Bethesda's Lore Recons

[Irwin John Finster]

Please don't let this dissuade you from posting here.

I just mean that I'm leaving that discussion behind. I can see I inadvertently created drama and I'd just like to drop it, apologize, and move on.

But everywhere they've tried to add something NEW, it's been awkwardly shoehorned in with no real consideration and stupid fluff mistakes for no real reason.

Very bipolar game.

Agreed. Just about everything I have found to love about Fallout 4 comes with a price tag. I try to stay optimistic about the game but it's getting harder and harder.

 

[Someguy37]

In that case it would be nice if they just used that robot model from Tactics or something. As I said before, if they want to add whatever shit they can throw in, then they should fully canonize Tactics, throw the armor in, and reference the Midwestern BoS having contact with the East Coast.

I don't think they would use the exact model from Tactics. Tactics was criticized for not being as 50's retro-futuristic as the other games, and that was before Bethesda pushed the 50's theme as hard as they did.


Also, I know they did reference the MwBoS a few times. IIRC, some faction profile for the Lyons BoS released by Bethesda before Fallout 3 said part of Lyon's mission was to make contact with the MWBoS, and bring them back under the command of Lost Hills, but he ultimately never got the chance to talk to them. If he never found them, or they simply refused to meet with him, isn't stated.

I know Rothchild in Fo3 mentions them as being a small detachment in Chicago, saying they have "gone rouge, long story" , and some scribe at The Citadel mentions the BoS fighting super mutants, "first out west, then in the Chicago area, and now here". I know Lancer Captain Kells in Fo4 mentions the airships the BoS used in Tactics, saying that historical records are in doubt, but they were believed to have been all destroyed, and that hes heard rumors that the wreckage of one of them still lies in the Midwest somewhere, likely referencing the airship wreck at Osceolla.

And I know Caesar in NV makes mention of capturing BoS scribes on his eastern border who don't know the name of Maxson, and Caesar's eastern border is right next to were the MWBoS were last seen.

But as for them meeting, I doubt it would happen for the same reason the Maxson BoS wont ever get into a fight with the NCR or Legion. Both Bethesda and Obsidian have said they have their own sides of the nation, and that they are fine with that. Bethesda has the east coast, Obsidian has the western U.S., and the Midwest is the "thar be dragons" land of mystery separating the two, and both seem fine with that arrangement.

 

[TorontoReign]

As much as the 50's inspired setting is great and it should rotate around that, i'd love to hear a little of the actual development. 170 years after the 50's, you'd think someone would've done something vaguely new. 60's isn't too much of a stretch. It'd be nice to hear more about art and design trying to advance, but not making it anywhere due to society being perpetually stuck in that 50's american dream mindset.

With the Assaultrons, yeah, hate them. If they were a post-war creation by another tech-faction, absolutely they'd make sense - or even some other company that'd worked on something completely independent (Like Optimu-er, Liberty Prime). Not this big leap between Protectrons and Sentry Bots straight all the way up to C-3P0 with kung-fu grip. It's vastly out of their technological capacity at the time, based on everything we've seen. A Running, Jumping humanoid battle robot with functional A.I. is a bit of a jump from a ball with a jet engine, or, indeed, robby the robot.


I don't really mind the tanks/APC's so much, at least in bethesda fluff, because the rounded edges and such are very much the 50's view of future tech that birthed flying saucers and the Jetsons. It also looks like something the kind of designers that worked on Corvegas would put out. Having a 40's hard-edged tank design rumbling about would be pretty jarring - it looks like a contemporary design of the vertibird. But then i always hated the idea of brotherhood Humvees and found them super out of place in the same way.


It's all really weird to me because the stuff that already existed in Fallout fluff, they seem to have done a really good job tweaking and updating. Various patterns/"jobs" of protectron, the upgraded sentry bot that actually looks military, the power armour tweaks, Plasma guns being a mix of Tactics and fallout 3 designs where you can upgrade them in either direction (Though i def. miss the P94...), cars in general, stuff like that, all fantastic to me. But everywhere they've tried to add something NEW, it's been awkwardly shoehorned in with no real consideration and stupid fluff mistakes for no real reason.

Very bipolar game.

Best third post ever.

In that case it would be nice if they just used that robot model from Tactics or something. As I said before, if they want to add whatever shit they can throw in, then they should fully canonize Tactics, throw the armor in, and reference the Midwestern BoS having contact with the East Coast.

I don't think they would use the exact model from Tactics. Tactics was criticized for not being as 50's retro-futuristic as the other games, and that was before Bethesda pushed the 50's theme as hard as they did.




Also, I know they did reference the MwBoS a few times. IIRC, some faction profile for the Lyons BoS released by Bethesda before Fallout 3 said part of Lyon's mission was to make contact with the MWBoS, and bring them back under the command of Lost Hills, but he ultimately never got the chance to talk to them. either he never found them, or they simply refused, isn't stated.


I know Rothchild in Fo3 mentions them as being a small detachment in Chicago, saying they have "gone rouge, long story" , and some scribe at The Citadel mentions the BoS fighting super mutants, "first out west, then in the Chicago area, and now here". I know Lancer Captain Kells in Fo4 mentions the airships the BoS used in Tactics, saying that historical records are in doubt, but they were belived to have been all desotyred, and that hes heard rumors that the wreckage of one of them still lies in the Midwest somewhere, likely referencing the airship wreck at Osceolla.


But as for them meeting, I doubt it would happen for the same reason the Maxson BoS wont ever get into a fight with the NCR or Legion. Both Bethesda and Obsidian have said they have their own sides of the nation, and that they are fine with that. Bethesda has the east coast, Obsidian has the western U.S., and the Midwest is the "thar be dragons" land of mystery separating the two, and both seem fine with that arrangement.

In New Vegas they were mentioned as well. There really is no reason they couldn't meet at this point or at least make contact. I believe in scouting parties myself. If the East Cost BoS can go up to Boston for no reason, or trek across the entire United States to get to D.C, then there is definitely a possibility that the Midwestern BoS could contact the East Coast BoS. Hell Kellogg made it from San Francisco to Boston for no good reason. It is such a letdown that they did not even think to mention what he did between the two places. Might have been a good chance to show off some new shit. That whole memory section was wasted aside from the shot of the Golden Gate Bridge and some of the story beats - which were really transparent in attempting to get the player to empathize with Kellogg.

 

[Ilosar]

The equivalent would be FO2 putting a T-51 in a mandatory random encounter right outside of Arroyo. Not having to trek across the entire map, hopefully avoid the Enclave patrols that instagib you, and pass a few Speech checks in a location you have no idea exists when you begin the game.

That's not really a valid comparison because power armor in Fallout 2 didn't break, run out of power, nor did it have tons of ancillary features that drained power at a faster rate, all while nothing else in the game did.

Putting PA at Arroyo would be massively huge, because of how singularly overpowered PA was in Fallout1/2.

PA in Fallout 4 has so much baggage thrown on it, I've seen numerous people say they refuse to use it because of how much of a burden it is.

And in many ways its actually worse at deflecting more damage then PA did in Fallout 3, due to how Bethesda changed how DR works in Fallout 4.
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Damage_Resistance#Fallout_4

Its a fun feature, but its nowhere near as powerful as it was in Fallout 1/2.

Fusion cores? give me a break. My main character uses PA regularily, with VATS and sprint used, and ended the story with 65 cores. As I said, my second character already has 8, and he also uses PA almost half the time. This is not a limitation at all. Durability is to a degree, but there's plenty of stations strewn around and lower grade PAs only need Steel and maybe some aluminium to repair, which are very plentiful. Just pick up some cans.

I could play the entire game in my PA, no problem. It just makes the game too easy, or well even easier than it already is. I'm pretty sure I could literally enter the PA you get in Concord and complete the game by never exiting it other than for repairs and maybe a few underwater quests, even. The game certainly throws enough fusion cores at you for that to be feasible.

So basically, Bethesda broke the lore with PA, what with them needing fusion cores instead of having internal batteries, for no real reason because so long as you don't wander around sprinting like a headless chicken you will find enough Cores for this to be a non-issue. So if that was meant to ''balance'' the fact that the game almost hands you more PA suits in the first few hours of play than FO1 and 2 had in the entire game world, I'd say that experiment didn't quite succeed.

I'd much rather have them ditch the Fusion Core nonsense and just make PA appropriately rare. My level 53 character now has 3 full suits of X-01, 2 of T-60 gifted by the Brotherhood, 3 of T-51, and I ditched the T-45 and Raider armors but I must have found half a dozen each or close enough. I'd personally have made the T-45 a mid-game item used by Brothrhood Knights and maybe lootable off powerful Gunner bosses, Raider armor for powerful raiders. T-60 for Brotherhood Paladins, T-51 hidden or behind powerful enemies (NOT in plain sight like they start to be at level 30 or about), and the X-01 a unique suit in a long and difficult dungeon/quest, sorta like the T-51 in FO3. Maybe a hidden ex-Enclave outpost or whatnot, it makes little sense for a post-War armor developped at the Poseidon Oil Rig to be in the basement of a shack in the Glowing Sea or guarded by robots in a building found in downtown Boston.

 

[Someguy37]

In New Vegas they were mentioned as well. There really is no reason they couldn't meet at this point or at least make contact. I believe in scouting parties myself. If the East Cost BoS can go up to Boston for no reason, or trek across the entire United States to get to D.C, then there is definitely a possibility that the Midwestern BoS could contact the East Coast BoS. Hell Kellogg made it from San Francisco to Boston for no good reason. It is such a letdown that they did not even think to mention what he did between the two places. Might have been a good chance to show off some new shit. That whole memory section was wasted aside from the shot of the Golden Gate Bridge and some of the story beats - which were really transparent in attempting to get the player to empathize with Kellogg.

I agree theres no real reason, within the context of the game's universe, but I do believe there are several real world reasons why they wouldn't.

Bethesda set their games on the east coast because their HQ is over there, and they are more familiar with the area, and because they didn't want to touch the lore from Fallout 1/2, because they knew no one would be happy with anything they did with it. So they wanted to set up their own thing on their own side of the country as to not mess with that. Whatever you opinion of their games are aside, they did just that, and they even let the people who made the originals make a sequel to Fallout 2, and in all this time, both companies have repeatedly stated Bethesda are east coast people, Obsidian are west coast people, and both are fine with that.

I very highly doubt we would ever see a MWBoS scout party in a Bethesda game, for the same reason I doubt we will see an Obsidian game were the Maxson BoS meets the Legion. The Midwest, and the things in it, aren't things Bethesda made, so they aren't going to mess with it in any major way, just as the stuff on the east coast isn't Obsidian's, and they wouldn't mess with that either.



As for not showing what happened between San Fran and Boston for Kellogg's Frost Flakes, it makes sense because that's a horribly limiting thing to do in those areas. No dev is going to make up something in an area they probably wont visit for over a decade, because then they become bound to follow through with that, even if they think up of something more interesting later.

Caesar's Legion controls a hundreds of miles long border with Texas, and is within spitting distance of El Paso, a major Texas city. Yet despite being an expansionist warlord for three decades, no one in The Legion mentions Texas, at all, no one even acts like they have taken a step into it, despite that being neigh impossible given that Caesar controls all of New Mexico. Does that make sense? No, not really, but Obsidian most likely did it because it wasn't part of the area they felt like they needed the Legion to cover, so they left it entirely alone so that whenever what dev makes a game in Texas, they can do whatever they want with it without any restrictions.

The only time you put details like that into a game is if you REALLY know what you want to do there, and its likely to be your next game. We got a number of references to The Pitt and The Commonwealth in Fallout 3, becuase they knew they were going to go there for a DLC/sequel, yet in other places that are put on the same level as The Pitt and The Commonwealth in terms of importance, such as The Broke Banks and Ronto, we barely got more then a peep of them becuase they don't know the more fine details of what they want to do with that area.

 

[whirlingdervish]

In New Vegas they were mentioned as well. There really is no reason they couldn't meet at this point or at least make contact. I believe in scouting parties myself. If the East Cost BoS can go up to Boston for no reason, or trek across the entire United States to get to D.C, then there is definitely a possibility that the Midwestern BoS could contact the East Coast BoS. Hell Kellogg made it from San Francisco to Boston for no good reason. It is such a letdown that they did not even think to mention what he did between the two places. Might have been a good chance to show off some new shit. That whole memory section was wasted aside from the shot of the Golden Gate Bridge and some of the story beats - which were really transparent in attempting to get the player to empathize with Kellogg.

*snip* lots of words *snip*

Still no mention of a non-fish creature that has gills.

I'm not even going to read your posts until you stop avoiding the question and give us just a single example that supports your "I wasnt talking about fish!" baloney.

Two can play the 'nitpick over a single word' game, and I'm better at it than you are. Step up broseph.

 

[TorontoReign]

snip

I agree theres no real reason, within the context of the game's universe, but I do believe there are several real world reasons why they wouldn't.

Bethesda set their games on the east coast because their HQ is over there, and are more familiar with the area, and because they didn't want to touch the lore from Fallout 1/2, because they knew no one would be happy with anything they did with it, so they wanted to set up their own thing on their own side of the country as to not mess with that. Whatever you opinion of their games are aside, they did just that, and they even let the people who made the originals make a sequel to Fallout 2, and in all this time, both companies have repeatedly stated Bethesda are east coast people, Obsidian are west coast people, and both are fine with that.

I very highly doubt we would ever see a MWBoS scout part in a Bethesda game, for the same reason I doubt we will see an Obsidian game were the Maxson BoS meets the Legion. The Midwest, and the things in it, aren't things Bethesda made, so they aren't going to mess with it in any major way, just as the stuff on the east coast isn't Obsidian's, and they wouldn't mess with that either.

I'm aware of that but at some point they will need to change things up. It is my opinion that it will get pretty old seeing games either take place in the west or east coast respectively. There is no reason that a game shouldn't take place in Seattle, Detroit, Chicago, or wherever else. I've heard people toss Miami around too which could work thinking back to the proposed sequel to Tactics...and I think Texas would be perfect but you don't think they would disregard Texas due to PoS do you? Obsidian was told to leave out Area 51 specifically for some reason when they were making New Vegas. Bethesda wouldn't do that without a reason.

As for not showing what happened between San Fran and Boston for Kellogg's Frost Flakes, it makes sense because that's a horribly limiting thing to do in those areas. No dev is going to make up something in an area they probably wont visit for over a decade, because then they become bound to follow through with that, even if they think up of something more interesting later.

Caesar's Legion controls a hundreds of miles long border with Texas, and is within spitting distance of El Paso, a major Texas city. Yet despite being an expansionist warlord for three decades, no one in The Legion mentions Texas, at all, no one even acts like they have taken a step into it, despite that being neigh impossible given that Caesar controls all of New Mexico. Does that make sense? No, not really, but Obsidian most likely did it because it wasn't part of the area they felt like they needed the Legion to cover, so they left it entirely alone so that whenever what dev makes a game in Texas, they can do whatever they want with it without any restrictions.

The only time you put details like that into a game is if you REALLY know what you want to do there, and its likely to be your next game. We got a number of references to The Pitt and The Commonwealth in Fallout 3, becuase they knew they were going to go there for a DLC/sequel, yet in other places that are put on the same level as The Pitt and The Commonwealth in terms of importance, such as The Broke Banks and Ronto, we barely got more then a peep of them becuase they don't know the more fine details of what they want to do with that area.

I agree to a certain extent but Dog City was mentioned for instance and even Mexico so there are exceptions within reason. They could have teased something possibly or added a bit of throwaway lore like they did with Ronto. Just something I would have liked to see. There is no reason not to plan shit out like that when doing world building for a RPG. They probably know where Fallout 5 will take place already. They scouted D.C when they were making Oblivion. I don't expect people to be talking about Missouri when they are located in New Vegas, but they have mentioned several areas that could have been shown.

 

[Someguy37]

I'd say that experiment didn't quite succeed.

I would agree with that statement. There are too many fusion cores, too many suits of armor, and they are too easy to repair.

I'd much rather have them ditch the Fusion Core nonsense and just make PA appropriately rare.

At this point PA really shouldn't be rare anymore. The Enclave, the MWBoS, and even the Maxson BoS by the time of Fallout 4, are/were able to make more.

Even Enclave APA shouldn't be that rare anymore really. The Maxson BoS got how many suits from Adams? I'm sure they will make up some bullshit Mcguffin reason as to why it can't be copied or something, but at this point, the MwBoS were doing it nearly a century ago, and The Maxson BoS captured Adams and likely gained the ability to do the same.

Rare power armor isn't, and shouldn't, be a thing anymore.

I'm aware of that but at some point they will need to change things up. It is my opinion that it will get pretty old seeing games either take place in the west or east coast respectively. There is no reason that a game shouldn't take place in Seattle, Detroit, Chicago, or wherever else. I've heard people toss Miami around too which could work thinking back to the proposed sequel to Tactics...and I think Texas would be perfect but you don't think they would disregard Texas due to PoS do you? Obsidian was told to leave out Area 51 specifically for some reason when they were making New Vegas. Bethesda wouldn't do that without a reason.

I consider Seattle part of the western U.S., and Obsidian did mention parts of the pacific northwest in some endings for NV and Honest Hearts, so I think even they consider that part of their territory. Same with Miami, the East Coast extends from Maine down to Florida, so I would assume that was part of Bethesda's land as well.

I don't think they would discredit Texas due to BoS. Bethesda have said they dont consider it canon at all. Is not even semi-canon like Tactics. I just dont think either company has plans for it right now.

As for Area 51, I heard Obsidian CHOSE not to do area 51. Not that they were told not too, but I may have heard wrong.

I agree to a certain extent but Dog City was mentioned for instance and even Mexico so there are exceptions within reason. They could have teased something possibly or added a bit of throwaway lore like they did with Ronto. Just something I would have liked to see. There is no reason not to plan shit out like that when doing world building for a RPG. They probably know where Fallout 5 will take place already. They scouted D.C when they were making Oblivion. I don't expect people to be talking about Missouri when they are located in New Vegas, but they have mentioned several areas that could have been shown.

I think Dog City Denver was mentioned because they know they have no plans to go there, same with Salt Lake City. They referenced it was entirely obliterated by nukes in HH likely because they knew they had no plans to go there in a future game, so they could just in some lore to acknowledge its there. Denver was mentioned by Lanius to have basically no one around it, and its just overrun by dogs. Its not really "game materiel" IMO, so I think it got mentioned because its a major city, and they needed to throw some bones its way since The Legion was out there.

Ronto is IMO going to the "The Pitt" for Fallout 4, which is why they mentioned it before. It and the Abbey of the Road are the only two locations up north they have mentioned outside The Commonwealth, so it makes sense those would be the DLC locations for Fo4. For Fo5 I expect them to go south into like Miami or something, make that the "Broken Banks" they mentioned in Fallout 3 and Point Lookout.

ITs not that they don't talk about other places, its more like they only talk about places they have plans to go to, or know for certain they won't. Tactics sits in a grey area IMO, and I don't think they really know what they want to do with it yet, which is why they kinda avoid it, but keep throwing nods its way.

 

[TorontoReign]

Maybe not rare but it shouldn't be sitting around all over the place.

 

[whirlingdervish]

In New Vegas they were mentioned as well. There really is no reason they couldn't meet at this point or at least make contact. I believe in scouting parties myself. If the East Cost BoS can go up to Boston for no reason, or trek across the entire United States to get to D.C, then there is definitely a possibility that the Midwestern BoS could contact the East Coast BoS. Hell Kellogg made it from San Francisco to Boston for no good reason. It is such a letdown that they did not even think to mention what he did between the two places. Might have been a good chance to show off some new shit. That whole memory section was wasted aside from the shot of the Golden Gate Bridge and some of the story beats - which were really transparent in attempting to get the player to empathize with Kellogg.

*snip* lots of words *snip*

Still no mention of a non-fish creature that has gills.

I'm not even going to read your posts until you stop avoiding the question and give us just a single example that supports your "I wasnt talking about fish!" baloney.

Two can play the 'nitpick over a single word' game, and I'm better at it than you are. Step up broseph.

Still nothing?

 

[Ilosar]

I'd say that experiment didn't quite succeed.

I would agree with that statement. There are too many fusion cores, too many suits of armor, and they are too easy to repair.

I'd much rather have them ditch the Fusion Core nonsense and just make PA appropriately rare.

At this point PA really shouldn't be rare anymore. The Enclave, the MWBoS, and even the Maxson BoS by the time of Fallout 4, are/were able to make more.

Even Enclave APA shouldn't be that rare anymore really. The Maxson BoS got how many suits from Adams? I'm sure they will make up some bullshit Mcguffin reason as to why it can't be copied or something, but at this point, the MwBoS were doing it nearly a century ago, and The Maxson BoS captured Adams and likely gained the ability to do the same.

Rare power armor isn't, and shouldn't, be a thing anymore.

Maybe not super rare, but not so common that you can find several suits in plain sight in the opening areas of the game and the BoS gifts a suit of the second-best PA to someone who did one mission for them, in which they were mostly hiding behind Danse anyway.

The random spawns just make little sense. I found 4/6 parts of an X-01 suit in a cabin close to Fort Strong, unguarded and unlocked even. That's literally within spitting distance of the Prydwen. You'd think the Scribes would have easily found this highly valuable piece of technology and hauled it back to base posthaste.

New Vegas did it right. Want PA? Deal with the factions that have them, either the BoS or Enclave remnants. Finding a suit of 200+ years T-51 behind an Advanced terminal in full sight of anyone passing nearby is just a bit silly.

 

[Crni Vuk]

At this point PA really shouldn't be rare anymore. The Enclave, the MWBoS, and even the Maxson BoS by the time of Fallout 4, are/were able to make more.

Even Enclave APA shouldn't be that rare anymore really. The Maxson BoS got how many suits from Adams? I'm sure they will make up some bullshit Mcguffin reason as to why it can't be copied or something, but at this point, the MwBoS were doing it nearly a century ago, and The Maxson BoS captured Adams and likely gained the ability to do the same.

Rare power armor isn't, and shouldn't, be a thing anymore.

Bull shit McGuffin? You mean like, realistic limitations in available resources and technology? Apparantly even the Germans, hell even the fucking United States of America had to deal with limitations as far as resources goes - see the issues that lead to the battle of the Buldge.

At least this, that idea that not everyone is runing around in Power Armors and fancy technology, seems at least feasible. Certain technologies require a very high level of sophistication. Even the world of Fallout.

 

[Someguy37]

Maybe not rare but it shouldn't be sitting around all over the place.

I do agree it was sitting in some REALLY dumb spots in Fallout 4. Like, the ones locked in metal cages on military transports, I can get no one cracked the military encryption on the door lock or w/e.

But some were in dumb spots like just sitting in a small pond.

 

[TorontoReign]

One was standing out in the middle of the road near a checkpoint. Like no one would think to go scavenge through a bunch of military shit. Handplaced loot with a mix of randomized loot tables or get the fuck out. Like finding pipe pistols in pre-war safes? That should be in a different loot list.

 

[Someguy37]

One was standing out in the middle of the road near a checkpoint. Like no one would think to go scavenge through a bunch of military shit. Handplaced loot with a mix of randomized loot tables or get the fuck out. Like finding pipe pistols in pre-war safes? That should be in a different loot list.

Agreed

What I find odd is that they did limit/exclude certain things to/from certain chests in every TES game as far back as Morrowind, yet they don't do it in Fallout for some reason.

 

[Ilosar]

One was standing out in the middle of the road near a checkpoint. Like no one would think to go scavenge through a bunch of military shit. Handplaced loot with a mix of randomized loot tables or get the fuck out. Like finding pipe pistols in pre-war safes? That should be in a different loot list.

Almost literally every single safe I opened contained the following; some ammo (usually 10mm and .45 among others), some pre-war money, a pipe weapon, and a silver locket or watch. Maybe it's a bug with my game, but pre-war safes having pipe weapons is very weird. At least put a 10mm pistol if you want everyone to have a backup weapon hidden in their locked safe.

 

[Someguy37]

What I want to know is... where are all the robobrains?

 

[Askorti]

One was standing out in the middle of the road near a checkpoint. Like no one would think to go scavenge through a bunch of military shit. Handplaced loot with a mix of randomized loot tables or get the fuck out. Like finding pipe pistols in pre-war safes? That should be in a different loot list.

Almost literally every single safe I opened contained the following; some ammo (usually 10mm and .45 among others), some pre-war money, a pipe weapon, and a silver locket or watch. Maybe it's a bug with my game, but pre-war safes having pipe weapons is very weird. At least put a 10mm pistol if you want everyone to have a backup weapon hidden in their locked safe.

Well, there's a mod that fixes just that.
Here: http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/3306/?

 

[Irwin John Finster]

One was standing out in the middle of the road near a checkpoint. Like no one would think to go scavenge through a bunch of military shit. Handplaced loot with a mix of randomized loot tables or get the fuck out. Like finding pipe pistols in pre-war safes? That should be in a different loot list.

Almost literally every single safe I opened contained the following; some ammo (usually 10mm and .45 among others), some pre-war money, a pipe weapon, and a silver locket or watch. Maybe it's a bug with my game, but pre-war safes having pipe weapons is very weird. At least put a 10mm pistol if you want everyone to have a backup weapon hidden in their locked safe.

Well, there's a mod that fixes just that.
Here: http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/3306/?

Good Lord these players are putting more effort into Fallout 4 than Bethesda did.

 

[Someguy37]

Hmm, apparently Bethesda did actually explain this one. Pipe weapons are apparently pre-war items coming from Detroit.

http://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/fallout.gamepedia.com/d/d4/GunsAndBullets_SGD.png

Still retarded though.