What i wouldnt mind seeing

requiem_for_a_starfury said:
Isn't the world map a map loaded into your pipboy, I don't remember it ever being said that it's a real time satellite image. Isn't it just a static image that you can annotate?.
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I think that is a good question; it never occurred to me to think of it as a static image loaded into the pip-boy.

If it were a pre-war image or map loaded into the pip-boy, then the locations of pre-war settlements should be there (assuming the memory in the pip-boy hasn't failed in some way), and in which case I should know where Vault X is right away. Thus I discounted the possibility of it being a pre-war map as it would possess knowledge which would make life and salvage way too easy.

I admit I had not considered the possibility of satellite failure. Satellites are remarkably durable (and I would like to think that by 2077, especially with the threat of war looming, that satellites would all be hardened against EMP), and many will survive till the time frame during which fallout takes place. Though for sake of ambience I can certainly see adding "black out areas" to the world map if indeed it is a satellite image.


I will admit to the possibility that the world map is "just" a topographical map of some kind with the capacity to update newly discovered features into it, but that begs the question of why would you include only a topographical map into the pipboy; what conceivable purpose would it serve that an urban map would not?
 
I never said it was a prewar map, just that shouldn't it be? From the craters and such I think it's obviously a current map. :)

I suppose it depends on where you got your pipboy, if it comes fresh from vault storage and the map is preloaded from a satellite link (with the vault computer?) before you are sent out it would have a current topographical map.

If on the otherhand your character finds a pipboy and gets someone, or gets it working themselves, then it would be more likely to have an out of date map.

Though even with a prewar map there's no need to show all the secret areas, secret being the operative word. Would people not selected by Vault-tec and the government, know the locations of the vaults? Otherwise when the bombs started to drop the would be a rush to force their way into the vaults and mass riots outside.

As for satellite failures, I'm sure some would of suffered some sort of malfunction over the years, drifted out of position or hit by a meteor shower etc. But unless the pipboy directly links to the satellite system (and there must be some limit to the extent of micro valve technology) then it's likely to use ground stations to connect.

Is the pipboy a cell phone or satellite phone, to use current technology as an example?
 
The more I think about this Starfury the more uneasy I am getting.


You are right that if the pipboy had an image of the surrounding area that it should be prewar. And, while I admit that civilian pipboys wouldn't have vault locations, the location of vaults probably would be on vault pipboys. I mean didn't the vaults trade with each other in fallout (I could have sworn they had some kind of trade going on).

And if the pipboy has a satellite link up, then there are issues about how it achieves this link. If the satellite streams data to pipboys (perhaps vault or military pipboys), then the image would include locations of cities if it is capable of discerning things as small as hills (which appear on the world map if I am not mistaken). If the pipboy had to communicate with the satellite via a ground station, then said station would be destroyed and it would default to whatever picture it last had, but then this would include the locations of prewar things.

The "best" way to have this be would to just have some kind of topographical map programmed into the pipboy based on the region it was issued. But then I have to wonder why would it just have a topographical map, instead of an urban one?
 
GhostWhoTalks said:
I mean didn't the vaults trade with each other in fallout (I could have sworn they had some kind of trade going on).
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It would be a bit difficult since they've been all locked up since the bombs started dropping.

I suppose you could put the lack of data on the location of other vaults down to the vault experiments. Though that's a poor excuse but I'm not going to go into the experiments fiasco.
 
Maybe the vaults kept getting info from the sattelites for a while before they broke down after the bombs fell. That would explain why there are ruins on the map but not new settlements. Any maybe the fog of war is there because the Overseer didn't want you to stray too far.

It's thin, I know.
 
The map is made by the character when he goes through the wasteland, not by satellites nor by pre-programed memory card. This is based on the scout perk, and the perk is in most games(F1, F2, FoT)
Scout
Description You have improved your ability to see distant locations, increasing the size of explorations on the World Map by one square in each direction.
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Don't ask who the chars whit Int(Per, Agi) 10 and Int 1 get the same map, don't know. But it is a valid question. :?:
And all the satellites would be doomed in nuclear war, there are no known protection procedures to protect anything from the EMP that is made by nuclear bombs.
 
Jarno Mikkola said:
The map is made by the character when he goes through the wasteland, not by satellites nor by pre-programed memory card. This is based on the scout perk, and the perk is in most games(F1, F2, FoT)
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I'd believe that if the map was a hand drawn affair but I find it hard to believe that even with computer graphics packages the smartest of characters would go to the effort of recreating a detailed topographical map.

Perhaps the map is updated from live satellites, and the scouting perk allows you to access the data better. After all they do map reading in the cub scouts don't they? :)

Jarno Mikkola said:
And all the satellites would be doomed in nuclear war, there are no known protection procedures to protect anything from the EMP that is made by nuclear bombs.
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Isn't there, yet I keep hearing the expression hardened against emp attacks. Besides high up in orbit the satellites would probably be out of range of the emp effect.
 
I am inclined to agree with Starfury here; if the map was really just based on first-hand accounts of the area, then why does it look like it was created technically? And furthermore, why are you allowed to see the map through the "fog of war" so that topographical features are visible (just not cities or other encounters)?


FYI: A very simple protection against EMP attacks is a Faraday Cage. You can look this one up online if you wish. And the military (at least according to my father who designs nuclear weapons for the government) has more comprehensive protections against EMP. The issue is that the US military has currently deemed hardening procedures to not be cost-effective due to the fact that the chances of nuclear war is so small that the cost of hardening satellites and ICBMs would not be warranted.

Hence my previous argument that with the ever looming threat of nuclear war I am inclined to think that the US would start hardening their satellites (especially important military satellites, like ones used for reconnaissance).
 
requiem_for_a_starfury said:
Isn't there, yet I keep hearing the expression hardened against emp attacks. Besides high up in orbit the satellites would probably be out of range of the emp effect.
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The term is sayid to be hardened, not protected, and that part that is the thing, it might survive from a few EMP:s from afar but not them all. And the Faradays Cage, it protects from radio magnetical radiation not from EMP(Electro Magnetical Pulse. EMP lowers electrical resistance to the point that some(most) batteries explode, though that is not because of the EMP, it's because the battery goes so flat and warm that the chemicals in the battery became dangerous.
I might be wrong, but
Just ask from your father, he might know things better.

And are you sure that in the game the US was ever in the moon or even in space. This was never implied.(it is a altered reality you know)
 
requiem_for_a_starfury said:
Jarno Mikkola said:
And are you sure that in the game the US was ever in the moon or even in space. This was never implied.(it is a altered reality you know)
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Space Shuttle in FO2 for one thing. :P
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The devs that worked on it already said we should disregard the shuttle as a bad idea. In the original concepts by Tim Cain a space race was implied though.
 
I know, it was the first thing that came to mind in response to Jarno's message.

Even if most of the stuff in FO2 is a load of baloney and should be ignored, having a great big space craft sitting on the tarmac, certainly implied they went into space to me. Canonical or not.
 
According to my Dad a very simple protection which is utilized is encasing sensitive electronics (completely) in metal does a good job of protecting against EMP, and this is a Faraday Cage (the Faraday cages you see on the net typically have gaps, but for high frequency photons the wave lengths gets so small that it will pass through the gaps). In short a Faraday cage is how you do it if you are looking for the least complex method of protection.

FYI: EMP is a function of synchrotron radiation (ostensibly compton scattering for those who want to look up what is happening); the damage occurs as a result of the radio waves emitted by electrons that have been knocked out of orbit. The radio waves are then coupled to any open circuit, and this is what causes the destruction of electronics.

For more information on the declassified capabilities of the US try here:

http://www.aussurvivalist.com/nuclear/empprotection.htm
 
But the problem whit the Faradays Cage is that even if it protects from the EMP it also protects the satellite from receiving any radio wave communication whit out a large receiver inside the cage, which might just pick up the EMP, and the whole hell of a thing would be screwed all over again. Or you could have build a VERY POWERFUL receiver in the PIP-Boy, which I doubt was the case. And it has problems whit receiving the accurate signals. Or what about the problem that come when the communications between the outside world sized when the bombs were sent.
What kept the satellites from colliding whit etch others, meteorites, solar flares and etc. Hey, maybe there was a artificial intelligence on one of them and now it will try to take over the world. And in coalition whit the Calculator(FT:BoS) you have to find a way to destroy it. :D
 
More than likely the satellites would go be sent into protective mode when the threat of nuclear attack was imminent, with preset time delay to bring them back online at a later date.

As for the other dangers and direct communication problems, that was what I was suggesting to explain gaps in the coverage and the need for relay stations.
 
as for the maps - i don't *think* the devs had any real explanation in mind on why it looked and worked they way it did when they developed the world map module for the game.

it's Science!
 
Let's not, that would be one hell of a autodrawing tool.

Better to say that there was a satellite system that used ground relay stations. Most of the satellites and stations have been destroyed or have broken down but when they were all up and running they shared images, so as long as your PIP Boy can contact one relay station it can download the images for other areas though for some of these areas the images would be out of date.

It would be interesting if the artists blended the map to have current and prewar sections.
 
Jarno Mikkola said:
It is scifi not science. :) But lets take the point and say that the PIP-Boy scans and draws it on its own.
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I didn't say it was science.. i mean "Science!" - there's a difference :)
 
Looking at the extracted versions of the world maps, without any blackout and being able to zoom out and see the lot. I'd say that Fallout's world map was a current satellite image, either the PIP Boy was able to contact a ground station, perhaps at the vault or Brotherhood or directly link to a satellite, that's why so see the remains of the urban areas and even cloud cover. Fallout 2's world map on the other hand is just a plain topographical map.

So it's possible that by the time of Fallout 2 either the satellite or ground station had gone off line and the PIP Boy reverted to using a pre-loaded map of the region which shows no urban areas or current details.

It would also explain why the couple of craters in FO2 look more like scorch marks than craters, because they were drawn on afterwards. Which would also explain why they were so big. Since if they had been drawn to scale they wouldn't show up.

Just my tupence worth.
 
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