RPG Tourist

 So to update, the motherboard for the new PC was diagnosed and sent back to me. It's not clear that there was ever anything wrong with it and I don't even feel like getting into what was troubling me in the first place. I just wanted confirmation that the on board sensors were working correctly and for whatever reason the repair department wanted it back maybe just to confirm that.  If the sensors are correct then my hot, hot Ryzen 5 processor has never reached unsafe temps. So fine. It's been reassembled. Reapplying thermal paste and mounting the stock cooler for a third time hasn't changed anything but the system is stable. The 3000 RPM exhaust fan I thought was a great idea still sends me into alarm but maybe a good after market CPU cooler could alleviate that. I'm just happy I've got it up and running because this has all been a bit disruptive. My partner advised to just use the computer and stop talking about it. Lol.

The path I took as a villain does have an impact on the game world. Dutch didn't enslave the entire Commonwealth. I ran out of patience for that. Once the raider outposts were self sufficient I didn't need to bother with them much. They send a steady stream of caps to Nuka World and defend themselves for the most part. I'm missing out on some legendary gear but it's not like there's a scarcity. Occasionally Dutch gets support from friendly raiders out in the Commonwealth which is a welcome change. There is a handful of free, under developed settlements that call for help but it's not too disruptive. Dutch has yet to meet Preston Garvey and the Minute Men don't exist. He never stepped foot on the Prydwen so didn't join the Brotherhood either. The Railroad didn't care at all about his raider connections. They were happy he is as tough as his reputation. Siding with the Institute prevents yet another giant radioactive crater being created on the map whi...

I named this fellow Dutch after another morally complex video game villain. He's average in everything but combat and infiltration skills. He relies on persuasion when the situation warrants. He prefers lethal  sniping to in person combat.  Ex military, he had been managing PTSD with medication and a solid family relationship. He woke up in a hellscape and was tormented by memories of his wife's murder and his son's kidnapping. He soon developed a chem addiction. He desperately wanted to find his son but this was complicated by distrust and increasing paranoia. His best friend is a dog he found at a service station and he maintains his true Commonwealth base there. He did do some odd jobs around Diamond City but some of those went bad and he decided to strike out and look for information on his own. The Commonwealth is a very dangerous place and he partnered with Cait until she got too close. He is much more comfortable with robots and synths. Jackass comments cover his dis...

 This character was meant to avoid faction and main quest lines until Nuka World had been taken over and two Raider factions had established at least a presence in the Commonwealth. Then the player character would meet and ally with the Institute. This wasn't at all difficult to achieve but there was one thing I didn't consider. When Nuka World came out it was assumed that players already had many developed settlements available to support raider outposts and would just continue playing whether it made any kind of role playing sense or not. By the time we installed Nuka World I had invested too many hours for a restart. I did explore Nuka World and did some quests but my aspirational, diplomatic female lone survivor could not abide slavery and she took the quest path that killed them all. Other than create new antagonistic faction NPCs, this action had no real impact on the game world. I didn't think I was missing any compelling content either. I really didn't know that...

I have gone from rarely taking screenshots to seeing photo ops everywhere. This was taken during Chapter 4 right after we learn how torn Arthur is between loyalty to the gang and a yearning for a life of his own. I hadn't noticed the sit prompt there before but the photo really seemed to fit the moment.  

 About a week and a half ago I did a new PC build. The 2012 five hundred dollar build I complain about has been definitely failing. Significantly more was spent this time partly because electronic parts are more expensive right now but mostly because I wanted something better. I will describe it as a medium gaming build. Not high end but included all the contemporary niceties. Things went well. It powered up and everything worked. Unfortunately, I soon began to question my sensor readings and turned to tech support for the motherboard. Long story short, I have to RMA the board. Sigh. This caused some blogging disruption. I haven't been on the PS4 at all. I have been doing lots of stress testing, playing more recent and/or CPU intensive games and reading saved sensor logs. The old computer is hooked back up now so I'll be getting back to Fallout 4. Here's hoping I can get that new system going.

 I just liked this gory screenshot of Hancock and the Sole Survivor for some reason.

 Oh dear. All other projects have come to a halt. I kept telling myself it could wait when it was downloading on Tuesday. Yeah that didn't happen. Then I was just going to "check it out". I think I'm about half way through it now. And of course, I had to celebrate finding a scooter.

  I just learned that River, Dogmeat's real life character actor has passed on. I took this screenshot recently because I thought it was so cute. She added so much to the game. My current character has made Red Rocket his home base because that's where he found Dogmeat and along with two robots, she's guarding his prized possessions. My sympathies to Joel Burgess, River's owner and companion.

  This is what happens when you have no science skills. I have been investing more in combat skills but it's impossible to avoid settlement building altogether. After taking over the Nuka World Raiders, I teamed up with the Railroad to build the teleporter to the Institute. I needed 27 power but the biggest generator I could build was only worth 5 power. There are a number of ways you could cobble this together but I went with 4 large generators and 3 windmills because there is so much water at this settlement. It was fun trying to hook it all together but it worked.