Forum:Sailing the irradiated seas

What do you think of the idea of Fallout at sea -- or other bodies of water (e.g., a Fallout game centered around the Great Lakes, where you could technically get to any land-based city by traversing the land around the waters, but travelling by water would be much faster)?

I think that most ships are going to be wind-powered in Fallout. Occasionally, though, ancient pre-war fusion-powered sips make an appearance. Generally, fossil fuels aren't viable, since they were virtually exhausted before the Great War, but there are some exceptions like the Oil Tanker of Fallout 2. Ability to sail -- knowing how to tack against the wind and all of that stuff -- would be based on the Outdoorsman or Survival skills.

Rough ideas for encounters:


 * Pirates (obviously -- raiders in a ramshackle sailboat)
 * Sea monsters
 * NCR Naval Patrol (off the coast of California sometime post-Fallout 1 -- a well-maintained sailboat flying the bear flag)
 * Unity Naval Patrol (off the coast of California sometime during/shortly before Fallout 1 -- supermutants in a boat -- could be sailed, or just propelled by the supermutants with oars, since they have great strength and endurance0
 * Brotherhood Salvage Team (fusion-powered science boat, looking for pre-war wrecks)
 * Mermen and mermaids: FEV/radiation-mutated water-breathing humans with fins and gills. Could be traders, raiders, beggars, or whatever.(Note: they don't look like Ariel, just as centaurs in Fallout don't look like Chiron)
 * Vikings (Raider-slavers with allusions, like the Khans. Use galleys rowed by slaves.)

Anyway, I don't really have any particular ideas about how sailing would work in Fallout, but I'm curious about what you think. I looked for this topic, and couldn't find it, but I didn't do a very thorough search, so if this is a repeat my apologies. Idhan 00:00, May 30, 2011 (UTC)

By the way, if this topic has already been beaten to death in a lot of threads, then I'd appreciate a link to the relevant forum posts and such. Idhan 00:56, June 14, 2011 (UTC)

I think this idea for a Fallout game setting has merrit but I can imagine many people would think of that stinker of a film "Waterworld" and switch off in short order. Someone a while back had an idea for a Fallout game set in Hawaii. This could combine the 2, tropical paradise and water based adventure. I'd like to see the next few Fallout games move away from the west coast and centre on new locations with new factions. No more BoS either. Captain Taipan 07:56, June 15, 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't think that a Fallout game needs to be fully water-based to include some maritime segments. I suppose if you wanted to develop new factions rather than retreading the familiar ones, that certainly has potential. Maybe a maritime trading power, sort of like The Hub meets the medieval Republic of Venice? You could sail with their merchants to protect their convoys from pirates, much like the Hub convoy missions? Idhan 04:49, June 16, 2011 (UTC)

I think having a faction that relies on sailing would be really cool and add a really special element to fallout like old school sailing mixed with modern boats and tech. I dunno it could be cool --Boredintheusa 04:59, June 16, 2011 (UTC)

Weren't the great lakes destroyed by the alien death ray --68.196.58.201 03:59, July 7, 2011 (UTC)

I forged your sig, 68.196.58.201, just because I find unsigned messages make it confusing where one message begins and the other ends. I hope you don't mind too much. If you object, I'll remove your forged sig. Anyway, are you referring to Mothership Zeta? First, I haven't played MZ, but my understanding is that this is based on a look out the window that's somewhat ambiguous. Is that correct? Also, games set prior to 2277 might still involve the Great Lakes. Lastly, maybe the Great Lakes are gone, but hey, there could still be sailing in the Gulf of Mexico, or the Pacific, or the Atlantic. Idhan 01:02, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

While I find this topic highly amusing and thoughtout, I must point some critical flaws. First off is the question where or not anyone actually exists outside of the US, from the Great War. Since there is no evidence of anyone from say, china, russia or europe living since the Great War, so we'd have to amuse their deader than dead...

Secondly, why? These guys were suffering before the Great War from lack of resources and no technology, so why'd we walk to go there? If be like finding that useless destroyed building in the Mojave without anything of value in or around it...

Thirdly, Radioactivity. All of the water gets dumped into the oceans, so not only will traversing it be difficult, it'll also be dangerous due to the Gamma bombardment just simply being on it... Their wouldn;t be enough Rad-x and Rad-away to save your flesh arse to even make it to Puerto Rico, not mention the mutations due to the ALL of the ocean creatures... I don't know about you,but seriously don't want to be in a little tin dingy when a two-head shard or mutated blue whale sees dinner.... I am Legacy Tech. 06:27, July 28, 2011 (UTC)

First, Allistair Tenpenny, I think, came from the former United Kingdom. At any rate, given that the US and China were the primary belligerents of the Great War, I don't think it makes much sense to say that either of them would be the parts of the world which had the most survivors. If anything, I'd think the US and China would be the worst parts of the planet -- which is what makes the US, at least (along with its familiarity to American game audiences) a fun RPG world.

Second, areas with less also got hit less hard in the Great War. It's quite conceivable that, say, Central American countries like Panama are now better off than the US. It's better to have 1/4th as much stuff as the US and get it 1/2 destroyed than have as much stuff as the US and get it 90% destroyed.

Then there's the fact that regional trade could be based on natural environmental factors. Maybe in Costa Rica they can grow a super-potent FEV-mutated coffee strain that sells for more than jet. You can't grow coffee in California.

As for radioactivity, I think it'd be less of a problem than on land. First, of course, people nuked the land, where people lived, not the ocean. Second, many radioactive particles are fairly heavy, and would sink in water, being deposited on the bottom of the ocean. From the bottom of the ocean, radiation would be fairly extensively filtered out before it got to the surface, where any boats would be, except near beaches. (Nuclear reactors are often immersed in water because of its radiation-stopping properties. A pretty blue glow of Cerenkov radiation can be observed around them.)

Monsters? I assume there are monsters in the ocean. Guess what -- the same is true of the land. Idhan 20:25, July 31, 2011 (UTC)

You know what, after searching a tad, I found a reason... not a good one, but a possible reason to travel... http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_Resource_Wars I am Legacy Tech. 09:30, August 4, 2011 (UTC)

Well, since the series is based on 50s culture, I recall reading once, that up to the late 1950s ('57 possibly) more people still travelled by sea than air, so I'm thinking a liner out at sea during the war would make a suitable settlement, like Rivet City but less battleship grey and more of the pre war civilian stuff, though descendants are naive to the plight of the wastelandlubber, so it's more a merging of the said Rivet City and the Vaults, and possibly a rigorous class structure. Thetford 22:38, August 11, 2011 (UTC)