IIRC - there is/was a discord group for that, and even if the mod isn’t supported, you may be able to glean fixes or console commands to skip borked sections. Might be worth the effort if you refuse to give in.
And never forget, you can lob a smoke/targeting grenade and call in an airstrike from the the Castle or nearby settlements as well. Saturation bombing ftw. 
Thanks once again for all your great help and advice, PL. I started playing again since I forgot it’s my wife’s book club night so I’m on my own. I decided to abandon my quixotic attempt to try to get the Institute quest to play through-- this mod is buggy enough as it is 
So I went back to a save point (before leaving vault 816) where I had gotten a warning “last chance to opt out of the ‘Diamond City Wins’ option before you leave the vault!” so I did, and I’ve gotten a new quest, “Makin’ it Official”. It’s probably going to be one of those non-combat talky quests that go on way too long, but at least there’s still some more content left without the DCW scenario…
Welp, I completed the “Makin’ it Official” quest last night, and it was indeed one of those patented FSD non-combat talky quests that go on way too long, but I was ready for that, so I sat back and settled in for it. And then…credits roll 
The wedding questline was a nice, satisfying denoument to the story and the characters, despite my character having almost nothing to do. I was hoping there’d be a bit of extra content after I canceled the doomed ‘Diamond City Wins’ scenario, but I knew I was probably close to the end. And just when I was finally made Deputy! I still have a couple side quests to complete, but my time with the FSD is almost at an end (other than the never-ending radiant bounty quests, of course-- but basic ‘kill and fetch’ quests get boring fast).
I’m thinking I should probably take some leave from the wasteland for awhile, and try another game. Have you started Outer Worlds 2 yet, @ParallelLines ? Let me know, when you do, how you’re liking it. I don’t know if I’ll pick it up right away-- will probably keep my eye out for a future Steam sale. Any recs for ‘retro’ games in a similar vein will be welcome too. For example, I not too long ago played ‘Half Life 2’ and ‘Black Mesa’ (the modernized reboot of HL1) and enjoyed them a lot.
I managed to get configured and working well with new video card… And then real life interfered. Right now I’m 63o miles from home helping my folks out. But soon!
Retro I’ve done recently: BioShock remasters, shadowrun dragonfall and hong kong, city of heros on the homecoming server.
Ugh, I can relate. Been part of the ‘sandwich generation’ for awhile now-- aging parents and in-laws needing care, and children not yet or partially launched, still needing help and assistance (on the plus side, one of my kids has given me some very helpful gaming tips in the past!). Good on ya. Hope you do get back to some gaming time soon!
BioShock looks like something I’d enjoy, and at $20, the price is nice. Thanks!
No problem. And it is a combination of a minor health emergency and several minor to severe tech emergencies so…
With luck I’ll finish tomorrow and drive home Sunday or Monday. I’m in charge of tech, the other brother the doctah is in charge of health.
As someone who’s played the original Bioshock multiple times and at multiple difficulty levels on both original version and remaster, I don’t recommend playing on the hardest difficulty level in remaster (i.e. Survivor). Not because of the difficulty, but because it saps a lot of the fun from the game.
It was something they added for the remasters, and it actually breaks the fourth wall. In the very beginning Atlas gives you a basic fighting tactic where you use electroshock on a splicer and then hit them with the wrench for an insta-kill. This works on early splicers because electroshock both stuns enemies briefly (or until they take damage) and increases melee damage done against them. It works on every difficulty but survivor.
On survivor, they have so many hit points, it doesn’t work. Most of the “fun” tactics in Bioshock don’t work on survivor. Bioshock is not a hard game, so even Survivor is comparatively easy to a lot of other games’ hardest mode, but I found Survivor just wasn’t fun. Because it turned a game where a lot of the fun was coming up with creative ways to use your environment and plasmids to kill enemies to just a bog-standard shooter where the point is to just do maximum damage as quickly as possible.
Thanks for the tip, but don’t worry— I’d never play a game on survival level on first playthrough. I have a difficult enough time on normal difficulty level 
I’ve heard survival mode in Fallout 4 is well done, and makes it feel like a whole different, more immersive game, so maybe someday I’ll do a FO4 replay in survival mode.
So the remastered Bioshock version added a survival level, eh? I would have assumed ‘remastered’ meant they just improved the resolution / quality of the graphics. Any other changes from the original game?
Mostly it is just graphical changes. Some bugs are fixed, and other bugs are introduced. It’s more stable on some systems and less stable on others. Also, apparently on certain levels, splicers on fire no longer run to water to extinguish themselves. (One of the things you learn early on in the game is shooting an electrobolt plasmid attack at water will instakill most splicers.*)
*(Also will take a significant amount of your health off if you happen to be standing in the water, too, so don’t do that when employing this tactic.)
Here are two links that explain the differences.
https://www.g2a.com/news/features/original-bioshock-vs-bioshock-remastered/
Playing on survival mode on the Xbox One definitely introduced a lot of tension: would I be able to find a bed in time to save my game before it crashes?
More seriously, removing fast travel made a big difference (e.g. compared to survival mode in New Vegas where you could fast travel to your home base whenever you got thirsty).
If, at some future date, you want to do a survival playthrough that makes a bit more sense, I’d add a couple of add-ons (note, haven’t done survival since 2024 or thereabouts, so may/may note work with latest patches):
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/70656
(patch where humanoids you loot are like to have water, or at least empty bottles, I mean they have to drink as well!)
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/72409
You drink water? You get an empty bottle back. You eat 200 year old canned food? You get an empty can. Basically, appropriate crafting items/world loot materials than you can then use as parts.
There was also a perk that I cannot find anymore that also used to let you refill water bottles (depending on source it would be dirty or purified) as long as you had empty bottles, kind of like the Sink (at the big MT) in FNV.
Basically, adding realism that was helpful, not just harmful, which applied well to a survival playthrough.
Thanks guys! Great survival mode tips PL; will definitely remember this post if and when I do get back to the wasteland and play survival.
For now though, I downloaded and started ‘BioShock Remastered’ last night. Fun game-- interesting unfolding story, engaging gameplay without killing me too often right at the start, and nice looking graphics. A little dark for my liking (in terms of lack of photons reaching my retinas, not story-wise). I know it’s supposed to be dark for the ‘spooky’ factor, but it’s so dark I can barely see what I’m looting. Will I ever come across a flashlight? I might calibrate my monitor to be a bit brighter.
I now understand what these sentences mean! Thanks for the tips H_F, they really helped me right off the bat. Took just a little practice with the ‘shock - swap to wrench - bash’ technique before I got it down.
You’re welcome. At some point if you want I can give you some amusing tactics to use to kill Big Daddies without actually doing any real combat against them.
The game is really great with how creative you can be with tactics, especially with some of the later weapons.
I recently killed my first Big Daddy-- I kinda lucked out, since I had a decent amount of extra-powerful machine gun ammo (antipersonnel or armor-piercing) and I had already hacked a turret (or whatever they’re called-- they act like FO4 turrets) in the area, which kept it occupied and softened it up for me.
I’m having a bit of trouble getting past the second Big Daddy I’ve encountered, since there doesn’t seem to be a turret around to hack, and I’m all out of the extra-powerful machine gun ammo. But I know games provide what you need to fight the things as you encounter them. I’m guessing the trick to easily killing BDs, at least in the early stages, is some combo of hacking turrets to do much of the damage for you, and also distracting them, like with the target dummy ability? I had a chance to buy ‘target dummy’ but picked up some other upgrades with my limited resources instead. A mistake, maybe?
Any tips on fighting or dealing with the grenade launching turrets? I can catch and launch grenades back at them all day with my telekinesis ability, but they don’t seem to be destroyable. I’ve also tried to get up close enough to shock and hack them, but they don’t seem hackable (or maybe I just keep dying before I get a chance to hack them).
If I remember the second fight, it’s one of the hardest because you don’t have much to work with. For the early Big Daddy’s, my best tactic was to load up on electro-buck with the shotgun. Electrobuck will shock them long enough for you to hit them again with another electrobuck. Unfortunately, the shotgun only starts with a four-shot magazine and it’s slow to reload. So it’s going to be a bit of a slog as you slowly reload while trying to dodge a relentless killing machine. I never really used the target dummy. I played around with it on a lark on of my re-runs, but I find it’s one of the weaker plasmids. YMMV.
They are destroyable. Even with their own grenades. I’m guessing you’re not aiming quite right. But until you get your own grenade launcher, telekinesis is really your only option to destroy them. (You can launch gas canisters at them as well if there are any around.)
You can hack them, but as I recall, electroshock was a fairly short interval so you have to get their quickly before they come out of it.
The best plasmid for hacking is the freeze plasmid. Not only does it pause the mechanical enemies, but it slows the pace of pipe game. Because the water is frozen or such. I always thought that was a nice touch.
I’ve played Bioshock a number of times and none of this is sounding very familiar! Maybe it’s time to play 1 & 2 again (I’ve played Infinite in the past couple of years, I think.)
I managed to kill the second Big Daddy. I think I used a combo of electro-buck shot to temporarily stop it, and the fire plasmid to incinerate it.
With the ADAM I gained from that encounter, I purchased the target dummy plasmid, and am currently trying it out on a third Big Daddy. I think you’re right, it seems like a mostly useless ability so far-- it only lasts a couple seconds, and once I attack the Big Daddy, it immediately ignores the dummy and attacks back at me.
And RE: the grenade turrets, yeah, the one I was throwing grenades back to was far away, and I think you’re right, my aim was just off. I have mostly gotten the hang of hacking them, which I figure is always better than destroying them-- gotta sidle up carefully, time the grenade launches so I don’t get a grenade in the face, then shock and quickly hit the hack button.
Thanks for the tip on the freeze plasmid! Once I take out the third Big Daddy, that will be the very next plasmid I purchase. And you’re right-- as I gain more abilities and weapons, I’m beginning to see that there are a fun number of creative combos to take out foes.
The dummy is more useful against groups of splicers. You can either use it to sneak by them, or just get them to bunch together, then hit them with an area effect attack. Big Daddies are smarter and more focused than splicers typically are.
But it doesn’t last very long, and it seemed I always had better plasmids to slot in.
Oh, and regarding the freeze plasmid, if you like looting your enemies, don’t use it against splicers and then kill them. Shattered corpses leave no loot. But you can certainly injure them while frozen and take their life down enough where you can easily kill them when they thaw.
If you want to thaw them faster, hit them with the fire plasmid.
(Note the same thing applies to the chemical weapon ice/fire gels.)
In fact, if you want extra loot, anytime you find a frozen living splicer, feel free to thaw it out. It’ll attack you, but you can get loot. There’s one section where you find a bunch of them and they will all explode if you walk far enough into the room. Or you can just thaw them one-by-one slowly and take them out for the loot.
What difficulty level are you on?
Hey, try Bioshock Infinite some time. I played it last year and really liked it, even more than the original. I own, but have so far skipped, Bioshock 2.