That's not the point. I'm saying that, narratively, there should have been a way to keep the Railroad alive, if you want to lead the Institute for the good of the Commonwealth. However, the lie could be much simpler: just say that they've relocated their base and that you're looking for them, then keep doing that until he dies.

Ok. Fair enough.

I think the three faction ending (RR, BoS, MM) is the closest to the peaceful ending. You have to work will all four factions for awhile to get it, and there are many instances that minimize causalities/your need to kill anyone:

-You destroy only the Institute, and can issue an evacuation order

- You don't have any enemies to shoot at the Battle of Bunker Hill, since neither the RR or BoS will attack you

-You can save both Danse and Deacon, and keep Preston as a full companion (rumor has it that it's possible to save X6-88 too as well, but I cannot confirm this)

- You rebuild a lot of the Commonwealth in the process

-You remain a RR operative, BoS Paladin, and the general of the MM

I've posted this on other threads, but I'd like to see a faction that takes a corporate/monetary approach. Increasing available resources would theoretically stabilize the Commonwealth and reduce fighting. People could get jobs, have enough to eat, etc. But corporations can be completely unethical, too, and essentially enslave people. Money can fund armies, large-scale weapon development, etc.

Expanding on the settlement tool would be a perfect opening for this...or allowing the player to join a faction like The Gunners.

Many people have mentioned that the "real" choices feel like the BoS and The Institute, because they're the only factions with real infrastructure. I'd like to see the player be able to engineer an alternative from the ground up.

The closest to a corporate/monetary approach is the Minutemen approach.

You can set up trade networks, vendors, build towns, and in return you gain wealth and equipment.

Someone who devotes time, effort, and perks to expanding and supporting all 29 settlements will not only have a tremendous amount of wealth that they can pull from, but will have greatly expanded the size and scope of civilization throughout the Commonwealth.

Agreed, although I think they need DLC to really flesh it out. Right now, you can do all those things, but the organizational system is really unclear. For example, I can make money at trade shops, but I don't really understand how this is done or where to get the money. I can assign settlers to jobs, but I have to remember who they are, hunt them down to assign them, and then hope they don't leave. I can make money and buy better weapons and armors, but I can't buy the Prydwyn. I can equip my settlers with better weapon and armor, so they can defend their settlements better, but I have to collect and carry a lot of stuff to do this. And what if I power them up, and then they leave? This obviously gets more complex and hard to manage with each additional settlement.

Hoping to see this in a settlement DLC!

After you build shops, you can collect caps each day by opening the workbench of the settlement those shops are in and going to the Miscellaneous tab and removing the Bottlecaps, which is where they are deposited each day. They can build up indefinitely. By building the shop you're, essentially, considered an owner/investor and the Settler manning it is your employee. The money going into the workbench is your ROI.

As that money is in the workbench it can also be used for other crafting that requires caps (typically building other vendors objects).

So be sure to periodically tour any town you have multiple vendors in and remove any caps off the workbench. You never now how many may have accumulated. I've pulled 8300+ off before.

And I agree that the Settlement and Settler management system absolutely needs a better GUI. I imagine when the GECK comes out, the Modding community is going to be all over that like a fly on rice.

If this is true, it's a truly loathsome decision on Bethesda's part to make important story issues depend on crappy sidequesting and crappier Sim City knockoffs.

Thanks for posting this. I have been playing this game A LOT, and I didn't even know that.

Now they just need a better outlet for all the caps... Here is one idea I've proposed to the DLC. (It may not be a new idea).

Maybe have the option to create a "supplies depot." You deposit weapons, armor, etc. and they get randomly assigned to a settler. That way, you still have to find the resources, but you don't have to micromanage each settler's wardrobe. And/or you could also have the ability to purchase "tiers" of clothing and armor for settlers. Again, you still have to get the resources (caps) to do this.

My current playthrough (Very Hard setting, mods used are primarily visual like more intense rainstorms or do things like add new types of chairs to settlements) -

I have such a wealth of resources that I am building a mansion on Spectacle Island in preparation for DLC because I can.

Including copper (yep, copper) lion statues out front. The island's defenses from high end turrets are also already past 250.

The residents? Me, Dogmeat, Piper, a couple Settlers to man vendors. Between my other 28 settlements I average 18 residents each, each town producing between 25-40 food and about 40-50 water (with a few at 200). Anytime I need caps I pull 200 purified water off a workbench and sell it, or make 100 Jet. Or both. Whatever.

Where do you find the raw materials? I know some vendors sell them, and you can obviously scrap a bunch of stuff on each settlement. Is there an easier way, though?

That's why I think they should do it in a way makes sense for the game. For example, you still have to scavenge for resources, but you can distribute them to settlers more efficiently. I'll have to look into downloading mods, and I know more will be coming, but right now, there's not enough that I can build that really makes the time investment worth it.

I agree that going the full Sims/SimCity route is not the best, but some things are pretty ambiguous right now. For example, settlers need beds for happiness. What else affects happiness? I've been told having TVs and listening to Radio Freedom affects this, but I don't know how much. And also...I can build baths and toilets, but does it matter? We're told that happier settlements produce more resources. So that's in the game, but there's not a good explanation for how to achieve this.

It's admittedly tough, because not everyone wants to play the game the same way. I appreciated not having to build much before advancing the main story line, especially given how confusing the initial building process was.

If it were up to me, I'd let the player control the bigger issues (settler job allocation, revenue, etc.), while letting Settlers take care of the smaller tasks. Settlers that build, for example, can fix houses and add new items. That would get away from some of the Sims/micromanaging elements of the games, but the player could reserve the option to build anything he or she wanted.

It's a combination of several things. The very first perk I take on any character is Scrapper 1. I take rank 2 the moment it becomes available. I also take Scrounger (Luck 2 - more ammo), and use ammo as a secondary form of currency. .38 ammo is equivalent to a bottlecap and just as plentiful. My Initial SPECIAL was 8/1/5/5/5/1/3 (used the Perception Bobblehead in Concord to insure I could get Rifleman)

The character for this playthrough is a Strength based character who relies heavily on power armor. My primary suits have all had Calibrated Shocks in the legs (increased carrying capacity) and I have the Strong Back perk. I also have Local Leader 2 and Cap Collector 2. I also have a suit of clothes just for buying/selling (+2 Charisma clothes, +1 glasses, and +1 hat --- all are available right at the start in Sanctuary and are very light, just swap when about to buy/sell).

So, bear with me here, but what makes me have so much resources is not any one thing. It's a lot of little things that roll together. One little bit extra plus a little bit more extra plus a little bit more extra.

Every trip out into the Wasteland my character brings back more. Every time I'm about to fast travel back, I stop and pick up, literally, everything in arm's length (even if it overburdens me) due to Strong Back and then fast travel back and dump it into the Workbench. I make sure every town I set up has at least one vendor (usually a bar or general trader) in it. I make sure that its crops are either all tatos, all corn, or all mutfruit (so that I can make vegetable starch to make adhesives). Once I got Int 6 and Science 1, I built 5 water purifiers (industrial) in Sanctuary and then schlepped all the spare purified water it made each day down to the Drumlin diner -- hadn't gotten to DC yet -- and emptied Trudy's entire junk stock and deposited that into my workbench. Did the same thing to Penny Fitzgerald, Alexis Combes, and other general traders.

Once I had several towns connected via Provisioners, I had cows. Cows = Fertilizer and that = Jet. Jet is the most efficient to sell stuff in the game. Make some Graqe Mentats for yourself, then trade Jets and Water for your ammo, rare crafting materials, and Shipments of stuff you need like Copper, Steel, etc.

I, absolutely, have Chem Resistant, btw. As it was Very Hard, I also used combat Chems for handling difficult fights. That's a different story. You don't need to deal with chems at all if you prefer a 'Lawful Good' playthrough. You can stick to the 'Water Purifiers everywhere' thing for that (and it's in character for Lawful Good RP) and still make good(ish) caps. It's just heavy and takes more back and forth trips.

After that, it's just a matter of economy of scale. Enough vendors in enough towns and enough trips to the wasteland dropping enough junk into your workbenches and then selling enough spare Aid and Ammo items you don't need equals a metric TON of bottlecaps.

Thanks for this detailed response! My current character is primarily melee, and has strength 9 or 10. I have many of these perks, but I don't have others. So I'll look into getting them, and see what happens. I'm really into modding/crafting, so I've put points into Armorer, Gun Nut, and Science.

You're welcome! Anything else about it here would be a bit off topic, but I am more than willing to go into further detail if you want to make another topic on the subject. My wife jokingly calls it playing Sims: Apocalyptica.

I'm waiting for a mod that gives you a strategy game interface, links all of the workbenches together, and lets you give orders in broader strokes to accomplish multiple things at once.

For which I'd give my hind teeth for.

Easier, not really, but this game does offer an unending supply of raw materials.

I dunno about peaceful, but I would like a (choice of) ending[s] that is/are more sane, and has less "Micheal Bay disorder."

What do I mean by this? Well...

Maxon/Desmonda/Preston: "Okay, so here we have the institute. It's a large underground base full of tech we can only imagine. Almost impenetrable. Contains research, resources, personel, etc. That if captured could provide an incalculable asset to our goals. We could actually have something to trade farmers with instead of just extorting them like a bunch of wannabe raiders and give them something else besides an IOU of killing mutants. We could give them the means to increase yields. As for the synths, we could get the recall codes and locations of all of them, and we can use that to hunt them down/as leverage.) And if nothing else it would be a downright EXCELLENT place for a base. Keep some Knights/Minutemen/heavies/ etc to keep the scientists in line, take a scribe or a gatling laser to the robotics department, Slap a BOS/Minutemen/Failroad logo on it and we practically have The Citidel/The Castle 2.0.

NNAAAAAAAA LETS BLOW IT UP BECAUSE AD VACKTHORHIUM/FOAR TEH MINUTEMEN/FAILROAD DUR HUR"

I just find it exceedingly stupid for any faction (even the BOS. ESPECIALLY the BOS) to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just roll in the troops, occupy the institute (yes yes, #OccupyInstitute), shoot the synths, reprogram the robotics section (or take a gatling laser or fatman to it), drag out the scientists and give them a "join us or die" ultimatum, and there you go.

Maybe I just took this bit advice to heart from my Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries days:

And for the Prydwen it's the same story. With the minutemen I can understand it. But surely the institute has more to gain by capturing both Lolberty prime and the Prydwen intact and can afford to do so.

Railroad: "so we're going to sneak onboard the Prydwen. Once on board you're going to have to fight your way and put explosives on it. Then blow it up." "Um... if I have to kill everyone anyway why don't I just kill everyone on board and take the ship for ourselves? Even if we have no use for it it's much better to land it and scrap it than it is to blow it up." (Truth be told though I can kinda see them kinda justified in blowing up the institute... they are basically a one-issue party after all. Doesn't make it any less stupid, just understandable for them.)

Institute: "Okay so the plan is you're going to sneak into the BOS base by yourselves, kill these beacons. Then we're going to throw all the synths in and hack liberty prime to shoot down the Prydwen. While you're still there. Don't worry we'll relay you out in time."
"Umm... I got two better ideas. If we go with plan A, why don't you just relay me on the prydwen instead while you do your hacking thing. Then we take the prydwen and Lolberty prime right out from under them and then we got both. One for blowing [censored] up, and one... for whatever. Scrap it, use it for propaganda. Whatever.... no? You really want both gone? Well I suppose we have enough resources. Okay then, how about this? I go to my minutemen base, have them fire on the prydwen. They will then send everything to the castle, then you send synths to the castle to reinforce it. That way we keep our hands clean for one, we make the enemy fight on our own terms for 2, we get more backup for 3, and we get better PR out of it for 4."

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1573116-idea-5th-ending/

Ah, well, I'd pegged the leader of the Institute as an obsessive psychopath who is focussed on control or others rather than proving some innate superiority over others. He doesn't leverage the child into being quiet (as a narsissistic psychopath I once knew would), he turns the child off with a remote controller. And, I think that's the game with the gen 3s; get everyone kitted out with an off-switch and micromanage the world. In this sense, he doesn't harbour delusions of immortality, but seeks to extend his control beyond the grave via his cause; the Institute.

That congenial front, by the way, isn't possible without a good solid ability to feel empathy. I think it is a dangerous mistake to assume that psychopaths don't feel remorse or empathy. I would go as far as saying that psychopaths feel empathy very intensely but use rationalization to distort how they feel it. So, while we may feel guilt or remorse as something painfully reminiscent of having harmed another human being, the psychopath rationalizes guilt into a more pleasurable "vindication of right" (obsessive) or "triumphalism of supremacy" (narcissistic). This allows the psychopath to pleasurably pursue and experience feelings of remorse, whether cast in terms of vindication or triumphalism, and this is how the psychopath turns empathy into a psychological weapon which can be used to ferret out the deepest vulnerabilities of other people (for the sake leveraging the choices of the other person or to more intensely goad the person into an untenable position).