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February 2023 mod of the month and sequel to October 2019 mod of the month!! 50 quests, hours of game play, a new ending to the vanilla game, full fledged companion, dozens of voiced NPCs, new armors,
To be clear, it is probably best played without the SS2 story, as there will be some story contradictions, but otherwise it is compatible with SS2 itself.
If you choose to play both stories together they will work, but it is recommended to start FSD first, and play it until you unlock the companion before going to Concord and rescuing Preston & company.
I'd say the compatibility with SS2 depends a lot on the horsepower of your gaming rig. I'll admit that my Windoze install is getting a little senile, but I'd say that some awkward script fighting is going on. Quests in the vanilla game, SS2 and FSD aren't working all that reliably. Drummer Boy at Railroad HQ has been running up to me and spouting generic dialogue, rather than offering missions. Rescuing "doggos" didn't go so well the first try. The performance of SS2 is rather sluggish in some dialog. And Casting A Line left all the Raider prisoners stuck in their hostage positions after securing their freedom. "Recycleactor" left a settler naked, and "resetAI" did nothing. "Disable" and "enable" got his clothes back, but didn't nudge their noggins. I'll see if they return home after I help Jake secure that Hub thingie.
This is a seriously different mod than the usual. The potty mouth language in quest messages should be a big heads up on that. And this tells me that the way the FSD is going to "handle the issues" of the factions - other than the Minutemen - aren't going to be pretty, so that's not happening. The Sherriff may think she's the boss, but I'm the muddy flocking General of the Minutemen, the Sole Survivor, and I have do overs.
Quick edit: adding FSD to the mod mix might have been a bad idea. Most of my mods are firearms and clothes / military gear, but I also use Deadly Commonwealth which has its own script threads. Piling FSD on top of SS2 may be making my quests a bit too buggy. I finally started SS2 after that crazy long dinner meet at the Bleacher's diner, made it through Jake's meet 'n build stuff, had that fun with the Raiders above, and escorted Jake to Olivia to kill the Raiders and get his hands on the Comhub. But it took a few tries to get Jake to finish the mission.
First the Raiders wouldn't move up to attack me in the space between passages just inside the area near the terminal. When I killed three coming up the stairs, the others hunkered down, so naturally I had to go after them. And of course they decided then to run up the other way and attack Jake who then went guns blazing after them. This began an ordeal of killing the ones shooting away at us with some pretty deadly weapons, except for some hiding in various spots, and when I went to kill them, the others attacked Jake. We finished them off, but getting him upstairs to finish hacking the terminal was its own ordeal. After talking to Jake to nudge him, he either stood in place or wandered around the basement. I coaxed him upstairs but then he turned away from the terminal headed back towards the stairs. After one more talk with him, he finally got the security door open and we had our ending chat.
But I've noticed that NPCs are getting lost more often too, like walking into obstacles, and Jake's song 'n dance intro to the wonderful world of ASAMs wasn't that smooth either, so I may have gone A Mod Too Far. I dunno. I might have to ignore everything else and just do the FSD mod, but darn it, I just started this playthrough! Gah, my yucky luck...
It sounds more like script lag. You can use the Vit-o-matic as a sort of gauge. The delay between shooting a settler and the results screen appearing is a good indicator for how busy the Papyrus VM is.
I have been playing through FSD without SS2. There are a few times where it seems things are quite busy in the background. The number one offender is the ridiculous amount of NPCs patrolling around DC. Pure vanilla, the game is unable to handle more than 20 loaded NPC AI reliably...
That seems to be my limit too. If it's a big crowd with bad guys fighting in view, I'll sometimes catch a thug or two standing inactive.
So here's a question. For me, there are usually no more than 8 or 10 DC guards in view at once, including 2 power armor heavies. I can look down a joining avenue and maybe see 5 to 8 more with one in PA - standing out front of DC near the trader tub. Is this roughly your experience?
Pretty much. You have to remember the loaded area is a 5x5 grid of cells around the player (vanilla). Cell borders mostly match the grid lines in the pipboy map.
So, if you can see 10+ NPCs in every direction... add a little math... that's a lot. Also note that a turret is a NPC as well.
I was looking at the Nexus mod page for More Emenies. It mentioned an ini setting for max active combat AI. I wonder if there is a similar one for loaded AI. Though it may be pointless seeing AI is the first system dumped when the engine requires "more power."
Pretty much. You have to remember the loaded area is a 5x5 grid of cells around the player (vanilla). Cell borders mostly match the grid lines in the pipboy map.
So, if you can see 10+ NPCs in every direction... add a little math... that's a lot. Also note that a turret is a NPC as well.
I was looking at the Nexus mod page for More Emenies. It mentioned an ini setting for max active combat AI. I wonder if there is a similar one for loaded AI. Though it may be pointless seeing AI is the first system dumped when the engine requires "more power."
I'd say the compatibility with SS2 depends a lot on the horsepower of your gaming rig. I'll admit that my Windoze install is getting a little senile, but I'd say that some awkward script fighting is going on. Quests in the vanilla game, SS2 and FSD aren't working all that reliably. Drummer Boy at Railroad HQ has been running up to me and spouting generic dialogue, rather than offering missions. Rescuing "doggos" didn't go so well the first try. The performance of SS2 is rather sluggish in some dialog. And Casting A Line left all the Raider prisoners stuck in their hostage positions after securing their freedom. "Recycleactor" left a settler naked, and "resetAI" did nothing. "Disable" and "enable" got his clothes back, but didn't nudge their noggins. I'll see if they return home after I help Jake secure that Hub thingie.
This is a seriously different mod than the usual. The potty mouth language in quest messages should be a big heads up on that. And this tells me that the way the FSD is going to "handle the issues" of the factions - other than the Minutemen - aren't going to be pretty, so that's not happening. The Sherriff may think she's the boss, but I'm the muddy flocking General of the Minutemen, the Sole Survivor, and I have do overs.
Quick edit: adding FSD to the mod mix might have been a bad idea. Most of my mods are firearms and clothes / military gear, but I also use Deadly Commonwealth which has its own script threads. Piling FSD on top of SS2 may be making my quests a bit too buggy. I finally started SS2 after that crazy long dinner meet at the Bleacher's diner, made it through Jake's meet 'n build stuff, had that fun with the Raiders above, and escorted Jake to Olivia to kill the Raiders and get his hands on the Comhub. But it took a few tries to get Jake to finish the mission.
First the Raiders wouldn't move up to attack me in the space between passages just inside the area near the terminal. When I killed three coming up the stairs, the others hunkered down, so naturally I had to go after them. And of course they decided then to run up the other way and attack Jake who then went guns blazing after them. This began an ordeal of killing the ones shooting away at us with some pretty deadly weapons, except for some hiding in various spots, and when I went to kill them, the others attacked Jake. We finished them off, but getting him upstairs to finish hacking the terminal was its own ordeal. After talking to Jake to nudge him, he either stood in place or wandered around the basement. I coaxed him upstairs but then he turned away from the terminal headed back towards the stairs. After one more talk with him, he finally got the security door open and we had our ending chat.
But I've noticed that NPCs are getting lost more often too, like walking into obstacles, and Jake's song 'n dance intro to the wonderful world of ASAMs wasn't that smooth either, so I may have gone A Mod Too Far. I dunno. I might have to ignore everything else and just do the FSD mod, but darn it, I just started this playthrough! Gah, my yucky luck...
I agree, as soon as I added FSD, things started getting flakey, so I went back to a previous save, and will use that one on my next playthrough. I think I have a pretty good set up and it only has this one game so far, therefore I deduced that FSD was conflicting with something.
I've noticed FSD adds objects that really tax the rendering system. There are several places in the "green zone" that drops my fps to 45ish. (GTX 1070 @1440p)
I haven't unlocked them yet, but from what I understand, a lot of these objects can be built in settlements. Add these new objects with SS2 plots and you have a new potential performance issue for those who aren't running a 3090.
Sadly, I started this playthrough with FSD in mind, so my "previous save" is back at the beginning. I use Ray Bo's Bake a Game Save method, so that's way back at the beginning of Vault 111. ZOMG... I know I'm only a month into it, but I'd really rather not start another darn playthrough just so SS2 runs pretty okay! Gah, my luck...
My system is beefy enough to run FO4 well, with a 2016 vintage i7 twelve core, ASUS gaming board, 16GB ram and an MSI 1080Ti. My Windoze install is six years old too, but I dread going through that install hassle again, particularly since I'm not sure where the disc is. And all those associated installs... gah.
Sadly, I started this playthrough with FSD in mind, so my "previous save" is back at the beginning. I use Ray Bo's Bake a Game Save method, so that's way back at the beginning of Vault 111. ZOMG... I know I'm only a month into it, but I'd really rather not start another darn playthrough just so SS2 runs pretty okay! Gah, my luck...
My system is beefy enough to run FO4 well, with a 2016 vintage i7 twelve core, ASUS gaming board, 16GB ram and an MSI 1080Ti. My Windoze install is six years old too, but I dread going through that install hassle again, particularly since I'm not sure where the disc is. And all those associated installs... gah.
Unfortunately, since I am pretty new to the site, I don't know Ray Bo's Bake a Game Save method, but am guessing it involves not a lot of saves? I keep planning on starting a vanilla game and playing until at least level 60 then adding mods, but it never happens that way. I get too excited about the mods and just start adding them.
I think I may have gone a little crazy with my latest playthrough since this is my first time on PC. I have the I9 12900K, ASUS Z690 gaming board, 16GB ram and an MSI 3080TI. I thought I could just throw everything in and start playing. Didn't really work that well . I am still learning and expect that to continue for quite some time.
Here's RayBo's Bake a Game Save page. You don't have to follow everything. Mostly, I just use his staged install method at the top of the page below the YT video. It seemed to make a substantial performance and stability difference. I'm still lost on how to group mods in Vortex or the other mod managers. I also resort to LOOT to sort mods, with a little hand placement when the order seems a little frooky. It will also help if you migrate the games and mod folders to a drive other than C.
There also seem to be some issues with Fallout 4 running well on the latest gens of motherboards and particularly graphic cards. If you think that may be a problem for you too, all I can tell you on that is to google the topic and ask some advice from the authority figures here.
Here's RayBo's Bake a Game Save page. You don't have to follow everything. Mostly, I just use his staged install method at the top of the page below the YT video. It seemed to make a substantial performance and stability difference. I'm still lost on how to group mods in Vortex or the other mod managers. I also resort to LOOT to sort mods, with a little hand placement when the order seems a little frooky. It will also help if you migrate the games and mod folders to a drive other than C.
There also seem to be some issues with Fallout 4 running well on the latest gens of motherboards and particularly graphic cards. If you think that may be a problem for you too, all I can tell you on that is to google the topic and ask some advice from the authority figures here.
It seems to be running really well, except for when I added FSD, which it may not have anything to do with SS2 but maybe one of the other mods I have in there.
Thanks for the link, that looks very interesting.
Well... I think I've experienced enough of The Dept to make some assessments. Most of this is from my post on the mod comments page.
Yes, this mod has a lot of good points, they've been repeated quite a lot. But it has a lot of issues too. Some of the voice actors are really good, mostly the main Fens people. The rest... not so much. The writing reads a lot like a Reddit chat, and is about as deep. It was seriously overpraised.
Windscion posted, "The FSB seems to have a deeply ingrained siege mentality."
Siege mentality? The FSD freaking shoot you if you walk in without a holy writ handed down from Pope Sherriff. The only people without a severe case of attitude are Dr Babs, Luna and Gary. Not entirely sure of Gary. And everyone - everyone - outside of The Fens are nitwits that are lucky to find their rear ends with one hand. Including you. I'm surprised one of them hasn't taken credit for the founding of The Slog. But I still have a ways to go yet. And you are constantly reminded that no one has any interested in much more than a thin friendship with you. It's as if munkyspunk is making fun of the whole game, as well as those who like it. As if...
Just consider this item mentioned by batfakforever, in which one of the officers asks about a quest done sometime earlier in which you took out an entire Gunner base to the Human, and are asked if you picked up any handy intel. Your responses are:
1. I am an idiot, and do not know what 'intel' is.
2. No, because I am an idiot.
3. No, because I am an unbelievable idiot.
4. No, because I am an unbelievable idiot that does drugs.
Quick edit: I reached that point in this incredible adventure, and found that spunky has altered these rather charming dialog options to something slightly less demeaning. From memory:
1. I have no Idea what you're talking about.
2. What on earth is 'intel'?
3. Collecting intel wasn't in the job description.
4. Sorry, but at the time I was on a strictly mushroom diet.
And of course there was no intel to collect, but let's not get in the way of making sure the 'hero' of Fallout 4 is made to feel like a second rate dweeb. Yeah...
And this story is right out of the Quentin Tarantino handbook, as if he wrote a script for a Marvel comic movie. A B-grade one, where he could let all his sociopathic hairs down. Lots of blatant, gratuitous brutality and foul language that even bleeds into the quest marker messages. Forced to take jobs you might say absolutely NO to. And do as you're told like a good little peon, don't ask questions, because yes, you're just little people. You can't even snark back a little bit because that privilege is reserved for them. Besides, they might beat you to death with a spikey radioactive skull mace. You have hope that after this last job, the real mod and the story which so many are wetting themselves over will finally kick in. So, when is that? Will it even come? Who knows, you have another job to do like the last one.
I was joking to myself that this had better not be one of those mods where the only difference between the good guys and bad are the color of the jerseys. Irony. Hell, the trappings of the FSD are straight out of WWII Germany. And so are their actions. Seriously. Craziest of all, this mod was made by a Brit, or Aussie.
This is one of those mods which... hey, ya love it or you hold your nose for a chance to climb out of the sewer at some point. I guess my choice is to keep being a sewer rat or quit.
Preston is such a non-entity outside of the Sole Survivor's little circle, they don't know about him. Though they do lament the Minutemen being a noble but flawed idea, and that such a group is doomed to failure as most Human institutions are. Just not theirs, oh no. They are Perfecto.
And you can't go Open Season on the Sherriff's Department, though I have imagined it. After all, they are the Knights of Human Destiny - my snarky title - and above reproof. Not that I really would. Necessarily...
The mod seems to have run out of things to do. I'm not sure if this is a pause while it lines up the next spine tingling adventure, due to me using the holotape to put the kibosh on their plot ruining the vanilla ending, or the mod failing to advance as happens a lot, and to a lot of people. If it's the latter two, I can go ahead and delete the thing, and go WAY back to a February save before I installed this bundle of carnage, and relive about 70 levels worth of SS2. It's better than starting from scratch, though I'm considering that too. A few less mods might make the load on the game engine easier.
The mod seems to have run out of things to do. I'm not sure if this is [...] due to me using the holotape to put the kibosh on their plot ruining the vanilla ending,
I've played through the FSD storyline twice (the second time to see the interactions with Heather Casdin), and yeah, if you halt their alternate ending storyline then there's not much else for you to do. You've basically halted the mod's main storyline. There may be a few side quests you haven't done, but they won't automatically prompt you for them. You have to talk to the correct people at the correct times of day (generally "after hours" as otherwise they'll give you a "hey, not now, I'm on duty" response. And some of them are only available until after certain main quests are done.[1] If you're curious, the mod page has a document you can reference that describes all the quests and how to trigger them.
Yeah, I agree that it's frustrating to get the constant brush-off, because the player isn't really the protagonist of the FSD.
Lily is the mod's protagonist.
And that's not generally why someone plays a game. One could see the angle that it's a statement about how the player-protagonist of many games starts as this lowly nobody and then becomes a nigh-OP god in the realm, but now we're seeing it from the perspective of a sidekick character in those games. The companion's comment along the lines of, "Hey, maybe I can dress you up in skimpy clothes and have you carry all of my crap" pretty much hits that nail square on the head. (Not that said companion can actually do that to you, but the point stands.) Unfortunately, that takes some of the fun away. Don't get me wrong: in multi-player games I love playing support characters. I usually play Medic in TF2 for that reason. But this isn't a multi-player game.
The FSD do, at least, acknowledge that they are by no means "good guys." The Sherriff pretty much says at the end of the Shishkebab Runner quest line, "hey, we're psychologically fucked up in ways that people shouldn't be." And there are lines they're wary of crossing, such as explicitly saying that, even though they're sure McDonough is a synth working for the Institute, it's not their place to overthrow the duly elected mayor. (Which conveniently saves the mod author from having to design that use case.)
I found the mod interesting to play. Some of the voice performances are fantastic, and many/most of the items in the mod are gorgeous. That said, many of those have been released as stand-alone mods while FSD was in development, so if there was a workshop item you like, you can get it without running the FSD. [2] And some features of the mod seem underused, the Manhattan Project being a prime example. I got the impression, though, that some of that may yet see some expansion, but I could be wrong. But, yeah, I don't like the FSD as an organization, though I can see why they're the way they are.
Then again, it's all a bit moot for me. Munkyspunk incorporated AI-generated voice files for the player in a recent update, so I'm not going to be playing with FSD any more.[3]
[1] Though, if you're at the point of stalling the endgame, then you've likely done all the pre-reqs to be able to trigger these side quests.
[3] I'm not one of the "voiced protagonist ruins my immersion/role-play" crowd, though I can see their point. I just disagree with AI-generated voice files given that the voice performers likely never gave the approval for the AI to be trained on their voices and generate new lines. I know some will say it's no different from what mods like SS2 do with remixing existing voice lines, but I do see a difference. SS2 is using what the game already shipped with. The AI voice lines are whole new creations.
Honestly, I'm not fussed about being the sidekick to the mod's Batgirl. If this hadn't been a fairly decently written mod, I'd be joking about how groaningly Lara Croft she is, but her (godawful) backstory would produce someone like Lil, and the Sherriff both. Though the Sherriff is a bit more cliche. The plot is heavily slanted in that first half dealing with Lil, that all the quests and jobs are based around old grudges of hers and the FSD's, so of course I'm riding shotgun for her. When the bullets fly, I'm butch enough to take over and do most of the killing, and I get to do the grab and give of the quest items, but other than that I'm along for the ride. I can see that some would be a little put off by that. I'm used to being a person that adjusts to the situation, being a vet myself, so for me it was a change of pace.
The problem I have is with the attitude of the people in The Fens. The really bad attitude. Outside of their little extended family, the whole world sucks and is incapable. They take credit for a lot of what's established in the world, which is seriously cheeky.
They fought off Gunners attacking Diamond City
So the Minutemen fending off a Super Mutant assault isn't mentioned. Or if it is it's done in passing, as if it was no big deal. When the Sherriff "sent her message" to the Gunners, it was sure a good thing they hadn't heard of sniper rifles or anything...
Many writers have blind spots, and get so caught up in their elegant stories they miss things they hadn't taken into account, that someone there would. Sometimes they're glaring plot holes. munky spunk went a little overboard with the whole "You're not a hero here, you're just people" to treating us like we're almost a clueless newb, to shut up and do as we're told. And if you ask the wrong questions, that gets hammered pretty hard. And with a bunch which are basically Rust Devils with better manners, which think of themselves as demigods or something, that gets kind of grating after a while. And then there's Lily's cruel, heartless side, which is actually disturbing. If I was actually there in Nate's head, I would have informed her at a certain bloody point, "Sorry, but we're done. Get some therapy sometime, girl, because you have issues."
At least now I know I've essentially completed my version of the mod, so I can go back about seventy levels to play over, and do some nice, sane, SS2 mayhem, which is actually fun. Or I might take a few mods off and start completely over. I need some more coffee before I decide.
Well, the Minutemen fighting off super mutants was about 90 years prior to the events of FO4, while the FSD event you mention in the spoiler tag would have probably been less than 20 (maybe only 10-15) years prior to FO4, by which point the MM were heading to, if not already in, decline.
And, yeah, I really dislike the FSD dismissal of the Railroad as "those idiots who give synths brain damage and turn them loose on the world," [1] and their whole "no synth shall be allowed to live, even if it's just one who fled slavery" position.
Again, not trying to sway you one way or the other on it; just enjoying the discussion.
[1] Then again I, too, never really understood the "let's wipe your memory, for safety" angle. 1) It "kills" the person they're ostensibly trying to save and just replaces them with another, and 2) Yeah, how are they safer when they don't know the SRB would be looking for them and therefore can't take precautions. But I guess I need to go with Bellisario's Maxim at times, because thinking too hard about almost any fictional story makes it fall apart.
I should keep in mind that this insular clique of The Fens have their own worldview and attitude, and that's all that matters to them. A foundational event to the citizens of Diamond City... who cares about that old news? Not to mention that the people of DC would really be afraid of the FSD and their friends, and go out of their way to avoid the snot rags which come out to eat or do business on occasion. There are times I really want to take a swing at that mailman, and a couple of others too.
It's a shame that munkyspunk and Thuggysmurf both have such cynical condescending views on life and humanity, because much of the work in their mods are stellar, and they lined up some solid voice talent to bring the characters to life, mostly. But their views on things are... a little off, to put it nicely. Not only in those two mods, but in the vanilla game, the Main Character becomes aware that he's embroiled in affairs of a world much bigger than all the collapsed civilization would lead us to believe. I didn't really catch it like this, but looking back at Thuggy's Porn Trilogy, I was along for the ride as it developed to a great extent too. I love worlds and stories like that, where no matter how big I am - and in games like these you do end up becoming quite a super-human - you're still essentially just a guy trying his or her best to deal with a rough situation. Unfortunately, spunky seems to take a perverse delight in stomping the character's/your ego every chance he gets.
There is also the matter of Heather Casdin, which spunky says he took great care and pride in shaping for the story. And that makes me kind of glad I won't get a chance to meet her. I had forgotten that Ms Casdin is from a mod, and was evidently very well liked by many FO4 players. Romanced by some of them, and she does sound like a sweetheart once you get to know her. Considering how spunky writes his characters, and in this case "deconstructs" and rewrites, I can imagine why many complaints center on her. I don't care at all for the way he puts literally everyone into a meatgrinder so they become some borderline lunatic. My loss, I guess.
I puzzled over that myself, and would have loved to have the chance to grill Dr Amari over why that was done to them. I wondered if it was so any Institute Courser or member going after them wouldn't have any knowledge of either the Institute, other Synths, or the Railroad to give them. There is also the matter of H2-22 and what he said in his goodbye holotape after our brief time escorting him to Ticonderoga. That his memories of the Institute were mostly nightmares, and gave him nightmares, and he was glad to be rid of them, except for the ones he made of his new friends, including me. And I tend to be a chatty, chummy guy when a game gives me the chance like FO4 does. I dig into dialog as much as I can. Which with the FSD folk usually ends up in lengthy obscenity-laced rants, unfortunately. I had to chuckle when Lily's little confessional at the Synth grave wouldn't fire because the dialog options were missing, and I couldn't get them to work, so I skipped past it. Oh well.
Her breakdown over killing the one Synth gave me some tiny hope that maybe spunky might end up having some leniency extended towards the Railroad and the Synths. As someone who adopted the RR as my second family next to the Minutemen, I didn't care for how they and the Synths were viewed. And how we killed them, that nearly had me deleting the mod at that point. And from everything I came across, even the Minutemen were thrown out of Diamond City at the end, so I expect that at the finish of the long story, it was Open Season on the three other factions. I'm not even sad about missing out on all that.
www.nexusmods.com
Though it may be pointless seeing AI is the first system dumped when the engine requires "more power."
. I am still learning and expect that to continue for quite some time.
