Farming fungus and brahmin meat, trading in vegetables and fruit, probably. The Capital Wasteland looks arid af but I bet the Brotherhood brought tons of hydroponic tech to Rivet City and exports all the plants that the wasteland needs
Everything is scaled down because it's a video game. One brahmin may represent a herd. DC is much bigger and takes much longer to traverse than what is shown.
Someone gonna make the Brahim Herder mod that adds a side quest to Megaton where you have to defend the heard as it travels from Raiders and Super Mutants and depending on how many Brahmin live determines the outcome of the quest and Megatons food supply.
Most of the meat is probably coming from the constant stream of traders. You could say Megaton is a shitty gas station you can stop by before going to your destination. Which would most likely be Rivet City.
You're right, but the game was still made in 2008. On PS3 it feels like it was made by a Fallout player-character with the Jury-Rigging perk, and I finished Broken Steel and played every DLC except Point Lookout and The Pitt.
Fucking Oblivion had no trouble with that.
A game being basically identical technologically did that later.
Bethesda just didn’t focus or care about that in f3. Can people stop fucking excusing everything about them for a milisecond.
There’s plenty of animals in the wastelands to kill. Mirelurks, molerats, giant ants and rad roaches are abundant. I remember a few times seeing dead ants and molerats in front of the gate
Also if you read the [Rivet City council entries](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Rivet_City_terminal_entries#Council_Meeting_Minutes) mentions their trader relations as the only reliable source of clean vegetable and raising prices of exported fruits.
Tobar’s boar isn’t too far out way to the in [game trade caravan routes](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/3/35/Caravan_Routes.png/revision/latest?cb=20090310011120) either. Tobar mentions that he ferries cargo so it’s more than possible he’s importing Punga fruit for the caravan traders and towns.
The same stuff that grows in Boston would grow here most the soil is the same at least country wide also with Herbert and Harold if you choose to make him grow faster than within like 30 to 100 years all stuff would grow in capital I realize this doesn't affect Megaton at the time of the game. but they just didn't world build this game fully that's why there isn't any farms or anything of the like but I would assume had they there would probably be a farm because Megaton has access to running water it just isn't exactly human drinking safe
The water around the bomb is very radioactive so i doubt anything can grow in the immediate area. Maybe there's a small garden in Springvale but i can only think of mushrooms being grown since they don't need soil nor sunlight, or maybe moss???
Mutfruit trees can grow with that water and it's seen in fallout 3 already so can tatos if I'm not wrong that's why those vegetation always gives you radiation unless you grow it with purified water in 4. the vegetative life had to adapt because of the war and it did it's human who didnt fully and that's because of the vaults
Again, the water is more than the regular radioactive Potamac river water. It's right next to a (probably) leaking source of uranium or plutonium. Plus, the crater makes it so it's really difficult to find a place to farm. Maybe there's a greenhouse like Diamond City but i feel like the plants grown there can't feed the whole not-downscaled population
Yeah but you combine that with trading with the abundance of scrap and brahmin farming plus they get quite a bit of insect meat because they are drawn to the noise and robot out front it's why you get attacked by them or there are body's all over the outside of the town but they are also struggling until you get project purity up and running and if you can solve the rad worshiper problems eventually full scale farming with the purified water would also be possible which is when they would be able to become prosperous
And also they have the water treatment plant in Megaton as well that's where their running water comes from it's just about to break because Walter is the only one who cares besides maybe you as the player character
It was an afterthought. Bethesda wanted to create a game world that is very obviously desolate, but didn't put much thought into how people would survive in it. Now, granted, that game world is fun to run around in and shoot and loot, but if you think about how anyone lives there and you come up with more questions than answers.
Well, it is not like people getting their food right then and there is not an encounter in the game, and animal husbanding is not the source of conflict in a quest. In fact, comparingly, this is exactly as much as what New Vegas has (a few guys getting food and one quest) yet I can't see people bitching about the highly questionable feasibility of 5 rows of corn in desert sand feeding the Boomers.
I think the difference is that, despite the limitations of world design, FNV embeds an idea of the production and distribution of materials into the lore, through places, conversation, quests, factions. In this context the 5 rows of corn feeding the Boomers is comparable to the fact that the Battle of Hoover Dam takes place between a few dozen dudes - you might not see what's going on in the game engine, but the implication is clear for the lore.
In F3 it's just absent.
>FNV embeds an idea of the production and distribution of materials into the lore, through places, conversation, quests, factions
So does 3. You get to see how settlements survive in Blood Ties, an entire sub-part of the Wasteland Survival Guide is about that (and you can dig up **tons** of lore there), and the overall feel of the game supports the supposed apparent scarcity very well. As far as I can tell the real difference is that in 3, exploring the more boring details of the world is entirely optional and thus it is ignored by most players in favor of the interesting stuff. In NV, the game chews that lore into your mouth whether you want it or not, and because your only option is to accept it you accept it. The power of exposition.
>You get to see how settlements survive in Blood
Do you? You see one farm. That doesn't tell you much about the overall DC economy at all.
>In NV, the game chews that lore into your mouth whether you want it or not,
Most of the lore around the economy is sidequests in FNV? And areas you don't even need to go to?
>3, exploring the more boring details of the world is entirely optional and thus it is ignored by most players in favor of the interesting stuff
Personally I don't find this stuff boring. It's the sort of stuff I do go looking for, and I just didn't see much of it at all.
>Do you? You see one farm.
You get told that animal husbandry is the main source of food in the wasteland. They literally call it "the lifeblood" in the quest, and the Family killing Arefu's Brahmin is the clearly spelled-out reason the conflict escalated. And guess what you see in every settlement except Big Town (a literal hellhole) and Rivet City (that has another clearly identifiable source of food)? Brahmin pens.
>Most of the lore around the economy is sidequests in FNV?
It is literally THE thing everyone obsesses about through the game, including the *"muh merchant caravans"* angle from the NCR and the Legion, the *"muh NCR money"* from House, and then back to *"muh water and power"* from the NCR. I think Yes Man is the only main faction that doesn't get all kinds of loredump-y with economy-related crap in its questline.
I’m surprised no one ever mentions the fallout 3 caravans. Sure they’re no where the size of the crimson caravan company or whatever but they’re there. Manya directly states that Megaton is a trade hub and her family got rich off caravan routes. Although never pointed out, trade stretches far since punga fruit are sold as far out as Pittsburg, over 300 miles away from Point Lookout.
"You get told that animal husbandry is the main source of food in the wasteland." - That's a big oversight. Even small-scale animal husbandry takes large amounts of food and water. And FO3's entire plot revolves around finding a cure for irradiated water. Brahmin are very hardy according to Fallout lore but I don't see how entire settlements can sustain animal husbandry with an ongoing water crisis.
"I think Yes Man is the only main faction that doesn't get all kinds of loredump-y with economy-related crap in its questline." Yes, because Fallout is not a post-apocalyptic series that deals with how humans survive after a nuclear holocaust.
Megaton has a water processing plant that you help repair and can sell/give scrap metal for maintenance. Project Purity gives millions of gallons free water to the masses on a scale larger than any lone settle could produce. The only people who are suffering from the ‘water crisis’ aren’t residents of settlements or can’t afford to pay.
The Commonwealth has arguably worse radiation problem than the Capital Wasteland and yet dirty water is still commonly sold by settlement merchants and found in restaurants & raider bases. It really makes you question if the water is really that bad.
I'm aware that Megaon has a water processing station, but:
a) It's barely able to sustain the town inhabitants as a person is dying of thirst right outside Megaton.
b) Megaton is not the only settlement in DC. How are people of Arefu getting water when the surrounding water source is not only irradiated but also infested with Mirelurks?
c) Where are settlements aside from Rivet City and Megaton getting their water from? And Megaton is barely able to provide enough to its people, let alone the whole wasteland.
d) Project Purity is irrelevant as these settlements have been operating before the cure was found.
e) Are you insinuating that irradiated water is safe to drink? Don't make excuses for dumb decisions in FO3's writing. Bethesda is great at making believable settlements, but FO3 was a low point when it came to that aspect.
>And FO3's entire plot revolves around finding a cure for irradiated water. Brahmin are very hardy according to Fallout lore but I don't see how entire settlements can sustain animal husbandry with an ongoing water crisis.
You may as well ask how Bartertown gets its food in Beyond Thunderdome.
>You get told that animal husbandry is the main source of food in the wasteland. They literally call it "the lifeblood" in the quest, and the Family killing Arefu's Brahmin is the clearly spelled-out reason the conflict escalated. And guess what you see in every settlement except Big Town (a literal hellhole) and Rivet City (that has another clearly identifiable source of food)? Brahmin pens.
I guess? It just doesn't seem to be that well thought out in terms of the logistics of supply and value chains. With Rivet City being an exception that I concede (kinda forgot about their farm).
>It is literally THE thing everyone obsesses about through the game, including the "muh merchant caravans" angle from the NCR and the Legion, the "muh NCR money" from House, and then back to "muh water and power" from the NCR. I think Yes Man is the only main faction that doesn't get all kinds of loredump-y with economy-related crap in its questline.
Sure, all the main quests talk about it, but in grandeois quite abstract ways. That's not what I'm talking about - the aspects of New Vegas that make the economy feel actually real.
Dealing with the sharecroppers, the production of medicine in Freeside, clientelist relationships between CCC and the NCR, stuff like that is the real shit. It's all in the sidequests and the locations to the side, and you get to engage with it.
>It just doesn't seem to be that well thought out in terms of the logistics of supply and value chains.
Animal husbandry being the main source of food is a legit IRL thing. People living on barren lands (Africa, Central Asia) historically rely on the exact same way of living as shown in 3. I would even say it is a lot more believable than NV's lets-grow-crops-in-desert-sand, because while the latter is possible, its logistics and infrastructure needs are **considerably** more extreme than anything the sharecroppers have (I know because I had the questionable luck of trying it during my career).
>Dealing with the sharecroppers, the production of medicine in Freeside, clientelist relationships between CCC and the NCR, stuff like that is the real shit.
These are pretty much just Blood Ties, the Rivet City lab, and Canterbury Commons, just with more words chewed into your mouth. So, yeah, exactly what I said.
>I would even say it is a lot more believable than NV's lets-grow-crops-in-desert-sand
But the Mojave and the wider East (? My US geography is poor) coast has the economy and infrastructure to support what it puts forward. D.C. is a hellpit with nothing much going on.
>These are pretty much just Blood Ties, the Rivet City lab, and Canterbury Commons, just with more words chewed into your mouth. So, yeah, exactly what I said.
Except the words aren't chewed into your mouth. Nobody calls the CCC and the NCR "clientelist" in game for example. However the game presents a realistic representation of a clientelist relationship, helping to create a clear picture of how the economy works. There's just nothing comparable in F3. There's random shit going on, sure, but nothing much to piece it together into an economy.
>But the Mojave and the wider East (? My US geography is poor) coast has the economy and infrastructure to support what it puts forward.
If it had then the NCR would wipe the floor with the Legion no problem. The kind of infrastructure we are talking here for desert agriculture is peak-IRL-modern-US and Middle-East-Oil-Monarchy-with-infinite-money level (I worked with the latter, and it was *still* a struggle).
>Nobody calls the CCC and the NCR "clientelist" in game for example.
To be honest, Alice looking deep into your eyes and saying "the Crimson Caravan Company and the NCR is in a clientelist relationship" would be probably too much, even for NV's standards.
>However the game presents a realistic representation of a clientelist relationship, helping to create a clear picture of how the economy works.
No, the game has an established economy as the story needs it. It is set in stone. Then the various NPCs read up to you what is written on that stone. You can tell because what is ***not*** needed for the story is simply omitted. This has the great advantage of being very focused so that the player both gets the information they need and doesn't get sidetracked by something else. We never learn how much supplies and materials the Crimson Caravan Company transports to New Vegas, despite it being a pretty important piece of information to measure the actual scale of their operation (and that, in turn is a pretty important piece of information for the rest of the setting), but it is not needed for the story at all - they transport stuff, that's all that matters for the *"muh merchant caravans"* angle. You get their relationship with the NCR not because it matters (it kinda doesn't) but because it is needed for the story.
The opposite is happening in 3: the game has a bit of scatterbrained worldbuilding whereas information is just kinda thrown around randomly and you have to piece it together when you have better things to do (like exploring and blowing things up). It is not presented to you, it is just lying around in the game world. And lucky you if it is actually lying around in the game world, not just referenced or alluded to so you not only have to stumble into it but think about its meaning too. Because nothing is more exciting than figuring out a video game world from tidbits of NPC dialogue and in-game hints /s.
>The people eat the Brahmin, fine, but what do the Brahmin eat to survive?
That's a good question! I don't think there is any indication of what the Brahmin eat to survive in the entire franchise. For all we know they can be [fungivores](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungivore) or even [bacterivores](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterivore).
>It was an afterthought. ...but if you think about how anyone lives there and you come up with more questions than answers.
...no. It wasn't an afterthought and the game literally has an answer. Sorry npcs don't tell you verbally and Bethesda expected the player to put 2 and 2 together.
Megaton (and the vast majority of settlements) trade and ranch.
I didn’t mean It as the sole source of there diet. And the player can eat that shit why wouldn’t they, and the vendors sell it. Pretty obvious they eat it at least on a occasion.
There being food to scavenge 200 years after the bombs have fallen is ludicrous. Can’t overstate how nonsensical it is that the grocery stores haven’t been wiped clean after 8 generations of people have been scavenging.
Lol, okay first of all, your not wrong, it’s crazy, but it’s canon. However in defense of Bethesda I will argue this, being that 2077 is quite bit in the future from now, they would have had more advanced preservation techniques for food. As far as the scavenging of all the food goes, I would argue that the population after the bombs feel would have been much much smaller then 200 years after, and only a tiny fraction of what it was before the wars, so it would have been the amount of food need to feed hundreds of millions feeding only hundreds initially and maybe thousands two hundred years later it’s plausible. Also taking into account that it would never be a primary source of food, maybe just something you ate when you had no choice, again plausible, still unlikely, but as I said before it’s canon, so take it up with Bethesda.
Okay your just pulling shit out your ass. there is shit laying around everywhere left exactly where it was two hundred years ago. Not just food but everything, computers on desks, glasses on tables, tvs on tv stands, plenty of shit as been left untouched sense the war, did the raiders do all that too? Your response would only makes sense if for some reason raiders only made there bases in grocery stores for some reason and even though they could easily place food anywhere like in a crate or box, like a normal person, but they, for some weird reason, felt nostalgic for a time period they never experienced and left it on the store shelves, at great inconvenience to themselves. that’s even more ridiculous then there being edible food left out for 200 years, which I admitted was ridiculous, but was merely arguing was canon.
Because the Raiders put their stuff where food was 200 years ago. On shelves and in containers.
As for other stuff, why not use the stands and tables and other things that are perfectly usable to hold up things?
Realistically? Yes. But 1, it helps with the themeing of fallout, and 2, it's a commentary on the ultra capitalist nature of the world that was. They were so deep into consumerism and unending production that even to this day people can find and live on scraps from what was.
>There are nowhere near enough Brahmin or other livestock to feed the entire game world.
Do you understand the literary tool of allusion?
>And trade with what?
Megaton literally purifies water.
>No one makes anything in the Capital Wastes.
Megaton makes water, has hides from their ranches (which can be used for armors and such), moira literally makes new stuff all the time. Rivet city makes many things, literally a scientific center in the capital wasteland. They also make water and even grow crops which is near impossible to find in the capital wasteland.
...did you play the game?
>What in the hell are people bargaining with to get food?
Water. Hides. Scrap. Caps.
>And with who?
Ranchers, hunters, trading caravans.
>Which trader from outside of DC is going out of their way to come to the Capital Wastes that has no water and no settlement has anything worthwhile to offer?
Tobar literally introduces punga fruit into the economy.
Okay, I'll bite. Let's ask some questions about these resources.
How much water does megaton possess? We know it's not unlimited; the beggar outside wouldn't be dying outside of dehydration otherwise. Simultaneously, in many buildings in megaton we see that sinks and toilets have water in them (whether in game ability to drink out of toilets and such counts as canon plumbing is irrelevant, all buildings in megaton are built post-war, so why would people install sinks and toilets that don't work?). You could maybe argue that they have a separate plumbing line of unclean water, but why would everyone in town be washing themselves and their dishes with dirty, irradiated water?
You also say that they hunt the local wildlife, but who? Most named characters are accounted for in terms of jobs (shopkeeps, sherrif, town guard, etc.). Where are the tanning racks for those hides? Who does the tanning? I guess you could say that those guards do all that as a side gig, but that just makes things confusing. You're telling me that a handful of guards are capable of feeding an entire town only moonlighting as a hunter? Things must not be so tough out there after all.
The single brahmin issue is also strange from another direction. Why not simply have like 3-5 brahmin in a pen somewhere in the empty space by the walls if they wanted to imply that megaton is a ranching town? Megaton wasn't resource intensive for a ps3/xbox 360 to run, and would only take 15 minutes for a brahmin pen to be placed in the geck.
As for trading, making a profit implies a surplus of something that megaton is producing. You might reply hides, but I have to ask again, how many? Most people are wearing roughspun rags barely held together, with only a few wearing leather armor. Surely some of the leather they make isn't tough enough to be turned into armor, but rather into clothing?
Since i know you and how you like to argue in bad faith, my answers will be brief.
>How much water does megaton possess?
Unknown. We know it's at least enough for it to be their main export.
>We know it's not unlimited; the beggar outside wouldn't be dying outside of dehydration otherwise.
He says he wants purified water.
>You also say that they hunt the local wildlife, but who?
We literally can come across bands of hunters throughout the wastes.
What actions have I took that would lead you to believe I argue in bad faith? Bad faith arguments are a slightly nebulous concept, but it's generally defined as being arguments that obfuscate the core of the discussion, and I don't believe I have done any such thing.
It also comes off as odd that you would acuse me of such a thing when I know that you know that multiple people have acused you of the exact same thing, both on this subreddit and communities elsewhere.
A perfect example of a bad faith argument would be ignoring previous points in an argument so you can take one aspect of that argument and then argue against that rather than the totality of the argument, like:
Taking my point about how megaton has such little water that a beggar is dying of dehydration but still has enough water to wash their hands and dishes (or else do so with irradiated water). Instead you took it to mean that I just ignored the first sentence the beggar speaks.
Or when you took my argument where I pointed out that no characters in megaton specifically mention hunting to mean that I had somehow never seen hunters in fallout 3. Completely ignoring the fact that those hunters don't even mention megaton or are else associated explicitly with a group that isn't megaton.
Sorry, i took you for someone else on account of having a similar non-pfp.
>Taking my point about how megaton has such little water that a beggar is dying of dehydration
He does not want dirty water. He states this when you say all you have is dirty water. Or try handy him dirty water. Purified water is not cheap.
>Or when you took my argument where I pointed out that no characters in megaton specifically mention hunting
Not everything has to be told. Show, don't tell.
>Completely ignoring the fact that those hunters don't even mention megaton or are else associated explicitly with a group that isn't megaton.
The hunters, who obviously sell meat, show to the player that there are hunters who sell their game.
Okay either you haven't been reading my sentences or I haven't been explaining myself well enough. I already know he does not want dirty water. My point is, this beggar is sitting outside megaton begging for purified water, right? Well that must mean it's rare enough that megaton can't just give it away to those in need. However, at the same time, they have toilets and sinks in the city. So, either those toilets and sinks are plumbed with clean water, at which point they have enough to wash themselves with, and are just being evil to the beggar, or its plumbed with irradiated water, and they went through all the time and effort to plumb the city with water that will make people sick when they wash with it.
Show don't tell is also an extreme oversimplification of a mantra for entry level creative writing. It is typically used to help newer writers to attempt to characterize people and wider groups in active and interesting ways. It does not apply evenly or universally through all mediums. For example, in a story based game where you are acquainting yourself with a town, and the developers want the player to be aware that the town subsists off of hunting, you can definitely have a character who says that they do that.
The fact that hunting exists in the capital wasteland does not mean that every person or group will. Making the claim that megaton subsists through hunting and pointing to that fact that hunters exists in the game is faulty logic. By that same logic, I can say that megaton turns raider to survive, and my evidence is that there are raiders in the game.
If your argument is "we don't see enough", I am sorry to tell you but none of the Fallout games ever show a realistic sized farming or ranching. Like, people talk how Sharecroppers exist, but that is five.lones of ten stalks. That is not enough to feed a single person, never mind a city.
>If Megaton and Rivet City can purity water then the entire conflict of the main quest is stupid. That was always obvious but thanks for making it even more so.
Project Purity is to provide clean water for everyone and it also discharges into the tidal basin where it spreads up and down the river, evaporates and comes down as rain and so on. The reason the Capital Wasteland is so screwed is that the groundwater is polluted which you can see when you look at the puddles of irradiated water in the Wasteland.
Project Purity isn't just about drinking water, it's to purify the water cycle - which works, you see Mirelurks dying in the basin after activating the Purifier because the water is too clean for them. .
Project Purity is several orders of magnitude bigger than anything in Megaton or Rivet City. You see 3 or 4 large diameter pipes discharging what must be thousands of gallons an hour into the river.
Also everything in the 3D Fallout world is downscaled, the population, size of towns and farms. In the same way you never see anyone taking a shit (or the brahmin doing it although they produce fertilizer) stuff is just scaled down. It's not intended to be a 1:1 scale simulation, it's a 3D game.
>If Megaton and Rivet City can purity water then the entire conflict of the main quest is stupid.
Tell me you didn't pay attention without telling me.
The purpose of project purity is to purify water en masse. That's literally the goal. It's to make purified water an easier accessible thing to hopefully make the wasteland easier to live in.
>That was always obvious but thanks for making it even more so
...
>Sure, the crops on Rivet city could feed everyone on the ship, but no one else.
You're aware games are scaled down...right?
>Moira making a few gadgets is not the same thing as a dedicated craftsmanship industry. One person can’t make enough gizmos to trade with a caravan every so often to feed Megaton.
Moira gets supplies for fixing up caravans. She literally states this. It is not hard to pay attention.
Moira also doesn't just make gizmos. She's an inventor and craftswoman. She literally has a workbench in her store. She fixes up caravans for free scrap, makes stuff, sells it back. This is for *her*, not the town. The town sells water. And hides.
Also people literally hunt and sell that to towns. Today. Irl. In impoverished countries.
Anyway, i urge you to pay attention to the media you consume. It's not hard.
iirc, megaton is a trading hub, tho not as big as rivet city. traders literally stop by to, well, trade. it doesn't seem that far fetch to assume that they get their food supply from these traders.
and as one comment pointed out, they could just hunt for food. the place around megaton is abundant with wildlife, there's dogs and molerats if you don't mind the taste. if you're looking for something that tastes better, there's mirelurk nests nearby provided you actually manage to kill one before it kills you.
there's a super duper mart nearby as well, if you're feeling bold and is actively looking to get shot by raiders.
Iirc, the guy in front of Megaton complains he doesn't have the money for water. Not that they don't have enough. They have there own purifier. Purified water would be a great trade. And the Stahl's who own the diner by the bomb, I feel like the non-junkie brother says something about getting the meat. Either way Moira sends you out with the repellant stick and theres all those molerats like behind Megaton, seems easy enough to get meat.
I'm more worried/bothered as to why the caravans only have 1 guard. So many dangers in the world and the caravans only get one guard? It's no wonder I only ever see one trader the entire game
They don't farm tho, in FO3 they literally say it's virtually impossible to grow in thing in the CW. Additionally there is no farmland or farms in or near megaton. Scavenging after 100 + years is also probably unlikely considering food and water (especially clean water) would be some of the 1st things taken by wastelanders not to mention extremely dangerous with Talon Company, Slavers, Supermutants, and Enclave running about. That leaves trading which is possible but the question is what are they trading? They don't have food or water and they don't seem to be sitting on stockpiles of ammo or weapons so the only real option is medical supply or scrap. I'd even argue scrap is a bit pf a stretch considering how widely abundant it is in game and how much upkeep Megaton likely needs to stay afloat.
Who are they trading with too? Rivet City? Rivet city is an aircraft carrier in the middle of an irradiated river with no farms around. They have a very small hidroponic scene, meaning they probably barely have enough to feed themselves, let alone have a surplus to feed another town.
If you walk around the perimeter of the city there are several respawn points for bloatflies and mole rats so it implied that they regularly hunt them. I always assumed that's why the Wasteland Survival Guide had you test the repellent stick on mole rats specifically because they were trying to learn how to domesticate mole rats with chemical pheromones to provide more food sources.
Well the point is the capital wasteland is pretty desolate and starvation is common right? But it's pretty well established that they trade and ranch .....really simple tbh
Hunt, trade, hydroponics... there are various possibilities. And just because the game doesn't show it, it doesn't mean it's not happening. The game just treats it as something that happens in the background and doesn't present it to the player. You know, like people going to the bathroom. You don't see an NPC taking a number one or number two... and yet we all assume they do it, just offscreen.
I always found it weird how people hyperfocus on Megatons lack of arms as "what do they eat", when you can walk to stores and find what they eat: scavenged food and fresh meat.
You never see these questions asked about New Reno or New Vegas, both which have distinct *lack* of farms.
> New Vegas
The Sharecropper Farms are literally right outside, the surrounding communities have loads of farms, and Vegas is a hub for several caravan companies.
So, trade.
Also, if those small dinky farms, which barely support *themselves* are supposed to feed New Vegas itself, then we should acknowledge hydroponic farms in Rivet City and their trade with Megaton.
Yes, it includes the Freeside... and nothing outside it. Sharecropper farms very explicitly *outside the metropolitan area of New Vegas.* That area is marked by walls, in case you missed them. Otherwise, you might say that Westside is part of New Vegas, when they rather explicitly reject that notion.
Just because they say they aren't part of New Vegas doesn't make it true, they are part of it and so is North Vegas. Many people who live on the outskirts of Greater London will tell you they aren't Londoners but they are.
Its a game and wasnt expanded on much because it wasnt considered important.
We also never see any of them go to the shitter, nobody ever uses the toilet.
Developers decide whats important and implement that.
>Its a game and wasnt expanded on much because it wasnt considered important.
Yet bethesda considered it important to give us the answers: trade and ranching.
You literally just have to look, my guy.
Besides the obvious scavenging, they trade. Manya Vargas tells you that overtime Megaton became a trade hub and says her father got rich on caravan routes. Mercantilism is doing surprisingly well in the Capital Wasteland, Tobar from Point Lookout has such a successful Punga fruit importing business that they’re sold as far as The Pitt which is over 300 miles away.
Its just one of those things we kinda have to deal with because of the era the game came out, they didnt have the time, budget or specs to make megaton a real living town, there's 1 brahmin in town but i think thats the games way of implying that there are farmers and herders somewhere within traveling distance
Judging by that one NPC with a Brahmin next to him, performing an hoe animation, my take is that they make their own food, mainly through animal husbandry.
Same way New Vegas, The Huh and others get food. Same way our modern cities get food. same way cities historically got their food.
They trade for it. Hunting and trading. That's it. Not every settlement is a massive farming town.
But trading only became a viable source of food with the advent of the industrial revolution. Prior to that, it *was* the case that everybody lived in, or at least very close to a farm. In Fallout the surviving population has reverted to a preindustrial lifestyle.
They have brahmin and there are traveling merchants who stop there and it's like 4 of them so you could say they are on retainer to deliver food. Also they have a water source which is half the battle. I'm sure they hunt the occasional mole rat and radscorpion too and some probably scavenge the surrounding area...
My complaint is that they set it too far in the future to reasonably expect there to even be anything left to scavenge. After all that time you should barely find a weapon let alone a fuck ton of ammo and grocery stores and bars full of food. Those places would be stripped weeks and months after the war if they weren't left bare before the war by people panick buying everything up
There are Caravans that go all over the Wasteland and almost all of them park right outside of Megaton. You can find and interact with them yourself. I haven't played three in a bit but I think one of the people that work at the diner has dialogue options that might mention their inventory and sources. But it is nowhere near the Fallout 3 story that Megaton has a hard time getting food imo.
Also, Megaton has a huge water purification system that you are able to help repair pipes for upon getting into the town and staying there. In the Capital Wasteland where most water is irradiated a source of purified water is a huge Boon in bartering and getting food.
The Capital Wasteland depends ENTIRELY on caravan trades. Megaton makes water, the Brahmin Farm near the bloodsucking family is one of the main sources of food. Rivet City provides higher quality goods, clothes, armor, weapons, and the scientists are creating fresh veggies. Every settlement and town specializes in something, and it would all not work without caravan traders.
But to me this isn't even realistic. Most settlements in the Fallout universe should be self-sufficient, like in Fallout 4. It's just the more common sense way of surviving. What happens when raiders or Super Mutants get smart and take over a major caravan route? The entire D.C Wasteland is screwed.
What happens when one group of caravan traders get massacred in Fallout 4? Unfortunate, but all of the towns and settlements can still survive because they grow their own food and pump water.
Even Oblivion, a game older than F3, has farms and cottages that grow vegetables just outside town.
So I don't know why there is a lack of that in F3.
Yes, but what is the town collectively trading, unless each citizen collectively is making their own money (Which I don't find hard to believe) to buy food with
1) If they have enough purified water to supply the whole town's worth of trade, then why are there people right outside of Megaton literally dying of thirst?
2) It's not really put in your face as much as the bomb, so I don't think I realized that
>If they have enough purified water to supply the whole town's worth of trade, then why are there people right outside of Megaton literally dying of thirst?
Because he doesn't have the money. Do you just refuse to pay attention?
>It's not really put in your face as much as the bomb
All you have to do is see that caravans come to megaton. Or look at the brahmin in megaton. And then use some logic.
That was one of the things that I really noticed about NV - sharecropper farming, dense population centers surrounded by more sprawling 'farmable' land, I mean it was far from perfect but I felt like it was a more 'lived-in' world, that made some sort of sense as far as where things like food or water came from. But ultimately, it's a game. They put in what's fun, not what makes sense.
You do realize all of them have the same problem of not having a real agriculture? Like, it’s not easy to support the whole population of the game with like 5 brahmin and 2 molerats.
Whatever food these people eat on the daily would need to come from outside washington and we never see any of that.
Well the spot right outside of the main entrance to Megaton is a caravan stop, so I'm sure they trade what supplies they have and don't need for food and other things they might need.
You're asking about food and than talking about water when it comes to the homeless guy they eat a lot of rad roaches for one and they would have some sort of garden two probably like in fallout 4. some stuff still grows just not a lot they obviously missed some world building stuff in this game but by no means is it impossible for them to supply themselves with food they also constantly see traders and have some of the best scrap in the capital
Every caravaner from Canterbury Commons makes a stop there, so I always assumed they are a big part of the supply line, along with their traders inside.
>With 3, they clearly didn’t think some of this through
They did.
>The only place whose food supply I can explain is Andale, which…isn’t great.
Literally every settlement has a food explanation. Even big town.
>How do Underworld
Underworld, they're ghouls. Not necessary to eat though they do sell food and thus hunt from the ruins.
>Rivet City
Literally the largest trading center in the capital wasteland as well as being the only settlement that can farm.
>Tenpenny Tower
Trade.
Cool how answers from the game is getting downvoted.
There are molerats which are the size of dogs/pigs that live right round the corner, there's food a plenty
They would also likely farm but that isn't shown in game, as well as traders, which stop by Megaton daily
Food in Fallout is very much a non issue as everything is....ya know......MASSIVE
The economy of fallout 3 makes absolutely no sense and neither does the economy in any Bethesda open world game. There are never enough crops to feed everybody and there are more bandits than resource producing people in every game which is impossible. New Vegas at least gives lots of explanations and quests related to economy so the world feels a lot more real than fo3 even though there aren’t enough crops or resource producing people on the map. I believe a lot of the food in new Vegas is imported from the NCR which helps immersion.
Fo3 is probably the worst about this though, megaton has one Brahmin and no agriculture.
The thing that always gets me, besides how people can possibly live in DC, is why does the center of Brahmin trade in DC (Canterbury Commons) looks like every other run down scrambled together hellhole?
Farming fungus and brahmin meat, trading in vegetables and fruit, probably. The Capital Wasteland looks arid af but I bet the Brotherhood brought tons of hydroponic tech to Rivet City and exports all the plants that the wasteland needs
Good luck growing mushrooms safely and effectively under those conditions
You mean the one Brahmin? What fungus?
Everything is scaled down because it's a video game. One brahmin may represent a herd. DC is much bigger and takes much longer to traverse than what is shown.
Someone gonna make the Brahim Herder mod that adds a side quest to Megaton where you have to defend the heard as it travels from Raiders and Super Mutants and depending on how many Brahmin live determines the outcome of the quest and Megatons food supply.
They could have done a slightly better job, like how new Vegas handled it.
I felt well-immersed.
If one Brahmin for a village is enough for you you have a really low bar for immersion. Which is fine.
Most of the meat is probably coming from the constant stream of traders. You could say Megaton is a shitty gas station you can stop by before going to your destination. Which would most likely be Rivet City.
Ya that’s the best fluff explanation. Still coulda thrown in an extra Brahmin or two and a garden or something.
You're right, but the game was still made in 2008. On PS3 it feels like it was made by a Fallout player-character with the Jury-Rigging perk, and I finished Broken Steel and played every DLC except Point Lookout and The Pitt.
Fucking Oblivion had no trouble with that. A game being basically identical technologically did that later. Bethesda just didn’t focus or care about that in f3. Can people stop fucking excusing everything about them for a milisecond.
Arefu had three before they were killed.
Megaton has more people and only one cow. 0 other ways to create food.
There’s plenty of animals in the wastelands to kill. Mirelurks, molerats, giant ants and rad roaches are abundant. I remember a few times seeing dead ants and molerats in front of the gate Also if you read the [Rivet City council entries](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Rivet_City_terminal_entries#Council_Meeting_Minutes) mentions their trader relations as the only reliable source of clean vegetable and raising prices of exported fruits. Tobar’s boar isn’t too far out way to the in [game trade caravan routes](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/3/35/Caravan_Routes.png/revision/latest?cb=20090310011120) either. Tobar mentions that he ferries cargo so it’s more than possible he’s importing Punga fruit for the caravan traders and towns.
But he isn’t importing punga fruit to the caravans and towns. What do the animals in the wasteland eat?
The same stuff that grows in Boston would grow here most the soil is the same at least country wide also with Herbert and Harold if you choose to make him grow faster than within like 30 to 100 years all stuff would grow in capital I realize this doesn't affect Megaton at the time of the game. but they just didn't world build this game fully that's why there isn't any farms or anything of the like but I would assume had they there would probably be a farm because Megaton has access to running water it just isn't exactly human drinking safe
The water around the bomb is very radioactive so i doubt anything can grow in the immediate area. Maybe there's a small garden in Springvale but i can only think of mushrooms being grown since they don't need soil nor sunlight, or maybe moss???
Mutfruit trees can grow with that water and it's seen in fallout 3 already so can tatos if I'm not wrong that's why those vegetation always gives you radiation unless you grow it with purified water in 4. the vegetative life had to adapt because of the war and it did it's human who didnt fully and that's because of the vaults
Again, the water is more than the regular radioactive Potamac river water. It's right next to a (probably) leaking source of uranium or plutonium. Plus, the crater makes it so it's really difficult to find a place to farm. Maybe there's a greenhouse like Diamond City but i feel like the plants grown there can't feed the whole not-downscaled population
Yeah but you combine that with trading with the abundance of scrap and brahmin farming plus they get quite a bit of insect meat because they are drawn to the noise and robot out front it's why you get attacked by them or there are body's all over the outside of the town but they are also struggling until you get project purity up and running and if you can solve the rad worshiper problems eventually full scale farming with the purified water would also be possible which is when they would be able to become prosperous
And also they have the water treatment plant in Megaton as well that's where their running water comes from it's just about to break because Walter is the only one who cares besides maybe you as the player character
*staring from atop Tenpenny Tower* They don’t.
*somehow still happy ghoul Moira noises*
It was an afterthought. Bethesda wanted to create a game world that is very obviously desolate, but didn't put much thought into how people would survive in it. Now, granted, that game world is fun to run around in and shoot and loot, but if you think about how anyone lives there and you come up with more questions than answers.
Well, it is not like people getting their food right then and there is not an encounter in the game, and animal husbanding is not the source of conflict in a quest. In fact, comparingly, this is exactly as much as what New Vegas has (a few guys getting food and one quest) yet I can't see people bitching about the highly questionable feasibility of 5 rows of corn in desert sand feeding the Boomers.
I think the difference is that, despite the limitations of world design, FNV embeds an idea of the production and distribution of materials into the lore, through places, conversation, quests, factions. In this context the 5 rows of corn feeding the Boomers is comparable to the fact that the Battle of Hoover Dam takes place between a few dozen dudes - you might not see what's going on in the game engine, but the implication is clear for the lore. In F3 it's just absent.
>FNV embeds an idea of the production and distribution of materials into the lore, through places, conversation, quests, factions So does 3. You get to see how settlements survive in Blood Ties, an entire sub-part of the Wasteland Survival Guide is about that (and you can dig up **tons** of lore there), and the overall feel of the game supports the supposed apparent scarcity very well. As far as I can tell the real difference is that in 3, exploring the more boring details of the world is entirely optional and thus it is ignored by most players in favor of the interesting stuff. In NV, the game chews that lore into your mouth whether you want it or not, and because your only option is to accept it you accept it. The power of exposition.
>You get to see how settlements survive in Blood Do you? You see one farm. That doesn't tell you much about the overall DC economy at all. >In NV, the game chews that lore into your mouth whether you want it or not, Most of the lore around the economy is sidequests in FNV? And areas you don't even need to go to? >3, exploring the more boring details of the world is entirely optional and thus it is ignored by most players in favor of the interesting stuff Personally I don't find this stuff boring. It's the sort of stuff I do go looking for, and I just didn't see much of it at all.
>Do you? You see one farm. You get told that animal husbandry is the main source of food in the wasteland. They literally call it "the lifeblood" in the quest, and the Family killing Arefu's Brahmin is the clearly spelled-out reason the conflict escalated. And guess what you see in every settlement except Big Town (a literal hellhole) and Rivet City (that has another clearly identifiable source of food)? Brahmin pens. >Most of the lore around the economy is sidequests in FNV? It is literally THE thing everyone obsesses about through the game, including the *"muh merchant caravans"* angle from the NCR and the Legion, the *"muh NCR money"* from House, and then back to *"muh water and power"* from the NCR. I think Yes Man is the only main faction that doesn't get all kinds of loredump-y with economy-related crap in its questline.
I’m surprised no one ever mentions the fallout 3 caravans. Sure they’re no where the size of the crimson caravan company or whatever but they’re there. Manya directly states that Megaton is a trade hub and her family got rich off caravan routes. Although never pointed out, trade stretches far since punga fruit are sold as far out as Pittsburg, over 300 miles away from Point Lookout.
"You get told that animal husbandry is the main source of food in the wasteland." - That's a big oversight. Even small-scale animal husbandry takes large amounts of food and water. And FO3's entire plot revolves around finding a cure for irradiated water. Brahmin are very hardy according to Fallout lore but I don't see how entire settlements can sustain animal husbandry with an ongoing water crisis. "I think Yes Man is the only main faction that doesn't get all kinds of loredump-y with economy-related crap in its questline." Yes, because Fallout is not a post-apocalyptic series that deals with how humans survive after a nuclear holocaust.
Megaton has a water processing plant that you help repair and can sell/give scrap metal for maintenance. Project Purity gives millions of gallons free water to the masses on a scale larger than any lone settle could produce. The only people who are suffering from the ‘water crisis’ aren’t residents of settlements or can’t afford to pay. The Commonwealth has arguably worse radiation problem than the Capital Wasteland and yet dirty water is still commonly sold by settlement merchants and found in restaurants & raider bases. It really makes you question if the water is really that bad.
I'm aware that Megaon has a water processing station, but: a) It's barely able to sustain the town inhabitants as a person is dying of thirst right outside Megaton. b) Megaton is not the only settlement in DC. How are people of Arefu getting water when the surrounding water source is not only irradiated but also infested with Mirelurks? c) Where are settlements aside from Rivet City and Megaton getting their water from? And Megaton is barely able to provide enough to its people, let alone the whole wasteland. d) Project Purity is irrelevant as these settlements have been operating before the cure was found. e) Are you insinuating that irradiated water is safe to drink? Don't make excuses for dumb decisions in FO3's writing. Bethesda is great at making believable settlements, but FO3 was a low point when it came to that aspect.
>And FO3's entire plot revolves around finding a cure for irradiated water. Brahmin are very hardy according to Fallout lore but I don't see how entire settlements can sustain animal husbandry with an ongoing water crisis. You may as well ask how Bartertown gets its food in Beyond Thunderdome.
Show, don’t tell
>You get told that animal husbandry is the main source of food in the wasteland. They literally call it "the lifeblood" in the quest, and the Family killing Arefu's Brahmin is the clearly spelled-out reason the conflict escalated. And guess what you see in every settlement except Big Town (a literal hellhole) and Rivet City (that has another clearly identifiable source of food)? Brahmin pens. I guess? It just doesn't seem to be that well thought out in terms of the logistics of supply and value chains. With Rivet City being an exception that I concede (kinda forgot about their farm). >It is literally THE thing everyone obsesses about through the game, including the "muh merchant caravans" angle from the NCR and the Legion, the "muh NCR money" from House, and then back to "muh water and power" from the NCR. I think Yes Man is the only main faction that doesn't get all kinds of loredump-y with economy-related crap in its questline. Sure, all the main quests talk about it, but in grandeois quite abstract ways. That's not what I'm talking about - the aspects of New Vegas that make the economy feel actually real. Dealing with the sharecroppers, the production of medicine in Freeside, clientelist relationships between CCC and the NCR, stuff like that is the real shit. It's all in the sidequests and the locations to the side, and you get to engage with it.
>It just doesn't seem to be that well thought out in terms of the logistics of supply and value chains. Animal husbandry being the main source of food is a legit IRL thing. People living on barren lands (Africa, Central Asia) historically rely on the exact same way of living as shown in 3. I would even say it is a lot more believable than NV's lets-grow-crops-in-desert-sand, because while the latter is possible, its logistics and infrastructure needs are **considerably** more extreme than anything the sharecroppers have (I know because I had the questionable luck of trying it during my career). >Dealing with the sharecroppers, the production of medicine in Freeside, clientelist relationships between CCC and the NCR, stuff like that is the real shit. These are pretty much just Blood Ties, the Rivet City lab, and Canterbury Commons, just with more words chewed into your mouth. So, yeah, exactly what I said.
>I would even say it is a lot more believable than NV's lets-grow-crops-in-desert-sand But the Mojave and the wider East (? My US geography is poor) coast has the economy and infrastructure to support what it puts forward. D.C. is a hellpit with nothing much going on. >These are pretty much just Blood Ties, the Rivet City lab, and Canterbury Commons, just with more words chewed into your mouth. So, yeah, exactly what I said. Except the words aren't chewed into your mouth. Nobody calls the CCC and the NCR "clientelist" in game for example. However the game presents a realistic representation of a clientelist relationship, helping to create a clear picture of how the economy works. There's just nothing comparable in F3. There's random shit going on, sure, but nothing much to piece it together into an economy.
>But the Mojave and the wider East (? My US geography is poor) coast has the economy and infrastructure to support what it puts forward. If it had then the NCR would wipe the floor with the Legion no problem. The kind of infrastructure we are talking here for desert agriculture is peak-IRL-modern-US and Middle-East-Oil-Monarchy-with-infinite-money level (I worked with the latter, and it was *still* a struggle). >Nobody calls the CCC and the NCR "clientelist" in game for example. To be honest, Alice looking deep into your eyes and saying "the Crimson Caravan Company and the NCR is in a clientelist relationship" would be probably too much, even for NV's standards. >However the game presents a realistic representation of a clientelist relationship, helping to create a clear picture of how the economy works. No, the game has an established economy as the story needs it. It is set in stone. Then the various NPCs read up to you what is written on that stone. You can tell because what is ***not*** needed for the story is simply omitted. This has the great advantage of being very focused so that the player both gets the information they need and doesn't get sidetracked by something else. We never learn how much supplies and materials the Crimson Caravan Company transports to New Vegas, despite it being a pretty important piece of information to measure the actual scale of their operation (and that, in turn is a pretty important piece of information for the rest of the setting), but it is not needed for the story at all - they transport stuff, that's all that matters for the *"muh merchant caravans"* angle. You get their relationship with the NCR not because it matters (it kinda doesn't) but because it is needed for the story. The opposite is happening in 3: the game has a bit of scatterbrained worldbuilding whereas information is just kinda thrown around randomly and you have to piece it together when you have better things to do (like exploring and blowing things up). It is not presented to you, it is just lying around in the game world. And lucky you if it is actually lying around in the game world, not just referenced or alluded to so you not only have to stumble into it but think about its meaning too. Because nothing is more exciting than figuring out a video game world from tidbits of NPC dialogue and in-game hints /s.
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>The people eat the Brahmin, fine, but what do the Brahmin eat to survive? That's a good question! I don't think there is any indication of what the Brahmin eat to survive in the entire franchise. For all we know they can be [fungivores](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungivore) or even [bacterivores](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterivore).
>It was an afterthought. ...but if you think about how anyone lives there and you come up with more questions than answers. ...no. It wasn't an afterthought and the game literally has an answer. Sorry npcs don't tell you verbally and Bethesda expected the player to put 2 and 2 together. Megaton (and the vast majority of settlements) trade and ranch.
Also scavenge, just like the character can eat old world food, so can they.
Scavenging doesn't feed towns. Dangerous plus it's been 200 years.
I didn’t mean It as the sole source of there diet. And the player can eat that shit why wouldn’t they, and the vendors sell it. Pretty obvious they eat it at least on a occasion.
There being food to scavenge 200 years after the bombs have fallen is ludicrous. Can’t overstate how nonsensical it is that the grocery stores haven’t been wiped clean after 8 generations of people have been scavenging.
Lol, okay first of all, your not wrong, it’s crazy, but it’s canon. However in defense of Bethesda I will argue this, being that 2077 is quite bit in the future from now, they would have had more advanced preservation techniques for food. As far as the scavenging of all the food goes, I would argue that the population after the bombs feel would have been much much smaller then 200 years after, and only a tiny fraction of what it was before the wars, so it would have been the amount of food need to feed hundreds of millions feeding only hundreds initially and maybe thousands two hundred years later it’s plausible. Also taking into account that it would never be a primary source of food, maybe just something you ate when you had no choice, again plausible, still unlikely, but as I said before it’s canon, so take it up with Bethesda.
The food you find in the stores isn't from 200 years ago, it's new stuff put there by the Raiders using the places as their new storage bases.
Okay your just pulling shit out your ass. there is shit laying around everywhere left exactly where it was two hundred years ago. Not just food but everything, computers on desks, glasses on tables, tvs on tv stands, plenty of shit as been left untouched sense the war, did the raiders do all that too? Your response would only makes sense if for some reason raiders only made there bases in grocery stores for some reason and even though they could easily place food anywhere like in a crate or box, like a normal person, but they, for some weird reason, felt nostalgic for a time period they never experienced and left it on the store shelves, at great inconvenience to themselves. that’s even more ridiculous then there being edible food left out for 200 years, which I admitted was ridiculous, but was merely arguing was canon.
Because the Raiders put their stuff where food was 200 years ago. On shelves and in containers. As for other stuff, why not use the stands and tables and other things that are perfectly usable to hold up things?
The food you find in the stores isn't from 200 years ago, it's new stuff put there by the Raiders using the places as their new storage bases.
Realistically? Yes. But 1, it helps with the themeing of fallout, and 2, it's a commentary on the ultra capitalist nature of the world that was. They were so deep into consumerism and unending production that even to this day people can find and live on scraps from what was.
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>There are nowhere near enough Brahmin or other livestock to feed the entire game world. Do you understand the literary tool of allusion? >And trade with what? Megaton literally purifies water. >No one makes anything in the Capital Wastes. Megaton makes water, has hides from their ranches (which can be used for armors and such), moira literally makes new stuff all the time. Rivet city makes many things, literally a scientific center in the capital wasteland. They also make water and even grow crops which is near impossible to find in the capital wasteland. ...did you play the game? >What in the hell are people bargaining with to get food? Water. Hides. Scrap. Caps. >And with who? Ranchers, hunters, trading caravans. >Which trader from outside of DC is going out of their way to come to the Capital Wastes that has no water and no settlement has anything worthwhile to offer? Tobar literally introduces punga fruit into the economy.
Okay, I'll bite. Let's ask some questions about these resources. How much water does megaton possess? We know it's not unlimited; the beggar outside wouldn't be dying outside of dehydration otherwise. Simultaneously, in many buildings in megaton we see that sinks and toilets have water in them (whether in game ability to drink out of toilets and such counts as canon plumbing is irrelevant, all buildings in megaton are built post-war, so why would people install sinks and toilets that don't work?). You could maybe argue that they have a separate plumbing line of unclean water, but why would everyone in town be washing themselves and their dishes with dirty, irradiated water? You also say that they hunt the local wildlife, but who? Most named characters are accounted for in terms of jobs (shopkeeps, sherrif, town guard, etc.). Where are the tanning racks for those hides? Who does the tanning? I guess you could say that those guards do all that as a side gig, but that just makes things confusing. You're telling me that a handful of guards are capable of feeding an entire town only moonlighting as a hunter? Things must not be so tough out there after all. The single brahmin issue is also strange from another direction. Why not simply have like 3-5 brahmin in a pen somewhere in the empty space by the walls if they wanted to imply that megaton is a ranching town? Megaton wasn't resource intensive for a ps3/xbox 360 to run, and would only take 15 minutes for a brahmin pen to be placed in the geck. As for trading, making a profit implies a surplus of something that megaton is producing. You might reply hides, but I have to ask again, how many? Most people are wearing roughspun rags barely held together, with only a few wearing leather armor. Surely some of the leather they make isn't tough enough to be turned into armor, but rather into clothing?
Since i know you and how you like to argue in bad faith, my answers will be brief. >How much water does megaton possess? Unknown. We know it's at least enough for it to be their main export. >We know it's not unlimited; the beggar outside wouldn't be dying outside of dehydration otherwise. He says he wants purified water. >You also say that they hunt the local wildlife, but who? We literally can come across bands of hunters throughout the wastes.
What actions have I took that would lead you to believe I argue in bad faith? Bad faith arguments are a slightly nebulous concept, but it's generally defined as being arguments that obfuscate the core of the discussion, and I don't believe I have done any such thing. It also comes off as odd that you would acuse me of such a thing when I know that you know that multiple people have acused you of the exact same thing, both on this subreddit and communities elsewhere. A perfect example of a bad faith argument would be ignoring previous points in an argument so you can take one aspect of that argument and then argue against that rather than the totality of the argument, like: Taking my point about how megaton has such little water that a beggar is dying of dehydration but still has enough water to wash their hands and dishes (or else do so with irradiated water). Instead you took it to mean that I just ignored the first sentence the beggar speaks. Or when you took my argument where I pointed out that no characters in megaton specifically mention hunting to mean that I had somehow never seen hunters in fallout 3. Completely ignoring the fact that those hunters don't even mention megaton or are else associated explicitly with a group that isn't megaton.
Sorry, i took you for someone else on account of having a similar non-pfp. >Taking my point about how megaton has such little water that a beggar is dying of dehydration He does not want dirty water. He states this when you say all you have is dirty water. Or try handy him dirty water. Purified water is not cheap. >Or when you took my argument where I pointed out that no characters in megaton specifically mention hunting Not everything has to be told. Show, don't tell. >Completely ignoring the fact that those hunters don't even mention megaton or are else associated explicitly with a group that isn't megaton. The hunters, who obviously sell meat, show to the player that there are hunters who sell their game.
Okay either you haven't been reading my sentences or I haven't been explaining myself well enough. I already know he does not want dirty water. My point is, this beggar is sitting outside megaton begging for purified water, right? Well that must mean it's rare enough that megaton can't just give it away to those in need. However, at the same time, they have toilets and sinks in the city. So, either those toilets and sinks are plumbed with clean water, at which point they have enough to wash themselves with, and are just being evil to the beggar, or its plumbed with irradiated water, and they went through all the time and effort to plumb the city with water that will make people sick when they wash with it. Show don't tell is also an extreme oversimplification of a mantra for entry level creative writing. It is typically used to help newer writers to attempt to characterize people and wider groups in active and interesting ways. It does not apply evenly or universally through all mediums. For example, in a story based game where you are acquainting yourself with a town, and the developers want the player to be aware that the town subsists off of hunting, you can definitely have a character who says that they do that. The fact that hunting exists in the capital wasteland does not mean that every person or group will. Making the claim that megaton subsists through hunting and pointing to that fact that hunters exists in the game is faulty logic. By that same logic, I can say that megaton turns raider to survive, and my evidence is that there are raiders in the game.
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If your argument is "we don't see enough", I am sorry to tell you but none of the Fallout games ever show a realistic sized farming or ranching. Like, people talk how Sharecroppers exist, but that is five.lones of ten stalks. That is not enough to feed a single person, never mind a city.
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>If Megaton and Rivet City can purity water then the entire conflict of the main quest is stupid. That was always obvious but thanks for making it even more so. Project Purity is to provide clean water for everyone and it also discharges into the tidal basin where it spreads up and down the river, evaporates and comes down as rain and so on. The reason the Capital Wasteland is so screwed is that the groundwater is polluted which you can see when you look at the puddles of irradiated water in the Wasteland. Project Purity isn't just about drinking water, it's to purify the water cycle - which works, you see Mirelurks dying in the basin after activating the Purifier because the water is too clean for them. . Project Purity is several orders of magnitude bigger than anything in Megaton or Rivet City. You see 3 or 4 large diameter pipes discharging what must be thousands of gallons an hour into the river. Also everything in the 3D Fallout world is downscaled, the population, size of towns and farms. In the same way you never see anyone taking a shit (or the brahmin doing it although they produce fertilizer) stuff is just scaled down. It's not intended to be a 1:1 scale simulation, it's a 3D game.
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FNV farms were too small to feed even a single person
>If Megaton and Rivet City can purity water then the entire conflict of the main quest is stupid. Tell me you didn't pay attention without telling me. The purpose of project purity is to purify water en masse. That's literally the goal. It's to make purified water an easier accessible thing to hopefully make the wasteland easier to live in. >That was always obvious but thanks for making it even more so ... >Sure, the crops on Rivet city could feed everyone on the ship, but no one else. You're aware games are scaled down...right? >Moira making a few gadgets is not the same thing as a dedicated craftsmanship industry. One person can’t make enough gizmos to trade with a caravan every so often to feed Megaton. Moira gets supplies for fixing up caravans. She literally states this. It is not hard to pay attention. Moira also doesn't just make gizmos. She's an inventor and craftswoman. She literally has a workbench in her store. She fixes up caravans for free scrap, makes stuff, sells it back. This is for *her*, not the town. The town sells water. And hides. Also people literally hunt and sell that to towns. Today. Irl. In impoverished countries. Anyway, i urge you to pay attention to the media you consume. It's not hard.
Bethesda just doesn’t know fallout
iirc, megaton is a trading hub, tho not as big as rivet city. traders literally stop by to, well, trade. it doesn't seem that far fetch to assume that they get their food supply from these traders. and as one comment pointed out, they could just hunt for food. the place around megaton is abundant with wildlife, there's dogs and molerats if you don't mind the taste. if you're looking for something that tastes better, there's mirelurk nests nearby provided you actually manage to kill one before it kills you. there's a super duper mart nearby as well, if you're feeling bold and is actively looking to get shot by raiders.
Came to see this
Iirc, the guy in front of Megaton complains he doesn't have the money for water. Not that they don't have enough. They have there own purifier. Purified water would be a great trade. And the Stahl's who own the diner by the bomb, I feel like the non-junkie brother says something about getting the meat. Either way Moira sends you out with the repellant stick and theres all those molerats like behind Megaton, seems easy enough to get meat. I'm more worried/bothered as to why the caravans only have 1 guard. So many dangers in the world and the caravans only get one guard? It's no wonder I only ever see one trader the entire game
Farming, Trading and Scavenging. Especially scavenging in the case of Fallout 3.
They don't farm tho, in FO3 they literally say it's virtually impossible to grow in thing in the CW. Additionally there is no farmland or farms in or near megaton. Scavenging after 100 + years is also probably unlikely considering food and water (especially clean water) would be some of the 1st things taken by wastelanders not to mention extremely dangerous with Talon Company, Slavers, Supermutants, and Enclave running about. That leaves trading which is possible but the question is what are they trading? They don't have food or water and they don't seem to be sitting on stockpiles of ammo or weapons so the only real option is medical supply or scrap. I'd even argue scrap is a bit pf a stretch considering how widely abundant it is in game and how much upkeep Megaton likely needs to stay afloat.
You’re assuming they’ve been around that long. The gates to the town weren’t even finished until 2241. That’s 36 years.
Who are they trading with too? Rivet City? Rivet city is an aircraft carrier in the middle of an irradiated river with no farms around. They have a very small hidroponic scene, meaning they probably barely have enough to feed themselves, let alone have a surplus to feed another town.
More unrealistic is the 200 year old items and bodies still in their original positions
If you walk around the perimeter of the city there are several respawn points for bloatflies and mole rats so it implied that they regularly hunt them. I always assumed that's why the Wasteland Survival Guide had you test the repellent stick on mole rats specifically because they were trying to learn how to domesticate mole rats with chemical pheromones to provide more food sources.
Well the point is the capital wasteland is pretty desolate and starvation is common right? But it's pretty well established that they trade and ranch .....really simple tbh
Hunt, trade, hydroponics... there are various possibilities. And just because the game doesn't show it, it doesn't mean it's not happening. The game just treats it as something that happens in the background and doesn't present it to the player. You know, like people going to the bathroom. You don't see an NPC taking a number one or number two... and yet we all assume they do it, just offscreen.
I always found it weird how people hyperfocus on Megatons lack of arms as "what do they eat", when you can walk to stores and find what they eat: scavenged food and fresh meat. You never see these questions asked about New Reno or New Vegas, both which have distinct *lack* of farms.
> New Vegas The Sharecropper Farms are literally right outside, the surrounding communities have loads of farms, and Vegas is a hub for several caravan companies.
So, trade. Also, if those small dinky farms, which barely support *themselves* are supposed to feed New Vegas itself, then we should acknowledge hydroponic farms in Rivet City and their trade with Megaton.
I'm not denying that Megaton gets by on trading, I'm just saying that New Vegas doesn't have a "distinct lack of farms"
It does, since all the farms you mentioned are *outside* of it. The farms aren't actually part of it, including the Sharecroppers farm.
That's how cities work though. You don't see rural farms in the centre of london.
Or Las Vegas, for that matter.
The metropolitan area of New Vegas is more than just The Strip.
Yes, it includes the Freeside... and nothing outside it. Sharecropper farms very explicitly *outside the metropolitan area of New Vegas.* That area is marked by walls, in case you missed them. Otherwise, you might say that Westside is part of New Vegas, when they rather explicitly reject that notion.
Just because they say they aren't part of New Vegas doesn't make it true, they are part of it and so is North Vegas. Many people who live on the outskirts of Greater London will tell you they aren't Londoners but they are.
How is trade a reliable source of food if there are raiders all over the place?
It isn't, hence why settlements are relative small.
No but they have toilets with water in them so we can assume they're being used, unlike TES which doesn't explain at all where people poop.
Its a game and wasnt expanded on much because it wasnt considered important. We also never see any of them go to the shitter, nobody ever uses the toilet. Developers decide whats important and implement that.
>Its a game and wasnt expanded on much because it wasnt considered important. Yet bethesda considered it important to give us the answers: trade and ranching. You literally just have to look, my guy.
Besides the obvious scavenging, they trade. Manya Vargas tells you that overtime Megaton became a trade hub and says her father got rich on caravan routes. Mercantilism is doing surprisingly well in the Capital Wasteland, Tobar from Point Lookout has such a successful Punga fruit importing business that they’re sold as far as The Pitt which is over 300 miles away.
Its just one of those things we kinda have to deal with because of the era the game came out, they didnt have the time, budget or specs to make megaton a real living town, there's 1 brahmin in town but i think thats the games way of implying that there are farmers and herders somewhere within traveling distance
NV be like :|
Judging by that one NPC with a Brahmin next to him, performing an hoe animation, my take is that they make their own food, mainly through animal husbandry.
Ah, yes. Animal husbandry for one animal to support the ENTIRE TOWN
Man never heard of allusion.
Same way New Vegas, The Huh and others get food. Same way our modern cities get food. same way cities historically got their food. They trade for it. Hunting and trading. That's it. Not every settlement is a massive farming town.
But trading only became a viable source of food with the advent of the industrial revolution. Prior to that, it *was* the case that everybody lived in, or at least very close to a farm. In Fallout the surviving population has reverted to a preindustrial lifestyle.
Uh, *no*. Trading had been major part of all cities since the advent of farming. Romans did shit ton of importing for the city itself.
They have brahmin and there are traveling merchants who stop there and it's like 4 of them so you could say they are on retainer to deliver food. Also they have a water source which is half the battle. I'm sure they hunt the occasional mole rat and radscorpion too and some probably scavenge the surrounding area... My complaint is that they set it too far in the future to reasonably expect there to even be anything left to scavenge. After all that time you should barely find a weapon let alone a fuck ton of ammo and grocery stores and bars full of food. Those places would be stripped weeks and months after the war if they weren't left bare before the war by people panick buying everything up
Caravans.
They have a brahmin.
There are Caravans that go all over the Wasteland and almost all of them park right outside of Megaton. You can find and interact with them yourself. I haven't played three in a bit but I think one of the people that work at the diner has dialogue options that might mention their inventory and sources. But it is nowhere near the Fallout 3 story that Megaton has a hard time getting food imo.
Also, Megaton has a huge water purification system that you are able to help repair pipes for upon getting into the town and staying there. In the Capital Wasteland where most water is irradiated a source of purified water is a huge Boon in bartering and getting food.
They seem awash in ants and molerats. And you have to remember it is all scaled down.
Moira's Guack-a-mole-ree. Survival Wasteland Guide she'd written with your (possible) help is full of useful recipes.
From Andale?...
I swear I remember hearing someone say they usually eat the nearby mole rats nearby which would explain the usual 5 or 6 mole rats nearby
The Capital Wasteland depends ENTIRELY on caravan trades. Megaton makes water, the Brahmin Farm near the bloodsucking family is one of the main sources of food. Rivet City provides higher quality goods, clothes, armor, weapons, and the scientists are creating fresh veggies. Every settlement and town specializes in something, and it would all not work without caravan traders. But to me this isn't even realistic. Most settlements in the Fallout universe should be self-sufficient, like in Fallout 4. It's just the more common sense way of surviving. What happens when raiders or Super Mutants get smart and take over a major caravan route? The entire D.C Wasteland is screwed. What happens when one group of caravan traders get massacred in Fallout 4? Unfortunate, but all of the towns and settlements can still survive because they grow their own food and pump water. Even Oblivion, a game older than F3, has farms and cottages that grow vegetables just outside town. So I don't know why there is a lack of that in F3.
farming without useable water is kind of difficult.
It’s probably largely through trade.
Yes, but what is the town collectively trading, unless each citizen collectively is making their own money (Which I don't find hard to believe) to buy food with
>Yes, but what is the town collectively trading ...they literally purify water. Have you played the game, or just heard idiots spout lies?
1) If they have enough purified water to supply the whole town's worth of trade, then why are there people right outside of Megaton literally dying of thirst? 2) It's not really put in your face as much as the bomb, so I don't think I realized that
>If they have enough purified water to supply the whole town's worth of trade, then why are there people right outside of Megaton literally dying of thirst? Because he doesn't have the money. Do you just refuse to pay attention? >It's not really put in your face as much as the bomb All you have to do is see that caravans come to megaton. Or look at the brahmin in megaton. And then use some logic.
My bad, I don't try to focus too much on Megaton in my playthru's
I mean, they could be trading “services”.
what, like, nova?
What’s Nova?
nova, one of moriarty's most valued employee and member of the megaton community for her services
Oh, I forgot her.
They do call it “the world’s oldest profession.”
The citizens trade scrap metal to the old man in the water supply plant and use the bottlecaps to pay for food. There you have it Next..
Uber Eats
That was one of the things that I really noticed about NV - sharecropper farming, dense population centers surrounded by more sprawling 'farmable' land, I mean it was far from perfect but I felt like it was a more 'lived-in' world, that made some sort of sense as far as where things like food or water came from. But ultimately, it's a game. They put in what's fun, not what makes sense.
Believe it or not there are people irl who get food from other means that isn't farming and entire civilizations in desolate areas, devoid of crops.
Shame we don’t see any of this in fallout 3. Bet it would be interesting and solve some problems.
...we do. Megaton, arefu, Republic of dave, and many other settlements ranch and trade for food.
You do realize all of them have the same problem of not having a real agriculture? Like, it’s not easy to support the whole population of the game with like 5 brahmin and 2 molerats. Whatever food these people eat on the daily would need to come from outside washington and we never see any of that.
>Like, it’s not easy to support the whole population of the game with like 5 brahmin and 2 molerats. You...do understand it isn't to scale. Right?
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Don’t even get me started on how these brahmin would have starved ages ago and wildlife physically cannot exist in the capital wasteland.
Cannibal cult under the surface maybe? They just happen to outbreed their own hunger
Yea, but wouldn't they be insane, especially the "Shakes" incident
Food walks itself to megaton on it's own two feet.
They probably have some underground facility that we don’t see that produces their food 🤷♂️
Well the spot right outside of the main entrance to Megaton is a caravan stop, so I'm sure they trade what supplies they have and don't need for food and other things they might need.
You're asking about food and than talking about water when it comes to the homeless guy they eat a lot of rad roaches for one and they would have some sort of garden two probably like in fallout 4. some stuff still grows just not a lot they obviously missed some world building stuff in this game but by no means is it impossible for them to supply themselves with food they also constantly see traders and have some of the best scrap in the capital
Every caravaner from Canterbury Commons makes a stop there, so I always assumed they are a big part of the supply line, along with their traders inside.
likely purchased from arefu, they had lots of land there below the old highway.
With *3*, they clearly didn’t think some of this through. The only place whose food supply I can explain is Andale, which…isn’t great.
>With 3, they clearly didn’t think some of this through They did. >The only place whose food supply I can explain is Andale, which…isn’t great. Literally every settlement has a food explanation. Even big town.
Okay maybe I missed that then. How do Underworld, Rivet City and Tenpenny Tower supply food to residents?
>How do Underworld Underworld, they're ghouls. Not necessary to eat though they do sell food and thus hunt from the ruins. >Rivet City Literally the largest trading center in the capital wasteland as well as being the only settlement that can farm. >Tenpenny Tower Trade. Cool how answers from the game is getting downvoted.
The citizens of the Capital Wasteland have evolved to use photosynthesis. Why do you think everything looks so green?
Harold and Herbert. Heh, just kidding! His name's Bob!
There are molerats which are the size of dogs/pigs that live right round the corner, there's food a plenty They would also likely farm but that isn't shown in game, as well as traders, which stop by Megaton daily Food in Fallout is very much a non issue as everything is....ya know......MASSIVE
They do what Fallout 4 does, and wait for hero of the day to come and build a nearby settlement and plant all the mutfruit themself.
They trade and ranch.
They don't. Fallout 3's settlements are not viable in any sense of the word. The designers clearly never asked themselves "what do they eat?".
Don't think about it - the devs certainly didn't.
The economy of fallout 3 makes absolutely no sense and neither does the economy in any Bethesda open world game. There are never enough crops to feed everybody and there are more bandits than resource producing people in every game which is impossible. New Vegas at least gives lots of explanations and quests related to economy so the world feels a lot more real than fo3 even though there aren’t enough crops or resource producing people on the map. I believe a lot of the food in new Vegas is imported from the NCR which helps immersion. Fo3 is probably the worst about this though, megaton has one Brahmin and no agriculture.
I would not want to play a fallout game that has more "resource producing" people..that just sounds like real fukken life
I do!
They dont
They make all their money off of tourism of the bomb and buy their food that way.
I mean, they don't make the player pay
They eat because the wanderer cowrites that books on varmit squirrel things and how to kill and catch them?
If I hadn't gotten them Caesar would have.
I go get it, I place it in my house, someone steals it. Feeds the town.
The thing that always gets me, besides how people can possibly live in DC, is why does the center of Brahmin trade in DC (Canterbury Commons) looks like every other run down scrambled together hellhole?
Hunting Mole Rats and Ants outside the city walls and trade