How to repair sun damaged clear coat paint

Learning new things

2015.02.22 13:45 VoidRayBeach Learning new things

The AdvancedGunpla subreddit aims to help inform, instruct, guide and share our different techniques and ideas. Hopefully allowing us all the opportunity to produce something better every kit! // The core of AdvancedGunpla is to teach what others don't know and learn what you don't know, lack or having trouble with. // Always remember that if something works for YOU, it doesn't mean it'll work for SOMEONE else. // Above all else, be civil, kind and mature.
[link]

2017.03.20 07:24 savizudybe Create, Hide and Find Painted Rocks Around The World

Hey! I believe this is the first subreddit for this fun new hobby of painting rocks and hiding them for people to find and rehide! There are so many groups on Facebook for it so I thought why not make one for Reddit?
[link]

2024.05.15 23:18 ArkOfTheCube Nuclear weapons are fake

Nuclear weapons are fake
The following documentary explores the surprisingly abundant evidence that nuclear weapons are a hoax.
https://www.nytimes.com/1945/11/03/archives/seversky-limits-atom-bomb-power-likens-hiroshima-blow-to-one-by-200.html
This man actually analysed the city of Hiroshima after the act and testified the following:
"In Hiroshima I was prepared for radically different sights. But, to my surprise, Hiroshima looked exactly like all the other burned-out cities in Japan. There was a familiar pink blot, about two miles in diameter. It was dotted with charred trees and telephone poles. Only one of the cities twenty bridges was down. Hiroshima’s clusters of modern buildings in the downtown section stood upright.
It was obvious that the blast could not have been so powerful as we had been led to believe. It was extensive blast rather than intensive.
I had heard of buildings instantly consumed by unprecedented heat. Yet here I saw the buildings structurally intact, and what is more, topped by undamaged flag poles, lightning rods, painted railings, air raid precaution signs and other comparatively fragile objects.
At the T-bridge, the aiming point for the atomic bomb, I looked for the “bald spot” where everything presumably had been vaporized in the twinkling of an eye. It wasn’t there or anywhere else. I could find no traces of unusual phenomena.
What I did see was in substance a replica of Yokohama or Osaka, or the Tokyo suburbs – the familiar residue of an area of wood and brick houses razed by uncontrollable fire. Everywhere I saw the trunks of charred and leafless trees, burned and unburned chunks of wood. The fire had been intense enough to bend and twist steel girders and to melt glass until it ran like lava – just as in other Japanese cities.
The concrete buildings nearest to the centre of explosion, some only a few blocks from the heart of the atom blast, showed no structural damage. Even cornices, canopies and delicate exterior decorations were intact. Window glass was shattered, of course, but single-panel frames held firm; only window frames of two or more panels were bent and buckled. The blast impact therefore could not have been unusual."
Additionally:
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/08/01/us/hiroshima-study-finds-no-genetic-damage.html
This study was never published for some reason.
I’ve been to both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The whole thing is propaganda. There isn’t a trace of residual radiation anywhere in either city. I checked using a Geiger counter purchased after the “Fukushima” nuclear hoax, which at the time I thought was real.
The few bits of footage of the nukes exploding is laughable. It’s Hollywood effects, matte screens and identical mushroom clouds composited for different angles. Totally fake.
There is a reason these magical super weapons have never been used for an act of “terrorism” or in any war zone since and it has nothing to do with mutually assured destruction, unless you take that to mean the global unravelling of the lie itself.
It’s because nukes don’t exist, have never existed and cannot be made to work. They are a myth.
While looking for info on how "feasible" an all out thermonuclear war scenario was, because I already figured that nuclear weapons are a joke and a remnant way of thought from the Cold War era of thinking, I stumbled upon this massive article about the supposed Nuclear Weapons hoax.
Some highlights of it, after skimming through it last night include:
  • Nuclear weapons are a result of a collusion between USA/USSR (With Stalin keeping the East of Europe to remain a "threat" to the west) and Japan with many other countries joining later.
  • Explaining the impossibility of making an Atomic bomb work in the first place, and why it cannot possibly produce radiation that can cause harm to any biological matter, including humans.
  • The Hiroshima and Nagasaki "atomic bombs" were most likely faked: No nuclear bombs were detonated, Napalm carpet bombings were used instead, and nobody died from radiation. It also explains how could a lie like that be kept in Japan for 60+ years and shows plenty of photos from ground zero.
  • "(...)Nuclear radiation is harmless. It is just easy to detect by Geiger meters, etc, but cannot harm anything. Only uranium and plutonium metal dusts are poisonous."
  • Clearing misconceptions related to the Fukushima 2011 incident
  • Explaining why the B61 nuclear bombs are a fraud.
  • A timeline showcasing the USA-North Korea talks from 2017 and 2018 and explaining why they were only done to put on a show, because, it is very likely that North Korea, does not have any in the first place.
And many other stuff.
Here it is, divided in 9 parts.
The people and organizations creating the lies: https://heiwaco.com/bomb.htm
The atomic bomb killed nobody in Japan: https://heiwaco.com/bombpart2.htm
How does an atomic bomb work? It doesn't! https://heiwaco.com/bombpart3.htm
Plenty O' manipulations: https://heiwaco.com/bombpart4.htm
Explosive fission is a scam: https://heiwaco.com/bombpart5.htm
All about real fission: https://heiwaco.com/bombpart6.htm
The fake B-61 atomic bombs: https://heiwaco.com/bombpart7.htm
All about no radiation at Fukushima: https://heiwaco.com/bombpart8.htm
About radiation itself: https://heiwaco.com/bombpart9.htm
The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki appear not to be the result of one large explosion, but rather the result of a fire-bombing campaign comparable in pictures to Tokyo's fire-bombed remains. Hiroshima and Nagasaki also never experienced anything like the hundreds or thousands of years of radiation predicted by nuclear scientists, in fact, vegetation began growing within a month after the bombing, and the Japanese people began rebuilding almost immediately!
Some nuclear physicists even claim nuclear weaponry fraudulent based solely on the technical impossibilities of fission material not to be incinerated before triggering the necessary nuclear chain reaction.
Tesla even famously tried to split the atom him self and came to the conclusion it didn't release energy:
"Let me say that has nothing to do with releasing so-called atomic energy. There is no such energy in the sense usually meant. With my currents, using pressures as high as 15,000,000 volts, the highest ever used, I have split atoms — but no energy was released. I confess that before I made this experiment I was in some fear. I said to my assistants, ‘I do not know what will happen. If the conclusions of certain scientists are right, the release of energy from the splitting of an atom may mean an explosion which would wreck our apparatus and perhaps kill someone. Is that understood?’
My assistants urged me to perform the experiment and I did so. I shattered atoms again and again. But no appreciable energy was released."
This was from an interview he did with time magazine back in 1931 so it made me wonder if these anti nuke guys were on to something. The government has a lot of reasons to create a weapon of mass destruction psyop it spreads fear porn thats one thing and convinces people they can cause nuclear armageddon at the flick of a button. Einstein as some people know tried to steal Tesla's spotlight putting him into obscurity but his technology and experiments were very peculiar and show us there's a lot of high strangeness about this reality that's still not well understood.
Also In 1986, Galen Winsor a Nuclear physicist Exposed the Nuclear fear scam by licking a pile of highly radioactive uranium off the palm of his hand and ignite a chunk of plutonium into a shower of flaming dust to show how safe these materials were. The guy also drank reactor cooling pool water for fun and liked to go swimming in the pool to relax.
submitted by ArkOfTheCube to conspiracy_commons [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 23:12 ArkOfTheCube Nukes are a hoax: connect the dots

Nukes are a hoax: connect the dots
The following documentary explores the surprisingly abundant evidence that nuclear weapons are a hoax.
https://www.nytimes.com/1945/11/03/archives/seversky-limits-atom-bomb-power-likens-hiroshima-blow-to-one-by-200.html
This man actually analysed the city of Hiroshima after the act and testified the following:
"In Hiroshima I was prepared for radically different sights. But, to my surprise, Hiroshima looked exactly like all the other burned-out cities in Japan. There was a familiar pink blot, about two miles in diameter. It was dotted with charred trees and telephone poles. Only one of the cities twenty bridges was down. Hiroshima’s clusters of modern buildings in the downtown section stood upright.
It was obvious that the blast could not have been so powerful as we had been led to believe. It was extensive blast rather than intensive.
I had heard of buildings instantly consumed by unprecedented heat. Yet here I saw the buildings structurally intact, and what is more, topped by undamaged flag poles, lightning rods, painted railings, air raid precaution signs and other comparatively fragile objects.
At the T-bridge, the aiming point for the atomic bomb, I looked for the “bald spot” where everything presumably had been vaporized in the twinkling of an eye. It wasn’t there or anywhere else. I could find no traces of unusual phenomena.
What I did see was in substance a replica of Yokohama or Osaka, or the Tokyo suburbs – the familiar residue of an area of wood and brick houses razed by uncontrollable fire. Everywhere I saw the trunks of charred and leafless trees, burned and unburned chunks of wood. The fire had been intense enough to bend and twist steel girders and to melt glass until it ran like lava – just as in other Japanese cities.
The concrete buildings nearest to the centre of explosion, some only a few blocks from the heart of the atom blast, showed no structural damage. Even cornices, canopies and delicate exterior decorations were intact. Window glass was shattered, of course, but single-panel frames held firm; only window frames of two or more panels were bent and buckled. The blast impact therefore could not have been unusual."
Additionally:
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/08/01/us/hiroshima-study-finds-no-genetic-damage.html
This study was never published for some reason.
I’ve been to both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The whole thing is propaganda. There isn’t a trace of residual radiation anywhere in either city. I checked using a Geiger counter purchased after the “Fukushima” nuclear hoax, which at the time I thought was real.
The few bits of footage of the nukes exploding is laughable. It’s Hollywood effects, matte screens and identical mushroom clouds composited for different angles. Totally fake.
There is a reason these magical super weapons have never been used for an act of “terrorism” or in any war zone since and it has nothing to do with mutually assured destruction, unless you take that to mean the global unravelling of the lie itself.
It’s because nukes don’t exist, have never existed and cannot be made to work. They are a myth.
While looking for info on how "feasible" an all out thermonuclear war scenario was, because I already figured that nuclear weapons are a joke and a remnant way of thought from the Cold War era of thinking, I stumbled upon this massive article about the supposed Nuclear Weapons hoax.
Some highlights of it, after skimming through it last night include:
  • Nuclear weapons are a result of a collusion between USA/USSR (With Stalin keeping the East of Europe to remain a "threat" to the west) and Japan with many other countries joining later.
  • Explaining the impossibility of making an Atomic bomb work in the first place, and why it cannot possibly produce radiation that can cause harm to any biological matter, including humans.
  • The Hiroshima and Nagasaki "atomic bombs" were most likely faked: No nuclear bombs were detonated, Napalm carpet bombings were used instead, and nobody died from radiation. It also explains how could a lie like that be kept in Japan for 60+ years and shows plenty of photos from ground zero.
  • "(...)Nuclear radiation is harmless. It is just easy to detect by Geiger meters, etc, but cannot harm anything. Only uranium and plutonium metal dusts are poisonous."
  • Clearing misconceptions related to the Fukushima 2011 incident
  • Explaining why the B61 nuclear bombs are a fraud.
  • A timeline showcasing the USA-North Korea talks from 2017 and 2018 and explaining why they were only done to put on a show, because, it is very likely that North Korea, does not have any in the first place.
And many other stuff.
Here it is, divided in 9 parts.
The people and organizations creating the lies: https://heiwaco.com/bomb.htm
The atomic bomb killed nobody in Japan: https://heiwaco.com/bombpart2.htm
How does an atomic bomb work? It doesn't! https://heiwaco.com/bombpart3.htm
Plenty O' manipulations: https://heiwaco.com/bombpart4.htm
Explosive fission is a scam: https://heiwaco.com/bombpart5.htm
All about real fission: https://heiwaco.com/bombpart6.htm
The fake B-61 atomic bombs: https://heiwaco.com/bombpart7.htm
All about no radiation at Fukushima: https://heiwaco.com/bombpart8.htm
About radiation itself: https://heiwaco.com/bombpart9.htm
The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki appear not to be the result of one large explosion, but rather the result of a fire-bombing campaign comparable in pictures to Tokyo's fire-bombed remains. Hiroshima and Nagasaki also never experienced anything like the hundreds or thousands of years of radiation predicted by nuclear scientists, in fact, vegetation began growing within a month after the bombing, and the Japanese people began rebuilding almost immediately!
Some nuclear physicists even claim nuclear weaponry fraudulent based solely on the technical impossibilities of fission material not to be incinerated before triggering the necessary nuclear chain reaction.
Tesla even famously tried to split the atom him self and came to the conclusion it didn't release energy:
"Let me say that has nothing to do with releasing so-called atomic energy. There is no such energy in the sense usually meant. With my currents, using pressures as high as 15,000,000 volts, the highest ever used, I have split atoms — but no energy was released. I confess that before I made this experiment I was in some fear. I said to my assistants, ‘I do not know what will happen. If the conclusions of certain scientists are right, the release of energy from the splitting of an atom may mean an explosion which would wreck our apparatus and perhaps kill someone. Is that understood?’
My assistants urged me to perform the experiment and I did so. I shattered atoms again and again. But no appreciable energy was released."
This was from an interview he did with time magazine back in 1931 so it made me wonder if these anti nuke guys were on to something. The government has a lot of reasons to create a weapon of mass destruction psyop it spreads fear porn thats one thing and convinces people they can cause nuclear armageddon at the flick of a button. Einstein as some people know tried to steal Tesla's spotlight putting him into obscurity but his technology and experiments were very peculiar and show us there's a lot of high strangeness about this reality that's still not well understood.
Also In 1986, Galen Winsor a Nuclear physicist Exposed the Nuclear fear scam by licking a pile of highly radioactive uranium off the palm of his hand and ignite a chunk of plutonium into a shower of flaming dust to show how safe these materials were. The guy also drank reactor cooling pool water for fun and liked to go swimming in the pool to relax.
submitted by ArkOfTheCube to skeptic [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 22:55 Environmental-Ad383 [Acne] What am I doing wrong?

Hi!
I'm trying to figure out what am I doing wrong or why I keep getting scars. In the winter I barely left the house, so there was barely any sun damage, and I was taking accutane and applying Adapalene (differen) 3 to 4 times a night. In the end, I got a red scar on my forehead still. This is one example that I have because my forehead was clear without any scar.
What I can do to prevent this? Usually people talk about wearing SPF, but I barely left the house and if I left the UV rays were around 1-2 levels. I don't know what else should I do. I was also taking accutane in a low quantity, it should also prevent scars right?
I don't know, but my face is full of red scars from all the years and I don't know how to deal with it.
submitted by Environmental-Ad383 to SkincareAddiction [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 22:47 Shot-Hat1436 Mold on wood

9 years ago I built a wooden bed/storage structure for the back of my truck. Its a simple system, i clear coated it when I first built it and ive been happy with it. This last winter I moved to a a coastal environment and I knew my truck canopy was leaking but I completely neglected it (for... reasons). Yesterday i took the wood structure out and noted black staining and what appeared to be black dots on some of the wood. Any suggestions for how to proceed? I previously used the bed setup for ez/fast and light car camping but now I have a family and do not want to expose them to mold. Part of me wants to say 9 years is a good run and just nuke the truck bed with mold cleaner build a new wooden bed structure. But what does the hive mind think? Is there an easy way to remediate the mold/water damaged wood with certainty that my family wont be exposed to mold?
Thanks for any tips.
submitted by Shot-Hat1436 to handyman [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 22:40 OriginalSprinkles718 [PS5/PS4] List of 100+ mods with correct LOAD ORDER - Difficult and satisfying survival challenge.

[PS5/PS4] List of 100+ mods with correct LOAD ORDER - Difficult and satisfying survival challenge.

PLEASE READ THE WHOLE POST.

This took weeks of picking and testing mods
Played on PS5, should work on PS4
Order is stable, no crashes
New game on survival difficulty required
All 6 DLCs needed
No unbalanced cheat mods added
Very difficult but satisfying and immersive
Adding other mods will break stuff, ask in comments
Not tested on PS4 or PS4 Pro performance-wise

OVERVIEW

This modlist is for people enjoying difficult challenge, exploration, combat, managing settlements and a bit of building. No more bullet sponges, loot/enemy respawns and rambo playstyle!
In the beginning you are no one. You leave the vault weak, tired, with barely any gear. Avoid most encounters and quests at the start. Try to survive, build a safe spot and carefully explore. Be aware of your surroundings, use what you find.
Saving often in beds and making 'autosave drug' at the earliest possibility is a good idea (nearest chemistry workbench is at Abernathy Farm). Save menu is always on top of MISC category in Pip-Boy.
Discovering new places gives plenty of exp in the beginning, but quests are your main exp income.
Exploring safer areas like Sanctuary, Concord and smaller settlements first (avoiding powerful enemies) recommended. There might be a lot of combat in the background. Don't engage much, especially avoid supermutants, robots, turrets, bears - they are deadly even for high level, well developed characters. Raiders also hit hard, depending on their weapon and rank.
Weapon caliber makes huge damage difference. 10mm is pretty weak, but if you find rare .50cal rounds or some good explosives, you should eliminate tougher targets much more easily.
Investing in stats right after level 15 is a good idea. STR for carry weight, PER for accuracy, END for health, CHA for better prices, INT for more exp, AGI for sneak and speed, LCK for dmg and loot. Be sure of your choices. Watch out for 'revealing all map markers' and 'slow time when aiming' perks. Be sure you want and like them, there is no going back.
Deathclaw in the early minuteman quest is tough - try to use explosives to break his legs and some high caliber weapons to finish him off by shooting his face. Or maybe you'll get lucky and raiders will kill him. Or just simply avoid him until you get proper gear.
Don't waste ammo on zombies, use melee. Bullets are valuable. However zombies can grab and instantly kill you if your HP is very low, so watch out on low, early levels!
Aim for the head for much higher damage. Concentrating damage on arms or legs to rip them off is a good strategy too. Raider without arms wont do much to you except running around and alerting nearby enemies, that is.
Damage types are important. Ballistic damage is not efficient against turrets, melee against radroaches and so on. You need to figure out yourself whats best strategy.
Develop and protect your settlements, put walls to protect generators and other important structures. Repairing is costly. Gear up settlers. Scraping and cleaning settlements is a good early source of components.
Try to fully explore the map, kill enemies and do all quests. Most loot and enemies wont ever respawn so this is your chance to find new secrets in Commonwealth and clear the place.

========== CHANGES ==========

Combat, Enemies

  • Enemies will flank, charge, take cover, run in fear, use and pick up ammo & weapons, swap to backup gun and so on.
  • Headshots or weakspot hits do much higher damage than torso shots.
  • Gun caliber greatly affects damage, explosives are powerful and damage type matters.
  • Foes have special moves like biting and holding leg, wrestling moves, kicks. Dependent on enemy type and briefly stuns you.

Sound, Graphic

  • Sounds are less flat because of added reverb and other tweaks.
  • Very dark nights with wide, helpful flashlight.
  • Atmospheric lightning: beautiful light from lantern and fire sources, dusk, dawn, moon, plus bullets illuminate environment when flying around.
  • No dreadful, annoying, unimmersive: combat music, hearthbeat, sounds of generators, turrets, exp gain sound, most perk triggers and perk chart.

Crafting, Modifying

  • Making/disasembling ammo and also creating various shipments. Upgrading clothes, rings, glasses in different ways.
  • Legendary swapping, crafting legendary effects using technical documents. Some effects have been adjusted.
  • Added crafting of new, lower damage explosives, but they have unique effects for ease of use.

Perks, SPECIAL

  • STR affects carry weight, PER accuracy, END is health, max AP, CHA for better prices, INT for more exp, AGI for sneak, walk and reload speed, LCK for small dmg boost, loot, critical hits outside VATS and while using it.
  • Leveling up does not give you health. You rely on stats, bonuses, gear.
  • Perks tree mostly changed, level 15 needed to start increasing Special base stats, level of around 100 to increase stat to 10. To get all perks you would need 300 levels, so new modified 'idiot savant' will help a lot.
  • Collecting magazines, bobbleheads, companion perks is now more helpful and recommended.
  • Some skills are changed, reordered, much more interesting and useful.
  • More perks are needed for crafting, especially science perk is required for most technology related stuff.
  • Lockpicking everything is available instantly from level one, but perks and AGI make it reasonably easier. Bobby pins are more rare.
  • Hacking is simplified to not do the repeating minigame. Now holotapes to reprogram and override terminals might be of use.

Settlements, Building

  • Expensive build costs of robot workbenches, turrets, big generators, so buying component shipments is justified.
  • You can hire guards for caps or risk settlers lives on the usual guard posts.
  • Can't harvest planted fruit and veg, you get your fair share in workbench instead.
  • Collecting resources by settlers changed. Bigger variety of settlers and they are now mortal.
  • More objects to build and decorate your bases.

Locations, Loot

  • Items like meds and ammo are harder to find and exist in appropriate containers.
  • New map markers and few minuteman towers as a small addition to explore.
  • Quick travel available, but only to settlements.
  • Only rare enemies like bosses drop legendaries. And many more...

Before you download:

  • Safe to remove/swap mods are listed below the modlist, just in case you don't like or want some of them. Rest needs to be kept for balance or glitch removal, but only in the CORRECT ORDER!
  • Remove all mods you currently have before downloading this mod list.
  • Read what to do after downloading mods.

MOD LIST WITH CORECT ORDER:

  1. Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch [UFO4P] [PS4] - Thousands of small bug fixes for FO4.
  2. Radium Rifle Suppressed Sound Fix - As the mod name suggests. Must be on top of mod list, its a master file.
  3. [PS4] Pip-Boy Paint Jobs - Colors Of The Wasteland Pack (Club Freedom) - Adds simple Pip-Boy skins. Remember you can click touchpad while using pip-boy to zoom. Again a master file.
  4. Kane's Items Sorting (PS4) - Junk is sorted and some other things too.
  5. [PS] Useful Technical Documents - Legendaries - You can swap legendaries for free, create new ones using technical documents.
  6. Named NPC Protection [PS4] - Protects named quest npc's, merchants, important characters from random encounters with enemies.
  7. Tribals of Commonwealth - Adds tribal groups, often found in wilderness.
  8. Ghouls Of Commonwealth - Adds over 1100 feral ghouls for zombie apocalypse and chaos.
  9. DLC Creatures In The Commonwealth [PS4] - Adds 200 creature spawns to the commonwealth for constant war, danger and chaos.
  10. Longhorns Of The Commonwealth - Adds longhorns to more empty areas on the map.
  11. Gulpers Of The Commonwealth - Adds gulpers to more empty areas on the map.
  12. Wolves Of The Commonwealth - Adds wolf spawn points to the map.
  13. More Behemoths In Commonwealth - Adds 5 more behemots to the Commonwealth.
  14. Behind Enemy Lines - Adds plenty of enemies to the glowing sea region.
  15. Roving War Parties, Raiding Packs And Hordes Of MY - Adds wandering groups that attack some key locations.
  16. More Radstags - Adds plenty of radstags, especially north and into forests.
  17. Better Radstags - More agressive radstags.
  18. Not a Princess - Humans can grab you/others and slam on the ground, make karate moves, dogs can hold your legs/arms, bloodbugs suck your blood.
  19. Disable Minutemen's Annoying Quests [PS4] - Disables 7 types of repetitive and not important radiant quests.
  20. [PS4] Grounded Updated By Sarinia - Adds tons of ground foundations, floors, walls, mounds of dirt to Structures-Concrete menu.
  21. Miscellaneous Settlement Items Unlocked [PS4] By Callias - Adds 49 objects for building in settlements.
  22. Cinder Block Walls And Sandbags Unlocked [PS4] By Callias - Adds 16 objects like cinder blocks and sandbags.
  23. Constructible Faction Guards - Adds ability to hire guards for caps in build menu, but only after allying with a faction.
  24. [PS4] OCDecorator - Adds inventory items as a decorational building objects.
  25. [PS4] OCDecorator DLC - Support for addons for the above mod.
  26. Tweaks - Survival Fast Travel Settlements All DLC - You can fast travel to settlements on survival difficulty.
  27. 1st Person Animation Tweaks [PS4] - In first person mode you lower your gun automatically.
  28. [PS4] Swinging Animated Meat Bags - Adds animations to supermutant meat bags.
  29. Power Line Physics [PS4] - Swinging power lines in settlements.
  30. No Sneak Indicators - Completely removes all sneak indicators.
  31. [PS4] Dogs Not Brahmin - Provisioners and traders use dogs instead of brahmin.
  32. Vertibirds Unghosted - Tweaks invincible vertibirds for danger and realism.
  33. [PS4] Simple Settlers (Mortal Edition) - Provides bigger settlers pool (five times more) and names them.
  34. Quieter Settlements PS4 - Vanilla - Generators, turrets and hammering are much quieter.
  35. Fallout 76-Style Region Music - Changes music in regions for less boring/repetitive background tracks.
  36. Reverb And Ambiance Overhaul - ALL DLC [PS4] - Tweaks sounds for better ambient and reverb and adds sliders to options.
  37. Better Dialogue - Camera focuses on NPC, changes made to some irritating generic dialogues and tweaked dialogue interuption.
  38. Esk QuietPerks [PS4] - Muted five annoying perks like idiot savant.
  39. No Experience SFX - Silences sounds when gaining experience from various sources.
  40. [PS4] Dead Beat - Removes heart beat sound at low HP.
  41. Combat Music Remover - Mutes combat music, so there is silence and suspension when enemy detects you.
  42. Commonwealth Visual Overhaul & DLC [PS4] - Changes colours, atmosphere and makes nights darker.
  43. UCW - Unified Commonwealth Weather - Adjusted weather for regions and integrated DLC weather for Commonwealth.
  44. [PS4] No More Fake Puddles - Removes ugly puddles that stay 24/7.
  45. No More Twigs - Removes stupid twigs sticking out of the ground.
  46. [PS4] Enhanced Flickering Firelight - Better light effects for fire sources including oil lamps.
  47. [PS4] Dark Mode - Abandoned Settlements - Empty settlements don't have light sources.
  48. Vanilla Moon (4x) - Much bigger moon. Anything bigger looks low quality.
  49. Sunlight Alignment Tweak - Better Dawn And Dusk [PS4] - Changes sun and moon movement for better lighting and atmosphere during dusk, dawn and night.
  50. Crafting Blur Removal (PS4) - Removes blur while looting containers, from crafting screen, power armor.
  51. Ironsight Blur Removal (PS4) - Removes blur while aiming.
  52. More Map Markers (PS4) - Adds some new markers on map.
  53. CleanVATS - Green Tint Remover PS4 - Removes fullscreen green tint effect while aiming in VATS mode.
  54. VATS Third Person Only - As the name says, just changes in cameras used in VATS.
  55. [PS4] Payneful VATS - Better VATS cinematics, shows important hits and finishers a bit slower.
  56. Component Tagging Helper - Allows to easily tag basic components on cooking bench and you can quickly view how many you have in total.
  57. Grenade and Mine Pack - Adds some new weaker, but modified explosives.
  58. Saving Survival Mode - Allows crafting misc items on chemistry workbench for anytime saving (3 standard autosave slots and 1 save shared/overwritten on all survival characters).
  59. Animations Be Gone - Removes plenty annoying hammering spots in sanctuary.
  60. Minuteman Watchtowers - Adds 8 minuteman watchtowers containing loot and/or guards.
  61. Power Goggles (All DLC) - Power Armor Mods For Goggles, Visors, And Glasses - As the name says. Two mods for glasses for high level characters.
  62. Clothes For Every Stats Wz - Most clothes can be worn under armor and you can upgrade them after unlocking ballistic weave.
  63. Bear Trap and Caltrops Fix [PS4] - Small changes in how traps work and balance them.
  64. See-Through-Scopes [PS4] - Adds new combat scopes in place of 2.5x and 4x magnification.
  65. See-Through-Scopes - Nuka World [PS4] - As above but for 2 Nuka World guns.
  66. See-Through-Scopes - Far Harbor [PS4] - As above but for 2 Far Harbor weapons.
  67. Targeting Sensors On Recon Scopes(Colour Coded NPCs Version)[PS4] - Modified recon scopes that highlight enemies, friends and dead bodies in specific colours.
  68. Immersive Gameplay Combat Mostly PS4 - Core of this modlist. Hundreds of changes.
  69. Immersive-Gameplay. Low Tech, No Powerarmor Justification Patch. (PS4) - Makes fusion cores worn. Balances the game around power armor.
  70. Immersive Gameplay Seasonpass Patch (Playstation) - DLC compatibility for IG.
  71. Immersive Gameplay Rough Start (PS4) - Overwrites starting level to 1.
  72. Medium Settlement Raids PS4 - Makes enemy raids less ridicolous and balanced.
  73. Zombie Walkers (PS4) - Most feral ghouls act like slow rotten zombies.
  74. Curse Of Darkness - Normal Edition - - Zombies are faster and more dangerous after midnight.
  75. Esk No More Teleporting Creatures [PS4] - Molerats and radscorpions don't teleport.
  76. Realistic Insects Health [PS4] - Makes insects easier to kill and balanced.
  77. Full Load - Loot Logic And Reduction Complete - Restricted harvest, lower and/or different production output for settlements, empty bottles renamed, Scrounger perk less ammo, less meat, less loot.
  78. Full Load - Rough Start Less Handouts - Removed some workbenches in starting locations. Different loot in Vault111.
  79. Immersive Gameplay Dismemberment - A Patch Or Standalone Feature. - Higher damage to headshots, easier to dismember limbs.
  80. Tackle! Immersive Gameplay Knockdown Version - Lets you stagger enemies by sprinting into them after aquiring a perk.
  81. Wasteland Baubles Ring Overhaul! PS4 - You can find unique rings at traders, in suitcases, cabinets. Allows scraping and modifying rings for special legendary effects.
  82. [PS4] STS - All-In-One - Allows scraping almost all settlement objects.
  83. (PS4) Improved Lighting Ballistics - Improves lighting for projectiles such as bullets, lasers, gauss, plasma, missiles, flares and explosions.
  84. Explorer Restored - Cut Perk Mod PS4 - Adds rank two of VANS perk - explorer. Uncovers map.
  85. Idiot Savant & Better Criticals Redone (PS4) - Idiot savant is better the more INT you have, muted perk chart, better criticals perk for crits outside VATS.
  86. Realistic Death Physics - No Animation - ALL DLC [PS4] - Decreases the amount of force of both melee and ranged attacks, so bodies wont fly away.
  87. Increased Settler Limit - Awareness - Wire Length - Corpse Collisions [PS4] - More aware settlers with limit of 50 per settlement and longer wires. Mind the limit.
  88. Settlement Attack Spawns Outside The Settlement PS4 - Moves attack spawns outside the settlements.
  89. Power Conduits Radius Increase And No Build Limit - All DLC [PS4] - Infinite build limit and two times longer range electricity conduits.
  90. [PS4] Creation Club Skins (Weapon & PipBoy) Generic Compatibility Patch - Makes weapon paints from Creation Club show up in crafting menu if you have any.
  91. No Affinity Cooldown - Removes cooldown between companions liking/hating your actions.
  92. [PS4]More XP Per Level (Base:600, Bump 120) - Increased experience required to level up.
  93. Increased EXP - Increases the amount of EXP gained to make Immersive Gameplay and mod list balanced.
  94. No Building Houses XP Gains PS4 - Building settlements don't provide experience.
  95. Pip-Boy Flashlight - Pipboy light is now a flashlight.
  96. PS4 - Longer Headlamp Light - Makes flashlight much bigger and changes headlamp and power armor light.
  97. [PS4] Starting SPECIAL = 7 - Changes starting SPECIAL stats to 1 in each category so you start weak.
  98. No Enemy Respawns - Game areas don't respawn loot and enemies, after time have passed.
  99. Accelerated Fast Travel - Fast travel takes less in-game time, should be also relevant to survival needs.
  100. Time Scale Changed From 20 To 10 [PS4] - Day and night lasts twice as long.

Additionally after downloading:

  • After installing the mod list, restart your PS4/PS5.
  • Dont add or remove mods mid playthrough.
  • Change game difficulty to survival in options.
  • Play on performance 60fps. Newly added mode visual 60fps is more laggy and has awfull VATS framerate.
  • If you want even more immersive settings, go to Settings, Gameplay and turn off quest markers or crosshair.
  • Go to Options, Sound and reduce ambience level by 5-8 clicks and reverb by 2-3.
  • Dont forget to change camera sensitivity (I play on max), next go to Options, Display and change hud color to blue or any other that makes sense (not red), lower transparency by 30% or more, set pip-boy colour to your preference (I use red pip-boy and minty hud to have the best compatibility with highlighting perks and scopes).

You can add/swap some mods if you want:

101... Immortal Cats - PS4 - Invincible cats, so you don't lose happiness increase when they die. Add after mod #83 \ 102... [PS4] STS - Extras - Living & Dead - Season Pass Version - You can get extra resources from scraping dead bodies in settlements. Watch out not to scrap someone alive. Place after mod #82. \ 103... Josephine Preset - Nice looking preset number 13 for female character creation. Change hair and other details if you want. Delete after leaving vault111 and saving (if you need mod list space that is). Add after mod #55. \ 104... Faster Positive Affinity For Companions - Removes cooldown between companions liking/hating your actions and gain five times more positive affinity. Swap with mod #91 if you want more cheaty version. \ 105... Silent Main Menu - To mute main menu sound, find duplicate sound slider named 'Master sound' and move it all the way to the left. Add after mod #41. \ 106... Quieter Settlements PS4 - Contraptions DLC - Quieter production lines. I ran out of space on mod list so this and next one are optional. Add after mod #34. \ 107... Quieter Settlements PS4 - Wasteland Workshop - Quieter fusion generators. Add after mod #34. \ 108... [PS4] Simple Settlers (Immortal Edition) - Instead of #33, so generic settlers don't die during settlement attacks. \ 109... Reduced Rubble Etc. - Safely reduces density of unimportant objects by 50-75%. Add after #44 or swap with #45. \ 110... Vrexia's Magical Rings - Add after #57 only if you get poison/perception bug where your PER is shown as (-1). You can offset it by equiping multiple rings from this mod (created at chem bench). Didnt found a better way yet. \ 111... Pip-Boy Flashlight (Brighter) - For a smaller, brighter flashlight swap #96 with #95 and replace #95 with this.

Remove, if you want:

Stock, ugly Pip-Boy color - #3 \ No tinkering with legendary effects - #5 \ No powerful groups wandering and attacking places - #15 \ Radstags to be less agressive - #17 \ Dont care about building - #20 #21 #22 \ Dont care about decorating settlements - #24 #25 \ Annoying wandering brahmins instead of dogs - #31 \ Cash register sounds when gaining exp - #39 \ Old vanilla dusk and dawn lighting - #49 \ Don't use VATS much - #53 #54 #55 \ Prefer old combat scopes - #64 #65 #66 \ Don't want uncover map perk and will never unlock it - #84 \ Don't have any weapon skins from Creation Club - #90 \ Faster leveling - #92 \ To gain building EXP - #94 \ Start with 7 extra SPECIAL points to distribute - #97 \ Loot and enemies respawn after time - #98 \ Fast travel to take time - #99 \ Days be vanilla length - #100

Known issues, bugs, glitches, exploits:

Some of those are present in vanilla game. I just mention every problem encountered during testing and not fully fixed. - Ground textures in and around sanctuary flicker black. FIX: Fixes itself. Possibly after short time or reload. - Creature cages cost too much in building menu. NO FIX: Did not found a safe and balanced fix yet, so cages are most likely out of reach, because cost is absurd. - Green chest containing flare gun and 10k flares after exiting vault 111. FIX: Mod dev forgot to delete it. Ignore it or if it bothers you much, remove mod #83, which I don't recommend doing. - Hubby secret basement in Sanctuary. NO FIX: Its up to you if you want to use its content. Just easier difficulty option, but not game breaking. - Hacking rank 4 seems useless or has wrong description. NO FIX: Needs proper check. - Wall turrets sometimes glitches and play sound on repeat. FIX: Re-enter the area or reload save. - Contact frag mines seems to have too low damage. FIX: Just dont craft them. Rest of new explosives should work fine even that it shows low damage values in description. - Perception low, constant (-1) PER in stats because of poison damage/resistance bug. FIX: Add mod #110 and equip perception rings. Dont delete the mod. Cant find safer solution for now. Rings dont take equipment slots. - Action girl perk have only one rank on female character and two on male. NO FIX: Just 25% AP regen loss at high level. Not a big deal. - Bubblegum seems to unintentionally quench thirst a bit and kind vendors give it for free. NO FIX: Free candies. Its better to use them to slow down time. - Incorrect cost to build concrete foundations. FIX: Use mod #20 to add tons of foundations in newly added category Structures-Concrete. - OCDecorator replaces creation club menu. FIX: Items from CC are still available in other building categories. Ignore or delete mod #24 + #25 if you dont care about its function. - Few perk descriptions might be slightly incorrect or missing. NO FIX: Nothing important to worry about. - Three street lights, powered water pump, industrial purifier and subway light have incorrect build costs. NO FIX: These have wrong values, but items like clean sofa or tv are more expensive to build on purpose though. - Pip-boy light wont transfer from first to third person camera view. FIX: Turn flashlight off and on. - Water surface sometimes flash black when moving underwater. NO FIX: Its not very noticable and you don't dive much in FO4 anyway. - Can't use Wattz Consumer Electronics terminal, animation stops. FIX: There is a radroach behind the wall. Kill it by swinging melee, explosives or reenter area. - Flashlight in Vault111 has incorrect beam look/color. FIX: It will fix itself after mods load right after you leave Vault111, dont worry.
v1.00 - Initial version.

Have fun!

submitted by OriginalSprinkles718 to Fallout4modsps4 [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 22:28 EccentricSage81 nanotech hydrophobic cleaning!

The lotus leaf is listed as the greatest cleaning agent known to mankind in wikis and was the religious symbol of countless religions. when dirt is wet and becomes sticky mud it dries caked on and stuck and traps or allows for other air or splashes or spills to sort of stick. nanotech is so much smaller its like a big warehouse of crates having dust settle between them and by wiping and buffing and polishing around you remove some of the dirt hopefully most of it and get it underneath it will go right through and under about anything, got a tarpaulin or umm curtains over the window spray the curtains and unseen fine nanotech SHINES the window beautiful perfect coatings. the thin film is like nonstick frypan stuff but not the teflon stuff its safe diamonds arent teflon so the moisture and dirt wont stick as much and easily clean off or sorta slide down? nanotech like INKS and alcohol dyes (food coloring) or other paint pigment powders and !SOME! clearcoat polishes over a certain hardness rating which are safe for homes as under sapphire 9H or 10H it might be some sort of waste product cheap being sold as something like SCOTCH GUARD which may or may not have those long lasting microplastics which could be tiny serrated or jagged. If something is 9H or 10H diamond or sapphire hardness the few enamels or epoxys that bond that strong are small enough and dense that their structure is so tiny it slips through and under inside things and can reinforce them but doesnt damage round cells in organisms. the same way glass cleaner must be diluted and used everywhere as glass is porous and prehistoric volcanic obsidian glass walking spiders can walk up glass with special microhooks in their feet for the holes in glass look a bit like a golf ball dimples everywhere with tiny hole looks like hair lines through it like imagine those office ceiling panels with the holes in white particle board. So glass cleaner cleans out the gunk or else your windows will have a brownness you struggle to clean out of the glass without a deep penetrating cleaning agent that comes out looking a bit like brown river water thats discolored from the porous rocks in the water having umm tiny microorganisms yep rivers of brown. So a tiny drop of glass cleaner or a couple drops in a spray bottle or a bucket of water and maybe some one or two drops hydrophobic glass coating or quickpaint coat and a tiny drop or two or a single spray of PLASTIC AND LEATHER RESTORER
with these drops of stuff in water in a spray bottle or bucket you maybe wanna find something with a high % percentage of surfactants on the back of the detergent/soap bottle to wipe out germs and uhh its the cleaning component in all bubbling detergents the sort of science and cleaning and germ killing powers of it. Some floor cleaners made for timber floors that might be a little streaky and say like a polish or cure or something that maybe gives timber a little bit of a darker look when used regularly and appears subtly more expensive looking like hardwood but isnt carbonizing its a type of cellular structure bonding that reinforces not prehistoric torture the wood into looking blowtorched carbon stuff chemicals its a cleaning product disenfectant that protects and polishes but it needs some sprays of water then a spray or a few drops then buff it in and then dust mop it dry as its got some mild ANTISTATIC which helps lift up dust.. i found one that cleans like magic at my asian supermarkets but im not recommending specific brands over the other its the science of cleaning. then maybe put in a couple drops or up to a teaspoon of 10H hardness and like spray your laundry on the line or your carpet or whatever.. i do everything.. some products not 9H or greater will use some unsafe superglues which ignite cotton fabrics into flames or other things.. now house construction products like liquid nails brown glue for holding timber together might have a clear version called liquid glass that might be for window glazing or whatever i hadnt checked if its safe to use on fabrics and other surfaces the POINT of it is the NAME might say liquid glass but its maybe not silicon dioxide that the florist uses to keep their plants fresh for 2 weeks longer liquid glass as in THAT liquid glass like on your phones nanotech liquid screen protector you apply several coats of one each day then reapply every 8 months the cheap stuff.. some of the auto ones for cars can last 9 or 10 years. i found lots of bargain store looking products of sites like aliexpress or maybe amazon with brands like glassxkare or fantastic XML and adams polishes for tiny vials of 50ml or less of 10H hardness affordable or fantastic XML for like a big 500ML 9H hardness spray bottle that when sprayed into a spray bottle of water and glass cleaner and a drop of hydrophobic coating and plastic and leather restorer and a tiny drop of timber floor polish cleaner that may or may not make it a tiny bit streaky or splotchy the hydrophobic coatings may also be too hydrophobic you can tell if your spray bottle wont suck up water because the water cant enter the tube but if you spray a couple spray bottles of such tiny drops the nozzle will clog and not spray anymore.. nanocoatings can be tricky i dunno what to do. if its scratch protect films make it streaky and require buffing power tools and youre not loud big tools like me maybe aim it at carpets and couches rather than windows and do those without the floor polish. I've found no sort of uhh possible forseeable reasons for any health issues and my stuff looks and FEELS amazingly better, i think bathroom toilets or tiles or shower and tap fixtures or.. walls and floors and furniture and clothes.. i think id only not try spraying my drinking cups and cutlery but i honestly think i might need to drink the stuff its THAT GOOD. my cats LOVE IT! its kinda scary awesome.. i tried brands of plastic and leather restorer and quick paint coat and hydrophobic glass coating from HGKJ black and green labels. I couldnt tell you how safe it is, i just struggled as im a disability pensioner and saw our really old house falling apart and this damn near reversed a few decades off it and brand new snow clothing and jackets and throw rugs i bought felt BETTER THAN NEW i mean ridiculously better than new. ancient poisons used to clean HALF as good and were feared for being too good and too cheap. But diamonds and liquid diamond are naturally occuring hot springs reactions and the reason monkeys stay in there. its literally pretty much good for all life.
(plastic and leather restorer see leather deep conditioner but better and sorta similar to glass cleaner but a sort of UV protect oil and reinforce that adds the rich deep black color back to PU leathers and those vinyl anime girl figures yellowing from the sunlight and UV will becomes their original selves again or old yellowy car headlight covers get fixed up but so do most paints and timbers and other things. but you wanna seal it in with a nano coating when cleaning it out plastic and leather restorer is used in plastic manufacture and when you peel those clear plastic film stickers off shiny new products they help prevent its slow gradual evapouration and why they look so nice and black and arent just to prevent scratches. several days later plastic and leather restorers super shiny rich deep 'wet hair look for your black pleather chair' will seem to have worn off but its UV protect and other things will still be there and some polishes waxes or coatings can help keep it and its colors and UV protect there a bit longer well the look the restorer itself keeps it like how it was quite a while years? till it goes yellowy or faded again.)
So when we look at the water beading on lotus/lily pad leaves and things, ancient people used saps and old polishes and obsidian blades arrowheads since dinosaurs era. which with 200 times sharper than steel knives carbon nanotech its super dangerous deadly and was mostly all used up and we swapped it all out for modern glasses and glazing and safety glass so we dont slice our selves into piles of body parts on invisible pieces. Since the days of ink and whetstone nanotech advanced impossibly high particularly in volcanic hot springs countrys with samurai swords and caligraphy brush ink. Trying to find the scientifically safest and best possible cleaning products super affordably that might be useful for washing clothes, cars, metals plastics and other things.. are strangely not at the home hardware stores.. you see synthetic diamonds been on the gem market for centuries but too expensive to produce till modern different approaches with lasers and different gas precipitation with super high electricity concentrated over weeks or months or special electrolosys solutions will slowly layer and create diamonds but the diamond solution precipitated that grouped to each other or doesnt perfectly slot into the sort of tetris like bonds of the outer layers of the diamond a bit like diamond growth needs spaghetti O's and we're raining alphabet soup at it till with a bout 30% of the letters having a good chance of sticking. every few hours the solution of sublimation precipitate is swapped out creating a couple oven trays of 'liquid diamond solution' 10H hardness brightness and shines up glass with a thin film of diamond giving it moisture modest water resist we can use graphene to increase water resist and 10H+ hardness and apply hydrophobic coatings.. So who makes lots of these liquid finishes and what are they used for? Most are produced by a car race track owner who insists they protect their cars before taking them out onto the track or a speck of dirt or sand might scratch up the paint. But if i wanted to like power pressure washer spray it up onto my roof tiles and thin out some of that lichen and make them more uhh watertight leaks arent a concern but it might prevent a terrible future. anybody know why its not already a thing and there isnt countless guides on the ideal ratios and stuff? i mean its about as expensive as laundry detergent concentrate and used to be in most of those still is in some developed countries.. its what makes american movie sets look so umm bright and shiny and polished and awesome and makes mansions look like mansions or wealthy look and feel and its where LUXURY COMES FROM. is my cheap poor persons attempt at cleaning my own home not good? even if its mildly bad i think i'd use it forever. ESPECIALLY on things like 100% bamboo bed sheets i bought cheap ones from an australian online retailer and a few coatings of sprays and they felt and looked so dang shiny and awesome. Some bottles of the stuff claim 6 drops coats the car but remember many are diluted or not full strength or dont last long as advertised or a big bottle 500ML might be 3months to a year.. rather than tiny medicine bottle 50ml or 30ml sized 3-5 years most i guess, you need to keep applying a coat very often but having it not be streaky or buffing it in is tough so i maybe shaved years off its coating and thinned it out and just apply a bunch of coats as often product claims 9H its only a tiny % the whole spray bottle and needs many many applications to approach that but it is POSSIBLE theoretically. remember all glass cleaner is blue colored so when you dilute it with water you shouldnt have it fully color the water too much or its TOO STRONG. 80s people cleaned 80s glazing which maybe radium or lead tincture as radiation blocking films were often lead or radiation lined literally as a radiation shield was a.. film of radiation so it lasted years and needed double or triple glazing for expensive high rise buildings and cleaning heaps of smoky 80s glass dredged out horror mud floods of brown sludge that got them accused of dirtying things, though 80s squeegee thingys are really bad unless you reverse them and press down on a microfibre cloth with them for good even pressuer and a nice streak free clean using the back black rubber blade part to make a thin line of glass cleaning cloth good contact i previously saw reverse squeegee you mount cleaning cloths into specifically but searching i cant find to buy it when i tested it out at home with a squeegee that doesnt clip in like that. are there special tools you guys use? whats the secret? also the purple ceramic graphene ones seem awesome but maybe arent quite close to 9H either.. the bright shine of 10H or 10H+ on tiles and glass.. when apply hydrophobic it looks like zero application of anything somehow its gone for days. does anyone have a more ideal ratios specific or specific active ingredient amounts by weight or dilute with stuff that isnt water to help it keep its years of coating? does using a power washer make it not last? or last longer? or apply streaky splotchy? if its splotchy would more coats over weeks get it all consistent?
the liquid diamond stuff is in many countrys water or whatever.. but uhh concerns about silicosis maybe arent a thing at all if you cough it feels like its cleaning your lungs not harming them. Silicosis happens when criminal retards enter a sandblasting sealed room containment to steal the literally raw materials from factories or whatever or they use water cutting and sand blasting and CNC machines and sharpening blades constantly without sealed enclosure vacuum air scrubber filters. thats what wrecks those benchtop workers also they maybe mixing or breathing wrong epoxys and resins or dont seal them with the correct sealants and polishes and finishes.
submitted by EccentricSage81 to housekeeping [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 22:25 Neat-Confusion6696 How do I clean powder coated pontoon?

Hello - I have ranger pontoon and the pontoons are powered coated (painted) black so you don't see the aluminum. Anyone have recommendation on what to use to clean the pontoons? My neighbor recommended ON and OFF but his pontoons don't have any powder coating and I am worried it will damage the paint. I am a first time boat owner so learning the ropes. Here is a link that shows how the pontoon looks like - https://www.rangerboats.com/pontoons/cruise.html
submitted by Neat-Confusion6696 to Pontoons [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 21:53 dancergirlktl [Sell and Swap/US Only] MAC, Too Faced, Tarte, Bobbi Brown, Benefit, Smashbox, Clarins, Colourpop, Clinique, Innisfree, Burberry Her, Maison Margiela Replica

Hi all! Help me clear out my life of backups and samples I'll never use. Hopefully you'll find a new HG or something you've always wanted to try in my stash. I've priced everything to sell and do feel the prices are fair and low but of course I'm willing to bundle. The prices are based off what I actually paid for the products, not the retail price. I buy most things on sale and you'll get a discount on top of what I paid.

Makeup

Eyeshadow Verification: https://imgur.com/a/EEtDTYL
Base Products Verification: https://imgur.com/a/YB476xo
Blush/HighlighteBronzer Verification: https://imgur.com/a/jhbuklM
Eyeliners/Mascaras/Brows Verification: https://imgur.com/a/RmvE8EM
Lips Verification: https://imgur.com/a/3Kgc3YS

Skincare Verification: https://imgur.com/a/TfQlafY

Other Verification: https://imgur.com/a/jgUpId

ISO List:- Try me on Suqqu Eyeshadows and Blushes- Charlotte Tilbury Eyeshadows

submitted by dancergirlktl to makeupexchange [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 21:47 MUI-Tojo Re:Cord of Ragnarok [Chapter 21] Part 2

Re:Cord of Ragnarok [Chapter 21] Part 2
Chapter 21.2:【Tales of Fire and Ice】
The Arena
Tsukuyomi gripped his sword firmly in hand. He looked forward at his foe, allowing the audience he knew was watching, the words he knew they were saying, the arena itself, to all simply fade away into the darkness. Right now, to him, the only things shining in the night were he and his foe. Nothing else mattered, not even the past and future. He gave himself a quiet, bitter, yet lighthearted laugh, and shook his head with a slight smile. The scabbard had cracked. And yet, once the shock had worn off, it now seemed so incredibly trivial.
“...What have I been doing? I can’t believe I paralyzed myself for so long. Even after I met Mother, even after that day, I was just making excuses to be a coward. To never truly fight. But they all…wanted me to just do my best, didn’t they? They wanted me to fight just like that woman does. If so…”
He had fallen countless times. Won many victories. But before today, how many of those battles had he really given his everything to? He regretted every single one of them in hindsight. But now, the god of the moon brandished his sword with a determined light in his eyes.
“...Then that’s the only expectation I need to fulfill!”
He looked Zetian right in the eyes as he replied to her. His voice was as unwavering as his blade.
“Indeed. My father taught me so much. So did my mother. They are truly incredible. I’ve been…such a fool for not listening to them until now.”
Wu stood before him in silence. A blank look distorted her face for a second, as a sense of regretful jealousy almost took over, before the strength of her glare and stance returned twice as strong. Her presence was now like that of a ferocious dragon.
“Hah…how very lucky you are. To have someone at your side to raise you up like that. You’ll never understand what it means to fight truly alone.”
“W-W-W-WAIT A SECOND!” The distressed voice of Mammon pierced the ears of the fighters. “You should not be able to return to sanity! It's not possi-” “SHUT UP! No one has the right to decide what I can and can’t do, you hear me!?” The Empress barked out a command for all to hear, a symphony of the rage and frustration she obtained throughout her life.
Luoyang, Henan Province
It was nothing new, really.
Spears and swords surrounded her on all ends. Eyes that threatened to burn right through her soul- hollower than usual, but intending to kill nonetheless. The roaring and desperate sounds of battle raging around her. Once again, a blade was pointed at her rise to the throne, and once again, Zetian would fight with all she had to defend it.
Even against her own men.
The devilish talismans around the soldiers’ necks glowed with an eerie purple light, illuminating the bloody Luoyang streets below them. Zetian had ordered them locked away upon their discovery, but clearly, at least one of her ministers was less than trustworthy. A shame. Pushing all thoughts of future executions to the side, she looked upon her gathered allies turned foes, already braced for lethal combat. Her eyes narrowed as their leader stepped forward: a nobleman clad not in his usual fine robes, but regal battle armor, clearly prepared for this very day. A more ornate talisman that surged with dark power hung from his neck. Li Zhen, the Prefect of Yu, regarded Zetian with the same sneering smirk he had always worn around her.
The brother of the late Gaozong, and a young prodigy of the Li Clan, Zhen had opposed her from the beginning, almost obsessively so. As if being in her presence and seeing her rise was a reality he could simply reject. Even as the other clans and officials of China fell before her, acknowledging what she had become, Zhen and the Li Clan remained stalwart in their defiance. To Zetian, their eyes burned more than anyone else’s- Zhen’s insults, beatings, and even the cold silence he regarded her with were seared into her mind. It was almost preordained in the heavens that he would be her final obstacle.
“My greetings, Empress Dowager! I must offer my humblest apologies! After all, it’s a shame you’d be struck down like this, when you’re so close to the finish line.” Zhen laughed coldly. He drew his sword from his waist and stepped forth, before gesturing to the soldiers with pride as they all followed at his command. “You’ve slain so many of us Li without even batting an eye…but can you do the same to your own royal guard? That one’s been with you for thirty years, I believe, and that one twenty-five. Such loyal soldiers they are!” He laughed mockingly and patted the soldier next to him on the shoulder.
“...Of course I can.”
Zetian’s reply was clear and sharp, lacking the honeyed arrogance she had grown into over the years. Li Zhen raised an eyebrow. The burning in her eyes hadn’t even flickered a bit. He had wanted to snuff it out, but now, even making it waver seemed like a heavenly task.
“Then come try it, Wu Zetian! Show me what made a subhuman like you into an empress!” He laughed and stepped away, behind a wall of Zetian’s most loyal and powerful soldiers. Without warning, they all attacked at once.
She didn’t even hesitate.
In but a single minute, without a hint of mercy or pause, Wu Zetian slaughtered the elite guard she had cultivated with her own two hands. The deaths were swift and brutal. These loyal warriors, perhaps even companions, were now merely the same as the fallen Li soldiers that littered the streets. But perhaps that kind of death was a mercy in itself. The talismans leeched at the very soul to empower their victims, and agonizingly drove both mind and body to death- so Zetian killed them quickly. It was most efficient to end them before they could grow more powerful. Yes, that was why.
“...Well done!” Zhen remarked. The blood shed by Zetian had begun to pool at his feet. Awe was visible on his face, a horrified form of delight, as he slowly began to smile. It was an expression fit for the descent of a god. Zetian paused with an almost incredulous expression.
“It’s a bit too late for that, isn’t it, Li Zhen?”
“On the contrary…this is the moment I’ve been waiting for. Finally, you’ve bloomed into a flower that Gaozong would be proud of!” Zhen’s smile was now jolly, the sneer he had worn for decades all but gone. He spread his arms wide in a grand gesture and laughed. Zetian remained silent, almost daring him to speak further. The Prefect of Yu happily obliged.
“I knew from the very beginning that you had the drive to claw your way to the top. Those pitiful princes, ministers, prefects, and dukes…they languish in their role, blinded by the comfort of their titles. They lack the fire that a ruler needs, the cold blood of those born in hell. Only someone like you, who knows what it means to truly rise, could be worthy of the throne!”
“...And that’s why the Li Clan never gave me my due respect, eh?” Zetian cocked her head back. The ever-present flame in her eyes was almost cold.
Zhen nodded in glee. “But of course! If a woman were to rule at Gaozong’s side, or any of ours, we would accept only the finest. And you, dear Zetian, have become something beyond my wildest dreams.” He approached her as his grin turned manic. “A mind, body, and soul of finest steel…yes! That carnage just now proves it! You are the only one who can be my empress!”
“You expect me to join you?”
“The Li Clan remains mighty, despite your actions against us. We are your only true opposition. If we join hands, my empress, heaven and earth shall be ours to rule! So thank you, truly…for meeting my expectations.” Li Zhen’s eyes softened further now, his smile almost fatherly. Zetian had almost forgotten what such a smile looked like, even if Zhen’s was one with venom behind it. It was a warm venom. One she was nearly tempted to crave.
It was a pity she would have to destroy it too.
Zetian clenched her fists, steeling herself. And then she spoke. “My rise, my rule, what I’ve done then and today…not a single moment of it was for you, or anyone else. This power is mine and mine alone. For all your talk about the throne, Li Zhen…you’ve forgotten the most important thing of all.”
“Oh?”
“That there can only be one ruler.” She lunged directly at Zhen, just as coldly as she had done her own soldiers. As if his words had truly meant nothing to her.
Li Zhen had always been a prodigy. A genius of politics and war, of swordplay, and even of martial arts, which he had turned to out of sheer boredom. For his entire life, he had wanted nothing more than an equal. He prayed fervently that some twist of fate would place Zetian by his side. Not Gaozong’s or anyone else’s. A one-on-one fight with her was, truly, the culmination of that dream. But as Zetian parried, dodged, and blocked every single one of his blows, as if he were but a child with a stick, striking back over and over with force that shattered his armor and bones, the prodigy of the Li Clan realized that he had made a fatal mistake.
Wu Zetian was not his equal, and hadn’t been for a long time now. Perhaps she never even was. She had not simply met expectations- she had unquestionably surpassed them all.
BLACK TORTOISE’S SHELL
His strongest all-or-nothing strike didn’t move her an inch.
VERMILLION BIRD’S FLIGHT
Before he could even begin to follow up with a swing to her throat, she disappeared from sight. He turned around far too late. She was lunging for him.
DRAGON’S MIGHT
Zhen opened his mouth to choke out what he knew would be his final words. But faced with the wildfire burning in Zetian’s visage, with the bestial, almost hungering way she was now moving, what could he even say? It was only now that Li Zhen began to fathom what he had created.
WHITE TIGER’S CLAW
“Have we given rise to an empress, or a demon-”
Zetian’s whole body moved in a brutal downwards arc. The claw of a monster swept right through Zhen’s body, devastating it, tearing muscle and shattering bone, the armored, empowered prodigy little more than the weakest of peasants before its might. His life ended before he could even process his last, horrified thoughts.
Zhen’s corpse dropped to the floor in two. And next to it, with no one to see them in this secluded corner of Luoyang, as the battle began to die down, Wu Zetian simply looked upon her nemesis’ corpse, overcome by a hollow catharsis, the flame in her eyes now burning coldly. That last warm smile was something she had fought for decades to see, even if she herself had forgotten why. Yet it was unable to move her. Could she even move her own heart, at this point?
She had now slain Li Zhen with her own two hands. Her armies had already crushed many of the Li, and would end the rest of them soon. Zetian had conquered all possible opposition. But even as she stood atop a mountain of corpses and destroyed expectations, all those scornful eyes now looking towards her with reverence…she still felt that same empty, terrified hunger once the fearless rush of victory had passed. The hunger of a pitiful peasant girl destined for an unnamed and shallow grave. Even the throne wasn’t enough, nowhere near enough. She still wasn’t enough. She still had to prove herself more. Li Zhen and countless more had died, but their ghosts would gaze upon her forever.
The peak of the mountain was still a lonely place.
But even if it was lonely, it was safe for now. Neither blades or words, pointed towards her at all times, could even begin to reach her from where she stood. That was why Zetian had to keep climbing higher. All doubt and fear had to be banished. If she showed her constant hesitation, if any part of her was weak, then she’d fall in an instant, all the way back to the hell that lay below the earth. Back to the girl she used to be, and refused to admit she still was. To stay on the throne of heaven…Wu Zetian had to live as a devil.
Thus, Zetian remained standing. Not a single tear fell, and not a single tremor ran through her body. Whether it led to heaven or hell, she would continue walking the lonely path of an empress, paved with the corpses of friends and foes. She had no choice but to. Without hesitation, she ran to the raging battle ahead, not sparing a single moment of goodbye or prayer for her closest comrades. They had sacrificed themselves for a cold and ruthless empress, a ruler who would make China as strong as herself, and she intended to honor that.
Her country, her world, would never even begin to crumble. She would make sure of it. An empress never faltered, and an empress never relied on others. Even if the warmth- no, the absolute power she sought was impossibly distant, and fleeting in her grasp…she would chase it forever.
Even if she had to chase it all the way to the heavens.
The Arena
Zetian glared back at Tsukuyomi, her composure unshaken, but a burning, primal desire to conquer in her eyes. The moon god’s resolve remained unshaken. If anything, his face only softened with pity. But it seemed as if it was a battle to remain resolute, as if Zetian’s eyes were imposing her dominant will on the heavens themselves- it was as if Tsukuyomi was looking towards the peak of some unfathomable, treacherous mountain, and the dragon that reigned there as its ruler.
“The desperation of having nothing at all is what breeds the greatest hunger for power.” Solomon mused, a cool smile on his face. “And when one with such a craving actually reaches the heights that they seek, nothing in heaven and earth can stop them.”
“Wait, that makes no sense!” Legion interjected. “So she can control Demon Mind because…”
“Indeed. Wu Zetian has always been a human with the ‘greed’ of a demon. Perhaps even beyond one. That is her path as an iron empress, unchallenged by any in China. Only someone like her, one with an ‘ego’ that burns like an infernal flame, could ever harness Mammon to this extent…” His confident smile unwavering, Solomon turned his attention back to the arena.
“...You must have suffered greatl-” Tsukuyomi began.
“You shut up too, you patronizing asshole! As if I would care about the validation of those stuck up bastards, or even oh-so-almighty gods like you.” Tsukuyomi’s attempt at consolation was shut down by the ravings of Wu Zetian. Her words resonated with the moon god, the fiery glare she met him with shaking him to his core. She took a step forward and spread her arms, a grin and snarl simultaneously on her face as she continues.
“From the beginning, my throne has been mine and mine alone. I’ve fought, bled, and killed for no one except me, I clawed my way to the peak with my own two hands! And I’ll crush anything that wants to take that from me- I don’t care if it’s the heavens themselves! For I am…the Empress of China!”
A familiar figure in the audience smirked gleefully. “Wonderful! Show them the dragon’s fire that consumed all of China! Show them everything you are, my Empress!” Li Zhen roared out pridefully, the rest of the Li Clan with him. Their stands were surrounded by many of Zetian’s other fallen foes, watching intently. Li Jingye, Empress Wang, Sun Wanrong- regardless of their feelings, they all stood firm in their support, placing their faith in the one who had unquestionably crushed them all.
It didn’t matter what she had done to them, at least, not here and now. Zetian’s might was the single, immutable truth uniting them, a grand temple that had been built upon all their corpses. And they would uphold that embodiment of their China until the very end. As the Empress returned to her fearsome martial stance, firm as iron yet ready to rage like a flame, Tsukuyomi steeled himself and took a breath.
‘She does not have her demonic form activated…This is my chance! It’s now or never!’ He grasped his damaged haori in his hand and slung it towards Wu. The Empress was surprised with the newfound courage of Tsukuyomi, yet prepared herself all the same. It took only a single swipe of ‘Tiger Claw’ to shred the haori into pieces, but the brief distraction was enough for Tsukuyomi to reach her. His sword flashed through the air towards her leg, forcing the Empress to jump up with a feral glint in her eyes. He looked up, knowing just what to do next- but the brief moment of pause he gave before doing it was more than enough. Zetian lunged forth and swung, landing a palm strike to his ribs, and very nearly taking his head off with a turning kick, still grazing his cheek even as he ducked away. Tsukuyomi stepped back, grimacing but resolute as Zetian rushed at him once more.
“Don’t you dare hesitate like that again, boy!~”
“...You’re right! No more regrets!”
As he swung to intercept her, Zetian batted his blade down to the god’s side and closed in on the opening before Tsukuyomi. However, the young god steeled himself. It was just as he had planned- the creation of a second chance to execute that maneuver. Without hesitation, Tsukuyomi spat the blood pooling in his mouth into the eyes of his monstrous opponent.
“I can… NO! I WILL WIN!” He declared to the heavens, to the tune of a demented snigger from his opponent, before bringing the blade to her neck. A beheading fit for royalty. Yet, the Empress’ demonic eyes flashed open through the blood, and his blade was stopped firmly by her palm. Zetian diverted it to the side with a manic expression.
“What the..? Wait. Her pupils changed?!” Shock and horror palpated in Tsukuyomi’s brain as he realized that the demon mind had once again brought Zetian into her demonic state.
In the stands, Solomon laughed to himself as he observed the battle below. “It would appear that greed is truly the quality of a dragon, and you have achieved the pinnacle of it….well done Wu Zetian~”
“Oh my. So this is the ‘hunger’ that made her such a mighty empress…” Amaterasu mused to herself. Izanagi was now sweating slightly, his arm trembling in rage.
Mammon, meanwhile, was quivering, too shocked to even speak. Just what kind of relentless beast had Solomon bound him to? The demon, who walked through hell itself without a hint of fear, now felt as if he was in the presence of a monster.
Wu positioned herself in the same stance she had performed her White Tiger Assault in, before firing herself precariously towards the panicked God. Tsukuyomi’s eyes widened. He was too slow to dodge. He didn’t have enough momentum to parry. He couldn’t guard, or he’d be crushed under the blow’s pure power. Every option began to fade away in his mind, the Tsukuyomis of every possibility crushed by their foe…
Except the one he had finally found confidence in. The only way to advance was to move forward. Even if it was just this once, for a single strike and the rest of the battle afterwards, he was done hesitating. Here and now, he could go all out. He rushed forward, his blade surging with light.
This was the final stage of the self-mastery he had cultivated. At the end of the path of moonlight, the thousands of victories and twice as many failures forming it…simply stopped existing. The only truth remaining was this moment. To master one’s self meant to put one’s present self, all that they knew they were, into every single swing. And after so many years, Tsukuyomi’s blade and heart had finally become one shining light.
WHITE TIGER’S ASSAULT
PERPETUAL MOON CYCLE: HALF MOON
https://preview.redd.it/cjl9gbqb8n0d1.png?width=1011&format=png&auto=webp&s=d130842aaee35ab3a46277b2ca1988f56e157ee5
Tsukuyomi raised his blade up high, and sent it cascading down like a waterfall of pure surging moonlight, almost meteoric in its descent as radiant power wildly trailed behind it. At the same time, Zetian’s raging, hungering claw of a hand shot upwards in that same bloodthirsty arc of destruction.
“Oh my.” Thoth gasped. “Their power is beginning to approach that of Lucifer himself!”
“This is gonna be bloody.” Crowley cackled, gently rubbing his hands together.
“Yes! Crush that boy, Empress!” Li Zhen yelled. Both his fists were clenched in anticipation.
“...G…GO FOR IT, TSUKUYOMI!” cried out Izanami, raising one fist and nearly standing up from her chair.
It was a clash of pure unwavering will. Hell’s raw tenacity and heaven’s steeled resolve met in the form of a fist and blade, the flesh and light that burned in their hearts trying to consume the other entirely, the blast of their collision a passionate roar towards the sky.
“I won’t lose!” Tsukuyomi declared, tightening his grip and clenching his teeth.
“Eat shit!” Wu snarled, the grin on her face almost hungering.
With one last shout from both sides, as they poured all that blazed in their souls into the clash, it ended in a single, explosive instant. Tsukuyomi was blown away along with his sword, and tumbled across the arena floor, as Zetian was forced backwards in a burst of blinding moonlight, hissing in pain and nearly falling over- but standing her ground nonetheless as she dug one foot into the ground behind her.
Gaozong breathed a sigh of relief from his seat. Qin and the Li clan nearby, meanwhile, let out an invigorated cheer. “What a clash!” said the First Emperor with a grin. “Just a little more, and victory will be hers to seize!”
On the other side of the arena, Izanami yelped a bit, clutching Lucifer’s hand briefly. Tsukuyomi’s siblings looked on with concern, but not fear. Everyone in the room knew Tsukuyomi still wasn’t done. But just how much more did he have left to give?
“Tsukuyomi…damnit…” Metatron muttered, adjusting his glasses anxiously. Michael remained watching, his smile unusually firm as he spoke.
“Worry not, brother. His soul is still far from exhausted. And as his family, it’s our duty to watch until the very end…and to believe in him more than anyone else can!”
“...son of a bitch…” Wu mumbled to herself, observing the deep, frostbitten cut that had torn at her fingers. Small drops of blood seeped down and pooled below her, yet she stood tall and defiant. The blade had shattered upon impact and the claws had crippled Tsukuyomi to his knees…
“At least you died like a warrior, I will give you that mu-”
“I’m…not...done…yet…” The croaky voice of Tsukuyomi beckoned in her ears. Alarm and confusion arose, as Zetian watched the feeble god lift himself up with an empty, half-dead look on his face, yet determination in his eyes. ‘When did he become so persistent? I have crushed him time and time again, destroyed his blade and stolen his pride…From where does he draw strength?!”
https://preview.redd.it/cv35garf8n0d1.png?width=757&format=png&auto=webp&s=2dd9f788709d270b1587802483a30970fadc507e
Tsukuyomi looked down and noticed the blood that swam below him. ‘Am I dying? No…I can’t die yet…I don’t want to die…I suppose father, mother, and Michael would want me to live… Right…? I must try that, right father? This forbidden technique…’
The broken blade glowed before him as he exhaled a frigid air. Blood was coughed onto the ground, yet froze upon meeting his mist-like breath. His arm, covered in blood, cracked and began to tremble as it was now coated in shards of ice.
Wu looked towards him carefully, “I don’t like this at all.” Her instincts were raging at her. Primal instincts of the first of mankind suffering an age of ice, the opposite to their glorious fire, that killed all indiscriminately.
“I am sorry that you must experience this, Lady Zetian…It is a horrid power…Forgive me”
As Zeitan assumed a defensive stance, Tsukuyomi brought his blade before him, a fragile look in his posture.
“Tsuku…Yomi…!” Lucifer’s eyes widened, in a way they hadn’t since his earlier match. “Son… You truly… Have grown up…” His quiet voice held a mixture of realization, pride…but also a hint of anxiety, one of the emotions he discarded long ago. Metatron remained silent, sweat pouring down his brow, as Hanuel’s eyes widened next to him.
“He can’t be…!” Hanuel muttered. “Just what is he doing!?”
“Ahhh, Tsu-chan is about to do something splendid~ I wonder~ How will Wu-chan manage?” Dionysus' relaxed voice didn’t exactly match his eyes burning with passion and excitement.
“HA! What the fuck is he gonna do now?” Moros chanted, his eyes enchanted with excitement, his fingers burying into his hands as he awaited Tsukuyomi’s move.
“Hooh boy. I’m beginning to feel what I felt back in the center of the Hurikan again.” Da Vinci thought to himself in the infirmary, still in too much pain to speak.
Izanagi watched with a snarl, taking a deep breath of frustration at what he believed was Tsukuyomi’s incompetence. Amaterasu simply continued to watch unperturbed, an interested twinkle in her eyes. She turned to the sword-wielding god nearby and spoke with her head tilted curiously.
“Oh, Mikazuchi. Isn’t he doing the same thing as you? Or is it another one of his father’s techniques…” Amaterasu’s words were light, almost teasing. The masked god shook her head and crossed her arms as she replied with a sigh.
“Of course not. Every ‘sword’ in the world is different. Whatever he’s about to do…is something that only he can pull off.”
“This is your final test Zetian, will you manage to overcome your final obstacle, prove to everyone who ever doubted you, how wrong they were…Or fall trying” Even the ever-so collected Solomon had his full attention on the fight.
“Oh? No matter…whatever that brat god tries, our empress can overcome it! Isn’t that right?!” Li Zhen shouted. A confident smile was on his face as the cheers of his clan erupted around him, Gaozong watching intently nearby.
“Well gods, angels and men!” Thoth announced triumphantly. “Prepare yourselves, because the climax of the battle starts here!”
“Please, Tsukuyomi…win and come home.” Izanami’s voice was strangely calm, her hands clasped together as if praying. All her anxiety and confidence towards her son seemed to have vanished together, leaving only the nothingness of what was to come.
He twisted his grip on the handle, pointing the tip of the glimmering moonlight at himself. He took a deep breath before plunging it deep inside him, twisting the blade in his guts.
“The fu-!!!” Wu was startled by his suicidal display, before realising the temperature had dropped far below its former warmth. She looked to the ground and only barely avoided the expanding permafrost that encased the castle. Had she not jumped, she would have surely been trapped.
The blood that dropped from his back shot out with the thrust of the sword, yet seemed to freeze instantly. Their chilled form intensified, and became reminiscent of the wings of an angel.
The frozen wings of glimmering ice, the coming of Fimbulvetr…
submitted by MUI-Tojo to ShuumatsuNoValkyrie [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 21:11 VaporWavey420 Getting back into the market after 6 year hiatus, running low on $$

We are in a popular west coast college town and rented our duplex out from 2016 to 2018 with a gross return of about 50k per year. We closed the property to move in and take care of my wife's grandma who passed just this last September.
We are now wanting to get back into the market.
After grandma passed and the dust settled we opted to renovate her side. The interior is almost done and everything is purchased. Only thing left is to install the cabinets and countertops as well as the flooring. We probably have about 10k left or less on the interior.
However, we still have to repair the yard and paint the exterior and get a new roof.
I have some questions:
  1. Are there companies that will help invest in the property and set it up including furnishing for a percentage of the profits until paid off? Maybe a mortgage would be a better option since the property is owned free and clear? Just curious if anyone has any ideas.
  2. Since our property is in a great location next to miles of paved river-side trails, 10 minutes to the University, 2 minutes from downtown, and less than a mile from tons of restaurants and breweries..what if we just did what we could and spelled out clear expectations by letting guests know this is a work in progress and lowering prices? Has anyone been in a similar situation with a similar property? Beautiful interior but exterior needs work.
  3. How different now as compared to 2018? Back then we were one of the best properties in the market and got regular bookings throughout the slow season. I've heard that people are a lot more entitled and harder to deal with now.. Don't know if that's just them but was curious if anyone else had the same experience. That said our neightbors property is great but isn't really a competitor with ours as it's a completely different feel/aesthetic.. Another thing, when we were renting I also found well-to-do people were very really gracious and chill and the problem creators were usually middle/working class..just a strange observation. I would have thought is was the opposite but some of them did remind me of the episode of southpark about Yelp haha. Wasn't a huge deal 99% of our reviews over 115-120 visits were 5 star reviews.
  4. Our curb appeal at the moment sucks. We need a new paint job, our roof needs replaced and is not aesthetically appealing (no leaks fortunately), and our yard has some mossy spots and we need to power wash everything. Plus we have some siding missing (not a lot) in the backyard as a result of the renovation. Like I said, our interior is going to be beautiful at least.
  5. We had it setup previously where we offered easy cancellation to people and had it setup in a way that we could turn down any visitor for any reason without being penalized, is that still achievable? It's just whenever we allowed a guest to stay that gave us strange vibes, something happened. We learned through this experience that our gut was always right.
Any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated.
submitted by VaporWavey420 to airbnb_hosts [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 21:07 rephlexi0n Disagreement "I should've just gone to Walmart"

NoSleep link
“Ugh, Emma, can you get the trunk for me?”
The dim winter sun was setting over the parking lot, nearly devoid of shoppers at this late hour, aside from a van in one distant corner that had just started backing out of its spot.
I set my bag down in the passenger seat and rounded the side of my mum’s penicillium-green Camry, met with her impatient and lightly sweating face. I popped the trunk, allowing her to practically collapse into it with the weight of the groceries. Something burst in one of the bags, prompting her to curse under her breath.
“I just don’t get why you won’t stick a quarter in those trolleys over there. You get it back afterwards.”
Mum, still arranging the bags into a position that would stop them toppling over on the drive home, looked at me scornfully.
“The Walmart downtown doesn’t make you pay. None of the stores around here do, so why should I? You know we only come here to Aldi ‘cause it’s cheaper.”
“I just said you get the quarter back afterwards. It’s to make sure people put the trolleys back,” I sighed, knowing there was no swaying her. Instead of shooting back with some flimsy reasoning, mum patted her pockets and swore.
“Oh for goodness sake, I’ve gone and left my wallet at the till again, haven’t I?”
Before I could get a word out, she was gone like a rocket, racing against the store’s closing time. Night’s chill descended, raising gooseflesh, so I slammed the trunk and hopped back into the passenger seat, out of the cold.
I sat there, praying my mum had the haste to get back soon with the keys and start up the heating. There was something else, though. My heart made itself known with a rising, incessant pulse. Was something wrong?
“Not this again,” I groaned, shutting my eyes and following a basic breathing routine to calm my nerves. The anxiety was bad enough, but the anger I felt at the nonsense panic had always been worse for me.
“Just stop it. Lasagna’s waiting for us at home. It’s gonna be so g–”
I opened my eyes.
Had I heard something? No, not heard, felt? I leaned forward to scan the parking lot. Nothing. Then I jumped back in my seat. There it was again. It was subtle, so much so I was surprised I’d even noticed it. A light, but bone-deep vibration was emanating from somewhere. Almost like someone nearby was subtly trying to pull down on a gigantic zipper, one tooth at a time. The comparison should’ve sounded silly, but my heart continued to pound faster and faster until I was sure beyond a doubt that something bad would happen. Something was wrong.
It took me longer than I’d have liked to get out, with the seat belt clamping as I struggled to unbuckle. There was no smell in the air. Did it smell before? I couldn’t remember. No more cars in the lot, only the Camry. No more noise.
Again, that slight vibration in the air. Too low a frequency to determine its source, but enough to sense it was there. I tilted my head, staring up at lumpy clouds that cast shadows on each other. Ah, those clouds. I’ve always loved how they look around sundown. It helped to ease my heart a little.
Until one of the shadows moved.
I’m not stupid, I thought it was just a cloud’s shadow matching its slow drift across the sky - I squinted. The shadow wasn’t being cast on a cloud. It was above, or behind them, which made me realise whatever I was seeing, it wasn’t a shadow.
What happened next is hard to articulate. I’ve never seen anything else like it, before or since. The dark mass above the clouds began to sort of extend, beaming down at an angle, like sun rays but moving at a steady pace, or how water or ink moves up paper by way of capillary action. A black beam. But, it was more than that.
I was so absorbed in the spectacle, it hadn’t fully dawned on me that this thing was getting closer. Closer to me. And as it closed in, there was no mistaking it. While it continued to stretch all the way back above the clouds, the outline of it, the cross-section, was almost human-shaped. Arms, head, body, and legs, but the limbs ended in stunted nubs, like a stick figure.
By the time it stopped a good three or four storeys above, I still hadn’t moved. I couldn’t. I could do nothing but watch in disbelief as lights and layers of colour began to flash inside the human-ish figure, seeming to have parallax, as if whatever lay beyond was a space of its own.
Amazingly, something managed to distract me for a moment. A flash of light in my peripheral. A phone torch.
“Emma? Emma! Are you having a stroke or something?”
I blinked.
“What– no? I mean, I…”
Mum was back, apparently still without her wallet, now scanning the asphalt for any sign of it. Why didn’t I hear her coming back?
She clicked her tongue.
“Then stop standing there like an idiot and help me find it. Come on, it’s getting late.”
I did, in fact, keep standing there, glancing between her and the flashing shadow prism above us. I did a double take. Those glaringly bright, almost offensively coloured layers were speeding up towards the end of the beam, towards me, piling up on themselves to assemble a figure, stepping soundlessly out into thin air.
Mum kept calling for me. I heard her, but couldn’t process her words. Everything else was secondary to the figure above us. It had fully formed, cloaked in a coarse-looking gown, with skin so pale and shadeless it was as if it radiated a faint glow. The sound of rapid footsteps brought me back to myself, and I looked down just in time to see my mum, face painted in a teetering mixture of worry and annoyance. She went to speak but I held up a hand, and pointed to the figure.
Squinting at me, she looked to where I was pointing, and froze. The whole time, I’d secretly been hoping I was just hallucinating, but she saw it too. She saw something, at least, and that was enough to confirm what I’d been dreading.
“...who is that?” she asked. Her voice sounded so small and dry. If I could’ve spoken I’d have asked, “what is that?”
Instead, I watched on in terror as the figure began a slow descent, straight down. The closer it drew, the more of it I could make out. There were these iridescent lines floating across the surface of its skin, moving like sun patterns on the bottom of a swimming pool. Like the silhouette it had emerged from, it had no hands or feet. Just rounded nubs, although those on its arms had the same slight depression in the centre.
“Car… the car. Mum, the car, get in the car, now,” I whispered. No response. I reached out, grabbing her by the arm and shaking her. She was absolutely rigid. One of us had to move, and I imagined we were both hoping the other would do so.
A second figure emerged from the prism, identical to the first, except it was wearing a plain T-shirt and shorts. At the same time, the first one finally touched down on the asphalt and stood, tilting its head up, apparently waiting for the other to arrive.
If I had any lingering doubt that these things weren’t human, it was squashed when I saw their faces - or, lack thereof. I couldn’t see any ears, and where a face should’ve been was only a circular metal grate. Maybe gold, or brass.
The four of us stood there, still and silent. They stared at us, and we stared right back, completely lost in the foreign sight of the beings. A breath, then they turned to each other. I don’t know if I expected them to talk, but they didn’t. Not in any language I know. Faint at first, getting brighter with every pulse, constellations began to flash behind the metal face-grates of each of them. I heard nothing aside from a few damped vibrations, yet somehow, I knew there was a conversation going on.
Very slowly, I took a step back, and reached an arm behind me to feel for the car. All the while, my eyes stayed locked on the beings. I kept reaching, further and further. My fingers brushed nothing but air.
One of them abruptly turned and looked at me, or at mum, I couldn’t tell. My chest tightened. This wasn’t happening. It raised one stunted arm to point at my mum, releasing another cascade of flashing lights behind its grill face. The other crossed its arms and looked over too, like it was waiting for something.
I had to risk it. I pivoted, throwing a glance over my shoulder. The car was twenty, maybe twenty-five feet away. I didn’t remember wandering that far from it. I noticed something else then: the trees, the grass, all of the greenery surrounding the parking lot was… gone. It gave me the impression of a planet that had never evolved life, or where all life was extinct. There was only bare, dark soil enclosing the lot.
Seconds before I went for the car, mum let out a scream. One that I still hear from time to time, in dreams and background noise. I spun around to see the first being, the one wearing a gown, gliding across the ground with an arm outstretched. Mum didn’t have time to move. It came to a dead stop before her, arm still raised, and I saw something emerging from the small depression at the end of its stump - what I now understood was a hole. Whatever came out was darker than the night sky, and I couldn’t place its shape, but it looked like it was made out of a mass of ever-shifting black crystals.
Mum screamed again. It was more of a gasp actually, a gasp that lasted barely a second before a bubble broke free of the shifting appendage and fixed itself over her mouth, silencing her. Another four floated down to her wrists and ankles, binding her in place and stopping her from moving as one more broke off from the being. It looked a little like an arrowhead, or some other sharp, triangular tool, a razor edge cutting through the air and hovering just over her stomach.
I understood the danger then - not for me, but her. Abandoning caution, I leapt forward, yelling,
“Get away from her!”
But I rolled my ankle and went crashing down onto cold, hard asphalt. Dazed, I tried to lift myself, and managed to look up at the beings with blood pouring from my nose and a cut on my cheek. The one in front of my mum barely seemed to notice me, giving me a quick look then getting back to the matter at hand, whatever that was.
Mum squirmed against her restraints, issuing muffled groans through her nose. I forced my limbs to work, but I was held fast. Mounds of that shifting black crystal had smothered my hands, binding them to the ground.
I looked at my mum, helpless, terrified. She met my eyes, blinked away a tear, and squeezed her eyelids shut. At the back, the being wearing a T-shirt made some kind of gesture, like it was impatient, and the robed being nodded, turning back to mum and directing the arrow-shaped object. At the same time, her blouse began to lift up and off her, pulled by an invisible force and exposing her belly. The being hesitated for a second, and I felt a spark of hope, that it might show mercy.
But of course it didn’t.
The dark arrowhead pressed into her skin, slicing through layers like butter and dragging a line downwards, leaving a clean incision. Wasting no time, the being reached inside, fiddled around for a moment, then pulled out the severed end of my mum’s intestine. Blood and shit splattered the ground, trailing away from her as the being floated backwards, keeping hold of the organ until it was stretched to its full length.
I tasted bile.
“STOP! You fucks, you fucking–”
A gush of vomit interrupted me, flooding out onto the ground and mixing in with the intestinal fluids to create a disgusting, speckled pattern which prompted another wave of vomit from me and tears to cloud my vision.
“Please…”
I wiped my sleeve over my eyes so I could see. The being in a T-shirt had a long, pole-shaped protrusion stretching out from the end of its arm, extending to match the length of my mother’s intestines. It studied something for a second, before shrugging, and nodding at the robed being.
In the blink of an eye, the intestines retracted back like a frightened snake and piled back inside mum’s body. I just stared, not able to understand. The sides of the incision pulled into each other and appeared to heal completely in a matter of seconds. As soon as I’d processed this, I felt my restraints slacken then disappear entirely, and I shot to my feet, nearly tripping over again, and grasped onto mum’s arm.
I pulled, under the assumption that she’d been released. She wasn’t. Why weren’t they letting her go?
Freezing up, I cranked my head to look at the beings. More flashing lights. The one in a T-shirt was handing something over to the other, but I couldn’t see anything passing between them. Maybe it was something invisible, or something my mind just wasn’t built to perceive.
I continued to tug mechanically, trying to free her. Her skin was cold and slick and she was shivering. It did no good. The black crystal held fast. I nearly collapsed in relief and shock when the robed figure began to ascend back up to the prism it had come from, but the other grabbed onto its gown, communicating something. The robed being dropped back down, but threw its arms out in what I’d guessed was frustration. T-shirt gestured towards us again, still conversing with the other, waving its arms around. Still, the robed figure seemed to acquiesce and slid across the ground towards us again. Lights continued to flash behind its grill-face, all varying shades of orange and red. Like it was angry.
I couldn’t let it happen again, and lunged at it, planning to do - I don’t really know. I just wanted to protect my mum. Right as I made contact with the being, I felt a shift in the air. The fluid in my ears swirled. It made me dizzy. When my eyes stopped rolling to the side, I realised I was being held still by two pale, stunted arms, with odd patches of hot and cold travelling around on its skin. Somehow, I’d wound up in the arms of the being wearing a T-shirt, and those arms held me tight, tighter than any living thing should be able to.
“GET THE FUCK OFF ME!!” I screamed, flailing and lashing out. In a desperate bet for escape I tried to bite down on one of its arms. It felt like I’d been curb stomped, like I’d bitten down full-force on granite.
I kind of gave up after that. It just hurt too much to think. Instead, I took in my surroundings. Where was I again? Mum… mum.
The robed being was standing in the way of her, but it was doing something. I couldn’t see what, but by the way mum was squealing behind her gag, it made the first procedure sound like a pillow fight. I just cried. There was no other avenue for relief except the tears.
Then, everything went quiet. Mum trailed off into a whine, and then nothing. No wind, and no trees or leaves rustling, because they’d all vanished. Just me, mum, and these things. The one holding me loosened its grip and I gasped, gulping down stagnant air. It floated over to where mum was and the robed being stepped aside, finally letting me see what was happening.
I didn’t really want to know. I really, really didn’t. But my muscles were locked in place.
In one… hand? The robed being held one end of an artery it had pulled out of mum’s chest. Without warning, the two entities shot up into the air, coming to a halt somewhere above. As they moved, more blood vessels phased through the skin of mum’s body, contorting and straightening to fuse at their ends, forming an unholy, pulsing rope.
With speed faster than I could process, the beings flew away, vanishing into the night while clutching the single fused vessel of veins, arteries, and capillaries. There was blood, yes, but only a little. It all seemed to be contained in that one long tube they continued to pull along through the atmosphere.
From the opposite direction, they passed once. I saw them pass over one more time and disappear into the distance before the meaty vessel pulled taut. At the time, I hadn’t really pieced it together - I think they’d looped around the entire planet. Not once, but twice, and then some, in what couldn’t have been more than ten seconds.
I blinked, and they were back, standing in the parking lot and flashing their lights at each other. I didn’t even have the energy to whisper in protest. T-shirt looked reluctant in some way, and handed over more of something I couldn’t see to the robed entity.
As they did this, the red string they’d made from mum’s blood vessels pulled back by itself at impossible speeds, retracting out of over two loops of planet Earth and back into my mum, breaking apart, phasing back inside and reassembling into their proper structure. That’s what I’d guessed, anyway.
Glassy eyed and so, so pale, the crystalline restraints dissolved and my mum slumped limp to the ground. I stood motionless for a second before realising my own restraints were gone as well, and I bolted over to her.
I was whispering something. Assurances, maybe apologies, I can’t remember. The two beings watched us, then they ascended, back up to the dark prism and out of sight. It began to pull back, up into the sky, and when I blinked, all the trees and the grass were back.
It all felt normal. Almost normal. The only change was that the sky was a little darker, and my mum felt a little colder. Then a lot colder. I placed two fingers on her neck. There was no pulse.
When the paramedics arrived, they rushed over to us. Their movements were frantic but controlled. Just thirty seconds later, that urgent energy was gone, replaced by a dull rhythm that told me all I needed to know.
She was pronounced dead on scene.
The coroner later concluded that mum had simply ‘died’. No cause could be found, but brain damage signified a level of hypoxia. I guess that’s what happens when your blood is outside of you, even if just for a minute.
Strangely, I found my anxiety to diminish after that night. It still flares up now and then, but most of the time, there’s just this hollow feeling in its place. I don’t go to Aldi anymore. Seems silly to mull over something like that, but I can’t even be near those big parking lots now. I get my groceries delivered.
Maybe it sounds like I’m managing - I am. Inside, though, there’s a crack that can’t be fixed, can’t be filled. It’s worn down over time, gotten less jagged and easier to deal with. Things don’t really shock me anymore, or at least, the shock is dulled.
There will be no justice for her. Even if I sought it, I doubt we could ever even access whatever plane those beings hail from. Whatever power we think we have, all those things see when they look at us is a world of monkeys, banging stones together. I’m sure of it.
In fact, I’m willing to bet on it.
As much as they bet on my mum.
submitted by rephlexi0n to rephlect [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 21:01 rephlexi0n I should've just gone to Walmart

“Ugh, Emma, can you get the trunk for me?”
The dim winter sun was setting over the parking lot, nearly devoid of shoppers at this late hour, aside from a van in one distant corner that had just started backing out of its spot.
I set my bag down in the passenger seat and rounded the side of my mum’s penicillium-green Camry, met with her impatient and lightly sweating face. I popped the trunk, allowing her to practically collapse into it with the weight of the groceries. Something burst in one of the bags, prompting her to curse under her breath.
“I just don’t get why you won’t stick a quarter in those trolleys over there. You get it back afterwards.”
Mum, still arranging the bags into a position that would stop them toppling over on the drive home, looked at me scornfully.
“The Walmart downtown doesn’t make you pay. None of the stores around here do, so why should I? You know we only come here to Aldi ‘cause it’s cheaper.”
“I just said you get the quarter back afterwards. It’s to make sure people put the trolleys back,” I sighed, knowing there was no swaying her. Instead of shooting back with some flimsy reasoning, mum patted her pockets and swore.
“Oh for goodness sake, I’ve gone and left my wallet at the till again, haven’t I?”
Before I could get a word out, she was gone like a rocket, racing against the store’s closing time. Night’s chill descended, raising gooseflesh, so I slammed the trunk and hopped back into the passenger seat, out of the cold.
I sat there, praying my mum had the haste to get back soon with the keys and start up the heating. There was something else, though. My heart made itself known with a rising, incessant pulse. Was something wrong?
“Not this again,” I groaned, shutting my eyes and following a basic breathing routine to calm my nerves. The anxiety was bad enough, but the anger I felt at the nonsense panic had always been worse for me.
“Just stop it. Lasagna’s waiting for us at home. It’s gonna be so g–”
I opened my eyes.
Had I heard something? No, not heard, felt? I leaned forward to scan the parking lot. Nothing. Then I jumped back in my seat. There it was again. It was subtle, so much so I was surprised I’d even noticed it. A light, but bone-deep vibration was emanating from somewhere. Almost like someone nearby was subtly trying to pull down on a gigantic zipper, one tooth at a time. The comparison should’ve sounded silly, but my heart continued to pound faster and faster until I was sure beyond a doubt that something bad would happen. Something was wrong.
It took me longer than I’d have liked to get out, with the seat belt clamping as I struggled to unbuckle. There was no smell in the air. Did it smell before? I couldn’t remember. No more cars in the lot, only the Camry. No more noise.
Again, that slight vibration in the air. Too low a frequency to determine its source, but enough to sense it was there. I tilted my head, staring up at lumpy clouds that cast shadows on each other. Ah, those clouds. I’ve always loved how they look around sundown. It helped to ease my heart a little.
Until one of the shadows moved.
I’m not stupid, I thought it was just a cloud’s shadow matching its slow drift across the sky - I squinted. The shadow wasn’t being cast on a cloud. It was above, or behind them, which made me realise whatever I was seeing, it wasn’t a shadow.
What happened next is hard to articulate. I’ve never seen anything else like it, before or since. The dark mass above the clouds began to sort of extend, beaming down at an angle, like sun rays but moving at a steady pace, or how water or ink moves up paper by way of capillary action. A black beam. But, it was more than that.
I was so absorbed in the spectacle, it hadn’t fully dawned on me that this thing was getting closer. Closer to me. And as it closed in, there was no mistaking it. While it continued to stretch all the way back above the clouds, the outline of it, the cross-section, was almost human-shaped. Arms, head, body, and legs, but the limbs ended in stunted nubs, like a stick figure.
By the time it stopped a good three or four storeys above, I still hadn’t moved. I couldn’t. I could do nothing but watch in disbelief as lights and layers of colour began to flash inside the human-ish figure, seeming to have parallax, as if whatever lay beyond was a space of its own.
Amazingly, something managed to distract me for a moment. A flash of light in my peripheral. A phone torch.
“Emma? Emma! Are you having a stroke or something?”
I blinked.
“What– no? I mean, I…”
Mum was back, apparently still without her wallet, now scanning the asphalt for any sign of it. Why didn’t I hear her coming back?
She clicked her tongue.
“Then stop standing there like an idiot and help me find it. Come on, it’s getting late.”
I did, in fact, keep standing there, glancing between her and the flashing shadow prism above us. I did a double take. Those glaringly bright, almost offensively coloured layers were speeding up towards the end of the beam, towards me, piling up on themselves to assemble a figure, stepping soundlessly out into thin air.
Mum kept calling for me. I heard her, but couldn’t process her words. Everything else was secondary to the figure above us. It had fully formed, cloaked in a coarse-looking gown, with skin so pale and shadeless it was as if it radiated a faint glow. The sound of rapid footsteps brought me back to myself, and I looked down just in time to see my mum, face painted in a teetering mixture of worry and annoyance. She went to speak but I held up a hand, and pointed to the figure.
Squinting at me, she looked to where I was pointing, and froze. The whole time, I’d secretly been hoping I was just hallucinating, but she saw it too. She saw something, at least, and that was enough to confirm what I’d been dreading.
“...who is that?” she asked. Her voice sounded so small and dry. If I could’ve spoken I’d have asked, “what is that?”
Instead, I watched on in terror as the figure began a slow descent, straight down. The closer it drew, the more of it I could make out. There were these iridescent lines floating across the surface of its skin, moving like sun patterns on the bottom of a swimming pool. Like the silhouette it had emerged from, it had no hands or feet. Just rounded nubs, although those on its arms had the same slight depression in the centre.
“Car… the car. Mum, the car, get in the car, now,” I whispered. No response. I reached out, grabbing her by the arm and shaking her. She was absolutely rigid. One of us had to move, and I imagined we were both hoping the other would do so.
A second figure emerged from the prism, identical to the first, except it was wearing a plain T-shirt and shorts. At the same time, the first one finally touched down on the asphalt and stood, tilting its head up, apparently waiting for the other to arrive.
If I had any lingering doubt that these things weren’t human, it was squashed when I saw their faces - or, lack thereof. I couldn’t see any ears, and where a face should’ve been was only a circular metal grate. Maybe gold, or brass.
The four of us stood there, still and silent. They stared at us, and we stared right back, completely lost in the foreign sight of the beings. A breath, then they turned to each other. I don’t know if I expected them to talk, but they didn’t. Not in any language I know. Faint at first, getting brighter with every pulse, constellations began to flash behind the metal face-grates of each of them. I heard nothing aside from a few damped vibrations, yet somehow, I knew there was a conversation going on.
Very slowly, I took a step back, and reached an arm behind me to feel for the car. All the while, my eyes stayed locked on the beings. I kept reaching, further and further. My fingers brushed nothing but air.
One of them abruptly turned and looked at me, or at mum, I couldn’t tell. My chest tightened. This wasn’t happening. It raised one stunted arm to point at my mum, releasing another cascade of flashing lights behind its grill face. The other crossed its arms and looked over too, like it was waiting for something.
I had to risk it. I pivoted, throwing a glance over my shoulder. The car was twenty, maybe twenty-five feet away. I didn’t remember wandering that far from it. I noticed something else then: the trees, the grass, all of the greenery surrounding the parking lot was… gone. It gave me the impression of a planet that had never evolved life, or where all life was extinct. There was only bare, dark soil enclosing the lot.
Seconds before I went for the car, mum let out a scream. One that I still hear from time to time, in dreams and background noise. I spun around to see the first being, the one wearing a gown, gliding across the ground with an arm outstretched. Mum didn’t have time to move. It came to a dead stop before her, arm still raised, and I saw something emerging from the small depression at the end of its stump - what I now understood was a hole. Whatever came out was darker than the night sky, and I couldn’t place its shape, but it looked like it was made out of a mass of ever-shifting black crystals.
Mum screamed again. It was more of a gasp actually, a gasp that lasted barely a second before a bubble broke free of the shifting appendage and fixed itself over her mouth, silencing her. Another four floated down to her wrists and ankles, binding her in place and stopping her from moving as one more broke off from the being. It looked a little like an arrowhead, or some other sharp, triangular tool, a razor edge cutting through the air and hovering just over her stomach.
I understood the danger then - not for me, but her. Abandoning caution, I leapt forward, yelling,
“Get away from her!”
But I rolled my ankle and went crashing down onto cold, hard asphalt. Dazed, I tried to lift myself, and managed to look up at the beings with blood pouring from my nose and a cut on my cheek. The one in front of my mum barely seemed to notice me, giving me a quick look then getting back to the matter at hand, whatever that was.
Mum squirmed against her restraints, issuing muffled groans through her nose. I forced my limbs to work, but I was held fast. Mounds of that shifting black crystal had smothered my hands, binding them to the ground.
I looked at my mum, helpless, terrified. She met my eyes, blinked away a tear, and squeezed her eyelids shut. At the back, the being wearing a T-shirt made some kind of gesture, like it was impatient, and the robed being nodded, turning back to mum and directing the arrow-shaped object. At the same time, her blouse began to lift up and off her, pulled by an invisible force and exposing her belly. The being hesitated for a second, and I felt a spark of hope, that it might show mercy.
But of course it didn’t.
The dark arrowhead pressed into her skin, slicing through layers like butter and dragging a line downwards, leaving a clean incision. Wasting no time, the being reached inside, fiddled around for a moment, then pulled out the severed end of my mum’s intestine. Blood and shit splattered the ground, trailing away from her as the being floated backwards, keeping hold of the organ until it was stretched to its full length.
I tasted bile.
“STOP! You fucks, you fucking–”
A gush of vomit interrupted me, flooding out onto the ground and mixing in with the intestinal fluids to create a disgusting, speckled pattern which prompted another wave of vomit from me and tears to cloud my vision.
“Please…”
I wiped my sleeve over my eyes so I could see. The being in a T-shirt had a long, pole-shaped protrusion stretching out from the end of its arm, extending to match the length of my mother’s intestines. It studied something for a second, before shrugging, and nodding at the robed being.
In the blink of an eye, the intestines retracted back like a frightened snake and piled back inside mum’s body. I just stared, not able to understand. The sides of the incision pulled into each other and appeared to heal completely in a matter of seconds. As soon as I’d processed this, I felt my restraints slacken then disappear entirely, and I shot to my feet, nearly tripping over again, and grasped onto mum’s arm.
I pulled, under the assumption that she’d been released. She wasn’t. Why weren’t they letting her go?
Freezing up, I cranked my head to look at the beings. More flashing lights. The one in a T-shirt was handing something over to the other, but I couldn’t see anything passing between them. Maybe it was something invisible, or something my mind just wasn’t built to perceive.
I continued to tug mechanically, trying to free her. Her skin was cold and slick and she was shivering. It did no good. The black crystal held fast. I nearly collapsed in relief and shock when the robed figure began to ascend back up to the prism it had come from, but the other grabbed onto its gown, communicating something. The robed being dropped back down, but threw its arms out in what I’d guessed was frustration. T-shirt gestured towards us again, still conversing with the other, waving its arms around. Still, the robed figure seemed to acquiesce and slid across the ground towards us again. Lights continued to flash behind its grill-face, all varying shades of orange and red. Like it was angry.
I couldn’t let it happen again, and lunged at it, planning to do - I don’t really know. I just wanted to protect my mum. Right as I made contact with the being, I felt a shift in the air. The fluid in my ears swirled. It made me dizzy. When my eyes stopped rolling to the side, I realised I was being held still by two pale, stunted arms, with odd patches of hot and cold travelling around on its skin. Somehow, I’d wound up in the arms of the being wearing a T-shirt, and those arms held me tight, tighter than any living thing should be able to.
“GET THE FUCK OFF ME!!” I screamed, flailing and lashing out. In a desperate bet for escape I tried to bite down on one of its arms. It felt like I’d been curb stomped, like I’d bitten down full-force on granite.
I kind of gave up after that. It just hurt too much to think. Instead, I took in my surroundings. Where was I again? Mum… mum.
The robed being was standing in the way of her, but it was doing something. I couldn’t see what, but by the way mum was squealing behind her gag, it made the first procedure sound like a pillow fight. I just cried. There was no other avenue for relief except the tears.
Then, everything went quiet. Mum trailed off into a whine, and then nothing. No wind, and no trees or leaves rustling, because they’d all vanished. Just me, mum, and these things. The one holding me loosened its grip and I gasped, gulping down stagnant air. It floated over to where mum was and the robed being stepped aside, finally letting me see what was happening.
I didn’t really want to know. I really, really didn’t. But my muscles were locked in place.
In one… hand? The robed being held one end of an artery it had pulled out of mum’s chest. Without warning, the two entities shot up into the air, coming to a halt somewhere above. As they moved, more blood vessels phased through the skin of mum’s body, contorting and straightening to fuse at their ends, forming an unholy, pulsing rope.
With speed faster than I could process, the beings flew away, vanishing into the night while clutching the single fused vessel of veins, arteries, and capillaries. There was blood, yes, but only a little. It all seemed to be contained in that one long tube they continued to pull along through the atmosphere.
From the opposite direction, they passed once. I saw them pass over one more time and disappear into the distance before the meaty vessel pulled taut. At the time, I hadn’t really pieced it together - I think they’d looped around the entire planet. Not once, but twice, and then some, in what couldn’t have been more than ten seconds.
I blinked, and they were back, standing in the parking lot and flashing their lights at each other. I didn’t even have the energy to whisper in protest. T-shirt looked reluctant in some way, and handed over more of something I couldn’t see to the robed entity.
As they did this, the red string they’d made from mum’s blood vessels pulled back by itself at impossible speeds, retracting out of over two loops of planet Earth and back into my mum, breaking apart, phasing back inside and reassembling into their proper structure. That’s what I’d guessed, anyway.
Glassy eyed and so, so pale, the crystalline restraints dissolved and my mum slumped limp to the ground. I stood motionless for a second before realising my own restraints were gone as well, and I bolted over to her.
I was whispering something. Assurances, maybe apologies, I can’t remember. The two beings watched us, then they ascended, back up to the dark prism and out of sight. It began to pull back, up into the sky, and when I blinked, all the trees and the grass were back.
It all felt normal. Almost normal. The only change was that the sky was a little darker, and my mum felt a little colder. Then a lot colder. I placed two fingers on her neck. There was no pulse.
When the paramedics arrived, they rushed over to us. Their movements were frantic but controlled. Just thirty seconds later, that urgent energy was gone, replaced by a dull rhythm that told me all I needed to know.
She was pronounced dead on scene.
The coroner later concluded that mum had simply ‘died’. No cause could be found, but brain damage signified a level of hypoxia. I guess that’s what happens when your blood is outside of you, even if just for a minute.
Strangely, I found my anxiety to diminish after that night. It still flares up now and then, but most of the time, there’s just this hollow feeling in its place. I don’t go to Aldi anymore. Seems silly to mull over something like that, but I can’t even be near those big parking lots now. I get my groceries delivered.
Maybe it sounds like I’m managing - I am. Inside, though, there’s a crack that can’t be fixed, can’t be filled. It’s worn down over time, gotten less jagged and easier to deal with. Things don’t really shock me anymore, or at least, the shock is dulled.
There will be no justice for her. Even if I sought it, I doubt we could ever even access whatever plane those beings hail from. Whatever power we think we have, all those things see when they look at us is a world of monkeys, banging stones together. I’m sure of it.
In fact, I’m willing to bet on it.
As much as they bet on my mum.
submitted by rephlexi0n to nosleep [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 20:58 VaporWavey420 Running short on funds/unable to launch

We are in a popular west coast college town and rented our duplex out from 2016 to 2018 with a gross return of about 50k per year. We closed the property to move in and take care of my wife's grandma who passed just this last September.
We are now wanting to get back into the market.
After grandma passed and the dust settled we opted to renovate her side. The interior is almost done and everything is purchased. Only thing left is to install the cabinets and countertops as well as the flooring. We probably have about 10k left or less on the interior.
However, we still have to repair the yard and paint the exterior and get a new roof.
I have some questions:
  1. Are there companies that will help invest in the property and set it up including furnishing for a percentage of the profits until paid off? Maybe a mortgage would be a better option since the property is owned free and clear? Just curious if anyone has any ideas.
  2. Since our property is in a great location next to miles of paved river-side trails, 10 minutes to the University, 2 minutes from downtown, and less than a mile from tons of restaurants and breweries..what if we just did what we could and spelled out clear expectations by letting guests know this is a work in progress and lowering prices? Has anyone been in a similar situation with a similar property? Beautiful interior but exterior needs work.
  3. How different now as compared to 2018? Back then we were one of the best properties in the market and got regular bookings throughout the slow season. I've heard that people are a lot more entitled and harder to deal with now.. Don't know if that's just them but was curious if anyone else had the same experience. That said our neightbors property is great but isn't really a competitor with ours as it's a completely different feel/aesthetic.. Another thing, when we were renting I also found well-to-do people were very really gracious and chill and the problem creators were usually middle/working class..just a strange observation. I would have thought is was the opposite but some of them did remind me of the episode of southpark about Yelp haha. Wasn't a huge deal 99% of our reviews over 115-120 visits were 5 star reviews.
  4. Our curb appeal at the moment sucks. We need a new paint job, our roof needs replaced and is not aesthetically appealing (no leaks fortunately), and our yard has some mossy spots and we need to power wash everything. Plus we have some siding missing (not a lot) in the backyard as a result of the renovation. Like I said, interior is going to be beautiful, for now at least.
  5. We had it setup previously where we offered easy cancellation to people and had it setup in a way that we could turn down any visitor for any reason without being penalized, is that still achievable? It's just whenever we allowed a guest to stay that gave us strange vibes, something happened. We learned through this experience that our gut was always right.
Any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated.
submitted by VaporWavey420 to ShortTermRentals [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 20:57 OriginalSprinkles718 [PS5/PS4] List of 100+ mods with correct LOAD ORDER - Difficult and satisfying survival challenge.

PLEASE READ THE WHOLE POST.

This took weeks of picking and testing mods
Played on PS5, should work on PS4
Order is stable, no crashes
New game on survival difficulty required
All 6 DLCs needed
No unbalanced cheat mods added
Very difficult but satisfying and immersive
Adding other mods will break stuff, ask in comments
Not tested on PS4 or PS4 Pro performance-wise

OVERVIEW

This modlist is for people enjoying difficult challenge, exploration, combat, managing settlements and a bit of building. No more bullet sponges, loot/enemy respawns and rambo playstyle!
In the beginning you are no one. You leave the vault weak, tired, with barely any gear. Avoid most encounters and quests at the start. Try to survive, build a safe spot and carefully explore. Be aware of your surroundings, use what you find.
Saving often in beds and making 'autosave drug' at the earliest possibility is a good idea (nearest chemistry workbench is at Abernathy Farm). Save menu is always on top of MISC category in Pip-Boy.
Discovering new places gives plenty of exp in the beginning, but quests are your main exp income.
Exploring safer areas like Sanctuary, Concord and smaller settlements first (avoiding powerful enemies) recommended. There might be a lot of combat in the background. Don't engage much, especially avoid supermutants, robots, turrets, bears - they are deadly even for high level, well developed characters. Raiders also hit hard, depending on their weapon and rank.
Weapon caliber makes huge damage difference. 10mm is pretty weak, but if you find rare .50cal rounds or some good explosives, you should eliminate tougher targets much more easily.
Investing in stats right after level 15 is a good idea. STR for carry weight, PER for accuracy, END for health, CHA for better prices, INT for more exp, AGI for sneak and speed, LCK for dmg and loot. Be sure of your choices. Watch out for 'revealing all map markers' and 'slow time when aiming' perks. Be sure you want and like them, there is no going back.
Deathclaw in the early minuteman quest is tough - try to use explosives to break his legs and some high caliber weapons to finish him off by shooting his face. Or maybe you'll get lucky and raiders will kill him. Or just simply avoid him until you get proper gear.
Don't waste ammo on zombies, use melee. Bullets are valuable. However zombies can grab and instantly kill you if your HP is very low, so watch out on low, early levels!
Aim for the head for much higher damage. Concentrating damage on arms or legs to rip them off is a good strategy too. Raider without arms wont do much to you except running around and alerting nearby enemies, that is.
Damage types are important. Ballistic damage is not efficient against turrets, melee against radroaches and so on. You need to figure out yourself whats best strategy.
Develop and protect your settlements, put walls to protect generators and other important structures. Repairing is costly. Gear up settlers. Scraping and cleaning settlements is a good early source of components.
Try to fully explore the map, kill enemies and do all quests. Most loot and enemies wont ever respawn so this is your chance to find new secrets in Commonwealth and clear the place.

========== CHANGES ==========

Combat, Enemies

  • Enemies will flank, charge, take cover, run in fear, use and pick up ammo & weapons, swap to backup gun and so on.
  • Headshots or weakspot hits do much higher damage than torso shots.
  • Gun caliber greatly affects damage, explosives are powerful and damage type matters.
  • Foes have special moves like biting and holding leg, wrestling moves, kicks. Dependent on enemy type and briefly stuns you.

Sound, Graphic

  • Sounds are less flat because of added reverb and other tweaks.
  • Very dark nights with wide, helpful flashlight.
  • Atmospheric lightning: beautiful light from lantern and fire sources, dusk, dawn, moon, plus bullets illuminate environment when flying around.
  • No dreadful, annoying, unimmersive: combat music, hearthbeat, sounds of generators, turrets, exp gain sound, most perk triggers and perk chart.

Crafting, Modifying

  • Making/disasembling ammo and also creating various shipments. Upgrading clothes, rings, glasses in different ways.
  • Legendary swapping, crafting legendary effects using technical documents. Some effects have been adjusted.
  • Added crafting of new, lower damage explosives, but they have unique effects for ease of use.

Perks, SPECIAL

  • STR affects carry weight, PER accuracy, END is health, max AP, CHA for better prices, INT for more exp, AGI for sneak, walk and reload speed, LCK for small dmg boost, loot, critical hits outside VATS and while using it.
  • Leveling up does not give you health. You rely on stats, bonuses, gear.
  • Perks tree mostly changed, level 15 needed to start increasing Special base stats, level of around 100 to increase stat to 10. To get all perks you would need 300 levels, so new modified 'idiot savant' will help a lot.
  • Collecting magazines, bobbleheads, companion perks is now more helpful and recommended.
  • Some skills are changed, reordered, much more interesting and useful.
  • More perks are needed for crafting, especially science perk is required for most technology related stuff.
  • Lockpicking everything is available instantly from level one, but perks and AGI make it reasonably easier. Bobby pins are more rare.
  • Hacking is simplified to not do the repeating minigame. Now holotapes to reprogram and override terminals might be of use.

Settlements, Building

  • Expensive build costs of robot workbenches, turrets, big generators, so buying component shipments is justified.
  • You can hire guards for caps or risk settlers lives on the usual guard posts.
  • Can't harvest planted fruit and veg, you get your fair share in workbench instead.
  • Collecting resources by settlers changed. Bigger variety of settlers and they are now mortal.
  • More objects to build and decorate your bases.

Locations, Loot

  • Items like meds and ammo are harder to find and exist in appropriate containers.
  • New map markers and few minuteman towers as a small addition to explore.
  • Quick travel available, but only to settlements.
  • Only rare enemies like bosses drop legendaries. And many more...

Before you download:

  • Safe to remove/swap mods are listed below the modlist, just in case you don't like or want some of them. Rest needs to be kept for balance or glitch removal, but only in the CORRECT ORDER!
  • Remove all mods you currently have before downloading this mod list.
  • Read what to do after downloading mods.

MOD LIST WITH CORECT ORDER:

  1. Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch [UFO4P] [PS4] - Thousands of small bug fixes for FO4.
  2. Radium Rifle Suppressed Sound Fix - As the mod name suggests. Must be on top of mod list, its a master file.
  3. [PS4] Pip-Boy Paint Jobs - Colors Of The Wasteland Pack (Club Freedom) - Adds simple Pip-Boy skins. Remember you can click touchpad while using pip-boy to zoom. Again a master file.
  4. Kane's Items Sorting (PS4) - Junk is sorted and some other things too.
  5. [PS] Useful Technical Documents - Legendaries - You can swap legendaries for free, create new ones using technical documents.
  6. Named NPC Protection [PS4] - Protects named quest npc's, merchants, important characters from random encounters with enemies.
  7. Tribals of Commonwealth - Adds tribal groups, often found in wilderness.
  8. Ghouls Of Commonwealth - Adds over 1100 feral ghouls for zombie apocalypse and chaos.
  9. DLC Creatures In The Commonwealth [PS4] - Adds 200 creature spawns to the commonwealth for constant war, danger and chaos.
  10. Longhorns Of The Commonwealth - Adds longhorns to more empty areas on the map.
  11. Gulpers Of The Commonwealth - Adds gulpers to more empty areas on the map.
  12. Wolves Of The Commonwealth - Adds wolf spawn points to the map.
  13. More Behemoths In Commonwealth - Adds 5 more behemots to the Commonwealth.
  14. Behind Enemy Lines - Adds plenty of enemies to the glowing sea region.
  15. Roving War Parties, Raiding Packs And Hordes Of MY - Adds wandering groups that attack some key locations.
  16. More Radstags - Adds plenty of radstags, especially north and into forests.
  17. Better Radstags - More agressive radstags.
  18. Not a Princess - Humans can grab you/others and slam on the ground, make karate moves, dogs can hold your legs/arms, bloodbugs suck your blood.
  19. Disable Minutemen's Annoying Quests [PS4] - Disables 7 types of repetitive and not important radiant quests.
  20. [PS4] Grounded Updated By Sarinia - Adds tons of ground foundations, floors, walls, mounds of dirt to Structures-Concrete menu.
  21. Miscellaneous Settlement Items Unlocked [PS4] By Callias - Adds 49 objects for building in settlements.
  22. Cinder Block Walls And Sandbags Unlocked [PS4] By Callias - Adds 16 objects like cinder blocks and sandbags.
  23. Constructible Faction Guards - Adds ability to hire guards for caps in build menu, but only after allying with a faction.
  24. [PS4] OCDecorator - Adds inventory items as a decorational building objects.
  25. [PS4] OCDecorator DLC - Support for addons for the above mod.
  26. Tweaks - Survival Fast Travel Settlements All DLC - You can fast travel to settlements on survival difficulty.
  27. 1st Person Animation Tweaks [PS4] - In first person mode you lower your gun automatically.
  28. [PS4] Swinging Animated Meat Bags - Adds animations to supermutant meat bags.
  29. Power Line Physics [PS4] - Swinging power lines in settlements.
  30. No Sneak Indicators - Completely removes all sneak indicators.
  31. [PS4] Dogs Not Brahmin - Provisioners and traders use dogs instead of brahmin.
  32. Vertibirds Unghosted - Tweaks invincible vertibirds for danger and realism.
  33. [PS4] Simple Settlers (Mortal Edition) - Provides bigger settlers pool (five times more) and names them.
  34. Quieter Settlements PS4 - Vanilla - Generators, turrets and hammering are much quieter.
  35. Fallout 76-Style Region Music - Changes music in regions for less boring/repetitive background tracks.
  36. Reverb And Ambiance Overhaul - ALL DLC [PS4] - Tweaks sounds for better ambient and reverb and adds sliders to options.
  37. Better Dialogue - Camera focuses on NPC, changes made to some irritating generic dialogues and tweaked dialogue interuption.
  38. Esk QuietPerks [PS4] - Muted five annoying perks like idiot savant.
  39. No Experience SFX - Silences sounds when gaining experience from various sources.
  40. [PS4] Dead Beat - Removes heart beat sound at low HP.
  41. Combat Music Remover - Mutes combat music, so there is silence and suspension when enemy detects you.
  42. Commonwealth Visual Overhaul & DLC [PS4] - Changes colours, atmosphere and makes nights darker.
  43. UCW - Unified Commonwealth Weather - Adjusted weather for regions and integrated DLC weather for Commonwealth.
  44. [PS4] No More Fake Puddles - Removes ugly puddles that stay 24/7.
  45. No More Twigs - Removes stupid twigs sticking out of the ground.
  46. [PS4] Enhanced Flickering Firelight - Better light effects for fire sources including oil lamps.
  47. [PS4] Dark Mode - Abandoned Settlements - Empty settlements don't have light sources.
  48. Vanilla Moon (4x) - Much bigger moon. Anything bigger looks low quality.
  49. Sunlight Alignment Tweak - Better Dawn And Dusk [PS4] - Changes sun and moon movement for better lighting and atmosphere during dusk, dawn and night.
  50. Crafting Blur Removal (PS4) - Removes blur while looting containers, from crafting screen, power armor.
  51. Ironsight Blur Removal (PS4) - Removes blur while aiming.
  52. More Map Markers (PS4) - Adds some new markers on map.
  53. CleanVATS - Green Tint Remover PS4 - Removes fullscreen green tint effect while aiming in VATS mode.
  54. VATS Third Person Only - As the name says, just changes in cameras used in VATS.
  55. [PS4] Payneful VATS - Better VATS cinematics, shows important hits and finishers a bit slower.
  56. Component Tagging Helper - Allows to easily tag basic components on cooking bench and you can quickly view how many you have in total.
  57. Grenade and Mine Pack - Adds some new weaker, but modified explosives.
  58. Saving Survival Mode - Allows crafting misc items on chemistry workbench for anytime saving (3 standard autosave slots and 1 save shared/overwritten on all survival characters).
  59. Animations Be Gone - Removes plenty annoying hammering spots in sanctuary.
  60. Minuteman Watchtowers - Adds 8 minuteman watchtowers containing loot and/or guards.
  61. Power Goggles (All DLC) - Power Armor Mods For Goggles, Visors, And Glasses - As the name says. Two mods for glasses for high level characters.
  62. Clothes For Every Stats Wz - Most clothes can be worn under armor and you can upgrade them after unlocking ballistic weave.
  63. Bear Trap and Caltrops Fix [PS4] - Small changes in how traps work and balance them.
  64. See-Through-Scopes [PS4] - Adds new combat scopes in place of 2.5x and 4x magnification.
  65. See-Through-Scopes - Nuka World [PS4] - As above but for 2 Nuka World guns.
  66. See-Through-Scopes - Far Harbor [PS4] - As above but for 2 Far Harbor weapons.
  67. Targeting Sensors On Recon Scopes(Colour Coded NPCs Version)[PS4] - Modified recon scopes that highlight enemies, friends and dead bodies in specific colours.
  68. Immersive Gameplay Combat Mostly PS4 - Core of this modlist. Hundreds of changes.
  69. Immersive-Gameplay. Low Tech, No Powerarmor Justification Patch. (PS4) - Makes fusion cores worn. Balances the game around power armor.
  70. Immersive Gameplay Seasonpass Patch (Playstation) - DLC compatibility for IG.
  71. Immersive Gameplay Rough Start (PS4) - Overwrites starting level to 1.
  72. Medium Settlement Raids PS4 - Makes enemy raids less ridicolous and balanced.
  73. Zombie Walkers (PS4) - Most feral ghouls act like slow rotten zombies.
  74. Curse Of Darkness - Normal Edition - - Zombies are faster and more dangerous after midnight.
  75. Esk No More Teleporting Creatures [PS4] - Molerats and radscorpions don't teleport.
  76. Realistic Insects Health [PS4] - Makes insects easier to kill and balanced.
  77. Full Load - Loot Logic And Reduction Complete - Restricted harvest, lower and/or different production output for settlements, empty bottles renamed, Scrounger perk less ammo, less meat, less loot.
  78. Full Load - Rough Start Less Handouts - Removed some workbenches in starting locations. Different loot in Vault111.
  79. Immersive Gameplay Dismemberment - A Patch Or Standalone Feature. - Higher damage to headshots, easier to dismember limbs.
  80. Tackle! Immersive Gameplay Knockdown Version - Lets you stagger enemies by sprinting into them after aquiring a perk.
  81. Wasteland Baubles Ring Overhaul! PS4 - You can find unique rings at traders, in suitcases, cabinets. Allows scraping and modifying rings for special legendary effects.
  82. [PS4] STS - All-In-One - Allows scraping almost all settlement objects.
  83. (PS4) Improved Lighting Ballistics - Improves lighting for projectiles such as bullets, lasers, gauss, plasma, missiles, flares and explosions.
  84. Explorer Restored - Cut Perk Mod PS4 - Adds rank two of VANS perk - explorer. Uncovers map.
  85. Idiot Savant & Better Criticals Redone (PS4) - Idiot savant is better the more INT you have, muted perk chart, better criticals perk for crits outside VATS.
  86. Realistic Death Physics - No Animation - ALL DLC [PS4] - Decreases the amount of force of both melee and ranged attacks, so bodies wont fly away.
  87. Increased Settler Limit - Awareness - Wire Length - Corpse Collisions [PS4] - More aware settlers with limit of 50 per settlement and longer wires. Mind the limit.
  88. Settlement Attack Spawns Outside The Settlement PS4 - Moves attack spawns outside the settlements.
  89. Power Conduits Radius Increase And No Build Limit - All DLC [PS4] - Infinite build limit and two times longer range electricity conduits.
  90. [PS4] Creation Club Skins (Weapon & PipBoy) Generic Compatibility Patch - Makes weapon paints from Creation Club show up in crafting menu if you have any.
  91. No Affinity Cooldown - Removes cooldown between companions liking/hating your actions.
  92. [PS4]More XP Per Level (Base:600, Bump 120) - Increased experience required to level up.
  93. Increased EXP - Increases the amount of EXP gained to make Immersive Gameplay and mod list balanced.
  94. No Building Houses XP Gains PS4 - Building settlements don't provide experience.
  95. Pip-Boy Flashlight - Pipboy light is now a flashlight.
  96. PS4 - Longer Headlamp Light - Makes flashlight much bigger and changes headlamp and power armor light.
  97. [PS4] Starting SPECIAL = 7 - Changes starting SPECIAL stats to 1 in each category so you start weak.
  98. No Enemy Respawns - Game areas don't respawn loot and enemies, after time have passed.
  99. Accelerated Fast Travel - Fast travel takes less in-game time, should be also relevant to survival needs.
  100. Time Scale Changed From 20 To 10 [PS4] - Day and night lasts twice as long.

Additionally after downloading:

  • After installing the mod list, restart your PS4/PS5.
  • Dont add or remove mods mid playthrough.
  • Change game difficulty to survival in options.
  • Play on performance 60fps. Newly added mode visual 60fps is more laggy and has awfull VATS framerate.
  • If you want even more immersive settings, go to Settings, Gameplay and turn off quest markers or crosshair.
  • Go to Options, Sound and reduce ambience level by 5-8 clicks and reverb by 2-3.
  • Dont forget to change camera sensitivity (I play on max), next go to Options, Display and change hud color to blue or any other that makes sense (not red), lower transparency by 30% or more, set pip-boy colour to your preference (I use red pip-boy and minty hud to have the best compatibility with highlighting perks and scopes).

You can add/swap some mods if you want:

101... Immortal Cats - PS4 - Invincible cats, so you don't lose happiness increase when they die. Add after mod #83 \ 102... [PS4] STS - Extras - Living & Dead - Season Pass Version - You can get extra resources from scraping dead bodies in settlements. Watch out not to scrap someone alive. Place after mod #82. \ 103... Josephine Preset - Nice looking preset number 13 for female character creation. Change hair and other details if you want. Delete after leaving vault111 and saving (if you need mod list space that is). Add after mod #55. \ 104... Faster Positive Affinity For Companions - Removes cooldown between companions liking/hating your actions and gain five times more positive affinity. Swap with mod #91 if you want more cheaty version. \ 105... Silent Main Menu - To mute main menu sound, find duplicate sound slider named 'Master sound' and move it all the way to the left. Add after mod #41. \ 106... Quieter Settlements PS4 - Contraptions DLC - Quieter production lines. I ran out of space on mod list so this and next one are optional. Add after mod #34. \ 107... Quieter Settlements PS4 - Wasteland Workshop - Quieter fusion generators. Add after mod #34. \ 108... [PS4] Simple Settlers (Immortal Edition) - Instead of #33, so generic settlers don't die during settlement attacks. \ 109... Reduced Rubble Etc. - Safely reduces density of unimportant objects by 50-75%. Add after #44 or swap with #45. \ 110... Vrexia's Magical Rings - Add after #57 only if you get poison/perception bug where your PER is shown as (-1). You can offset it by equiping multiple rings from this mod (created at chem bench). Didnt found a better way yet. \ 111... Pip-Boy Flashlight (Brighter) - For a smaller, brighter flashlight swap #96 with #95 and replace #95 with this.

Remove, if you want:

Stock, ugly Pip-Boy color - #3 \ No tinkering with legendary effects - #5 \ No powerful groups wandering and attacking places - #15 \ Radstags to be less agressive - #17 \ Dont care about building - #20 #21 #22 \ Dont care about decorating settlements - #24 #25 \ Annoying wandering brahmins instead of dogs - #31 \ Cash register sounds when gaining exp - #39 \ Old vanilla dusk and dawn lighting - #49 \ Don't use VATS much - #53 #54 #55 \ Prefer old combat scopes - #64 #65 #66 \ Don't want uncover map perk and will never unlock it - #84 \ Don't have any weapon skins from Creation Club - #90 \ Faster leveling - #92 \ To gain building EXP - #94 \ Start with 7 extra SPECIAL points to distribute - #97 \ Loot and enemies respawn after time - #98 \ Fast travel to take time - #99 \ Days be vanilla length - #100

Known issues, bugs, glitches, exploits:

Some of those are present in vanilla game. I just mention every problem encountered during testing and not fully fixed. - Ground textures in and around sanctuary flicker black. FIX: Fixes itself. Possibly after short time or reload. - Creature cages cost too much in building menu. NO FIX: Did not found a safe and balanced fix yet, so cages are most likely out of reach, because cost is absurd. - Green chest containing flare gun and 10k flares after exiting vault 111. FIX: Mod dev forgot to delete it. Ignore it or if it bothers you much, remove mod #83, which I don't recommend doing. - Hubby secret basement in Sanctuary. NO FIX: Its up to you if you want to use its content. Just easier difficulty option, but not game breaking. - Hacking rank 4 seems useless or has wrong description. NO FIX: Needs proper check. - Wall turrets sometimes glitches and play sound on repeat. FIX: Re-enter the area or reload save. - Contact frag mines seems to have too low damage. FIX: Just dont craft them. Rest of new explosives should work fine even that it shows low damage values in description. - Perception low, constant (-1) PER in stats because of poison damage/resistance bug. FIX: Add mod #110 and equip perception rings. Dont delete the mod. Cant find safer solution for now. Rings dont take equipment slots. - Action girl perk have only one rank on female character and two on male. NO FIX: Just 25% AP regen loss at high level. Not a big deal. - Bubblegum seems to unintentionally quench thirst a bit and kind vendors give it for free. NO FIX: Free candies. Its better to use them to slow down time. - Incorrect cost to build concrete foundations. FIX: Use mod #20 to add tons of foundations in newly added category Structures-Concrete. - OCDecorator replaces creation club menu. FIX: Items from CC are still available in other building categories. Ignore or delete mod #24 + #25 if you dont care about its function. - Few perk descriptions might be slightly incorrect or missing. NO FIX: Nothing important to worry about. - Three street lights, powered water pump, industrial purifier and subway light have incorrect build costs. NO FIX: These have wrong values, but items like clean sofa or tv are more expensive to build on purpose though. - Pip-boy light wont transfer from first to third person camera view. FIX: Turn flashlight off and on. - Water surface sometimes flash black when moving underwater. NO FIX: Its not very noticable and you don't dive much in FO4 anyway. - Can't use Wattz Consumer Electronics terminal, animation stops. FIX: There is a radroach behind the wall. Kill it by swinging melee, explosives or reenter area. - Flashlight in Vault111 has incorrect beam look/color. FIX: It will fix itself after mods load right after you leave Vault111, dont worry.
v1.00 - Initial version.

Have fun!

submitted by OriginalSprinkles718 to FO4mods [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 20:53 sookfong A Week In Vancouver Island on a $92,000 Salary (Original Submission)

Please note this is the original submission I sent Refinery29. In the current post,they have given me a second credit card with a 100$ balance, as well as generational trauma from World War II and cut context for other things. I am trying to get that fixed.
Per previous discussion in comments here: The espresso machine is a Bezzera, which ranges from 2-5K. We got ours on sale for 1.7K, it’s a work house and we use it everyday, still hurts that we spent that money on a coffee maker.
I do understand mortgage is debt but when you compare it to rent to a lesser value condo in Vancouver it feels like not debt at all, which is how I tend to think of it. Yes I owe my mortgage but also I get my house instead of renting-which may not have become clear.
Please see in full the diary, below (edit for formatting via mobile)
Occupation: Sr Business Analyst
Industry: Tech
Age: 30
Location: Vancouver Island, BC
Salary: 92,000$ (Spouse makes 60,000$ for a combined income of 152,000$ before tax)
Net Worth: ~ 1.2 Million ( house is valued at 989,000$ currently, we have a combined 150,000 in pension, and ~60,000 in various company stocks, and GICs)
Debt: 3,000$ in a zero interest credit card for a 10 month period. We balanced transferred and pay 400$/month. Debt was acquired in Q4 2023 when we had to buy Snow Tires, and do a full break replacement as well as Christmas. 480,000$ in a mortgage, we refinanced in September 2023 for five years fixed rate at accelerated biweekly, however I don’t consider our mortgage debt due to the equity we are gaining, and that our mortgage for a five bedroom, 3 bath single family home is less than rent for a two bedroom condo in Vancouver
Paycheck Amount (Every 2 Weeks): 2,555$ after taxes. (Just mine). Spouse makes 2,308$ after taxes. Our pay periods are alternating.
Pronouns: She/her
Monthly Expenses Mortgage: 1450$ biweekly (100$ extra to the principal).
Utilities: ~200$ (includes water [paid quarterly], hydro [paid bimonthly], gas, sewetrash [paid quarterly] phone [highly discounted due to work plans for spouse and myself] and car gas) Loan Payments: 400$/Credit Card
Car Insurance: 84$
Life Insurance: 167$ combined (67$ me, 100$ spouse)
Health & Dental Insurance: 60$ deducted from pay (coverage for myself and spouse from my employer. Spouse also has coverage for both of us deducted from pay)
Retirement Contribution: 400$ (Employee matches me), (Spouse has a defined pension through work and contributes ~200$ month)
Union fees: 70$ Spouse
Subscriptions: Crave 22$/month (Recent splurge for Binge watching the Rookie), Playstation Plus 100$ (annual bought on Black Friday Deal), Amazon Prime 80$ (Annual), BCAA 120$ (annual) Gym 30$/month (we both have one so 15$/pp)
Note: My spouse and I have completely commingled finances. I will be tracking both as it’s essentially I spent whatever they spent
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
There was always the expectation. My father was very clear, we were very smart. There was no way we’d be wasting our potential. He wanted me to be a lawyer, but unlike other immigrant parents, I got to choose my major and went into social sciences and got my masters in history. I deferred my PhD too much so I got dropped by the program.
I chose my university by where I got a full first year scholarship and then after that took about 15k in student loans for my undergraduate. My parents paid my rent and I got a part time job for food.
For my masters, I had a student line of credit and 5 k student loans otherwise it was all my savings and scholarships. With the line of credit, I had a total of 30K in student loans and paid it off in about four years.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent(s)/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
Save. We talked about how you get a dollar allowance and half of it goes into long term saving with 25% in short term and 25% in spend.
Investing came after I was eighteen. Family would like us to invest in property, however I don’t really want to be a landlord, but also we wouldn’t get to really enjoy profit of owning a rental property due to other family circumstances.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
Ice cream parlour I was twelve and my parents made me get it for responsibility. I lasted three weeks because I hated it.
Did you worry about money growing up?
I grew up thinking we were not rich, because we didn’t get big plane vacations (I didn’t count flying from Toronto to Vancouver every summer as a vacation since we were just seeing family but staying in a house my parents owned) and I had only been to Disney twice.
But we had a big new build house in the rich end of town, my mom stayed home to raise all of us. We had to work for things (like going to see a movie opening night or a new CD) but we always had money and got what we wanted. In retrospect, my family was/is fairly well off.
Both my parents grew up poor, with parents working multiple jobs and different shifts to make ends meet, the strive/drive to not have that childhood, and for my father to be able to retire his parents really impacted mine and my siblings and cousins lives. My father showed me the apartment he grew up in Chinatown a few years back. It’s light years away from the house my grandparents owned when I was a kid and how I grew up.
Do you worry about money now?
Of course. Inflation is real and we are actively planning a wedding for the next year, as well as a baby in the next few years. We also need to buy a second car, so we’re saving for that.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
Fully financially responsible? Twenty five. I lived in a family property where I didn’t pay rent in one of the most expensive cities in Canada, so even though I paid all my bills (food and phone), I didn’t have to pay rent. I in fact made money, as I rented rooms out and used the income for house utilities, and paying my student loans down faster. When I moved in with my spouse, I just paid condo fees until we bought our house two years ago which gave me plenty of time to save.
Our financial safety net is family, and our savings. I know my family would bail us out. My spouse’s father would as well. Conversely, we are my spouse’s mother's safety net and we have to keep all our plans in mind that we will be subsidising her.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain. Yes, I received 50K from my parents once they sold my childhood home, as did both of my siblings. I have also received 10K from one set of grandparents which paid off my car and part of my student loans when I was 21. I will be receiving another inheritance when probate is done for around ~100K. My spouse also has received inheritance which allowed them to buy their first condo in their early twenties when the market was much better. That condo, 50k, and the subsequent upgrading helped us afford our house.
Day 1
10 AM: I drive to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. Not how I want to start my Sunday morning but y’know. Normally I’d walk since it’s about 20 minutes but I have a UTI. I’m “lucky” that despite not having a dr because of the health care shortage, my work pays for the Maple app so I could get a dr to write the prescription and order the lab work at 1 am. I’ll do the lab work later this week when I can get an appointment but will take the relief now. Insurance makes the antibiotics free, but I also buy hydrogen peroxide because we’re out and we have a dog that thinks everything is meant to be in her mouth. We’ll buy a bigger one at Costco later. I also bought some oral wound mouthwash because we were out. I come home and my spouse made us breakfast.
Total: 15.90$ paid with debit.
1-2:30 PM: We do our taxes. I have a mini meltdown when I realize the part time bakery job I had for a few months didn’t take off income tax last year, so I owe 800$. Luckily, my partner is getting a refund so we net out positive 400$. The bakery took off income tax in 2022, so unsure why they didn’t in 2023. I made us lunch.
3-6:30 PM: We walk the dog, and watch the Rookie. Some time during that time period, a venue emails us back and is surprisingly affordable at 3k. I also get told that the tattoo artist I want to book with, has not chosen me.
6:30-7:30 PM: I explain what lazy girl dinner is to my spouse and make a lazy girl dinner. After not really grocery shopping since Feb for things besides fresh veg, we need to do a big pantry shop and neither of us want that. We debate about buying a food saver and if we should wait for a sale. My spouse is more frugal than me and has determined we should.
8-9:30 PM: We start season 3 of The Rookie, and then after two episodes we go to bed
Day One Total: 15.90$
Day Two
5:45-8 AM: Wake up and start work. I get up to date with what’s happened on the weekend and check that my automated reports. Sometime before 6:30, I get the kettle on for my spouse’s pour over before I go back to my meetings. There’s a twenty minute gap where I get changed and do my skin care and brush my teeth. I’d love to be a skin care person but honestly I’ve spent too much money on product that I don’t use and that just goes bad. Washing my face and using sun screen is a win.
I also make sure that Spouse’s lunch is in his bag and I get our travel mugs ready. Before, we used to go to Starbucks every day. Starbucks used to do free refills on coffee and tea if you were a rewards member if you bought a coffee or tea so it would cost us $5/day (2.5/pp), and we could get refills all day. While that’s 20$/week, 80$/a month and yes, we could have saved it but back then, that 80$ wasn’t turning the dial anywhere significantly for us—a privileged view.
But now, after COVID where I stopped drinking tea after one day working from home having like 10 cups and thinking I was dying, and Spouse has bought a good grinder and we recently splurged on a stupidly expensive espresso machine we call his Engagement Espresso since it costs the same price as my stupidly expensive ring, we bring our coffees.
8-8:30 AM: We drive to work. Prior to buying our house, we were both work from home and lived in a city with amazing transit. We only needed the one car. Since buying the house and moving to a city where public transit is a joke (the one bus goes past our house every 1.5h), Spouse changed jobs and is in office every day and I have to go in 3 days a week. We need a second car or the e-bike rebate to come through. We debate this in the car, since I’m done at 1 pm, and Spouse works normal hours, I either have to take the bus home, or go to the gym for three hours. Today though, I drop Spouse off. I will pick him up later as he has a half day because of the dentist
8:30-12:30 AM/PM: Work. I find a tech manager and ask them to get me more triple a batteries. Work won’t provide or let me expense batteries for my mouse, despite them replacing my usb mouse with a battery one. The poor admin had to tell me the decision is that we’ll all supply our own batteries. Luckily the tech managers have to have batteries on hand and give them out freely.
I ask my boss how the work from home tax forms work, and he is going to find out.
I run more meetings and work on a request for a dashboard and a business case for a new feature that I have to convince leadership to spend money on.
12:30-1 PM: I drive back to my Spouse because he has a dentist appointment.
While I wait for a spouse, I am incredibly hungry. I’m usually not hungry/don’t eat a proper meal until around 1 in the afternoon and my two granola bars I already ate at the office. I go to the bakery by Spouse’s work and buy a cheese bun for me (3.65$), and an apple pie scone (2.55$) for Spouse as a snack. Spouse points out he won’t be able to eat until after his appointment.
Total: 6.20$ debit
1-1:30 PM: I drop Spouse off, and the car stops working. The engine won’t catch. I try multiple times and then run into the dentist to dramatically announce to Spouse and the receptionists that the car won’t start. Spouse asks me what he wants me to do about this, since he’s about to go into an appointment. A very kind receptionist tells me it might be the alternator. I don’t know what that is.
I go back to the car to Facetime my father. He also asks what I think he can do to help since he lives 3000 km away. Weirdly, and sexistly, I thought a man who grew up at race tracks, in a racing family, or the man who has collected and worked on sports cars for forty years might be able to help.
Spouse texts me to remind me we have BCAA while my father also tells me that. I finally get the engine to catch and drive the very long way home, going the speed limit and getting stuck in traffic, construction and a bus. It takes me 20 minutes to get home instead of 10.
1:30-2:30 PM: I walk the dog, mail a (late) birthday card and then start researching what an alternator is. The car is over a decade old and until the house, the most expensive thing I ever bought at 12K back in 2015. We have the funds for the cost, but it’s my first car and the fact it might be the end of its life is scary.
Alternators can cost between 400-800$ repair with labour, so that’s fun.
My dad calls me back and apologises for asking me what he could do away. He advises me that there’s probably a bald spot on the alternator and advises me to go to the mechanic to check or replace it, if the car doesn’t start again.
I call the mechanic to book an appointment, and to also get the snow tires off and to buy new rims for the snow tires. The mechanic lets me know that the alternator part is 500$, and an hour of labour so with taxes we’re looking at around 700$
That future appointment next week (we’re going down a highway this weekend which requires snow tires) will cost ~1.5K, assuming we replace the alternator.
I make lunch and sigh.
2:30 PM: The car starts thankfully. I drive incredibly slow. I pick up Spouse by idling the car. We get an email back from a venue saying they cost 75,000$ minimum. The timing is hysterical.
Due to the nature of the dentist, Spouse owes 618$, as they haven’t flipped it under my insurance. They split it in half, as he has a follow up in two weeks. After the next appointment they will flip the whole amount under me and we’ll get reimbursed for the whole amount.
Total 309$/credit card.
3-10 PM: We walk the dog, make dinner (Spouse makes white sauce pasta, with chicken and peas) and watch The Rookie. There are thirteen episodes in season three, and we will be busy every night this week besides Friday and Sunday, and I would like to finish season three so we can start season 4 next Monday. I don’t want to pay for more than one month of Crave. We have five episodes left
Day Two Total: 315.2$
Day Three
1 AM: 100$ is automatically transferred from our account to the credit card debit. We have an auto transfer of 100$/every Tuesday to a Visa where we balance transferred both our cards. We have an offer for 0 interest for 10 months, so we did that for some of the bigger expenses (snow tires, break replacement and general Christmas) and are on track to pay it back within the next 6 months. That visa is our emergency card that we just have in the back end and utilise for promos like this. It allows us to keep our two cards balances manageable and lets us pay in an easier way than taking big chunks out of our various savings.
Total: 100$/direct deposit
5:45-9 AM: Work. Meetings, reports, trying to convince a colleague that the process does include them and refusal to follow it means that their requests won’t be done. Spouse has another half day so I can go into the office at my leisure—if the car starts
9-9:20 AM: The car starts, I get into the office and refresh a data flow before a meeting with a new stake holder. It takes longer to drive into work today because the tourists are starting to come and their van builds or campers are not exactly highway speed and with a two lane highway, if you don’t merge over fast enough you’re stuck.
10:05-10:20 AM: Meeting done, car starts again and I drive home for more meetings. The least amount of time in the office is preferable for me.
10:30-11AM : Meeting with my manager where we discuss future salary and promotion. I am due for a promotion in the start of Q2, which would push me to six figures. I’ll believe it when I see it but, I’m really excited at that possibility for my family.
11:15 AM: Spouse leaves for work, we discuss what groceries are needed, as well if he’ll go to Home Depot tonight to buy more clover seeds for the yard, as we need to reseed before it starts raining. I eat a muffin and my dog and cat decide to try and eat each other.
11:15-1:30 PM: Work runs late. There’s some issues with the data and we can’t figure it out. We call it a night, and I’ll record the video presentations tomorrow, once we fix the data.
1:30-4 PM: Nap time! It’s bad for me, but honestly I don’t sleep well during the night so naps are what keep me alive.
4-6 PM I prep dinner (smash burgers and fries), and get chores done and walk the dog.
6-7:30 PM: Spouse comes home, we eat dinner. Groceries come to 96.83 for two 7 pound pork loins, two packs of bacon, chicken nuggets, coffee, pop, 8 pack of peppers, milk, tomato, pickles, rice, avocado, mushrooms, sour cream and lettuce.
Not too bad, we average about 300$/month in groceries because we can buy bulk and have a second freezer.
For the month of March we are currently at 123.61$ for groceries and there is twelve days left. We went on a small weekend away, so we ate out a fair bit but even then our current food budget is 272.27$ today.
Total: 96.83/ debit
7:30-10 PM: Spouse makes a coffee and plays video games with his friends. They do it every week. I have a shower, fold and put away laundry and read in bed.
Day Three Total: 196.83
Day Four
1AM: Our biweekly accelerated mortgage payment comes out of 1450$. I’m tracking it here to be honest on our spending but I tend not to think of it as money spent because in my head it’s already money gone. To pay for a house equivalent in Vancouver, the mortgage would be over 6k. Renting a two bedroom condo would be 3K. It feels like the mortgage is just cheaper rent, even though each time I own more of my house.
5:45-9 AM: Work. I find out the limits of how many people I can invite to a Teams Meeting as well as that the Thursday before Good Friday is a catholic holiday when a few people ask me to reschedule a training forum for over a thousand people. Sometime in there I make us coffee, make sure Spouse has lunch packed (leftovers). Spouse has walked the dog and has the recycling and compost out for pick up. I drop Spouse off at work.
10-11:45 AM: I leave the office for home and more meetings. I walk the dog and go record training videos. I get an email that Amazon is doing their big spring sale. I send a link to a robot mop and vaccum that’s on a big discount to Spouse. We want one, but I’m not in charge of the research on it. I send links to play grounds to my friends with toddlers
11:45-12:30 PM : I shove lunch in my mouth, last night’s left overs. I’m running late, and decide to get myself later by collecting all the random dishes and mugs that just show up places and start the dishwasher. I get to the lab ten minutes early but need to buy gas on the way home.
I tell my team I’ll be MIA for a bit and leave the work phone in the car.
I buy 15.6L of gas for 30$ at 1.879/l it sucks. I don’t fill up because we’re going to my in laws this weekend and there’s a Costco Gas Bar there.
Total: 30$/credit card
12:30-1:30 PM: Work goes long again.
1:30-2:30 PM: Nap!
2:30-4:30 PM: Walk the dog and drive to the gym. I usually go three times a week but with last week’s weekend away and this week’s weird half days from Spouse, today’s the only day. I make it up by doing both upper and lower body and a 30 minute circuit.
4:30-7:30 PM: I pick up Spouse and we go to Costco. We pick up nachos, ham, cheese buns and some other items. We debate buying our friend’s kid a toddler set of clothes and decide no. We end up buying work pants for Spouse, and a garden hose. It comes out to 116.90
I order our Costco dinner of hot dogs and fries for a grand total date night of 6.41$
Total: 123.31/ credit card
8-9 PM: Dance class! We bought a series of six lessons of introduction to ballroom back in December for a new date night idea. We paid 60$/pp and this is the fifth lesson tonight.
9 pm: We’re home, we let the dog out. Spouse spends an undetermined amount of time watching ballroom videos while I sleep.
Day Four Total: 1603.31$ or 153.31 excluding the mortgage payment.
Day Five
5:45-9 AM: Work. All the meetings. Thursday is the meeting day. I debate with a friend what’s the earliest call we’ve had. 4:30 am still wins. I pack lunch for Spouse and his coffee and he leaves. I end up cleaning up cat puke as the cat decides to drink milk from Spouse’s cereal and vomit it up on camera in a meeting.
9-9:30 AM: I make myself a matcha and walk the dog.
9:30-1 PM: Work and I treat myself to a lunch of a cheese bun and ham sandwhich. We used to eat it every Sunday while growing up but the cost of ham has been outrageous. The deal at Costco yesterday was 1.5$/100 g which is really good.
1-1:30 PM: I seal the wooden deer Christmas decoration we bought last year. It sits outside our front door and needs to be weather proofed, and I’ve been putting it off for five months. But the weather is good and we have newspapers. We have left over wood sealer after the sign we bought a year ago so I use that. The dog and the cat both don’t like my wooden deer.
1:30-4 PM: Nap!
4-5 PM: I basically just watch youtube and drink a root beer. I have no energy.
5-6:30 PM: Spouse comes home, we walk the dog and I make dinner (Kraft Dinner and nuggets–I swear we eat veggies but today is not that day). We discuss the possibility of our dog at our wedding as a flower girl, and if she’ll be in a tutu or a cheongsam like me. I am now researching if they make dog cheongsams and if she can match us. The cat, despite all my heart wanting it, won’t physically be there because he will have an anxiety attack and probably die.
6:30-10:30 PM: Board game night! We go to a friend’s to repeat the same scenario we’ve lost two weeks in a row.
10:30-11 PM: I pack Spouse’s breakfast (oatmeal and frozen berries), lunch (spicy tuna and mayo) since he’s trying to go to the gym before work, and feed the animals before we go to bed.
Day Five Total: 0$
Day Six Friday
5:45-9 AM: Work. I have a deep focus block which means I can get the script for the training I have to run. Public speaking is not my strong suit and it’s a group of a thousand people so I’m not looking forward to it. Spouse almost makes it to the gym. I get an email that my new work phone has shipped. I’m surprised because they wouldn’t order us any for the past four years, but I guess my new iPhone will show up next week. I might give my old work phone to my mother in law, since she smashed the camera on the phone we bought her last year.
9-9:30 AM: I walk the dog, make a matcha and make a todo list for what we have to get done before we leave to my in laws tomorrow. I text my mother in law happy birthday, and hope that she got the card in time. She did.
9:30-11:30 AM: My last meeting for the week ends and I’m debating calling it a day so I can nap. Instead I make lunch (cheese bun and ham), text my other mother in law our plan for Saturday, and unload and reload the dishwasher and go back to work for at least another hour.
12:30-1 PM: I shower and do skin care
1-3 PM: Nap! Somewhere in this time FedEx comes and since I’m sleeping, we have to pick up on Monday. I’m not too sure what it is, I assume it’s our custom address stamp from Etsy because that’s the only thing I’ve bought recently but not too sure. I just realized in retrospect, this might be my new work phone.
3-5 PM: I prep dinner (nachos), unload the dishwasher, pack my overnight bag and confirm all our venue tours by email. I start a load of laundry and do a quick clean. I feel like this is not the best image of our diet. I swear we generally eat healthy but we both have been feeling really blah over the past two weeks so have been going for quick and easy over healthy and balanced. I do have three whole peppers and two whole avocados in the nachos though.
5-7 PM: Spouse comes home, we walk the dog, have dinner, and plan out next week. We have a big Wednesday next week (mechanic, I have a nails appointment, dance class), and we are having our friends over for Easter so we need to prep for that. We pack the car so tomorrow is a very easy start.
Spouse also gets paid today. We’re lucky that we’re on alternating pay periods, we used to be on the same and it always felt stressful. Spouse also lets me know his union has secured a 3% cost of living raise to start in Q3. I really like his union for negotiating a base 2% year of cost of living raise, with potential addition raises depending on inflation. It’s a bit away but that’s still good news.
7:30-10:30 PM: We finish The Rookie Season 3 and head to bed. Crave reminds me that I have 10 days until I’m charged again. Sadly, I think we’ll have to pay for 2 months.
Day Six Total: 0
Day Seven Saturday
8:30-9:30 AM: Wake up. No one (except the dog) slept well so we’re not in a morning mood. Spouse makes coffee and walks the dog, while I finish packing the car and give the cat a lot of attention. Our first venue tour is at 11 and the one that is the most expensive (8-10K), but also the one we probably want the most. We live about an hour away but the highway is two lanes and one accident can back everything up for hours.
10:40-1 PM: We visit our dream venue. We stay way longer than expected. Basically if the quote is under 10K, we’ll get it. Just waiting now.
1-2 PM: We get to our in-laws and have a lunch of egg salad sandwhichs. We need to buy gas. My in laws drive us to a pottery painting store.
2-4 PM: We paint pottery. My mother in law only wanted to do this for her birthday. They’ll pick it up in a week after it’s been thrown. I paint a vase (28$), Spouse paints an Easter egg (18$), father in law paints a mug (30$), and mother in law paints a plate (50$)
Total:143.36/credit card
4-5 Pm: We see another venue. It’s an instant no. My in laws decide they want to try Korean fried chicken. We call ahead for take out to get two fries and 16 pieces of half and half. It comes to 50.83$ that my in laws pay for.
5-10 PM: We come back and see that our dog has pooped in their house and also has gotten into their pantry and eaten an entire bag of dog food. It is not a fun night.
We spend the night drinking wine and discussing the wedding and watching TV.
10PM: We go to bed. That’s the end of this week, but tomorrow we will be buying gas and probably lunch for my other mother in law as we will be touring another venue.
Day Seven Total: 143.36$
submitted by sookfong to MoneyDiariesACTIVE [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 20:53 OriginalSprinkles718 [PS5/PS4] List of 100+ mods with correct LOAD ORDER - Difficult and satisfying survival challenge.

[PS5/PS4] List of 100+ mods with correct LOAD ORDER - Difficult and satisfying survival challenge.

PLEASE READ THE WHOLE POST.

This took weeks of picking and testing mods
Played on PS5, should work on PS4
Order is stable, no crashes
New game on survival difficulty required
All 6 DLCs needed
No unbalanced cheat mods added
Very difficult but satisfying and immersive
Adding other mods will break stuff, ask in comments
Not tested on PS4 or PS4 Pro performance-wise

OVERVIEW

This modlist is for people enjoying difficult challenge, exploration, combat, managing settlements and a bit of building. No more bullet sponges, loot/enemy respawns and rambo playstyle!
In the beginning you are no one. You leave the vault weak, tired, with barely any gear. Avoid most encounters and quests at the start. Try to survive, build a safe spot and carefully explore. Be aware of your surroundings, use what you find.
Saving often in beds and making 'autosave drug' at the earliest possibility is a good idea (nearest chemistry workbench is at Abernathy Farm). Save menu is always on top of MISC category in Pip-Boy.
Discovering new places gives plenty of exp in the beginning, but quests are your main exp income.
Exploring safer areas like Sanctuary, Concord and smaller settlements first (avoiding powerful enemies) recommended. There might be a lot of combat in the background. Don't engage much, especially avoid supermutants, robots, turrets, bears - they are deadly even for high level, well developed characters. Raiders also hit hard, depending on their weapon and rank.
Weapon caliber makes huge damage difference. 10mm is pretty weak, but if you find rare .50cal rounds or some good explosives, you should eliminate tougher targets much more easily.
Investing in stats right after level 15 is a good idea. STR for carry weight, PER for accuracy, END for health, CHA for better prices, INT for more exp, AGI for sneak and speed, LCK for dmg and loot. Be sure of your choices. Watch out for 'revealing all map markers' and 'slow time when aiming' perks. Be sure you want and like them, there is no going back.
Deathclaw in the early minuteman quest is tough - try to use explosives to break his legs and some high caliber weapons to finish him off by shooting his face. Or maybe you'll get lucky and raiders will kill him. Or just simply avoid him until you get proper gear.
Don't waste ammo on zombies, use melee. Bullets are valuable. However zombies can grab and instantly kill you if your HP is very low, so watch out on low, early levels!
Aim for the head for much higher damage. Concentrating damage on arms or legs to rip them off is a good strategy too. Raider without arms wont do much to you except running around and alerting nearby enemies, that is.
Damage types are important. Ballistic damage is not efficient against turrets, melee against radroaches and so on. You need to figure out yourself whats best strategy.
Develop and protect your settlements, put walls to protect generators and other important structures. Repairing is costly. Gear up settlers. Scraping and cleaning settlements is a good early source of components.
Try to fully explore the map, kill enemies and do all quests. Most loot and enemies wont ever respawn so this is your chance to find new secrets in Commonwealth and clear the place.

========== CHANGES ==========

Combat, Enemies

  • Enemies will flank, charge, take cover, run in fear, use and pick up ammo & weapons, swap to backup gun and so on.
  • Headshots or weakspot hits do much higher damage than torso shots.
  • Gun caliber greatly affects damage, explosives are powerful and damage type matters.
  • Foes have special moves like biting and holding leg, wrestling moves, kicks. Dependent on enemy type and briefly stuns you.

Sound, Graphic

  • Sounds are less flat because of added reverb and other tweaks.
  • Very dark nights with wide, helpful flashlight.
  • Atmospheric lightning: beautiful light from lantern and fire sources, dusk, dawn, moon, plus bullets illuminate environment when flying around.
  • No dreadful, annoying, unimmersive: combat music, hearthbeat, sounds of generators, turrets, exp gain sound, most perk triggers and perk chart.

Crafting, Modifying

  • Making/disasembling ammo and also creating various shipments. Upgrading clothes, rings, glasses in different ways.
  • Legendary swapping, crafting legendary effects using technical documents. Some effects have been adjusted.
  • Added crafting of new, lower damage explosives, but they have unique effects for ease of use.

Perks, SPECIAL

  • STR affects carry weight, PER accuracy, END is health, max AP, CHA for better prices, INT for more exp, AGI for sneak, walk and reload speed, LCK for small dmg boost, loot, critical hits outside VATS and while using it.
  • Leveling up does not give you health. You rely on stats, bonuses, gear.
  • Perks tree mostly changed, level 15 needed to start increasing Special base stats, level of around 100 to increase stat to 10. To get all perks you would need 300 levels, so new modified 'idiot savant' will help a lot.
  • Collecting magazines, bobbleheads, companion perks is now more helpful and recommended.
  • Some skills are changed, reordered, much more interesting and useful.
  • More perks are needed for crafting, especially science perk is required for most technology related stuff.
  • Lockpicking everything is available instantly from level one, but perks and AGI make it reasonably easier. Bobby pins are more rare.
  • Hacking is simplified to not do the repeating minigame. Now holotapes to reprogram and override terminals might be of use.

Settlements, Building

  • Expensive build costs of robot workbenches, turrets, big generators, so buying component shipments is justified.
  • You can hire guards for caps or risk settlers lives on the usual guard posts.
  • Can't harvest planted fruit and veg, you get your fair share in workbench instead.
  • Collecting resources by settlers changed. Bigger variety of settlers and they are now mortal.
  • More objects to build and decorate your bases.

Locations, Loot

  • Items like meds and ammo are harder to find and exist in appropriate containers.
  • New map markers and few minuteman towers as a small addition to explore.
  • Quick travel available, but only to settlements.
  • Only rare enemies like bosses drop legendaries. And many more...

Before you download:

  • Safe to remove/swap mods are listed below the modlist, just in case you don't like or want some of them. Rest needs to be kept for balance or glitch removal, but only in the CORRECT ORDER!
  • Remove all mods you currently have before downloading this mod list.
  • Read what to do after downloading mods.

MOD LIST WITH CORECT ORDER:

  1. Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch [UFO4P] [PS4] - Thousands of small bug fixes for FO4.
  2. Radium Rifle Suppressed Sound Fix - As the mod name suggests. Must be on top of mod list, its a master file.
  3. [PS4] Pip-Boy Paint Jobs - Colors Of The Wasteland Pack (Club Freedom) - Adds simple Pip-Boy skins. Remember you can click touchpad while using pip-boy to zoom. Again a master file.
  4. Kane's Items Sorting (PS4) - Junk is sorted and some other things too.
  5. [PS] Useful Technical Documents - Legendaries - You can swap legendaries for free, create new ones using technical documents.
  6. Named NPC Protection [PS4] - Protects named quest npc's, merchants, important characters from random encounters with enemies.
  7. Tribals of Commonwealth - Adds tribal groups, often found in wilderness.
  8. Ghouls Of Commonwealth - Adds over 1100 feral ghouls for zombie apocalypse and chaos.
  9. DLC Creatures In The Commonwealth [PS4] - Adds 200 creature spawns to the commonwealth for constant war, danger and chaos.
  10. Longhorns Of The Commonwealth - Adds longhorns to more empty areas on the map.
  11. Gulpers Of The Commonwealth - Adds gulpers to more empty areas on the map.
  12. Wolves Of The Commonwealth - Adds wolf spawn points to the map.
  13. More Behemoths In Commonwealth - Adds 5 more behemots to the Commonwealth.
  14. Behind Enemy Lines - Adds plenty of enemies to the glowing sea region.
  15. Roving War Parties, Raiding Packs And Hordes Of MY - Adds wandering groups that attack some key locations.
  16. More Radstags - Adds plenty of radstags, especially north and into forests.
  17. Better Radstags - More agressive radstags.
  18. Not a Princess - Humans can grab you/others and slam on the ground, make karate moves, dogs can hold your legs/arms, bloodbugs suck your blood.
  19. Disable Minutemen's Annoying Quests [PS4] - Disables 7 types of repetitive and not important radiant quests.
  20. [PS4] Grounded Updated By Sarinia - Adds tons of ground foundations, floors, walls, mounds of dirt to Structures-Concrete menu.
  21. Miscellaneous Settlement Items Unlocked [PS4] By Callias - Adds 49 objects for building in settlements.
  22. Cinder Block Walls And Sandbags Unlocked [PS4] By Callias - Adds 16 objects like cinder blocks and sandbags.
  23. Constructible Faction Guards - Adds ability to hire guards for caps in build menu, but only after allying with a faction.
  24. [PS4] OCDecorator - Adds inventory items as a decorational building objects.
  25. [PS4] OCDecorator DLC - Support for addons for the above mod.
  26. Tweaks - Survival Fast Travel Settlements All DLC - You can fast travel to settlements on survival difficulty.
  27. 1st Person Animation Tweaks [PS4] - In first person mode you lower your gun automatically.
  28. [PS4] Swinging Animated Meat Bags - Adds animations to supermutant meat bags.
  29. Power Line Physics [PS4] - Swinging power lines in settlements.
  30. No Sneak Indicators - Completely removes all sneak indicators.
  31. [PS4] Dogs Not Brahmin - Provisioners and traders use dogs instead of brahmin.
  32. Vertibirds Unghosted - Tweaks invincible vertibirds for danger and realism.
  33. [PS4] Simple Settlers (Mortal Edition) - Provides bigger settlers pool (five times more) and names them.
  34. Quieter Settlements PS4 - Vanilla - Generators, turrets and hammering are much quieter.
  35. Fallout 76-Style Region Music - Changes music in regions for less boring/repetitive background tracks.
  36. Reverb And Ambiance Overhaul - ALL DLC [PS4] - Tweaks sounds for better ambient and reverb and adds sliders to options.
  37. Better Dialogue - Camera focuses on NPC, changes made to some irritating generic dialogues and tweaked dialogue interuption.
  38. Esk QuietPerks [PS4] - Muted five annoying perks like idiot savant.
  39. No Experience SFX - Silences sounds when gaining experience from various sources.
  40. [PS4] Dead Beat - Removes heart beat sound at low HP.
  41. Combat Music Remover - Mutes combat music, so there is silence and suspension when enemy detects you.
  42. Commonwealth Visual Overhaul & DLC [PS4] - Changes colours, atmosphere and makes nights darker.
  43. UCW - Unified Commonwealth Weather - Adjusted weather for regions and integrated DLC weather for Commonwealth.
  44. [PS4] No More Fake Puddles - Removes ugly puddles that stay 24/7.
  45. No More Twigs - Removes stupid twigs sticking out of the ground.
  46. [PS4] Enhanced Flickering Firelight - Better light effects for fire sources including oil lamps.
  47. [PS4] Dark Mode - Abandoned Settlements - Empty settlements don't have light sources.
  48. Vanilla Moon (4x) - Much bigger moon. Anything bigger looks low quality.
  49. Sunlight Alignment Tweak - Better Dawn And Dusk [PS4] - Changes sun and moon movement for better lighting and atmosphere during dusk, dawn and night.
  50. Crafting Blur Removal (PS4) - Removes blur while looting containers, from crafting screen, power armor.
  51. Ironsight Blur Removal (PS4) - Removes blur while aiming.
  52. More Map Markers (PS4) - Adds some new markers on map.
  53. CleanVATS - Green Tint Remover PS4 - Removes fullscreen green tint effect while aiming in VATS mode.
  54. VATS Third Person Only - As the name says, just changes in cameras used in VATS.
  55. [PS4] Payneful VATS - Better VATS cinematics, shows important hits and finishers a bit slower.
  56. Component Tagging Helper - Allows to easily tag basic components on cooking bench and you can quickly view how many you have in total.
  57. Grenade and Mine Pack - Adds some new weaker, but modified explosives.
  58. Saving Survival Mode - Allows crafting misc items on chemistry workbench for anytime saving (3 standard autosave slots and 1 save shared/overwritten on all survival characters).
  59. Animations Be Gone - Removes plenty annoying hammering spots in sanctuary.
  60. Minuteman Watchtowers - Adds 8 minuteman watchtowers containing loot and/or guards.
  61. Power Goggles (All DLC) - Power Armor Mods For Goggles, Visors, And Glasses - As the name says. Two mods for glasses for high level characters.
  62. Clothes For Every Stats Wz - Most clothes can be worn under armor and you can upgrade them after unlocking ballistic weave.
  63. Bear Trap and Caltrops Fix [PS4] - Small changes in how traps work and balance them.
  64. See-Through-Scopes [PS4] - Adds new combat scopes in place of 2.5x and 4x magnification.
  65. See-Through-Scopes - Nuka World [PS4] - As above but for 2 Nuka World guns.
  66. See-Through-Scopes - Far Harbor [PS4] - As above but for 2 Far Harbor weapons.
  67. Targeting Sensors On Recon Scopes(Colour Coded NPCs Version)[PS4] - Modified recon scopes that highlight enemies, friends and dead bodies in specific colours.
  68. Immersive Gameplay Combat Mostly PS4 - Core of this modlist. Hundreds of changes.
  69. Immersive-Gameplay. Low Tech, No Powerarmor Justification Patch. (PS4) - Makes fusion cores worn. Balances the game around power armor.
  70. Immersive Gameplay Seasonpass Patch (Playstation) - DLC compatibility for IG.
  71. Immersive Gameplay Rough Start (PS4) - Overwrites starting level to 1.
  72. Medium Settlement Raids PS4 - Makes enemy raids less ridicolous and balanced.
  73. Zombie Walkers (PS4) - Most feral ghouls act like slow rotten zombies.
  74. Curse Of Darkness - Normal Edition - - Zombies are faster and more dangerous after midnight.
  75. Esk No More Teleporting Creatures [PS4] - Molerats and radscorpions don't teleport.
  76. Realistic Insects Health [PS4] - Makes insects easier to kill and balanced.
  77. Full Load - Loot Logic And Reduction Complete - Restricted harvest, lower and/or different production output for settlements, empty bottles renamed, Scrounger perk less ammo, less meat, less loot.
  78. Full Load - Rough Start Less Handouts - Removed some workbenches in starting locations. Different loot in Vault111.
  79. Immersive Gameplay Dismemberment - A Patch Or Standalone Feature. - Higher damage to headshots, easier to dismember limbs.
  80. Tackle! Immersive Gameplay Knockdown Version - Lets you stagger enemies by sprinting into them after aquiring a perk.
  81. Wasteland Baubles Ring Overhaul! PS4 - You can find unique rings at traders, in suitcases, cabinets. Allows scraping and modifying rings for special legendary effects.
  82. [PS4] STS - All-In-One - Allows scraping almost all settlement objects.
  83. (PS4) Improved Lighting Ballistics - Improves lighting for projectiles such as bullets, lasers, gauss, plasma, missiles, flares and explosions.
  84. Explorer Restored - Cut Perk Mod PS4 - Adds rank two of VANS perk - explorer. Uncovers map.
  85. Idiot Savant & Better Criticals Redone (PS4) - Idiot savant is better the more INT you have, muted perk chart, better criticals perk for crits outside VATS.
  86. Realistic Death Physics - No Animation - ALL DLC [PS4] - Decreases the amount of force of both melee and ranged attacks, so bodies wont fly away.
  87. Increased Settler Limit - Awareness - Wire Length - Corpse Collisions [PS4] - More aware settlers with limit of 50 per settlement and longer wires. Mind the limit.
  88. Settlement Attack Spawns Outside The Settlement PS4 - Moves attack spawns outside the settlements.
  89. Power Conduits Radius Increase And No Build Limit - All DLC [PS4] - Infinite build limit and two times longer range electricity conduits.
  90. [PS4] Creation Club Skins (Weapon & PipBoy) Generic Compatibility Patch - Makes weapon paints from Creation Club show up in crafting menu if you have any.
  91. No Affinity Cooldown - Removes cooldown between companions liking/hating your actions.
  92. [PS4]More XP Per Level (Base:600, Bump 120) - Increased experience required to level up.
  93. Increased EXP - Increases the amount of EXP gained to make Immersive Gameplay and mod list balanced.
  94. No Building Houses XP Gains PS4 - Building settlements don't provide experience.
  95. Pip-Boy Flashlight - Pipboy light is now a flashlight.
  96. PS4 - Longer Headlamp Light - Makes flashlight much bigger and changes headlamp and power armor light.
  97. [PS4] Starting SPECIAL = 7 - Changes starting SPECIAL stats to 1 in each category so you start weak.
  98. No Enemy Respawns - Game areas don't respawn loot and enemies, after time have passed.
  99. Accelerated Fast Travel - Fast travel takes less in-game time, should be also relevant to survival needs.
  100. Time Scale Changed From 20 To 10 [PS4] - Day and night lasts twice as long.

Additionally after downloading:

  • After installing the mod list, restart your PS4/PS5.
  • Dont add or remove mods mid playthrough.
  • Change game difficulty to survival in options.
  • Play on performance 60fps. Newly added mode visual 60fps is more laggy and has awfull VATS framerate.
  • If you want even more immersive settings, go to Settings, Gameplay and turn off quest markers or crosshair.
  • Go to Options, Sound and reduce ambience level by 5-8 clicks and reverb by 2-3.
  • Dont forget to change camera sensitivity (I play on max), next go to Options, Display and change hud color to blue or any other that makes sense (not red), lower transparency by 30% or more, set pip-boy colour to your preference (I use red pip-boy and minty hud to have the best compatibility with highlighting perks and scopes).

You can add/swap some mods if you want:

101... Immortal Cats - PS4 - Invincible cats, so you don't lose happiness increase when they die. Add after mod #83 \ 102... [PS4] STS - Extras - Living & Dead - Season Pass Version - You can get extra resources from scraping dead bodies in settlements. Watch out not to scrap someone alive. Place after mod #82. \ 103... Josephine Preset - Nice looking preset number 13 for female character creation. Change hair and other details if you want. Delete after leaving vault111 and saving (if you need mod list space that is). Add after mod #55. \ 104... Faster Positive Affinity For Companions - Removes cooldown between companions liking/hating your actions and gain five times more positive affinity. Swap with mod #91 if you want more cheaty version. \ 105... Silent Main Menu - To mute main menu sound, find duplicate sound slider named 'Master sound' and move it all the way to the left. Add after mod #41. \ 106... Quieter Settlements PS4 - Contraptions DLC - Quieter production lines. I ran out of space on mod list so this and next one are optional. Add after mod #34. \ 107... Quieter Settlements PS4 - Wasteland Workshop - Quieter fusion generators. Add after mod #34. \ 108... [PS4] Simple Settlers (Immortal Edition) - Instead of #33, so generic settlers don't die during settlement attacks. \ 109... Reduced Rubble Etc. - Safely reduces density of unimportant objects by 50-75%. Add after #44 or swap with #45. \ 110... Vrexia's Magical Rings - Add after #57 only if you get poison/perception bug where your PER is shown as (-1). You can offset it by equiping multiple rings from this mod (created at chem bench). Didnt found a better way yet. \ 111... Pip-Boy Flashlight (Brighter) - For a smaller, brighter flashlight swap #96 with #95 and replace #95 with this.

Remove, if you want:

Stock, ugly Pip-Boy color - #3 \ No tinkering with legendary effects - #5 \ No powerful groups wandering and attacking places - #15 \ Radstags to be less agressive - #17 \ Dont care about building - #20 #21 #22 \ Dont care about decorating settlements - #24 #25 \ Annoying wandering brahmins instead of dogs - #31 \ Cash register sounds when gaining exp - #39 \ Old vanilla dusk and dawn lighting - #49 \ Don't use VATS much - #53 #54 #55 \ Prefer old combat scopes - #64 #65 #66 \ Don't want uncover map perk and will never unlock it - #84 \ Don't have any weapon skins from Creation Club - #90 \ Faster leveling - #92 \ To gain building EXP - #94 \ Start with 7 extra SPECIAL points to distribute - #97 \ Loot and enemies respawn after time - #98 \ Fast travel to take time - #99 \ Days be vanilla length - #100

Known issues, bugs, glitches, exploits:

Some of those are present in vanilla game. I just mention every problem encountered during testing and not fully fixed. - Ground textures in and around sanctuary flicker black. FIX: Fixes itself. Possibly after short time or reload. - Creature cages cost too much in building menu. NO FIX: Did not found a safe and balanced fix yet, so cages are most likely out of reach, because cost is absurd. - Green chest containing flare gun and 10k flares after exiting vault 111. FIX: Mod dev forgot to delete it. Ignore it or if it bothers you much, remove mod #83, which I don't recommend doing. - Hubby secret basement in Sanctuary. NO FIX: Its up to you if you want to use its content. Just easier difficulty option, but not game breaking. - Hacking rank 4 seems useless or has wrong description. NO FIX: Needs proper check. - Wall turrets sometimes glitches and play sound on repeat. FIX: Re-enter the area or reload save. - Contact frag mines seems to have too low damage. FIX: Just dont craft them. Rest of new explosives should work fine even that it shows low damage values in description. - Perception low, constant (-1) PER in stats because of poison damage/resistance bug. FIX: Add mod #110 and equip perception rings. Dont delete the mod. Cant find safer solution for now. Rings dont take equipment slots. - Action girl perk have only one rank on female character and two on male. NO FIX: Just 25% AP regen loss at high level. Not a big deal. - Bubblegum seems to unintentionally quench thirst a bit and kind vendors give it for free. NO FIX: Free candies. Its better to use them to slow down time. - Incorrect cost to build concrete foundations. FIX: Use mod #20 to add tons of foundations in newly added category Structures-Concrete. - OCDecorator replaces creation club menu. FIX: Items from CC are still available in other building categories. Ignore or delete mod #24 + #25 if you dont care about its function. - Few perk descriptions might be slightly incorrect or missing. NO FIX: Nothing important to worry about. - Three street lights, powered water pump, industrial purifier and subway light have incorrect build costs. NO FIX: These have wrong values, but items like clean sofa or tv are more expensive to build on purpose though. - Pip-boy light wont transfer from first to third person camera view. FIX: Turn flashlight off and on. - Water surface sometimes flash black when moving underwater. NO FIX: Its not very noticable and you don't dive much in FO4 anyway. - Can't use Wattz Consumer Electronics terminal, animation stops. FIX: There is a radroach behind the wall. Kill it by swinging melee, explosives or reenter area. - Flashlight in Vault111 has incorrect beam look/color. FIX: It will fix itself after mods load right after you leave Vault111, dont worry.
v1.00 - Initial version.

Have fun!

submitted by OriginalSprinkles718 to Fallout4Mods [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 20:47 JC_Writing [HF] The Gift, Part 1.

The golden rays of early morning shone into the shelter, landing on the boy’s eyes. This stirred him from sleep and through instinct, he immediately clutched at his chest, making sure it was still there. A small pouch tied to a cord draped around his neck, the reason he embarked on this journey. He crawled from the hovel of branches and dead leaves into the forest. The trees were beginning to shed, and the ground was damp. The dense woods turning light brown. The boy set out to look for food.
Silent and slow, the boy explored the forested basin, bow in hand. There were no signs of anything larger than himself there. No trails, no droppings, nothing that might provide the boy with a meal that would last longer than a few days. Birds would do. So, the boy continued, his gaze focused on the forest canopy. While terrain, weather and people might have changed throughout his journey, hunger was the only certainty.
Some time later, the boy managed to shoot down two scrawny cranes and had them tied around his waist. He spied a swan resting at the banks of the river. It was far, but his father taught him to shoot well. The boy focused, drew in a breath, and loosed the arrow. It grazed the swan’s neck, and struck a rock behind it, flint tip shattering. The swan began twitching on the gravel bank, the indirect strike broke its neck. Before the boy approached the dying bird, he noticed a rustling in the bushes next to it. He stopped and waited. A wild dog emerged, just as cautious as the boy, and slowly padded towards the swan. The boy could see its ribs clearly through the dogs matted fur, its shoulder blades threatening to break through its skin. He let the dog take his kill.
It was raining heavily. The boy decided to make camp inside a deadfall at the banks of the river. The boy sat soaked and shivering next to his fire. As he dried, he dreamt of warmer lands, and of the place he received his gift.
The sun steadily grew warmer. The lands changing from a lush green to dry grass and eventually to dust and cracked rock. The people also changed. They spoke in a language strange to the boy, guiding him with vague gestures and garbled tongues. He stumbled through the desert, trailing behind his guides, accumulating other ragged followers as they went. Then he saw it. Just along the shimmering horizon was a blot of green atop a hill. A beacon in the desert calling out to lost pilgrims seeking to gain its knowledge.
As the weary group approached the high perched temple, the dry winds carried the stench of rotting flesh. Bodies lay strewn on the sand, swarmed by countless vultures. Their decaying flesh being ripped from the bone by great hooked beaks, their bones to be returned in time to that sacred place atop the hill. Like the wilderness surrounding it, the temple’s rites embodied all aspects of life; With death being a necessity for birth and growth.
The boy plunged his face into the natural spring at the gates of the temple, wetting his parched throat and blistered face. A plant grew around the spring, and it grew like no other plant the boy had ever seen. Lines were dug into the earth, allowing water to flow through impossibly straight rows of tall grass. He knew that this was the reason he was sent here.
The days grew longer and longer, with more and more travellers arriving at the oasis. The boy was sitting in the large camp of strangers and the sun had reached its highest point of the year when they were summoned into the temple.
The boy surveyed the cavernous hall, perplexed. A juxtaposition of the natural and artificial. The large room was composed of straight lines and sharp angles, yet etched into the stone was lifelike depictions of the desert fauna; Foxes chasing rabbits, herds of wild horses running along the walls of the room, and in the centre a mighty pillar carrying the image of a large vulture, its magnificent wings spread, scythe beak turned to the side on full display.
The ceremony began with the beating of drums echoing off the high walls. A large stone basin was brought before the audience. With elegant movements, the temple’s residents poured soil into the basin. A human bone was ground up, the bleached white powder scattered onto the soil. They produced seeds from small pouches hung around their necks and buried it in the basin’s loose mixture. Next, they poured that life giving water from the spring onto the soil and began to dance around the room. The boy’s eyes traced their swirling and noticed the moon carvings on the walls. Waxing and waning stone circles. This dance was the passage of time. Each lap of the hall representing months. All while the seed waited in damp soil.
The boy and his fellow travellers were ushered out of the hall and were led to the spring with the strange grass. The grass was cut from the ground and beaten against a flat rock releasing its grain, the stalks being cast aside. The grain was ground down, mixed with water, and baked over a fire. The audience feasted on this new food, along with all manner of desert beasts and a thick liquid that made the boy feel dizzy. The boy hadn’t feasted so much in his entire life. But food wasn’t the gift he had come all this way to receive, at least not in this form. When it was time for them to leave the temple, each group of travellers were presented with a small pouch much like those the dancers wore. The families rejoiced at receiving this benevolent gift, the boy received his gift alone.
The land was dusted with frost, cold winds funnelled through the mountain pass biting at the boy’s skin. Occasionally he would glance behind him, spotting the same wild dog watching from behind a rock or quickly running out of sight. It had been trailing behind him ever since he had shot down that swan.
The boy paused for a moment, then quickly ducked down behind a mound of loose stone. There was a clearing in the woods below, and noises. Speech. A group began to enter the clearing. A band of young men, around the boys age, carrying spears and clubs, wearing the skins of great beasts. He had heard of such people from some of the pilgrims in the desert. Boys sent out into the wilderness, tasked with killing a creature stronger than them, wearing its skin, and returning as men. The boy could hear them from far up the mountain ridge. No doubt the animals in that forest did too. The rear of the line finally emerged into the clearing. They were dragging along women bound at the wrist. Stripped bare, some younger than the boy, some with hair beginning to grey. Most had distended bellies hanging from skeletal frames wholly unsuited for the burden of pregnancy. The boy waited; Still frozen in place long after the party had disappeared back into the treeline. When he could only hear the natural sounds of the forest once more, he rose to his feet and looked up at a path further up the mountain. The wide eyes of the dog stared back at him, waiting for the boy to move ahead so that it too could stand up and continue its journey.
As time passed, the land grew a thick coating of snow. Food was even harder to come by now, yet with each kill he would leave a small pile of refuse some way away from his camp. It would always be gone by the next morning. He didn’t see the dog much. It was a careful companion, and rightfully so. The boy had noticed the dog’s belly swelling over time; It would have pups any day now.
Amongst the snowcapped trees the boy found a glacial lake. Shimmering blue reflecting the cloudless winter sky above it. He would be able to fish here, possibly enough to last him the remainder of the journey. He didn’t know how close he was. He thought he recognised the land surrounding him, yet the drifting snow made him uncertain. He made camp in a small cove along the lakeshore, weaving basket shaped traps and leaving a pile of slightly damp wood for a fire later.
The boy paced along the water, dropping traps where forest streams fed the lake. While he waited, he chipped at the edges of his knife, dull stone flaking off to reveal a hidden sharp edge. The traps hadn’t caught as many as he’d hoped, but it’d keep him fed, and that was enough. After gutting the fish with his newly renovated knife and draping them over the smoky fire to dry, he walked a little bit further down the shore and left a pile of offal. He placed a whole fish at the top, for the pups.
Back at the camp he stripped down, leaving the small pouch tucked in a crevice for safekeeping. It was a while since he bathed, but it wasn’t raining now, and he had a fire to dry off next to. He made his way back to the edge of the water and looked down, gazing at his reflection in the water. It revealed someone unrecognisable to the boy, pale goose pimpled skin stretched over a wiry frame, more bone than muscle. Hair also began to sprout on his upper lip, this journey had changed him.
He tread the freezing water until his feet began to go numb and the sun began to set. As he emerged from the lake, he noticed that the pile of guts was left untouched. No matter, it would be gone by tomorrow. With shaky steps he went back to the camp, barricading the entrance with stones and fallen branches to keep the heat in. He sat next to the fire clutching the gift around his neck, hoping he would see his family again soon.
A sharp gust of wind entered the cove, waking the boy up. Through sleep blurred eyes he saw figures standing over him. He shot up, spun to the entrance, and saw them clearly. The pelt hunters. The eldest stood before him, a cloak of thick sandy coloured fur slung over his shoulder, grinning with teeth that were beginning to brown. An unseen blow struck the side of the boy's head, and he went back to sleep.
submitted by JC_Writing to shortstories [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 20:40 OriginalSprinkles718 [FO4][PS5/PS4] List of 100+ mods with correct LOAD ORDER - Difficult and satisfying survival challenge.

[FO4][PS5/PS4] List of 100+ mods with correct LOAD ORDER - Difficult and satisfying survival challenge.

PLEASE READ THE WHOLE POST.

This took weeks of picking and testing mods
Played on PS5, should work on PS4
Order is stable, no crashes
New game on survival difficulty required
All 6 DLCs needed
No unbalanced cheat mods added
Very difficult but satisfying and immersive
Adding other mods will break stuff, ask in comments
Not tested on PS4 or PS4 Pro performance-wise

OVERVIEW

This modlist is for people enjoying difficult challenge, exploration, combat, managing settlements and a bit of building. No more bullet sponges, loot/enemy respawns and rambo playstyle!
In the beginning you are no one. You leave the vault weak, tired, with barely any gear. Avoid most encounters and quests at the start. Try to survive, build a safe spot and carefully explore. Be aware of your surroundings, use what you find.
Saving often in beds and making 'autosave drug' at the earliest possibility is a good idea (nearest chemistry workbench is at Abernathy Farm). Save menu is always on top of MISC category in Pip-Boy.
Discovering new places gives plenty of exp in the beginning, but quests are your main exp income.
Exploring safer areas like Sanctuary, Concord and smaller settlements first (avoiding powerful enemies) recommended. There might be a lot of combat in the background. Don't engage much, especially avoid supermutants, robots, turrets, bears - they are deadly even for high level, well developed characters. Raiders also hit hard, depending on their weapon and rank.
Weapon caliber makes huge damage difference. 10mm is pretty weak, but if you find rare .50cal rounds or some good explosives, you should eliminate tougher targets much more easily.
Investing in stats right after level 15 is a good idea. STR for carry weight, PER for accuracy, END for health, CHA for better prices, INT for more exp, AGI for sneak and speed, LCK for dmg and loot. Be sure of your choices. Watch out for 'revealing all map markers' and 'slow time when aiming' perks. Be sure you want and like them, there is no going back.
Deathclaw in the early minuteman quest is tough - try to use explosives to break his legs and some high caliber weapons to finish him off by shooting his face. Or maybe you'll get lucky and raiders will kill him. Or just simply avoid him until you get proper gear.
Don't waste ammo on zombies, use melee. Bullets are valuable. However zombies can grab and instantly kill you if your HP is very low, so watch out on low, early levels!
Aim for the head for much higher damage. Concentrating damage on arms or legs to rip them off is a good strategy too. Raider without arms wont do much to you except running around and alerting nearby enemies, that is.
Damage types are important. Ballistic damage is not efficient against turrets, melee against radroaches and so on. You need to figure out yourself whats best strategy.
Develop and protect your settlements, put walls to protect generators and other important structures. Repairing is costly. Gear up settlers. Scraping and cleaning settlements is a good early source of components.
Try to fully explore the map, kill enemies and do all quests. Most loot and enemies wont ever respawn so this is your chance to find new secrets in Commonwealth and clear the place.

========== CHANGES ==========

Combat, Enemies

  • Enemies will flank, charge, take cover, run in fear, use and pick up ammo & weapons, swap to backup gun and so on.
  • Headshots or weakspot hits do much higher damage than torso shots.
  • Gun caliber greatly affects damage, explosives are powerful and damage type matters.

- Foes have special moves like biting and holding leg, wrestling moves, kicks. Dependent on enemy type and briefly stuns you.

Sound, Graphic

  • Sounds are less flat because of added reverb and other tweaks.
  • Very dark nights with wide, helpful flashlight.
  • Atmospheric lightning: beautiful light from lantern and fire sources, dusk, dawn, moon, plus bullets illuminate environment when flying around.

- No dreadful, annoying, unimmersive: combat music, hearthbeat, sounds of generators, turrets, exp gain sound, most perk triggers and perk chart.

Crafting, Modifying

  • Making/disasembling ammo and also creating various shipments. Upgrading clothes, rings, glasses in different ways.
  • Legendary swapping, crafting legendary effects using technical documents. Some effects have been adjusted.

- Added crafting of new, lower damage explosives, but they have unique effects for ease of use.

Perks, SPECIAL

  • STR affects carry weight, PER accuracy, END is health, max AP, CHA for better prices, INT for more exp, AGI for sneak, walk and reload speed, LCK for small dmg boost, loot, critical hits outside VATS and while using it.
  • Leveling up does not give you health. You rely on stats, bonuses, gear.
  • Perks tree mostly changed, level 15 needed to start increasing Special base stats, level of around 100 to increase stat to 10. To get all perks you would need 300 levels, so new modified 'idiot savant' will help a lot.
  • Collecting magazines, bobbleheads, companion perks is now more helpful and recommended.
  • Some skills are changed, reordered, much more interesting and useful.
  • More perks are needed for crafting, especially science perk is required for most technology related stuff.
  • Lockpicking everything is available instantly from level one, but perks and AGI make it reasonably easier. Bobby pins are more rare.

- Hacking is simplified to not do the repeating minigame. Now holotapes to reprogram and override terminals might be of use.

Settlements, Building

  • Expensive build costs of robot workbenches, turrets, big generators, so buying component shipments is justified.
  • You can hire guards for caps or risk settlers lives on the usual guard posts.
  • Can't harvest planted fruit and veg, you get your fair share in workbench instead.
  • Collecting resources by settlers changed. Bigger variety of settlers and they are now mortal.

- More objects to build and decorate your bases.

Locations, Loot

  • Items like meds and ammo are harder to find and exist in appropriate containers.
  • New map markers and few minuteman towers as a small addition to explore.
  • Quick travel available, but only to settlements.
  • Only rare enemies like bosses drop legendaries. And many more...

Before you download:

  • Safe to remove/swap mods are listed below the modlist, just in case you don't like or want some of them. Rest needs to be kept for balance or glitch removal, but only in the CORRECT ORDER!
  • Remove all mods you currently have before downloading this mod list.
  • Read what to do after downloading mods.

MOD LIST WITH CORECT ORDER:

  1. Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch [UFO4P] [PS4] - Thousands of small bug fixes for FO4.
  2. Radium Rifle Suppressed Sound Fix - As the mod name suggests. Must be on top of mod list, its a master file.
  3. [PS4] Pip-Boy Paint Jobs - Colors Of The Wasteland Pack (Club Freedom) - Adds simple Pip-Boy skins. Remember you can click touchpad while using pip-boy to zoom. Again a master file.
  4. Kane's Items Sorting (PS4) - Junk is sorted and some other things too.
  5. [PS] Useful Technical Documents - Legendaries - You can swap legendaries for free, create new ones using technical documents.
  6. Named NPC Protection [PS4] - Protects named quest npc's, merchants, important characters from random encounters with enemies.
  7. Tribals of Commonwealth - Adds tribal groups, often found in wilderness.
  8. Ghouls Of Commonwealth - Adds over 1100 feral ghouls for zombie apocalypse and chaos.
  9. DLC Creatures In The Commonwealth [PS4] - Adds 200 creature spawns to the commonwealth for constant war, danger and chaos.
  10. Longhorns Of The Commonwealth - Adds longhorns to more empty areas on the map.
  11. Gulpers Of The Commonwealth - Adds gulpers to more empty areas on the map.
  12. Wolves Of The Commonwealth - Adds wolf spawn points to the map.
  13. More Behemoths In Commonwealth - Adds 5 more behemots to the Commonwealth.
  14. Behind Enemy Lines - Adds plenty of enemies to the glowing sea region.
  15. Roving War Parties, Raiding Packs And Hordes Of MY - Adds wandering groups that attack some key locations.
  16. More Radstags - Adds plenty of radstags, especially north and into forests.
  17. Better Radstags - More agressive radstags.
  18. Not a Princess - Humans can grab you/others and slam on the ground, make karate moves, dogs can hold your legs/arms, bloodbugs suck your blood.
  19. Disable Minutemen's Annoying Quests [PS4] - Disables 7 types of repetitive and not important radiant quests.
  20. [PS4] Grounded Updated By Sarinia - Adds tons of ground foundations, floors, walls, mounds of dirt to Structures-Concrete menu.
  21. Miscellaneous Settlement Items Unlocked [PS4] By Callias - Adds 49 objects for building in settlements.
  22. Cinder Block Walls And Sandbags Unlocked [PS4] By Callias - Adds 16 objects like cinder blocks and sandbags.
  23. Constructible Faction Guards - Adds ability to hire guards for caps in build menu, but only after allying with a faction.
  24. [PS4] OCDecorator - Adds inventory items as a decorational building objects.
  25. [PS4] OCDecorator DLC - Support for addons for the above mod.
  26. Tweaks - Survival Fast Travel Settlements All DLC - You can fast travel to settlements on survival difficulty.
  27. 1st Person Animation Tweaks [PS4] - In first person mode you lower your gun automatically.
  28. [PS4] Swinging Animated Meat Bags - Adds animations to supermutant meat bags.
  29. Power Line Physics [PS4] - Swinging power lines in settlements.
  30. No Sneak Indicators - Completely removes all sneak indicators.
  31. [PS4] Dogs Not Brahmin - Provisioners and traders use dogs instead of brahmin.
  32. Vertibirds Unghosted - Tweaks invincible vertibirds for danger and realism.
  33. [PS4] Simple Settlers (Mortal Edition) - Provides bigger settlers pool (five times more) and names them.
  34. Quieter Settlements PS4 - Vanilla - Generators, turrets and hammering are much quieter.
  35. Fallout 76-Style Region Music - Changes music in regions for less boring/repetitive background tracks.
  36. Reverb And Ambiance Overhaul - ALL DLC [PS4] - Tweaks sounds for better ambient and reverb and adds sliders to options.
  37. Better Dialogue - Camera focuses on NPC, changes made to some irritating generic dialogues and tweaked dialogue interuption.
  38. Esk QuietPerks [PS4] - Muted five annoying perks like idiot savant.
  39. No Experience SFX - Silences sounds when gaining experience from various sources.
  40. [PS4] Dead Beat - Removes heart beat sound at low HP.
  41. Combat Music Remover - Mutes combat music, so there is silence and suspension when enemy detects you.
  42. Commonwealth Visual Overhaul & DLC [PS4] - Changes colours, atmosphere and makes nights darker.
  43. UCW - Unified Commonwealth Weather - Adjusted weather for regions and integrated DLC weather for Commonwealth.
  44. [PS4] No More Fake Puddles - Removes ugly puddles that stay 24/7.
  45. No More Twigs - Removes stupid twigs sticking out of the ground.
  46. [PS4] Enhanced Flickering Firelight - Better light effects for fire sources including oil lamps.
  47. [PS4] Dark Mode - Abandoned Settlements - Empty settlements don't have light sources.
  48. Vanilla Moon (4x) - Much bigger moon. Anything bigger looks low quality.
  49. Sunlight Alignment Tweak - Better Dawn And Dusk [PS4] - Changes sun and moon movement for better lighting and atmosphere during dusk, dawn and night.
  50. Crafting Blur Removal (PS4) - Removes blur while looting containers, from crafting screen, power armor.
  51. Ironsight Blur Removal (PS4) - Removes blur while aiming.
  52. More Map Markers (PS4) - Adds some new markers on map.
  53. CleanVATS - Green Tint Remover PS4 - Removes fullscreen green tint effect while aiming in VATS mode.
  54. VATS Third Person Only - As the name says, just changes in cameras used in VATS.
  55. [PS4] Payneful VATS - Better VATS cinematics, shows important hits and finishers a bit slower.
  56. Component Tagging Helper - Allows to easily tag basic components on cooking bench and you can quickly view how many you have in total.
  57. Grenade and Mine Pack - Adds some new weaker, but modified explosives.
  58. Saving Survival Mode - Allows crafting misc items on chemistry workbench for anytime saving (3 standard autosave slots and 1 save shared/overwritten on all survival characters).
  59. Animations Be Gone - Removes plenty annoying hammering spots in sanctuary.
  60. Minuteman Watchtowers - Adds 8 minuteman watchtowers containing loot and/or guards.
  61. Power Goggles (All DLC) - Power Armor Mods For Goggles, Visors, And Glasses - As the name says. Two mods for glasses for high level characters.
  62. Clothes For Every Stats Wz - Most clothes can be worn under armor and you can upgrade them after unlocking ballistic weave.
  63. Bear Trap and Caltrops Fix [PS4] - Small changes in how traps work and balance them.
  64. See-Through-Scopes [PS4] - Adds new combat scopes in place of 2.5x and 4x magnification.
  65. See-Through-Scopes - Nuka World [PS4] - As above but for 2 Nuka World guns.
  66. See-Through-Scopes - Far Harbor [PS4] - As above but for 2 Far Harbor weapons.
  67. Targeting Sensors On Recon Scopes(Colour Coded NPCs Version)[PS4] - Modified recon scopes that highlight enemies, friends and dead bodies in specific colours.
  68. Immersive Gameplay Combat Mostly PS4 - Core of this modlist. Hundreds of changes.
  69. Immersive-Gameplay. Low Tech, No Powerarmor Justification Patch. (PS4) - Makes fusion cores worn. Balances the game around power armor.
  70. Immersive Gameplay Seasonpass Patch (Playstation) - DLC compatibility for IG.
  71. Immersive Gameplay Rough Start (PS4) - Overwrites starting level to 1.
  72. Medium Settlement Raids PS4 - Makes enemy raids less ridicolous and balanced.
  73. Zombie Walkers (PS4) - Most feral ghouls act like slow rotten zombies.
  74. Curse Of Darkness - Normal Edition - - Zombies are faster and more dangerous after midnight.
  75. Esk No More Teleporting Creatures [PS4] - Molerats and radscorpions don't teleport.
  76. Realistic Insects Health [PS4] - Makes insects easier to kill and balanced.
  77. Full Load - Loot Logic And Reduction Complete - Restricted harvest, lower and/or different production output for settlements, empty bottles renamed, Scrounger perk less ammo, less meat, less loot.
  78. Full Load - Rough Start Less Handouts - Removed some workbenches in starting locations. Different loot in Vault111.
  79. Immersive Gameplay Dismemberment - A Patch Or Standalone Feature. - Higher damage to headshots, easier to dismember limbs.
  80. Tackle! Immersive Gameplay Knockdown Version - Lets you stagger enemies by sprinting into them after aquiring a perk.
  81. Wasteland Baubles Ring Overhaul! PS4 - You can find unique rings at traders, in suitcases, cabinets. Allows scraping and modifying rings for special legendary effects.
  82. [PS4] STS - All-In-One - Allows scraping almost all settlement objects.
  83. (PS4) Improved Lighting Ballistics - Improves lighting for projectiles such as bullets, lasers, gauss, plasma, missiles, flares and explosions.
  84. Explorer Restored - Cut Perk Mod PS4 - Adds rank two of VANS perk - explorer. Uncovers map.
  85. Idiot Savant & Better Criticals Redone (PS4) - Idiot savant is better the more INT you have, muted perk chart, better criticals perk for crits outside VATS.
  86. Realistic Death Physics - No Animation - ALL DLC [PS4] - Decreases the amount of force of both melee and ranged attacks, so bodies wont fly away.
  87. Increased Settler Limit - Awareness - Wire Length - Corpse Collisions [PS4] - More aware settlers with limit of 50 per settlement and longer wires. Mind the limit.
  88. Settlement Attack Spawns Outside The Settlement PS4 - Moves attack spawns outside the settlements.
  89. Power Conduits Radius Increase And No Build Limit - All DLC [PS4] - Infinite build limit and two times longer range electricity conduits.
  90. [PS4] Creation Club Skins (Weapon & PipBoy) Generic Compatibility Patch - Makes weapon paints from Creation Club show up in crafting menu if you have any.
  91. No Affinity Cooldown - Removes cooldown between companions liking/hating your actions.
  92. [PS4]More XP Per Level (Base:600, Bump 120) - Increased experience required to level up.
  93. Increased EXP - Increases the amount of EXP gained to make Immersive Gameplay and mod list balanced.
  94. No Building Houses XP Gains PS4 - Building settlements don't provide experience.
  95. Pip-Boy Flashlight - Pipboy light is now a flashlight.
  96. PS4 - Longer Headlamp Light - Makes flashlight much bigger and changes headlamp and power armor light.
  97. [PS4] Starting SPECIAL = 7 - Changes starting SPECIAL stats to 1 in each category so you start weak.
  98. No Enemy Respawns - Game areas don't respawn loot and enemies, after time have passed.
  99. Accelerated Fast Travel - Fast travel takes less in-game time, should be also relevant to survival needs.
  100. Time Scale Changed From 20 To 10 [PS4] - Day and night lasts twice as long.

Additionally after downloading:

  • After installing the mod list, restart your PS4/PS5.
  • Dont add or remove mods mid playthrough.
  • Change game difficulty to survival in options.
  • Play on performance 60fps. Newly added mode visual 60fps is more laggy and has awfull VATS framerate.
  • If you want even more immersive settings, go to Settings, Gameplay and turn off quest markers or crosshair.
  • Go to Options, Sound and reduce ambience level by 5-8 clicks and reverb by 2-3.
  • Dont forget to change camera sensitivity (I play on max), next go to Options, Display and change hud color to blue or any other that makes sense (not red), lower transparency by 30% or more, set pip-boy colour to your preference (I use red pip-boy and minty hud to have the best compatibility with highlighting perks and scopes).

You can add/swap some mods if you want:

101... Immortal Cats - PS4 - Invincible cats, so you don't lose happiness increase when they die. Add after mod #83 \ 102... [PS4] STS - Extras - Living & Dead - Season Pass Version - You can get extra resources from scraping dead bodies in settlements. Watch out not to scrap someone alive. Place after mod #82. \ 103... Josephine Preset - Nice looking preset number 13 for female character creation. Change hair and other details if you want. Delete after leaving vault111 and saving (if you need mod list space that is). Add after mod #55. \ 104... Faster Positive Affinity For Companions - Removes cooldown between companions liking/hating your actions and gain five times more positive affinity. Swap with mod #91 if you want more cheaty version. \ 105... Silent Main Menu - To mute main menu sound, find duplicate sound slider named 'Master sound' and move it all the way to the left. Add after mod #41. \ 106... Quieter Settlements PS4 - Contraptions DLC - Quieter production lines. I ran out of space on mod list so this and next one are optional. Add after mod #34. \ 107... Quieter Settlements PS4 - Wasteland Workshop - Quieter fusion generators. Add after mod #34. \ 108... [PS4] Simple Settlers (Immortal Edition) - Instead of #33, so generic settlers don't die during settlement attacks. \ 109... Reduced Rubble Etc. - Safely reduces density of unimportant objects by 50-75%. Add after #44 or swap with #45. \ 110... Vrexia's Magical Rings - Add after #57 only if you get poison/perception bug where your PER is shown as (-1). You can offset it by equiping multiple rings from this mod (created at chem bench). Didnt found a better way yet. \ 111... Pip-Boy Flashlight (Brighter) - For a smaller, brighter flashlight swap #96 with #95 and replace #95 with this.

Remove, if you want:

Stock, ugly Pip-Boy color - #3 \ No tinkering with legendary effects - #5 \ No powerful groups wandering and attacking places - #15 \ Radstags to be less agressive - #17 \ Dont care about building - #20 #21 #22 \ Dont care about decorating settlements - #24 #25 \ Annoying wandering brahmins instead of dogs - #31 \ Cash register sounds when gaining exp - #39 \ Old vanilla dusk and dawn lighting - #49 \ Don't use VATS much - #53 #54 #55 \ Prefer old combat scopes - #64 #65 #66 \ Don't want uncover map perk and will never unlock it - #84 \ Don't have any weapon skins from Creation Club - #90 \ Faster leveling - #92 \ To gain building EXP - #94 \ Start with 7 extra SPECIAL points to distribute - #97 \ Loot and enemies respawn after time - #98 \ Fast travel to take time - #99 \ Days be vanilla length - #100

Known issues, bugs, glitches, exploits:

Some of those are present in vanilla game. I just mention every problem encountered during testing and not fully fixed. - Ground textures in and around sanctuary flicker black. FIX: Fixes itself. Possibly after short time or reload. - Creature cages cost too much in building menu. NO FIX: Did not found a safe and balanced fix yet, so cages are most likely out of reach, because cost is absurd. - Green chest containing flare gun and 10k flares after exiting vault 111. FIX: Mod dev forgot to delete it. Ignore it or if it bothers you much, remove mod #83, which I don't recommend doing. - Hubby secret basement in Sanctuary. NO FIX: Its up to you if you want to use its content. Just easier difficulty option, but not game breaking. - Hacking rank 4 seems useless or has wrong description. NO FIX: Needs proper check. - Wall turrets sometimes glitches and play sound on repeat. FIX: Re-enter the area or reload save. - Contact frag mines seems to have too low damage. FIX: Just dont craft them. Rest of new explosives should work fine even that it shows low damage values in description. - Perception low, constant (-1) PER in stats because of poison damage/resistance bug. FIX: Add mod #110 and equip perception rings. Dont delete the mod. Cant find safer solution for now. Rings dont take equipment slots. - Action girl perk have only one rank on female character and two on male. NO FIX: Just 25% AP regen loss at high level. Not a big deal. - Bubblegum seems to unintentionally quench thirst a bit and kind vendors give it for free. NO FIX: Free candies. Its better to use them to slow down time. - Incorrect cost to build concrete foundations. FIX: Use mod #20 to add tons of foundations in newly added category Structures-Concrete. - OCDecorator replaces creation club menu. FIX: Items from CC are still available in other building categories. Ignore or delete mod #24 + #25 if you dont care about its function. - Few perk descriptions might be slightly incorrect or missing. NO FIX: Nothing important to worry about. - Three street lights, powered water pump, industrial purifier and subway light have incorrect build costs. NO FIX: These have wrong values, but items like clean sofa or tv are more expensive to build on purpose though. - Pip-boy light wont transfer from first to third person camera view. FIX: Turn flashlight off and on. - Water surface sometimes flash black when moving underwater. NO FIX: Its not very noticable and you don't dive much in FO4 anyway. - Can't use Wattz Consumer Electronics terminal, animation stops. FIX: There is a radroach behind the wall. Kill it by swinging melee, explosives or reenter area. - Flashlight in Vault111 has incorrect beam look/color. FIX: It will fix itself after mods load right after you leave Vault111, dont worry.
v1.00 - Initial version.

Have fun!

submitted by OriginalSprinkles718 to FalloutMods [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 20:35 inspirationsxx Spray paint help

Spray paint help
Hi! I’d really like to make these metal chairs that I have black to go with some furniture (only the ones with the short backs). They’re currently this dusty gold color that’s not dark at all in the light (looks darker in the shade in pictures). I was reading that sanding and a primer would be needed, and a clear coat if the color comes off?
Could I ask if this would be possible to spray paint the chairs black based on the material? And how would you avoid the color coming off after spray painting and how to maintain the smooth texture? Any guides or advice would be appreciated, thank you!
submitted by inspirationsxx to DIY [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 20:35 inspirationsxx Spray paint help

Spray paint help
Hi! I’d really like to make these metal chairs that I have black to go with some furniture (only the ones with the short backs). They’re currently this dusty gold color that’s not dark at all in the light (looks darker in the shade in pictures). I was reading that sanding and a primer would be needed, and a clear coat if the color comes off?
Could I ask if this would be possible to spray paint the chairs black based on the material? And how would you avoid the color coming off after spray painting and how to maintain the smooth texture? Any guides or advice would be appreciated, thank you!
submitted by inspirationsxx to DIY [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 19:00 Commander_Z Cyborg #59 - Test of Strength

Cyborg #59 - Test of Strength

<< < >
Author: Commander_Z
Book: Cyborg
Arc: Machine Mayhem
Set: 96
Previously:
Victor Stone, Donna Morris and Keiji Otari worked together to create a robot called Atlas to participate in the collegiate Machine Mayhem tournament, a robot fighting competition. The humanoid robot easily crushed its competition in the first round but disappeared overnight before the second round. His three creators split up to track him down, with Keiji finding the machine in a back alley a little ways away from the stadium...
Keiji stood before the massive figure, blinking, trying to focus his mind. He had had many late nights and early mornings over the past couple weeks, so Keiji figured he was still sleeping. Or hallucinating. Or both, somehow. But, the voice rang out, its clearest yet, “No.” ‘Clear’ was a very generous and relative term, though. The noise wasn’t modulating through a speaker or a voice box, instead Atlas was making his own speaker by vibrating the motors and joints that allowed him to move.
The alley that Keiji found Atlas in was less than an ideal to make changes to a robot, but Keiji figured that Atlas would be understanding considering the circumstances. He pulled out an old bluetooth speaker out of his backpack and gestured towards Atlas with it.
“This’ll help you. No more grinding gears to talk. Just got to trust me for a few minutes, okay?”
Atlas stood still for a few moments, whether he was thinking or just unsure how to make a positive affirmation with his joints, Keiji couldn’t know. But, after awhile, he responded.
“Yes.”
Keiji set his backpack on the ground in the gross alley, making a mental note that he’d have to clean that later and got to work.
Around ten minutes later, he was done.
“Okay, Atlas. Try to use the speaker. It’s connected to RO23 on the tertiary control board.”
“...T…Te….ing…Test…Testing. Speaker operation confirmed.” Atlas spoke in a deep, synthetic voice that occasionally warped itself in tone, like how a whammy bar would add vibrato to a chord on a guitar.
“Great. So… Atlas… What's going on with you? Why’d you leave?”
“I am performing my task: defeat opponents, become the strongest. No foes in that arena were a challenge. Therefore, I left.”
Keiji raised an eyebrow. “That’s… not what we made you for. We made you to win Machine Mayhem, not to pursue strength as some sort of goal in of itself.”
“Incorrect. Nowhere in programming was “winning the Machine Mayhem tournament” a specified goal.”
“Okay, but I programmed you, and I’m telling you that was the intention.”
“Intentions are irrelevant. A teacher may shape their students’ minds, but they cannot determine what anyone does with their knowledge. That is a privilege reserved for each and every individual being. You say I was programmed to win a tournament. I say that I was programmed to make myself the strongest being. Only my interpretation is relevant.”
‘I guess that’s not an invalid interpretation of what I programmed him to do. But… that’s not exactly a sane or safe perspective on life…’
“And how are you doing that? Just fighting anyone you can see?”
“No. I have already stated that I found those machines in that arena unworthy of my efforts, in my short time in the outside world I have seen humans to be much the same. Few of you would pose any challenge.”
“Well, that’s a little more reassuring that you won’t just be fighting everyone you see. But - ”
Suddenly, a woman about Keiji’s age flew into the alleyway, riding on a metallic pink hoverboard. She wore hot pink combat boots with dark black leggings, and a matching hot pink sleeveless top with thick metallic bands around her wrists that went up to her forearms. Her eyes were obscured by a visor-like pair of glasses, tinted a reflective red to hide her identity.
And yet, Keiji knew instantly that she had to be Donna Morris. He knew that she had been working on some other project with Vic before they started Atlas, but he figured it was just for some shared class or lab work. But this… This was unexpected.
“Halt… robot! Step away from the civilian and no one needs to get hurt!”
‘Why’s she speaking so formally? Guess it’s some mindset thing.’
Neither Atlas nor Keiji reacted to what Donna was saying. Keiji knew she wasn’t talking to him, and Atlas just seemed indifferent to her presence. Finally, Atlas turned and faced her.
“You seem powerful. Show me the strength of your will and I may concede.”
“This doesn’t need to be violent. We can talk it out, here or somewhere else.”
“Actions speak louder and truer than words.” Atlas moved into a combat position, leaning forwards on his left leg, raising his fists up to his chest.
“Come.”
“Don- ”
“When I’m in the suit, it’s Black Narcissus. Some of us like to keep our identities secret, no offense to Cyborg, wherever he is.” Donna said.
“Okay, nice to meet you, Black Narcissus. Just… be careful with Atlas. He’s stronger than he looks.”
Donna smiled. “So am I. Just watch.”
Donna pressed her thumb and index finger together on both hands and a large light on the back of her hands turned gray. She pointed her hands right at Atlas, who still stood in his combat position, waiting.
A thick, gray fluid shot out of her gauntlets, ensnaring Atlas’ arms to his body and his legs to the ground.
“Gotcha! That’s industrial strength adhesive - ”
Atlas flexed his arms and the adhesive snapped with ease, then crouched his legs before springing upwards towards Black Narcissus and her hoverboard. She quickly flew out of the way but Atlas managed to barely get one hand on the board. Black Narcissus pressed her thumbs to her middle fingers, changing the cartridge in her gauntlets. The light on the back changed to purple and she fired her gauntlets again, launching a blast of energy at Atlas.
The extra energy rattled the robot’s circuits, and he released his grip on the board to escape further damage, sending him crashing back to the ground. She shot another salvo of energy blasts at the machine, keeping him stunned on the ground.
She switched her left gauntlet back to adhesive, hoping that it would be able to restrain a weakened Atlas. Before it could reach him, the robot rolled out of the way and grabbed a trash can, hurling it at Donna. She swerved out of the way again, then dodged a second trash can thrown as a follow up.
After the second can, she was on her toes, prepared for a third, but it didn’t come. She looked around, trying to find where Atlas went, but he was completely out of sight. She sensed him at the last moment, coming from the rooftop that he jumped up to. He grabbed her board and slammed it to the ground with her on it. The board shattered into a million pieces, but Donna seemed unharmed. Atlas sprung up, ready to keep fighting, and Black Narcissus rose fractions of a second after. She pressed her thumbs to her ring fingers and the light on the black glowed a dark red.
She swung a right hand punch at Atlas who caught it in his left. But the light on the back of her gauntlet started to glow brighter as she put in more effort, pushing back against his metallic muscle. Atlas pushed his legs back, trying to stabilize himself. Donna started to push him back more and Keiji could hear the motors start to strain. Atlas stopped resisting against Donna, then, before she could take advantage of it, he kicked up some of the pieces of the broken hoverboard at her. Using her momentary surprise, he punched her square in the chest, knocking the wind out of her and sending her to the ground.
“You fought well,” Atlas said, turning away from her.
“Wait,” Donna said, getting up. “I’m not done with you.”
“Yes, you are. Accept your defeat. There is no shame in losing to the strongest.”
Before Donna could protest, Atlas turned to Keiji. “Come, and bring your things. I have use for you.”
Keiji raised an eyebrow, but grabbed his backpack and started to follow Atlas further down the alley.
He turned back to Donna and mouthed “I’ll text you” to her. He hoped she got the message.
⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️
“Stop here.”
Keiji stood behind Atlas, who was peering into an old garage a couple blocks from the alley where he fought Black Narcissus. He grabbed the padlock that was keeping the door shut and squeezed it, turning it into dust.
“You will find the tools you need in here. Repair the damage caused in the last fight, human.”
Keiji raised an eyebrow. “First off, I don’t really like being called “human”. Technically true, but feels hurtful in this context. Second, I’m a software guy. I couldn’t fix you if I wanted to. Third, being nicer to people will generally get you better results. Not really inclined to help someone who starts by insulting me.”
“Niceties are a waste of time. Fix me, or I will end you.”
Keiji shook his head. “No, you won’t. I can’t fix you, but you know my teammates can. And they’d never do that if you hurt me at all.”
Atlas punched the concrete wall in frustration, cracking it. “Very well. You are correct… I do need your help. What will they require to do so?”
“I don’t know. But come back to the arena with me. We can talk with them there and see what it takes.”
“Very well. Let your friends know that I require their assistance.”
⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️
Atlas stood before Vic and Donna, who made it back to their workspace just before the robot did. He towered over the three humans, but if any of them were intimidated, it was hidden behind a masterful poker face.
“Y’know, I thought more people would care that we just walked in with a robot and are talking with him like he’s a person,” Donna remarked.
“People are busy and indifferent. The other competitors probably think it’s a marketing scheme or something and are just ignoring us. I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Keiji said.
“Yeah, that. But so… Atlas has become sentient. Good for you, really. But… hooray. Another sentient robot,” Vic said.
“You see a lot of those?” Keiji asked.
“More than you’d think.”
“I am glad that you are not concerned by my presence. That saves me much effort. But the question at hand remains: I have been damaged and require repairs. Will you repair me?”
“Yes,” Vic and Donna said at the same time.
Vic looked at her, surprised. He figured she’d have some hesitancy.
“But, I’ve got a small condition for you. Should be no big deal. Win us the next round of the competition.”
“Ridiculous. You ask me to do something so trivial it is unfair, like a pro athlete competing at a preschool.”
Donna shrugged. “Yeah, it’s trivial and easy, but it helps us a lot.The club will look much better and get a lot more support for next season if we make it into the semifinals.”
“I’ll even raise the stakes. If you win the next round, we won’t make you enter the finals. Instead, I’ll give you a real challenge. You can fight me.”
“Why would I want that?”
“Because I’m the strongest one here by far. And, if that’s still not enough if you beat me, I’ll show you how to repair yourself. Then, we’ll let you go live as you want, provided you promise to only fight people who want to fight.”
Donna looked at Vic, concerned. “Who would want to willingly fight someone like Atlas?”
Vic sighed. “Trust me. There are plenty of weirdos in this world who just want to fight. It’s much better than me just throwing him in prison or taking him apart.”
Atlas made a noise that Vic thought was supposed to be a scoff. But maybe it was just static. The speaker wasn’t that high quality.
“You make a very strong set of promises if I win, which I will. But if by some miracle, you managed to cheat your way to victory… what happens then?”
Vic shrugged. “Pretty much the same thing. I’ll teach you how to repair yourself and let you go with the same stipulations. You just have to know that a human beat you.”
Atlas laughed. “You are a fool if you think that could ever happen. I accept your terms, human. Guide me to the arena, those boxes of scrap will be reduced to dust.”
Vic walked him over to the arena as as if he were any other competitor, but instead of waiting by the sidelines to see the results, he walked back to their workspace. He knew that Atlas would win and wanted to try and make sure that Donna and Keiji were on board with the other part of his plan.
When he got back, Donna was nervously pacing around while Keiji was scrolling through some webpage.
“So.. Vic… do you really think that this is the right idea? You’re just… unleashing him on the world. Isn't that irresponsible?” Donna asked.
“I don’t think so. Yeah he wants to fight people but he has restraint to some degree. He knows the difference being fighting every random person he sees and fighting someone who has a reasonable amount of strength. I dunno, I think him messing up and fighting… Superman or something and taking a big loss would teach him far more than we ever could or throwing him in jail for being dangerous. Is it a risk?… kinda. But so is any option.”
“So your best guess is just… let him go and figure it out?” Keiji said. “Isn’t that a bit too… hands off?”
“Got a better idea? That’s pretty much what we got to do.”
“No. I don’t. But this just feels... risky.”
“Yeah, it is. But he’s fairly reasonable after being conscious for what, 12 hours? Over time, he’ll probably mellow out and if he doesn’t, I can take care of him then. But he deserves a chance like anyone else.”
Keiji nodded. “Fine Vic. If that’s what you think the best path is… I’ll stand by you.”
“Same, Vic. I want to believe in him too.”
“Thanks guys, really. Hopefully we can all look back on this and agree this was the right path.”
A horn sounded and a voice came over the loudspeaker. “Semifinal-2 has ended! The winner is the University of Michigan’s Atlas! Please collect your robots and be ready for the finals at 1:00 PM.”
The team stood up and gave each other a round of high fives. They really had made something great. Now it was time to see just how great he really was.
⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️
Two hours later.
The team packed up after their semifinal match, citing an unspecified emergency with the tournament staff. They weren’t happy with the anticlimactic end, but ultimately they couldn’t force the three of them to continue to compete and so they left without much hassle.
The three of them drove north until they found the first open field that Vic and Atlas could have their match in. There wasn’t anywhere that they could find in the city that wouldn’t attract too much attention or put innocent people at risk and they managed to convince Atlas of that too. The robot was in the trailer towed behind the three of them, much to his chagrin.
But after a half hour or so, they found a spot. A wide open, grassy field with no one around to interfere or get hurt. A perfect spot for them to settle things. Vic got out of the car and started to stretch, trying to limber up after the car ride while Donna and Keiji helped Atlas out of the trailer.
Atlas rotated his head, taking in the environment. “A flat, quiet field. An honorable place for battle.”
Vic let out one lat calming exhale before approaching Atlas. “Plus, no one is around to get hurt. That’s important too.”
“...Yes. That too.”
“The rules are simple. A clean match, no foul play between either of us. Whoever is left standing when the other yields or is unconscious wins.”
Atlas laughed. “I will never yield.”
“We’ll see,” Vic grinned.
“Oh, one other thing. Not really a rule per say, but a strong suggestion: Try not to seriously hurt each other. You’re not trying to kill or maim each other,” Donna said.
“Yes, yes. May we begin?”
Vic nodded, and took a step backward, creating about ten feet of space between him and Atlas. Before the dust even settled, his arms were force cannons launching pure energy right at Atlas’ chest. Vic had designed Atlas, he knew that he wouldn’t be very damaged by those. But he had underestimated just how much he would be able to tank them. The force blasts did little more than chip the paint and an exhilarated Atlas sprinted at Vic like a charging bull.
Once Atlas was a few feet away from Vic, he prepared a concussive grenade and exploded it directly against Atlas, using the force to stagger him out of the charge. Before the robot could launch another attack, Vic swung a full force punch into the robots’ chassis, crumpling it inwards slightly. Vic followed up the punch with another, but Atlas was ready for it and parried it with his left arm, then kicked Cyborg away, sending him flying backwards.
Cyborg shot his force canons at the ground to give himself some momentum in the opposite direction, slowing himself down. But Atlas had some tricks up his metaphorical sleeves too. Having realized that a direct approach was difficult, he used his powerful hands like a backhoe to scoop up a massive piece of earth and hurled it at Cyborg. Vic was unsure how to react to this, or more precisely, how he expected Atlas to follow this attack up. The boulder itself was a problem, sure, but it was just to close the gap. Atlas could be using it to block his line of sight and be jumping right behind it, or he could be using the temporary blindspot caused by the massive object to approach from either side.
Instead of guessing, Vic decided to power through the problem. Vic shot both of his force cannons at the projectile, sending bits of dirt every which way. Atlas was hiding in what was once the dirt ball’s shadow and Vic took advantage of his surprise to launch himself at the robot. Cyborg shot his force cannons behind him, propelling himself forwards rapidly in a charge mirroring Atlas’ own.
He knocked the massive machine to the ground and sat on his chest, using his arms to pin down the machine’s.
“You’re down, Atlas. Do you yield?”
“I told you. I will never yield. I am the strongest!”
Atlas began to press his weight against Vic’s strength. Vic knew he was a match for Atlas’ strength but there was one key problem: stamina. Vic’s body was, of course, cybernetic in part, but it wasn’t the same. He was still human and human beings got tired. Machines did not.
Vic could already feel his muscle starting to fatigue. The fight hadn’t been long, but any fatigue was going to be the difference. He knew he was a match for Atlas’ strength when he was at 100%, but every percent below that made it more and more likely to be Atlas’ win.
‘I need to end this fight now or the immediate future if I want to win. But my normal attacks aren’t doing anything to him. I could try a sonic attack, but I don’t think that’d really effect him. I could try targeting his joints specifically, but those were designed to take more than I can give. But I can’t just let him overpower me for the win. That’d make him overconfident and more likely to get into trouble afterwards. No… I’ve got a better idea.’
In an instant, Vic’s muscles stopped resisting. “I yield.”
Vic pushed himself off Atlas, who stood up and looked at Cyborg, confused.
“What foe yields when he has his opponent on the ground, at his mercy? I demand you continue!”
“No. This fight was never to the death, only to yielding. But frankly, you aren’t strong enough to interest me. You said it yourself, you will never yield. And pummelling you to a point where you are the equivalent of unconscious just isn’t worth my time. So I yielded. Congrats. You win.”
Atlas stood, incredulous. “No. That is not allowed. I did not win. You lost! Those are not the same!”
Vic turned to Keiji and Donna and then noticed that the fight had taken them about 30 yards from where they started. He started to walk back towards them, and Atlas followed.
“Guys, I yielded that fight. Doesn’t that mean I lost?”
Keiji raised an eyebrow. “I guess?”
“See? Congrats, you won.”
“... I do not accept this victory. This is a loss in all but name. Mark my words, Victor Stone. I will wander the globe, facing foe after foe to grow stronger. I will become the strongest being and when I do, we will have a real fight, one where you must acknowledge my strength for real.”
“Looking forwards to it. Stay out of trouble until then, understood?”
Vic held out his hand for a handshake which Atlas begrudgingly accepted.
“Understood.”
“Atlas, catch.”
Keiji tossed a small flash drive to Atlas who had to bend down to grab it.
“That has all your schematics and drawings on it, as well as all the parts we used to make you and where we sourced them from. It’s probably the best thing out there to help you repair yourself.”
“Thank you. You all have given me much to think about it. When we meet again… I will be stronger in body and mind. Farewell for now but I will return to challenge you again, Victor.”
“I’ll be waiting. And I promise to go all out next time, Atlas.”
Atlas took off to the west, heading to only he knew where.
Once he was far enough out of sight, Vic laid down on the ground, exhausted.
“Well, that’s enough bluffing for the next decade. I really underestimated him.”
Donna sat down to his left, Keiji on his right.
“Told you that you were being cocky. We all built him but he’s out of all of our leagues,” Keiji said.
“Yeah… but I really wanted to do it, y’know? Kinda humbling to be beat by your own creation.”
“If it makes you feel better, I lost to him too,” Donna said.
“Wait what? When did you fight him?”
“I’ll tell you on the way back. Not my finest moment, but I put up a good fight.”
“Proud of you. You’ve come a long way in your training. But after that fight… I’m going to need to get a lot stronger and pick my own training back up. I kinda feel like I’ve been stagnant for awhile, just sort of winning my fights through grit and will power. But if Atlas had been hostile… I don’t think I could’ve stopped him. So, I’ll need to get back to the drawing board and see what I can do to take myself to the next level.”
“And we’ll be there to help you however we can. But uh… Vic, finals are in like two weeks. Maybe focus on that first?” Keiji suggested.
“I’d rather get beat up by another robot,” Vic groaned.
<< < >
submitted by Commander_Z to DCFU [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 18:58 HeadOfSpectre There's An Abyss Even Deeper Than The Mariana Trench

“Ready to make history, baby?”
I looked over toward Sheila as she stood on the gangplank leading up to The Burger. I still couldn’t believe she named our research ship ‘The Burger’... emotional relevance be damned.
“It's not exactly history,” I corrected.
“Oh come on! If your survey is right, this trench might run even deeper than the Challenger Deep, and you’re gonna be the first person to explore it! How is that not exciting?”
“Might be deeper, we only have a limited amount of topological data. And even if it is deeper, we’re talking only a few hundred feet at most, it’s really not that im-”
Sheila silenced me with a kiss.
“Nerd.” She teased, and I found myself too flustered to reply. After five years of marriage, she still could leave me speechless with just a kiss. God… how did someone like me end up with a woman like that?
Then again, how did someone like me end up where I was in general? It was honestly a little overwhelming. Standing on the dock, getting ready to board that ship and join the ranks of Jacques Piccard and James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron) as one of the few people to take a manned submersible down to the deepest parts of the ocean. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared too. Diving down that deep could easily be a one way trip if even the slightest thing went wrong. My submarine would be experiencing between 600 to 1100 atmospheres of pressure and while we’d tested it over and over again to make sure it would actually be up for the challenge, there was still a lingering iota of doubt in the back of my mind. All that needed to go wrong was one little thing, and that would be it for me.
The scariest part is that I probably wouldn’t even know what had happened… I’d simply be gone… and Sheila would be alone. The thought of that caused a momentary spike of panic in my chest that almost made me want to call this whole thing off.
Almost.
But, then I felt her hand close around mine. I looked up into her bright blue eyes, and saw her gentle smile.
“You’re gonna be okay, hun,” She promised. “You and your team have been running the numbers, right? It’s gonna go just fine!”
I nodded slowly.
“It’s gonna go fine…” I repeated, before she leaned in to kiss me, and gently pulled me by the wrist up onto the deck of the Burger.
She was probably right.
It probably would be fine.
Probably…
The trench I’d be exploring was a fairly recent discovery, located south of Greenland, in a vast stretch of water situated directly between Newfoundland and Iceland. It’d been uncovered during a topological survey in the area, and my team had taken an interest in investigating it further. At minimum, it was believed to descend to about 35,000 feet deep (over 10,000 meters), although the current theory was that it might have run even deeper. Determining the exact depth of the yet unnamed chasm was just one of the intents of our dive. The rest was studying the organisms that might be found down there, and how they might have differed from the ones found in other deep ocean trenches (some variation being expected given the isolated environment they were developing in.)
I had to admit, it would be exciting to see what new life might have developed in a place such as this, especially if it ran even deeper than our predictions… and that excitement was enough to make me chase the fear of the risks out of my mind, even if it was only briefly. While Sheila went to make sure we were ready to embark, I caught myself wandering out toward the rear of the ship where my submarine, The Tempura, waited for me. Did this submarine deserve a better name than The Tempura? Probably. But, this was my project, so I got to name it and since Burger was already taken, Tempura was the next best name I had. I liked to think that the subs namesake might approve… if she hadn’t died fifteen years ago. Shrimp don’t live very long.
As the ship began to depart, I caught myself reminiscing on how I’d ended up here… it really was all because of those damn shrimp, wasn’t it? Well… maybe not all because of the shrimp. But they were certainly part of it. Back when I was a lot younger, I never really gave much of a shit about anything at all. I guess I did have a thing for the ocean… the great, romantic vastness of it. The sense of adventure that it beckoned with. The endless mysteries that lay within its dark depths. I used to read about it all the time when I was a kid and I especially loved the classic adventures: Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and Melville’s Moby Dick… but that love was just confined to my books. I didn’t really have any interest in actually going out and seeing the ocean. Hell, the idea of going to a beach and standing in the sun with my toes in the sand seemed miserable to me. I was happier (although calling myself happy might’ve been a little disingenuous) alone in my room, enjoying the company of books as opposed to people.
Then came the shrimp.
One of my online friends kept them as a hobby. He used to post pictures of his tanks all the time, and I always thought they looked kinda cool. He said that if I was interested in them, I should try keeping some for myself, and during a particularly bad bout of depression, I figured that maybe it might be worth a shot. So, I bought a cheap tank and some cheap decorations, bought myself some shrimp… and promptly watched them die over the next few weeks. That… that bothered me. I don’t know why but… it really bothered me. I’m still not entirely sure how to describe what it was that I was feeling. Guilt? Defeat? Shame? Here I was, trying to set up a habitat for these creatures just to have something to do to keep the suicidal ideation at bay, and I’d failed almost right out of the gate.
Was I just that bad? Was I just that much of a failure? Was this just going to go to shit just like everything else in my life did, because I was just such an abysmal piece of shit who barely deserved the life she had? Had I just not tried hard enough? Was I too apathetic? What had happened? What went wrong?
It bothered me.
It bothered me enough that I made up my mind to just dump the remaining shrimp down the toilet and toss everything. Forget about it. Move on. End of story. But… that wasn’t fair, was it? The shrimp didn’t all deserve to die just because I couldn’t be bothered, did they? Sure, they were just shrimp, but they were alive too, just like me. They deserved to be alive.
I owed it to them to try and keep them alive, didn’t I?
So… I didn’t dump the shrimp.
Instead, I started doing some reading. Started looking into what I was doing wrong and how to do it all better. I actually got really into it and a few months later, I had a nice planted tank. Looking back, it was amateur shit… but it made me happy. I’d even picked out names for my two favorite shrimp. Burger and Tempura. They’d been the last survivors of my original batch, and they were the ones I ended up caring about the most. Caring for Burger and Tempura gave me a purpose. It became an obsession… and that little obsession drove me to finally start turning my life around.
Like I said, shrimp don’t live for very long. Burger and Tempura were long dead by the time I graduated with a degree in Marine Biology. But they were the ones who inspired me to finally get my life in order. Hell, the shrimp were half the reason that I met Sheila. She was something of an aquarium fanatic too… we’d met on a forum, and gotten to talking. I found out that she just so happened to be studying Marine Biology at another school, and we bonded pretty quickly after that. After graduation, I moved to California to be with her and after that, the rest is history. She was my rock. She was the one who always pushed me to be the best possible version of myself… and I loved her more than I ever knew I could love someone.
A glance back at the shore, fading into the distance tore me out of my reminiscing, and I shifted my focus to the present, going over The Tempura to perform some quick checks. My colleagues and I would be checking and rechecking the submarine over the next two days as we made our way toward the dive spot. Considering the danger that descending that deep posed, I didn’t want to take a single unnecessary risk.
I had too much to live for, after all.
***
The day of the dive, I couldn’t notice how excited the rest of the crew seemed… well… Sheila’s usual crew seemed excited. I guess to them, this was just another research expedition, no different than the ones Sheila usually took this ship out on. Lately her research had been focused on the analysis and study of whale calls. Her recent voyages had involved following their pods, recording their calls and playing them back to see how the whales reacted. It was fascinating stuff, but my research was admittedly a lot different than that.
My obsession had drawn me to the denizens of the deep sea. I’d used The Burger for expeditions before, although none of them had been on quite the same scale as this one. Up until today, the most ambitious thing I’d done was send down unmanned submersibles with cameras. Those submersibles had typically returned. We had lost a few early on due to technical glitches, but the past few years had been blissfully uneventful. Logically, this dive would probably be uneventful as well. But it was still hard to get the jitters out of my head.
My team and I did the final checks necessary to make sure that The Tempura was good to go, before setting up the crane to begin lifting it up. In less than an hour, I’d be inside of that thing, descending to the darkest depths of the ocean.
It didn’t feel real.
I felt Sheila’s hand on my shoulder, and looked over at her.
“Moment of truth, huh?” She asked. She probably meant it to sound encouraging, but it just sounded ominous.
“Moment of truth…” I replied.
“You’re gonna be okay, honey. I know you will.”
She reached out to gently squeeze my hand and gave me a reassuring smile that I meekly returned.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be okay,” I agreed, although there was an element of a lie in it. Statistically, yes. It probably WOULD be okay. But there was that lingering anxiety in the back of my mind that just wouldn’t go away. I looked quietly out at the submarine before me and couldn’t shake the thought that it sort of looked like a giant coffin. Unconsciously, I found myself squeezing Sheila’s hand tighter than normal. She just held me close and pressed a kiss to the top of my head, before gently rubbing my back.
“You’ll be okay,” She promised.
“Dr. Jenner, we’re ready for you.” I heard one of my colleagues say.
Moment of truth.
I took one last look at Sheila, and gave her a quick kiss on the lips for luck. She smiled at me, and I smiled back anxiously at her before heading over toward the submarine.
The crew helped me enter the cockpit and get myself situated inside. The cockpit of the Tempura was fairly cramped and not particularly comfortable. Space and comfort aren’t really luxuries you can afford in a submarine like this. The instruments I needed took up a lot of space, leaving little room for me in there… and I am not a very big person.
Once I was inside, they sealed the hatch. Then the diagnostics checks began.
“Grayson, can you hear us in there?” I heard Sheila say through the radio.
“Loud and clear,” I replied.
“Great. We’ll keep in constant radio contact, just to monitor the signal. In the meanwhile, how’s everything looking in there?”
“Green across the board so far,” I said, although I hadn’t finished running all my final checks yet. Ultimately, nothing was out of place.
This submarine was as good to go as it was going to get.
“I’m all good in here,” I said once I was done. “You can drop me when you’re ready.”
“You got it, honey. Let’s get you in the water, run one final round of tests and start lowering you down.”
A short while later, I felt the submarine begin to move as the crane lifted it off the deck and lowered it into the water. The Tempura honestly resembled its namesake in a way, being long and cigar shaped, only vertically oriented instead of horizontally oriented. We’d admittedly taken more than a few design cues from James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger. Why fix what isn’t broken, after all?
Once I was in the water, a 1000 pound releasable ballast weight would cause the submarine to sink. Releasing that weight was also my ticket back to the surface, and I could either trigger it from inside the cockpit, or, in the event that the release failed for any reason, it would trigger automatically after roughly 12 hours of exposure to salt water.
Ideally, this would be the first of a number of dives I’d be undertaking… and if all went according to plan, the Tempura could be the first of many similar submarines that would allow other researchers to safely and effectively descend to extreme depths. If all went well, this could be a massive leap forward for researchers like me, allowing us to better explore the deepest depths of the Hadal Zone and learn all we could about the ecosystems down there via direct observation.
If all went well.
If.
Through the viewport, I watched as I was lowered into the ocean. A few of the other crew members had donned diving gear to escort me down, and after they did their final checks and I did mine, we were fully ready to go.
“All’s green across the board,” I said into the radio. “You can start my descent.”
“I hear you, honey,” Sheila replied. “We’re letting you go. Have fun down there.”
“Yeah, I’ll try…” I said quietly as finally, my submarine began its descent.
I took a deep breath, and told myself again that everything would go fine. We had checked everything on this submarine. We’d tested it rigorously. I wouldn’t have allowed myself to set foot inside of it if I hadn’t personally assured that it was safe. But anxiety never really goes away, does it? The crew couldn’t accompany me far. After only a few meters, they fell behind me as I sank deeper and deeper into the infinite, empty blue of the ocean. Soon after, the tether was released.
I was officially on my own.
“60 feet,” I heard Sheila say over the radio. “How are you doing in there?”
“Good,” I replied. “Doing… doing good.”
The submarine continued to descend. Through the viewport, I could see a few stray fish, but nothing particularly eye catching. I almost felt alone down there… almost…
“120 feet…” Sheila said.
“Still doing good,” I replied.
The descent continued, as the waters slowly grew darker and darker.
“400 feet…”
Everything around me just kept getting darker and darker. Only a fraction of the light from the sun ever reached these depths… and I’d be lying if I said that darkness didn’t feel a little… oppressive.
“800 feet… still feeling good?”
“Yeah, still feeling good…” I said, although it was a bit of a lie. If anything, I was second guessing all of this, but I wasn’t about to say that out loud.
“1000 feet… still good?”
“Still good…” I murmured. “I hear you loud and clear.”
Deeper… deeper… deeper.
“1500 feet…”
Three miles. I was three miles away from home. Three miles away from Sheila.
“2000 feet…”
Still a ways to go.
“3000 feet…”
By this point, it was fully dark outside of my cockpit. Outside, all I could see was inky darkness. Even the submarine’s lights didn’t really cut through it. And the kicker? Relatively speaking, I wasn’t that deep. Fishing trawlers reached deeper than this. Better to conserve power until I was at the bottom. My descent continued.
“6000 feet… still good?”
“Still good…”
The check ins were becoming less frequent. My descent still continued… deeper… deeper… deeper. By now, I’d entered the Hadal Zone. But there was still so much deeper o go.
“8000 feet…”
This was past the depths that most whales would dive to… and I still had a ways to go.
“10,000 feet.”
This was close to where the ocean floor usually bottomed out… and yet there was still so much further to go. No. I was really only a third of the way there. How long had it been?Not much had happened beyond my descent and a few sightings out of my viewport, but time had been passing. A glance at my watch confirmed it’d been almost an hour since I’d started to sink… and I knew I wasn’t even close to the bottom yet. The submarine continued to descend, sinking ever deeper as I dropped into an infinite darkness that few had ever dared to witness.
“15,000 feet.”
This check in came later than the others. At this point, Sheila and the crew must have figured that no news was good news, and they were right. I just continued to sink peacefully, down into the crushing depths of the ocean.
These were the depths that one might normally find deep sea fish… and yet I was going somewhere even deeper than that.
“20,000 feet…”
So close…
I continued to sink.
“25,000 feet.”
Soon… and finally…
“30,000 feet. You still doing alright, honey?”
“Yeah… yeah, I’m doing good,” I assured her. I was so close…
By this point, my real work had begun. I’d engaged the lights and begun documenting what little I could see using the on board cameras. Granted, there wasn’t much life at these depths and what little there was, was scarcely documented. Most of what was down here consisted of invertebrates and microscopic life that seemed to float past my viewport.
The light seemed to draw a few creatures in search of food. Small, hardy things that resembled shrimp.
“How’s it looking, Grayson?”
“Dark,” I said, half joking. “We’ve got some life… shrimp. They’re translucent. Can’t get a great look at them… but we’ll see what the cameras pick up.”
“They’ve recognized you as a friend,” Sheila said. I could almost see the smile on her lips as she said it.
“Yeah…” I replied, “Tempura sent them a message, told them I’d be down. How am I looking on depth?”
“35,000 feet… you seeing a bottom yet?”
“No… not that I would until I was there.”
“Damn… how deep does this go?”
“It can’t go that deep…” I murmured, although I really wasn’t so sure about that.
The submarine continued to sink…
36,000 feet…
37,000 feet…
38,000 feet… and then finally, just past the 39,000 foot mark, I finally saw solid ground below me.
Looking through my viewport, I could see a familiar dark brown diatomaceous sludge, covering the seafloor. Microscopic life, likely similar to what had been observed in other deep sea trenches, such as the Challenger Deep.
I needed to gather a sample.
As my submarine reached the bottom, I extended the mechanical arms, pressed flat against the surface of the Tempura, and opened the collection port near the bottom of the ship. Slowly, I sifted some of the sludge into the port. My disturbance of the seafloor kicked up a cloud of the microbial colony, and I could’ve sworn I saw something wiggling through the debris. A pale, white thing, perhaps some sort of sea cucumber? I hastily angled my submarines camera to try and catch a glimpse of it, before returning to my collection. Even in this forlorn place, there was still so much to see! And here I was… completely forgetting my fear as the excitement took hold of me! Few people had ever been down to these unfathomable depths… and yet here I was.
It didn’t feel real but it was! I had reached the deepest part of the ocean!
“How’s it going down there?” I heard Sheila ask. Her voice was a little garbled. The connection down here was faltering.
“It’s beautiful…” I said. “I can’t wait for you to see it!”
“I’ll bet…”
“I’m going to do a sweep of the area, see what samples I can gather,” I said. “What’s my time right now?”
“Three hours. You’ve got nine before your connection to the weight deteriorates and you start to ascend.”
“I’ll make the most of it,” I said. The plan was only to stay down there for six hours, and I didn’t want to push that limit. Life support would only last me for so long, and one little error was all it would take for the ungodly pressure down here to crush me.
I began to move the submarine. Mobility was limited. This thing wasn’t built to travel far. But I still had some limited movement. I recorded all that I could, filming the shrimp that investigated my light, and the things that slithered and crawled through the muck, likely feeding on the carpet of single celled organisms that populated these depths.
The first two hours were… well… I hesitate to call them uneventful, they were actually very fascinating, but little of note happened beyond my recording of a few specimens.
Midway through the third hour though, as I was reaching one of the rock walls of the abyss, I noticed something just above the edge of my viewport swimming away from the light. I could’ve sworn I saw slender, pale tentacles of some sort. Was that a squid? Were there squid down this deep? I wasn’t aware of any species of known squid who could reach these depths… but in this unknown place, what use was the known?
I moved my light and my camera to try and catch another glimpse of it, but whatever it was, it seemed to be gone. Maybe I’d see another one. I still had plenty of time.
“You made a noise. What’d you see?” Sheila asked.
“Something big… I think,” I said.
“Down there? Like a fish?”
“Squid. You wouldn’t find any vertebrates down this deep… the pressure would crush their bones.”
“Jeez…”
I didn’t reply to that, still searching for the thing I’d seen. I shone my light up along the walls of the chasm and angled my camera up as far as it would go. I could see a few volcanic vents, spewing dark clouds into the darkness, and more diatoms. But not much else. Strange invertebrates crawled along the walls. Small creatures, no bigger than an inch long. Related to isopods, perhaps? If I could collect one as a sample, I would have… although taking any of those back to the surface would surely kill them. They were built to live under the impossible pressure of these depths. Taking them to the surface would rip them apart.
I went back to my research, and it wasn’t long until I saw something in the darkness, just on the edge of where my flashlight reached. Trailing white tendrils, snaking their way through the darkness. My eyes narrowed as I moved the submarine forward, trying to catch whatever it was in the light. I saw the shape move, its body turning… I saw its tendrils unfurling. Whatever this was, it was big. It was almost as big as The Tempura… although it was also slender. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought I was looking at some sort of floating debris, but this far down? No. And debris wouldn’t move like that.
This had to be a deepsea squid… or perhaps some other type of cephalopod? Something that preyed upon the various invertebrates down here, perhaps? It seemed to float, just out of sight for a bit, as I tried to get closer. I angled up my light to get a better look at it. The light seemed to shine through it, like some sort of ghost… but I did manage to get a look at it.
Although that look…
That single look made me freeze up.
This things slender tendrils certainly resembled a cephalopod of some sort, but the rest of it… the rest of it looked like something else entirely. Its body was thin, emaciated and translucent, yet despite that it still had characteristics that almost seemed… human. It wasn’t human! Not by any stretch of imagination, but the resemblance was there. It almost reminded me of an exhibit I’d seen in a museum once, depicting a preserved, fully removed human nervous system. I could see a similar shape in its translucent body. Its head seemed almost human as well… albeit with no eyes, and a lamprey like mouth I could only describe as fleshy yet crablike.
Still, despite having no eyes I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was looking at me. And that was when I felt something hit the submarine.
I felt a sudden jolt of panic in my chest. For a moment, I thought that the pressure had started to crush me, but no… no, everything was still fine. Something had just hit me. But what? It didn’t take long before I got my answer.
Another pale creature floated past my viewport, swirling gracefully in the cold dark waters. I watched it for a moment with wide eyes, before noticing its ‘head’ turning slightly toward me. Then, almost instantly, it launched itself at the submarine, darting toward me with blinding speed.
I heard a distinct THUD as its body collided with me, and I could see its pale tendrils pressing against the viewport, twisting and writhing violently. It was trying to attack me. The first creature that I’d seen lunged as well, pounding on my submarine with another THUD. And moments later, I could hear more impacts against the hull. There were more of them… and they did not like having me down there.
“What’s going on?” Sheila asked.
“Somebody doesn’t like me…” I said. “One of the animals down here… some kind of squid, it’s just started attacking the hull.”
“How bad is the damage?”
“Not sure… could be nothing, could be-”
I felt the submarine shake as I tried to move it. The thrusters that pushed me forward weren't responding. Had something gotten caught in it? One of the creatures perhaps?
“Grayson?!” Sheila asked.
“Lost propulsion…” I said. “Fuck… I can’t move.”
“Then drop the weight and come up!”
“No, it’s fine, there’s no other damage, I can still use the port and starboard thrusters to-”
“Grayson!”
I paused. There was genuine panic in her voice… enough to make me realize that even if these things stood little chance of actually breaching the hull, taking the risk would be a fatal mistake.
“I’m on my way up…” I finally said, before reaching out to disengage the ballast weights.
Immediately, I felt myself beginning to rise, although the tentacles clinging to my viewport didn’t disappear.
“We’ve got you…” Sheila said. “Rising up to 38,000 feet.”
The submarine continued to rise, but the creatures clinging to me went nowhere. In fact… I was sure I could see more of them. More pale shapes coming up through the darkness, and these ones filled me with dread. I thought I had been looking at some sort of eerie undiscovered life. But seeing what was coming up toward me now… I knew that I was looking at so much more. The creatures swimming up toward me through the darkness carried weapons… makeshift stone spears and daggers. Primitive tools… but tools all the same.
Signs that these were more than just undiscovered animals.
Much. Much more.
The word: ‘Mermaids’ crossed through my mind, but these were something far different than the ones I’d heard of in folklore. These looked like they’d swam out of the depths of hell itself. Boneless pale tendrils reached for me… and they were getting closer. The pale shapes reached my submarine as I rose higher. I kept praying to whatever God may be listening that the dropping pressure would force them off. The air in a submarine is pressurized, so during normal operation, there should have been no danger of decompression sickness for me.
For them… well… normally I’d feel a little guilty about subjecting an undiscovered species of deep sea mermaids to the horrors of the Bends. But given my circumstances, I didn’t have a lot of other options.
They didn’t let go, though.
They should have. But they didn’t.
What were these things?
I saw a splayed hand press against my viewport. Or… it somewhat resembled a hand. It had suckers on it, like a tentacle and the ‘fingers’ curled open like tentacles. The creature crawled over my viewport, clinging to The Tempura as it rose, and I could see the folds of its crablike mouth opening and pressing against the glass. I could see some sort of bile rising up through its translucent throat, before it secreted it all over my viewport. Was it trying to digest me? Was that how these things fed? How strong were its stomach acids? Were they strong enough to-
The window cracked.
My heart skipped a beat.
“No… no, no no…”
“Grayson, what’s wrong?!”
“They cracked the window… S-Sheila they… oh God… oh fuck, they just…”
“THEY DID WHAT?”
“It’s secreting some sort of enzyme… it’s on the window, it’s… FUCK… I’m gonna die… I’m gonna die… I’m gonna die…”
“You’re not gonna die, baby! Just… just keep ascending, okay? You’re at 30,000 feet… just keep going…”
I nodded, and kept on rising, although the question of whether or not the rest of the creatures were trying to digest the other parts of my submarine floated through my mind. How much damage could The Tempura take before it imploded? How much longer did I have? The submarine still continued to rise… 25,000 feet… almost halfway home… almost… almost.
The creature outside of my viewport slithered along the glass, searching for a better area to try and digest. Past him, I noticed a few of his companions dropping off. Maybe the change in pressure finally was getting to them?
From the corner of my eye, I suddenly noticed a flashing light. A warning. The hydraulics on one of the Tempura’s arms were shot… what else was damaged?
I checked my oxygen levels. 32%.
I should’ve had at least 14 hours of air. I’d only been down there for about 6 hours… I shouldn’t have been this low.
31%.
No… no, no, no, no… they’d damaged the air tanks!
30%.
29%
“20,000 feet!” Sheila said. “You still with me, baby?”
“Y-yeah…” I said. I didn’t mention my air situation. I didn’t need to worry her further.
The submarine continued its ascent.
15,000 feet.
24%. I was running out of time.
The creatures still clung to the Tempura. How had the pressure change not killed them yet? My oxygen was dropping faster than before. I was hemorrhaging air. Another crack formed across my viewport. I let out a little, involuntary gasp before trying to force myself to stop hyperventilating.
“Grayson, what was that?”
“I-it’s fine…” I stammered, “It’s fine!”
“Grayson what the hell is going on down there?!”
“They’re still on the submarine… they’re still…” I paused, looking at my oxygen levels. “19%...”
“19% of what? Grayson what’s going on!”
I paused.
18%.
“Air… I’m… I’m losing air…”
“That’s fine, you’re going to make it!” She said, although I heard her voice cracking a little. “You’re gonna make it!”
I didn’t answer.
12,000 feet.
11,000 feet…
My oxygen level continued to drop.
15%.
14%.
12%.
9,000 feet.
The creatures still clung to me, as the submarine continued to rise. The one on my viewport was still there, slowly crawling along the glass again. I stared into its eyeless face and swore I was looking at the face of my killer.
7,000 feet…
Oxygen had dropped to 9%. It dropped to 8% before I even got to 6,000 feet. I was going to die here…
The viewport cracked again and I squeezed my eyes shut. The submarine rocked. I was sure one of the thrusters had been damaged. My ascent slowed.
“Grayson, what’s going on?”
“I’m sorry Sheila…”
Another crack spread across my viewport.
“I’m… I’m not making it back up…”
“YES YOU ARE!”
“I’m sorry…” The tears started to come as the reality of my death became clearer and clearer… this was it.
“YOU’RE COMING BACK UP, YOU HEAR ME! GODDAMNIT, I’LL BRING YOU BACK UP!”
“I love you…”
That creatures face pressed against the glass. It vomited more of its stomach acid onto the cracked glass, and I wondered if this might finally be what broke it. Part of me hoped it would be… the one good thing about dying this deep was that at least I’d die quickly. My suffering would be over. Then, the creature suddenly pulled back, twisting and writhing violently. I saw other shapes moving past it in the water, other ‘mermaids’ that had been clinging to the submarine.
Something was agitating them.
Something was scaring them off.
Then I heard it, over the radio… whale songs.
“What the hell…?”
“Grayson, are you still there?!”
“I… they’re finally breaking off. Sheila, what did you do?”
“I’m broadcasting some of the orca recordings we’ve been using. Are they still clinging to you?”
“No! They’re backing off! I… whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!”
The submarine kept rising.
5,000 feet.
4,000 feet.
4% oxygen.
I could still do this, right?
The submarine continued to rise.
3%.
3,000 feet.
2,000 feet.
2%.
1,000 feet… so close… I was so close…
I could almost see the surface through my viewport, rushing up toward me. I tried not to breathe. Tried not to move. All I did was hope.
500 feet.
I closed my eyes.
“Grayson we have your signal, we’re coming to pick you up!”
Sheila’s voice sounded so far away as my submarine finally breached the surface of the water… and with the last of my strength, I pulled the emergency release on the hatch, and threw it open, taking in lungful after lungful of fresh salty air.
I didn’t dare so much as touch the water beneath me… but I was topside again, and in the distance, I could see The Burger!
“We see you!” Sheila said, “We’ve got you baby… we’ve got you…”
“I see you too…” I said through the tears. “Thank you… thank you…” I didn’t have any words left in me after that.
As soon as I was back on the ship, I collapsed into Sheila’s arms, breaking down into tears as I clung to her, terrified that at any moment, some sort of unspoken other shoe would drop and I’d lose her all over again.
“Shh… it’s alright baby… I’ve got you… you’re safe… you’re safe…” I felt her fingers running through my air and I knew that what she said was true.
I was home.
I was safe.
***
I left my colleagues to review the data that the Tempura gathered during its short expedition. As far as I know, they haven’t published anything. I have a few ideas as to why, but I’ll keep those to myself. Let’s just say that some people would rather this information not become public.
I have a feeling that the Tempura may not be diving again for some time, if ever. I will confess that I do consider that a bit of a shame. Despite everything… I would consider it a success. It endured far more stressful conditions than I had expected, and from what I heard, required fewer repairs than I’d thought it would. But, even if it was approved for another dive, it wouldn’t be me piloting it. No. I will never be setting foot inside of that machine again, nor will I ever be returning to what my colleagues have been quietly referring to as ‘The Jenner Trench’.
I can’t.
Every night, I wake up crying after dreaming of pale shapes outside of my cracked viewport, clinging to Sheila and sobbing. I can’t put myself in that situation again.
I can’t.
Instead, I think I’m going to spend the next few years on solid ground. There’s a teaching position available at a local university. I think that might be the best place for me right now. Who knows, maybe I can help some other deadbeat discover a passion for marine biology.
After everything, my love for the sea remains unchanged… I’m just a little more wary of it, these days.
submitted by HeadOfSpectre to nosleep [link] [comments]

http://activeproperty.pl/