Community:Galaxy News Network/The Galaxy Tribune 011

THE GALAXY TRIBUNE
А Galaxy News Network Publication EDITION #011 ~ OCTOBER 13TH, 2023

A Look at the Unofficial Fallout Apps
By CookOLo on September 17th, 2023

'''During your browsing through app stores, you may have come across some apps that have relation to Fallout yet have no relation with Bethesda or Microsoft. Still, they’re undoubtedly Fallout and a part of this “meta-lore” that most people are unaware of, so let’s explore a few of these unofficial Fallout apps!'''

The G.O.A.T
Developed by Ashley Richards, The G.O.A.T is a quiz-taking app, that asks the exact questions from Fallout’s GOAT/SAFE test.

The app opens with the option to choose between: The GOAT test or The SAFE Test. The results of the test mirror the results in Fallout 3’s; however, because Fallout 4 only had one ending result that you weren’t a synth for their SAFE Test, the app takes matters into its own hands and determines whether you’re truly a synth or not.

There are 17 achievements that you can earn based on the differing quiz results you get. And there’s even a leaderboard where the more times you take the quiz, the higher you are placed on that leaderboard! That's all there is to this app, just a simple quiz app that you can test your friends and family!

Unofficial Map for Fallout 76
The title of the app describes the app right there! It's a map of Fallout 76, developed by Oisin O'Neill, that showcases not only locations, but also maps out locations of treasure maps, static weapon spawns, and much more! To take you through the app, it starts off asking if you want this app to allow paste for notes, which doesn't sound too obnoxious until you realize it asks you that every single time you the app. Nonetheless, the app works by tapping on specific icons on the Fallout 76 map to figure out where exactly certain items are. Well, that's how it's supposed to work, but when we tried to access the app, it just shows the icons only with little to no functionality.

What's worse is that the map is only updated to Fallout 76: Wastelander's version of the map, which was released back in 2020. Currently, in 2023, there have been many changes to the Fallout 76 map, which this app unfortunately does not take into account. Even then, this app does have some use (if it worked) as the majority of the spawns and locations in Fallout 76 haven't changed.

Terminal Hacker for Fallout 4 - Fast Unlock and Solve Codes
Whew! That title is a long one, but the app just does that! From developer Ruben Frosali, this app allows you to put in the potential passwords of terminals you see in Fallout 4, and get the solution. It won't be an exact solution from the beginning because it'll require you to insert the likeliness to calculate the right word, but it'll get you there sooner or later. Of course, this app isn't limited to Fallout 4 as it can work on any terminal from any of the games.

While this does seem like an incredibly useful tool to use while in gameplay, it is incredibly tedious. Because you have to type out all the potential passwords, depending on the quantity and length, it's going to take a while when you use this tool, which gets increasingly repetitive the more you use this app.

Still, it's an interesting app if you want to take a look at it!

Map Guide for Fallout 76
That's right! Another Fallout 76 map app; this time it's developed by Anton Sitnikov. Instead of going immediately onto a map, you'll see a list, ranging from power armor, workshops, events, etc., from which you can click. After doing so, a map will appear of all the locations pinpointed of those specified items. Like the previous map, the Unofficial Map for Fallout 76, it's not up-to-date as it hasn't been updated to even the Wastelander's update, unfortunately.

Cheats & Guide For Fallout 4
This is a pretty simple and useful app. Developed by wenxing you, this app simply lists out all the console ID codes for everything that the console allows you to spawn.

In addition, you can even see guides of exploits that you can exploit in Fallout 4!

All in all, these are just a few of the unofficial apps that are out there in app stores! Thank you for coming on this journey to dive into these unknown parts of the Fallout ethos.

Settlement Spotlight: Castle Military Base by DMC6262
By Gryphon on September 25th, 2023

Hey all! Today I wanted to do something new; as you may or may not know, I’m somewhat of an avid settlement builder. Because of that, I like to keep up with the latest creations from that community, and recently one caught my eye. A fellow settlement builder, DMC6262, whose builds I’d seen before, had released a new build; a large and detailed Military Base at The Castle, a settlement in Fallout 4, so I reached out to them to see if they’d be interested in an interview. Luckily enough, they were open to it, so sit back and enjoy!

At the beginning of the interview, I began with some of the easier questions, first asking how long the build took in full:


 * “Well, I was off sick and I’d estimate that the build took around 24 hours over the course of 3 days. This included all the set pieces for the showcase, dressing all the settlers, etc. just taking photos was one day, the building itself was actually relatively short.”

Next, I asked what their favorite part to build or their favorite area in the build was:

All of that led to my next question: what were their inspirations while building?
 * “The main tower. It just started as a box around the ugly radio tower, then I built it up and added the wings and such. Then it looked bare with just the plain walls, so I added some heavy-duty metal cladding to make it all pop.”
 * “When starting on this one, honestly, nothing. Usually, I have photos I’m inspired by or some idea, but with this one, I honestly started with just wanting to block the radio tower, and it developed from there. I knew I’d make the center building a small command post, add a couple of that I noticed all the extra space outside the walls and started planning. What became the area where the tanks are was initially a D-Day style perimeter area, with barbed wire and sandbags and pillboxes, but with the extra space I wanted to push bigger, make it into a bristling, formidable fortress.”

With all this talk on the intricacies of the building, I obviously had to ask next which mods really stood out during the build process, and which one they used the most:


 * “Oh, easily Snappy Housekit, it's about 90% of all my builds, probably the best building mod ever! Mostly just because it uses vanilla assets, nothing else is going to give you more freedom and as realistic textures as Snappy Housekit does.”

As someone enjoys encompassing lore into my settlement builds, I was interested in whether they take the same route with their creations, building lore alongside their settlement:
 * “Well, the Castle is the U.S. Army Forces Command. It's the place that controls the training and that supplies forces to combatant commanders across the Commonwealth, but that’s its purpose. In terms of lore, I haven’t completely figured that out yet. I’m pretty iffy on Fallout 4 lore, but I’m going through wikis and doing background reading on events before the Great War. My idea right now I think is just to have semi-high-ranking members of the pre-war military and government somehow escape into some bunker, and then reestablish the US after the war in Boston, even though by the time they do, the Constitution doesn’t mean much, and their term limits had all expired.”

For my second to last question, I asked them how they got into Fallout, and settlement building specifically:


 * “I saw Fallout 3 when it came out, but I thought all the gunfights were in the VATS system and I hard passed. Fallout 4 was my first real introduction to the series, I really like the unnerving sentiment of the entirety of humanity having its line drawn in the sand. The strife, ingenuity, and development of the last 250,000 years just sort of end and amount to nothing, but then my character can come along and bring order to the chaos. I stay with Fallout because I prefer open-world immersive games, and I’ve found none better, I don’t need dialogue for options for immersion, it’s never going to beat my imagination. Fallout 4 gives me all the freedom and the tools I need to customize the experience. As for why I got into settlement building, that's easy, I like city builders, and my job is very logic-based, Fallout 4 lets me be creative in a 3D space.”

Finally, I asked if they had any final thoughts or advice for other settlement builders, or people looking to get into it:


 * “That’s a bit of a hard question. I’m much more of the type to be watching someone build and be able to give suggestions, or I suppose micromanage, in the moment. There’s definitely importance to leveling, having various parts of the build at different heights, from subterranean levels to the main command tower, all drawing focus and giving the whole build more dimension. It makes it feel organic. At the moment that’s all I can really think of.”

All in all, I had lots of fun sitting down with DMC and learning more about their build, and I hope you all did too. I hope this article inspired some of you to maybe sit down with the settlement system one of these days, and try it out for yourself, or that some people who have already played around with it may get a bit of inspiration. Either way, I can’t wait to continue to see what the Fallout building community creates in the future, have a good day out in the wastes.

If you’d like to see more of their builds, you can check out their Reddit, at u/dmc6262.

Volume 1: Stories From a Wasteland Journalist: A Long Journey
By Gryphon on September 14th, 2023

Welcome to Stories From a Wasteland Journalist, Tribune readers. In my last article, I introduced you to this series by detailing how I’d come across the beginning story, the late Arthur Lewis-Clark, and his wife, Margaret. They made a request, to tell the stories contained within a holotape left beside them, and so that is what I am here to do today.

I would like to begin by saying that I have not, and will not, change or modify the stories within this holotape. It is not my duty to change the story, but to tell it as it was written. Without further ado, I bring you the first volume of Stories From a Wasteland Journalist: A Long Journey.

There we have it folks… The first volume of Stories From a Wasteland Journalist. Quite a morose note to begin on, but then again we know in the end that he finds Margaret, so does that diminish the ending? Spoil the finale? Something tells me that this story is less about the destination and more about the journey, but we’ll figure that out eventually.

We’ve heard countless times about that fateful day; the day that our world was irreparably changed. But none have been quite as distinctive, to me, as this one. A first-hand account from someone who shared the very profession I have today. I hope you all continue to follow me along as I share more, because while we may know the end, there is still plenty more to learn.

From the Atlantis City Teaser to its PTS Opening
By CookOLo on October 07th, 2023

At the Tokyo Game Showcase on September 21, 2023, Bethesda Game Studios released another teaser of the next expedition for Fallout 76, Atlantic City, which a previous teaser was showcased at Xbox's Game Showcase 2023. In this teaser, Art Director Jon Rush announces how this expedition is split between two updates. Later revealed in a Polygon article, those updates are titled "Boardwalk Paradise" and "America's Playground" respectively. Rush continues to reveal how Atlantic City will introduce "new locations, new factions, new creatures, new missions, and new rewards." Focusing on the creature aspect, a new creature was teased visually in this teaser, sporting a lagoons-style creature mixed with a feral ghoul.

Finally, at the end of this teaser, Rush announces how "Boardwalk Paradise" will officially release on December 5, 2023, but Steam players can access and playtest this update through the Public Test Server on October 3, 2023. However, a little over a week from this teaser, the PTS would open its doors early to some restrictions. For this initial iteration, the Atlantic City Expedition would not yet be ready for playtesting until the original opening date of October 3rd, but everything else in this update is there to test. And from this testing, a lot was learned. There are new locations surrounding Vault 76 that concern the major factions. The perk loadouts previously tested in the PTS for the "Once in a Blue Moon" Update are now rebalanced. To top it all off, there seem to be new side quests for this Atlantic City Expedition.

Then the actual expedition comes to the PTS on October 3rd where we learn about new creatures, factions, and lore of Atlantic City. Of course, we won't delve into it too much due to spoiler's sake, but we will highlight Bethesda Game Studios Dev Diaries about this update if you want to learn more about these new additions without completely being spoiled by playing the PTS.

Then again, if you're ever interested in playtesting this new Fallout 76 update, the PTS is there for you to playtest for the final release on December 5th 2023!



Teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbYzF6P9Q5Y

Polygon Article: https://www.polygon.com/23884084/fallout-76-boardwalk-paradise-release-date-atlantic-city-expedition

Atlantic City Dev Diary 1: https://youtu.be/lqJ31OD0Ijg Atlantic City Dev Diary 2: https://youtu.be/LZkQ4RVjmc8

The Mid-Season Patch is Here!
By CookOLo on October 11th, 2023

While this Mid-Season Patch for Fallout 76 might be a surprise to some, Community Manager Ladydevann actually announced in this update in a Reddit comment, replaying how this patch does solve "...the issue with certain learned plans not unlocking..." Of course, there are plenty of new improvements in this patch separate from that! A couple of standout ones would be how:


 * "The Aristocrats legendary armor mod now grants the expected increase in health and energy damage resistances bonuses as the player gains more caps."


 * "...rebalanced self-inflicted damage from explosions."

And, the controversial one:


 * "The Secret Service armor can no longer drop with the Weightless Legendary mod." (However, for this specific change, Bethesda plans to revert this after feedback from the community illustrated that they were not quite in love with this change)

We also have our datamines. Mostly, it seems to be about the new Spooky Scorched, Fasnacht, Holiday Scorched, and Treasure Hunter event items, which were also talked about in the patch notes. If you want to check, here they are! In addition, because Fallout 76's fifth birthday is so close, with it being on November 14, new Atomic Shop items surrounding the game's 5th birthday were datamined.

All in all, if you want to learn more about these patch notes, check the link below! In addition, if you want to learn more about these datamines, check out the Fallout 76 Datamining Server!

Patch Notes: https://fallout.bethesda.net/en/article/7vQRrJkvFHh7RrhIKS2r5c/fallout-76-update-notes-october-10-2023 Fallout 76 Datamining Server: https://discord.gg/mTfxYZWCrR

The Active Wanderer Interview (003) - Flakles
By CookOLo on October 11th, 2023

Exploring the many Fallout communities out there, you might have stumbled across one striking individual. An individual who is pretty active in the Fallout 76 community as well as having some backing in the Fallout modding community. That individual would be Flakles. You might have seen their illustrations. You might have seen their work on the modding scene. You might have seen their strong, yet equally valid criticisms of Fallout (especially its lore!) throughout Discords. Whatever it might be, or none whatsoever, Flakles has proven that they are active in the Fallout community, and we at Galaxy News Network decided to interview them because of just that. 1) How did you get into Fallout in the first place?


 * Flakles: "I got into Fallout kind of accidentally through a second hand copy of Fallout 3 - I grew up in kind of the middle of nowhere in rural New Zealand and we didn't exactly have the kind of money for buying new videogames at the 'Walmart Adjacent' superstore in the next town over but we'd make frequent trips to the second hand store. And one day, kinda by accident I stumbled upon a barely used copy of Fallout 3 buried in the DvD bin. One of the only games we had at home on the family PC was weirdly a title called 'Codename Outbreak', not sure why my parents owned it as neither really touched the PC if they could help it. But yet, we did! And my kid brain thought it was awesome and that Fallout 3 would be something similar. I took it home for five dollars, got started and basically lost the whole weekend in the blink of an eye. Faked stomach aches for the next two days so I could take more time off school to play until my parents caught on."

2) What made you interested in Fallout Lore?


 * Flakles: "Fallout modding, definitely. I grew up being heavily invested in writing and reading, which helped - But once I got myself involved in the Fallout modding scene it became imperative to know your lore forward backward and sideways if you were going to add anything new to it. I'm definitely not the biggest lore afficianado out there, but I definitely sank a lot of hours into trawling the wikis to make my weird ideas as bulletproof in the lore as possible."

3) In the same vein, what made you interested in Fallout's visual aesthetic?

4) What is your opinion of the franchise right now?
 * Flakles: "Fallout's visual aesthetic was a little more straight forward and can be summarized as something of an admiration / appreciation of Adam Adamowicz. I'd grown up being the 'art kid' in my family and after playing Fallout 3 for hundreds of hours, I really got sunk into the vision that Adam Adamowicz had set up for the series in that title. It became my obsession for a little while. Everything was so unique and well thought out, every little detail of every little model or billboard was perfectly composed or placed to tell a story or sell some little quirk about the character or world. All through Highschool I'd be doodling raiders, supermutants and brotherhood paladins in my notebooks and for my final year art board I even sat down and dedicated the whole thing to Adam and trying to approximate his style. He wound up being something of a personal hero of mine."


 * Flakles: "Fallout's in a strange place right now. As an immersive simulation of Fallout's setting with the flexibility to be and do whatever you want, it's never been better. But I do worry about the writing and art direction a bit. Definitely more the writing. I don't think it's all as doom and gloom as some other people, but I do think it they need to put a bit more work into those sections."

5) If you could, what would you like to change about Fallout?


 * Flakles: "As a series as a whole In terms of what I'd change, It's honestly not a lot - Beyond stuff like tightening up writing, art direction, etc, etc - A larger focus on RP Mechanics, etc, etc - Is all kind of 'goes without saying' stuff. I have a lot of specific stuff I'd do to individual games like adding text chat to Fallout 76 to open up the RP scene or adding in certain lines of dialogue / lore to Fallout 4 to properly contextualize the Institute / certain characters. But by and large, I think the core of the series is still very good, it just needs a bit of refining and focusing."

6) Has Fallout impacted your life in any way? And if so, how did impact your life?


 * Flakles: "Absolutely. Fallout is by and large why I'm a closet wannabe game developer. If I got the chance, it'd be Fallout's fault I'd go for it. And while I love the Elder Scrolls to bits - It never would've gotten me involved in modding to the degree that Fallout has."

And that's a wrap! It's always so interesting to see just how Fallout has impacted someone, and seeing it with Flakles is simply a standing to how a franchise, like Fallout, can affect someone so deeply. We just want to thank Flakles for this interview with them -- all about them!

Fallout's 26th Birthday and Fallout 76's 5th Birthday Events
By CookOLo on October 12th, 2023

26 years ago on October 10, 2023, Interplay would start a franchise that would win the hearts of many people throughout the world. A franchise that would introduce people to the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout. It is simply amazing that not only this franchise, but this community is still going strong for this many years! So, we at the Galaxy News Network would love to wish Fallout its 26th Birthday and beyond! Of course, it's more than just Fallout's 26th Birthday. It's also going to be Fallout 76's 5th Birthday soon enough on November 14, 2023, and Bethesda is hosting its celebratory events surrounding this date.

They're inviting you to share your "snapshot memories" and "stories" throughout your time in Fallout 76. All you have to do is share them in the Official Bethesda Game Studios Discord. It's a delight to go through these stories and snapshots from other Vault Dwellers out there in the Wastes. You can go from reading about the SHEEP SQUAD, a group of Dwellers that dress up in the Sheepsquatch Mascot Outfit, fighting gargantuan creatures like Earl Williams himself. Then you can end up reading about this heartwarming wedding that occurred in a Brotherhood Of Steel Group. There are just endless amounts of wild, intense, and loving stories to be read about that these Vault Dwellers are sharing with us. If you ever feel bored out there, these pictures and stories are readily available to be seen and read at the Official Bethesda Game Studios Discord! Or maybe you want to contribute your own stories. Check it all out in the Discord below!

Bethesda Game Studios Discord: http://discord.gg/BethesdaStudios

Haunted Shelter Competition
Oct 2 - Oct 27

Caps-A-Plenty
Oct 12 - Oct 16

Miverna's Big Sale
Oct 19 - Oct 23

Spooky Scorched Event
Oct 24 - Nov 7

TNG's Weekly C.A.M.P. Competition
''Compete in this weekly C.A.M.P Competition by simply showcasing your C.A.M.P.!

Learn more in TNG’s Discord below! https://discord.gg/6282vEKbar''

Oct 2 - Oct 27

Ashfall Modding Massacre
''A mod jam contest all about creating “a small horror-themed mod for Fallout: New Vegas.”

More info below from the Fallout: Ashfall Team! https://discord.gg/hJszPB6X''

Oct 12 - Oct 16

Here is a Galactic Reminder!
Printed with Color by the Galaxy News Publication office in the Southern Central area of The Commonwealth.

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