Tag: Fallout 3

Couple of Early Tips for Fallout 3

Gaming

I’ve been playing Fallout 3 for a while now, inspired to get back into a Fallout game when the TV show turned out to be good, actually. I’ve got two saves going, one for streaming where I’m trying to play as myself and make decisions I would make in the game, and another save that’s just for goofing around, testing things out, finding good ways to resolve quests, and figure out where to find all the good treasure and loot (and be evil if I want to.)

Side note, you should definitely subscribe to my YouTube channel and come watch me play. Right now I’m aiming for streaming at least twice a week, on days I have named Wasteland Wednesday and S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Sunday, unless I stream on another day. It’s fun watching me mess around, and sometimes the game or my streaming set up or my home internet breaks in hilarious and not-at-all-angering ways while I’m trying to be smooth and professional and fun and not angry. Come watch!

But because my stream playthrough is only a couple of hours a week but I can play the other save whenever I have some downtime while I desperately look for a day job and struggle to pay my bills and make sure my dad is comfortable and entertained and healthy while he’s staying with me… where was I? Oh, right, my offline save is far more advanced and leveled up than my stream character. And I’ve figured out some good early things to do. Here’s some basic advice if you want to be better at things.

Bring tech to the Outcasts. Find Fort Independence, make the deal with Casdin, and then get as much 5.56 ammo you can get. Ammo doesn’t have any weight so you can carry all of it whereever you go, and having 1000+ rounds for your assault rifle (or, if you can find one, a Chinese assault rifle which does more damage but breaks faster and is a little less accurate) makes taking on raiders and ghouls so much easier. I managed to take down a couple of Enclave soldiers and you can get, like, 600 rounds for the armor and helmet from Casdin. It’s great!

Get the dart gun schematics! You can buy them in the shop at Tenpenny Tower. If you don’t want to go there, there’s a power station way up in the northwest of the map at a power station (MDPL-05) but it’s way out in the wasteland and might be hard to get to at lower levels. Tenpenny Tower is close to the Robco factory you have to go to for Moira’s wasteland survival guide quests. Dart gun will cripple the legs of creatures, which makes them slow and prevents them from closing with you.

I’m having a lot of fun roaming around the wasteland, even though I’m burdened with narrative dissonance from not caring about the main quest, which is to find my dad who sort of abandoned me for reasons. But that’s normal for the Bethesda Fallout games (strangely it’s not an issue in Skyrim or Oblivion or Morrowind.) I love the feel of the Capital Wasteland and it’s evocative; lonely, blasted, eerie. That mood is what Fallout 3 does well.

Wasteland SCIENCE!

Gaming

Scheduled my next live-stream of Fallout 3: 4 PM Pacific on Wednesday 1 May 2024. Click the link and the bell to get a notification!

And I’m sharing this thumbnail because I’m ridiculously excited how well my in-game toon looks!

Screenshot from Fallout 3 of a bespectacled brown-haired white young man in an armored Vault Suit with a 10mm pistol, with a blasted desolate wasteland behind him. Words superimposed: Lunar Obverse Part 2: Wasteland SCIENCE!
Join me on YouTube – 4 PM Pacific Wednesday 1 May 2024

Currently trying to find royalty-free music so I can listen to Three Dog on-stream without getting my video hit by the Gods of Copyright. Should be able to pull something together. Found a mod that lets me replace the music which helps a lot!

Fresh from the Vault

Gaming

Had a successful Fallout 3 stream today! Was super nervous all day, but my morning was taken up by getting dad to the airport for his vacation. I love my dad, and I’m happy I’ve been able to help him out while his living space is rebuilt/repaired, and it’s been great having him around… I do look forward to having some time and space to myself after a month. Maskin’ ain’t easy, and yes, I mask even around close family like dad.

After I dropped him off, though, I headed back to the house and tried to arrange everything for the stream. OBS kept locking up and crashing on me, which was frustrating, but I didn’t have a lot of mental energy to troubleshoot it. It seemed to happen when I was changing scenes, though, so I just decided I would avoid doing that as much as I could. I got my countdown set up, I got some music playing for the countdown – I wanted to play the classic Fallout Galaxy News Network songs, those old-timey showtunes and such, but after a quick google realized that those are still covered by copyright laws and could lead to my stream being demonetized.

Bethesda, however, has very generous terms for fans using the soundtrack music or other visual assets, so I just streamed the Fallout 3 game soundtrack, by composer Inon Zur, on shuffle, for the 15 minutes before go time. That worked!

I also set up an in-game overlay of a headshot of myself as a teenager, one that I had punched up using AI image enhancement, to show folks watching what I was aiming for in creating my character. The conceit is that I would be playing as myself as much as possible, something I did years ago when I streamed and played Fallout 4. For the record, here’s a screenshot of my character from the stream:

Screenshot from the game Fallout 3. A young brown-haired white man stands on a ledge overlooking a desolate ruin. He holds a 10mm pistol up with both hands and is wearing an armored Vault Suit.
Meet Brian, an intelligent, lucky, idealist, raised in Vault 101.

And for my S.P.E.C.I.A.L:

  • Strength: 3
  • Perception: 4
  • Endurance: 6
  • Charisma: 5
  • Intelligence: 9
  • Agility: 5
  • Luck: 8

Some of those numbers are aspirational. Also, I know, I know, Charisma should be a dump stat, but I just didn’t have it in me to make it 1 for optimal gameplay. I’m not going for optimal, I want to be me, as if I had been raised in the vault.

I played through character creation, my 10th birthday party (I ate the sweetroll immediately and told Butch to back off), taking the G.O.A.T. (and beating the snot out of Butch for threatening Amata), taking the tagged skills Science, Lockpicking, and Repair. I can improve other skills but I wanted the best chance of getting through the vault escape without bloodshed. Which, um, I wasn’t able to do. Had to kill a couple of cops, I mean security, but it was in self-defense; they were going to beat me to death like they did Jonas. I did spare the Overseer, although I do not trust his promise to leave Amata alone. And instead of shooting it out with security at the Vault door, I just ran.

Several friends showed up in chat and I even had to ask their advice at some points. It was fun!

A note about guns: personally, I have made a vow to never touch a gun again in my life. I did that after the Sandy Hook shooting. Even if the revolution comes, I will support it with my other skills: troubleshooting, documentation, computer support, mechanical support. But when I did that, I also allowed myself an exception: in the event of an apocalypse, be it nuclear, zombie, or alien invasion, I will allow myself to use a gun. The Capital Wasteland is not just one of those, it’s all three, in one way or another. Also, it’s a game. But I do intend to try to solve things with words first, before violence, on this playthrough.

Will be continuing the stream on either Wednesdays (Wasteland Wednesday) or Friday (Fallout Friday.) Want to keep a regular schedule. Watch here for updates!

Fixing OBS Game Capture for Fallout 3

Gaming, Tech

Quick post to document a problem I had and the solution that worked for me.

When streaming/recording Fallout 3 using OBS Studio, if I used Game Capture, OBS would show the game briefly but then freeze up, or worse, just show a black screen. Tried every setting in OBS that I could change for Game Capture, tried running OBS as administrator, even uninstalled and reinstalled OBS. Just could not get it to work. Didn’t want to use Fullscreen Capture for aesthetic reasons (it would capture my desktop, or notifications unrelated to the game, that kind of thing.)

So I broke down and read the documentation. Wouldn’t you know it, they had a solution to this.

I had to disable/close RivaTuner Statistics Server. That did the trick. Turns out having that overlay breaks Game Capture in OBS. I seriously would have never thought of that if I hadn’t gone in and found the OBS support docs.

Good documentation saves lives! Or at least prevents stress wrinkles.

From Birth to the Wasteland

Gaming

I spent most of the afternoon getting things ready to stream Fallout 3, as mentioned previously here. I think I’m ready to go. I’m nervous that it will be a disaster but, hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

As my bestie Tracy said, and I quote, “OK, you might have to not be a perfectionist at the very beginning. Just sayin’. People do tend to improve over time.” Wise words and I hope I can follow her advice. But it’s hard, y’know?

I’ve got OBS set up, I think, to stream the game properly. I’ve scheduled it, and announced it to the world on YouTube and Instagram, as well as let my friends know if they feel like dropping by. I made some slides for transitions, went into StreamElements and set up some chat bot commands and got a nifty overlay for the countdown and to notify if anyone subscribes or tips me.

Let’s do this. If you’re reading this before 4 PM Pacific on 28 April 2024, go to the link below and click the bell to get a notification. And come over to my YouTube channel if you can. If you’re not familiar with Fallout 3, the game literally starts with your character being born. It’s bonkers, not gonna lie.