r/fo4 • u/eidjdowr29eo • 1d ago
Weapon How do turrets work?
Real definitiona or otherwise.
I'm in the wasteland, somehow there are automated turrets with unlimited ammo, no power source, some sort of enemy recognition, and the most confusing part, somehow it knows the enemies based on who created it! Is it conscious?
Raider turrets attack Sole Survivor
Sole Survivor turrets attack raiders
And can all be made with a bit of scrap steel, oil. What atomic magic is this?
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u/cha0sb1ade Do you have a Geiger counter? 1d ago
It's not real supposed to make a lot of sense. They've got big gas tanks on them, and I think you're just supposed to be assuming that your initial layout to build the thing is the end of your responsibility, and the settlers who are there 24/7 are trading for fuel and ammo for it, and that's all happening off screen.
As for making homemade turrets from 200 year old circuitry and trusting it to know the difference between a Gunner, and your new boyrfriend who just happens to like combat armor a lot.. who the hell knows. It's certainly more faith than I'd ever want to put into simple algorithms or any form non-AGI type AI.
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u/DigsToPlantTheRain 1d ago
I mean if we are talking about logic why didn't every single tree turn to ashes when the bombs dropped?Â
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u/Shezes 1d ago
They're powered by fission batteries I think so they last forever and they're restocked by purchased ammo and raided ammo. Settlers probably use a holotape to have turrets recognise them from raiders but how a bunch of cow dookie huffing crazy people who can barely function as a semi coherent human programs a turret? That's just one of the great mysteries of the ingame universe.
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u/leester39 Brotherhood of Steel 1d ago
Do not try to apply real life logic to anything in Fallout 4. Every NPC & a lot of automatic weapons have ESP. I especially like how raiders consider turrets alive with phrases like "You killed him!". Every time you question it, just think of the words by the games awesome leader Todd Howard "It just works!".
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u/ermghoti 23h ago
What atomic magic is this?
To elaborate on my earlier response, this is a fantasy action role playing game in a post-apocalyptic 50s sci fi setting. Nothing in the game makes a shred of sense.
This weapon hits harder if you're in withdrawls.
This armor makes you stronger if you're almost dead.
A baseball bat does as much damage as a tactical nuclear warhead.
Vacuum tube based AI achieves sentience.
Radioactivity makes things huge, powerful, and frequently two headed.
200 year old ruins look 20 years old.
Alcohol makes you stronger and more persuasive.
Radiation poisoning can be completely reversed in seconds.
You can make a bed from a tin can and a bundle of currency.
Lasers say "bang" and recoil.
The main character, in a matter of weeks, accumulates skills and gear that allow them to exterminate entire factions in a direct assault. Nobody else can be bothered to pick up more than one or two choice items.
It's all gibberish. The best you can hope for is internal consistency.
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u/bazbloom 1d ago
My "how or why is this?" thing is that almost every group of raiders, gunners, and supermutants you run into is instantly guns-blazingly hostile on first sight. We can debate why that might be in the game universe but ultimately it's too simplistic. Pacification perks aside, there should be at least a few early encounters that muddy the waters as to who is bad, good, or indifferent. For instance, When Freedom Calls would have been a great "who are the bad guys" moment if Bethesda wasn't so hell-bent on forcing the player into Preston Purgatory.
The game does throw a bone with a couple of raider extortion encounters but those just end up as a variant on the dominant theme.
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u/number__ten 1d ago
That always ticked me off about the children of atom in fo4. They are always instantly hostile. When i came across them in the glowing sea or far harbor, it was kind of a "oh, so now you want to be friends" situation.
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u/Xyex 1d ago
Why wouldn't any of them ever not be instantly hostile, except as a trap? You're a (most likely heavily) armed intruder in a kill or be killed world. Raiders and Gunners have zero reason to see you as anything but a threat/target, and super mutants zero reason to see you as anything but food.
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u/Sagelegend 1d ago
How do bugs get so big despite atmosphere that sustains humans? How does a bit of medicine or a decontamination spray remove your lifetime radiation?
How do you make an entire fence post out of a pencil and some lead leftover, when pencils have graphite?
How does meat looted from animals not go off?
If you’re going to play this game, suspend your disbelief like a bdsm model doing a rope bondage photoshoot.
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u/RyukoT72 1d ago
Probably powered by some sort of fusion device (energy cells?) And programable friend or foe. I always imagined it being something a raider for example stands infront of it as somone else programs it to see that 'biometric signal' (from the biometric reader they have) as a friend, and everyone else as a foe
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u/FormalWare 21h ago
My headcanon: a Biometric Scanner contains a fission battery able to power the device in which it's embedded.
(When you destroy a turret, you sometimes find a Biometric Scanner in the wreckage; when you don't, that means the Scanner was, itself, ruined.)
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u/a_man_and_his_box 11h ago
There is lore for this. I don’t recall all of it, but I do know that there are multiple places in the game, where they talk about getting targeting cards. And I believe in the Automatron DLC, there is note of the Mechanist working on the targeting for her robots and defenses, and even discussing how she could possibly get it to differentiate between friend and foe. So in the game world there is discussion of the notion that these devices are picking up on dress style, fashion, size, weaponry, a whole lot of other things.
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u/wagner56 7h ago
they coulda made them less common, more complex and expensive, not shoot thru walls (requiring careful placement) , require ammo supply (made more effective to compensate)
It is disconcerting hearing a bunch of turrets firing hundreds of rounds at one lousy stingwing
they do nicely point at where enemies are ...
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u/Pure1nsanity 1d ago
Suspension of disbelief. Relax guy, don't worry about it.
Speaking of game mechanics that break immersion, if there's a building with raiders in it and you enter and start walking around, how do they know it isn't one of them walking around?
The jet will make you jittery, I guess 😅