Are the Abernathys just stupid melon farmers?

[The Inept European]

Why farm melons and tatos?

I don’t think the Abernathys are stupid to grow melons. I think they are very smart farmers… in a different game universe that never shipped but was probably in beta.

We know that survival mode was nerfed down due to whiny feedback from beta testers complaining it was “too hard”.

Notice that the game has manual water pumps that are much cheaper to build and maintain, for the same amount of purified water, than powered water purifiers. This and the fact that there is only one working water purifier (above ground) in the Commonwealth (plus one non-working one) suggests that producing purified water was initially supposed to be difficult and rare.

Imagine a game where normal pumps (powered or not) just pumped dirty water. And even if the PC can build water purifiers, the Conmonwealth residents clearly can’t.

In these circumstances it makes a lot of sense to grow melons as they would be the lowest rad source of hydration and also the lowest disease risk for hydration, if purified water was not easily available.

When you eat a melon you take 3 rads, but it counts as food and as water, and there is no disease risk. To get the same hydration from drinking dirty water would take at least 6 rads. Twice the rads for half the benefit, plus a disease risk. Consider the melon as a 1.5 rad drink plus a 1.5 rad meal. That makes it better than mutfruit even just for eating, and streets ahead for hydration. (And you get twice as many melons as mutfruit).

If the game had shipped needing actual powered water purifiers to produce purified water (which sounds like a no-brainer?) then I guarantee melon farming would be a top strategy in Survival mode, for smart players - at least until such time as they could get together the resources to build powered purifiers.

As for the tatos, they are the best cash crop (crop for sale). And even better when the local trader (Carla) comes right to your farm to buy them, since the only downside of tatos as a sale crop is the weight of transporting them.

[The Inept European]

They also should have made Lead Belly reduce disease risks as well as reduce rads. Since disease is way worse than a few rads, it makes Lead Belly pretty much useless in Survival.

[12345678910]

Originally posted by The Inept European:

They also should have made Lead Belly reduce disease risks as well as reduce rads. Since disease is way worse than a few rads, it makes Lead Belly pretty much useless in Survival.

lead belly is not at all useless, without it's not just a few rads but half your healthbar filled with rads in no time from eating foods and drinking dirty water and the annoyance of having to often use radaways.
for those who often drink dirty waters and heal with food it's very usefull.

[The Inept European]

Use stimpaks (and other combat chems) without hydration and you will have permanent massive debuffs. Hydrate with dirty water and you will have permanent multiple diseases.

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by 1545242564528:

Originally posted by The Inept European:

They also should have made Lead Belly reduce disease risks as well as reduce rads. Since disease is way worse than a few rads, it makes Lead Belly pretty much useless in Survival.

lead belly is not at all useless, without it's not just a few rads but half your healthbar filled with rads in no time from eating foods and drinking dirty water and the annoyance of having to often use radaways.
for those who often drink dirty waters and heal with food it's very usefull.

Sounds like you are talking about non-Survival games. In Survival this approach is “very useful” for being permanently diseased with multiple diseases.

[Zes]

lead belly removes rads from drinking from rivers and seas, but does it also decrease/removes the chance of catching sicknesses from them?

[Varanus]

Originally posted by 1545242564528:

lead belly is not at all useless, without it's not just a few rads but half your healthbar filled with rads in no time from eating foods and drinking dirty water and the annoyance of having to often use radaways.
for those who often drink dirty waters and heal with food it's very usefull.

Non irradiated food and water is extremely plentiful. The only time I can imagine you might need to eat or drink anything with rads, would be maybe the first hour or 2 out of the vault. After that you should have an easily available supply of purified water, and likely a substantial store of cooked meat. Or you can make clean pre-war food with one of the contraption items. With as little as tatos and cloth, I believe.

[12345678910]

Originally posted by The Inept European:

Originally posted by 1545242564528:

lead belly is not at all useless, without it's not just a few rads but half your healthbar filled with rads in no time from eating foods and drinking dirty water and the annoyance of having to often use radaways.
for those who often drink dirty waters and heal with food it's very usefull.

Sounds like you are talking about non-Survival games. In Survival this approach is “very useful” for being permanently diseased with multiple diseases.

i'm talking about survival oc, and the way i play i mentionned above, i prefer to be perpetual diseased with multiple disease and have more freedom concerning food and water, not having to deal with 30 pounds of purified water.

every disease except the 20% dmg one are almost harmless. well there's the infection one too that makes you lose health over time, can be annoying too. for those 2 diseases i take antibio or see a dr. immediately. good thing is they don't occur that often.

the benefit is that i can drink and eat everything i want and don't need to carry water and cooked food and this is where the leadbelly perk comes to be very usefull since it spares me the annoyance of having to deal with rads and allow me to eaat and drinks radiated stuff without consequences.

let's stay it's a different playstile.

[12345678910]

Originally posted by Varanus:

Originally posted by 1545242564528:

lead belly is not at all useless, without it's not just a few rads but half your healthbar filled with rads in no time from eating foods and drinking dirty water and the annoyance of having to often use radaways.
for those who often drink dirty waters and heal with food it's very usefull.

Non irradiated food and water is extremely plentiful. The only time I can imagine you might need to eat or drink anything with rads, would be maybe the first hour or 2 out of the vault. After that you should have an easily available supply of purified water, and likely a substantial store of cooked meat. Or you can make clean pre-war food with one of the contraption items. With as little as tatos and cloth, I believe.

you don't understand, the purpose is to get rid of the need of having purified water and cooked food. i don't want to carry those.
i mean oc i still take some sometimes, but most of the time i just eat and drink what i find, sometimes i don't even drink for hours ( realtime ).

the goal is the freedom you get and lighter inventory weight.

so far it works pretty well, actually lvl 130 with mods that adds 3 times the number of npc spawns and an increase difficulty mod, rarely dying. even with 4, 5 diseases. and debuffs (except hunger debuff as it reduce health too much )

not saying this to look as a badass i am not and i couldn't care less, just telling this to confirm that it is still very doable to play without purified water and cooked food mechanic and that it can give some, i would not say pleasure, but satisfaction wathever it is to play with more freedom.

[12345678910]

Originally posted by Zes:

lead belly removes rads from drinking from rivers and seas, but does it also decrease/removes the chance of catching sicknesses from them?

no.

[12345678910]

Originally posted by The Inept European:

Use stimpaks (and other combat chems) without hydration and you will have permanent massive debuffs. Hydrate with dirty water and you will have permanent multiple diseases.

yes but how does todd say this , " it just works".
permanent multiple diseases is not a big problem as long as you immediately cure when you catch the 20% one and the infection one.
the debuffs are not a big problem, nevertheless i always find something to drink in a short time after using stimpaks and chems. because there's water everywhere ( almost ), even in the glowing sea.
here comes the freedom i keep on talking about.
so i never stay long without being well hydrated, but i admit i often played with high deshydrated state, the debuffs didn't really bother me.
hell i can even allow myself to use and abuse chems because i know where to find the nearest water spot, i'm not limited by the amount of dirty or purified water i have in my inventory. freedom...
also, in case of emergency, when you're about to dy and/or there are still plenty of enemies, the simpak heals you much faster than food or nuka colas, especially if you maxed the perk, allowing you to stay alive during your next move.
meanwhile with the food : 2 hours to fill the health bar.

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by LunarSail:

it turns out the reason is that plants can't tell potassium from cesium, and will happily soak up fall out all day long depositing it in their fruits seeds and nuts. So in real life, those melons and tatos they are growing are very stupid, and very deadly.

Yes very much so.
We have to assume that the plants still being used 200 years later have been selected for relatively low rad uptake.

Although on the other hand, the crop settlers prefer (tatos) has the worst rads per nutrion by far. But also incidentally has the highest cash yield.

Maybe this is why the Abernathys seem to buying the melons and selling the tatos. Maybe they know.

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by 1545242564528:

if you don't bother with all that settlement stuff, you find way more dirty waters bottles than purified in the cw containers.

In terms of placed items it’s about equal around 230 refs each in the base game. In terms of vendors, loot and containers it’s harder to assess. You could be right that there’s more dirty water, but if so it’s not hugely more, it’s broadly in the same ball park looking at the LVLIs and CONTs.

[The Inept European]

Of course you would not be heading to the Glowing Sea with 30 melons even in the hypothetical case I’m talking about here (where the player can’t produce purified water themselves.) The Glowing Sea is a special case. The more scarce purified water was, the more you would conserve it for use in that specific case.

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by Zes:

lead belly removes rads from drinking from rivers and seas, but does it also decrease/removes the chance of catching sicknesses from them?

It has zero effect on disease risk from ingested rads. A major oversight and why I don’t use the Perk. It just tempts you into risky behaviour. Saving a couple of rads is nothing compared to getting a disease.

To be fair it doesn’t actually say in the perk description that it reduces the chance of disease. It should have been an extra aspect added in Survival mode.

Similarly, Aqua Boy/Girl doesn’t affect the disease risk of being immersed in water, which is a significant risk. If you make regular use of this perk in Survival you are going to be diseased all the time.

[12345678910]

Originally posted by The Inept European:

Of course you would not be heading to the Glowing Sea with 30 melons even in the hypothetical case I’m talking about here (where the player can’t produce purified water themselves.) The Glowing Sea is a special case. The more scarce purified water was, the more you would conserve it for use in that specific case.

reminds me of the raiders discussion where they are making fun of some guy, one says : " what kind of guy is traveling with a fan ? " something like that.
you just want to tell him : " me "