The world of Fallout: New Vegas makes sense

This is a bit of an aside, but I feel that the west half of the Mojave is set to further impoverishment and general poverty. Unless someone helps fix up Primm and clear out the Deathclaws Goodsprings is isolated from trade, and Nipton creates a rather macabre entry through the mountains dividing the map.

 

The West and East are vastly different settings in the Fallout universe, but you are completely right. It does look like Bethesda tried to work towards this by having farms all over, but they missed the point. Farms are just one aspect of the infrastructure necessary to maintain a proper post-apoc human ecosystem, and they left most of the other questions unanswered. But yeah, I would like to give props to Obsidian for their wonderful world building in New Vegas.

Your point has been made many times over previously, but I would like to see what else the other members have to add(probably just more ranting).

 

Obligatory Shandification of Fallout video post for topic on New Vegas world-building (It's a good watch and it seems that Bethesda only took the farming point to heart rather than the video's whole message):


I do agree that the cities of New Vegas are properly set up and make sense as actual settlements, Goodsprings being a prime example (i.e crops, nearby fresh water supply, cattle reared, a shop, a doctor's office, a bar (for leisure time) etc.). The city of New Vegas (the Strip) has all the proper infrastructure present for daily life though like many places in the Mojave, it too is hampered by the problems of a post-apocalyptic environment.

There are various abandoned locales in New Vegas that have clearly been overrun by the hostile fauna and desperate violent individuals (with others simply left empty due to a lack of resources to foster long-term habitation).

 

New Vegas's world has a fatal flaw that I can't really defend though. Follow me:

• Caesar's camp is really just tents with a wall around it.
• They mostly use melee weapons.
• Ceasar's palace is a bunch of tents.
• Aaron kimball's arrival shows that the NCR has veribirds

Why don't they just assault Caesar's technologically stunted ass with vertibirds? Like honestly their cannons don't even work.

 

1. Vertibird guns didn't work, if I remember correctly. I'll try to find sources but.... don't quote me on it.

 

They don't even bother to make sure every soldier have working service rifle and body armor, do you think they will use expensive war machine for that?

 

Yes. Especially if it'll end Caesar so easily. And if you played the game (sorry for the snark but it's just so obvious) you could easily tell the NCR is spread thin and can't afford to make sure ever outpost and fort has enough soldiers munitions and such. Lack of resources coupled with bureaucracy is literally the only reason the NCR hasn't already taken the Mojave tbh.

 

I think that's exactly why they never did the Vertibird strike on Caesar's camp. They're stretched thin in terms of resources (there's also the NCR-Brotherhood War to consider so maybe they don't have as much advanced resources as they used to) and personally I think Oliver would deny permission for such a strike because he would not get his glorious final battle against the Legion that would place him in the history books.

 

Again, the Vertibird doesn't appear to have working guns. Unless it's used as a suicide bomber it's useless (sniping off it is an option, but there are buildings in Caesar's camp and he can hide in them.

 

The Vertibird we see in New Vegas is Kimball's private aircraft. They even call it Bear Force One. They wouldn't use the president's private shuttle as an instrument of war. If I remember right, the NCR has a very limited amount of vertibirds(the ones they took from the Enclave/Brotherhood). The NCR probably have so few operational vertibirds that they can't risk losing even 1. Though, I don't see why the NCR refuse to fix the perfectly intact planes at Camp Mccarran. They could easily refit those bad boys as bombers. It could just be a matter of fuel, as the Oil Rig was likely the last source of oil on the planet, and it was blown up about 40 years before New Vegas takes place. Now I'm wondering why planes and vertibirds aren't nuclear powered or at least charged by power cells like the Highwayman.

 

One quick point, we (the players) know that the cannons in Caesar's camp don't work, but does the NCR know it? Military leaders often adopt cautious stances toward risk, unless they have overwhelming force. It is quite possible that the mere presence of cannons and the remote possibility of anti-aircraft fire (flak, in this case) was enough to deter an air strike or air assault type operation. That is assuming, of course, that the NCR even had the resources and political will to devote aircraft to an operation like this one.

Remember, the US got beat about the shoulders in Somalia because the political leaders would not relegate air assets to the operation, despite the fact that the US has overwhelming air power.

 

Well there are alternative fuel sources for planes as the Boomers have shown with their own bomber. (I think it is fueled by fuel derived from corn).

So in game lore wise I assume the NCR just does not have the assets available for an air strike (though Obsidian really should have done something with those planes at Camp McCarran).
Probably only a handful of vertibirds with most of them probably being used in the Brotherhood-NCR conflict or held in reserve.

Gameplay wise, I don't think the vertibirds have been given the coding/animation showing them to fire guns, missiles (or drop bombs? not sure of that one)

BTW, during the Second Battle of Hoover Dam we see Legionnaires using assault rifles and such so they definitely do not rely on melee weapons.

I do wish some quests such as the one with the counterfeit bottlecaps had been expanded more as I when I found the shack with those I had the idea that this quest was suppose to be bigger, with the player either aiding the Crimson Caravan or the counterfeiters. (perhaps resulting in caps loosing their value because of an overflow, nice going player)

Or the quest involving the Scorpions who now end up being just named hostiles. I have the feeling that if you had armed these guys properly they would become a threat to the Fiends, and drive them out of East Vegas, becoming a threat themselves in the process.

 

Where would they gain the knowledge to fly the planes? Manuals?

 

I'd say the airport could have a manual or two stored away somewhere, providing they did not rot away.

 

Not to forget, they have nothing to train with.

 

There are plenty of toys lying around in the Mojave. They could just train as the North Koreans do.

 

I am pretty sure there would be books or holodiscs around that contain training instructions and technical manuals on how to fly planes, otherwise how would the NCR have been able to learn how to fly vertibirds?

Perhaps they even found a full VR training system at Navarro when they took the place.

 

Wouldn't the Enclave destroy that? And while it may tell them how to fly vertibirds... it doesn't tell them how to fly planes.

 

Well NCR did capture Navarro's vertibirds intact and that would probably have been even more important to keep out of the hands of 'mutants' than just some simulator computer. (I would not be surprised that the Enclave would probably think that NCR could not even figure out what that could do).

I personally assume it was not a simulator dedicated just to vertibird training simulations but rather one of those 'fits all purpose' VR pod designs that we saw in Fallout 3/FNV, capable of running a variety of simulations if you have the right programs. (you don't need the control panel of a plane physically recreated for example as that all happens 'in program'. When you run the simulation you 'appear' in the simulated vehicle which program you run, perhaps complete with a holographic instructor.)