Q: clarifying how things were, before being changed after Fo2

[NMLevesque]

I've never played the classics, and obviously reading about them and watching Let's Plays is not a perfect substitute. Some aspects of the first two games are still a bit of a mystery to me. So I wanted to get some clarification on them.

Deathclaws vs Wanamingos: I guess this one is kind of silly, but it came to me after I started writing this so how do they stack up? Are deathclaws still the most dangerous "wildlife" around? Maybe I'm just too used to being able to search 'X vs Y' to find out. Was hard enough just to find a decent let's plays to watch.

EMP effects on power armor and robots were that already that nonsensical partial damage thing right? I mean in reality it would either do nothing (shielding), or it would just junk it completely and most likely permanently.

Gauss rifles: I didn't see them used much but IIRC, they're actually described as being coilguns which is kind of funny to me. Should I assume they can fire repeatedly without a lengthy reload, as seen in 3, NV, and 4? Is that why I sometimes see people saying they wish Bethesda would bring back the classic version?

Ghouls: so they were less agile than normals? What about toughness? It seemed that there was a bit of give and take on that part, with the whole 'not dying from what would kill a normal, and having weird regenerative attributes' part. Were they all supposed to be green, or is it just some odd coincidence that all the ones with 'floating head' models were greener than the super mutants?

Irrigation but no sewage system?

Power Fist: is this as nonsensical as it sounds? Some kind of servomotor based, powerarmor-esque, strength enhancing, metal gauntlet without no pneumatics? I love the way it looks. Makes the Bethesda power fists, which admittedly make more sense and are tonnes of fun whereas being unarmed in Fo1 and 2 just looks masochistic until level 24, look boring af by comparison. On a side note does it drive anyone else nuts that we still don't have anyone wearing two? I mean, I have two fists don't I? Why didn't anyone think 'hey boxing, that's a thing'?

Robot lasers and nuclear power...

1. Robots use nuclear power to indefinitely produce lasers and they're just as powerful. Size limits allow robots to do what handheld energy weapons could not. However given the possibility of a backpack power source, given that much of the robots weight has to be--y'know the robotics the power source supplies...it doesn't really make sense that standalone laser weapons need ammo.
   
2. Robots use nuclear power to indefinitely produce lasers and their lasers suck. Like the whatever 'MF Hyperbreeder' thing from NV makes.
3. Robots deplete ammo, can run out, and require external sources to restock.

Stealth Boys: the nightkin just kind of use them forever. Do they never run out or am I missing something here?

Timber: are there just absolutely no living trees anywhere in California? Should I just assume that the Sequoia National Park (due east of Vault 13 and Arroyo) is just a pitch black, giant tree graveyard? Are the higher altitude forests where it's cooler and precipitation is higher just as barren? I guess that'd explain the utter lack of bows, but really, using half of a stripped down car for a cart? It would be easier just to build a hearth, melt that shit down and reforge it into something shaped right, without all the extra material weighing it down. Or are hearths (e.g forges, kilns) just verboten? Can't remember seeing any, but that seems like one of the first things any settlement would build. Even randos living in the middle of nowhere...

Unrelated build questions while I'm at it:
Did anyone make a stealth build that works this well, or is that just a specific scenario where it works?


% based skill values go to 200% and 300% respectively. Didn't see a formula on gamepedia or the broken wikia for combat skills, but I assume it falls under the law of diminishing returns. Or is that taken care of by the increased sp requirement? Either way, I'm sort of curious what the approximate difference is between 100%, 200%, and 300% as far as damage or whatever else it affects goes. Also lol wtf, max level 99?

 

[R.Graves]

Play the games buddy.

Deathclaws vs Wanamingos: I guess this one is kind of silly, but it came to me after I started writing this so how do they stack up? Are deathclaws still the most dangerous "wildlife" around? Maybe I'm just too used to being able to search 'X vs Y' to find out. Was hard enough just to find a decent let's plays to watch.

The wannamingos are canonically exctinct iirc. So deathclaw assuming we dont count later creatures such as tunnlers, ghost people, and cazadors. Floaters were pretty hardy as well.

Robots deplete ammo, can run out, and require external sources to restock.

Likely this one. As the robobrain I originally used rifles and the eyebots used melee after awhile and securitron mk II usually killed you before they could believable run out of ammo.

Also stealth works about as well as its ever going to at about 65% iirc.

Timber: are there just absolutely no living trees anywhere in California? Should I just assume that the Sequoia National Park (due east of Vault 13 and Arroyo) is just a pitch black, giant tree graveyard? Are the higher altitude forests where it's cooler and precipitation is higher just as barren? I guess that'd explain the utter lack of bows, but really, using half of a stripped down car for a cart? It would be easier just to build a hearth, melt that shit down and reforge it into something shaped right, without all the extra material weighing it down. Or are hearths (e.g forges, kilns) just verboten? Can't remember seeing any, but that seems like one of the first things any settlement would build. Even randos living in the middle of nowhere...

Buddy, as much as worldbuilding matters.. I think your thinking about it too much. Its best not to think about things from a real world perspective to that strict of detail.

Ghouls: so they were less agile than normals? What about toughness? It seemed that there was a bit of give and take on that part, with the whole 'not dying from what would kill a normal, and having weird regenerative attributes' part.

They were weak as fuck in every way except intellect. Bethesda completely reversed that with ferals because they get everything wrong wherever possible. Also that radiation heals them bulshit was added by bethesda because iirc fallout 2 merely said radiation made them feel more comfortable.

 

[naossano]

Gameplay wise, the EMP are a type of damage from which the robots have no resistance while everything else has like 500 resistance.

So, you are most likely to one-shot robots with it, but sometimes, they survive it. On the other hand, you are unlikely to hurt anything else, unless there is a great critical.

 

[Millim]

The feral ghouls were an odd design choice, but I felt New Vegas utilised them well.

 

[R.Graves]

The feral ghouls were an odd design choice, but I felt New Vegas utilised them well.

So did fallout 3. Better even than NV. Doesn't make them any less blasphemous.

 

[Millim]

In F3, they were overused.
They should have been kept to one certain location.

 

[Risewild]

Deathclaws vs Wanamingos: I guess this one is kind of silly, but it came to me after I started writing this so how do they stack up? Are deathclaws still the most dangerous "wildlife" around? Maybe I'm just too used to being able to search 'X vs Y' to find out. Was hard enough just to find a decent let's plays to watch.

Depends, average Deathclaws hit harder, heal faster, have more AP and have almost twice the HP than average Wanamingos. Wananmingos are tougher, score criticals easier and are harder to hit.
Now we have to remember that there are only three types of wanamingos in Fallout 2, the normal one, the tough one and the queen (which is a unique one). There are six types of Deathclaws though, there are two "Deathclaws" (one being really weak compared to the other), there are Deathclaw Spawns, there are two different tough Deathclaws (small and normal) and there is a Deathclaw Mother (a unique one).
In my book both deathclaws and wanamingos are deadly to most adventurers unless they are well leveled. Wananmingos will avoid hits and get less damage, sometimes hitting a critical that will be fatal, but Deathclaws will hit hard, faster and be able to get hit twice as much. Once an adventurer has enough weapon skill to hit Wanamingos easier, I would say Deathclaws are harder.

EMP effects on power armor and robots were that already that nonsensical partial damage thing right? I mean in reality it would either do nothing (shielding), or it would just junk it completely and most likely permanently.

I don't know what you mean by partial damage, sorry.
EMP damage in Fallout and Fallout 2 means just that, it is a type of damage. It is pretty much useless against living creatures because they have a huge resistance to it (In Fallout 1 and 2 armors protect better or worst against different types of damage and there are DT and DR, this is for another day or I will stay here for hours). Power Armor is actually very resistant to EMP damage (I think it has something like 500 DR), robots usually (IIRC) have no protection against it, so they get the full damage from that source (EMP grenades deal 100 to 150 damage, that is usually enough to destroy any normal robot in Fallout 1 and 2 in one hit).

Gauss rifles: I didn't see them used much but IIRC, they're actually described as being coilguns which is kind of funny to me. Should I assume they can fire repeatedly without a lengthy reload, as seen in 3, NV, and 4? Is that why I sometimes see people saying they wish Bethesda would bring back the classic version?

You can fire a Gauss pistol 12 times and a Gauss Rifle 20 times before reloading. I am having a blank at the moment but I think reloading weapons in Fallout and Fallout 2 costs 2 AP (Action Points) so I don't know what you mean by a lengthy reload.

Ghouls: so they were less agile than normals? What about toughness? It seemed that there was a bit of give and take on that part, with the whole 'not dying from what would kill a normal, and having weird regenerative attributes' part. Were they all supposed to be green, or is it just some odd coincidence that all the ones with 'floating head' models were greener than the super mutants?

Ghouls are weak, they are radiation burnt humans, they are slow and fragile (they can still shoot weapons like any human so they cna hit hard depending on which weapon they are using). Ghouls do not regenerate from radiation in older Fallout games, that is a Bethesda canon introduced in Fallout 3. Ghouls skin and ligaments are slowly decaying. They do live a long time, longer than normal humans.
The green skin is because their skin became leathery from radiation so for some reason it became green/grey (rememebr that the first Fallout games were in a time where computers couldn't show many colors, I guess green was a good one to show or something).

Irrigation but no sewage system?

It's easy to have irrigation if you possess a water pump and a well, most communities in rural Fallout and Fallout 2 use wells and use that water for their crops. I think big cities like San Francisco, New Reno, Vault City, etc have sewers of some kind.
Small communities usually use outhouses to relieve themselves, so no need for sewers.

Spoiler: Outhouse

How a outhouse looks like underneath it:

Power Fist: is this as nonsensical as it sounds? Some kind of servomotor based, powerarmor-esque, strength enhancing, metal gauntlet without no pneumatics? I love the way it looks. Makes the Bethesda power fists, which admittedly make more sense and are tonnes of fun whereas being unarmed in Fo1 and 2 just looks masochistic until level 24, look boring af by comparison. On a side note does it drive anyone else nuts that we still don't have anyone wearing two? I mean, I have two fists don't I? Why didn't anyone think 'hey boxing, that's a thing'?

I always play unarmed since years ago and I don't think it is boring at all (or I wouldn't play it like that). Power Fists are mechanical, so they do have movable parts, what they do is using energy to somehow release/activate powered servos through the studs in the knuckles (I guess it makes those studs punch out using servos on impact). It does not increase the user strength, it increases the user fist impact force.

Robot lasers and nuclear power...

I don't think robots in Fallout and Fallout 2 use nuclear power at all, I don't even think any of them has lasers (please correct me if I am wrong, my memory is all messy today). They do run out of ammo and then use melee attacks. IIRC they even have powering docks, where they go to recharge (I remember several robobrains in their docks).

Stealth Boys: the nightkin just kind of use them forever. Do they never run out or am I missing something here?

Stealth Boys run for a long time IIRC, they can be turned on and off at will too.

Timber:

There are trees:

Spoiler: Trees, everywhere

Also timber is used around, there are wooden crates for example:

Spoiler: Crates, chests and boxes

Why would people want to melt cars when they can use them as well or even better as they are? They serve a perfect function of carrying heavy merchandise through the wastes and being sturdy enough for that too.
Remember that brahmin are strong but slow creatures and the wastes are hard, these "car carts" are sturdy and work well in these conditions so I don't see how spending a lot of time and money to melt cars to make carts that would have the same function and work as well would be efficient.

% based skill values go to 200% and 300% respectively. Didn't see a formula on gamepedia or the broken wikia for combat skills, but I assume it falls under the law of diminishing returns. Or is that taken care of by the increased sp requirement? Either way, I'm sort of curious what the approximate difference is between 100%, 200%, and 300% as far as damage or whatever else it affects goes. Also lol wtf, max level 99?

Weapon Skills will increase the chance to hit (hard capped at 95%) and damage with weapons of that skill. Weapon Skills are pretty much the only skills worth leveling past 100-125% because of damage increase. I don't know the formula and I already took too long typing this anyway so I will not go into searching it.

Anyway, I have to go and buy some lunch it's already past 3pm.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

Wannamingos are weaker, but are found in larger numbers.

Additionally IIRC the queen is strong enough to solo your usual deathclaw.

I'm not sure if its the restoration project, but I mostly see tough deathclaws, which are the hardest fuckers to kill barring enclave.

Gauss rifles in FO2 was just that, a RIFLE, it had a lovely 20 round clip.

 

[naossano]

I found the Fo2 deathclaws to be very underwhelming on my last playthrough. Fo1 on the other hand... Absolutly fit the nightmarish description of the few survivors...

 

[R.Graves]

Fo1 on the other hand... Absolutly fit the nightmarish description of the few survivors...

Fit the description?
They were said to be 20ft tall with claws as long as a man. Could hypnotize and were bloodsucking. ghost demons. They could also turn invisible.

 

[Tiny Tim]

Generally, wannamigos are not to be found in the wildlife. The only place where they exist is below redding, and i remember reading a theory that they were actually a result of the enclave\american government messing around with xenomorph-like alien life forms ( probably because the enclave was generally using redding, for example the people that became second generation supermutants were actually redding miners that they captured). Chris avelone didn't think they were actually aliens though. The following is from the fallout bible

The wannamingos are a result of FEV virus experiments, but they are now becoming sterile.
They are not aliens, but word is they were designed as FEV-tailored weapons for waging war on
other countries... and they got loose. They do live a long time, but they were dying out at the
time of Fallout 2. They have only been sighted in the F2 area and nowhere else in the
wastelands.


The eggs you see in Fallout 2 are the last generation of Wannamingoes to exist in the wasteland;
the young Wannamingoes seen in F2 will perish in five years, and their parents a few years
before that - an internal genetic clock will simply stop ticking, and they'll fall over dead. The
Wannamingoes are a vicious mutant breed that had their moment in the sun, and now their sun
has set.
To put the tombstone on their extinction, the largest known nest of Wannamingoes were wiped
out when the Great Wannamingo mine was reclaimed by Redding with the help of a traveling
tribal. The mother was killed, and the last remaining eggs were hunted down, stepped on, and
then the remains were examined by local scientists and doctors who came to the extinction
conclusions mentioned above.
Again, Wannamingoes are not aliens – they are a curious mutant or genetically-designed
fighting machine that has only been able to find a home in the cold, dark places of the wastes.
It is possible that the wannamingoes were old Enclave experiments (or even experiments from
before the Great War), and if this is true, then it's likely their genetic/biological deadman’s
switch was purposely engineered to keep them from breeding past a certain generation.
As a final note, this is strictly a personal decision on my part. If you want them to live for fan
fiction, pen-and-paper role-playing campaign purposes, or for your own peace of mind, feel free
to have some of them survive the stopping of their genetic clock – in the Black Isle universe,
however, the little buggers are already dead and their irradiated shells are scattered along the
floor of abandoned mines throughout northern California where they make nice crunching
noises when you step on them.

by the way the story about them being FEV weapons that got loose is very close to the new xenomorph origin established in prometheus, funnily enough

Fit the description?
They were said to be 20ft tall with claws as long as a man. Could hypnotize and were bloodsucking. ghost demons. They could also turn invisible.

no, that was probably just harold's crazy talk. Deathclaws had become a local myth.


Edit: sorry, i didn't read your post in context. yeah, they definitely didn't fit the description.
But i agree that they were much better in fallout than fallout 2, much scarier anyway.

 

[Brunzer]

I am more than happy to clarify a few things about Fallout 1&2. But before I do that, I’m hoping you can shed some light on the following:

I've never played the classics, and obviously reading about them and watching Let's Plays is not a perfect substitute. Some aspects of the first two games are still a bit of a mystery to me. So I wanted to get some clarification on them.

Let me get this straight. You read about the classic fallout games, you watch let’s plays and you make a lengthy forum post with questions regarding lore, game mechanics etc. What is stopping you from just playing the games?

They’re perfectly playable on today’s hardware with the community patches. Although wandering around the wastes can make for a huge time sink, the main story lines aren’t that time consuming. Especially Fallout 1 is a rather short game. They’re still pretty damn good games albeit with some quirks and flaws. Best of all: you get to partake in discussions on these forums with first-hand experience.

 

[NMLevesque]

Play the games buddy.

I would but (pseudo?) isometric turn based games are about as fun to me as banging my head against a wall.

Buddy, as much as worldbuilding matters.. I think your thinking about it too much. Its best not to think about things from a real world perspective to that strict of detail.

I'm writing a parody. Fair use is extremely restrictive, so I *have* to do things a certain way.

They were weak as fuck in every way except intellect. Bethesda completely reversed that with ferals because they get everything wrong wherever possible. Also that radiation heals them bulshit was added by bethesda because iirc fallout 2 merely said radiation made them feel more comfortable.

Wait, ferals were smart? I mean, I thought they used different terms and there were three types of classic ghouls but I thought one of them was, well, feral.

 

[NMLevesque]

I don't know what you mean by partial damage, sorry.

I just mean that with real EMPs there are really only two outcomes. Either something is protected, which we euphemistically refer to as shielding but might be more akin to a surge protector. In that case there is no damage, at all. Or it's not protected, and there is an affect. That affect is to ruin whatever is affected. There wouldn't be any partially damaged robots that can still barely work, there would just be junk that used to be a robot.

I don't know what you mean by a lengthy reload.

The gauss weapons from 3 onward can fire once, and then you have to reload it. Which takes a while. Either way I think I got what I was after on that one. My takeaway is that they used to fire much the same as a conventional rifle. Though I do wonder if it's most akin to a bolt action, but I doubt that sort of detail could be gleaned.

Ghouls do not regenerate from radiation in older Fallout games, that is a Bethesda canon introduced in Fallout 3. Ghouls skin and ligaments are slowly decaying. They do live a long time, longer than normal humans.
The green skin is because their skin became leathery from radiation so for some reason it became green/grey (rememebr that the first Fallout games were in a time where computers couldn't show many colors, I guess green was a good one to show or something).

Wow, it's surprisingly hard to peel away the Bethesda layers from this Fallout onion. There's some interesting psychology behind it, but I'm just amazed I got that bit about regeneration wrong.
The green it has to do with how people thought nuclear material glowed green, because radium lights did (albeit because of other materials). I was just wondering if they were all supposed to be green, because some of the models look brown to me.

I don't think robots in Fallout and Fallout 2 use nuclear power at all, I don't even think any of them has lasers (please correct me if I am wrong, my memory is all messy today). They do run out of ammo and then use melee attacks. IIRC they even have powering docks, where they go to recharge (I remember several robobrains in their docks).

Well that makes infinitely more sense. I do recall seeing the charging docks now that I think about it. Though now I'm wondering if Bethesda is behind the whole, 'everything is nuclear powered' part. Maybe I'm crazy but I could have sworn they said their home appliances were nuclear powered.

Also timber is used around, there are wooden crates for example

Oh right, those trees are alive. Not used to interpreting sprites or whatever they're called. Guess I kinda knew that, but the deficiency of wood buildings, bows and arrows, etc, kinda made me assume otherwise.

Why would people want to melt cars when they can use them as well or even better as they are? They serve a perfect function of carrying heavy merchandise through the wastes and being sturdy enough for that too.
Remember that brahmin are strong but slow creatures and the wastes are hard, these "car carts" are sturdy and work well in these conditions so I don't see how spending a lot of time and money to melt cars to make carts that would have the same function and work as well would be efficient.

The trunk or hood of a car is not optimized for that purpose. The shape means you can't put as many goods inside. They're designed for crash safety which adds an excess of material for the speeds a cart will travel. That they were part of a vehicle means they have a shit load of excess material to handle the weight and momentum. Much of this material clearly hasn't been removed, but could be. All of this is extra weight their pack animals don't have to carry/pull. Basically it's a wildly inefficient design that they don't have to use. Not like making a hearth is hard. They have plenty of material. Though obviously if they had wood to spare on crates, they could spare them to make carts that are only a fraction of the weight.

 

[naossano]

There is more than one skin for ghouls in the first two Falllout.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Ghoul

Seek for the gallery section.

About lore, they are no feral ghouls in the classics. Some are more hostiles than other, but they aren't like wild animal. They talk and use weapons.

Also, there are very very few running ghouls. Ghouls are supposed to be very very old people with the common afflictions of old people. There are as few running ghouls as there are few running centenial.

 

[NMLevesque]

What is stopping you from just playing the games?

Well I'd have to repeat a joke this soon, so I'll just refer you to my earlier reply to R.Graves. Though I will add that I tried. I've played games with rough beginnings. Put in a ridiculous number of hours trying to enjoy something. It's not a comment on the quality of the game. I just can't enjoy actually playing it. Reading a story, and having something to watch while I do other things is something I do enjoy. Though part of getting through the Let's Plays was for a purpose. Honestly that was a bit of a slog at times. Like, has nobody heard of editing? I don't need to see people grind for three hours straight. Don't need to every minute people spend managing inventory, walking from one place to the next, traveling on the world map, running from random encounters they aren't even going to do, etc. Not like the point is to make a guide, and that wouldn't even be a good format for one anyway.

 

[naossano]

Not telling you that you should do it. There is no reason to force yourself into playing a game that don't fit your gamestyle (as long as you don't say that this gameplay should be removed forever and other mean stuff agains't TB players)

But if you really want to get into the lore of the game, without being bothered by the fight, you could still use cheats like character editor, that give you tons of HP and AP, and make you able to kill almost everything with one click.

I did use it several times for games that grabbed my interest lore-wise, while i didn't enjoy the combat. (or if it was too hard, when i was very young)

 

[NMLevesque]

But if you really want to get into the lore of the game, without being bothered by the fight, you could still use cheats like character editor, that give you tons of HP and AP, and make you able to kill almost everything with one click.

Great idea, thanks.

 

[R.Graves]

Wait, ferals were smart? I mean, I thought they used different terms and there were three types of classic ghouls but I thought one of them was, well, feral.

Ferals are a blasphemous invention by bethesda. There were hostile ghouls but they didn't behave anywhere.near like ferals. More like dawn of the dead zombies that could speak.

 

[Jogre]

Deathclaws vs Wanamingos: I guess this one is kind of silly, but it came to me after I started writing this so how do they stack up? Are deathclaws still the most dangerous "wildlife" around? Maybe I'm just too used to being able to search 'X vs Y' to find out. Was hard enough just to find a decent let's plays to watch.

A lone Wannamingo is fairly challenging, but is very possible to deal with. The reason they are such buggers is because there are hundreds of them crowding the Redding Mine, and it's very easy to get overwhelmed.

If you see a single Deathclaw even at high levels, you start shitting yourself.

I'd say Deathclaws i are still definitely the top predators, but it's because Wannamingos are able to swarm entire areas that make them deadly.

EMP effects on power armor and robots were that already that nonsensical partial damage thing right? I mean in reality it would either do nothing (shielding), or it would just junk it completely and most likely permanently.

Eh, IRL a bullet to the head would be fatal.

If EMPs instakilled, it would no longer be entertaining. They kinda needed a way to make it so they would still be a must-have in fights against robots and power-armour, but at the same time weren't enough to take away all danger involved.

Ghouls: so they were less agile than normals? What about toughness? It seemed that there was a bit of give and take on that part, with the whole 'not dying from what would kill a normal, and having weird regenerative attributes' part. Were they all supposed to be green, or is it just some odd coincidence that all the ones with 'floating head' models were greener than the super mutants?

Set isn't green, but he still has a talking head.

My theory is that it's not clean cut. Some Ghouls have green skin, some don't, some look like there faces are melting off, whereas some look far more pleasant. There isn't IMO one universal way that all Ghouls look. It's a mutation, it's messy.

As for less agile, ghouls supposedly can't run according to Lenny. Interestingly enough, Raul in New Vegas always complains about pains from running, though he claims its just arthiritis.

The Regenerative part, I always figured that's just how the dev's justified there long-lifespans. They regenerate faster, so they can live for a couple hundred years.

Robot lasers and nuclear power...

1. Robots use nuclear power to indefinitely produce lasers and they're just as powerful. Size limits allow robots to do what handheld energy weapons could not. However given the possibility of a backpack power source, given that much of the robots weight has to be--y'know the robotics the power source supplies...it doesn't really make sense that standalone laser weapons need ammo.
   
2. Robots use nuclear power to indefinitely produce lasers and their lasers suck. Like the whatever 'MF Hyperbreeder' thing from NV makes.
3. Robots deplete ammo, can run out, and require external sources to restock.

Robots canonically need power in the first 2 games. They don't just continue running like in 3 and NV.

IIRC, Mr Handies have self-maintenence programs, so can refuel and repair themselves.

Robobrains and stuff like that need a power source. In fact in Fallout 1, if you don't repair the generator in The Glow, all the robots just lie there, and don't respond.

Stealth Boys: the nightkin just kind of use them forever. Do they never run out or am I missing something here?

They probably need some kind of power source, but much like Pip-Boys, it's kinda inconvinient to show constantly refueling.

In the first 2 games, Stealth Boys weren't one-use things. If you had one in your inventory, it gave a static bonus every time you went in to stealth.

Timber: are there just absolutely no living trees anywhere in California?

I always figured that the trees you see are perfectly living, but since it's a desert, they don't have as many leaves.