Friday, October 16, 2015

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".



We find this disconcerting, as we in Vault 551 have received (apparently) the same update without similar results.  When operating in Survival Mode, a number of unpleasant conditions begin to take effect.  The rates of fires, radroach incursions and even raider assaults seem to rise sharply. Production efficiency seems to be lower, while resource consumption rates rise.  Most alarmingly, however, the Dweller revival technology that we rely upon so much seems to be completely nonfunctional in this operating mode.  Vault 209 is reporting several deaths as a result.

Subsequent broadcasts by Vault 209 indicate that they have stabilized their situation somewhat, though Vault morale is still quite low and production has not yet recovered.

For any other Vaults in the Project Safehouse network that may likewise encounter these Survival Mode effects, the Vault 209 team reports success with these strategies (even though they sound considerably strange to us):

1.  There appear to be patterns in how incidents such as fire and radroach attacks manifest.  They exhaust themselves in one room before moving onto others, and they do not return to rooms that they have already impacted.  When incidents occur, it is therefore recommended that Vaults evacuate personnel to previously impacted areas rather than fighting the incident.  Incidents happen far too regularly to make fighting them a realistic option, especially at low population levels.

2.  There are areas of incident immunity.  Aside from evacuation, there are two other very important defense strategies available for countering incident damage.  First, pregnant women do not take damage or are drawn into combat, and so pregnant female Dwellers are ideal candidates for work in production areas.  Second, with the exception of raider and Deathclaw assaults, the Vault Door room itself appears to be completely immune from incident effects.  These two points should be leveraged to their fullest.

3.  Emphasize recruitment of female Dwellers for critical production positions.  As soon as possible, Vaults in "Survival Mode" should identify the two males possessing the highest recorded Charisma SPECIAL ratings.  They should immediately begin impregnating all female Dwellers, prioritizing high Charisma females.  Except where high SPECIAL ratings indicate a particular competence in a critical production area, other males should be considered expendable or assigned to wasteland exploration duty.

4.  During incidents, the two assigned "alpha" male Dwellers should be immediately evacuated to the Vault Door room.  This evacuation procedure will ensure that the two high Charisma males and all of the female production workers remain safe while the incident progresses to its natural conclusion.

5.  In the event of raider attacks - where the Vault Door room is no longer safe - evacuate male personnel to safe rooms according to raider attack patterns.  Raiders (as well as Deathclaws) appear to follow predictable patterns within a Vault, returning to the exit once they have reached the final room.  Unless Vault defenses are able to repel an attack, use these maneuver patterns to evade raider damage.

6.  Put unproductive dwellers outside. Often, production shortfalls will ruin your day. When you find yourself living in the red, that's the time to start sending anyone not directly contributing to production out for some fresh, radioactive air. Send them out to explore, and then immediately recall them to the door. Do not collect them, however - they will stay outside, as patient as you need them to be. Those dwellers are, for all rights and purposes, in game stasis. They don't heal, but they also don't consume vault resources. So kick them out and lift some of your consumption overhead while you get production back up to speed.

7.  Leverage Coffee Break mode. Collected but unassigned dwellers, or children recently grown into adults, are signed into Coffee Break mode. In this state, they wander aimlessly around the vault, immune to incident damage and healing up (if food and water allow it). Use Coffee Break to heal up dwellers without putting them into action or harm's way.

Do not, REPEAT, do NOT attempt to fight incidents during early low population periods of Vault operation while in Survival Mode.  There are simply too many of them and they cause too much damage.  Focus on production, pregnancies, the Vault Door room and evacuation maneuvers to maintain health, happiness and high production levels until Vault defenses can be more properly bolstered.

We will continue to report as we receive more data from Vault 209's broadcasts.

Overseer
Vault 551

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