scottym23 Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 So i'm sure this question has been asked a thousand times, but why does there seem to be an endless amount of bottle caps in the commissary, and how are they being accepted? The second part of my question is partially answered in the fallout wiki, where it says, "The reason that the commissary terminals accept bottle caps is because they are of a near identical shape to the pay chits that were issued to military personnel to be used in conjunction with the terminals." I'm not too sure where the site got this information from (or whether it is actually credible) but I don't buy into that theory for many reasons. Wouldn't an advanced piece of pre-war technology be able to sense that a mere bottle cap is being inserted, and not an actual "pay chit"? If the logic is that they are the same size and shape, then why don't people use plastic coins to pay for items at vending machines? Even if I was to believe this large gap in logic for why the machine accepts bottle caps, then there's still the larger unanswered question of why there are already thousands of bottle caps in the machine to begin with? And why would it dispense bottle caps instead of these "pay chits"? I know i'm knit picking at this point and the developers probably didn't think many people would scrutinize such small elements of the game, but this to me at least seems like a pretty obvious loophole that should have been addressed in some form within the context of the game. Oh well though, unless someone has some explanation for this I guess i'll just catalog this under "Fallout (insert number here) plot loophole number 5 million" >.>. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xaranth Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 So i'm sure this question has been asked a thousand times, but why does there seem to be an endless amount of bottle caps in the commissary, and how are they being accepted? The second part of my question is partially answered in the fallout wiki, where it says, "The reason that the commissary terminals accept bottle caps is because they are of a near identical shape to the pay chits that were issued to military personnel to be used in conjunction with the terminals." I'm not too sure where the site got this information from (or whether it is actually credible) but I don't buy into that theory for many reasons. Wouldn't an advanced piece of pre-war technology be able to sense that a mere bottle cap is being inserted, and not an actual "pay chit"? If the logic is that they are the same size and shape, then why don't people use plastic coins to pay for items at vending machines? Even if I was to believe this large gap in logic for why the machine accepts bottle caps, then there's still the larger unanswered question of why there are already thousands of bottle caps in the machine to begin with? And why would it dispense bottle caps instead of these "pay chits"? I know i'm knit picking at this point and the developers probably didn't think many people would scrutinize such small elements of the game, but this to me at least seems like a pretty obvious loophole that should have been addressed in some form within the context of the game. Oh well though, unless someone has some explanation for this I guess i'll just catalog this under "Fallout (insert number here) plot loophole number 5 million" >.>. The first bit (from the Wiki) comes from an entry found in a terminal near the very beginning of lonesome road. And probably it has a bunch of caps because clever sparks pre-war had been dumping them on the system to game it before the issue was discovered. And how do you know it's not actually dispensing pay chits instead of bottle caps? If they're so close, who's to say wasteland merchants could or would tell the difference anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raestloz Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 I don't know what a "pay chit" is, but is there any terminal that explicitly states that a "pay chit" is, in fact, not a bottle cap? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottym23 Posted January 30, 2013 Author Share Posted January 30, 2013 I don't know what a "pay chit" is, but is there any terminal that explicitly states that a "pay chit" is, in fact, not a bottle cap? Like the person who posted above you said, it says in the game on a terminal that the bottle caps were of identical size and that's why bottle caps work (confirmed by the fallout wiki). Why would the game go out of it's way to explicitly say this if they were one in the same? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talwyn224 Posted February 1, 2013 Share Posted February 1, 2013 I'm assuming your referring to the Commissary Terminals in Lonesome Road here scottym23? If so then I agree with you, it makes no logical sense that bottle caps should be excepted as a recognized currency and IMO, its another sign of lazy writing on the part of the designers. The more plausible way to access the terminals would have been that they only accepted Pre-War money. Personally I find the whole idea of caps as a currency ridiculous and it should have ended after the 1st Fallout game. From memory, caps were there as a means to adjust the barter transactions. In other words you would trade an item for an item and if your item was more valuable than the one you're trading for, you'd get some caps as "change". Besides, there comes a point in the game, and it's often quite early in, that you can suddenly find that you've got over a 1000 caps on you. I did an experiment in real life to see what 500 caps would look like and weigh. So I collected as many beer bottle caps as I could [took a while btw] and in the end I got a bag that weighed roughly about a kilo or there abouts and filled an average sized plastic shopping bag. And that's just 500!?! :blink: I'm currently on a play through in which I'm toting over 100k of caps on my Courier. In all honesty, I hope that in FO4 they address this immersion breaking silliness and get rid of caps and come up with a new currency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TorrentialDefect Posted February 2, 2013 Share Posted February 2, 2013 An even bigger question is: How the heck do commissary terminals dispense products, and how the heck can you even browse the selection of the items, seeing as the terminal is just a wall-mounted box with a bunch of LEDs on it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottym23 Posted February 2, 2013 Author Share Posted February 2, 2013 I'm assuming your referring to the Commissary Terminals in Lonesome Road here scottym23? If so then I agree with you, it makes no logical sense that bottle caps should be excepted as a recognized currency and IMO, its another sign of lazy writing on the part of the designers. The more plausible way to access the terminals would have been that they only accepted Pre-War money. Personally I find the whole idea of caps as a currency ridiculous and it should have ended after the 1st Fallout game. From memory, caps were there as a means to adjust the barter transactions. In other words you would trade an item for an item and if your item was more valuable than the one you're trading for, you'd get some caps as "change". Besides, there comes a point in the game, and it's often quite early in, that you can suddenly find that you've got over a 1000 caps on you. I did an experiment in real life to see what 500 caps would look like and weigh. So I collected as many beer bottle caps as I could [took a while btw] and in the end I got a bag that weighed roughly about a kilo or there abouts and filled an average sized plastic shopping bag. And that's just 500!?! :blink: I'm currently on a play through in which I'm toting over 100k of caps on my Courier. In all honesty, I hope that in FO4 they address this immersion breaking silliness and get rid of caps and come up with a new currency. Yeah great points mate as always haha. The bottle cap currency system is definitely the most immersion breaking aspect of the game, since there's no logical way to carry them efficiently. Not to mention in fo3 and NV you're in a wasteland and then a desert...probably the two most prevalent places to carry LESS. But I find it's merely silly to argue this point, because if you're using logic here, then what's the logical explanation for being able to carry 10 guns at once? The character must have a pretty big rectum >.>. I had hope that they were going to correct this problem in NV when I saw they started introducing different types of currency for the different factions. But it seems like caps still hold up much stronger and are definitely more widely accepted. Oh well, what are ya gonna do? Fallout will be fallout, after all. But for ways they could get around this, they could do the following (which I highly doubt they'd seriously take into consideration). : 1. Make the character NEED to carry a backpack of sorts in order to lug their fortunes around. At least then you wouldn't be pulling out weapons and armor out of seemingly thin air. They would be up gradable to hold more and possibly be customized and able to find different unique ones randomly hidden throughout the game environment (could be cool I think). 2. They would need to change the currency from caps to something more logical and less cumbersome, like paper money with different currency values to different bills. Since the next installment of fallout is said to take place in the commonwealth, then it could make sense that they found a better way to exchange goods than damn bottle caps, right? That's just my opinion on what they should do in order to correct these problems. Thanks for your response btw, it's greatly appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottym23 Posted February 2, 2013 Author Share Posted February 2, 2013 An even bigger question is: How the heck do commissary terminals dispense products, and how the heck can you even browse the selection of the items, seeing as the terminal is just a wall-mounted box with a bunch of LEDs on it? Haha that's a good point too. Although there could be explanations that the player is left to infer occurs without actually seeing it. For example, there's always a blank wall either next to the terminals or at the wall next to them, so there could be a sliding wall door that opens to dispense your items. There's absolutely no proof of this or facts to back up my claim, but at least it's remotely possible. In my opinion that isn't one of the game/immersion breaking factors, but still definitely a point that the game developers didn't put much thought into as well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talwyn224 Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 Thanks scottym23 :) In regards to the dispensers/terminals and where they actually obtain the items is indeed something that is totally ignored by the writers. At least with the Siera Madre dispensers, you got an explanation as to how they works, very much like the Star Trek replicators, arranging matter at an atomic/molecular level into what ever it is you wanted. But the commissary terminals have no rationale behind them, no explanation whatsoever just that they're there and you can use them. Again, lazy writing IMO. :armscrossed: I suppose you could infer that the terminals are similar technology to the Siera Madre dispensers? It's the only rational explanation but meh... logic and rationalism in the Fallout Universe? :teehee: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krasnogvardiech Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 Encountered a problem - after having completed Lonesome Road, coming back, and selling loot to the terminals, I don't get any caps dispensed to me. The amount in the Comissary's deposit remains at the price I paid without transferring any money to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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