I know this has probably been discussed to death, but has anybody ever wondered where all the scavaged supplies in DC keep coming from and why there are still places untouched and full of supplies even after 200 years? I mean you'd think things such as pre-war food, cigarettes, alchohol, and chems would all be consumed and looted by now especially after 200 years, yet there's still plenty of them all around the Wasteland and merchants have a steady supply of them to trade.

I'm not saying I don't like the fact that these items are in the game unrealistically, that's part of what makes an apocalyptic setting fun is the idea of looting supplies from abandon stores and buildings in order to survive. It just seems weird that there would be so much of this stuff even centuries later after the bombs fell. But I guess not having them would make the game pretty boring. :shrug:

It's no less unreal than the fact that those items would be even remotely usable after 200 years.

Well true. I've heard that theory in the game about how the radiation is supposed to be a "great food preserver", but for some reason I don't buy into that because it just sounds silly.

I guess the real reason is simply because it's a video game and not reality, not to mention a video game set in an Alternative Universe United States of America where the world is based on pure science fiction and the mindset of the 1950's.

I'm gonna go with SCIENCE!

- SCIENCE!
- Radiation is the Fallout equivalent of freeze-drying food
- Secret factory underneath Mama Dolce's where the commies ghouls keep on cranking out the pre war food
- Traders and drug runners making deliveries from other parts of the continent
- Game, game, friggin' game

I added one, personally that's what I like to believe as to why 200 year old salisbury steak can still be edible, not because of no steakin radiation. :yes:

The only thing I can think of is that the DC area was mostly abandoned in the 200 year time frame, and settlers and raiders only came back recently when the radiation levels went down enough. That doesn't explain why wild animals wouldn't have already eaten the pre-war food though, or why it would still be edible after 200 years and a lot of radiation.

Actually I still think Radiation would make a great preservative. It would kill molds, mildew, bacteria, and other natural decomposers. Of course that wouldn't stop our good freinds chaos theory from the slow but steady degradation of materials, and of course all things would eventually turn into dust thanks to radioactive decay, but I don't know if that would happen in 200 years or not.

I would think why there are so much supplies on hand is because no one wants to really go out when they'res raiders, Super mutants, radscorpions, legionaries.

I did wonder myself about that.

But I suppose the area could have been untouched for a long time and lots of stores preserved and locked and sealed.

Maybe the radiation preserved it.

And Super Mutants, Ghouls and Feral Ghouls don't really care about cooking their food I suppose. So they probabely would not want Salibury Steak, etc.

Or the present day people studied the recipes and made them from that.

Maybe there are factories were stuff is made from old recipes.

I was always under the mindset that in the fallout world they had made great strides in presevering food (it fits right in with the vault tec that was developed as they had to stock em).. heheh unlike well real world.. not sure what standard army rations shelflife is nowadys (maybe someone in the forces could spill it) but i bet there pretty good..

The why so much loot is harder to answer though I vote with Yksmi on that i guess

artistic license, if they didn't put stuff like that in, it would be boring, there has to be things to scrounge for, its not suppose to be totally realistic, its there for game immersion, exploration is an important aspect to the game and without anything to find there isn't any exploration, how fun would it be with no ammo to find, no food to find, no med supplies to find, no misc things to find, if everything was empty, there would be almost no exploration in the game. so having things to scrounge is more important than "realism". it takes presidence over making the game "believable"