Fallout 4's lack of rebuilding

The United States didn't get to choose the time and place of nuclear war either. If they had, the Enclave would have been able to evacuate themselves into space rather than getting stuck on an oil rig in the middle of the Pacific. They could have had time to harden Washington D.C., Boston, and a few other cities but not get around to the Boneyard.

Heck, Washington D.C. isn't THAT intact as the only buildings still standing are important government ones and a handful of others.

Nuclear bomb-proof (basically meaning thermal and somehow having something absorbing the shockwave), which let's be real, is full of shit. Nothing, and I mean nothing in this known universe, can survive a direct hit of a nuclear explosion, since the sudden release of energy at the 0-5 mile radius is literally up in the MILLIONS in terms of temperature from the milliseconds after it detonates. It's almost giving birth to a miniature star, which of course cannot contain itself and dies and disperses just as quickly as it appears. I'm pretty sure any sort of metal or chemical compound would be ripped apart just by that intensity alone. And then there's time. 200 years of no one properly maintaining the buildings. Nuclear proof doesn't mean it's Nature-proof.
 
Nuclear bomb-proof (basically meaning thermal and somehow having something absorbing the shockwave), which let's be real, is full of shit. Nothing, and I mean nothing in this known universe, can survive a direct hit of a nuclear explosion, since the sudden release of energy at the 0-5 mile radius is literally up in the MILLIONS in terms of temperature from the milliseconds after it detonates. It's almost giving birth to a miniature star, which of course cannot contain itself and dies and disperses just as quickly as it appears

First of all, it depends on what sort of atomic weapon is being used. The nuclear bombs in Washington D.C. appear to be neutron bombs as well, which are designed to kill with RADIATION rather than explosive power. Neutron bombs are not used in RL generally because of their gross inhumanity but that's not going to be an issue with Fallout's China or the American Fascist government.

Next, super-technology like the kind being described is being worked on now.

http://gizmodo.com/5994745/the-bomb-proof-miracle-materials-that-will-make-the-future-safer

Third, nuclear weapons don't work like that in reality, let alone the pseudo-science fiction world of Fallout.

In short, nuclear proof buildings are possible today, let alone in Fallout's future where it's a major concern.
 
First of all, it depends on what sort of atomic weapon is being used. The nuclear bombs in Washington D.C. appear to be neutron bombs as well, which are designed to kill with RADIATION rather than explosive power. Neutron bombs are not used in RL generally because of their gross inhumanity but that's not going to be an issue with Fallout's China or the American Fascist government.

Next, super-technology like the kind being described is being worked on now.

http://gizmodo.com/5994745/the-bomb-proof-miracle-materials-that-will-make-the-future-safer

Third, nuclear weapons don't work like that in reality, let alone the pseudo-science fiction world of Fallout.

In short, nuclear proof buildings are possible today, let alone in Fallout's future where it's a major concern.

Uh, no. The bombs that were dropped were in the Kilotons, like that of Little Boy and the Fatman, in fact, Fallout's nukes were even stronger than those, ranging from 200-750 kilotons. Their power output still skyrockets up into the millions in terms of initial detonation, There's a reason Ground Zero is usually devoid of any life or structure. Neutron Bombs were never spoken about in the Fallout universe, they were 'akin' to Neutron Bombs, but to be honest, you're better off making a Fat Man/Little Boy nuke to get this fallout reaction you're talking about. Let's also not forget that this nuclear explosion also seems to have set off a chain reaction of smaller explosions from the cars, which means most of the city would've been turned into a pile of rubble just by the explosions alone. Finally, yes that's how nukes work, about 80% of the Nuke's energy is dispersed as soon as the bomb detonates, which is why 0-5 miles is considered to be instant disintegration/utter destruction.

This explains why nuclear detonation can emit heat that's 10,000 times hotter than the very surface of the sun, as well as brighter than the very star we orbit. What I'm saying is having a city that close to a nuclear detonation would not be fucking standing. In fact, isn't the nuclear detonation around..5 miles from Vault 111? Wouldn't they disintegrate or crushed by the shock wave? Shoddycast ripped in on this, actually.
 
As for Raiders, there's a good theory the Raiders of the CW may have wiped out other settlements we haven't seen and/or be the descendants of the Vaults which warped them into bloodthirsty lunatics.

The number of survivors from the Vaults would be extremely low and given the mass number of Raiders there's no way they're all descendants of Vault dwellers. Besides I'd imagine the majority of Vault survivors would be traumatised, not "bloodthirsty lunatics."

Right I'll stop derailing now.
 
The number of survivors from the Vaults would be extremely low and given the mass number of Raiders there's no way they're all descendants of Vault dwellers. Besides I'd imagine the majority of Vault survivors would be traumatised, not "bloodthirsty lunatics."

Right I'll stop derailing now.

The idea behind the Enclave was creating the better soldier. Aggressive psychopaths seems like something which could grow very powerful in the Wasteland even if it was unsustainable.

Uh, no. The bombs that were dropped were in the Kilotons, like that of Little Boy and the Fatman, in fact, Fallout's nukes were even stronger than those, ranging from 200-750 kilotons. Their power output still skyrockets up into the millions in terms of initial detonation, There's a reason Ground Zero is usually devoid of any life or structure. Neutron Bombs were never spoken about in the Fallout universe, they were 'akin' to Neutron Bombs, but to be honest, you're better off making a Fat Man/Little Boy nuke to get this fallout reaction you're talking about. Let's also not forget that this nuclear explosion also seems to have set off a chain reaction of smaller explosions from the cars, which means most of the city would've been turned into a pile of rubble just by the explosions alone. Finally, yes that's how nukes work, about 80% of the Nuke's energy is dispersed as soon as the bomb detonates, which is why 0-5 miles is considered to be instant disintegration/utter destruction.

This explains why nuclear detonation can emit heat that's 10,000 times hotter than the very surface of the sun, as well as brighter than the very star we orbit. What I'm saying is having a city that close to a nuclear detonation would not be fucking standing. In fact, isn't the nuclear detonation around..5 miles from Vault 111? Wouldn't they disintegrate or crushed by the shock wave? Shoddycast ripped in on this, actually.

The paradox is that you're saying the weapons would cause X amount of damage and aren't Y kind of weapons when in-universe we see how the weapons effect the environment. So, we're left determining what kind of weapons they are by the effect on the environment they have versus the idea the effect is wrong.

At least from my perspective.
 
I can actually de-irradiate water with a plastic bag and a bunch of sand. It's not that difficult to do with radiation or even any other substance. Distillation is a process which has been well known since forever. Megaton would be able to survive just by collecting water from the crater and purifying it (presuming the bomb wasn't leaking yet). As for the Brahmin, presumably they're descended from a single or multiple radiation resistant cows versus all being transformed by magic--even in the unrealistic way which radiation works.
That's presuming they could survive the immediate radiation caused by the bombs themselves, dust storms full of radioactive particles and radioactive rain (that old lady in Megaton actually tells us that they took shelter in the crater to avoid the dust storms). It would be possible, but it would require more than just a bunch of clueless civilians with seemingly no other resources than basic food and scraps to pull off. They would need some protective gear, people who knew how to use it, and some kind of organizational structure. But you would think that an organized group would know better than to come knocking at the door of a vault. Nuclear shelters operate on an amount of resources which can only sustain a certain amount of people, and stretching these resources to a vastly greater number would only lead to everyone ending up dead.

The issue with the animal mutations is that, besides dogs, every living organism in the capital wasteland seems to have mutated in order to survive. And even the dogs didn't look and act the same as your regular dog. How can a bunch of people with nothing but an open hole with a nuke in the middle of it to protect them avoid such a fate? It's mentioned that many took refuge in the subway tunnels, but since there's no trace of civilization left in those, it's safe to assume that everyone there needed to venture outside at one point or another.

It's also a missed opportunity, because the descendants of the humans left outside the vault being mutants (not necessarily ghouls, but something like the Slags from Fo2, or the swamp-folk from Point Lookout) whose interests are somehow at odds with those of your regular humans (the descendants of vault dwellers) would make the Lone Wanderer siding with Enclave a lot more likely and believable. It would also make the Enclave more than just a cartoonishly evil reference to Fo2.


Point Lookout is OCCUPIED, though, which is the traditional reason why people can't just move to a new location. Specifically, it's occupied by a bunch of super-mutant tough local mutants. It's possible the Capital Wasteland has a bunch of people who don't want any newcomers.

As for Raiders, there's a good theory the Raiders of the CW may have wiped out other settlements we haven't seen and/or be the descendants of the Vaults which warped them into bloodthirsty lunatics.

Point Lookout is occupied, but the locals are really only hostile towards the player to give you something to shoot at (and they still won't attack you if you just keep your distance). They coexist rather peacefully with all the non-mutated inhabitants of the swamp. And whenever a similar scenario happened in history, of a region's inhabitants facing annihilation due to environmental changes, the said inhabitants moved or died. You might argue that the people of the CW simply aren't dead yet, but it has been two hundred years in a very, very hostile environment. If the regions they intended to move to were occupied, they would probably have no issue displacing the natives. It's a simple "us-or-them" scenario.

The issue with raiders isn't really why they are such bloodthirsty savages, it's how they're even there. The raider, like any parasitic organism, needs a host. Even if we presume that most of the raiding in Fo3 actually occurs between the raider gangs themselves, it still requires resources coming into the their circle of raiding from outside. And for that outside source to even remain in existence, and thus keep the raiders alive too, it needs to produce enough goods that they are able to survive and maintain this production level despite losing vast resources to the raiders.

Or we might assume that all the raiding is just a sadistic pastime, and that their main source of food is actually the local wildlife (and what does this wildlife even eat - beside each other?), in which case the question of why they are such bloodthirsty savages is the deal-breaker, as a hunter-gatherer lifestyle would cause fierce competition amongst different gangs of raiders over various hunting grounds and cause constant friction, with the advantage going to those who didn't waste resources on pointless sadistic excursions.
 
Rivet City is pretty much the only place I can accept having a way to purify enough water to sustain a community for any amount of time, due to a water filtration system being pretty standard on aircraft carriers.

The gripes come with places like Megaton. By the time of Fallout 3 they're shown having a water purifier, albeit a failing one. Yet the settlement is said to have been formed in the immediate aftermath of the Great War, with people hiding in the crater.
Ah this common mistake strikes back. I answered before in a different post here about Megaton not having a water purifier and also about Rivet City not be able to produce enough purified water to supply it's citizens. Let me quote my old post:
This is a common mistake. Megaton does not have a water purifier, it has a water processing plant, it cleans water but it doesn't remove rads (just like the Food Sanitizer item does not remove rads from food). Any tap or water source in Megaton still give rads to the player if he drinks from them, and nowhere it is mentioned it purifies the water.
Rivet City also doesn't have a water purifier. The scientists manage to produce small amounts of it but only enough to grow a few vegetables and nothing more, no one drinks that water and they even warn the Lone Wanderer to not touch any vegetables because they are worth more than his life (which shows how hard it is for them to grow those).
Many Rivet City citizens and security guards will comment about a citizen dying from drinking river water and then comment that the city's water isn't any better, raising alarm over the quality of the water.

I don't like defending Fallout 3, but I also know most people around here haven't played it for many years. I on the other hand have been playing it almost non-stop for a bit more than 4 years so I remember these things easily. :confused:
 
Maybe the raider use this ? I used to play 3 religiously, but I'm still surprised I remembered this place. It's really out of the way.
 
One thing I think Bethesda was going for in Fallout 3 is the fact the Raiders have devastated the region along with the Super Mutants and Paradise Falls.

We know Ashur and the Pitt have taken hundreds of people prisoner, enough to destroy whole towns, so there was once more life in the Capital Wasteland.

We also know Raiders are cannibals. It could be they have ended up started to starve themselves by killing off much of the population.
 
The idea behind the Enclave was creating the better soldier. Aggressive psychopaths seems like something which could grow very powerful in the Wasteland even if it was unsustainable.

The impression I get is you're telling me the Enclave's main idea was to make horrible Vault experiments that will hopefully have survivors that survive not only said experiments and their effects, but also the dangers of the Wasteland, to become bloodthirsty lunatics as a way to make "better" soldiers that the Enclave can't control and will in fact open fire on?

Going by Fallout 3 they were interested in super soldier projects (such as Vault 92) but that wasn't their main focus at all. Their aim was wiping out the enemy (China) and then establishing their idea of America after wiping out all "mutant" life on Earth.
 

It has been a while, I admit. I could have sworn they those were purifiers, albeit ramshackle ones.

That does lend to my earlier points on there being no reason people stay in the Capital Wasteland, or that survival is even possible while something like Project Purity is sorted out. Especially not for two hundred years. Radiation alone would kill, and if not, radaway would be much harder to come by due to it being used up just to support what people do live there.
 
It has been a while, I admit. I could have sworn they those were purifiers, albeit ramshackle ones.

That does lend to my earlier points on there being no reason people stay in the Capital Wasteland, or that survival is even possible while something like Project Purity is sorted out. Especially not for two hundred years. Radiation alone would kill, and if not, radaway would be much harder to come by due to it being used up just to support what people do live there.
It definitely does feel more wastelandy in 1/2 where stims, radaway, and other drugs are expensive and rare as they should be. Fallout 3/4 treats medical supples(some of which are borderline miraculous) like they are the knockoff candy that nobody wants to eat. They're plentiful as hell and even the obvious ones haven't been taken.
 
If the place was rebuilt to some degree then what point would there have been to settlement crafting. The world is probably designed the way it is to excuse the crafting feature, whether or not it would make sense comes second hand if at all. Just like the majority of Bethesdas ideas.
 
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