The story came to a rush of an ending for me last night. I wasn't prepared. That's one of the quirks of Bethesda Softworks games - it's hard to tell how far along you are (or aren't) in what amounts to the main story.

I'm going to post a summary of my experiences below, so if you haven't finished, STOP READING.

Okay?

Filler lines...

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

I sided with the Institute and took out the Railroad and the BoS. I feel like I jumped the gun and wiped out those factions before fully fleshing them out. I don't know how many good-quality subquests each side has. Don't tell me.

I got tired of doing what I assume are Radiant quasi-random missions - from all three sides. Minutemen: go stop the raiders/ghouls/etc. Railroad: go stop the Institute coursers. BoS: go with this guy and find the tech thing.

I don't think I explored enough on my own. Don't know why. Not like me.

A few things...

• I lost MacReady to a bug and could never finish his storyline. I wanted to. I kinda liked him. He was less annoying than Deacon.


• I never saw Mama Murphy again after the tutorial of "build Mama Murphy's special chair"


• I never met anyone named Curie, even though I've seen the name on multiple boards. Please don't spoil.


• I had a Misc quest item to ask Jack Cabot about the artifact, but it bugged out. Floating marker outside Cabot House; no one to interact with.


• Several series of magazines that I never found a single copy of. The hacking one, for instance.


• Never found the USS Constitution warship (I think that's what it's called).


• Only found 7 bobbleheads.


• Got companion perks from: Piper, Cait, Codsworth, and Deacon.


• Was never able to hack a turret to attack the bad guys - I think that might be a magazine perk, which I never found.


• Never noticed any real difference in choosing Protectron modes. Tended to use Law Enforcement for all of them.


• Never sorted out how to keep my settlements happy (has anyone?). They fluctuated apparently at random. I'll have to read up on this, because I actually liked the building-stuff component of the game.


• Built a lovely 3-story headquarters building in Sanctuary Hills, but only caught on to the "store in workshop" thing about halfway through, so I wasted a ton of raw materials.


• No sign of the "Zetans" - apparent aliens mentioned on loading screens.


• Didn't do nearly enough stealing. That won't happen next time.

I had fun, but it was far from a thorough playthrough. I feeel like I missed out on a lot of content.

I was playing on Normal difficulty, and my modded weapons were a little extreme. I only took a beating when facing a swarm of raiders, like when trying to get down the hole at Dunwich Borers (where I was sent fetching mulitple times). I used my Power Armor roughly twice. It never felt necessary under most circumstances. Plus, it didn't seem right to be wearing that and stomping around Diamond City.

I've already restarted at a higher difficulty. Going to be more thorough and patient this time. More time on foot, maybe less time with companions? Maybe endure more Radiant quests to get qualitty time with companions, then fly solo.

Please don't radically spoil any of these things - I know where to find a list of bobblehead locations, etc. This is just sort of my post-mortem writeup. Getting it off my chest and clearing my mind before fully diving in for Run #2.

-Dito

How do you miss a large three masted ship perched atop some buildings?

I'm gonna go with... too much fast travel. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Unfortunately what you've seen of the faction sidequests is pretty much what you get. A bunch of repetitive crap that amounts to very little. Bethesda dropped the ball badly in that regard.

You did.

I found a ton of new stuff on play through 2

and I am finding a ton of further new stuff on play through 3.

There's 3 more endings to see the extra stuff. You kind of have to set your own goals sometimes when it comes to seeking out special weapons and such. I went ahead and finished last night after milking it for more than its worth. Still have to see some endings and do a few things. I have 2 saves I'll save for now. You dont seem to want to know too much. McCready's perk is kind of op. It's the kind of thing I expect to just be able to do but compared to the main characters normal state it is a bit much. I stopped using potectrons, just not worth the time to hack a terminal. They're kinda funny but useless, maybe with the robotics perk they'd be better but not sure if i want to risk it. I was partial to the medical or construction robots. They have different weapons.

Yeah, they're a lot like the never-ending quests in Skyrim. Find and kill some bandits, clear out a dungeon. Rinse, repeat. That's not so bad - good practice (a/k/a XP farming). What annoyed me was having to check in with Preston Garvey after each Minuteman mission. Hey, I'm the damn general. Why do I have to tell you in order to get my pat on the head?

Good to know. I'm only a few hours into Round 2 and already finding stuff I missed.

Yeah, I kinda figured there's basically one ending per faction. A lot like New Vegas, probably.

As for Protectrons, they're handy when you're low-level and need some help. I activated the one in Super Duper Mart this morning at level 5, and he did a nice job mopping up some ghouls for me. I have my original 10mm pistol; the rest are all fairly lousy pipe weapons. And I don't have any perks yet for finding extra caps or extra ammo. So I'll take any help I can get.

Thanks for not telling too much. I'm pretty sure I know what MacReady's perk is. If I'm right, it's pretty powerful. But I'll still take it.

If you're on PC, you can use console commands to find lost NPCs. There seem to be a lot of bugs that cause NPCs to go to mysterious places that aren't normally accessible to the player... like weird NPC waiting rooms. If you're on console... then you just have to take the bugs handed to you sadly, although NPCs do tend to turn up later even after bugging out. I tend to lose NPCs around sanctuary. I've often found them literally underground beneath a hill just outside of town near the bridge. If I fast travel a few times, they usually show up eventually. Mama Murphy is supposed to sit in that chair you build her 24/7 after you build it. She never moves from it. If she's not in that chair, then she's definitely bugged out. Jack Cabot should be either in his house or in the lab at the Asylum. Check that Asylum if you haven't already. MacReady may return to good neighbor at some point, so check back there every so often.

That one is pretty obvious when you're anywhere close to it... although its location would be unexpected.

If everyone has an excess of food and water (diminishing returns apply), along with enough beds and defense (at least water+food worth of def), happiness will hover in the 80-86 range. It will dip lower when there is pending trouble (raiders givin us guffin, ect). It can drop dramatically if the town bugs out (ie, food/water/bends stop counting). Visiting the town and leaving on foot (without fast travel) fixes the bug usually. Some people claim decorations help, but it's never done anything for me... I think decorations seeming to help was a fluke for some people.

To get higher than 86 or so, you have to add clinics. The most efficient way to raise happiness is to farm only as much food as needed and put everyone else to task running tier 3 clinics. It's entirely rediculous, but that is how you get up to 100. It's the kind of thing you do once for the achievement, and then just ignore happiness ever after. Eventually maybe a patch or mod will improve the way happiness is handled.

The Zetans are aliens. The Cabot questline seems to deal with them indirectly... unless there is more than one alien race interacting with Earth. With all the BoS vertibirds crashing everywhere, it's very easy to miss the major Zetans hook. I would advise that you look up some info on it so you can hunt for it specficially... otherwise, you very well may never get to experience it.

Unfortunately there isn't nearly as much variance in how you can resolve things or have them play out as NV. It's still worth seeing them but you can just make a save before say, the battle of bunker hill, and just play it out from there. Nothing you do before that makes any difference short of literally attacking a faction.

PS4. I trade the bugs for the comfort of my recliner and 55" television.

I've looked everywhere for MacReady. He's gone. No idea where; no way to get him back. The others, meh. It's a bug. Thankfully not a game-wrecker - although I do save frequently just in case. I'm no Bethesda rookie, after all.

You could do that with PC as well. The joy of a platform you control is that you can do whatever you want with it using your choice of controls, displays, bugfixes, and unmoderated mods.

Cabot. One hint - there's a intercom/doorbell. Ring it.

Also there is another alien not related to Cabot. And Cabot isn't really about aliens anyway. I think there's DLC material there.

But there are other aliens, In a crashed ship. Finding the ship is a [censored]. So either google it, or around level 20ish, watch the skies and listen.

MacReady. I lost him once. But found him in Goodneighbor. He does roam after your first meeting. He has a sort of patrol he walks. You might've missed him. And I like him actually. I also liked Deacon a lot. He was funny. But my favorite companion is Nick.