Institute Synths in trailer? (possible spoilers)

[Muteki_Inagaki]

I haven't officially played any SS2 content yet but I figured now's the time to decide fully.

I saw the institute synths along with the brotherhood knights assaulting the gunners in the trailer, and this struck me as odd. I saw something somewhere about "institute remnants," but even this seemed strange to me considering how extremist maxson is about any synths at all. Can someone explain this to me? I'm okay with light spoilers.

Is it written in a way that makes sense and feels organic? Or does it take liberties with some of the characters and the main story to change things?

 

[yaugie]

I haven't yet gotten far enough to say with 100% certainty (stuck on a quest objective that's broken), but so far the mod's mostly recognised and respected my character's faction allegiances. At the point I'm up to, it's only been a few optional dialog lines.

Spoiler

The "mostly" was because I could build an "Embassy" in the new level of Headquarters that implied a connection still existed to BOS and Railroad (I did the Institute Vanilla Ending so those two groups are well and truly dead), but I haven't gotten far enough in the questline for that to even get explained yet.

 

[Breytac]

I haven't officially played any SS2 content yet but I figured now's the time to decide fully.

I saw the institute synths along with the brotherhood knights assaulting the gunners in the trailer, and this struck me as odd. I saw something somewhere about "institute remnants," but even this seemed strange to me considering how extremist maxson is about any synths at all. Can someone explain this to me? I'm okay with light spoilers.

Is it written in a way that makes sense and feels organic? Or does it take liberties with some of the characters and the main story to change things?

SS2 is designed be to played alongside the main story. That is, it doesn't interfere with the vanilla plot in any way. You can happily play the SS2 content AND the vanilla plot side by side. And that's exactly what I do. There are parts in the SS2 plot where you will go off and do your own thing while you wait for the next part of the story to trigger (usually 1, maybe 2 in-game days will pass before you're contacted for the next part of the SS2 story).

TL;DR Yes, it's written a way that makes sense and feels organic. No, it doesn't take liberties with the main story to change things. You can still destroy The Institute and side with a faction, but your choices will have consequences heading into Chapter 3.

On a personal note: I don't know how many times I've played both Chapters 1 and 2, but so far, I have enjoyed the journey. It's well worth checking out if you haven't played it, and with Chapter 3, you get to enjoy the full content and not have to wait like a kid waiting for Santa Claus for the next instalment to drop.

And finally, kinggath mentioned in his stream that he's not done. The story may have ended, but he has updates planned, if I recall correctly, for the next two years.

 

[mostyn30]

Well I for one love playing FO4 with Sim Settlements 2 I have been playing it for Yrs, since Sim Settlements and I for one will keep playing it, I am on a new run through so I wont be playing Chapter 3 for quite a while, by then there will more than likely be more changes to Chapter 3 as Kinggarth said in His stream there will be more patches to come so I am looking forward to playing Chapter 3, and I wont be rushing to get Starfield as soon as it releases, more than likely knowing Bethesda it will have a lot of bugs, so I will wait for a while before getting it.

 

[Muteki_Inagaki]

SS2 is designed be to played alongside the main story. That is, it doesn't interfere with the vanilla plot in any way. You can happily play the SS2 content AND the vanilla plot side by side. And that's exactly what I do. There are parts in the SS2 plot where you will go off and do your own thing while you wait for the next part of the story to trigger (usually 1, maybe 2 in-game days will pass before you're contacted for the next part of the SS2 story).

TL;DR Yes, it's written a way that makes sense and feels organic. No, it doesn't take liberties with the main story to change things. You can still destroy The Institute and side with a faction, but your choices will have consequences heading into Chapter 3.

On a personal note: I don't know how many times I've played both Chapters 1 and 2, but so far, I have enjoyed the journey. It's well worth checking out if you haven't played it, and with Chapter 3, you get to enjoy the full content and not have to wait like a kid waiting for Santa Claus for the next instalment to drop.

And finally, kinggath mentioned in his stream that he's not done. The story may have ended, but he has updates planned, if I recall correctly, for the next two years.

I guess I was also putting it off because I was a fan of conqueror's goals and I wanted that experience in SS2 as I never really was able to play conqueror at the time.

I've been having stuttering issues in my fallout 4 for a few years now and I did so much testing to diagnose it, only to upgrade my pc recently for a different issue (ssd to nvme and 2070 to 4070ti), only to find that it seems my fallout 4 problem was just inferior hardware, most likely due to how unoptimized it is but either way, downtown runs like butter now.

I was even able to add CAP and PANPC together with no script lag and I can still go god mode and murder everything that moves in boston without a single stutter. So that makes me think it's time for SS2, and potentially I could even try all of them on top and see what happens, but I'd probably have to build up a huge settlement to properly test that out.

Anyway, it almost seems like some of the features listed in chapter 3 make it sound like some of the conqueror features are coming back in.
"

• You write the rules
• Change the laws, culture, and rules of engagement of your people. For instance, if you’re bored of killing, take prisoners or let enemies flee to spread news of your strength. "

This in particular makes me wonder if you can sort of write your army as morally gray or something? Maybe someone can shine light on that as well

 

[yaugie]

This in particular makes me wonder if you can sort of write your army as morally gray or something? Maybe someone can shine light on that as well

You do get to pick Your Faction's official warfare policies with enough wiggle room to cover most reasonable-to-program permutations. What to do with prisoners of war or even if you should take them at all, and do civilians take up arms when raids attack your settlements are the two that I immediately remember options for without going to check. I don't recall if there was a "forced prison labor" option, but if that's not there now it will be eventually, I can guarantee that.
There's actually a neat scene where some of your staff argue about the prisoner stuff when you get up to there in the storyline.

 

[Muteki_Inagaki]

You do get to pick Your Faction's official warfare policies with enough wiggle room to cover most reasonable-to-program permutations. What to do with prisoners of war or even if you should take them at all, and do civilians take up arms when raids attack your settlements are the two that I immediately remember options for without going to check. I don't recall if there was a "forced prison labor" option, but if that's not there now it will be eventually, I can guarantee that.
There's actually a neat scene where some of your staff argue about the prisoner stuff when you get up to there in the storyline.

I like the sound of all that. Does that mean that basically it's been officially confirmed that more conqueror-like features are coming? I haven't been following sim settlements super closely since chapter 2 dropped. I remember kinggath saying something about it eventually, but I don't remember if it was supposed to be something that was separate like conqueror was or part of the main experience.

 

[yaugie]

I like the sound of all that. Does that mean that basically it's been officially confirmed that more conqueror-like features are coming? I haven't been following sim settlements super closely since chapter 2 dropped. I remember kinggath saying something about it eventually, but I don't remember if it was supposed to be something that was separate like conqueror was or part of the main experience.

The update to 3.0 included most of the Conqueror features but updated to fit into the way SS2 handles resources and theoretically improved/expanded on, and the storyline of Chapter 3 is introducing them into "Jake's Storyline" in a way that makes sense in context.
Notably still not yet implemented is the "Prebuild System" Conqueror had, where it'd build City Plans in settlements for you and pre-populate them before you ever even first left Vault 111.
I haven't yet gotten far enough to know how this iteration handles things like integrating the base game factions into your military, but I know that's coming.

 

[Muteki_Inagaki]

The update to 3.0 included most of the Conqueror features but updated to fit into the way SS2 handles resources and theoretically improved/expanded on, and the storyline of Chapter 3 is introducing them into "Jake's Storyline" in a way that makes sense in context.
Notably still not yet implemented is the "Prebuild System" Conqueror had, where it'd build City Plans in settlements for you and pre-populate them before you ever even first left Vault 111.
I haven't yet gotten far enough to know how this iteration handles things like integrating the base game factions into your military, but I know that's coming.

Cool, I wanna play it soon but so many good games are coming out soon and I've mostly just been stuck in a modding loop between skyrim and fallout lately. Hopefully I get to it soonish.

But I do hope that chapter 3 gives wiggle room for at least a growing morally gray character, as it doesn't quite make sense to be evil straight out of the vault like conqueror or depravity might have you play, but I still like going that kind of route eventually. Of course, assuming one does the vanilla start that is, but I think you have to do that with SS2 anyway.

 

[yaugie]

Cool, I wanna play it soon but so many good games are coming out soon and I've mostly just been stuck in a modding loop between skyrim and fallout lately. Hopefully I get to it soonish.

But I do hope that chapter 3 gives wiggle room for at least a growing morally gray character, as it doesn't quite make sense to be evil straight out of the vault like conqueror or depravity might have you play, but I still like going that kind of route eventually. Of course, assuming one does the vanilla start that is, but I think you have to do that with SS2 anyway.

Yeah, SS2 assumes you're using the vanilla start (pre-war person frozen in the vault for 200odd years, Press X To SHAUN, all that) and kind of 'defaults' to a "mostly Good" 'alignment', it's rare you're even given the chance to be a prick to people in dialog. I'm only partway into CH3 though so I'm not sure how much maneuvering will be possible.