Love the game but cant get over the 200 years nonsense

[[AKn] Talsar]

Is anyone else horribly frustrated by this rubbish about the protagonist being frozen for 200 years? Honestly, after all that time:

> Radiation would be a distant memory
> Survivors would have been busy rebuilding the world for well over a century
> Any ruined settlements would be thoroughly looted. Many would have been torn down and rebuilt.
> Rust, rot, decay and reclamation by nature would mean any surviving pre-war structures would be hardly recognisable unless they had been actively looked after.
> Never mind food going bad, all food would be long since looted and eaten.

I get that this is science fiction and that in reality radiation doesnt result in monsterous mutations etc. , but this just feels like such a fundamental flaw in logic. It just seems like such an obviously stupid decision to set the story this far in the future and then have the world look like only a decade or two have passed. Honestly, I would PAY for a mod that replaces all the 200 year references with 20 years!

[Mumboejumboh]

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

the previously established lore was strapped in a nuke and launched away, as soon as they started with the power armors that run on 20minute batteries, need no training to use and aparently were left all across the boston area, untouched, fully functional, and not even toppled over in supposedly 2 centuries with said batteries laying some meters nearby.

sorry about the rant.

Considering all the changes they made to how power armor functions it would be almost ridiculous if you had to go through a whole bunch of hassle for maybe one or two suits of the stuff. Fusion cores lasting only that long is, I feel, a mix of game balance for how potent the defense is on power armor as well as the assumption that maybe power armor isn't so fuel efficient after 200+ years sitting around in the wasteland after a nuclear war.

[Rigor Morti5]

I think fallout radiation lvls are much more realistic than lets say building settlements.

Exsample build high stairs slam 10 to 20 floor pieces arow then hit large shack end of it yep large shack is perfectly there better yet remove last floor piece before shack you get levitating shack.
Or just slam lights at roof no wiring to lights just perfectly teleporting electricity NO PROBLEM.
Case closed.

[Pyrotrainthing]

Here's the thing.
Nuclear Radiation levels would've dropped, yes. But it'd take much more time for them be a distant memory. Thousands of years in order for that to happen. For example take the Glowing Sea, it's filled to the brim with mutated enemies such as radscorpions and deathclaws. And every step you take is irradiated; That's because it's ground zero because of a nuclear bomb.
And, to use a real life example. One of the ships that sunk in Peral Harbor and is still around will be leaking oil for at least 50 or so more years.
TL;DR version: 200 years =/= Nuclear Radiation is gone.
Edit: And as you say, Nuclear Radiation doesn't cause mutations, that is true, but the Fallout series is Science Fiction. It doesn't mean it's real. It means that this is all made up. Which it is.

[Cryonicus]

Fallout takes place in the future, where new methods of fusion could have been discovered in creating new atomic bombs that are way more disasterous than what we know of now. Also, pretty much everything in the Fallout universe has nuclear energy as a fuel source, everything from friggen alarm clocks to cars and bombs.

There is just so much in that world to contribute to the issue with radiation and it seems the glowing sea was not only an impact zone but also a military zone with a lot of radioactive materials and experimental materials.

The Fallout universe is also based on the 1950s atomic craze and paranoia, cause thats where their alternate universe came into play and the "rules of physics" were modified to suit the atmospheric narrative of the 1950s cold war fears.

Edit: By taking place in the future I mean that the bombs fell in the future, still 60 odd years from the present.

[presto668]

Yeah, in reality the Commonwealth would be covered in old-growth forest by 2287. And in Fallout 3, Washington, DC would have reverted to being a subtropical swamp.

But hey, video games.

[Mumboejumboh]

Originally posted by presto668:

Yeah, in reality the Commonwealth would be covered in old-growth forest by 2287. And in Fallout 3, Washington, DC would have reverted to being a subtropical swamp.

But hey, video games.

Is that factoring in the ecological devastation from heavy radiation?

[Sonny]

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

So, can we agree that:
- 200 years really is too much time to what's left of mankind dont even start cleaning up the dirt (or at least the skeletons).

Point: Places would need to be inhabited for cleaning to be particularly relevant. Outside of that there's a lack of effective cleaning materials in the wasteland and I think people prioritizing not starving and not getting killed by raiders/mutants/beasts over maintaining a level of pre-war cleanliness.

I'm sure that even with being concerned with survival, people would still take the time to clear skeletons from their homes.

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

-and as much as i want to believe the chemicals used in food to make them never spoil (in game thay say is a LOT, at least the sloccum joe's, that somehow manage to stay burning hot after 200 years in a shelf, in a radioactive lake somewere..), there is way too much stuff laying around after this said time.

It wouldn't really be an interesting game environment if everything was already looted, now, wouldn't it?

Sure it would, it would make loot more valuble and make you work harder to get it.

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

as someone said in a simiar topic, 200years is improbable, 50-80 is more likely by the status of the place, the settlements and the radiation

The first Fallout game took place about 84 years after the war with Fallout 2 being almost 160 years after. Both games featured largely decripit locations (exceptions being Vault City and the NCR, both of whom benefitted from the GECK) with lootable objects and hazardous radiation.

Except that such locations and radiation weren't there every five feet. There were only a handful of such locations in Fallout 1 and 2, and those locations had actual explanations for being untouched, like being extremely heavily irradiated (West-Tek), having an online security system (Sierra Army Depot), or being filled with extremely tough enemies (Mariposa). Locations such as caves and houses didn't have large stockpiles of weapons, ammunition, and currency.

As for radiation, radiation was rare in Fallout 1, with the exception of the Glow. In Fallout 2, radiation was barely a hazard. You were more likely to get killed by your companion then die from radiation in Fallout 2. Also, in Fallout 2, there was plant life everywhere. There were actual trees, there was grass, etc. If plant life can return on the West Coast, why not the East?

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Fallout 3, 4, and New Vegas are all set a good period of time afterwards to maintain plausibility with the game's lore while lowering the odds of direct clashes with previously established lore.

Yet Bethesda felt the need to retcon the Fallout lore until it was almost unrecognizable.

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

speaking of rads, leading to the bombs, looks like fallout universe has the weakest nukes ever conceived, since that as in the opening sequence, at least one of those hits very close to sanctuary, and when you return , there is no rads, and half of the place s STILL STANDING!

Fallout nukes seemed to prioritize radioactive fallout rather than raw devastation. The impact site of the nuclear bomb from the intro is literally more than all the way across the map and while I don't have the exact measurements I'd wager that puts the point of impact at least a few miles away which I'm pretty sure would keep the bulk of the damage from hitting Sanctuary.

You know that shockwave that appears while you're being lowered into the Vault? It doesn't matter what kind of bomb that was, that shockwave would've leveled everything it hit, and would have severly burned if not outright killed you. It also doesn't explain how everything is still standing despite 200 years of decay. As for prioritizing radiation, source? Nuclear weapons in Fallout 1 and 2 were actually capable of leveling buildings, so it seems that that's not the case.

[Mumboejumboh]

Originally posted by Laudablecube56:

I'm sure that even with being concerned with survival, people would still take the time to clear skeletons from their homes.

Are we talking pre-existing structures with skeletons and people living in them or PC crafted stuff? I don't recall seeing people living (people that aren't violently hostile, anyways) with skeletons just lying around. Settlements suffer a little from game design aspects, where elements that should "decay" (such as the corpses on the other end of the wood bridge from sanctuary) persist presumably so the player can see/loot/interact with.

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

Sure it would, it would make loot more valuble and make you work harder to get it.

In a game where primarily the items you loot are fodder to build things? That's not good. It's hard enough getting adhesive to mod your stuff or ceramics for lasers/power sources without arbitrarily limiting the loot in the environment. If the settlement building aspect were removed then yes, otherwise no.

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

Except that such locations and radiation weren't there every five feet. There were only a handful of such locations in Fallout 1 and 2, and those locations had actual explanations for being untouched, like being extremely heavily irradiated (West-Tek), having an online security system (Sierra Army Depot), or being filled with extremely tough enemies (Mariposa). Locations such as caves and houses didn't have large stockpiles of weapons, ammunition, and currency.

Steamer trunks I think were a bit of a bad decision. On the one hand it makes clearing places more worthwhile than just "I need to loot more junk" but on the other hand there's no reason why something like that would be in certain locations.

I'm inclined to say the lack of radiation in the first two games stems from game design. In 3, 4, and New Vegas you can readily just get the caps to pay a doctor or buy the things or just have the radaway to contend with radiation. The first two didn't have that. The scope of the environment was much broader, in a sense, for the 3D games as compared to the isometric titles so environmental hazards had to be a thing. You couldn't drown in water in Fallout 1 and 2 (unless there's a specific event I dont' remember) yet you can do that in the other games...that doesn't mean that the inclusion of water, and also drowning, was nonsensical.

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

As for radiation, radiation was rare in Fallout 1, with the exception of the Glow. In Fallout 2, radiation was barely a hazard. You were more likely to get killed by your companion then die from radiation in Fallout 2. Also, in Fallout 2, there was plant life everywhere. There were actual trees, there was grass, etc. If plant life can return on the West Coast, why not the East?

Fallout 2 revolved around the GECK which is the "Garden of Eden Creation Kit" designed to revitalize the wasteland after the apocalypse. Without an understanding of how the kit works and that there are two settlements in Fallout 2 that used them (the NCR and Vault City) it's possible that plant life spread out from there to other parts of California.

To my knowledge there hasn't been use of a GECK, outside of the water purifier in 3, on the east coast. That's just theorizing though.

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

Yet Bethesda felt the need to retcon the Fallout lore until it was almost unrecognizable.

The only real lore infractions I know of that Bethesda made were the T-60 power armor, Virgil's serum, and...dammit, I had a third one but I forgot it. I guess also maybe Cait having an Irish accent also counts? Or anyone having an accent? Norweigan ghouls?

Regardless: I'd hardly call it "almost unrecognizable".

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

You know that shockwave that appears while you're being lowered into the Vault? It doesn't matter what kind of bomb that was, that shockwave would've leveled everything it hit, and would have severly burned if not outright killed you.

Without hard knowledge of the specifications of the bomb that hit, neither you nor I can say that. The only, presumed, knowledge out there is that the bombs were designed to irradiate more than destroy and as such the raw destructive force of the explosion would be less than that of a current real-world nuclear explosive.

That said, the entire glowing sea is an area heavily decimated by proximity to a nuclear detonation and given that Sanctuary was a few miles from the point of impact I think it's pretty much a safe zone. I'm pretty sure Sanctuary was far enough away that the detonation wouldn't be instantly lethal.

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

It also doesn't explain how everything is still standing despite 200 years of decay. As for prioritizing radiation, source? Nuclear weapons in Fallout 1 and 2 were actually capable of leveling buildings, so it seems that that's not the case.

Glowing Sea got pretty flattened by the explotion. Further away from there you go the less destroyed things are in a general sense.

[Sonny]

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Originally posted by Laudablecube56:

I'm sure that even with being concerned with survival, people would still take the time to clear skeletons from their homes.

Are we talking pre-existing structures with skeletons and people living in them or PC crafted stuff? I don't recall seeing people living (people that aren't violently hostile, anyways) with skeletons just lying around. Settlements suffer a little from game design aspects, where elements that should "decay" (such as the corpses on the other end of the wood bridge from sanctuary) persist presumably so the player can see/loot/interact with.

While that's also an example, I was specifically refering to a cafe, I forgot which one exactly, were some woman with her drug addict son lives, and when you go there their having an argument with a drug dealer. The cafe's full of skeletons despite being their home.

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Originally posted by Laudablecube56:

Sure it would, it would make loot more valuble and make you work harder to get it.

In a game where primarily the items you loot are fodder to build things? That's not good. It's hard enough getting adhesive to mod your stuff or ceramics for lasers/power sources without arbitrarily limiting the loot in the environment. If the settlement building aspect were removed then yes, otherwise no.

I ain't talking about random junk like soda bottles or plates. I'm talking about things like weapons, medicine, food. Those kinds of things would almost certainly be the first things anyone would take.

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Originally posted by Laudablecube56:

Except that such locations and radiation weren't there every five feet. There were only a handful of such locations in Fallout 1 and 2, and those locations had actual explanations for being untouched, like being extremely heavily irradiated (West-Tek), having an online security system (Sierra Army Depot), or being filled with extremely tough enemies (Mariposa). Locations such as caves and houses didn't have large stockpiles of weapons, ammunition, and currency.

Steamer trunks I think were a bit of a bad decision. On the one hand it makes clearing places more worthwhile than just "I need to loot more junk" but on the other hand there's no reason why something like that would be in certain locations.

I'm inclined to say the lack of radiation in the first two games stems from game design. In 3, 4, and New Vegas you can readily just get the caps to pay a doctor or buy the things or just have the radaway to contend with radiation. The first two didn't have that.

Yes they did, Rad-X and Rad-Away, while not as plentiful as in the 3D Fallout games existed. In fact, you couldn't explore The Glow without a couple of doses of Rad-X. I don't remember whether or not doctors removed radiation, but I think that they did.

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Originally posted by Laudablecube56:

As for radiation, radiation was rare in Fallout 1, with the exception of the Glow. In Fallout 2, radiation was barely a hazard. You were more likely to get killed by your companion then die from radiation in Fallout 2. Also, in Fallout 2, there was plant life everywhere. There were actual trees, there was grass, etc. If plant life can return on the West Coast, why not the East?

Fallout 2 revolved around the GECK which is the "Garden of Eden Creation Kit" designed to revitalize the wasteland after the apocalypse. Without an understanding of how the kit works and that there are two settlements in Fallout 2 that used them (the NCR and Vault City) it's possible that plant life spread out from there to other parts of California.

The GECK in the origional Fallout games was nothing more than a seed kit, the use of one in Southern California would not cause entire forests to grow in the Northwest, especially considering that they plants in places that used GECK's, like Vault City, are completely different from those found in Oregon.

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Originally posted by Laudablecube56:

Yet Bethesda felt the need to retcon the Fallout lore until it was almost unrecognizable.

The only real lore infractions I know of that Bethesda made were the T-60 power armor, Virgil's serum, and...dammit, I had a third one but I forgot it. I guess also maybe Cait having an Irish accent also counts? Or anyone having an accent? Norweigan ghouls?

Regardless: I'd hardly call it "almost unrecognizable".

Those are only the tip of the iceberg. The existance of FEV outside of Southern California, the way ghouls are created, the resurrection of the Enclave, Vertibirds existing before the war, the use of nuclear power in cars and just about everything, possibly even the Great War (from what I gathered from Fallout 4's prologue, it seems the US and China were not officially at war), and much, much more.

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Without hard knowledge of the specifications of the bomb that hit, neither you nor I can say that. The only, presumed, knowledge out there is that the bombs were designed to irradiate more than destroy and as such the raw destructive force of the explosion would be less than that of a current real-world nuclear explosive.

That said, the entire glowing sea is an area heavily decimated by proximity to a nuclear detonation and given that Sanctuary was a few miles from the point of impact I think it's pretty much a safe zone. I'm pretty sure Sanctuary was far enough away that the detonation wouldn't be instantly lethal.

If you're close enough to the bomb that the shockwave hits you, the bomb's power doesn't matter, everything hit by it is going to be flattened. Anybody that's hit by it will be severly burned if not killed.

[Stoob]

RE: nuclear memory.

See scientific term 'half life'.

[Beef Hammer]

Using logic in video games is why you don't enjoy them...

[POGGERS!]

Originally posted by Beef Hammer:

Using logic in video games is why you don't enjoy them...

It's why YOU don't enjoy them, some people enjoy having open conversations that provoke thought.

[Mumboejumboh]

Originally posted by Laudablecube56:

While that's also an example, I was specifically refering to a cafe, I forgot which one exactly, were some woman with her drug addict son lives, and when you go there their having an argument with a drug dealer. The cafe's full of skeletons despite being their home.

Alright, that's a point. I don't know why they'd leave the skeletons there.

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

I ain't talking about random junk like soda bottles or plates. I'm talking about things like weapons, medicine, food. Those kinds of things would almost certainly be the first things anyone would take.

That's a little arbitrary, I think. Most of the lootable locations are either inhabited by humans (who would keep such things on hand) or by dangerous creatures (who would keep such things away from scavvers so long as they're there). Incidental locations where enemies don't spawn/respawn should otherwise be picked over, though.

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

Yes they did, Rad-X and Rad-Away, while not as plentiful as in the 3D Fallout games existed. In fact, you couldn't explore The Glow without a couple of doses of Rad-X. I don't remember whether or not doctors removed radiation, but I think that they did.

I think there was something of a disconnect. I wasn't trying to say that those things didn't exist but that they weren't as plentiful. Sorry for not making that clear.

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

The GECK in the origional Fallout games was nothing more than a seed kit, the use of one in Southern California would not cause entire forests to grow in the Northwest, especially considering that they plants in places that used GECK's, like Vault City, are completely different from those found in Oregon.

If the GECK was nothing more than a seed kit then how and why was one needed for the water purifier in Fallout 3?

Also the GECK was always a terraforming device so I don't know where you got that seed kit mess.

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

Those are only the tip of the iceberg. The existance of FEV outside of Southern California, the way ghouls are created, the resurrection of the Enclave, Vertibirds existing before the war, the use of nuclear power in cars and just about everything, possibly even the Great War (from what I gathered from Fallout 4's prologue, it seems the US and China were not officially at war), and much, much more.

One: The US and China were at war for the decade leading up to the great war. Unless I'm remembering wrong I'm pretty sure fusion-powered cars were always a thing, too. Vault 87 was a testing ground for FEV so that's why it's also on the east coast. Ghouls have pretty much always been created by heavy radiation exposure and, even though Eddie Winters makes no sense as a ghoul, still are. Remnants of the Enclave could very well have survived Fallout 2 and made their way across the country to the east coast...I don't think it's likely, but it's not an impossible task given 40 years of time.

Originally posted by EDDr0p:

If you're close enough to the bomb that the shockwave hits you, the bomb's power doesn't matter, everything hit by it is going to be flattened. Anybody that's hit by it will be severly burned if not killed.

Surprisingly shockwaves wane in power the farther away you are from ground zero. The Glowing Sea, for example, is pretty flattened because that's right where the bomb hit. Sanctuary, being on the other end of the Commonwealth and then some is mostly intact because of the distance.

The bomb's power very literally matters when you're using its destructive force as a point of discussion.

[Beef Hammer]

Originally posted by Cyril Figgis:

Originally posted by Beef Hammer:

Using logic in video games is why you don't enjoy them...

It's why YOU don't enjoy them, some people enjoy having open conversations that provoke thought.

Oh you think whining about what is and isn't 100% accurate in a video game NOT designed to be realistic is "thought provoking converstaion"... interesting.

[Sonny]

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Originally posted by Laudablecube56:

The GECK in the origional Fallout games was nothing more than a seed kit, the use of one in Southern California would not cause entire forests to grow in the Northwest, especially considering that they plants in places that used GECK's, like Vault City, are completely different from those found in Oregon.

If the GECK was nothing more than a seed kit then how and why was one needed for the water purifier in Fallout 3?

An example of one of those retcons I was talking about.

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Also the GECK was always a terraforming device so I don't know where you got that seed kit mess.

"The GECK isn't really a replicator. It contains a fertilizer system, with a variety of food seeds, soil supplements, and chemicals that could fertilize arid wasteland (and possibly selected sections of the moon's surface pre-conditioned to accept the GECK) into supporting farming. The GECK is intended to be "disassembled" over the course of its use to help build communities (for example, the cold fusion power source is intended to be used for main city power production), and so on. Anything else people needed, they could simply consult the How-To Books/Library of Congress/Encyclopedias in the GECK holodisk library for more knowledge. The pen flashlight was just a bonus."-Chris Avellone

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Originally posted by Laudablecube56:

Those are only the tip of the iceberg. The existance of FEV outside of Southern California, the way ghouls are created, the resurrection of the Enclave, Vertibirds existing before the war, the use of nuclear power in cars and just about everything, possibly even the Great War (from what I gathered from Fallout 4's prologue, it seems the US and China were not officially at war), and much, much more.

One: The US and China were at war for the decade leading up to the great war.

In the canon up until Fallout 4, they were still at war as of 10/23/77.

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Unless I'm remembering wrong I'm pretty sure fusion-powered cars were always a thing, too.

Electric cars existed in the Interplay canon, but they were about as common as they are today. The vast majority of automobiles still used gasoline in 2077.It's why the US needed oil, and why the whole war started in the first place.

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Vault 87 was a testing ground for FEV so that's why it's also on the east coast.

The presence of FEV in a Vault not only directly contradicts a holotape found in West-Tek, where FEV was origionally created, but makes no sense whatsoever.

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Ghouls have pretty much always been created by heavy radiation exposure and, even though Eddie Winters makes no sense as a ghoul, still are.

No, they weren't. In the Interplay canon, ghouls only came from Vault 8, because of a combination of the radiation and some chemicals that were found there. Radiation on its own would not ghoulify you, just kill you dead.

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Remnants of the Enclave could very well have survived Fallout 2 and made their way across the country to the east coast...I don't think it's likely, but it's not an impossible task given 40 years of time.

It's very unlikely. Sure, they could make the trip east, but how would they carry all of their equipment, their weapons and armor? Vertibirds have neither the range nor the capacity to carry so much cargo, and the Enclave had no land vehicles.

Originally posted by Mumboejumboh:

Originally posted by Laudablecube56:

If you're close enough to the bomb that the shockwave hits you, the bomb's power doesn't matter, everything hit by it is going to be flattened. Anybody that's hit by it will be severly burned if not killed.

Surprisingly shockwaves wane in power the farther away you are from ground zero. The Glowing Sea, for example, is pretty flattened because that's right where the bomb hit. Sanctuary, being on the other end of the Commonwealth and then some is mostly intact because of the distance.

The bomb's power very literally matters when you're using its destructive force as a point of discussion.

While a shockwave does wane in power, as long as it exists it will still cause massive amounts of damage. At the very least it would severly burn you. You would not walk away completely unharmed.