Fallout Tactics

Fallout Tactics is a video game of strategy alternating turn by turn/real-time, based on the post-apocalyptic universe of the series Fallout . Developed by Micro Forté and published by 14 Degrees East, Fallout Tactics left in 2001. The play makes it possible to direct a section of soldiers of the Brotherhood of Steel, whereas this one engages in a critical war.

Although the play proceeds in the universe of Fallout , it follows neither continues the events, neither of Fallout 1 , nor of Fallout 2 . Because of the inconsistencies with the general scenario of the series, the original creators of the series Fallout and the creators of Fallout 3 , consider both that Fallout Tactics is a opus with share of the series. This title also disappointed many fans, who awaited a Fallout 3 . It is the first to offer a multijouor mode.

Gameplay

At the difference in the two preceding plays, Fallout Tactics stresses the tactical combat and the strategy. The player is not any more able to discuss with PNJs, but it can always trade and bet with them. In the place of the cities, Fallout Tactics concentrates on the basis of Brotherhood and the grounds of operations. The bases are the neuralgic points of the Brotherhood, and the player can obtain the services of the intendants there (commercial), of the mechanics (repair of the vehicles), of the recruiter (to change the composition of the section) and of the doctors. Sometimes, the characters met in the missions go in these bases.

After having attended the briefing of the General responsible for a base, the section of the player can go on the ground of operation. Although it is generally about a city, these zones can also be military factories, campings or Fallout shelters. Once on the spot, the player can start to operate, helped by a chart where the main targets of the mission are marked. These grounds of operations do not present almost any more any possible interaction with the section, once the mission accomplished.

The system of combat of Fallout Tactics is more complex than in the precedents opus. With the difference in the latter, which proposed only one system of combat to the turn by turn, Fallout Tactics proposes three modes of combat: continuous mode (CTB), turn mode by individual turn (ITB), turn mode by turn in section (STB). In CTB, everyone can fight at the same time, the points of action being regenerated at a speed based on the Agility of the characters. The ITB is the mode used in the precedents opus. The STB is a variation; each turn is devoted to a team. Other changes have be operated, such as possibility to change position, which influences the precision of the shootings of the player and the enemies who attack it, as well as a mode of “day before”, which makes it possible to the soldiers of the section to draw at sight in CTB when an enemy enters their field of view.

Races

Although the player must necessarily be Human, the recruits of the Brotherhood and the characters of the matches multijouor can incarnate any of the six races present in the play.

Human : the Human ones are the most widespread race of the Wasteland . They do not have advantages in any field, and are penalized in no other. They gain an additional competence all the 3 levels.

Super-Mutants : old Human, genetically modified by FEV, the Super-Mutants are massive and resistant animals which excel in all the styles of combat, but which present gaps in Intelligence and Agility. They are unable to use the small weapons like the guns and rifles. They gain an additional competence all the 4 levels.

Goules : old Human, transferred and deformed by radiations of the nuclear Hiver, they are able to support high amounts of radiation, which explains their incredible lifespan. They are not as strong as the Human ones, but they have better Perception as well as better Chance. They gain an additional competence all the 4 levels.

Flayers : they are massive and very resistant animals, which use their force and their claws to cut out their enemies of pieces. They must be satisfied with weapons of body with body, and cannot carry armor. They have little Intelligence and Charisma, but are incredibly more resistant than the Human ones. They gain an additional competence all the 4 levels.

Dogs : the canine race succeeded in adapting to the life in the desert of the Wasteland . Their assets are Perception and the Agility, but they can use neither of weapons, nor other objects. They gain an additional competence all the 2 levels.

Robots humanoïdes : it is about the army of the Calculator. Created to kill, they are Forts and Enduring, resistant against many attacks and immunized against the poisons, gases and radiations. They have little Charisma however, and an average Chance. They do not gain competences.

Universe

The nuclear threat which weighed on the world led Humanity to build Shelters, intended to protect the best and more the brilliance of civilization. Preserved death for the centuries to come, this population had the role of repopulating the Earth, once devastated. Unfortunately, the war burst prematurely, before the network of Shelters was not completed. Once the rate of radiations fallen down on a sufficient level to allow the life outside, a military Shelter, located in California, opened its doors. Using their technological superiority, the soldiers of the Shelter were able to dominate the area around and founded the Brotherhood of Steel; an organization dedicated to the restoration of civilization, like the reintroduction and the development of new technologies.

A scission was formed in the Brotherhood. A faction was for the introduction of tribal warriors into the Brotherhood, in order to prevent any risk of shortage of troops. The other faction wanted to preserve the pure Brotherhood, by refusing any external help. This last faction gained the debate, and the other faction was sent beyond the mountains in large airships, to destroy the remainders of the army of the Super-Mutants, demolished in Fallout 1 . However, a storm struck the convoy of airships, forcing the military chiefs to disperse, and for the majority of them, to find death. One of the crews survived the crash landing of their airship, close to the ruins of Chicago. After being themselves reformed, and having disavowed the directives of the old order of the Brotherhood, these survivors established their own Confrérie of Steel. This new organization was to thrive, by recruiting warriors in the villages neighborhood and while being spread in the area.

History

When the play starts, the new Brotherhood of Steel tries to adapt the territory surrounding Chicago. By offering their protection to the tribal villages, the Brotherhood receives in exchange the best recruits of these villages. At the beginning of the play, the player is an Initiate, a new recruit of the Brotherhood, which has as a task to order a section made up of other Initiates. The Plunderers are the first challenge launched against the authority of the Brotherhood, this is why the section of the player is sent to carry out their chiefs, and thus to put a term at the Pillard threat. While the offensive manages to disperse the Pillards forces in the Wasteland , the player is more and more accepted in the Brotherhood, and ends up learning the goal from it: long and difficult walk beyond the Large Plains in direction of the Rocky Mountains, with the research of Shelter Zero, core and command center of the network of Shelters of pre-war period, where the majority of the political directors, the scientific elite and the military leaders were placed, and the most advanced technologies available stored.

The following challenge, in the countryside of the Brotherhood, is the threat of Belluaires, human able to control the animals of the desert, overcoming even wild Écorcheurs. Once again, the Brotherhood fights the threat, and once again, it leaves there victorious. Without possible respite, she is again threatened by a new enemy, whereas she tries to spread herself in the Missouri, in a perimeter known under the name of “the Belt”: the place where the remainders of the army of the Super-Mutants are that they aimed to eliminate. The first battles are expensive for the Brotherhood. Not armed rather well and in numerical inferiority, manpower of the Brotherhood are literally submerged when they approach Saint-Louis. Over there, the Barnaky General, one of principal directing of the Brotherhood, are captured by Toccomata, a commander of the army of the Super-Mutants. Although the Brotherhood withdraws this zone quickly, it essuie of the repetitive attacks. One day, the section charged to destroy an installation manufacturing of the ammunition, actually fall on a laboratory, charged to cure the sterility of the Super-Mutants. The Brotherhood seizes this laboratory then, to make use of it later like currency of exchange. A few days later, at the city Goule de Gravestone, in the ruins of Kansas City, of the scouts of the Brotherhood discover an intact nuclear bomb. The Brotherhood protects the town of a succession of attacks of the Super-Mutants, then recovers the bomb to store it in a sure place.

The scouts of the Brotherhood fall then on the basis from the Super-Mutants, in Osceolla, close to the ruins of a broken airship of the former Brotherhood of Steel. A section leaves to the attack the base and finds Toccomata inside, dying. It reveals that it lost the prisoner Général Barnaky, whereas he fought an unknown threat in the West, a so important threat, that even the army of the Super-Mutants would not be able to overcome. Whereas the section penetrates in the part where is supposed to hide Gammorin, the General of the Super-Mutants, it falls on Paladin Latham, one of the leaders of the air convoy. He explains why after the crash landing, he fought Gammorin with the body with body for the command of the army of the Super-Mutants. He gained the combat, but a wound with the head was infected, and he became soon lunatic. Latham again fulfilled the functions General of the Super-Mutants, and sent its new army to fight its old allies. The section thus decides to kill Latham, before it can cause other wrongs to the Brotherhood.

Soon, the threat of the West appears of itself: an army of Robots moves side of the Midwest. Reavers, of human dedicating a worship with technology, are wedged between the Robots and the Brotherhood, while the two armies fight a battle baited in the Kansas. Although Reavers try to carry out a war on the two faces, they are quickly crushed, and then seek the political asylum near the Brotherhood, in exchange of a weapon with technology IEM. The Brotherhood accepts, and a section equipped with this new technology destroys an installation assigned to the repair of the Robots. The Brotherhood takes again her walk then, progressing in the Colorado, in direction of Shelter Zero. - It is revealed that the Robots are originating in this Shelter, and that they are directed by a mysterious enemy, known under the name of “Calculator”. A proof, discovered by the Brotherhood, concludes with a catastrophic experiment undertaken in the Shelter, which led to the creation of the Calculator starting from a fusion between computers and human brains. - The Robots gather, but the Brotherhood manages to seize the unhoped-for occasion to destroy a manufacturing plant of Robots. The Robots capture Bartholomev Kerr then, a merchant who travelled a long time with the Brotherhood. If the Robots managed to tap information to him, they would be able to destroy all the Brotherhood. A section arrives in time and puts a term at the life of the merchant. On the spot, they also discover the body of the General Barnaky, his brain in less.

The Robots oppose an exaggerated defense, but the Brotherhood manages to work out a plan to destroy them directly in their base, Shelter Zero, localized in the Mont Cheyenne. Thanks to the nuclear warhead, the Brotherhood hopes to open a breach towards the interior of the bunker. After a hard combat, during the rise of the mountain, a section places the nuclear warhead. The explosion opens an entry, and two sections penetrate in the bunker. The current was shut off by the effect of blast of the explosion, this is why one of the sections must find the generator auxiliary, to restart the elevators. During this time, the Robots tackle the base of the Brotherhood. To the Shelter, the current is quickly given on the way, and the section moves towards the lower levels. There, they fight the remainders of the army of the Robots, carried out by a Barnaky General, transformed into cyborg (thanks to its brain). The General does not attack (provided that one of the members of the section carries the medallion of Maria, the woman of Barnaky), because it must face a conflict between its program, who orders to him to fight, and its brain, which orders to him to save his wife. The section arrives then in front of the Calculator. After having overcome the last Robots, and having destroyed the brains which ensured fusion with the host computer, the Calculator their request to join the brain of the player with the central processing unit, to put an end to the war and to bring back peace. The player has the choice then between: to cause the self-destruction of the Calculator, to sacrifice or sacrifice Barnaky (if it is still in life) to give a brain to the Calculator, in order to reconfigure the process.

Here four various possible ends:

1. Provoquer the self-destruction of the Calculator makes it possible the Brotherhood to seize Shelter Zero and to make use of it as bases principal for their future operations. Nevertheless, the Calculator was actually the technology which they came to seek - its databases being lost, the Shelter is not any more that one énième mask of old technology, and not a new resource industrielle.

Reprogrammer the Calculator with the brain of the player means that all the resources of the Shelter will be fully available for the Brotherhood, increasing his power exponentially. The restoration of the last glory of Midwest will be a question of decades, rather than of centuries. Nevertheless, the morals of the player will dictate the actions of the Calculator:

2. If the player made a series of reprehensible acts throughout the play, the discrimination of the mutant races will be established, under the pretext of the need for a pure and homogeneous Humanity. For the same reasons, it quietly will assassinate the Old ones of the Brotherhood to take control of it, planning the same fate for the Brotherhood of California.

3. If the player made a series of acts honourable and distinguished (what is difficult, since the old brains of the Calculator were considered innocent), the discrimination of the mutant races is present all the same, but no act of violence is commis.

4. If Barnaky makes gift of its brain, the new Calculator will launch a purification campaign, against all the mutant races (Super-Mutants, Goules, Écorcheurs, etc), to lead them to the extinction.

In the beginning, Shelter Zero had the role of opening before all the other Shelters, and of sending an army of Robots to exterminate any sufficiently advanced life to threaten the survivors of the other Shelters, and to allow a rebuilding of civilization on “healthy” bases. Unfortunately, a dysfunction made that this Shelter did not open at the date envisaged, but only after that of other Shelters. This is why the Calculator was obliged, against its will (since it partly consists of human brains), of launching its army of Robots against the Brotherhood, the villages tribal and all the other regroupings the human ones. The Calculator thus did not have other possible recourses to stop the process, that an outside assistance does not come to cause its self-destruction or its reprogramming.

List inconsistencies with the series

Fallout Tactics presents a series of elements which are in contradiction with the universe of the two precedents Fallout . Here is the list:

the Brotherhood of Steel is originating in a military Shelter, while in the preceding opus, it is about an organization founded by the personnel of the military base of Mariposa.

the Flayers (erroneous translation of Deathclaws , Griffemorts) are shown like intelligent, are endowed with word and raising a fur. However, Griffemorts are all of the lizards, and will become intelligent only when the Enclave begins experiments on them (the events of Tactics proceeding during the period between the two precede Fallout ).

Presence of vehicles seeming to consume oil (Hummer, Tank, etc), and service stations full of fuel. This is in total contradiction with the history of the preceding plays. However, the energy source of these vehicles never is really specified; it may be that they are fed by a pile with fusion.

Ajout of weapons of the Second world war (Sten, MP38, Garand M1, etc) and of many modern weapons, which is illogical and in contradiction with the history.

the Shelter Zero, whose design, goal and project are incompatible with the Experiment of the Shelters, undertaken by the US government.

Use of airships like means of transport.

Capacity for the Brotherhood to design Energy Armours (Super-Armours of the precedents opus), whereas it lays out, neither of the resources, nor of the knowledge necessary.

American voices

R. Lee Ermey - Ermey, which played the “Instructor Seed-planting drill” in Full Metal Jacket and which was the guest of the documentary series Mail Cal , double the voice of the Barnaky General.
Ron Perlman - Perlman takes again its role of voice-off of the first opus of the series, to comment on the introduction and kinematics.
Kurtwood Smith - Smith, who played Red Forman in That '70s Show , double the voice of the Dekker General.
Todd Susman - Susman doubles the voice of Paladin Ziskele, which gives orders to the player during the tutorial and the briefings of the missions of the demonstration.
Dee Bradley Baker
Michael Beautiful
Gregg Shepherd

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