• The Trials and Travels of Philly McNoweps

    Premise:
    To play through Fallout 3 using no weapons at all.
    • I will be using stimpacks, I will be using med-x (and other chems)
    • I will be using armour, although at the same time I will be testing out ‘silly costumes’ if only for screenshot oddities.
    • I will be min-maxing my character, If only to ensure absolute game breaking mechanics.
    • I will at times be using the console ‘setownership’ and if things piss me off ‘unlock’ but not so that I break the game completely.

    The game will be set on hard [see following edit] difficulty. - - Edited info; I found that the game was set to Very Hard.

Some Visual Updates

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 12:58 0 comments

Well to help pan out some of the finer points of the end game here's a few pictures and (finally) a couple more Youtube's






my skills list

my perks list

Done!

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 09:01 0 comments

I have officially completed the game now, have written my last post, just waiting to get pictures etc sorted and will post it up.

I have to confess, its very hot and I’m not 100% into this blogging thang. I’ll try to keep things light hearted,

So After my last somewhat crappy little game I went about collecting some bobble heads to help pad up my stats etc, so I got the Endurance b-h, Stealth and Repair b-h’s this was all rather blah blah run of the mill stuff by now, deathclaw’s Yao Guai & Raiders etc all falling with ease. And other than a lot of walking and the appropriate XP gain for the random crap I kill on way.

I skip along and hit the level-wall… level 20 oh goodie… I take the perk Grim Reapers Spirit… just for the stupid ability to go from one VAT’s kill straight to another VAT’s sadly, I have a huge gripe with the shitty level cap, one of the 1st mods I ever got was a mod to make the cap 100… and now that I’m back on L20 capp’d out I am busting to get to level 21.. and then 22 etc… but I’m staying true to my word and I’m playing through un-modded.

The overall effect of this is that it left me finishing my session at the memorial about to help dad start the next bit of the game. Al of which means there’s probably about 10 levels worth of XP I’ll not be getting in this game. Not one Enclave troop will give me XP gain, which is to me a very big part of why this game (unmodded) is just such a failure of a game, it stops being an RPG (if it ever was one…) and just concentrates purely on action. Below I compiled some more FRAP’s footage of my character punching various things to death, including the ‘capitol building’ Behemoth (along with all the other inhabitants I killed not shown in the video clip)

One of the most fun things I found in this session: warp-punch one of the mutants in the capitol building was on top of some scaffold, and by jumping from a good vantage point, hitting “V” my character warps to the same level as the target and combat continues. Using this little gimmick I managed to kill the sniper (Drifter) by warp-punching onto his platform! My fingers weren’t quick enough to capture it as I knocked him off the ledge (which I did manage to screen-cap)


Expect this post to be edited: lots of media yet to be sorted through and edited for posting... Also; still having issues uploading to Youtube :-(

Damn You... tube ...

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 00:41 0 comments

No updates recently as I was intending to add some more FRAP's to my next post. Youtube doesn't like my video files (size I expect) so while I fight to resize them and eventually get around to releasing my actual next post, here is some bite-size update:

Bobbleheads searching
Level 20 reached
enclave @ project purity
broke the game a little so I could get Col. Autumn's coat
1st enclave kill: 1 punch dead!
Rushed the section of game from proj. purity > Citadel > Lamplight > Paradise falls > lamplight > V87 > Raven rock.

Was attempting to finish but GF came home (shock horror gamer haz a gurlfiend!!)

I'll attempt to write up a REAL update, complete with comedy FRAP's as soon as I can.

Quik update.

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 08:47 0 comments

Just a quick update, I did play some more today, and managed to get to the next level (18 I think it was...) I super-rushed the Tranquility Lane part, and got Dad free etc etc, After that  spent some time in some sewers near the hospital, I was happily beating up Talon Co. and some muties when the game yet again BSOD's ... so today I decided I'd tinker with some web code I'm doing and let the main PC defrag / disk-check etc etc.

When my compy is being slightly less grumpy I'll try again, also; I'll get more FRAPs footage, paralysing palm is just weird, coupled with my natural ability to knock out enemies, the combat has become very one sided!

Once more into the breach.

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 12:32 0 comments

A rather blazé attempt at playing today (Monday... I was waiting for youtube), starting off rushing over to the museum of tech, and rampaging through, much mutie mashing and looting. I wish I could shake my OCD like tendencies toward bent tin cans and small burnt books, I have well over 40 thou caps and rising steadily but I still spend ages scraping up every loose item I spot.
I race up the Washinton monument to complete the GNR quest and then crash to desktop twice (on my third load I immediately hit warp so to avoid any further CTD) three dog done and I head to Li in Rivet Shitty.

I had deliberately avoided talking to her previously as I know all to well this game has no capability for ‘conversation’ triggers and as such Li happily bangs on about your dad the moment you meet her and as such completely negates the requirement to go see three dog (and this bludgeoning a large portion of the main quest out of place)

In the interim I manage to get Level 17 by killing raiders at  Alexandria Arms in a slight detour, I choose silent running for my level perk. Off to Project Purity for me! Rather than my usual selection of meaningless but amusing pictures I decided to use FRAPS to get some captured video of my punching antics and to highlight just how easy this game has become. Not much else happened in this game I went and investigated the Nuka-Cola Plant found that Ronald Laren had died regardless of my command line antics… so no naughty nightwear for him. And now, the video’s sorry for the frame-rate, my comp isn’t up to running the game AND video capture.







apologies also, seem's the 2nd one has a glitch.

Relaxing

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 16:05 0 comments

Lack of posts is due to me doing things other than play FO3. mostly i've been doing some web coding... back on the ball shortly (i.e. next week)

for now here's a relaxing picture:

Chaper Seven ... (I think it's seven)

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 09:35 0 comments

Another big one today: mostly looting *ho hum*. I begin at tenpenny (being that was the last place the game auto-saved) from there I warp to super-duper mart and cross the river, ambushed by some raiders on the opposite bank I VAT’s my way to happiness and deliver 5 fingers of hurt to each of them. Level 15 then pop’s up and greets me so I go about leveling up choosing +1 Luck via intensive training, critical effects often being what I rely on for damage from my punchy ways.

Around the corner I find three mad brahmin, and kill them each with 1 punch! (and no chem help or anything!) I dive into Farragut West metro and dispatching the occasional ghoul. As a point of interest, I’ve previously noted that  when I use VATS my character often ‘travels’ to the enemy before the attack is made. Only a short distance, but a notable effect. As such I found I could ‘teleport’ past a locked gate in order to attack some ghouls what a handy cheat!

Much wandering later and more tin-cans than is reasonable for one person to be picking up… I find myself in Chevy Chase North. I instantly war around to various places to offload my loot (Megaton, Rivet City, Tenpenny Tower) then I help the BoS kill off the mutants in the school. Don’t believe the BoS, they’re basically liars; check out the screeny…

Then after sorting out a glitch which saw my character locked into a school desk it was time to deal with *drumroll* The BEHEMOTH! Its been a long time coming and I was a little weary of this one fight, having no guns is simple when the things you’re fighting are the same size and tend not to kill you in two hits. My confidence in running toward things and hitting VATS has grown quite a bit however, so, I chem. Up with just about everything going: med-X proving essential as the big B has a hellava whack (almost a one shot deal with no med-X), psycho for the extra damage boost, jet for the action points then after a quick tussle as I kinda expected (although I was about 50/50 on the outcome) one dead behemoth! It was knocked out 4 times in the fight and I used about 9 or 10 stims (in 3 separate doses) because I touched the GNR door before the intercom, the BoS instantly thought I was a baddy (yay for super AI writing here…) and all opened fire on me, thankfully I’d F5’d just prior to the behemoth so in some odd ‘proving I can do it’ kind of way I have to kill it all over again with pretty much the same kinda outcome in terms of KO’s and stims.

7-cat, umm no, that’s not his name… uhh what is it… 5-mouse ? 318-platipus ? OOOH I remember thu-reeeeeeeeei daaawwwwwg (good lord I get fed up of hearing that) does the honorable thing and asks me to risk life and limb for a new transmitter. I take the back door out, head through Dupont Circle killing raiders as I go and having to do another warp around all my known traders to offload crap. I warp back into Dupont, finish off the remaining raiders and surprise, surprise… Level 16 I choose Action Girl opening up even more action points for my punchy punchy VAT’s fun times. Diving into the metro system again I end up at Pennsylvania Ave. heading to the Mall, many ghouls, mutants and raiders falling to my now improved VAT’s-a-thon.

Once I emerge in the Mall dripping with loots I decide to get to Underworld to sell up and end the day on. Finding my path blocked by some dozen or so mutants, Mutant Brutes and a couple of Mutant Masters… chem up! VAT’s on! some time later: dead muties… almost lost dogmeat thanks to the two minigun wielding mutants and the missile launcher mutant but I managed to save him by jabbing a stimpack into him just in time. So I sell up all I have, clean out the mess that I left all over the Mall and then warp back to megaton and save the game for the day.

And this time, the game didn’t crash!

Back on track

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 13:59 0 comments

Starting this rather mammoth session I quickly hunt down some feral ghouls on my way though to find Roy only a couple of these and I quickly get Level 13 taking Finesse. Then I wrap up some ghoul punch-bag action poor, poor Roy et al.

With that quickly seen to I spend some time getting to girdershade, in an attempt to deal with the naughty nightwear thing. Managing to ignore nuka-girl for the most part… no way I’m getting into all that nonsense. I persuade Ronald using black widow to fetch me nuka’s in exchange for a three-way. Sadly this causes him to belt off toward the nuka factory.. I decide to follow him on foot, fighting off several things en route, including going passed the Rob-co facility, which I was intending in doing soon. Sadly when I’m attacked by a pack of 5 or 6 vicious dogs I loose track of Ronald. [At several points I warp to and from girdershade hoping to run into him again, sadly… it seems it is written into the game that he dies near the entrance of the nuka-cola plant. In an attempt to bypass this I use ‘setessential’ on his ID but throughout the rest of this session see no sign of him. To further hurry along my now tainted quest log, I use ‘player.additem’ to get me the required nuka-quantums to give to Sierra].

Well annoyed by all that, as I was hoping to explore the alternate quest ‘avenues’ I did get to the nuka plant at the end of my trek, and found a deathclaw waiting for me… my 1st to fight bare-knuckle. VATS caused a knock out and I finished it off without injury what a poor showing, a deathclaw… punched to death.

Having been playing for some considerable amount of time now I loose my concentration and start cocking about in tenpenny tower, firstly I spawn 100 behemoths… I died quickly, as did Tenpenny and Dogmeat. But it was funny. Then I spent some time adding various items that I’ve not played about with before (I did sell these items, but being that my cap’s count is like 40,000 and growing, its hardly going to have adverse affect on my games outcome) nothing realling interesting, other than 1 item ID code which spawned 50x (s) … I don’t really know what an (s) is.. I dropped it and whatever it was just wasn’t there. The best thing I found was power-suit armour, which is a suit a-la business suit. After getting bored with that I went and got a new face, spurred on by the side view of my current face, I mean… look at that chin!

So, my new face! Behold!!!
 Such a pretty love!

I then spent a loooo-ooo-ooong time cleaning out Rob-co getting level 14 in the process, the immense amount of loot hauling prompting me to take strong back (really actually taking the perk, not like last time when I thought I’d taken it) in between mass Rob-co looting I nip over to the cemetery to grab the LK bobblehead. Then back to Rob-co to finish up my mega-looting session.
 
With Rob-co all done that’s the last peg in my Wasteland Survival Guide quest, and Moira can go shove it.

Being that I’m finishing up loose ends I decide to make a conceited effort to get the game back onto the main plot quest, so over to germantown. I practice my new tactic of; dose up on psycho, med-x, jet or quantum and run at the mutants swinging blindly. Which works quite well even against the tougher mutant masters. Needless to say I wrap up the germantown / big-town thing, seemingly in record time as well… something to be said for this unarmed combat style!

Happy that I’m back on the main quest I go about making sure I have my meds stocked and loot sold and then. . .  

OH for fucks sake… BSOD … seriously this game crashed more often than wall street.

As a small point of interest, in my little write up I’d put that the game is on hard. I had reason to go into my settings at one point during this game I noticed that it had actually been set on Very Hard. Cool!

Let's do that again... and again...

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 13:57 0 comments

Well I was pondering if it was to be Fallout or Company of Heroes today, I decided on a little of both, so… world war II aside I loaded up FO and got about my business, after last times crash to desktop, I found that I had effectively saved the game, by taking a nap in an unused bed in one of the Reclining Groves Resort Homes. So Huzzah for that! I hopped over to the nearby scavenger in the barn and emptied off my crap. At this point I find that a certain mug lying on the ground is the cause of my previous CTD, as when I try to grab it, I get another crash to desktop! So I reload the game and start over, repeating the bits I’d done thus far.

I set about my quest for the +1 AGI bobblehead, taking a route via MDPL-13 power station (looting as I go) and fending off more Talon Co. then onward to Greener Pastures Disposal Site, ta-da! Insta-stat upgrade!

Out of pure interest I loaded up my stats screen firstly it seems I’d forgotten about my level 12 but now I have a good view of my characters stats etc, and I thought I’d share that with you;

More over, I decided to double check what perks I had, and that looked a little like this:

So, with my AGI maxed out, (excepting for the yet to come power armour negative effects) I warp back to megaton for loot offloading and med restocking my next in line task it to deliver the naughty nightwear. This requires me to cross as yet un-chartered  lands so I have no warp to points. My first foray into the wastes I decided to try and go via the Fort Independence and surrounding area’s including taking out all the raiders in the nearby town, two of which had missile launchers! But nothing to much trouble for my fists of fury. Cue classic batman style fight scene:


After that and having a chat with the outcasts I move on attempting to get to tenpenny tower my travels are quickly ended by a Yao Guai removing my head and causing a severe case of relodius del last saveium pointius In other words I found myself back at megatons gate. Grr, angry at my inept non-use of F5 key…

I took a break at this point, grabbed a coffee etc, then after a while came back and loaded the game back up. I took a similar approach as last time, but basically bypassed the outcasts fort and the raiders town, a few non committal fights with various spawns and me saving the game religiously so when Dogmeat was single swiped by a Yao Guai (it seems these damn things are proving the biggest problem for me recently) I reloaded a recent save as I like the ol’ meaty dog, but I think if he dies again, I’ll probably just let him R.I.P.

With that slight hiccup I make a beeline for tenpenny tower, knowing that I have the robots quest from Moira yet to do. So tenpenny will be a nice war point, also the extra trade outlet is useful as I’m finding my regular ‘warp in, trade, warp out’ activities has cleaned out Megaton and Rivet City.

I encountered a regular graphics glitch I get with tenpenny tower, some of the textures go a bit.. WTF... such as, how do I get in? (its not actually a solid wall just graphics texture)

With tenpenny comes great ghoul responsibilities. I plan to kill Roy & his ghoul pals due to enjoying the traders and benefits of the tower and the trade off for bad karma / GNR occasionally telling me I’ve been naughty is worth it. I wander over to Warington Tunnels (I didn’t speak with Roy, so the more direct route was blocked for me. Removing the feral ghouls at the entrance nearly caused my death, after 3 ghouls gang up on my non-Med-X’d character and those guys hurt! But pipboy a-go-go and all is well. After getting into the tunnels and killing a couple more ghouls I get a big fat BSOD. So I give up for the day, clearly the computer doesn’t want to play Fallout today!

Chapter 6, redeux

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 14:35 0 comments

After my BSOD last time I start this session at the entrance of the marigold station, I proceed to barge through the tunnels, and quickly see to deal with the ant issue, needless to say, looting everything as I go.


A small point of interest, I noted last time that I’d chosen strong back, it seems that wasn’t the case, it looks like I took yet another +1 AGI, via intense training, I noticed this because when Doctor Lesko down with the ants gave me my ‘booster’ I decided to take the +1 PER. Just for sake of information, at this stage my AGI is now 9 points! This all means that I didn’t take strong back as I previously wrote. (I do intend to take strong back at some point though)

While down there in marigold station I happened across Grady's note and the associated package now I know that you good folks are just itching to see my sexy sexy female character in some 'naughty nightwear' so check it out! complete with pipboy & glove and finished off with a combat helmet and biker goggles... Ooooh yeah, sexy.

While I was going about my ant bashing business I also decided to find falls church complete with mutant based antics, While rescuing the trapped BOS initiate, I fell prey to a damn trap! This managed to kill me outright! (One of the tripwire/big swinging object style traps) with this little side event done and dusted, finishing up the ants had slightly more vigour to it than perhaps I’d normally have given it (lots of psycho, jet, and fire ant nectar used.)

Lots of XP means yet another level gained (level 11 now), this time (and I’m sure about this! I wrote it down!) I took black widow, for even yet more damage bonus on my already silly punchy fists of doom.

With my AGI score at 9 points I thought I should take the time to try and round it up to 10 bobblehead style, which means a long trek out to the green pastures, lots of baddies found on the way, mostly Yao Guai, and a rather entertaining episode involving some hunters chasing a scavenger (with whom I’d only recently traded away all my useless loot) This chase was rather humorous as the scavenger was running away, his Brahmin following him, and behind that an angry hunter wielding a sledgehammer! I followed them all round Reclining Groves Resort Homes and then looted the scavenger of all he had. Sadly, I have to confess to one more death which occurred just prior to this benny hill-esq  chase scene, thanks for a surprise Yao Guai and without med-x standing in front of an angry bear is no way to impress people.

Annoyingly, I’m not sure I saved the game, as shortly after this, my game crashes to desktop and I have to go do other stuff.

Ol joe, signing off for now!

Half Arsed.

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 14:17 0 comments

I have to say, I wasn’t really in the mood for Fallout 3 today, but lack of any other activity to occupy my time, I got going, checked my quest log, and chose, “Those” aka: giant ants, aka… meh.

I warped over to Sewer Waystation I find a gang of Talon Co. which I thank very much as my armour was getting damaged and the extra repair-spares come in handy. Then onto Grayditch and the first foray into antopia I died thanks to a soldier ant or something. DAS RELOADENSIE! That done, I altered tactics a little, and found that dancing to the side of the big fiery doom and hitting VAT’s means I took less damage than the normal, run at it until its dead approach.

Using my swan lake style of attack I clean out the town, loot everything and headed into the marigold station, a spot of looting and ant bopping (although I must confess, the temptation to pull out a combat shotty and get on with it is highly tempting, if only because I’m bored of punching things) I was about to delve deeper into my Loot-a-thon when I get BSOD [error:game is shit – fun not found in F03000.0E] .. So I though fuck it, didn’t really want to play, I’ll do something more productive.

More later folks!

Boooorrrinng!

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 11:05 2 comments


First off my apologies, it seems I’d also gotten to level 9 in the last session! Checking over my character info It looks like I’d taken a last rank in Iron fist (and bloody mess afterward. Not as previously thought at level 8..)

Just a tiny info bite, up to this point I’ve used 145 stimpacks and probably the same equivalent HP gain in nuka-cola / cram etc.

The title of this section relates to the fact I went about doing various missions which I consider quite tedious.

Arefu/Meresti- from start to end, using the ‘good outcome’
Replicated man- from start to end, using the ‘OMG-how-much-good-karma outcome’

I was sure I did a 3rd one, but my mind has gone blank!

The most eventful parts of this were my trip to the Arefu location, and then the trip to Meresti, both involved some good fights (muties / raiders) but I can tell I’m becoming overconfident, even though I have yet to use a weapon in this game (except that damn mole rat/stick incident), I feel a little unbeatable. The source of this is clearly the VATS / Pipboy-heal combo. In fact, I’m pretty much sure I don’t need to actually play out the remainder of the game; the combats are becoming incredibly repetitive, more so than any time I’ve used guns! The poorly animated ‘unarmed’ combat couple with the fact I have to watch most of my attacks at 1/100th normal speed I’m becoming bored more quickly by the game as there is little variation in what I have to do now… at least with different guns I can pick the one I like the look of, and enjoy the small visual variation of my combat.

I managed to fall into Big Town, and loot it of all it has (I did a lot of looting in this session, lots of bent tin cans etc etc…) sadly I now have the little trouble blah-de-blah quest now in my quest log, which means I’ll no doubt go and do that.

On a good note: actually... quite an awesome note. I found Dogmeat! For the 1st time in FO3 I find the ‘surely this recycled character has no place here’ NPC, but aside from that, the fact that Dogmeat is an Unarmed fighter and I thought it’d be a great little addition to this game run-through.

Just for some reference: here’s what my Skills look like:



The red shaded ones (thanks to my 1337 picture editing skillz) are skills which I've never upgraded on this character. as you can see, this was my Level 10! sadly due to mind-blanky goodness, I cant recall what perk I took, there is a good chance it was Strong Back (an attempt to make my looting more profitable to keep me stocked with stimpacks).

Chapter El Cinqo.

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 09:10 0 comments


After the poor showing in my previous session, I decided to take a more cautionary approach. This time I went straight from Rivet City swam the bay, ran away from the ‘lurks and pas the few Talon in the area, straight to the library. Then, having now gained a new warp point, I spent some time hooving out all the loot the library could yield (raiders loot, books, anything not nailed down) because of the over zealous AI the brotherhood paladins which you find fighting the raiders decided to turn on me, so I beat them up with MY BARE FISTS!!!! Serious game-play WTF… I knocked out a guy in power amour?! With the library stripped bare and any trader I have access to now cleaned out of stim’s but seemingly overflowing with supplies of ‘small burnt book’ I decided to take the trek to Arefu (this may seem somewhat off course from the games plot, but I decided I’d finish ANY mission that gets logged on my quests list.) on route (under the bridge, you know the one…) I find some outcasts fighting a good number of raiders, I kill all the raiders seemingly single-handedly about a dozen of them… and then find that the power armour clad, laser rifle wielding outcasts had been killed by the raiders while I was fighting, This game continues to take ‘believable’ wasteland and smothers it with a layer of what-in-the-hairy-fuck?! Lightly armed raiders beat highly trained well armed outcasts?!? Ok, it was like 12 vs 3 but come on really?! One of those outcasts should have at least killed 4 raiders before being butt-raped… but no... Instead its up to me unarmed to kill all the raiders.

Ignoring this annoying little encounter, I manage to get to Arefu… oh yeah, and I beat up a Yao Guai on the way.

I’m pretty sure I may get so annoyed at this ridiculous game that I’m gonna give up playing, but I’ll persevere until such time as my no weapons run though reaches its natural end (natural events now also include a certain DVD disk being rammed into my paper shredder).

I got to Arefu, went past the introduction rigmarole and then after trading away some of my ever increasing loot pile, saved the game.

During this run, I managed to go up to Level 8, taking ‘bloody mess’ for further increased damage and increasing my non-combat skills somewhat.

4th Chapter.

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 10:06 0 comments


Sadly in this 4th instalment I died twice, once thanks to some ghouls in a sewer I was exploring for loot, and then the 2nd time was because of a mirelurk hunter and 2 other mirelurks. In both instances my VAT’s cheat mode  didn’t help much past the initial attacks, once passed the ghouls just attacked too quickly for me to fight them effectively and the mirelurks just did too much damage at once (my frantic tab button mashing did little to help… so no Pipboy heal-a-thon)

Other that the two deaths I did quite well, taking out a minigun wielding super mutant and the regular mutants / centaurs that were present,  I looted out the teddy-bear factory / Sewer ??? works (seriously… what’s up with that?) and spent a little time attempting to get to Arlington library (Moira…) and after two failed attempts to get there; both due to over-looting and running out of stimpaks due to encounters. I decide to go to Rivit City (just so I have a waypoint closer to the library when I next try.

As I mention, several times I had to halt my travels because I was carrying too much and my med supplies were too low to risk further combats. In this session I’d seen fit to punch to death:

Several raiders – some because of a rather extraordinary triple spawned encounter involving mole rats, waste-landers and raiders, I also cleared out the little raider camp near Dukov’s.
Super mutants – these now pose no real threat, so the route to the Jefferson memorial / on to Rivet City was nothing more than an interesting boxing match Vs gun wielding super mutants, I didn’t even use many stim’s doing so.
A random encounter Protectron, which only took like 4 punches ??
Lots of ghouls… I spent a lot of time wandering around in a sewer looking for loot


All of that combat, coupled with various lock picking and trap deactivating activities I managed to hit Level 7, taking Toughness perk and increasing sneak, unarmed speech and barter.

With rivet city opened up trading all my ill-gotten gains was easier than ever although I did abuse Doc Church in megaton, trading several dozen tin cans and other useless loots for all the stims he had at the time.

The session ended abruptly when the game crashed while I was swimming from Rivet City across to the spot where the ‘riverboat’ would occupy (not there as I don’t have the point lookout DLC active)

Forgot to add...

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 10:06 0 comments

Little update for the last post: it seems I had gone up a Level to Level 6, I’d also traded up armour, to regular combat armour, repaired with the more damaged Talon combat armour I had. I think that the skill-points were spread out, and that I took ‘intense training’ again, to help boost agility to 7 points (agility = VATS action points = increase cheat mode)

Small Third instalment

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 09:13 0 comments

Due to some kind of alien mind wipe I’ve all but forgotten what the hell I’m doing today so I’ll just give the basics…

Moira is still insisting that I ‘help her’ so I caved in and went out with the big stick-o-death looking for molerats. I really hope this is the ONLY time I have to use any kind of weapon in this game, even caving in to this one occasion has kinda made me feel like I’ve failed in my challenge.

I warp out to the war memorial and head to tepid sewers, in doing so I’d forgotten about two certain mirelurks, what didn’t help is that two more had spawned! Liberal use of stimpaks and VAT’s  (I manage to kill one outright in vats!) and I find that although I’m now light on meds mirelurks aren’t too much of a hassle. Ito the tepid sewers I dive, brandishing el twig de mort. Crush a few molerats skulls mission complete I then go back to fisty mode and hunt out the raiders that hide in the area, looting them and all the stuff around them.

I somehow ended up emerging in Georgetown … I was a little confused but checking some maps it seems the two do link together. In g’town I see fit to beat up (and knock out while doing so…) a super mutant master and a centaur then its warpy time to megaton.

Now happy at her dead rat situation Moira tells me to go break my bones (1 big jump off of a high platform later) and to plant the observation device in the mirelurk spawning grounds, with my newfound confidence fighting mirelurks coupled with my now replenished med’s I take on the quest and a couple of warps and a few stimpaks later and all is well with Moira.

Not entirely sure if I went up a level, will have to check that…

I probably looted several places as I went about doing this, and I recall nipping into Dukov’s and using ‘setownership’ on the bed so I could insta-heal without having to warp back and forth to Megaton. All that done I save game in Megaton once more.

three part two

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 12:12 0 comments

Ok then folks; picking up from lat time, straight off the bat, Moira asks me to go and get radiated so no fistycuff’s required, skip ahead to minefield. My journey to the minefield almost cut short by yet another vicious dog and some raiders, the fight with the dog depletes my med’s so I have to sneak around the raiders and head to minefield (albeit at a slower pace and with only 61hp of my 240 max… the raiders spot me and not wanting al out confrontation I ‘holster’ my fists and make a run for minefield, and as soon as I’m there duck into the first house, scooping up loot and taking a 1 hour insta-heal nap.

Warping back to megaton before going into minefield proper, I gather up meds selling off all the loot I’ve rustled up, at the same time taking opportunity to wander into Lucas’s house to wander about and take a bobblehead he just happens to have there.

I warp over to 101 entrance, to pick up some bits I’d dropped there… I need more med’s still before I brave minefield unarmed. I happen to notice as I pass the approach to springvale that a certain Deputy Weld’s corpse (which previously had glitch-catapulted away from where I’d killed him) I warp back into Megaton to grab all the meds I can, at the same time I wrap up Silver/Moriarty so to continue the main plot a little.

WAAAARP into minefield, disarm a bunch of mines and wey-hay Level 4 bounces along and smacks into me. A rank in Iron Fist and I boost my repair and Unarmed skills (a couple of points elsewhere but not important) Super-Teleportathon back to Megaton (oh goody a way to travel completely unhindered and risk free, THANKS Beth-) Moira now tells me I have to test the repellent stick… Dilemma time! Use a weapon!?!?!? Erk… Worse still when I try to ‘lie’ my way around the situation I fail the check.

Ignoring my little weapon related dilemma I warp back to super duper mart in search of some XP and to test out my newly Ironed fists. A giant radscorp ambushes my warp in, but thanks to ‘knocking it out’ (seriously, I VAT’s him a couple times and then it just kinda fell over unconscious so I beat the crap out of it. The radscorp comes around gives me a nasty Jab which VERY nearly kills me outright (Pipboy-insta-heal) and I finish it off. Diving inside I find that dispatching the armed raiders (which I’d previously left alone) is quite easy, most are killed with a combo of 1x VAT’s and a couple punches to follow. I steal their armour (my previous armour in tatters) and go about looting everything in the super-duper (literally… everything)

After the super duper I skip along over to Whelems warf, a little trading with Sparkle and then on to the mined bridge for more XP.. (Annoyingly as I’m about to disarm one of the mines that silly Brat interrupts me to tell me all about his poor missing poppa. FUCK OFF KID!!! I’M BUS.. *BOOM* .. oh never mind, what was it you wanted? I scrape my way into Level 5, spreading skillpoints about a bit and deciding on another rank of Iron Fist.

I thank bubbah that I took that extra rank, as I get to the war memorial, go inside for some light looting, finding out that mirelurks are tough buggers when you’re just punching them. I leave the war memorial only to find.. Dun dun duuuuuh… Talon Co.

The fight went quite well (again I manage to ‘knock out’ one of my opponents) but it uses up what meds I have left, so I loot and put on the Talon armour I ponder going after the molerats with the big stick.. instead I find myself warded away by a couple mirelurks I have no wish to tangle with, a bit of running and a short swim later and I’m far enough away to contact ‘scotty’ and let him know I need beaming to Megaton.

Introductions All Round...

Posted by Cratchety Ol Joe On 13:02 0 comments

Starting character

S- 9
P- 5
E- 6
C- 5
I- 5
A- 5
L- 5



Chapter 1
I begin the whole thing by unloading a large plethora of mods that usually prop up my fallout gaming to a more enjoyable level of gameplay… I also untick the DLC’s although, depending on how bored I become of this experiment, I may or may not add them back in.

I then sit through the god awful ‘intro/tutorial’ that is the baby & youth period of Vault 101. I chose a suitably retarded looking face by twiddling the sliders until my character looked like a frozen slapped arse that had been hit with the ugly stick, the ugly branch and the finally the whole damn ugly tree.
For the sheer bloody mindedness of my game-play at this point in time (randomly clicking through dialogue options) I end up having to sit through the GOAT as well. Coupled with already endured the birthing sequence, I was about ready to call this all to and end there and then…

But I manage to pull through, and ignoring the outcome I choose to TAG unarmed and some other ones (explosives I think… and perhaps barter?) the point being these other skills will be mostly ignored. Unarmed is what this is all about so I’m going to max that pretty quick.





Blah blah blah story-line etc etc Amata blah, Overseer blah, you know the drill… The short version of it all: escaping the vault primarily wearing vault security uniform proved quite easy. No great surprise as I’ve done this before (to prove a point on the NMA forums) a good number of stimpacks and radroach meat, means that at no point was I really in any danger of being done in.

I beat the bejesus out of the Overseer, and make my way out. Onward to Megaton! (leaving the vault shoves me over to Level 2, and I get ‘swift learner’ and prop up my unarmed and basic skills (explosive, repair, barter, sneak).

Upon arrival at the gate to megaton, a small glitch occurs, a raider suddenly spawns right there in front of me and the robot chap, I proceed to beat him up, and in doing so accidentally hit the robot (which sets him to aggressive) and so I have to beat the robot up too! Turns out he’s called Deputy Weld… all this time I never knew he had a name. Anyway, I make my way into Megaton, insult Lucas, fix the bomb and get a key to a house! YAY!!! I sell up all the crap I’m carrying and at the same time get given the Armoured Vault Suit (which I switch to) and get asked to do the Wasteland survival guide.

Oh, ok. So I nip over to the super-duper*, grab the crap (and some surrounding bits and bobs, and ‘warp’ back to megaton (after grabbing some raiders ‘loot’ which a kindly radscorpion had made available to me)

*A small point of note: on my journey, a Vicious Dog very nearly killed me, but thanks to Cheat mode (aka: VATS) and my ever handy pause-time-and-space-quantum-physics-defying-wrist-gadget (see also: Pipboy screen) I manage to dose up on meds and beat the doggy down.


So, back in Megaton, Moira gets me to Level 3 (adding 1 point to agility and upping my stats similar to before) I finish up pestering Moriarty about dad so that I can get back on to ‘the story’ with that done, I go back to my newly acquired house and save the game.