I ques this "purification" is nothing else then distillation. Considering that what makes dirty water dangerous (and therefore dirty) is not water (H2O) itself but other particles it contains, by distilling it, you would effectively get rid of those particles and therefore "purify" it.

That's because tactical nukes are neutron bombs (as opposed to for example fission bombs). Neutron bombs are designed on purpose to release lot of neutron radiation and relatively little kinetic and thermal energy. They are meant to kill people (with radiation) but leave structures intact.

Exactly my point. There should be virtually NO "radioactive water" anywhere. The silt at the bottom of bodies of water _might_ in some cases be sufficiently radioactive as to be dangerous, but that depends on the amount of fallout that has been released into the environment and the half-lives of the isotopes involved. I would think that, releasing enough fallout into the environment that every single square inch of the bottom of every single body of water on the planet was radioactive enough to be lethal, would require orders of magnitude more bombs that humanity has ever made, but that is just gut instinct not based on any maths.

Also, if that much fallout were released, I would think that much of the soil would remain radioactive too.

ADDIT: I'm not positive on the "all tacticals are neutron bombs" point. I think quite a few of them are fission bombs. During the Cold War at least, large number of units were "NBC equipped" and to this day a lot of armored personnel carriers, tanks and other vehicles remain NBC. supposedly, being inside some of these vehicles makes its occupants completely safe from neutron radiation of virtually any intensity that can be produced by weapons.

Yes. and it's not just radioactivity. Most metal objects depicted in game like cars would not exist after 200 years. Not to mention that they tend to still have a paint in game. Most buildings in game, which are moreover predominately wooden, would also be in much worst condition then depicted, even if they would not have being damaged by nuclear blasts. If they would still exist at all. Not to mention skeletons, pieces of cloth, some food stuffs and so on.

Prewar weapons, unless stored in some tempered, air conditioned containers and cowered in grease would not be functional anymore. Most of them would be just piles of rust.

The world as depicted in game is about 30-50 years after apocalypse, not 200.

Indeed. Radioactive particles might concentrate inside bodies of water to some degree (with rain), but not such that it would make any significant difference. Some particles even chemically bond with matter in surrounding environment and can not be simply washed away by water.

Fair enough. I should have said "most" of them not "all".

Not sure about this one, but my understanding was that this equipment (vehicles and so on) were made "radiation" proof to a degree which would permit trespassing area after nuclear detonation but would not protect against direct explosion (and its radiation). Situation for which they were intended would for example be tactical nuclear attack at the enemy after which friendly units would be send over the affected area to attack or occupy further in to enemy territory. But that's just what I remember from Cold War era times so take it with pinch of salt

So there you have it OP!

Why dirty water so scarce? Because the designers made it that way.

Nothing about the prevalence of "radioactive water" makes any sense, so the fact that it is so prevalent and yet, so scarce in "bottled form" just has to be accepted as a legacy of this whacky world created by Interplay so long ago.

I think it's more an oversight rather than an intended consequence.
The logical progression of having a precursor is that it must be in more abundance than the product.
Or in terms of the Dirty Water to Purified Water situation, the relative ease with which you can set down a water purifier in a body of water and produce loads of Purified Water means there must be an even bigger source of Dirty Water. The game just has a blindspot in allowing you to access it.


I think given the ease with which you can bypass many of the other crafting bottlenecks the limit on Dirty Water is an oversight rather than an intended consequence.
Given that the hand pumps have an associated animation it would make sense to me to allow a character with some container the ability to harvest Dirty Water for each use. A little like you could spam generation of firewood in Skyrim at a chopping block.
I hope that once the GECK is out this will be a minor fix or something that is sorted in an official patch or DLC.

I'm not sure what Interplay has to do with the issue, the importance of Dirty Water and its abundance or lack of only became an issue with its inclusion in a crafting system.

Interplay created the Fallout universe (based on their "Wasteland" universe), so I as drawing the link between the overall characteristics of the post-apocalyptic Earth in the game with their original work.

TBH though, now that I think about it, the "radioactive water" everywhere on the surface might actually be something Bethesda introduced in FO3. I cannot recall.

Whether it was intentional, for the sake of game balance, or an oversight, I doubt Bethesda will change it in the vanilla game. And nothing that I've said about none of it "making sense" is meant to imply that it shouldn't be changed, or else that users mod it to their own tastes.

You'ld think that there would be more Dirty Water around.

I mean, all things considering

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqKHqWaTv9g

That song is a bit on the late side to fit in with Bethesda standard "Diamond City Radio" fare, but DAMN! that song NEEDS to be in this game so badly!

Boston reference even!!

And if we didn't have a crazy nutjob rub two sticks together in the name of progress, then the world wouldn't have been nuked in 2077. At least, traditionalists haven't almost doomed us all with their outdated beliefs.

I'm a contractor with NOAA (really).

The answer is:

It depends (again, really).

In the real world nothing EVER matches theoretical models.

Especially if you are talking about water quality in the Boston area.

Little known fact:

During Boston Harbor dredging there was a problem with disposing of Tailings.

Turns out with all the crap that had been dumped there over the years it qualified as toxic waste.

This was back in the 80's and early 90's.

You never saw much in the way of animal life and what life there was wasn't very healthy and didn't stick around long.

These days there are abundant populations of seals (mostly Grey and Harbor seals) and regular visitations by dolphins, porpoises, and other, rarer critters. The fish populations are slowly rebuilding (in the harbor itself, anyway. The oceans outside it are another story.....) to the point where recreational fishing is a thing again. I've even seen people putting out Lobster Pots in the harbor with some success (they are absolutely NOT supposed to be doing this because they are really unsafe to eat). The Saugus River ( where I grew up) was nearly devoid of year round life when I moved away in the early 90's. It now has a nice recreational fishery and parks with river access where there were abandoned lots. Even Buzzards Bay ( a Super Fund Site for Attoms' sake!) is starting to see life come back.

The one thing Jurassic Park got right was "Life Finds A Way".

So, when would the Water be safe to drink?

It wouldn't be considered safe to drink NOW, at least where the game is set.

But, 200 years from now, really, there is no good way to tell how life will have adapted to changes.

If you REALLY want a WTF moment read this article:

http://www.whoi.edu/news-release/killifish

It essentially outlines how Killifish in Buzzards Bay (a small, minnow-like fish) have actually evolved to be nearly immune to certain types of toxic waste common in the Bay. In just 40 years.

There is a cave in Kentucky that has a huge entrance right next to the Interstate, Horse Cave is the name of it if I recall. Has a gigantic watershed that flows through it.

Sometime back in the 1970s or 1980s there was either a tractor trailer or railroad wreck that dumped a huge amount of crap down it. Also I think one of the local industries was discovered to have been sending crap down it. Not PCBs I don't think but something gnarly.

Surveys of the cave in the 1980s found it to be virtually devoid of life. But then in the early 2000s another survey found it to be literally teaming with life, even troglodytic species that presumably couldn't have evolved from surface critters.

And then of course you have the seemingly abundant wildlife in the new https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyhpFXMs1DE.

ADDIT: re: the Killfish--> damn that is amazing. Human pollution driving evolution and differentiation of a population which could well lead to speciation in the long run. That is astounding!

Or have they. How about most religious fundametalist groups, if given the chance they woul have us living in the Neolithic era. I, for one, would call that doomd.

That is fascinating. Life is rather tenacious, despite its fragility, where it can survive exceeds our expectations.

I saw that episode, as I do many episodes of Nature and Nova, and found it fascinating. It is rather disheartening that mans presence is more destructive than high levels of radiation.

For another interesting lifeform that is radiation adapted check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptococcus_neoformans out.

Radiation eating bacteria. Sounds like it might be the key to what makes all the Wasteland critters "go."

Honestly? I find water to be more rare then alcohol and Nuka Cola! I rarely see it both purified and dirty.

The purified you can basically farm by making your settlement network produce excess, then visit them regularly to pick it up. For dirty, finding it as scavenge and buying it from vendors seem to be only options. Bartenders usually have a few jugs of it, and occasionally a doc or a general trader will have one or two.

I you watch some of the videos about Pripyat and Chernobyl today, a two-headed Radstag would not look that out-of-place wandering around there.