200 year old wood houses

G

Gooscar

It Wandered In From the Wastes
You know, I haven't heard much of an arguement that the decrepit New England style wood houses in Fallout 3 are implausable other than "nuclear explosions = no wood houses". So I suppose I'll open a discussion about it.

I don't think it's the far fetched idea that everyone makes it out to be, considering there are examples of wood houses standing up for 100+ plus years on their own and beyond with good refubishing. Since we haven't encounted rad termites yet in Fallout, one could say the radiation made termites a non issue for wood condition. From what we've seen the sun, heat, and wind are the only factors of erosion wood has to contend with. Beyond the initial blast and subsequent 200 years of age and rot to set in, I don't really see anything else contributing to wood housing turning into dust.

While I can agree there is a rather striking amount of pristine New England tombs (like in Minefield) surrounded by blown up shells, the blown up shells I have no problem with, and if a house was properly shielded from the blast and had someone to tend to it maybe 100 years later, then upright but dingy houses I can understand too.
 
Nobody argues that wood structures over 200 years old are impossible, or don't exist.

The gripe is with wood structures still standing, in what you said, 'pristine condition' after being hit with nuclear weapons.
 
It isn't the fact that they're still standing that's the problem.

The issue is the whole copy-paste job beth pulled by placing several houses with identical structural damage mere feet from one another.
 
Beyond the fact that most houses that you run into are, well, splintered ruins, the biggest issue isn't that they are still standing, but that they are standing in such a great condition. You said with good refurbishing. Yes, as long as they are maintained, they can stand for a long time. but you don't take into account that sections of the wood will be removed, that there is drywall in play, and that someone is there, taking care of them. These houses are relatively abandoned, yet you still see them basically in excellent, liveable condition.

I am not saying that houses wouldn't be standing two hundred years after the initial blast. But not in anywhere near the condition that they are in. In fact, the entire game seems to be devoid of the general rot that 200 years would bring.
 
Indeed. As I've said before, the war seems to have happened 10, 15 years before the game starts, at most.
 
If I had known absolutely nothing of the Fallout universe or backstory before playing FO3 I would have assumed the bombs had dropped absolutely no longer than 50 years ago. The only reason I would even remotely believe it had been even that long is that obviously some generations have passed though that's really only apparent after you interact with some people.

In a dry climate wooden structures can hold up surprisingly well, but the structures in FO3 are NOT showing 200 years worth of wear and tear.

The subways and indeed every uninhabited structure would have no lighting after 200 years. Yet emergency backup lights are still running in most of the buildings? Come on, I can suspend disbelief as well as the next guy, maybe even better but this is just insane. In some areas there are obviously generators and temporary lighting set up which is fine but who maintains it? The feral ghouls? These should only be in sections being patrolled and maintained by either the BoS or some other faction. I suppose raiders could fit this bill but a lot of subway is just ghouls and mirelurks. Going into the dark tunnels with the feral ghouls should be like the scene where Will Smith goes into the dark building after his dog in "I am legend," dark and terrifying.

/endrant.
 
The only reason I would even remotely believe it had been even that long is that obviously some generations have passed though that's really only apparent after you interact with some people.
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If anything, the way people in FO3 talk about how things were before the war, and the war itself - in a world completely devoid of education - had convinced me even more that Fallout 3 fits in the timeline just about 15-30 years after the war.
 
Who keeps producing stims and other drugs? Ammo? Where does this shit come from? Missiles and other military grade ordinance? Sorry, even if you had a huge supply, after some time that stuff would just simply run out. 200 years is pretty far fetched for this game. They only did it 200 years so they could fit it into the storyline somehow, but they didn't want to accept that things would simply be gone after some time.
 
ScottXeno said:
Who keeps producing stims and other drugs? Ammo? Where does this shit come from? Missiles and other military grade ordinance? Sorry, even if you had a huge supply, after some time that stuff would just simply run out. 200 years is pretty far fetched for this game. They only did it 200 years so they could fit it into the storyline somehow, but they didn't want to accept that things would simply be gone after some time.
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I recall a smithy in the hub talking about casting his own bullets, so that certainly fits in. As for the 'commercial' drugs, who knows. It's hard to believe that DC hadn't been fully scavenged beforehand; yet every building/subway you walk into is a goldmine.
 
Yeah, okay, maybe there are some people smithing ammunition. It wouldn't be in large quantities, mass produced, all over the place. And I never ran into anyone who seemed remotely close or interested in creating ammunition. Maybe in Rivet City there might have been a chance, but no one was doing it there, were they? It just doesn't jive. None of that game jives.
 
200 years old food heals you. That tickled my funny gland, too.

See, I'd have thought that chewing on a 200 years old steak (yum!?) would result in a severe case of food poisoning.
 
Would it even be edible? It'd be like a freaking rock, or decomposed to the point of unrecognizable. Everything would have spoiled. I especially love the milk bottles. How does that make sense? Oh, I know, how about molerat milk!
 
coliphorbs said:
The only reason I would even remotely believe it had been even that long is that obviously some generations have passed though that's really only apparent after you interact with some people.
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If anything, the way people in FO3 talk about how things were before the war, and the war itself - in a world completely devoid of education - had convinced me even more that Fallout 3 fits in the timeline just about 15-30 years after the war.
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It can't be as recent as 15 years, the PC is too old. The bombs had to have dropped at least 19 years ago (PC age) but I would guess that if you factor in that project purity had to be started and then abandoned plus the fact the Rivet City was founded by Pinkerton even before that, that you can add on somewhere between 5-15 years.

But you're right, it's hard to escape the feeling that some of the oldsters were there when the bombs dropped, which is why I did say that 50 years was the absolute extreme time period I would even consider. It probably is closer to 30 or 35 but I was feeling generous with my initial assessment.

The biggest most incongruous aspect of FO3 being set 200 years after? The public reaction to the Wasteland Survival Guide. Why the hell would a society that had spent the last 200 years rebuilding and maintaining have such a messianic reaction to a book about how to survive in the wasteland? Something that they had presumably been doing since birth?

This game is like an onion of despair. No matter how much I try to love it I keep finding another layer of disappointment. And I really did try...

EDIT: Also the plentiful ammo and supplies lying about simply EVERYWHERE would be less incongruous assuming only 30-35 years had passed.
 
I'm not defending Fallout 3 Canon, but keep in mind the scale of Fallout 3. Fallout 3 would be one square on the Fallout 1 or 2 map. We are playing in basically one "city radius". We don't have the whole picture, which is somewhat disappointing.

One thing we do know:

[spoiler:d5fd610b2d]The commonwealth, something that sounds similar to the west coasts NCR, is located to the north of DC. The commonwealth apparently is still able to replicate advanced robotics. Their androids are so sophisticated that they bleed when they cut and can even be reprogrammed to BELIEVE they are human.[/spoiler:d5fd610b2d]

Its highly plausible the ammunition and drugs are made elsewhere and imported by caravans. Jet, which we know comes from the west coast, managed to make its way over here.

[spoiler:d5fd610b2d]There is also a quest from someone to bring them Sugar Bombs so they can make a more advanced jet.[/spoiler:d5fd610b2d]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend Fallout 3 or anything. Just saying ammo/chems make sense. What really doesn't make sense is the state of disrepair. Why is everything still in ruins 200 years later? Fallout 2 had much more established settlements.

Looks almost like DC was partially rebuilt and bombed a second time 100 years later.
 
ScottXeno said:
Would it even be edible? It'd be like a freaking rock, or decomposed to the point of unrecognizable. Everything would have spoiled. I especially love the milk bottles. How does that make sense? Oh, I know, how about molerat milk!
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I agree with the food products, but the milk bottles make sense (they're empty after all).

I imagine that they'd be fairly plentiful around grocery stores (or the factories/trucks that they used to ship them), and since they're thick glass (although opaque for some reason); they'd be sturdy containers to store water in.
 
In defense of the towns still standing after 200 years, note that the place is a desert now, and there are lots of abandoned towns in our own real-world too in Nevada and California that are over a 100 years old, from the gold rush. Not much except sand and wind there, and they're still decently preserved.

http://www.highdesertdrifter.com/
 
But they don't have raiders and wastelanders wandering in and out of them do they? The raiders aren't exactly kind or neat, or respectful are they? I'd think that the buildings standing would see a lot of wear and tear, as well, since no one is taking care of them, but people are most likely definitely abusing them.
 
Keep in mind these are not wooden houses from our universe circa 2008 or 1950 or anything of the sort... we have no idea what sort of technologies were developed to winterize, fortify, renew houses by 2077 in an alternate reality that had many technological advances over our own.

Think about siding for instance, that's something within our own framework of reference we can understand... it's meant to look like wood, but it's another material entirely. How do we know they don't have something way more advanced but the same basic idea? To look like wood, but in fact it's some sort of advanced polymer or nano thing ... who knows?

Maybe that explains why some houses are pretty intact right next to others that are almost entirely destroyed, the more well to do families or the families that focused on upkeep of their houses more and always had to have the latest things like this, are the ones we still see the houses of at the time of Fo3?

Just a possibility, food for thought.

Also, a lot of these houses might've had a Mr. Handy surviving, and keeping them up for much of that 200 year period, maybe the Mr. Handy in some of these intact houses we see only ran out of juice, or was killed by raiders 20 years ago? Just another possibility.
 
But if that were the case, surely the survivors might have looted the buildings for their advanced construction materials at some point in the past 200 years?
 
eddoctorwho said:
But if that were the case, surely the survivors might have looted the buildings for their advanced construction materials at some point in the past 200 years?
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I think human re-settlement of the capitol wasteland is pretty recent, too radioactive until recently.
 
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