Here's some of my ideas on along which lines I would like some aspects of Fallout 4 to be made (I posted this before Fallout: New Vegas was even annouced, and several times again since then, but made some changes so I'm not just reposting the same thing over and over again). Whether or not all the following would actually work in the game, is beyond me as I'm not a game designer, but at least to me it sounds decent on paper for altering the current form of FPS gameplay.
The WALL OF TEXT:

A minimenu:

There would be a minimenusystem that would trigger various functions needed during the gameplay. Pressing (for example) the mousewheel would open a dropdown menu (somewhat similiar to Fallout 1 and Fallout 2) beside the cursor that would present commands like Enter Worldmap, Heal, Heal Other, Repair, Rest/Wait etc. If well implemented, this could potentially offer a greater gameplay diversity through bigger possibilities for direct skilluses in several situations. Available commands would be highlighted and non-available would be greyed out.


General gameplay:

The general gameplay would be quite similiar to F3 and F:NV. You roam around the wastes doing quests and exploring. But combat would be less frequent unless the player decides otherwise - in other words, you could pick some of your random fights. (Though I'd very, very much prefer it, I'm not suggesting ISO/TB gameplay, since I don't believe for a second that Beth would implement it no matter what. )

This could partly be handled through wildlife AI, which would be set less aggressive in general. An aggression stat would be implemented which would vary from species to species - from completely neutral (only defensive combat) to total aggression (hostility almost immediately). The animals would have their own immediate surroundings, or personal spaces, somewhat like in Risen and Gothic series, and partly in F:NV. Get too close and you get a warning sign from the critter giving you time to get out of their space, linger and be chased off (or be attacked, if you don't flee). The radius of the space and the time you are tolerated in it would depend on the critter.

The mainquest would be scaled to a certain degree through chaptering it (not visibly, as in presenting a loadscreen: Chapter 1: In which you slither out from the uaginal cavity and learn the first lessons of life, but through certain major events through the main quest). And after those, the game would replaces some of the lower level enemies with higher level ones in the MQ areas - defeating which (if not gettin past by other means) would require you to level up some more. Or through a nonlinear levelscalingsystem where, for example, when one starts the game at level one, the enemies in the levelscaled zones would range from 1 to 10, and after one hits somewhere between levels 12 to 15 (which ever works the best) some of the lower level creatures scale up to about level 18 to 25 (but not all, to not make the world appearing to spin around the player too much). This would offer both, challenge and sense of progression to the player, as one becomes better than the current enemies before they scale up again.

There wouldn't be any quest- or enemycompasses, but there would be (toggleable, perhaps) minimap in which you could see the living beings in immediate vicinity. Perception would determine the range in which you see things, and with a perk (with appropriate requirements - outdoorsman and perception, for example) you could tell the difference between friendly (green dot), neutral (yellow dot) and hostile (red dot) targets.

The questcompass would be replaced by mere markers on the map which would point towards a general area instead of the exact target. And with that, the quest descriptions would be more accurate.

The wrist pipboy would be scrapped and replaced by a more handheld PDI like contraption, which would offer a more userfriendly inventorysystem (something like mix of what Morrowind or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. had, for example) with less scrolling while still holding the tabs to sort items by their nature, a one page charactersheet much akin to the original games. Opening inventory wouldn't pause the game (could be tied to difficulty - normal and beyond: No inventorypause, for example), but slow the time and not give extra resistances (adjustable through perks, slow time more, give some resistances, etc). All actions during combat but shooting and moving would cost action points (opening inventory, using items inside it, using quick keys, etc).

Skillcap would remain at 100, but the cost to raise them would rise as follows: 1-50 1:1, 51-75 2:1, 76-100 3:1, the point being, the better you get the more difficult it is to get even better - this would make a maxed skill equal to skillcap of 175 - and I think it'd be easier to utilize the full scale of the skill, if it caps at 100 (instead of having skills cap at 200 or 300). Also, the gaps between levels would be raised:

How it is now (first number is the level, the second XP needed to reach the level from previous point, the third is total amount of XP needed to reach that level):

How it should be (first number is the level, the second XP needed to reach the level from previous point, the third is total amount of XP needed to reach that level) for example:

For the larger events, and where appropriate otherwise, the game would take time into account. Not to push for failure (except for where it's appropriate), but for altering the conditions of the quest. Like postponing a quest (which is narrated as "urgent") enough, and the conditions to solving it get harder.

Simple example (somewhat paraphrasing the Goodsprings versus Powder Gangers situation):

You get a mission from a village mayor to scout some raiders and find out why they've been appearing so active lately. You obtain info about an upcoming raid on the village you got the mission from "in two or so weeks". You neglect it and go about your business for a while. Then you decide to finish the quest and deliver the info, but upon arrival, you notice that the raiders have seized the village, killed most of the denizens and captured the rest. Two options from there on to solve the quest (1) Take on the raiders and free the captives, or (2) Strike a deal with the raiders and recieve an additional questphase.

Had you delivered the intel in time, the village would've prepared and fought the raiders off with (or without) your further help.

These events would be there to point out that the world doesn't revolve around the player and that neglecting given responsibilities has consequences.

A return to the classic worldmap system (with some tweaks to make it look more... erm, "modern"). The actual FPP/TPP playground area would be roughly about 2x or 3x the size of Fallout New Vegas; and the area is divided into 5-7 (or so) hubs scattered in the worldmap which vary in size and content. General gameplay in those would be about the same as in F3 and F:NV, run around and do local quests and explore.

When you enter the node you could spawn at any "formidable" (as in settlementlike in size) location you've already found. The first time entering a node you would spawn at the side of the map on special spawnpoint for that purpose (which could be used later on too, of course).

Outdoorsmanskill is reintroduced (or merged within the Survival skill) and works similiarly to Fallout 1&2 with the difference that nonhostile encounters are always avoidable should the player so decide (to decrease the amount of loadscreens).

The worldmap itself is zoned in couple of ways:
- The farther away from the starting position, the harder the enemies and vice versa; but there is still a (small) chance to encounter harder enemies on starting grounds and vice versa, based on outdoorsmanskill, luck and placement of the zone (but still keeping the MQ areas within reasonable range of enemies).
- The map is zoned into territories, which each have their set of unique enemies as well as a few commonones that can be found on every zone.

Each zone has about 5-7 small maps for random/special encounters, which are either hostile or nonhostile, and are based on the topography of the location in the worldmap and the contents of the encouters would be based on the zone in which it occurs.

The visitable locations on map would be as follows: A settlement - with explorable wasteland around it to provide smaller sidequest and exploring. Or just a visitable location like a majorsized building, militarybase, factory etc. They could even include two settlements, but in general all towns would be much bigger than those in Fallout 3 or New Vegas.

Each settlement has its own set of architecture (not too different from other settlements, but so that one can tell the difference), general theme and mindsets. These are small things, but they would add a lot of variety to the game.

Entering worldmap from a node would happen through the edges of the map. In Fallout 3, when you bumb to an edge of the map, you get a popup message that says: "you cannot go further that way" - now it would be like this: "e) enter worldmap".

To not have to always run to the edge of a map, you could use the minimenu command "Enter Worldmap", which could not be used indoors, during combat or if there are enemies nearby. However, escaping combat through the edge of the map would be possible.

Fasttravel through world map would offer options for pacing (could be enabled by a perk, or be an ability from the get go). Such as "Cautious", "Casual", and "Rushing". Where "Casual" would be the normal travelspeed with no bonuses or hits, "Cautious" a much slower, but with giving a bonus to outdoorsman in determining avoidance of an encounter, and "Rushing" much faster, but with giving a hit to outdoorsman. There would also be related quests, solving which could be easier by utilizing this system (to make it have a bigger point).

Repairing happens either with repairkits, by gunsmiths in towns/caravans, or by a duplicate.

The kits would repair a fixed and relatively large amount of CND and have limited amount of succesful uses (and would offer a small bonus to the skill and crit. failure) each, but they would be expensive to buy, weight a somewhat hefty amount and would also be weakened and eventually broken by a certain amount of critical failures and general wear. Gunsmiths and repairmen would be very expensive but would get the job done no matter what. A duplicate would repair a small amount of CND (with no bonuses or hits to skill or crit. chance) so that you'd have to weigh the benefit of losing the weapons monetary value against the increase in CND (at least at early stages of the game).

Success in repairing is dependant on repairskill (a diceroll happens, dreadful I know). And the repairing takes a certain amount of time (few seconds) depending on the chance of success.

One would now be able to repair guns and armor beyond his/her skill but the further above the skill they go the harder they would get to repair. The math is irrelevant (as long as it complements the premise), but here's a quick idea on how it could go:

After the guns/armors condition is above the skill, the amount going above is turned into percentages that is taken away from the skill. IE: skill = 30 and rifles condition = 80. Condition - skill = 50. 50% of skill (30) is 15. So trying to repair a weapon in condition of 80 with a repairskill of 30 would give a chance of success of 15%. This is not necesserely realistic, but it is assuming that the more shiny the condition gets, the more difficult (but not impossible) it would be to repair it further.

Guns and armor would also have a chance for a critical failure if an attempt to repair fails. Critical failure, instead of repairing the gun, has a reverse effect. The chance would be from 1% to 10% (depending on the weapon) if a trait or a perk doesn't raise/lower it.

The increased hardship of repairing would be compensated via much slower degredation rate (based on the weapon, of course), though the effects of CND (jamming during firing, reloading disorders, rate of fire, damage, buying/selling values) would also be much bigger and frequent.

There would also be a possibility to repair broken robots or computers or what ever there is to repair, by pointing the target opening minimenu and selecting repair.

Also, while repairing would work much like explained above (the 1-100 CND scale would remain in the background to provide for it but all effects would be tied to the 20% thresholds - when attempting to repair, you'd see the successrate according to how the 1-100 scale behind the screen), the visible item health would be changed to 1-5 scale, to offer more robust effects.

The weapon health would be changed from being a 1-100 scale to 1-5 scale and give each rank more profound effects on the weapon, additionally I'd hide the item health-o-meter and add a title in front of the item name so that one never knows exactly where their weapon health goes.

Example:

- Well Maintained Assault rifle or Fine Assault Rilfe (CND 5; well maintained bonus: accuracy +5%, no disorders, -5% from critical failure chance))
-> Assault rifle (CND 4; assault rifle at its default condition, no extra bonuses, but 5% chance of jam)
-> Dirty assault rifle (CND 3; -5% to accuracy, -10% to rate of fire, 15% chance of jam, 10% higher chance of "critical failure")
-> Worn Assault rifle (CND 2; -10% to accuracy, -10% to rate of fire, 20% chance of jam, 15% critical failure chance)
-> Crummy Assault rifle (CND 1; -20% to accuracy, -15% to rate of fire, 25% chance of jamming, 20% chance of critical failure)
-> Broken Assault rifle (CND 0; no shooting with this piece of [censored] anymore, no repairing it either, skilled weaponsmith NPC's could repair it at a cost up to CND 2, or offer a few caps from the spare parts)

With each rank, while going downwards, requiring varying degrees of usage. And Repairing (success and amount of repair (from half a rank to 1 rank) would happen through skillchance affected by certain factors (Gun cnd, duplicate cnd, repairkit, skill level, etc). CND 5 would be a high skill privilege reachable by no lower than 80 in repair.

I would boost all the negative effects and make them count much higher in combat.

Additionally I would add cleaning kits to add a slight timed bonuses to the weapons (-> Clean worn assault rifle: cleaned bonus +5% accuracy, +5% rate of fire, -10% jamming, for example).

With Melee and armed HtH the effects would consist of damage reduction, and higher critical failure rate (which would break the weapon).
With Armors the effects would consist of lowered DT and DR and lowered "social status" (when going on in really crummy gear, people initially think your a vagran or a bum just loitering around).

Stimpak usage would be animated, so no more smashing a quick key for dozens of stims in few seconds (I like this method more than the concept of heal overtime from HC-mode of F:NV). The speed of the animation would be dependant of the related skill (doctor). More over stims now would always heal the same amount (no skill effect in there), and they would come in two variations: stimpaks and superstimpaks. Both of which would be rare and expensive (so that you cannot live off of them, but also have to rely on other methods of healing) and superstims much more so than ordinary stims.

The player would have a tolerance meter which would measure how much the player can medicate himself before overdosing. Overdosing would cause an instant loss of health according to how much the limit is surpassed and would also cause some visual distortions and statloss. The effect would last for a while and the time would be depending on endurance and doctor skill (and perks/traits that would modify it). The tolerance meter slowly lowers itself after the medication is done, and the magnitude it is filled is dependant on the drug used (powerful drugs - like Jet and superstims for example - obviously fill it more quickly), related skill and perks/traits modifying it. Using food as a healer would not affect the tolerance meter, but food would have a heal-over-time effect.

Doctorskill would be reintroduced and so would manual healing. Manual healing would be similiar to Fallout 1 & 2 (only a few uses/24hours - they would take few in-game hours to be completed - success is determined by skill), and couldn't be used in combat or when enemies are nearby. Healing cripples wouldn't be possible with stims or sleeping, but would require manual healing and the ability to heal cripples would be dependant of the doctorskill and the skillrequirements of the crippled bodypart (head and torso would be harder to treat than legs and hands), otherwise a doctor is a must see.

Manual healing would be entered by the minimenu, which would also have the "heal other" option to heal a companion or other alive being in need of assistance.

Healing through sleeping would work similiarly to Fallout 1 & 2.

Addiction would need a doctor or a certain amount (pretty long) of time to heal. Radiation poisoning needs a doctor or radaway (which would be rare and expensive).

Gunskills would now have much heavier effect on waivering and general accuracy than what it is in F3, utilizing the skill and STR requirement system from New Vegas (but more heavyhandedly). In addition, the players stance, movement, weapons type and recoil also would affect it.

The normal (according to skill) situation would be standing still and aiming through iron sights (firing from hip would give a large hit on accuracy). Crouching would give a small bonus to accuracy and going prone would give a slightly bigger bonus (with the bonus from aiming coming on top of that). The tradeoff with going prone and being accurate would be extremely slow moving and turning, and it would take its time for the player to get up and ready the weapon again. Firing from the hip would cause bigger spread. Movement would also give a hit to accuracy -- the faster you move, the bigger the waivering with ironsights and spread with hipfiring. Recoil would work dynamically based on the gun used, and would throw the aim off a bit with each shot (while bursting, the amount of recoil per shot would stack up eventually leading to firing straight up -- with hipfire, the "offaim" would be a bit smaller, but the spread would increase).

Guns would do generally more damage and the damagestats would be ranges. IE: Huntingrifle - dmg 11-20, like in Fallout 1&2, but with growth of related skill raising the minimum amount closer to the maximum (though not as far as up to having a static damage, there would always be some range left).

The combat overall would go through a total overhaul. No more run 'n gun FPS bullsh*t but more slowpaced, focused and tactical. A RTwP/TB (optable) setup with full control over the player character and partymembers would be nice. But of course that ain't gonna happen since nothing but horrid FPS twitching is viable in the gaming market anymore, and Bethesda does not deviate for their 15 year old formula...

So instead, actionpoints would count in combat (suggested before by me and some others).


A simple example:


Lesser cost rate:
Shooting (very low cost) - shooting with no AP's left would give a hefty penalty to accuracy and recoil control
Reload (low cost) - reloading with no AP's left would triple the time it takes to reload and increase the chances for reload failure

Moderate cost rate:
Using quick keys (cost rate depending on what's being done, changing a weapon (moderate cost), using stims (higher moderate cost), changing ammunition (high moderate cost due to including reloading)) - with no AP's, quick keys won't work, no stimspamming or changing weapons, tough luck.

High cost:
Inventory access - with no AP's, inventory access is denied, run for cover and wait for the AP's to refill.
Using items inside inventory - if AP's run out during doing something in the inventory, you can still browse and assign quick keys, but after that only action allowed is to exit inventory.

Additionally, no AP's left would increase running speed for... say.... oh well, for examples sake, 20% to provide chances to get to cover while AP's recharge.

And AP's would recharge much slower while moving and at normal rate while being still.

All that only during combat (and during shooting/whacking thin air when not in combat for the lesser cost actions).

Consider AP's in the lesser cost section as representing exhaustion.
And in the moderate and high cost sections as representing mental strength, situtional loss of focus, a panic of sorts leading to indesicion and inability to operate properly.

NPC's would also have their own AP's which would dictate their performance (a bit differently than the PC, since NPC's don't use quick keys or the sort).

In vats you would now have an option to choose a firing mode. Rapid fire - a hastily aimed rapid shooting towards the target; or aimed shots, which would be the opposite of rapid fire.

Rapid fire would lower the accuracy a bit and you could only target a foe as a whole; but it would spend less actionpoints, while aimed shots would cost more and calculate the accuracy without minuses, and you would be able to target specific body parts. The bonuses and hits of chosen stance would be similiar to those in realtime firing.

Being prone in vats would force you to choose a firing sector (so that the player doesn't spin like a dreidel in all directions while being the most accurate he can). Prone position would also be the most expensive stance to fire from, while standing would be the cheapest, and being crouched in the middle. The player would be able to change his preferred stance in VATS, but at a cost.

About craftable weapons... I once toyed around with an idea where there was to be 3 categories of weapons based on their craftmanship. I can't quite recall all the specifics, but the general idea was to have:

Category 1: Post war selfmade weaponry (craftable, high damage output, cheap and easy to repair, high availability, high modability, fairly cheap -- but, non reliable (prone to jam and reload disorders regardless of CND), low accuracy, fast deterioration rate (constant need of repairing)).
Category 2: Pre war Home defense weaponry (more reliable, more accurate, lesser deterioration rate -- but, less damage output, more expensive, less available, moderately harder to repair, non-craftable and less modable).
Category 3: Pre war military grade weaponry (Very high damage output, very high accuracy, very high reliability -- but, extremely expensive and rare, barely modable, non-craftable, very hard to repair).

Something along those lines, and with each category having 1-3 (max) base weapons for each type of weapon (pistols, SMG's, rifles, assault rifles, machineguns, shotguns etc). You'd that way have an entire category of highly modable weapons to craft from scratch and alternatives which have their ups and downs over that category. Weaponcrafting could be handled through related skillthresholds (what ever the skillsetup for that sort of crafting would be).

Success is determined by skill so that you can try to pick any lock from very easy to very hard; and NO minigame involved. It would work somewhat like repairing; lock level - skill (if the skill is under the lock level) = percentual number that is taken from the skill. If the skill surpasses lock level, the chances are purely skillbased with maximum chance of success being 95% (this, the max chance, would go for every chance based system). And the percentual chance would be presented when moving the reticle over the locked object: E) Pick lock [Very hard: 13%], for example.

Lockpicking would be animated so that you either see your characters hands doing the job (FP view) or seeing your character from behind (TP view). You would have the ability to turn your head (or the camera) some ways left and right to see if someone is coming - so the game doesn't pause during the picking. But looking away from what you're doing, would have an effect (see below).

Picking locks would take a certain amount of time depending on your skill and level of the lock (aka the chance of success). When attempting, there would be a timebar similiar to what Vampire - The Masquerade: Bloodlines had. Skill would give bonuses to the time it takes to pick a lock in such manner that you don't get bonuses to picking hard locks before your skill surpasses maximum level of normal locks. More over, the bonuses would stop stacking up after your skill surpasses the next level of difficulty (no bonuses to picking normal locks after skill level of 75, for example, depicting that there is no way to open that kind of lock any better - other than with a fluke).

Each lock would have a certain amount of tries before (if you keep failing) the lock jams for a certain amount of time (preferably at least a couple of weeks, so that your attempts at just waiting at the lock for it to unjam would be a tedious job and prevent exploitation of the system). Moreover locks would have a chance for a critical failure that would immediately jam the lock despite if it was you first attempt, and critical success, which could occur at any point during the time it takes to pick the lock -- both of these chances would be very small.

This system would also be fit for hacking.

The difficulty setting would affect the following:

Startingpoints of th skills (this would work so that easy players would be able to max out almost everything and the harder you go, the less can max out and the more you need to rely on specializing). The toggle would work dynamically so that if you start with easy and change it to hard half away through, your skill would take an appropriate hit.
The gaps between levels -- the harder the setting, the more XP you need for a levelup.
Base carry weight (before STR modifier).
Base HP (before END modifier).
Number of encountered enemies
Slight (!) changes in NPC/critter HP and damage modifiers

HC mode (one time toggle on/off, no flipflopping) would affect the following:

Number of enemies encountered
Severity of negative effects (stat/skill losses and their effects, crippled limbs, diseases, poison effects, etc)
Add a Nutrition gauge (thirst and hunger combined) -- could do without this though.
Damaging effect of radiation.
Add weight for absolutely everything (meds, ammo, random clutter like pencils, everything).
Slower base speed for stimpakking (before skill modifiers).
Harsher addiction and withdrawal effects.
I'll come up more when I have time...

Ok, so going by the current gameplaystyle where dicerolls no longer apply (which is a shame)... redesign the characterprogression system to better suit it (to be more responsive and give more immediate feedback to the player as s/he progresses).

At character developement every SPECIAL defaults as 5 as it is now, but there are no bonuses to add, just a possibility to rearrange the points. Increasing SPECIAL during the game, would be a special occurance like finding an implant and then someone who can install it. Traits increasing stats would offer an equal drawback in some other stat (or a general drawback). There'd be an individual perk for every stat offering a one time bonus of plus one -- as it was in the original Fallouts. And rare cases where an equippable item gives a bonus for during the time it is equipped (like how PA gives a bonus to strength). Nothing more. The point is to make the character one builds to hold throughout most of the game. And to help that there'd be hard SPECIAL requirements for certain items and activities.

Perks would be more like additional abilities that the skills do not govern straightforward (like pistolwhipping, enhancing stimpaks, increasing inventory space and/or such) but still offer the requirements for. They'd also have tiers (up to 3) to enhance said abilities when appropriate.

Skills would now have a 1-10 and some others 1-5 point scale. With each point cumulatively increasing the price of buying it. Each of these points would also hold more to it than mere nominal increases with little to no visible effect (like how it is now with the 1-100 scale). The skills would work more like thresholds opening new related abilities than random numerical values. At characterbuilding phase each skill would default to 0, but the player would have 3 free points to put in which ever skills s/he wishes.

A couple of "along the lines of" -examples of the skills and their effects:

Faction (just an outline, inconsistencies may occur):

The Greenhouse

Location:
At the region around Greenville Mississippi, including part of the river.

Structure:
A Vault City esque large fenced settlement. An underground vault (what ever unused number) from where the inhabitants emerged; a large facility consisting of The Greenhous Genetics laboratories, The Greenhouse Institute and The Greenhouse Testfacility; normal settlement area divided into "the slum" with lower grade infrastructure, "the central area" with higher grade infrastructure, and "the Institute area" with the science facilities and top tier inhabitants.

Politics:
- Non-expansive in a military way, but spreads influence through other means (very high medical knowhow, clean genetically enhanced food and water etc.) some of which may not be too ethical (like secretly creating circumstances which need their expertise to be solved).
- Strict policies about hygiene and diseasecontrol -- the Slum area basically being a quarantine zone for outsiders wanting to move in (though, despite being an inhospitable host, still offering some benefits over living outside as well as the ultimate benefit of the possibility of getting to live in the central area).
- Military force concentrated on defending the city and surrounding areas, not too capable of attacking anyone.

History:
The Greenhouse was originated in the 60's by a Polish immigrant, a young medical student named Victor Zielinsky, who, with his wife Katja, left the ruins and rebuilding of Krakow in late 40's to seek for a better life in America. He continued his medical studies in New Orleans and funded his living and studies by working parttime at a local florist and some local farms. From these occupations he contacted the interest in plant and animal life, and eventually moved away from medical studies to genetics.

In 1965, due to not being satisfied with the life in a big city, he moved to Greenville Mississippi with his wife and 6-year-old son and started a greenhouse project with a goal to enhance the livestock and crops to produce more and more nutrientwealthy products, and to "create" decorative plants by mixing various species'. The start was a rockyone and he still had to have another occupation as a local doctor and a vet. But as years passed, the greenhouse project started to bear fruit. In 1976 he made a significant breakthrough in the area of animal genetics and was able to expand. In following years the Greenhouse Project turned into a fullblown sciencefacility called The Greenhouse Genetics. Victors son, Adam Zielinsky, had taken an interest in his fathers study already at a young age, and eventually took over the project in early 1980's when Victor died of lung cancer.

Adam, being passionate about his work, changed his last name to Green to connect better with the work he was doing, and to sound more "American". He continued evolving the project, and expanded further by establishing The Greenhouse Institute at the side of The Greenhouse Genetics facility. The Institute worked as a university of genetics and schooled people to work at the Genetics facility.

Adams passion to his work was such a powerful kind that it drove him to force the same passion to his daughter, Sylvia. Due to the strong belief in family ties and inheritance, he effectively brainwashed her to continue his legacy at the helm of the project. This line of action was then rooted to the Zielinsky/Green family as Sylvia passed it on to her child, and the chain went on from there.

Eventually the Greenhouse grew to be a national interest. The government had high interest in it and what it was doing, and at later point Vault Tec built a vault right next to the facility as part of the Project Safehouse. Pacts were made in secret and Reginald Green, the head of The Greenhouse Genetics at that point, was set as the overseer of the vault, which, like the other vaults, was sealed at 2077.

The overseers orders consisted of continuing the Greenhouse work, and doing medical experiments with the inhabitants in research of enhancing the human body. An accident was staged with the air- and waterfiltration systems and it was said that due to this, a form of plague had gotten in the vault. There was no permanent cure for this so the medical team started giving vaccines to people on regular basis. Most had a placebo, but some were intentionally contacted with various gene experiments. These experiments all led to deformation and horrible sickness, which of course was not the intent, but the eggs had to be broken for the omelet. This went on for years and the coverup held.

The vault doors finally opened at 2251 and the people emerged. With the aid of the vaults GECK, they formed a settlement around the vault entrance and the Greenhouse facility which they started repairing in working condition, as per ordered in the overseers instructions. It didn't take much time due to no direct hits of the warheads. The vault generators and the facilities own underground generators produced enough power to keep the settlement running and allowing it to expand a bit.

The young overseer, Victor Green (named after his ancestor), was appointed mayor and head geneologist. He restarted the Project Greenhouse which was to make the surrounding wasteland to flourish again, to produce wealth and health as it used to.

The neighboring settlements in the area took interest in The Greenhouse and commercial routes were established. Some people wanted to move in behind the protective walls and prosper with the advanced medical and agricultural prospects the Greenhouse offered, but due to Victors demands on high end diseasecontrol, they were packed in a fenced slumareas which eventually grew to form a full district. The Slum district occupants were regularly tested with various chemicals to assure they posed no significant threat of contaminating the central populace. The procedure was slow due to only few officials taking part in it which led only a handfull of people being tested at a time and for many times during a lengthy period of time. The district was full of people waiting to get tested, so new people were only let in the slum when others left or were let in the central district. The choosing of people to be tested was seemingly random and this led to some people living their whole lives in the slum waiting be tested.

It was not long after the facility got restarted when the first ghouls were met. At first they were shunned and driven away due to their appearance, but when it was learned that they had an abnormally long life, some were let inside, allowed to get past the line. And they were studied. Victor got immensely curious about their genetical structure and how it allowed them to live so long. With his most trusted scientists, he immediately started a behind the curtains project to create a vaccine which would give normal human the benefits of long and diseasefree life without the side-effects of rotting skin.

This was at first done in a civil manner, but when Victor learned he had cancer, he hasted the research. Soon the it consisted of cruel and inhuman practices. The testsubject were predisposed to enjailmet and torture, they were injected with substances that caused various diseases and deformations, they were cut to pieces to study their bodies' reactions to the chemicals. Victor justified all this with the, as he was sure of them, eventually succesful results and necessary evil in the betterment of human physiology which would, as he believed, eventually lead to the end of the wasteland and rapidly bring societies together again forming a better world.

He was was aware of how this would look in public, so extreme discretion was taken and all research was kept under a blanket. He also knew harvesting test subjects from the populace of his own city would eventually lead to lowering in popularity and desertion. So he, with his high security officials, staged diseases they knew how to cure in the other nearby settlements and then offered them medical assistance. They cured most for the show and kept others with the excuse of them being in such a bad shape they had to be quarantined, cremated or got disposed of by other means.

The growing efforts, however, spent more subjects than they could gather. Additional measures were taken and they started abducting people. They left clues in the wildersness which led to an assumption that the abductees were either killed and eaten by wildlife or cannibal savages, or captured by slavers. All this eventually rose suspicion among the other settlements, and a group of people started their private investigations to prove that the Greenhouse was in some way responsible for the ever growing number of missing people.

And this is the state the region is in right now in the year 2283, when a hasty stagíng of a form of smallpox got out of hand and spread throughout the region.

The game begins with the protagonist (The Drifter) being held by a band of highwaymen. S/he is being stripped from his/her belongings and given a some water, and then sent out walking towards west along the burning wasteland (a slight nod to The good, the bad and the ugly). After few days of walking he passes out. A hunting party finds him and carries him/her to a nearby settlement where s/he is nursed. When The Drifter awakes, it occurs that there is some sort of plague in the settlement. Quarantine tents have been risen and the healthy do what they can for the ever growing number of the sick.
- The settlement provides some voluntary small local quests to provide a tutorial.
- Due to the towns own populace being preoccupied with providing for the sick, the drifter is given a task of traveling to a nearby larger settlement to find out why caravans no longer visit the settlement, and if possible to reopen the routes (with the info that the town can afford to pay well). The drifter is given some basic supply for traveling and self defence. The quest is trusted to the drifter in belief of his/her gratitude of saving his/her life. A reward is also offered and a notion is given that if the caravans do not arrive in time with supplies, the town will die out as they are running out of resources.
- The player can ignore this quest, in which case the town will die out (which has consequences later in the game).
- The quest leads the drifter to the ruins of Greenville, which has a major settlement established there. And from here the story starts to expand to all directions.

- The player can side with The Greenhouse, in which case the curel human testing will go on and and on for years to come and grow causing great pains and sorrow, but region in general also starts to prosper due to some scientific breakthroughs and the continuing medical assistance from The Greenhouse doctors. The wasteland starts to get green and fertile again for the region. --in a nutshell--


- The player can side with a coalition of the other settlements and bring to light what The Greenhouse is doing, which leads to the invasion and (accidental) burning of The Greenhouse, killing all the head officials and driving the rest of the populace back into the vault, burning the bodies in front of the door, and finally sealing it shut by collapsing the ground over the entrance with explosives. The lives of the people will go on relatively well, but without any of the Greenhouse advancements in technology and medicine. The research at the Greenhouse will never occur and all the benefits it would've offered to the soil and to the people are forever gone. --in a nutshell--

- A third ending which I haven't made up yet