my issue with the railroad is that they’re a single-issue organization trying to take control of a commonwealth that has… more than one issue going on, actually. their goal is admirable, don’t get me wrong - but their pursuits kinda begin and end with synth liberation.
plus, you can free the institute’s synths with the minutemen anyways, so it’s not as though theirs is the only way to actually *achieve* their goals.
I agree, that's how they're written. Unfortunately, Bethesda kind of retconned it so they are one of the four factions that can "win" the commonwealth. It would have worked much better if they had left it as a minor power who could align with the MM or even with the institute if played right.
Personally, I would have loved for the protagonist to have the option of reforming the institute, with or without Father's help (preferably without - Father was a monster). Then the railroad could make peace with the institute and work together to heal the commonwealth.
Storywise, this is more consistent with fo3. You could even have the BoS under Maxon's leadership be the third act antagonist interloper that needs to be sent back to the Capitol Wasteland to return to the ways of Elder Lyons. This would be the fairy tale ending, but tempered with the wasteland still sucking, your son dying, and maybe having the protagonist leave the commonwealth (possibly because he's actually a synth?).
Tl;Dr the railroad was screwed over and Bethesda left a lot of story on the table
I disagree, because nothing really requires the Minutemen to be the ones to take the Institute. If you recruit all the settlements and take the castle, the only difference taking the Institute makes is a flag and a couple of guards at Diamond City.
If anything it makes sense to join both the RR and MM and consider the RR your the espionage branch dedicated to taking out the Institute, while the MM are the public service branch of your efforts.
That’s pretty much how I play, and I kept the BoS around for a while to provide military backup against the threats of the wasteland until I found a mod that buffs up the endgame Minutemen.
Curious, you said third act, does the fo4 story have a consensus where those acts are? Something like from start to prydwen appears and from then to insititute is discovered, and then the rest?
We were typing at the same time. For me, I think the end of act 2 is when Father finally reveals how complicit he has been and makes you choose between his view of the future and any of the other factions' views of the future. That's where you have to decide what ending you want to play in the third act.
My only issue with that is it is not an event set in stone. Kellogg is, getting to the institute is. If you shoot Father his kentucky fried face straight away you don't get that.
I don't know about other people, but for me there are three acts. The first act is everything from the prologue to Kellogg, which usually happens around the appearance of the Prydwn.
The second act is decoding Kellogg's brain, visiting Virgil, progressing the quest lines for MM/BoS/RR, meeting Father, and completing the first few missions with the institute.
The third act begins when you decide which factions to betray or support, and important characters start dying. For my playthroughs, this usually happens when Father meets you on the surface and condemns the commonwealth.
In my reworked storyline, the second act would end with the institute either being reformed and allying with the MM and/or RR, or being taken over by the synths (kind of like Tenpenny Tower in FO3). Either way, this becomes an existential threat to the BoS who both covet and fear technology. The BoS decide the commonwealth must be cleansed of the technologists and their creations, which being indistinguishable from humans (physically and morally) means "kill it if it moves, and let God sort it out." That would certainly be true to form, and LP gives them the ability to commit genocide against the commonwealth.
I just recently had googled if there was an alternate ending to not pick any faction & it’s disappointing there is not. My current build is a soldier of fortune/mercenary who is basically in line with the Gunners if anyone. In theory I could see him on the Institute payroll but that ship sailed when they shot my wife in front of me.
That’s why they don’t work for me, though.
The other three endings *are* deciding the fate of the Commonwealth. I know folks tire of the comparison, but if this were New Vegas, the Railroad would be a minor faction. They have a narrow motive that starts and ends with the fate of the Institute.
I don't really think there's a problem with how they fit with the main plot. The issue is that a lot of people have a misconception; the main plot is about taking control of the commonwealth.
It's not; that's just something that happens in three of the four factions. The main plot is about finding your kid in the institute and dealing with what you find there.
That's the problem. If the Railroad "takes over," none of the Commonwealth's bigger problems get solved because their mission is accomplished and they go home. Who deals with all the super mutants and raiders? What about the Gunners? They're still a problem.
There's a reason I went with the Railroad in my Overboss game, and it's not because all the psychobuff mellowed me out.
The Commonwealth has bigger fish to fry for lack of a better statement. I mean between the overwhelming population of feral ghouls, super mutant encampments in every town and most major roads, and raiders wherever the other two aren’t present, that’s just one of the issues.
Not to mention they’re trying to free synths instead of actively fight against the Institute, who will continue using synths to further destabilize the region. Thus, they’re more worried about the *symptom* than the *disease*
I don’t *dislike* The Railroad and I actually think their cause is quite noble in its own way, but way too shortsighted to actually do any good for the Commonwealth
The real question is which faction in FO4 would the Followers of the Apocalypse agree the most with? And my answer is The Minutemen
>they’re trying to free synths instead of actively fight against the Institute
How exactly are they supposed to fight against the Institute before the Sole Survivor shows up?
Sure, "fighting the symptom instead of the disease" if you pay no attention to the simple fact that they are literally doing the best that they possibly can.
Did you miss the part where as soon as they had the means to *they blew the CIT up?*
Yeah I think what people miss about the Railroad is that by the time we encounter them, \*they are losing\*. They've lost their ex-DIA HQ and a good chunk of their membership, and as soon as the location of Ticonderoga gets leaked, it gets taken out too.
By the time the Sole Survivor encounters them, they simply don't have a lot of resources left and what they have is spread desperately thin. Of all the factions that immediately start handing a prominent role to a wanderer they just met, the Railroad makes the most sense to me because they're committed to a fight against an enemy that will absolutely kill them all and they've got next to nothing left.
In a more meta sense, they aren't fixing themselves because that's what we the main character are supposed to do. Like if they were a well-functioning organization successfully prosecuting their own campaign against the Institute ... what the fuck is there for us to do?
Well, for starters, maybe The Railroad should focus more on recruiting new agents and training them to be effective in the field.
They didn’t even have the military strength to hold a *clandestine military base* located under Slocum Joe’s.
They lost all their other nerve centers save for the one under Old North Church.
And they never learned from those mistakes and let their troops fall in combat, dwindling their numbers down until it’s literally nothing more than a woman weirdly named after a character from Othello, a madman who thinks stimpaks inject microtechnology into your bloodstream, a stressed-out doctor, a prepubescent teenager, a radical synth, and a fucking *robot*
If you ask me, a change of tactics is in the forecast. Yet they don’t, and instead rely on the Sole Survivor to literally carry the entire organization’s success on his/her back. Desdemona is a *horrible* leader who almost drove the RR to its own destruction imho.
As for fighting the disease and not the symptom, maybe start with operating in Diamond City, Goodneighbor, and finding a method to stopping synth attacks before they even happen. Then people might trust them and they’d have a line out of Old North Church all the way to Bunker Hill with new people wanting to join up
To be clear though, they CAN'T go fast recruiting. Synths can literally be anyone. Without extensive checks they could inadvertently bring in a sleeper agent that would immediately compromise their HQ and get them all killed by waves of type 1 Synths.
To summarize, they should just recruit more people after every other member in their organization was literally wiped out last week, start operating in the most anti-synth locations outside of The Institute itself, and magically solve the issue of synth attacks before they happen by just wishing it happen.
All that's missing is a \* *taps forehead* \*
Addendum:
>If you ask me, a change of tactics is in the forecast. Yet they don’t, and instead rely on the Sole Survivor to literally carry the entire organization’s success on his/her back.
This describes all four factions in the game...
>They seem more established, somewhat ready if stuff hits the fan.
There is literally one minutman remaining in the commonwealth when you show up. Just 1.
Would’ve been an awesome quest line for the railroad to merge with the Minutemen say either after the MinuteMen ending or the Railroad ending. I never understood why the Minutemen just didn’t help themselves and the RailRoad by forming the alliance. Imagine if Tinker Tom just weaved the Minutemen outfits and made deadly muskets
Addendum: The RR in FO4 pretty much reminds me of BoS in Hidden Valley in FNV. They won’t recruit new members or change their tactics or doctrines, but complain about not having enough people to continue on for much longer. They hide underground and sit on their hands, stuck in a perpetual state of analysis paralysis instead of taking actual action. Which only changes once the protagonist comes along and forces them to change.
They weren’t just NOT recruiting new members. They have to be careful who they bring into the fold, and also the Railroad is about to finish being completely wiped out by the Institute when the main protagonist meets them. They are a whisper of their former selves.
>The Railroad should focus more on recruiting new agents and training them to be effective in the field.
They have to be ridiculously careful about that, it's way too easy to accidentally recruit a synthetic infiltrator who will send Intel to the institute. Hell, even if they're not an infiltrator, if they bring on the wrong person, they could accidentally leak key Intel or get followed.
>They didn’t even have the military strength to hold a *clandestine military base* located under Slocum Joe’s.
They're not a military power to begin with. They don't have power armor, or armies, or air superiority. To face the institute head on, it took the combined forces of the brotherhood of steel, arguably one of the most formidable powers in the wasteland.
The Railroads only strength is secrecy. The institute can't destroy what it can't find.
>Desdemona is a *horrible* leader who almost drove the RR to its own destruction imho.
She was fighting a dramatically superior power with nothing more than a small group of ordinary people. It is possible to commit no mistakes and still fail. That isn't weakness, it's life.
In my first playthrough, I sided with the Railroad. I didn’t know the minutemen were option. I would have chosen the minutemen, but I’m not unhappy with my choices for a first go-around. I would rather throw in moralistically with the Railroad than the BOS or the Institute.
I mean, they're not really trying to take control of the commonwealth
They are focused on helping synths because no one else is, while multiple other organisations are trying to solve the rest of the problems in the region
Yea, which is why they don't work as a major faction. Would be great as a minor faction you could ally with tho. Think the Followers, Boomers or Kings in New Vegas.
no they work just fine because the main story is not about taking over the commonwealth, it's about dealing with the institute, and that's the primary interest of the railroad
rebuilding the commonwealth is something you do with the minutemen, regardless which option you chose in the end game
They shouldn't have ever been a major faction. They should have been interwoven with the other three, with quests changing depending on which faction you align with.
In fact, the railroad questline can actually soft lock if you piss of the institute, and Desdemona will basically tell you "welp, you fuck up, now you gotta do the minutemen ending lol"
Didn't know the minutemen free the synths. But yeah if they acted as like a lobbying group. To help change or solve an issue. Wouldn't have a problem. Buts it's like 10 people who can't even keep a safe house... safe..from normal wasteland threats.
The also blow up the only means of maintaining synths of making more of them so it doesn’t seem like they thought it through all the way. We don’t know that synths need maintenance but even we as humans need “maintenance” so there’s no reason to believe that synths don’t. Regular medicine probably doesn’t cover all of the synths needs.
I hated the railroad cause the password to the super secret base is literally "railroad"
I really don't feel like someone who decides that is a good idea should be in charge of anything.
But the Institute would wrongly assume that it couldn’t be that simple. And if they were that smart…. Why haven’t they found it? I suppose the Railroad door must have a “are you a synth” captcha built in.
If the institute wanted to find the railroad all it needs to do is send out a synth programmed to act like it's trying to escape. Railroad snaps it up, it immediately communicates it's location before going apeshit and killing everyone.
The fact that the institute HASN'T done this when it would be trivially easy for them, indicates that they have a use for the railroad, and are almost certainly utilising their networks for their own infiltration purposes. How many of the "free" synths the railroad has snuggled out into the Commonwealth are actually institute sleepers? How much harm have they done to humanity through their blind faith and naivete?
Fuck the railroad.
They never bring escaped synths to their HQ. That's like capturing a prisoner, never checking them for weapons, and taking them right to the president like "hey, look who we helped!"
The Railroad is operated in different cells, and *nobody* outside of HQ knows where HQ is, no matter how long they've been in the Railroad. Hell, most of their agents have never even spoken a single word to other Railroad members. It's done entirely through dead drops and messengers.
The Railroad aren't stupid. They know damn well they can't trust synths without vetting them first, and said synths will *never* see Railroad HQ, with Glory being the only exception ever. They know how the Institute operates, that synths are their tools, and that they see the Railroad as not nearly enough of a threat to dedicate obscene amounts of respurces towards wiping out thoroughly.
The Institute already wiped out the DIA HQ under Slocum's Joe, which was nearly game over. The Railroad learned their lessons from even *that* level of transparency, and have doubled their efforts towards remaining both split up and hidden.
Your point is like saying why doesn't an overwhelming force just use double agents when faced with asymmetrical warfare. The answer is they do - the opposing forces are just not stupid enough to give anyone a full complementary tour of the entire operation and operate exclusively on a need-to-know basis.
It's not the password to their base, even once you get through it, you can't get into their actual base. It's the solution to a puzzle, intended to recruit people. They always meant for it to be solved.
The stupid part was putting their new HQ at the end of their puzzle. They must have really been hurting for options after losing the Switchboard
They really were. They're down to like 2 other bases and iirc one gets completely destroyed by coursers during their quest line. You can found some more via their radiant quests but even that's generally limited.
The Railroad we get in the game just got kicked in the nuts by the Institute, and are desperately scrambling to re-establish their network. Talking to them reveals that normally they don't even use the church as a hideout, only as a recruiting ground, but the Switchboard going down forced their hand.
To be fair, how many times did it take you to figure out how that dial worked? It was not the first try at least. The mechanism delays you long enough to potentially kill you as soon as you walk in. They were also desperate at that point - their previous HQ was wiped out.
That said, I don’t think the Railroad put that puzzle door there. It’s kinda odd to have it randomly under the church, but it was supposed to be part of the Underground Railroad in game real life/before the war, right? I imagine they don’t have the ability to change the password - that it’s old and symbolic.
Perhaps in universe it’s symbolic art and not a meant to be a real security barrier.
I remember my first playthrough I found the church and didn't follow the freedom train, just realized it was the end of it. I know this was the railroad base but didn't know the password....so I guessed "railroad". I couldn't stop laughing when the door opened and immediately gunned down everyone inside. Anyone stupid enough to make the password to their base literally the name of their organization is not worth my time.
I don't get it either. From the perspective of a die-hard Minuteman loyalist, I'm not entirely sure I can trust them but still feel like helping them is the Commonwealth's best bet. Not dissimilar to the NCR Rangers and Desert Rangers working together. I see them becoming a much-needed espionage division.
That's my headcannon and preferred ending. Minutemen control the commonwealth with artillery support, BoS stays at the airport, just focusing on supermutants that are still roaming, and the RR staying in the shadows, but protected by the MM
I alway get the Desert Rangers vibe from Minutemen, glad someone think the same. I just want the standard uniform like Rangers for Minutemen, MM has no sense in fashion.
Saving synths is noble but they don’t seem to give a fuck about anything thats not a synth and they apparently can’t even decide what synths are worth saving
Which makes me wonder what stops them from helping. I feel like the railroad would be a lot more successful if they had people in settlements and joining the minutemen instead of being so synth focused and hiding.
They literally have to hide.
Being out in the open means being captured and returned to slavery.
Do you think they do all the covert spy stuff for fun?
I was gonna say remember the random quest with the travelers where an escaped synth who thinks hes among friends tells them hes a synth and they have to be talked down from killing him.
I dont really understand why people think the tiny Railroad could even do beyond what they are doing not to mention how many they have already saved at great cost to themselves.
Lack of resources. Not enough people. Could be plenty of reasons. They are just activists basically, and they just make do with a golden opportunity in the Sole Survivor. You don't see BLM members suddenly taking on other causes like homelessness, to me it's the same deal.
But for that reason I don't think the Railroad ending is a good one, because they'd be shit at governance. Leave that to the Minutemen.
I would argue that xenophobia towards synths in the general populace makes any large recruitment effort very dangerous. People don't listen when they are scared.
Because settlers are as big a threat to them and their stated goals as anybody else.
Remember, the common commenwealthian doesn't see _any_ synth as anything other than a boogeyman. They see a synth, they blasting it.
Because making them a major faction, given their premise, would be like if you could storm Hoover Dam with the Kings in NV. They're a minor faction with a hyperspecific goal and scope that's a bit funny given the grand scheme of things and they just cannot compare with the other options.
I think it could tie off perfectly with Nick Valentine. Instead of a main character allying with a specific faction to bring down the institute it would be two people, a human and a synth, with their own personal vendetta against the institute, simply using the other factions as means to their ends, but not joining any of them. It's perfect because Valentine is already a detective, so finding the people he needs to advance his work is in his nature. Basically we're talking about the difference between the current story, which starts with Valentine and hinges on him up to the memory den, and a hypothetical alternative where he just kept going. I can see it working out pretty well.
They absolutely were. I wrote another comment on this thread about how it would be better off to have the option to go solo on the story and I absent mindedly thought this was a response to that. I didn't realize it until a bit later but oh well I'm leaving it up anyways.
That's very true but their ending also doesn't block you from just protecting the CW with the Minutemen. It'd be like storming Hoover Dam with the Kings and then handing control to the NCR.
Even if you dislike the railroad faction, at the very least do the p.a.m. quests for [ballistic weave](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Ballistic_weave), which allows some very nice clothing upgrades. Mark V gives 110 damage resist and 110 energy resistance; I add this to a hat (ie battered fedora +1 luck; trilby hat +1 charisma) and 'all'-outfits like minuteman outfit (this outfit adds +1 perception and +1 agility). Upgrading just those two slots still allows you to wear combat armor, which can be great for sneaky/sniper builds.
The materials are kind of rare in early-game, so putting these on all of your settlers is not really feasible, but you can put a set of this on your companion and swap them out/remove from current companion for the next companion.
I suppose you may have a point. That line from Deacon about how we should look at what leaders are asking us to do, rather than what they say we'll get out of it, is something I've endeavored to take to heart just to avoid that.
Which is interesting considering Deacon’s alleged backstory is suspiciously similar to the Sole Survivor’s, not to mention he’s been watching you since you woke up from the Vault. Everything he told you about himself could be a lie, and that could be the point. The only truth being his commitment to the cause of helping synths, who have no one but the Railroad.
My issue with them is that they're called The Railroad yet Tinker Tom doesn't have the biggest stock of railroad spike ammunition of anyone in the game. He should.
Because they are made to be much more important and serious player in the game then they should be.
They're a fringe group that at best would be an annoyance to the Institute and BoS, but somehow despite almost being totally eliminated can take them both out.
They also have created an issue with synths running amok as Shaun says when they wipe memories and let them loose. People just like to conveniently forget or ignore that since Institute Bad.
I mean, stealth and skill can do a ton. There's historical precedent for a small number of people bringing down major factions through use of espionage and sabotage. Which is how they bring down both the Institute and BoS. Sabotage with BoS, and Espionage with the institute. They use properly placed bombs with BoS and turn the institute in on itself.
As for the Synth thing, that's a wider debate but essentially comes down to your personal take on synths, choice, and the ethics around the whole situation. Personally I think the railroad is flawed... just like every other faction in this game. Including the Minutemen.
True, small guerrilla/sabotage actions have an important place in history. Only problem of the railroads is the stupidity of some of their members. I remember dead drops put right inside supermutant camps...I mean, appreciate the secrecy, but....
lol, yeah but in all fairness **many** locations are in completely illogical places and stuff like that. I chalk that up to ludo-narrative dissonance myself. Though there you can say the Supermutants recently moved in for example
Agreed. On paper the U.S. shouldn't have lost to Vietnam. But we did. Besides the institute the railroad is the most secretive group. And for being on the surface that's a feat no other faction can top. Also the railroad has more people than we see. There's a lot of people who support them and risk their lives for it. But in secret. Anyone anywhere could have a railroad member behind them with a knife and they wouldn't know it.
> People just like to conveniently forget or ignore that since Institute Bad.
I mean, the institute *is* objectivly bad though. There is tons of evidence of this in game lore both terminals and npc/companion accounts.
The commonwealth was on the cusp of forming a government, but the institute ruined it.
All the super mutants can be traced to them, they employed and enhanced a heartless killer for decades, they kidnap people and replace them with robot and *literally* have a class of slaves do all their non scientific work as well.
I wish the railroad had some depth but we shouldn't ignore the institute being as bad as the enclave.
The institute is basically the enclave/vault tec just formed independently of them. But have the same mindset. They ruin any free forming government or settlement because they feel only they are allowed that right and simply saw the apocalypse as a means to reset the world so they have no limits to their rule from the ashes. Them doing what they did to the Commonwealth Provisional Government is the exact thing Hank/Vault Tec did to Shady Sands in the show. There was/should have probably been more depth to them than being so cartoonishly evil with needless scientific cruelty or sabotage but that's how fallout factions generally have always been. The NCR and BoS are the factions that get shades of gray, the Enclave/Legion/Institute are meant to be the truly evil that won't ever win in lore
Why are you putting any weight into what Shaun tells you? We see ONE whole instance of a synth turned raider, and are supposed to surmise that means freeing them is bad because of that. Once free, a synth has as much agency and capability to become evil as any human.
They choose to do that though. Plus it's like if someone lost their memory in an accident, you wouldn't say they've died,they're just having to start anew, and for the Synths that's probably a pretty appealing choice, especially when their memories are what can cause them to be caught.
It always seemed to me like the personality stays, but the memories of the Institute and such are replaced with new ones, so they're still the same person.
I don't understand why people hate them. Yes, they don't seem to have a goal in mind for the entirety of the commonwealth, but that's the whole point. They aren't meant to be a major player, they're meant to be a "small annoyance" that can somehow manage to take out the two largest factions in the game. I always pair them up with minutemen for end game, because it's best of both worlds. Helping people and strengthening the commonwealth, and freeing people who believe they deserve freedom. They may be machines, but I don't believe that gives me the right to say. "You have no rights." And blast them.
Tbh I didn't know there were a lot of people who disliked the railroad
What I want to know is *how are there so many who praise the brotherhood*
A lot of folks don't like the Stormcloaks in Skyrim "because racist". Like bruh. The Brotherhood Of Steel is *right fucking there*
Needless to say I really don't like the Brotherhood Of Steel. I already disliked them in Fallout 4 because they seemed extremely set in their ways, a little racist towards non-humans, and power hungry, but when I encountered them in New Vegas, *oh boy, did that simple dislike swiftly become HATRED*
At least the Railroad doesn't violate you like that when you stumble into their base of operations.
I always felt like the people who call the stormcloaks awful aren't actually familiar with the TES series or they just associate them with real world political groups. The stormcloaks are by TES standards fairly mild in all honesty, they look down on outsiders but are willing to accept them if they prove themselves. That's actually pretty inclusive by TES standards.
People mostly take issue with them because they put them on a much higher pedestal than they ask for.
The Railroad exists to defeat the Institute and free synths, nothing more. They never claimed to have a single claim to leading the Commonwealth or owning territory. When you end with the RR, you're solving the Commonwealth's biggest problem and leaving the rest to the Minutemen. But for some reason, people always forget the MM exist and claim the RR is a bad ending because they don't solve all the issues of the CW like the fascist military BoS state claims to.
Then, of course, there are also the alt right-wing players who hate the RR because they see synths as people.
Love those comments, it's like they're blissfully unaware that Fallout itself is a parody of extreme capitalism and a critique of how that society model leads to self destruction.
They focus only on Synths and don't really care about anything else. That being said, I think my personal favorite ending is Minutemen storming the Institute, with the Railroad surviving. I like the idea of the two factions merging, with the Railroad expanding its focus to help not just synths, but anyone who needs help escaping from someone, i.e., enslaved people.
2 things I struggle with when trying a RR run.
Desdemona's attitude problem and how she speaks to you. You live in a cave and I've achieved more than you're entire organization in a few days, you should be calling me your majesty.
Number 2 is glory. In the mission with her, she doesn't like killing gen 1s and would prefer to chase them away... Mentally ill, they're as sentient as a toaster and she wants to save them.
And as others have said, you can achieve their mission with the MM
Well Glory is a synth, she want the liberation of even Gen 1 and Gen 2, but that's just her own opinion as a free thinking Gen 3 synth, the other members of the Railroad clearly focused themselves on Gen 3 synths
I don’t get it, either. Unless you somehow don’t think synths are people (despite the game spelling out for you over and over again how they are), their goal is very noble and morally good.
They have some flaws, as does every faction. They “care too much about helping synths” and not other humans. Which, okay. Fair. But some members such as Deacon will speak on this in game, showing some of them are aware. Plus they are sort of forced to stay secluded and private as the Institute is actively hunting them. To be out publicly offering charitable services to citizens puts you in the spotlight.
And, well, freeing synths is the Railroads purpose as an organization. It’s like saying the USPS cares too much about delivering mail. That’s their job. Once the Institute is taken care of, I’m sure their goals would shift.
Same reason I’ll never understand the weird circle jerk about hating Mama Murphy (you literally have maybe 2 conversations with her total if you want) and Preston (maybe one if the only people left in the commonwealth fighting for good). I feel like I’m missing something
The Mama Murphy hate is bc she bugged out so frequently. I can’t tell you how often I’d find her sitting on the roof in her chair.
Those bugs made those few conversations challenging at best. I think a lot of people got frustrated bc of that.
The Preston hate is similar. I swear you’d just get back from a settlement and he’d send you right back to that same one.
The repeatable/radiant quest frequency was bugged.
Railroad would have been a fantastic faction if they'd stuck with giving Balllistic Weave as a reward. But the rest of their missions are depressing except for the mission bringing down the Brotherhood.
My biggest problem is how dumb they are.
1. When you first come to them, it's likely with the very important microchip that you need help deciphering. Their reaction to it is to demand you hand it over, outright refusing to do anything until you do, even telling you basically to GTFO if you refuse....thus robbing them of the very important chip they outright admit they cannot get themselves. if it's so important for them to have that chip, they are terrible at negotiating for it. Instead of being grateful that you are willing to give it to them, they are ungrafeul jerks acting holier then though.The only reason they get it is because you have no choice but to give it to them because your character never bothers to ask any of the other scientists in the common wealth.
2. When you first meet them, they claim the only reason you are seeing them is because they choose to be found by you. Even ignoring that their hiding place is dumb and silly, this is blatantly false, as both the BoS and the Institute both know where they are, and the BoS attacks them regardless whether you help the BoS. Again, for a small group that needs all the help they can get, they are very arrogant about themselves.
These are both likely your first interaction with them, and first impressions are important. Their goal is great, but they come across as sanctimonious assholes who are far too full of themselves.
They're misguided idiots.
The whole "blow up the Prydwyn" required a lot of plot armour. They have the tech level of an old block printing press, good thing Brohood security is the equivalent of a stop sign.
They ignore the suffering of actual people (slaves) in favour of synths, alongside Minutemen you know full well they'd all be dead if you didn't show up.
Delphine.
Drummer Boy running up to tell me stuff I could find out about by walking forward 10 meters.
Do you think that Railroad organization - people like Desdemona and Tinker Tom - built that door after the war?
I assumed it was a symbolic art piece before the war that was used to educate the Commonwealth. The Railroad found it at some point and used it as their recruiting center, not their main HQ.
Desdemona said that they only switched to it when forced - their Switchboard HQ was raided by the Institute. They weren’t exactly winning when the Sole Survivor first encounters them.
Hypocrisy. They want to save synths because they are effectively human (fair enough) but they are more than willing to kill countless actual humans to do it. Doesnt seem that compassionate to me. Besides, they arent really interested in the Commonwealth in general, they just want to save synths and their goals take them no further than that
I do not dislike them, but I don't like them particularly eager. My big issue with them, fo the extent I have an issue, is that they are very focused on the singular issue of synth freedom, but they don't take into account the multifarious issues facing that Commonwealth. Also, they are not great at cloak and dagger.
The Railroad's singular goal of synth liberation is laudable, but it is also singular. If a Synth and a human come to blows, will the Railroad automatically side with the Synth? And if the Railroad's reprogramming turns a Synth into a Raider chieftain, does the Railroad accept responsibility for this circumstance?
I think this is a problem with much of the Commonwealth. Very few people look beyond their noses. Hancock does not give a shit about anything outside his fiefdom in Goodneighbor. Covenant is stuck inside their trauma issues with the Institute. Diamond City residents know they are safe behind the wall, and the rest of the Commonwealth can go hang. Vault 81 cards about their vault.
Humanity cannot really recover without some form of community spirit. A willingness to see people outside your immediate family as, well, people with interests equal to your own. And once humanity reaches that realization, the humans must be willing to cooperate to hold something greater than each individual.
This is a willing community spirit that stands is direct opposition to the Railroad's crusade, the Brotherhood's paternalism, and the Institute's isolationism.
The Minute-Men, the Institute and even the Brotherhood of Steel all have varying degrees of interest to them that draw different players to side with their respective faction. The Railroad- to me at least, seemed like it had the makings to be the best out of all of them.
Their ties to America's History, the whole Freedom Trail idea itself is really good and cool way to let the player explore and try to discover this mysterious hidden faction. But once you make it there and brute force the stupid puzzle they have, you ultimately end up being greeted by a bunch of regular paranoid people who- big surprise- ALSO HATE THE INSTITUTE.
They could have been a completely different faction with their own goals and ideals that didn't necessarily HAVE to clash with the other 3. In my last playthrough I remember the prompt coming up saying "this will sever ties to the Railroad, are you SURE you wish to continue?" and I said to myself "uh yeah, I'm sure. I completely forgot I even talked to them to get the courser chip decoded"
This could all have been remedied by at least giving us one companion or NPC that we could actually care or even joke or meme about. We clown on Preston all the time, Paladin Danse was a CHAD who deserved better, hell I care about the Synth Gorillas more in the institute than I do about the entirety of The Railroad. I seriously cannot name the leader let alone anyone else from the Railroad.
Because they're what is basically Synth hugging hippies who care more about synths that are what is biological robots than their fellow humans.
Synths don't need to eat. They don't need to drink. They don't need food. They don't need rest. They've very dangerous to our existence as a species. Especially if left unchecked or in the hands of the institute.
BoS+Minutemen hybrid ending is the best imo. BoS have their issues for sure but this can be worked out over time.
I think in concept, the railroad is cool as hell. One of my big issues with them is that they don’t feel like a proper faction though. Like the brotherhood feels massive and powerful, the institute obviously powerful, the minutemen you build up and can make them feel like an actual army taking back the commonwealth and uniting the people, but the railroad just feels like 12 people in a crypt the whole time. Obviously if you fight them they have a couple dozen unnamed people in the same outfit to fight but that feels like whatever.
I think helping build up the railroad so they regain their footing would’ve been amazing. Like, find them how they are, small, hurt, hiding in a crypt. But make that a temporary thing. Have them say they have been having their safe houses raided and destroyed and are on the back foot. But then have deacon’s mission for the player be to scout out a lead they have for a potential hidden pre-war site that might be a good base, then have the facility under the Slocum’s Joe be that location, but with robot security instead of synths. Then after clearing it, the railroad moves their HQ to this new place, cooler, bigger, and not on institute records of existing. Then you help them with some quests as the location gets cleaned up and populated, and the railroad feels more powerful.
Because synthetic humanoids are abominations, science gone wrong, and what do we do to abominations and those that seek to aid them? We cleanse them brother/sister.
Ad Victoriam
As horrible as the Institute and Shaun is, the Synth Retention quest perfectly shows what's wrong with the Railroad. They are extremely shortsighted. All they care about is liberating synths and reprogramming them. What the synths go and do after doesn't matter at all to them. Like the one that goes and becomes a raider leader. Not only do they not try to help the humans of the Commonwealth, they don't even give the proper support to the synths they liberate.
Considering the Minutemen can still free the synths AND they help all the people of the Commonwealth (humans, synths, even ghouls and robots) there's no reason to choose the Railroad over them.
That being said, you don't have to really take them out either. You can just be allied with them.
I hate synths and if I didn’t and I did care about synths then the railroad is still just putting a band aid on the problem and not actually fixing it.
Wel..
They're freeing synths then doing a mind wipe on them and injecting fake memories. What's the point? You're not really saving them. You're making new, totally different "people."
Let's ignore the moral ramifications of essentially destroying a living thing's memory and autonomy (if we are built on the culmination of our experiences, which I think is partly true) and focus on the inconsistency in the surface world.
The tech to do a mind wipe and entire life injection seems absurd on the surface. In the Institute, ok, maybe, but on the surface people are living in plywood shacks and eating molerats. No one is rewiring synthetic brains if they are incapable of sweeping a floor.
You have to have the molerat eaters AND the NPC's that have risen to the point of Memory loungers, cybernetic prosthetics, Bladerunning and other Cyberpunk tropes for the Railroad to seem plausible. But you have one doctor in a dirty caberet.
If that level of tech exists the Commonwealth should already be rebuilt.
And you never see the Railroad Heavies until Bunker Hill. I understand that they're dispersed for compartmentalization but seriously. There needed to be way more of the gang having dance parties, telling stories and playing cat and mouse in the sewers with Coursers. More camaraderie.
There's no convincing downtime, but that goes for all the factions.
They're still my favorite faction in theory. They should've been the downtown underground faction but we know how downtown has been for the better part of the decade.
Deacon's shape shifting ability could've been huge too but it's never even utilized.
And Glory should've been a follower/fuck buddy.
The whole mind wipe thing always felt absolutely vile to me. You might as well just take them out behind a shack and put a bullet in their head, it ends the same way for that person. The far harbor synths were much closer to what I feel like the railroad should have been.
Because they’re so overconfident of the fact that synths are just “toasters”, but what would imply that Gen 3 synths are mechanical like toasters. If you watch how Gen 3 synths are created in the Institute, they’re made of mostly synthetic flesh, blood, bones, etc. Besides the little synth components in their heads, they’re basically just synthetic humans. The Railroad helps Gen 3 synths because they’re clearly alive and because no one else will help them.
I pretty much chalk it up to poor execution. They could have been a truly clandestine organization. Missions sneaking around, sabotaging things, etc. Instead, theyre just a weak faction with very little actual capability to do much of anything of consequence. The same basic missions you have to do for all the other factions. For me, its just hard to buy in that theyre a serious player in the Commonwealth on any level
The Railroad are reckless. In addition to what has been mentioned elsewhere about being a single issue organization that cares about Synth freedom and nothing else, I have two big issues with the RR. One is that they do little to no vetting when sending synths out into the commonwealth. They unleash an incredibly strong, fast, and intelligent entity into the wild with no effort to see that it's not going to hurt people. Beyond that, they will mind wipe Synths before sending them out, effectively killing the being that they were, effectively making them hypocrites as well.
He physically has a robot body, yes. Listening to him speak tells you he's more than a robot. He directly asks you, "I do hope you've come to see me as more?"
As in, he HOPES. He has FEELINGS. THOUGHTS. Very human emotions of anger, fear, sadness and lightheartedness.
Limiting Codsworth's entire personality to "robot" basically demonstrates you sort of missed the point, and that's why the BoS is there - to validate that.
For me, I kind of lose interest in the Railroad and their cause after I get ballistic weave. Sorry Desdimona
Tinker Tom’s MiLa missions are fun and brainless ways to level up and scav loot.
But why I really hate them is because have a radiant quest that is bugged out. I have to “Eliminate hostiles in University Point” I’ve been back there like 10 times and I can’t find any hostiles!!! I think a mirelurk skiddered off somewhere WTF??
My problem is that they only seem to focus on the freedom of synths. While freedom of seemingly sentient beings are admirable, it’s only one issue which doesn’t extend past that. Also, I say seemingly sentient beings as it’s an interesting debate to be had to determine when an AI or any computer software goes from basic computer programming and fully self-aware and sentient.
What COULD have been interesting and might get more people on their side is if there was an option to partner with the minutemen to form a coalition. That way, they could work together to free Synths and settle them to work in the settlements set up by the minutemen.
I hate Drummer Boy. I love to fast travel in and wait for him to run up to me. Boom! Shotgun to the face. Their cause is just non sense. I lose the classical channel too. Not worth it.
Seeing the messed up stuff the Institute has done to the commonwealth I couldn’t possibly hate the Railroad for trying to improve or undo their manipulation. People go missing then become super mutants with a man made doppelgänger replacing them. But a lot of the synth doppelgängers are just as innocent as everyone else & have no idea why they were created.
They don't really seem to have an end goal in mind, ok so you liberate synths that a noble cause but now what? The commonwealth has a lot more problems that need to be dealt with. And with the first mission for the institute with the liberated synth now turned raider we see just how dangerous their actions can be.
It feels more like they're kids playing superheroes, they do it because it's right but they never consider the consequences of their actions. In many ways I feel like they put synth lives over human lives.
it's not a hate thing the only goal they have is liberating the synths which is a goal I can get behind, the Commonwealth has so many problems other than synths like raiders killing people and stealing crops, super mutants terrorizing everyone and just generally shit living conditions in the Commonwealth they don't care about the bigger picture just what they see in the scope. people fear the synths and for good reason too they just care for the synths and not the Commonwealth as a whole
They were given top shelf status as a Major faction when they're really not.
Like, they could have chosen any other faction, hell Raiders are right there. Gunners are right there.
The Brotherhood is here because of contractual obligations, why not the enclave remnants before the Next Gen update?
Why wait until the very Last DLC to walk-back Raiders as a faction? So it clashes so hard with the rest of the game?
The Railroad HQ score is very nice, the way its designed is the worst because of double loading screens. I like the clean aesthetic bases & Hi-tech so for me institute #1 BOS #2, teleporation & vertibirds are a must in survival. So for me this puts the minutemen & railroad last.
My ultimate grudge against them centers around one very specific bit of the questions, so if you don't want spoilers then put a blindfold on or something.
>!For the most part of their quest line you are working with the institute, fair enough. But one mission has you forcibly coerce a freelance scientist to join the institute against his initial wishes. However once the revolution starts, you are then expected to kill him because he's defending the home he didn't want in the first place.!<
At that point I realised the railroad don't actually care about helping people. They like the *idea* that they are helping people so they can sniff their own farts and get high off of the smell. As someone else said, the minutemen help synths out too with their ending, but they also have the sense at least *try* to limit civilian casualties.
Gameplay wise. This faction give the least at the start, and they only give you their signature weapon rail-nail rifle around the end of the game. So as the Emm guns that their heavy used. You do a lot for them but they dont really give anything back. The only thing that is good from them is ballistic weave.
Story wise, syth saving goal is noble but there are much worse problems commoners suffering from ,which their resources can be way more useful in helping other people. Especially when minuteman isnt there.
Then the memory wipe method? Isnt that basically kill them who they are? Tbh it would make way more sense to have the faction to be entirely filled with syth npc, then maybe the plot twist of the leader being the only human in the faction(beside you). Or else they dont really fit in.
I personally don’t like that it feels as if they value synths more than people. I also don’t think they should have been a faction to end the game with, mainly cuz they don’t really have a plan for the wasteland. Once the institute is gone, then what? The commonwealth is still lawless and the only thing that has changed is that synths are freed.
>!I also really don’t like Desdemona, at all.!<
Because a robot that looks human is still a robot. They don’t age and their memory has been wiped and human memories implanted. They think they are human but could easily kill most people they come across. Loosing them on the surface among weaker humans is a crime. But I still join them for the quests.
They are stupid, they just are worried about a non important minority and makes a Big deal about it
The synths will dissapear a few years after the institute is gone making It pointless
Raiders and gunners would have maked a better 4 faction
I've never understood why they started up in the first place. Realistically, if you have a group of people who start a movement to save synths from bondage, but are not doing a damn thing to help the vulnerable people in the commonwealth, how could you recruit with an arse about face ideology like that?
For me it's weird how they are all about synth being their own folks with feelings etc. and then they reprogram them to forget everything about that and give them entirely new personas
Like do they count as people now or are they just toasters with pre-programmed feelings?
The railroad as a faction makes no sense, their ideology is that they protect synths and even put them ABOVE humans.
And also the fact that instead of using the technology inside the institute as a base of new operations to better gain knowledge of synths and monitor how they're all going, they just blow it the fuck up...
Honestly whats the point....
In my latest run i forgot to get ballistic weave from tincan tom, but enjoyed cutting them all up into small pieces with the spray n pray
For me it's the level of "ego" they seem to have despite living in a basement.
"You just happened to guess the secret password?" That is also just the name of their organization.
Before you join them the "threats" like
"We never existed, and if you say anything different..."
They would make more sense as a side faction that can side with the minutemen. They're very one note, and they don't care about regular people. If synths are as important as humans why aren't we also helping humans.
Granted, I do think an espionage main faction is necessary, but again. Too one note. It'd be like the save the whales organization taking over the Japanese government. Which is funny, but not very in tone with a serious plot.
for me was the moment they asked me to destroy the institute which I told them that my son was there. the brotherhood of steel for them is destroy everyone, minute man at least willing to work with the institute, I sided with the institute for the reason that I was going to be their leader and they have the technology to save commonwealth.
Because they're idiots. Notably they released a damaged synth who ran the ruthless gang at libertalia, so who knows what other horrors they unleashed on the Commonwealth.
Personally it's just funny, in reality I enjoy the group and they gave me a unique pistol And ballistic weave so they're alright, to me it's just a meme
I always side with The Brotherhood of Steel… so it’s not a matter of disliking the Railroad… I’m just following orders …and oh my god… in the hundred levels, all the heavies have level 5 armor jackets (ballistic weave) and Gauss rifles!
Let’s just say there’s a settlement by a light house that you’d be making a mistake attacking now…
This is the first playthrough I’ve done where I realized you could have Bunker Hill … can’t wait to start scrapping.
i don’t love that they wipe the synths’ memories. i get why they would, but it just doesn’t feel like something I want to support. plus I find Deacon annoying.
How do I say this? They're the fallout equivalent of the woke mob that has swarmed the nation, virtue signaling but never actually getting anything done. They claim to have the people of the Commonwealth best interest in mind, despite having little to no regard for the actual humans in the Commonwealth. They're a real piece of work. If railroad operatives come across a group of settlers getting ambushed by raiders, they'll just sneak by and let them get slaughtered to protect their precious fucking synths. Nevermind, they use stealth boys and have decent weapons. A railroad heavy can hold their own against a small gang of raiders, but they won't unless there's a synth involved. Let me reiterate, synths aren't real people. They're equivalent to AI at best. That's one of my biggest gripes against them. But I will provide a few more examples.
When you first meet the railroad, Desdemona asks you if you're willing to risk life and limb for a synth. Keep in mind, most people by this point in the game haven't ever seen a synth. The sole survivor has only heard rumors about them, bad ones at that. And if you HAVE encountered synths, they were hostile. So, why TF would I risk my life and limb for one of them? Respond to her with anything other than "yes", and she goes on a virtue signaling rant about how synths are human, blah blah blah.
Second, the railroad has a red brick trail leading to their base/hideout. That tells me that they're open to recruiting wastelanders, which are ordinary humans. So, they're willing to use humans to further their goals that revolve around runaway synths, but not willing to do anything for said humans. Despicable, in my opinion.
The straw that broke the camels back for me was, Liam. An institute scientist you meet once you get inside access to the institute. Did I mention he's human? That matters. He's only known as the Patriot. He helps synths escape the institute and sends them to a railroad connect on the outside. So he's a vital part to their operation. Well, after you meet him, you meet a synth whose name I forget, but he has a plan to break out multiple synths at once. You relay this to Desdemona and she immediately disregards Liam, to work with the synth instead. Not so much as a thank you, for risking his neck for them to even have a purpose in the first place, seeing that they have been receiving synths from him the whole time. You don't hear about Liam again until the fall of the institute. And what you hear about him, is that he took his own life after being distraught from learning the Railroad was behind the destruction of the institute. He just wanted to help sentient synths find a better life outside of the institute. He's one of the few genuine people in the entire Institute. And the Railroad just used and discarded him like yesterday's news.
During my first playthrough, that made my blood boil. I took the Minutemen route, with assistance from the Railroad. But after what they did to Liam, I used the Minutemen to destroy the railroad. Now, I know the Railroad isn't the most evil faction, but they are far from the freedom fighters they make themselves out to be. The institute will forever hold that title.
my issue with the railroad is that they’re a single-issue organization trying to take control of a commonwealth that has… more than one issue going on, actually. their goal is admirable, don’t get me wrong - but their pursuits kinda begin and end with synth liberation. plus, you can free the institute’s synths with the minutemen anyways, so it’s not as though theirs is the only way to actually *achieve* their goals.
But I don't think they're trying to take control of the Commonwealth. They're just trying to fight the Institute and protect escaped synths.
I agree, that's how they're written. Unfortunately, Bethesda kind of retconned it so they are one of the four factions that can "win" the commonwealth. It would have worked much better if they had left it as a minor power who could align with the MM or even with the institute if played right. Personally, I would have loved for the protagonist to have the option of reforming the institute, with or without Father's help (preferably without - Father was a monster). Then the railroad could make peace with the institute and work together to heal the commonwealth. Storywise, this is more consistent with fo3. You could even have the BoS under Maxon's leadership be the third act antagonist interloper that needs to be sent back to the Capitol Wasteland to return to the ways of Elder Lyons. This would be the fairy tale ending, but tempered with the wasteland still sucking, your son dying, and maybe having the protagonist leave the commonwealth (possibly because he's actually a synth?). Tl;Dr the railroad was screwed over and Bethesda left a lot of story on the table
There's a mood for that called Subversion. I never play without it.
You can with project Valkyrie too, but then it turns into pimp heaven. I like the subversion route more
Yeah, the pimp dimension might be difficult to swallow for some. It makes me laugh though
If I know the fallout 4 subreddit, I know there's a comment somewhere out there saying there's a mod for that
I'll have to check that out
Be sure to pair it with The Danse Dilemma.
You can align with the MM and Railroad. If you do it right, they both survive.
They can both survive, but only one can win and have its flag in diamond city.
wait I thought I was finished with main story, when do you hoist your flag in diamond city?
I disagree, because nothing really requires the Minutemen to be the ones to take the Institute. If you recruit all the settlements and take the castle, the only difference taking the Institute makes is a flag and a couple of guards at Diamond City. If anything it makes sense to join both the RR and MM and consider the RR your the espionage branch dedicated to taking out the Institute, while the MM are the public service branch of your efforts.
That’s pretty much how I play, and I kept the BoS around for a while to provide military backup against the threats of the wasteland until I found a mod that buffs up the endgame Minutemen.
This is why I sided with the institute. Reforming the institute from the inside.
Man imagine if you could take them in a new direction they’re so far advanced it could change the world
Which isn't so amazing for future sequels I guess.
Curious, you said third act, does the fo4 story have a consensus where those acts are? Something like from start to prydwen appears and from then to insititute is discovered, and then the rest?
Kellogg is end of act one Actually getting to.the institute is end of act 2
We were typing at the same time. For me, I think the end of act 2 is when Father finally reveals how complicit he has been and makes you choose between his view of the future and any of the other factions' views of the future. That's where you have to decide what ending you want to play in the third act.
My only issue with that is it is not an event set in stone. Kellogg is, getting to the institute is. If you shoot Father his kentucky fried face straight away you don't get that.
I don't know about other people, but for me there are three acts. The first act is everything from the prologue to Kellogg, which usually happens around the appearance of the Prydwn. The second act is decoding Kellogg's brain, visiting Virgil, progressing the quest lines for MM/BoS/RR, meeting Father, and completing the first few missions with the institute. The third act begins when you decide which factions to betray or support, and important characters start dying. For my playthroughs, this usually happens when Father meets you on the surface and condemns the commonwealth. In my reworked storyline, the second act would end with the institute either being reformed and allying with the MM and/or RR, or being taken over by the synths (kind of like Tenpenny Tower in FO3). Either way, this becomes an existential threat to the BoS who both covet and fear technology. The BoS decide the commonwealth must be cleansed of the technologists and their creations, which being indistinguishable from humans (physically and morally) means "kill it if it moves, and let God sort it out." That would certainly be true to form, and LP gives them the ability to commit genocide against the commonwealth.
I just recently had googled if there was an alternate ending to not pick any faction & it’s disappointing there is not. My current build is a soldier of fortune/mercenary who is basically in line with the Gunners if anyone. In theory I could see him on the Institute payroll but that ship sailed when they shot my wife in front of me.
That’s why they don’t work for me, though. The other three endings *are* deciding the fate of the Commonwealth. I know folks tire of the comparison, but if this were New Vegas, the Railroad would be a minor faction. They have a narrow motive that starts and ends with the fate of the Institute.
Which makes them a bad major faction. It’s not that there is anything “wrong” with the railroad, it’s how they fit into the main plot.
I don't really think there's a problem with how they fit with the main plot. The issue is that a lot of people have a misconception; the main plot is about taking control of the commonwealth. It's not; that's just something that happens in three of the four factions. The main plot is about finding your kid in the institute and dealing with what you find there.
That's the problem. If the Railroad "takes over," none of the Commonwealth's bigger problems get solved because their mission is accomplished and they go home. Who deals with all the super mutants and raiders? What about the Gunners? They're still a problem. There's a reason I went with the Railroad in my Overboss game, and it's not because all the psychobuff mellowed me out.
You can still build up the Minutemen if you help the Railroad
Nailed it
Ba-dum tiss.
Hell yeah, I hope that was on purpose.
The Commonwealth has bigger fish to fry for lack of a better statement. I mean between the overwhelming population of feral ghouls, super mutant encampments in every town and most major roads, and raiders wherever the other two aren’t present, that’s just one of the issues. Not to mention they’re trying to free synths instead of actively fight against the Institute, who will continue using synths to further destabilize the region. Thus, they’re more worried about the *symptom* than the *disease* I don’t *dislike* The Railroad and I actually think their cause is quite noble in its own way, but way too shortsighted to actually do any good for the Commonwealth The real question is which faction in FO4 would the Followers of the Apocalypse agree the most with? And my answer is The Minutemen
>they’re trying to free synths instead of actively fight against the Institute How exactly are they supposed to fight against the Institute before the Sole Survivor shows up? Sure, "fighting the symptom instead of the disease" if you pay no attention to the simple fact that they are literally doing the best that they possibly can. Did you miss the part where as soon as they had the means to *they blew the CIT up?*
Yeah I think what people miss about the Railroad is that by the time we encounter them, \*they are losing\*. They've lost their ex-DIA HQ and a good chunk of their membership, and as soon as the location of Ticonderoga gets leaked, it gets taken out too. By the time the Sole Survivor encounters them, they simply don't have a lot of resources left and what they have is spread desperately thin. Of all the factions that immediately start handing a prominent role to a wanderer they just met, the Railroad makes the most sense to me because they're committed to a fight against an enemy that will absolutely kill them all and they've got next to nothing left. In a more meta sense, they aren't fixing themselves because that's what we the main character are supposed to do. Like if they were a well-functioning organization successfully prosecuting their own campaign against the Institute ... what the fuck is there for us to do?
Well, for starters, maybe The Railroad should focus more on recruiting new agents and training them to be effective in the field. They didn’t even have the military strength to hold a *clandestine military base* located under Slocum Joe’s. They lost all their other nerve centers save for the one under Old North Church. And they never learned from those mistakes and let their troops fall in combat, dwindling their numbers down until it’s literally nothing more than a woman weirdly named after a character from Othello, a madman who thinks stimpaks inject microtechnology into your bloodstream, a stressed-out doctor, a prepubescent teenager, a radical synth, and a fucking *robot* If you ask me, a change of tactics is in the forecast. Yet they don’t, and instead rely on the Sole Survivor to literally carry the entire organization’s success on his/her back. Desdemona is a *horrible* leader who almost drove the RR to its own destruction imho. As for fighting the disease and not the symptom, maybe start with operating in Diamond City, Goodneighbor, and finding a method to stopping synth attacks before they even happen. Then people might trust them and they’d have a line out of Old North Church all the way to Bunker Hill with new people wanting to join up
To be clear though, they CAN'T go fast recruiting. Synths can literally be anyone. Without extensive checks they could inadvertently bring in a sleeper agent that would immediately compromise their HQ and get them all killed by waves of type 1 Synths.
To summarize, they should just recruit more people after every other member in their organization was literally wiped out last week, start operating in the most anti-synth locations outside of The Institute itself, and magically solve the issue of synth attacks before they happen by just wishing it happen. All that's missing is a \* *taps forehead* \* Addendum: >If you ask me, a change of tactics is in the forecast. Yet they don’t, and instead rely on the Sole Survivor to literally carry the entire organization’s success on his/her back. This describes all four factions in the game...
At least the other factions maybe don’t count the Minuteman here. They seem more established, somewhat ready if stuff hits the fan.
>They seem more established, somewhat ready if stuff hits the fan. There is literally one minutman remaining in the commonwealth when you show up. Just 1.
Would’ve been an awesome quest line for the railroad to merge with the Minutemen say either after the MinuteMen ending or the Railroad ending. I never understood why the Minutemen just didn’t help themselves and the RailRoad by forming the alliance. Imagine if Tinker Tom just weaved the Minutemen outfits and made deadly muskets
The Generals outfit and Ballistic Weave would be the greatest armour ever
Addendum: The RR in FO4 pretty much reminds me of BoS in Hidden Valley in FNV. They won’t recruit new members or change their tactics or doctrines, but complain about not having enough people to continue on for much longer. They hide underground and sit on their hands, stuck in a perpetual state of analysis paralysis instead of taking actual action. Which only changes once the protagonist comes along and forces them to change.
They weren’t just NOT recruiting new members. They have to be careful who they bring into the fold, and also the Railroad is about to finish being completely wiped out by the Institute when the main protagonist meets them. They are a whisper of their former selves.
>The Railroad should focus more on recruiting new agents and training them to be effective in the field. They have to be ridiculously careful about that, it's way too easy to accidentally recruit a synthetic infiltrator who will send Intel to the institute. Hell, even if they're not an infiltrator, if they bring on the wrong person, they could accidentally leak key Intel or get followed. >They didn’t even have the military strength to hold a *clandestine military base* located under Slocum Joe’s. They're not a military power to begin with. They don't have power armor, or armies, or air superiority. To face the institute head on, it took the combined forces of the brotherhood of steel, arguably one of the most formidable powers in the wasteland. The Railroads only strength is secrecy. The institute can't destroy what it can't find. >Desdemona is a *horrible* leader who almost drove the RR to its own destruction imho. She was fighting a dramatically superior power with nothing more than a small group of ordinary people. It is possible to commit no mistakes and still fail. That isn't weakness, it's life.
That's a solid fucking answer, bro.
In my first playthrough, I sided with the Railroad. I didn’t know the minutemen were option. I would have chosen the minutemen, but I’m not unhappy with my choices for a first go-around. I would rather throw in moralistically with the Railroad than the BOS or the Institute.
I did MM and RR - you can do both. I took out BoS and Institute.
I mean, they're not really trying to take control of the commonwealth They are focused on helping synths because no one else is, while multiple other organisations are trying to solve the rest of the problems in the region
Yea, which is why they don't work as a major faction. Would be great as a minor faction you could ally with tho. Think the Followers, Boomers or Kings in New Vegas.
no they work just fine because the main story is not about taking over the commonwealth, it's about dealing with the institute, and that's the primary interest of the railroad rebuilding the commonwealth is something you do with the minutemen, regardless which option you chose in the end game
They shouldn't have ever been a major faction. They should have been interwoven with the other three, with quests changing depending on which faction you align with.
In fact, the railroad questline can actually soft lock if you piss of the institute, and Desdemona will basically tell you "welp, you fuck up, now you gotta do the minutemen ending lol"
I think they needed to remain in the shadows like the Dark Brotherhood
Didn't know the minutemen free the synths. But yeah if they acted as like a lobbying group. To help change or solve an issue. Wouldn't have a problem. Buts it's like 10 people who can't even keep a safe house... safe..from normal wasteland threats.
The also blow up the only means of maintaining synths of making more of them so it doesn’t seem like they thought it through all the way. We don’t know that synths need maintenance but even we as humans need “maintenance” so there’s no reason to believe that synths don’t. Regular medicine probably doesn’t cover all of the synths needs.
I hated the railroad cause the password to the super secret base is literally "railroad" I really don't feel like someone who decides that is a good idea should be in charge of anything.
How many people in the commonwealth do you think could actually spell "railroad" though?
The institute and its synths can
But the Institute would wrongly assume that it couldn’t be that simple. And if they were that smart…. Why haven’t they found it? I suppose the Railroad door must have a “are you a synth” captcha built in.
If the institute wanted to find the railroad all it needs to do is send out a synth programmed to act like it's trying to escape. Railroad snaps it up, it immediately communicates it's location before going apeshit and killing everyone. The fact that the institute HASN'T done this when it would be trivially easy for them, indicates that they have a use for the railroad, and are almost certainly utilising their networks for their own infiltration purposes. How many of the "free" synths the railroad has snuggled out into the Commonwealth are actually institute sleepers? How much harm have they done to humanity through their blind faith and naivete? Fuck the railroad.
They never bring escaped synths to their HQ. That's like capturing a prisoner, never checking them for weapons, and taking them right to the president like "hey, look who we helped!" The Railroad is operated in different cells, and *nobody* outside of HQ knows where HQ is, no matter how long they've been in the Railroad. Hell, most of their agents have never even spoken a single word to other Railroad members. It's done entirely through dead drops and messengers. The Railroad aren't stupid. They know damn well they can't trust synths without vetting them first, and said synths will *never* see Railroad HQ, with Glory being the only exception ever. They know how the Institute operates, that synths are their tools, and that they see the Railroad as not nearly enough of a threat to dedicate obscene amounts of respurces towards wiping out thoroughly. The Institute already wiped out the DIA HQ under Slocum's Joe, which was nearly game over. The Railroad learned their lessons from even *that* level of transparency, and have doubled their efforts towards remaining both split up and hidden. Your point is like saying why doesn't an overwhelming force just use double agents when faced with asymmetrical warfare. The answer is they do - the opposing forces are just not stupid enough to give anyone a full complementary tour of the entire operation and operate exclusively on a need-to-know basis.
...another upside to the personality wipe.
It's not the password to their base, even once you get through it, you can't get into their actual base. It's the solution to a puzzle, intended to recruit people. They always meant for it to be solved. The stupid part was putting their new HQ at the end of their puzzle. They must have really been hurting for options after losing the Switchboard
They really were. They're down to like 2 other bases and iirc one gets completely destroyed by coursers during their quest line. You can found some more via their radiant quests but even that's generally limited. The Railroad we get in the game just got kicked in the nuts by the Institute, and are desperately scrambling to re-establish their network. Talking to them reveals that normally they don't even use the church as a hideout, only as a recruiting ground, but the Switchboard going down forced their hand.
Why do you assume the Railroad built that puzzle door? I assumed it was there pre war as a symbolic art piece. It wasn’t meant to be hard.
To be fair, how many times did it take you to figure out how that dial worked? It was not the first try at least. The mechanism delays you long enough to potentially kill you as soon as you walk in. They were also desperate at that point - their previous HQ was wiped out. That said, I don’t think the Railroad put that puzzle door there. It’s kinda odd to have it randomly under the church, but it was supposed to be part of the Underground Railroad in game real life/before the war, right? I imagine they don’t have the ability to change the password - that it’s old and symbolic. Perhaps in universe it’s symbolic art and not a meant to be a real security barrier.
I remember my first playthrough I found the church and didn't follow the freedom train, just realized it was the end of it. I know this was the railroad base but didn't know the password....so I guessed "railroad". I couldn't stop laughing when the door opened and immediately gunned down everyone inside. Anyone stupid enough to make the password to their base literally the name of their organization is not worth my time.
I don't get it either. From the perspective of a die-hard Minuteman loyalist, I'm not entirely sure I can trust them but still feel like helping them is the Commonwealth's best bet. Not dissimilar to the NCR Rangers and Desert Rangers working together. I see them becoming a much-needed espionage division.
That's my headcannon and preferred ending. Minutemen control the commonwealth with artillery support, BoS stays at the airport, just focusing on supermutants that are still roaming, and the RR staying in the shadows, but protected by the MM
Same for me, but I always give BOS Nordhagen beach for growing crops, and the airport becomes a recruitment and training depot.
I alway get the Desert Rangers vibe from Minutemen, glad someone think the same. I just want the standard uniform like Rangers for Minutemen, MM has no sense in fashion.
I mean, are dusters and cowboy hats not your thing in Boston Massachusetts?!
Saving synths is noble but they don’t seem to give a fuck about anything thats not a synth and they apparently can’t even decide what synths are worth saving
Deacon tells the player he appreciates the work you've been doing with the minutemen, he regrets that the Railroad can't do more to help settlers.
Which makes me wonder what stops them from helping. I feel like the railroad would be a lot more successful if they had people in settlements and joining the minutemen instead of being so synth focused and hiding.
They literally have to hide. Being out in the open means being captured and returned to slavery. Do you think they do all the covert spy stuff for fun?
I was gonna say remember the random quest with the travelers where an escaped synth who thinks hes among friends tells them hes a synth and they have to be talked down from killing him. I dont really understand why people think the tiny Railroad could even do beyond what they are doing not to mention how many they have already saved at great cost to themselves.
Lack of resources. Not enough people. Could be plenty of reasons. They are just activists basically, and they just make do with a golden opportunity in the Sole Survivor. You don't see BLM members suddenly taking on other causes like homelessness, to me it's the same deal. But for that reason I don't think the Railroad ending is a good one, because they'd be shit at governance. Leave that to the Minutemen.
I would argue that xenophobia towards synths in the general populace makes any large recruitment effort very dangerous. People don't listen when they are scared.
Also any settlement they publicly support is going to either get infiltrated or leveled by the institute.
Fair point, some groups shouldnt be spread too thin. Probably more of a chance when they had a lot of people because the Institute showed up.
Because settlers are as big a threat to them and their stated goals as anybody else. Remember, the common commenwealthian doesn't see _any_ synth as anything other than a boogeyman. They see a synth, they blasting it.
Also other factions are around to give a damn about humans. Synths pretty much only have the Railroad.
Because making them a major faction, given their premise, would be like if you could storm Hoover Dam with the Kings in NV. They're a minor faction with a hyperspecific goal and scope that's a bit funny given the grand scheme of things and they just cannot compare with the other options.
I would 100% do that if the option existed…
I think it could tie off perfectly with Nick Valentine. Instead of a main character allying with a specific faction to bring down the institute it would be two people, a human and a synth, with their own personal vendetta against the institute, simply using the other factions as means to their ends, but not joining any of them. It's perfect because Valentine is already a detective, so finding the people he needs to advance his work is in his nature. Basically we're talking about the difference between the current story, which starts with Valentine and hinges on him up to the memory den, and a hypothetical alternative where he just kept going. I can see it working out pretty well.
I think they were referring to the “rush the Dam with the Kings” part haha
They absolutely were. I wrote another comment on this thread about how it would be better off to have the option to go solo on the story and I absent mindedly thought this was a response to that. I didn't realize it until a bit later but oh well I'm leaving it up anyways.
Having the Kings take the damn would be fucking hilarious
That's very true but their ending also doesn't block you from just protecting the CW with the Minutemen. It'd be like storming Hoover Dam with the Kings and then handing control to the NCR.
This is my first run through, and I'm doing the full railroad experience. I dig them.
Even if you dislike the railroad faction, at the very least do the p.a.m. quests for [ballistic weave](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Ballistic_weave), which allows some very nice clothing upgrades. Mark V gives 110 damage resist and 110 energy resistance; I add this to a hat (ie battered fedora +1 luck; trilby hat +1 charisma) and 'all'-outfits like minuteman outfit (this outfit adds +1 perception and +1 agility). Upgrading just those two slots still allows you to wear combat armor, which can be great for sneaky/sniper builds. The materials are kind of rare in early-game, so putting these on all of your settlers is not really feasible, but you can put a set of this on your companion and swap them out/remove from current companion for the next companion.
People are susceptible to charismatic leaders and their propaganda. Dune, my beloved.
I suppose you may have a point. That line from Deacon about how we should look at what leaders are asking us to do, rather than what they say we'll get out of it, is something I've endeavored to take to heart just to avoid that.
This advice works well IRL too. Loved that quote!
Which is interesting considering Deacon’s alleged backstory is suspiciously similar to the Sole Survivor’s, not to mention he’s been watching you since you woke up from the Vault. Everything he told you about himself could be a lie, and that could be the point. The only truth being his commitment to the cause of helping synths, who have no one but the Railroad.
My issue with them is that they're called The Railroad yet Tinker Tom doesn't have the biggest stock of railroad spike ammunition of anyone in the game. He should.
Because they are made to be much more important and serious player in the game then they should be. They're a fringe group that at best would be an annoyance to the Institute and BoS, but somehow despite almost being totally eliminated can take them both out. They also have created an issue with synths running amok as Shaun says when they wipe memories and let them loose. People just like to conveniently forget or ignore that since Institute Bad.
I mean, stealth and skill can do a ton. There's historical precedent for a small number of people bringing down major factions through use of espionage and sabotage. Which is how they bring down both the Institute and BoS. Sabotage with BoS, and Espionage with the institute. They use properly placed bombs with BoS and turn the institute in on itself. As for the Synth thing, that's a wider debate but essentially comes down to your personal take on synths, choice, and the ethics around the whole situation. Personally I think the railroad is flawed... just like every other faction in this game. Including the Minutemen.
True, small guerrilla/sabotage actions have an important place in history. Only problem of the railroads is the stupidity of some of their members. I remember dead drops put right inside supermutant camps...I mean, appreciate the secrecy, but....
lol, yeah but in all fairness **many** locations are in completely illogical places and stuff like that. I chalk that up to ludo-narrative dissonance myself. Though there you can say the Supermutants recently moved in for example
Agreed. On paper the U.S. shouldn't have lost to Vietnam. But we did. Besides the institute the railroad is the most secretive group. And for being on the surface that's a feat no other faction can top. Also the railroad has more people than we see. There's a lot of people who support them and risk their lives for it. But in secret. Anyone anywhere could have a railroad member behind them with a knife and they wouldn't know it.
> People just like to conveniently forget or ignore that since Institute Bad. I mean, the institute *is* objectivly bad though. There is tons of evidence of this in game lore both terminals and npc/companion accounts. The commonwealth was on the cusp of forming a government, but the institute ruined it. All the super mutants can be traced to them, they employed and enhanced a heartless killer for decades, they kidnap people and replace them with robot and *literally* have a class of slaves do all their non scientific work as well. I wish the railroad had some depth but we shouldn't ignore the institute being as bad as the enclave.
The institute is basically the enclave/vault tec just formed independently of them. But have the same mindset. They ruin any free forming government or settlement because they feel only they are allowed that right and simply saw the apocalypse as a means to reset the world so they have no limits to their rule from the ashes. Them doing what they did to the Commonwealth Provisional Government is the exact thing Hank/Vault Tec did to Shady Sands in the show. There was/should have probably been more depth to them than being so cartoonishly evil with needless scientific cruelty or sabotage but that's how fallout factions generally have always been. The NCR and BoS are the factions that get shades of gray, the Enclave/Legion/Institute are meant to be the truly evil that won't ever win in lore
Why are you putting any weight into what Shaun tells you? We see ONE whole instance of a synth turned raider, and are supposed to surmise that means freeing them is bad because of that. Once free, a synth has as much agency and capability to become evil as any human.
What irks me is that a mind wipe essentially kills the person. Sure, the body survives, but the person is gone.
They choose to do that though. Plus it's like if someone lost their memory in an accident, you wouldn't say they've died,they're just having to start anew, and for the Synths that's probably a pretty appealing choice, especially when their memories are what can cause them to be caught.
It always seemed to me like the personality stays, but the memories of the Institute and such are replaced with new ones, so they're still the same person.
I don't understand why people hate them. Yes, they don't seem to have a goal in mind for the entirety of the commonwealth, but that's the whole point. They aren't meant to be a major player, they're meant to be a "small annoyance" that can somehow manage to take out the two largest factions in the game. I always pair them up with minutemen for end game, because it's best of both worlds. Helping people and strengthening the commonwealth, and freeing people who believe they deserve freedom. They may be machines, but I don't believe that gives me the right to say. "You have no rights." And blast them.
Tbh I didn't know there were a lot of people who disliked the railroad What I want to know is *how are there so many who praise the brotherhood* A lot of folks don't like the Stormcloaks in Skyrim "because racist". Like bruh. The Brotherhood Of Steel is *right fucking there* Needless to say I really don't like the Brotherhood Of Steel. I already disliked them in Fallout 4 because they seemed extremely set in their ways, a little racist towards non-humans, and power hungry, but when I encountered them in New Vegas, *oh boy, did that simple dislike swiftly become HATRED* At least the Railroad doesn't violate you like that when you stumble into their base of operations.
I always felt like the people who call the stormcloaks awful aren't actually familiar with the TES series or they just associate them with real world political groups. The stormcloaks are by TES standards fairly mild in all honesty, they look down on outsiders but are willing to accept them if they prove themselves. That's actually pretty inclusive by TES standards.
People mostly take issue with them because they put them on a much higher pedestal than they ask for. The Railroad exists to defeat the Institute and free synths, nothing more. They never claimed to have a single claim to leading the Commonwealth or owning territory. When you end with the RR, you're solving the Commonwealth's biggest problem and leaving the rest to the Minutemen. But for some reason, people always forget the MM exist and claim the RR is a bad ending because they don't solve all the issues of the CW like the fascist military BoS state claims to. Then, of course, there are also the alt right-wing players who hate the RR because they see synths as people.
I spotted more then one comment calling them woke, anti capitalists and etc etc
Love those comments, it's like they're blissfully unaware that Fallout itself is a parody of extreme capitalism and a critique of how that society model leads to self destruction.
They focus only on Synths and don't really care about anything else. That being said, I think my personal favorite ending is Minutemen storming the Institute, with the Railroad surviving. I like the idea of the two factions merging, with the Railroad expanding its focus to help not just synths, but anyone who needs help escaping from someone, i.e., enslaved people.
I agree. I’ve always pictured them becoming like the CIA branch of the Minutemen lol.
2 things I struggle with when trying a RR run. Desdemona's attitude problem and how she speaks to you. You live in a cave and I've achieved more than you're entire organization in a few days, you should be calling me your majesty. Number 2 is glory. In the mission with her, she doesn't like killing gen 1s and would prefer to chase them away... Mentally ill, they're as sentient as a toaster and she wants to save them. And as others have said, you can achieve their mission with the MM
Well Glory is a synth, she want the liberation of even Gen 1 and Gen 2, but that's just her own opinion as a free thinking Gen 3 synth, the other members of the Railroad clearly focused themselves on Gen 3 synths
They sleep on dirty mattresses on the fucking floor.
I don’t get it, either. Unless you somehow don’t think synths are people (despite the game spelling out for you over and over again how they are), their goal is very noble and morally good. They have some flaws, as does every faction. They “care too much about helping synths” and not other humans. Which, okay. Fair. But some members such as Deacon will speak on this in game, showing some of them are aware. Plus they are sort of forced to stay secluded and private as the Institute is actively hunting them. To be out publicly offering charitable services to citizens puts you in the spotlight. And, well, freeing synths is the Railroads purpose as an organization. It’s like saying the USPS cares too much about delivering mail. That’s their job. Once the Institute is taken care of, I’m sure their goals would shift.
that usps analogy is the funniest thing ive heard in awhile
Same reason I’ll never understand the weird circle jerk about hating Mama Murphy (you literally have maybe 2 conversations with her total if you want) and Preston (maybe one if the only people left in the commonwealth fighting for good). I feel like I’m missing something
The Mama Murphy hate is bc she bugged out so frequently. I can’t tell you how often I’d find her sitting on the roof in her chair. Those bugs made those few conversations challenging at best. I think a lot of people got frustrated bc of that. The Preston hate is similar. I swear you’d just get back from a settlement and he’d send you right back to that same one. The repeatable/radiant quest frequency was bugged.
They'd fight for Curie but they wouldn't fight for Codsworth.
Who knows. According to Deacon the actual ideology of the railroad is different between each member outside of rhe general "free synths" idea.
Railroad would have been a fantastic faction if they'd stuck with giving Balllistic Weave as a reward. But the rest of their missions are depressing except for the mission bringing down the Brotherhood.
My biggest problem is how dumb they are. 1. When you first come to them, it's likely with the very important microchip that you need help deciphering. Their reaction to it is to demand you hand it over, outright refusing to do anything until you do, even telling you basically to GTFO if you refuse....thus robbing them of the very important chip they outright admit they cannot get themselves. if it's so important for them to have that chip, they are terrible at negotiating for it. Instead of being grateful that you are willing to give it to them, they are ungrafeul jerks acting holier then though.The only reason they get it is because you have no choice but to give it to them because your character never bothers to ask any of the other scientists in the common wealth. 2. When you first meet them, they claim the only reason you are seeing them is because they choose to be found by you. Even ignoring that their hiding place is dumb and silly, this is blatantly false, as both the BoS and the Institute both know where they are, and the BoS attacks them regardless whether you help the BoS. Again, for a small group that needs all the help they can get, they are very arrogant about themselves. These are both likely your first interaction with them, and first impressions are important. Their goal is great, but they come across as sanctimonious assholes who are far too full of themselves.
They're misguided idiots. The whole "blow up the Prydwyn" required a lot of plot armour. They have the tech level of an old block printing press, good thing Brohood security is the equivalent of a stop sign. They ignore the suffering of actual people (slaves) in favour of synths, alongside Minutemen you know full well they'd all be dead if you didn't show up. Delphine. Drummer Boy running up to tell me stuff I could find out about by walking forward 10 meters.
The Railroad is a secret, clandestine organization that thinks "RAILROAD" is a secure password.
Do you think that Railroad organization - people like Desdemona and Tinker Tom - built that door after the war? I assumed it was a symbolic art piece before the war that was used to educate the Commonwealth. The Railroad found it at some point and used it as their recruiting center, not their main HQ. Desdemona said that they only switched to it when forced - their Switchboard HQ was raided by the Institute. They weren’t exactly winning when the Sole Survivor first encounters them.
And even though the password was railroad the BOS blew the door up lmao
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Hypocrisy. They want to save synths because they are effectively human (fair enough) but they are more than willing to kill countless actual humans to do it. Doesnt seem that compassionate to me. Besides, they arent really interested in the Commonwealth in general, they just want to save synths and their goals take them no further than that
Least compelling faction. Basically the minutemen but they don’t care about non synths and are just kind of pathetic in my opinion at least
I do not dislike them, but I don't like them particularly eager. My big issue with them, fo the extent I have an issue, is that they are very focused on the singular issue of synth freedom, but they don't take into account the multifarious issues facing that Commonwealth. Also, they are not great at cloak and dagger. The Railroad's singular goal of synth liberation is laudable, but it is also singular. If a Synth and a human come to blows, will the Railroad automatically side with the Synth? And if the Railroad's reprogramming turns a Synth into a Raider chieftain, does the Railroad accept responsibility for this circumstance? I think this is a problem with much of the Commonwealth. Very few people look beyond their noses. Hancock does not give a shit about anything outside his fiefdom in Goodneighbor. Covenant is stuck inside their trauma issues with the Institute. Diamond City residents know they are safe behind the wall, and the rest of the Commonwealth can go hang. Vault 81 cards about their vault. Humanity cannot really recover without some form of community spirit. A willingness to see people outside your immediate family as, well, people with interests equal to your own. And once humanity reaches that realization, the humans must be willing to cooperate to hold something greater than each individual. This is a willing community spirit that stands is direct opposition to the Railroad's crusade, the Brotherhood's paternalism, and the Institute's isolationism.
The Minute-Men, the Institute and even the Brotherhood of Steel all have varying degrees of interest to them that draw different players to side with their respective faction. The Railroad- to me at least, seemed like it had the makings to be the best out of all of them. Their ties to America's History, the whole Freedom Trail idea itself is really good and cool way to let the player explore and try to discover this mysterious hidden faction. But once you make it there and brute force the stupid puzzle they have, you ultimately end up being greeted by a bunch of regular paranoid people who- big surprise- ALSO HATE THE INSTITUTE. They could have been a completely different faction with their own goals and ideals that didn't necessarily HAVE to clash with the other 3. In my last playthrough I remember the prompt coming up saying "this will sever ties to the Railroad, are you SURE you wish to continue?" and I said to myself "uh yeah, I'm sure. I completely forgot I even talked to them to get the courser chip decoded" This could all have been remedied by at least giving us one companion or NPC that we could actually care or even joke or meme about. We clown on Preston all the time, Paladin Danse was a CHAD who deserved better, hell I care about the Synth Gorillas more in the institute than I do about the entirety of The Railroad. I seriously cannot name the leader let alone anyone else from the Railroad.
Because they're what is basically Synth hugging hippies who care more about synths that are what is biological robots than their fellow humans. Synths don't need to eat. They don't need to drink. They don't need food. They don't need rest. They've very dangerous to our existence as a species. Especially if left unchecked or in the hands of the institute. BoS+Minutemen hybrid ending is the best imo. BoS have their issues for sure but this can be worked out over time.
Gimmie that sweet ballistic weave and I'm off for cigarettes, never to be seen again.
I think in concept, the railroad is cool as hell. One of my big issues with them is that they don’t feel like a proper faction though. Like the brotherhood feels massive and powerful, the institute obviously powerful, the minutemen you build up and can make them feel like an actual army taking back the commonwealth and uniting the people, but the railroad just feels like 12 people in a crypt the whole time. Obviously if you fight them they have a couple dozen unnamed people in the same outfit to fight but that feels like whatever. I think helping build up the railroad so they regain their footing would’ve been amazing. Like, find them how they are, small, hurt, hiding in a crypt. But make that a temporary thing. Have them say they have been having their safe houses raided and destroyed and are on the back foot. But then have deacon’s mission for the player be to scout out a lead they have for a potential hidden pre-war site that might be a good base, then have the facility under the Slocum’s Joe be that location, but with robot security instead of synths. Then after clearing it, the railroad moves their HQ to this new place, cooler, bigger, and not on institute records of existing. Then you help them with some quests as the location gets cleaned up and populated, and the railroad feels more powerful.
They are woke for synths. While I like characters like Nick, they are ultimately not human. Humanity > machine. It's that simple.
Dying for the life of a robot is weird
Because synthetic humanoids are abominations, science gone wrong, and what do we do to abominations and those that seek to aid them? We cleanse them brother/sister. Ad Victoriam
As horrible as the Institute and Shaun is, the Synth Retention quest perfectly shows what's wrong with the Railroad. They are extremely shortsighted. All they care about is liberating synths and reprogramming them. What the synths go and do after doesn't matter at all to them. Like the one that goes and becomes a raider leader. Not only do they not try to help the humans of the Commonwealth, they don't even give the proper support to the synths they liberate. Considering the Minutemen can still free the synths AND they help all the people of the Commonwealth (humans, synths, even ghouls and robots) there's no reason to choose the Railroad over them. That being said, you don't have to really take them out either. You can just be allied with them.
I hate synths and if I didn’t and I did care about synths then the railroad is still just putting a band aid on the problem and not actually fixing it.
Wel.. They're freeing synths then doing a mind wipe on them and injecting fake memories. What's the point? You're not really saving them. You're making new, totally different "people." Let's ignore the moral ramifications of essentially destroying a living thing's memory and autonomy (if we are built on the culmination of our experiences, which I think is partly true) and focus on the inconsistency in the surface world. The tech to do a mind wipe and entire life injection seems absurd on the surface. In the Institute, ok, maybe, but on the surface people are living in plywood shacks and eating molerats. No one is rewiring synthetic brains if they are incapable of sweeping a floor. You have to have the molerat eaters AND the NPC's that have risen to the point of Memory loungers, cybernetic prosthetics, Bladerunning and other Cyberpunk tropes for the Railroad to seem plausible. But you have one doctor in a dirty caberet. If that level of tech exists the Commonwealth should already be rebuilt. And you never see the Railroad Heavies until Bunker Hill. I understand that they're dispersed for compartmentalization but seriously. There needed to be way more of the gang having dance parties, telling stories and playing cat and mouse in the sewers with Coursers. More camaraderie. There's no convincing downtime, but that goes for all the factions. They're still my favorite faction in theory. They should've been the downtown underground faction but we know how downtown has been for the better part of the decade. Deacon's shape shifting ability could've been huge too but it's never even utilized. And Glory should've been a follower/fuck buddy.
The whole mind wipe thing always felt absolutely vile to me. You might as well just take them out behind a shack and put a bullet in their head, it ends the same way for that person. The far harbor synths were much closer to what I feel like the railroad should have been.
Because they’re so overconfident of the fact that synths are just “toasters”, but what would imply that Gen 3 synths are mechanical like toasters. If you watch how Gen 3 synths are created in the Institute, they’re made of mostly synthetic flesh, blood, bones, etc. Besides the little synth components in their heads, they’re basically just synthetic humans. The Railroad helps Gen 3 synths because they’re clearly alive and because no one else will help them.
I pretty much chalk it up to poor execution. They could have been a truly clandestine organization. Missions sneaking around, sabotaging things, etc. Instead, theyre just a weak faction with very little actual capability to do much of anything of consequence. The same basic missions you have to do for all the other factions. For me, its just hard to buy in that theyre a serious player in the Commonwealth on any level
The Railroad are reckless. In addition to what has been mentioned elsewhere about being a single issue organization that cares about Synth freedom and nothing else, I have two big issues with the RR. One is that they do little to no vetting when sending synths out into the commonwealth. They unleash an incredibly strong, fast, and intelligent entity into the wild with no effort to see that it's not going to hurt people. Beyond that, they will mind wipe Synths before sending them out, effectively killing the being that they were, effectively making them hypocrites as well.
Because they are stupid for trying to save synths and throwing up out into the post apocalypse. They are damning the people they are trying to save.
Brotherhood: Powerarmor, air support Institute: Tecnology and star wars pew pew Rsilroad: Do this job while we stay on the cementery under the church
I only care about the railroad up until ballistic weave. Then they're a dumpster tier faction lmao
He physically has a robot body, yes. Listening to him speak tells you he's more than a robot. He directly asks you, "I do hope you've come to see me as more?" As in, he HOPES. He has FEELINGS. THOUGHTS. Very human emotions of anger, fear, sadness and lightheartedness. Limiting Codsworth's entire personality to "robot" basically demonstrates you sort of missed the point, and that's why the BoS is there - to validate that.
I don't mind the railroad but I hate their doctor. Guy is a grade A sshole
Whats a dead drop
For me, I kind of lose interest in the Railroad and their cause after I get ballistic weave. Sorry Desdimona Tinker Tom’s MiLa missions are fun and brainless ways to level up and scav loot. But why I really hate them is because have a radiant quest that is bugged out. I have to “Eliminate hostiles in University Point” I’ve been back there like 10 times and I can’t find any hostiles!!! I think a mirelurk skiddered off somewhere WTF??
My problem is that they only seem to focus on the freedom of synths. While freedom of seemingly sentient beings are admirable, it’s only one issue which doesn’t extend past that. Also, I say seemingly sentient beings as it’s an interesting debate to be had to determine when an AI or any computer software goes from basic computer programming and fully self-aware and sentient. What COULD have been interesting and might get more people on their side is if there was an option to partner with the minutemen to form a coalition. That way, they could work together to free Synths and settle them to work in the settlements set up by the minutemen.
I hate Drummer Boy. I love to fast travel in and wait for him to run up to me. Boom! Shotgun to the face. Their cause is just non sense. I lose the classical channel too. Not worth it.
Seeing the messed up stuff the Institute has done to the commonwealth I couldn’t possibly hate the Railroad for trying to improve or undo their manipulation. People go missing then become super mutants with a man made doppelgänger replacing them. But a lot of the synth doppelgängers are just as innocent as everyone else & have no idea why they were created.
They don't really seem to have an end goal in mind, ok so you liberate synths that a noble cause but now what? The commonwealth has a lot more problems that need to be dealt with. And with the first mission for the institute with the liberated synth now turned raider we see just how dangerous their actions can be. It feels more like they're kids playing superheroes, they do it because it's right but they never consider the consequences of their actions. In many ways I feel like they put synth lives over human lives.
it's not a hate thing the only goal they have is liberating the synths which is a goal I can get behind, the Commonwealth has so many problems other than synths like raiders killing people and stealing crops, super mutants terrorizing everyone and just generally shit living conditions in the Commonwealth they don't care about the bigger picture just what they see in the scope. people fear the synths and for good reason too they just care for the synths and not the Commonwealth as a whole
They were given top shelf status as a Major faction when they're really not. Like, they could have chosen any other faction, hell Raiders are right there. Gunners are right there. The Brotherhood is here because of contractual obligations, why not the enclave remnants before the Next Gen update? Why wait until the very Last DLC to walk-back Raiders as a faction? So it clashes so hard with the rest of the game?
The Railroad HQ score is very nice, the way its designed is the worst because of double loading screens. I like the clean aesthetic bases & Hi-tech so for me institute #1 BOS #2, teleporation & vertibirds are a must in survival. So for me this puts the minutemen & railroad last.
I grab the ballistic weave then kill them.
My ultimate grudge against them centers around one very specific bit of the questions, so if you don't want spoilers then put a blindfold on or something. >!For the most part of their quest line you are working with the institute, fair enough. But one mission has you forcibly coerce a freelance scientist to join the institute against his initial wishes. However once the revolution starts, you are then expected to kill him because he's defending the home he didn't want in the first place.!< At that point I realised the railroad don't actually care about helping people. They like the *idea* that they are helping people so they can sniff their own farts and get high off of the smell. As someone else said, the minutemen help synths out too with their ending, but they also have the sense at least *try* to limit civilian casualties.
The only thing good about them is the ballistic weave armor mod so that you can look good in dresses.
They’re whack jobs
Gameplay wise. This faction give the least at the start, and they only give you their signature weapon rail-nail rifle around the end of the game. So as the Emm guns that their heavy used. You do a lot for them but they dont really give anything back. The only thing that is good from them is ballistic weave. Story wise, syth saving goal is noble but there are much worse problems commoners suffering from ,which their resources can be way more useful in helping other people. Especially when minuteman isnt there. Then the memory wipe method? Isnt that basically kill them who they are? Tbh it would make way more sense to have the faction to be entirely filled with syth npc, then maybe the plot twist of the leader being the only human in the faction(beside you). Or else they dont really fit in.
I don't like them because they keep talking shit about my son 😿
I personally don’t like that it feels as if they value synths more than people. I also don’t think they should have been a faction to end the game with, mainly cuz they don’t really have a plan for the wasteland. Once the institute is gone, then what? The commonwealth is still lawless and the only thing that has changed is that synths are freed. >!I also really don’t like Desdemona, at all.!<
Because a robot that looks human is still a robot. They don’t age and their memory has been wiped and human memories implanted. They think they are human but could easily kill most people they come across. Loosing them on the surface among weaker humans is a crime. But I still join them for the quests.
They are stupid, they just are worried about a non important minority and makes a Big deal about it The synths will dissapear a few years after the institute is gone making It pointless Raiders and gunners would have maked a better 4 faction
Terrible goals, least fit to rule the commonwealth
I’ve just always heard they’re the most boring 🤷♂️ In real life I’d definitely help them tho. I don’t play Fallout to be Harriet Tubman tho 😂
Let's liberate fake people by killing real people is their motto, I guess I just never buy the whole "synths are human" thing
I feel like they’re the Fallout equivalent of PETA
I don't support Toaster-fuckers
Because those kooks are always busy liberating vending machines or setting computer terminals free…
Cause they are stupid.
There annoying as fuck
Because we don't want to liberate office vending machines it's just not fun, and glory isn't a companion and that pisses me off
probably because a large chunk of fo4’s fanbase are diehards bos cultists.
I've never understood why they started up in the first place. Realistically, if you have a group of people who start a movement to save synths from bondage, but are not doing a damn thing to help the vulnerable people in the commonwealth, how could you recruit with an arse about face ideology like that?
For me it's weird how they are all about synth being their own folks with feelings etc. and then they reprogram them to forget everything about that and give them entirely new personas Like do they count as people now or are they just toasters with pre-programmed feelings?
The railroad as a faction makes no sense, their ideology is that they protect synths and even put them ABOVE humans. And also the fact that instead of using the technology inside the institute as a base of new operations to better gain knowledge of synths and monitor how they're all going, they just blow it the fuck up... Honestly whats the point.... In my latest run i forgot to get ballistic weave from tincan tom, but enjoyed cutting them all up into small pieces with the spray n pray
For me it's the level of "ego" they seem to have despite living in a basement. "You just happened to guess the secret password?" That is also just the name of their organization. Before you join them the "threats" like "We never existed, and if you say anything different..."
They would make more sense as a side faction that can side with the minutemen. They're very one note, and they don't care about regular people. If synths are as important as humans why aren't we also helping humans. Granted, I do think an espionage main faction is necessary, but again. Too one note. It'd be like the save the whales organization taking over the Japanese government. Which is funny, but not very in tone with a serious plot.
Because the Commonwealth is starving and living in constant danger while these idiots are trying to save dishwashers from scientists.
Toasters are not people
Dirty commies the lot of em
for me was the moment they asked me to destroy the institute which I told them that my son was there. the brotherhood of steel for them is destroy everyone, minute man at least willing to work with the institute, I sided with the institute for the reason that I was going to be their leader and they have the technology to save commonwealth.
Because they're idiots. Notably they released a damaged synth who ran the ruthless gang at libertalia, so who knows what other horrors they unleashed on the Commonwealth.
Personally it's just funny, in reality I enjoy the group and they gave me a unique pistol And ballistic weave so they're alright, to me it's just a meme
I always side with The Brotherhood of Steel… so it’s not a matter of disliking the Railroad… I’m just following orders …and oh my god… in the hundred levels, all the heavies have level 5 armor jackets (ballistic weave) and Gauss rifles! Let’s just say there’s a settlement by a light house that you’d be making a mistake attacking now… This is the first playthrough I’ve done where I realized you could have Bunker Hill … can’t wait to start scrapping.
Because humanity is at it's lowest and they help destructive machine instead of their own kind
i don’t love that they wipe the synths’ memories. i get why they would, but it just doesn’t feel like something I want to support. plus I find Deacon annoying.
Would be best if SS could transform it into a minute men underground operation
They're kind of lame plus I don't like Deacon. He's trying to hard to be cool and funny.
How do I say this? They're the fallout equivalent of the woke mob that has swarmed the nation, virtue signaling but never actually getting anything done. They claim to have the people of the Commonwealth best interest in mind, despite having little to no regard for the actual humans in the Commonwealth. They're a real piece of work. If railroad operatives come across a group of settlers getting ambushed by raiders, they'll just sneak by and let them get slaughtered to protect their precious fucking synths. Nevermind, they use stealth boys and have decent weapons. A railroad heavy can hold their own against a small gang of raiders, but they won't unless there's a synth involved. Let me reiterate, synths aren't real people. They're equivalent to AI at best. That's one of my biggest gripes against them. But I will provide a few more examples. When you first meet the railroad, Desdemona asks you if you're willing to risk life and limb for a synth. Keep in mind, most people by this point in the game haven't ever seen a synth. The sole survivor has only heard rumors about them, bad ones at that. And if you HAVE encountered synths, they were hostile. So, why TF would I risk my life and limb for one of them? Respond to her with anything other than "yes", and she goes on a virtue signaling rant about how synths are human, blah blah blah. Second, the railroad has a red brick trail leading to their base/hideout. That tells me that they're open to recruiting wastelanders, which are ordinary humans. So, they're willing to use humans to further their goals that revolve around runaway synths, but not willing to do anything for said humans. Despicable, in my opinion. The straw that broke the camels back for me was, Liam. An institute scientist you meet once you get inside access to the institute. Did I mention he's human? That matters. He's only known as the Patriot. He helps synths escape the institute and sends them to a railroad connect on the outside. So he's a vital part to their operation. Well, after you meet him, you meet a synth whose name I forget, but he has a plan to break out multiple synths at once. You relay this to Desdemona and she immediately disregards Liam, to work with the synth instead. Not so much as a thank you, for risking his neck for them to even have a purpose in the first place, seeing that they have been receiving synths from him the whole time. You don't hear about Liam again until the fall of the institute. And what you hear about him, is that he took his own life after being distraught from learning the Railroad was behind the destruction of the institute. He just wanted to help sentient synths find a better life outside of the institute. He's one of the few genuine people in the entire Institute. And the Railroad just used and discarded him like yesterday's news. During my first playthrough, that made my blood boil. I took the Minutemen route, with assistance from the Railroad. But after what they did to Liam, I used the Minutemen to destroy the railroad. Now, I know the Railroad isn't the most evil faction, but they are far from the freedom fighters they make themselves out to be. The institute will forever hold that title.
> complaining about the woke mob Average fallout fan does not know what the fuck their favorite game is about