Ah. Yes, that's right; it was the final boss in Wolf in Sheep's Clothing where I got the Fixer. I've done Encryptid a couple of times and didn't get the plan, so I guess I'll have to look for that event when it pops up.

I have 12 Perks available to choose. I'll see if I have concentrated Fire.

If you don't have it, you can add it yourself. Choose "Pick a perk" (and spend a perk point) at the bottom of the screen and look under Perception. You get one perk point every time your character levels up. Every 5 levels you get a "perk card pack" of 4 random cards. By level 50, you should have about 100 cards, although half of those will be random ones from perk card packs.

I finally got the Suppressor crafting mod for my Gauss Rifle.

I'm a really terrible person. I had a quest to kill Cultists with a bladed weapon and I used a chainsaw. It was hilarious, in a really awful way.

LOL! I love those disturbing kinds of quests! And I particularly love it if they are cultists.

I decided to hang out in Nuka-World for awhile killing Nukalurks in the bottling factory. Haven't decided if I'm going to deal with the idiots in the gangs yet. Still hate Shawn and the Institute and the stupid Atom cultists. I think they're all gonna have to die. Maybe even with a chain saw!

I love Nuka World. I always romance Porter Gage and then murder his raiding hide when I'm good and ready.

And I'm SO aggravated in Nuka World! I finished the Safari quest and killed all the Gatorclaws. But one of them still has the "active" tag on him and so it shows I still need to kill one. GRRRRR!!! I can't kill him any deader than I already have, so I can't continue. Maybe I'll need to start the whole thing all over again. SO pi**ed!

EDIT: Well, I toggle the quest on and off and on the 3rd try, that was the charm and the active tag went away. Moving on!

A lot of the stories and characters in Fallout 4 revolve around the psychological turmoil these people have due to the war. The guy at Pickman Gallery, the lady at Egret Tours Marina, various journals and terminal entries written by the dead and alive, etc., often touch on various emotional stress and psychological damage. Sometimes it is unspoken, like the shy, stuttering radio guy in Diamond City. He is supposed to be just lacking confidence (and there is a quest to help him gain confidence with women). But we can't help feeling that his emotional problems have something to do with the war. These themes are something Bethesda's Fallout games handle very well, compared to other post-apocalyptic games, attributable to good writers. These themes carry over to Fallout 76 too. In Fallout 76, we meet the "gourmands," who turn out to be cannibals. We find their holotapes that reveal how guilt-striken they've become in having to eat each other. There are various children NPCs in Fallout 76 too, and their emotion and mind state in a brutal apocalyptic world is often dealt with (in depth or in passing) in meaningful ways. For instance, a child ally named Daphne can stay permanently at your camp; and she creates a fantasy life for herself because she is lonely and knows nothing of her background.

It turns out I already have almost all of the mods for The Fixer already, and of course it comes with the suppressor, so apart from one or two tweaks, I have a medium-range silenced rifle. I still need to find the long-range scope. I guess scrapping other combat rifles gave me the mods. Anyway, It's a pretty sweet rifle and I think I can now retire my Enclave Plasma rifle, which was fun but noisy.

If you use VATS a lot, you don't need a scope, because it may hurt the gun's AP usage. To use VATS efficiently, you need to minimize AP usage per shot, especially for an automatic weapon that fires a lot of shots. You can see this at the weapon bench: some scopes and sights actually add AP usage and make VATS more costly, while some reduce it.

Company tea adds 10% of AP regen. The Action Boy (or Girl) perk card also improves AP regen. These are essential for VATS. I believe Mortimer has the company tea machine on sale for 1250 bullions.

It's a fun gun to use, for sure. I bought a second one at a player vendor for 500 caps so I can play around with the Legendaries a bit. I still also love my .50 Marksman's Sniper Rifle for long distance mayhem. I carry the three; one of my three Gauss rifles, the Sniper rifle, and now the Fixer. Pretty much covers all contingencies.

I'm at level 400+ and I'm still using The Fixer in many parts of the game, and only switch to other weapons if I must. For instance, some enemies can reflect damage back to you, and you have to deal "indirect damage" (such as splash damage from missiles and grenades) in order to hurt them. Some enemies can only be killed with melee. Some events require you to heal NPC allies, which can be done with the "Friendly Fire" perk (under Charisma) that allows you to heal teammates with fire damage, such as with a flamer or molotov cocktails.

Most weapons are situational, of course. But some situations occur (way) more often than others. The Fixer works well in most situations -- casual fights, small mobs, mini-bosses, etc.

So far the Fixer is great. I might carry my Enclave plasma rifle for those situations you mentioned.

I use one of my 4 legendary Gauss Rifles a lot, too, for distance sniping. I have not yet decided which one is best. I have encountered a bug several times where a Gauss Rifle simply does no damage, shot after shot after shot. Not sure what causes it but apparently it's a known issue.

Here is a nice video guide on how to find, mod, and use the gauss rifle. At one point his gauss rifle misses several shots just like yours did, so maybe it's a quirk of this gun. He says this is one of his favorite guns for sniping. My favorite sniper weapon is a lever action rifle, which uses .45 rounds. I used gauss rifles early in the game, but have since moved on, because I hated having to charge up every single shot.

Yes, the charging each shot is very hard on my arthritic hands. For that reason I often just switch to my Marksman's Sniper Rifle for the sneak long shots.

So, I'm enjoying the Fasnacht Day parade event. I mean, it is just so silly it's hard to resist. And people really get into the spirit of things with their Fasnacht masks and the lunchboxes and the confetti, and dancing by the fire at the end. I've noticed that there's a lot of confetti and fireworks when I kill things at the moment. I guess that's related somehow, because I can't see anyone around me doing it. Great fun, watching an enemy go down in a hail of confetti and fireworks.

Yes, the confetti effect is from the lunchbox, and it lasts an hour wherever you go. A lunchbox also gives +25% XP for an hour, which is the primary reason for using it. But it doesn't give random loot like the lunch box in Fallout 4. The Fasnacht is always a popular event, mainly for the masks rewarded by the event, as new masks are added every year. One of the rarest masks is the "Father Winter" mask, the only one made for power armor. The event also has made "Fasnacht" well-known, at least among Fallout fans. It's a real festival in West Virginia (pictures), which I knew nothing about before this game.

All I've ever gotten for the dozens of lunch boxes in Fallout 4 is confetti! Closing in on level 61.

At level 61 in fallout 4 you're approaching a god-like status. I often get to level 60 without really pursuing the main quest!

What faction are you siding with? Or have you not decided yet?



I've now done the Fasnacht Parade about 6 times and have a few absolutely wonderful masks.

I see that there are events that nobody ever does. The Dogwood Die-off seems to have been completely abandoned. Also, the Power-up events are largely avoided, though I've done Poseidon a couple of times.

I haven't decided yet. But The Institute has to get blown up - they are all arrogant stupid arseholes... Shawn in particular. The Brotherhood are pretty self-righteous and the Minutemen are a bit idealistic. The Atom cultists also have to go. The Raiders are just plain fun to toy with - I plan on getting rid of all of them in Nuka World and turning the power on after I loot everything I can from them.

Mostly just running around killing stuff and having fun with my settlements.

I've always destroyed the Institute although they may be the best hope for humanity. I just can't stand the whole slavery thing and for that alone they must die!

I've done the entire Brotherhood questline and sided with them, and the ending is kind of sad, really.

Normally I go with the Railroad.

The Atom cultists can be saved in a way that is meaningful, though. Just FYI. Also, did you take Nick Valentine with you to the Island? He has a lot of new dialogue and options if he's your companion.

Yeah, right now I'm with the Railroad. I took Nick Valentine with me someplace, but now I can't remember where... maybe the Wasteland.

I've been traveling with Ada, the robot lately. I think I would miss her nagging, but she can carry a lot.

Players play those events mainly to get unique or rare rewards. Once they've got all the rewards, they stop playing the events. Those "power up" events reward the plan for the fusion generator. Once you got it, you aren't likely to spend another 10-15 minutes just to play it again. The Fasnacht event remains popular and re-playable because new rewards and masks keep getting added to the event.

Plus the Fasnacht Parade is fun and silly. The power up, not so much.

I've now got about 100 each of Fusion Cores and modules so, I might try crafting a couple of new Legendaries on my Fixer.

Another event with party atmosphere is "Spin the Wheel," which involves a circus and has some nice rewards as well.

There are about 25 public events in the game, and they come out at 0, 20, and the 40-minute mark of every hour. But they are chosen at random, so you only have 1/25 chance see each one of them. They keep adding new events every year, so it's harder and harder to see each one. Sometimes you wait weeks and not see the ones you want to play.

As you've noticed, some events are started by the players: Scorched Earth, Encryptid, A Colossal Problem, Neurological Warfare, and Riding Shotgun. The last one is the easiest to start; you just go to Big Bend Tunnel East and talk to Vinny to start the event.

There's Eviction Notice, which is well-attended and gives good rewards, plus Legendary Supermutants that drop good stuff. I've played that one a number of times now. It's well-suited to a sneak sniper since I can tag and weaken enemies before they get close.

Spin the Wheel has come up a few times. I've done Riding Shotgun once.

Eviction Notice could be pretty tough even for high-level players if there aren't a lot of players participating. If I don't see at least 6 players there, I probably won't participate. I wouldn't want to spend all that time and effort just to come up short. This event and two others are part of a 2022 update that was known for super-tough events. The other two are "Moonshine Jamboree" and "Test Your Metal." All 3 events have tough challenges and many tough enemies. "Test Your Metal" is probably the "easiest" of the three.

Another memorable, super-tough event is "Invaders From Beyond," which only appears one week per year. It already appeared earlier this year. It requires you to kill 90+ aliens (some are bosses) in 10 minutes, or all players in the event fail and get nothing. The rewards are really nice, though, with many alien-themed camp items and weapons, including the iconic Alien Blaster from past Fallout games. This event reminds me of Fallout 3 Mothership Zeta DLC, which I enjoyed.