You know what the biggest problem is with these guys?

They always make you do the same, mundane thing over and over. Go here. Clear them. Build the same old radio tower. Over and over and over. Why can't I assign other settlers to do this [censored] with a risk of casualties? And they always put me up against raiders. Do other factions show up to be cleared out if they're made enemies? That would at least mix things up a bit.

I think its based on level since I've fought ghouls, raiders, Super Mutants, Gunners, and Synths.

No deathclaws?

I'm actually dreading that, but it would be cool as hell.

It's funny when in Fallout 3 to take down a Vertibird You need Tesla Cannon or serious firepower, while in F4 a single clip from laser rifle does the job. Hmmm... yeah... Go team Enclave!

It's not... maybe my game is bugged or something. There is rarely a knight left over after the crash (not even a corpse), which happens probably 9 out of 10 times when I see a vertibird, and when a knight manages to survive, they get annihilated pretty quickly after (great source of T-60 parts btw!). I've only once seen a knight drop down before a vertibird crash, he did reasonably well against a few raiders, but eventually fell to just too many bullets, being vastly outnumbered as he was. I even tried to save him, but just couldn't get raiders fast enough. I haven't seen a fair (non-crash) matchup against super mutants, but I suspect their propensity for having big weapons, infinite grenades, and arm suicide bombs would make short work of the power armor.

What level are you guys at? I'm at 41 now and didn't progress the story enough to get vertibirds around until probably lv 30ish. The higher level I get, the worse off the BoS seems to be... I think mainly due to the types of weapons and armor the other baddies are getting for leveled loot tables. It could be that th BoS is really kickin it at lv 20, but starts getting whipped later. There is definitely something weird going on if others are reporting BoS doing well in fights... I'm not exaggerating at all on their level of failure in my game. I'm embaressed to even be part of the faction.

Brotherhood have [censored] air superiority. XD

Anyway, the more I think about it the more I hate the minutemen. Meet the institute when sticking with just them and unsure about how to play the middle ground? Automatically get made an enemy. Same thing when with brotherhood? Automatically get invited to explore. Avoided obligating myself to any side both ways (Once the institute is made known as a faction). Different results that were not attempted and just happened. The problem is it happens with side A or B but can't be done in the same manner with both. by which I mean "I dunno about you institute guys which causes automatic thing to happen". Which is silly. "With us or against us" when with one side yet "Come on in and even be a spy" on the other? If you could do that both ways then great, awesome. This way? Something's lacking.

Outgunned? What do you mean by that? Because the Minutemen have artillery?

Hah. That's like saying ISIS could defeat the US if they decided to switch over to canons.

The Minutemen only beat the Brotherhood of Steel because they launched a surprise attack that the BoS didn't account for. Even then, the BoS is far from finished. The surviving Knights could easily repel any and all attacks by the other factions, and there's no chance Liberty Prime was destroyed by the airship falling down. It's still there, waiting to be put online. The BoS is still the most heavily armed force in the Commonwealth.

Keep in mind the airship itself wasn't that large, meaning not all the BoS arrived in the Commonwealth aboard it, and Liberty Prime is still there somewhere. The rest of the Brotherhood of Steel forces would eventually travel to the Commonwealth to retrieve it and lay waste to all the enemy factions in the area.

The player is basically the whole faction he is the only one who actually does something. Sometime after I had retaken the castle, I went a rescue mission when I arrived the guy told me he called the Minutemen, but didn't expect that they would actually come, and this was already one of my settlements.

And if people like Preston, who is "second in command", are not shy to tell anyone how much he hates the BoS, especially members of the BoS, the BoS would know that the minutemen might not be an ally? And when the Minutemen defeat the institute the BoS would certainly not consider them irrelevant.

That the Minutemen have artillery also don't make much sense. You can't build artillery out of junk. It's like the Universe bends itself to the favor of the Minutemen.

The BoS was the most heavily armed force in the Commonwealth. Since the Commonwealth BoS is incapable of doing anything without my help, they haven't seized advanced technology laying around the Commonwealth ruins like I have. That tech has been passed on to the Minutemen in the form of highly modified heavy combat armor, highly upgraded power armor, and highly overpowered weapons. You see, the player, through careful perk selection, is able to far exceed the technological capability of the BoS and manufacture advanced firepower well in excesss of what the lazy, ineffective, BoS is able to provide their own troops. In fact, the BoS requires their troops to buy their own weapons from a shop that isn't particularly well supplied. Meanwhile, the Minutemen are issued highly advanced firepower as they join.

And what are the Minutemen doing without you? You can't consider every game play feature canon (like healing wounds by eating 15 corn cobs during a battle)

If you could acquire fully upgraded weapons, there would be no point in crafting, that's why their weapons are so weak.

I have recently seen a random vertibird that crashed for no reason other than showing me how cool it looks when it crashes. But that is the fault of the game and not of the BoS

The Brotherhood of Steel is able to wipe out patrols of Super Mutants on their own. The Minutemen, regardless of the gear you give them or turrets you build to defend them, will almost always lose without player intervention against small groups of Raiders and Super Mutants.

The Brotherhood of Steel rose to power long before the player was relevant. They built a giant airship on their own, salvaged vertibirds on their own, and amassed an army of Knights in Power Armor on their own. They could easily do it again, with or without the player's help.

Just like they could rebuild Liberty Prime again, with or without the player's help.. and the player cannot defeat Liberty Prime -- an asset which is still in the Brotherhood of Steel's control after their airship is downed.

The Brotherhood of Steel is still the most heavily armed force in the Commonwealth. And they have an even larger force back in DC and on the West Coast. They will come to reclaim Liberty Prime and the technology they lost as the result of the player fighting against them, and no amount of artillery is going to prevent them from doing that.

Perhaps.

Or perhaps they will collapse into infighting and irrelevance.

Though, I remind you, the West Coast BoS is in hiding.

Seriously.

Why do people have so much trouble with that? A lot of Fallout fans act like the BoS didn't lose the NCR-BoS war.

They did lose the NCR-BoS war, but the force you meet in the Mojave isn't the entire West Coast branch. It's a small subset.

There's still the East Coast branch as well, which has Liberty Prime as an asset. You know, the giant robot that not only obliterated the Enclave on the East Coast, but also almost singlehandedly took back Anchorage from the Chinese.

Even the NCR doesn't have anything to compare to that.

1. Agreed, BoS in the west coast still operates as a whole, Circle of Steel is a good example. But they are in hiding, licking wounds, and ultimately only postponing their end (unless some changes will occour).

But, east coast BoS at this point is separate entity from other chapters. There won't be any reinforments from California or Nevada. From DC? Maybe, and this is huge maybe. Most likely Maxon took with himself the wast majority of his forces leaving behind only enough brothers to peacekeep/occupy Capital Westland. And vast percent of that force would be scribes.

2.Liberty Prime never entered active service until 2277. It was not finished in time to retake Anchorage. And yes it is a powerful weapon, but not indestructible. Enclave did obliterate it.

Well Liberty Prime is kind of a big problem.

As it's IN the Commonwealth.

They moved it there for attacking the Institute.

Obviously, without Doctor Li or the Scribes, no one is getting it up and running.

But man, losing Liberty Prime is probably worse than Elder Maxson, especially since it's just a glorified statue in the Minuteman's hands.

Yeah, it seems like a lot plot contrivances and conveniences just to make the minutemen more viable as a faction.

I'm pretty sure you can't build a miniature nuclear reactor out of junk either but you can build some of those to power your Teleporter.

I'm sure you can stretch things enough for this to make sense, but that's just it - it's a stretch.

You have to make a LOT of convenient explanations and convenient plot contrivances to make the Minutemen make any sense, which is evidenced by the 4 pages of this thread, each explaining a potential plot hole or thing that doesn't make sense followed by an explanation that SORT OF makes sense, but when put together it makes the faction seem very shaky and implausible.

Eh, the Minutemen make sense to me a great deal because I reject the premise the Brotherhood are all that.

They're as powerful as Super Mutants.

Formidable but killable.

That's my .02 at least.

I mean I agree with you, but are they beatable by the Minutemen? I don't think so.

Like I've been saying it took an entire fully functioning modern nation, a nation that managed to push back CAESAR'S LEGION from the Hoover Dam using only a fraction of its military might, to simply diminish the Brotherhood within their own country. Not destroy, diminish. They still haven't fully defeated the Brotherhood chapters within their own land. I just cannot buy the idea that the Minutemen could take down even a single chapter, or a detachment of said chapter, of the Brotherhood.

Well, I feel the opposite but then again I was genuinely stunned to discover the WBOS still existed in ANY shape or form. My view of the WBOS wasn't that they were still fighting but they were scattered and broken as thoroughly as the Enclave.

The Mojave Chapter was probably not the last but the actual organization?

Gone to the dustbin of history.

And this nation only diminished an BoS without vertibirds.

I'm not sure diminished is strong enough a word given the Brotherhood is scattered and in hiding to the point the only survivors you meet have lost all contact with the other chapters.

Of course, NCR has the Enclave's Vertibirds themselves.

Which may explain, again, why the BoS was screwed.

I will say, though, this thread has had me consider switching from a Minutemen ending to a Railroad ending, though. The Railroad uses stealth while the Minutemen are big, loud, and obnoxious.

If the Railroad takes down the BoS then the BoS will have no incentive to retaliate against the Commonwealth or come back in a couple of years to murder everyone.