In the current iteration of the game (Xbox One) I’ve reached level 102. Once, in the past, I made it to 100 but soon lost interest in continuing. I’m feeling that pull already but this time I still have over half of the Far Harbor and all of the Nuka World DLC to look forward to. So, I have a few odds and ends I want to report.

Poor Jun Long – Everybody who plays this game must get annoyed with the loving couple: Jun and Marcy Long. Nonetheless, I found a place for both of them at Tenpines Bluff and they were doing great in their jobs; Marcy turned out to be a perfect front gate guard, and Jun took to being a Provisioner with distinction. Unfortunately, recently Jun got stuck on one of the overpass highways and I tried for weeks to coax him to return to his job. Finally, I decided to kill him just to get a new provisioner. I don’t like Jun but I really disliked having to kill him. Having characters get stuck in strange places is not uncommon and so far, I’ve killed three of them. This sucks.

Character Deaths – Frankly, I take the loss of any of my settlers and named non-player characters (NPCs) pretty hard. So far in this iteration, I’ve lost traders Eleanor, Rowdy, and Rylee, and I don’t know what I could have done to prevent their loss. Also, I haven’t come across Ron Staples, so I’m concerned that he’s dead also. I haven’t researched this yet, but I think in Eleanor’s case I could kill her former Raider boss Roscoe. In the case of Rylee, I’ve read that she is an enigmatic character and seems doomed to getting herself killed.

I don’t know how many people I’ve lost in total, but prolly at least ten settlers and the named NPCs. Frequently, I lose a Provisioner because they have such dangerous jobs, but I’ve lost NPCs during settlement attacks. One other thing, after The Nuclear Option, I discovered Doc Anderson, Ronnie Shaw and a farmer deep in the most dangerous part of south Boston. I noticed them missing and tracked them and defended them as they made their way back to The Castle. Needless to say, Doc and Ronnie are vital characters.

Good Ole Codsworth – After the initial quests, Codsworth is pretty useless and in the past I’ve let him just hang around Sanctuary. In this game I sent him to the Hangman’s Alley Safehouse but that just wasn’t enough. I got so fed up with his snooty comments and disdain that I chopped him down to sized with the robotics workbench. At first, he didn’t have any arms but I decided that he was still useful for defense. So: Voila!

Codsworth seems to like hanging out at settlement bars.

Protecting Settlers – I put a lot of effort into protecting my settlers. All of them have good armor and at the large settlements, all guards have Militarized Minutemen clothing as well. Also, all of my settlers have had their clothing upgraded to Ballistic Weave. Following is a pic of some of the different outfits used by my settlers.

Front row left is Provisioner, others are guards. Backrow are settler uniforms.

The Slog – Yesterday, I built a settlement at the ghoul tarberry farm. It’s a large area and I’ll probably turn it into a large-size settlement (30+ settlers) but I’m starting to tire of building settlements. It takes a lot of work to build the kind of settlements I build because they are all concrete walled. Also, I am a stickler for making sure everyone has the best weapons and armor available and this requires a lot of weapons mods. And that means a lot of adhesive. (SPOILER: learn to make adhesive and keep making it often.)

I’m about ready to plunge deeper into Far Harbor. I dread having to wend my way through Dima’s maze, but it has to be done. More on all this later.