So why can't Fallout have tank gangs in it?

If I remember correctly, the official explanation Is that some pre war vehicles like tanks and helicopters run on gas, but I honestly think it doesn't really stand as a lore explanation: of you can power a car with nucleare fuel, why not other vehicles?
Perhaps the problem Is that the ability to produce such fuel has been lost. Doesn't work either IMHO.

I'd say the real issue is that in order to have cars and motorbikes you need to rebalance map, transportation and combat around it.

I don't disagree with the idea of, say, biker gangs. Actually I once imagined a Fallout setting where a large biker along with their allies fought against a fascist State. Or Somethin'. Just throw bikers in.

 

Fallout Tactics had working vehicles.

Vehicles are possible, but buggy, or hackish. It is simply that Bethesda's Engine's landscape and settlements aren't suited to vehicles.

I made a partially functional golf cart myself.


Bethesda did just about the same with a subway car.

Spoiler

*They made it as an outfit.

Notice in my video that the AI [obviously because it's a hackish mod] just runs at my PC, and tries to attack with melee. Well Bethesda's tram is just an outfit, and I assume the same thing would happen... unless they altered the AI for it; which I doubt they would want to have done... They can't even get the AI to climb a ladder —meaning (presumably) to interpret the navemesh sensibly with ladders.
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I had wanted to make the golf cart's wheel suspension react to uneven ground the way the legs do on the PC & NPCs, but I was never that versed in the process; or nifSkope.

 

The tech requirements for nuclear powered vehicles is much higher than gas. Tanks are high maintenance fuel hogs...but yeah, Fallout is pretty inconsistent about vehicles.

 

I would not object against tanks or other vehicles but as Sublime pointed out, there would be some rebalance problems such as combat.

Likewise I would not be against a gang that uses motor-bicycles. The 80s for example would have been a group of raider bikers.

As Gizmojunk pointed out, Bethesda Fallout games' landscape is not very suitable for vehicles.

Okay a bit dumb that I only make a post to repeat other people's comments.

I would like to add that I do think something like adding in working tanks would have to be handled very carefully. Not shitloads of raiders with tanks for example.
I already found it breaking the setting when I encountered raiders piloting a Vertibird in Fallout 4. WTF?! A bunch of ignorant raiders are able to fly a vertibird, let alone get their hands on one?

I could imagine groups like the BOS or the NCR having one or a couple of restored tanks along with other military vehicles.

 

The NCR uses functional military trucks in New Vegas, though they're static props. The BoS and Enclave would probably have tanks and other vehicles some in storage too.

I think the main reason things like tanks don't appear is for balance, engine limitations across the board, and because fuel is extremely scarce. Tanks would chug way more fuel than vertibirds.

 

Yep. I mean tanks in general are cool and all and definitely good for traversing shitty landscapes. The problem arises with how these entities are handled in Bethesda games. The novelty of fighting a tank would wear off quick after the 10th radiant quest asking you to go deal with one in some obscure pawn shop. How did it get there? Who knows.

 

Power isn't the issue, if we can power PA for a 100 or 1000 years then we can have shit around to power up tanks. These things scale from up-down, not from top-up.

My guess is? They did. And then got blown up by proto-urbanites toting RPGs and other heavy machinery. Then comes the Great Winter. All the good stuff got used up quickly after the war and the first vaults opened and the preppers/survivalists/communes/cults got into a big showdown too quickly in order to take over the world. RAGE and RAGE 2 basically.

 

Mini-nuke launchers just spoil the possibility of tanks being useful.

 

Also... You'd expect, but could never do any of this:

 

I think those are fairly rare.

 

They should have been rare enough to only have one or two rounds exist in the game; and have each of those shots effectively eliminate an area of the map.

 

An entire area seems too much honestly. I mean, they are inspired by Davy Crockett, but they're not Davy Crockett themselves

 

I don't know why, but I like the idea of buggys being used in fallout's world

 

But that's not *fun*. /s

 

/s

That'd be Todd & Pete's take on it.

*But it'd sure be both fun, and (in keeping) to obliterate a Slaver/Unity/Enclave-Rig —like— area; or to solve a literal [mutants at the] watershed moment from a mile away.

Or... Have the weapon only used from an overland map screen. Remember that the Cathedral was obliterated by a nuke. Remember that the Cathedral was obliterated by a nuke.

 

Fallout 1's world would be a great place for tanks. Imagine people not being able to repair them to move but can get the turret to operate so they integrate a bunch of tanks into the walls of a Junktown like settlement.

 

That is actually not a bad idea. Think I once read a similar idea for a Wasteland location about a settlement or camp established around a crashed hoover tank which turret and weapons still worked.

 

It's a smarter Megaton, essentially. Rather than building your civilization around a bomb, you do so around something that can provide a solid defense when people come looking for trouble.

 

Well i dont think we will ever see them. How bethasda makes there open world. A horse okay they aint that fast but a car, something that goes 80+ kilometers a hour. You will need a pretty big map or well a very empty map like in mad max. It would defiantly work with like a fallout version of daggerfall tho