Fallout Perpetual Debate of Bethesda Versus Interplay/Obsidian Fallout World Design

[ThatZenoGuy]

Why would that suggest better buildings would be more common place? The best buildings in the Post War literally come from people use nuclear reactors that easily blow up said base.

The NCR in New Vegas still relies on using pre existing structures instead of building their own after five years of being in the Mojave and sending over a thousand people each year there.


If the NCR with substantial man power can't do it because they're too far from their core territory why would the less numerous and less unified East Coast people be any better?

NCR builds plenty of shit too, you're aware that Shady sands (largest city they have) is exclusively post-war constructions right?

You do know most people in Fallout DON'T live for 200 years right? Even the majority of Ghoul's start forgetting stuff they learned

>What is generational knowledge
Also ghouls don't forget shit, not unless they go feral.

Where are people getting the filters and tubes from?

Uhhh all over the fucking place? When like 9/10 of humanity has been destroyed, that's a lot of houses to scavenge for pipes and you can use all sorts of shit as filters, sand, gravel, carbon, etc. Filters aren't rocket science. XD

Your average FO nuke is radiating anywhere from 20-250 rads a second AFTER immediate detonation,
THE CRITERIA OF RADIATION EMPLOYED IN THE STUDY - The Children of Atomic Bomb Survivors - NCBI Bookshelf

The IRL nukes are outputting a lot less than that and expire much sooner, not to mention the East Coast got hit by more nukes than the West.

Protip, the faster something emits radiation (AKA, the more radioactive it is), the quicker it loses radiation emissions.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

Why can't homeless people in LA build that?

Probably too out of their minds with fentanyl, and because building a fucking stone hut in the middle of the street might not work due to like...Laws?

Drop a bunch of people who've survived for 200 years in the wilderness into an area with plentiful supplies and yes they will build something livable. It's...Sort of necessary.

Christ, Shady sands has multiple buildings and even has the entire town walled-off for defence, and it's population is some 20-40 people.

 

[mrttao]

Why can't homeless people in LA build that?

because they don't own land and the govt will tear it down if they try to build on someone else's land
also, you are comparing the ones lowest in society A to everyone in society B. The people of LA build much nicer houses than fallout, the homeless are the rare exception

 

[Zachowon]

You're suggesting the east coast is lacking...Dirt?
I mean hell, at least get chopping on stones/existing brickwork to make a nicer place. There's hundreds of tons of easily salvaged materials just laying around but everyone lives in tetanus infested shitholes that Primitive Technology could outperform in a week.

...do...do you know how to do that yourself?
Like. Buy an abandoned house and just make it functional to not have any holes or leaking areas.
Or buy land and do exactly what you suggest.
It isn't easy, and every evidence shown is due to structures already existing.

And Adobe is a certain technic used in areas out in the west.
It is nit easy in the east due to the soil and the like

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

...do...do you know how to do that yourself?
Like. Buy an abandoned house and just make it functional to not have any holes or leaking areas.
Or buy land and do exactly what you suggest.
It isn't easy, and every evidence shown is due to structures already existing.

And Adobe is a certain technic used in areas out in the west.
It is nit easy in the east due to the soil and the like

A silly argument, we see that people in the West coast figured it out after 100 years, and got even better after 200.
So unless everyone on the east coast all suffered generational head-trauma, I think they can build something nicer.
And yeah, pump 200 years of generational knowledge and technical know-how into my brain and I am pretty sure I could figure it out.

 

[mrttao]

...do...do you know how to do that yourself?
Like. Buy an abandoned house and just make it functional to not have any holes or leaking areas.
Or buy land and do exactly what you suggest.
It isn't easy, and every evidence shown is due to structures already existing.

And Adobe is a certain technic used in areas out in the west.
It is nit easy in the east due to the soil and the like

... do you not know how to do it yourself?
what, do you just call a handiman every time you need to do any housework more intensive than screwing in a lightbulb?

Also... keep in mind we are talking about a society, not an individual.
The question is not whether a singular random person from a society where everything is provided for him can do it.

The question is whether you can really have a society where not a single person knows anything about building shelter.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

The question is whether you can really have a society where not a single person knows anything about building shelter.

And the answer is "Of course you cannot!", which is why FO3-4 is nonsensical.
It would've made a lot more sense if FO3-4 civilians were running around in Mad Max 3 tribal garb and were living in tribal shacks/tents.
Instead we get this weird mishmash that neither looks authentically tribal, or authentically well built.

 

[Scooby Doo]

NCR builds plenty of shit too, you're aware that Shady sands (largest city they have) is exclusively post-war constructions right?

That's cool they can do that in place where they had 80 years of peace and hundreds of thousands of bodies, show me one building that they created in the Mojave though

>What is generational knowledge
Also ghouls don't forget shit, not unless they go feral.

They do forget shit lmao, tell me you never played a Fallout game without telling me.

Uhhh all over the fucking place? When like 9/10 of humanity has been destroyed, that's a lot of houses to scavenge for pipes and you can use all sorts of shit as filters, sand, gravel, carbon, etc. Filters aren't rocket science. XD

Oh wait you think junk like that can filter hundreds of rads out lmao?

Protip, the faster something emits radiation (AKA, the more radioactive it is), the quicker it loses radiation emissions.

Pro tip, Fallout nukes have still been releasing hundreds of rads for decades to centuries

Probably too out of their minds with fentanyl, and because building a fucking stone hut in the middle of the street might not work due to like...Laws?

So Wastelanders are not high on drugs too?
Okay so Laws prevent people from doing that, guess what so do fucking raiders and giant mutant monsters lol

Drop a bunch of people who've survived for 200 years in the wilderness into an area with plentiful supplies and yes they will build something livable. It's...Sort of necessary.

No one's lived for 200 years

Christ, Shady sands has multiple buildings and even has the entire town walled-off for defence, and it's population is some 20-40 people.

I mean it's a small peaceful village in the desert

Of course they'll be able to build something like that lol.

The Institute was 20-40 people as well and built this from their basement

 

[Scooby Doo]

... do you not know how to do it yourself?
what, do you just call a handiman every time you need to do any housework more intensive than screwing in a lightbulb?

Also... keep in mind we are talking about a society, not an individual.
The question is not whether a singular random person from a society where everything is provided for him can do it.

The question is whether you can really have a society where not a single person knows anything about building shelter.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

Pro tip, Fallout nukes have still be releasing hundreds of rads for decades to centuries

Not really, they don't. The one place we see that they have, The Glow was hit by some weird unidentified weapon, it's the exception not the norm.
Many, MANY places in FO were nuked and have mostly-normal radiation levels to the degree you can live in them.

Oh wait you think junk like that can filter hundreds of rads out lmao?

Do you even know how radiation works? Gamma waves are going to be the first thing to disappear because they're super high energy, leaving mostly beta and alpha particles and various radioactive isotopes that will die off eventually too. You know what filters radiation REALLY well, and is rather hard to become radioactive in the first place? Water! Because you can't really irradiate water, sure you can make deutrium and shit but that's not very common. What will kill you is the radioactive isotopes/particles floating around the water.
Which...Are all going to get flushed out to sea via rivers, or settle on the lake-bed over 200 years.

FO3 is a good example of writers not understanding how radiation works, now granted the series is based on silly 50's movies where radiation makes ghouls, giant monsters and so on, but the actual physics of 'what is radiation?' is identical to real life.

That's why you don't die when you waddle around randomly in FO1-2, because if FO3-4 concepts of radiation was the case, everyone would be dead or seriously deformed after 200 years.

 

[mrttao]

Do you even know how radiation works? Gamma waves are going to be the first thing to disappear because they're super high energy, leaving mostly beta and alpha particles and various radioactive isotopes that will die off eventually too.

Gamma rays are just light (photons) at a high energy frequency you cannot see them with your human eye. (non visible light spectrum)
Alpha particle is literally just a helium-4 nucleus
beta- particle is an electron
beta+ particle is a positron

none of those are radioactive themselves. radioactive material emits those.
and if an alpha particle hits an atom fast enough it can either break it or fuse with it. either process can hypothetically produce new radioactive material depending on what they hit.
but as you said, water is great for that. to get radioactive water you need to basically have dissolved radioactive minerals in it.
for example, dissolved plutonium atoms in the water.

A simple distillation process would remove those.

 

[Scooby Doo]

Not really, they don't. The one place we see that they have, The Glow was hit by some weird unidentified weapon, it's the exception not the norm.

Confirmed in the lore to be a regular nuke hitting a stockpile of nukes.

Many, MANY places in FO were nuked and have mostly-normal radiation levels to the degree you can live in them.

Many places in the West Coast didn't get nuked as hard as the East even Mister House mentioned that his lasers mitigated the damage but more would be mitigated were it not for the Platinum Chip arriving.

Do you even know how radiation works? Gamma waves are going to be the first thing to disappear because they're super high energy, leaving mostly beta and alpha particles and various radioactive isotopes that will die off eventually too. You know what filters radiation REALLY well, and is rather hard to become radioactive in the first place? Water! Because you can't really irradiate water, sure you can make deutrium and shit but that's not very common. What will kill you is the radioactive isotopes/particles floating around the water.
Which...Are all going to get flushed out to sea via rivers, or settle on the lake-bed over 200 years.

FO3 is a good example of writers not understanding how radiation works, now granted the series is based on silly 50's movies where radiation makes ghouls, giant monsters and so on, but the actual physics of 'what is radiation?' is identical to real life.

That's why you don't die when you waddle around randomly in FO1-2, because if FO3-4 concepts of radiation was the case, everyone would be dead or seriously deformed after 200 years.

 

[mrttao]

This is basically admitting you were wrong all along.
And shifting the goalposts from
> This is realistic and reasonable
to
> Ok you are right that this is nonsense. but the dev said "don't expect" realism so therefore they are immune from criticism

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

Gamma rays are just light (photons) at a high energy frequency you cannot see them with your human eye. (non visible light spectrum)
Alpha particle is literally just a helium-4 nucleus
beta- particle is an electron
beta+ particle is a positron

none of those are radioactive themselves. radioactive material emits those.
and if an alpha particle hits an atom fast enough it can either break it or fuse with it. either process can hypothetically produce new radioactive material depending on what they hit.
but as you said, water is great for that. to get radioactive water you need to basically have dissolved radioactive minerals in it.
for example, dissolved plutonium atoms in the water.

A simple distillation process would remove those.

Gammas, Alphas and Betas naturally mess your body up. They aren't 'radioactive' I suppose but they're what radioactivity releases. You're right in that regard. And yeah, distilling should work if it's done properly, but I'd say it's risky if the water is genuinely full of nasty isotopes. Also heavy water wouldn't distill into normal water I think?

Confirmed in the lore to be a regular nuke hitting a stockpile of nukes.

Doesn't say anything like that in FO1-2, so null and void.

Many places in the West Coast didn't get nuked as hard as the East even Mister House mentioned that his lasers mitigated the damage but more would be mitigated were it not for the Platinum Chip arriving.

You overestimate how much radiation nukes have, especially over 200 years.

Not canon, try harder please, we're discussing the science of radiation here.

 

[Scooby Doo]

This is basically admitting you were wrong all along.

Nope

And shifting the goalposts from
> This is realistic and reasonable
to

I'm using the narrative from the setting, not real life sciences like you guys lol

> Ok you are right that this is nonsense. but the dev said "don't expect" realism so therefore they are immune from criticism

You literally tried to argue that water wouldn't be able to get irradiated because it's not scientifically accurate lol

 

[mrttao]

Gammas, Alphas and Betas naturally mess your body up

at the microsecond they are emitted.
They don't linger around the environment to make it radioactive forever.
that was the point i was trying to make.

And yeah, distilling should work if it's done properly, but I'd say it's risky if the water is genuinely full of nasty isotopes. Also heavy water wouldn't distill into normal water I think?

Radioactive water (tritium) has a half life of only 12.32 years later means the quantity has been halved 16.233766234 times.
which is the same as multiplying the quantity by x0.000012976

heavy water has different physical properties of water (differet melting point, different density, color, etc). It isn't blue like normal water.
it can be seperated through distillation, electrolysis, or chemical exchange processes.

due to not functioning quite the same as water, it can cause harm by doing unexpected stuff in the body. the typical lethal amount is having 50% of your body being composed of heavy water. but even a smaller dose won't be very good for you.

the thing is, thanks to the water cycle, all the heavy water that was created by the radioation would have dispersed throughout the earth's environment.
don't drink water from a pond that has an unexploded nuke sitting it. otherwise you are fine with just distillation.

 

[mrttao]

You literally tried to argue that water wouldn't be able to get irradiated because it's not scientifically accurate lol

No, I said that the radioactive water you find should be radioactive because it is full of dissolved radioactive minerals such as plutonium. which can be distilled out of it.
reread my posts on the subject.

 

[Typhonis]

A rather simple filter can be made with clean gravel on top of sand with a layer of charcoal under the sand. That should remove a good number of pollutants in the water.

 

[Scooby Doo]

Doesn't say anything like that in FO1-2, so null and void.

East Coast doesn't exist in FO1-2 nice try cherry picking.

You overestimate how much radiation nukes have, especially over 200 years.

Nope that's just how it works in Fallout not IRl.

Not canon, try harder please, we're discussing the science of radiation here.

Nah it's canon cope

 

[Zachowon]

A silly argument, we see that people in the West coast figured it out after 100 years, and got even better after 200.
So unless everyone on the east coast all suffered generational head-trauma, I think they can build something nicer.
And yeah, pump 200 years of generational knowledge and technical know-how into my brain and I am pretty sure I could figure it out.

Oh?
From what I have seen, it seems like they had a lot more peaceful area to build in.
With clean sight lines to watch for enemiesfrom etc.
in the east coast, we saw just how mamy threats there were.
with cuties like Diamond city, Rivit City, etc having tine to build up with less threat to them.

... do you not know how to do it yourself?
what, do you just call a handiman every time you need to do any housework more intensive than screwing in a lightbulb?

Nah, I do as much as I can legally (living in on base housing I can only do so much myself.)

Also... keep in mind we are talking about a society, not an individual.
The question is not whether a singular random person from a society where everything is provided for him can do it.

The question is whether you can really have a society where not a single person knows anything about building shelter.

Okay.
Eith this in mind, we would have to assume that those that survived the nukes in the first place have managed to get to a point they can defend themselves from the new threats.
Take into account any aspect that may lead to deaths from radiation, bad food, lack of water.
That 200 people could end up a lot smaller.

So basically,
What is the environment that allowed them to thrive