February 2021 update

 Just a quick update in general

Night shift is over, going back to day shift tomorrow, March 1st. Will also be going back to working on the line as opposed to in the office, so will be a bit of a blow financially and career-wise but it's also a good time to reflect and rebuild.

Night shift was great monetarially but ruinous personally. Well, it wasn't that bad but I think I spent much of April to June 2020 sleeping poorly, then didn't really get up to much until now. I was reminded of my time in Finland in 2011-2012, wherein I gradually became nocturnal from there being not much to do. Lockdown exacerbated that feeling as in Finland there is no life or buzz as there is in Ireland. Besides just having enough energy in 2020 and 2021 to do night work and exercise, I managed to save the same amount of money in 2020 as I did between 2017-2019. I also took a break from saving money and bought a few trinkets and of course takeaway.

Excited to not rely on melatonin pills and CBD and ibuprofen soon. Who knows what impact they had but helped me sleep for the last six months or so. Melly and CBD combined for good sleep usually during the day (I usually tried to sleep 10AM-6PM max) and the ibuprofen was for my feet which were usually swollen after walking/cycling home most mornings or in general.

I started walking to work in January 2021 after a few poor incidents with taxi drivers, namely me not having cash money on me ever and my card being rejected for unknown reasons. Bit embarrassing asking work for cash to pay off inexplicably angry taxi driver parked outside. You know where I live and work buddy! Anyway walking has been good, I haven't done this much since 2011 when I went to Finland. Seriously, it's been that long. Now my legs feel pretty good after two months of walking 5km to work and 5km home five times a week on average. Feet are no longer as swollen either and with me coming back in the evening from now on will no longer need meds, I hope.

I've given cycling a bit of a rest but may expand into that again maybe once a week or so when I get back into the swing of day shift. Also, I have not run since March 2020 so may try to re-incorporate that somehow.

Twitter is the main app I use other than YouTube. I can't believe it's free.

I'm currently playing in one DND5E game, the Curse of Strahd, as an Aarakocra Ranger Gloom Stalker. I am currently running one DND5E game, the Doomstones from WFRP, for three people since June 2020. They currently have two of the four possible crystals and the Battle of the Eyrie is imminent. Strahd is early days but is tough and a nice scary sandbox.

Uhhh not a whole lot else going on right now. Haven't drank alcohol since November 2020, no particular reason but I purely drink it for socialising and that's currently gone. Weights are going fine, re-introducing creatine after stopped taking it sometime in mid 2020. Combined with walking for good results and now with going back to days should be better.

Lot of gaming lately, will document some of that in a love/hate soon: Halo 1 remake on PC I finally got working, going good so far. Heroic difficulty on my slightly uncomfortable Xbox controller I have plugged in. Other games: Minecraft and a possible Pokémon series of playthroughs in the works. Theo is big into Garry's Mod, specifically all the workshop downloads.

Hair is getting big but no way to cut it in sight. Will leave it for a bit as a small act of rebellion and nostalgia but when barbers come back will probably trim it a bit.

Agh there is not much else, if there is I'll update here!

Love hate # 28 - Fallout 4: Survival Mode

 My fourth time playing through Fallout 4! I had played New Vegas again for the 1,000,000th time as well as Fallout 3 so I thought, why not play 4 again as well? This time I did something different: I activated Survival Mode, something they included to be a bit like Hardcore Mode in New Vegas. I found Fallout 4 quite difficult starting out anyway - same thing here times a thousand. It was a really refreshing new way to play.

After playing a balance/settlement character, then a melee-only character, then a power armor nut, it was time to play as a stealth sniper once again. I always plan the SPECIAL stats with the Bobbleheads and You're SPECIAL magazine in mind.

The first Deathclaw took forever to kill. Thankfully I had a fair bit of ammo lying around and different guns. It eventually got stuck here.

Dog was useful for a while, but as usual I got sick of him and dismissed him.

Even the most trivial encounter became deadly.

Such a cutie! Me having to back away from a Behemoth.

I would often get Infections as shown in red above. Annoying but not debilitating. Was hard to get antibiotics for the first while.

I don't think I ever used the flares before but they didn't help me.

I didn't want to just have Vault suit and Combat Armor like usual but it certainly was going that way.

Conversing with a tree. Oh, Bethesda.

Blagging my way into Diamond City.

Bugs aplenty BUT as usual it only crashed for me a handful of times, if even that.

I did not win this fight, sadly.

Only involving myself with these losers for the Charisma bobblehead.

Walking under water in power armor I found on the way to the insane asylum...

Stealth a must in Survival Mode. 

Charisma was good in this, actually managed to succeed more than before.

Extraorindary lengths for the Strength bobblehead. These playthroughs are just me trying to get the collectibles, I don't care about ANY of the quests in this game.

Murdering Brother Thomas with nuclear explosives as usual.

All the guides I read kept referring to 'filling bottles' = so useful. I had purified water hotkeyed to '0' so any time I needed some water I'd hit that 

Yes I will buy a cow

What it's all about.

Get in the lift

Killed the Dad and got the hell out of there

Buying a doggo for Sanctuary Hills

Blowing the head off the alien as usual. There is no other way

Fun in Sanctuary Hills. Robot armor from defeated raiders came in handy.

Scenes from the Wasteland.

Assortment of weaponry. Ol'Blasty and La Longue Carbine were my shotgun/rifle combo that I would eventually ditch in favour of purchased legendaries.

Jesus was it hard at times. Fights would be staged around me hopping into a bed for a nap, saving the game at the same time and then getting into another scrap.

My clearing of Libertalia the first time round was epic and netted me the Fusils Terribles which briefly replaced my shotgun.

Random naked caravan guards

My CHA was through the roof so most conversations became laughably easy

I started making my own robots.

I read a lot of good things about it and decided to make it my rifle.

Silencers on EVERYTHING

Acquired Ballistic Weave for the first time and immediately upgraded to Mark V with my clothes of choice, combined with Deep Pocketed Polymer Combat Armor I was unstoppable, almost. I also upgraded my charisma suit with the weave.

Slaking my thirst with pumps instead of using up my bottles.

At some point I gave up on shotguns and bought the explosive Spray n Pray

Helping out the trapped Chinese sub

Saving Valentine

Random raider toll in the extreme north east of the map. Grenaded.

Hell of a kick off thsi gun...

Still have not got the cake

Always makign Sanctuary the centre. Next time, Starlight Diner. Maybe.

Turning a corner and finding this.

Ah, Cricket. My main source of ammo. Didn't need Trashcan Carla as much in this game.

Obligatory confidence man fight.

Got to Sandman Kill a few people! Mostly raiders.

Turning Ada into a powerhouse.

Got Aquagirl perk eventually to end the gradual irradiation.

Having to resolve this quest to end all the horrible robots attacking EVERYTHING

This fight was ridiculous.

Making Ada more mobile

Got some X-01 armor for the final encounter with Mechanist!

Level 63 from pure grit, no real spamming at settlements, not too many actual quests completed... just killing stuff. Lots of Agility purchases. Later, Luck.

I didn't mean to kill the Mechanist, it just sort of happened.

Managed to go this far with no Medic.

Rounding out the Bobbleheads.

Cooking stations were a lifesaver.

Back to Nukaworld.

A look at my armour prior to fighting this prick again.

DOHOHO

60+ hours on this craic over a two month period.

The usual Nukaworld shenanigans. I only did it for the two perks at the end.

It's too bad they didn't make the alternate ending more compelling otherwise of course I'd side with the slaves.

He seemed more impressive the first time. Managed to talk him into leaving.

Big enemies were so easy after a while.

More looks at the perk tree lategame.

Killed him instantly.

Made a habit of gunning down these.

I eventually got tired of this playthrough so it was time to rush through the final questlines and defeat the Brotherhood for the Institute.

Some comparisons of the previous playthroughs:

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In sum, a thrilling experience for the most part. Just like the way my character got adrenaline from fights, I got adrenaline in real life from all the near death experiences. I died PLENTY of times, sometimes losing an hour or two of progress but gradually honed the whole hotkey food/water situation and even reduced the need for sleep with all the Nuka Cola. Sleeping bags/mattresses/real beds were only essential for saving after a while.

Steath sniping as usual was super satisfying until the mid to late game where I was strong enough to go toe to toe and end fights quick. Drugs were also useful early to mid game, particularly PsychoJet.

Settlements were not particularly essential in this; I had most of my stuff in Sanctuary so having to run across the map every few hours was awkward but not too difficult after a while. I was always able to find a random bed somewhere in the wastes to save in. If all else failed, there was Exitsave.

I thought I'd have more to type here as usual but no. It was a hell of a playthrough and as a bonus I have the last two hours of it recorded here: