I think you're forgetting the critical high price of gas/petrol. Those Petroleum engines left probably would have been sold early on for scrap, or at best left at home.

Although the highwayman was first, and Chryslus couldnt keep up, Oil was too valuable to waste on family transport espeically when there are mass transit options

No, I didn't miss that. In fact I think you missed my point. The fact of the matter is that pretty much all of the vehicles found on the road in fo3 give off radiation when destroyed, regardless of whether they are Highwayman, which is inconsistant with the established lore concerning rarity of fusion powered cars. It's supposed to be pretty exotic technology and it was developed in 2070, just seven years from the bombs dropping and in the middle of a severe economic downturn. I don't believe it was the only car of it's type that was developed, it's simply the only one that's cited (we don't know what powered the corvega). I do find it hard to believe that we would or could gear up enough raw production capacity to replace all the internal combustion cars on the road with fusion cars in just 7 years. Just look around in fo3, every last coupe sedan or truck is nuclear, and they are absolutely everywhere.

Furthermore, by the time the oil had ran dry in the states the entire country was suffering from lack of fuel and food and many metro areas were effectively under martial law. Cars were more than likely abandoned where they ran dry. Rather than pursuing salvage and reclaimation the cities would more than likely just push them off the roads, as anything further than that would have strained their resources. Just removing all the abandoned cars from the streets would take years.

In my opinion it makes more sense from a thematic standpoint the way things were portraid in the earlier games, where there was more of a scarcity of advanced technology. Whether it was plasma rifles or power armor, the best tech was properly rare and could be very hard to come by. All these atomic cars on the streets, the glut of power armour wielding soldiers with advanced weapons, and the relative lack of decay of prewar structures, it all shows a lack of moderation and consistancy with the previous games

From the timeline:

2060

* Traffic on the streets of the world stops moving. Fuel becomes too precious to waste on automobiles, so alternatives are explored - electric and fusion cars begin to be manufactured, but factories can only make limited amounts while conserving fuel. The U.S. economy teeters on bankruptcy. Pressure on fusion research increase

2070

* The first of the Chryslus Motors fusion-driven cars are developed. Reassuringly big and American, the limited models carry a hefty price tag but are sold out within days. Many Chryslus plants have long since been converted into making military ordnance. [11]

2074

* Negotiations between the U.S. and other world powers come to a dramatic end, with the President walking out of oil talks with the other world powers. After a much heated debate, the President stormed out of the meeting and declared that the last known supply of petroleum will be used exclusively by the U.S. and the U.S. will not sell or trade any oil to outside parties[11].

March 2077 - The Enclave bunker down.

Theres over 10 years between no more petrolieum vehicles, and the Highwayman, and 17 to the war. The Highwayman would have needed clear roads, and they'd also help civil defense.

Alright, took a bit more time to check your references and I stand corrected. There is still a mention of gas powered cars in the design docs of van buren regarding Denver, but it remains to be seen how much of that will be lore once bethesda is done picking out what it likes.

I do still think there's an inconsistent glut of the rarer tech in fo3, but that's now an unrelated argument.

This isn't much of an inconsistency but Moira and Moriarty in Megaton both mention something about a few people coming out of Vault 101. Since Moira gave a resident armour from her store it must have been after Megaton was set up. The only time people entered or left the vault was in the brief period the Overseer allowed it, yet Megaton was founded by people trying to get into 101, something they could easily accomplish while it was open.

uhm.... what now?

megaton was established long before anyone from vault 101 went outside.
so while it might have been built by the people who wanted to get into vault 101, those people are long gone now.
the residents of megaton no longer seem to care about getting into the vault.

the only thing i find inconsistent with this situation though is the fact that people in the D.C. wasteland know so much about the vaults.
everyone seems to know that your a vault dweller and they can tell so even when you are in full power armor.
(i think the pipboy must give you away, then again how do those people know what a pipboy is either.)

oh well i'll just accept the fact that all people in bethesda games are powerful psykers able to pick up and send signals around the globe.
making sure everyone knows everything unless it would make things to easy for the player

I agree with you here. It seems in all of Bethesda's games NPCs are omnicient unless they're scripted not to.

And also people in Megaton never seemed to bother me about how to get in 101 so I'll agree with you there too.

Enclave does not recruit from the outside. Everyone in the Enclave was born in the Enclave.

so that just goes to show that the enclave might have many more bases all over america with a strong military presence.

It is more than likely. Their preservation points toward secret government Vaults separate from the 122 public Vault-Tec Vaults. And considering Vault-Tec was hired by the government, or could have even been a government division itself, it would be no surprise if they had plenty of preservation shelters throughout the US. There is even rumor that they're preserved throughout the world, though whether this is pre-war or post-war is arguable. But the Enclave will have moved to secure the last of the new world's resources after the great war.

Indeed. Given Post-Apocolypse planning in the real world didnt have a single shelter for the entire government, or even close. Some Real world Uk plans that I've been able to find puts 3 senior parelementarians in a shelter per region.

Besides, if you planned for a single shelter, and it was compromised, that would really be it - which is pretty poor planning.

All of these things you are saying mess with the lore are gameplay features, and have nothing to do with lore.

Lore helps guide certain gameplay and immersion decisions though. There is no reason why gameplay cannot adhere to lore. This is not always a hindrance, it can always be an improvment if implemented and worked with carefully enough. That is my opinion at least.

You think a nation-wide conspiracy group would have only ONE base?

Did you see any manufacturing facilities on the Rig, or in Navarro, that could account for those Vertibirds? 'cause I sure don't recall seeing a vehicle factory.


The BoS may have a lot of computer know-how and military-related know-how. But could they design an airplane? A submarine? A television camera? That knowledge, and a lot more, can be found in .... books.

Well it's known that the Enclave is indeed routed in more than just more place, even moreso than what we know simply from the activity in both the west and the east. And whilst there was no 'vehicle factory' there's an indication that a portion of vertibirds could have been manufactured in Navarro, there were blueprints there afterall, though this could be deduced to maintenance tasks, but there's no reason to discount that a few 'birds were manufactured there. There's also alot of the Oil rig we don't see.

I don't think books would contain the bluerints necessary to create a fully crafted and tangible aircraft, Vertibirds were made possible from the already exsisting prototypes and blueprints alike. The same would be required for the production of a successful airplane, provided they have the equipment to support the effort, truth is that technology wouldn't be so useful to a shattered civilisation, which is probably why the Enclave only saw it fit to secure prototypes for Vertibirds.

Lenny in Fallout 2 could wear armor, even if he was almost completely useless. :bolt:

Also, if you came to Necropolis too late and the Super Mutants killed everyone, you could loot Set's body. In addition to his combat shotgun (and pack of cigarettes), didn't he have a leather jacket on him or something? Either way, his Talking Head certainly looked to me like he had some sort of armor on...

Are we still on this?

Lenny was an inconsistency as far as I'm concerned, he's the only ghoul in the originals that can wear armour (or chooses to). Set wore no armour, his talking head was misleading at the very least, and even so it only shows a flimsy helmet, nothing tangible.

Yes, but it's more likely the result of them not having time for creating additional sprites for ghouls in armor, not because they decided that ghouls should not be able to.

Lets not go there... We already had the mechanics vs lore argument, and it wasnt pretty.

Then why, may I ask, do super mutants have inherent armour characteristics in both the originals? Some of them are sprited as wearing 'armour' but the values still behave differently to the sprites. A bare mutant can behave as if they're wearing combat armour, or a leather jacket, the same as the armoured mutants can behave as if they're wearing a different type of armour than the sprite suggests. I know muties probably have a natural DR, but I don't see why this couldn't have been psuedo-applied to ghouls if it went so far as a sprite issue. NPCs don't change their sprites when you equip them with armour (was fixed with the RP) but they can still wear armour nonetheless. Ghouls would have still been able to wear armour without needing to affect their sprite, if they could wear it in the first place.


Well, it wasn't that bad, it was pretty civil as I remember it

If it's actually somehow canon that Ghouls couldn't wear armor - isn't that in itself an inconsistency in need of fixing?

I mean, they're humanoid (well, mutated humans, so...) and there's no reason I can think of why they shouldn't be able to. It's not like I ever came across some sort of Ghoul taboo against wearing armor. If a Ghoul is scrounging the Wasteland and comes across a useful piece of armor that's roughly his size - canon aside, is there actually any concievable reason he shouldn't be able to put it on? They're not like Supermutants, they're just as intelligent as any other human out there, it's not like they wouldn't be able to figure out how to put on a Leather jacket. And unlike Supermutants, there's not a size issue to overcome - if my PC can pick up and wear any sort of armor I come across, I can't see any reason why a Ghoul wouldn't be just as capable of it.

I guess I don't understand the problem with Ghouls wearing armor. Saying that it shouldn't be just because it wasn't possible in the original games doesn't cut it for me. If that's the case, then I'm glad they "broke" that in Fallout 3 - it just makes more sense. I'm all for trying to stay consistent with existing canon, but not if it's well, frankly stupid, and doesn't make sense in the first place.

Yeah, I mean hey - it's a subjective thing. None of those arguments really carry it for me, though. They're as much a rationalization as anything I could come up for why Ghouls should be wearing armor. If you don't feel they should have armor, you're going to rationalize a reasoning why that makes sense. If you feel otherwise, you're going to do the same thing.

For myself, I would imagine that if you can carry and effectively aim a gun, it stands to reason you have enough musculature and skeletal structure left on your body to support some armor. If you're already a lurching cripple, then I don't really see how a couple scraps of armor are going to slow you down all that much. If you're falling apart so badly that armor is going to be so unwieldly as to be impractical, then you're really not going to pose much of a threat in the first place - and you're likely a poor fit for an enemy in a videogame.

It could concievably be painful enough to discourage a Ghoul from wearing armor, but then it would stand to reason that clothes of any sort would have the same effect. Bandages and wrappings would be more practical in that case than clothes or going au natural - but the Ghouls in the original games are all depicted as wearing rags; which would only serve to aggravate open sores and wounds if we were to take that path. It stands to reason there's a layer of padding underneath most armor types to begin with to prevent normal chaffing on a regular human - the same would be effective for a Ghoul as well.

If I were a Ghoul, I'd welcome a good set of Leather Armor to help protect what little remains of my flesh, and help keep bits of me from falling off when I bump into things the wrong way. I might need to make some modifications to ensure a good tight fit, but that's not at all out of the ordinary in a post-apocalyptic setting. Every item of armor in the game is a cobbled-together mish-mash from a variety of sources. I figure it's kind of a given that my PC is making modifications to the clothing and armor he finds to make it fits right - the same would apply just as well to a Ghoul (or even a Supermutant to a certain extent, I'd think.)

That there's no real common ground to be found here just points that there likely is no "right" answer to this. Fallout 1 and 2 didn't specifically illustrate armored Ghouls (though there was also nothing in the game that specifically mentioned anything about them not,) so that was "right" for that game. In Fallout 3 they do, so that's "right" for that game. It makes sense to me, but that's just my opinion.

Well the rationalisation that ghouls 'should' be wearing armour, in instances like in Necropolis and Gecko (pressure from the Master's army and Vault City respectively) is why I questioned the reasoning in the first place. And it's true, ghouls wouldn't pose much of a threat in any case, but a gun in the hands of a ghoul will still hurt as much as if a perfectly healthy human pulled the trigger also, the gun is the 'great equaliser' afterall, I'd say if this is all a ghoul can do, then it's the best thing they can do. I also think rags and armour offer a greater deal of difference to a ghoul, rags if anything would have to be changed/discarded regularly, possibly even incorporated into the rotting flesh if neglected. Armour, whilst designed for comfort with the best intent, I think would still provide a number of difficulties for a ghoul, a tight fit is only a tight fit until the aggravated flesh falls away underneath, and ironicaly, it is precisely a tighter fit that would intensify that problem in the first place. I think the problem of perspiration is also more complicated when you consider the aspect of rotting flesh, I'd imagine ghouls need to be 'aired' regularly in order to prevent the moisture becoming too much of a problem and making their flesh any more loose and ready to drop than it already is, and again, ironically, a tight fitting armour would only exacerbate the problem.

I also use the originals as more of a comparison, because I find FO3 is typical of alot of consistencies, and as such I don't pay as much attention to the details addressed. In this instance, I am more than happy to contest ghoul anatomy in FO3.

Well, I hadn't really been arguing that they should have been wearing armor in Necropolis and Gecko, only that I didn't see why they couldn't have.

Absence of proof not being proof of absence and all that. Simply because Ghouls aren't portrayed as wearing loads of armor in Fallout 1 and 2 doesn't necessarily mean there's any particular canonical evidence that they aren't perfectly capable of doing so. At best, it only proves that the Ghouls you ran into in F1/2 didn't wear armor of any kind. There's no real proof to extrapolate anything beyond that apart from rationalizing each of our own preferences.

Seeing no Ghouls wearing armor in the original games and then concluding that Ghouls can't utilize armor isn't logically any different than playing a game that takes place in the North Pole where everyone wears Winter Coats and then for the sequel saying there's a flaw in the canon because no one wears cold-weather clothing, even though the second game takes place in the Tropics. If at any point in the original games I had come across a Ghoul saying "Gee, I sure wish I could wear that Leather Armor - too bad I'm a Ghoul..." I wouldn't be having this discussion.

It could be quite uncomfortable for a Ghoul to be running around wearing layers of armor - doesn't necessarily mean that the temporary discomfort might not be worth the added protection at times. It's not like there's any real reason they have to be permanently welded into the armor they decide to wear, or anything like that. And as far as Fallout 3 goes, armored Ghouls are still generally the exception to the rule. It's only the more violent-minded Ghouls you see so-equipped - they could be specifically gearing up for a battle (deciding that a few hours' discomfort is worth the added protection,) or only don such equipment when combat looks likely. It's not specifically shown, but I also never see my PC going to the bathroom, yet it's less of a stretch to assume that's happening at some point than concluding that because my character doesn't urinate he must have been surgically altered to bypass such a need.

Anyway - it's still just a matter of opinion. There's no conclusive evidence either way, between the two game types, on this specific issue. All we know in Fallout 1 and 2 is that Ghouls don't wear armor - there's never any explanation about why that is so. So it's "canon" in the earlier ones - at best - that in those instances where you ran into Ghouls they either had decided not to, or were unable to wear armor. In Fallout 3 their interpretation of the canon is that Ghouls can do so (because there is no canon-specific evidence that says otherwise.) Looking at the spectrum of Ghouls you run into, it's still the exception to the rule, for any number of reasons likewise not explained.

To conclude - I don't see how it's specifically against the Fallout canon to have Ghouls wearing armor. Just because they didn't appear to in the original games doesn't logically point to any evidence that they were unable to.