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"Hostile Takeover" really missed the mark

thorncrag

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5
First off, I'm loathed to complain about anything about SS because I love it so much and you all have done such marvelous work.

But... while I love the idea behind this scenario, it really missed the mark for my playthrough:
  • First, it occurred in Sanctuary, which at the time for me was my most fortified outpost with 163 defense.
  • Second, the quest script seems to have "un-discovered" Sanctuary preventing me from fast traveling to it. If this is a bug, it should be fixed. If this was intentional out of a desire to prevent players from fast traveling to the targeted settlement, I have to say I don't understand the rationale or its implementation.
  • The Gunners also spawned inside the workshop house which doesn't really make sense to me given the checkpoints they would have had to pass. I assume this isn't related to spawning limitations in the game but rather because the quest wanted the settlement to have already been fully taken over.
  • While I like the idea that the comm hub might give them special access or some sort ability to infiltrate, it does not make sense to me that any of my human settlers would allow gunners in unopposed given the a) nature of the gunners and b) the trouble that we experienced with them already throughout the questline. After all, communication exists outside the comm hub.
  • Perhaps the quest should do a check of the settlement's defense and happiness level when choosing which settlement this occurs in, assuming it is not scripted to occur in Sanctuary (if it is, perhaps it shouldn't).
Overall I like the chaos that this provided. Turrets and settlers seemed to be slow or flat out incapable of attacking the gunners which was either intentional or a fortuitous bug. I think this quest would have been a lot more believable if it had happened at a settlement that I had not yet fortified and had settlers which wouldn't have opposed them. For example, Greygarden which for me only had bots. A settlement with low defense and/or happiness which could indicate the player had not interacted with them much could also go to explain why they would be pliable to gunner takeover.

Just my two cents. Cheers,

-Thorncrag
 
  • First, it occurred in Sanctuary, which at the time for me was my most fortified outpost with 163 defense.
The settlement it picks is completely random out of the ones you currently control when the quest fires off. It was just luck-of-the-draw that the game happened to pick your most heavily defended settlement. I'm not sure that SS2 should even consider worrying about this, because what if all your settlements had 163 defense? Should the story just not progress simply because you're heavy on martial plots and have a love of rocket turrets?
  • Second, the quest script seems to have "un-discovered" Sanctuary preventing me from fast traveling to it. If this is a bug, it should be fixed. If this was intentional out of a desire to prevent players from fast traveling to the targeted settlement, I have to say I don't understand the rationale or its implementation.
The reasoning behind this is that you no longer have ownership of the settlement. The gunners have wrested control from you, and the settlement has been obscured in a "fog of war."
  • The Gunners also spawned inside the workshop house which doesn't really make sense to me given the checkpoints they would have had to pass. I assume this isn't related to spawning limitations in the game but rather because the quest wanted the settlement to have already been fully taken over.
The gunners are spawned into the center of the settlement because according to the way the story is playing out, they have gained control of the settlement and thus have already progressed past the initial siege stage where you might expect them to be outside the walls.
  • While I like the idea that the comm hub might give them special access or some sort ability to infiltrate, it does not make sense to me that any of my human settlers would allow gunners in unopposed given the a) nature of the gunners and b) the trouble that we experienced with them already throughout the questline. After all, communication exists outside the comm hub.
I'm making my way through the story again, but the last time I was at this point of the story the number of gunners the game threw at me for these fights was just massive. It was chaos. I'd have to fight 20-30 gunners in my settlements during this stage of the story. They were truly epic battles, and I could see 20-30 gunners hopped up on Med-X and Psycho all equipped with plasma rifles, rocket launchers, combat armor, etc. being able to overwhelm my settlers who spend most of their time digging in the dirt or sorting through scrap to salvage a handful of screws. (As a side note, I really hope the battles are still this epic once I get back to this part of the story -- I remember some people had complained about the number of gunners present at these battles and I honestly hope that nothing changed because these were so much fun that I actually didn't want to progress the story and have them stop.. lol)
  • Perhaps the quest should do a check of the settlement's defense and happiness level when choosing which settlement this occurs in, assuming it is not scripted to occur in Sanctuary (if it is, perhaps it shouldn't).
As far as I know it's not scripted to happen in Sanctuary (or even whatever settlement you picked to be your starting point), nor is it scripted to avoid those locations either; it's just random. I've had the Hostile Takeover quest trigger on Sanctuary and also had it trigger on random settlements like County Crossing.

Again, as stated in the first point, I don't think the story should concern itself with the settlement's stats when deciding where to attack, because if it did then a player might hit a roadblock in the story and not even know why. What if Sanctuary was the only settlement you had claimed before you got to this point? What if all of your settlements had 200 defense? The story couldn't progress.

At the end of the day, some suspension of disbelief may be required to allow the story to happen if you can't think of ways to handwave it. In your situation, I could say that it makes sense the gunners would attack your biggest, baddest base. From their perspective, they wanted the crown of your kingdom, and if they could have it wouldn't that really send a message?
 
The disabling of fast travel to the captured settlement was actually at least in part a "fix" for another issue. That being, fast traveling direct to the settlement would put you in the same spot as the squad of Gunners, and depending on the power of your machine there can be anything up to a whole second of time between your character being 'in the world' and you the player regaining control and visibility again - thus you'd be dead before you could even try to react.

Interestingly, that's one of the few points in the SS2 questline that actually has "player choices have consequences" - depending on what you did in an earlier quest ( did you convince Wise to change sides? ), you might actually get warned pre-emptively about which settlement will get attacked for "Hostile Takeover" and be able to fast travel there, prepare, and fight them off before they even get into the settlement.
 
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Wow, I've never done [that] so I never even realized there could be early warnings!
As far as I'm aware, that is so far the most significant choice you can make to change things as the questline progresses. It comes up more than once, even.
That said, there's still Chapter 3 to come, and there's definitely some choices that were made during CH2 especially that have obvious consequences waiting to trigger...
 
I did "that" myself, because I'm a bleeding heart conservative. I'm just that way, so half the time I walk right up to Gunners to give them a chance to play nice, even though I know they'll start shooting when I get close enough. Unless the world cheezes me off, then it's Open Season.
 
The disabling of fast travel to the captured settlement was actually at least in part a "fix" for another issue. That being, fast traveling direct to the settlement would put you in the same spot as the squad of Gunners, and depending on the power of your machine there can be anything up to a whole second of time between your character being 'in the world' and you the player regaining control and visibility again - thus you'd be dead before you could even try to react.

Interestingly, that's one of the few points in the SS2 questline that actually has "player choices have consequences" - depending on what you did in an earlier quest ( did you convince Wise to change sides? ), you might actually get warned pre-emptively about which settlement will get attacked for "Hostile Takeover" and be able to fast travel there, prepare, and fight them off before they even get into the settlement.
These are important points. When fast travel was allowed, many many people would die upon fast traveling to the settlement as they would be surrounded by Gunners. I will add, though, that some of the issues about where the Gunners spawn (if you don't have Wise on your side) are leveraging the vanilla spawn points for settlement raids, so that is also why they will spawn inside your settlement.
 
Huh, I actually hadn't even realized that the first attack takes out the fast travel and sticks the gunners in the middle because I haven't ever neglected to convince Wise.... So I just have never seen it the other way....
 
I find this mod solves that issue.
Make sure in resources/misc to build a fast travel target out in a nice quiet spot in the settlement.
 
I'm pretty sure that is not going to fix the alternate placed spawn point from a mod, it won't be able to account for the special instance of spawning that this quest creates. it should only alter the standard vanilla+DLC spawn points.
 
I'm pretty sure that is not going to fix the alternate placed spawn point from a mod, it won't be able to account for the special instance of spawning that this quest creates. it should only alter the standard vanilla+DLC spawn points.
Yet though you are skeptical it works.
 
you tested it on the specific ss2 quest in question? if it does work that way, I wonder if it moves ALL spawn points outside of the settlement, since it seems like they use the normal settler spawn point to insert the gunners in question....
AND if it does work that way, how does it affect the settler congregating around the spawn point issue.
You've made me very curious now ;)
 
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