace incident. “I’ll try to be quick. Just let me know when you’re leaving next time so I get a chance to say goodbye…if your friend here doesn’t mind.”

Mac raised an eyebrow, giving Georgia a glance. Why the hell would he care?

“I’m sure he doesn’t,” she said quickly, suddenly growing a little testy. “But let’s get a move on, shall we? I’m likely to fall asleep on my feet.”

At the security desk, Danny barely skimmed the top of Georgia’s pack. There were two other guards, one flipping through an old catalog and the other sat in a chair with his feet propped up, watching them behind dark tinted sunglasses. It struck Mac as a little odd, wearing sunglasses at night, but he turned his attention back to Georgia, who was still working her magic.

She was chatting to Danny the entire time, giving him short little snippets of what she’d been up to since she’d been in last. She had him wrapped around her little finger, even though by that point Mac knew she probably didn’t want him to be. Danny may have been somewhat motivated by it though, given that he would have liked to lay everything inside of Mac’s pack out on the counter before she stopped him. Georgia cleared her throat and started asking him about what it was like being a security guard. It may have all been an act, but Mac would be damned if he said it wasn’t working for them.

“Well, it’s been nice catchin’ up with you, Danny,” she said once the ordeal was over. “See you around.”

“For sure,” he beamed, oblivious. “You take care, Miss Georgia.”

She gave Danny one last smile before heading towards the stairs leading to the marketplace. As soon as they were out of sight, she retreated into herself and the smile fell as she let go of a heavy sigh.

“That looked painful,” Mac said.

“Jesus, you’re tellin’ me. You’re polite to a guy one time and he thinks he’s got a chance,” she groaned, pushing her glasses up and running a hand down her face. He raised a brow at her to continue. “He needed a reason for the logbooks when I first came to Diamond City, and I overshared. Now he thinks he’s gonna get lucky.”

Mac shrugged, “If he couldn’t tell that any of that was phony, then I don’t think you can blame yourself for this one.”

“I guess. But hey, we’re inside and that’s what matters,” she said as they came into the marketplace.

The shops were still open, but Georgia steered the both of them to the side door of Publick Occurrences instead, knocking a pattern into the metal door.

“First stop is Piper. She’ll let us drop off our stuff and sleep on her couch if I promise her some news,” she told him as they waited on the reporter’s stoop.

It took a while, enough for Georgia to knock again with a little more force, but when the door eventually opened, they heard Piper speaking before she had even touched the handle.

“—supposed to be with Ellie for the night, Nat, you said—”

Half in the doorway, Piper froze when she realized who was outside. She didn’t look like the put together journalist Mac remembered from the brief time he’d met her over a month ago. Her hair was slightly disheveled and her clothes—casual, not her usual getup—were wrinkled like they had been thrown on only seconds before.

Mac couldn’t stop the snicker that came out of him as Piper froze in front of them.

“Blue! And this guy! You’re back!” she said, her body filling the gap between the door and its frame as she put two and two together. “And you’re probably looking for a place to stay because I offered you my couch when you’re in town. Because of course I did.”

Briefly, she put her head in her hand and sighed. Behind her, a low yet distinctly feminine voice called out. 

“You alright, Pipes?”

Georgia spared a glance towards him, mouthing ‘Pipes?’ with barely concealed interest and he just shrugged. Through a gap between Piper’s head and the door, Mac caught a glimpse of another woman peeking into frame. She was taller than the both of them, with strong features and pale hair that tickled her chin, and equally as messy as Piper’s. Her clothes were just as wrinkled, too.

Mac’s eyes met Georgia’s again, attempting to suppress the smirk working its way onto his face, while she looked a little pink in the cheeks at their unintended intrusion.

“Yep, yeah, I’m fine!” Piper responded quickly, moving to step fully outside. “I’ll be just a second. Friend in town.”

With that, Piper closed the door behind her as quickly as she could without hitting herself with it on the way out. Georgia held up her hands before she could even speak.

“Don’t worry about it, Piper. We’ll hit up the Dugout this time,” she said and Piper deflated with visible relief.

“Thank you, Georgia,” she muttered, running a hand down her flushed face. “You’re the only person left in the Commonwealth that still has tact.”

“But you’re definitely tellin’ me everythin’ the next time I come in,” Georgia smirked. “Now shoo, don’t keep your company waitin’.”

Piper looked comparable to a ripe tato before she disappeared back into her dwelling, thanking Georgia profusely. Once she was gone, Mac let loose the bark of laughter he’d been holding in.

“Alright, alright, get it out now,” Georgia said, eyes falling towards the direction of the Dugout Inn. “Guess we’ll be spendin’ money on some rooms tonight.”

Mac quieted it down when heard the seriousness that began to pervade her voice. She fished a pouch of caps out of her pack and tossed it to him.

“Sell off all that scrap, grab two orders of noodles, then get us some rooms, my treat. Think you can handle that? I wanna touch base with Mr. Valentine as soon as I can.”

“If it’s on your tab, I can take care of it,” he teased as he caught them, trying to gauge where she was at. “Everything gonna be alright with Valentine?”

“I hope so,” she said after a pause, then straightened her pack and pushed her glasses up, trying to put on a cheerier voice, “I’ll meet you when I’m done, okay? See you in a bit.”

Mac didn’t say anything, but nodded. As he watched her retreat, he hoped that whatever she needed Valentine for, it worked out in her favor.

— — — — —

Georgia sighs as she walks away from Piper’s doorstep, leaving Mac with the easier task between the two of them. She’s had her time. She’s put this off long enough.

The walk to Mr. Valentine’s office seems almost too short, but it gives her a little more time to think (like she’d need any more after the month she’s had to do so). She wonders what the detective will have for when she steps through the door, what sort of world-shattering news he’ll give her this time. Before, it was that the person she watched murder Nate and snatch Shaun out of his arms was a man named Kellogg, and that he had been seen in Diamond City just a few months prior to her arrival. She also learned that a ten year old boy had been seen in his shadow.

She still got shivers when she thought about the man. He was the starring role in her worst nightmares, the face that put revenge in her heart like a knife, twisting it each night. She’d been apt when she described his voice like sandpaper across her face. She had been in a panic when he peered into her cryopod and called her “the backup,” but it stuck with her whether she liked it or not. Two simple words that opened up a sea of questions, but only one remained: what did he want with her son?

Before she left for a month—or, rather, if she was feeling particularly cruel to herself, before she ran away—she and Mr. Valentine had made an attempt at getting into the old house in the abandoned West Stands. She had broken six bobby pins before she finally gave up. Whatever lock Kellogg had put on his door, he made sure no one was getting in, plain and simple. Mr. Valentine had suggested talking to the Mayor’s assistant about getting a copy, but they quickly shot down the idea once they rationalized it. Given that she had taken to associating with Diamond City’s most reviled reporter and its most detested detective on the same day, all her charm could only do so much against good old fashioned bigotry. That had almost been her last straw, and she must have looked like it, too, because Mr. Valentine had put a hand on her shoulder and just told her he’d find a way to push through. She knew now that he had meant to inspire hope, to keep her going forward, but all it did was make her wish she could just stop.

Whatever vigor she thought she was going to face this new world with had disappeared when reality didn’t match up to her optimism. For the past month, she had been scared of what she’d find in chasing after the ghosts of Shaun and his kidnappers. The world Georgia had woken up in was far more dangerous than the one Shaun had been born into, even without the threat of nuclear war.

If, miraculously, the boy seen with Kellogg was her son, it meant two things: one, that after watching her own personal horror show play out in front of her, more time had passed between getting refrozen and being thawed out again, and two, it meant that she had missed out on ten or so years of Shaun’s life. Ten years possibly spent wondering if he ever had parents who loved him, when the reality was one was dead and the other a coward.

Georgia had her month of running away from her problems and not facing the truth for what it was: that her son was more than likely gone. She couldn’t bear to say or even think the other, more definitive word. She had given herself a month of putting it off and now that it was over, she had nowhere else to go.

If Nate could see me now, she thinks to herself, it wouldn’t be the first time he’s seen me at my worst.

What breaks her heart the most was that even with one parent still alive, Shaun had no one. No one to hold his hand when things were scary, no one to tuck him into bed, no one to be there for him when he needed someone—needed her—the most. She doubts there are any other Little Lamplights around to take in another of the wasteland’s lost children, and when the thought hits her, a different kind of heaviness settles on her.

She needs to tell Mac.

She’d been too fucking cagey and was starting to slip. She told him she would come clean at some point, and after tonight, it would have to be sooner rather than later. There was no more hiding it. Yes, she trusts him with her life, that much has been clear to her for a while, but they had only just breached the threshold of friends. Dumping her personal problems on top of him makes her worried she will lose the one person who wasn’t already caught up in them. Preston had known from the get go and she only told Piper on the condition that she be the deciding factor in when her interview got published. Mac had virtually no idea who she was or what her past entailed when they met, and for some reason that had enamored her enough to stick with him. For the better part of a month, between helping settlements and traveling the Commonwealth with Mac, she got to be Just Georgia. It was the closest thing to being herself, instead of General Tate or the Woman Out of Time. A savior and a spectacle. There was very little room for the person underneath.

Before she last left Mr. Valentine, she told him to take his time with her case and had put on all the old world manners she’d held on to. She thanked him graciously for his help and told him she’d be back in a month, then sobbed on Piper’s couch for two hours. She had only barely held it in before getting there—she hated crying in front of people and Nate had never known what to do with her when she did. It made her feel more than just a little pathetic.

A month ago, that walk from the office had felt miles longer when she’d been entirely focused on not breaking down in the marketplace. Now, as she realizes she’s been standing in front of the glowing neon sign of Valentine’s Detective Agency for more than a couple minutes, it still feels far too short.

Georgia snakes shaking fingers under the left sleeve of her jacket and pinches, hard enough to draw blood and focus her attention again before turning down the short alley to the detective’s door. She is in the moment now whether she wants to be or not.

She knocks first, because she’s not an animal and her mama raised her to know better. She doesn’t enter until she hears Mr. Valentine shout, “Come on in, Ms. Tate. It’s unlocked.”

Georgia pauses, smiles to herself, and turns the handle.

“How’d you know it was me?” she asks when she enters.

The synthetic man is sitting behind his desk, surrounded by a cloud of smoke that already has her itching for the carton in her pack. He has stacks of papers and faded manila folders spread out in front of him, obviously in the middle of all manner of casework. He smiles back at her, replying, “You’re the only one in this century that still has the decency to knock.”

Georgia looks around for Ellie before remembering she was babysitting Nat for the night, but beside Mr. Valentine on the floor, to her surprise, is Dogmeat.

“Well, don’t he look comfortable,” she says to him, bending down to give him a good scratch under his collar before sitting down across from Mr. Valentine. He barely acknowledges her, as if her comings and goings are inconsequential to him save the twitching of his tail saying otherwise.

“Sorry to bother you so late,” she says, turning her attention back to the synth. “Had a bit of a delay gettin’ back, but I thought I’d check in with you before I turned in for the night.”

“It’s no bother really. Glad to see you back,” he replies, always the gentleman, and nods towards Dogmeat with a chuckle. “I don’t know why he’s pretending like he’s not happy to see you too. He showed up a few days ago, looking plenty eager to find you.”

His chuckle sounds like his robotic lungs are actually capable of being affected by the haze of smoke in the room, a pack-a-day smoker’s laugh that reminds Georgia of her grandfather. It's so rough and human and familiar that it begins to calm her nerves. Even with his appearance and the general attitude towards synths in Diamond City, she has to hand it to him for knowing how to put people at ease. She wonders, vaguely, if his way with words is what drew him to his career or the other way around. She wonders the same about herself, before everything.

“Strange, because I left him with a friend back at the Castle last I knew,” she replies, picturing Preston in an absolute tizzy once he realizes he lost her dog. Mama Murphy had told her that Dogmeat didn’t really have an owner, but she knew that wouldn’t stop the man from fretting anyways.

“Minutemen keep you occupied past your shift time?” Mr. Valentine asks, picking up the cigarette filling the room with smoke from the ashtray and putting it between plastic lips.

“That, and I picked up another friend since we last spoke. Helped him out with a little bit of trouble—that’s why I’m late.”

“On time, more like,” Valentine counters as he produces another cigarette from his breast pocket and offers it to her.

Georgia didn’t realize she’d been staring it down, but she takes it without a second thought. Once she’s lit up and feeling a little more grounded, she asks, “What do you mean?”

He nods down to Dogmeat and her eyes follow. “While he’s been here, he’s certainly put in the work. Helped me out on a few local cases, actually. Folks tend to be a lot more forthcoming when he’s around. But he must have had a yearning for clues, because he started poking around near the West Stands this morning and found this.”

Mr. Valentine leans over to open one of the drawers in his desk, shaking it a few times before it finally gives. He takes something from inside and sits it down on top, moving his intact hand away to reveal a key. Georgia holds her breath.

“I tried it on Kellogg’s door, just to be sure,” Valentine says as he slides it across the desk to her. “The handle turned, but I wanted you to be there when we go inside. Are you ready?”

Georgia steels herself, lets go of the breath she’d been holding, and nods.

“As I’ll ever be. Let’s go.”

-----

Mac watches the hard line of Georgia’s shoulders disappear into the alleyways of Diamond City. There seems to be a lot weighing on her now and in this moment, he can help just a little by completing his list of tasks.

It doesn’t take long to offload the scrap and sellable trinkets. The stall owners, Myrna in particular, seem eager to close up shop and give him better prices than they usually would in an effort to shoo him away faster. Mac can only attribute it to the synth paranoia.

Getting two covered bowls of noodles from Takahashi takes even less time, though he hopes Georgia comes back before they get too cold. After that, he heads over to the Dugout.

The bar is in full swing when he enters, the beat up old radio on the counter next to Vadim cranked up as high as it’ll go. Even so, Mac can hear the man shouting over the music to his patrons as he serves drinks. He squeezes past a few people surrounding the Port-A-Diner, waving at Vadim when he catches his attention. He reminds himself to remind Georgia about the beer she owes him, then makes his way to the quieter of the two Bobrov brothers.

“Oh, a customer,” Yefim says to himself at Mac’s approach, standing up from his chair where he seemed to be having no fun at all despite the packed house. “Need a room?”

“Two if you got ‘em,” Mac says, taking Georgia’s pouch of caps out of his pocket.

Yefim shakes his head, “No good. There is only one room available for the night, bed and couch. You can take it or leave it.”

Mac sighs. At least he’s not paying for it.

“Then I guess I’ll take it,” he says, handing the caps to Yefim. “We’ll make it work.”

“Room two is yours,” the man replies as he counts the caps in his palm. “Enjoy.”

Once inside the room, Mac throws his pack onto the couch pressed up against one of the walls. He decides Georgia can have the bed—besides, there’s a chance she might fall victim to her own manners and tell him he can have it anyways, just to be nice. His stomach growls when he sets the bowls on the low coffee table and he wastes no time in inhaling his own. The warm broth and the soft yet slightly rubbery noodles fill him better than anything he’s had in the last month. When he’s practically licked the bowl clean and Georgia still hasn’t shown, Mac decides to relax a little. Surely her business with Valentine, at this time of night, wouldn’t take too long.

So he waits. He goes through the remaining inventory of his pack, counting and recounting caps and bullets.

And he waits. He pulls out his journal and doodles in the back of it, then starts on another letter to Duncan that doesn’t get very far after the standard “Hey there, kiddo. It’s Dad” before he puts it away again.

And he waits. He speeds through an issue of Grognak twice by the time a knock—the same pattern he heard knocked onto Piper’s door—comes from outside the room, making him jump. Mac doesn’t know how much time has passed, but he’s killed enough of it waiting on Georgia.

He hops off the couch to answer and when he opens it, the look on her face is all it takes to let him know something is very, very wrong. Tears streaks and red eyes make not the perfect picture of his friend.

Whatever went down with Valentine didn’t go too well by his count. He quickly ushers her inside and waits for her to say something, anything, so he doesn’t have to pull out the there, theres and the it’ll be alrights just yet. He’s never been the best at comforting people; it went hand in hand with his poor bedside manner. But by the looks of it, Georgia is in need of some sort of…sympathy, he supposes. He’ll make it work.

She doesn’t speak though, not until she takes off her pack and sits down on the bed, head in her hands. It’s awkwardly quiet for a few tense moments. Mac is watching the rise and fall of her back, wondering what angle he should come at her with, when she takes a deep breath.

“So, uh, obviously I’m not doin’ too hot right now,” she begins. She still won’t look at him and her voice shakes. “But don’t feel like you need to do anythin’ about it, alright? I just wanna explain myself.”

Mac is more confused than he’s ever been. What is he about to get himself into? Despite his confusion, he’s still curious. He can’t help himself. He nods.

“Okay,” he says slowly, leaning against the wall with arms crossed.

Georgia sucks in another breath, preparing herself before she speaks again. Her words are hoarse and paper thin this time.

“By now I know you know somethin’ is…up with me, for lack of a better word, so I’m just gonna come out and say it, okay? It’s goin’ to sound insane and crazy and, and made up, but you can’t make fun of me,” she tells him seriously, words pouring out of her like water now, and he holds up his hands in defense. Whatever she’s about to tell him, she’s treating it as grievously as the bombs.

“I make no promises,” he says, trying to add some levity to the situation, but it’s apparently the wrong thing to say. Her head whips up to look him in the eye, expression fierce in spite of the watery look in her eyes.

“RJ,” she pleads and he folds instantly, giving her an apologetic look.

“Sorry. Continue.”

She sniffs and wipes her nose on her sleeve, but then he sees one of Georgia’s hands disappear up the opposite one, catching how she flinches in a way that makes him just a little more concerned than he already is.

“I told you that I wasn’t technically from a vault,” she starts again, trying to find the right words. Mac feels a tingle run up his spine—is she finally about to tell him what he’s been wondering and theorizing about for the past month? “And I’m not. I mean, I spent some time in one, way longer than I thought I did, but…”

She trails off with a distant look in her eyes, the same one she’d gotten in the diner when she told him that story about dance halls. Georgia flinches again and tears her gaze away from the wall she had started to bore a hole into. Mac feels incredibly awkward now, unable to move a muscle, but he listens with such intensity it makes his teeth grind together.

“I’m not technically a vault dweller,” she says again after a moment, and meets his eye, “because Vault-Tec fridged me up for two hundred years and only thawed me out a couple months ago.”

Mac almost laughs outright, thinking she’s playing some elaborate prank on him—a great use of her planning skills, for sure—but stops himself when Georgia doesn’t crack a smile after. Surely she had to be fucking with him, right? Because not even in his wildest theories about the woman in front of him did he ever think to consider that she was a pre-war popsicle. It wasn’t exactly his third or fourth guess, either.

“Believe me or don’t,” she says when he fails to say anything back, “but it’s the truth and nothin’ but.”

The more he considers the idea, the more everything about her starts to fall into place. The Rad-X. The manners. The penchant for old world trinkets. Her teeth, her skin, her god damn hair. She was a walking relic of a world gone by, a living ghost from the time of dance halls and classrooms full of healthy children. A time before the bombs. To think that she had been there before everything went to shit…

Mac has so many questions rattling around in his skull. But only one manages to make its way out.

“How?” he asks after a moment.

“Cryostasis,” she explains, the word coming bitterly from her mouth. “They froze us. We were warned just a few minutes before the…before the end. We almost didn’t get in.”

She stops and this time when she flinches, her fingers come away from the inside of her sleeve smeared with blood. Mac’s expression hardens at the sight.

“What the hell are you doing to yourself?” he demands, crossing the space between them before he can stop himself. She moves away from him when he gets to the bed, holding her arm to her chest with a frown. “Georgia, you have blood on your hands.”

“I’m fine,” she hisses, and she has to know she doesn’t sound as convincing as she thinks she does, because her voice cracks in the middle when she speaks again. “I’m not hurtin’ myself, I’m just, I just—”

Mac sets his jaw and points an accusatory finger at her arm. “Pull your sleeve up then. Prove it.”

Georgia throws him an impetuous look, but relents when he crosses his arms to tell her he’s not going to let this pass. She huffs a sigh and doesn’t look at him, yanking up her jacket and the sleeve of her button up to reveal her work. All along her wrist are scarred and scabbed over crescent moons, evidence of finger nails dug into the skin until they drew blood. Three new clusters still have fresh smears around them.

“Georgia.” He can’t stop the twinge of pity that comes with it.

“I’m fine,” she tries again, though it's obvious by now that she doesn’t even believe herself when she starts to tear up again. Mac sighs, shaking his head.

“Just stay there,” he tells her, and goes for his pack. She doesn’t respond as he digs around for the medkit and snatches the roll of bandages from inside. He presents them to her without much fanfare.

“Do you want to do it, or do you want me to?”

She gives him a petulant look, almost childish as she says, “Will I need to pay you for it?”

Mac rolls his eyes, annoyed, but takes that as an answer and tentatively sits down beside her. The mattress doesn’t sink under his weight as much as it does for her—he realizes now that pre-war, she must have had access to the best, non-irradiated foods money could buy. She’s probably never known a life full of hunger and wanting, and for a second, envy surges through him before he remembers the moment they’re in, gripping the bandages tightly. Petty jealousy has no place here when she’s been nothing but helpful and kind to him, even if she’s being a pain in the ass right now. But right now, she needs his help. He gestures for her arm and she slides it over to him without a word.

Mac unwinds the bandages, rolling out a length that should wrap around her forearm more than once. If anything, it’ll stop the current bleeding and hopefully get in the way of any further marring.

“Vault-Tec told us they were decontamination pods,” she says, almost startling him. “Gave us some vault suits and told us to hop on in. God, we were so fuckin’ stupid.”

He says nothing as he starts to wind the bandages around her arm. Still, with the way she keeps saying we, he has a hunch about who else went into the vault with her. He makes sure the bandage is just tight enough that trying to wiggle a finger under it is more hassle than it’s worth. As he touches her skin, though, he realizes why she always felt so cold. A lingering remnant of her time on ice.

“We didn’t realize what was happenin’ at first,” she continues listlessly. “One second I’m in the pod, waitin’ for a bullshit decontamination process to start, and the next I’m wakin’ up to see a stranger pointin’ a gun at my…at my…”

He looks up to see her staring off into space again, her face shiny with tears. Gently, he shifts beside her on the mattress and she starts a little, coming back to the moment like she had suddenly forgotten he was there until he reminded her of his presence.

“Mr. Valentine told me the stranger’s name is Kellogg,” she says, voice feather light but the most coherent she’s been so far. “He’s the man who killed my husband and stole my son out of his arms. That’s why I’m workin’ with Mr. Valentine. To try and find him.”

Mac stops, both because he’s finished wrapping her arm, and because he needs to let the real bombshell she just dropped settle over him. Her situation hits him right where it hurts, makes his chest burn with paternal instinct. All this time, he’d known more about her than he’d ever thought. He knew what it was like to lose a partner, but to lose a child, too, a son…Christ, Mac doesn’t even want to consider it. He feels compelled for a moment to share a bit of his own past, tell her that he gets it and commiserate a bit, but he’s barely handling Georgia’s cascade of emotions. He doesn’t need the added difficulty in dealing with his own.

“Ask your questions now,” she tells him, “or forever hold your peace.”

Mac considers the moment for a while. There’s so much running through his head right now, a thousand things he wants to know. Eventually, after a breath, he settles on one.

“Two hundred years old, huh?”

“Technically somethin’ like two hundred and thirty-four, but who’s countin’?”

The corner of Mac’s mouth twitches. “You’re like something out of a comic book, you know.”

The corner of her own mouth flickers. “Oh yeah? What’s my hero name?”

He thinks for a minute. It has to be good.

“What about ‘The Cryo-General?’”

A sad, pitiful laugh comes out of her, but it’s a laugh nonetheless. It’s snotty and wet and a little gross. Mac lets himself grin just a bit.

“We’ll workshop it,” she says, and takes her arm out of his lap to wipe at her eyes.

“Can I ask you another question?” he asks. She nods. “What did you think of the wasteland? When you first got out?”

He remembers Flora telling him once that she thought she had walked out of Vault 101 and straight into hell. An apt first impression of the Capital Wasteland as far as he was concerned.

Georgia doesn’t miss a beat. “That roaches the size of a toddler were a bit much.”

Mac’s laugh causes a smile to fully settle onto her face and for that, he’s grateful.

“Dogmeat was there when I went to Mr. Valentine’s office—don’t ask me how,” she says after a quiet moment. “We broke into Kellogg’s old house and found some things we can use to track him. Mr. Valentine said a Commonwealth dog like him could sniff a man out for miles.”

“I believe it,” Mac nods. Dogmeat was nothing short of an impressive companion, one he suddenly began to miss.

“So we’re goin’ out tomorrow mornin’ to find him. Bright and early,” she says and looks him in the eye, making him hold her gaze. “You don’t have to come—”

He interrupts her before she can even finish the thought. “Didn’t you say you used to be a teacher?”

The dissonance is enough to stop her in her tracks. “I—What?”

“I just thought that meant you would be smart enough to know that I’m damn well coming,” he says with finality. “You helped me take out the Gunners like what, five days ago? And you don’t think I’m gonna be settling our score still? If you won’t take those caps back, then I’m coming with you.”

Georgia almost looks like she’ll start crying again and Mac is scared she might before she wordlessly throws her arms around him. He’s sitting sideways next to her, so it’s a little uncomfortable and it catches him entirely off guard, but he only flinches a little. She squeezes harder than he thought she could. Her head is next to his shoulder when she whispers “thank you” into his sleeve. He gives her arm a tentative pat before she releases him, face flushed.

“Sorry,” she says, taking off her glasses and using the edge of her shirt to clean the lenses. “I…Thank you, MacCready. RJ. You’re a real good friend.”

“Hey, you’re fine,” he tells her. “This is what friends do, right?”

She puts her glasses back on and leans over, falling towards him slightly on the mattress.

“Then can I be a hundred percent honest with you? As a friend?” she asks.

“More honest than you’ve been already?”

Georgia looks over at him and nods once. Mac nods back.

“I don’t even know if I’m even ready to find him,” she says quietly, like she doesn’t want the world to hear, but once it’s out it’s like she can’t seem to stop it. “I’ve spent all this time avoidin’ the truth like the plague. I tried to justify it, that runnin’ around with a Minuteman was me tryin’ to make this place even just a little bit safer for my son when I finally found him, but fuck if this new world doesn’t suck sometimes. I mean, you can’t go anywhere without runnin’ into mutated abominations around every corner and you heard Danny talk about that synth incident in the market—that’s the second one in as many months, Mac. Why should I even try to bring him into a world like this, when this entire time it’s more likely that he’s probably better off dead—”

“Hey,” he says sternly, cutting her off, “don’t talk like that. You don’t know for sure.”

She’s probably right, but it’s the one fear he can’t validate. Not with his own son’s life hanging in the balance back home.

“And that’s the worst part,” she whispers. “Sometimes…sometimes it feels like the not knowin’ is more bearable than knowin’.”

“Well,” Mac breathes, “how do you know until you know?”

She considers his question for a moment, running her hands down her face as she sighs, “Does it make me a shitty mom that I still don’t know the answer to that?”

“I think the fact that you’ve fought like hell to even get here means you’re the best damn mom in the Commonwealth,” he tells her, entirely earnest. “I don’t think you would’ve come this far if you didn’t want to know.”

Something inside her brain seems to slot into place at his words. It takes her a second, but Georgia starts to return to the person he knows better, the bright, actionable woman he’s known from day one. He’s glad she wasn’t lost entirely.

“We’re gonna have an early start tomorrow,” she tells him, and he can already see the gears turning in her mind. “Mr. Valentine will be taggin’ along and Dogmeat’s back on deck. I don’t know what we’ll find or where we’ll end up, but if it brings me closer to finding my son, I want to go after it if I can. No matter the cost. Are you sure you still want to come?”

For the first time tonight, there’s conviction in her voice, a promise behind her words and she means every bit of it.

“It’s not like I have anything better to do,” he says and she smiles. “I don’t think I could stay behind even if you asked me to.”

“We’ll say that’s because you can’t bear to part with my company, and not because you can’t let go of a debt,” she laughs, giving him a gentle punch to the shoulder. “But like I said, early start tomorrow. So which room am I in?”

“Oh, uh. This one. Yefim only had one room available,” he says and pats the mattress beneath them. “You can have the bed, if you want it.”

In a move surprising even him, she takes the bed without complaint or counter-offer. Later, in the middle of the night when the sag in the couch brings on aches in his back, Mac only feels a little bit annoyed.

[yangxiaolongstan]

ok on my previous blog i did a few posts about fixing the things i didn't like about Fallout 4. not because i hate it but because i love it and want a better version. this time, weapon and armor tweaks.

first off, the problem children: power armor and heavy weapons. the real issues are that power armor is too all purpose and easy to access, and heavy weapons are too niche and situational. the minigun is practically useless after you kill the deathclaw in concord because you will never have enough ammo for it. on the other hand the power armor you pick up in the same quest is way too strong and there's absolutely no reason to ever not use it. if you know what you're doing you're not likely to run out of fusion cores past the super early game and there's no skill locking it off. the fix for power armor is super simple, reintroduce the idea that you need special training to use power armor and reduce the number of fusion cores in the world substantially. this will gate power armor off and make it a mostly late game item that you need to be careful with. the minigun should have somewhat higher damage, slightly lower fire rate, and also should not be present in concord at the start. maybe replace it and the power armor with a grenade launcher and some nice combat armor in a locked chest in the airship or something like that. and make them optional to the quest of saving the Minutemen. most of the explosive heavy weapons are pretty good but it's weird that there's no grenade launchers or anything like that. the gatling laser is fine if a bit op but i think there should also be other heavy energy weapons like tesla canons and plasma casters to complement it. the fat man is ridiculously strong but given that it takes either cheats, an absurd number of caps, or a long time to get one it's fine. the junk jet is great and i will hear no arguments.

for unarmed weapons there needs to be a greater variety and more to separate them than just damage. maybe damage type can vary more. the deathclaw gauntlet is super under powered compared to the powerfist so amp its damage and maybe give it a dangerous bleed effect. and let the player either incorporate unarmed weapons into their power armor or use them while wearing it.

energy weapons need their rifles and pistols separated at minimum. why can i turn a tiny laser pistol into a huge sniper rifle? the institute models should be sleeker and less boxy. don't let them take up a third of the screen. they should be as powerful as the standard laser weapons plus an effect unique to institute weapons, maybe they drain power armor or shut down robots with enough shots. and institute plasma weapons should probably reduce armor condition more than standard plasma. gamma guns are great as is.

speaking of armor condition, bring back equipment durability. it's such a good mechanic and it would fit great with Fallout 4's expanded crafting system.

single piece armors need to be stronger to match the multi piece sets. particularly for faction soldiers. it's absurd that coursers have worse armor than the gen 1s they fight with. Combat armor and Synth armor need more to differentiate themselves and Synth armor needs a complete redesign to not look like absolute shit (except the helmets, those kick ass) the Marine armor also doesn't look great and it's way way too heavy to be useful but it's very effective and could be good with a slight redesign so it didn't clip like crazy and slightly lower weight.

for melee weapons the fast swing speed group needs a significant expansion and a damage boost so they aren't completely irrelevant, the medium needs to have at least 1 proper energy blade, the slow is mostly ok but my god why the hell can you just make a rocket sledge? it makes the standard super sledge completely redundant. more variety in legendary effects too. they'll have their own section but for now, it's weird that pickman's blade is just a weaker throatslicer, Kremv's tooth looks awesome but the effect is terrible, Atom's judgement on the other hand is just incredible 10/10 no notes.

for guns, i want a better variety and a larger ammo variety. i don't necessarily have a problem with rifles using .45 ammo but it's weird that it's so common whereas the only pistols that use it are pipe weapons. maybe the combat rifle could use 5.56 or 5mm instead and we could have a combat pistol that used .45. combat pistols could have a similar skin to the deliverer only larger and silver instead of black. in fact, make the deliverer one of these. the hunting rifle needs a damage boost to function as the game's go to ballistic sniper, and should start off with a stock. the shotguns are really good but there should be 20 and 12 gauge versions. ive never been able to make myself give a single fuck about the assault rifle but it definitely needs a different model and some way to differentiate itself. maybe slightly higher rate of fire than the combat rifle but slightly lower damage and it automatically comes with a reflex sight like New Vegas' marksman carbine. i think giving it a model similar to the radium rifle would be good, but without all the weird extra bits slapped on. that way we can tell the radium rifle was made by altering the assault rifle. the handmade rifle needs a new name but otherwise i like it, especially the fact that depending on how good you are with bashing, automatic weapons, and non auto rifles you get different upgrades.

finally legendary weapons and armor. not gonna sugarcoat it, these SUCK. ive played over 2,600 hours of Fallout 4 and ive found maybe 4 good random legendaries across all my playthroughs. and all 4 were completely broken. most legendary effects are either borderline useless like ghoul slayers or exterminators, or absolutely absurd like explosive, instigating, and 2 shot. and even the best effects are entirely dependent on the weapon you find them on. explosive and never ending are probably the best examples. explosive turns an otherwise terrible weapon like the submachine gun into an alright weapon like the spray and pray, a great weapon like the radium rifle into a fantastic one with the kiloton radium rifle, and a pretty good weapon like the combat shotgun into a completely game breaking meat grinder. it's way too powerful. Never Ending is the opposite problem, with one glaring exception. for most weapons, Never Ending just makes you never have to reload. this is ok for early low capacity weapons like the double barreled shotgun, but completely useless on anything with a decent clip size or high damage, which is literally everything after the super early game, and on one weapon in particular it's completely broken. because of a weird glitch Never Ending gives the Gatling laser *literally infinite ammo* and since the gatling laser is already one of the most potentially powerful weapons in the game, this combination is also completely game breaking. I'll be honest, I don't really know how to fix legendaries, other than to remove the glitches and make at least some of them removable and craftable.

[fuzzydreamin]

Fuzzy's Fallout 4 Mod List

Finally decided to put together a list of the mods I use. (I even made a quick and crappy banner!)

I use Vortex to manage my mods, it's super easy and basically holds your hand through installing and setting up mods. You're also going to need F4SE no matter what.

I mostly find my mods on Nexus, so just search the names listed here on there. Anything not found on Nexus will have a link to it (tumblr only allows 100 links, so I couldn't just link everything).

I would also recommend keeping all of your original file downloads in a seperate folder in your games drive or wherever, organised however is easiest for you. That way you can check what you have outside of the manager, and don't have to re-download everything if you decide you need to nuke vortex and start fresh - just look for updated files only. You also won't completely lose access to the mods you really enjoy if the author decides to hide or get rid of them, since you'll always keep a version on your computer.

I also play with a lot of Creation Club content.

Woe be upon those who enter beyond here, the list is long.

Misc

These are either scripts, fixes, little changes to random things, or just didn't fit in any other category for whatever reason.

Achievements (Enables achievement gain while using mods.)

Better Notes

Publick Occurrences Expanded (Requires 'Better Notes'. Makes the newspaper look better, and also adds new articles for quests and events worth writing news about. Piper's actually got a job now.)

Carry Weight on Level Up (I do more things, I get more shit. I level up and I can carry said shit. Solves my problems without feeling like a total cheat since I still have to level up to earn it.)

Classic Radiation Poisoning

Crafting Highlight Fix

Durable Vertibirds (They'll actually be able to put up a real fight with some super mutants before they still end up falling out of the sky on my head.)

Equipment and Crafting Overhaul (ECO)

Extended Dialogue Interface

HUDFramework (You need this to make the above mod work.)

Loot Logic and Reduction (No more post-war items in pre-war safes.)

Immersive Generic Dialogues (Settler reputation. They talk differently to you based on how happy they are.)

Militarized Minutemen

Militirized Minutemen - Uniforms Patches and Insignia Addon

Militarized Minutemen-We Are The Minutemen Compatability Patch

We Are The Minutemen

We Are The Minutemen - Militarized Minutemen - Uniform Patches and Insignia Addon - Compatibility Patch

Mod Configuration Menu

Multiple Floors Sandboxing

Nuka World - Skip Raiding Your Own Settlements (Lets you go through Nuka World without making Preston mad, but you won't be able to establish any raider camps in the Commonwealth, thus blocking the 'Hostile Takeover' achievement.)

Nuka World Plus (Choose another faction to take over Nuka World after getting rid of the raider bosses. Run businesses and defend against raider's attempts to retake the park.)

Power Armor Fast Exit and Enter

Pride Mod 2023 (Workshop items, clothing, pip-boy and PA skins, and more.)

Rename Anything

Scrap that Misc

Start Me Up Redux

Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch - UFO4P

Wastelander's Cookbook

Weightless Junk and Other Items

Character Creation

Bodyslide and Outfit Studio

Bodytalk V3

Caliente's Beautiful Bodies Enhancer

Commonwealth Cuts - KS Hairdos - ApachiiSkyHair

EoW - Makeup Colors

LooksMenu

Lots More Facial Hair

Lots More Female Hairstyles

Lots More Male Hairstyles

Ponytail Hairstyles by Azar

Super Natural Eyes Pack ( Standalone )

The Eyes Of Beauty Fallout Edition

Zella's Hair Dye Collection

Clothing, Armour, and Weapons

1950's Feminine Outfits

Absolutely Head Wear

Animated and Glowing Jewelry

Army Officers Outfit - REDUX

Backpacks of the Commonwealth

Big Dumb Flower Crown

Black Pip-Boy

Bunnygirl Outfit

Casual Survivalist

Classic Holstered Weapons

Collars for Humans

Colonial Attire

Colorful Commonwealth - Sunglasses and Wigs

Combat Armor Headlamp

Commonwealth Shorts

Commonwealth Shorts for Men

CROSS_BrotherhoodRecon

CROSS_Courser Strigidae

CROSS Uni BoS Uniform

CROSS Jetpack

Eli's Armour Compendium

Engraved Silver Shroud Submachinegun

Eyewear and Mask Retexture

Fishing Hat

Functional Wedding Rings

Furby Crab Glasses

Furby's Brotherhood Uniform Retexture

Furby's Custom Brotherhood Uniform

Furby's Spiked Leather Collar

Furby76Imports

FurbyGymShorts

Grease Rat Garbs

Hidden Armors

Holstered Weapons by Azar

HorribleBowlingShirt

SIRIUS Assault Suit

K-Girl outfits

K-Girl Outfits for Vanilla-EVB (Let's male bodies wear the outfits from the above mod.)

Magnolia's Burlesque Outfit

More Clothes and Textures

Nurse's Cap

Obi's Choker Collection

Pride Bandanas

Private Military Company

Private Military Company Extended

Proper Party Gear

Retro Fashion Overhaul

Requested Clothing

S.R.O. - Syringer Overhaul

Shino Sailor Moon -Cbbe- Body Slider

Shino Sailor Moon - Extended Sailors

Shaggy Wigs

Short Skirts

Simple Clothing

Simple Clothing - CBBE Bodyslide Conversion

STRAC Hats

Tactical Combat Swimwear

TheKite's Handmaiden

TheKite's MilitiaWoman Outfit

Unique Uniques - Unique Weapons Redone (Makes named legendary weapons have their own appearance. Also changes their legendary effects though.)

More Uniques - Unique Weapons Expansion (Not a replacer like the above mod, just adds even more weapons with their own looks and effects.)

Vault-Tec Outfits

Wasteland Aviator

Companions

AmazingFollowerTweaks

Alternate Hancock Outfit Standalone (Colonial Duster Retexture) (Not a replacer - you find it in his office to do with as you like. I like to think it's a winter coat - using with AFT means he will switch between given outfits.)

Codsworth Out of Time Fix (The creator has hidden this mod but it's a real lifesaver if you use a lot of Creation Club content, as the influx of data at the start of the game can bug the start of the main quest, and thus him and Preston. This mod lets you immersively skip the post-war Sanctuary tour and bug exterminating by telling him you already did it, which is where Codsworth would glitch out - not following along and not progressing the quest stage. LMK if you want the file and I'll find a way to share it.)

Combat Zone Restored

Combat Zone Restored Restored (patch that cleans up the above mod.)

Curie's Molerat Disease Cure

Danse GTFO Power Armor

Danse No X-01

Fallout Shelter Online-Inspired Curie Outfit

Fashionable Valentine

Immersive Dogmeat

Nick Valentine Romance

Use Repair Kits On Nick Valentine

Creatures

Cat Apparel

Cat Inventory

Classic Dogmeat A.K.A. Pirate

Courser Crusher

Crows and Creatures

D.E.C.A.Y - Better Ghouls

Less Loot D.E.C.A.Y.

Deadlier Deathclaws (Makes that starter encounter real tough. Tip: shelter inside the store near the museum and keep luring it out to the windows - let Preston work for his rescue.)

Diverse Cats

Dogmeat Helmets and Hats

Dogmeat's Backpack

Dogmeat's Backpacks of the Commonwealth (Requires the mod above it - Improves the other mod and very importantly lets bags be used with dog armour!)

Glowing Animals Emit Light

Immortal Cats (I also add the additional file to turn cat meat into tins of cat food.)

K-9 Harness -- Tactical Body Armor and Backpack for Dogmeat

k9 harness bandana fix dogmeat (Lifts the bandana a little so it doesn't clip.)

No Legendary Items from Creatures (Bloatfly's don't carry guns.)

NPC Loot Drop Rebalance

Pet Any Dog

Protected Unique Brahmin

Real Dogmeat Armor (Adds protection to the dog armour -works for enemy attack dogs.)

Shadow the Dark Husky Companion

True Legendary Enemies (Fight Todd Howard in his own game.)

Textures and Environment

Burnt Magazines and Comics Retexture

CROSS Crit Gore-verhaul

Darker Nights

Delightful Dead Fish

Enhanced Blood Textures

Enhanced Lights and FX

Furby's Brotherhood of Steel Flag Retexture

Immersive Drumlin Diner

Immersive Drumlin Diner eXoPatch (Fixes stuff for the one above, otherwise you might get the old drumlin and the new one pasted on top of each other, and poor Patrick will be T-posing.)

Improved Map with Visible Roads

Magazine Mesh Cleanup

Nuka Recipe Book 2k Retextures

True Grass

True Storms - Wasteland Edition (Thunder-Rain-Weather Redone)

Vivid Fallout - All in One

Settlements and Building

All Settlements Extended

Art Connoisseur System ... A "Frame" Work (Lets you use mods to add more paintings. Or add your own images.)

Atom Bomb Pinups Paintings (Requires 'Art Connoisseur System'.)

Better Settlers

Better Vendor Stalls

Brighter Settlement Lights

Build Your Own Pool

Business Settlements

Busy Settlers

Campsite

Capital Wasteland Workshop

Colored Workshop Lights

Colorful Bottle Lanterns

Craft All The Drugs (Lets you plant hubflowers and the like in settlements - they work like crops and can be harvested regularly.)

Craftable Hats (Automatron) (Lets you put 3 kinds of hats on robots.)

Craftable Pride Flags

Crafting Fury 9000 GTX

Crimsonrider's Unique Furniture

cVc Dead Wasteland

CWSS Redux (Build a nicer bathroom.)

Dino's Decorations

Farming Resources

Femshepping's Minimalist Homewares

Fiddler's Green Settlement

Filled Brahmin and Water Troughs

Fizztop Grille Workshop (Changes the exterior.)

Fizztop Grille Enhancements (Changes the interior.)

Free Cage and Trap Repairs

Functional Displays

G2M - Workshop

Generator Fusebox

Graffiti 2 Electric Boogaloo

Hangman's Alley Interior Apartments

Holotape Display Shelves

Homeplate - Mechanist Lair - Full Workbenches

Homemaker

Housekeeping

Invisible Furniture

Just Some Curtains and Rods

Lightbulb Wire

Longer Power Lines

Lore Friendly Posters

Minutemen Morale Pack

More Colorful Potted Plants

More Fortifications

Northland Diggers

Nuka World - Bot Mods Extravaganza (Lets you build some nuka world bots.)

OCDecorator - Static Loot

Old World Plaids

Orphans of the Commonwealth

Place Everywhere

Quieter Settlements

Rebuild - AIO (Rebuild the structures in many of the settlements across the Commonwealth -not all of them yet. Keeps that wasteland weathered look without everything staying broken and unusable.)

Rebuild - Shared Resources (Required for the above mod.)

Rebuild - Workshop Standalone (Not required, but adds matching snappable doors and such.)

Rebuild - Modular Sanctuary Pre-War and Post-War Build Set (Unrelated to the other 'rebuild' mods. Just adds House of Tomorrow themed build items.)

Recruit Isabel Cruz as Settler

Recruit Scribe Haylen as Settler

Red Rocket Fresh Paint (Works with Rebuild mod - just changes the floor and walls colour/texture.)

Renovated Furniture

Reversed Workshop Highlight

Scrap Everything

Settlement Keywords Expanded

Settlement Menu Manager

Settlement Objects Expansion Pack

Settlement Supplies Expanded

Settlements Expanded (Let's you unlock a higher settlement building budget, among other things. Larger builds will cause issues -fast travel into your more worked on settlements to help clean the load.)

Shaikujin's Better warning for settlements being attacked

Signs of the Times - Posters

Simply Modular Housing

Singing Settler

Snap'n Build

SnapBeds - Usable Bunk Beds - Mix and Match Beds

Snappable Clutter and Display

Stained Glass Workshop Mod - Unicorn Farts and Godrays

Static Object Decorator

The Cozy Scavver - A Settlement Workshop Kit

The Kuro Tab

The Sanctuary Bridge

Thematic and Practical - Workshop Settlements - Structures and Furnitures

Transfer Settlements - Shareable Settlement Blueprints

Videos of the Wasteland

Vault 76 Educational Films Holotapes (Goes with above mod.)

Vault Posters

Wall Mounted Magazine Shelf

Wall Pass-Through Power Conduits

Woody's Wasteland Stuff

Working Food Planters

Working Table Lamps

Workshop Framework

Xnjguy Filled Mods All-In-One

Radios

Boston Pirate Radio - Anarchist Raider Punk

Elvani's Track Pack for Diamond City Radio

Jetfuel Radio Standalone

More Where That Came From - Diamond City Radio Edition

Survival and Immersion

These are mods I don't play with all the time, just when I'm looking for a more hardcore run around the Commonwealth and want to spend the extra time taking care of my character in the wild.

Agony (Rebalances damage, wounds, and healing - really lives up to it's name.)

Animated Chems Redone (Adds more animations similar to Agony, covering what they missed.)

APC Transport (Useful if you don't want to 'cheat' by using regular fast travel but don't want to hoof it from one side of the map to the other. I'd always recommend having FT enabled in survival through mods though, as the reload can help smooth issues out.)

Create Your Own Difficulty Rebalance

DEF_SSW Survival Stats widget redone

Give Me That Bottle

Smokeable Cigars - Cigarettes - Joints - With HardCore Auto Save (More animations, plus a save.)

Survival Mode Console Enabler

Survival Mode Transition Save (Ensures you get a quicksave when entering buildings and the like.)

SURVIVAL QUICK SAVE - No Sleep Till Bedtime (Gives you an aid item you can save to a hotkey if you need a fast save.)

Bethesda Mods

Get these by loading up the game and selecting 'MODS' on the main menu.

CREAtive Clutter - All DLC

CREAtive Teddy Bears

Do It Yourshelf Updated

Easy Homebuilder and Working Double Beds

Home Plate Interior Revamped

Immersive Decor

Makeshift Furniture Pack

More Bang For Your Bark (This mod is specifically for use with the Transdogrifier Creation Club mods - it lets the new dog shapes use clothing.)

MsRae's 76 Style Outfits

MsRae's All The Overalls

MsRae's Horticulture DLC

Railroad Death Bunnies Clothes

-----

(Now, y'all might say that's a lot of mods. And it is. But the only significant issues I have is that when I die my game crashes to desktop, and the excess of Creation Club content loading at the start of the game sometimes bugs out the first stage of the main quest, and thus poor Codsy and Preston. I just have to skip Codsy's search bit and rush to meet and save Preston to see if he will talk to me or not. Otherwise things run as normal -for a Bethesda game.)

[leftyllama]

I was expecting Starfield to be Fallout 4 in space...

Fallout 4 in space has a lot of potential. Despite Fallout 4's snoozeworthy main quest and frustrating dialogue system, I actually found it's moment to moment gameplay quite fun! You set out from your settlement, go to a location, gather as much as you can, use what you got to upgrade your settlement and gear, repeat. It's a good loop and I was excited to see something similar from a game set in space. (I know not everyone was into the settlement building but personally I was a big fan)

Starfield seems to have learned some good lessons from Fallout 4; you can select traits when making a character (the trait that gives you parents is some of the most fun I've had with the game), the player character is no longer voiced, which leaves room for more variety in dialogue (options are still limited but it's a small improvement).

Sadly, with these few steps forward come numerous steps back. Junk items have returned to being meaningless clutter instead of items of worth (I understand this might not fit the tone of Starfield's world as well as Fallout's but it was still disappointing to see gone). Instead of being able to upgrade your gear as you progress, loot will drop at different stat tiers in an incredibly arbitrary manner. This is especially a problem with unique quest rewards which can be quickly outclassed by random drops simply because they're set in a lower tier. The outpost system is a downgrade from Fallout 4's settlements, with far more limited options for decoration or even basic structures. Resource storage is very annoying, with ships and outposts having limited storage and the one place with unlimited storage not being linked to any research or crafting stations, meaning you have to manually schlep resources back and forth constantly. NPCS no longer drop their entire inventory on death, now only dropping their weapon with a chance at armor.

I do want to give some praise to the modular shipbuilding. While it's more limited in some ways than I'd like and there's frustratingly no way to reliably decorate the interior, it's a fun system and I've seen quite a few impressive creations from friends.

I expect with time and the release of Starfield's creation kit, many of these issues will be solved or at the very least alleviated. Unfortunately one thing I can't see changing is in My mind Starfield's biggest failure: it's world. With the exception of three or four major locations, the universe of Starfield is filled with planets that are nothing but procedurally generated mush, filled with nameless npcs you can either shoot or trade with. The characters talk about the wonders of exploring the universe but there's no wonder to be found.

[madmaryholiday]

My current looting strategy in fallout 4 is thus: 1) pick up literally every item I can & take everything from dead enemies so I know if I've been in a room before. 2) when I get overencumbered, I first give my companion any useful or valuable items. 3) when the companion can't carry any more stuff or i don't have anything good to give them, I start dumping the useless stuff in the nearest container, preferably near a door in case I want to come back for anything. 4) every time I encounter a crafting station, I scrap or make whatever I can in order to reduce weight. (My current favorite item to make is poisoned caltrops, as they take 5 steel and weigh half as much as 5 steel by itself, and you can exp- AND gold-farm by making and selling them.)

It slows me down, sure, but it helps me keep track of what I've already explored and ensures that I don't miss important quest items. And I never run out of junk to build with, which is nice. Or cooked food to eat. Or random shit to sell when I need caps.

Also I'm like level 56 and I just got the second quest item you have to pluck from some guy's head, so fighting enemies isn't too overwhelming for me right now. Which is great because I'm still REALLY bad at combat.

(I swear the laser weapons always fire slightly to the left of where you aim them, too??? Even when I mod them for best hip-fire accuracy, I miss enemies within bashing distance. Maybe I finally need to use VATS for the point-blank shots?)

[shrimpbytes]

Fallout 76 SEASONS 4 years later

I spent a long time wondering if I should make this a video. Because I kinda don't want to put another 76 one on my channel, but my autism and desire to say "I told you so" is quite strong.

Then I remembered I have a blog I never use, so that.

Not to mention, I feel like I am less likely to accidentally get picked up by the worst defenders of capital here than reddit or youtube

Fallout 76 seasons is currently wrapping its 16th season. After somehow 4 years of this, I thought it would be ''''fun''''' to take a look back at how we got here and how depressing it all is.

SEASON 0

This journey actually starts before the scoreboard was made, what I will refer to here as Season 0. You see, for 76, the scoreboard wasn’t a brand new reward system from the ether, it replaced an already existing daily and weekly challenge system.

In the old days we were given challenges to earn atoms directly. No pussyfooting through ranks of nonsense. Just cold hard cash. Were the rates lower than the scoreboard? Not really. The weekly atoms one could expect 150-160 atoms free per week. When you consider dedicated players tend to finish the scoreboard in 8 or so weeks, that alone is pretty congruent with the atoms earned by the scoreboard…however. With daily challenges you can get 50-70 per week. Even if you only rolled 50 atoms per day, you could more than TRIPLE the weekly amount. 50*7+150 = 500 atoms per week 5 weekly challenges and 5 daily challenges. Let’s keep that 500 per week metric in mind. This is a small low-ball since some days would offer you more, but the challenges themselves were less engaging than the scoreboard, so 500 it is.

SEASON 1

May 2020. Everyone is happy and optimistic about Fallout 76 for the first time. Sure Fallout 1st came, but we also got Wastelanders. A story expansion with real NPCs, and a dialogue/skill system with varied ways to approach all kinds of checks that was arguably more in depth than previous Fallouts. And then Season 1 is announced and it’s not looking good as Bethesda gives us a set of numbers that don’t add up. You see obtaining the first rank would be 1000 score with each subsequent rank adding 25 score above the previous. So to get all 100 ranks you would need 220,275. You can otherwise get 7500 score from weeklies and 2000 from dailies for a total of 21500 score per week. Which given 10 weeks leaves you at 5000 short of completing the scoreboard. When this was pointed out Bethesda announced the repeatable score challenge for 10000 xp giving 100 score and that there would be double score events. So, not impossible but still a bit funky that they let us see numbers indicating they designed a system intending for us to fail.

Okay, shoddy math aside, what was Season 1 actually like? Well July 2020 rolls around and we finally get to see. I’ll lead in with the positives. Many of the annoying challenges go away. No more taking pictures of players or wearing specific cosmetic items to get your reward, but challenges otherwise stay the same. The format is more appealing as there is a fun little board game to help coax you through the grind.

What of the rewards then?

3 player icons 150

A bunch of junk

The single worst ui I have seen in a non-David Cage Game [Ammo converter]=500 atoms??

8 armor reskins 600-1200 each or 2000 for a bundle

6 weapon skins 500 each

1 pip-boy skin 500 ($5 for a pip-boy re-texture? Half the price of Nuka-World/Automaton/The Pitt/Broken Steel)

7 power armor reskins 600 each, 1200 for bundle

A brand new power armor skin and a reskin for it 1500? 3000?

1 chicken coop=500 atoms

9 camp decorations 300 each, 2000 for a bundle

1 deployable skin

2 backpack skins 1000

2 photo frames 150 each

2 poses 250 EACH

3,6,15, scrap kits 900?

3, 6, 15 repair kits 250+500+3*50? 900?

1 facial cosmetic item 300

2 jetpack skins500, 1000(bundled with their respective for 1800)

3 variations of the same outfit 1000? 3000???

39 lunchboxes: 1 = 50, 6 = 250, 15 =500, 40 =1000

1500 atoms

So if we take this favorably, we’re looking at 33.65k. Certainly nothing to sneeze at, right? Well..

Not at all

The above is a very generous way to look at it. One way that even Bethesda themselves wouldn’t.

After a season ends they try to recirculate the parts through either the bullion shops or the atom store. In particular, all of season 1’s tomfoolery can be acquired through bullion, or these two bundles: The captain cosmos bundle is 1800 atoms for just the jetpack and suit. In fact, less than half of what is in the Cosmos and Jangles bundle is even part of season 1. But let’s count the whole price anyways, why not? 1800+1800 is 3600, add in the atoms and now we’re at 5100  in ten weeks pretty on par with the old model, and I am just starting. 

What of weapons? Well, what of weapons? Who is the person that uses specifically a bow, a hunting rifle, a super sledge, a combat rifle, a handmade, and a gatling gun? and uses them enough that they’d want a skin on each of them. But not a unique skin either, they’re really set on keeping them all the same theme? Yeah, pretty much noone. That’s probably why Bethesda sells so many bundles. They know you only want one or a few things so they trick you into paying MORE because it looks like a deal. If you get six skins for the price of two, you might think that’s really good even though you’ll only use one, so really you paid the price of two, for one. Like going back to the cosmos jangles bundle. The Default cosmos outfit alone is 1000 atoms. Over HALF the price of the bundle individually. The bundling scheme gets even more transparent when looking at armors.

Sure, you may use more than one type of weapon, but you will barely ever use more than one type of armor. Many armors are just de facto upgrades over the lower tier ones. Once you have Secret Service or T65 armor, there is barely a reason to ever drop down to a weaker set, save for like the excavator armor’s enhanced carry capacity. Furthermore, most people will either play with either power or unpowered armor, not often both. In fact, the jet pack skin unlocked in the same season itself invalidates the lower tier non-powered armors. it LITERALLY can not be used with any of those armors so including them together on the pricing sheet is pretty damn silly. 

Believe it or not, the bundling scheme has yet to hit its stride, because if we could just take a moment to look at the consumable section. I have lunchboxes listed at barely more expensive than the scrap kits and repair kits, which well, they aren’t. They are exactly the same price in the shop. You get nearly double the amount of lunch boxes yet I rounded them to around the same price. Because lunchboxes get you one less than 40, so I rounded up to the 40 bundle for 1000 atoms, but the other consumables come out to 24, a weird number, that if I break apart using largest sums(ie the biggest discounts) ends up with 900 atoms. They are nearly the same price for nearly half the items. Because that’s how dramatic the bundle pricing is. Bethesda wants you to go for the big bundle every time, because it looks like you're getting more value, despite it not actually costing Bethesda a damn thing. Which raises the question, does that mean every consumable I unlock for free, the average price goes down? If I get two seasons worth of lunch boxes, totaling 78, is that like 1500 atoms instead of 2000? Well, something that might help this conundrum is to learn that scrap kits and repair kits are just useless. I have never once purposefully used a scrap kit in all my hours and boss fights just give you better versions of repair kits as well as many other goodies. They are ostensibly just bundled into the season to make it look more valuable than it really is.

The entire season pass is just one, big, bundle. If you actually sit down and look at what you want, you’ll likely find that even by the massively inflated 76 prices you probably would have gotten more under the old system. I wanted the marshmallow armor, something to put on my secret service armor. So for me personally, I would have to grind for 82 ranks to get something I actually wanted. Roughly 8 weeks or 4000 atoms in the old system to get a single skin that would usually be priced around 500 atoms, and I’d only have 1200 atoms thus far to show for it. The value being well under half of the old system.

I promise I won’t do this deep of a dive for every season, I just really wanted to hammer home that while the scoreboard system was more fun than the previous one, it has always been aimed at taking away our purchasing power. [foreshadowing]

CLOSING OUT 2020

Season 2 is not very noteworthy, although I do want to bring up again how artificial these prices are, with the Armor Ace bundle being 1400 atoms for some reason. The atoms earned was also bumped to 1850, which is nice, however 500, over ¼ are locked behind the final final rank. Once again hammering home the bundle method of putting what you really want at the end, so you’ll invest your way through everything else. All and all, a slightly better version of season 1 in my personal opinion. Which is probably why it’s the only one I actually finished. Oh. and it was 13 weeks, not 10. So in the old model that is now competing against an extra 1500 atoms when determining its market value. Oof.

Season 3 coincides with the Steel Dawn update. And as keen viewers guessed by the fact it is brotherhood themed, Bethesda’s worst traits begin rearing their ugly heads again. This is the first season to add 1st exclusive rewards. Meaning some content is just locked away from you unless you pay Bethesda $100 a year to artificially lock content from other players. This season drops the armor bundle entirely, so if you don’t use power armor, I hope you use one of the 5 weapons. What’d they make it up with? Uhh, just some camp amenities, most of which are just cosmetics…and two human beings. So is this season actually worth less than the previous ones, well as a power armorless hippy, I’d say yes, but it is hard to put value on a human life..

Okay okay. I know this really isn’t the point of the video, but I need to address this: You know how I mentioned some rewards can be bought with gold bullion? Well that means they’re purchased at one of the Wastelanders settlements. and idk, I just find it darkly funny that you can buy people from the settlers, who are the “good” side. What did Bethesda mean by this? Oh, and it’s 19 weeks long. So even if it had the exact same value as the two previous seasons, it would still really only be worth half as much, especially when you consider the classic system.

THE TEST

In my opinion, this is where the game begins its true death spiraling. Prior to now, 76 was known for two things besides its launch. Fallout 1st, Bethesda doubling down on their worst behaviors, and Wastelanders, Bethesda flaunting their best abilities. In hindsight, it’s hard not to notice that this one update both included another selling point for 1st, and a scaled down version of Wastelanders. Now would be a good time for Bethesda to see which avenue is more rewarding, and to be frank, Fallout 76 has a prosperity cult problem. That is to say, the most loyal fans believe the more money they throw at the multi-billion dollar company, the more rewards they’ll receive. So obviously, if Bethesda were to look at that data around this time, they’d see it makes more sense to milk 1st subscriptions than create quests that require significant resources.

And hoo boy, the milk is a flowing. TEST FAILED

You'll see after this time 76 starts getting given away, they no longer care about sales, only micro-transactions.

2021

Jan 2021, everyone celebrates as Nuclear Winter challenges are removed from seasons, and then they are quickly added back in

Season 4: Cold Steel. Not too much to say here, no more armor paints, but there are more outfits and some are early on for us normal armor peeps. To be honest, I greatly prefer outfits, because they can each be used no matter the tier of armor you wear underneath, so each one you get stands a chance of being used unlike wood paint. The 1st rewards are getting better though. Season 3 had a power armor paint job, but season 4 gets a brand new model and everything. That I guess uses some copy-pasted text. Because the description does not mention it can be used on either of the newer power armors. But hey, at least freebies still get 2ish new power armors right?

Season 5: Oh, never mind. Just one new power armor and it’s at the absolute max rank. great. The outfits in this pack are all Fallout 3 nostalgia…except the rank 98 uhh EVE Divine Cybermancy suit?

But that doesn’t matter, the notable part of season 5 is that it was released with Steel Reign and Finally implemented ranks beyond 100. Which I am going to use in defense of my season 3 'TEST' theory. Season 3 asked “More 1st bullshit, less story content?” and Season 5 said “More 1st bull shit, less story content.” Thanks 1sters! Oh, and it was 9 weeks long. The first season where you could technically keep earning atoms for additional play time like in the old days, is tied for the shortest season. The repeatable ranks are not worth too much. You can no longer grind repeatable challenges and you only get 100 atoms instead of 150 and nothing unique. So 100 atoms per 30000 or so score means 200 atoms per 3 weeks. Less than 1/7th of the olden days. Honestly, just take the time off and go hug your kids.

Season 6: The average length of seasons goes up from here, just under half exceeding 100 days, and all but one above ten weeks. Allows each season to take up less man hours and each player to get less stuff over time. Other than the aforementioned time skimping, I think the board itself is better than season 5’s, but I am also a capeshit enjoyer. (I also think it’s hilarious the power armor is based on the stealthy femme fatale hero)

2022-ish

Season 7: Generally average, but I can’t help but notice the clean blue suit which is quite literally the type of thing they give away in the atom store. Of note this time, you can no longer pay for ranks after rank 100. Not sure why you could ever do that, but props for taking it out…I think?

Season 8: A pretty bad season all things considered. Which much like the Brotherhood one, should have been obvious because they’re relying on vault tec again. Seriously, someone needs to confiscate Bethesda's nostalgia card.

The power armor paint is just yellow. It’s just yellow. There isn’t even one for T65 armor, the objectively strongest and thereby most used set for two years by this point. They brought back the useless low tier armor upgrades and 1sters now get a reward every 5 rounds instead of 10 including this Billy Bass mailbox.

This is it. This is what I will never forgive Bethesda for. Give me the bass Bethesda.

There is no unique power armor at the end and the rank 98 outfit? It’s a vault suit. With leather armor…really? And for some reason you get firehouse materials at the end in lieu of anything else. I guess Bethesda does care about the build community after all. In full honesty, a very obvious shift towards 1sters. Quite literally doubling what they were getting before (a reward every 5 ranks instead of every 10) and dropping a steamy one down our chimney. The fattest L yet, and what a way to end year 2. I look forward to many more years of quality seasons.

Season 9: Better than 8, but still clearly on the downward slope. Still shilling out useless armor skins and now having 1st rewards at yet again doubled rate(a reward every 5 ranks instead of every 10) , including locking this beaut away.

It’s no billy bass mailbox, but the Dullahan is nearly as fuckable and also this good boy.

Guess what? If you don’t pay for 1st(and grind to rank 100) you are spitting on Seymour’s grave.

SEASON 10

It got its own header, must be scary: This is the season that made me start working on this essay, because genuinely, fuck it. You see, Season 10 locks the Auto-Axe, a returning Fallout 3 weapon, and one of the best weapons in 76 behind rank 15.. As well as the union power armor, which for SOME REASON is split up like the pieces of Exodia

Forcing you to reach rank 75 before you are even allowed to finish the full set. Not to mention the plasma caster skin, a weapon I actually use is locked behind rank 92. Not that it matters since all of the skins in this season are just…brown. Well, you’ll probably be able to get them with bullion afterwards right? Nope, 76 instead adds another currency in the same update, stamps.

As before, it is really hard to explain why something is bad in 76 without explaining every other system in the game, but in short you need stamps to get these after the event and stamps were very hard to get. You could potentially get 20 stamps if you absolutely nailed one of two just two 10 minute long quests. It's been over a year and they added just two quests. You could only get the full 20 if you were the expedition leader, which you could only do once per day. Otherwise you can only get 10 per run. With each Power Armor piece being 800 stamps, that would mean 40 runs per part and I can not stress this enough: there were only two quests. Minimum runs: 200 in 200 days or Minimum Days: 1 in runs. Bethesda really hates Pittsburgh huh?

2023

Season 11: Same idea as the last few, the unique weapon is now locked to rank 85, a full ten ranks higher than exodia himself. But the paints are more interesting than rust

Feb 2023, Season 12 Rip Daring and The Cryptid Hunt adds rerolls. You get one per day and it allows you to change 1 challenge you got for a better one. Fo1st holders get a second one per day, the scoreboard drops some and you can buy them for 50 atoms. Okay, 50 atoms isn’t much and you get some for free, what’s the big deal. Well, remember those annoying challenges from Season 0? You know, say wear a specific armor while doing a specific tedious objective?

Yeah? Well, what if, we brought those back, but made you do them with ludicrously expensive or season pass related armor? Because that’s what happened. Some challenges were only completable with the Union Power Armor.

So now we’re setting up a precedent where lapsing on one season can cause you to struggle harder through the next, maybe even encouraging you to buy our brand new microtransaction. Fantastic. Also, when it first launched sometimes the rerolls would send you to do a seasonal event that wasn’t in season. This is more than 4 years into 76’s lifespan and what a way to cap off year 3 of season passes.

Season 13: This season we see that the 1sters are getting a lot less useless crap than they used to. Repair kits being swapped out for cute lil’ plushies. But do not fret freebie, there is a mothman plushie…locked all the way down at rank 97. The season locked weapon is thankfully only rank 5, but you also get a pipboy skin at rank 66? Ooh boy, don’t miss the rank 66 pipboy skin. It is also the only other 9 week season. They know the effect mothman has on people and rushed him to the atom store.

Season 14: Rank 5 gave us the second light machine gun skin ever. The first one coming out a full 4 years after the game’s launch. No I am not salty. Sidenote: giving an infamous nazi gun the “fight for freedom” paint job. What did Bethesda mean by this?(The only other skin is enclave..) There is not a single outfit skin, but at least we got winterized metal armor…That’s the worst chafe of your life. 1sters get an exclusive item that prevents spoilage entirely. Marvelous.

Season 15: I actually quite like the styling of this one, but it still curries the same bad habits. No real improvements to speak of save for style. I really wish I had more to say, with this being the last scoreboard, but it honestly just leaves on a brutal whimper

SEASON 16

Finally we arrive at the current season. Maybe this is the one where it will finally turn around. And I regret to inform you that

THERE IS AN ASSAULTRON IN FISHNETS!! 76 is back baby. 76 is ba-!

Oh

Oh no

In the interest of full disclosure, I was planning a 4 year retrospective well before season 16 was actually announced since I had more than enough solid evidence in my case(looking at you season 10), and let me tell you if that announcement wasn't just the most damn monkey paw curling moment of my life. All of these years one of my biggest problems with the system is that most of its “value” comes from things I never wanted nor used. So to see them say “we’ve changed it. Now You get to pick what you get. Just like the old days! ain’t that grand?” should be what I wanted right?

…If I may bring out the math once more, my point with the “you get to choose” of it all was that in the old system, it was much faster to save up for the handful of things you wanted rather than be forced through all these ranks., but you have to get to rank 100 anyways to have access to all the stuff, so the grind isn’t actually lessened.

You need 3,735 tickets to complete the whole thing, at 25 tickets per rank that means you have to reach rank 149 to get everything. There aren't even more rewards. There are a total of 140 rewards with 45 being locked behind Fallout 1st. That means only 95 items for people without 1st. Previous seasons had more than 100, with one reward at each rank and then a bundle at rank 100. So you're doing well over 50% MORE grinding for LESS reward

That said, the tickets you save not buying T45 might allow you to buy all the rank 100 rewards when you actually reach them. So, if you actively save up money, you can finish the scoreboard AT rank 100. I repeat, you have to intentionally manage your resources to “complete” the scoreboard with the same amount of grind. They also went back to their old strategy of not having armor skins, but they still have low rank power armor skins? I guess for collectors...except both the X01 and T51 skins are locked behind Fallout 1st. These are two of the most iconic nostalgia armors representing Fallout 2 and Fallout 1 respectively. They are even locked behind a higher rank than T65(a much stronger armor), proving that they are just doing it for aesthetic reasons, ie to bait collectors. Yet again, another clear instance of Bethesda strong-arming people into buying Fallout 1st/participating in SEASONS via nostalgia bait.

You know what else? It's not even possible to get all of the rewards just doing weeklies and dailies as a free player.

The tickets necessary to get all non 1st items is 3010 tickets I believe. So reach rank 121. Each rank after 100 takes 3,500 score. So with weekly score of 31k(300/day, 100/week) this would take you until the tenth week. This season was 11 weeks long, so it's possible until you remember that there are technically rewards at rank 150. Seeing as you can barely make it to 121...you simply can't get that far. There are ways to increase score gain, but players who have maximized that still find themselves coming up short. One reddit user only reaching rank 145 after playing as optimized as they could without outright grinding the early levels with just xp.

To place the final cherry upon this The Help Pie: atoms are just plainly and objectively less available in this season. For one they're not available as a repeatable after rank 100(and you have to reach 150 to get repeatables anyhow). There are 2200 available for 1st players and only 1200 for f2p. That's right, a full 300 down from season 1 4 YEARS AGO, 650 lower than most seasons and 800 less than the previous ones, but hey at least Fallout 1st subscribers get 200 more. So a 40% decrease in income for us peons and a 10% raise for the bourgeois...except no. Because if we consider the loss of repeatable atoms, even many 1st users have experienced a cut.

Wrapping up, and a Hopeful Future?

So yeah. Fallout 76, despite public opinion, has been gradually getting less worth money and time as the years go on. We get new content less often than we did back in 2020, and our time keeps being worth less in-game currency.

But I do have a slight ray of hope.

As I mentioned before, I have a hypothesis that the reason we stopped getting story content for nearly 3 years after season 5 was because of the 'TEST'. To explain it more thoroughly: The last big story content was 5 main quests way back in July 2021 and it coincided with adding 1st only rewards to the scoreboard. By adding both at the same time they could see if the sales of new quests could rival an influx of Fallout 1st subscriptions. That seems to have failed since it would take nearly 3 years for us to get another story update in March 2024, all the while season passes became more and more geared towards selling Fallout 1st.

But this new story content is important, because it released in conjunction with Season 16, the worst season so far with the greatest disparity between 1st and f2p atoms. More importantly, however, it released in conjunction with the show.

The Fallout TV Show brought a massive influx of new eyes to the series, and of course, its latest game. I find it hard to believe that such a radical change to the Season system and the first story expansion and three years were just a coincidence, this feels like another marketing test.

You see, Season 17 has been announced, following the same model as season 16, and along with brings the FIRST EVER IN 6 YEARS map expansion to 76. So they have a new mass of players, who may not be aware of the severe decline in season quality that, if steam numbers are to be believed, outnumber the existing population(who were there before 16) by a factor of around 4.

Maybe if the map expansion proves as a viable way to keep this huge population going, we could see many more similar updates in the future. However, if the new season pushes significant 1st sales, then it's likely we'll just see the same decline we have been for years.

Unfortunately, I am expecting the latter since we have seen a large portion of the new population already fall off. The thing is, at its core, 76 is still not a very good game. It's easy to forget that when old players all have builds that circumvent most of the problems, but to a new player, the issues will be glaring.

That said, I still believe in the potential. The team has some very clear talent even if it's so often hidden from us.

Some Sources:

Proof you can not reach rank 150: https://www.reddit.com/r/fo76/s/4wcIpN7aJz

Some Math:

Season 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/fo76/comments/gjom2q/score_rank_math_hours_played_and_cost/

Season 16: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF0po3MfJ2w

Some Lies:

https://segmentnext.com/fallout-76-will-not-have-a-season-pass-or-paid-dlc-pete-hines-confirms-again/

[cannedanxiety]

So this is the first part to a AU I wrote that serves as a prequel to Fallout 4. It was pretty well-received on Amino so I hope you enjoy it here!

The ‘Red-Seat’ district was a new addition to the city, built by newcomers from Goodneighbor following the removal of the previous administration’s ban on ghouls and new “open-arms” policy for all other residents; but it already proved to be the seedy part of the Great Green Jewel. Built tightly together, narrow alleyways and flashing neon lights characterized the area. Music blasted throughout, a new wave of an eclectic mix of rock and blues, and scantily-clad figures beckoned from the shadows. It wasn’t a welcome place for the Security force - two officers had been jumped and nearly killed by a pair of junkies.

It didn’t bother Clancy though. He was an older officer - silver hair tied into a bun and a scruffy beard to match - with the only armor on a chest plate older than him. The Diamond City Security logo was stamped onto it, which would mark him for a beating this late at night in this part of town. He didn’t worry though, passing the shadowed figures around him. The lights were all down on this narrow street, with interior candlelight casting little brightness. Down a side alley, two strangers scuffled and cursed at each other, but were ignored. As he kept walking, music from a literal hole-in-the-wall bar became louder, a shrill female voice belting out lyrics to a small crowd.

“Many dreams come true, and some have silver linings

I live for my dream and a pocketful of gold!”

Passing them by, Clancy strolled past a few more ramshackle apartments until he came across a man standing outside one; in his hand were two lit cigarettes. Clancy could only roll his eyes and walked up to him, muttering, “That is the stupidest signal I have ever seen.”

“Hey, Daly said-“

“I don’t care what Daly said. Just - forget it. Is she in there?”

“Yeah, yeah,” the man muttered, throwing the cigarettes to the ground and stomping both out. He nodded towards one of the many side alleys, although this one had the glow of light peeking into the darkness. “She went down there a lil’ bit ago. Y’know how she’s all paranoid about synths n’ shit. Only deals with people in secret places.”

“Works for me. I’ll tell Daly you helped, now get out here.”

The man didn’t need any further encouragement - he skittered down the street to the bar with the live music, instantly mingling with the crowd. Heading into the alley, Clancy moved quietly against the wall, removing a pistol from his holster. It wasn’t the standard-issue pipe pistol - this was a modified 10mm, complete with a bulky silencer attached to the end. The alleyway was empty, with only debris and other junk scattered about. Moving slowly, he reached the corner and could hear a conversation between two voices.

“Twenty caps? This is a pristine microscope, I risked my ass for this! A hundred-twenty is more like it.”

“Screw you, only a synth would argue with me! Get out of here, before I get the authorities!”

“Crazy bitch! Nutcase . . .”, the first voice fell silent and footsteps began heading in Clancy’s direction. He pressed himself against the shadows, trying to hide in the darkness. A masked figure stormed his way past him, grumbling and cursing, before stopping and turning to Clancy. Even under his bandana and cap in the darkness, he could see the man’s confused, frightened eyes. Clancy only held a finger to his lips and shushed.

The stranger nodded and ran away.

Sighing a quick breath of relief, Clancy held his pistol at the ready and turned into the light. In a small courtyard, the city’s junk merchant, Myrna, was scrounging through a cart of miscellaneous items. She tossed them over her head, talking to herself as tape, burnt books, and other random objects flew and smacked against the tin wall. Clancy waited for a moment before coughing into his fist, immediately getting Myrna’s attention. Her buggy eyes scanned the officer, darting up and down, back and forth for a solid minute before she spoke. “Officer, a synth just left a few moments ago! Tried harassing me, go terminate him!”

“Mhm, yeah,” Clancy mumbled, raising the silenced pistol and putting two in her head.

Her body crumpled to the ground in an instant, slumped up against her prized junk. The two bullet holes between her eyes were draining blood, and brain matter shined in the light against the wall behind her. Clancy only knelt and reached into his pockets, pulling out a hodgepodge of chem-related items. Dumping it around the courtyard, he stepped back to the entrance and looked upon his work.

“Shame you dealt with junkies.”

[ashstatic]

When I had been playing Fallout 4 and I'd walk through the city past open lots littered with trash I'd think, "ooh I can craft a lot of items with that junk." And luckily would snap back into reality before filling my bags and pockets.

I just want y’all to know that one time during lockdown I played a lot of Minecraft because I had nothing better to do and then later I was going to go into my room after a shower so I could go back to being a hermit but it was dark so I just thought “oop, can’t go in there, there’ll be skeletons spawning there and they’ll shoot at me”

And for LIKE FIVE WHOLE SECONDS I didn’t question it and I just turned on the lights and walked out into the living room to wait it out, just thankful I had my pajamas on already so I didn’t have to fight off the shooty skeletons in my dark closet where there might be some creepers too

And then all of a sudden I was like “Wait what the frig skeletons aren’t real” and then just went back into my room

And I think about that a lot. So if ANY OF YOU dare to think that I have any more than three and a half braincells on a really good day, just please remember this and know that you are sorely mistaken