Fallout VII - Vault-Tec calling

[factotum]

They could have built it anywhere else around Vault 101. There's the Springvale school, there's the town of Springvale itself, there's tons of flat land just to the west of Vault 101's entrance.

Presumably Springvale got nuked during the War and thus would have been quite radioactive back then? In fact, building around an undetonated bomb under those circumstances sort of makes sense, because it's one area that's absolutely guaranteed not to be radioactive from a bomb detonation! If you don't happen to have a handy Geiger counter to measure the radiation, I can see people choosing to build there for that reason.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I *may* have figured out how to keep the lag from happening with respect to energy weapons and explosions. Finally. It has only taken me two or three years. And I happen across the solution while trying to get a totally different game (Path of Exile) working smoothly. Because logic.

I'm still doing some testing to see if this is, in fact, true. Lonesome Road is going to be my 'stress test'. If I can use Red Glare without lagging myself into crashing, then I have accomplished my mission. In that event, I may well decide to try doing another LP of F:NV.

[DigoDragon]

Okay, LOOT is no longer allowed near my NV load order. Sorted like I'm supposed to after adjusting mods, and then suddenly nothing behaves itself. Fixed now, but seriously, having to dig around in FNVEdit to see how things are over-writing one another is what LOOT is supposed to solve, not cause.

That's pretty weird. And LOOT is supposed to do a better job than the previous system. BOSS was it?

Presumably Springvale got nuked during the War and thus would have been quite radioactive back then? In fact, building around an undetonated bomb under those circumstances sort of makes sense, because it's one area that's absolutely guaranteed not to be radioactive from a bomb detonation! If you don't happen to have a handy Geiger counter to measure the radiation, I can see people choosing to build there for that reason.

The pool of water around the bomb is radioactive, so the bomb may be starting to leak radioactive materials now.

I *may* have figured out how to keep the lag from happening with respect to energy weapons and explosions. Finally. It has only taken me two or three years. And I happen across the solution while trying to get a totally different game (Path of Exile) working smoothly. Because logic.

I'm still doing some testing to see if this is, in fact, true. Lonesome Road is going to be my 'stress test'. If I can use Red Glare without lagging myself into crashing, then I have accomplished my mission. In that event, I may well decide to try doing another LP of F:NV.

Neat. I'd be interested in seeing your notes later on how you accomplished the lag reduction. I noticed my game crashed a LOT in Lonesome Road. Ever since I returned to Vegas, not one crash yet.

[Caelestion]

LOOT works much better when you establish your mod order at the start of the game and then not touch it again (both the mod order and LOOT).

[factotum]

The pool of water around the bomb is radioactive, so the bomb may be starting to leak radioactive materials now.

Nowadays that's the case, but I was suggesting what might have been happening 200 years ago, when the bombs had only just dropped and you had a bunch of survivors looking for somewhere to live that wouldn't irradiate them to heck and gone. Once you've actually built the town and are living there without any apparent issues from the bomb, it would be much harder to be persuaded to move elsewhere.

[Triaxx]

Wouldn't make a difference. It sticks CIAO (Complete Incendiary Ammo Overhaul) below CASE, which messes up CASE's changes to the ammo lists.

It also sticks Project Nevada's WMX support above EVE, which breaks mod functionality for PNV's energy weapons.

[Rynjin]

Nowadays that's the case, but I was suggesting what might have been happening 200 years ago, when the bombs had only just dropped and you had a bunch of survivors looking for somewhere to live that wouldn't irradiate them to heck and gone. Once you've actually built the town and are living there without any apparent issues from the bomb, it would be much harder to be persuaded to move elsewhere.

I have a hard time believing Megaton has been there for a whole 200 years. They can't even keep their pipes intact without outside help.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Neat. I'd be interested in seeing your notes later on how you accomplished the lag reduction. I noticed my game crashed a LOT in Lonesome Road. Ever since I returned to Vegas, not one crash yet.

For you, the answer is probably the Large Address Aware/4GB+ Patch which permits the 'programmed in 32 bit' game to understand that computers these days have more than 4 GB of RAM and that it is okay to use that RAM.

Since I am running this through WINE on Linux, my solution is... somewhat more problematic, and likely not relevant to anyone not also running through WINE on a given Linux Distro.

[factotum]

I have a hard time believing Megaton has been there for a whole 200 years. They can't even keep their pipes intact without outside help.

Everything else in Bethesda Fallouts has been largely stable and unchanging since the bombs fell (I mean, you can still find pre-war currency and packaged food in the supermarket just down the road from Megaton, despite the place being infested with raiders), so I don't think it's a stretch to assume Megaton is as well. Besides, pretty much everywhere in the world has problems that can apparently only be solved by the player character because no-one else has the smarts or the incentive to do it themselves!

[DigoDragon]

For you, the answer is probably the Large Address Aware/4GB+ Patch which permits the 'programmed in 32 bit' game to understand that computers these days have more than 4 GB of RAM and that it is okay to use that RAM.

I have that already. NV is super-stable with it, but it's something specifically with the Lonesome Road DLC that seems to just break the game into a hard-lock crash. I don't recall the other DLCs crashing. Maybe once or twice at worst throughout the playthrough? In Lonesome Road, it crashed at least once in every night that I was playing it.

Nowadays that's the case, but I was suggesting what might have been happening 200 years ago, when the bombs had only just dropped and you had a bunch of survivors looking for somewhere to live that wouldn't irradiate them to heck and gone. Once you've actually built the town and are living there without any apparent issues from the bomb, it would be much harder to be persuaded to move elsewhere.

But in that case why chance building by the bomb? Has to be better options out there where radiation was really low and not decorated with an unexploded nuke. ;)

I have a hard time believing Megaton has been there for a whole 200 years. They can't even keep their pipes intact without outside help.

The game is full of that weirdness.

[Avilan the Grey]

The game is full of that weirdness.

It's an RPG.
As Conrad says in Mass Effect 2: "You'd be amazed how many people who has problems only you can solve if you just talk to them".
(Lampshades FTW).

[Triaxx]

Digo: What mods are you running if any?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Did some testing on Infiltrator vs All American. This done with PNV, WMX, and relevant compatibility addons as well as others that shouldn't impact.

This is performed with a Guns skill of 95. This technically favors the Infiltrator that has met the Guns requirement of 75 over the All American which has a guns skill requirement of 100, however it would only be by a point or two, and isn't going to overall affect the results in any meaningful way.

This is performed with both guns fully modded with WMX. This includes both guns having the damage bonus mod. This is also performed with the Grunt perk that should give a 25% bonus damage to All American.

This performed with regular 5.56 and with Match rounds to determine the differences.

Base damage of the Infiltrator with full mods and regular ammo is 19 with a DPS of 154
Base damage of the All American with full mods and regular ammo is 38 with a DPS of 261

Base damage of Infiltrator with full mods and Match ammo is 22 and DPS is 177
Base damage of All American with full mods and Match ammo is 43 and DPS of 295

It thus becomes painfully clear that the All American, despite being semi-auto rather than full-auto, has not only better damage per shot, but better DPS as well, making it strictly superior.

Of course, my Marksman Carbine M (.308 Conversion) has a base damage of 49 and DPS of 381, and can equip the .308 JSP rounds. Having said that, it's also using .308 and is thus competing with other scoped and silenced weapons chambered in .308 such as Christine's CoS Sniper Rifle. In this test world, I'm heading to OWB next so I can pick it up to do a comparison, but I suspect that while Christine's has superior per-shot damage, the Marksman Carbine M has far higher DPS due to much higher rate of fire and magazine capacity.

[Balmas]

So, the Creation Club launched a few days ago. It's... about exactly as bad as could have been expected. Nearly all of them are already available on the Nexus. One of the items is cut content that someone on the Nexus has already restored. Another item (also available on Nexus) has very few options at the armor bench. One (again, available for free on the Nexus) is literally a laser musket retexture.

Of the items available for purchase, only two are not available on the nexus. The Nexus versions are, almost universally, higher quality, with better texture or mesh quality. Oh, and also the Nexus versions are free instead of being charged five bucks for a single weapon or armor piece. And since Bethesda is limiting the number of records uploaded to 4000, there's no hope for large, DLC-sized mods like Farskaal, the Someguy Series, Enderal, Moonpath to Esweyr, For the Enclave, and so on.

It's like someone on top of the corporate chain ordered someone to make deliberately bad decisions about how to launch a new service. I wish I could say I was surprised.

[Triaxx]

Yup, that's matching up almost exactly. I've got 100 guns skill, giving me 20/164 from the Infiltrator, and 41/263 from All-American.

[factotum]

But in that case why chance building by the bomb? Has to be better options out there where radiation was really low and not decorated with an unexploded nuke. ;)

But how would you *find* such a place, assuming you don't have a Geiger counter handy? (Don't know about you, but that's not a thing I tend to keep in my cupboards in case of emergencies ). If I see an unexploded nuke then my thought will be, "OK, this one didn't go off so presumably the radiation is going to be lower round here than it is anywhere else".

Of course, Fallout 4 then basically says the entire Commonwealth was destroyed and irradiated by a single bomb...

[Triaxx]

When did it say that? Yes, we only see a single impact, but there's evidence of multiple. Especially since most of them landed in the Glowing Sea.

I wonder if perhaps that was the work of the old CIT, pulling a Suez Canal trick?

[DigoDragon]

Digo: What mods are you running if any?

Hmm, don't have a way of looking it up right now. I'd have to wait till I get to my home computer to look up the list. It's not very long, that much I know.

But how would you *find* such a place, assuming you don't have a Geiger counter handy? (Don't know about you, but that's not a thing I tend to keep in my cupboards in case of emergencies ). If I see an unexploded nuke then my thought will be, "OK, this one didn't go off so presumably the radiation is going to be lower round here than it is anywhere else".

I'm surprised Geiger counters aren't commonly found. Seems like it would be a popular sell in war-time America where nuclear exchange was a very real possibility. But on the bomb itself, I personally wouldn't want to build near it. Even if it didn't explode now, that case is going to eventually rust away and the contents leak. Radiation level is low now, but eventually it's going to go up like my rent. I forget, did anyone explain why it wasn't moved? Was it the cult that set up around it?

Of course, Fallout 4 then basically says the entire Commonwealth was destroyed and irradiated by a single bomb...

I liked that one diary entry in Honest Hearts where the writer lampshades that the fallout radiation isn't acting like radiation is supposed to.

[snowblizz]

I'm surprised Geiger counters aren't commonly found. Seems like it would be a popular sell in war-time America where nuclear exchange was a very real possibility.

The way I always feel the Fallout pre-war society looks your geiger counter would be ticking so fiercely it'd be neigh worthless to tell you a danged thing. Bit like having something constantly beeping if there are radiowaves emitted close by today.

Though I guess stuff run on fusion not necessarily fission? It's just you are one nasty pile-up on the I-66 away from Armageddon. At least based on how the wrecks act in-game.

[Caelestion]

Well, your Pipboy explicitly has a Geiger counter function. Maybe such functionality got embedded in various other devices.

[BladeofObliviom]

At risk of being a grognard, that's all Post-F3 silliness. The older games indeed had Geiger counters as items of moderate value (and indeed they were the only way to check your precise radiation level; the Pip-Boy could tell you if you'd been exposed but not the severity). And as a sidenote, those games didn't have cars rigged to explode either.

Presumably, when Geiger counters were added to the Pip-Boy 3000 for F3, the player functionality is in and Bethesda decided that other Geiger counters didn't need to exist or be mentioned anywhere else. After all, NPCs can't be affected by radiation sickness, so the only reason for them to exist would be verisimilitude.




As for the Megaton bomb, tbh it's kind of a miracle that it's still extant, much less live. It's been sitting exposed to the elements for 200 years, and some portion of that was spent sitting in stagnant water. By all rights it should be a rusted-out shell without a single functioning internal component.

[Triaxx]

Clearly made of Nintendium.

[Balmas]

As for the Megaton bomb, tbh it's kind of a miracle that it's still extant, much less live. It's been sitting exposed to the elements for 200 years, and some portion of that was spent sitting in stagnant water. By all rights it should be a rusted-out shell without a single functioning internal component.

To be fair, that's more because Bethesda's whole "you emerge after 200 years" is friggin' absurd. After two hundred years without maintenance, practically anything that isn't solid granite should have collapsed into dust. Anything metal is a rusted hulk. Even stone buildings are worn away.

[Triaxx]

Which is complete horse apples. Look at all the ancient structures still standing. Yes, some are due to perfect climate, but tell me who's doing maintenance on the Sphinx? Or the aqueducts in Italy?

[Beleriphon]

To be fair, that's more because Bethesda's whole "you emerge after 200 years" is friggin' absurd. After two hundred years without maintenance, practically anything that isn't solid granite should have collapsed into dust. Anything metal is a rusted hulk. Even stone buildings are worn away.

Hey now, the bomb in Megaton could be aluminum. It would be a very nice aluminum oxide covered bomb, but it wouldn't be rusted away.

Which is complete horse apples. Look at all the ancient structures still standing. Yes, some are due to perfect climate, but tell me who's doing maintenance on the Sphinx? Or the aqueducts in Italy?

The Sphinx and the Giza pyramids are standing largely because they mega-architecture. The Great Pyramid in any practical sense is a human constructed sandstone mountain, and will take as long as a regular mountain to erode away to sand. The aqueducts were actively being used after the fall of the Roman Empire in the Italian peninsula for centuries, so they were maintained. And again being made of stone are much hardier than any modern building materials. Sure steel and concrete let us build mega skyscrapers, but they aren't exactly conducive to weather the elements once exposed, unlike say one million tons of stone blocks.

[druid91]

Which is complete horse apples. Look at all the ancient structures still standing. Yes, some are due to perfect climate, but tell me who's doing maintenance on the Sphinx? Or the aqueducts in Italy?

Stone =/= Metal. Modern construction, for all it's versatility, is generally a LOT more vulnerable to the passing of time. Metal corrodes fairly easily in absence of protection.

There are cars in my yard that have the structural consistency of cardboard because they've sat for 10-20 years. You think a steel girder is gonna fair any better?

[Triaxx]

One wrapped with concrete and glass? Yeah. They're in your yard, presumably exposed directly to the elements.

I've got a wooden building that's more than a hundred years old, has been hit by a vehicle, is partially collapsed on one end and leaning. That's what I'm expecting out of Fallout's.

I'll also note that a large number of the buildings that survived well in F4 are brick and mortar. Same in F3 now that I think of it.

[DigoDragon]

You also can't compare the climates of Washington DC with Egypt. Rain/snow/humidity is a HUGE detriment to the long-term life of any structure. A dry, relatively calm desert will preserve buildings and vehicles much longer than a humid, swampy climate. This is why the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base also serves as the USA's largest aviation boneyard. They can leave airplane hulls there for decades with minimal preservation and the parts are still usable.

[Triaxx]

Agree to disagree then.

Digo, was Lonesome Road crashing with NVAC and NVSR? And did you have something like Zan's Auto-purge running?

[druid91]

One wrapped with concrete and glass? Yeah. They're in your yard, presumably exposed directly to the elements.

I've got a wooden building that's more than a hundred years old, has been hit by a vehicle, is partially collapsed on one end and leaning. That's what I'm expecting out of Fallout's.

I'll also note that a large number of the buildings that survived well in F4 are brick and mortar. Same in F3 now that I think of it.

Glass is proverbial for it's fragility, and Concrete is also well known for it's relatively short lifespan as far as a construction material. Heck, we laid down concrete at work for the washbasin, and not a year later it's shattered. It's why many of the examples of one of my favorite architectural styles, Brutalism, are in disrepair.

Mind you, this is the same city that was just hit by MULTIPLE nuclear bombs, so even the things that were still standing are going to have cracks, fractures and such, that allow in rain, which causes corrosion... etc.