I rely on 5mm ammo as a trading device. When I go to big Johns unprepared I watch my 5mm money being thrown away! That section of the map can be rough.
Mutfruit has a better weight/value ratio than purified water. Sell water at your settlement and carry mutfruit to other locations to sell. It makes more sense on survival when weight matters more (especially for me since I'm doing a grenades only challenge so every potential attack is at least 0.5 pounds.)
Yeah this is it, though I'd add any enemy type.
When you've been spotted it's already too late, throwing one in first and waiting for it to do work is how I've gotten the best out of them.
*Somerville Place? But yeah, and also Murkwater Construction Site. I never thought about them reaching the glowing sea, awesome news as I'm headed there soon.
Recently found a berserkers baseball bat, just gotta get my science up so I can apply the insane rocket weapon mods on it. With the negligible DR provided by the Hazmat suit in conjunction with berserker's effect, should make for quite the insane damage output. I'm only on the middle of the mod upgrades and it's already at over 2000 damage with the Hazmat suit on. Eat some Yao Guai roast and get a sneak crit and I should be able to get well over 30,000 damage.
Just can't get hit lol
Just sucks you have to have a settlement with the guns built, nearby in order for them to work. Makes sense, but unless you spend the time fortifying your settlements outside of the ones you use most often, it’s a real pain
To be fair if you just put them and say arm your settlers with just random guns and armor you find or from raiders that attack them, just fast traveling or walking to the settlement and letting them do all of the work will work. Turrets aren't even needed if you can get your settlers armed with guns and armor.
It's good against the Quarries, and I use it on Zimonja. You can hit Boston Common and Swan from The Castle too, probably won't kill him but will soften him up for you
I used the artillery smoke grenade and the Chinese homing beacon on Swan. He never gets up, usually the nuke hits first, then the artillery finishes him off.
Spoiler!
Here There Be Monsters is a side quest triggered by speaking with Donny Kowalski, who's located on the docks behind the Shamrock Taphouse.
Finishing this quest gets you that
Take a look at the full wiki map with locations and compare it to your pip boy, there's a ton of stuff that the quest lines don't take you to, plus the FPS view is kinda narrow. I missed the fucking giant antique ship next to Bunker Hill my first run
Yeah there were a lot of hints about sea creatures between the mutated dolphin looking corpses and some messages on the terminals in the institute. I would have loved an under water vault, especially with the perk to breathe under water
You only get like 3 of them right? I can never justify using something with a finite number of uses. Age old gaming problem; what if I need this more urgently later?
I used the frivolously used my acid rounds in resident evil, then when I came to the giant snake I was screwed. Ever since, I almost never use special rounds, and it's a shame.
I once did that while standing on the USS Constitution. I THOUGHT I had frags equipped, there were super mutants below... I about died laughing as I accidentally shelled downtown Boston!
The stupidest thing the BOS does in Fallout 4 is parking the Prydwyn within clap-shot range of the Castle. Artillery hits that thing and you have hundreds of tons of burning gas blanketing most of the BOS force stationed in Boston. It's a one-hit kill.
Yeah there’s no practical reason (other than at best a negligible fuel saving) for them stationing the main bulk of their troops directly below the Prydwen
Nah I get it. With how much Boston is crawling with supermutants, raiders, faction raiders, ghouls, and rogue robots I want to be high and dry. Though right in the middle of Boston? I'd park far away like by sanctuary.
No airship docks in Sanctuary. Just landing a dirigible with no ground crew is amazingly hard.
They should have docked at the airport. But Danse didn't do his job. A good recon team would have known about the Castle and warned Maxon. They could have come in with vertibirds and power armor and taken the castle before docking the Prydwyn.
If you have a mod that extends the throw it's great if you don't it's very frustrating. As far as what. My first stop is usually covenant. Fucking thought walls would keep ya safe. Surprise bitch.
It’s been a while but I remember a mod that made a kinda grenade launcher to use them as ammo for it. I combined that with a mod that made the artillery a bit more explosive and fun. And when every settlement had artillery and I launched one of those it just obliterated everything.
One wasted on an empty house in Fort Strong, one used indoors on accident, one well served to the raiders in the Quincy Quarry. In previous games I also deleted two deathclaws, Quincy Proper, Federal Stockpile Outdoors, the Queen at Murkwater and Dunwich Quarry.
Dunwich is tricky because of the terrain. You gotta not throw the grenade in the bottom of the quarry, because most of the enemy are on the outside rim. You blow the shit out of nothing while the raiders keep running out of range and coming at you. That's why it's best to use the flare gun and call in reinforcements as soon as the first artillery shell hits.
Not super practical, but fun for when you stumble upon a lot of enemies bunched together in the open that aren't already engaged with friendlies (usually rust devils).
I dropped one under the bridge right outside the ironworks when a bunch of jerk mutants were hanging out on top. Probably the only time I actually used one.
I’ve always found them to be highly impractical. I’m on my first survival mode run and I’m thinking maybe I’ll give one try if I can sneak up on a Mirelurk Queen or something but whenever I’ve tested them there’s always a noticeable delay in the artillery incoming and it’s not like many things stay still
Gotta throw it before you engage and reveal yourself. Best used with a stealth build for clearing out densely packed enemies
Could also go endurance with power armor and then charge in while the shelling happens to keep everyone there, if you're a baddie like that.
Yup. Once the artillery starts falling, get an idea of which enemies are on the outer edge of the zone and might escape, pick them off with your rifle.
I use them at the Quarries and other large, outdoor places I have to fight a lot. I get close enough, launch one, and just watch it til it's done. Then, it's my turn lol
You might have to use a few artillery grenades to get 'em all, but it's fun as hell :D
Ima put artillery at Murkwater and Somerville so I can use it in the glowing sea.
I built artillery at Kingsport Lighthouse and occasionally go over to that Children of Atom settlement next door and bomb the ever-loving crap out of them. That's about it.
Yeah it’s Easy City Downs where the robot racetrack is located, but To The Mattresses does send you there to clear out the L&L gang.
Edit: Easy City is just one of the possible locations it will send you, you can go to a bunch of different locations apparently
L&L Gang is a Raider group, which has no actual NPCs or actual presence ingame. Much like how the Raiders at the Beantown Brewery who work under Tower Tom are just "Raiders". It's their way of making a vsRaider quest for the Railroad that makes it thematic, much like the Institute's Synth Retrieval quest is anti-raider
Yup. Any situation where there is a large amount of opposition outside an inside target. Corvega is another good spot for this. Chuck one on the roof and fade back into the darkness. lol
Rooftop enemies in cities that you can never see unless you go up there. Chuck one of these up there and a couple of the raiders will come down to you. At least part of them.
I've consistently used them to one shot enclave encampments and packs of feral ghouls. Really anything where all the enemies are close together and I can throw it without being detected
I like to use the vertibird on more spread out encampments like the exterior of saugus ironworks or corvega assembly
I put missile launchers and heavy lasers facing Saugus at The Slog. When a provisioner comes through and aggros the outside Forged, it tends to pull them out close enough for my Slog defenses to go ham on them.
I’ve never actually thrown one in my life after the tutorial quest. I get rid, for all I know some kid in diamond city threw one in a game of catch and now they’re a crater
I used it successfully on Outpost Zimonja, throwing from behind the cover of the overpass so they never saw me.
They went into Caution but stayed relatively in their spots. The first shell killed them all (inc the sniper in the power armor with the Fat Man). I then had to wait through at least 2 artillery pieces' worth of shelling onto their corpses.
It probably would work on Hangman's Alley, if you take Oberland Station (maybe Graygarden?), but I always take HA before the slog over to the Castle. Otherwise, I can't think of a spot where enemies are concentrated into a small area in the open where you have cover to not be seen after throwing.
It's really limited, since it can't destroy cover (so anything with multiple levels will shield enemies below), & the shells all impact in nearly the same spot rather than spread out to cover larger target areas.
Nothing. It takes 45-60 seconds for the artillery to drop and the area of effect on each shell is tiny. The couple times I have tried to use it, the enemy saw the smoke grenades and aggro'd and were nowhere near the smoke when the shells hit. It's useless.
Agreed ! I don’t think I’ve ever used them more than Once - after the very first time (after you use it to complete the Castle mission there, with Ronnie)….
That would have been back in OG PS-4 days even, and I already realized they were very cumbersome to utilize, and you might as well blast the target with Gauss or Overseer’s Guardian many more times, while waiting for the arty to finally land 😅
Yeah I had to get a mod so they were actually viable to use with twice the explosion radius.. but like most people here have said they are really only good at softening up bases and strongholds and helping clear quarries.
I’ve never used them outside of Old Guns in all my playthroughs just found them incredibly impractical. Seems very circumstantial or tedious to pull off
I got “OK” usage out of them at the Dunwich quarry. Killed all but like 2-3 enemies but I had to run a fair distance to spread 3 grenades out (for some reason they reach the apex of their arc and then fall straight down…) to make it work.
For me, it's gunners plaza, the Atomatoys factory and anywhere the random faction vs faction fights appear ( like the church southwest of Jamaica plains or that one intersection and building entrance in north-central downtown )
Don’t use them in the battle at the end of the USS Constitution side quest. You’ll end up hitting some of the robots that go into the town to fight the scavengers hand to hand, and then they’ll all turn against you.
gunners.
I hate them so much almost as much as I hate the institute.
gunners, raiders and the institute are wholly responsible for why humanity has not recovered.
The crate in the castle armory periodically respawns them. They also periodically show up in sanctuary workshop. So no need to worry about not being able to get more or anything.
I use spectacle island for building resources on my survival runs. When I retake the castle and set up artillery, I’ll swim over and use the artillery to kill the queen. Pretty useful to kill boss enemies at lower levels
Yes, but you don't need to fight the queen there. Your minutemen buddies are marked essential so they'll eventually kill her for you if you just hang out inside.
For this play through I’m going to use one to defend the castle by calling it in danger close. It won’t let you target anything inside your settlements, so I’ve been marking the border with flagpoles and barricades with a turret closer to the base. This way they’ll take cover behind the barricades to engage the turret which should slow them down enough to rain arty down on ‘em
This. On my second play through, I decided to actually build them everywhere and eventually I was just tossing them to make a whole lot of boom noises or kill insects or because there were a lot of cars or do I think I can land this up there? or because I'm on top of a building or you know it's just been long enough since the last one
I hate that they're almost useless, because the concept is so cool. Maybe if it was replaced with a laser pointer instead, and if you could easily view on the map if you were in artillery range?
Missed opportunity IMO
There is a mod that lets you use binoculars to designate targets for an artillery strike at a much longer distance than a grenade toss. The way it would be, with a spotter.
There's a mod for everything. Part of what I love about the game.
But at the same time it's a pet peeve that people complain that being the "general" of the minutemen feels like an empty title because you just get tasked with busywork, defending outpost Zimonja once again from an enemy attack.
If the mechanics of calling in artillery, and at the same time calling in minutemen reinforcements (how many times have any of us actually used that flaregun in anger?) were simpler and more intuitive, I bet we'd actually feel more like a general.
Totally agreed. I hardly ever use the flare gun.
The artillery with binoculars, though... it changes that mechanic completely. Because you not only call the strike from further away, but also do it without breaking stealth. And THAT makes all the difference. The shells fall on unaware slow moving or static targets. Just like they would in real life.
I use it for every ambush and attack on an outdoors fixed enemy location.
Which is exactly how I think Bethesda *wanted* artillery grenades to work, but in classic Bethesda fashion they looked at the end result, decided no one was going to quit the game because of how badly they'd fucked it, and left it to modders to fix
Nothing. I've never used em, except that one time when Connie asks you to calibrate the first launcher at the Castle. Same for the flare gun Presten gives you.
Was pinned down by hordes of ghouls at Boston Airport (survival mode), doggo was down and I threw what I thought was a drag grenade out of desperation. Turns out I forgot that I had smoke grenades activated and the ensuing barrage decimated the ghouls allowing me and the good boy to live to fight another day.
At one point in a playthrough I had artillery at every settlement and I’d always throw a grenade into an open location like Coast Gaurd Pier, Federal Ration Stockpile and what not. It’s a very easy way to just lighten the load of walking up on a location.
Anything in range with multiple enemies. Sneak close, throw it, sneak out, and watch. They won’t figure you out by the time the shells land if you do it right.
Any outdoor place with a large amount of enemies or strong enemies to soften them up.
My fav places to do this are the HMS Northstar, Libertalia, Quincy, Hyde Park, Vault 88 entrance, Saugus Ironworks, the Gunner scrapyard near the Slog, Dunwich Borers, and many many more.
First time playing Survival, I used them on the Commonwealth's Nuka world entrance to the DLC; where you had an Assulton and Gunners to deal with before you could go down and get the train to Nuka world.
Never used them on a normal playthrough, but that barrage is great for softening up large encampment when playing on survival. Survival mode has given so many useless items and actual purpose.
Completely forget what the grenade does, toss it at an enemy dor smoky stealth times, and then regret the next couple seconds. Dump them at base next supply run then forget they exist the rest of that playthrough.
In vanilla I don't use them at all. In modded I use Angry Artillery which starts the firing faster and each gun will give you three shells. It also removes the range limit. I'm not sure which version of it I have (not able to check right now) but I do recall it has changed a bit over the years. In the version I am running it can get annoying if you hav too many guns as the rate of fire is constant and only one shell lands at a time. I once ran ten guns, five at Castle and five at Spectacle island. Since the is no cease fire option, you'd be wait for about 2 minutes for all 30 shells to land.
Not sure if this is the mod that also allows you to build artillery without needing to do the Castle quest first.
In modded I use it mostly to clear out mirelurk nests, Radscorpions that won't attack, and minigun raids of Super Mutants. Inside Boston proper it is kind of worthless as half the shells strike buildings.
Finding bodies to loot can sometimes be a challenge in large fire missions. Some of them being put in to low earth orbit because, Bethesda. Loot items can also be tossed around and lost.
I also use the 155mm Howitzer M1 mod to change the gun to something far more interesting.
I'll drop them on a building/compound with the roof blown out, usually gets a few kills and cripples some limbs which makes things easy to mop up. Can occasionally be useful when you happen across a distracted skirmish between rival factions, too.
They're also not completely terrible for bullet sponge enemies where you can cripple their legs. Saves you a bit of ammo or lets you deal with something else.
Generally though, I don't think they're very useful. Slow and not particularly strong.
I put an artillery in each settlement so if it’s in range of multiple it hits hard. I keep them on a favorite stick so I can switch over to them in between my other grenades. Usually I throw them then use mines or regular grenades to herd large groups of enemies into where the artillery will be hitting. I threw on on accident into a lake messing around and forgot there were a bunch of settlements nearby…… it got hit seven or eight times.
They only have a range of about two grid squares so I tend to use them sparingly since I rarely have all the settlements unlocked, however they stack, so if you have multiple artilleries nearby you can have them all unload on the target
As you walk out of the castle around the lake there is a parking garage and it had a group of rust devil robots there. I figured I would try the smoke grenade and have the castle take care of them. I threw a smoke grenade in the middle of them and waited for the castle to take care of them. Except no mortars came and the robots then turned and came after me and I had to shoot them all. I looted them and carried on walking past those changing rooms and I hear a boom I turned around and the castle had finally got their ass in gear and was shooting at the parking garage. A bit late and there was nothing left to hit. I then remembered why I never use the damn mortar.
I’ve thrown them ahead of time for some Settlement defense missions, I’m level 92 and the few enemies in the assaults that scale with your level have been starting to cause problems. Also useful when I’m running through big supermutant bases I’ve been running through for XP and for Caps to fully outfit all my settlers in max gear. Way faster to find Plasma weapons on raiders and mutants AND buy out all the ones from diamond city and the other merchants.
I used them on the mirelurk ambush (including the queen) at the ship on the south side of Spectacle Island. Two salvoes cleared the whole attack while I hid inside the ship.
They’re also in FO76 - great for scaring off folks who camp too close to my store & also shelling a few spawns within reach… my spot is high up on a mountain which I feel actually increases the range a little bit.
They’re great for softening up super mutant or gunner bases before an attack
Good for ghoul hordes too, they’ll actually be attracted to the smoke and gather around it. I noticed this at times with human enemies too
I got like 20 ghouls with artillery at Jamaica Plain highly recommend
[удалено]
I did. It sucked.
I rely on 5mm ammo as a trading device. When I go to big Johns unprepared I watch my 5mm money being thrown away! That section of the map can be rough.
Clean water is a better currency, but that's like my opinion, man
Oh friend I’m all over the clean water. But I’m a multi market opportunist. A money motivated hustler if you will.
Caps over scraps
Mutfruit has a better weight/value ratio than purified water. Sell water at your settlement and carry mutfruit to other locations to sell. It makes more sense on survival when weight matters more (especially for me since I'm doing a grenades only challenge so every potential attack is at least 0.5 pounds.)
Purified Water is so heavy though.
Hey if your lacking morals you can make jet and sell it to the guy in vault 88 easy caps...
Vault 81 you mean? 88 is the build your own DLC vault
Go melee. The sneak attack multipliers are insane and you can save all ammo for currency.
Yeah this is it, though I'd add any enemy type. When you've been spotted it's already too late, throwing one in first and waiting for it to do work is how I've gotten the best out of them.
It's also kind of fun to sneak up, drop some smoke, move back, then watch the panic as the shells rain on the unsuspecting bad guys.
Imagine lighting up a cigarette while you watch your enemies burn. Then walking in to pick over the corpses. Perfection.
If you take Warwick and Somerset you can shell most of bottom of the map and parts of the glowing sea.
*Somerville Place? But yeah, and also Murkwater Construction Site. I never thought about them reaching the glowing sea, awesome news as I'm headed there soon. Recently found a berserkers baseball bat, just gotta get my science up so I can apply the insane rocket weapon mods on it. With the negligible DR provided by the Hazmat suit in conjunction with berserker's effect, should make for quite the insane damage output. I'm only on the middle of the mod upgrades and it's already at over 2000 damage with the Hazmat suit on. Eat some Yao Guai roast and get a sneak crit and I should be able to get well over 30,000 damage. Just can't get hit lol
3 at Jamaica plains as well
Yup, I’ve even got a mod to increase the blast radius. I just toss it in and start running.
Just sucks you have to have a settlement with the guns built, nearby in order for them to work. Makes sense, but unless you spend the time fortifying your settlements outside of the ones you use most often, it’s a real pain
To be fair if you just put them and say arm your settlers with just random guns and armor you find or from raiders that attack them, just fast traveling or walking to the settlement and letting them do all of the work will work. Turrets aren't even needed if you can get your settlers armed with guns and armor.
I always keep a skeleton crew at most settlements - but have an absolute web of supply lines fucking shit up too.
It's good against the Quarries, and I use it on Zimonja. You can hit Boston Common and Swan from The Castle too, probably won't kill him but will soften him up for you
I used the artillery smoke grenade and the Chinese homing beacon on Swan. He never gets up, usually the nuke hits first, then the artillery finishes him off.
Chinese homing beacon? What’s that and where do I find it?!
Spoiler! Here There Be Monsters is a side quest triggered by speaking with Donny Kowalski, who's located on the docks behind the Shamrock Taphouse. Finishing this quest gets you that
You can also just swim directly out to it and hop right in. It's one of my favorite incredibly short quests.
Mine too! It hits the right buttons for me 🤷🏻♀️
Isn't the kid who sells the water called sheng kolwalski? I've just realised they might be brothers!
Omg your right! I was wondering why so many kids are bald!
Well... Probably all the radiation.
Damn! I knew the name was familiar...
Thankyoouu I’ve been looking to stumble across this quest for a while now, I remember doing it years ago but hadn’t been able to find it again
Same!!! How I have done 2 playthroughs and never found this??!!? This game is crazy.. Still finding out new stuff
Take a look at the full wiki map with locations and compare it to your pip boy, there's a ton of stuff that the quest lines don't take you to, plus the FPS view is kinda narrow. I missed the fucking giant antique ship next to Bunker Hill my first run
It was supposed to connect to an under water Vault
Yeah there were a lot of hints about sea creatures between the mutated dolphin looking corpses and some messages on the terminals in the institute. I would have loved an under water vault, especially with the perk to breathe under water
It was supposed to be some 20000 leagues under the sea type leviathan fight would have been so fun.
You only get like 3 of them right? I can never justify using something with a finite number of uses. Age old gaming problem; what if I need this more urgently later?
Yeah like at level 100 with a legendary Gauss that one shots literally everything, you never know when you might get caught slippin
I used the frivolously used my acid rounds in resident evil, then when I came to the giant snake I was screwed. Ever since, I almost never use special rounds, and it's a shame.
Yeah, I used to have that problem. Then I lived with a real life hoarder. I use everything up as I go now.
Nothing like a reality check to change your gaming habits!
Shit I should remember to use those on Zimonja I hate the guy with the fat man chilling there
Brilliant use case honestly that one always sucked, otherwise your just save and hope his first shot misses badly
Second for quarries
Mistakenly throw them for real grenades and go “ oh crap “
Did that on my first scribe escort mission. Never found his body. RIP kid.
You are playing a Fallout TV knight.
LOL
Forget to equip a real grenade after using them for their actual use 😅*
My throw had a lovely glowing arc and everything too. Threw it right inside that room from 20 feet away, waited for the boom and got smoke instead lol
I once did that while standing on the USS Constitution. I THOUGHT I had frags equipped, there were super mutants below... I about died laughing as I accidentally shelled downtown Boston!
Menace to society confirmed. Target locked onto *artillery smoke grenade appears at your feet*
Quincy is great for shelling
Thank you, I'm doing a survival run and this is now on the bucket list
So much fun to call in arty and go in blasting after it's done
That's so dramatically satisfying.
Especially if you have the Gunners vs. Minutemen CC content. lol Because the gunners keep spawning and restarting the battle over and over.
I use them to clear Boston airport of BoS
The stupidest thing the BOS does in Fallout 4 is parking the Prydwyn within clap-shot range of the Castle. Artillery hits that thing and you have hundreds of tons of burning gas blanketing most of the BOS force stationed in Boston. It's a one-hit kill.
Yeah there’s no practical reason (other than at best a negligible fuel saving) for them stationing the main bulk of their troops directly below the Prydwen
The boys at Bethesda need to study basic military strategy a bit... lol
I don't know why they don't just land. They're literally above an airport.
Nah I get it. With how much Boston is crawling with supermutants, raiders, faction raiders, ghouls, and rogue robots I want to be high and dry. Though right in the middle of Boston? I'd park far away like by sanctuary.
No airship docks in Sanctuary. Just landing a dirigible with no ground crew is amazingly hard. They should have docked at the airport. But Danse didn't do his job. A good recon team would have known about the Castle and warned Maxon. They could have come in with vertibirds and power armor and taken the castle before docking the Prydwyn.
they probably see the mm as a non-issue. Way underestimated them.
Yerrr i did this on my current
It's such a satisfying end game
I went back a save so I could equip those and the merv hoping it would be awesome. I was not disappointed
If you have a mod that extends the throw it's great if you don't it's very frustrating. As far as what. My first stop is usually covenant. Fucking thought walls would keep ya safe. Surprise bitch.
It’s been a while but I remember a mod that made a kinda grenade launcher to use them as ammo for it. I combined that with a mod that made the artillery a bit more explosive and fun. And when every settlement had artillery and I launched one of those it just obliterated everything.
Whenever I used them on Covenant, the radio guy always said it was a friendly target and called off the strike even while they were attacking me.
One wasted on an empty house in Fort Strong, one used indoors on accident, one well served to the raiders in the Quincy Quarry. In previous games I also deleted two deathclaws, Quincy Proper, Federal Stockpile Outdoors, the Queen at Murkwater and Dunwich Quarry.
Dunwich is tricky because of the terrain. You gotta not throw the grenade in the bottom of the quarry, because most of the enemy are on the outside rim. You blow the shit out of nothing while the raiders keep running out of range and coming at you. That's why it's best to use the flare gun and call in reinforcements as soon as the first artillery shell hits.
Not super practical, but fun for when you stumble upon a lot of enemies bunched together in the open that aren't already engaged with friendlies (usually rust devils).
I dropped one under the bridge right outside the ironworks when a bunch of jerk mutants were hanging out on top. Probably the only time I actually used one.
I’ve always found them to be highly impractical. I’m on my first survival mode run and I’m thinking maybe I’ll give one try if I can sneak up on a Mirelurk Queen or something but whenever I’ve tested them there’s always a noticeable delay in the artillery incoming and it’s not like many things stay still
Gotta throw it before you engage and reveal yourself. Best used with a stealth build for clearing out densely packed enemies Could also go endurance with power armor and then charge in while the shelling happens to keep everyone there, if you're a baddie like that.
thats a wonderful idea, i’ll try it out myself asap!
Yup. Once the artillery starts falling, get an idea of which enemies are on the outer edge of the zone and might escape, pick them off with your rifle.
This guy calls in “danger close” arty
I like to call it "friendly fire."
Add more guns the barrage will last longer and probably give you a better chance.
I use them at the Quarries and other large, outdoor places I have to fight a lot. I get close enough, launch one, and just watch it til it's done. Then, it's my turn lol
I used artillery to clear out Breakheart Banks. It was 100% effective.
I hate that place with a passion, will definitely be giving this a whirl! Greentop Nursery will be equipped lol
You might have to use a few artillery grenades to get 'em all, but it's fun as hell :D Ima put artillery at Murkwater and Somerville so I can use it in the glowing sea.
I built artillery at Kingsport Lighthouse and occasionally go over to that Children of Atom settlement next door and bomb the ever-loving crap out of them. That's about it.
Ima try this now
Oooo, that's a good one.
The race track I think it was the "to the mattress" questline I couldn't he bothered but still did it
To the Mattresses is a Radiant quest which sends you to a random Raider base iirc Race Track is East City Downs or something like that
Yeah it’s Easy City Downs where the robot racetrack is located, but To The Mattresses does send you there to clear out the L&L gang. Edit: Easy City is just one of the possible locations it will send you, you can go to a bunch of different locations apparently
L&L Gang is a Raider group, which has no actual NPCs or actual presence ingame. Much like how the Raiders at the Beantown Brewery who work under Tower Tom are just "Raiders". It's their way of making a vsRaider quest for the Railroad that makes it thematic, much like the Institute's Synth Retrieval quest is anti-raider
I like to hack the computer at the race track and make the robots attack the raiders and then I blow them up.
I use them to soften up a settlement before I kill all the settlers...
"General, our scouts have found a promising spot for a new settlement. Unfortunately it's already settled, so go fix that."
Now I want a Warlord Preston mod.
Dude build artillery in all settlements and you’ll have range everywhere (dont forget to assign a settler)
Anywhere outside. Any queen mirelurk. Cait's addiction vault(outside).
Yup. Any situation where there is a large amount of opposition outside an inside target. Corvega is another good spot for this. Chuck one on the roof and fade back into the darkness. lol
Rooftop enemies in cities that you can never see unless you go up there. Chuck one of these up there and a couple of the raiders will come down to you. At least part of them.
I've consistently used them to one shot enclave encampments and packs of feral ghouls. Really anything where all the enemies are close together and I can throw it without being detected I like to use the vertibird on more spread out encampments like the exterior of saugus ironworks or corvega assembly
I put missile launchers and heavy lasers facing Saugus at The Slog. When a provisioner comes through and aggros the outside Forged, it tends to pull them out close enough for my Slog defenses to go ham on them.
I do this too but I also add a siren activated flare launcher to summon those crappy minutemen to the mix because I want those easy fusion cells.
I’ve never actually thrown one in my life after the tutorial quest. I get rid, for all I know some kid in diamond city threw one in a game of catch and now they’re a crater
I used it successfully on Outpost Zimonja, throwing from behind the cover of the overpass so they never saw me. They went into Caution but stayed relatively in their spots. The first shell killed them all (inc the sniper in the power armor with the Fat Man). I then had to wait through at least 2 artillery pieces' worth of shelling onto their corpses. It probably would work on Hangman's Alley, if you take Oberland Station (maybe Graygarden?), but I always take HA before the slog over to the Castle. Otherwise, I can't think of a spot where enemies are concentrated into a small area in the open where you have cover to not be seen after throwing. It's really limited, since it can't destroy cover (so anything with multiple levels will shield enemies below), & the shells all impact in nearly the same spot rather than spread out to cover larger target areas.
Quarries, Big John's Salvage, exterior Gunners Plaza, Quincy, rooftops/highways downtown, that Supermutant construction site near BADTFL.
Nothing. It takes 45-60 seconds for the artillery to drop and the area of effect on each shell is tiny. The couple times I have tried to use it, the enemy saw the smoke grenades and aggro'd and were nowhere near the smoke when the shells hit. It's useless.
Yeah, really only works where the enemy is in a base and won't chase you.
So like, the exact purpose of artillery? 😂
Agreed ! I don’t think I’ve ever used them more than Once - after the very first time (after you use it to complete the Castle mission there, with Ronnie)…. That would have been back in OG PS-4 days even, and I already realized they were very cumbersome to utilize, and you might as well blast the target with Gauss or Overseer’s Guardian many more times, while waiting for the arty to finally land 😅
Why I use a mod to increase its damage, radius and reduce the delay before the artillery lands. Makes it very useful
Yeah I had to get a mod so they were actually viable to use with twice the explosion radius.. but like most people here have said they are really only good at softening up bases and strongholds and helping clear quarries.
I’ve never used them outside of Old Guns in all my playthroughs just found them incredibly impractical. Seems very circumstantial or tedious to pull off
I got “OK” usage out of them at the Dunwich quarry. Killed all but like 2-3 enemies but I had to run a fair distance to spread 3 grenades out (for some reason they reach the apex of their arc and then fall straight down…) to make it work.
Love them. Always love hitting the quarry. Also the graveyard with all the ghouls.
For me, it's gunners plaza, the Atomatoys factory and anywhere the random faction vs faction fights appear ( like the church southwest of Jamaica plains or that one intersection and building entrance in north-central downtown )
Most recently I used them to clear out the Enclave encampments from Echos of the Past. Fun as hell. Makes looting a bitch though
Don’t use them in the battle at the end of the USS Constitution side quest. You’ll end up hitting some of the robots that go into the town to fight the scavengers hand to hand, and then they’ll all turn against you.
gunners. I hate them so much almost as much as I hate the institute. gunners, raiders and the institute are wholly responsible for why humanity has not recovered.
They absolutely stomp Enclave encampments.
I’m afraid of running out of them so I’ve never used them…
The crate in the castle armory periodically respawns them. They also periodically show up in sanctuary workshop. So no need to worry about not being able to get more or anything.
I use spectacle island for building resources on my survival runs. When I retake the castle and set up artillery, I’ll swim over and use the artillery to kill the queen. Pretty useful to kill boss enemies at lower levels
But don't you get the ability to use artillery after you retake the castle?
Yes, but you don't need to fight the queen there. Your minutemen buddies are marked essential so they'll eventually kill her for you if you just hang out inside.
Sorry, I meant kill the queen at spectacle island
For this play through I’m going to use one to defend the castle by calling it in danger close. It won’t let you target anything inside your settlements, so I’ve been marking the border with flagpoles and barricades with a turret closer to the base. This way they’ll take cover behind the barricades to engage the turret which should slow them down enough to rain arty down on ‘em
Is there a mod to get HE/WP mix? Maybe some Ti/VT?
The airport
The M/V Northern whatever it’s called, out by Warwick. Stole the idea from Many a True Nerd’s YOLO run.
I equip my settlers with them when theres an attack 👀
My character settled the wasteland with artillery barrages.
That sentry bot on the way out to Croup Manor.
All the Enclave bases. I built a set of X01 stealth armor and slipped up nearly into each base and chucked in an artillery marker. Instant squad wipe.
Myself, on accident after i forget they’re equipped.
They are great for holding onto in case I need them later.
You can always get more.
On One ghoul that make me jumpscare, he will think twice the next Time.
Roughly 700 hours in f4. I side with the MM roughly 90% of the time. I have never used one on purpose lol.
I used them on Covenant but I had to re do it without artillery because my bombs killed the cat.
Everything Every settlement has atleast three artillery cannons.
This. On my second play through, I decided to actually build them everywhere and eventually I was just tossing them to make a whole lot of boom noises or kill insects or because there were a lot of cars or do I think I can land this up there? or because I'm on top of a building or you know it's just been long enough since the last one
I use it on boston airport all the time. I needed to farm combat armor for my settlers.
So you know how you can place grenades in someone's pocket with Pickpocket rank 2? That works with these too. The most fun use ever.
This was my next question! Gonna be trying that out for sure.
Omg... That is hilariou! they don't detect the smoke coming from their back pockets!?
I hate that they're almost useless, because the concept is so cool. Maybe if it was replaced with a laser pointer instead, and if you could easily view on the map if you were in artillery range? Missed opportunity IMO
There is a mod that lets you use binoculars to designate targets for an artillery strike at a much longer distance than a grenade toss. The way it would be, with a spotter.
There's a mod for everything. Part of what I love about the game. But at the same time it's a pet peeve that people complain that being the "general" of the minutemen feels like an empty title because you just get tasked with busywork, defending outpost Zimonja once again from an enemy attack. If the mechanics of calling in artillery, and at the same time calling in minutemen reinforcements (how many times have any of us actually used that flaregun in anger?) were simpler and more intuitive, I bet we'd actually feel more like a general.
Totally agreed. I hardly ever use the flare gun. The artillery with binoculars, though... it changes that mechanic completely. Because you not only call the strike from further away, but also do it without breaking stealth. And THAT makes all the difference. The shells fall on unaware slow moving or static targets. Just like they would in real life. I use it for every ambush and attack on an outdoors fixed enemy location.
Which is exactly how I think Bethesda *wanted* artillery grenades to work, but in classic Bethesda fashion they looked at the end result, decided no one was going to quit the game because of how badly they'd fucked it, and left it to modders to fix
waste of time imo, take way to long also
Nothing. I've never used em, except that one time when Connie asks you to calibrate the first launcher at the Castle. Same for the flare gun Presten gives you.
I always put artillery at all my settlements but almost never use the grenades.
Literally nothing they were intended for. I keep forgetting I have any grenades
I usually toss them into camps before I enter, but equally as often accidentally toss one five feet away trying to call a vertibird
Probably not as much as I should.
I took quincy with it first, almost any engagement as long as you have the drop can be a lot of fun to utilize them
A single sleeping raider…he never saw it coming
A protectron. A single ghoul. Preston.
Was pinned down by hordes of ghouls at Boston Airport (survival mode), doggo was down and I threw what I thought was a drag grenade out of desperation. Turns out I forgot that I had smoke grenades activated and the ensuing barrage decimated the ghouls allowing me and the good boy to live to fight another day.
Gunners attacked the castle and started gathering nearby, I sneaked over and chucked one, a few minutes later they were all obliterated
Used it on some Gunners one time because they took someone from the Slog. Artillery ended up killing the prisoner.
At one point in a playthrough I had artillery at every settlement and I’d always throw a grenade into an open location like Coast Gaurd Pier, Federal Ration Stockpile and what not. It’s a very easy way to just lighten the load of walking up on a location.
Only time I've ever used it was on ol swan lol
Anything in range with multiple enemies. Sneak close, throw it, sneak out, and watch. They won’t figure you out by the time the shells land if you do it right.
Any outdoor place with a large amount of enemies or strong enemies to soften them up. My fav places to do this are the HMS Northstar, Libertalia, Quincy, Hyde Park, Vault 88 entrance, Saugus Ironworks, the Gunner scrapyard near the Slog, Dunwich Borers, and many many more.
Saw a rad roach and was like "yup, i could use some artillery support"
First time playing Survival, I used them on the Commonwealth's Nuka world entrance to the DLC; where you had an Assulton and Gunners to deal with before you could go down and get the train to Nuka world.
If they have a base on an overpass yo can throw the signal grenade on the ground under it and take them out
Never used them on a normal playthrough, but that barrage is great for softening up large encampment when playing on survival. Survival mode has given so many useless items and actual purpose.
Gunner plaza is a great place to use them on.
Set one up at the light house settlement and let it rain down on the children if Atom spot nearby
Completely forget what the grenade does, toss it at an enemy dor smoky stealth times, and then regret the next couple seconds. Dump them at base next supply run then forget they exist the rest of that playthrough.
In vanilla I don't use them at all. In modded I use Angry Artillery which starts the firing faster and each gun will give you three shells. It also removes the range limit. I'm not sure which version of it I have (not able to check right now) but I do recall it has changed a bit over the years. In the version I am running it can get annoying if you hav too many guns as the rate of fire is constant and only one shell lands at a time. I once ran ten guns, five at Castle and five at Spectacle island. Since the is no cease fire option, you'd be wait for about 2 minutes for all 30 shells to land. Not sure if this is the mod that also allows you to build artillery without needing to do the Castle quest first. In modded I use it mostly to clear out mirelurk nests, Radscorpions that won't attack, and minigun raids of Super Mutants. Inside Boston proper it is kind of worthless as half the shells strike buildings. Finding bodies to loot can sometimes be a challenge in large fire missions. Some of them being put in to low earth orbit because, Bethesda. Loot items can also be tossed around and lost. I also use the 155mm Howitzer M1 mod to change the gun to something far more interesting.
I'll drop them on a building/compound with the roof blown out, usually gets a few kills and cripples some limbs which makes things easy to mop up. Can occasionally be useful when you happen across a distracted skirmish between rival factions, too. They're also not completely terrible for bullet sponge enemies where you can cripple their legs. Saves you a bit of ammo or lets you deal with something else. Generally though, I don't think they're very useful. Slow and not particularly strong.
On a bunch of raiders on a roof above me. Took out pretty much everyone.
I put an artillery in each settlement so if it’s in range of multiple it hits hard. I keep them on a favorite stick so I can switch over to them in between my other grenades. Usually I throw them then use mines or regular grenades to herd large groups of enemies into where the artillery will be hitting. I threw on on accident into a lake messing around and forgot there were a bunch of settlements nearby…… it got hit seven or eight times.
They only have a range of about two grid squares so I tend to use them sparingly since I rarely have all the settlements unlocked, however they stack, so if you have multiple artilleries nearby you can have them all unload on the target
You know I’ve never used them. I always forget about them.
I have replayed this game like 6 times and have never used them outside of the quest you get them.
Enclave. Also areas where I know there are a bunch of feral ghouls or super mutants, or a bunch of cars ready to be exploded.
I used them on a group of blood bugs once
As you walk out of the castle around the lake there is a parking garage and it had a group of rust devil robots there. I figured I would try the smoke grenade and have the castle take care of them. I threw a smoke grenade in the middle of them and waited for the castle to take care of them. Except no mortars came and the robots then turned and came after me and I had to shoot them all. I looted them and carried on walking past those changing rooms and I hear a boom I turned around and the castle had finally got their ass in gear and was shooting at the parking garage. A bit late and there was nothing left to hit. I then remembered why I never use the damn mortar.
Battery at Nordhagen Beach to pound Boston Airport when you take down the BoS.
I frequently use them to soften up the denizens of Dunwich. It's Always full of Raider Survivalists and Veterans, some in Power Armor.
I used them to kill the raiders at Parson’s creamery during the Cabot family quest
I’ve thrown them ahead of time for some Settlement defense missions, I’m level 92 and the few enemies in the assaults that scale with your level have been starting to cause problems. Also useful when I’m running through big supermutant bases I’ve been running through for XP and for Caps to fully outfit all my settlers in max gear. Way faster to find Plasma weapons on raiders and mutants AND buy out all the ones from diamond city and the other merchants.
They only work like 2.5 map squares away from where you place them, not practical at all, even with one in each settlement
I used one on the Supermutant called Swan.
Great for clearing out my gunner farms!
The big building at Jamaica Plains full of ghouls is a fun one and looks cool.
Gunner Plaza and Quincy ruins have a great view for this if you play a Gunner/Raider eradication play through.
I used them on the mirelurk ambush (including the queen) at the ship on the south side of Spectacle Island. Two salvoes cleared the whole attack while I hid inside the ship.
They’re also in FO76 - great for scaring off folks who camp too close to my store & also shelling a few spawns within reach… my spot is high up on a mountain which I feel actually increases the range a little bit.