Deus ex machina: endless ammo

Borderlands seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I have just _got_ to speak up about a foundation premise that supports post-Apocalypse-type games: the ready availability of ammo.

In games like Borderlands and Fallout 3 you have game environments of modern civilizations where the civilization seems to have seriously broken down. It seems like everyone is at constant war with everyone else. You have a few pockets of relative quiet -- communities where order is maintained, or else.... But most of the gameboard is based on "He who shoots first and most accurately is allowed to survive." Most of these games involve scrounging the wasteland, looking for the Biggest, Baddest weapon that can be found.

But what good is the Biggest, Baddest Weapon if there is no ammo for it?

Unlike black powder, which practically anyone can make in their own basement (if they don't mind the consequences of an "oops" moment), modern projectile weapons require "smokeless" powder as the propellant behind the projectile. And no ifs, ands, buts, or nors: smokeless powder requires a functioning industrial facility to manufacture it. And that facility damn well had better have exceedingly tight Quality Assurance -- because just one "oops" WILL obliterate the factory and everyone in it. (And with them goes the know-how to make smokeless powder.) And the power sources that feed energy weapons are even more stringent to manufacture. (Have you ever even considered what is involved in manufacturing just an alkaline battery?)

The general premise behind post-Apocalypse games is that the weapons (and the ammo that allows them to function as more than a blunt object) were stockpiled by governments, survivalists, sportsmen, et al. Fine -- for as far as that goes. You start with billions of rounds of Bang!, scattered all over the landscape. Most of those stockpiles wouldn't have survived as they were most likely Ground Zero for the makers of Armageddon. But assume that there were nevertheless billions of rounds of ammo left to be found and utilized. Tempus fugit and the survivors warring with one another never seem to be stingy about throwing hot death at their opponents. Billions soon becomes millions, and then millions becomes thousands, and then thousands becomes
hundreds, and then Click! -- no more Bang!

So, for the combatants to continue blazing away at each other, there MUST be a source still churning out fresh ammo. Several sources, actually, to 1) keep up with the demand, and 2) no one factory can produce ALL of those different kinds of munitions. So, where are they? They would have to be HIGHLY visible to the inhabitants of post-Apocalyptia because there would literally be no more valuable piece of real estate, coveted by every single one of the major combatants. And given the nature of politics and commerce of military rivalries, nearly as important as securing a steady supply of munitions would be to deny that supply to their rivals. That means "No selling ammo to anyone not in our group." So that necessitates that EVERY major group had total control of a complete set of factories to supply their own munitions appetite. AND it would mandate that the absolute most important target held by their rivals would be their rivals' munitions factories.

Imagine the joy of working in a munitions factory when you not only have to worry about your own "oops" potential, but also have to worry about enemy saboteurs as well as direct assaults trying to turn the munitions plant into a fresh Ground Zero. What kind of wages would you demand to work there? What's that? Forced labor? Slave labor? Riiiggghhhhttt. All it takes is one plant worker starting to think, "I can't take it any more!" and there's an "oops" moment just waiting to happen. And what was that? An automated plant? Yeah, that would probably work MUCH better, except that even an automated plant requires a human element to oversee the operation -- and how much would that super-skilled hired help require to work at a future Ground-Zero-waiting-to-happen? Besides, with that much tech involved, how did you get a monopoly on such a scarce commodity? (Oh, right. Purchased with a LARGE amount of ammo. Horse. Cart. That sort of thing.)

Okay, I'll grudgingly acknowledge that the actual existence of MANY munitions factories would be a possibility. ("Possible" being a percentage involving a period followed by a LOT of zeroes before you get to a non-zero number.) Did you every wonder about what all goes into the mixture called "smokeless powder"? Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokeless_powder and study up on it; I'll wait. It's very much a worthwhile bit of info that you can use to entertain other game nuts at a social mixer. [whistles off-key to no tune in particular for awhile] Back? Good.

To continue: Nitrocellulose, nitroglycerin, nitroguanidine, D1NA, fivorite, DGN, acetyl cellulose, centralites, dibutyl phthalate, dinitrotoluene,... It's a lllloooooooonnnnnggggg list, folks. About the only one you actually may have heard of is nitroglycerin -- which can be mixed up in your bathtub. I actually knew a kid in Chicago that did, in fact, make his own pipe bombs (just for fun uses, honest!) -- until he had an "oops" and now sports a right hand that looks like a potato. The pertinent point here is that the components that go into the mix are themselves products that require factories of their own where they can be safely produced, in LARGE quantities. Each of which would be mandatory control points for the various power blocks in post-Apocalyptia, and each also a Ground-Zero-waiting-to-happen.

Now we have Borderlands with its _thousands_ of weapon types. Fallout 3 was bad enough, the way it beat the bejeezus out of Suspension of Disbelief. Like, consider just how freely a SuperMutant Master would so casually burn through his supply of 5-mm as he blazed away with his minigun. That stuff _should_ be practically irreplaceable. But, noooo; all it apparently requires is a quick hop over to the SuperMuties' version of Flak & Shrapnel's and they'd be good to go again. All I want to know is: Where are the various Flak & Shrapnel Emporiums getting their endless supply of munitions? Is that too much to ask? 'Cause, like, what I really, really want to do is buy direct from the factory, and cut out that expensive middleman.