Fallout 4: Settlements and Crafting for Experience

I like watching videos on YouTube that talk about different ways to build a character in Fallout 4.  Some builds avoid character stats and perks that relate to settlement management and crafting.  I understand this but I think it is a mistake in this game.

When I first started Fallout 4 I treated it as a first-person shooter and role-playing game hybrid game.  The previous Fallout games were all RPG's that were either first-person shooters or tactical combat game hybrids.  (I haven't played New Vegas so I might be partially wrong on my generalization.)  I think Fallout 4 is also partially a simulation game.  The crafting element doesn't really catapult it into being a simulation but the settlement management part I think brings it into the simulation territory.

If you ignore the settlement management part of the game, you will make the game harder for yourself.  There are a lot of built in mechanics that give you a lot of experience to level up, more equipment to make you more powerful, and more wealth to help you get through the game easier if you manage settlements.  You can craft without settlements but being able to create resources by growing crops, harvesting water and having settlers gather junk for crafting is a lot easier in the long run.  Yes, you can gather everything you need and borrow a workbench, but you will be spending a lot more time in the wasteland gathering than you need to.  You will also be doing at least twice as much fighting and exploring in order to get these resources and get experience to level up.  I started to realize this when I was getting as much if not more experience from gathering crops from my settlements and crafting items from them as I would from fighting in the same time period. 

In Fallout 4 you can choose to just fight the whole time.  You can also choose to just manage settlements after you "conquer" a few with some fighting.  Right now, I have about twelve settlements that I control.  I could just manage those and be busy building, crafting and defending them forever.  But I think the game has about three phases of play. 

In the beginning you will be doing mostly fighting and exploring.  Later you will be alternating between the fighting and exploring and managing settlements.  The way crops and settlements work, you have to leave for a while and come back to see crops grow and certain things like settlement happiness to rise.  You could just sleep and have most things happen but a rhythm of going on an adventure, returning to manage a settlement and then going out adventuring again seems the most efficient way of building a character.  Yes, you have to sidetrack a little with your perk choices and add some non-combat perks for settlement management, but you will level up twice as fast by doing both in the same amount of time.  After you have finished the main quest and most of the side quests what do you do?  In most games you simply start over but with Fallout 4 you can choose to continue to the third phase which is managing and protecting your settlements forever.  The creative possibilities of what you can build are endless.  Go to YouTube and you can see some awesome designs for settlements.

The settlement management/simulation part of Fallout 4 can be tedious and a little frustrating at first but in time you realize the frustration comes from not "playing along" with the way the game was designed.  Fallout 4 is not just Fallout 3 with some extra crafting options.  Fallout 4 is a complex game with several focuses.  If you are looking for a pure first-person shooter you will be disappointed.  If you are looking for a pure RPG, I think you will be disappointed.  If you are looking for a pure simulation/building game, you will be disappointed.  Fallout 4 really is an interactive simulation game.  Yes, you will build.  Yes, you will manage.  But you will always be forced to interact with a never-ending story influencing your settlements that you build and manage.  That is where the combat and exploring come in.  I guess I was disappointed when settlements and crafting got in the way of my adventuring in Fallout 4's world.  Now I am starting to like the simulation part of it more.  To get more out of Fallout 4 you have to slow down, let your gun cool off and tend to your crops.

Fallout 4: Switching Between Automatic Weapons and Melee Weapons

I have been experimenting with a character that uses Automatic weapons and Melee.  Automatic weapons have the weakness of using a lot of ammo.  I save a lot of ammo using melee that I can use later with my Automatic weapons.  Melee weapons are great for sneak attacks and can one shot kill an opponent when using a combination of stealth perks.  But if you are caught out in the open against a lot of opponents Melee can be kind of weak.  I use my Automatic weapons to blast my way out of those situations.  I find that these two styles of play are very complimentary since they are so very different.  I will post more observations about this type of play style as I get more experience.

Fallout 4: Start with a Charisma of 7

I have started Fallout 4 with a variety of character builds.  To make the game easier and more enjoyable I think people should start their characters with a Charisma of 7.  With a Charisma of 7 it is very easy to increase your character's Charisma to 11 by wearing a hat (+1), glasses (+1) and a suit (+2).  There are other ways to increase Charisma but this is the easiest way that I have found to get to Charisma 11.  Before I talk to characters in the game I just change into my "Charisma Outfit" and I can pass all the speech checks.  Passing a speech check will give your more experience, money (caps) and easier resolutions to a few quests.  It was just more fun and rewarding than playing a character that had better statistics for fighting but not for interacting with characters in the game world.  Also, a Charisma of 6 gives you access to the Local Leader Perk that allows you to set up supply lines between settlements.  People say that you don't have to use the settlement system in Fallout 4 but you miss a very large chunk of the game if you do.  Not having the Leader Perk makes the settlement system pretty tough and not fun in my opinion.  Starting with a Charisma higher than 7 creates a more difficult character to play with in the beginning.  I have played a character with Charisma of 10 to start with but it just took too much away from other S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats.  It caused me to have a weaker combat character.  If you want to raise your Charisma to 10 later to get better prices on items that is fine.  That is only fun though after you have a character that can fight its way though the beginning of the game.  You may decide to start a Character with lower Charisma but I would advise to keep it close to 7.  A Charisma of 5 or 6 might be practical if you are willing to add points to Charisma as you level up.  But I have found that starting with anything lower than that (like a Charisma of 1) is a real struggle to add points to later on.  You really don't want to have to add points for six levels and pass up other perks that will help you early on.  You might be waiting until level 30 or above to add those points if you try to squeeze them in between early useful perks.  In the meantime you will miss a lot of speech check and settlement building opportunities.