Fallout X: Back after those messages

[Lord Raziere]

They also used the Synths for slave Labor.

And apprently they reinvented the wheel when developing th eAI tech the synths run on. Gen 1 Synths were Dumb AI and Gen 2 synths ran the same gamut as previous bots. It was only when theyy were experimenting with Nick and DIMAS that they did something new... And incidentally, that tech was the only thing that carried over to the Gen 3 Synths. The robotic Synth projects were regulated to foot soldiers.

...And not manual labor.

Th entire institute is high intelligence, low wisdom. You notice that their laser weapons are worse than the ones you find in the common wealth in most regards?

Yeah, and making a biological thing to be near-indistinguishable from human from scratch is kind high int, low wis too, because humans already make more of themselves pretty well as it is and thus all you really need to do is kidnap some children and put whatever cybernetic implants they want into them for infiltration purposes to get the same results, but less resource intensive. in a wasteland like this, there is bound to be a few stray kids you can just nab without anyone noticing.

[Rynjin]

I'm making myself mad again just thinking about it. Imagine what Fallout 4 could have been if the Institute was an open force, in control of the Commonwealth (as they were implied to be during Fallout 3).

The area they set up their home base and the immediate surroundings are a true cosmopolitan area, like New Vegas but even more advanced. People live in relative comfort, safe in a community that is protected by advanced technology and synthetic soldiers. It's arguably safer than a Vault, and the populace would likely be nearly as naive.

You could still have the usual blasted wasteland outside of the main Boston area for exploration; the Institute have built a city, not a nation. Most of the people living outside of the city would have...opinions about the Institute, hinting at something darker. They prefer freedom over safety. I think someone once had a good quote about that...

Keep the "synths replacing people" thing...but have it only happen to people speaking out against the Institute openly and rallying others to their cause. Maybe important individuals in rival factions, like the Gunners. Not enough to give the Institute total control, but a foothold and guidance to make sure they're dangerous enough to scare people into not wanting to leave the Institute's iron rule, but never grow powerful enough to actually challenge the city.

Have them be experimenting with people and other things, genuinely working on technology that could revitalize the wasteland. Hardy crops, genetically modified humans that can survive even heavily irradiated areas (giving us an explanation for the Children of Atom in the process), terraforming via bass-boosted GECKs, that kind of thing.

You could actually have an interesting moral dilemma, then. Do you expose and destroy the Institute? You'd save the people they're experimenting on, and win a "moral" victory...at the cost of dooming those now dependent on the Institute to survive, and stymieing scientific progress on restoring the world. Or do you help the Institute? Morally grey, when it comes to individual suffering, but perhaps genuinely better for the greater good and long term gain.

But...no. Instead the Institute are a bunch of shortsighted chuckle****s who claim to be making strides toward restoring civilization, but really everything they do ends up making things worse. *sigh*

[Rater202]

Yeah, and making a biological thing to be near-indistinguishable from human from scratch is kind high int, low wis too, because humans already make more of themselves pretty well as it is and thus all you really need to do is kidnap some children and put whatever cybernetic implants they want into them for infiltration purposes to get the same results, but less resource intensive. in a wasteland like this, there is bound to be a few stray kids you can just nab without anyone noticing.

I can kind of see the argument for Synhes in that they're meant to be genetically "pure" humans.

Most humans in fallout, even vault dwellers, will eventually be exposed to Rads of FEV and develop some kind of mutation.

Any minor mutation could result in physiological or biochemical changes that could seriously screw with something meant to be implanted in a human brain.

But that assumes that spies and slaves are a worthwhile reason for brainwashing humans.

---

You know what I'd like to see as a villain faction in a Fallout Game?

A group that managed to find the research noes for the orignal FEV experiments and more than one strain of the crap and actually managed to pull off what it was supposed to do: Boosted the immune system and efficient metabolism to protect from disease and toxins coupled with boosted physical attributes and intelligence without deformities, insanity, or sterility. Maybe it even fixes harmful mutations.

Basically, someone who achieved what the Master was too... Yeah, to realize he couldn't.

Don't make them the major big bad per se, don't make them the Institute or Kaiser's Legion, but make them the morally shady faction who... They're not the good guy, but there's some serious temptation to side with them. A shot of that perfect FEV will make getting **** down in the game a whole lot easier and, from an in-universe perspective if you help them expand their influence in theory being so mutated will help the wastelanders survive.

[Mechalich]

I can kind of see the argument for Synhes in that they're meant to be genetically "pure" humans.

Most humans in fallout, even vault dwellers, will eventually be exposed to Rads of FEV and develop some kind of mutation.

Any minor mutation could result in physiological or biochemical changes that could seriously screw with something meant to be implanted in a human brain.

But that assumes that spies and slaves are a worthwhile reason for brainwashing humans.

---

You know what I'd like to see as a villain faction in a Fallout Game?

A group that managed to find the research noes for the orignal FEV experiments and more than one strain of the crap and actually managed to pull off what it was supposed to do: Boosted the immune system and efficient metabolism to protect from disease and toxins coupled with boosted physical attributes and intelligence without deformities, insanity, or sterility. Maybe it even fixes harmful mutations.

Basically, someone who achieved what the Master was too... Yeah, to realize he couldn't.

Don't make them the major big bad per se, don't make them the Institute or Kaiser's Legion, but make them the morally shady faction who... They're not the good guy, but there's some serious temptation to side with them. A shot of that perfect FEV will make getting **** down in the game a whole lot easier and, from an in-universe perspective if you help them expand their influence in theory being so mutated will help the wastelanders survive.

The Enclave in FO76 more or less does this already. They're extremely shady - MODUS is just this side of Hal 9000 on the creepy AI meter - and they have achieved the ability to supply controlled mutations via serums, which you can buy (and this is an essential part of the path to true ultimate power in FO76). They also aren't actually the bad guy, that would be the Scorched, and in fact their ability to provide access to the nuclear silos is essential to stopping the plague, which is the essential moral compromise at the heart of the FO76 storyline: to allow for the rebirth of the devastated post-nuclear wasteland you have to nuke it all over again.

The problem here is that the Enclave is the final faction to appear in the base FO76 questline. You have to clear Responders, Raiders, Free State, and BoS all in order before you unlock them and explore basically the entire map in the process. A huge portion of the players give up before they get to that point.

[NeoVid]

You know what I'd like to see as a villain faction in a Fallout Game?

A group that managed to find the research noes for the orignal FEV experiments and more than one strain of the crap and actually managed to pull off what it was supposed to do: Boosted the immune system and efficient metabolism to protect from disease and toxins coupled with boosted physical attributes and intelligence without deformities, insanity, or sterility. Maybe it even fixes harmful mutations.

Basically, someone who achieved what the Master was too... Yeah, to realize he couldn't.

This is exactly what Dr Blackburn was trying to do in FO76. He was dedicated to making FEV do what it was promised to do, and was working on creating a strain that would give radiation immunity without Ghoul mutations. The fact that the most viable forms his test subjects turned into were Snallygasters and Grafton Monsters just meant he needed to create more variants!

Spoiler

Show

Fortunately for the world, he was principled enough that he decided you were right when you said that if he truly believed he'd succeeded, he'd test his creation on himself before releasing it into the wild. The 'perfected' FEV strain's true effect was... closer to what he hoped to do, at least...

[ShneekeyTheLost]

So basically Gen 3 Synths aren't actually synths, it's just a cloning vat and mind control chips. Gotcha.

Which... as pointed out earlier, also makes zero sense. Humans are really good at multiplication all by themselves. Do a bit of genetic manipulation via FEV handwavium if you want, you could've gone the whole indoctrination route to try and one-up the BoS's attempt at emulating a certain well known WW II era regime with their actions.

Synths are, by definition, synthetic. That's... kinda the whole reason they're called 'synths'. Gen 3 aren't synthetic, and they aren't AI. There's nothing artificial about a clone's intelligence, the only 'programming' is going to be in the mind control chip.

Which also brings up another even creepier point that the Institute should have done and maybe did... maybe they aren't kidnapping and *replacing* people with 'synths'... maybe they're kidnapping and implanting with mind control chips and letting the exact same person back out into the wild. After all, it's a complete waste of resources to clone a whole new body when you have a perfectly functional one that already has a cover built in available.

In F:NV, the BoS is capable of identifying that you have cybernetic implants, and they have a fraction of the resources the chapter in FO4 has. So even if the chip is the only difference, it's still going to be picked up by them.

In either case, it's got to be the most insanely stupid plot device I've seen. And I mean that while having read Xanth, Discworld, and other settings who are deliberately making use of stupid plot devices to lampshade them. Except it actually tries to take itself seriously.

The entire concept is using incorrect terminology and pants-on-head stupid to flat out impossible applications thereof, much in the same way as Lovecraft incorrectly uses 'non-euclidean geometry' which he should probably be referencing 'multi-dimensional fractal geometry' and keeps harping on about 'colors unlike anything anyone has seen before' when he's probably trying to refer to radiation which either IS a color people have seen before or is emitting outside the light spectrum and thus isn't a color at all. The concepts, as presented, do not function the way they are presented.

Just one of the many, many reasons why FO4 just... fails as anything other than a generic shooter/looter. Congratulations, Bethesda managed to make a plot even LESS believable and relevant than FO3's. Hell, even F76's plot, such as it is and what there is of it, at least hangs together and is more internally consistent, which is a statement I thought would never be applicable.

[Grim Portent]

Gen 3 synths aren't clones, they're fabricated from the ground up to look like someone else. The process is visible in the Institute, they basically print them layer by layer. It's implied that they all have very similar DNA due to being based on Father as a baseline.

Synths are also flat out different in terms of biology to humans. Immune to rads, resistant to disease and poison, possibly unaging though that was never made clear, and implied to be sterile. Coursers are then also tougher, faster and stronger.

They are literally the replicants from Blade Runner but with a longer lifespan, better command codes and the potential to develop empathy. Robots made from meat.

[Vinyadan]

Yeah, Synth's don't really make any sense. Completely indistinguishable from humans, but not human? Yeah, that's probably dumbest idea Bethesda's had. But like... I hope they stop there.

Personally I preferred the idea that there were no synths, and that people were murdering each other due to hysteria. As it has happened many times in history, except in the game we would have been on a level field with the others and have a good chance of falling in the same belief.

[factotum]

Personally I preferred the idea that there were no synths, and that people were murdering each other due to hysteria. As it has happened many times in history, except in the game we would have been on a level field with the others and have a good chance of falling in the same belief.

Unfortunately that ship already sailed in Fallout 3, where we first see this idea of Institute-made synth duplicates of people. Since we already knew the Institute was based in Massachusetts it would have been surpassing strange to actually go there and find no trace whatsoever of them.

[Rater202]

Gen 3 synths aren't clones, they're fabricated from the ground up to look like someone else. The process is visible in the Institute, they basically print them layer by layer. It's implied that they all have very similar DNA due to being based on Father as a baseline

Incidentally: This means that the Sole Survivor remaining a Synth is incest. Exactly how similar to father any given Synth is in a purely genetic sense isn't clarified, but in a way, every gen 3 synth is effectively the Sol Survivor's grandchild.

[Grim Portent]

Unfortunately that ship already sailed in Fallout 3, where we first see this idea of Institute-made synth duplicates of people. Since we already knew the Institute was based in Massachusetts it would have been surpassing strange to actually go there and find no trace whatsoever of them.

At that point I don't think there was evidence of them making duplicates of people, just artificial humans that were indistinguishable unless you went under the hood and examined their innards.

Which might have been a better direction to take things, no replacement style infiltration actually happening, just synths being sent into the wasteland under false identities and then people freaking out when they find out the person they'd known for years was an organic machine on a mission from the Institute. People would naturally assume the Institute had been replacing existing people, because how do you know the person was a synth all along? That Bippy Jones, travelling salesman who you'd known for years was always a synth and never a normal person.

Meanwhile the Institute could be sitting there like 'wow, the people on the surface are paranoid and superstitious and turn on each other with barely any provocation, we should just stay underground for a while longer.' Or go down the route of Institute controlled settlements with a slave-caste of synths, and make the narrative work more around an abolitionist vs pro-synthetic slavery angle.

After all, the creation and enslavement* of synths is evil enough for narrative purposes without actually murdering people. Adding the whole infiltration shtick just makes the Institute Enclave levels of evil when it isn't necessary.

EDIT:

Incidentally: This means that the Sole Survivor remaining a Synth is incest. Exactly how similar to father any given Synth is in a purely genetic sense isn't clarified, but in a way, every gen 3 synth is effectively the Sol Survivor's grandchild.

In a sense I suppose. Regardless of genetic similarities they all consider Father to be their... well, father in a sense. That naturally makes the Sole Survivor their grandfather/grandmother in the same way. Following the same logic Deacon is technically Father's son-in-law* because he was married* to a synth.

But if the Sole Survivor was a synth, they wouldn't necessarily be Father's father/mother recreated, they could just be Father's child, an experiment in synth free will and humanity with no other major connections to their creator.


*For a given value of both law and marriage, the wasteland being what it is.

[GloatingSwine]

Fallout 3 had humanlike synthetics, not necessarily ones replacing specific other people.

[Cikomyr2]

Incidentally: This means that the Sole Survivor remaining a Synth is incest. Exactly how similar to father any given Synth is in a purely genetic sense isn't clarified, but in a way, every gen 3 synth is effectively the Sol Survivor's grandchild.

You know, the idea that the Sole Survivor is the only individual directly genetically linked to every single one synth that infiltrated the Commonwealth is a gigantic, gigantic missed story opportunity.

Suddenly, you could be the one who figures out who's a synth and who's not. And thats why the Minutemen are rallying around you. You are the only one who can actually point to someone and tell if they are a synth or not, and you can reassure a community that they are safe. You give the Commonwealth some hope for safety.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I remember now why I don't like Lonesome Road DLC for New Vegas...

In addition to having a 'just does not work' backstory that seems to be a Faulty Narrator in the person of Ulysses making stuff up to fit his headcanon, there's laaaaaaaag. Like, I have NVAC, NVTR (updated version of NVSR), have set up my .ini files to a more reasonable level, and STILL I get unplayable levels of lag whenever explosions go off. Not anywhere else in the entire game, not even if I start ripping off a Grenade Machinegun, just here in Dead Money.

Ugh, the things I do for the +5% crit chance trenchcoat...

[Spore]

A bit of a tangent here, but are there any spiritual successors to Fallout New Vegas out there? I am feeling the itch again, but I dont feel like playing the same game. To be more precise:

Weird West first/third person rpg shooter, but I welcome post apocalyptic vibes as well.

[Lord Raziere]

A bit of a tangent here, but are there any spiritual successors to Fallout New Vegas out there? I am feeling the itch again, but I dont feel like playing the same game. To be more precise:

Weird West first/third person rpg shooter, but I welcome post apocalyptic vibes as well.

..............I guess The Outer Worlds most likely is the closest. like if I remember there is cowboy stuff in it in addition to the space corporate stuff, but I might be misremembering? like its made by the same people so its probably the closest we ever got. but you might've already played that so I don't know if thats a good recommendation for you.

your asking for a very specific combination, unfortunately. like technically Borderlands is a shooter and has big weird west vibes, but it doesn't really have much decision making or morality to it, the rpg aspect is just leveling up and the story is set and much less serious.

if your willing to dump the rpg/post-apoc/sci-fi aspect and focus entirely on wild west shooter aspect, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is pretty good.

Bioshock goes the other direction and focuses on a more sci-fi/alt reality shooter kind of thing thats wild-west adjacent in the sense it takes place in time periods that while after the wild west are pretty influenced by its existence and mindset.

don't really know any others to recommend.

[Cikomyr2]

A bit of a tangent here, but are there any spiritual successors to Fallout New Vegas out there? I am feeling the itch again, but I dont feel like playing the same game. To be more precise:

Weird West first/third person rpg shooter, but I welcome post apocalyptic vibes as well.

I mean, take a look at MATN's playthroughs of Weird West. Maybe its not what you are looking for, but give it 20 minutes of watch.

https://youtu.be/mVHrQtabOYM

[Spore]

I could boot up Outer Worlds too, that is true. Weird west reminds me of Desperados more than Fallout which in turn reminds me of Commandos, which is a frustrating reminder to say the least.

I'm fine with dropping the RPG elements (heck I enjoyed FO 4 and it barely has any). Is Horizon Zero Dawn any similar to 3D Fallouts?

[factotum]

Is Horizon Zero Dawn any similar to 3D Fallouts?

Not even remotely, I'd say. Combat plays far differently, with a heavy emphasis on using the correct ammo to knock bits off the robot animals and stealth that only works when you're in particularly long red grass. While being post-apocalyptic the setting couldn't really be any more different either--it plays more like a fantasy game with the odd SF element than the shooter gameplay of 3D fallouts. The RPG system works very differently from Fallout as well.

Having said all that, I'd say Zero Dawn is totally worth your time to have a look--I played and finished it back in the day and enjoyed my time immensely, although your mileage may vary.

[Vinyadan]

A bit of a tangent here, but are there any spiritual successors to Fallout New Vegas out there? I am feeling the itch again, but I dont feel like playing the same game. To be more precise:

Weird West first/third person rpg shooter, but I welcome post apocalyptic vibes as well.

The Stalker series is a first person game inspired by the isometric Fallouts, with a lot of weirdness, set in a localised post-apocalyptic zone that is essentially the European equivalent to the furthest Frontier, where people are building their own, well, not civilisation, but place. It's an open-world fps with many RPG elements, factions, quests, an inventory, dialogues, merchants, and so on.

The biggest difference from Fallout: NV is how ephemeral everything feels, when compared to the Zone -- you, the settlements, the factions... The Zone is reality bending on itself, and all that stands upon it is just buying time on a precarious equilibrium, waiting for the Zone to turn over and make it sink.

Also, it's a pretty creepy series, to the point that some call it survival horror (it isn't). Call of Pripyat is the least buggy, with a nice quest system, but Shadow of Chernobyl is probably the best introduction to the series. There's also a lot of modding opportunities out there.

See? It even has bugs! Just like Vegas!

[DigoDragon]

I remember now why I don't like Lonesome Road DLC for New Vegas...

In addition to having a 'just does not work' backstory that seems to be a Faulty Narrator in the person of Ulysses making stuff up to fit his headcanon, there's laaaaaaaag. Like, I have NVAC, NVTR (updated version of NVSR), have set up my .ini files to a more reasonable level, and STILL I get unplayable levels of lag whenever explosions go off. Not anywhere else in the entire game, not even if I start ripping off a Grenade Machinegun, just here in Dead Money.

The same thing happened to me with lag (and numerous CTDs that weren't happening anywhere else in the game). I wonder if the weird sky effects have anything to do with it, because it was more prevalent outdoors.

[MCerberus]

I'd actually say tonally and thematically, Disco Elysium.

The world is changing. Not everyone is going to be alright. You are the whirlwind, deprived of your memory and having an impact on the lives of everyone you come across.

I actually don't think NV is a comedy. It just has funny moments because it is grade a BLEAK without a break. The heart of New Vegas is a scene I like to come back to. You're sitting on a vista with a view to Lake Las Vegas. You're talking to the commander, about the future. About how he did everything to try and save the lives of his troops. You tell him you know what he did, and he excuses himself to come clean over the radio. A .44 magnum shot goes off after his apology. The radio fades back in to "Johnny Guitar". If that's the spirit you're looking for, 100% Disco Elysium. Maybe Night in the Woods too. However, neither of those are open world shooters.

[Mechalich]

I actually don't think NV is a comedy. It just has funny moments because it is grade a BLEAK without a break. The heart of New Vegas is a scene I like to come back to. You're sitting on a vista with a view to Lake Las Vegas. You're talking to the commander, about the future. About how he did everything to try and save the lives of his troops. You tell him you know what he did, and he excuses himself to come clean over the radio. A .44 magnum shot goes off after his apology. The radio fades back in to "Johnny Guitar".

Do you know you can prevent him from committing suicide if you kill Caesar beforehand?

New Vegas - except perhaps Dead Money in which character agency is drastically curtailed - is generally only as bleak as you want it to be, and if you play as the gun-totting savior with a heart of gold it's nowhere near as bleak as FO3, FO4, or FO76. Notably, killing Caesar unlocks a whole bunch of 'well, the long term outlook just got exponentially better' dialogue trees for the late game. Heck, you can talk freaking Ulysses down if you do that. Truthfully FO76, as originally produced, is by far the bleakest of the four games. A completely empty wasteland, where life was bad pre-Apocalypse, got worse post-Apocalypse as while some people reacted heroically others went down the worst paths possible, and ultimately failure to present a united front caused the Scorched to wipe out literally everyone. Playing through FO76 involves a lot of listening to long audiotape recordings of all of these horrible things happened to people who were desperately trying to salvage something. Now, Bethesda changed the game later by letting NPCs back in and made things a lot more hopeful overall, but all that material's still in the game.

[MCerberus]

Do you know you can prevent him from committing suicide if you kill Caesar beforehand?

Yah, and instead of coming to justice he becomes a senator.
Hey, there's that comedy

[Spore]

I actually don't think NV is a comedy. It just has funny moments because it is grade a BLEAK without a break. The heart of New Vegas is a scene I like to come back to. You're sitting on a vista with a view to Lake Las Vegas. You're talking to the commander, about the future. About how he did everything to try and save the lives of his troops. You tell him you know what he did, and he excuses himself to come clean over the radio. A .44 magnum shot goes off after his apology. The radio fades back in to "Johnny Guitar". If that's the spirit you're looking for, 100% Disco Elysium. Maybe Night in the Woods too. However, neither of those are open world shooters.

Do people nowadays not realize comedy is just a subcategory of drama?

Drama is composed of tragedy and comedy. Fallout is a tragic story of a world pushed to the brink of annihilation but utterly ridiculous reasons. An overly patriotic and Chinese/communism hating America, a world that naively believes even the most ridiculous corporation wants their best, a unity of states that is in and of itself deeply divided (into Commonwealths). Take Vaultec for example: The drama is split into tragic fates of people subjugated to the experiments of the company, which borders on the insane since even if the experiments gave very good results, there is no one to benefit from them in a post apocalyptic future. But there are the elements of comedy, as a game it needs happy areas, lest the game is ridiculed by the gamers as grimdark and edgy. A vault full of clones of a guy named Gary. Cloning and isolatory insanity are very saddening and difficult topics, but the comedy of a hundred guys shouting their name "Gary" people pay attention and acknowledge cloning can become very weird.

[Cikomyr2]

Anyone of you guys saw MATN playing thr Fallout 4 mod "War of the Commonwealth" with everything turned up to 11?

https://youtu.be/zmTAsbCgySE

Its flippin' bonkers. A complete war zone

[LibraryOgre]

So, a Fallout 3 question:

Why is Megaton like that? You look around, and there's a pretty sturdy school over there, and there's a nearly intact supermarket over there, and even an overpass nearby.

Why build your home in the bottom of a hole containing an unexploded bomb?

[Grim Portent]

So, a Fallout 3 question:

Why is Megaton like that? You look around, and there's a pretty sturdy school over there, and there's a nearly intact supermarket over there, and even an overpass nearby.

Why build your home in the bottom of a hole containing an unexploded bomb?

Lazy set-piece design really. Megaton might have made sense if it was build in a crater surrounded by scrap metal and no buildings for miles, as is it would make more sense to live in one of the relatively nearby buildings. Might also make sense if Megaton was built immediately after the war, rather than by people who wanted into Vault 101 and were refused, immediately post-war the supermarket especially would have been full of other survivors, likely hostile and defensive.

The canon answer is protection from dust storms, which I will grant the crater would probably provide, and maybe even better than a wrecked building. The bomb was left where it is because when they were building the walls they felt they needed the manpower contributions of the early Children of Atom that had already begun to take root in the settlement, and moving the bomb would piss them off.

Neither is exactly a good reason, and it does really come down to being a tropey set piece.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

So, a Fallout 3 question:

Why is Megaton like that? You look around, and there's a pretty sturdy school over there, and there's a nearly intact supermarket over there, and even an overpass nearby.

Why build your home in the bottom of a hole containing an unexploded bomb?

The supermarket really isn't big enough to support the sort of population found at Megaton, and really the school looks to be starting to fall apart as well. The overpass would be defensive against aggressors, but there's another neighborhood which is already stationed on that overpass nearby, if memory serves (related to the faux-vampire plotline I think?). It probably doesn't help much against the dust storms, though.

I always felt Megaton started off as a Children of Atom religious place that slowly grew into a town once people saw that living down there did not actually kill you. Given that it is on a major road, it's also a stopover for caravans and such, which also gives it the three L's of real estate... Location, Location, Location.

But honestly? It's like that because Fallout Logic, which has never tried to take itself remotely seriously. I mean, this is the same game where little green martians kidnap and 'probe' people, and one of the DLC's involves you getting kidnapped and resisting said probing and finding a way off the ship. You really think anyone on the team tried to plan out settlements based on how they might have logically grown?

[Rodin]

The supermarket really isn't big enough to support the sort of population found at Megaton, and really the school looks to be starting to fall apart as well. The overpass would be defensive against aggressors, but there's another neighborhood which is already stationed on that overpass nearby, if memory serves (related to the faux-vampire plotline I think?). It probably doesn't help much against the dust storms, though.

I always felt Megaton started off as a Children of Atom religious place that slowly grew into a town once people saw that living down there did not actually kill you. Given that it is on a major road, it's also a stopover for caravans and such, which also gives it the three L's of real estate... Location, Location, Location.

But honestly? It's like that because Fallout Logic, which has never tried to take itself remotely seriously. I mean, this is the same game where little green martians kidnap and 'probe' people, and one of the DLC's involves you getting kidnapped and resisting said probing and finding a way off the ship. You really think anyone on the team tried to plan out settlements based on how they might have logically grown?

Also see: The reason why nobody in Fallout-verse can manage to build a dwelling more advanced than a lean-to made out of rusted aluminum siding, yet the drugged out Raiders are able to get their hands on an infinite supply of hair gel to maintain their mohawks.