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.


The massive training program has also been very successful.  Our goal has been to keep Dwellers rotating between the training areas until all of their SPECIAL attributes were at least 5 (out of a maximum possible 10).  Then they would "graduate", rotate back into production areas, replacing less capable Dwellers who would then transfer to the training grid.  This has worked very well, and we have now replaced all power and water facility personnel with more fully educated graduates.  That has not only brought production significantly up, it has also effectively created a Deathclaw brick wall on the first two levels.  We're getting through most attacks without fatalities now.

Raiders keep attacking, of course.  But we now have a rotation of high level, high SPECIAL guards manning the entry hall with laser gatling guns.  I have to wonder if the local raider clans ever notice that none of their guys ever return from these expeditions.  I mean, they do keep sending them.

Poor raider schmucks.  They have no idea the hell that awaits, on the other side of that door.

Overall Vault 551 happiness seems to be stuck in the mid-high 80s.  Not entirely sure why that is, but I suspect some of it is being caused by exhausted Dwellers in the training system, as well as a whole lot of people now doing jobs they're technically qualified for but that they don't like, so a bunch of Dwellers are stuck at 75% happiness right now.  That's the game's way of saying, "I never wanted to be a Water Reclamation Engineer II, I wanted to be an ARTIST, but I guess this is my lot in life now."  Bumping up happiness into the 90+ percentile brings with it production bonuses, though, so it'd be nice to knock some of the melancholy out of these people.

Ultimately, our problem is soon going to be population management.  We could fix the happiness issue right now by simply getting everyone laid, but that means more pregnancies, and we can't keep growing at this pace.  Meanwhile, the radio station is broadcasting VERY efficiently (the whole gang is operating at 10+ Charisma), so we're constantly pulling in new stragglers from the Wasteland.  As long as the radio station is operating, it also provides a general happiness boost to the whole Vault, so we can't exactly shut it down without causing production damage.

You could also say that Father Benny is a little out of touch right now.  It's not hard to understand why.  Between his harem and the radio station, he's at a steady 100% happiness.  He thinks everything is just freakin' awesome, and is busy broadcasting his message of hope and carnal happiness to Wasteland denizens everywhere.

"It's the Father Benny Funtime Hour, with Father Benny and the Newton Girls!"

As the top rule of the Church of the Divine Copulation dictates that Father Benny must remain 100% happy at all times, or else it's time for another Newton Girl Sacrament (and so, another New-Cooper kid with clearance to knock up another Vault 551 sex slave), that puts us in a bit of a bind.

We can keep the radio broadcasting, keep overall happiness barely above ground and Benny at 100%, and while we'll still pick up the occasional new straggler, Father Benny won't need to get busy himself.  However, if we shut down the radio - and so, close the Vault doors to new immigration - we'll lose that happiness bonus and Father Benny will continually dip below 100% happiness.  CoDC church law then directs that another Benny Baby will come into being.

So we're kind of screwed for new population growth either way.  The difference, however, is that Benny Babies can't be disappeared in the dead of night.  Random schmucks can.

Bishop Mark Sanders, alas, is unfortunately untouchable as well.  Drunk asshole.

So this is what looks like is happening.  Of course, Father Benny will remain personally unaware of any of this, because he has better things to be concerned about.  Besides, he might fret, and Fretting Father Benny is bad.

First, we are no longer chasing birthrate-related Vault-Tec Objectives, unless a lunchbox bonus is involved.  It's just not worth it to incur population problems in return for 200 caps, not when we're making thousands of caps every day just being productive.  The lunchboxes, however, often contain special weapons and Dwellers that can't be obtained any other way, so those have to be chased. But otherwise, reject Objectives that directly result in lots of babies.

Radio station stays operating.  This will keep the happiness bonuses in place and Father Benny at 100% happiness, which in turn should prevent any further necessary growth of the Holy Family.

The radio station will still continue to attract Wasteland stragglers, which presents its own population growth problem.  We will keep the Vault 551 sex slave program in place for now, transferring all new female stragglers to the CoDC Sanctuary for some special alone time with Initiates Bruce and Harry New-Cooper.  They'll be changed into Nightwear outfits, pregnant-ificated, and then transferred into the training system.

Harry and Bruce.  Their show biz name is the Boff Brothers.

At this point, male stragglers offer considerably less value to our Vault.  They show up as level 1 - the same as a recently grown child - and with very low SPECIAL stats.  They're mostly a liability now.  So rather than try to train and integrate them, what we're going to do is fit them with light armor and a cheap weapon (we have tons of them in storage, we need to get rid of them) and send them back out to explore.  If they find anything good, great.  If they die, they die.  The point is, we keep running them until they either die or prove themselves worthy to join our crew.

This should slow down growth a bit, but it won't stop growth altogether.  The plan is to take this circus right to the 200 Dweller limit, and then see what decisions will have to be made.  If our mortality rate isn't enough to keep growth in check, well, we always have the Incident Room.  That's a pretty cost effective way to make some room for Legendaries and the occasional lunchbox-rewarded birthrate Objective.

Believe me, we'd much rather not have to randomly execute people.  That's why we want to pick our executions carefully to avoid losing anyone important or making Father Benny sad.

The post-nuclear world is a tough place.  Sometimes tough people have to make tough calls.  And sometimes - hopefully not often, but sometimes - those tough calls mean that the church hierarchy must occasionally throw a sex slave baby into a flaming power plant room in the dead of night.  Or attract a random civilian with a message of hope, only to cast him out to his sure death at the hands of mutant Wasteland monsters.

That's just how life rolls sometimes.