I've only done some missions for the Minutemen and Brotherhood.

I've done missions for all of those, haven't seen any others.

Seems like Skyrim had more than 4 factions.

4 factions are all there is and there is a point of no return for each, I believe. So, if you want to get all of the achievements in one go, you will need to make some key saves to return to later on.

Continued with the settlements and set up routes. I came back to one of the settlements and some of the settlers were full blown minutemen complete with the trademark outfits and lasers and addressing me as General. It was pretty neat.

I also noticed that once you have enough settlements they get randomly kidnapped and you can either go and rescue them or pay the ransom. I always rescue them just to get the XP.

The only thing that annoys me about those repeatable settlement missions is when they send you to the same place you're already done a mission at and set up as a Minutemen settlement and they act like you've never been there and they're surprised the Minutemen exist/are helping them.

I've had like three of those at Sanctuary (which is the main Minutemen settlement) and I get the same surprised dialogue every time.

When you scrap a house, do you get the material from the junk in it or do you need to scrap or take the junk out first and then scrap the house?

As of this morning I've logged 101 Hours. Sitting at lvl 32. Did the Silver Shroud Sidequest and is my favorite SQ so far. I looked at my time and it took almost three hours to complete! That's unheard of in today's game world. Most other game companies would've cut that out and sold it as a $5 DLC.

Yup, they're also repopulated by raiders, super mutants, ghouls, etc.

How are you at such a low level with so many hours? I've played less then half that amount of time and I'm at like 37.

A lot of exploring. I like to fully loot areas before moving on. I also did a few radiant quests it seems they give low amount of xp. I also am only at rank 2 on idiot savant. I expect once i fully upgrade IS my levels will climb much quicker.

I play on very easy too, I've died a few times, but not an insane amount. I'm only level 12 and haven't upgraded weapons yet, I just got that perk and the armor one.
I have just been wandering and getting Exp that way, stumbled upon the Brotherhood of Steel, and got an excellent weapon (though running out of ammo). A great gun goes a long way.
One thing I recommend is getting the ammo perk to find extra ammo, it helps keeping your best common guns stocked.
It's definitely harder than Fallout 3 on very easy, I swear dogmeat just destroyed every enemy in that game, here he goes down quite a bit.

My wife is starting to get tired of the game LOL!
Every day she's like "aren't you bored of that game yet?"

My reply is always NO


I mean I barely started. I'm around 60 hours. Level 24 or so.

Yeah my answer to completing the valentine mission (where you have to rescue the detective Valentine) and gaining progress in general was simple, power armor and fast travel collected a ton of machine guns and ammo.

I'm thinking missions are the way to go for me to get more XP quickly - also, I really do want to finish the story first as I'm into it but I hope ignoring side quests doesn't ruin anything for me.

Have you tried swapping him out for Cogsworth?

Cogsworth gives zero fucks and will charge right into battle, I watched him play chicken with a suicide super mutant when I was clearing out the water treatment plant for the Greygardens settlement

Leveled up and maxed out the idiot savant perk. That perk is phenomenal. It came in handy after Swan scared the shit out of me when he popped out. I must have gotten a 500 XP on his death alone.

Oh, and one of the Super Mutants was talking shit, too. He through a frag grenade at me and yelled out: "Hot potato!" and laughed at me. Almost killed me, too.

Had my first run in with an Assaultron on my way to the insane asylum. It did not go well

Don't look into the light.

Finally got my plat...stupid 100% settlement trophy..lol

I'm at level 40 now, so they're a bit easier to kill but they're freaky when they run at you with those twisty hands - holy shit!

I'm still collecting bobble heads and wanted the Charisma one, so I had to do the mental hospital mission that opened up a few other side quests. It was entertaining to say the least.

#Lorenzo

yeah actually some of the best missions in this game most people will never see.

Why?

Because they are side missions that don't have to do with the main story.