Nope. It's not true you need to clear Investigating Concord to advance the MQ. Just go straight to Valentine's office in Diamond City. EVERYTHING to do with Concord and the Minutemen can be skipped and make ZERO difference in the story or quest lines.

I think as long as you complete the quest you don't actually have to go back to him since it will auto complete once the time runs out, so as long as you killed the raiders etc, just don't go back unless you have to for some other reason, it cuts down on his ability to bother you.

But do you still get the mission "Old Guns", and the benefits it offers without enlisting in the MM?

I am doing my first and last Minutemen Playthrough now, not only is Preston annoying, but the faction is sorely lacking on quest content outside the radiant stuff.

Probably not, no. As you need the Minutemen to occupy the Castle to get that quest.

I doubt I'll miss it in future game as I've actually used it only a few times and in one of those I switched it on by mistake and almost fragged myself as I ran desperately trying to find out where the fire was coming from only to realise that the signal was the wrong colour for the Vertibird.

Not really the same at all. Trying to North from Goodsprings you first see a sign saying "KEEP OUT" then if you keep going Victor shows up and warns you of the dangers, after that you'll run into Cazadores which will pretty much vaporize a new player. It's pretty clear they are directing you to go South towards Primm in New Vegas.

The Vertibird is so much more fun though, the artillery is kind of underwhelming. What do you get from the Railroad? Need to join them now.

Ballistic weave.

Which allows you to give a number of generic clothing items DR of like 110 for each normal and energy weapon damage.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Ballistic_weave

Yeah NV was designed to force you south, following the guy who shot you....you could possibly survive heading north, but the game was pretty blatantly directing you south.

Ballistic-weave. Turn almost any piece of clothing into darn-near Power Armor damage resistance.

Ballistic Weave and of course the best 10mm pistol in the game.

Sounds overpowered. Can you put it on any type of clothing and then have armour on top of it?

Nope. Only certain full outfits (those that don't let armor be worn over them). But you can also add the same DR to some hats, so you can have a casual outfit and hat that grants you a combined DR of 220, and ER of 220.

Not sure.

Most of the items it applies to dont count as under armor, so it cant be worn under normal armor, but i haven't gone through every item in the list.

You can apply it to some hats though, giving you 220 DR total if you wear clothing + hat

The army fatigues and military fatigues will both take the Ballistic Weave and allow you to also use the armour.......all the rest seem to be civilian clothing types and it seems really random what can take the weave and what cannot.

Currently I'm using a Courser uniform, Fedora and wraparound googles, since I've been wearing the armour (of some type) for 100+ hours now with either the BOS uniform (black) or Vault Suit I was eager for a change.

I forgot aboute the army fatigues. They also give you +1 Str and +1 End.

I don't get why some people get so bent out of shape by that. You can either follow the path and get introduced to several of the major players in NV and learn the basics of the plot...or they can have the "hardcoe" experience they claim to crave by trying to get past the Cazadores, Super Mutants and Deathclaws to reach Vegas at low level.

I'd agree with that in that while the game directed you south, it didn't prevent you from going to your almost certain death if that was the way you wanted to go.

Not sure who's getting bent out of shape about it. I enjoyed New Vegas very much. It's still pretty obvious you are heavily nudged southward.

Nice. I've yet to complete the Rail Road quests, but will definitely have to. How strong is the ballistic weave with leather armor pieces?

You should get the Ballistic weave

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Ballistic_weave

With MK V, its a DR 110 and ER 110, so double that if you wear a hat with the Ballistic weave as well, plus the usual stats from your chosen armour.

Exactly....if people wanted a real challenge, going straight to Vegas from Goodsprings was exactly what they claimed to want. Just the sort of thing they could justifiably brag about on the forums if they pull it off.

Didn't mean you, but it's one of the biggest complaints about NV there is, next to the bugs. I didn't mind letting them have the first couple hours guiding me around the map, so i could meet most of the major players in the Mojave, and get a good grasp of what my character knows...which I don't....about what is going on. Unlike FO3 and 4, you're part of the world in NV...the Courier knows who the NCR, Legion, Khans, ect are.

Just saw this. I think this sums it up perfectly.

http://imgur.com/gallery/XG8ceEq

Preston and his settlement quests are the new "arrow in the knee" meme.

The same problem in Skyrim and it got a lot of heat. At least in Skyrim you could refuse radiant quests.

Not so in Fallout 4 with some exceptions.

Dialogue system has hard coded selections with only and always 4 options so its hard to add optional radial quests into it.

Far easier to auto trigger then you talk to them. Still the minutemen are horible with their quests.