Scale of the Capital Wasteland

[charwo]

Now it's been said that the Capital Wasteland physically is about 10 miles by 10 miles wide. But....the distance to Raven Rock from the Washington Naval Yard, ie Rivet City to Raven Rock is about 70 miles in a straight shot, so you'd think that the scale of the Wasteland is one mile ingame is seven miles in real life. It has been suggested that Raven Rock isn't actually in it's RL location, but at the RL Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center, sited because of scales and the fact the entrance and terrain are similar to the Mount Weather complex. However, that's too much work, and frankly, you're cutting down 70 miles to 50 miles.

 

So, is the scale of the Wasteland consistent? Not in terms of is the Pitt and Point Lookout and the Capital scaled in the same fashion, but rather is there a sliding scale of scale, where the scale gets smaller in Overland DC and then become exaggerated the further west and north one goes? This adds to the question of timescale. Considering foot travel times, what is the proper timescale needed to achieve realistic travel speeds? Is it FWE 1:15 or vanilla's 1:30 or something else?

 

I want to play this as realistically as possible and to that end, green world, no water rads, daily needs, etc, etc. If the timescale is off, then I need to adjust it accordingly and largely I can do that with with FWE controls. So help and analysis are appreciated.

[charwo]

No comments? Am I the first to broach this question?

[arcanewizard]

i totally understand where you're coming from...not sure on the scale but its compressed obviously but as far as if the compression is different in different areas, i'm not sure, they have to balance a lot of elements, but its a big area thats f or sure...it tokok me a year almost to explore the entire map area.

[charwo]

Fair enough, it's just that the notion that Raven Rock isn't at Raven Rock and the notion of how long it takes to travel across the Wastes I want to know if they actually makes sense, or if somehow the LW is running at 10 miles and hours.

 

Yes, I take my gaming very seriously.

[DavidYokosukaJapan]

Is the scale of the Wasteland consistent? Not in terms of is the Pitt and Point Lookout and the Capital scaled in the same fashion, but rather is there a sliding scale of scale, where the scale gets smaller in Overland DC and then become exaggerated the further west and north one goes? This adds to the question of timescale. Considering foot travel times, what is the proper timescale needed to achieve realistic travel speeds? Is it FWE 1:15 or vanilla's 1:30 or something else?

 

I want to play this as realistically as possible and to that end, green world, no water rads, daily needs, etc, etc. If the timescale is off, then I need to adjust it accordingly and largely I can do that with with FWE controls. So help and analysis are appreciated.

 

I do not think the scaling is consistent for the most part and I think the devs likely skewed the timescale to 1:30 to kind of compensate for that.

Like you I'm shooting for the 'realsitic wasteland' situation in FWE.

 

Though there a lot of complaints on the original FO3's 'green haze' I personally thought it did make the wasteland look like a harsh, irradiated environment. That being said though, I *did* install and do use Fellout, but more for it's pitch black nights than anything else.

 

On irradiated water, I spoke with the local Emergency Operations Manager (a FEMA & military trained individual) and he told me that the radiation in a pool of water could break down quickly if the water was exposed to a small amount of radiation, but, on the other hand if the water was exposed to a highly irradiated area, such as reactors that have melted down, the water could be irradiated for *thousands* of years. Pretty interesting stuff.

 

To finally answer your timescale question, I believe that either the vanilla 1:30 ratio, or something close would probably be most realistic concerning how long it would take someone to run from one location to another.

[charwo]

Ok. That helps. The rads in the Capital region are not from the bombs. That kind of an irradiated watertable means one or more of the nuclear powerplants melted down after the bombs and the slag melted into the earth. That would happen without human intervention: the cooling tanks for fuel rods would evaporate within days. But it's probably only the Potomac watershed that badly damaged. It would explain the lack of rebuilding and low population.

 

The dead world stuff is crap though. Nothing could make the DC watershed like that for more than a few years after the bombs and probably not even then. The giant bugs were certainly the results of weaponized mutagens. Just look at Chernobyl now: the exclusion zone is the biggest wildlife preserve in Europe. Life always finds a way.

 

And that green glow is crap. Radiation doesn't glow except Selinium and you couldn't read a large doing book in a dark room with it. Radium watches glow like that but that's because of phospherous compounds. In any realism mod the green sky and dead wasteland must go. In the first two Fallout's there was the fact of drought and well, California would dry out a lot in global warming. And the graphics were vauge.

 

If the skies are too dark with Fellout, try project reality. I like Fellout's sky slightly better, but Realism has more stars, intragted weather and it not pitch dark at night.

[DavidYokosukaJapan]

Ok. That helps. The rads in the Capital region are not from the bombs.

 

He also told me that in places where a Nuke has been dropped the radiation could last very long. Also, check out wikipedia's article on the Nevada National Security Site. It states that, "athough radiation levels in the water have declined over time, the longer-lived isotopes will continue to pose risks for tens of thousands of years."

 

And that green glow is crap. Radiation doesn't glow except Selinium and you couldn't read a large doing book in a dark room with it. Radium watches glow like that but that's because of phospherous compounds. In any realism mod the green sky and dead wasteland must go. In the first two Fallout's there was the fact of drought and well, California would dry out a lot in global warming. And the graphics were vauge.

 

I can't see much even with the green glow. It's just too dim. I think green is wrong and the devs just did it green because of the "Rule of Cool."

Honestly, though according to research done by Marie Curie back in the day, radiation glowed blue, not green. But I'm not an expert on that -- it's just some historical stuff I read that I'm quoting.

 

The giant bugs were certainly the results of weaponized mutagens. Just look at Chernobyl now: the exclusion zone is the biggest wildlife preserve in Europe. Life always finds a way.

I agree defintely on Life finding a way. However, mutations of insects from nuclear fallout are not just highly likely, they are fact: here in Japan mutated butterflies have been found in Fukushima (where we had serious reactor problems in 2011). They aren'r seriously messed up but they are mutated. Hard to say how radioactive mutations affect mammals (beyond cancer and poor, deformed children) because there aren't any reports of two-headed cattle near Chernobyl. I feel sorry for those poor kids. Really sad.

Radiation seems to affect animals while they are developing in the egg or womb more than any other time (except for cancers). So for brahmin to all be two-headed... well this indicates that they were all living in highly irradiated areas for many generations and somehow the 'two-head mutation' gave them an edge which allowed them to survive better than their one-headed brethren..

Umm, I think I'm getting off topic. Sorry! :teehee:

[charwo]

No we're not. Because at the end of it, we are stressing realism and the vaunted and hated Rule of Cool. I'm all for Rule of Cool when it is plausible, however unlikely in the context of the story. Thus while dead worlds and the talking Deathclaws of Fallout 2 spark nothing but rage in me, ghouls and pyrotechnic faint insects do. Honestly, Bethesda's biggest mistake was not incorporating the the findings of Life Without us, and the shows it spawned: Life after people and world without us. I thought it awesome to have a late 40s 50s aesthetic, but what is never cool is failing to do research for realism and THEN try and pass off laziness as a design feature. All stories, fictional or not exist to educate, and thus to have value there they must educate the issues of the real world.

 

However, after seein the Life after people thing, there's a couple of things to keep in mind: new soil forms all the time, radioactive debris, like all others goes through issues of erosion and being washed down shore. Then you have to remember that given the bomb yields (25 kt or less by long standing treaty, thus 77 could be aimed at Nevada alone) means that the Fallout potential is quite low. Even a full out nuclear exchange durin the 80s would have only doubled the radiation in the earth at best, then Only for a few months. The big issue of a purely nuclear exchange is the fact that the dust in the air is equivalent to a supervolcano eruption. But the danger of nuclear winter is the winter, not the nuclear.

 

Given all the cosmic radiation, dispersion and such, radioactivity is not nearly the issue we make it out to be. In the first place, look at Japan and the Midwest: both subjected to a great deal of fallout before the above ground testing ban. No city was ever left to ruin, slightly higher cancer rates but only in those directly exposed. And all creatures have the ability to handle radiation: there is a growing body of work that says mild exposure to radiation, nuclear or natural, stimulates DNA repair and immune responses, making people healthier. And that explains why nuka-cola would have been marketed as a slightly radioactive soft drink. And those mutations: growth like that is not what damaged DNA does. What mutants in nature do is make phenotypic changes, over 99% of which prevent sucessful reproduction. The Yao GUIs, the hairless dogs, the lack of deer and elk and wolves do not makes sense at all. Geckos, gaint bugs, Brahmin and Bighorners must be understood as arigrobusiness designer animals that either got lose or were weaponized by the Chinese And of course the US designed molerats and Deathclaws as bioweapons.

 

DC has a badly contaminated water table, but it won't cause mutation because radiation of that kind will just sterilize. As to the time scale, maybe 1:10 in the DC area including Megaton and a 1:20 to 1:25 anything north and west of megaton?

[DavidYokosukaJapan]

A lot of good facts and points in your post! You should consider being a QA for game development.

 

As to the time scale, maybe 1:10 in the DC area including Megaton and a 1:20 to 1:25 anything north and west of megaton?

I think 1:10 in DC and 1:25 outside would work but I just use 1:18 for everywhere because it's kind of a compromise. Have you found a mod that automatically changes the timescale based on locale? I'd be interested in using that

[DavidYokosukaJapan]

If the skies are too dark with Fellout, try project reality. I like Fellout's sky slightly better, but Realism has more stars, intragted weather and it not pitch dark at night.

Ah I forgot to reply to this earlier.

I actually like the super dark nights: it reminds me of when I used to go camping in the Sequoia National Park. It got *dark* at night. All you could see were the stars unless the moon was giving some good light. Fellout's night kinda reminds me of that so I like it.

I *will* check out Project Reality -- thanks for the tip :)

I'm using the Enhanced Weather mod and it seems pretty cool.

 

You know, tweaking *all* the settings just right kinda makes Fallout 3 into a "camping & hunting simulation." Kinda sounds dorky except for the fact that I know how *fun* it is. Especially since Yokohama is so close to Tokyo and there's no where close by to go camping.. oops now I'm off topic.

 

So back to it, for timescaling a mod that scales maybe 1:15 in DC and then 1:28 outside the Beltway would work for me.

What weather mod(s) do you use? Besides FWE what other mods do you use?