Fallout 3 vehicles

Derelict vehicles are a variety of abandoned nuclear powered automobiles littering the roads of the Capital Wasteland in Fallout 3. The vehicle designs are a cross between mid-1950 Ford Edsel's and a 1954 Ford Nucleon concept car. The 200 years they have been languishing about has rendered their defunct nuclear reactors highly volatile and prone to violently exploding if damaged. The delay between damaging a derelict vehicle and the time it explodes depends on the amount of damage it takes. Additional damage will hasten the countdown. Their explosion is as spectacular as a Fat Man explosion, but not quite as damaging. The explosion will also make the area - around 3 meters near the car - radioactive for a few seconds.

There are a variety of derelict vehicles dotting the roadways; most are large sedan-sized cars, though there are smaller compacts. Heavy semi-truck tractors also can be seen, and take slightly more damage to detonate. The semi's create a slightly larger explosion than that of the vehicle. Large buses are also encountered, and their explosions are particularly large and devastating, larger in magnitude compared to a mini-nuke, more than twice the size of an explosion created by two cars. Smaller vehicles, like motorcycles and street cleaner machines can be seen and blown up, but they do not issue forth a mushroom cloud explosion.

Derelict vehicles can either be a hazard or a tactical option in combat. If an enemy is positioned near a derelict vehicle, shooting the vehicle can set it off, dealing massive damage to the enemy. Likewise, it is strongly discouraged to use it as cover from enemy fire, since the damage not being taken by you is instead being taken by the vehicle. Killing an enemy by exploding a vehicle will not get you a finger or an ear for the Lawbringer and Contract Killer perks.

Due to their proximity to each other, exploding derelict vehicles can cause chain reactions with others. One Fallout 3 level designer intentionally created a precisely spaced line of cars on a roadway north of Paradise Falls for the express purpose of blowing up to watch the chain reaction.

There are some derelict vehicles that will not explode no matter how much weapons fire is poured into them. One can discern these from the more dangerous variety by examining the trunk; if the hatch is missing and one can see an empty basin in the back, the reactor is no longer present. The reactor is usually shaped vaguely like the nuclear reactor in the DeLorean time machine in the movie "Back To The Future".

Here's a Youtube video of vehicles exploding shortly north of Paradise Falls:

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