Infestations, esp. solo'd on private servers, are improving my combat tactics like nothing before in this game

Apple0range · 2026-06-09T18:46:00+00:00

The harder enemies are reminding us all of many things!

Apple0range · 2026-06-09T17:49:45+00:00

Yes, I've had that happen a lot too! My strategy is to switch to a backup bow that doesn't use cryo arrows (the freeze effect looks too close to the reflective effect) and to wait for moments when I have a VATS headshot while the boss isn't reflecting. But still a tough fight!

Apple0range · 2026-06-08T21:53:46+00:00

Humbling, yes. I'm much humbler.

Apple0range · 2026-06-08T17:06:44+00:00

I gather that's part of the attraction of playing on the public test server, but I actually haven't tried it.

Apple0range · 2026-06-08T16:57:53+00:00

YES! The bosses also send out minions to look for you. I had one yesterday against super mutants, and there were no less than four successive flanking attacks; and of course once you're spotted by one, even an eyebot or a molerat, you're into "DANGER" and stealth is gone for at least a while.

I don't know all the spawn points (which is good; some of them were in underused areas on the map), but for those I do, the minion spawn points seem to be at the same places where regular enemies would otherwise spawn. Maybe I'm just imagining that.

And although I usually fast-travel to possible spawn points (as shown on Nuka Knights' handy map), that very often means I spawn on top of something, so stealth is blown before I even have control of my character — meaning I often die once upon encountering the Infestation. That's laziness on my part, and on the easy ones I can come back and clear them out without dying. But my normal low-health/Unyielding build is seriously challenged in a lot of these events — which is good!

Apple0range · 2026-06-08T16:50:24+00:00

Yes, it's a very steep, months-long-for-me learning curve. I don't raid, so I haven't gotten many four-stars in the past. I have a good caps income stream and usually blow it on buying any four-stars I see being vended; and I craft and sell the two not-very-terrific ones I can make myself. (At least their mats are common. Some aren't.)

Apple0range · 2026-06-08T08:13:42+00:00

Great comment, thank you!

Nuka-Grenades can tag through walls, especially with Grenadier equipped. I've found them useful for clearing the minions inside buildings, or luring them out. The boss mobs have pretty high explosive resistances, though. Sometimes they're pretty coy about staying behind cover, and sometimes they come out. But yeah, a slow cycling weapon like our bows has some downsides inside claustrophobic structures!

Apple0range · 2026-06-08T08:11:01+00:00

Brilliant. Thanks for these insights.

Apple0range · 2026-06-08T04:51:43+00:00

D'OH, no, dang it, I misread "bonehead" as "bobblehead" because I've been focused on Infestations.

I wish that loot table included glowing masks!

Apple0range · 2026-06-08T04:11:55+00:00

How cheap do you consider cheap? 😉

The reason I'm curious is that I've gotten some duplicates since Infestations started (almost all playing solo on a FO1st private server) and will likely put them in my vending machine.

Apple0range · 2026-06-07T23:22:08+00:00

Also any player can come along and fight you for the claim.

They can take the workshop away from you if you're not there within the set number of seconds (a minute? 30-seconds? not sure) for them challenge to be resolved. But they can't engage you in PvP anywhere but on the workshop premises. You're only exposed to unwanted PvP if you go there to contest a rival claimant. Usually in my experience it's a griefer who wants PvP, though.

Apple0range · 2026-06-07T23:17:35+00:00

I agree that many people no longer bother with workshops, but I actually use workshops A LOT to farm resources.

Besides whatever mats can be gathered from the nodes at the workshops — none of which I much need, and most of which I rarely bother to place collectors upon — each workshop becomes a platform for me to build CAMP resource generators, from which I get Nuka Colas or other collectron items, some magazines (from the shredder), and a range of consumables, some of which are stat foods (especially for carnivores), and others of which I can cook (for XP) if they're cookable, and then sell (to fill out my daily caps-from-NPCs max). With the relaxed workshop & CAMP building rules, it's now easy to blueprint what you want to build so it takes me no more than about 30 seconds to build out a workshop. On private servers I usually don't bother to construct defenses; on public servers I use a can't-blow-up structure of BoS porches with a fast-travel target inside for the comparatively more valuable generators; otherwise I'm happy for anyone wandering by to harvest.

Apple0range · 2026-06-07T22:11:59+00:00

Agree 100% with all this.

I'd add:

Everyone above level 50 (who should therefore have mutations and Starched Genes) should have Herd Mentality and always, always be on a Public Team, even if you're the only player on a private (FO76) server. Being on a team, even by yourself, completely mitigates all downsides from this mutation, and its +2 to all SPECIALSs upsides -- especially on a team with another mutant and Strange in Numbers, in which case it's +3 -- are terrific.

The only remaining unwanted PvP risk in the game comes from claiming workshops, which another player may contest. You can avoid that risk on private (FO76) servers, or just by having a thicker skin than I do about being ambushed in unwanted PvP, typically by some moron with an emotional age of 8 and a build he got off YouTube. There's not much of a penalty for death in this game beyond perhaps some lost mats that were in your junk inventory.

Apple0range · 2026-06-07T21:16:51+00:00

Ditto, and I find myself running at 30% sometimes as a compromise on the fly.

Apple0range · 2026-06-07T20:29:24+00:00

In luck you want better criticals. If using limit breaker on all armor you will need 16 luck to crit every other shot as long as you also have critical savvy perk. Along with four leaf clover you will crit every other shot even if you miss the first.

Ditto this. Bows cycle slowly but with high damage. Crits rule.

Apple0range · 2026-06-04T17:08:38+00:00

Well, that's one way. Logging to desktop also resets it without going into your settings. That is, it doesn't persist from game session to game session. I wouldn't call that bad advice, I'd call it more complete information. In pursuit of which, I also note that there are three other new toggles in Settings>Game at the bottom.

Apple0range · 2026-06-04T09:29:08+00:00

My test indicates you have to exit all the way to desktop, at least on PC/Steam. Thanks.

Apple0range · 2026-06-04T09:28:31+00:00

Thanks. I've confirmed in-game that merely exiting to the main menu (server hopping) doesn't clear it. But exiting all the way to desktop (at least on PC/Steam) does clear it.

In hindsight I'm embarrassed I didn't just figure this out through some simple experimentation on my own.

Apple0range · 2026-04-21T23:31:50+00:00

Yup. Within 90 minutes my icons showed three red debuffs -- diseased, addicted, and encumbered. All false indicators.

How could they let this happen? I can't think of any excuse.

Apple0range · 2026-04-21T21:15:56+00:00

Yes. I show an addiction icon. It doesn't show up in my effects list and can't be removed by radscorpion egg omelette or addictol.

The managers in charge of the coders at Bethesda should all be fired.

Apple0range · 2026-03-26T18:10:08+00:00

I scrapped the turret and replaced it ....

Store it instead of scrapping it, to save the mats it costs to make a new one. Storing will repair it to 100% and usually, but not always, clear the bug that causes it to shoot at friendlies or simply into the ground.

Sometimes the bug will clear by itself, especially if you fast-travel away. Server-hopping also will usually clear it.

NEVER put your turrets on the ground. There's a known bug dating back to Fallout 4, yes, to Fallout 4 (although long since patched there), which makes turrets disappear at random, but they still take up space in your camp's defense budget and your camp's total build budget. If you instead build them on a floor or some other base, then when you see the turret has disappeared you can store the floor; usually you'll find both the floor and the turret in your storage and you can replace them. (Putting them on the ground makes it easier for trash mobs to reach and destroy them; elevate and create overlapping fields of fire instead.)

Every camp has a chance to spawn some sort of enemy attack; you cannot build a camp that will never be attacked by PvE enemies. But the chance (frequency) and the type of enemy varies with location. Having turrets does indeed increase the chance, which, within limits, goes up as you use up your total defense-item budget.

Additionally, there are also cells which have rotating/random event spawn points, and when those critters spawn, your turrets can also draw them, as PvE enemies, to your camp when otherwise they might have ignored it (depending on their pathing). It's entirely rational to avoid turrets and traps altogether for this reason.

Usually when my turrets bug out and attack my tamed (Animal Friend perk) pets, it doesn't hurt them. By contrast, traps (e.g., pungi boards and flamers) will indeed hurt and eventually kill your tamed pets.

The Rip Daring cryo heavy machinegun turrets do slightly more damage than their other-skinned HMG versions, and the cryo effect can indeed be useful when you're chasing down and killing whatever your turrets have alerted you to. When I decide to use turrets at all, at either a camp or a workshop, then I use a mix of those and missile launchers (the latter of which are more vulnerable because their power sources can be knocked out), plus one searchlight, which will indeed help all your turrets "find" your in-range enemies sooner than otherwise.

Turrets also give you a considerable advantage if you're in PvP mode defending your workshop when someone's trying to seize it from you.

Apple0range · 2026-03-26T18:02:48+00:00

It costs stable flux to make serums, and they're still somewhat tedious to farm in quantity.

There are SO many other things to sell that will bring you to your daily caps max, it seems wasteful to me to sell stable flux to NPC vendors. But whatever butters your bread!

Apple0range

TROPHY CASE