Boston appears to be more heavily populated than the Capital Wasteland, so there may simply be one or two abandoned empty vaults explaining Boston's population.....however I do expect some crazy ass experiment vaults as well.

I am wondering how much of Boston's population is made up of people and how many are androids.

One Thing that Allways bothered me is that you seem immune to the experiments. You dont grow fungi, you dont become another Gary. No matter how Long you Are exposed. I spent a week in the Gary and white noize musicians vaults, with no effects perks or marks .

Some of these vaults should have an effect on you and your psyche. Its easily done via perks, so why not?

Would be great indead to have bigger vault, better written, that make sense with the social experiment thing (and not a vault meant to kill everyone), that isn't full or Gary or lunatic vault dweller 250 years after the war, with logs of some interesting stories, on top of the concept of the vault itself, and last but not the least, less vault if they make a continuous gameworld. It makes no sense to have 10 vaults at a walking distance from each other.

It would also be nice to have some vaults that worked as intended, where left by the original population, and then repopulated/repurposed by new inhabitants that settled in decades after.

I love puzzles, and prefer them in my dungeons, but I don't expect them to be crazy in vaults. Keep the puzzles for hideouts run by bandits or if they are in vaults make sure the habitant who were there set up traps for whatever reason. It'd have to make sense. As far as vaults are concerned, I just want them varied and to have their own identity. Hopefully the level design is very good with scattered notes and terminals buried within rubble and of that nature. Sense of discovery feels great.

Well the vault at the strip in NV fits the bill. Same would an vault taken over by raiders for that sake. Pretty much like lots of the dungeons in TES are taken over by other long after the original users has left.

This adds another option have the overseer AI try to protect the now empty vault from the new users, to make it interesting they are a neutral faction like non hostile ghools.

Your objective is to get some item or data inside the vault, who faction to help?

Master's plan wasn't nonsensical, nor was Enclave's.

Master wanted to unify the people of the wasteland under one idendity to get rid of humans working against one another because of superficial differences.

Enclave believed that if "humanity" is to recover then they need a clean slate so that they can work towards restoring the world in peace without mutants interfering(?).

Both, ultimately, ended up being quite sinister and evil. But they were hardly nonsensical.

Yeah, but honestly I think it is about time to pull back the curtain and reveal at the very least 'some' info about 'why' Vault Tec performed experiments that would be detrimental/harmful/lethal to the inhabitans of those vaults. I mean, we have a vault where political parties have to sacrifice someone to robots. Ok. Why? Why was this experiment created and for what reason? There was a vault where a constant white noise caused the inhabitants to go crazy. Ok, why? Surely they must have performed some sort of test on mice or something beforehand and saw how harmful it could be and they decide to do it to thousands of humans in a vault? Why?

Vault 12, I get. It was simply designed so that Vault Tec could observe what exactly happens to the people inside when the vault door failed to close, if they lost contact with another vault after the great war then this could be one of the reasons and at least they'd have the research data of Vault 12 to know what might've happened and whether or not it is worth to try and restablish contact or even find this vault later on. As well as to observe how radiation from the bombs would affect the people. Now while the latter is inhumane it isn't nonsensical as Vault Tec would be very keen on knowing just how people from other vaults might be affected if they became affected by the same amounts of radiation.

Vault 15, I get. It was simply meant to see how people of extremely different ideologies and cultures would work together. It wasn't any more sinister than that. And in the end the collapse of the vault was because of the inhabitants themselves.

Vault 8, I get. The point was to see how a community, once given incentive to go out, would establish themselves in the post-apocalyptic world.

Vault 21, I get. The inhabitants were given a means of how to settle disputes, gambling, and whatever followed would be from their own choices.

Vault 22, I get. A scientific vault, simply meant to continue researach.

Vault 87 even, I get. Same as before, except less humane with its research.

There are vaults I can totally see the point behind but there are others that just feel ridiculous in their design. Cartoonishly sinister. Only vault from the original games that could be argued that it was "cartoonishly sinister" is Vault 12. Ultimately though, I'm left wondering 'why?' with everyone of these vaults, even the ones that make sense. What is the purpose?

Sure, there are times for mystery in a setting, but we're 5 games in and we're going to get our sixth this year probably. It is time to toss the fans of the lore a bone, even if it is just a single bone from a hand or a foot. Maybe if they gave us a vague explanation for the reason behind the vaults the nonsensial ones would be so nonsensical. But I fail to see, at the moment, how whoever is in charge of the vaults (if they're still around to begin with) is going to gain anything worth a damn from the cartoonishly sinister vaults.

IIRC one of the lore-bits from Fallout Van Buren was that the people behind Vault Tec were going to use a spaceship to travel to a different planet or something far far away and they needed to know every possible scenario that could play out while onboard the ship that could prevent their journey from being finished. Now while this plan is silly to me at least it'd explain a bunch of things. What if a part of the spaceship started leaking radiation? Vault 12. How would people of vastly different backgrounds work together? Vault 15. WHat would happen if the radio's and speakers on the ship started emitting a white noise and what if that white noise carried subliminal messages, would it help control the citizens on the spaceship? Vault 92.

I don't think the spaceship is the best idea to make sense of the vaults but at least it is 'some' kind of explanation for why Vault Tec would perfrom certain sinister experiments 'at all'.

*sigh*

TL : DR

I want an explanation for why the sinister vaults are not nonsensical in the first place. Preferably by giving us some answers behind the motives of Vault Tec creating these vaults in the first place as the current answer of "vaults were never meant to save anyone" is a crap answer. We're on the sixth game, it's time to answer some of the mysteries.

Because a vault is an equivalent to a regular cave or a deteriorating ruin.

Ok

While I agree about making the vaults less cartoonishly EVIL, I don't believe we should ever get an asnwer about why they are that way.

The likelihood that a Vault-Tec or Enclave higher-up just left the notes explaining the "master plan" behind on a terminal, or some sort of note, is silly. Logically, the likelihood that any of the game's player characters would stumble on "masterplan.txt" is so low as be effectively zero.

Well, that's why it won't just be on a random terminal. Instead, we find the vault responsible for monitoring the other vaults (but it is still not the head-vault, it is still an experiment), and this vault's purpose is to monitor how the other vaults fare and send their collected data forward to the head-vault. In these notes for various vaults we'd get a peek as to what the monitor vault is looking for but it is never explicitly stated. It is always written down as if 2 people are talking about something they find obvious and you're listening in on their conversation trying to make sense of the pieces of information you gather. Kinda like a 80 year old overhearing two 15 year olds talk about some game or something. That's how the notes would be formated so that we get a peek as to what they were looking for with certain vaults but we don't know the ultimate purpose for the research that is sent to the head-vault or why they need it. That can wait a couple of games.

Now the monitoring vault itself is an experiment of course. And the head-vault is likely watching them as well. Imagine if your job is to watch horrible things happen to other people, how would that affect you? Knowing you can't leave the vault or abandon your post? How would you feel being a fly on the wall of unsuspecting people and watching their most intimate moments with one another? The personal diaries of the people of the monitor vault would be very interesting to read through.

Not in response to you, AwesomePossum. Just a rant:

With the populous of the area, vaults in theory would need to be quite large to accommodate. Given the scale, DC in FO3 should have depicted this a bit better. I'm with the OP, how bout interconnecting vaults, vaults leading to underground tunnels, railways, etc. Vault 87 is a good example, though the brats of lamplight were a bit much at times.

Same goes for all the underground areas, sewers and bunkers alike. I'd be more than happy to get lost for hours in them with threat levels that mimic those in some of the survivor horror games of late with the appropriate ambiance. Alien Isolation, Last Light come to mind with a low tolerance for poor judgement, with passive warnings of course. Toss in some Metro 2033 for good measure.

Some areas need to be just brutal to traverse imho, at any level, but balanced in the risk vs. reward dept. I enjoyed the Moira NPC in FO3, and wouldn't mind more of those types of quest(s) with difficulties that were exponential. Not just fetch quests, but rather a cumulative approach that resulted in a significant perk for those that took the time to completed it.

Thinking more about this, I also enjoyed the dark corners of the earth element as well. Little nuggets / jewels you find exploring the wasteland in detail, covering meter by meter the entire explore-able world.

It's all good and I'm very much looking forward to this next installment...

I like the idea, but I just kinda feel like that would be redundant with Vault 0 and the Oil Rig's ability to monitor all the vaults itself.

Well, Enclave (the government) had a deal with Vault Tec so obviously they'd want to monitor the stuff as well, but we don't know what Vault Tec's own goal behind it was so they'd want a private vault for monitoring it instead of having to relay data through the Enclave.

And Vault 0... The brain vault? Well, if there are multiple control vaults there might be multiple (or at the very least 2 or 3 in case on of them fails, which Vault 0 eventually did as it was conquered) monitoring vaults. Maybe we need to revisit Vault 0 in Fallout Tactics 2, get a bit more detail about it.

I don't think Vault-Tec had a goal themselves, they were just doing what their masters The Enclave told them.

At least, I don't recall anything that suggested Vault-Tec had their own motive beyond "because we basically are just another branch of le Enclave"

No idea myself either. I knew they were in cahoots but I have no idea about anything beyond that.

:-D

hey, you can try my donkey king mod, if you still play skyrim and feel like a beating ,-)

it's what the whole fallout thing is about anyway. if it's not, like, cartoonish, it's not fallout...

Fallout 1 wasn't particularly cartoonish.

...in humour, not in art style

Again, I'd say Fallout 1 wasn't particularly cartoonish.

Besides, vaults aren't meant to be humorous.

/buzzkill

I liked the idea that Vault Tec had their own motives as well. They're a multibillion dollar company and would likely be incredibly influential. Considering the economy would be fragmented in the event of a nuclear war they would logically have motives beyond monetary gain (since there wouldn't be any monetary gain).

I agree there are some that make sense. Like I said: The new vaults that we will inevitably see should have experiments that actually make sense and would be beneficial to the repopulation of the human race.

Many of them should be simple experiments with common societal issues such as the gap in economical opportunity that you brought up (poor and rich sections). I would find such an experiment to be incredibly interesting because it's such a relatable (sp?) issue in America and what I would assume to be the rest of the world as well.

I would also like to see experiments based on hierarchical rating systems like those evidenced throughout human history.

There are innumerable societal issues that can be intelligently approached in the series and that would make sense in context to the series.

Precisely, there are many lore issues that need to be addressed by the development team. This extends far beyond the the current vault issue as I'm sure we can both agree.

Like you said it's something. I dunno how precise it is, but the wiki mentions that the spaceship and colonization of another planet was in the event of Earth being uninhabitable. So these vaults should serve a dual purpose: For repopulation and rebuilding of a nuclear wasteland and colonization of another planet.

IF they were indeed planning on the colonization of another planet then there SHOULD be several more advanced GECK units that would allow the terraforming of larger regions on another planet untouched by humanity. It should also incorporate seed packets and advanced agricultural techniques for farming and plant life as well as animals for food.

Wasn't the vault with the white noise a test to create super soldiers for the military?

Can we just have one massive vault with a really, really good story?

Puzzles would be great but im not sure about vaults being too big. i get lost in them as it is.

Vault 34 in NV was awful until you got the hang of it.

You're thinking Skyrim dungeons with button traps on the floor where darts shoot out the walls when you run over the button. That's why I referenced Vault 22 as an example of a good puzzle.

The part where you have to ignite the gas and find the quickest way out before being scorched to a crisp. There was nothing silly about the events that lead up to having to ignite the gas. Situational circumstances like that are great and add more to the experience than just blasting your way to the end and hacking computers.

There are many ways to provide more dungeon navigational challenges without spiked gates slamming in your face or iron maces swinging on your head when you open a treasure chest. Fallout vaults were designed with sinister purposes to keep people from escaping. Bethesda can use this ideology to add more to vault venturing than just running and gunning to the next room.

Vault 3 where you had to figure out how to swim to the weapon storage lockers underwater without drowning was another example of a good navigational challenge. You could completely skip going the weapon storage. Though if you wanted the loot, you had to find a way through.

pffff.... "dogmeat"? "pip boy"? the master? c'mon... )

Vaults should not have puzzles (although a Vault that somehow forced their residents to solve puzzles for experimental reasons. Like to get food or a spouse or whatever could be interesting.

But, other than that one, the rest should have obstacles and things you have to deal with as you get past. All tied to some story. Most will probably be enemies, but locks, sequences of events, traps, complicated paths, unlocking a story etc etc. That is what a Vault should be about.

Maybe we even find a vault or two that never had anyone it, but something else interesting moved in later. The story is about them or it.