Perhaps I'm just grateful for the fix to the ending of FO3, but Broken Steel helped a lot.
I still remember my reaction when Fawkes refused to activate the purifier after proving he was immune to radiation back at Vault 87.
While I would have liked to see more with better writing, I liked what was in Broken Steel.
PL is my personal favorite.
I like Broken Steel. Is it epic writing no did it make the game I love to play a lot better yes. I like BS and PL the rest I like for the loot.
Sorry if this breathes new life into an old and dead thread, but I wanted to weigh in here with my opinion on FO3 v. FNV and the BoS/Broken Steel DLC if I could.
I was introduced to the Wastelands via Fallout: NV first and enjoyed it despite the fact that the 'Courier' plotline really weak (seriously, I figured there would be some Mojave Express jobs/quests as well as the fact that the character is a travelling messenger by trade and, while the loss of memory about the area can be attributed to head trauma if you stretch your disbelief, the fact that he/she had no maps on them seems a bit illogical - another Vault Dweller would have been optimal) and hated how all the DLCs beat you over the head with hints leading up to the equally illogical "Lonesome Road" DLC by having Ulysses pre-visit all of the others and leave clues/help around.
What I REALLY loved about FNV was the fact that my sneaky lead-shooting character was never FORCED to join the BoS, wear power armor, or any of that crap. Any that I found could be cap-fodder for some merchant for all I cared. I could avoid the BoS's bunker, iirc, and did not HAVE to invite the Enclave Remnants to the final battle (which includes their power armor training, etc.,). It was nice.
Now, enter FO3, thanks to TTW, which is the only way I can play it.
I liked the storyline better, the world felt fuller/more realistic, and most of the DLCs were awesome.
Except... Operation: HALO (err... I mean Operation: Anchorage. Sorry. That DLC is nothing to me but an FPS sim smothered in plotline weaksauce) and Broken Steel, both of which pinned an arm behind my back and forced me to deal with the BoS and their rejects. From the minute I take Doctor Li up to the Citadel until the moment I wake up "3 weeks later", I play with heavily-ground teeth anticipating the end of the forced partnership. After that, I stride back out into the CW and resume normal life until it is time to head to Nevada.
Hell, I don't even like 'helping' them get to GNR.
Sorry for the rant - maybe some kind soul will make a mod with an MCM menu that lets you just shut off the BoS entirely. lol
The only reason I ever liked it was it continues the game after the ending, I loved liberty prime and I mean they destroy him first thing in the dlc.
[quote=Carter]
The only reason I ever liked it was it continues the game after the ending, I loved liberty prime and I mean they destroy him first thing in the dlc.
[/quote]
Same here. I generally move on to the Mojave after the regular game "ending" if I have not gone there earlier. I have to say, I do not really like any of the FO3 DLCs, and have gotten bored with most of those in New Vegas as well.
I agree with previous poster. The fact that they left us with no decision whatsoever in terms who we want to help, despite the existence of the "Karma"-mechanic, killed my immersion. I remember when my character was captured by the Enclave and was interrogated by Autumn asking for the code to the purifier. I remember thinking "Hey if I give him the code they will probably make me join up" because of my knowledge with my Father's work with Project Purity, so I gave him the code and then he shot and killed me. One of the most disappointing moment in gaming ever for me.
That quest would've been a great moment to pass a moral dilemma for your character that would adhere to their black-and-white Karma-mechanic - Allowing Father's work in the hands of those he opposed in return of joining the most powerful faction in the Wasteland, or remain with the "good guys".
Broken Steel would've been an incredible opportunity to further elaborate an Enclave questline. Attacking the Citadel, consolidating control over the wasteland, mopping up the Mutants in D.C.
Many mod authors have tried to build an Enclave quest line, but none have really succeeded. Most were left unfinished, others simply abandoned in a really rough state. A new main quest line for the Fallout 3 could top my list of my most wanted mod ever.
That's why the only reason I have Broken Steel installed is because many mods use its resources. Some DLCs you only place once or twice, then ignore them. All Bethesda games are like that. I have clear favorites for each game, and also DLCs that are only installed for the resources.
I have some RL military service under my belt and can fully understand why the BoS would destroy the crawler. It follows the same reason why we destroy resources we leave behind at the end of a campaign. I helped disable six M2 Bradleys that had no reasonable path home. It has been over a decade and I suspect you can still find them on the satellite maps rusting away in the parking lot where we left them.
For Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2_Bradley
But back to Broken Steel:
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Joint Base Andrews is the real life equivalent of Adams AFB. It is a 5 hour walk from the Pentagon, taking the path used in BoS would take a full day of walking. Something I just noticed Andale is Annandale =) http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Andale
The Enclave Crawler
The NASA crawler the concept was build on.
Finally to my point, The NASA crawler is on a near perfect path and despite this it will cease operation if it tilts 5 degrees or more in any direction, and it moves at 1.6 miles per hour. This clearly was useful pre-war for moving the repair, housing, and command facilities near the projects being worked on. It was a base utility at best, with no practical combat application.
Now Post-War with degraded road conditions, I doubt it could crawl a foot before hitting a 5 degree incline. Thus it would be fully immobile.
The BoS was left with the option of destroying it, finding enough people to staff TWO locations with five hours travel distance between them, or relocating from the Pentagon to Adams AFB in order to maintain a wing of vertibirds as there are no facilities for doing so at the Pentagon.
You may point out that last option as being viable and I can quickly quash it. Who won the battle of project purity and why? The BoS won because they had homefield advantage, and this was reinforced in the first hour of BoS when Liberty Prime was destroyed in transit to Adams AFB.
Why can't the BoS just get more people to staff it? Well that is answered by Ashur in the Pitt, he is ashamed he had to turn to the slavers to begin the reclamation of Pittsburgh. Ashur had flexible morals which lead him away from the same BoS who would be incapable of making the same choices. They are power-armored boy scouts, you know the "Good Guys".
The BoS are limited by their own morality, go back and listen to Ashur. Just like Lonesome road, it starts off weird and disconnected but as you become familiar with the wasteland it grows on you.
Great post, and it does make sense within our own elaborate headcanon, but the actual reality is that Bethesda was not thinking this deep into it whatsoever and we, by far, have put far more discussion into the wide ranging and deep implications of obscurities of the plotline than they did. You have to remember that for the common Fallout 3 fan that BOS were the good guys, roleplaying was not a concept many had even heard of before, and to them choice and consequence was about as deep as "blow up megaton yes or no" so Broken Steel was made with this new audience in mind so it makes me smile in a way to look at all this headcanon retconning that us diehard fans will go through to justify why Bethesda made 3 DLC shootemups that were largely incoherent.
BTW on my current playthrough, my lone courier joined Ashur's army after the death of his father. There he became even more disgusted with the Brotherhood of Steel, not because of the Scourge, but because of Ashur's teachings. I then am sent south on slaver business, where I stumble on the Drifter and Oasis. I then have a change of heart regarding the future of the wasteland, but still hate the BOS and the faux knightly charade they put on. So now, i'm in Point Lookout living off the land and my guy went from clean cut vault boy to totally bearded and long haired eating punga fruits in the wets. This is far more satisfying of a game from an internal story perspective than the main plotline to me, which is a set of incoherent setpieces with nothing connecting them together.
[quote=mortemim]
Finally to my point, The NASA crawler is on a near perfect path and despite this it will cease operation if it tilts 5 degrees or more in any direction, and it moves at 1.6 miles per hour. This clearly was useful pre-war for moving the repair, housing, and command facilities near the projects being worked on. It was a base utility at best, with no practical combat application.
Now Post-War with degraded road conditions, I doubt it could crawl a foot before hitting a 5 degree incline. Thus it would be fully immobile.
The BoS was left with the option of destroying it, finding enough people to staff TWO locations with five hours travel distance between them, or relocating from the Pentagon to Adams AFB in order to maintain a wing of vertibirds as there are no facilities for doing so at the Pentagon.
You may point out that last option as being viable and I can quickly quash it. Who won the battle of project purity and why? The BoS won because they had homefield advantage, and this was reinforced in the first hour of BoS when Liberty Prime was destroyed in transit to Adams AFB.
Why can't the BoS just get more people to staff it? Well that is answered by Ashur in the Pitt, he is ashamed he had to turn to the slavers to begin the reclamation of Pittsburgh. Ashur had flexible morals which lead him away from the same BoS who would be incapable of making the same choices. They are power-armored boy scouts, you know the "Good Guys".
The BoS are limited by their own morality, go back and listen to Ashur. Just like Lonesome road, it starts off weird and disconnected but as you become familiar with the wasteland it grows on you.
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Not buying the 5 degrees tilt destroys it argument, since the Broken Steel Mobile Base Crawler clearly does not have a huge rocket or a space shuttle precariously sitting on top deck like the NASA crawler usually does/did - AFAIK this is what causes the tilt limitation really. Enclave mobile base crawler has more sturdily attached structures built on top, permanently welded into the platform, I have no doubt it could take more significant tilt and slightly worse path conditions - If it was so completely immobile, Enclave would not have bothered building their base on it, instead they would have gone with a more reinforced bunker with a satellite dish. (As a sidenote, I have also seen numbers mentioned, that without the rocket loaded, the NASA crawler can do like 2 miles an hour.)
Also worth considering is, Adams AFB propably was not the original home of the crawler (No vehicle assembly building can be seen around for one), it must have been driven there from somewhere else, somehow.
Even so, taking the Enclave Mobile Base Crawler somewhere would require advance planning and clearing a wide path for it from any large pieces of the post nuclear wreckage like pieces of fallen buildings, to prevent the tracks from getting stuck or thrown. Whole vehicle weighs something like around three thousand tons, with one individual segment of a track weighing in almost a ton - It can undoubtedly crush minor obstacles like frex automobiles into metal pancakes without slowing down at all.. Come to think of it, the main problem here really would be the workforce required - Dozens of techs to operate and maintain, lots of people with heavy equipment (robots or powerarmors perhaps) to plan and clear the path.
It would absolutely be worth it to acquire and move the crawler IF the Lyons Brotherhood could actually pull it off. Techies part would be easy for the BOS, their scribes could get this done no doubt, but the problem would be to get a hundred or so manual laborers with robots or powerarmors to clear the path, BOS might have difficulties with that one, not willing to employ any wastelanders ever and such lowly manual task might be seen as degrading and improper for their shiny knights and paladins; perhaps even using sentry bots for debris cleanup duties would be seen as a perverted use of a technology they hold sacred, who knows.
IMHO, the moral limitations here is not just about them being 'the good guys' but also having lots of attached technology hoarding and worshipping mindset baggage - Deep down, BOS considers technology and knowledge, especially advanced technology like lasers and powerarmors, more important than people, going as far as to consider some pre-war inventions as sacred, in their opinion too powerful for anyone outside the BOS to have.
