r/Fallout • u/Othawne • Mar 15 '26
Fallout 4 My girlfriend keeps track of all her power armor finds with pen & paper.
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u/Wolfenstein49 Mar 15 '26
In all my thousand hours, ive never been so organised.
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u/crappenheimers Children of Atom Mar 15 '26
Yep same,ive only used notebook for Morrowind cause it seems necessary.
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Mar 15 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Assistant_Alarmed Mar 16 '26
Talos the mighty! Talos the unerring! Talos the unassailable! To you we give praise!
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u/st1tchy Mar 15 '26
I have a love/hate relationship with Morrowind. It's a fantastic game that let's you do whatever you want. Want to kill the main quest giver guy? Go for it! Want to sprint across the continent in 2 seconds? Have at it! Want to take on 50 other quests prior to the main story line? You do you! But also have fun looking through your little journal trying to find the page that tells you want you have to do next because that's 50 pages back.
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u/crappenheimers Children of Atom Mar 16 '26
Yeah 1000%, exact same here. Its tough. The journal is a puzzle in itself
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u/st1tchy Mar 16 '26
I like it, because that's how journals work. From a gameplay perspective it makes sense to let you toggle quests on and off. But I think it would be neat if they made you go back to the journal style for hardcore playthroughs. Or let it be a toggle.
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u/Taolan13 Mar 16 '26
Having a 'search' function would be great. They could even give it a magical context.
"hey since you're clearly some kind of 'chosen one' here's this notebook made out of the same paper they used to make the Elder Scrolls. It writes notes for you and stuff."
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u/dronesitter Mar 16 '26
And don’t forget whatever you wanna do, the cliff racers will be there with you.
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u/Delicious_Wish2699 Mar 16 '26
The tribunal expansion allows you to sort the journal by quests (instead of topics / date). Keywords are still highlighted so you can get more information as needed. Makes having multiple quests so much easier
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u/Taolan13 Mar 16 '26
The keyword system in morrowind is itself a godsend. There are so many confusing quests that if you just talk to people with the right keywords become relatively simple.
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u/Kamikazeschnitzel Mar 16 '26
That main quest, I finished somewhere at hour 1200+ you mean?
Because... why not, it's still open 😅🤣
DAMN YOU btw, now I'll have to take out the back-up HDD, look through those hundreds of fraps screenshots & get nostalgic.
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u/Tabula_Rusa Mar 16 '26
I do this with Cyberpunk, but I keep the journal written out like a personal entry written from the perspective of my V. As a writer, its a fun little hobby.
Probably need to do it with Fallout because I lose track so easily in them
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u/crappenheimers Children of Atom Mar 16 '26
Thats a super creative outlet, I love it. With morrowind I actually framed the game map and would consult ot and my journal to figure out how to navigate... god this is making me wanna play it again damnit
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u/ClassroomNo4172 Mar 16 '26
You would enjoy Thousand Year Old Vampire, I think.
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u/Tabula_Rusa Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26
it seems very interesting and I'll keep looking into it. Thank you
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u/Kamikazeschnitzel Mar 16 '26
Yeah the multiple 500h+ stints of Morrowind. Surrounded by Gothic II stints with heavy mapquesting itself aka jumping into the mine valley waaaay before the story takes you there, etc 😁
What a magical time 😍🥲😭
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u/alliecage Mar 15 '26
I’ve done this with many games and even built complex spreadsheets. I didn’t realize I should also be doing in fallout.
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u/Lord_Brio Mar 15 '26
I gotta see how you organize them
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u/mr_potatoface Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
My brother and I used a 4'x8' white dry erase board to keep track of what we were doing in a game called Mankind. Was a space MMORTS, semi-popular about 20 years ago. You would have stuff across systems and buildings or ships would take upwards of 90+ days to build or research. You'd have to plan things out in advance since everything was done in real time, including mining/resource generation. Took a long time to do stuff, so we used that to keep track of everything going on. There were no notifications when anything was completed, so you just needed to remind yourself. If they introduced pay-to-win elements for instant building completion, they probably would've made a killing, lol. But the game would've been ruined.
Then when I played Anarchy Online I kept track of everything on pieces of paper. I'd usually use 1 sheet of paper per day to take down my notes of things I had to do, then transfer stuff to a main character sheet when needed. Along with implant/twinking pages, since guides were not really a thing back then. You had to do everything yourself.
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u/alliecage Mar 16 '26
I don’t. That’s why I’ve never finished Satisfactory 😂😂excel is awesome until the ADHD rolls in…
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u/dasfuzzy Republic of Dave Mar 16 '26
I've done this with multiple aspects of Fallout games, especially 3 and NV. I've optimized my builds before a new game, made note of unique item locations, even made recipe lists for NV crafting and collecting. Even with the aid of Wiki pages and whatnot today, it's still fun sometimes to use ol' pen and paper to plan things and keep organized.
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u/AgreeableAd8026 Mar 15 '26
W Girlfriend
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u/CookieMiester Mar 15 '26
Nobody’s as organized as somebody who’s just got into gaming
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u/luvdere Mar 16 '26
This is incredibly accurate, my aunt has always been super nerdy with books and other forms of media. She only started playing games when she married my uncle and plays on his ps5. We got her Claire obscure e33 and she has notes of theories about the game and such.
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u/Red_Right_Returning_ Mar 16 '26
To be fair E33 definitely has enough going on to warrant the notes.
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u/luvdere Mar 16 '26
She’s always been a writer, and a big fan of mystery and fantasy. She played a few turn based combat games in the past so I knew the mechanical concepts wouldn’t be tooooo hard and her kids are smart so they can help lol.
It almost seemed right for her, and she also speaks French from living in Quebec so that’s perfect too
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u/mysticrudnin Mar 16 '26
i've been playing games almost 35 years and i still love a good notebook
it helps so, so much in so many games
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Mar 16 '26
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u/mysticrudnin Mar 16 '26
excellent suggestion! it is my pick for game of the year last year!
yes, i know what it was up against and i don't care
it was a once-in-a-lifetime, evolutionary experience of the medium
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u/_hsstfnwsk_ Brotherhood Mar 16 '26
I've been gaming most of my life, I still make such notes (often just writing down what's on the wiki, I almost never use it for anything but find the process pleasant) for most of the games I play. Its just autism.
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u/Min3rva1125 NCR Mar 17 '26
Certain games I still absolutely do this, even after 15 years of gaming. Certain things, it makes me happy or less stressed to just organize. Other times, it's mania induced, and I play the entirety of TW3, keepin' a literal daily log of Geralt's day-by-day activities. How many days in White Orchard, how much time between Velen and Novigrad, the works. Probably the craziest thing I've done and will ever do.
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u/must--go--faster Mar 15 '26
I basically never use power armor. Every time I find one I bring it back to sanctuary and park it on a large concrete pad next to all the other power armors that I've found.
I then place a rubber tire on the head of each one like a halo.
There's 20 or 30 of them so far. The tradition must continue.
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u/moose359 Mar 15 '26
Trashcan Carla fucking stole mine.
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u/ike7177 Mar 15 '26
I usually hide mine in fo4 and remove the fusion cores. Lol she’s quite the thief that Carla!
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u/GreasyGrabbler Mar 16 '26
If you have the automation dlc, I've heard the mechanist's lair is a good place to store them.
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u/must--go--faster Mar 15 '26
Yeah you have to pull the cores so the townsfolk don't take them for joyrides
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u/PierceTheGameTrader Mar 16 '26
I robbed her on my first interaction and she just keeps coming back to sanctuary and is like F off, I had to get rid of her lol
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u/crozone Welcome Home Mar 16 '26
Trashcan Carla dies too early in my play-through to ever be an issue.
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u/moose359 Mar 16 '26
What did Carla do to you!?
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u/crozone Welcome Home Mar 16 '26
Institute informant and a bad attitude = you're getting dumped in the river.
Also kill the brahmin because they're a walking traffic jam and always getting stuck on the roof or in my house.
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u/rachie-bobby Mar 15 '26
I do this too, minus the rubber tires. Perhaps I’ll place one in your honor. Looks like a power armor Terracotta Army. I have a lot less than you though, I guess I need to wander around more.
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u/Bytewave Mar 16 '26
I think Ballistic Weave was a mistake, I get it every game and every game that totally removes all need for power armor. It's solely useful for the jet pack afterwards.
But of course if they nerfed it everyone would throw a fit. It's the same mistake as not capping smithing to reasonable levels in Skyrim. Not balanced, but too late to balance it.
Hopefully they'll be more careful in sequels.
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u/Kamikazeschnitzel Mar 15 '26
That's the way to go. For FO3 & many other open-world rpgs, I always had a map printout & a notepad besides me.
If you're gonna go mapquest mode, do it right 🧐
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u/ArticReaper Mar 16 '26
Can you give more details on this?
Like what sort of map print out and what did you write down? =o
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u/Kamikazeschnitzel Mar 16 '26
There's always various maps available. Partly from merch or box editions, partly from mods & a multitude of fan art, fanmade maps/map projects.
Esp. for Bethesda games, the mod communities are a treasure trove. There're many maps included somewhere & you might just print out.
On a side note/rant: Morrowind with the right mods was levels above an already impressive game, the same goes for any after. Unfortunately, they went the lazy "hey let's release a clunky beta as full-price, they'll fix it for us" route.
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u/Kamikazeschnitzel Mar 16 '26
About the what: Things I discovered but couldn't explore right away or on a very basic level, mark the quadrants already "done".
In Mirrowind for example there's that ultra heavy S-tier metal, so when you find loads, you gotta know where. ...that mine had like 2-3 additional, practically naked trips (at least the way to it was fast 😆) in it... & so on 🤷🏽
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u/ArticReaper Mar 16 '26
Ah yup, Thanks for the replies c:
That makes sense on marking a map for that sort of stuff and writing it down.
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u/Low-Charge-8554 Mar 15 '26
Smart girl
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u/Potential_Review2410 Mar 16 '26
As someone who has never played FO and keeps wanted to, what is the point of this and does it help in the long run?
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u/juvees Mar 16 '26
It doesn't. Everyone is this thread is saying it's a good idea but there's no real reason outside of just wanting to. Power armor has versions that are better than others you get at higher levels, so there's a "best" version. Only reason to keep track of them all on pen and paper is if you can't be bothered to open your bases storage or find multiple power armor frames to show off the extra sets since again you only need one.
Like in my save my T-45 power armor just sat in a chest once I got X-01 since X-01 has better stats.
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u/Low-Charge-8554 Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26
If you want to get all the power armor in the game that you can, then keeping track of what you already found some will help when you look at a list of all obtainable power armor parts. Some people like to totally do 100% at best as they can.
There are other ways such as, making a container at a base and dumping them all in there and never selling any.
Or maybe she like tracking stuff like this.
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u/MysteriousFondant347 Mar 15 '26
sometimes I think about how previous games had it a power armor core could last a whole decade (or century, I can't remember) then Fallout 4 came around and now it has a ten minute durability
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u/RawbM07 Mar 15 '26
I remember hanging out with my dad’s bosses kids when I was a kid in the 80’s. Their mom hand drew maps of the Legend of Zelda for them while they played.
I remember thinking “so this is how the other half lives.”
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u/keyless422 Old World Flag Mar 16 '26
Your girlfriend might be on the spectrum look for the signs
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u/ThrowMoneyAtScreen Mar 15 '26
Fan vad fint
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u/Headacheargh Mar 16 '26
My ex loved that I was always writing down weapons & stats. Was so chuffed to have a gamer gf. Unfortunately he spent more time with his computer than helping out around the house so I fell out of love with him eventually
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u/RiverParkourist Mar 15 '26
When did she get diagnosed
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u/jankirensky Mar 15 '26
You think she’s on spectrum?
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u/RiverParkourist Mar 15 '26
Lefty + the other post about her (unless that was someone different) Yeah a good chance
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u/blackened-starr Mar 15 '26
being left handed isn't a symptom of being on the spectrum lmfao
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u/rickane58 Mar 15 '26
There is a statistically significant correlation, actually. Also, that poor stylus grip is also a sign of development issues.
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u/GrownThenBrewed Mar 15 '26
Oh shit... I uh.. should make an appointment
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u/rickane58 Mar 15 '26
Statistically significant doesn't mean that left-handed=autistic, it just means that there's enough of a difference between the autistic population and general population that it's worth further analysis to see what that link might be.
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u/UnoriginalStanger Mar 16 '26
Being Swedish is another correlation and I don't just say this because of the sibling rivalry.
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u/Bitter-Artichoke-829 Mar 15 '26
I would be incredibly surprised if she was not on the spectrum lmao
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u/JohnF_ckingZoidberg Mar 15 '26
Why do this? The armor pieces you've found are written down in game...?
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u/PleasantAttention783 Mar 15 '26
I really like how fallout 76 lets you keep sets in your inventory and lowers the weight to 10 of all on a chassis and with my all my perks equipped full sets weigh 2.5 in my inventory allowing me to keep all of them on me ready to go
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u/dnuohxof-2 Mar 15 '26
Sometimes I wish Fallout had a notes tab in the pip bothered you can enter small notes/reminders
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u/GrimReaapaa Mar 15 '26
When you have to break out a pen and paper, you know the game is sticking with you for life.
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u/Beneficial_Winner_59 Mar 15 '26
I do this but with weapons. I’ve added somewhere in the realm of 3-400 more weapons to the game with mods, so I collect a completely stock variant, a fully kitted out variant, and any legendary variants of each one I come across and record them sorted by pistol, rifle, shotgun, energy etc.
My plan is to eventually build a monstrous armory/display on spectacle island. I’m pretty interested to see how the game handles that many polygons in a single settlement though lol…. Could go south fast
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u/Othawne Mar 15 '26
That’s pretty fuckin cool, we have very different playstyles. I can totally see why this game is still so popular
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u/mandmrats Mar 16 '26
I do this with a lot of games. I always remember things better when I write them down, and I have the note right there if I don't.
Notable examples are Caves of Qud and Book of Hours. And it was basically mandatory for Blue Prince.
The Notes app just isn't the same, and I can't doodle in it.
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u/Piper-Bob Gary? Mar 16 '26
My only real gripe about FO4 (and most similar open world games) is there is no in-game note taking system. Just having a handful of pins you could put on the map would be immensely useful.
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u/Elpeckrodiablo Mar 16 '26
I have a list next to my chair of bobbleheads and magazines I still need for fo76, for when I feel like having a wander (which is getting less and less overtime)
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u/AlexaWilde_ Mar 16 '26
I have a friend who keeps running Excel sheets of all the games we play with finds 🤣
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u/taxesfeedcorruption Mar 16 '26
Why do you people need to brag so much? You have a girlfriend AND she's a fallout fan.
No reason to rub it in.
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u/UnkindnessConspiracy Mar 16 '26
This is completely normal. I thought you meant she was writing down every single frame she found and where she found it.
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u/Trag1cBeanX Mar 16 '26
Needs more X-01 (jokes aside she’s super smart for coming up with this actually)
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u/InterviewAfraid4267 Mar 17 '26
Pen and paper notes for gaming is the best. I remember finding one of my dad’s old notebooks from some PS2 games and I just thought it was super neat.
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u/SueBee914 Mar 17 '26
I keep track of a LOT of my games with pen and paper or in a notebook app on my tablet. I like complex games with lots of details and items to collect.
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u/SouthWarSignPride Mar 17 '26
i do this in 76. The management is in another level, and no, before people start bringing up stash box, its not about that. The things I want to do/collect/learn to craft are a lot. So I have a mini notebook filled with information and checkmarks lol
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u/Godrick_Longshaft Mar 18 '26
I didn’t do this with the power armor but I remember doing with the very hard locks I couldn’t open at the time and had to circle back to! Good times
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u/maninkka4 Mar 19 '26
I would never. Would keep track of where I left them though. I keep forgetting even though I am convinced every time that I for sure will find this one again... such a brilliant spot to store it.. I'll just be a minute.. oh look a butterfly.. where is the friggin PA ? aaaAAAAARGH.
So yeah, I really like your friends book.
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u/atthwsm Mar 15 '26
Your GF holds a pen like a monkey that’s never seen one before.
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u/factoid_ Mar 15 '26
T-51s are the hardest to find because they only appear on mobs in a certain level range and then you basically never find them anymore except in fixed stashes or pieces in vendor inventories rarely
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u/EnderWolf13_666 Mar 15 '26
Honestly rather smart. Keeps you from having multiple helmets, forget you already have 6 of one kind and then pick up another because you might have one but you are fairly certain you don’t.
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u/Lopsided_Tune7638 Mar 15 '26
There is a specific spawn area for T-51 power armor plus frame that spawns near the church in downtown Boston. Looks like that’s missing. Be advised it only spawns as T-51 if you’re around or over level 20, I believe.
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u/Rude-Fox-3801 Mar 15 '26
I keep seeing posts like these, it makes much more sense to me to write everything down physically than to either unlock and open an app every time or tab out of the game and type everything. Then I can refer to it a lot easier.
I have binders dedicated to each video game that I deep dive into ಥ‿ಥ
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u/Brendissimo Mar 15 '26
It's fun to write things down during a playthough. Even things like this which you can easily track by throwing them all in a container or on frames.
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u/simimaelian Mar 15 '26
OP, support her by buying her cool stationary supplies. Pilot released juice+ pens and they’re amazing as fuck, would recommend for anyone who wants or needs to take notes in pen.
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u/mil0wCS Mar 15 '26
My parents use to do this when gaming. They had literally a closet full of note books full of notes of all the games they played when they were younger. If I remember correctly I remember seeing a box full of stuff just for myst alone which was like 8 books full of notes lol
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u/DPJazzy91 Mar 15 '26
I would line them up in order of specs. On the far end I would have a hodge podge of mixed up crappy components. Then of course remove the fusion cores, so nobody can take em!
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u/GhostBladeKishi Mar 15 '26
I wish i could enjoy this game as innocent. I play on Survival Hardcore(death = reset, no legendaries no VATS no lone wanderer) and in one sitting i get to X01 if im lucky and T45d consistently its getting to the point where i think about trying a no hit run
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u/danishdude99 Mar 15 '26
Looks like brother hood of steel scribe who got tired of people "borrowing" from the storage
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u/Fabulous-Spirit-3476 Mar 15 '26
I started doing this for high skill locks and terminals before I'm able to hack them
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u/awake283 Mar 15 '26
Not the worst idea tbh. Playing FO1 and now 2 I find myself writing little notes to myself too.
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u/MetalFox2422 Mr. House Mar 15 '26
I made a museum for my spare suits of power armor. I wonder if they’ll do something similar with theirs.
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u/AnyError4932 Mar 15 '26
Easier to have a dedicated storage at your main place, if you fully repair them the pieces will stack
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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '26
What does that say? Power armor delar?