
I'm really happy that this actually worked! And as soon as you've become an enemy of the Nuka-World raiders, you can immediately go be friends with Preston again like normal. You can literally complete "The First Step" and get asked to lead the MM, and as long as you say "no", you can then proceed to turn as many settlements as you wish into Raider outposts (although you may be dependent on not killing any Settlers or Minutemen, akin to how I only captured empty settlements), do the Nuka-World storyline, and then go back to Preston and get his orders. So, we have a definitive answer: you can do ANYTHING with the Raiders and not lose Preston in any way, as long as you have not become General of the Minutemen. I then asked Preston to join me, and he did! Now we're off to head into max affinity ASAP so I can get back to Cait and then Curie and max them out. I said yes, and got the "Preston is available to be your companion" prompt. I then walked back over to Preston, who simply asked if I would lead the Minutemen like it was 55 levels ago. I agreed to this in front of Gage, and then proceeded to walk 50 feet over to Red Rocket where I promptly killed the four Operators there, aggro'd the entirety of Nuka-World including Gage, and shot Gage down. Preston gave me the "you think I don't know what you've been up to?" speech where he demanded I wipe out the raiders. Immediately after, I got the final Star core in Galactic Zone, got my Quantum X-01, and immediately headed to Preston in Sanctuary. Then I did Power Play and restored power to Nuka-World (for the record, the faction that betrayed me was the Disciples after I gave them 0/8 territories, but this doesn't really matter other than which two perks you get at the end of PP). In order to get the 3rd rank of the Raider perk.
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Read: Fallout 76 Update Notes – July 26, 2022 I then proceeded to either capture or recapture the following seven settlements (all of which had 0 settlers in them and therefore could be taken with a bloodless "wipe them out" mission): I selected Outpost Zimonja (which I had previously cleared) as the first Raider outpost, and had Tenpines Bluff supply them in order to complete Home Sweet Home. Did the gauntlet, got Gage as a companion, did The Grand Tour, maxed out Gage and got his perk, and then met Shank. I did this independently without getting quests from Preston or anyone else. While I was doing this, I also gained about half of the 30 settlements from the base game. Immediately got ten miles away from Preston, worked through other parts of the game, and got to around level 45. Handed in "The First Step", got Preston's offer to lead the Minutemen, said no. Did "The First Step" and helped Tenpines Bluff. I went to Concord fairly early, around level 7.

So I decided to take a gamble on this playthrough. But there was nothing about doing Home Sweet Home in between meeting Preston in Concord and accepting his offer to become General.

"Do 'Taken for a Ride' before becoming General," things like that. "…before becoming General of the Minutemen" kept popping up online. I've also found it very unclear and grey online about how far you can go with NW without alienating Preston forever, and also about when exactly you can no longer do NW at all without causing problems. My problem with this strategy is that I feel like I'm SUPPOSED to meet Preston fairly early on, when my character is still being formed, and Nuka-World is something that happens when I've become much stronger. Now, the most commonly known way to complete NW and not lose Preston is to just do NW before ever meeting him. But I do think United We Stand is a great perk, and that Preston is a good companion as far as combat is concerned. And, yes, Preston can be annoying with the radiant quests and his voice actor's performance isn't the greatest.

So, as we all know, Nuka-World really screws up the Minutemen storyline, and specifically your relationship with Preston.
