I decided to give this mod a shot, and while I was at it play on survival because I find the game much more entertaining. After having played about 80 hours and just about to finish chapter 2 I though I'd give some comments regarding how well aspects of this mod work in survival. I am playing on my steamdeck, the performance is fairly stable, just installing the mod is an absolute nightmare and involves copying a lot of files too and fro.
Firstly why play survival? I much prefer playing fallout 4 on survival mode and building a network of bases which I can use to rest and refit makes a lot of sense without the ability to teleport to your destination instantly. Having enemies and engagements be less about who can fire more bullets within 30 seconds, and be more about planning the attack, having stakes if it goes wrong, and maybe retreating makes it all much more entertaining. The idea of a mod with an independent story about running over the Commonwealth and making it a better place fits survival mode a lot better in my opinion than the normal game.
In general I really enjoyed the mod up to this stage, the fast travel through caravans is nice, but not something I've had to use heavily. I levelled to 40 mostly on mod and side quests however there are some issues which really stick out like a sore thumb.
The first is cut scenes. In a world where most enemies can one shot me, placing my character in the middle of an open area, and spawning enemies which are almost guaranteed to detect me is a real dick move. In general taking control away from the player feels very jarring and draws me out of the mod.
Not unrelated to this is the issue of forced combat, or unexpected combat. The most egregious example of this the recruitment quest for a particular settler where you must engage them in single combat. Not only in there no indication that combat is about to occur, but also there is no ability to cheat it by using specific items. In survival mode there is every possibility that your character will not be in a state to fight and locking you into a combat is a real dick move. To a lesser extent there are quests which don't appear based on the dialog to have significant risk associated with them only for you to be ambushed. This makes it particularly important to have frequent saves (by sleeping), which becomes an issue with survival timers and repeating quests on timers.
So repeating quests on timers turns out to be really unfun in survival mode. Completing a quest, doing some building only to get another pop up that you need to run to another settlement across the other side of the map. Rinse and repeat. This just isn't fun, reduce the frequency by a factor of 5, and this would be a fun mechanic but right now it's not.
One other issue is the number of companions which suddenly decide they're going to run along side you. This has multiple aspects. The most simple is, a quest to place a a particular plot, however the associated NPCs stand so close to you that it is almost impossible to place the plot where you want to. This is also an issue when trying to for instance disarm a mine. I might have max sneak and not be able to set the mines off, but the NPCs will run right over them just as I am trying to defuse it. Cue death or crippled limbs and a massive inconvenience on survival. This is also an issue with the base game (think the quest Big Guns), however the number of these instances are minimal and can be death with. In these cases the NPCs do not follow me to the literal ends of the earth. At one stage I had several quests active at the same time and was running around with 3 NPCs.
Enemies will also detect the NPC and engage it, which often leads to you being then in danger or getting blown up by nukes etc.
This gets even worse when a quest bugs out and you end up with an NPC mated to your character for what appears to be the rest of the playthrough. Because of it being survival mode there is also a very good chance that by the time I have discovered a quest is bugged, I might as well just restart the game from level 1 than reload every bugged quest.
Finally there is the issue with general bugs. I've had several bugs which were not game breaking, and would be trivial in a non survival game, which are quite annoying in a survival game. NPCs not standing at the quest marker, or not responding to interactions. All the bugs I have experienced are documented by others here on the forums. This has recently escalated to very frequent crashes near settlements. This is the most frustrating as each crash can typically result in the loss of about an hour of playtime, but it's got so bad that I can barely move around the map without the game completely crashing. It's a real shame because I was enjoying the mod up to this point.
Were it not for the crashing issue, I would rate this mod highly and recommend playing on survival despite the the issues mentioned above. The escalating crashes however have got so pervasive that I simply cannot in good faith recommend it.
Firstly why play survival? I much prefer playing fallout 4 on survival mode and building a network of bases which I can use to rest and refit makes a lot of sense without the ability to teleport to your destination instantly. Having enemies and engagements be less about who can fire more bullets within 30 seconds, and be more about planning the attack, having stakes if it goes wrong, and maybe retreating makes it all much more entertaining. The idea of a mod with an independent story about running over the Commonwealth and making it a better place fits survival mode a lot better in my opinion than the normal game.
In general I really enjoyed the mod up to this stage, the fast travel through caravans is nice, but not something I've had to use heavily. I levelled to 40 mostly on mod and side quests however there are some issues which really stick out like a sore thumb.
The first is cut scenes. In a world where most enemies can one shot me, placing my character in the middle of an open area, and spawning enemies which are almost guaranteed to detect me is a real dick move. In general taking control away from the player feels very jarring and draws me out of the mod.
Not unrelated to this is the issue of forced combat, or unexpected combat. The most egregious example of this the recruitment quest for a particular settler where you must engage them in single combat. Not only in there no indication that combat is about to occur, but also there is no ability to cheat it by using specific items. In survival mode there is every possibility that your character will not be in a state to fight and locking you into a combat is a real dick move. To a lesser extent there are quests which don't appear based on the dialog to have significant risk associated with them only for you to be ambushed. This makes it particularly important to have frequent saves (by sleeping), which becomes an issue with survival timers and repeating quests on timers.
So repeating quests on timers turns out to be really unfun in survival mode. Completing a quest, doing some building only to get another pop up that you need to run to another settlement across the other side of the map. Rinse and repeat. This just isn't fun, reduce the frequency by a factor of 5, and this would be a fun mechanic but right now it's not.
One other issue is the number of companions which suddenly decide they're going to run along side you. This has multiple aspects. The most simple is, a quest to place a a particular plot, however the associated NPCs stand so close to you that it is almost impossible to place the plot where you want to. This is also an issue when trying to for instance disarm a mine. I might have max sneak and not be able to set the mines off, but the NPCs will run right over them just as I am trying to defuse it. Cue death or crippled limbs and a massive inconvenience on survival. This is also an issue with the base game (think the quest Big Guns), however the number of these instances are minimal and can be death with. In these cases the NPCs do not follow me to the literal ends of the earth. At one stage I had several quests active at the same time and was running around with 3 NPCs.
Enemies will also detect the NPC and engage it, which often leads to you being then in danger or getting blown up by nukes etc.
This gets even worse when a quest bugs out and you end up with an NPC mated to your character for what appears to be the rest of the playthrough. Because of it being survival mode there is also a very good chance that by the time I have discovered a quest is bugged, I might as well just restart the game from level 1 than reload every bugged quest.
Finally there is the issue with general bugs. I've had several bugs which were not game breaking, and would be trivial in a non survival game, which are quite annoying in a survival game. NPCs not standing at the quest marker, or not responding to interactions. All the bugs I have experienced are documented by others here on the forums. This has recently escalated to very frequent crashes near settlements. This is the most frustrating as each crash can typically result in the loss of about an hour of playtime, but it's got so bad that I can barely move around the map without the game completely crashing. It's a real shame because I was enjoying the mod up to this point.
Were it not for the crashing issue, I would rate this mod highly and recommend playing on survival despite the the issues mentioned above. The escalating crashes however have got so pervasive that I simply cannot in good faith recommend it.
