HELIOS One/ARCHIMEDES II are plot wise underused

It feels especially strange because the in interviews they seemed to highlight it a bit.

But than again they also mentioned the Vault 21 quite a few times, and definetaley cut something there. Maybe even at Micheal Angelos next to it.

At different points during the game you can find these 'yellow' on/off switches which they normally only used if there would be some door or other mechanism you had to active first hand. But it wasn't good for anything.

 

Yes... this whole 'go down to get up again' seemed a bit forced.
Also having a companion when, entering the tower (at least i guess it was there) trying to getting toward the computer to shut off security systems only to having your companions directly attacking it, was somewhat dumb.

Also being able to disassemble the broken collectors without knowing what f, bugged me somewhat. I mean they look damn big and not exactly light-weight and you got simply put them in your pocket like in an adventure-game :/

 

It's weird how Bethesda and Obsidian showcased it in their trailers and previews so much.

 

It's basically there for there to be a "WOW" weapon to appeal to the people who play games for "awesome" guns.

This of course explains all the mods out there that make it an unstoppable death-cannon of rage because "It's a freakking [sic] space laser, it should be more awesom[sic]".

The fact is that it's canonically a failure as a weapon due to either simply being ineffective (solar power isn't reliable nor powerful to make such a weapon) or simply run down due to it's age and lack of maintenance.

 

I agree with the Generalissimo. I especially agree with The Dutch Ghost. Fallout, as a series has always suffered from missed opportunities from cut content. I dislike cut content and missing/undersized plot devices, and I especially dislike when they're showcased to the public as something to draw in people/Fallout 3 fans.

 

So you are OK with shoving 3 mini guns up your arse, hundreds of bullets and 40 Gecko steaks, but those darn collectors were too big and just didn't make any sense, damn it!

Well, the trailers said it's a weapon, that you can use to kill stuff. And that's what it does, really. Just not on a global scale and not really that relevant to the plot. It does get it's own ending slider I guess.

 

No, but i'm okay with shoving them up your arse, just joking
I never said the whole inventory makes that much of sense, but at least the miniguns weight something. Also the collectors/mirrors have the size of at least 3 miniguns, so for me it's still a bit more ridiculous than 3 miniguns or rocket launchers or anything in your inventory.

As far as i remember your guess about the slides is wrong, but i myself could be wrong on that.
Also they let it sound as if it was more important to the BoS and NCR. And sure they fought there, but i guess the NCR would have fought the BoS if they would have found them on a freakin' toilett - and i really don't think this toilett would have gotten some real importance because of that.
Plot-wise this thing is simply underused.
As is the Vault 21 and i would say even some more things.

 

Using ARCHIMEDES to destroy BoS for House/NCR would be an interesting alternative... I'm tired of the old "shut their reactor" thing.. how many Fallout games were about destroying things by disabling the reactors? Nobody ever guards the mainframe and cares for some people tinkering with it. And the shutdown option is the first one offered to the player

 

I would have loved to have been able to wipe out vegas by making house's reactor meltdown.

one of my characters really sees no reason for vegas to exist.

 

I pretty much agree with the first post. First I thought that HELIOS One will be a really important facility, but it turned out to be just some early-game mini-location with one quest and no impact on the endgame.

Also I didn't liked it, that after I've set up the power plant to work efficient, the NCR still didn't send more soldiers to guard it. Especially because Lt. Haggerty on the entrance told the player about it... "the power plant doesn't work cool, so we don't need many guards here"... and after I fixed it, nobody reacts on it in any kind of way.

The really only reason for *not* activating ARCHIMEDES II is if you don't want one bad reputation point for the NCR...

 

heh you know after the activation of Archimedes either the NCR or the Legion should be chasing you like crazy trough the wasteland ... not to mention that like you said already the only thing you gain from the "power" in Helios is a good point in reputation.

 

I thought about doing such a mod too, but I totally lack the needed skills for it. Good thing would be, most of it can be done via script and doesn't even need any new spoken dialogue lines... but still, new script for it, terminal changes, map changes based on triggers (you want to see that you blew up something, don't you?), etc.

Also good: Most of the locations named above are in a closed enviroment. Mc Carren, as example. If you blow it up, all entrance points to it are closed off by NCR soldiers who block it, because place got destroyed, yadda yadda. And behind the big walls you can see lots of big, black smoke trails.

 

We don't know if they never considered this. :p


I wish we would be able to read some of the FNV design docs. I love reading design docs.