Glad that there finally is one. Anyone ever tried this 2d20 System it uses?
Not me personally, but my friend has extensively played the CONAN, STAR TREK and DISHONORED RPGs which used the same system and has highly praised it.
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On my latest playthrough.... I dilly dallied for quite awhile before really getting into the main quest. While I intend ultimately to win with the Minutemen, I decided to work with the Railroad to build the teleporter as for some reason I never did that in my Railroad playthrough.
I had already conquered MOST settlements by the time I got to this point. So got a fascinating location for Mercer Safehouse: Spectacle Island.
I always hate clearing out Spectacle Island... it's really TOO big and I always screw up that I'm supposed to flip the circuit breaker by the workshop, not fight all the mirelurks by hand. (But where is the fun in that?)
But I LOVE the idea of Spectacle Island as the synth safehouse. Of course you would row them out to the uninhabited island well away from everyone else. And course there's plenty of space to build the platform, away from prying eyes. And since I am General of the Minutemen, with the Castle being one of the nearest locations, it can be well protected. In my head, I would eventually have the runaway synths boated up to Far Harbor to Acadia.
I'm always disappointed by the minimal in-game parameters for building Mercer (and that the Caretaker b+!#&es you don't make him a cot even if you build a million beds in the place)--just defense. But I still always like constructing it as a safehouse--hidden rooms, places stashed with food, clothing, meds, guns. So I used the crashed shipping container barge as places where the runaway synths could sleep, hiding in there sleeping bags, suitcases packed with goods, etc. I swear half the fun of this game (as with most Bethesda games) is the story you make in your head with the tools available to you.
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Yes, I just finished the main quest not long ago. I sped through the Institute section of the game--when my character went into the FEV lab to get Virgil's serum, I decided she not just horrified by what she saw, but reading the terminals carefully, realized Father was the one who had been making the Institute continue to churn out super mutants even though he had been told there was no reason to continue researching FEV for years. So she went back upstairs and, claims of being her son or no, shot him in the face. That speeds up getting to the endgame; the Institute attacked the Castle not long after and then we blew it up.
The only sad part of this is that all the Minutemen keep saying, "Man, why didn't the Institute leave us alone? We didn't do anything to them." And I'm very quietly thinking, ummmm, I did shoot the director in the face... I mean, I felt I had good reason, but I did shoot first. The game dialogue assumes that you played through the Institute quests properly up thru Bunker Hill and then simply told Father after Bunker Hill that you couldn't continue to work with him. In that scenario, if you have been mainly working through the Minutemen, the Institute really does attack you unprovoked. But they don't change the dialogue if you trigger the "Banished by the Institute" quest and you actually did antagonize them directly. Which adds kind of a dark irony to everything.
That is a lesser example of Bethesda building a great framework of a game but failing to flesh things out very well. A greater example is the fact that you can't confront Father directly about anything nasty the Institute does at all. You can't confront him about the FEV lab. You can't confront him about any number of the awful things you discover on Institute terminals, like the fact that they plan to kill the inhabitants of Warwick farm after their plant growth experiment is complete. You can't confront him or anyone about the fact you are told directly that most reclaimed runaway synths do not survive their reprogramming, so that reclaiming them actually means murdering them in most cases. You can't confront him about the needless slaughter at University Point when probably just talking to the right person at the right time would have gotten them the tech they wanted. You can't confront him about planting Mayor McDonough in Diamond City which resulted in the ouster of the ghouls. All told, if you pay really careful attention, you can see that Father has explicitly been engineering suffering and chaos throughout the Commonwealth--people are unsafe because of super mutants? That's Father's intentional doing. Diamond City has become xenophobic with an autocratic mayor? That's Father's intentional doing. People live in fear of replacement by synths when they could have sent synths to help rebuild? All Father's intentional doing. Father has been actively working to foment fear of the Institute and ensure the Commonwealth cannot thrive, keeping people in constant misery, and then has the balls to tell you, repeatedly, "Oh, we're not that bad, this is all a misunderstanding, nobody gets what we're REALLY trying to do, just the Commonwealth is a horrible place and that's why we have to destroy it." When the reason it is a horrible place is directly because of him. But you can never, ever say anything to him--or anyone else at the Institute--about any of it. The dialogue options with Father are meaningless most of the time, save at Bunker Hill--up until that one point (when if you have been working with the Institute you have been helping them do damage) they all force you to humor him as long as you decide to interact with him at all. It's either kill him immediately or humor him and help him do his evil things until you tell him to f*!! off at Bunker Hill. If you're playing Railroad, it makes sense to humor him as you need to do your undercover operation, but playing Minutemen it makes no sense to turn a blind eye (and of course if you're playing Brotherhood you want to destroy them regardless).
This could have gone so much deeper and so much more interesting, and it's one of those things where you can see how fun the game is and can be and yet also see the failed potential at the same time. And indeed part of why I rushed through the Institute to get to the endgame was to get back to the gameplay where I can just make up my own stories as I go along. That's where the game shines, and where Bethesda's design strengths lie.
Fallout London is an upcoming FALLOUT 4 mod which is set in, well, London, in the 2230s. No repetition of factions from core FALLOUT because Atlantic, but the new factions look pretty good (even if the Camelot Knights are a bit Brotherhood-y).
It's impressive what they've done with the engine, even down to the working tube lines. And the Queen of England is a feral ghoul! With feral ghoul corgis!
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A moment of sadness, for the real-life inspiration for FALLOUT 4's Dogmeat has passed.
Obviously a sad thread, but also lots of interesting stuff on how the real dog inspired the team into making Dogmeat a genuine companion character and not just a dog-shaped weapon.
I started playing again, on account of getting stuck in Elden Ring (because I suck).
I decided this time I'd go all in on the whole finding my son thing. Then I got distracted.
This time I also went all in with the brotherhood (who i should probably start helping again) but the first mission for for douchebag Maxson. Danse did NOT like me running in guns blazing without any thought whatsoever for strategy or anything.
Also, this time I followed up on the Trinity Tower signal and freed Strong and the old guy, I then sent Strong to the drive-in theater after recruiting ADA. That's when I found out he does not like emotional moments or being supportive of others. So now whenever I need to have a big emotional talk with one of my companions I bring then to the drive-in and have it out there, where Strong just stands there complaining the whole time while my display tells me he does not like that (and yet he still stands there listening in). I figure eventually he probably just get frustrated enough he'll walk away.
The other thing I did was discover the USS Constitution, where it was just reinforced for me that when a robot wearing an admiral's hat asks for your help with finding rocket fuel or whatever to launch their historical landmark into the sky you say absolutely and hand over the rocket fuel you happened to find at Fort Hagen and then find some more just for good measure. Easily one of my favorite side quests so far!
That Constitution quest is so cool, and if the game had half as many quests but were all like that one, it would be a much better game. A lot of love and thought clearly went into it. As it is it's weird how depending how you travel through the game you will either totally miss it or can't fail to.
Strong isn't so bad actually. If you travel with him for awhile he just likes you for being there and killing shit and has some really good dialogue as he grows from knowing you. Then again, I've never understood your obsession with ADA, especially since all she does when I'm with her is get in my line of fire, but of course I support you doing whatever makes you happy. But for the record, if I want an all powerful robot powerhouse as a companion outside of getting Automatron specific dialogue, I upgrade Codsworth (whose perk also makes him better for fighting other robots, and his dialogue is better).
My gaming pc died last year so I cant play this anymore. I'm planning on getting myself a Steamdeck for Christmas and then I can play it again and go back to obsessively building concrete fortifications all over the Commonwealth. My non gaming laptop does run New Vegas so I did have a fun play through of Old World Blues not long ago, but this is the wrong thread for that.
I was just using ADA this time to get through the mechanist quests, I've actually been switching between Strong and Piper almost exclusively this playthrough, except for when ADA was necessary.
I actually found the Constitution looting and pillaging for caps and ammo for rampaging the mechanist lair. ADA does have some fun lines about not trusting robots wearing funny hats though that cracked me up.
I just wrapped up the whole mechanist thing though so I'll probably switch to Strong for awhile. Maybe take him to one of the vaults I've been hearing so much about lately (88 and 81).
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Fair. And--you can adventure with ADA all you want, to be clear. :) Good to know she has some non-Automatron dialogue, that's cool. Actually I like her personality I just like traveling with the other folks as well and seeing what they have to say. PHmm... if I can ever play again, I should try traveling with Longfellow in the Commonwealth (if I can) and see if he has any unique dialogue in the area.
I would absolutely not take Strong to Vault 81, but Vault 88 is a good idea. There's a lot of tough monsters in there he would be very good at handling, and he might even like how you handle some of the experiments should you choose to do so (you can also just kill the lady who wants you to do them and he'd probably like that too).
Have you ever been to Vault 81 before?
I have not been to Vault 81 yet I don't think, which is why I was thinking that one first. Longfellow actually has some interesting lines in the commonwealth if I remember correctly (it's been awhile).
Fair. And--you can adventure with ADA all you want, to be clear. :) Good to know she has some non-Automatron dialogue, that's cool. Actually I like her personality I just like traveling with the other folks as well and seeing what they have to say. PHmm... if I can ever play again, I should try traveling with Longfellow in the Commonwealth (if I can) and see if he has any unique dialogue in the area.
I would absolutely not take Strong to Vault 81, but Vault 88 is a good idea. There's a lot of tough monsters in there he would be very good at handling, and he might even like how you handle some of the experiments should you choose to do so (you can also just kill the lady who wants you to do them and he'd probably like that too).
Have you ever been to Vault 81 before?
In fairness I like ADA because she's a great suitcase and I don't feel so bad sending her in somewhere to soak up some bullets.
As far as actual companions my favorite are Dogmeat, Piper, Cait, and Longfellow.
All the companions actually have some pretty nifty comments when you take them somewhere new or somewhere they might relate to.
Spoiler for Vault 81 in case you want to be spoiled, because there is an annoying mechanic that gets into play that you have to risk to get Curie (and if you're going to Vault 81, you want to take the time to get Curie), and having any companion with you can be problematic.
If you play through the questlines that pop up in the vault, you will at some point need to traverse through disused tunnels to seek out a cure to a horrible disease. The tunnels contain mole rats that are all infected. If any of the mole rats come anywhere near you, you will get infected. What's worse, there is a truly dumb mechanic in place where any ally of yours, whether normal companion or temporary robot ally you activate to patrol the area, will also get YOU infected if they come anywhere near a mole rat. So for example, and this actually happened to me, if you activate protectron to march down the corridor ahead and kill the mole rats, you will suddenly have the illness, because the mole rats get near the protectron, even though you personally are nowhere near either the protectron or the mole rats.
Note, all this disease does to you is make you permanently at -1 hp. So even though it is in the story as some horrific definitely fatal illness, it just puts you at an extremely minor inconvenience.
When you get the cure and bring it back to the people who need it, you will inevitably faced with an incredibly cliched "moral dilemma" choice--you either keep the cure so you can get rid of that permanent HP loss, or give it to the person who needs it. There is no other option (outside of glitches and console commands). If you don't give the cure IIRC you get kicked out of the vault among other (minor) consequences (certain companions hating it, etc. though of course some other companions like it). Curie will go with you regardless of the choice so that's fine. If you make the "right" choice to give the cure you have to go through the game with your HP constantly slightly red. Which is largely merely annoying. But it still is annoying.
It is technically possible to avoid getting yourself infected by going alone through the tunnels, sneaking highly capably, and blowing up the mole rats with explosives while you remain far away from them. I have achieved this. It is a pain in the ass but it is possible (the tiniest misstep will make it fail). The game will still treat you like you are infected as far as "the choice" goes, but you won't have the HP loss.
The quest had a decent idea at heart but it is horribadly implemented. Sort of the opposite of the Constitution quest, which was clearly written and programmed by a far superior person on the development team.
Spoiler for Vault 81 in case you want to be spoiled, because there is an annoying mechanic that gets into play that you have to risk to get Curie (and if you're going to Vault 81, you want to take the time to get Curie), and having any companion with you can be problematic.
** spoiler omitted **...
So, I have been there! I hate that mission!!
I ended up accidentally hiring this guy named MacCready, I thought I was paying him for information on Emogene but I guess I was hiring him to be my suitcase.
Considering I used the last of my caps on him (I went on a bit of a shopping spree at Ammo, Ammo, and Ammo) I decided I'd get my money's worth and decked him out in a spare suit of power armor.
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Fun fact, if you played Fallout 3, MacReady is the former mayor of Little Lamplight.
He's a very good sniper.
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So, I have been there! I hate that mission!!Spoiler for Vault 81 in case you want to be spoiled, because there is an annoying mechanic that gets into play that you have to risk to get Curie (and if you're going to Vault 81, you want to take the time to get Curie), and having any companion with you can be problematic.
** spoiler omitted **...
I love Curie, but I've skipped getting her on a few playthroughs just because that whole scenario is so irritating and badly written.
Fun fact, if you played Fallout 3, MacReady is the former mayor of Little Lamplight.
He's a very good sniper.
I thought I recognized him from somewhere!
Because he and Piper have the same interests (sticking it to the man, helping people out, picking locks) I have them both at the red rocket so they have don't get too lonely (though I also have Dogmeat and the homeless guy from Diamond City there).
I basically only have 2 communities, the red rocket and the drive-in theater. If I build any more than that it starts to become a chore.
Occasionally I'll get a notification some other place is being attacked or something but I ignore those. The Abernathy family are on their own.
I started doing some of the radiant quests the brotherhood hands out and some of the side quests in Far Harbor (which is my favorite part of Far Harbor) to build up experience.
I don't really want to do the main quest for that yet because the internets told me if I don't have Valentine with me for that I'm a terrible person and I left him hanging at the memory den ages ago (I hate the whole slog through Kellogg's brain thing, it goes on for too long).
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Drive-In is one of my favorite places to have a base of operations. It's central to the map, it's big enough to build a bunch of stuff on, and the existing buildings are interesting to work with (I always love making myself a little bedroom/office in the room where you find the nursery). I just wish the concession stand/projector booth were wider (so you could put actual beds or things like stoves or vendors inside them) and that you could scrap the collapsed wing and all the bones and the sidewalk posts (which otherwise just topple over and roll all over the place and you can only remove them with painstaking console commands). You can also unlock it as a settlement without rescuing the Minutemen (to be fair, you can unlock most of the areas without the Minutemen--even the Castle--but it's convenient for early and late game). It doesn't have a whole lot of farmable land, but once you can build gardening plots (if you have Wasteland Workshop) you can make a really proper settlement.
I also really like the Nuka Red-Rocket. I like the Far Harbor settlements too, even though some of the terrain/unscrappable bits are a little hard to work with.
I agree the sidequests are the most fun Far Harbor (although I got tired of the hotel one with the robots. It was really fun the first time around but it's less interesting to repeat because of course you already know who did it).
Also agreed the Kellogg's Memory bit is boring. The only thing worse is DiMA's memories... *groan* (which is also part of why it's more fun to sidequest in Far Harbor).
Drive-In is one of my favorite places to have a base of operations. It's central to the map, it's big enough to build a bunch of stuff on, and the existing buildings are interesting to work with (I always love making myself a little bedroom/office in the room where you find the nursery). I just wish the concession stand/projector booth were wider (so you could put actual beds or things like stoves or vendors inside them) and that you could scrap the collapsed wing and all the bones and the sidewalk posts (which otherwise just topple over and roll all over the place and you can only remove them with painstaking console commands). You can also unlock it as a settlement without rescuing the Minutemen (to be fair, you can unlock most of the areas without the Minutemen--even the Castle--but it's convenient for early and late game). It doesn't have a whole lot of farmable land, but once you can build gardening plots (if you have Wasteland Workshop) you can make a really proper settlement.
I also really like the Nuka Red-Rocket. I like the Far Harbor settlements too, even though some of the terrain/unscrappable bits are a little hard to work with.
I agree the sidequests are the most fun Far Harbor (although I got tired of the hotel one with the robots. It was really fun the first time around but it's less interesting to repeat because of course you already know who did it).
Also agreed the Kellogg's Memory bit is boring. The only thing worse is DiMA's memories... *groan* (which is also part of why it's more fun to sidequest in Far Harbor).
Fortunately, I'm terrible with names and I only play it once every couple of years so I'm usually 50/50 when it comes to figuring out the mystery, plus the voice actor has so much fun playing along it really never gets old for me. Plus there's the whole rampage through the hotel guests to get to the actual vault.
I found a crashed plane in Far Harbor with some dude raising guard dogs so I did Strong a solid and had a mutant hound guard dog delivered to the drive-in theater where he is stationed.
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Ah yes, he's cool. Even if I feel it's a bit far fetched to have Super Mutants up in Mt Desert Island to begin with.
I mean, I generally don't mind Bethesda's additions to the lore and having multiple ways to make super mutants. Like, some die hard oldskoolers really don't like that they put Super Mutants at all on the East Coast, since the originals from the old Fallouts were specifically products first of the West-tek FEV experiments and then refined by the Master. I think on the other hand it makes sense different organizations with government contracts would have been given FEV to experiment with. The origins of the Capital mutants coming from the one vault, and the Commonwealth mutants coming from the Institute all make sense to me. Of course Vault-Tec got a version of the virus. Of course CIT did. I also like that they all look a little different and have some different traits. I'm cool with all of that.
But how did all those mutants--not one or two, but scores of them--get all the f&&~ the way up to Maine, onto an island, and overtake a soda factory? Why? It was clear they just wanted to reuse assets and/or thought it would be cool, but it's silly. They already had new creatures for the island... just use more of them. Or use ghouls as ghouls can show up anywhere with the right radiation exposure (which IIRC was established in Fallout 2, so not a Bethesda contrivance). Or have the Vim factory be a strategic target for the three factions on the island, and you could overtake it and give it to one of them.
I just assumed they went there for the leaves changing color and stayed.
As they do on the east coast.
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LOL. Well, I don't think you leave New England for another part of New England to see the leaves... though perhaps they're nature buffs and wanted to see the asters! Or perhaps Super Mutants are secret afficionados of the National Park Service?
I meant city folk from Boston (or the Commonwealth if you prefer) traveling out to the country to see the leaves.
LOL. Well, I don't think you leave New England for another part of New England to see the leaves... though perhaps they're nature buffs and wanted to see the asters! Or perhaps Super Mutants are secret afficionados of the National Park Service?
Of course now I'm going to scour the island for park ranger clothes and see if I can get Strong to wear it. At least a hat.
Now that you mention it, I don't think there is a park ranger outfit in the game. Which seems like a real oversight for setting an adventure on an island that is about 70% National Park.
Sadly I think Strong can only wear stuff designated for super mutants anyway. Though there are some fun super mutant hats lying around.
Well, I've been playing through Nuka World and let's just say I learned a VERY valuable lesson about not being TOO generous with my fusion cores.
Looks like I'll have to find some new friends!
It's too bad there isn't a dialogue option for letting Cito and his family stay in the Nuka World zoo if you help them after deposing all the raiders.
Oh well.
I just started up again and I realized something. For all the times I have played this game I have Never joined the Brotherhood of Steel. Told myself "Let's do it this time"
but I just can't do it I just don't like these guys.
I played through on the BOS side once. On one hand, there is a lot of a+@~&*%ry (as there is among the BOS in most of the games), particularly with Maxson (with few satisfying dialogue options to tell him off, although that's really a problem with almost all of the factions). On the other hand some of the other NPCs are cool (like the Proctor who uses the power armor as her mobility device), and Danse is... least annoying if you go through his whole questline. And there are many who would say that the joy of being able to resurrect Liberty Prime and march him down the street to victory again is all worth it. Is it worth it to you? I can't say.
On a gameplay sidenote, it is probably the easiest faction to be with (perhaps apart from Institute) on a Survival mode playthrough, because with fast travel disabled, the ability to travel by vertibird becomes far more valuable.
Apparently there was cut content where you could challenge Maxson and put Danse in charge as Elder instead, and I think that would have made playing BOS a lot more interesting.
I will say I have no regrets playing through the BOS win and was glad I got to see through their version of the main quest, which probably feels the most different/has the most different challenges from the other factions (whose quests often overlap). At the same time, it was probably my least favorite version of the questline. I also felt really bad for Madison Li by the end of it (but OTOH Madison is not particularly likeable, so some might enjoy breaking her a bit).
Went to Nuka World, which surprisingly is another thing I have never done. Fun place but ultimately....the Raiders had to die. Decked me and Strong out in as much heavy artillery as I had available and just wiped the place out.
Strong really likes me now, so that's a bonus
I mean "nuka" is right in the name... if you're not going to get out the Fat Man there, where will you?
As a big fan of amusement park history and design, I love the world build in Nuka World. It's particularly fun once you get the power back up and running.
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Major preview of the TV series.
Salient points:
Set in 2296, 219 years after the Great War and 9 years after Fallout 4.
Starts in Vault 33, which is ruled over by Overseer Hank (Kyle MacLachlan).
The show has three main characters. Lucy (Ella Purnell) is our main POV character, Hank's daughter from Vault 33. She has to leave the vault for the first time in her life to recover a technological gizmo necessary for the vault's survival (or something).
The second POV character is Squire Maximus (Aaron Moten), an initiate in the Brotherhood of Steel. They are also on the trail of of the tech-artifact, and dispatch the airship Caswennan (a sister-ship of the Prydwen from Fallout 4) to recover it.
The third POV character is "The Ghoul" (Walton Goggins), formerly Cooper Howard, a family man whose life was obliterated on the day of the Great war. Cooper was exposed to radiation, becoming a ghoul with an unusually sharp intellect. He is somewhat mean and morally dubious, but has his own, rough code of honour.
The TV show will predominantly be set in California and will feature several locations, including the ruins of Los Angeles (presumably the Boneyard from Fallout 1), outposts of the New California Republic, Vault 33 and a frontier, Wild West-looking town.
As well as the 2296 storyline, a major subplot is a flashback to the Ghoul's younger days, when he had a family. Through him, we get to see the buildup to the Great War and its aftermath.
The show debuts on 12 April 2024.
It really, really, really looks good. I wish the ghoul were more goopy, but I respect they wanted to be able to capture the actor's facial expressions. It seems like they are adhering reasonably close to lore otherwise.
Looks very good. They lean into both the humour and the horror of it all. And they have their own Dogmeat!
FALLOUT LONDON came out today. Getting it working with Steam is fairly daunting, I'm just trying to work out if I really want to buy FO4 again on GoG (which is far, far easier to get working with the mod).
The gameplay videos all look really good though. The size of the thing is bonkers, the modders had been saying that it was like an expansion and then it came out and the map is bigger than Boston in FO4 and the in-game tracker indicates there are over 200 quests, which is more than in FO4 and its DLC combined. Calling this a mod is insulting, it's almost a whole new game.
FALLOUT LONDON came out today. Getting it working with Steam is fairly daunting, I'm just trying to work out if I really want to buy FO4 again on GoG (which is far, far easier to get working with the mod).
The gameplay videos all look really good though. The size of the thing is bonkers, the modders had been saying that it was like an expansion and then it came out and the map is bigger than Boston in FO4 and the in-game tracker indicates there are over 200 quests, which is more than in FO4 and its DLC combined. Calling this a mod is insulting, it's almost a whole new game.
My understanding is the issue with Steam is that it auto-updates you to the recent high-quality patch that they pushed out in April for Fallout 4, and Fallout London currently does not work with that patch.
I understand that the FAL-LON devs will eventually try to make it work with the latest version of the game so then it should work better on Steam without having to downgrade it to an older version.
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I started this last night, got it through GOG so that downloading it was easy as pie, no hiccups with that at all.
A few gripes I have: A complete and utter lack of GUI scaling, a FoV slider, graphic quality/performance options, a disable screen shake or motion blur option. There is also no real tutorialization in the intro section and I had to look up how to turn on my torch via google which wasn't great.
The NPC interactions have some very strange cutaway timings with each NPC speaking after another starting their line of dialog less than a half second after the last one finishes, perhaps it's a bit cleaner a bit further into the game but it was awkward as all get out in the first two script interactions. Mind, this is only about 2 hour in with quite a bit of just wandering/sightseeing rather than steaming toward any story.
Other than that it's very cool, I love the game feel of it, it's FO4 to a tee for sure, the new perks and setting flavor are really a breath of fresh air on FO and I'm genuinely excited to see how the game works out with enemies, challenges, and the like in a region that lacks the mutants and other madness created by the forced evolution virus.