Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

[Ryan Thunder]

Is there any way to heal companions?

Poor Clover's near-dead and refuses to use any aid I give her. -_-;

[Vendetta]

They should auto heal after combat. They may also use stimpacks if you put them in their inventory.

[Enigma]

Quick question, I got a schematic to build a weapon and I have the parts. How do I get it built?

Also what parts do I need to repair my assault rifle and 10mm pistol?

[Ryan Thunder]

They should auto heal after combat. They may also use stimpacks if you put them in their inventory.

I've gone from Rivet City to Tenpenny Tower on foot after giving her every last stimpack in my inventory, and she hasn't healed yet.

I'm a sentimental Vault Boogeyman, so rather than let her die I decided to leave her in my apartment where she hopefully wouldn't get any worse...

[Ryan Thunder]

Quick question, I got a schematic to build a weapon and I have the parts. How do I get it built?

Also what parts do I need to repair my assault rifle and 10mm pistol?

You need another assault rifle or 10mm pistol to repair either, respectively, and you need a workbench to build a weapon.

Yes, I know its dumb, but you can't repair a weapon from just parts.

[salm]

Yes, I know its dumb, but you can't repair a weapon from just parts.

Actually it´s not dumb. It prevents the inventory from cluttering up even more (the inventory is bad enough the way it is now) and gives a good use to guns the player finds besides aiding him with a couple of bulletts. This way of handling superflous guns i find to be a rather smart move on Bethesdas side.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I had the same problem with Fallout as with Oblivion. I had a whole bunch of fun exploring, leveling and killing bad guys - the VATS was a brilliant implementation - but only for 8 or so hours. After that it simply got boring and i have no interest in further exploration, even though i´ve only explored maybe 1/4 of the map.
That´s why i´m not a big fan of these sandbox type games. Just give me a linear plotline and lilnear levels and i´ll be happy.

Personally i don´t care about abstractions (very few people per vault, functional guns after years and years without maintenance) and similar things. Sometimes they have to be used to make improve gameplay. Imagine Fallout without functioning assault rifles. That would suck.

I had the same reaction. After about 12 hours of play, I was simply done with the exploring and sidequests and made a beeline to finish the main quest. I'll probably play a new character in 6 months or so and focus on the quests and locations I didn't do the first time around. My tolerance for going back through all those dungeons... I mean metro tunnels will probably be rebuilt by then. Either that or someone will have modded them out, or at least put surface paths to make them unnecessary.

[Darth Onasi]

I had the same reaction. After about 12 hours of play, I was simply done with the exploring and sidequests and made a beeline to finish the main quest. I'll probably play a new character in 6 months or so and focus on the quests and locations I didn't do the first time around. My tolerance for going back through all those dungeons... I mean metro tunnels will probably be rebuilt by then. Either that or someone will have modded them out, or at least put surface paths to make them unnecessary.

Unfortunately surface paths will never be possible without a total rebuild of the DC area.
You see, the Mall, GNR, etc. areas are all seperate instanced zones. They appear to be outside because this was a feature introduced in the Oblivion engine for towns and such. But like towns they're seperate from the main world.
You can see for yourself what I mean if you have the PC version, open the console, type tcl and float upwards then look at the surroundings.

[Zixinus]

Has anyone got the Prototype Medic Armour? It's supposedly in the deathclaw-infested town, in (where else?) the sewers. I heard that it supposedly reacts to the environment and administers Med-X automatically.

I mean metro tunnels will probably be rebuilt by then. Either that or someone will have modded them out, or at least put surface paths to make them unnecessary.

Oh yeah, by the end, I really dreaded going into those damn things. Especially considering that with the ghouls, I was just fouling around because they presented such a small treat to me.

[Chardok]

The Prototype armor is in the deathclaw town (Old something-or-other) I found it by falling down a trapdoor outside the courthouse looking building and exploring the sewers.

As for ghouls...if you have the ghoul mask, they ignore you - which made exploring the metros WAY easier/better.

[Tanasinn]

I have the medic armor. It's in an alcove past the end of the Old Olney sewers. It yells occasionally and injects Med-X when you have a crippled limb.

[TC Pilot]

As for ghouls...if you have the ghoul mask, they ignore you - which made exploring the metros WAY easier/better.

Is there any way to get that without all the people in Tennpenny being wiped out?

[Tanasinn]

You could cheat and use the player.additem console command (lists are a google away), but other than that, no.


A note that I forgot to anyone heading to Old Olney for the first time: bring a dart gun. Deathclaws are brutally strong, ignore defense, and have both a good running speed and pounce. The dart gun cripples their movement, and will save you unless you get backed into a corner.

[Chardok]

As for ghouls...if you have the ghoul mask, they ignore you - which made exploring the metros WAY easier/better.

Is there any way to get that without all the people in Tennpenny being wiped out?

I just convinced the bigots to move out without violence. and then tenpenny said the ghouls could come live there all peaceful-like. zero kills.

(100% Speech)

[SylasGaunt]

Did you come back later?

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Unfortunately surface paths will never be possible without a total rebuild of the DC area.
You see, the Mall, GNR, etc. areas are all seperate instanced zones. They appear to be outside because this was a feature introduced in the Oblivion engine for towns and such. But like towns they're seperate from the main world.
You can see for yourself what I mean if you have the PC version, open the console, type tcl and float upwards then look at the surroundings.

It's also quite obvious in some areas that the Capitol building is just a flat painting on the background. It surprised me quite a bit when I stumbled upon the actual building after noticing that.

[Chardok]

Did you come back later?

No. But if it doesn't affect my karma.....Hoooooooooo well.

[Covenant]

Did you come back later?

No. But if it doesn't affect my karma.....Hoooooooooo well.

I did that quest (during my explorations that inadvertantly lead me to Vault 112) my first impulse was the same. I went through the sewers, shot a bunch of ferals apart, then chatted with Mr. Masters at the barricade. When I talked to Roy Batty back in his shitty sewer hellhole I realized that this man's community of poor, maligned ghouls consisted of a spineless ex-scientist and whipped dog ex-beauty queen following the lead of a murderous crazy person who was openly inviting me to help him murder an entire community full of people whose only crime was being elitist assholes. It's not like they liked me either, and I'm a clean-cut fully human defender of the people with more caps than Tenpenny himself. Roy didn't care about the ferals either, or apparently have any interest in helping out the Underworld ghouls, so it was just selfish pride and greed, and so I blew him up. For this act of mercy I get bad karma?

Karma is irrelevent AND a joke. In FO1 it was essentially reputation. In FO2 there was karma AND reputation. Now that there's just Karma, what the fuck do I care? Okay, so, I murder everyone here. That's bad karma. No bigs, I'll just go halfway across the map to ask Wadsworth for some water, give it to the bum outside Megaton, and then go cut the fingers off some brutally slaughtered and dismembered raiders and sell them for good karma. Karma is, essentially, just a sliding scale of morality that takes into account no degree of permanent harm.

[Ryan Thunder]

Yes, I know its dumb, but you can't repair a weapon from just parts.

Actually it´s not dumb. It prevents the inventory from cluttering up even more (the inventory is bad enough the way it is now) and gives a good use to guns the player finds besides aiding him with a couple of bulletts. This way of handling superflous guns i find to be a rather smart move on Bethesdas side.

You make it sound like we would be limited to using one or the other.

You should be able to repair your equipment from certain combinations of junk (especially the ones that you built from said combinations of junk, but there should be no substitute for actually taking apart similar gear and using that.

It just seems kinda silly that I can build a railway rifle from scratch, but I can't repair it, even from a workbench, unless I build another railway rifle.

[Stark]

That reasoning is broken anyway; nobody cares that you CAN glue guns together to improve them; they care that it's the ONLY FUCKING WAY to fix them and NOBODY IN THE FUCKING WORLD can fix shit beyond like 53%.

If the player could just use fucking workbenches (even if it cost money or whatever) to repair, it'd be fine. Wouldn't affect combat or exploration, but if you went to a well-equipped workshop you can just repair like a normal person.

The custom weapons are just funny because what's the wear? Is the toy car breaking? I'VE GOT A TOY CAR RIGHT HERE LOL. Nope, can't 'rebuild' it with more parts at a bench.

[Pulp Hero]

Yes, I think about half the rate of weapon degradation and repairs done only at workbenches would be much better.

[Darth Onasi]

Bethesda are the kings of good ideas and bad executions. For one thing, why does repairing use up the whole other gun? Repair it 25%, use up gun, repair it 1%, use up gun. What? It would be nice if you could break up guns into generic spare parts and use random items to fix them up.
Once again it'll be those stubborn modders to the rescue.

[Covenant]

Yes, I think about half the rate of weapon degradation and repairs done only at workbenches would be much better.

A more finessed solution than "half" is to make degradation tied to the weapon's current maintenance level. A weapon that is mostly destroyed should require more regular maintenance than a high-quality one, which should be able to be fired X number of times without a part failure, so long as you perform regular maintenance on it. This wouldn't require you to alter the current system at all, but it would also make regular weapon maintenance a more sensible thing and really encourage people to pay attention to their repair skills.

I swear I've seen something like this in a different game: a rifle made of 3-4 parts, and their level of quality would impact the handling of the weapon, encouraging you to break down weapons and match superior parts. The weapon's maintenance level would degrade, demonstrating a probability of jamming, misire, or breakage, faster when you're using bad parts, but the parts themselves wouldn't. Over the course of time you would be able to recover more well maintained weapons where maybe the only big issue is the wood parts that rotted away and you could replace those, ending up with a weapon that has been overall restored to a higher level of quality. This would give you a somewhat friendly relationship with your weapon, and cringe when enemies shoot at it, and maintenance wouldn't actually restore the weapon to pristine condition--just up to the best that it can be with the status of the parts available.

More complicated, yes, but more fun and it turns weapon-hunting and repair into something more personal and allows the game-makers to provide you with miniguns, laser rifles, combat shotguns, and so forth right from the beginning of the game and not use ammo as the limiting factor. I'm a big fan of making the combat choices equally viable. It would also reduce the amount of impact that regular maintenance has on combat potential, so we could let repairing be less of an esoteric ability, saving us all some headaches. For those who want a pristine weapon but not the hassle of searching for the parts themselves, there's no reason you couldn't purchase them from a Top-Shelf weapons dealer like the Brotherhood or Outcasts could have been. I see no reason why the Outcasts shouldn't trade you a good-quality rifle for a handful of poor-quality laser pistols, and it would develop the tech-trading aspect more.

But as Neph has already told me, everyone has a way to make Fallout better. Ah well.

[chitoryu12]

I swear, I've had this game for 7 hours and I'm halfway to sending Moria's head spinning across her goddamn store! She's so peppy and childlike, I feel like I'm dealing with some kind of junkie!

[Covenant]

I swear, I've had this game for 7 hours and I'm halfway to sending Moria's head spinning across her goddamn store! She's so peppy and childlike, I feel like I'm dealing with some kind of junkie!

She reminds me of Sarah Palin.