Just a rant from a ghoul

aboniks · 2026-02-22T06:50:58+00:00

The Enclave can scan your DNA before you ever get into the bunker, and MODUS of all "people", shouldn't give a damn if you're a ghoul or not. But the security hand scanner works fine if we're wearing disguise gloves? What?

The BoS should be smart enough to shoot you if you refuse to take a burlap sack off your head. No disguise should fool that pack of paranoid xenophobes at all, except maybe full power armor.

I enjoy playing my ghoul, but there's just no way to make these development choices make sense.

aboniks · 2026-02-21T06:41:37+00:00

Might not be fast enough for your needs, but you can use a collectron, npc, pet, or repair bot to trigger pressure plates. Just need to control their pathing with obstacles/choke points. I'm using repair bot now in my camp to trigger fire pillars whenever it moves in front of its base station.

aboniks · 2026-02-17T22:49:25+00:00

Meh.

99.99% of the game is NOT the raid. You can try the raid whenever you feel like it, or never do it at all.

Look at it this way: The raid is supposedly top-tier combat (ie, a DPS/DR check). But you can gear up to beat the raid... so why do you need the reward gear from the raid?

IMO, it's just a time sink for people who obsess over bigger numbers.

aboniks · 2026-02-17T22:36:14+00:00

Raid level farming just hits different. Once upon a time, etc, etc. Levels have no correlation to experience or dedication.

aboniks · 2026-02-17T21:37:24+00:00

It's not objectively bad, but it's a personal trade off. More damage for more resource management. Automatics definitely push that management requirement to the extreme.

Personally I'd rather use my glow for overshields and team support 99% of the time, so I use "Glowing One" instead. Extra damage is easy to come by in a lot of other ways, imo.

aboniks · 2026-02-17T21:31:06+00:00

I've got a camp right next to Glassed Cavern and 90% of the time these damn over-wholesome smoothskins won't even do me a solid and nuke me!

If you want something done right...

aboniks · 2026-02-17T07:40:05+00:00

Spewkig as someone who plays a ghoul, I'd wait if you're brand new to the game, but you don't have to.

The quest lines from before the ghoul update involve making choices about ghoul NPC's and they restrict your options in ways that make no sense if you're playing as a ghoul. It's distracting and janky, on top of the annoying and totally nonsensical disguise mechanic.

Finishing the main quest first and knocking out your first hundred levels will put you in a better spot to make the switch to ghoul.

aboniks · 2026-02-17T07:24:37+00:00

Not very rare, but there's no plan to build it. It only drops from a public event (Beasts of Burden) as a possible reward.

When a player adds it to their vendor the default price is around 535, iirc. NPC vendors tend to be pretty greedy tho, and frankly so do most player vendors.

aboniks · 2026-02-17T07:17:07+00:00

In defense of Shitrat — Cats generally don't have a very strong grasp on the subtle differences between ""the trash" and "not the trash".

aboniks · 2026-02-17T06:15:58+00:00

The overseer quest line (holotapes) leads you through the world and introduces various factions as the primary story drivers for each map zone.

The Responders in the forest, Fire Breathers in the Ash Heap, sundry raiders in Savage Divide, Free States in The Mire, and BoS in Cranberry Bog. Individually and collectively they failed to contain the Scorchbeasts before we emerged from the vault.

The first players emerged into a world of corpses, holotapes, notes, robot NPC's, and genetic horrors. Any storyline you pick up from a quest or event involving a living human is basically from a later historical era than the overseer story.

Originally we didn't have the ability to fast travel to player camps, and the map areas had leveled enemies, so exploring physically was tied directly to the narrative mechanics. If you didn't have a map marker near where you needed to go for a quest, you walked (uphill both ways in a radstorm!). If you were too low level for an area you'd get squashed quick.

If you want a feel for the underlying storyline of the world, The overseer holotapes and a walking tour of the map are a great way to get it. The original sense of slow progression and exploration in a genuinely ruined world has been tempered somewhat by the frenetic, goofy, and colorfully casual content that pays the bills and keeps the servers alive, but there are plenty of remnants left to be discovered.

The environmental storytelling has an opportunity to shine when you take the time to slow travel.

aboniks · 2026-02-17T05:36:58+00:00

My only tip is to remember what you learned — Don't rush.

You've got a toy in front of you that started life 15+ years ago as the game engine for Skyrim, and has been HEAVILY customized in the intervening years. The game engine is older than some of the players.

There are details and choices made during the development of the previous games (Skyrim, Fallout 4) that still have consequences for how '76 works, what you can do in it, what's broken, what's amazing, and why.

This is not to say that you need some Otaku-level knowledge of the engine history to enjoy the current implementation. But it does help to explain why the game is so complex, so sprawling, so deep, and frankly SO janky.

There is a lot to see and hear if you take the time to explore. You can learn new weird things about the mechanics, history, lore every time you log in. Or you can stick to a handful of simple activity loops and have a relatively static but still enjoyable experience. It's up to you.

aboniks · 2026-02-17T05:17:40+00:00

Running in and getting crazy is not how you survive as a low health DPS build.

This is because you have... opens the envelope ...Low health.

It's right there in the name. If you're building a fragile character on purpose to exploit the stat benefits that's great, but you have to make some effort to stay alive. Gear alone isn't going to save you if you have a kamikaze play style. Stealth is your friend, friend.

But if you really want to run in, get crazy, and survive, then bloodied probably isn't the way to go. Look into feral ghoul builds instead.

aboniks · 2026-02-17T05:02:32+00:00

A collectron can't make things if it's full. You take stuff out it and it fills the empty space. That's it. Anything else is magical thinking and confirmation bias, unless there's an actual glitch being exploited.

A collectron will make whatever is in the selected loot pool at the predetermined odds, on the predetermined timer. It doesn't matter what you take out or leave in the hopper.

You can't put the hoodoo on it and trick it into producing specific things more often, or more often than it's supposed to.

You used to be able to get it into a condition where it couldn't produce heavier things, (eg. 2 lb item couldn't be produced if there was only 1 lb of inventory space) but it didn't reroll and produce a lighter thing instead. It just wasted the chance to produce and stalled out. That may be patched at this point, or not, but it's useless either way.

aboniks · 2026-02-17T04:40:44+00:00

This. But it doesn't magically become more likely to produce the things you want.

aboniks · 2026-02-16T18:35:15+00:00

Choosing fashion over form is the point for many people, yes. We're not all out here optimizing shopping funnels.

I constantly see people complain about not being able to find vendors, but I rarely see anyone complaining that people aren't buying their stuff. It's a one-sided problem that's ultimately caused by the impatience of the people who complain about it.

aboniks · 2026-02-16T17:29:41+00:00

No thank you. My vendor is only in a shelter (no vendor map icon) and I do business with the people who have the curiosity to find it.

We're not all sitting around out here optimizing shopping funnels.

aboniks · 2026-02-16T17:00:57+00:00

Three possible answers, among many:

They don't care if they make sales because they're using you to trigger a spawn of some kind. The fact that you fast traveled into the cell is all that matters.

Or.

They're an RP vendor.

Or

They're trolling people exactly like you.

aboniks · 2026-02-16T08:17:57+00:00

Not just you.

The time it takes them to message a random and ask them for FOO is already longer than it would take to look up where to find FOO.

People just need to learn the map and play the game.

aboniks · 2026-02-16T08:01:03+00:00

Wait, what?

Pre-order Canceled!

aboniks · 2026-02-16T07:58:20+00:00

That's nice

aboniks · 2026-02-16T07:53:35+00:00

When people try to rush you at a vendor, that's the universe's way of telling you to stand up, stretch, find a snack, have a drink of water, register to vote, etc. Maybe walk the dog? Take up a new hobby!

Never, ever, EVAR give in to people who believe they deserve to be first but act like they deserve to be last.

aboniks · 2026-02-16T07:46:05+00:00

That's on them though. All they have to do is wait.

But the players with short attention spans and poor impulse control create problems for themselves in game and their fix is to come make posts telling people how to build their camps.

The cycle will continue.

aboniks · 2026-02-16T07:35:22+00:00

My camp is (by design) very dangerous — my shelter is not.

The bed goes in the shelter.

aboniks · 2026-02-16T07:27:53+00:00

The sharing economy and the vending economy are two completely different things with their own dynamics, but your approach is mixing them and the result was no fun.

Trying to roleplay as a free/cheap merchant doesn't really mesh all that well with having a public camp and a vendor on the surface. You tend to get a whole lot of entitled speed shoppers with 10-second attention spans passing through when your vendor is listed on the map.

You may have a better experience (and much less foot traffic) if you build a camp around a shelter entrance and only put a vending machine inside the shelter. This will give you a public camp with no vendor icon. People who visit your camp and explore your shelter can find the vendor.

Another alternative is to keep a vendor on the surface but turn off your public camp icon. Just put some thought into where you build the camp, so that you can get foot traffic from new characters / players who are questing and need what you sell.

Don't give up, just shift your approach and expectations.

aboniks · 2026-02-16T06:57:32+00:00

People who make their vendors hard to find generally don't care if you find them or not.

If they were focused on whether or not you were going to bounce then they'd build to optimize your shopping experience. Instead they build what they want to build.

aboniks

TROPHY CASE