peadar1987

I think FO3's voice acting is better. NV has better writing, but I do think some people (especially Benny) seem like the actors weren't really bothered.

Is that the gun that is used to shoot molerats, or the one that shoots mole rats as projectiles? :wink: It's the gun that is used to shoot mole rats with other mole rats.

I think that's balanced out by the fact that the legion control more territory. I suppose it all really depends on whether the Legion's push to the east has reached Texas yet. Anything less, and I think you're probably right, in the long term, the legion simply won't have the manpower to grind down the population of the NCR, they need a decisive victory at Hoover Dam, and a rapid push to the sea, crushing resistance before it has the chance to develop. I think if they establish in California, rebellion will be very difficult. There are lots of individuals in the NCR, many with guns, combat skills, and a hatred of the legion, but without organisation, each one of them would be made an example of before they could cause any damage to the regime. The Fallout wiki it's game lore the Legion's population is crashing due to the way they abuse women, chew up men in their army and exacute dangerous criminals like jaywalkers. It's also mentioned that the NCR is over populated to the point of drinking lakes dry (though that's a bit hard to belive considering how dangerous the world of Fallout is) Not to play spolier but the issue of how big California is next to everything else in the west comes up with Legate Lanius It's kind of hard to talk about the Legion in real life terms since the whole faction is set up like something from a fantasy game (heck, some of the named Legion NPCs even have magical swords) If it's the same part of the wiki I'm thinking of, the population's not exactly crashing, but key legion NPCs admit that the current set-up is never going to work in the long run. Which is why Caesar wants Vegas to serve as his "Rome". Instead of the legion being an army that happens to control large amounts of land, he wants it to become a society of its own. Perhaps an aggressive, expansionist, brutal society, but one with farmers, and traders, and plebians, and praetorians. One in which the people would serve the identity of the Legion, and not the personality cult of Caesar, and which would live on after he died. For the moment, the Legion are using vast amounts of slave labour as a stop-gap to keep their army running, in the absence of a proper nation state to back them up.

+1 Very curious You need a coffin to put your My Little Pony paraphernalia, and your gun that shoots mole rats.

More 2 Megaton adds this for Megaton. It shouldn't be too hard to put together in the GECK. I might be convinced to try something when I get the time

You don't really know how much the Lone Wanderer uses the BB gun. That's part of the character building process. If you choose to believe that s/he used it every day, you tag the small guns skill. If you prefer to believe s/he was more into learning about science and medicine, you tag those skills instead. I'd assume that the knowledge of firearms is passed down father to son at a young age as part of their upbringing. As for the raiders, they were just "zombies with guns", with no society, no depth, pretty boring if you ask me. It makes sense for them to attack you in self-defence if they come under fire, but it would be more realistic if there were raider towns, and raiders ambushed caravans and settlements to supplement whatever they could produce themselves, instead of just chilling in an abandoned church for the Lone Wanderer to pass by. The fact that there seem to be ten raiders for every wastelander is a bit silly, as is the fact that a lone raider armed with a pool cue will still charge someone in Enclave power armour, wielding a minigun, and accompanied by an eight foot tall Super Mutant. It's possible the overseer got it wrong, or James lied. I think education is pretty scarce in the wasteland. There's hardly a "University of Point Lookout" people could attend for an official qualification. People just call themselves whatever they want, or whatever they happen to be doing at the time. Wherever James initially came from, he's probably just picked up some knowledge along the way. Enough to set a wastelander's broken bones properly, or dress a gunshot wound, as well as the best kinds of filters to remove radioactivity. A couple of thousand, supposedly. Clearly the game couldn't handle a vault of that size, so there's suspension of disbelief, and walled-off areas. The vault has been sealed for almost 200 years, and the biggest threat has probably been a few radroaches or a greaser teenager trying to start trouble. Vault security are clearly inexperienced, even if the rumour has been spread that they're "elite" to stop people causing trouble. She clearly doesn't take after her father. It's not as though he's the only influence in her life. Just because it's the future doesn't mean that there aren't stupid and sadistic people around. Someone from the 1950s could just as easily say something about a work of fiction set in 2013 where suspects are waterboarded. Yeah, that was pretty stupid. James is clearly a very intelligent man, and a committed idealist, but he isn't immune to some crazy decisions. Leaving you to god-knows-what in the vault, wandering into a building infested with super mutants, getting trapped in Vault 87, and eventually killing himself for no reason whatsoever. Well clearly James didn't forget. I always chose to believe that the Vault is a big place, and the Overseet just pretended James had been there all along, and anyone who didn't remember him just hadn't come across him before he was promoted to head doctor. They passed through Rivet City. They could have received their education anywhere. Pinkerton, as you say. The Commonwealth, the Brotherhood, even the NCR or the Enclave. James certainly seemed to know who the Enclave were when they showed up, and even recognised Colonel Autumn's rank. It's not made clear, but there are plenty of plausible options. And as I said, it's the Wasteland, I don't think you need a license issued by the US government to tinker with water purifiers, or even to go around treating infections and stab wounds. Yeah, that's a bit of an oversight. You could probably play five-a-side in the hall below the overseer's window, but that's about it. Contingency? Or maybe they never got around to sealing it because of the war. Or maybe they wanted access at some point in the future to check the results of the experiment (say if everyone died). Or even if they decided to change the experiment objectives. The concrete in Vault 101 is 200 years old, it could well be cracking significantly in places, especially the lower levels. And RL roaches aren't 2 feet long. These ones most likely see humans as prey. As someone who worked with radiation in a power plant, both are possible. The radiation could well have sterilised the food, killing all the microbes and preserving it. The food could also have been contaminated by radioisotopes entering it if it wasn't sealed properly, or parts of the food itself could have been made radioactive through neutron bombardment. Still, the most likely situation is that the food was either incinerated in a nuclear explosion, or it wasn't completely sterilised by radiation, and would long since have gone rotten. On the contrary, if the animals are rad resistant or immune, it wouldn't harm them to have radioactive material in their flesh. They'd constantly be ingesting it, processing it, and excreting it without any ill effects, so there would generally be some in their system. When resources are scarce, societies don't have the luxury of keeping half their members "safe" in a protected location, essentially contributing nothing except child-rearing. The women had to get out and help protect and supply their communities, or they would die. Similar to pre-industrial societies in RL, the women get out and work the fields or forage, because they have to. That's fair enough, but it would make for a less interesting game (The point has been made a thousand times that FO3 works a lot better if it's set 20 years after the war than 200) Maybe they already have enough for now? A shortage of paper and writing materials is certainly never mentioned. Microfiche could be cheaper than holotapes for displaying documents and the like. Or older source material might not have been converted. I don't think there's any established lore as to the date of the invention of the holotape. And, like computer discs in RL, holotapes seem to be able to be used to store data files, audio files, or video. They're used for all three in-game. Canon as of Broken Steel is that most of the troops weren't in Raven Rock when it was destroyed, and the Enclave is still operating from Adams Air Force base, albeit without many of their leaders. It's the whole point of existence of the Brotherhood of Steel. They hoard technology, partly to research it, partly to keep it out of the hands of people they consider less worthy of it than them. That's why Lyons is seen as such a maverick, because he actually tries to do something with the technology, as opposed to just using it to get more technology. That's a game bug, NPCs equip the best equipment they have available to them. I suppose having a vendor equip some power armour or a minigun than to kill a raider with a flick knife, and then find out he had a casual Gatling Laser sitting in his inventory that he just didn't feel like using at the time. I've got my own problems with the world and story of FO3, but your gripes with it seems a little strange, compared to the fact that Little *&$^*£! Lamplight exists!

I think that's balanced out by the fact that the legion control more territory. I suppose it all really depends on whether the Legion's push to the east has reached Texas yet. Anything less, and I think you're probably right, in the long term, the legion simply won't have the manpower to grind down the population of the NCR, they need a decisive victory at Hoover Dam, and a rapid push to the sea, crushing resistance before it has the chance to develop. I think if they establish in California, rebellion will be very difficult. There are lots of individuals in the NCR, many with guns, combat skills, and a hatred of the legion, but without organisation, each one of them would be made an example of before they could cause any damage to the regime.

I always imagined the Legion fighting like the ancient Romans actually did. Lightly-armed cannon fodder go in first (armed with machetes and throwing spears). They probably mostly get killed, but their objective is not to stay alive, it's to probe the enemy's weaknesses and let them reveal their positions. Once the Hastati (recruit legionaries) have done their job, then the Principes (Prime Legionaries) and Triarii (Veteran Legionaries) can move in and wipe out the troopers (which they are more than capable of doing. Lots of them are armed with trail carbines, brush guns, even 12.7mm SMGs). I think the Legion, as a centrally-organised society with the one aim of making more legionaries to expand Legion territory, will be working hard east of the Colorado to irrigate the land, and produce huge amounts of crops using slave labour. I reckon they have no problem feeding their troops and expanding their population, in comparison to the NCR, where the chief aim is probably profit for the Brahmin barons, not raising strong soldiers. Also, the Legion seem more tactically astute. The NCR are merely entrenching at Hoover Dam and McCarran, whereas the legion are taking the fight across the Colorado, striking at NCR supply lines, stirring up the Fiends and the Great Khans, sabotaging infrastructure, and assassinating targets. Having a Service Rifle isn't much good for killing legionaries when the caravans bringing in the ammunition have been cut to pieces with machetes. The Legion are definitely more of a threat than I initially thought.

You say it was inconvenient to side with anyone other than the NCR in New Vegas. It was practically impossible to side with anyone other than the BoS in Fallout 3. Your one big choice was to follow the BoS quest line to the end as usual, and then to poison the water, or not. I suppose your experience of NV differed from mine a bit. You felt forced to go to places like Nelson and Cottonwood Cove by the quest line. I didn't like how many places in FO3 seemed fairly irrelevent to the plot, and there was no real sense of achievement for exploring or clearing them. Paradise Falls, Evergreen Mills, Bethesda Ruins, etc. It all felt a bit muddled, whereas the NCR-Legion conflict in NV tied everything together really well for me. It could just be that you prefer the individual missions in FO3, destroying/saving Harold's heart, dealing with the ghouls at Tenpenny Tower, and the election in the Republic of Dave. Me, I preferred the save/mercy-kill the troopers in Nelson, rescue the hostages in the mine, recover the data from Vault 22, help out the Boomers etc. The lack of Legion presence is something that highlights how the money and time were limited. Obsidian wanted to have more settlements under legion control, and a whole extra world space east of the Colorado with quests and challenges to do, but didn't have the time or money to do it.

New Vegas was far less linear than most other games out there. I would have loved more quests, but quests take time and money to put together, write, script and voice act, and the Dev team didn't have enough of either. They did a great job with the resources they had, in my opinion. Fallout 3 was fun, and had some cool places, but the world was very disjointed and badly written in places (and every time the writers tried to be "wacky" I didn't like the result. Little Lamplight, anyone?!). With unlimited time and money, you could create a truly gargantuan world filled with quests, fully-voiced characters, fleshed-out locations that tie into multiple quest-lines, and so on, but unless people would be willing to pay £300 for such a game, it's not going to get made. I'd be very happy if the next game was anything like New Vegas in its structure, depth, quality of writing, and engaging storyline. I'd love them to keep the post-apocalyptic feel as well, communities struggling to survive and rebuild. I'm worried that the Commonwealth will end up being the main focus of the game, and while games about blowing up robots in chrome-plated corridors can be good fun, that's not what Fallout is all about.

I'm putting one together for a mod set east of the Colorado, in which the residents were subjected to incessant propaganda and brainwashing (but no chemicals, mind control agents or whatever), and although the vault is working perfectly, and keeping them alive, the people have split into two groups, one who have swallowed the "red scare" propaganda completely, and believe the outside world is full of treacherous communists who'll stop at nothing to steal their freedom and ban the wearing of pocket watches, and on the other hand, jingoistic all-Americans, who believe the only possible outcome of the Great War was a crushing victory for the USA, and are just waiting for the chance to be let out and go back to the 1950s, wholesome, robot-butler lives their great grandfathers have passed down stories about. When the vault is opened by the Courier, the exposure to the true outside world throws the vault into chaos, and it is up to the courier to decide the final fate of the inhabitants. Link to the entire mod description here: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/992867-eastern-promises/

If that still doesn't work, there's a bomb in the crater in the extreme north-east of the map, east of Bitter Springs. It would be a little more tedious, but you could just copy that reference.

Tens of thousands of people depend on the dam for their water and their livelihood, many would be killed by fallout and floods downstream, many more by thirst afterwards. It would be a terrible option, unless you were playing a character who just wanted to watch the world burn! And I believe the nukes were targeted by Ulysses, not by you. You don;t have the time to recalibrate the targeting, only to cancel the launch sequences.

First thing you're going to need is Fallout Mod Manager. http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/36901//? I'm guessing you'll also need Fallout Script Extender: http://nvse.silverlock.org/ And possibly Archive Invalidation Invalidated: http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/35935//? Follow the instructions to install all of them, then fire up FOMM, tick the boxes beside the mods you want to run, then open the game. Happy modding!

Vietnam is hot and humid. The Mojave is hot and dry. That's the difference. Food that will go off in a day or two in Vietnam will last several times as long in somewhere dry like the Las Vegas valley. And as I said before, if the Legion's supply lines are good, they only need to keep things fresh for a couple of days to get them from farm to fork. Seriously, google "shelf life of apples" or "shelf life of potatoes" if you don't believe me. Somewhere like Vietnam is possibly the worst place to be trying to store fresh food,

Have you ever bought fresh food? Potatoes and apples stay good for at least a week, probably closer to two. The fastest-growing populations in the world aren't the USA or Western Europe with their processed foods, it's Africa, India, South-East Asia, where almost all of the food you get is fresh. The legion would probably be defeated by the NCR eventually, but it wouldn't be because of their lack of Cram and Fancy Lad's Snack Cakes. Spoiling of food would be perfectly easy to simulate in-game if the developers wanted to do it. Start a timer when you pick up an item, when it hits a certain value, remove the item "fresh apple" from the player's inventory, and replace it with a new item "rotten apple", with worse healing properties. There are mods out there that already do this.

Food doesn't spoil easily in the hot, dry desert environment, it doesn't really need to be processed, especially if legionaries are only going to be on the march for several days. In fact, it says a lot for either the legion's logistics, or their ability to have civilised their territory east of the Colorado and making it productive, that they are able to keep their troops supplied and in good health with plenty of fresh food. Certainly the food you take from dead legionaries hasn't had time to go rotten, and there is plenty of it.

Which is why Vegas would have to make it so it made more financial sense for the NCR to be at peace with them than at war. I think the Legion are fairly handy at farming as well. It's an impression I get from the fact that the legionaries often carry fresh fruit and vegetables, and purified water, and are clearly well-fed. I'd imagine them to have huge slave plantations in the east, churning out masses of food for their armies. Seeing as their strategy seems to be based around strength in numbers, I'm guessing they have plenty of men, especially when the main role of women seems to be to pump out babies so they can become soldiers, as opposed to the NCR, where women enjoy pretty much full equality.

Hmm... Are you using FOMM? It has an auto-sort tool that's pretty good for getting things roughly right. Apart from that, it's just a case of disabling mods one by one, and checking you have all the right prerequisites installed, they're usually in the mod descriptions

Yeah, you'd be better off trying to make them see reason. The NCR at least. They're going to be angry, but not irrational. A treaty with guaranteed amounts of water and power heading west, a friendly buffer state between them and the legion, and the fact that they won't be fighting an underground insurgency will probably be enough to win them over. I mean, there's some amount of dynamite knocking around the Mojave, and miles and miles of power lines and water pipes that will be impossible to guard all of. NCR are there for water and electricity. It would be incredibly easy for a handful of determined freedom fighters to perform enough sabotage to ensure no water or power ever reached Shady Sands. The Brotherhood would probably play ball if an understanding about energy weapons and power armour was established. i.e. The New Vegas army wouldn't use them. I doubt the legion would ever change their minds, they are aggressive and expansionist, and would need to be pushed back and broken to stop them being a threat to the Mojave. Although with Caesar dead, all it would need would be a few well-placed assassinations to plunge them back to squabbling tribes.

Easy answer, I haven't completed Old World Blues yet! Project Nevada settings allow you to increase the rate at which you get hungry, thirsty, and tired, which makes the hardcore mode more challenging.

In that case, just go with Fellout, it doesn't increase the graphics at all, just changes the lighting and makes things "nicer"

I'd prefer to see Fallout 4 set somewhere completely new, like Chicago, some new factions, and some old ones, nice morally grey decisions and complex characters whose stories you can really get into. Much more New Vegas than FO3. I was thinking maybe the NCR's southern frontier, finding out what they were up to in Baja, but that would feel more like a New Vegas DLC than a new game.

The big ones are Project Nevada and the Someguy Series (New Vegas Bounties I and II, and The Inheritance, all three are excellent!). I play with Fellout and Project Reality, which really improve the visuals. Real Time Settler is good fun. I play with NVEC Bugfixes and reduced CTD, which seems to make the game more stable The New Bison Steve Hotel adds a cool questline, and gives you something to keep running round the Mojave after. Populated Wasteland adds a bit of colour to the wasteland and you travels, and Populated Casinos makes Vegas seem a bit more exciting when you reach it. Freeside Open and either The Strip Open or The Open Strip are quite demanding on hardware, but really make a difference when you reach Vegas, makes it much more impressive. Dog City Denver is a good mod that adds a new quest line (although it's a little linear) and new places to explore. Apart from that, all of the DLCs are definitely worth the money. I preferred Old World Blues and Honest Hearts, although I think most other people preferred Lonesome Road or Dead Money. Gun Runner's Arsenal isn't amazing in itself, but it is required for some very good mods. For a lot of these you'll need New Vegas Script Extender, and Archive Invalidation Invalidated, they can be downloaded from the Nexus. Hope this helps, sometimes installing mods is a pain, but it's worth it in the end! And sorry for not linking you to anything, but the search feature in the nexus isn't bad, you should be able to find them easily enough.

Managed to get stuck with an exploding collar, courtesy of the BoS, unable to leave Hidden Valley without my head exploding, unable to kill the Ranger because my level was too low, unable to convince him to leave peacefully because my speech was rubbish, and unable to tip him off about the Brotherhood, because they'd massacre us both. I ended up having to spend about 3 hours killing the respawning bark scorpions to get my level high enough to do anything about it!