Actually, Hines explained all of the issues, possible plot holes and inconsistencies at some point.
Just Realized Something About FO4 Vertibirds
Ragemage
Wept for Zion
Well that's.. that's absolutely disgusting. Isn't he their main PR person? Who the fuck put that dumbass in such an important position? If nothing else I suppose it just proves how much Bethesda doesn't give a shit about Fallout's actual fans. The game has always had an air of realism to it until Bethesda came along. Same for New Vegas, it tried to keep things fairly realistic, even Wild Wasteland-type stuff wasn't really far fetched for a realistic setting save for the alien spaceship. Anything really sci-fi ish could be contributed to Big MT, who, like the Institute, managed to keep making scientific creations 200 years after the war. The difference being the Big MT was actually competent at what they did, even if half of it was insane. And at least Big MT made sense seeing as they were a very very largely government funded program and had the absolute top minds of the US science department at their helm, unlike the Institute which was literally made up of bratty college students and professors from before the war.
Tom Bishop
It Wandered In From the Wastes
All right, now this is going a bit too far. Fallout has always been a very fanciful setting that's taken its cues from some of the silliest sci-fi themes out there. There's nothing realistic about atompunk technology, Super Mutants, ghouls, or giant molerats trying to take over the world. The problems with Bethesda's worldbuilding aren't their ideas in and of themselves, it's how they're implemented. For example, if the Institute had been written well, if it genuinely came across as intelligent and efficient as it was no doubt intended to, would you really be complaining about the fact that they were just a university and shouldn't have been that advanced? And if the Big MT had fallen flat, would you be excusing it on the grounds that at least it made sense because they were the top minds of the country and had government funding?
I don't mean to pick on you in particular, but sometimes I feel like people here are just sort of casting around for more things to criticize Bethesda for, when it really all just comes down to how poorly they flesh out their ideas. Honestly, I much prefer Bethesda's attempts at expanding the Fallout universe and treading new ground for the series than their constant rehashing of elements from previous games, like Super Mutants and Vertibirds.
Ragemage
Wept for Zion
If the Big MT fell flat on its ass I would criticize it just as much as the Institute. However, as it stands now, the Big MT makes sense, and all their insane experiments make sense because they themselves are completely insane and don't even realize there's a world outside the Big MT thanks to them being reprogrammed.
The problem with the Institute doesn't have to do with them not being fleshed out enough. It has to do with what's already there. the fact that they made Super Mutants for 10 years despite knowing that Super Mutants do not help society or contribute to science in any way, and yet the only explanation we get is "Father wills it" on a holotape by one of the scientists down there. The fact they're making all these synths with emotions and feelings and memories and yet despite the Institute seeing the emotions and feeling as a glitch, they don't bother to correct the problem. They just keep pumping out Gen 3s like it's Santa's Workshop on Christmas Eve. There's also the fact they have teleportation built into all their Synth Coursers, yet they can't just put teleporters in the other Gen 3 Synths, so whenever one runs away, boom, they can just pop them back into the Institute for reprogramming? None of that is ever explained. Not even a little.
Super Mutants and Ghouls aren't that realistic, no, but at least their origins, where they came from, what caused them to be made, and so forth and so on all make sense and are at least partially if not fully explained to give a satisfying answer we can accept. In Fallout 4 there's none of that. Nothing is ever explained and we're supposed to just take it all at face value it seems. If Fallout 4 had been set before the other games, say 30 years after the war, and they got rid of the Gen 3 synths, that would clear up a lot of the plot holes right there. But as it stands, the story and plot devices they use make no sense if you've played any other Fallout game, including Fallout 3.
Are the games allowed to be silly and nonsensical? Of course they are, but it should be relegated to a noncanon source and not fuck with existing lore. Compare anything from the Wild Wasteland perk in New Vegas and then compare it to Cabot House or Kid In The Fridge and you can see where the problems lie.
Since this is NMA and pretty much EVERY(!) Fallout game saw it's fare share of criticism here, including New Vegas, Fallout 2 and yes, even Fallout 1, I would say. Yeah! You would see complaining here, even if Beth delivered a very great Fallout game.
Lanfear
Mildly Dipped
The Brotherhood found a way to compact the desiccated carcass of this franchise to create more petroleum.
Irwin John Finster
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
When people say "realism" in respect to things like Witcher 3 and Fallout, they mean verisimilitude. The world has to make sense within the rules established in that universe. You don't see mages riding dinosaurs in Mass Effect because that is not "realistic" to that universe. And you don't see Ancient Aliens and 200 year old ghouls who survived in refrigerators in Fallout because...oh wait.
I love his videos. And as usual, spot on.
whirlingdervish
Brahmin Cavalry Commander
for arguments sake, I would say that "just a university" isn't a great description for MIT when talking about their technical prowess at making robots etc.
It IS a very well known and respected school of technology/science/engineering from which I would expect to see advances in robotics over a long time.
The rest of the writing setting up The Institute in F04 is incredibly poor and full of holes, but that aspect of it (the scientific/inventing abilities) at least seems believable.
Big MT is very reminiscent of DARPA and their experiments, so both of them work pretty well if the rest of the story/writing holds up.
It IS a very well known and respected school of technology/science/engineering from which I would expect to see advances in robotics over a long time.
The rest of the writing setting up The Institute in F04 is incredibly poor and full of holes, but that aspect of it (the scientific/inventing abilities) at least seems believable.
Big MT is very reminiscent of DARPA and their experiments, so both of them work pretty well if the rest of the story/writing holds up.
ZigzagPX4
The Swiftness of the Ranger
If I could use this thread to fulfill my own curiosity... What unconventional methods would there be in obtaining enough fuel to fill the entire Vertibird fleet that we saw with Fallout 4? They may haven't explained it, but I wish to speculate. Any forms of alternative energy a post-apocalypse civilisation in the Fallout universe could use to fuel vehicles? Are there any fictional alternative fuels that wouldn't be completely ludicrous?
Spacemunkey
Vault Senior Citizen
I'm not a scientist or anything, but bio-fuels is my guess, though considering the octane rating of aviation fuel I wouldn't know how they would get high performance vertibirds in the air with bathtub diesel.
Izak
I Shot The ALBATROSS
Didn't you get the memo? They're powered by Magic just like Fallouts famous Dragons! Otherwise the BoS could have modified the vertibirds to accept Fusion cores or energy/microfusion cells as fuel.
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Actually it's not that ridiculous... Germany was able to fuel it's massive tank army with no coal and oil. Figure that out!
Because they stockpiled a lot of reserves up to 1939 and later in the war exploited heavily the oil fields in Romania up to 1943. They still bought the octane rating booster Tetraethyllead that allowed engine compression to be raised substantially, which in turn increased vehicle performance or fuel economy, from US companies even in late 1941. They bought enough to last till 1944/45. After the extensive bombing raids by the Americans in late 1943 and early 1944 on the romanian refineries the Germans were slowly runing out of fuel and in 1945 they had barely anything left, particularly for their planes. From what I know their synthetic oil production from coal and tar covered maybe 17-20% of their needs.
ZigzagPX4
The Swiftness of the Ranger
These kind of "lolBethesda" posts are getting increasingly annoying when I'm legitimately looking for information and we just snap right back to the Fallout 4 circlejerk. Can we just stop with this? It's what I come on NMA to get away from.
I don't mind them on some threads, but every Fallout 4 thread are filled with these "because magic" or "they don't care" posts. I don't care if they care or not. The game's writing is shit, we all got that already, I'm asking for actual speculation. There's justified cynicism, and then there's "just as bad as Bethesda fans". This is getting near the latter.
Far as I know, the Brotherhood doesn't exactly own any crops and the Capital Wasteland was pretty barren the only time we ever saw it, so even if bio-fuel was the case, I doubt they could fuel that much. I know there isn't any probable explanation for it in the actual game, so are there any unorthodox ways they could've used instead?
Spacemunkey
Vault Senior Citizen
As someone else said fusion cores, or they harness the awesome power of brahmin methane.
ZigzagPX4
The Swiftness of the Ranger
I guess the fusion cores would work, but their abundance is an insult to the lore anyways, so it would be nice to hear of other possibilities. Brahmin methane sounds insane and plausible at the same time. Would the brahmin's mutation from being cows have any effect on the methane they produce, or...?
whirlingdervish
Brahmin Cavalry Commander
They could have put liberty prime in a giant hamster wheel and connected it to the drive shaft via some gearing. Then hang a commie on a string in front of him.
That would cover one big vertibird tho.. Guess you'd need more Liberty Primes.
That would cover one big vertibird tho.. Guess you'd need more Liberty Primes.
ZigzagPX4
The Swiftness of the Ranger
PossibleCabbage
Vault 22 Survivor
I think Bear Force One running on ethanol is plausible. By the time of New Vegas the NCR is very invested in agriculture, and "wasting valuable crops on powering his vanity helicopter" is totally in character for Kimball.
It's not super-complicated to make ethanol, you just need a fair bit of corn. What I'd be more concerned about is how often you have to replace the valves and valve seals (and where exactly the materials for that are coming from) but Kimball is kind of an idiot so I don't think he cares.
It's not super-complicated to make ethanol, you just need a fair bit of corn. What I'd be more concerned about is how often you have to replace the valves and valve seals (and where exactly the materials for that are coming from) but Kimball is kind of an idiot so I don't think he cares.