5 Easy Ways to Fix The Railroad In Fallout 4

I would have liked fallout 4 to do something slightly different from other Bethesda games, present the institute as so terribly powerful only by uniting the Railroad, BOS, Diamond City, and Minutemen could you have any chance of defeating them. The final quest would be a death star trench race against the clock where if you fail, humanity would really be redefined, forever.

One thing that put me off railroad is that it is their standard procedure to erase and replace the memories and personalities of the synths that they breakout, at least some of rich need up being particularly tough raiders. So their not helping those synths because they are gone, other synths have to deal with increased suspicion and everyone else gets even more problems.

Honestly one of the worst parts of Mercer Safehouse is when the random location is in a place that is just flat out impractical, like Spectacle Island. I'm sorry but HOW are people supposed to get there? Most people aren't going to swim that far. Heck, the player shouldn't be able to swim that far. And by forcing the safehouse to be at Outpost Zimonja, that ties in to the operational security side suggested.

Honestly my number 1 issue with railroad is thematic dissonance.

The game markets the Railroad as this stealth secret society that at least in central boston has information network as good as the institute and how they hide in plain sight.

But you find their base in 5 minutes, and all of their quests can be described as "stealth is optional"

There should have been massive stealth bonuses for their quests, or at the very least make the combat encounters push the player to avoid open conflict by having lots of high tier enemies in them.

The whole encryption over the radio thing reminds me so much of a video, "turning the titan missile key" where a guy explains the launching process of a ICBM. Calling back to that using radio encryption would have been amazing

Another missed opportunity for the railroad is political agitation. Make them spread their ideology in various covert ways. Bootleg radios, posters and graffiti, phamplets and rallies, that sort of thing. Make the Railroad feel like they are doing something to convince the populace of their position.

You didn't mention that the railroad "saves" synths by essentially murdering them by eliminating everything which might make them an individual. Why not just shoot them in the head? This is what made me want nothing to do with them...

But on the other hand it makes the robobrains in the automatrons dlc far more relatable, seeing as they have the same great idea.

Your analysis is great and the ideas presented all have merit and would've been great additions to the Railroad.

The issue is... it's Bethesda. Since Oblivion, their focus has been on pumping out trash for profit instead of actually having devs with the ability to think analytically.

I wanted more codenames and them to actually refer to me by my codename. The codenames available should be taken from how people refer to you. Piper refers to the Sole Survivor as "Blue", "Iceman" as a tribute to being cryofrozen and even "The Shroud" or "Silver Shroud" after having finished the relevant quest. Not that the standard codenames are bad, but...
Yeah, I'm nitpicking, but its the smll things that make something feel juat a tiny bit better.
Yeah the MILA quests are so annoying and the save houses really could have been differently chosen.

What if the Railroad is a bunch of Synths instead of a bunch of humans?

I didn't realise the Railroad was so hated. I actually think the worst faction is the SPECIFICALLY THE FALLOUT 4 Brotherhood. They're like "oh we're like yee-olden brotherhood we hate outsiders oh hey a vault dweller let's invite him into the fold" and it's stated on the ship that they do infact recruit from local population even though you wouldn't expect that from em. anyway anyway.

railroad also is kinda bad i do admit because they're questline is not really that unique you literally just do institute for 90% of it and the quests that are railroad are super basic like the quest where you kill like 8 gen 2 synths inside that digsite and thats the whole quest. i think if it wasn't for deacon i wouldn't like the railroad nearly as much

I’ve been doing this joint minutemen/RR play through and only at the beginning of the RR quest line and I already see a major flaw with Glory’s character. She’s a synth that believes that all synth should be free’d from the institute not just the gen 3’s which could lead to interesting story/character development about the morality of using robots as basically slave labor. Then it gets completely ignored besides a short mention by Deacon and Glory forgetting her morals by shredding gen 1 and 2 synth’s in Medford with a mini gun.

The problem with the Railroad's lack of popularity likely can only partially be attributed to their lack of operational effectiveness. Out of all the factions, only the Railroad's stated goals and reason for existence do not easily align to the best interests of humanity in general. If anything, they are ignoring existing issues that affect the humans of the Commonwealth to focus one some entities the player may not even consider "alive" or "sentient."

I think the Railroad shouldn't be a major faction. I like em but I think they'd dodge a lot of critique if they didnt have the expectation of s major faction. Less radiant quests to pad for time and having them just be a "doorway" to infiltrating the institute could be interesting. On repeat playthroughs you'd interact with and see the institute in different contexts. Preston is wary of trusting them since they deal with synths, but overall you can act very diplomatically, with them even reaching out to you if you've proven to be anti-institute.
The brotherhood would be much less tolerant, maxson wants to know how to bust into the institute and the railroad is a backdoor he's ready to smash in. Chasing after institute agents to capture and interrogste them, then storming their base or trying to calm down Maxson enough that he'd talk to them instead.

Finally, the institute would be the only faction you dont need the railroad to find, maybe they'd reach out for you on Shaun's orders. Afterwards Shaun tasks you with investigating the railroad, now a mysterious faction you're constantly chasing shadows of. With the final aim of destroying them or subverting them.

Although some people might find it boring, I would’ve loved to help negotiate a treaty. Hold up the Institute and through speech options and checks you negotiate a favorable outcome for the Railroad. Faction relations and compromise is so interesting to me. I think it also is a fascinating ending to have the Institute still exist but have them treat Synths better and no longer force them to spy on the Commonwealth.

As written, they’re a subfaction.

u dont have to switch between the radiants. you just have to leave railroad hq and do a "task". buying somthing from a vendor works for me

Another thing I wish we could do, is on one of the Glory missions, she states that when a Synth dies, their subconscious remains inside their brain chip for a limited time. Curie, when she's in a synth body, is still taking over a dead body. But, we could have the option of instead giving that body to Glory, who feels both terrible for taking over her old friends body, and struggles to adapt. Or, if we hold off on both until we get to the institute, we can make them both new bodies. Just something. Glory would be changed by this experience, maybe more aggressive or something, an idea to symbolise her change, and Curie could be customisable?

Just an idea.

This would be worth a RR play through. I get a mod to unlock ballistic weave just to avoid them. The running joke is just slaughtering them when you have the courser chip and doing it yourself

I played Railroad in my first and only full playthrough so I’m more of a fan than most (and it might be because I love Deacon)

Yeah the thing with radio transmissions.... the fact the Railroad did not use this for themself is baffling. Especially when they tell you that the classical radio station signal has harmonics that carry informations to trace coursers. Imagine if they had used that like for example RDS (Radio Data Service) for an FM Radio Station is transmitting Text infos for Song names or Station names and radio Clock time-sync signals. I mean this tech exists and it could have easily existed in the Fallout universe as well, to transmit simple digital informations to all Railroad agents.

The Biggest problem is why can't you just unite all fractions and make them work together? >_> why just making ONE of them strong? I don't get it. It makes no sense... We should have been able to unite them for a common cause. Making the place stable and safe to love for everyone. Ya know.. Apes together strong.

Railroad sucks..already did alternate faction endings..brotherhood is the only way every time...

If I'm not mistaken, Dima will say that there will be no more synths now, if you tell him that the Institute is destroyed. That would mean that synths are indeed infertile. Which I always assumed from the start anyway.

The only reason i ever sided with the railraod was the trophies, after that killed em all and went to nuka world to be a full blown raider

So... you mean if Bethesda had actually made the spy faction a spy faction instead of a reskin of all the others? I agree completely lol

The best fix for the Railroad would be to allow the player a second, more difficult series of objectives which open up the construction of ballistic weave. Without the weave, there is no reason to play nice with the Toaster Liberation Front other than obtaining Deacon's perk.

This isn't said to upset or disparage the people who like that faction. I could simply do without them since I don't buy into the idea of machines being people.

1 railroad board member and 1 minutemen board member ( brotherhood has to go )

This series of videos needs to be tweeted at the Fallout 4 devs.

I thought it was really interesting how you said people don't see the Railroad as a "real" faction. I agreed, but it took me a minute to figure out why.
I think I take issue with the fact that, the first time you roll up to the Railroad's headquarters, literally half the named characters roll out to greet you, including the faction leader. Desdemona, Glory, Deacon, Drummer Boy. There are like maybe two or three other named Railroad characters you meet over the course of the game, and that's about it.
The Minutemen, you meet Preston right away, but that's basically because he's the only one left. The Institute, the faction leader is literally your child, so it's understandable that he'd show up in person. The Brotherhood, your first interaction with them is with a smaller squad, and you don't even meet Maxon until after you've already dealt with Danse (probably) and seen the giant airship.
I know they wanted to give the impression that the Railroad is down on their luck at the moment, but honestly they didn't feel like an organization that could hold their own against Brotherhood and the Institute. They felt like a group of 20 people camping in a basement.

My biggest gripe with the Railroad is if you side with the Institute - it takes a single mission for Yang to completely wipe out Yin's headquarters & scatter all of Yin's remnants into post-game hell. Now Acadia is that Yin...and guess what...it takes a f&@♤ing sub-quest! "Undercooked", yeah, no larger understatement.

can this be a mod

The thing is, while the railroad questline isn't very compelling - neither are any of the other three major factions. They're all poorly written. So that's why I can't stop myself from playing the railroad. It's going to be garbage anyway, so I might as well make the morally correct decision to save the synths from eternal slavery since they're sentient beings.

I have nothing interesting to say. I am commenting in hopes that this will help with the algorithm. 👍

I think that there was a space for the Railroad to be a secondary faction. The problem is that the Railroad have no vision for the Commonwealth .

In Skyrim, there are two parallel narratives which touch, but are not contingent on each other - the Dragons (World ending stuff) and the Civil War (arguably more impactful on Skyrim as a place). The same would have been gangbusters in Fallout 4: there is the big ethical question of how to treat the synths, which is to dehumanize the gen 3 synths or not. And then there is the question of how to govern and be involved in the commonwealth the Commonwealth.

Each faction exists in these contexts:
The Institute is Isolationist/Anarchic (govern), Supremacist (relation), and Anti-personhood (synth question).
The Minutemen are Democratic/Confederated, Engaged, Neutral/lean personhood.
The Brotherhood are Authoritarian, Supremacist, and Anti-synth.

The Railroad don't have explicit policy on the first two. But, engaging with the Railroad can allow the player to inform change in other factions through internal usurpation, or by elimination of the Railroad, etc.

Calling them a faction is a struggle because the Railroad has no structural opinion about the Commonwealth.

I feel that instead of the password to their Headquarters being Railroad, you would instead have to find all of the Railsigns across the map. These Railsigns could have a letter nearby them, and after lining up the letters in a certain pattern, like in a star or circle formation, the Old North Church would be in the middle. And then, using these lined-up letters, you would figure out the password to the HQ. And also, get rid of the Freedom Trail altogether. You're telling me the Institute never heard the "follow the Freedom Trail" while an operative was in a city or something?

I think Oxhorn said it best when he said that every faction except the minutemen share two main weaknesses.
1:They’re intolerant to everything that doesn’t revolve around their ideology.
2: They rely too much on great leaders and charismatic personalities, (of whom their respective factions fall apart without them)

great ideas

The railroad heavies fighting the Bunker Hill residents after the battle of Bunker Hill meant I had to wipe them out. That sucked.

I don't get how the railroad wasn't easily found by the BOS or institute as if a random vault dweller can find it I'm sure they could

I love Vim

I would have fully expected the Railroad to take over the Institute, not blow it up. That way the Synths could use it as the ultimate safe house, and be able to construct more Synths if they want. Not that I want them to turn the scientists into slaves or anything, but maybe don't destroy the only means of making more Synths?

I do assume that they're sterile. I don't know how a baby could grow in the womb of a body that can't change mass, and doesn't need food or drink. What would a female Synth do, set a timer on a watch to remind herself to eat and drink regularly for the next nine months?

You should make mods for the game

In all my years, I didn't know mercer safe house was randomized.
For me it was always taffington boathouse

I think the railroad is so cool in concept, and all of your ideas would’ve made them such an awesome faction. Like really lean into the covertness and realism of spy shit y’know

TBH I think that secure comms would be really difficult due to the institute's level of technical advancement. Stenography would be cool or they could use a combination of tech and tradecraft. Near field communication is an amazing way of communicating when someone dominates the technical realm, combine that with dead drops, brush passes or another form of tradecraft and the institute would have a hard time cracking it. Then again when all the traders work for the SRB you're kind of in a shit sandwich 😂.

Id say the biggest oddity is how long the "Continue to work with Father" part lasts, it takes until "End of the Tracks" coming up for an event to trigger that wraps that up. (Also ever wonder how a pro Railroad synth in the Institute finds out the BoS found the Railroad?)

Maybe an alternative could of beem "Continue to work with Father or talk to (Synth name) to start the battle now" the earlier you do it the harder the battle is and less well armed the rebel synths are.

But you wouldnt have to do the awkward thing of delivering a speech or attend meetings if you dont want to, adding to player choice.

I also like your alternative to the Nuclear Option.

Really simple rail sign in affiliated settlements... flags.

See, my dislike for the Railroad stems from their core belief that in order for a synth to truly survive out in the commonwealth and the wasteland, their entire identity must be erased to make them think they are a human, therefore ERASING the fact they even wanted freedom in the first place and replace it with very little to go on. Isn't this, to an extent, what the Institute does with the synths they reclaim? They do the face change, they rebuild new memory framework and reprogram the synth. What does the Railroad do? They give the synths a face change, they wipe their memories and build them a new memory framework and reprogram the synth to not think its a synth. As well as the fact the Railroad even helped them in the first place and who all did. Erasing the synth's identity in this way could very well be the Railroad's way of making sure the synths don't implicate any of their agents if they were to be recaptured by the Institute in the future, but like... at least say that, yeah? Not "oh the only way they can truly be free is if they just completely forget they are a synth and think they're just some common wastelander from a random area". We see the sort of crisis a memory wiped synth can have when it comes to light that they aren't truly a person like their memories say they are in Paladin Danse. His entire world crashes down around him to the point that he begs to die unless you successfully convince him otherwise. Is that really the best way to give synths freedom? I'm not sure if the Railroad ever says that memory wipe is optional, and I'm pretty sure Glory just skirts around information about the Institute... just because? You'd think they'd want Glory to tell more information about the inner workings of the Institute instead of her never saying anything to them and the Railroad acting all surprised when they see what the Institute looks like? Why the heck didn't they ask the synths they were saving for information on the Institute???

On the other hand, I think Mercer Safehouse could've been done in a way better manner. Because in my Railroad playthrough, they sent me to Jamaica Plain. You know, the place that is famed for having treasures so people are always hypothetically charting the area to try and find hidden treasure. I had one quest to clear out a place, then they dropped the 'clear this location to make sure synth makes it to safety' despite phrasing it like it would be as common as clearing out random spots for Preston. I think using the settlement system to build a network of safehouses alongside the various escape routes they could use when getting synths out of the commonwealth would've been a way to utilize the settlements in a way that wasn't just building them up and saving them for the minutemen. Maybe you could only be restricted to settlements that have no prior settlers there (leaving out Oberland Station, Greentop Nursery, The Slog, places like that.). Kingsport Lighthouse would be good for getting synths up to Far Harbour, you mentioned Outpost Zimonja as a radio tower to communicate with the Railroad safehouses which would be a great idea, Hangman's Alley would be a good spot for moving synths through the city, Sunshine Tidings would be a good stop on getting synths out to the Capital Wasteland, potentially Starlight Drive In, too. But Jamaica Plain??? Unless you're specifically trying to set up a synth in that section of the commonwealth, I'm not sure if it's the best spot. Maybe Egret Tours Marina would've been a better choice? I also think it would've been neat if we actually got to check in with the other safehouses that are only mentioned.

You brought up a wonderful point about Old Man Stockton and all his caravans being institute informants. It was really weird to me that nothing ever came from that. Like, obviously that means Bunker Hill is compromised, yet you can't tell the Railroad that at all? There's literally nothing you can do about it despite how important of a detail that is???

It's also wild to me that you can look the Railroad in the eyes, say you think synths are nothing but tools and that you have no problem with the Institute, and that doesn't prompt them to shoot you where you stand AT THE DOOR TO THEIR MAIN HEADQUARTERS??? Todd, our actions and words should have consequences. If I spit on everything a faction believes in and stands for in front of them, they shouldn't be okay with letting me into their ranks anyway.