At first I thought the car in Fallout 3 was a hover vehicle, but in fact it is not after observing the cars in the game. The most incredible example of this was from tranquility lane created in the virtual reality simulation.

Here is a photo of a fully restored car: http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/8/83/Corvega_TL.jpg

I believe the car in Fallout 3 is related to the same car in the original games, Fallout 1 & 2. However I have never played both of those, but I did see the beginning intro for Fallout 1 and on the TV it had a advertisemant for the Highwayman. Now the designs look a quite different, however after looking on The Vault site I came across something explaining about this: There is a weapon in Fallout 3 known as Highwayman's Friend. This weapon is a reference to this vehicle as the weapon is a unique Tire Iron. I have always been so interested in how the city of Washington DC looked before the Fallout, but the only ideas we can get from is by exploring what is left of the city and imagining how it was before.

- Jack Conner

Not sure what the point of this thread would be but let me try to address the issues with out being a complete dike about it:

1) In FO2 you get a Highwaymen.

2) The reason the setting look the way it does has to do with the retro 1950's alternative time line meaning that its the way they thought the future would look like.

3) If you are interested in pre-war DC in the Fallout Universe look up old picture from around the 40's-50's and use your imagination.

I'm not sure WHAT this thread is actually meant for, as the last poster said, but the Fallout 3 car at least was based upon Ford Nucleon, a car idea Ford Motors began drawing in the 50-ies when everyone was convinced nuclear power was the energy of the future. They scrapped it though when they realized how heavy the car would have to be to protect passengers from radiation, even in a collision.

Well simply the thread is just me talking about the Fallout 3 car and see what ells will people add. I'm not asking for the the 10,000,000 question or anything just seeing what people say about it. The info you also add is really cool, so the Ford Nucleon: http://images.loqu.com/contents/264/903/image/2009-08-20/1.jpg

That car does look similar to the in-game one.

Yeah I get it dude, but Fallout world is still very different then our version of the 50's. I just would like to see the the "Fallout reality" before the Fallout.

Not really. Just add robots and lasers and you're on your way...

True.

At first I didn't see the point of this thread like the others, but we could get some interesting discussion if we shift from JUST the car to anything pre-war.


That's actually a pretty cool car =O
For a Ford anyway ;P


Could be an interesting project to get some people making a mod for that. If it's even possible. Use pictures of DC and the Fallout 3 layout of DC to create the area as it would have appeared just before the bombs were dropped. Pre-War mods ftw? Would be quite a large project for my first project but that's why these things require teams right? Maybe we can get some experienced modders to teach us as we go =D

That was a reference to you when gob says drunky.

When the very first time I played this game I thought the same thing that they were hover vehicles. But further study they looked like your typical 50s sedans. The one thing I've noticed is that they obviously use nuclear energy despite the obvious they blow up like a nuke, but the supposedly gas stations looks like recharge stations very similar of how they charge nuclear submarines.

That does pose a question of the pre-war society relied heavily on nuclear energy. And that bring up another question is if they relied on nuclear energy when the bombs dropped did that cause more damage

God a car running of nuclear energy man would I love to take it out for a spin

Fun Post

Yeah I kept asking my brother if they ever did a add-on in the Pre-War settings in Washington DC. It turns up not, but it would be very interesting....imagine those cars still driving around and seeing activity of people before the fallout took place. You would see Mister Handy's hovering around the place helping people out and so forth or Mister Gutsy would be on some patrol around the streets, or at a military post. People at theaters watching some of those movies advertise on paper posters, billboards and such...the drive in theaters would still be standing.

Also you could any have quests too, like you know those Mysterious Stranger guys...like there some type of goverment CIA agents....well you could have a quest that you are called by one of those guys to make a meeting. And your like a normal citizen living in Wastington DC right, well you get a phone call you meet up with the agent guy and he asigns you to a secret mission...something related to the Chinese invasion or the fear attack of the bombs hitting. And there can be many quests though out it, but then at one point near the end the fallout happens and you get to see in a first person view what all happens.

But the problem this makes, is bacisly that means making a whole other game and I don't know if Mods could go that far lol.

For as far as i know about the fallout universe the pre-war era was marked by an unprecendented energycrisis due to oil-stocks running out dramatically, which forced nations around the globe into inventing alternative energysources. The first and only nation to succed in this were the United States, who made nuclear fusion possible for commercial use. This however was a slow and costly proces, which only fully developed in and around the Washington D.C. area. As a result it was one of the very few areas in the country to have a fully nuclear powered ecnomy before the war. The war continued simply because oil was still a tremendously important product, evermore because China, the instigator of the war, was completely dependent of it. Furthermore there was also an ideological struggle between the two contries respectively between communism and capitalism. The United States Government was as well completely corrupted by the Enclave and did no longer strive for a solution of the problem by conventional war but rather by a massive cleansing that would wipe out communism, in the form of a nuclear holocaust. Which is exactly what occured just several years after nuclear fusion was introduced into society.

If the the Nuclear Holocaust caused more damage than a normal one would, because of the nuclear fusion technology used in various products is questionable. First of all, this technology wasn't very widespread but if we narrow the question down merely to D.C. it remains interesting. Still, i don't really know, it simply depends on the way physics work in the Fallout Universe. Radioation in the Fallout Universe for example, causes monstrous mutations whereas in our universe it merely kills almost every kind of DNA-based life.
Also if one were to shoot at a nuclear reactor core in our universe nothing would happen simply because of the lead surrounding the reactor, but in the the Fallout Universe cars explode after a few well-placed shots. The most accurate conclusion i can make is that it would in fact cause more damage, since the nuclear bombs in the fallout universe were of a relatively low-kiloton range wherein any surrounding combustable or explosive material would make a difference in damage proportion, in comparison to our nuclear arsenal from the cold war, which mainly consisted of higher kiloton and even megaton nuclear warheads that would simply oblitare and completely destroy everything in their way.

In a nutshell Fallout's world was the future predicted in 50's combined with bit more human fallability than 50's predictions had, then it was nuked.



Yield of weapons in real life is kinda two fold, there is relatively big warheads and very small ones. When it comes to numbers, in US and Russian arsenals there were tens of thousands of low yield tactical nuclear weapons, bigger strategic warheads peaked in about bit over 12 000 warheads per side in mid-80's. Megaton class warheads were eliminated from arsenals mostly before mid-80's, probably only really huge warhead still in service is one carried by SS-18 mod 3 (that is NATO designation of system, Russian designation is R-36MUTTh), it's yield is around 25 megatons. Few of those might still be in service, but unfortunately those are quite high list of weapons due to be replaced with Topol-M. It's sad to see that most powerful weapon system retired, R-36 rocket family was pretty awesome in it's capability, there was Fractional Orbital Bombardment version that could have used with across south pole trajectory, it could have been utilized with much less warning time as USA didn't have that complete radar network in south as it had in north. Real multiple warhead MIRV versions had 8 or 10 550 to 750kt warheads, there was another canceled variant that could have had up to 40 250kt warheads. Single missile that could destroy an country quite completely, it was canceled due to treaties that limited amounts of total warheads, it was strategically more sensible to build missiles with fewer warheads due to greater survivability in case of sneak attack.

Effects of nuclear weapons impact is not that well studied subject, it was studied a lot, but findings were often contradictionary. Houses were built on nuclear test sites, as were factories and even forests were set up in deserts. Still neither Soviets or US built a real town to blow up, due to costs. Fallout patterns after tests conducted in atmosphere varied a lot. Seemingly small details in weather might change outcome of nuclear strike a lot. Think about how much rain can absorb energy from nuclear detonations heat wave or how much of that same infrared spike gets reflected from snow cover. Totally flattened pictures from Hiroshima and Nagasaki also have few reasons why they aren't whole truth due to local conditions. Nagasaki was in valley and it made few parts of city to be hit by reflected pressure wave multiple times. Lot of buildings were constructed from wood, really huge part when it comes comparing with western cities and their architecture.

True effects of nuclear war would be horrible and reality is often more absurd than fiction. In 1983 when plenty of things were going off around world and risk of nuclear confrontation between east and west was at it's all time high. President Reagan studied actual estimations of effects of nuclear war only after three years of assuming office. Single Integrated Operational Plan was US basic nuclear warfare playbook, it included estimates on casualties in multiple different scenarios. Brutal reality in nuclear warfare is actually really brutal, US estimate for own civilian casualties in war with Soviets was about 150 million. Ironical is that it is the best case scenario, every thing in war goes as planned for Americans. Peachy, ain't it. One of funniest cold war damage estimations is what would happen to Boston in case of hit with 20 megaton warhead from early 60's, it hilarious when it comes to needed medical capability, each doctor would have had thousands of patients needing surgery in hours. Think about it, every surgeon would have to perform possibly thousands of surgical operations, each of those surgical operations could take hours and patients would be needing those possibly bit earlier than they are going to get it. Stuff is pretty close to division by zero.

Mutations do occur due to radiation, they just aren't extra limbs or scaled skin, those are more like downs syndrome or missing limb. Well, cancer is really most common mutation.

Yeah cars....

Highwayman from Fallout 2 had pretty similar looks with 1957-1959 Chrysler 300's, it probably explains lot about name of fictional one's manufacturer.

Yeah, you might say the alternative future the fallout producers constructed is slightly cynical. bliviongate:



Thanks for the info.



I agree on that, but in the end it wouldn't really matter what the precise effects would be, even if testresults deviate highly, in the event of a nuclear apocalypse i don't think much of the modern world would be left. I do wander though, what the effects on climate would be and if humanity or even life itself would survive. Has there been a topic on that subject yet?



Wasn't the alltime high on the possibily of nuclear war the cuban missile crisis of 1962? (I have even heard a story of a U.S. Nuclear submarine that was constantly bombed with depthbombs by the soviets, and insisted on using nuclear weapons on the soviet, a proposal which the government even took into serious consideration. I do not know however how much or even any of this is true).

Probably tensions were quite much same, but in fall 1983 there was much more firepower on both sides. Soviets had rather interesting operation going on called RYAN, it practically started with from assumption that NATO is planning sneak attack, that is slightly paranoid starting point. There was Petrov incident, that started when there were few odd clouds above US missile silos, Soviet recon satellite saw reflection of sunset from those clouds as nuclear missile launch. Lt colonel named Stanislav Petrov was duty officer monitoring that satellite system, he reasoned that US attack wouldn't be just few missiles from single missile base and determined it as malfunction. He disobeyed standing orders and whole operational procedure. He effectively had in his power to start immediate counterstrike, but luckily for us he didn't. His military career advancement stalled due to disobedience and he was first assigned to less sensitive duty where cannot cause more damage. He retired from military early due to post traumatic stress symptoms. KAL 007 incident. SDI. Able Archer. Pershing deployment starting.

Cuban missile crisis submarine was Soviet diesel-electric boat B-59, armed with nuclear torpedoes. US anti-submarine warfare task force enforcing US blockade of Cuba depth charged it with practice munitions, to force submarine to surface. Idea was basically same as in warning shots, but from underwater submarines point of view, it might be interpreted bit differently, as everything is based on sonar data of position of ships and practice depth charges might be real ones that are just aimed badly. It basically constituted as scenario where submarine commander had full right of self defense by any means necessary when it comes to standing orders. If that would have happened they could have attacked aircraft carrier USS Randolph and her escorts with tactical nuclear weapon. Weapon had triple security key system, captain, political officer and first officer of boat had to agree on deployment of nuclear device. First officer didn't agree on using it, captain and political officer wanted to use nuke. First officer was Vasili Arkhipov.

Tensions and events were pretty similar on both cases, but for odd reason called media coverage Cuban missile crisis is much more widely known. Both sides had false alarms on nuclear strike, most of US screw ups are just still classified, most Russian cases were declassified after fall of Soviet Union. At least one known US case from 1979 was also quite interesting. NORAD had three primary computer systems that fed itself and other military command posts. One systems was in use and couple others were backups, that were also used on training. Normally computers there were at least one backup available all the time. After exercise they forgot to clear memories on computer system, it had simulated data that indicated full scale attack happening. That computer was switched to duty system and early warning system operators on all HQ's connected to early warning system had little unwanted stuff going on their screens. Plenty of units were ordered on immediate action preparations, ie bombers getting airborne. Situation was basically minutes away from full scale US retaliatory launch before it was realized that attack data is actually coming from simulation. As result physical safeguard was installed on computers that prevented switch to operational while system testing or training tapes are present on system.

I knew that



That's interesting, hadn't heard this before.



I had heard about this one as well, but as for the first case as well i initially thought the cuban missile crisis was more on the verge then any other event. But having reconsidered it i conclude that the cuban missile crisis was much closer to nuclear war in terms of political tensions rather then the misinterpretations made by launch-warning systems, since those near triggers of nuclear war were purely of a technical nature whereas during the cuban missile crisis the chance of nuclear war was massively heightened in a political nature. There have in fact been 83 of those misinterpretations by launch-warning systems if i'm right. But those are more independent of political stability. Technical errors can take place all the time, but pose a bigger threat in crisistimes, for they are more likely to be judged positively as a genuine nuclear attack, resulting in full retaliation and thus nuclear holocaust. Now i'm not completely aware of the precise political tensions between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R during the Petrov event, but overall i think we can place that event second after the cuban missile crisis and the other 82 technical faillures after that, simply because of the related political tensions which makes the probability of nuclear war higher.

Petrov event was technical malfunction, but RYAN and rest of Soviet paranoia was misinterpretations by whole Soviet intelligence apparatus and political leadership. Primary difference is that late 1983 was collection of smaller things that piled up and led to highest readiness level on Soviet side during whole cold war. Due to lack of solid intel sources west didn't have much knowledge about Soviet nuclear forces readiness level. Result was Cuban missile crisis where west didn't know that it was going on, during Cuban missile crisis both sides knew that it was going on. Basically situation got as tense as it got for lot of smaller things, deployment of Pershing II gave US military very accurate missile with reasonably powerful war head, weapon very well suited to blow up command bunkers. Essentially Soviet time to respond in case of attack dropped to less than six minutes, it means effectively they had to determine is detected attack real one before they can actually verify it as it takes couple of minutes off that time. Similarity between Cuban missile crisis is pretty similar, but early mid-range missiles Soviet deployed didn't have needed accuracy to destroy hardened targets like missile silos and by doing that eliminate most of US nuclear forces.

Yeah i agree on the soviet propaganda paranoia, that could indeed equal the tensions that existed on both sides during the cuban missile crisis. I think whe shoud consider them equally near to a nuclear holocaust.



Well no, but even then the soviet SS-4's that were stationed on cuba were armed with 3 megaton nuclear warheads, which could have taken out a significant percentage of the U.S. bomberbases and kill 80.000.000. americans. The missiles would only take 5 minutes to reach their targets.

Nuclear Apocalypse,

You got also realize the story line of Fallout is still very limited to most of these so called facts we talk about, and I'm not saying all them are not true but I really think some of it is made up facts about the Fallout universe. Now I'm not a Fallout historian, but you are right about the oil-stocks running out dramatically....according from this video I watched on youtube of the Fallout 1 into: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_srLsECzGY

The guy says this in the video: "Petroleum and Uranium. For these resources, China would invade Alaska" the US would annex Canada, and blah blah blah a big nuclear war starts."

So I guess what I'm saying, a lot these facts are interesting but things like the Fallout bible or so forth sometimes it seems to me, people put in extra facts that are not true but based on their own options. However, I do realize a lot of it is fact based off in-game history data base....like example the data you read on computers in the DC area have history facts sometimes. So I agree a lot is based of Fallout fans, and the resources they have gotten over playing the three Fallout games. But the fact still reminds that you can only get what was written in the Fallout story line, that is real facts..and the story line to me doesn't always seem that detailed all the time also, on the other hand sometimes it is. But I guess what I'm saying is, you can only get the slightly facts of the Fallout universe that was written in the story.

Like in that youtube link there of the intro for Fallout 1, I can only take the little bit the guy explains in the intro and take that as history...the rest people can make up. And yes the Fallout universe is all based on the minds of the people in 50's era, and their ideas of the world of tomorrow. Gees I any watched a video sometime back, and it was a kids educational cartoon made called Duck and Cover lol....sounds like Fallout world....well thats where the creators of the Fallout games got there ideas from.

Also watch this video called Duck and Cover (Duck and Cover where those books you pick up to read): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixy5FBLnh7o

@ Jack Corner

I'm not exactly sure to which of my posts your are replying but the latter of my discussion with dmokun was about the events in history at which we were the closest to Nuclear War. If you are replying to my first post then i must point you to the page "divergence" as well as the pages "Fallout Storyline" and "Great War" on the Fallout Wikia. Those are the main sources of the theory i put up in my first post in this topic. I think that i am pretty well aware of the events preceding the Nuclear Holocaust in the Fallout Universe as well as most of its history.

Yeah your first post, well no need to get deference...I'm not saying your wrong but just that I don't always trust everyones facts until I see it for myself....Its just how I am. Thanks, I will have to look at The Vault site and check some of the info you talked about.

The car is based on a real car that was going to be made to run on radiation (Thus givingit its explosive and radioactive properties) I read this in a game informer article a few years back, although the car was actualy never made (Due to the radiation and explosiveness)