Development Info J.E. Sawyer & Sean K. Reynolds on Van Buren vehicles

[Walks with the Snails]

I always thought the Brotherhood simply rebuilt the power armor and weapons from things they had lying around (scavanging and shit).

It's a bit questionable. Rhombus got bent out of shape when that guy tried to *gasp* repair the power armor by welding on a replacement whatchamacallit. If they were just salvaging everything, I imagine he'd be a bit less picky, especially 80 years after the bombs dropped. And IIRC Vree or someone was working on a new laser pistol or something like that.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Systolic motivator.

 

[Anonymous]

I've always thought cars were silly because they are like big 'Hey, kill me!' beacons for raiders.

Once when I was playing the PnP as the DMer dood, the players got a car and were driving it alot and then one raider shoots at the back window with a machine gun from one point, then another down from him tosses a grenade in. Made some people go explode and people were all

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Sounds cool.

 

[Greenskin13]

So now I'm back from outer space.

My dreams of seeing a brahmin-pulled Radio Flyer wagon are becoming less likely with all this automobile shenanigan.

 

[Shevek]

I dunno, I dont think cars is a huge problem in a Fallout game if done well and I think this was designed pretty damn well.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Given other design choices like how they revamped SPECIAL to only have one gun skill, how how they decided the final battle would take place on a ORBITAL NUCLEAR LAUNCH PLATFORM SPACE STATION DEALIE, I'm not sure I'd be willing to say they handled the design of the cars well at all.

 

[Reklar]

...they decided the final battle would take place on a ORBITAL NUCLEAR LAUNCH PLATFORM SPACE STATION DEALIE...

WTF?!? J.E. was going to make Fallout end in space? Please say it ain't so J.E. or I won't be able to believe in your sanity any longer. The flourescent super-mutants and horrible character portraits of Fallout Tactics (to say nothing of FOBOS) was bad enough, but putting post-apoc into space is just plain WRONG.

-Reklar
(a Fallout/RPG fan)

 

[Major_Blackhart]

My fears are confirmed taht this indeed would have sucked.

 

[Briosafreak]

...they decided the final battle would take place on a ORBITAL NUCLEAR LAUNCH PLATFORM SPACE STATION DEALIE...

WTF?!? J.E. was going to make Fallout end in space? Please say it ain't so J.E. or I won't be able to believe in your sanity any longer. The flourescent super-mutants and horrible character portraits of Fallout Tactics (to say nothing of FOBOS) was bad enough, but putting post-apoc into space is just plain WRONG.

-Reklar
(a Fallout/RPG fan)

Nope, it wasn`t him, i like the idea though, specially the 30s serries Flash Gordon shutlles to get there, and the efects on the game world the station would have, it would be wicked, really wicked...

 

[Azael]

Didn't Tim Cain himself say that his original plans for Fallout 2 involved space travel? That the whole point of the vault experiments was to see how people behaved under severely stressing circumstances in order to use that data to prepare for the voyage to Mars, or something like that?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Originally, the idea was for the Enclave to attempt to launch themselves away from the post nuclear earth, and the vaults were used as experiments for failure conditions and long term isolation study. But the key word is originally, because that was later changed to the FEV TOXIC GAS STUFF, and obviously the Enclave would never prove if it were viable because you would erradicate them.

However, we're talking Moonraker crap in a setting where they had to drop atomic bombs because rocket science wasn't keen enough to make ICBMs and the Enclave had no other choice when the war started but to go to an oil rig in the pacific. If you had a choice between going to an oil rig given a nuclear holocost and a huge ass space station with a bunch of nuclear missiles(which never existed anyway), which would you choose? Keep in mind, this wouldn't be a one way trip because the space station also had a hanger full of rocketship shuttles as well. Oh, and why was the enclave using vertibirds if the U.S. already had rocketship shuttles?

So, yeah, it's pretty lame shit within the context of the setting.

 

[Briosafreak]

Didn't Tim Cain himself say that his original plans for Fallout 2 involved space travel? That the whole point of the vault experiments was to see how people behaved under severely stressing circumstances in order to use that data to prepare for the voyage to Mars, or something like that?

Yep, still everyone hated the idea at BIS , too sci-fi, Damien sold it with the Sputnick fears of the time and all the pulp there was with doomsday machines, secret space stations and the first russian military missile program that started in 1954, wich i suspect had something to do with the original Fallout devs idea. Again the place wouldn`t be much diferent from the Master quarters on the first one, but the end result could be awsome, if you choose an evil path

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

But weren't most of those things basically fears that people had? Weren't most of those things (like Death Star-like space stations of doom) basically non-existant or impossible to make? People also had a deathly fear of aliens and such, which doesn't mean they actually exist.

 

[Briosafreak]

That`s the other coin of the "smile everyone has domestic apliances and a house at the suburbs with a car and life is great with neat TV shows and Ike president" context of the time, cold war paranoia and a fear that was large enough to make people build vaults and strengthen the anti-comunism comitees. The Sputnick and the wins of the soviets on the space race were the last drop, and pulp sci-fi with political overtones showed it abundantely.

A bit OT, but if you`re taking a degree in Comunication try to find stuff on american media at those days, it`s fascinating, the crescendo in paranoia from the first soviet atomic bomb test in 49 to their first truelly menacing balistic missile in 1954 is a fascinating issue if one is into those things, like i had to study it first, and then just got hooked.

 

[Reklar]

Briosafreak, I've always had a great deal of respect for you because you are an NMA legend, but putting space travel in Fallout is crazy talk. :shock: When you're talking about a setting where most of the people can barely manage basic science and mechanics it doesn't seem to make much sense throwing in something that requires advanced science, mathematics, engineering, and logistics. Sure it's a nifty idea, but it doesn't belong in the Fallout Universe.

-Reklar
(a Fallout/RPG fan)

 

[Briosafreak]

the science was from before the war, but ok, it`s just my view, as i said even the BIS guys had a hard time accepting it, and the Tim Cain idea would raise resistance too, i`m sure of it.

I`m a legend?...cool

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yep, still everyone hated the idea at BIS , too sci-fi, Damien sold it with the Sputnick fears of the time and all the pulp there was with doomsday machines, secret space stations and the first russian military missile program that started in 1954, wich i suspect had something to do with the original Fallout devs idea. Again the place wouldn`t be much diferent from the Master quarters on the first one, but the end result could be awsome, if you choose an evil path

Except the fact that Fallout didn't have nuclear missiles. They used bombers. If you don't have missiles, you don't have a NUCLEAR DEATH LAUNCH PLATFORM. If you do have missiles, you'd use them instead of bombers.

Additionally, if the Enclave had access to a SUPAH SEKRET SPACE STASHUN OF DUUM, why did they hole up in an oil rig? If they had rocketship shuttlecraft, why did they use Vertibirds?

The whole concept of this space station is totally ass. It just doesn't fit with anything in Fallout or Fallout 2.

 

[Briosafreak]

What Enclave? There wasn`t an Enclave on Van Buren, except a random encounter with a couple of poor former enclave soldiers

 

[Jinxed]

I agree with saint there... Cars... Bah. Especially the buggy, does it look 50s? Nuclear misslies, cars ect, it's all fo 2 way, too much real world stuff.

 

[mr. lamat]

i'm guessing they went with the oil rig rather than the space station as it's easier to resupply. a ten minute vertibird hop to shore is way easier than breaking orbit. a space station would be in constant need of all raw materials and resources for it's population and qould require some sort of ground operations to keep it going.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Except the fact that Fallout didn't have nuclear missiles. They used bombers. If you don't have missiles, you don't have a NUCLEAR DEATH LAUNCH PLATFORM. If you do have missiles, you'd use them instead of bombers.

Yeah, I have to agree with that. A space-based missile launch system makes no sense when they were using bombers. Unless of course they developed anti-ballistic missile technology (given they had man-portable laser rifles it's not inconceivable), but there's no indication they did.

Additionally, if the Enclave had access to a SUPAH SEKRET SPACE STASHUN OF DUUM, why did they hole up in an oil rig? If they had rocketship shuttlecraft, why did they use Vertibirds?

Would you want to isolate yourself and your family in space for the rest of your life? Not even the moon, just a crappy space station. If I was one of the grand poobas, know I'd rather live on an isolated and heavily armed oil rig than than be stuck in a space station. Not to mention, sending up 2000 or so folks would probably cost more than the entire vault network if you assumed Apollo-style launches.

As far as vertibirds, why do we use helicopters today when we have rockets? Maneuverability. Rockets would be absolute ass from a military standpoint if you wanted to move troops around and terrify the populace.

 

[Seven]

As far as vertibirds, why do we use helicopters today when we have rockets? Maneuverability. Rockets would be absolute ass from a military standpoint if you wanted to move troops around and terrify the populace.

They were going to use the vertibirds to drop modified FEV, remember? In which case don't you think it would be easier to just use rockets?

 

[Walks with the Snails]

They were going to use the vertibirds to drop modified FEV, remember? In which case don't you think it would be easier to just use rockets?

It's going beyond the time period, but did we use rockets to disperse Agent Orange in Vietnam?

If you've already got vertibirds for other reasons, it's easier and more precise to just dump the FEV wherever you want. You've also got to sit down and design and build the rockets and warheads. Don't forget all the uncertainties of what happens when the rockets land. Some will explode on the launch pad or in midflight (and a lot more frequently than vertibirds), the warhead might or might not release the contents, the contents might or might not get burned up, the rocket might or might not land where you wanted, etc. So no, it's not easier to use rockets. The only advantage to rockets would be if the unwashed masses had air superiority (I'd like to see that one) and would shoot down the vertibirds before they got to their targets.

 

[Spazmo]

They weren't going to use vertibirds to release the FEV gas. They were just going to throw that into the air from the Enclave and let the jetstream propagate the virus.

As for resupplying a space station, it's not like it's any easier to resupply the oil rig, given the circumstances. It's not like the Enclave had massive corn fields they'd fly off to for food. I don't think it was outright stated in Fallout 2, but most likely they had a massive hydroponics installation, which would be just as easy to do on a space station.

And yeah, neato super keen Flash Gordon rokkits aside, a space station and ICBMs just doesn't work for Fallout. It'd probably be really neat in a different retrofuture RPG, but not in Fallout. It's just not consistent.