Duck and Cover

Ghetto Goose wrote:well, if this is placed AFTER the events of fo2(and it better fuckin be) the BOS will already have the design for those big humanoid thingies. One of the plus's to joining the BOS in this would be access to such NPC's. Even a recruiting pool once you do a few BOS quests. Of coarse, those would be the expendable ones

Having the plans for robots is fine and dandy until you remember that the parts for them haven't been made in over 160 years. You could probably scavange parts given several robots, and hope the same systems in all of them haven't failed, but keep in mind that every time a system in a robot fails due to a component burning out, that's one less robot left in the world.

I agree, but think...in fo2, you use probably 5-10 weapons. Why? because you use the best you can get at any given time. and the way the game progresses, people end up usually having the same guns around the same areas. I just wanna see more weapons because of the fact that thered be more than there were in fo2. Not because im a "skip to San Fran and steal a ton of shit" guy.

Well, at some point, you have cross overs, two or more weapons which are close to the same in statistics. Having more weapons just means more cross over weapons, especially when it comes to bullet/shell weapons.

The reason I'd rather see less weapons is to get away from them using the weapons that don't exactly fit Fallout just for the sake of having gobs and gobs of weapons.

Well, and i said this in the armor thread, Just about every enemy has "armor" no matter what. lets just say, hypothetically that you start out as a tribal again in fo3. More than likely, your tribe wont give you the Advanced PA, Gauss Rifle, Car and the ton of junk the guy in fo2 had.

So, something like a Gecko Hide Armor? Something poorly tossed together? I can see that.

People were bound to see the chosen one's car and try to copy it. plus, there were 200 cars in NCR. in an interview, Avellone said that, and thats why the guy offered to watch you car even if you didnt have one, thats why there was the shop outside New Reno, and thats why the guy in the robes offered to repair it.

Avellone's logic is faulty. He assumes that if there was a garage in NCR, garage must equal cars. Likes the dozens of people who replied to him, a garage is just a shelter to work on large things.

Likewise, the berth where you park your car in NCR also doesn't mean there's cars. That berth could be for resting/feeding brahmin after a caravan drive. It could be for parking the caravan trailers. It could have been built for slave auctions before NCR outlawed them.

Amish people have garages, but they don't have cars.

Furthermore, we know that vehicles were chopped up and used for other things in Fallout. Cars are big piles of refined steel, and steel is a nice thing to have. The truck beds make good caravan wagons. The rest of the steel can be used for other things, considering metal has a lot of useful properties. It's hard, it conducts heat well, it's malliable, and so on. Would you rather harvest car metal inside or outside a garage? Think about it.

Now, consider that NCR had trade, which can be seen by Westin's caravan guard job, I'd say the explanation that CAN BE SEEN is a little better than some hack-kneed excuse for them like, "There's cars, you just can't see them."

I'll take Tim Cain's Used Car Lot encounter's explanation over Avellone's silly assed "game logic" one, hands down.

Avellone said, "The player wont go through the trouble to get the pieces, and pay the money to get a car, when he can just swipe one" I think you should have the possiblility to have a few cars. Now, im not saying "GET THE TANK AND THE APV, NOW LETS ROLL OVER THE MUTIE!" but more modest cars. maybe a taxi, or a station wagon(i want this one) or minivan or something like that.

Again, this is called grasping. I seriously doubt they were thinking "Hey, let's not put cars in NCR because a player could steal them" when they were making the town.

Only human? aww, have a heart SP! no ghouls, no mutants, no dogs, no robodogs, no robots, no deathclaws and the like in you party = NO FUN!

Ghouls are human. Dogs are okay. The whole idea of friendly deathclaws and mutants just for the sake of having them be an NPC is silly though. Supermutants and Deathclaws are supposed to be very scary things, not your bestest bud.

It's this kind of munchkinism that made Fallout 2 a pale shadow of Fallout.

I think you should have the POSSIBILITY to get just about anyone in your party. Given the right speech skill/karma/whatever. that opens up so many possibilities.

Other than having the supermutant around to fire a minigun, which a human can do anyway, what?

Right, and the BOS scribes have just been sitting on their asses all this time? They obviously know about combat implants, so they'd obviously try to improve on this.

Putting armor plates under the skin is one thing. Building Steve Austin, Bionic Man, is another. Another thing to consider is that they didn't have bionics before the war, when developing things is much, much easier. It's hard to think that a scribe or two, isolated in a bunker in Southern California, could do it when 2070s era earth couldn't.

zipguns and stuff to BEGIN with, but maybe once you get to the BOS they teach you a few things?

Making a higher tech gun by machining it would take a long time, and you'd need the raw components for it.

Napoleon wrote:With that said, more isn't necessarily better. The sheer selection of weapons in FO2 wasn't just excessive and improbably, it was totally unnecessary.

Agreed, and in fact, I'd go as far as to say it's worse. Fallout's timeline is radically different from our own. Even in the original design docs for Fallout, it stated that the Space Race didn't happen in the 1950s, it happenned much, much later. Chris Taylor stated that fusion was developed in the 1970s in Fallout. Those are fairly significant changes when you get to the nitty gritty about it.

Most of the weapons you see that were added in Fallout 2, the real world weapons from our time, and the weapons prototypes like the pancor and caseless weapons, probably wouldn't have existed just because the science of making such things would be different. Also, why would the military commission the AK-112 Assault Rifle for U.S. troop use when they had better weapons in the late 1990s - 2010s?

None of that made any sense at all. They just threw those weapons in there for the sake of having more weapons. Adding weapons for the sake of having quantity isn't a good idea.

When it comes to guns and armor, that mid-game leap from having one 10mm pistol and 24 bullets to owning more munitions than you can fit in your car makes gameplay a lot less meaningful. It even makes the big stuff seem less impressive. Remember how godlike it felt to have a suit of Brotherhood Power Armor and a plasma gun?

100% agreed.

In fact, even having something technological in Fallout felt a lot better than in Fallout 2. Technology just wasn't that big a deal in Fallout 2 because it was over-present.

I guess it all comes down to which direction you want Fallout to go. Do you want it to turn cyberpunk, or weigh more on the post-apoc side? I'm going for the latter, thankyouverymuch. I like my wasteland gritty and desparate.

Also agreed, this was another problem with Fallout 2. Advancement was going on at way too fast a rate. It's been said numerous times that Fallout was post apocalyptic and Fallout 2 was just way too civilized. There was way too much progress going from Fallout to Fallout 2.

Technology after the war should have peaked out at the time when the vaults started openning and then slowly degenerated from there. After all, the shelter of the vaults allowed for people to learn in a safe environment, and for adults to teach their children. Now, when they step out in to the wasteland, the adults have to protect their children and grow their own food.

Shady Sands in Fallout was a much better example of a post-vault group of people than say, Vault City in Fallout 2. They were backwards compared to the generations that came before them because life in the wasteland is much, much more difficult than it is in a vault or before the war. Vault 15 dwellers had to deal with raiders and radscorpions. Their survival had to become the focus of their lives. They simply don't have the ideal situation anymore. There's not as much time to pass down all knowledge from one generation to the next. In essence, with each generation, some knowledge will be lost.

There's even historical precendent for this happening as well. When the northern hordes sacked Roman societies, it didn't take long for them to lose the information on how to build aqueducts, for example. Without those, life became harder, and Europe was plunged in to the Dark Ages.

Constipated Bladerunner wrote:Incorrect, my cute little friend.
Look at Saint_P's tagline on the BIS forums, because the interviews are down now.

Nope, it was Tim Cain who said Fallout was about ethics, not building better plasma rifles.

Well, that's lovely... an otherwise interesting conversation was turned into an "1337et th4n j00" match AND Proverbius' already overfilled ego was stroked. Gotta love these boards.

Napoleon wrote:Well, that's lovely... an otherwise interesting conversation was turned into an "1337et th4n j00" match AND Proverbius' already overfilled ego was stroked. Gotta love these boards.

So, instead of getting the conversation back on course, you're trying to start a flame war. How cute.

There was a 300people/1car ratio in NCR- I read it in the bible.
Also, Iam curious, where does it state that fusion was developed in the 1970's and the space race happned later? Iam curious.
Also, we have fusion, we just cant mass produce it- Iam not sure when it was developed though.

Constipated BladeRunner wrote:There was a 300people/1car ratio in NCR- I read it in the bible.
Also, Iam curious, where does it state that fusion was developed in the 1970's and the space race happned later? Iam curious.
Also, we have fusion, we just cant mass produce it- Iam not sure when it was developed though.

True, but C. Avellone is just speculating, there should have been more conversation about that with the community/Tim Cain before posting it in the bible. He isn't the creator of this setting and shouldn't dictate how things are. I don't have a problem with cars in Fallout as long as they are very, very, very rare. And most of them shouldn't even be normal cars, which C.A. mentioned (old tractors, buses, snowplows etc..). That seems reasonable. Fusion cars (the one in FO2) should be even more rare. In fact, fusion cars were developed so late that only a handful of those were manufactured before the war.

Check timeline in Fallout Bible #1 for development of fusion. It mentions following:

"2066, Summer
Adding further insult to the Chinese-American relations, the first crude fusion cell is unveiled, one of the results of the Power Armor project. Devices designed for the fusion cell begin to be manufactured. Incorporating fusion power into the general US infrastructure begins, but the process is too slow to supply power to the regions that need it. Nearly thirteen years later, few sections of the United States were supplied with fusion power.

2070
The first of the Chryslus motors fusion-driven cars are developed. Reassuringly big and American, the limited models carry a hefty price tag but are sold out within days. Many Chryslus plants have long since been converted into making military ordinance. "

There's no mention about space race though.

Constipated BladeRunner wrote:There was a 300people/1car ratio in NCR- I read it in the bible.

The ratio is 1/200, and because of things like that, I don't consider the bible accurate. That's why several of us talk to Tim Cain(i.e. the Creator of Fallout) rather than listening to Chris Avellone(BIS's Custodian of Fallout).

Also, Iam curious, where does it state that fusion was developed in the 1970's and the space race happned later? Iam curious.

Chris Taylor was talking to Dan Wood, me, and several others on IRC a few years ago. He said that fusion technology in Fallout was rather an old technology, developed in the 1970s. This, BTW, explains a lot about Fallout, like why fusion technology is more mature than, say, electronics.

Section8 uncovered the delayed Space Race thing when he was reading through the old Fallout documentation he had access to because he is the Fallout guy at Micro Forte(the man should have been the lead designer on FOT, but I digress). The delayed Space Race thing also makes sense when you look at Fallout's technology. If you had fusion power before space flight, then you really don't need to make miniture electronics. Fallout's electronics are big, bulky things.

Also, we have fusion, we just cant mass produce it- Iam not sure when it was developed though.

Well, an H-Bomb can be called a "fusion bomb", but we're talking STABLE fusion, on a macro level. Large scale fusion plants producing energy for cities and states.

Also, consider that the one thing they have miniturized in Fallout is fusion power. This suggests a very mature technology, especially when you consider how antiquated most of the computer technology is.

A modern, real world PDA is a tiny computer. The PipBoy 2000, Fallout's "PDA", is nothing more than a digital watch with data storage.

You stated nothing I didnt know, yet I do find the space thing interesting, and it is ENTIRLEY possible to stabalize fusion by the year 2077- I would be surprised if it didnt happen in the next 30-45 years.

Constipated BladeRunner wrote:...it is ENTIRLEY possible to stabalize fusion by the year 2077- I would be surprised if it didnt happen in the next 30-45 years.

Yes, but it's a bit late for stablized fusion by the 1970s, isn't it?

OTB

This is MCA timeline, it defies common sense. It is not final and is open to debate, any other subject thats been debated on he has given ground, I dont doubt a refined timeline would be any different.

Quite simply put, being an authority on the original fallout and the original creators opinions makes Saint P's opinions worth more then yours. Therefore he can be as condesecending as he likes.

Most of this can be explained by FO's "retrofuture" concept. It is one possible concept of what people in the 1950's and earler thought the future would be like. IMO, it explains the contradictions of high-tech stuff looking like it came from the 1950's.

Some ideas:
http://www.coldfusionvideo.com/futurepast.html

Big, finned, nuclear cars(in the 1950's, "atomic" was stuck to anything that would hold still, like "high-tech" and "new and improved" are overused now); healing drugs (in big syringes), appliance-sized computers with lots of flashing lights(that are basically data terminals); food pills; the notion that "atomic power" would be used for everything; ray guns; enough fallout shelters for everyone; flying cars; casual spaceflight; etc. were all supposed to be here by the turn of the century. Everything would just be big and clunky by modern standards. A small example is the size of computers in science fiction from the 1950's-1970's. None of the authors/filmmakers whose works I saw postulated the minaturization revolution; their computers occupy basements, buildings, space stations, or hollowed-out planetoids. No 1950's-1960's author/screenwriter that I know of imagined that by the late 1980's that the average person would be able to buy a computer for 1-2 months' wages that made ENIAC look like scratching marks in the dirt, and that it would fit on, and not be, a desk.

Whoever works on FO3 needs to study old science fiction and Civil Defense footage. I agree with the idea of not cramming it full of real world stuff.

VasikkA wrote:True, but C. Avellone is just speculating, there should have been more conversation about that with the community/Tim Cain before posting it in the bible. He isn't the creator of this setting and shouldn't dictate how things are. I don't have a problem with cars in Fallout as long as they are very, very, very rare. And most of them shouldn't even be normal cars, which C.A. mentioned (old tractors, buses, snowplows etc..). That seems reasonable. Fusion cars (the one in FO2) should be even more rare. In fact, fusion cars were developed so late that only a handful of those were manufactured before the war.

Really, that's a huge problem with the timeline. Fusion wasn't developed in it until the wars started.

If we go by World War 2 standards of how the population acted, then there'd be no reason to buy that fusion car because American society was in fully fledged conservation mode come 1942. In fact, people even mothballed their cars and gave the tires from the cars to the war effort. Since WW2 is the basis for the Great War, as seen in Fallout's news reels, vault propeganda, and so on, there'd be no point in making fusion cars because no one would buy them.

Also, if fusion cars appeared during that time, they'd be expensive as hell. Look at the first fuel injection cars in the 1950s, they were more expensive than the carburator counterparts. Paying more during conservation times doesn't work.

Keep in mind that society pre-Great War was more simple than our own time, since it's from a 1950s point of view. Chris Avellone seems to be missing that as well. There's a huge difference between our society, which demands multiple cars, and the society of the 1950s.

Also, if fusion vehicles were being made, they wouldn't be fusion civilian cars. In a time of great war, most industries are converted to war effort. All developments go towards the war. Most likely, there would be fusion jeeps, fusion tanks, and so on if fusion vehicles appeared during the war.

It just doesn't make any sense at all that cars came so late.

Constipated Bladerunner wrote:You stated nothing I didnt know, yet I do find the space thing interesting, and it is ENTIRLEY possible to stabalize fusion by the year 2077- I would be surprised if it didnt happen in the next 30-45 years.

If I stated nothing you didn't know, then what are you trying to say about stable fusion in our future? Fallout isn't even our present, 2002 in Fallout is much, much different than real world 2002.

Blarg wrote:Most of this can be explained by FO's "retrofuture" concept. It is one possible concept of what people in the 1950's and earler thought the future would be like. IMO, it explains the contradictions of high-tech stuff looking like it came from the 1950's.

Granted, but some people have a problem with that concept, so you have to present it another way. For example, what would happen if "Event X" didn't happen or happened later than it did?

People seem to be okay with the idea of alternate far pasts and alternative futures, but an alternative present that's radically different in many ways confuses them.

I know it would be diffirent- but not THAT diffirent-
The CCCP broke down, you have computers, but there are intersting things- the use of tapes, for instance, on computers.

what is that tape reference about? tapes are still used for data storage today.

Saint P agrees with some of my ideas. cool. you mention that it would only work in a turn-based game... this is a problem? I liked the turn based combat of fo and fo2. give the impatient a CTB version and suck half the life out of those who enjoy TB.

I like the retro-future of fallout. less so in fallout 2.

http://www.pppl.gov/fusion_basics/pages ... ction.html
Looks to me like fusion was first deveoloped in the mid 1970's. It is perfected in 2071? and the rest is fallout.
Tell me, SP, what exactly did they say?

You still having trouble with the whole retro-future thing?

FireWolf wrote:You still having trouble with the whole retro-future thing?

Not at all
The greatest comedy of all time is Brazil,
but I think it really alinates us from the world of fallout if things that could stay the same from our own world are changed.

fallout is a what-if scienario. essentially a lot could be different. can someone tell me when the skew in history happend? is all history the same up until 1950 and then history changed course? or does it go way back into the past.

FireWolf wrote:fallout is a what-if scienario. essentially a lot could be different. can someone tell me when the skew in history happend? is all history the same up until 1950 and then history changed course? or does it go way back into the past.

It's not so much a Lionheart scenario of a time-branch. Instead, it's a portrayal of what a post-apocalyptic future would be like if it was in the eyes of the Cuban Missile Crisis propoganda (Bert the Turtle, etc) mixed with the scence-fiction pulp from the 30's-60's. Think of the old Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny cartoons, with the cigar rockets, Martians, and the associated sci-fi imagnation given to them. Real-life fusion timelines would not be appropriate to use here.

Constipated BladeRunner wrote:http://www.pppl.gov/fusion_basics/pages ... ction.html
Looks to me like fusion was first deveoloped in the mid 1970's. It is perfected in 2071? and the rest is fallout.
Tell me, SP, what exactly did they say?

Stable macrofusion in 1970, as in WORKABLE fusion, CONTAINABLE and MAINTAINABLE fusion.

Rosh wrote:It's not so much a Lionheart scenario of a time-branch. Instead, it's a portrayal of what a post- apocalyptic future would be like if it was in the eyes of the Cuban Missile Crisis propoganda (Bert the Turtle, etc) mixed with the scence-fiction pulp from the 30's-60's. Think of the old Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny cartoons, with the cigar rockets, Martians, and the associated sci-fi imagnation given to them. Real-life fusion timelines would not be appropriate to use here.

Exactly. However, because of this, you'd have to, when making a timeline, realise that everything from say, the late 1950s, to 2077 would have to be written from the perspective of the 1950s writer looking to the future.

Rosh wrote:Think of the old Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny cartoons, with the cigar rockets, Martians, and the associated sci-fi imagnation given to them.

So what you're trying to say is that the FO universe needs an XP-38 Explosive Space Modulator? :mrgreen:

OTB