How can a vault survive as an 100% isolated base of 1000 people?

Vault 101.

If it never was opened, as it never was supposed to, how would it survive?
There are only those (blind guess) 4000+ Vault 101 suits, and some weaponry, and some food, but those all will run out sooner or later.

If, or when, all vault suits were completely used and had to be destroyed, would the people just be naked around because there were no other clothes?

But in the other hand, there must be a source of clothing material. The Tunnel Snakes, where did they make their jackets from?
Did V-Tek supply all vaults with leather jackets?

Plus, what do the Vault-Dwellers eat? There is a cake in FO3 beginning, where did they get resources to make the cake? And considering that it's already 200 years since the Bombs and that means fairly over 2000 birthday parties, and some 750 birthday cakes.
This is (as we all know, doh) sci-fi game series, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was that pill-food which was expected by the people of 1950's.

Just curious.. :nod:

There would be a considerable store of old stuff. However the consumables would get exausted and organic clothing would eventually decay. What I believe is that they must use Hydroponic gardens in conjunction with some form of protein synthesis that resembles Tofu. Water is no problem since I believe most vaults simply tapped underground streams and used a distiller to remove impurities and radioactive elements (if present) and bacteria etc. Clothing would most likely be some synthetic too. Rayon, Polyester etc. Can be manufactured from any Hydrocarbon and is recycleable.

clothese were recycled as well as the vault had various fabrics and such, it was fully prepared for that time sinceit wasnt supposed to open at all for a while. I tthink I read that some food was grown and harvested and such in a nursery area

Unknown how it worked, but vaults had 'extruders' for food and clothing. Its likely then that Vault Tec had some sort of rudimentary replicator technology available to them.

See Vault 36 and Vault 70 for reference at the wiki.

"Vault 36 is one of the Vault-Tec Vaults. As part of the Vault Experiment, the food extruders were designed to produce only a thin, watery gruel. The location of this Vault is unknown. It is likely that this Vault failed because no one could eat the watery gruel."

"Vault 70 All jumpsuit extruders fail after 6 months. Most of the inhabitants were Mormons. "

I would think vaults also have extensive hydroponics facilities, and vats where meat-like protien foods can be grown - or at least would in the sales brochure (The above vault in mind)

Water would not be a problem, I think it explained how they got their water in some terminal. For food.. I've never seen any food in vault 101, so I can't really be sure of how they went about doing this. Perhaps they had their greenhouses with a special light, and had protein pills, vitamins, etc. Perhaps they had some meat, but not much if any. How would they explain how they acquired it? Overseer's would get nervous about that kind of stuff.

I would imagine that it's something like that. They probably recycle everything they can, and for the rest, they probably have facilities to ensure a lasting supply of the materials needed for survival in them. After all, they were designed to sustain their inhabitants for long periods of time (at least that is how they were advertised. Whether they were really like that or not would depend on the goal of the particular vault in question.)

do not forgot vaults where maked in the late 60's early 70's (right before the war), that it's retro science fiction, didn't mean at all that they were backwarded in technology so they might have invented things like 'replicators' and 'green houses', a typical vault could hold 1000 inhabitants so i am sure there is some room left for that.

The Vaults didn't survive, unless you count Vault City, but even Vault 101 ran out of genetic material for more children.

Vault 101 seem to be designed to see how long could people run before they would fall apart, a stress test for enclosed communities.

Some Vaults did survived, its just a question of how you view "survive" ... Vault 8 worked but look at how Vault City was like, I guess even the so called control Vaults (the ones that worked as advertised) also end up a continued part of the Vault Experiment as they would still give data on how things progressed when everything was as planned.

And Macros the Black, the Vault 13 was completed in 2069 but it was the last, most Vaults were completed by 2063 and since Vault 13 started construction in late 2063 that means Vaults would take about 4-6 years to be complete meaning Vaults plans date back to the 2050's.

Yeah they did survive.... I think you forgot what is probably the most successful known vault: Vault 15 - Birthplace of the NCR.

Most of the vaults are still status unknown - there could be a vault-tec built paradise out there.

Vault 15 failed, the NCR exists ONLY because of the Vault Dweller actions in Fallout 1 ... left alone Shady Sands would have been overrun by the Raiders that also originated from Vault 15.

Point.

Vault city is the most successful vault experiment IMHO. It truly turned into a real city.
They were a control vault, so no funny Vault-tek business.
If memory serves me, it all went according to plan - they waited 10 years, emerged, popped the G.E.C.K. open - and presto! A decent post-apocalyptic city.

Yeah, they had power problems, but one can expect those to arise with population growth. After all, once on the surface, the vault has served its purpose. The rest is up to them...

I disagree - if you talk to the raiders, you'll discover they're actually "Farming" shady sands - Taking some of their bounty and ensuring there is enough to survive - http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Alya details the info you need.

For their food, my guess is that they have limited hydroponics capabilities, but otherwise eat the crap that comes out of some sort of food dispenser like in Star wars or the matrix. (In both cases, your pretty much fed a nutrient gunk)

I asked a scientist about this question once. He replied simply by saying "they wouldn't survive in the day and age"

It would depend on who you asked. It was the scientists who came up with the idea in the first place. Also it depends on what sort of assumptions you make about the war and what types of weapons are used in what quantity etc. The prevailing assumption everyone always makes is that everything that everyone has could and would be used. Thats not nessarily true. There are many pregrommed options in Americas inventory and the russians and chineese also. The full retaliatory option is the last option and would only be used if the Russian for instance launched everything they had all at one time. Interestingly enough in a documentry I saw a few years ago The Russians never had the launch everything at once as an operative command but had an option for a doomsday scenario in which the Defence computers would launch a single rocket into space that carried a high gain antenna that would transmit all the launch codes for all the weapons after aspecific time period if both the High command and the alternate command center were destroyed.