See, I was glad to see pipe guns initially, because I've always found it weird they didn't have much in the way of improvised weapons in 3 and NV. Logically they would be in use to some extent, especially among tribals and poorer settlements.
If Pipe Weapons actually had more variety, it would've been a neat concept and made the early game feel a bit better in the weapons department. One scrapped weapon from concept art was the Crude Blowback, a blowback operated submachine gun that would overheat if you fired it too often. Guess Bethesda got too lazy to implement an overheating mechanic because that would've been a neat weapon. Gives me a lot of Bastard Gun vibes from Metro 2033.
Isn't the standard ammo type 10mm rather than 9 in the Fallout universe?
9 still exists, it's more Bethesda being lazy and not knowing jack shit about guns.
No, 10mm was the standard handgun round of FO1/FO2. 9mm does exist but its rare and used only in the Mauser, IIRC.
That is definitely a good case of narrative decision: .38 has a lower ballistic performance than 9mm, and is principally used with snub-nosed revolvers in our world. Pipe guns replaced snub-noses as the wimpy starting gun, and it makes some sense to have them use the same ammo: most police pistols were .38 revolvers in the 50's and 60's and it was also popular with criminals and for carry by those that could get the license due to its small size, so that would mean a shitton of .38 special ammo out there to use; the fact that it was weaker than some other calibers definitely made it more palatable for use in pipe weapons that are not made with the same durability as a properly manufactured gun.
Fallout has used the 10mm since Day 1, since a lot of people in the 90's thought that it was going to become the main pistol caliber of the future, and it quickly became ingrained into the franchise's character. The only 9mm in the original 2 games were antique Mausers, and NV deciding to make the BHP the starting pistol is honestly them deciding that they wanted a gun in the game rather than any sort of narrative reason for it. Again, Chris Avellone and Josh Sawyer are not gods, and Obsidian made plenty of retcons and bugs of their own.
What about their children? I only played the game at release so I remember them as a fire spreading, burnt areas were under their control and different from their edge of expansion(the fire, so to say).
Doesn't help that the Legion has an unfortunate tendency to backstab all of their allies once they've "pacified" an area. That's one of my problems with the Legion in general, all of their supposed "good" parts are told by a guy with a god complex that orders the butchering of communities for the most petty shit (really, was there any strategic value in slaughtering New Canan outside of getting back at Joshua Graham?), while all of their fucked up parts are front & center.
Power pretty much in my eyes. Even in societies that women were significantly inferior to me, including ancient Rome, a handful of truly powerful and talented ones tend to appear. You could roleplay as one wanting to be the bride of ceaser, or a Wasteland Cleopatra. Plus even in game, ceaser has shown himself willing to make use of people and tech that doesn't really fit with the legions stated ideals. Really we got jewed by obsidian fleshing out the legion less than the other factions, they had the most cut content, including legion towns and significantly more to do at the fort.
I don't think the NCR's perfect by any means, but I think they've got the best chance in the long term.
I could argue that High-INT couriers could come from all sorts of places in the NCR, simply because it's made clear that the Core Territories have obtained an industrial capacity at least on par with the Gilded Age by the time of NV. They could have been educated in Shady and moved eastward for adventure, be former Brotherhood with the technological education that entails, or just have been raised with a good access to knowledge. With that, they could go any way: NCR Couriers were raised there and see its industrial development and stable society as a boon for the Mojave, House Couriers are technocrats who believe that they and Robert are smart enough to lead the way to the Mojave's success through their two-man Industrial Revolution, Independents were your stereotypical college-educated anarchist who is convinced that history proves states are just too useless to keep around, and Legion couriers see the brutality of a post-apocalyptic state as necessary to provide the pathway for civilization (though I consider this a bit of a stretch since an intelligent Courier should also be able to see the massive holes in Sallow's ideology and government structure). Of course, there's also plenty of reasons for a moron to support every faction: Maybe they're patriotic buffoons following their government without consideration of its flaws, easily swayed by the egghead saying big words, destructive dipshits who just want to cause chaos, or primitive tribals who are easily fooled by a pseudo-intellectual posing as a god-king. Because at the end of the day, there are smart people and stupid people that follow every ideology, as the lolcow threads prove with gusto.
Trade routes. There was slowly growing trade between New Canaan and the NCR as the Crimson Caravan's competitors were driven to the fringes, and best to wipe them out before the NCR proper can expand that way. As New Canaan is on the northern edge of Legion territory, that would result in a slow but steady encirclement, especially if the NCR can pacify or remove the local tribes before Caesar can make use of them. That, and the last thing Caesar would have wanted to deal with is Graham rallying New Canaan and their associated tribes against him. The tactical smarts of the Malpais Legate, backed with all the fervor and fanaticism of holy crusaders, and a literal religious love of the gun thanks to one John Moses Browning. Well-armed, fanatical, and led by a driven man... Caesar's worst fucking nightmare.
Yeah I don't like that aspect of Fallout 4. They advertised the settlements but you can't actually clean them up to make them look like people are living there, and unless you have reached a certain level, you can't share the resources with other settlements, despite having to rescue them and build more defenses every 15 min.
Not to mention some have visible skeletons you cannot even scrap or remove unless you get mods.
