I couldn't find this discussion on forums, it probably is somewhere and I'm just terrible at navigating the forum. I keep on noticing that PipBoys look like overly large wristwatches, but what if you had different sort of model in the games? Like one that took up your entire forearm and had a series of additional screens with a slideout interface for navigating or one that had a helmet and forced you slide a set of dials on the sides of your head with wires going to an array of button on your arm. Anyone care to give their 2 bottlecaps/cents

There have been other mentions of alternate pip boys, going back to the 2000 series and even making it into more of a PDA model. I see no reason to make the Lone Wanderer or Vault Dweller into a Borg from Star Trek. I like the pip boy design so much i wear my I phone strapped to my wrist like a pip boy.true story.

I think that the Bethesda Pipboy was well done (as a 3d model), and actually followed the series fairly close; (except for the whole "Not used for inventory wth? " part). But I never liked the form-factor. I didn't like it in VanBuren either... See the problem comes from the pipboy 2000 seeming like this: http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Pipboy2000_by_Equilerex.jpg

(a Fan interpretation) in Fallout 1 & 2; but technically it was described as a wrist mounted computer ~even http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Pipboy_mistake.jpg...

Which does not at all seem like http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/PipBoy20001_zps83d02c43.png.

I know it's not lore friendly but the pip boy should be replaced with a super smart phone from the future that was stolen through use of a interdimensional portal at the beginning of the next game

Why wouldn't it be lore friendly?

I like the chunky pipboy its the lore, and without the lore Fallout wouldn't be such a great universe.

Maybe let us upgrade throughout the game/ get a choice.

I think a small thin "i phone" would look just out of place.

Most stuff like that is big and bulky in fallout, from what i have noticed.

I don't think it would be out of place at all. They could have video cell phones, but I don't know if they would still be working, with no maintenance of the towers or satellites after the war. But if such existed... it would probably be Vault-Tec brand, and so probably access Posiedo-net locally. From what I understand, the Enclave had access to any device on their network ~including the player's pipboy if they bothered to look for it.

Idk if this is in-game, but i always figured FO tech never developed the microchip the way we have it. So the bulky retro-techno shapes of the tech came from all the vacuum tubes and the like. Also, thats one reason why the platinum chip in NV is so special.

Whether that is true or not (likely not), imo an iphone style PIPboy would ruin the visual style of the game. It would simply look out of place to me.

I just had a thought. What if you start with a bulky PipBoy? Something that takes up most of your forearm like I mentioned above, then you find Pipboy schematics for the more efficent compact models and few manufacturing facilities for PipBoys where you can build the newer models and upload all your data to new version, it will allow for customization on whole new level, of course you'll probably have to scrounge for PipBoy components near the facility and maybe even canibilize the older models you are not using. Although I think that might be a bit too labor intensive for some players, especially since you probably won't be able to build a new PipBoy with all that if don't hav the appropriate skills and skill levels. Although it would be cool to actually transition through PipBoy evolution as you progress through the game, and maybe even develop your own PipBoy design and put it into practice.

There is one flaw to cell phone size pip boy.

"I'd kick your butt in V.A.T.S right now Legate, but your lucky I dropped my cell phone climbing the tower in hoover damn. So I guess it's old school!!"

Like i said i wear my phone like a pip boy and because of that i have never dropped it.

I like this idea. I always wanted some pip boy improvements like a better light, better maps and a better system to keep info orderly. Might be neat if all the versions of the pip boy were available with different benefits and characteristics and designs and the player could seek out and choose his preferred version.

I just hope they get rid of that Pip-Boy glove. I always the console to delete it because I much prefer the various armors' default gloves.

some of the weapons remove gloves as well, I do wish we could adjust that sort of thing w/o a pc.

You, and other console players, need to get on microsoft and sony's butts about it. Thats the only modding is ever going to come to consoles. Make sure to mention the extra revenue from system exclusive mice and keyboards:)

Sure the inventory is one thing, but the ability to provide you the location of your goal even when they are unknown buy the quest giver, and the ability to teleport into known location by pressing a button of the pipboy are far more immersion breaking IMO...

I have no qualms with map travel; none at all*. The problem I have is that I cannot pick a point on the map and travel there unless I've trudged there on foot beforehand.
Fallout 1 & 2 didn't have this problem. The other problem IMO is that Bethesda's implementation of map travel is broken, and has been for multiple games. There needs to be checks at choke-points in the terrain, and at least the slightest chance that someone will attack the PC on the trip; (dropping them on the map in the correct mid-point, for fight or flight).

* For myself and many others, immersion does not depend upon a realtime stream-of-consciousness presentation of the game world (in FPP or otherwise), and so abstract travel mechanics are seen as a boon rather than bane to the experience. I'd find the game tedious as hell if I actually had to trod along yard by yard in first person just to return to a doctor, or sell scrap to merchants; or plod through the subways ~which I liked(!), but once cleared of an active threat, see no reason to explore twice/thrice/ and more... preferring instead to have the game handle the trek; with an assumed walk (and ideally, announce any ambushes if they happen; fight the fight (if it's a fight), and then continue onward from the map interface).

The thing is that it could hardly be considered as abstract.

The pip-boy is a lore-wise device, actually offered to you by an actual character, and referred by many others.

So the buttons and options should be considered as the actual buttons and options of the device.

Many of these options makes sense and are aknowledged by other characters.

For instance, you meet Reilly rangers in Underworld and she ask you to rescue her friends.

By looking of your DC map, she is able to add the coordinates of the location in which her rangers were last seen, so you can save them.

You know where they were, but not if they're still alive, and not how to go there.

Afterward, you can sell information from your map to Reilly, so the device is fully aknowledged once again.

But not all quests provide you enough information to add the coordinates of your goals into the Pib-Boy.

Also, the instant-travel button, not only does it prevent dev for thinking of better way to handle actual fast-travel (by car, train, caravans, other transportations), or put more carefull thought on the local areas, and their relationships with each other, but also works as an in-universe instant travel system, as you can end up in some locations, in the same time or even before some npcs you seen leave before you (Mister Crowley toward Fort Constantine, Dad toward Rivet City, slaves toward Lincoln Memorial), by only pushing a button on your device.

Yet, your father, that have the same device, doesn't bother to use teleportation when he leaves vault 117, and nobody seems to aknowledge this ability.

Sometimes in the devellopement process, they clearly mixed up a lore-wise device and a gameplay feature.

PS: I also find convenient to teleport in places i don't want to go through again, but the cost for that feature is too high, at least in the way they implemented it.

Why are you equating fast travel to teleportation? It is merely a function that represents you traveling to a place- not actual teleportation.
Think of it this way. When you equip an item through your pip boy, is your pip boy physically equiping the item? no. its just used as an interface for actions of this type of capacity.

I do agree that it shouldn't necessarily place your arrival ahead of others that are traveling with you, but you do accrue time in fast travel.

We talked about the issue with items, that's not like we forgot it.

Indeed!

We are clearly talking abut different things. If we are not, then something is really odd about this then.

Abstract travel is simply the understanding that you pick a point on the map and the game resumes after the PC arrives at the location; as in...eventually they will arrive. No one really assumes it's instant travel ~do they? How could they?

No argument here; I don't see the point of this though... I certainly never implied that pip-boy itself was abstract.

Wait-a-minute... You're pulling my lanyard ~right? Got to be.

There is no teleportation in Fallout. Never was, never has been... Except once in FO2, during what might have been an hallucination of the PC.

All map travel is simply looking at the map (something you'd expect in a PDA), and deciding to travel there... however, just because the game [thank goodness!] does not force the player to sit through a several hour walk done by the PC, does not mean that it's meant as instant teleportation, or that anyone with a PDA can teleport from town to town ~that's nuts. No, it means that the PC set out for the destination, and we [as players] are (gratefully) spared the tedium of sitting through it as it happens; the game resumes after they arrive.

**On the odd chance that you disbelieve, try this: Start at Vault 101, look at the time (in-game); use the map to travel to Rivet City... look at the clock again (in game). About three hours will have advanced in game time, representing a three hour trek [on foot] by the PC from Vault 101 to Rivet City.

That's why i said they mixed up a lore-wise device with a gameplay convenience. (actually more if you count inventory and quest marker that miss lore-wise clues to lead you here)

A good part of that device is aknowledged by characters ingame, while some of its functions wouldn't make sense in the setting (those mentioned above) and aren't aknowledged.

IMO, they shouldn't have used the device to allow those things but keep it lore-wise only.

It make you wonder what other settings are supposed to be in lore or just for gameplay. (as there are less obvious than teleportation/inventory)

About the instant-travel concept on itself, once again, i don't take it as granted, as it causes (or make easier) multiple creative issues. But it may become off-topic.

But regardless this feature is good or bad, the way they implemented it is quite immersion threatening.

What functions though? For travel the player clicks on a destination, and puts [the pipboy] away. There is no 'travel' button. Travel is not a function of the Pipboy; all clicking on the location does is signify to the engine where the PC should walk to next. I do not understand the 'immersion' break. Do you mean that some players cannot accept what they do not witness first hand?

Ah yes, the beautiful and simply genius PipBoy. Yes there were many designs and as others have said here in 1&2 they were nowhere near as

delved into as it was in 3. If you are curious as to what some of the designs looked like you can find them there:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/47857688@N08/sets/72157629320774861/page5/

The dearly departed genius Adam Adamowicz was the concept artists for Fallout 3 and is responsible for a vast majority of the incredible and

interesting things that we saw in that game(and as a result NV). You can find the PipBoy designs about 2/3 of the way down the page, though

I do urge you to look at more than just that as his creations are quite beautiful and stunning.

Always figured that a military version of the PIP-Boy would be cool or even software/hardware upgrades for your skills... Doc Software +5 to Medicine