Enter the Third Dimension

A few months ago I bought a 3D printer. The Monoprice Select Mini. It's a *very* basic 3D printer but for $199 it's a really great entry level printer. Here's some pros and cons:

Pros:

• $199: Pretty damn cheap for a very functional 3D printer
• Metal construction: Not laser cut wood which I question the strength and stability
• Toothed Belt (X, Y) and Jack Screw (Z) Movement: No crazy strings or cables. Looks professional.
• Heated Bed: Yes, a heated bed! This means you have a much larger selection of print materials (like ABS) other than PLA
• 1.75mm Filament: Standard size that you can get anywhere, cheap, many colors, many materials. You can easily get a 1kg roll of PLA for $20-$25.
• 0.1mm (and lower) Resolution on Z Axis: You can make prints with some nice detail.
• SD Card Slot and USB and WiFi: Printer includes a SD card (only 256M but good to start with)  
• Standard Gcode Support: It can talk to many free and commercial slicers or read from the SD card

Cons:

• $199: Yeah. It's a deal but understand what you're getting into. You're going to have to fiddle with it and it may be frustrating. While many people have had success right out of the box don't assume you will. A $1000+ pinter might be a better choice if you have the money.
• Manual Bed Leveling: This comes under fiddling. You need to adjust the bed height using an allen wrench and a piece of paper (more on that later). The Z axis has a hard bottom limit switch so adjusting the bed height is very difficult.
• Low End Components: Again it's $199. The power supply is weak and might fail. The stepper motor drivers may overheat. The hot end is pretty poor. The bed heater struggles to get over 80 deg C. (low end for ABS). Wires can break (especially the thermistor) and bundles may abrade.
• Poor Construction: Tolerances can be pretty sloppy and manufacturing is not very consistent. Wobbling in all axises can occur. Mine seems to have loosened up since I got it.
• Proprietary Hardware and Software: You're not going to be able to flash it with an open source firmware or do any software customization.
• High DoA: There have been reports of DoA (Dead on Arrival) printers. This goes back to poor quality. Monoprice seems to do a good job with RMAs but it could be *extremely* frustrating. 

The good thing is that many of the "cons" can be fixed or managed but this means that in addition to the hobby of 3D printing you'll have a hobby of hacking the printer itself. There is a great support group on Facebook and there are many great articles and videos online to help you out. My experience is that the community around this printer is excellent. Very welcoming and very helpful (and patience). Maybe it's because they're all facing the same struggles and celebrate their successes.

Part of my enjoyment with technology is hacking, modifying and tweaking it. So for me this is a great printer. I can fiddle with it but it still performs better than I expected.

Back Again

Wow, It's been a long time since I blogged but I've been busy with a lot of new things other than playing FO4. Since I'm probably the only one reading this blog (other than search engines) it really doesn't matter. But still...

Garden Plot + ??? = Profit

Wasteland workshop adds "garden plots". Basically raised garden beds that you can place almost anywhere.  Some settlements don't have much ground or the ground isn't where you'd like it to be. You can also place your garden on top of your defense tower. Cool.

Now what other things have to go into the ground for them to work? Hmmm. Water pumps! Yep you got it. You can put a water pump (either the hand pump or the new powered pump) into a garden plot then pick them up with a long press of the action button and put it anywhere. Now you can keep your water supply safe on top of your tower too.

Fast Travel Safety

It annoys me that fast travel in Fo4 can dump you right into a firefight. I thought a cardinal rule was that fast travel would put you into a safe spot. Now I have to assume that any fast travel, outside of settlements, will get me into trouble. I'm spamming VATS even before I materialize. Maybe that's by design but I still don't like it. I hate fast traveling to Satellite Station Olivia and getting jumped by bloat flies and mole rats which alert the raider guards. Oh well.

Far Harbor - Cool!

I haven't started Far Harbor yet. I'm still having fun with Automatron and Wasteland Workshop but Far Harbor sounds amazing. It's the largest map that has been developed as a DLC and has completely new creatures. The following was posted to Reddit Fallout Sub:

Far Harbor is not a friendly place. The town’s inhabitants don’t trust you. Monstrous creatures lay in wait around every corner. Even the island itself can kill you. “It’s not like walking around the Commonwealth and maybe encountering some pockets of radiation,” warns Lead Producer Phil Nelson. “The island is radiation.”

But you’ll find much more than just hostile denizens and radiation in Fallout 4’s latest add-on. In addition to being Bethesda Game Studios’ largest landmass that they have ever created for an add-on, the island is host to a wealth of mysteries for you to uncover. Discover new creatures, arm yourself with new gear and seek out the truth behind the ongoing conflict between factions on the island. Along the way you’ll face some of the most complex and nuanced choices in Fallout.

Follow the link to read the rest. There's also some great concept art. This is one I liked:

Fallout 4 Far Harbor concept art

Settler Weapons

*** Possible Spoilers ***

Since I installed Automatron DLC, I've been considering what weapons my settlers should have. Almost immediately after Automatron was installed I had an attack on Abernathy Farm. The attackers were six Mechanist robots. The settlers did a pretty good job defending themselves but it makes me think that I should be diversifying to include some energy weapons.

Laser Rifle - Image from Fallout Wikia

Initially I gave settlers pipe rifles and automatic pipe rifles because they were plentiful, the same calibre yet more powerful than the .38 pipe pistols settlers normally come with. As I advanced, settlers were upgraded with my looted guns. Many now have .45 combat rifles and .45 submachine guns. The "Triggermen" in the Goodneighbor warehouses respawn after a certain amount of time (30 in-game games, I believe). So .45 submachine guns are easy to get. I now have a decent collection of of energy weapons so I'm starting to hand them out. Hopefully, with a combination of kinetic and energy weapons they'll be able to deal with robot attacks.

Lasty, is it better to give settlers single shot or automatic weapons? Just from my observation, settlers are not very good shots. It may be better if settlers have automatic weapons taking a "spray and pray" tactic. Since settlers don't use up ammo, running out of rounds isn't an issue.

Scavenger Stations

I've been assigning unassigned settlers to scavenger stations so that they're pulling their share of the load but I was wondering how much this really help. I found some good info on the Fallout Wikia.

Image from Fallout Wikia

Normally, unassigned settlers will scavenge by themselves at a rate of one random junk item per day (in game day I assume) when assigned to a scavenger station they can collect two random junk items per day.

This was basically what I thought it was but the following was of most interest:

Once the total number of junk items in the workshop reaches 100 + (population × 5), no more junk items will be added to the workshop in either case.

So there is a limit on how much can be scavenged at which point they will stop. So how to resolve this? Do we have to clean out all the junk from a workbench when it reaches or looks like it's reaching, capacity? Would it help to manually scrap the junk in a workbench? Players have mentioned that they move junk from a scrapping settlement to another settlement where they aren't doing scrapping. This really sounds like a pain in the butt.

I'm not sure what the best solution is but I'll keep looking.

Another interesting thing is that scavenger stations can be wrecked in an attack. There is no external indicator. You have to cursor over it in build mode and it will give you the option to repair it.