the choice you mentioned is definitively very important on games like this.
but the reason i don't use the childkilling mod is, because i don't want to worry about kids being killed by random encounters while i'm away. this mod in particular is not finished, because it sets ALL children as non-essential. so even questrelated characters can be killed, thus rendering certain ways impossible.
but enough with that topic.
i think the discussed it thoroughly enough.
back to the choices.
i got a bit ****ed as i played the game the first time. i had fawkes with me, and he got me the GECK. so he is pretty much radiation prove.
i wanted him to go into the chamber and start the machine, but he told me: "bla bla, it's a thing you have to do, bla bla, i can't do it for you, bla bla"
why? why can't i tell him to go in there?
that is one of the few occasions where i wanted to have more different choices.
but it's just a thing that isn't in the game, and i guess it's okay that way. there are enough other things in there to do. =)
regarding the degradation i remember some article i read somewhere on the net.
in it some guy stated that, if men disappeared from one day to the other, nature would reclaim the large metropoles like new york and the like in less than century.
without the maintanance buildings would fall appart pretty quickly.
but before that even happens, there would be explosions and fires from the gas pipes running through the city and buildings, destroying large parts of the cityscape.
then there would be small plantlife like moss, farn, grass growing all over, followed by bushes and short after that there would be trees.
a funny shortmovie made by a german film academy kinda shows this process. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj3rT_yYCw8
Linki guess things we build are a lot less "Built to last", than we might think.
but i have to admit, that i have no idea how things would be after so much radiation had been poured all over the landscape.
anyway.
lets see where this thread heads next, since we hijacked it from "wheeeeeee, there are new mods out allready" to "killing children is evil!!!!111". =)