Pope Amole II
Nerd Commando Game Studios
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2012
- Messages
- 2,052
For all its derpy glory, boundless anger and misleaded edginess, the Codex lacks one quintessential thing for a forum like that - an ironman LP of fallout 2. There is a couple of failed attempts, but that's it. Unacceptable!
To absolve this shameful sin of Codexia, I start this LP. Unlike with my other one, there won't be any LARPing, but I guess I'll compensate for that with a good dose of a gameplay & inner mechanics analysis, the same way I did it with Might & Magics.
Another thing to notice is that I will be using restoration project patch with the companion control option enabled (because the game is much more fun that way), but I'll try not to abuse it too much. I also won't be using the latest version - couldn't have been bothered to reinstall my Fallout 2 for the sake of upgrade, besides, it's not like it adds anything truly significant.
KK, let's go.
Part I: how to have some real fun with fallout 2
This build will require some explanation, I think. And I bet that's not something you have expected to see.
First, traits. Gifted - yeah, munchkin, overpowered, cheese, popamole, broken, unfair, whatever. But see, I play F2 only in ironman mode and my last successful runs were spent without it, so I took it for a change of pace, just to remember how cool can it be. Besides, I think I've balanced it out with other rather questionable decisions.
Fast shot - well, at this point I'm kinda tired from all the aiming, also, my favorite weapons in the game work better with fast shot. This is my last run of fallout 2 (I hope), so I'm doing it with all the stuff I love it for (another reason for gifted, btw).
Second, stats.
S 5 is a point of convenience. Just 3 is enough for all my needs, but I had 2 extra points to put somewhere and I chose strength - less hassle with dragging all the fat loot around and our early game shooting suffers no penalties.
P 9 - would've put 10 if there were no modules and drugs in this game. Perception 9 makes us extremely good at shooting, but the most important part of it is combat sequence. Having a high combat priority is one of the best escape mechanisms in Fallout and, well, I don't want to die to some random robbers on my road to Vault City.
E 2 sounds stupid, right? I mean, it's an ironman game, you have to be survivable! That's absolutely true, but survivability gain from endurance just isn't enough to compensate for the dearth of investment. Let's say we allocate 4 more points here - 4 freaking points! By the level 10, it'll give us what, ~25 extra hp? And that's what, 2 more hits from a hunting rifle? Or half of an average critical hit? Yeah, that's a freaking lot of survivability. In this game, you just don't die from average incoming fire (unless you're not cautious or you're fucked up by a bad random encounter), you die from humongous, devastating crits (or, at the very least, lucky burst shots). And no amount of health will protect you from those - one of my previous popes had 400+ hps at level 40, and everything was majestic until a 700 hp enclave turret crit. That wasn't fun, but the lesson is simple - you don't survive by enduring hits, you survive by not letting them happen. And while a hundred or two of hp bloat will never hurt, there are better ways of getting them than EN.
C 2 - because 1 follower is all we need. Ah, poor, poor charisma, no one likes you. Actually, in RP and with manually controlled followers charisma is quite useful and you can justify taking 6 or even 8, but, to be honest, that makes the game too easy. And, if we're unlucky, we risk running out of good companions - that's commonplace in ironman runs, actually.
I 10 - predictable. Skill points are awesome and nothing can change that. We'll need lots of them and fast to survive through the early game.
A 9 - actually, buffout is really good so that "A 10 for everyone" notion is a bit of overstatement. You can do well with 8 or even 6, just hoard those magical green pills for important fights. And, since it's the restoration project, we can subtract and additional point here.
L 10 - that's for our hopeful late game, where we will snipe the living (and, in some cases, mechanized) crap out of everyone.
The way we could've done it without gifted, fyi: S 3 (5 is just for convenience), P 7 (kamikaze trait will compensate for the loss of sequence and accuracy is compensated by all those extra skill points), E 2 (2 is enough) C 1 (screw that second point - sunglasses or mentat will save us), I 10 (can't be the other way), A 7 (I'll repeat, buffout is awesome, steroid abuse is just what you need to complement your post-nuclear experience), L 8 (let's go risky with the hubbologist zeta-scan). Actually, that even leaves us 2 extra points to distribute - either no buffout abuse or no zeta-scan, whichever you prefer.
Third, skills.
Yeah, no combat tags in this one. Why? Well, since we don't need to perform aimed eye shots, we don't need our combat skills to be extraordinarily high, just a hundred or so will suffice in the beginning. And level is easily reached via books and teachers - no big skill investment needed. Late game, yeah, we'll need to sink some points in them, but that's when skill points become plentiful, if not outright useless, so we won't mind it then.
Therefore, we'll invest all our tags into XP-netting skills. As you can see, our build is absolutely greedy - we'll be devastating past level 20, but extremely squishy and meek until we reach that point. And, well, increased xp gain allows us to get there much faster. Speech is obvious - it allows us to finish lots of quests and that's your main source of experience in early game. Doctor & Lockpicking also shouldn't be hard to grasp - doctors adds 150 xp reward to almost each battle we participate in. And that sums up fast - we're gonna be taking hundreds of battles, after all. Lockpick adds ~1k-1.5 xp reward to each city we'll visit - yeah, I'm totally gonna lock all those open doors. Bad for our game enjoyment, but good for our survivability.
Yeah, that was a long intro.
Temple of trials. Game difficulty is hard, btw - maximum glory for codexia.
I'd love to skip it - I'm sure we all are tired of it beyond any measure. But I need those 25 ant xps, so it is unavoidable.
At least neither ants nor scorpions have a chance to kill us, but we're not against them hitting them once or twice so we put those healing skills to use.
Then it's the trapped room. Disarm skill 8 means 8% to disarm any particular trap here - 12.5 attempts per trap on the average.
Boy, that's gonna be fun.
For you, it's just another screenshot, but for me... It was almost a martyrdom. At least this crap is over.
And we're rewarded with quick level 2 which was the point of our suffering.
We invest into lockpicking first as, once we'll visit Klamath and Den, it will pay for itself rather quickly.
It would've been hilarious if it exploded in our hands, erasing our many efforts, but no, we're not that unlucky.
We kick all the remaining pests...
And finish the whole ordeal diplomatically - thankfully, just tagging your speech is enough to do so.
The vault suit is ours. It's only beginning, however.
Performing errands for village idiots is hardly our idea of decent pastime, but what can we do?
No chatting with you, missy - I've heard your blabber way too many times to enjoy it.
I'll open up your chest, though - yay, the lockpick investment begins to pay up! Not really, lol.
I try ripping the plants from the ground, but it goes awfully.
Won't mind against having some help in that department.
We're almost dead after killing the first one, but at least we've managed to do it. And it gives us plenty of room to use the healing skills.
Patching ourselves up, we engage into another long, tedious and painful combat. We even have to take a break from it...
But, eventually, the victory is ours.
More pointless tasks for brainless kids.
Those geckos are great xp fodder, though.
We need to kite them for a lo-o-ong time, however.
Yet, they can't ever reach us so it's zero problem. We can even afford to receive a bite or two - performing a healing self-experiments is key to enlightenment, it seems.
End the combat and we're level 3. Yeah, level 3 in Arroyo - the joys of grinding. And we have a perk to gain. Valid choices here are:
Awareness - cute, but I've played the game too much so I know pretty much everything.
Cautious Nature - well, pretty much, not everything. Theoretically, cautious nature is cool for the ironman builds - it raises up your perception to determine your random encounter placement and, apparently, it can take perception above 10. Sole problem is, who the hell knows exactly how does that work? If I knew it'd guarantee extra 3 hex away from the enemies, that'd be an awesome, awesome perk. But I don't and I'm too lazy to perform an extensive testing, so we'll let that remain a mystery.
Earlier Sequence - late-game aimed. Yeah, we have better sequence than all of the early game enemies, but late game even 10 PE won't be enough, so having one of these isn't a bad idea.
Here and Now - kinda waste, but if we hold until level 5 and take it, it's 5k bonus XP. That's a lot for an ironman char.
Quick Pockets - with fast shot we're gonna use often reloaded weapons, so this lil' puppy will save us lots of AP in the late game.
Thief - that's, like, 25 extra skillpoints for us (because lockpick is tagged and thievery is useless in ironman). Almost an extra level - not bad.
I go with the thief 'cause, well, late game rewards are awesome, but we've already had our share of greed, and now we need some guarantees of said stage ever coming. Skillpoints go into speech - I'll need it high pretty soon.
We whack the remaining geckos...
And guide the dumb dog to its similarly mentally gifted owner.
One last thing to do here - let's secure ourselves a sharpened spear.
Can't be bothered to do her chores so I just steal it - random chance is on our side.
Klamath. No troubles while getting here.
First and foremost, we initiate the total lockdown of this place, picking on every door possible. Trap in Vic's house hurts, but let's look at it positively - it's hundred extra xp from doctor usage.
In midst of it, we gather some quest clues...
And loot all the junk that's available in this city (including contents of Duntons' shelves).
Now that everything is locked up (yeah, we fix the doors in the open position) and cleaned of valuables, we move on to the questing part.
We learn about one local problem...
And recruit ourselves...
One crazy tribesman. Welcome aboard, Sulik. You're better than ever when manual control option is enabled.
Let's make a quick test drive of him in this easy quest.
One benefit of restoration project control option is that it allows you to see full stats of your party. As you can see, Sulik has some crazy stuff - inject him with psycho and he's maxed up, basically. One downside of the system, however, is that your tags and perks transfer to your party, making them "slightly" better than they're supposed to be. So if, for example, we'd tagged unarmed, this would've propelled Sulik's already formidable 90% into the bonkers ~150 territory. That's the other reason why I have avoided combat tags - so I won't feel dirty when using NPCs.
First scorpion is easily dispatched, but hey! I could've done it myself.
After gathering additional evidence...
We move to the real targets here - Duntons. We learn all we need about their cattle rustling...
Then we proceed to kill them.
Well, we - Sulik proceeds while Pope runs around like crazy. Those two hits hurt, but they're the reason we've initiated the fight - we could've resolved this thing peacefully, but we wouldn't get spiked brass knuckles that way.
Then Sulik mops up scorpions while Pope cheers him up from the safe distance. Ah, the heroics of adventuring...
Well, the bonehead needs to earn his pay, after all.
Back to city. We learn of another quest available...
And, thanks to the patch, we resolve the cattle rustling situation.
300 extra xps won't hurt. Also, this brought us quite a discount in this shop so we can trade lots of junk for a nifty leather armor. I'm not getting near to any kind of serious combat, but at least weak mobs won't do 20 dmg in one round to us. I hope.
I also read guns & bullets - considering our low combat skills, reading enough of these is imperative.
Usually, I don't like to take Sullivan's training this early...
But lack of aimed shots makes really high unarmed combat pointless for us and we gain a level out of it.
Soon we'll travel to Den and speech is kinda needed there.
Let's finish some local business before that.
With his stunted movement, this mr. Handy is as easy an opponent as he ever was.
We also get ourselves some rubber boots...
And hunt some rats. An entire building of them, actually.
We kill more rats in the basement, however, we don't delve deep into it - it's less about danger and more about sharpened spear not being fast enough to kill those rats efficiently. And Pope can't hit shit, obviously. At least he stepped into rat shit quite a lot of times, I figure - maybe that'll compensate for it? Doubtful.
On our journey to Den, we encounter Kaga. What an annoying bastard...
At least in this first encounter, he's a pushover. Later on, he's a threat, actually, and a serious one, so we'll try to finish it here and now.
We repeat the same strategy - Pope runs around like mad while Sulik picks them one by one.
Once Kaga remains alone, we try to crit him into head, knock him out and then finish him. He has hundreds of HPs, though, so it's not easy.
Besides, we're not lucky on crits, so once we do some damage to him, he runs away. There he is - in the leftmost part of the screen, slightly above the center, behind the trees. Better luck next time. And we'll need it.
Den. And, since the word "den" contains the same letters that the word "end", that's where the first part ends. Yeah, I plan to do these in somewhat smaller (but, hopefully, more frequent) chunks than my M&M LPs.
To absolve this shameful sin of Codexia, I start this LP. Unlike with my other one, there won't be any LARPing, but I guess I'll compensate for that with a good dose of a gameplay & inner mechanics analysis, the same way I did it with Might & Magics.
Another thing to notice is that I will be using restoration project patch with the companion control option enabled (because the game is much more fun that way), but I'll try not to abuse it too much. I also won't be using the latest version - couldn't have been bothered to reinstall my Fallout 2 for the sake of upgrade, besides, it's not like it adds anything truly significant.
KK, let's go.
Part I: how to have some real fun with fallout 2
This build will require some explanation, I think. And I bet that's not something you have expected to see.
First, traits. Gifted - yeah, munchkin, overpowered, cheese, popamole, broken, unfair, whatever. But see, I play F2 only in ironman mode and my last successful runs were spent without it, so I took it for a change of pace, just to remember how cool can it be. Besides, I think I've balanced it out with other rather questionable decisions.
Fast shot - well, at this point I'm kinda tired from all the aiming, also, my favorite weapons in the game work better with fast shot. This is my last run of fallout 2 (I hope), so I'm doing it with all the stuff I love it for (another reason for gifted, btw).
Second, stats.
S 5 is a point of convenience. Just 3 is enough for all my needs, but I had 2 extra points to put somewhere and I chose strength - less hassle with dragging all the fat loot around and our early game shooting suffers no penalties.
P 9 - would've put 10 if there were no modules and drugs in this game. Perception 9 makes us extremely good at shooting, but the most important part of it is combat sequence. Having a high combat priority is one of the best escape mechanisms in Fallout and, well, I don't want to die to some random robbers on my road to Vault City.
E 2 sounds stupid, right? I mean, it's an ironman game, you have to be survivable! That's absolutely true, but survivability gain from endurance just isn't enough to compensate for the dearth of investment. Let's say we allocate 4 more points here - 4 freaking points! By the level 10, it'll give us what, ~25 extra hp? And that's what, 2 more hits from a hunting rifle? Or half of an average critical hit? Yeah, that's a freaking lot of survivability. In this game, you just don't die from average incoming fire (unless you're not cautious or you're fucked up by a bad random encounter), you die from humongous, devastating crits (or, at the very least, lucky burst shots). And no amount of health will protect you from those - one of my previous popes had 400+ hps at level 40, and everything was majestic until a 700 hp enclave turret crit. That wasn't fun, but the lesson is simple - you don't survive by enduring hits, you survive by not letting them happen. And while a hundred or two of hp bloat will never hurt, there are better ways of getting them than EN.
C 2 - because 1 follower is all we need. Ah, poor, poor charisma, no one likes you. Actually, in RP and with manually controlled followers charisma is quite useful and you can justify taking 6 or even 8, but, to be honest, that makes the game too easy. And, if we're unlucky, we risk running out of good companions - that's commonplace in ironman runs, actually.
I 10 - predictable. Skill points are awesome and nothing can change that. We'll need lots of them and fast to survive through the early game.
A 9 - actually, buffout is really good so that "A 10 for everyone" notion is a bit of overstatement. You can do well with 8 or even 6, just hoard those magical green pills for important fights. And, since it's the restoration project, we can subtract and additional point here.
L 10 - that's for our hopeful late game, where we will snipe the living (and, in some cases, mechanized) crap out of everyone.
The way we could've done it without gifted, fyi: S 3 (5 is just for convenience), P 7 (kamikaze trait will compensate for the loss of sequence and accuracy is compensated by all those extra skill points), E 2 (2 is enough) C 1 (screw that second point - sunglasses or mentat will save us), I 10 (can't be the other way), A 7 (I'll repeat, buffout is awesome, steroid abuse is just what you need to complement your post-nuclear experience), L 8 (let's go risky with the hubbologist zeta-scan). Actually, that even leaves us 2 extra points to distribute - either no buffout abuse or no zeta-scan, whichever you prefer.
Third, skills.
Yeah, no combat tags in this one. Why? Well, since we don't need to perform aimed eye shots, we don't need our combat skills to be extraordinarily high, just a hundred or so will suffice in the beginning. And level is easily reached via books and teachers - no big skill investment needed. Late game, yeah, we'll need to sink some points in them, but that's when skill points become plentiful, if not outright useless, so we won't mind it then.
Therefore, we'll invest all our tags into XP-netting skills. As you can see, our build is absolutely greedy - we'll be devastating past level 20, but extremely squishy and meek until we reach that point. And, well, increased xp gain allows us to get there much faster. Speech is obvious - it allows us to finish lots of quests and that's your main source of experience in early game. Doctor & Lockpicking also shouldn't be hard to grasp - doctors adds 150 xp reward to almost each battle we participate in. And that sums up fast - we're gonna be taking hundreds of battles, after all. Lockpick adds ~1k-1.5 xp reward to each city we'll visit - yeah, I'm totally gonna lock all those open doors. Bad for our game enjoyment, but good for our survivability.
Yeah, that was a long intro.
Temple of trials. Game difficulty is hard, btw - maximum glory for codexia.
I'd love to skip it - I'm sure we all are tired of it beyond any measure. But I need those 25 ant xps, so it is unavoidable.
At least neither ants nor scorpions have a chance to kill us, but we're not against them hitting them once or twice so we put those healing skills to use.
Then it's the trapped room. Disarm skill 8 means 8% to disarm any particular trap here - 12.5 attempts per trap on the average.
Boy, that's gonna be fun.
For you, it's just another screenshot, but for me... It was almost a martyrdom. At least this crap is over.
And we're rewarded with quick level 2 which was the point of our suffering.
We invest into lockpicking first as, once we'll visit Klamath and Den, it will pay for itself rather quickly.
It would've been hilarious if it exploded in our hands, erasing our many efforts, but no, we're not that unlucky.
We kick all the remaining pests...
And finish the whole ordeal diplomatically - thankfully, just tagging your speech is enough to do so.
The vault suit is ours. It's only beginning, however.
Performing errands for village idiots is hardly our idea of decent pastime, but what can we do?
No chatting with you, missy - I've heard your blabber way too many times to enjoy it.
I'll open up your chest, though - yay, the lockpick investment begins to pay up! Not really, lol.
I try ripping the plants from the ground, but it goes awfully.
Won't mind against having some help in that department.
We're almost dead after killing the first one, but at least we've managed to do it. And it gives us plenty of room to use the healing skills.
Patching ourselves up, we engage into another long, tedious and painful combat. We even have to take a break from it...
But, eventually, the victory is ours.
More pointless tasks for brainless kids.
Those geckos are great xp fodder, though.
We need to kite them for a lo-o-ong time, however.
Yet, they can't ever reach us so it's zero problem. We can even afford to receive a bite or two - performing a healing self-experiments is key to enlightenment, it seems.
End the combat and we're level 3. Yeah, level 3 in Arroyo - the joys of grinding. And we have a perk to gain. Valid choices here are:
Awareness - cute, but I've played the game too much so I know pretty much everything.
Cautious Nature - well, pretty much, not everything. Theoretically, cautious nature is cool for the ironman builds - it raises up your perception to determine your random encounter placement and, apparently, it can take perception above 10. Sole problem is, who the hell knows exactly how does that work? If I knew it'd guarantee extra 3 hex away from the enemies, that'd be an awesome, awesome perk. But I don't and I'm too lazy to perform an extensive testing, so we'll let that remain a mystery.
Earlier Sequence - late-game aimed. Yeah, we have better sequence than all of the early game enemies, but late game even 10 PE won't be enough, so having one of these isn't a bad idea.
Here and Now - kinda waste, but if we hold until level 5 and take it, it's 5k bonus XP. That's a lot for an ironman char.
Quick Pockets - with fast shot we're gonna use often reloaded weapons, so this lil' puppy will save us lots of AP in the late game.
Thief - that's, like, 25 extra skillpoints for us (because lockpick is tagged and thievery is useless in ironman). Almost an extra level - not bad.
I go with the thief 'cause, well, late game rewards are awesome, but we've already had our share of greed, and now we need some guarantees of said stage ever coming. Skillpoints go into speech - I'll need it high pretty soon.
We whack the remaining geckos...
And guide the dumb dog to its similarly mentally gifted owner.
One last thing to do here - let's secure ourselves a sharpened spear.
Can't be bothered to do her chores so I just steal it - random chance is on our side.
Klamath. No troubles while getting here.
First and foremost, we initiate the total lockdown of this place, picking on every door possible. Trap in Vic's house hurts, but let's look at it positively - it's hundred extra xp from doctor usage.
In midst of it, we gather some quest clues...
And loot all the junk that's available in this city (including contents of Duntons' shelves).
Now that everything is locked up (yeah, we fix the doors in the open position) and cleaned of valuables, we move on to the questing part.
We learn about one local problem...
And recruit ourselves...
One crazy tribesman. Welcome aboard, Sulik. You're better than ever when manual control option is enabled.
Let's make a quick test drive of him in this easy quest.
One benefit of restoration project control option is that it allows you to see full stats of your party. As you can see, Sulik has some crazy stuff - inject him with psycho and he's maxed up, basically. One downside of the system, however, is that your tags and perks transfer to your party, making them "slightly" better than they're supposed to be. So if, for example, we'd tagged unarmed, this would've propelled Sulik's already formidable 90% into the bonkers ~150 territory. That's the other reason why I have avoided combat tags - so I won't feel dirty when using NPCs.
First scorpion is easily dispatched, but hey! I could've done it myself.
After gathering additional evidence...
We move to the real targets here - Duntons. We learn all we need about their cattle rustling...
Then we proceed to kill them.
Well, we - Sulik proceeds while Pope runs around like crazy. Those two hits hurt, but they're the reason we've initiated the fight - we could've resolved this thing peacefully, but we wouldn't get spiked brass knuckles that way.
Then Sulik mops up scorpions while Pope cheers him up from the safe distance. Ah, the heroics of adventuring...
Well, the bonehead needs to earn his pay, after all.
Back to city. We learn of another quest available...
And, thanks to the patch, we resolve the cattle rustling situation.
300 extra xps won't hurt. Also, this brought us quite a discount in this shop so we can trade lots of junk for a nifty leather armor. I'm not getting near to any kind of serious combat, but at least weak mobs won't do 20 dmg in one round to us. I hope.
I also read guns & bullets - considering our low combat skills, reading enough of these is imperative.
Usually, I don't like to take Sullivan's training this early...
But lack of aimed shots makes really high unarmed combat pointless for us and we gain a level out of it.
Soon we'll travel to Den and speech is kinda needed there.
Let's finish some local business before that.
With his stunted movement, this mr. Handy is as easy an opponent as he ever was.
We also get ourselves some rubber boots...
And hunt some rats. An entire building of them, actually.
We kill more rats in the basement, however, we don't delve deep into it - it's less about danger and more about sharpened spear not being fast enough to kill those rats efficiently. And Pope can't hit shit, obviously. At least he stepped into rat shit quite a lot of times, I figure - maybe that'll compensate for it? Doubtful.
On our journey to Den, we encounter Kaga. What an annoying bastard...
At least in this first encounter, he's a pushover. Later on, he's a threat, actually, and a serious one, so we'll try to finish it here and now.
We repeat the same strategy - Pope runs around like mad while Sulik picks them one by one.
Once Kaga remains alone, we try to crit him into head, knock him out and then finish him. He has hundreds of HPs, though, so it's not easy.
Besides, we're not lucky on crits, so once we do some damage to him, he runs away. There he is - in the leftmost part of the screen, slightly above the center, behind the trees. Better luck next time. And we'll need it.
Den. And, since the word "den" contains the same letters that the word "end", that's where the first part ends. Yeah, I plan to do these in somewhat smaller (but, hopefully, more frequent) chunks than my M&M LPs.
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