Of UFO’s, Nazis and secret antarctic bases

[devinpatterson]

I just want to point out that there probably aren't too many functioning Satellites floating around, considering that current commercial satellites only work for 10 years(due to limitations to fuel) but i still doubt that most pre-war satellites would still be functioning. therefore it would take the Nazi's years to try and figure out where the alien craft landed from Zeta, this would allow them to be active much earlier than events of fallout 3, since they would have to actually watch the mother ship crash and try and figure out where it landed, prepare search parties(some would be killed by natives, they've never seen Deathclaws or any mutants), send them out wait for reports, then mobilizing a recovery team. This could easily take the 3-4 years in between Zeta and NV

 

OK back after almost 3 weeks of downtime with the dsl.

 

That would be nice re: the "allow them to be active much earlier than events of fallout 3". But I wasn't really thinking they would be using satellites, just the alien tech. But I like the idea for the timeline. So I think we will go with that (active much earlier), but with a slightly different explanation. Perhaps the alien tracking equipment was hopelessly trashed in the crash and as you suggest they have to figure out where it landed via search parties sent in alien scout ships. Maybe they never saw it, just picked up on some rumors and had to track it down with scraps of info from locals. Sounds good.

[devinpatterson]

Anyone a real glutton for punishment?

 

I ask because I would really, really like to keep this mod a NV mod instead of a FO3 mod. That would also allow us to take advantage of area 51 and I just enjoy NV more. But to do that would involve a tedious process of using Ruadhan2300's Mothership Zeta Content Restored and running the FO3 geck along with the NV geck (change bAllowMultipleEditors=1 in geckcustom.ini).

 

It would probably be pretty tiresome recreating the levels in NV's geck. I'm going to be pretty busy in RL the next few weeks, and wouldn't really have the patience for it even if I had the time.

 

Unless someone has suggestions on a better way of doing it.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

Anyone a real glutton for punishment?

 

I ask because I would really, really like to keep this mod a NV mod instead of a FO3 mod. That would also allow us to take advantage of area 51 and I just enjoy NV more. But to do that would involve a tedious process of using Ruadhan2300's Mothership Zeta Content Restored and running the FO3 geck along with the NV geck (change bAllowMultipleEditors=1 in geckcustom.ini).

 

It would probably be pretty tiresome recreating the levels in NV's geck. I'm going to be pretty busy in RL the next few weeks, and wouldn't really have the patience for it even if I had the time.

 

Unless someone has suggestions on a better way of doing it.

I don't think the ship would have made it down intact. This is a HUGE vessel, right? Considering the damage a meteor of such mass would cause, it wouldn't make sense for anyone not to notice. If anything, an alien mothership would be even worse than an asteroid; rock and dirt are probably a lot less dense (and resistant to atmospheric friction) than futuristic space age composites. At the least, a nuclear sized blast would attract attention. At worst, you'd get something likeTambora.

So, the mothership would have had self destruct before it even got to the surface or risk wiping the remaining bits of life off the face of the earth. You could have a few smaller fragments of an exploding mothership hit all over the place. It would also twist the fragments almost beyond recognition, which, together with 4 years of exposure, would mean entirely new levels only barely resembling the old ship.

ETA: to put this in perspective, a human body falling a single foot has about the same energy as a handgun bullet. Space is about 62 miles from the surface.

Edited July 18, 2011 by TrooperScooperMKII

[devinpatterson]

 

I don't think the ship would have made it down intact. This is a HUGE vessel, right? Considering the damage a meteor of such mass would cause, it wouldn't make sense for anyone not to notice. If anything, an alien mothership would be even worse than an asteroid; rock and dirt are probably a lot less dense (and resistant to atmospheric friction) than futuristic space age composites. At the least, a nuclear sized blast would attract attention. At worst, you'd get something likeTambora.

So, the mothership would have had self destruct before it even got to the surface or risk wiping the remaining bits of life off the face of the earth. You could have a few smaller fragments of an exploding mothership hit all over the place. It would also twist the fragments almost beyond recognition, which, together with 4 years of exposure, would mean entirely new levels only barely resembling the old ship.

ETA: to put this in perspective, a human body falling a single foot has about the same energy as a handgun bullet. Space is about 62 miles from the surface.

 

No I wasn't implying it was intact. The interior maps will be partial and filled with rubble blocking various routes. Many of the levels would be removed even before the mothership impacted due to defeat during the space battle.

 

No we wouldn't have the mothership self destruct, that would remove the whole 1st mod of the trilogy.

 

I'm also a little confused as to why you bring forth this objection now, since it has been established from the 1st & 2nd page of the thread and has been an integral part of the plot from the beginning.

[TrooperScooperMKII]

 

No I wasn't implying it was intact. The interior maps will be partial and filled with rubble blocking various routes. Many of the levels would be removed even before the mothership impacted due to defeat during the space battle.

 

No we wouldn't have the mothership self destruct, that would remove the whole 1st mod of the trilogy.

 

I'm also a little confused as to why you bring forth this objection now, since it has been established from the 1st & 2nd page of the thread and has been an integral part of the plot from the beginning.

I didn't really stop to consider how large the impact would be. I'd assumed that by putting it a lot farther north (i.e. in Yellowstone) it would be far enough away to avoid notice in the Mojave, but I'm speculating all over the place as I never played Zeta.

So, roughly how large was the ship to begin with? Was it an asteroid sized colony ship or more along the lines of a smaller frigate? How much damage did it take, and how did it end up crashing? It comes down to how much mass is hurtling dirtside, how many crewmembers survived, and how many systems would still function well enough to operate. IE would the ship be able to control/slow its descent, would it be so heavily damaged that it would fall to pieces on reentry, would it be intact enough to survive slamming into terra firma at >30,000 mph? Would the crew even care what happened to them, the ship, or Earth?

 

As to the self destruct, it could have failed, or not worked as well as it should have, i.e. only half of the bombs went off.

 

A few possiblities:

 

The crew doesn't want anyone on earth getting ahold of their technology, so they attempt to destroy as much of it as possible on reentry, but something slips through due to lack of time, extensive damage/death tolls etc.

 

The crew is trying to kill as many earthlings as possible, so they try to aim as much mass as possible for a (presumably) dense stretch of land, but either miss their target due to lack of control or rely on outdated intel and end up crashing in the middle of nowhere.

 

The crew is trying to minimize collateral and shatter their ship to reduce mass, as well as aiming for an unoccupied stretch of land.

 

the ship breaks apart on reentry due to sabotage, damage or a failed self destruct mechanism, gutting the core of the ship but still having a few significant fragments land all over the place. Picture a Titanic shotgun wreck with a lot more mass lost on the way down and several (>2) big chunks amidst the debris field.

 

ETA: In the latter case you could even have a "city" spring up amidst the wreckage, with each "piece" serving as a major structure.

Edited July 18, 2011 by TrooperScooperMKII

[razzy1319]

Just found this thread and found it really interesting.

 

I just have small suggestion for special loot!

 

Faction based historical loot! Since the zeta had abducted people from the past(samurai, cowboy, anchorage medic), shouldnt the other ships also have some kind of historical connections other than the nazi's? Throw in some unique weapons that tie into the factions, like a gladius from the roman times for the legion, some kind of technological marvel that the aliens deemed interesting for mr house and a historical relic for the ncr.

[devinpatterson]

 

So, roughly how large was the ship to begin with? Was it an asteroid sized colony ship or more along the lines of a smaller frigate? How much damage did it take, and how did it end up crashing? It comes down to how much mass is hurtling dirtside, how many crewmembers survived, and how many systems would still function well enough to operate. IE would the ship be able to control/slow its descent, would it be so heavily damaged that it would fall to pieces on reentry, would it be intact enough to survive slamming into terra firma at >30,000 mph? Would the crew even care what happened to them, the ship, or Earth?

 

It's shape makes it hard to compare to a modern military equivalent, the closest would probably be a Nimitz-class supercarrier, over a 100,000 tons . I can only give you a rough idea though. It is a double saucer shape (smaller saucer below), but at one point you take a space walk. You could probably walk across the diameter of the largest saucer in a minute or two (ballpark figure). As far as damage from the space battle, it was MASSIVE. Check out this pic http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/File:Zeta_enemyship_destroyed.jpg. It might even be possible to figure out exactly where it crashed from this pic http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/File:SupportMothershipCrash.png it kind of looks like it's near the eastern see board to me. I think part of the lower middle of the pic might be Florida?

 

As to the self destruct, it could have failed, or not worked as well as it should have, i.e. only half of the bombs went off.

 

A few possiblities:

 

The crew doesn't want anyone on earth getting ahold of their technology, so they attempt to destroy as much of it as possible on reentry, but something slips through due to lack of time, extensive damage/death tolls etc.

 

The crew is trying to kill as many earthlings as possible, so they try to aim as much mass as possible for a (presumably) dense stretch of land, but either miss their target due to lack of control or rely on outdated intel and end up crashing in the middle of nowhere.

 

The crew is trying to minimize collateral and shatter their ship to reduce mass, as well as aiming for an unoccupied stretch of land.

 

the ship breaks apart on reentry due to sabotage, damage or a failed self destruct mechanism, gutting the core of the ship but still having a few significant fragments land all over the place. Picture a Titanic shotgun wreck with a lot more mass lost on the way down and several (>2) big chunks amidst the debris field.

 

ETA: In the latter case you could even have a "city" spring up amidst the wreckage, with each "piece" serving as a major structure.

 

Re: survivors the guys in the thread didn't specify the exact number but I got the impression that there was only a handful of alien survivors. They were out on a scouting mission when the enemy mothership was destroyed and zeta was invaded. Like maybe a dozen total in a few different groups. They tried to survive as best could on a planet that is alien to them. When zeta crashes our alien companion heads toward it to recover/salvage tech. The enemy mothership will be a mass of wreckage in a mountain range (which will be heavily radiated-from the engine core).

 

Yeah one of the guys had thought of a rosewell type city, almost a tourist trap type thing springing up near the wreckage.

 

In regard to the crew of the alien ship, if they were aboard when the lone wanderer won the battle they are most likely all dead. It was a pretty massive explosion if I remember right. But even if some were to miraculously survive, I don't believe they would care about hitting or not hitting earthlings. Some people even speculate that it was the aliens that actually caused the war by initiating launch sequences of the missiles.

Edited July 19, 2011 by devinpatterson

[devinpatterson]

Just found this thread and found it really interesting.

 

I just have small suggestion for special loot!

 

Faction based historical loot! Since the zeta had abducted people from the past(samurai, cowboy, anchorage medic), shouldnt the other ships also have some kind of historical connections other than the nazi's? Throw in some unique weapons that tie into the factions, like a gladius from the roman times for the legion, some kind of technological marvel that the aliens deemed interesting for mr house and a historical relic for the ncr.

 

That is an excellent idea, but we're somewhat limited in what we can include in some of the mothersips. I'd assumed antarctic ship has been buried for 1000's of years (ties in with some occult lore, regarding a hollow earth theory and Atlantis). But if we shorten that to 2000 years there could be Roman artifacts. The enemy mothership could certainly have artifacts from any time period. Zeta can have artifacts all the way back to at least shogun times.

[B0N3S]

the enemy mother ship wouldn't have made as large of an explosion as meteors of the same size, because meteors are already moving at over a hundred miles an hour when they enter orbit, the enemy mother ship was at a standstill before it engines were destroyed and started drifting in, the the atmospheric pressures of reentry slows down objects, so its reasonable the the ship could land more or less intact(with heavy damages of course).

[TrooperScooperMKII]

the enemy mother ship wouldn't have made as large of an explosion as meteors of the same size, because meteors are already moving at over a hundred miles an hour when they enter orbit, the enemy mother ship was at a standstill before it engines were destroyed and started drifting in, the the atmospheric pressures of reentry slows down objects, so its reasonable the the ship could land more or less intact(with heavy damages of course).

It's not the ship I'm worried about...

I suspect that a meteor would do less damage than a spaceship of comparable size; the ship is designed to be extremely resilient (meaning more mass makes it through the atmosphere and to the ground) and would be made of composites and other high tech materials instead of a random aggregate of space refuse...

A building sized space wreck falling 63 miles is going to make a major crater, probably equalling or even surpassing a nuclear blast. The blast itself would launch debris and dust (irradiated from the Great War and possibly the alien ship as well) into the air for miles around; imagine a massive radioactive dust storm around a multi-mile blast zone, and add the possibility of toxic contaminants. Just as bad if it lands off the coast of Florida. The tsunamis would wreak havoc along the coastline {generally the most densely inhabited stretches of land) and would inspire countless reports of a cataclysmi flood across America's shoreline.