Spoilfree part: I think I located a certain Valentine too early, the game railroaded me into chapter 2.

*Spoils below*

So I rather quikly went and rescued a Valentine and asked his help. Following him I suddenly ended up in chapter 2.

I havent helped the minutemen beyond the first 2 quests, I havent supported BoS as ordered, nor meet any other factions, I havnt been to Goodneighbur or Covenant or Castle or..etc.

I have hardly explored the NW of the map and nothing beyond. I am still struggling at lvl 21, blasted supermutants and gunners and crap!

Should I backpedal some 6 hrs gametime until before asking Val for help, or will it be possible to do all the exploring/questing despite BoS showing up in force?

I allready run into a freindly patrol stealing my kills. Guess that was ok but still...

(yes my english svck and I dont have time to correct it atm. Sorry)

Thankfull for any help, Daveh

It doesn't really matter if you go fast in the main quest. You only miss out on a few quests at most but I also felt like I didn't do it properly in my first playthrough so I restarted and took everything much slower and it is much more fun.

I really wish Bethesda had made more quests besides the abundant "radiant" kill/ fetch quests so there were more told progression beside the main quests. If you finish the main quest then most "real" quests are done and you walk the wasteland as mindless ghost of the past used for only the most dangerous and dull tasks by those who can spare some change.

I think you might have skiped few minor side quests by being a bit to fast but nothing important rly so you can just stop doing the mainstory and go explore around now.

for the spoiler you can tag it by doing ["spoiler"] at the start of the area you want to spoil and do ["/spoiler"] at the end of said part. (Without quotation marks of course)

As for that you really don't have to choose until you get to a certain part. Doing Minutemen, BoS and Railroad are optional before rescuing Nick.

I think you're fine. I usually end up rushing the first chapter of the main quest for roleplaying reasons and end up offing Kellogg around level 14-ish. At that point there's something of a natural break in the story, so I slow down and take time to do some sidequests and settlements, explore a little, get to know some characters, etc. It just makes sense to try and build up your strength once you know your son is at least alive and relatively safe, and you need to figure out who'd be best suited to help you rescue him.

Thx! I decided to reload an early save, but its good to know that both options are feasible.

No don't worry, actually up until your next two quests it is still quite friendly to keep going, however i suggest you to take a deep breath and bunch of levels through side quests before adventuring within' the glowing sea because it may be quite painful to do it before you're stacking up a bit perks and ammo wise.

Its pretty much the most dangerous and hardened area to face and you'd want to be ready for it.

sidenote: i did the same as you in my first playthrough, ending in the glowing sea at around lvl 23 or so, felt i had so few HP and were getting crushed with ease from deathclaws - radscorps that i ended the travel with pretty much no stimpacks and almost no ammos

I think the MQ just feels better by skipping Red Rocket and Concord from the start and head to Goodneighbor instead. Visit the Memory Den and let the MQ take you from there.

You didn't miss anything, but hey it's your game. You weren't far enough in for anything to be really changed, and you were well before the point where you had to commit to any one faction.