Level 80!!! For just the third time in all of these years, I've reached level 80. Man, I can't help but think the third time is a charm and this is the one.

Except, of course, for the fact that I also felt this way when I reached 80 the other two times. And the very first time I made it to level 50. And 60. And 70. And they didn't work out so well... lol

Whew... got really, really close. Damned raiders. Two Raider Survivalist, two Raider Veterans, and a Legendary Raider for good measure ambushed me not far from Cabot House. And when the dust settled, I looked at my Pip-Boy and had 19 HP. And that's out of well over 800 lol. Funny thing is, I was so busy firing and moving, I looked once and wasn't even half way according to the HP meter, and thought okay, I got this. Man, I didn't even realize I was getting so low until I heard the heart beat sound, took one more round, heard the sound increase to like 150 beats a minute or whatever, fired one shot to kill the one in front of me and realized he was the last one. lol Closest so far in this game.

14 days and 7 hours, according to the save file. What is that?? Let's see... 10 days is 240 hours. 4 more days is 96 hours... 240 + 96 + 7 = 343 if my math is right.

Yeah, that would have left a mark. Although now no matter when it happens it's going to be another tough one to swallow.

EDIT: Trying another screenshot. I can't really see the first one, so maybe this one is better.

EDIT2: Yeah, that's a little better. Guess I'll have to give it to Steam on one issue... taking screenshots look better and are easy as hell to post in the Steam forums... plus you can take several of them. Playing the GOG version, I can only use the PrintScreen key and only have one screenshot at a time to paste into whatever image software I use. So to take five in the GOG version, I'd have to take one... exit the game... paste it... save it... renter the game... .... yeah, I'll give it to Steam on the screenshot issues. Although perhaps GOG's Galaxy has a similar utility but since I've never used Galaxy I don't know.

EDIT3: Went back in and took another. 19 HP out of 870. lol yeah, that was close.

Assuming you are on windows. If you must use the print key, try using win + print keys - it directly saves the whole screen into your pictures folder.

Btw.: Great read and good luck on your current run.

Yay, I tied my all time record! Level 88.

15 Days, 17 Hours, 44 Minutes.

Wow. The good news is I tied my record. The bad news is, when I die next time it's going to be the most hurtful one yet.

15 X 24 + 17 = 377 hours.

Yeah, whenever it happens now it's gonna hurt like a mofo.

ADDED: 5/20: LEVEL 90!!! A new record for how many levels I've survived without dying. I dunno if it's a record in terms of time though since it's true that differing play styles can result in how fast or slow one reaches levels. In this particular game I know I have received many more XP than usual for crafting. In this game I wanted to experiment with equipping every setter at every settlement with the best available weapons and armor, thus I improved way, way, waaaaaaaaayy more weapons and armors and thus got more XP.

And at the end of the day I learned it was all for naught, as it makes absolutely ZERO difference in the calculation the game uses to determine whether a settlement successfully defends itself from attacks for attacks that occur with me, the player character, NOT being there. Which is all of them, for me. I never respond to the 'Help defend XXX settlement" quests. Just too burdensome in survival with no fast travel available. And I noticed that even though I was equipping my settlers better, I was still seeing about the same failure rate I've always seen. And sure enough, there is a wiki article that explains when the game determines success/fail for these attacks when the player character isn't there, it doesn't even consider how the settlers are equipped (only how many there are of them) and it doesn't matter where in the settlements you place your defenses (only the total defense number is used) and no matter what you do, you will still fail roughly a third of the time.

I wanted to avoid these failures because when an attack is unsuccessfully defended, resources are taken from that settlement's workshop, and I noticed many times before when it happened that it would often be aluminum, maybe just because it starts with an A and therefore may be the first resource in a given settlement. And aluminum is an important resource for me as it's necessary to maintain power armor. And then these resources went missing after failing to defend a settlement, it would take ALL of that resource you had. I was hoping to alleviate that, but it's true that no matter what, you will lose roughly 1/3 of these encounters. So, to combat losing needed resources, I now keep my resources in three settlements that have zero population, which means they don't get attacked. And I then have to lug the resources from those three settlements to the other ones when I need to do work there. Sucks.

But, whatever, I am now in the process of going against my own thoughts about waiting to get to level 100 before taking on the Automatron final showdown. I was just going to wait till then to even start the DLC, but... lol, dammit I should be good to go. So I'm now on the 2nd headhunter quest in that questline. You'd think I would've learned my lesson when this is where I died when I made to level 88 before. But dammit.... I can do this!!! (Famous last words???)