Nuka world, trying to be a Raider(and failing due to bad difficulty)

Started by LaughingAlex, September 11, 2016, 08:01:12 PM

LaughingAlex

Despite the title, Nuka world can be fun, for a player caring much more about combat and not about story or roleplaying sense.  In a way, there is some level of stupid evil mixed with smart evil.

The main story starts with
Spoiler for Hidden:
the sole survivor being thrust into organized raider politics after another raider helps him/her sabotage a cheating arena fighter at the end of a major death maze
.  The environments afterwards are great, from a space-themed mini park to a savanah surrounded with roller coaster.  But the charm kind of ends there; the story itself is certainly not bethesda's best written, due on part of the raiders tendency to just not wanting to do anything themselves(as with many rpgs), which is the main problem many reviewers point out.

It begins to spiral out of control, however, when you finish taking the entire park.  As you take control of the park, you establish territory to the gangs, and then it's off to the Commonwealth itself.  The main problem comes from a few major oversights:

One: The raider outposts depend on HEALTHY settlements to feed themselves.  This comes in the form of making healthy farming settlements into "vassals".  The more food the better, and while a large 15+ population settlement providing 90+ food can "provide" for multiple raider towns, the problem can be major with the infamous settlement bug which doubles population and cuts water/beds/food down.  This leads to shortages in the raider towns from any glitched settlement, forcing you to turn it into a raider outpost.

The other problem stems from the fact you cannot "vassal" or take over a settlement with either important NPCs such as your companions, some named NPCs(specifically those who are essential) and my now most hated settlement, whatever town is picked by the Railroad to be Mercer Safehouse.  The safehouse the railroad has you establish cannot even be picked as a location, and if this is something that is essential for raider "infrastructur" such as red rocket truck stop, or any north-western settlement(the corner of the map with the most towns and thus fastest expansion) you can easily find yourself screwed out of hours of play with no means to make it really work.

If you have even so much as 2 towns lost to essential npcs(my case Red Rocket Truck stop and Outpost Zumanja), and you don't have much of the commonwealth well developed already, taking over the 8 settlements necessary to get the most out of the raiders becomes difficult if not impossible within any reasonable time frame.

The other issue, is once a town is set as a "vassal" it'll no longer grow, for some reason, I haven't figured it out.  But even if the crops are all in place for future growth, the town won't develop.  So if you find yourself forced to take vassals which are small, you can easily end up with lots of vassals and not enough raider outposts.  This glaring gameplay flaw is crippling to any character of low charisma, just as much as the local leader perk being unavailable, which is contradictory, as raider towns are actually efficient at logistics on there own without your intervention; they'll share all of there supplies without supply lines.  While it'd look good on paper, it just doesn't work in practice unless the low-charisma character spent lots of time setting up turrets ahead of time and making the large a farms as they possibly can while also not letting essential npc's remain in the north-western settlements.

All of this combines for what I could describe as a clunky, and ultimately frustrating, experience with the DLC.  While I enjoyed the changed challenge with the Raider mechanics and the DLC, somewhat(I hated a certain marathon level) it fell apart for me once I got to the commonwealth.  My low-charisma character was made to win fights, so I didn't take endless hours taking towns and growing them ahead of time.  And it'd feel contradictory in a way to turn them over to raiders(directly or vassal).  While the rewards are immense(I was getting huge cash income far exceeding what settlements could give even a highly charismatic character from it), the nasty unstable and uncontrolable nature of the raiders annoyed me.

If bethesda did the following, it wouldn't have felt like a crapshoot:

1: Let me set tighter maximums on raiders in locations.  I could do this with regular settlers, why not raider crews?
2: Let me keep growing the vassals and import "workers" to it or something after I assign it as a vassal so I don't have to play heroic minuteman beforehand.  Really, it makes no sense for me to have to still be a good guy when I want to be a bad guy.
3: Why couldn't they let us take this further with it's own path to win the game?  Has anyone found anything on this?

Thats it.  Thats the main achilees heel for the system.  When towns insist on growing to 16 people when I am only able to get infrastructure for 10 in each of them, I dang well should have a right to that.  It'd have made sense for me and worked many times better, as I wouldn't be forced to spend all of my time developing extra towns just to turn them into vassals.  I'd have been able to stop a town from growing when I found it had food troubles and chose to feed it only an extra town.  I'd have the option to make more raider outposts and less vassals and opt for a "quantity over quality" approach(a mix of which seems to be the better option for this DLC, rather than pure quantity or pure quality, you need 8 raider outposts to gain all of the buildables, and it's needlessly hard in the wrongest ways of needing prior knowledge to avoid major problems).

Advice for anyone planning on doing nuka world:

Take Sanctuary, Starlight Drive in, Red Rocket, Abernathy(although this COULD be used as mercer, since it's always a bugged and useless piece of crap anyways, so I'd actually leave it unclaimed until doing the railroad), tennpines, outpost zumanja, actually all of the northern settlements before joining the railroad if possible.  If it's north of Boston, take it(except abernathy since it's always BUGGED).

While doing the above, take local leader and link em up.  This may seem contradictory but you need the infrastructure already in place before moving in raiders.

Develop the large towns into giant farm communities that you plan to vassal far ahead of time based on location and also the following: Country crossing and starlight have lots of land you can farm on, although Starlight may need the not so good wasteland workshop(it's ok for 5 bucks if you just like building things, if your not that into building then it isn't worth it) to maximize it's production.  A central location with a lot of farmable land on it is perfect for a vassal.

Build your character as a leader, rather than a raider.  This is a big one.  A robot mastermind with 6 charisma(or more, actually), 7 charisma(get this to 8 with the bobblehead from boston city library) and a powerful automatron ally will have an easy time taking territory and developing it before Nuka World, and can have a good excuse for betreying it(hey, more money, weapons, and free drugs could make it worth it!).

In fact, if you have it, advance and even complete Automatron beforehand.  Automatrons can be cheaply built to be used to quickly "fatten" a settlement quickly to provide a large crop yield as a vassal.

The irony is, if you develop the wasteland into a reasonable civilization as a leader, you'll do far better being the Overboss of Nuka world than if you build as a simple raider like I did.  I suppose it makes sense, but the mechanics just scream "This is for an evil ruthless jerk!".  Not to mention the story and how contradictory it is: Why would I, the general of the minutemen, if I focused on actually doing that, want to hand over people already paying me an otherwise smaller amount of taxes but still making me filthy rich?

The advantages I could see: Superior equipped settlers, free chems(you get tons of these with raider settlements), tremendous amounts of money, potential(from what I heard) for free legendary items and goodies.  All in all, raiders pay up far more directly than settlements do(and I think you can still get purified water in them, so regular settlements don't have that as an advantage).

Disadvantages I can see: Difficult to manage and setup(specifically due to the later to).
Requires prior knowledge to make it work(the one I hate the most, but at least this one is negatable in future playthroughs(which is why I hate it))
Requires settlements to be very well developed(as very high food farmland) before you begin turning on the commonwealth.

At least I got to show expansionist wannabe "Another settlement needs YOUR help!" Preston Garvey what a real expansionist looks like.

Edit: Also don't think automatrons can farm for the raiders within there own settlements.  They won't even tolerate the sight of seeing anyone farming and will begin to dislike you for it.
Currently; Not doing any streaming, found myself with less time available recently.  Still playing starbound periodically, though I am thinking of trying other games.  Don't tell me to play mmohtg's though please :).  Getting back into participating in VO and the successors again to.

LaughingAlex

Another Note: If you plan to take over or vassal Graygarden, do NOT be surprised if the settler you have to talk to is on top of the stupid town on the highway in an unreachable location;

Build some stairs up to the top of the highway first, because Bugfesda decided that on top of the highway in an unreachable location was a good spot for idiot settlers to spawn even if there was no possible way for them to get there.  I was effectively forced to use the command console just to talk to the idiots when I decided to vassal them.
Currently; Not doing any streaming, found myself with less time available recently.  Still playing starbound periodically, though I am thinking of trying other games.  Don't tell me to play mmohtg's though please :).  Getting back into participating in VO and the successors again to.

Nyx Nought Nothing

Quote from: LaughingAlex on September 11, 2016, 08:52:20 PM
Another Note: If you plan to take over or vassal Graygarden, do NOT be surprised if the settler you have to talk to is on top of the stupid town on the highway in an unreachable location;

Build some stairs up to the top of the highway first, because Bugfesda decided that on top of the highway in an unreachable location was a good spot for idiot settlers to spawn even if there was no possible way for them to get there.  I was effectively forced to use the command console just to talk to the idiots when I decided to vassal them.
When i built up Graygarden i built the settlement into the overpass, so settlers don't have any issues with spawning on the top. It's basically a nine floor arcology composed mostly of concrete and turrets. i even placed the artillery on top of the overpass, the ground level is mostly farming space.
Also, something i didn't do was dismantle most of the settlements' defenses before doing my heel turn. In retrospect that wasn't ideal since settlements with over 300 defense rating due to turrets everywhere can be something of a PITA to subdue when most of the residents are equipped with assorted automatic weapons and combat armor.
So far so good. Onward and upward!

LaughingAlex

Quote from: Nyx Nought Nothing on September 12, 2016, 05:19:41 AM
When i built up Graygarden i built the settlement into the overpass, so settlers don't have any issues with spawning on the top. It's basically a nine floor arcology composed mostly of concrete and turrets. i even placed the artillery on top of the overpass, the ground level is mostly farming space.
Also, something i didn't do was dismantle most of the settlements' defenses before doing my heel turn. In retrospect that wasn't ideal since settlements with over 300 defense rating due to turrets everywhere can be something of a PITA to subdue when most of the residents are equipped with assorted automatic weapons and combat armor.

You can also intimidate them using high charisma, which was my main strategy.  Boring to the desciples but, its not a bad idea.  My melee raider didn't have gun nut, so i couldn't build very good turrets.   A max strength, 9 agility starting toon isnt going to get the intelligence and charisma to truely use settlements and nuka world also forces some gun use in spots, forcing investment into rifles instead of precious int/charisma.
Currently; Not doing any streaming, found myself with less time available recently.  Still playing starbound periodically, though I am thinking of trying other games.  Don't tell me to play mmohtg's though please :).  Getting back into participating in VO and the successors again to.

LaughingAlex

I made a new char with a plan to heel turn from the getgo, wih decisions made with that in mind.

Including conquering lots of the commonwealth and building it up after for the minutemen first.
Currently; Not doing any streaming, found myself with less time available recently.  Still playing starbound periodically, though I am thinking of trying other games.  Don't tell me to play mmohtg's though please :).  Getting back into participating in VO and the successors again to.

LaughingAlex

So my latest strategy has proven to be very successful in making a large raider empire:

Sucker the settlers, distract the raiders with other things besides food/water.  Here's how it works:

Raider towns need huge amounts of food.  To start, with a new character, start taking territories.  More the better.  The northern settlements have lots more farmland and are in significantly greater number than the harsher southern settlements, although a player may need to take some southern towns to get 8 raider towns.

Some notes:
A town with 20 regular CANNOT fully feed 3-4 raider settlements of 20 raiders as some threads elsewhere suggest.  The math may seem to line up, but the raiders seem to find a way to over-eat the food rations.
Settlement bugs can disrupt raider supplies sometimes(more settlers in a farm town, even if they don't exist, will consume some of the excess food and cut off the raiders).
The real penalty of food shortages is slowed/stalled raider population growth, just like regular settlers.
Farming towns tend to distribute there food supplies evenly to nearby raider settlements.


With most of this in mind, here is how my playthrough went(Played on normal, although this tactic CAN work on very hard with some SPECIAL adjustment).
SPECIAL
3146X22 (+1int from book while intoxicated for 11 intelligence, intelligence can be dropped to 7 and kicked to 8 on the bobblehead for more endurance, a recommended move for very hard)

Step 1:For most of the game until level 26, I leveled up as usual while slowly taking the northern commonwealth except for the glitchy Abernathy farm, and Greenhouse nursery(didn't need it, may keep it as a regular town later or vassal it after the main is completed).  I chose Red Rocket Truck stop, Starlight Drive in, and County Crossing for my initial farming settlements.  I moved settlers from less important towns to these locations while also packing as much mutfruit into them(I had the not so interesting wasteland workshop, so Red Rocket Truck stop had a true Technogaiast twist to it; rooftop garden! :) )
Step 2: I needed some firepower, as I was playing an automatics character, and wanted to use an automatron for my main companion(more ammo for me!).  I complete automatron, and make a Voltaic-armored Mr Gutsy with gatling laser sentry arms.
Step 3: Complete nuka world's park quests.  The Mr. Gutsy proved invaluable here, as I ran into crushing ammo shortages, but the OP lasers melted the things I couldn't waste ammo on.
Step 4: Deal with Mama Murphy and her two friends.  Since her two friends were by design as of 1.7 meant to be non-essential, I removed the essential flags.
Step 5: Begin the conquest: I had little choice so I gave the pack Outpost Zumanja.  I then talked to Starlight drive in, and thanks to my insane charisma, convinced them to "Work for me".  After this I took more outposts, finished the Nuka World main quest, and then before I knew it, the entire north-western commonwealth was in the hands of nuka world(including Sanctuary, I moved Annoying Preston and Sturges into the castle earlier), before I knew it, I had 8 raider settlements, 5 operators, and 3 pack(sorry but, I sided with you last time Disciples).  I gave them stores, "Fattened" Abernathy farm with 15 settlers and crops to deal with a shortage which still occurs in Sanctuary, Sunshine Tides, and outpost Zumanja even after the 200 food supply(or maybe 160, considering the settlers have to eat to) coming in daily to them and other outposts.

Funnily enough, even with the occasional food shortage, the raiders are more then happy hopped up on chems and places to burn caps on.  My overseer is making over 500+ caps per game day from raider payments alone, and just the three tribute chests yield 2,500 worth of caps every so often.  She was living the life of a true, rich, greedy narcissist living the dream.

Moral of the story: People who already built a lot of towns will get even richer with nuka world.  But given my first experience, a character not built for town building will still suck as an overseer.
Currently; Not doing any streaming, found myself with less time available recently.  Still playing starbound periodically, though I am thinking of trying other games.  Don't tell me to play mmohtg's though please :).  Getting back into participating in VO and the successors again to.