Van Buren Interview: Sean K Reynolds

[Voluptuous Pachyderm]

The Pipboy is really just a calendar watch dealie. Could your digital watch power a moonshot?

True, ture, but does it not also store reams of information downloaded from holodiscs? and so must have a holodisc interface. Aswell (if I'm remembering correctly) as the ability to display map data and have the termal sensor interface with it to increase the detail and provide greater information. Memo ability too.

Although my watch could not power a moon shot, the power of a current day mobile phone could rival mainframes from the era of the moonshot.

The shuttles mentioned talk about a geocentric (my assumption) orbital platform not a moonshot.

The PIPBoy (from the information garnered from my fallout 1 manual) was pre-war tech produced by vault-tec. Which is probably a couple of steps behind NASA.

The technology to place things into orbit was before major ICBMs were developed, a fair few ICBMs themselves go a fair way out of out the atmosphere, granted that's still not the ability to go into good stable orbit but it is not far behind. The ICBMs in missile silos can also be programmed to sit until a signal at which point it will launch and hit with reasonable accuracy a city or nuclear facility on the other side of the planet. This means the ability to compensate for planatary rotation and gravitational pull aswell as usual distances. Considering all this and the fact we had the ability to compensate for planatary rotation since WW2. I would think that it would not be too far a shot of the imagination to be able to have a booster and shuttle combination to reach a point above the Earth and return back down, it could even be prepped and sitting their waiting for the PC to press a button. Unless of course the "bombs dropped" were really plane delivered bombs.

Of course, if I'm wrong, please, anyone, feel free to rip this post to shreds.

[boywoos]

The bombs were dropped.

[Voluptuous Pachyderm]

Ah, in which case, apologies to all.

It would be nice then to have a special enconter of a crashed bomber that failed to reach target or was shot down/ran out of fuel on the way home. I'm not too sure what would be gained from it but finding a downed B52 or similar bomber would please me so. Have a person set up shop in one. Tourist attraction, "last flight memorabilia".

Maybe one found at a dig site.

[Saint_Proverbius]

The PipBoy mainly just stored things and like Spazmo said, it was mostly a big calender and watch. It would have to have been reasonably sized because it used a monochrome green CRT for it's display. Notice that nothing in Fallout uses LCDs at all, and CRTs are on their way out in terms of today's technology.

Holodiscs don't seem to really store much either. Ever seen a holodisc that stored more than a few pages of text? Maybe a small map? The old 5.25" disks on the C64 stored 360kb, which would be about 60 pages of raw text, and they're smaller and lighter than the holodiscs. Of course, without transistor technology, holodiscs are probably analog in nature.

[PsychoSniper]

I seem to remember someting in FO1, possibly 2, listed how much that the holodisks could store.

I'll try to find it.

[Koki]

- Shuttle standing near Hubologists base;
- Robots, can't do those without microchips, I'm sure;
- Supercomputers(SkyNET, Imperator...)
- Fusion-powered Power Armours;
- Cyber-brains and cybernetics(Master)

...but yeah, they can't go to a damn orbit.

We actually toned down (through Sawyer's heroic efforts) to make VB less tech-heavy. Ammo and working weapons are scarce. Armor is scarce. Almost every instance of a firearm you find in the hands of a non-BOS (or similar isolated organization with access to technology) is a pipe rifle or a zip gun. It's easy to point at the space station and the vehicles and cry foul, but it's actually much more low-tech than the previous FO games where guns quickly became "objects in my inventory that I don't need but are worth some money as soon as I find a store with enough caps to buy them from me."

I like that.

[S4ur0n27]

There's still quite a big difference between PAs, computers, shuttles, from going into space, and actually making a space base suitable to live there.

[Voluptuous Pachyderm]

The PipBoy mainly just stored things and like Spazmo said, it was mostly a big calender and watch. It would have to have been reasonably sized because it used a monochrome green CRT for it's display. Notice that nothing in Fallout uses LCDs at all, and CRTs are on their way out in terms of today's technology.

Holodiscs don't seem to really store much either. Ever seen a holodisc that stored more than a few pages of text? Maybe a small map? The old 5.25" disks on the C64 stored 360kb, which would be about 60 pages of raw text, and they're smaller and lighter than the holodiscs. Of course, without transistor technology, holodiscs are probably analog in nature.

My point with the display and the holodisc was not the information they could store.

If a holodisc is smaller and lighter than a 5.25" disc and there isn't atleast the start of miniturisation then you have problems building the PIPBoy from the beggining. If you assume that the PIPBoy could fit in a pocket then the circuitry has to be small to be able to fit in a drive/reader bigger than a 5.25" drive and on top of that a CRT display.

If you find a shell that will fit nicely into a medium sized pocket, then add in even just a 3.5" floppy drive (a medium significantly smaller than the holodisc) and a CRT display that displays reams of text, maps and screensavers at a readable resolution, suddenly the space left for controlling circuitry (basics: read IO from holodiscs, longterm mem storage, display adaptor and there is more than that), plus power supply to last years, is so tiny you've got problems. Frankly I dont think you could fit a Cathode Ray Tube of that display size and definition into your shirt pocket alone never mind with a clunky holodisc drive and non-minaturised electronics. Even with an flat LCD alpha-numeric (no screen savers or map lads, sorry) display with built in processor you've got space issues and that's with chips, and you're saying "without transistor technology"? I bet they had a real problem trying to sqeeze those bulky vacuum tubes in there. Take out the CRT display, take out the disc drive and you still have size problems with controlling circuitry.

It's not a matter of the amount of information stored on the medium, but the medium, interfaces and readers themselves.




EDIT:

There's still quite a big difference between PAs, computers, shuttles, from going into space, and actually making a space base suitable to live there.

From the article: (emphasis mine)

"This also isn't a bio-dome sort of space platform where you have a bunch of scientists living up there like a bunch of dirty hippies, it's ... well, let's just say it's a military platform, and it doesn't hold troops. "

Although he doesn't say that it is uninhabited, I think that may be what he means with "it doesn't hold troops", just a guess but could it not be an automated or passive platform? It could be that it wasn't built to support life.

Anyone know one way or the other?

[S4ur0n27]

Hrm. Was it built before or after the fallout?

[Voluptuous Pachyderm]

I'd assume before, though I dont think it's mentioned directly in the article. He talks about continued space research before the bombs dropped not after.


From the article:
"in the 73 years between now and the bombs dropping you'd think that there would be continued research in space exploration and habitation"

That seems to say to me that when the bombs dropped the research pretty much stopped althogether.

Howvever I would like to know more, it could have been sent up afterwards, enclave style, if it was sent up after it would also be nice to know who sent it up and why.

[S4ur0n27]

We would have probably learned in VB, but "hye, the guy losts the design docs!"

[Spazmo]

- Shuttle standing near Hubologists base;
- Robots, can't do those without microchips, I'm sure;
- Supercomputers(SkyNET, Imperator...)
- Fusion-powered Power Armours;
- Cyber-brains and cybernetics(Master)

The space shuttle doesn't count as that was a MASSIVE CLUSTERFUCK by whoever designed the hubologist area. It's about as valid to Fallout canon as the Bridgekeeper special random encounter.

The complexity of Fallout robots is debatable. Look at Mr. Handy. I doubt he does all that much. Today, we can make really small robots about the size of of a breadbox that can vacuum your house intelligently. In the Fallout world, it takes a big 'ol robot to perform simple tasks like that. As for attack robots, those probably just have infrared detectors and some way of distinguishing between friendly and foe. Again, given how big Fallout robots are, it's vacuum tubes.

Didn't you notice how the supercomputers in question are IMMENSE? The BOS computer filled an entire room. And what the hell is Imperator?

Good guess on power armour--it's fusion powered. That's one of the rare miniaturized techs in Fallout. And I don't see where computers are necessary there. Remember how wearing PA didn't provide any kind of bonuses to targeting or whatever? Power armour is really just big heavy armour with fusion power to help the wearer move around in it.

Cyber brains and cybernetics... well, yeah, the thing is that you don't need transistors there because the brain is doing all the computing. The rest is all just servomotors and such.

[Briosafreak]

Before the war, only six people could live there

Actually it was,only the two rockets had the fuel, i had missed that detail. Well the space station could only sustain more or less six humans, with bots needed for much of the maintenance stuff, so the Enclave couldn`t move there, and it wasn`t ready for the war, as i´ve showed before.

The space station itself would be like the Master quarter area, or the oil rig without the bloody electrical puzzle Smile, just somewhere else, instead of finding some stairs and a secret entrance or get fuel for a ship you would travel using the flash gordon 30s series rocket. I think that given the stories of the game it would probably work (while i have my doubts on the dune buggy and a couple of armours, for instance) but we`ll never know i guess.

And best of all the recreation room on the station had a...ping pong table!

The first two B.O.M.B. missile stations were nearly completed in 2073. Orbiting high above the Earth, all the two B.O.M.B. stations needed were main power reactors to replace the temporary generators that were put in place to maintain the bare, onboard necessities. Unfortunately, the reactors never came. The vessels that were commissioned to take the reactors to the B.O.M.B. stations never left the launch pad at Bloomfield Space Center. By the time the Hermes rockets were complete and loaded with the reactors, nuclear war broke out across the globe. The B.O.M.B. satellites became deadly, yet dormant artifacts of a paranoid age long past.Bombs drop. All Enclave personnel leave Bloomfield to either take cover or maintain “hot spots.� Sub-reactor is turned off. Bloomfield, B.O.M.B.-001 & 002, and Hermes XIII & 14 are completely forgotten.

The good doctor was born and raised in the area formally known as Shady Sands, now known as NCR. He spent many of his years as a scientific advisor to President Tandi before his disillusionment settled in – a disillusionment fueled by the Caravan houses that ate away at NCR. When his breaking point finally came, he became determined to find a way to rid the world of chaos and human impurities, and discovered his savior in Limit 115. Through extensive research, he discovered the history of Limit 115 and its genocidal potency, and also discovered a viable means to cleanse the world. Using Ulysses, the quarantine prison, and a ballistic satellite known as B.O.M.B.-001, the way to human planetary domination and order became clear. He needed to get to B.O.M.B.-001 and use the nuclear weapons to clean the filth and wretch that currently occupied the surface.

So i got a dev permission to put this next thing, i might have to remove it later if something goes wrong, but it`s important to see why i like so many things in the game, and even if i don`t like a few, the big picture seemed so satisfying for a Fallout game and an hardcore RPG game, this is taken from the ties to the games themes for this area:
Quote:
-War… War never changes: Discovering the Dr. evil intent on “cleansing� the Earth’s surface with a new barrage of nuclear missiles, thus reinforcing the adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same. This is amplified by the fact that at least two nuclear missiles will launch no matter what the player does.
-Does anyone ever really win: This is the wasteland – a land of hardship, backstabbing, and death. No matter how well the player does in Fallout 3, someone’s going to lose and the player never really “wins.� Lives will be ruined, communities will fall, and death will reap its crop.


These two sentences are vintage Fallout for me, this type of moral questions is what really hooked me on the Fallout games, in a way D&D or typical fantasy games never could reach until now, at least for me, of course, the grey areas on anyones life, away from the hero that saves everyone and marries the big boobs princess...

[PsychoSniper]

DAMN!, thats a good bit.

[Voluptuous Pachyderm]

The complexity of Fallout robots is debatable. Look at Mr. Handy. I doubt he does all that much. Today, we can make really small robots about the size of of a breadbox that can vacuum your house intelligently. In the Fallout world, it takes a big 'ol robot to perform simple tasks like that. As for attack robots, those probably just have infrared detectors and some way of distinguishing between friendly and foe. Again, given how big Fallout robots are, it's vacuum tubes.

the breadbox hoovers use relatively simple methods to hoover the house, pretty much the same as the lawn mowers. Far simpler than a mr handy or fallout attack robot.

From the advert:
"Mr Handy walks the dog! Mr Handy he's sooooo handy!"

and my own personal one:
"Mr Handy, cut's intruders to shribbons! Mr Handy he's sooooo handy!"

Even now, with incredibly powerful microproccessors (1 GHz on a chip around the size of a dime) we cant have machines as big as mr handy do what he supposedly could, even if he couldn't the ability to wander around and cut people up is complex stuff.

I'd love to see an effective Friend Or Foe system built on Vacuum tubes, I'd then love to see it fit on a robot 2m by 2m by 2m. or even into a box the size of one of the small hovering ones. And I suspect the hovering ones would require some pretty damn good electronic control to stay stable.

It'd need to be good differentiation between IR signatures alone because Vacuum tubes themselves (I may be wrong) create large heat signatures.

It could be recordings with solid state media but dont they also have speach synthesis?

Vacuum tubes are highly resistant to EM pulse and surges. One of the main ideas in the case of a nuclear war is to have main cummunication radios "hardened", this either means speciallly built and shielded microcircuitry and transistors or good vacuum tubes, because vacuum tubes are pretty much immune to EM attack. So if those robots are bassed on vacuum tubes and "primitive" circuitry forget using to nice nifty EM grenades that damage them so.

Didn't you notice how the supercomputers in question are IMMENSE? The BOS computer filled an entire room. And what the hell is Imperator?

Good guess on power armour--it's fusion powered. That's one of the rare miniaturized techs in Fallout. And I don't see where computers are necessary there. Remember how wearing PA didn't provide any kind of bonuses to targeting or whatever? Power armour is really just big heavy armour with fusion power to help the wearer move around in it.

Cyber brains and cybernetics... well, yeah, the thing is that you don't need transistors there because the brain is doing all the computing. The rest is all just servomotors and such.

Supercomputers these days are also immense. some bigger than the ones with the BOS and in the vaults or san-fran


Fusion reactors require immense control, It's harder to keep up a balanced fusion reaction than to keep a balanced fission reaction. Again not much chance of them being controlled by simple vacuum tube circuitry that fits into a box even the size of a backpack, especially considering the fact you need the reactor in there aswell.

Cyber brains require complex interfaces between themselves and the hardware they control.




Shall we have it this way? The Fallout world includes things that are and are not possible today, it has it's own timeline of technological advances. Considering the technology obviously present and possible inside the Fallout world orbital stations and space rockets are not too unrealistic.

[PsychoSniper]

Remember this, the FO universe is an alternate one that is further in the futrue than ours and has more tech.

As for the 50's look, just assume that america was going thru another massive retro trend.

[Koki]

Doublepost... damn.

[Koki]

The space shuttle doesn't count as that was a MASSIVE CLUSTERFUCK by whoever designed the hubologist area. It's about as valid to Fallout canon as the Bridgekeeper special random encounter.

*smiles*

I knew it will end with someone saying something like that, and me replying:
So you know better than designers what should and what should not be in the game?

The complexity of Fallout robots is debatable. Look at Mr. Handy. I doubt he does all that much. Today, we can make really small robots about the size of of a breadbox that can vacuum your house intelligently. In the Fallout world, it takes a big 'ol robot to perform simple tasks like that. As for attack robots, those probably just have infrared detectors and some way of distinguishing between friendly and foe. Again, given how big Fallout robots are, it's vacuum tubes.

It's debatable. Brain Bot is pretty small, and it has manipulators similiar to human hands, well if it can manipulate shotgun...

Didn't you notice how the supercomputers in question are IMMENSE? The BOS computer filled an entire room. And what the hell is Imperator?

I mean the 'Imperator' of the shi empire. Format C:/
Well, they are big, but they look pretty techy, and let's not forget, those are AI's.

Good guess on power armour--it's fusion powered. That's one of the rare miniaturized techs in Fallout. And I don't see where computers are necessary there. Remember how wearing PA didn't provide any kind of bonuses to targeting or whatever? Power armour is really just big heavy armour with fusion power to help the wearer move around in it.

You win this time.

Cyber brains and cybernetics... well, yeah, the thing is that you don't need transistors there because the brain is doing all the computing. The rest is all just servomotors and such.

I do not know enough about cybernetics, but I always though that connetcing cables to right places is not enough.

[LlamaGod]

Damn, Koki, you've got to be one of the dumbest new comers i've seen around here in quite awhile.

[Koki]

I am easily bannable. Heh, to think I'll too end like all those guys on NMA whose crossed Die-Hard fallout fans.

And sorry for double-post, but we(mortals) can't delete them anyway...