Padding out The Power Of The Atom

J

jamesmcm

It Wandered In From the Wastes
ATM, I think Power Of The Atom is a great quest but it is a bit too short and easy.

Here are my basic ideas:
-Add a pre-requisite quest to both Lucas Simms (Sheriff) and Burke which you must complete for them to trust you. [Any ideas on what these should be that would make sense?]
-Perhaps have it if you do Burke's quest Simms approaches you and is suspicious, and if you do Simms' quest the Church Of The Atom approach and warn you not to touch the bomb.
-Then have it where if you choose to disarm the bomb, you are attacked by the bomb worshipers and must kill their leader (or perhaps with the option of a speech challenge). And if you choose to arm the bomb, Lucas Simms catches you and duels you.

Maybe if you report Burke, have something on his body which suggests Tenpenny commissioned the attack [Maybe remove the part where he kills Simms - or give a greater opportunity to save him] and have a good quest where you must assassinate Tenpenny. Also, add some sort of logical story why Tenpenny wants to do it, to be revealed whichever path you take.

Some minor improvements could make this quest one of the best in any RPG and very memorable. I'll take a look at what needs to be done specifically with the G.E.C.K this weekend, pelase post your ideas though so we know exactly what people would like to change.

From the responses on BethSoft, I was also thinking:

Simms could ask you to investigate a few minor problems. A Large pack of Radscorpions in a nearby cave that has killed a group of foragers, or maybe someones gone missing while out exploring.
Then follow that up with some local raiders have been making trouble and he asks you to go to their hideout and get rid of them. Obviously he can't do this because he has to stay in Megaton to "keep an eye on things" (This sets up "The Power of the Atom" properly.
After which he says he's concerned about the bomb, and has heard rumours someone is planning to detonate it. He then asks you to:

1. Find out who is planning this deed and report to him (& take part in his arrest)
2. Find the means to deactivate the bomb so the risk is completely stopped
3. Speak to the members of the Church of the Atom and try to make them see sense ~ That the bomb needs to be deactivated for the safety of everyone in the area.
 
this isn't a bad idea. As it is you walk out of the vault, walk into megaton, talk to a few people, pop a mentat, disarm an unexploded nuclear bomb. Wow, great "first day" outside the vault. I'm sure vault life totally prepared the player character for that.

Maybe you need to quest into the base of operations of the Atomites and steal a manual for the bomb. As fanatics they of course would snatch something like that up if a trader ever had it. Also maybe you you find your first Duck and Cover. It's about explosives so they would have this as well.

It needs to be fleshed out a bit. Tenpenny should offer A LOT of caps if you blow up megaton. And it would be a HUGE Karma hit. Enough so that this one act puts you well into the Evil side of the scale if not maxing it out.
 
Actually, my first day comprised of killing a giant scorpion, finding an ex hooker who gave me some puzzling bottlecaps not to snitch on her, finding megaton, and using those bottlecaps to sleep with the current on the job hooker. But yeah good idea anyway. Also, wasteland herpes.
 
Add a pre-requisite quest to both Lucas Simms (Sheriff) and Burke which you must complete for them to trust you. [Any ideas on what these should be that would make sense?]
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I agree. And I think in your condition, it would be quite obvious that you're still "Green" in the wasteland. It would be nice if, after a level check or a time played check (if that variable is available for FO3), Burke and Simms referenced this. (Similar to how the Redding (was it?) Sheriff wouldn't give you the quest till a certain level). Perhaps the 'prerequisite' quests could be somewhere along the lines of getting some old records and information about nuclear warheads (for arming/disarming later). Though I could well be wrong knowing my ignorance in such matters, it always struck me as frivolous that you could 'just' walk up and arm / disarm it.

Perhaps have it if you do Burke's quest Simms approaches you and is suspicious, and if you do Simms' quest the Church Of The Atom approach and warn you not to touch the bomb.
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Possibly plausible, if they referenced the fact that you do, after all, talk to Burke and Simms in very public places. It would also be nice if they carried out that threat. Just like how Frog Morton's brothers/minions (?) attack you as a random encounter in FO2. The Church of the Atom doesn't seem to be a 'proper cult', though, more of a couple of crazies, a few bored non-committal members and no real clout. Maybe it would be nice to have them TRY and assassinate or sabotage you, but due to their amateurism, bungle it up. For instance, maybe they can try and hire some raiders, but end up being tricked into sneaking them into town, and you can get rid of them and keep Megaton safe from the idiots, or kill the cult too, or let it happen, etc.

Maybe if you report Burke, have something on his body which suggests Tenpenny commissioned the attack [Maybe remove the part where he kills Simms - or give a greater opportunity to save him] and have a good quest where you must assassinate Tenpenny. Also, add some sort of logical story why Tenpenny wants to do it, to be revealed whichever path you take.
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The Oblivionesque stupidity of automatic sheriffdeath needs to be removed, of course. Either that, or expand upon the theme that nobody ever made Simms a sheriff but people just let him be - there's possibilty there to extrapolate that, so that Simms is a self-styled sheriff and mayor but with little actual combat / Wasteland survival experience, and is thoroughly outclassed and killed by the dangerous, hardened Burke.

As for Tenpenny's motivation, you'd have to work out how he's so rich to begin with. He lacks any sort of history atm, doesnt he?

Simms could ask you to investigate a few minor problems.
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That is indeed the 'standard procedure', but it's also quite boring. I would personally suggest what I mentioned above, about gathering info on nuclear warheads. It would provide an opportunity to make the quest more interactive - i.e. Burke and Simms going for the same thing, trying to sabotage each other or watching each other along the way, etc. As it is now, they hardly acknowledge the other's existence.
 
My idea, as outlined in the thread I made:

There's a fence around the bomb and a guard (Lucas simm's brother or whatever) manning the gate. You can pass a somewhat difficult speech/explosives check on either the guard or lucas to get in to see the bomb. You can also bribe the guard to get in. You can also wait until everyone goes to sleep and pick the lock on the gate, but it's pretty tough.

In addition to this, the children of the atom want the bomb to be detonated (remember, their whole thing is that the bomb will blow up and send them to bliss), and will get the key for the gate and provide you with Duck and Cover manuals if you promise to blow up the bomb and show them the thingy Burke gives you.
If you break this promise and disable the bomb after they hook you up, they get pissed at you and you no longer have access to their clubhouse (should probably add some reason why you'd want to go inside their clubhouse, maybe a guy who will sell specific things that moira doesnt or something?)

I'm thinking maybe there should be a penalty if you fix the bomb without getting simm's permission... but maybe not.
If you betray the church of atom's trust, they spraypaint shit like BETRAYER and HEATHEN BASTARD all over your house once you get it.
 
Okay, I think the themes of Simms as an amateur sheriff, the CotA protecting the manual, and increasing the effects and difficulty of the quest are good.

But what is the motivation for Tenpenny in wanting to detonate it? He seems far too sensible to be a CotA member, perhaps he thinks they have been 'tainted' by the radiation form the bomb?

It is very tempting to start the modding right away, but I want to make sure I know exactly what I'm going to do before I start as that is the cause of many mod disasters.
 
jamesmcm said:
Okay, I think the themes of Simms as an amateur sheriff, the CotA protecting the manual, and increasing the effects and difficulty of the quest are good.

But what is the motivation for Tenpenny in wanting to detonate it? He seems far too sensible to be a CotA member, perhaps he thinks they have been 'tainted' by the radiation form the bomb?

It is very tempting to start the modding right away, but I want to make sure I know exactly what I'm going to do before I start as that is the cause of many mod disasters.
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Considering that there's no mention of HOW he became so rich, it shouldn't be too difficult to throw together some scenario where he profits off of the destruction of a town.

Just off the top of my head, he makes his living off of extortion and Greyditch has been warned before, but have fallen behind on their payments (because the town has become an ant city) so he decides to destroy their biggest neighbor as a "don't fuck with me" signal.
Maybe throw in a case where if you discover greyditch and tell him it's a ghost town he'll call the whole thing off and for your trouble you'll get the tenpenny suite and the ability to buy Burke's now-vacant house in megaton.
 
Using a nuke to do that makes no sense, why waste such a powerful weapon to destroy a insignifigant town? Maybe stealing the nuke, or its parts from megaton would make more sense. The detonator perhaps ? So they could assemble a new one ?

as it is, Burke and Tenpenny are idiots.
 
Patton89 said:
Using a nuke to do that makes no sense, why waste such a powerful weapon to destroy a insignifigant town? Maybe stealing the nuke, or its parts from megaton would make more sense. The detonator perhaps ? So they could assemble a new one ?

as it is, Burke and Tenpenny are idiots.
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Maybe add some reason as to why it can't be moved. It a megaton bomb so it's obviously heavy, but maybe a more interesting reason would help too.
 
Patton89 said:
Using a nuke to do that makes no sense, why waste such a powerful weapon to destroy a insignifigant town? Maybe stealing the nuke, or its parts from megaton would make more sense. The detonator perhaps ? So they could assemble a new one ?

as it is, Burke and Tenpenny are idiots.
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Megaton is not an insignificant town, It's one of the largest settlements in the game.

If you want to know the real reason Burke and Tenpenny are idiots, I suggest reading this post by Shamus Young

For example:

Shamus said:
Given the ostensibly extreme scarcity of basic resources (not that anyone ever mentions having trouble finding food) then it would be crucial for people to pool their productivity and resources via trade. In which case nuking your closest neighbor would impoverish you. That’s one less place producing… well, nobody ever produces anything, but if they did, then nuking them would stop that from happening, and there would be that much less stuff to trade for. There would still be the same number of raiders, but now raiders that depended on raiding the resources Megaton never produced in the first place will have to find a new town to raid for nonexistent supplies. And Tenpenny Towers is by far the next closest and richest target. This was the wost thing Alistair Tenpenny could have done to himself, short of nuking his own town.
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Edit for Patton89
 
They dont have any farms there. They dont produce that much, at least based on what i saw in-game. And how can there be raiders, when theres nothing to raid ? No "large" scale trading. SO the point of not blowing up megaton because trading makes no sense. It in the post you quoted itself. And Megaton shouldnt be a major settlement, think of hub in Fallout. Megaton is nothing compared to it.

This is supposed to be 200 years after nuclear war ? ANd i have larger settlements 80 years after the war ?

Only way megaton could be usefull, would be to rule the populus and use them as slave labour. And tenpenny decides he wants to waste the nuke on the lot.
 
I really like these ideas!

In the meantime, there's an excellent mod on Fallout 3 Nexus called "Hidden Skill Checks and Unpredictable Traps" that changes the skill checks of many things in the game http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1616, and one feature is that it increases the skill requirements of defusing the bomb. Arming it is still dead easy, cause not many players have got the guts to nuke Megaton at the start of the game before having done any quests.

Originally he had it so you needed 50% explosives to defuse the bomb rather than 25%, and then I suggested that alternatively having a high science skill should allow you to do it without the explosives skill. (Since in Fallout 1 you could arm a nuclear bomb with 70% science skill, and the way I see it disarming a nuclear bomb and disarming a land mine are totally different kettles of fish.)

He liked my idea and changed it so that although you still need a total skill of over 50%, that total can be made up with explosives skill AND/OR science skill divided by two. So if you had 25% explosives skill and 50% science, that would do the trick. Or 40% explosives and 20% science. Or the plain regular 50% explosives skill. That kind of thing.
 
While it's true that Megaton has nothing on the large towns in the previous Fallout games, that is more the fault of bethesda rather then Megaton. The fact remains that Megaton is one of largest towns in the capitol wasteland and cannot be considered insignificant.

Regarding Shamus post about the economic impact of the destrution of Megaton, he was treating Megaton as if it were a real place in a real world, which Bethesda should have done, and what Black Isle would have done.
 
Look, the place is insignificant in the game, and is treated that way.
The game has NO economy. No trading. Nothing. Who do they trade with ? And if it was real BIS fallout 3, a town like Megaton would be that, insignificant. Of course ignoring the working nuke.

If we start treating it as a important settlement, we have to make it one. That means adding farms so the community is self suffient (duh), maybe a caravan office for quests and believability, enlarge it to hub size and improve the other settlements, so theres some point in NOT blowing the town up or killing the sheriff or making it "die" because of the economic impact it would have. Now it probably wouldnt matter squat.

Because whats the point in improving the quests, if the place you can either "destroy" or "save" is meaningless in the game world.

This game requires total overhaul, game mechanics wise and setting wise and i think that is being done already.
 
Patton89 said:
Using a nuke to do that makes no sense, why waste such a powerful weapon to destroy a insignifigant town? Maybe stealing the nuke, or its parts from megaton would make more sense. The detonator perhaps ? So they could assemble a new one ?

as it is, Burke and Tenpenny are idiots.
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I don't think it's a good idea to get rid of the showstopping "watching the nuke" setpiece.

By your definition every town is insignificant, so I don't know why they'd keep the bomb in reserve or how they'd even get it back to the tower.
 
Nah, its just that fallout 3 doesnt seem to have really important towns, not at least as important as in Fallout.
And there SHOULD be important towns after 200 years.

I mean, you can THINK that the towns are important, but it still doesnt change the fact that IN the game they dont seem important, because they produce no food, and seem to be small.

and think of the BIG picture, Burke/Tenpenny could use the weapon to blackmail Lyon's lot, or sell it to enclave. And tehy might even want to steal a part of it to prove that it exists , in order to enclave to then take it from megaton. (and killing the townsfolk)

The game is just shallow, and badly done. The setting is half finished, with almost nothing elaborate.
 
I don't think that megaton is meant to be den-sized. I think we'd need a new town for that. It's more of a junktown
 
One could make the argument that the DC ruins counts as a town.

But I wouldn't.

Yeah, a hub/den would be nice. Something about the size of the imperial city from oblivion, but it'd be a pretty big job. All I have to offer up is that "the lodge" would be a pretty good name
 
Wow, a lot of interesting topics have been brought up in this thread. :)


IMO, Megaton isn't or at least shouldn't be the most important town in F3 - that role should go to Rivet City.

I see Megaton as another Junktown or Den; that is to say an early-game questing and trading hub for the player.


The REAL problem with Fallout 3 (OK, *one* of it's problems!) is that there isn't a clear linear progression in it's towns, or even in the game as a whole.

Take for example, Fallout 1:
Shady Sands -> Junktown -> Hub -> Boneyard

Each city offers a better assortment of weapons/armor than the last, plus the usual bunch of quests.

Then we have Fallout 2:
Klamath -> Den -> Vault City -> New Reno -> NCR -> San Fran

As you'll notice, in both games the player advances in a given geographical direction/s as they progress through the game.
North to South for F1, West to East then North to South and finally West to East for F2. (basically a backwards C)

In Fallout 3, things are jumbled and disorganised with no clear direction for the player to head in. I guess the nearest I can figure it would be:
Megaton -> Tenpenny Towers -> Museum -> Rivet City -> Paradise Falls

Which is likely to be the order in which the player discovers those towns, but certainly *not* an ideal progression.


Had the game been better designed, the player would have needed some kind of password or keycard to extend the bridge and gain entry to Rivet City in the later stages of the game, and Flak & Shrapnel would've sold energy weapons, power armor and other "endgame" items. At least that's how I always envisioned it happening.

Getting back to Megaton though and in particular Simms & Burke, I think it's an excellent idea to throw in an extra quest to gain the trust of either.

Tenpenny's reason for annihilating Megaton may have been extremely flimsy, but Burke may have been only too happy to oblige his boss - he may well have had a secret agenda, say a longstanding grudge against the town or one of it's inhabitants and was only too keen to use Tenpenny's offhand remark as an excuse to deal with the town.
Actually, I think it'd be very interesting if further mods/quests went on to show that Burke was the real power behind Tenpenny towers, and that his boss was basically a stooge.

EDIT: Oh, and if any change is to be made to the Power Of The Atom quest, I believe an obvious one would be to involve the cult in the mission somehow.
Wouldn't they be keen on helping the player detonate the bomb - nuclear explosions are a good thing in their minds right?
 
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