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?