Posted 14 March 2016 - 05:36 PM
Finally got around to playing this (both on the toaster I call my PC and my new PS4) and some pro-tips:
1. Power cores are ammo for a late-game gun so take Scrounger if you want to get tons, they're also the most cost effective ammo as with high Cha (even 1 Cha with fancy clothes and the second best drugs in the game (see 2) in your system) you can get one for 250-300 caps worth 500 shots each while the best you can get for all other ammo is 1:1 caps to shots
2. Make grape mentats (Cha +5, better selling and buying) from mentats hubflowers and whiskey to destroy charisma checks, and make psycho jet and psychobuff from psycho, jet and buffout, then on tricky fights (like mirelurk queens you're doing a fraction of their health per hit) chug all three as they stack, then smack a giant enemy crab with a rocket engine-power hammer for most of its health while screaming FUCKING KILL in slomo
3. Super Sledges (the aforementioned jet hammer) are slow swing speed in first person at all times and third person while on foot, but medium speed while in third person and in power armour, yes this is a fun time
4. Idiot Savant is least effective statistically around 6-7 int but is still a flat improvement at all int levels, including having an int of 15 - also it can trigger occasionally on quest rewards, my 1 int melee murderer handed in two quests that both proc'd and gained 1.8 levels
5. Get the 9 Agi skill Blitz and the 9 Str skill Rooted, which gives you incredible range for your VATS and also (since each attack in VATS is treated as you being stationary) gaining extra damage and resistance each attack as you warp between your targets
6. Progress in the Railroad questline enough to complete PAM's first supply cache quest, then talk to Tinker Tom - he'll give you an option to upgrade items with ballistic weave and let you do it yourself, this means you can improve a few hats and several items of clothing with, at level 4 Armourer, literally 110 def and energy def - military and army fatigues both let you use all armour slots and give you 2 Agi or 1 Str/1 Agi, and then the newsboy cap on top means you're pretty well protected and armoured up
7. Be lucky enough that the fight that gives you enough exp to reach the last level of Big Guns (double damage to heavy weapons) is also off a Legendary Annihilator Sentrybot who drops an Instigating Fat Man - that is, a man-portable mini nuke launcher that does double damage if the target has full health - otherwise hope for a Wounding combat shotgun (each pellet adds the 25 point bleed effect, they stack and nothing resists it), a Never-Ending double-barreled shotgun (clipsize = ammo count and no reloads, as you may have guessed the boom stick is not balanced for this), an Instigating sniper/gauss rifle, a double-shot combat/assault rifle not on automatic, or an Explosive minigun when you have all the explosive perks (try not to stand in the aoe range)
8. Bring a companion to carry all that shit while you explore, you don't have time to lug bazookas around when you need to stack up on duct tape, surgical trays and beaker stands, and besides, not only can you make them carry more than their weight limit by directing them to pick up specific things, Dogmeat doesn't count for the Lone Wanderer perk so you can get all the companion perks (find whatever repeatable thing they like, do it once then quicksave/quickload to reset their internal liking things clock and repeat) then abandon them forever and take both the dog and the extra space/damage/resistance
9. Dogmeat is immortal so you can blow him the fuck up with your 1072 damage, double-damage against full-health targets Fat Man when he walks in front of you and pushes you off the gangplank into the nest of Legendary Super Mutant Masters with miniguns riding Legendary Albino Radscorpions for the eighth time in a row, holy fuck you stupid dog
Hello, soldiers, look at your mage, now back to me, now back at your mage, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped being an unascended mortal and switched to Sole Spice, he could smell like he’s me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re in a warren with the High Mage your cadre mage could smell like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s an acorn with two gates to that realm you love. Look again, the acorn is now otataral. Anything is possible when your mage smells like Sole Spice and not a Bole brother. I’m on a quorl.