Celebrating Great War Day With Dead Slaves And Slow Love

Current Vault 551 Status

Population: 189
Overall Happiness: 99% 
Benny Happiness: 100%
Wealth: 555,615 caps

So in case you haven't been paying attention, have been too busy with real life nonsense, aren't particularly a Fallout fan, or just flat out don't care, today is Great War Day. On this date, October 23, in the year 2077, the Fallout story gets underway with a massive nuclear war.

That doesn't really have anything to do with this update, but I would be amiss in not at least mentioning it.

Vault 551 has been very stable as of late. As the population continues to hover just below the 200 dweller limit, we've had to begin pruning back the less important demographics somewhat. First on the chopping block: the slaves. We simply don't need nearly twenty of them, because goddammit, we're a pretty happy vault now at a steady 99% overall happiness. The slaves did their job spectacularly well, and so now we have to kill them. That's just how these things go.

Victoria's secret is that she's going to die pretty soon.

You understand. This is just the natural end result of uncontrolled immigration: slaves dressed up in slutty lingerie, sent out into the nuclear desert to be eaten by radioactive bears. The free market has spoken.

Contact: Radio Signal From Vault 209

REPORT TO VAULT TEC PROJECT ADMINISTRATORS
From: Overseer, Vault 551
RE: Survival Mode and Vault 209 Deaths
Not Intended For Circulation

Events lately in Vault 551 have been relatively.. well.. uneventful.  Caps continue to accumulate like crazy, Dwellers continue to be trained and leveled up, and rare items continue to be discovered and hoarded.  There will be a more detailed report on Vault 551's current status in the next day or two.

In the interest of maintaining a complete record for the Vault Tec project administrators, we must include in our documentation a recent episode involving the interception of a radio message from what appears to be another Vault.  Identifying itself only as Vault 209, the radio broadcaster indicated that, since a recent Vault operations software update by Vault Tec administration, their Vault has been permanently locked into a "Survival Mode".

Factions and Loathing in Vault 551

Current Vault 551 Status

Population: 185
Overall Happiness: 99% 
Benny Happiness: 100%
Wealth: 117,627 caps

So things have been pretty stable this week in Vault 551. The production rate of Deadmeats has dropped significantly as our overall happiness level remains consistently at 99%. Population is up a bit, mainly due to the influx of the Hunger Gamers and a few Wasteland survivors. Liquid cash has fluctuated between 60,000 and 220,000 caps, as we continue making heavy infrastructure investments.

Specifically, investments in radioactive malted battery acid.

We've been replacing food production facilities with Nuka Cola bottling plants, maintaining our food production levels while also adding an equal amount of water production for the same effort.

I'm not exactly sure how replacing all of our food with radioactive cola is supposed to be a good thing, but clearly it is in Fallout Shelter. So Nuka Cola for everyone it is.

On To Sustainable Slavery-Based Theocracy

Current Vault 551 Status

Population: 180
Overall Happiness: 96% 
Benny Happiness: 100%
Wealth: 124,426 caps

In recent days, Father Benny of Vault 551 has loosened his theological grip on his flock somewhat, as practical considerations had taken priority. Population growth, regular demoralizing assaults by Deathclaws and molerats, the ongoing challenges of simple keeping production numbers up. But the time is coming now for the Father's vision and leadership to transform us from mere post-nuke survivors to a Vault unified with true purpose.

Our population has stabilized into a range between 175 and 190 Dwellers, depending on our current Deadmeat live count.  As Father Benny's new "sex for everyone, kids for no one" edict has found immense popularity in our Vault, sustained happiness - now pretty solid at 96% - has made actual babybirthing a rare and usually unnecessary activity.

Which is good, because honestly, those creepy Deadmeats really get in the way.

"Hi!  I'm Debbie Deadmeat!  Anyone want to play CHECKERS?"

We've figured out recently that child happiness doesn't seem to factor into the overall Vault happiness average until they become adults.  Even so, we can't get them into the Incident Room fast enough.

Lore Break: The Enclave

So once upon a time in the Fallout universe, the bombs hadn't fallen yet.  Oil supplies were running out fast and the various nation states of Earth were fighting bitterly over the remaining scraps. American society had taken on a somewhat fascist bent, obsessed with the communist menace and the imperative to ensure the survival and supremacy of the American Dream.

Most of that kind of went to shit in October 2077.  Most survivors of the Great War rode out the mess underground in Vaults, mighty bomb shelters that periodically opened (by defect or design) over the next 200 years, depositing their human descendants throughout the Wasteland.  Those people went on to found towns such as Shady Sands, the Hub and Megaton, as well as form faction organizations such as the Brotherhood of Steel, the Followers of the Apocalypse and the Unity.

And then there is the Enclave.

The Enclave just wants to be helpful.

As Fallout factions go, these guys were in a league all by themselves.  Quite literally.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Current Vault 551 Status

Population: 179
Overall Happiness: 95% 
Benny Happiness: 100%
Wealth: 59,024 caps

So, we're proud to announce that the aforementioned program combining state-run sex slavery and forced death marches has thus far been an unqualified success!

That's all that your Overseer really wanted to hear.

We are now holding steady at a 95% general happiness level in Vault 551.  Population levels seem to be well managed, and production has never been better. Deathclaw attacks are being solidly put down now with only the rare occasional fatality, and molerat attacks are being swiftly contained before they can spread into wider disasters.

Life in Vault 551 right now is pretty freaking awesome. At least for Dwellers who are willing to be happy.

So for those just tuning in, this week Vault 551 got a bit more serious about morale.  After a variety of calamities, we'd been stuck at 86% or so happiness for quite some time.  If we wanted to get production bonuses back to full levels, we'd need to punch those numbers up above 90%.

We also had a population growth problem.  The radio station has been working extremely well, attracting random people - and Deathclaws - from across the Wasteland, drawn in by Father Benny's message of hope and happiness for all.  The radio station boosts general Vault happiness and attracts Deathclaws as well.

"Ohshitshitshitshitshit"

We can manage the Deathclaws, and we want to keep the radio happiness boost.  But we needed to do something about the constant stream of new people.

As the Wasteland women have the distinct advantage of essentially being universal sexual partners (as they're not burdened by being related to anyone in the Vault), they have all been accepted with open arms - and open pants - to the Vault 551 family.  New Charisma-raising bar facilities have been built directly around the old CoDC Sanctuary for them to lounge about in skimpy lingerie and drink.

Befitting their new place, the Vault 551 Comfort Girls are renamed upon acceptance with the surname "Slave" and a cheesy stripper first name.  Destiny Slave is our most popular girl currently, but now we also have Rayvnn, Glori, Mandee, Sissy, Kitty and others.

When we notice that a valued male Dweller is starting to get a little blue, he gets a few hours off to spend with one of the girls.  Soon they're both 100% happy and she's pregnant.  We've also been giving recent male graduates of the training system celebratory freebies before sending them out to their first production jobs.

So that has been an incredibly powerful strategy for bringing overall happiness averages back up, which is great, but we still have that pesky issue of birthrate and population growth.  We're dealing with that in a couple of ways.

The male Wastelanders called in by the radio are outfitted with formal wear (finally, a use for it!  we've got, like, 25 of the damned things in storage) and a cheap gun and sent back out to explore. The tuxedos give them Luck stat bonuses, which hopefully will occasionally be a help in tripping over decent loot from time to time.  Mostly though, it's just funny to send them out dressed in fancy duds to die.  And die they commonly do.

We've attracted a much higher percentage of women than men with the radio than expected, so right now we have a dozen Comfort Girls on staff.  We'll probably have to start death marching new women Wastelanders now as well.

That brings us to the Deadmeats.  Ah, the wee Deadmeats.

Kevin Deadmeat hasn't yet solved the mystery of the low kid population in Vault 551.

To keep things nicely organized, all babies resulting from our sex slavery operation are renamed at birth with the surname Deadmeat.  They basically exist to die at the earliest opportunity, which is as soon as they mature into level-1 adults. We then round them up and shove them into the Incident Room to be rushed to death.  If there are more than two of them, we stack them up in nearby warehouse space to keep them from roaming while we work down the line.

Deadmeats typically end up being burned alive or torn apart by radioactive cockroaches, and then we hose out the room for the next Deadmeat batch.  A 75% happiness lab tech stands nearby with a decent weapon, ready to clean up and reset the room.  Once we've rushed the room to about a 75% incident risk, it's nicely warmed up and kills quite efficiently and quickly - we even get a bit of power generation during the room's spin up phase!

Ken and Peter Deadmeat: "What do you mean they're rushing it AGAIN?!"

This allows us to generate 100% happiness people on one end and quickly eliminate 50% happiness people on the other end.  This is how we're up to 95% happiness in Vault 551 and managing to decrease the surplus population at the same time.

So things are pretty stable right now, and not much else to report.  Vincent Mitchell has decided to resign his position with the CoDC, a move that Father Benny has reluctantly chosen to accept. Vincent has taken a new position in the Med Lab.  We're sad to see him go, but wish him the best in his new chosen career field.

We also have a new Vault Dweller from a lunchbox bonus: Dylan Sanders.  He's a bit weird.  He showed up in a horror fan outfit and seems to work best alone.  But he is a hard worker.  So we've trained him and assigned Dylan to the job of managing one of the Deadmeat warehouse storage spaces.  He seems to like it, and best of all, he doesn't have much contact with other people.

We try not to go down there.  Dylan prefers the dark and his privacy, it seems.

"THE SKIES WILL RAIN WITH THE BLOOD OF THE UNWORTHY."  "So that's a no, then?"

Building The Morale Machine

Vault 551 status more or less unchanged from yesterday: a few more people, a bit less cash, slightly higher general happiness.  Not worth posting new numbers.


Following up on yesterday's post, there have been some significant advancements towards increasing the general happiness of Vault 551, to be more in line with Father Benny's "LEADER SAYS BE HAPPY" governing philosophy.  We're collectively quite proud of how efficiently this system seems to be working.

Before I go any further, lest some of you come to the conclusion that I'm a coal-hearted asshole, I would like to remind all our readers that I did not create the rules to this game.  These are hard times in the world, and this population will do what is necessary in order to survive.  That means exploiting the ever-loving shit out of the legitimate game mechanics in order to keep production and happiness up, while keeping Vault 551 awash in great equipment and lots of money.

I'd also like to share this:

Not recommended in real life.

This charming little Vault Boy cartoon was drawn by Brian Menze, the actual artist from Black Isle who drew all of the official Vault Boy icons and images for Fallout 2.  This is the icon for the "Childkiller" reputation status, which the player receives if and when he.. ahem.. well.. kills a kid.  This action, accidental or intentional, typically brands you as someone to be violently hated across the Wasteland.  This icon was the only Vault Boy to be cut from the game, for being so over-the-top offensive.

So that having been said, let's not pretend that anything else I write in this post is anywhere nearly as bad as Vault Boy, happy smile on his face, giving a pregnant woman a sharp kick in the baby.  Okay?

All Aboard The Malthusian Clown Car

Current Vault 551 Status

Population: 160
Overall Happiness: 87% 
Benny Happiness: 100%
Wealth: 37,850 caps

O-kay. Well, Vault 551 is certainly growing fast now. We've jumped from about 125 to 160 in just a few days, even though we no longer are encouraging lots of pregnancies. With that 200 dweller population limit just in sight and speeding towards us, it is time for Father Benny and the Overseer of Vault 551 to make some decisions on how best to deal with the crowding situation.

Doing good.  Could be better.  Don't get cocky, kid.

Part of the recent success has been the abundance of cold cash lately.  So many Dwellers productively doing their thing, with the added bonuses of explorers coming back with bountiful treasures, has been resulting in a steady and deep flow of funds.  Cash liquid at any given time has been between 15,000 and 40,000 caps, more than enough to upgrade rooms to full power and revive dead Dwellers as soon as they hit the floor.  We've been using this wealth mainly to convert old power plants to nuclear generators, and to upgrade training areas to maximum efficiency.

Lore Break: The Forced Evolutionary Virus

Time for another quick talk about the Fallout backstory.  This topic is a pretty important one, because it's about a major contributing factor in the emergence of nearly every mutated, ugly and dangerous species of Fallout wasteland critter: the Forced Evolutionary Virus, or FEV.

If you've played Fallout 3, you probably know FEV best as the stuff responsible for creating these guys:

Not your friends.

But as with most of the Fallout lore, the recent Bethesda contributions aren't nearly the whole story.

PTSD, Depression and Sex Slaves

Current Vault 551 Status

Population: 124
Overall Happiness: 89% 
Benny Happiness: 100%
Wealth: 25,762 caps

I haven't posted in several days now because there hasn't been much to post about.  I had started to wonder if we were reaching a boredom equilibrium in Vault 551, bringing the entertainment factor of this blog to an unfortunate end.  Population was growing more slowly, and we have a quarter of the Vault population in school and training up nicely.  Things have been stable.

But I suppose that as long as these guys are around, nothing stays stable around here for very long.

"Pardon me, good sir, but could you please direct me to a nearby source for fine wines?"

Nearly every time we open that damned Vault door - letting someone in, letting someone out - we get assaulted by a fresh round of Deathclaws.  The constant tension in the Vault is getting to people, and the chipper smiling attitudes are getting harder to fake for the Overseer's cameras.

Back to School

Current Vault 551 Status

Population: 100
Overall Happiness: 92% 
Benny Happiness: 100%
Wealth: 1553 caps

So things have been going pretty well lately in Vault 551.  No major crises beyond the occasional and easily remedied power or water shortfall, a few revived deaths here and there, nothing too crazy.  Just growth and good living.

When last we visited, the Vault was having a serious molerat problem to go along with the seemingly never ending series of fatal deathclaw assaults.  Dealing with this by simply clearing some bodies and buying off expensive revives was clearly not a long term strategy.  We would need a comprehensive effort to train up as many Dwellers as possible to amp up their stats, so that they could withstand tougher and tougher challenges.  And so everyone went back to school.

Intermission: Musical Interludes

Music is a major character in the Fallout game universe.  Set against the backdrop of a post-nuclear wasteland that is hopelessly culturally lost in 1950's-era nostalgia, the soundtracks of the series (and especially the recent Bethesda titles) is chock full of great early-20th century tunes.  From Frank Sinatra to Bing Crosby and Benny Goodman - and, if course, the Fallout-iconic Ink Spots - many great artists have found a new audience in recent years due to Fallout music selections.

There are official soundtracks, but fans have also created Fallout-themed stations on Pandora for those who just want to dive into the era rather than wading into a preselected dozen tracks.  Myself, I listen to this station often: Galaxy News Radio, of course named after the radio station from Fallout 3.

Personally, I love the music of this era because it's so incredibly optimistic.  I defy anyone to stay in a bad mood while listening to Danny Kaye and the Andrews Sisters performing "Civilization":

Political Shenanigans and Father Benny's Harem

Current Vault 551 Status

Population: 80
Overall Happiness: 85% 
Benny Happiness: 100%
Wealth: 1743 caps

Vault 551 is a pretty political place.

First, you have the agenda of the Church of the Divine Copulation: controlling population growth and making sure the right people are in places of power. Then you have the individual happiness of Vault dwellers, which unfortunately you do have to take into account via job placements and other things.

Finally, you have the Objectives. These are constantly arriving new and arbitrary goals set by the game, such as "Put out 10 vault fires", each with a somewhat arbitrary reward (usually caps, but occasionally a lunchbox with new toys). I choose to see the Objectives as the steady stream of instructions from Vault Tec, in accordance with the shadowy, secret Vault Experiment assigned to Vault 551.

Politics is never not important, even in the post-nuclear wasteland.

When you put them all together, sometimes you end up with unintended consequences.

Kathleen The Fair Falls To Deathclaw!

Current Vault 551 Status

Population: 72
Overall Happiness: 90% 
Benny Happiness: 100%
Wealth: 226 caps

NOOOO!!!!  NOT THE FAIR KATHLEEN!!!

Luckily, in Fallout Shelter death is really little more than a financial complication, and as Kathleen was so young, her revival was inexpensively achieved.  But she is very unhappy about her own untimely death.

Indeed, the confidence of our entire religious community has been shaken.

Lore Break: The Vault Experiments

Taking a short break here to talk about Fallout lore, for those reading this who may never have played the games.

Fallout is a series of tongue-in-cheek, post-apocalyptic RPG games that dates back to the 1990's. You can still play all the games in the series, going all the way back to the original Fallout (and even further back to the original 1988 Wasteland), on to more recent chapters such as Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. You can even play FOnline2, a completely free-to-play fan-made MMORPG based on Fallout 2. And now, Fallout 4 has finally been announced to be released in the fall of 2015.

Our Fallout 4 faith is strong.  TO VICTORY!

This blog is mainly about my adventures in Fallout Shelter, the first mobile game in the Fallout universe, and in particular, the story of Vault 551 and Father Benny The Most High - a story made easier to understand by taking a minute to understand Fallout.  And to understand Fallout, you have to understand Vaults, Project Safehouse and the Great War.  Lore dump after the jump.

Initiate Robes of the Holy Bloodline

Current Vault 551 Status

Population: 63
Overall Happiness: 82% 
Benny Happiness: 98%
Wealth: 911 caps

So times have been eventful for Vault 551 and fruitful for Father Benny's Church of the Divine Copulation.

Population continues to grow, and the new radio station continues to attract new potential followers from across the Wasteland to come and be saved through the Father's holy sacraments.  This open door policy, unfortunately, also led to Vault 551's first Deathclaw attack.  Until now, security breaches have been confined to rodents and raiders, most easily repelled.  The appearance and assault of vicious Deathclaws has brought new levels of fear and uncertainty to our placid little underground community.

Thankfully, as our Wasteland explorers have recently returned with a solid collection of high grade weapons and armor, the Vault Door guards and the brave workers of Water Reclamation Unit 1 were able to successfully defend the Vault in a mighty cataclysm of laser and plasma gunfire.  This event, though victorious for our forces, has left many Vault Dwellers wondering: what next?

What next, indeed?

Father Benny, #1 Dad

So last we visited, Father Benny had successfully established himself as the ad hoc spiritual leader of Vault 551, mainly owing to an absence of any competition and there being only one clergy outfit available.  Thus the Church of the Divine Copulation was formed, and within a quite short time, it successfully claimed a half dozen young women to the true faith via the sacrament of special private confession time with Father Benny, one on one.

The Father chose the location of his chapel well.  It is located in an unused Living Quarters seven levels underground, making it generally safe from intruders from the surface.  To the right is the Vault Bar, where fellow Dwellers can drink their way to higher charisma.  One floor below is the gaming room/casino.  Finally, to the left and past the main elevator, is a mess hall.  As a result, Father Benny rarely has to leave the immediate vicinity of the CoDC chapel, while also sitting in a pretty high traffic recreational corridor.

In fact, when he isn't busy counseling his flock, he's often next door drinking alone and thinking about how awesome of a father he is.

Father Benny drinks - and parents - responsibly.

Behold Father Benny of Vault 551

The genesis of this blog came from an article by Forbes' Paul Tassi about the Android release of Bethesda's mobile game, Fallout Shelter.  Tassi's point was basically that the game was little more than a shallow grind, as (in his opinion) are most other mobile games, and on that point he recommended that people either not play it at all or play it for just a day and leave it forever.

I didn't really agree with him, but admittedly I did hit a grind wall after playing it for a couple of weeks.  Once I got past the early fight-for-survival phase, each play session felt like more of the same: click, pick up energy, click, pick up water, meet collection challenge, build new room, rinse and repeat.  It had gotten boring for me.

Thing is, though, every game feels like a grind to me after a while, from Black Mesa to Civilization to EVE Online.  This onset of digital meh would take me to the next game in the cycle, which would keep me entertained for a couple of months, until ennui set in again and it was time to move on.

Was that happening in Fallout Shelter already?  After only a couple of weeks?

But then I discovered Father Benjamin Cooper, later renamed Father Benny The Most High.  And as is true for most of his followers, Father Benny's unending happiness and upbeat attitude became a welcome source of inspiration and enlightenment for me in a world of darkness and grind hell.

So, with no further adieu, this is Father Benny.

As you can see, Father Benny is a pretty happy guy.  Current happiness level: 100%.  You can't get any better than that - this dude OOZES happy out of his pores.  This Living Quarters area is dedicated to his new chapel, from which he conducts services at his Church of the Divine Copulation.

And goddamn.  He loves his job.

The CoDC was formed one day when, by sheer happenstance and probably divine intervention, a very slightly more-charismatic-than-average Vault drone named Benjamin Cooper - never really happy with his job, tired of being stuck down here in this cold, claustrophobic world - discovered a clergy outfit in a lunchbox. Not understanding what such a thing was, Benny tried it on and very soon thereafter found that it added a whopping FOUR points to his charisma level.

See, for the most part, Charisma is used for two things in Fallout Shelter.  One, high charisma characters can man the radio station and lure new wasteland dwellers to the shelter.  But more importantly, charisma is the main deciding factor in procreation.  You have to make babies to keep your vault healthy and growing.  Pregnant vault dwellers are happy vault dwellers, as are the men who make them pregnant.  You just need two reasonably charismatic folks who aren't too closely related (even though grandparent-grandchild seems to be just fine) to spend some time in a living quarters room.  And so there ya go.

Benny had found his purpose.  No longer would he merely exist, making do with his meager 65% happiness rating.  He snatched up that clergy outfit, boldly said goodbye to the drudgery of Water Reclamation Unit 4 (of course the other workers of WRU-4 thought he was making a mistake and would come back, begging for his job), moved into an unused living area on Level 7, and opened his new church.  The Church of the Divine Copulation.

And so, quickly became the happiest damned guy in Vault 551.

Stay tuned.  Everyone likes an underdog, and if Father Benny isn't the embodiment of the true American Dream, I sure as hell don't know what is.