Thing's about the game that don't make sense

[Sentorum]

Continuing my new game, and have just gotten through the whole Grayditch experience.

 

Bryan Wilks, you seem a nice kid, and I KNOW you were traumatized by your experiences. But in the name of all that is holy, WHY in our long and detailed conversation about Garyditch and its citizens, did you not mention that these particular Giant Ants BREATHED FIRE? Yeah, you call them Fire Ants, but that is not exactly a clear description of what they do. I mean, throw me a frickin' bone here, would ya?

 

Going by Mr Brandice's notes, Giant Ants were rather common in the area. But it all srarted going south when the ones that BREATHED FIRE showed up. Odd that you never mention that - thanks a bunch, kid.

 

Haha I know how you feel.. I always just try to avoid that kid 'cause it's like.... snnoooorrreee..... I seriously don't wanna face weird ants again... I'll just run past him and jump over the ants... :wink:

[Talwyn224]

Just adding on regarding Bryan Wilks, I had a WTF momentv in most recent play thru when I was in the middle of battling the raiders outside the SuperMart in order to get to the food & meds located in for the Wasteland Survival guide quest when young Bryan just runs up and DEMANDS my attention in the middle of a firefight! Everything stops until that conversation gets completed, the raiders politely waiting until this lad has secured my help then once he's satisfied we resume shooting each other....

 

Actually the whole Grayditch quest makes no sense really as Bryan should have become ant food along with the rest of the population.

 

Other things that don't quite make sense:

 

Vault 112 - It's supposed to be a refuge for over 40 plus people but we only see about a dozen VR pods there. What about the rest of the Vault? I think Vault 112 needs to be expanded to include the rector room and robot maintainence bays plus more VR pod rooms and a living area. Then once you've made contact with Lyons and the BoS surely they'd be salivating at the prospect of getting their hands on the VR tech that's located in V112? Yet we don't hear anything about it but we do always get to listen to their spiel about preserving the old world tech. IMO this is yet another example of laziness by the writers/designers. Even the Outcarts should be interested in gaining access to V112 especially after you've completed Operation Anchoridge,

 

The Enclave - why didn't they just nuke the BoS right away or at least launch an all out assault on them BEFORE taking over Project Purity? Talk about tactical idiocy, leaving a well armed group alone in order to secure a water purifier. The Enclave should be extremely difficult to defeat as they have all the tactical advantages, the mo9st obvious one being Vertibirds. Having control of the air should mean thatv they should be able to slaughter anything they choose [death from above] in the capital wasteland. Yet we find their Vertibirds on the ground al ready for the Lone-Wanderer to blow them up with weapons fire. Ridiculous.

 

Dad - how the hell did James get from Project Purity to Vault 112 with just a .32 pistol and a Vault suit and survive? The guy must be indestructable or a master of stealth. Somehow he manages to evade the Supermutants, raiders, and various nasties that crop up along the way. Again, its a massive stretch which the writers hope no one notices. And then he gets back after you free him from V112 if you fast travel back to Rivet City.

 

Returing to Vault 101 - The Trouble on the Home Front quest should have some sort of caveats IF you have Fawkes or Charon as a follower. The first time I did this quest I had walked all the way from Raven Rock with Fawkes and picked up the radio request for help so went in to check it out thinking wait til they see Fawkes! Yet no reaction whatsoever!?! Come on :rolleyes: surely the sight of a Super Mutant tagging along with yours truly would have raised some suspiscions or even fear/outright panic from the remaining residents of V101? Hell, even bringing in Dogmeat should get extra dialogue as I doubt anyone in V101 would have ever seen a living dog in their life time. But sadly nothing is mentioned and again, more laziness on the part of the writers.

 

That'll do for now

[7thsealord]

Actually the whole Grayditch quest makes no sense really as Bryan should have become ant food along with the rest of the population.

 

Improbable, I agree. But he does mention having some "really good hiding places" and, unlike all the adults, he didn't bunker down OR go head-to-head with the Ants. Not doing either of those things probably did more to save his life than anything else. I tend to compare him with Newt out of 'Aliens'.

[Talwyn224]

Actually the whole Grayditch quest makes no sense really as Bryan should have become ant food along with the rest of the population.

 

Improbable, I agree. But he does mention having some "really good hiding places" and, unlike all the adults, he didn't bunker down OR go head-to-head with the Ants. Not doing either of those things probably did more to save his life than anything else. I tend to compare him with Newt out of 'Aliens'.

 

That's indeed correct and he does have a refuge in the Pulowski shelter box thing. However he has to go out to scavenge for food plus find help and when you approach GrayDitch for the 1st time you encounter the Ants straight away which makes me wonder how did Bryan avoid them?

[7thsealord]

Could have simply gotten lucky in escaping the area. It can happen.

 

Not saying it would have been easy. But, as one possibility, the wandering Fire Ants got distracted by somebody / something else around the time that Bryan made his move. There have been times that I get all the way into Grayditch without incident, and others when it seems to be nothing but frackin' Fire Ants just to get there in the first place.

 

As regards food, we don't know what the Pulowski Shelter might have had inside it beforehand - I've seen some quite surprising stashes in those things. However, from the way Bryan talks, I get the impression that he might not have used the Pulowski until after his first talk with the LW. Just my impression anyhow. Suggesting that he was hiding elsewhere. Probably several elsewheres, not necessarily fortified bunkers or even especially secure, just places that the ants didn't visit more than once in a while for some reason or another.

 

We also don't know just how long Bryan was hiding out. Given the need for food and at least occasional rest, it was probably not all that long between the big attack and his "finding" the LW. My own (totally unfounded) guess for that time period is anywhere from several hours to a couple of days. Certainly not much longer than that at most, IMO.

Edited June 26, 2012 by 7thsealord

[flamenx01]

 

Dad - how the hell did James get from Project Purity to Vault 112 with just a .32 pistol and a Vault suit and survive? The guy must be indestructable or a master of stealth. Somehow he manages to evade the Supermutants, raiders, and various nasties that crop up along the way. Again, its a massive stretch which the writers hope no one notices. And then he gets back after you free him from V112 if you fast travel back to Rivet City.

 

In my last playthrough dad picket up an assault rifle of a dead talon merc and used that on the way back. A thing that doesn't make sense is how dad is wearing a vault 101 jumpsuit in vault 112 when you must wear a Vault 112 jumpsuit to enter the simulator. :psyduck:

Edited June 26, 2012 by flamenx01

[7thsealord]

The Enclave - why didn't they just nuke the BoS right away or at least launch an all out assault on them BEFORE taking over Project Purity? Talk about tactical idiocy, leaving a well armed group alone in order to secure a water purifier. The Enclave should be extremely difficult to defeat as they have all the tactical advantages, the mo9st obvious one being Vertibirds. Having control of the air should mean thatv they should be able to slaughter anything they choose [death from above] in the capital wasteland. Yet we find their Vertibirds on the ground al ready for the Lone-Wanderer to blow them up with weapons fire. Ridiculous.

 

Hmm. Not disputing your points, which seem fairly valid, but I do have a couple of possible counter-arguments.

 

First, the Enclave was being run by both "President Eden" and Colonel Whatshisname. That would have made for a seriously muddled command structure given that the two of them seemed to have quite different ideas about certain things. Which would have probably meant that Enclave forces were working at cross purposes at least some of the time. For example, one set of orders sending Company 'A' off to such-and-such to do whatever, and another set of orders telling them to remain at base, and so on. Not a good situation for any organization to have, since a lot of people would start taking sides as regards who to obey / ignore (and not necessarily all the SAME side at that). Which would mean that the Enclave had all this groovy firepower, but unit cohesion would have been utter c##p.

 

Second, the Enclave probably felt they had enough superiority to go for "shock and awe". Big demonstration of muscle, thereby cowing the BOS into negotiations, retreat or even (best case scenariuo) outright surrender. After all. there is no sense in destroying valuable facilities that you might be able to acquire intact later. Noting also that Liberty Prime's first appearance probably was a very nasty surprise for the Enclave.

Edited June 26, 2012 by 7thsealord

[Talwyn224]

Interesting points 7thSealord however I think there is a problem with the 1st one.

 

Up till the point where the LW is captured by the Enclave, we see that Eden is in charge as Col. Autumn initially obeys Edens orders. It's only after Eden releases the LW so that they can have a little "chat" that Autumn chooses to rebel against Eden and launches the assault to take over Project Purity. This begs the question again: if Eden was indeed in charge, why did he not order a surprise attack on the BoS in the Citadel thus eliminating the only real threat to the Enclave in the Capital Wasteland? We know that the Enclave are fully aware of the BoS presence in the ruins of the Pentagon because Eden tells us himself via one of his speeches. We also know that Eden is supposed to be some sort of self aware AI/super computer and thus the logical assumption is that as such, he/it should have "gamed" out every possible scenario well before hand. And as such Eden should have calculated that the best way to deal with the BoS would have been to destroy them before they have a chance to act [best defence is offence] and therefore seize the initiative and victory.

[Talwyn224]

Upon reflecting on my questions as to why the Enclave failed to defeat the BoS in the Capital Wasteland I think we should listen instead to the apocryphal words of President John Henry Eden and let him explain:

 

"We live in an age of poverty, greed, violence, destruction. Indeed the very seat of the federal government, Washington D.C., has been reduced to what is now known as the Capital Wasteland. The Capital Wasteland, how did it come to this America? How did your leaders allow the most powerful nation on Earth...to die? The answer is really quite simple. Incompetence. Incompetence at the highest echelons of power. We put our trust, our faith, in halfwits. Our intrepid leaders had everything they wanted; power, wealth, prestige. It made them lazy, America. Oh yes, and laziness breeds stupidity. Rest assured, I will not make the mistakes of my predecessors..."

 

From the "mouth" of Eden himself... he condemns the Enclave because they were complacent, lazy, arrogant and above all incompetent and thus were doomed. I know it's the easy solution and its a bit of a imaginative leap but I suppose its the best explanation in the end and it fits despite the narrative and logic flaws in the storyline.

Edited June 27, 2012 by Talwyn224

[7thsealord]

Interesting thought - that Eden basically "played to lose". Plausible that he did long-range planning about how to restore the US (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) and then discovered that removing himself and the Enclave from the equation was the best way to do so.

 

On other points ...

 

The effectiveness of any computer is limited by (and is only as good as) its programming; the people who creat, install and mess with that programming; and the data that goes into said computer. "Super-computer" does not automatically equate with infallibility, after all.

 

Also, it isn't like the LW gets to do an in-depth analysis of the Enclave's command structure either. For all we know, problems between Eden and Autumn might have been building up for quite a while (eg. Eden may have decided that a "low-risk" strategy towards the BOS was the way to go, with Autumn wanting to go Medieval on their @$$e$), with the LW's arrival basically lighting the Big Fuse. In fact, I would bet on something like this being the case - the sort of split that happens is not something that would just happen out of the blue.

 

Pure supposition on my part, I know. But we see events from the perspective of just one person, with only a very broad idea of what might have gone before and of what was going on behind the scenes.

Edited June 27, 2012 by 7thsealord