Pip-Boys.

Probably the most identifiable icon of the Fallout series save Vault-Boy himself, but something that a lazy forum search reveals is rarely discussed. Here's the place to discuss the Pip-Boy in all it's glory, both as handy game interface and real world artifact in the Fallout Universe.

They're sort of weird if you think about it. I'm sure everyone has questions about them, or answers. I'll start with a couple 'real world' questions--

Why were vault dwellers given Pip-Boys in the first place? Aren't there applications primarily military?

Why haven't we ever seen them for sale, or been able to loot them from corpses?

As for their function as game interface --

I believe that no matter how contrived it may be for the character to acquire one (lookin' at you, Courier :stare: ), it just plain wouldn't be Fallout without one.

There was a thread a bit back... but the subject was a bit different and it must be back a page or so. I find the way they catalogue every item you have to be a bit silly, the information (notes, quest entries, etc.) makes more sense because it is a PDA device, but your character has to be pretty obsessive to catalogue all of that information. So I generally just ignore it. Honestly, I find pipboys to be non-essential to Fallout. I would actually prefer having a straight up menu system.

PDAs are handy :shrug:

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1171304-pip-boys/

Derp.

Blasphemer! :biggrin:

(Actually, I'm as open to new approaches as anyone. But the thought of Fallout without a Pip-Boy feels wrong. Huh.)

As for the other thing you mentioned -- is the player character meant to be inscribing all that info? I guess I remember a few first-person messages... So we're playing a kick-ass diarist?

Herp. Not general enough.

Then I will herp derp and edit that thread so it is so...

No point in having two threads about the same thing, should probably merge them. (BOOOORG)

Well I'd assume so, because otherwise, the Pipboy would be ridiculous. A device that updates itself about all of the situations you encounter automatically? Makes no sense.

well imagine your a guy traveling through the wastes and you stop to sleep for the night but your board so you type in some notes and stuff on your pip-boy to pass the time and i find the pip-boy VERY useful cuz it just fits the fallout 50s feel and the reason you cant take some ones pip-boy is because you need a sertivied vault mechanic to take it off or it will get messy just look at what happened to poor gary 24 in the ancoreg add on

I prefer the original system where inventory and stuff was handled by menus and the Pip Boy only performed its function as a hardy PDA.

I'd like that.
It's been a while since my brief foray into Fallout, but the menu wasn't part of the PB, was it? Just the same art design. It was interesting, sort of, for Beth to put everything on the PB, but limiting -- and magical! -- at the same time. Maps, for example. I'd love to see nice color maps back (Am I remembering right? Wasn't the original main map a color topographical map?), for instance -- not the useless blobby thing we have now.

I hope the future Fallout devs revert to the original system.

(Actually, the original was mostly pixels showing the map, and you needed a special attachment to do the mapping in a node, if i remember right)

Thanks. I couldn't remember.

Mako's information about how the PBs worked in the originals actually answered most of my questions. Let me see if I have this right:

In the originals, the PB was a PDA.

In the new games, the PB is a PDA, a combat-assist time-slowing device, a flashlight, a psychic map, a sonar device that tells you containers are empty, a cookbook, a medical monitoring device, an inventory arrangement assist that magically counts and knows the value, weight and condition of everything you carry in your magic invisible backpack and a phone.

Is that about right?

Its just a PDA with GPS. Okay throw in the optional Motion Sensor accessory and you've got something thats military equipment, but most of the functions are boring things that are superseeded by your phone.

They're incredibly rare, notoriously hard to maintain, and they don't make spare parts for them anymore. Vault City was pulling some of its PipBoys and Motion Sensors apart to help maintain its other pipboys. My guess is in the non-vault population they're about as common as cars (ie- as common as hen's teeth).

Agreed.

Yeah but the world map was a colored (for a wasteland map) topographical map.

Pretty much. Seriously, with VATS, I just look at it as clever naming. If it were canon that the pipboy itself allows the character to physically stop time and choose what he wants to do, I will be mighty pissed at Bethesda.

Reverting to a pipboy 2000 would be good, because it just makes sense.

The Local mapping is standard, but the Motion scanning ability to detect critters is an aftermarket expansion.

(Thanks for clearing that up for me.) :thumbsup:

In the originals you could get a motion tracker, and gieger counter, the motion tracker added enemy locations on your pipboy automap. Gieger counter gave you an exact radcount. Other wise you only knew you where irradiated.

I would really like the original format of pipboy to return, so you have full screen menu's and not the tiny "on your arm" one.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y297/mrmad/pipboyrend.jpg

ithink bethesdas just going to keep there are pib-boy how it is cuz i really dont mind

what are pipboys powered by

Crystals, probably. They pre-date even tube anolog tech.

S.E.C would be my guess

But where does it have its solar panels?

I think it would be something nuclear, it is a Fallout gadget after all.