The Nearly Ultimate Fallout 2 Guide

Table of contents

1. Introduction
   
2. Preparations
   
3. Character design
   
4. Area walkthrough
   
   1. Temple of Trials
      
   2. Arroyo
      
   3. Klamath
      
   4. Toxic Caves
      
   5. The Den
      
   6. Modoc
      
   7. Ghost Farm
      
   8. Vault City
      
   9. Gecko
      
   10. Raiders
       
   11. Broken Hills
       
   12. Redding
       
   13. New Reno
       
   14. Golgotha
       
   15. The Stables
       
   16. Sierra Army Depot
       
   17. New California Republic
       
   18. Vault 15
       
   19. Vault 13
       
   20. Military Base
       
   21. San Francisco
       
   22. Navarro
       
   23. The Enclave
5. Endings
   
6. Encounters
   
7. NPCs
   
8. Car
9. Stupid
   
10. Combat
    
11. Items
12. Addenda

Introduction

"Hey, stranger! Need a guide?"
--New Reno prostitute

A green star marks straightforward, reliable information or advice.

A yellow star signals some measure of uncertainty or speculation, but information given can be expected to be correct in broad terms.

A red star is used for highly speculative information as well as massively peripheral or trivial comments.

A blue star is used for general comments appearing in the Area walkthrough section which have a wider application than the specific context where they are brought up, such as character design, combat strategy or general game behaviour.

Install the patch before you start playing, since saves made in the unpatched game will be invalidated. There is an unofficial save game converter, but I think it only works on US saves and not on any of the European versions.

You can use the US executable with the UK version if you are bothered by the CD lock of the latter. To my knowledge there are no harmful consequences to this. As an aside, there are a few known purely textual differences between the US and UK versions concerning "sensitive" words: "drug" has become "chem", and "addiction" has become "reliance" (but the "Addict" tab in the main interface is still the same). The reason why is anyone's guess, but if you've been wondering where I got this "chem" word from, that's the explanation.

There is no official patch for the English Low Violence edition (marked ELV on the CD), but it's been reported that using either the US or UK patch works fine, even though it says in the readme that "applying a patch from any of the other versions will severely corrupt the game". You might want to go for the US patch, because of the CD lock thing. (Actually what I'd really recommend is not having anything to do with that product in the first place.)

The contents of the children patch are simply the kid graphics files which have been copied raw from the US CD, and what's been done to the UK version to remove the kids is simply keeping those same files off the CD. Interestingly enough, Interplay's customer support used to deny all this, but I suppose that would have to be their official line.

A somewhat edited Ashmo: "The German version has no kids and only the 'low violence' deaths. People drop dead. If you set it to normal violence rather than none, they drop dead and bleed. The preferences screen is a bit different as there are only two options on the violence control. You need to get the gore patch (which usually includes the children patch) and then edit the config file to set the violence level higher (setting it to 3 should do the trick). The alternative is to get the executable from the US or UK version and overwrite yours."

• Install the patch!
• Use the large installation size instead of the humongous. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it works that way on many computers.
• Shut down or disable programs running in the background, such as virus scanners.

I have also found on my own computer that Windows instability has at times caused a significant increase to loading times and that restarting the computer takes care of this. Your system may have its own peculiarities. On fast computers loading times may not be an issue at all, but there are always other problems that crop up to compensate.

One potential problem that relates to processor speed concerns world map travel. On some fast computers, you will zip across the map and have virtually no encounters. Conversely, on computers that can barely run the game you might experience slow travel with numerous interruptions (though this should be a less frequent issue). There are hacks you can use to restore travel speed to a more reasonable level, or you could try running an emulator.

A little word of warning about quicksave: as you probably know the quicksave function is "reset" when you use the regular load or save commands. However, it's not reset if you exit the current game and start a new character.

Once you fill up your quota of slots you can use a file manager of your choice to make room for new ones. Just rename a save game folder (those named "Slot01" through "Slot10") you don't need for the moment to something which gives you a hint of what it contains (like "Slot02-klam"), and that slot will be free for use again. Then whenever you want to bring back an archived save, restore that folder's name to a valid one. You can use a similar trick to swap between whole save catalogues by renaming the "Savegame" folder to "SavegameX" or something else. This way you can juggle different games with different characters.

A more "realistic" approach to the game involves using a single save slot and reloading only if you die or screw up entirely by mistake (but not, for instance, if you fail some action or have second thoughts about something). Not recommended at all for beginners. Also better use at least one more slot for backup just in case your save files are corrupted. An even more realistic playing style called "iron man" involves never saving the game at all except between playing sessions; if you die, you're dead and have to start all over again! (Though I suspect that very few people have actually stuck with this concept to the bitter end, for instance after dying in NCR because you forgot to holster your weapons or in a freak random encounter with super mutants.)

If you hold down Shift and press the credits button on the starting screen, you'll get to read a quote file from the developers. Good for a laugh!

You can access some sort of recording mode if you press Ctrl-R on the starting screen. You get to choose an area and run around it (with Narg), but you can't talk to people (unless you set off some script) or manipulate objects except for opening doors. This also creates a "selfrun" directory in your game folder where the recording is stored. When you're fed up, press Ctrl-R again to return to the starting menu. If you now wait for a while, one of your recordings will start playing, more or less accurately. The most interesting thing about this is that it shows a few unimplemented or unreachable areas, namely the Holy Hand Grenade encounter (see the Addenda section for more on this), a third Den area (with Smitty and Anna in it), and the inside of the space shuttle (which doesn't have any proper graphics). See the Area walkthrough section for a way to exploit this in the game.

Area walkthrough

"Do I look like a cartographer? You want to scour the desert for them, you go right ahead."
--Myron

It should be noted that not all dialogue options described in this walkthrough will be available to a character with middling ability or skill scores (typically IN or Speech). As a rule of thumb, "smart" dialogue options require IN 6 or 7, while "supersmart" ones take IN 8 or 9. (There are a few IN 10 lines in the game, but all of them are inconsequential - Karl, Laddie and Gregory have them. Karl's is even a typo in the script.) You can always try chewing Mentats if you have them.

There are ugly tricks you can play early in the game if you know where to find certain locations and items, such as going to San Francisco from Arroyo, then to Navarro and get the Advanced Power Armor, Pulse Rifle and about 25,000 xp right away. This pretty much spoils the entire game for me, so I'll just do this in the order I usually go places.

The game will end after 13 years of game time (which would correspond to 25 Jul 2254). This event will be marked by a slightly animated screen saying "the end". Even if you play a "go everywhere, do everything" kind of game, you should only use up 3-4 years at the most, and even if you want to walk around the wasteland levelling up endlessly from mindless random encounters, you should be fed up before 13 years have elapsed.

Speaking of levelling up endlessly, you cannot advance beyond level 99. (Oddly, when you reach the 4,753,000 xp needed for level 98 you gain two levels at once, skipping to level 99.) This should not really be a problem, either. In Fallout the limit was 21...

At any time when you get to choose your destination on a town map, you can press a number on your keyboard instead of clicking a green triangle. This way you end up on a location in that town corresponding to the number you pressed, even if you didn't have access to that area previously. This can be used in various ways for convenience or cheating (Alex del Río notes you can enter the Gecko power plant after blowing it up by pressing 2 on the town map and getting another 2500 xp when you get out of there), but needless to say it could interact weirdly with quests and dialogues, and you can even end up getting stuck inside walls, so don't do it in a serious game unless you know exactly what you're doing.

Another general cheat/bug... pressing 0 (zero) in any conversation will instantly end it. For instance, if someone says they're going to kill you, and you press 0, they may not turn hostile, or if you end up in a dialogue thread which leads only to an undesirable end, you can abort it entirely. (E.g. you could get out of fighting Darion in Vault 15 and then kill him with Super Stimpaks, if for some reason you don't feel like fighting his gang.) Using this "trick" may prompt unexpected dialogue and cause quests to reset or abort - you have been warned.

Sean Meskill discovered a way to rest anywhere: "When you have enough status entries (names of locations) that they start to physically appear in the space where the alarm clock entries appear, then you can do the trick. Go someplace where you cannot rest. Enter the Pipboy. Press status. Press the alarm clock, then after it says you cannot rest here click a status item that physically corresponds to an alarm clock item. It will then switch to the rest menu, with the rest option that is in the same place as whatever status item you pressed being used. Usually you can't rest very long doing this, but you can do it as many times as you want. Very useful." Once the rest options appear, you have to click in between them. You need quest entries for at least four locations to be able to access the "Rest for ten minutes" option, and you can never access "Rest until party is healed".

Michal Zalewski found another exploit: "If you are at the brink of an impossible to win encounter, and have no other options (say, you are on the second floor of one of New Reno casinos and have a lot of hostile guards below and only one exit), you can save your game, go to the main screen, hit Ctrl-R and load an arbitrary map, then load your game, walk past the combatants (they will not notice your proximity) and reach safety, save again, hit Ctrl-R and load the last save in the normal mode. Although it is cheating, it is sometimes a better option than replaying several hours of the game. If you feel particularly naughty, you can plant explosives near critters or kill them with Super Stimpaks. This also works if you want to avoid certain scripts. The method won't work if you have already entered combat mode. As a side note, there are some funny consequences to entering the combat mode while in Ctrl-R - most notably, it is possible to get killed, then walk away with negative HP. Quite unfortunately, you will still remain flagged as dead, so if you save the game and then load it in normal mode, the game will immediately end even if your HP is positive. The game may get mangled in Ctrl-R mode on some occasions (it is possible to crash it, or be stuck in endless combat mode), but it seems to be a rare glitch; once you get past Ctrl-R and load the save, there are no side effects as far as I could tell." Some scripts will still be active in Ctrl-R mode, e.g. a guard may prevent you from opening a door even if he won't attack. Experiment at your own risk...

Temple of Trials

"It's a peaceful village. Except for the plants possessed by evil spirits... and of course, the temple of trials filled with those deadly spear traps and the man-eating giant ants."
--The Chosen One

In the temple you might as well get into the habit of saving a lot. You may not need it, but it doesn't hurt. Save before taking on a bunch of scorpions. Save before disarming a set of traps. Save before setting the explosives or talking to Cameron. Save before taking the hidden elevator to the secret stash of energy weapons. Kidding.

There's a helpful close combat trick you should be using throughout the temple, and whenever it's necessary. Attack your foe just once, then use your remaining AP to run away. They'll follow you, but may not have enough AP to strike back, which will simplify things. You can even run them around in circles if they refuse to die quickly. Masklinn adds: "Actually, the Temple of Trials mobs (ants and scorpions) can only walk 2 hexes and still be able to hit you. All you have to do is run 3 hexes away from them and you're safe. This means that a character with 9 AP can land two punches before you have to run, 10 AP granting you one Spear attack and one punch, or one kick and one punch. So basically a character at or above Agility 8 will do the temple a tad faster and easier."

There's no point to using targeted blows in Temple of Trials or just afterwards, since critical hits are disabled for the first day of game time. Critical failures are disabled for the first five days.

From now on I won't comment on this unless there are noteworthy items to pick up, but you should search all the bookcases, shelves, bookshelves, dressers, desks, lockers, chests, footlockers, fridges, ice chests, bones, pots, tables, stuff, workbenches, tool boards, wall safes, floor safes, ammo crates, poor boxes, pool tables, mining machines, iguana stands, boxes, crates and other searchable containers as you progress through the game. After a while you learn to recognize searchable objects on sight. Hard-core gamers will search all of them and take everything. :) There are a few deplorable areas though which abound with empty containers, notably Broken Hills and San Francisco.

In this game items on the ground or in corpses do not decay, so you can return and pick them up later on unless they're on a map you can't return to (which will, eventually, be true for all of Arroyo and the Temple of Trials). However, to pick up an item you must be able to click on it, so if a dropped item or a corpse is completely hidden by opaque scenery then it will be lost!

"You see a raised plate" is the game's universal message that your character has spotted a floor trap, so pay attention and learn to identify them. Floor traps seldom appear alone. (Apparently, even in hi-tech military installations devilishly inconspicuous pressure plates are used to trigger traps. You'd have thought they could use, I don't know, motion or IR sensors instead.) If you fail critically while disarming a floor trap it will say that you accidentally set off the trap; this is not strictly true, as the trap often does not go off, but you can't attempt to disarm it again.

You can set the timer on the explosives in your inventory and then drop it, or another way is to put it in an active item slot, leave the inventory window and use it from there; you'll then drop it automatically. Even with a puny Traps skill you can set the timer to the minimum of 10 seconds and run clear before the bomb goes off, whether you get the "explosive detonates prematurely" message or not.

You can open a lot of doors and forcefields in the game using explosives, grenades or rockets, and also unlock containers, but you shouldn't make a habit out of it. Some weak doors can be kicked in or smashed with any weapon, but those are never locked anyway. Normal doors can only be destroyed by explosive damage, so Bozar blasts and Super Sledge wallops are out. Sturdy doors need three blasts to destroy them, so I wouldn't bother, and many hi-tech doors can be expected to resist this kind of assault indefinitely. On some maps you can use a Crowbar from inventory to unlock containers even with a modest ST, but on others it won't work.

• Fight him unarmed after a conversation (and without access to your Healing Powder) for 300 xp.
• Steal his key and unlock the door behind his back for 600 xp.
• Talk him out of fighting (IN 4 required and Speech must be tagged) for 600 xp.

Warlord notes: "You can trick the Temple of Trials final trial nicely, if you drop the Spear before talking. You just have to watch out, because if you drop it too close to the man, he'll pick it up in his first round and whack you up pretty good." You could even drop a Sharpened Pole for him to pick up; he'll do a little more damage with it, but he should hit a little less often, and he gets two attacks with it each turn instead of three.

Players often get sick of the temple after starting too many games that didn't progress very far beyond it. Actually it won't affect your game in any serious way if you just run as quickly as you can to each exit. You'll probably have to fight six or seven ants along the way, but that's it. As long as you don't have to fight Cameron the whole thing should be over in a couple of minutes. Personally I think the Temple of Trials is as much a part of the game as any other stage - and also serves to demonstrate the extreme range of playing experiences the game engine has to offer.

Arroyo

"I wonder how my cousins in Arroyo are doing? I hope they're flourishing."
"Of course they are! Unless some rat-bastard slaughters them all."
--Seymour and Typhon

As good an opportunity as any to practise being polite. Like I said in the introduction, I'm assuming you want to do as much as possible of what's available to you, and this means you really won't be able to role-play either an inherently noble character or a terminally sarcastic one. The former because there are several quests where you'll get your best result doing something "bad" to begin with, then following up with something good, as well as other borderline or outright evil quests which are simply too neat to pass up. The latter because it's a well-known fact that in computer RPGs which let you play an "evil" or grouchy character, you'll ultimately be punished for doing so because if you tell everyone you meet how ugly they are, they won't give you quests or bonuses. Such is life. You can always pretend you're role-playing a psychopath who acts nice outwardly because he knows it will suit his purposes, while all the time thinking of new ways to strangle people with their own intestines.

If you attacked Klint or Cameron in the Temple of Trials section, everyone will be hostile when you arrive here. You can run to the exit of the village before they can kill you, but then the game will end. The game will also come to a stop if you manage to end combat (for instance by running to the hunting grounds) and rest until midnight. Same thing happens should you ever attack anyone in Arroyo (or even off them with Super Stimpaks), so don't.

Using the Steal skill on any of the unarmed wandering villagers and passing a Steal check will lower your karma even if you don't take anything (they have nothing to take). This can mess up your dealings with Hakunin, so watch out.

On special dates your Pipboy will say things like "Happy New Year!" and "Happy Valentine's Day!". Ain't that cute. It also has its own screen saver which shows falling bombs.

Ever wondered why there is at least one Feargus or similarly named character in each of Fallout 2, Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale? It might have something to do with Black Isle director Feargus MacRae Urquhart; there are close to a dozen names in these games derived from his (including Cassidy's original name, which shows up if you sell him to Metzger). Names of other developers abound, but none of them sticks out as much. "Smitty" is another ubiquitous cognomen - there are four of those in the two Fallout games, and there might well have been a fifth...

Skill rises received from training or other activities can be affected by whether or not you've tagged the skill in question and/or whether it's above 101%. Thus values given in the guide may not always exactly correspond to what you actually end up with.

Because of a bug you need to get Cameron's training before talking to Hakunin at all.

If you find Vault 13 but don't enter it, Arroyo won't change, but Hakunin's description and dialogue will! This should be a pretty rare occurrence, but it did happen to me once. Hakunin won't actually die after you talk to him, and it won't put Navarro on your world map. Another funny thing is that if you're in Arroyo when you get the fourth vision and talk to Nagor, he'll tell you that Morlis cooked Smoke... but if you didn't rescue Smoke already, you can go and do that (although as noted above you get no xp for it and Nagor's dialogue doesn't change).

The Arroyo bridge location will actually change to a whole new map, so if your car is parked there at the time it will be lost forever, along with any NPCs left on that map or any other Arroyo map.

1. Rescue Nagor's dog, Smoke, from the wilds.
   
   Nagor is to the east of Hakunin's garden, the dog is in the hunting grounds area to the west. Go there, kill any hostile geckos (or Sneak past them), grab all the Broc Flowers and Xander Roots you can get, and avoid stepping on the green slime. When you get to the dog at the top left it'll follow you back and even help you kill geckos on the way. The flowers and geckos reset every day if you leave the map and return. It may seem like an idea to stay here and level up from killing geckos, but actually it's much more work than it's worth, so only do that if you're close to levelling up already and can't wait (or see the note below). You get 100 xp for returning the dog alive. If you tell Nagor the dog died, he'll run off on his own to look for it unless you ask him not to, and he'll also take off if you turn down the quest. If you then follow him to the hunting grounds, he'll be lying dead next to a dead gecko, the dog will be gone, and you can't strike the quest off your quest list. But you can take a Spear from Nagor's cold body.

   Zuger's patented levelling technique: "The easiest way to get xp from stealing is from the drugged-up geckos in Arroyo. Just plant and steal Broc Flowers. Easiest way to level up early on in the game. Gets a bit tedious though. With a Steal of like 10% I managed to steal and plant Broc Flowers at least 5 times." Make sure there are no hostile geckos nearby if you do this, since the peaceful ones will turn hostile as well if you start a fight.

   In combat, all normal and golden geckos will run for and eat any Iguana-on-a-stick or Meat Jerky dropped on the ground, attacking if they have any AP left. They will also pick up punching weapons like Spiked Knuckles and Power Fists! And then use them against you!

   This is only the first of many quests, dialogues and details which will be unavailable if your Intelligence is less than 4. I won't bother to tell you about that any more, but I will note where there are special benefits or odd happenings to be gained from being stupid.

2. Find Vic the Trader.
   
   This won't happen for a little while yet. If you're curious, see the Den, quest 8.
   
   
3. Obtain flint to have Mynoc sharpen your spear.
   
   Talk to the guard by the bridge on the village perimeter. If you have at least PE 6 you can ask him about his spear, and he'll send you to your grumpy aunt to get some Flint. You can:
   
   
   • Buy it from her in dialogue with 3 Healing Powder.
   • Barter one Scorpion Tail for it.
   • Ask nicely for it if you have at least Speech 51% and pass a skill check, 50 xp in this.
   • Steal it.
   • Get caught stealing twice and she'll give it to you.
   
   If you got it by bartering, stealing or getting caught stealing you can still get the xp for using Speech, or even another piece of Flint by trading Healing Powder, but there's no use for two. When you return to Mynoc he turns one of your Spears into a Sharpened Spear, which is good. Better yet, drop all your Spears beforehand and he'll give you a new one. Tribals are kinda stupid.

   After you've been to Klamath or the Den, Mynoc's dialogue changes so you can't get or finish the quest.

   Geoffrey Bateman reports a cheat with far-reaching applications: "When you talk to Aunt Morlis and try to get the Flint from her, get to the screen where you have the option of saying something like, 'Sure, I have 3 healing powders right here', then go to the barter screen, drop all your Healing Powders, go back to the talk screen, and select that dialogue option. You get the Flint without losing anything (the game only checks your inventory before displaying the dialogue option, not after you select it), then you just have to pick up your Powders. It also works with upgrading weapons. Just get to the screen where you choose the specific weapon to be upgraded, then switch to barter and drop the gun before selecting it to be upgraded; you'll get the upgraded weapon (full of ammo, of course) from the person, then you can pick up your non-upgraded gun. Unfortunately, this won't work with Algernon, who won't barter, so you have to pay for the upgrade to make this work. This trick might also be useful in situations where you pay someone through a dialogue choice, like paying Metzger for Vic: drop all your money, then 'pay' him, pick up your money..." You can get all four combat implants for free in Redding this way, for one thing, as long as you carry $30,000 and one suit of Combat Armor. Sebastian Cassten who also told me about the trick notes that you can use it to keep quest items (such as the above-mentioned Flint), although this will appeal exclusively to item hoarders.

4. Kill the evil plants that infest Hakunin's garden.
   
   Talk to Hakunin and agree to kill the plants, or just go and kill them. They shouldn't be too much of a problem. You gain 100 xp. Report back to Hakunin for 2 Healing Powders, and he will now be able to concoct Healing Powder if you give him a Broc Flower and a Xander Root. Since it's possible you won't return here, scout the hunting grounds until you have an equal number of roots and flowers, then turn them all into powder. Do keep any roots and flowers you find in the future, though, since you'll get another chance to make use of them (and until you get the first dream sequence you can always return and enlist Hakunin's skills again).

   The ranged attack of the plants is considerably less dangerous than their bite (plus they run out of spikes pretty quickly), so a good gardening technique is to hit them once, run away two hexes and end turn, then move in and repeat.

   If you have negative karma or if you've offended Hakunin, he'll offer this quest as a way of making amends. In the former case you still have to get your karma to 0 or better before he will give you the reward. In the latter case, keep insulting him until his reaction level drops so low that he forgets he's mad at you (bug). After that he'll offer normal dialogue, although the talking head looks none too happy.

5. Retrieve the GECK for Arroyo.
   
   This won't happen for a long while yet (unless you're using stupid short cut techniques). You gain 4000 xp when you first lay hands on a G.E.C.K.

Klamath

"Most people have evil spirits. You? You have stupid spirits. Go see shaman, get hole in head..."
--Sulik

Shops usually restock every 2-4 days, randomly decided (exceptions will be noted in the walkthrough). It won't happen while you're on the same map (though sometimes if you talk repeatedly to a shopkeeper they may reveal a weapon they were holding back for personal use), and also items won't accumulate endlessly. Items that a storekeeper keeps in regular stock will fluctuate in number (and choice items may not appear at all), but anything else you sell them will remain. Usually when you kill a shopkeeper, their inventory appears on their corpse even if you couldn't steal it off them previously, but not always. Of course, if you kill Maida Buckner or Sajag you'll have to fight the rest of Klamath as well.

Most shops in the game restocked significantly less often in v1.0, typically every 1-2 weeks. The patch notes only mention they get money more often, but it goes for the rest of their inventory as well.

You never lose anything by converting unwanted items into cash, so you should take every opportunity to do so. This is because your items always sell for the same value; Barter levels, discounts and so on all affect the prices of the other party's goods. But one of their dollars always trades for a dollar's worth of equipment. This is also useful to know when you're buying something expensive and can't carry all the junk you'd like to trade in for it; just pay in cash, and then trade in stuff for that cash at your leisure. Note however that most shopkeepers restock money along with their other wares, at which time any amount of cash in excess of what they usually carry will disappear.

This isn't going to bother you for some time yet, but your inventory can't display any more than $99999 in cash. Don't fret though, it's all there; the dialogue interface shows up to seven digits, and the variable itself can in fact go over 2 billion. If you're bothered you can keep $99999 in your inventory, $99999 in your trunk, $99999 on Sulik, $99999 on Cassidy, $99999 in your favourite bookcase, $99999 in the skeleton in the radscorpion caves beneath the raider hideout... you get the big overall general picture.

IN<4: If you want to get Sulik you must offer to pay his debt the very first time you talk to him. Always choose the second line in this conversation, and eventually you gain 500 xp and Sulik if you want him (and providing your CH is not 1, of course). Since stupid characters don't get to do quests 2 or 6 this is your only chance to get him!

Sebastian Cassten notes that you can repeatedly pay the sum for Sulik's release by asking Maida about the Den. Basically you're paying to increase your town reputation.

In v1.0 you don't get any xp for giving the money to Sulik.

Extremely minor bug: if you get the CH discount for the "Round-the-World" option at the bathhouse with exactly $124 in your inventory, you'll get it for free.

IN<4: If you're stupid, conversation with the simpleton Torr takes on a most interesting character. He can put the Den on your map if you ask him about Vic before accepting quest 3. He'll also offer free accommodation (same effect as described above), but not until after you've accepted or declined the quest, and since Torr doesn't return to the town map if you finish quest 3 properly a stupid character wouldn't normally get that option anyway.

In the unpatched game Maida puts Redding on your map along with the Den.

The Duntons will each spawn a Spiked Knuckles in their first combat round unless they already have one. You can make this happen just by entering combat mode and clicking turn, then using Steal to get them, and repeat.

The first Dunton you kill will carry their "shop" inventory (which is pretty pointless and restocks only every 3 weeks) unless you did it on the brahmin pastures map. If you kill one of the Duntons, the other one will have disappeared after you leave the map and return. For instance, if you assassinate one then immediately talk to the other and take the rustling job, none of them will show up on the pastures map which means you cannot finish the quest.

If you try to search the bookcase while they're in the house or if they see you in the side room, the Duntons will attack immediately. Usually though, possessive critters will give you one warning that you should stay away from certain containers, doors or exits. To do this they must be able to see you, so you can try Sneaking, or positioning yourself out of their line of sight. If you have NPCs you can use them as cover, as they seem to block line of sight completely for this purpose. However, don't blame me if these critters have a double take and come for you later!

Early in the game you may want to save before picking any important door if your Lockpick skill is not too high. A critical failure will jam the lock, which then cannot be opened until the next day, i.e. when the clock reaches 0.00 (though you can use lockpick items on a jammed door). At least you never have to worry about Lockpicks breaking. Should you ever be disappointed that unlocked doors don't give you any xp, you can instead lock them for 25 xp. Great fun, eh?

If you're playing without children, here in Klamath is where you'll hear your first disembodied voices. When it happened to me the first time, I thought it was my own character talking to the dog!

Before the patch Picket wouldn't give you money, but he wouldn't take it, either. The current state of affairs is the result of a "fix" mentioned in the patch notes.

• Pick the door for the usual 25 xp.
• Steal the key from Slim.
• Barter for it (will cost you $1).
• Use the key you got from the dog earlier.
• Convince Slim he should let you have the key (for any of several reasons).
• Sleep with him if you're a woman.
• Toss Aldo's Molotov Cocktail at the door.
• Take the key from Slim's cold, dead body.
• Get the key from Slim right away if your IN is below 4.

If you're a woman and tell Slim you'd "give anything" to get the key, the lines of dialogue you get are messed up. What they do is, respectively: agree to his proposal, back up the dialogue, and leave dialogue. If you should select the first by mistake you can console yourself with the fact that the script never calls the sex procedure, so technically speaking there's just a fade-out...

Near the car there's a working Nuka-Cola machine. Use a coin on it and you get a Nuka-Cola, and possibly hit for 1-2 points of damage by the violently ejected bottle. There are plenty of these machines in the game (working and broken ones have different descriptions), and you can get 15-30 bottles from each before they run out of stock. A Nuka-Cola trades for more than $1... but as a rule you'll want to convert equipment into cash rather than the other way around. However, Nuka-Cola is an ingredient for making Super Stimpaks later on, so you may want to keep this in mind, though chances are you'll have plenty more than you'll ever need anyway. Strangely enough, these machines replenish their stock every 1-7 weeks.

If you can't find the 10mm Pistol it's probably because you left the rat caves in order to rest up, during which time the corpse disappeared leaving the gun obscured by the remaining pool of blood. While bodies decay in mere hours if you leave a map and return, blood is quite persistent and can literally remain for years. The specifics of blood decay are not known to me, but it appears to depend on time as well as the number of times the map has been entered.

On the floor of the first level of tunnels there are Rocks. Rocks, man, Rocks! Here is the Rock challenge: how many Rocks can one gather through the course of a game, without resorting to recurring random encounters? I'll keep you up to date on the Rock situation...

1. Refuel the still.
   
   Talk to Whiskey Bob at Buckner House and he'll ask you to refuel his still in the woods (you have to buy him a drink first for $5, though if you have IN 7 you can recoup your loss by making him give you the 2 Booze he's carrying). He'll offer $50; if you ask for more he'll tell you $65 if you pass a Barter check, but only give you $55 when you're done (scripting glitch). Go to the southeastern exit grid into a wooded area full of geckos. Make your way down to the shack to the southwest, grab one of the Firewood heaps and use it on the still for 100 xp. When you return to Bob, he'll give you your agreed-upon monetary reward. Because the golden geckos can be a definite pain and because of the issue of pelts, you may not want to do this until you've got both Sulik and the Gecko Skinning perk (see below). If you feel like it you can reveal the location of the still to Sajag for $50 and a Beer (and 100 xp, though it doesn't appear in the message window), after which Whiskey Bob won't much like you any more. You must do this before you collect your reward from Bob, so you have to choose your allegiance. You can ask Sajag to tell you about his booze connections in the Den, but it doesn't do anything once you get there.

   This is one of the few timed quests in the game. Like the man says, you need to refuel the still within a day or you don't get any xp from doing so, but you can go to Sajag after Bob gives you the what for.

   Whiskey Bob won't talk to you if your town reputation is Neutral and your karma is -3 or worse. To remedy this all you have to do is nudge your town reputation in either direction, which should be easy enough (buying a round of drinks will do it). This is the result of a bug: he was supposed to snub you off if you have a negative town reputation, but instead the script checks the global variable with the same identifier as the current Klamath town reputation.

   Here you may run into your first golden geckos, who radiate you when they hit you. I would suggest you don't use any RadAway before leaving Klamath and the Toxic Caves altogether, since we're not talking high levels of radiation. See the end of the Character Design section for more detailed info on radiation. Under most circumstances you should be perfectly safe not taking any RadAway before you get to the doctor in Vault City (or ever, barring some extreme happening such as ending up in the Toxic waste dump repeatedly).

2. Rescue Smiley the Trapper.
   
   Ardin Buckner's fiancé is missing. She'll put the Toxic Caves on the world map for you and ask you to find Smiley. Do so (see the Toxic Caves section), and she'll reward you with either Sulik's freedom (you get 500 xp although it doesn't show in the message window) or $100. Talk to Smiley afterwards and he'll give you the Gecko Skinning perk and, if you talk to him again and ask him about gecko hunting, a random Outdoorsman rise from +1% to +6% (save and reload if you're greedy). If he says you already know more about hunting than he does, persist and you'll get the bonus anyway. If you have Gecko Skinning, every gecko you kill (except the fire variety) will have a pelt in it which you can grab and sell. Should Smiley perish then Ardin won't talk to you any more if you tell her.

   IN<4: If you return later in the game to get the Toxic Caves on your map using Mentats and rescue Smiley, you'll get the Gecko Skinning perk but not the Outdoorsman rise or any reward from Ardin.

   You can get double xp for this quest if you get the location of the caves from Mrs Buckner but say you can't help her. Then go and rescue Smiley. When you return to Klamath Ardin will still be talking about him, so you can accept the quest, go to the caves and rescue Smiley again, then go back to Klamath for your reward. There will be two Smileys in Klamath, each of which will give you training. For this to work, you cannot enter the Toxic Caves in between saving the first Smiley and reactivating the quest, not even by saving and loading the game. Also you may want to avoid talking to the first Smiley directly after getting the quest, since he will then start following you around Klamath thinking you're in the caves.

   Sebastian Cassten adds: "You can actually gain 1000 xp for recruiting Sulik. First do one of Ardin's quests and ask either for no reward or for Sulik's freedom so that you get 500 xp. Now before going to Maida, talk to Sulik. You will notice that he isn't free yet ('cause you haven't talked to Maida). You can now if you want to pay the 350 bucks for an additional 500 xp reward." This does not work in v1.0, however.

   If you agree to search for Torr before you get the quest to find Smiley, you must resolve quest 6 before you can get this one.

   In v1.0 you could get infinite training from Smiley.

3. Guard the brahmin.
   
   Torr who's not so smart wants help guarding his herd of cattle from "bugmen" who come at night. Don't talk to him until you're ready, because he'll only ask you once (but see quest 4 for an additional way of getting this quest). Agree to help and you're teleported to a wooded area where the brahmin are to be found. A radscorpion appears, which you should be able to take out easily. Is this the truth behind Torr's insectoid bugmen, I wonder? Nearby there are several more, if you kill every one of them you'll have completed this quest for 250 xp, but if you want to switch to quest 4 instead, don't kill them for now.
   
   There's another, less obvious way of finishing this quest. Two shady figures are standing to the west of Torr's camp, namely the Dunton brothers. Approach them and they'll ask you for help stealing the cattle (this will activate quest 4). Agree to do so, but then tell the Duntons to call off the plan (Speech check needed), after which they run off. This gives you the same 250 xp and +50 karma as above, although the message window doesn't show anything. Optionally kill the scorpions for combat xp.
   
   In a shack to the southwest you can find a pair of Radscorpion Limbs, which have been used by the Duntons to masquerade as bugmen to get at Torr's cattle. Sadly there's no way to confront them about this (a snippet of such dialogue exists, but is unused), so the Limbs are worthless. Beware that once you leave this map you can't get back to it, so don't leave anything here and bring all the scorp tails you can carry.

   Sebastian Cassten notes that after you scare off the Duntons you can tell Torr to run away as well (see quest 4). This will let you get quest 6, which is really supposed to happen only if you finish quest 4 instead. It also has the aesthetic effect of crossing out both brahmin quests in the Pipboy, although you never get the reward for quest 4.

   It's possible to get xp for this quest twice. After you scare off the Duntons you can go to Torr and tell him you'll help guard the brahmin, which will reactivate the quest. Now kill the scorpions and leave and you'll get another 250 xp. This way you won't get quest 6, though.

   Sebastian Cassten has also discovered that you can pull off both the above tricks by relying on a combination of script imperfections. Convince the Duntons to run off, then kill the scorpions. Talk to Torr, but instead of using the mouse to navigate through dialogue, keep it still. Press 2 and 1 to trick him. When dialogue ends, immediately click to talk to him again, and select option 1 this time. Now your goal is to run to the exit grid in combat mode; do this by using all but one of your AP each time, ending combat manually and hitting A a lot. You will be successful if you get there before Torr manages to disappear (which will be signalled by a fade-out).

   Killing a cow or turning Torr hostile will make this quest fail.

4. Rustle the brahmin.
   
   Instead of scaring the Duntons away you can return to Torr and tell him to take off (they say you can knock him out, but this will rile the brahmin, and even if you do manage to beat him unconscious it won't let you finish the quest), then go back to the Duntons for 150 xp, $50 and 5 Meat Jerky, or you can decline the reward for somewhat less of a karma drop (but, karma is not much of an issue). Might as well clean out the scorpions afterwards, though you don't get any quest xp for doing so. This would have been a better idea than quest 3 considering quest 6 below, but since you can get that anyway this is mostly for nasty characters.
   
   You can also get this quest by talking to the Duntons in town instead of Torr, providing you didn't go and get yourself a good town reputation. You only get one chance for each brother to ask for work, and once you ask, if you turn one of them down you don't get a proper chance with the other (see bug note below). Don't address them by name, since it may abort the work thread (which twin you're talking to is decided randomly each time). When you arrive at the pastures, you can talk to Torr and promise to help him guard the brahmin to activate quest 3, and then choose which one to complete as usual. Remember that once you tell Torr to take a hike, you can't finish quest 3 by killing the scorpions, and that if you kill the scorpions the Duntons will leave even if you didn't collect their reward yet. If you leave the pastures without completing either quest 3 or 4, you don't get quest 6 or any xp, so that just plain sucks.

   If your Charisma is 10 when you enter Klamath for the first time, your town reputation will rise to the point where the Duntons won't offer you the rustling job. Arm-wrestling them once before asking will take care of this.

   Killing Torr or any of the brahmin will set the quest to failed and cause the Duntons to run off. If you told Torr to run away and then attack the brahmin, you'll see a float over the invisible Torr after combat ends. This won't turn him hostile, though.

   From WraithUV: "Saving and then loading the game after you've scared off Torr causes the Duntons to no longer speak to you. This makes both quests impossible to complete." This apathy also means you can steal from them happily and if you kill them they'll still be alive downtown, but obviously this is not the ideal outcome.

   As found by Kwiatmen666 and figured out by Killap, completing this quest spawns a few new brahmin in the pen back of the Duntons' house which use Arroyo brahmin scripts. Attacking these will spell the end of your game.

   If you talk to one Dunton about work in town and turn him down, then talk to the other and insist on helping them, the dialogue will proceed as if you were on the pastures map. You can agree to handle Torr; this won't take you to the pastures, though you can still get there by talking to Torr as usual. Or you can have a shot at spooking them, giving you the normal xp for that (they won't actually run anywhere), after which you can go with Torr if you want, finding the pastures empty except for brahmin and scorpions. Another bug found by Ryan P. Fialcowitz: "If you talk to the Duntons about work in Klamath prior to talking to Torr, Torr will disappear if you leave the map and come back."

5. Kill the rat god.
   
   Slim in Trapper Town will tell you about this. You'll know Keeng Ra'at when you see him on the second level of the rat maze. Perhaps Sulik should be with you for this? You get 300 quest xp for killing the royal rodent. Once you kill the rat you can't talk to Slim for training if you didn't already.
   
   
6. Rescue Torr.
   
   If you told Torr to leave his brahmin earlier, now's the time to make up for it! Go to Ardin Buckner and it turns out Torr is missing because he went to look for the brahmin. Finger the Duntons and offer to help (you only get one chance). Then go to the canyon area to the northwest. Torr is standing about near a mad robot. Kill the bot using hit and run tactics, scout the area (intriguing!), talk to Torr and then return to town (200 xp) and talk to Ardin again. As a reward, ask for Sulik's freedom (which is worth $350, plus you get 500 xp; also see the note for quest 2). If you ask for money, or if Sulik was free already, you'll get a measly $100 and substantially less karma.

   If you run off the map after the robot attacks, it won't be hostile when you return. You can then use Repair to fix its broken motivator. Aww!

   There is no use for the Yellow Reactor Keycard in this game, despite numerous allegations, rumours and misunderstandings. It may be the seed of a quest which was not fully implemented, or perhaps it was simply meant to be a Yellow Pass Key, reflecting the Poseidon Oil connection. Interestingly, the card is not there in the unpatched game.

Toxic Caves

"Pipin' hot gecko pie, comin' up."
--Mom

If you came here in the car, it'll be on the edge of the screen and you can't access the trunk while you're here.

Power Armor protects against the goo as if you're wearing boots. Hardened and Advanced Power Armor do not (so you get the toes if you didn't already), but they nullify the damage. The boots have no effect on bad goo in other areas than this one.

Smiley will join you fighting the geckos even before you talk to him if you're right outside where he's standing. He's not overly effective, though.

This is the only time in the game you need any kind of lockpick item (unless your Lockpick skills are horrendously bad).

In the unpatched version there was significantly less stuff down here: no Combat Armor Mark II, no Bozar, no Plasma Pistol, less ammo. Also you couldn't use the Electronic Lockpick MKII to open the elevator.

You'll want to kill the robot before it can take too many shots at you, which is where this little trick comes in handy. If you press and hold the A key as the game is loading a new area (such as when you get a random encounter on the world map), you'll enter combat mode and get the first turn before any monsters can react. Kind of a half-cheat which takes advantage of the game engine. Another time you may want to use this is in dialogues where you say things like "Eat grapeshot and die, scumbag". The other party always gets to initiate combat - that is, unless you hold the A key as you leave dialogue. In this particular case you can also use the trick to run past the robot before it can react; if you get to the doorway you'll be safe, even if there are NPCs in the robot's line of sight.

If you ever wanted to have your very own Robo Rocket Launcher, you can. What you must do is kill the robot with a critical hit to the head that does no damage (try using Flares, or maybe punching; Better Criticals is a must). Because of a bug this means you get no combat xp, but neither does the bot purge its inventory of special items you aren't really supposed to get your hands on. Next you must knock an NPC unconscious on the same hex occupied by the rocketbot (make sure it's not Vic, Myron or Goris, since they will freak out if looted while unconscious - assuming you care, that is), access their inventory, and finally click an arrow to select the robot. You should now be looking at two purple boxes representing one Robo Rocket Launcher and up to 18 rounds of Robo Rocket Ammo (which are equivalent to Explosive Rockets). This weapon has a very modest ST requirement and takes only half as many AP to fire as a normal Rocket Launcher, but it doesn't do nearly as much damage.

The Den

"You'll not find a greater hive of scum and villainy. Now where did I hear that?"
--Whiskey Bob

You can access the unimplemented Den area by pressing 3 when choosing your destination on the town map. You can whack Anna's double, get a Shovel from Smitty's evil twin's shack, and in case you're wondering, if you kill everyone here no one in the "real" Den will care.

If the shopkeeper a specific kid would fence their stolen goods to is killed, the kid will just stand there accumulating items until you leave the map, whereupon their loot disappears. (It can get a little bizarre, looking at their inventory. A kid who can carry a couple of Bozars should be able to make a living doing something else, no?) If you kill the owner of an establishment, leave the map and return, the kid or kids outside that place will be gone. So if you kill Tubby but not Rebecca, the orphans outside the casino will remain but won't have any outlet for their acquisitions.

Every time you try to steal something and fail, people turn hostile and attack, right? So how come you don't get to flip out and kill people when someone fails a steal attempt on you? Oh well... If you kill one of the kids no one will react directly except for the other orphans, but being a Childkiller is very bad. Alternatively, you could attack a kid with a Plant Spike or something and then let your party members do the actual killing, in which case you won't become a Childkiller. A more fun and expensive way is to carry only a bundle of lit Dynamite and stroll innocently past the kids, hoping they'll take it off your hands (removing your armour helps). If they have time to sell it off, however, it will explode harmlessly in the shopkeeper's offscreen inventory. Lancelot thinks flipping out in moderation is in order: "If you punch a kid and then exit combat mode, that kid won't steal any more and from now on will run away upon seeing you. So leave your party members somewhere far (because otherwise they will follow you and kill the kid) and punch every thief in town to teach them a lesson." Mason Pearce favours aimed kicks to the legs for this purpose and additionally notes: "You can kill the orphans without getting Childkiller by dropping armed explosives beside them. They enter combat mode and run for a round, but you can end combat immediately and they walk back to where they were in time for the explosion." They may go for you instead of fleeing, in which case you have to hit them once before they think better of that.

If you don't have visible kids in your game, they'll still steal from you given the opportunity, but you obviously can't steal back. In this case you'll have to wait until your crucial item reappears in a shop, if and when you notice that it's missing. This can of course be extremely frustrating, especially if you have no idea about the kids in the first place, which would have been true for many European players (such as myself). Interplay's way of fixing the child "problem" may have included a minimum of effort on their part, but it's not very stylish.

IN<4: Flick won't even talk to you, so you can't barter with him. Oh heck... let him have it, then.

If you assassinate Rebecca, leave the map and return, most of the guards and casino patrons will be gone. Oddly, you can still gamble.

Rebecca won't talk to you at all if you're a Childkiller. When you buy whisky from her she actually tries to run up and use a Booze on you. If you move away you don't get anything to drink but she still takes your money!

If you're playing a female character named Buffy and wear any of the four types of leather armour, Rebecca will have a few "trinkets" for you: $1000, 5 Stimpaks, a Metal Armor, a 10mm SMG, 120 10mm JHP, a Plasma Grenade and a Flower. Isn't this what they call favouritism? You don't get the stuff if she's angry with you (because you smote kids or destroyed the still) or if you're stupid when you talk to her for the first time wearing leather armour.

War story: Player (level 2) manages to piss off Joey in conversation, runs into Becky's chased by thugs, and hides behind Rebecca. Joey fires at player and hits Rebecca, casino guard fires at Joey and hits gambler. Eventually gamblers and townspeople are fighting each other and guards, guards are shooting gamblers and thugs, and Joey gets killed by Rebecca while still trying to shoot player. Then guard misses and kills orphan outside, two orphans storm the casino and even score a critical hit before being gunned down by the guards. Meanwhile, a guard accidentally hits another guard, guards start shooting each other, and as one guard runs out the door the entire battle spills out into the street! A few more people are killed out there. Combat ends, one of the surviving guards turns and walks back into the casino, while five or six guards and casino patrons remain outside, most of them severely wounded. One gambler, standing out in the street, comments: "Damn, Becky's was the only place to gamble around here!"

If you attack Mom, some people in the Den will be upset about it. Karl will run from you randomly, but you can still talk to him. Frankie and Smitty won't talk to you, closing off any quest options remaining. Joey will be angry, but you can intimidate him and get the locket from him if you haven't already. Tubby was supposed to let you barter at a penalty, but due to a bug you'll get his normal prices unless you press the barter button directly after dialogue starts, in which case you get a discount (this only works if you're non-stupid).

If you give Karl $1000 and then immediately ask him about the G.E.C.K, he'll offer you $1000 to sleep with him if you if you have CH 8. How does he afford it? (You can also steal the money back when he falls asleep. If you fail he'll run away when he wakes up, but you can end combat and he won't be hostile.)

IN<4: For stupid characters it is not so important to talk to Karl; he just takes half your money each time!

• $72
• 12 Beer
• 1 Buffout
• 1 Jet
• 27 Rock
• 1 Rubber Boots
• 2 Throwing Knife
• 1 Knife
• 1 RadAway
• 24 10mm AP
• 1 Combat Knife
• 1 Flower

You lose 5 karma for each despoiled grave, but being a Grave Digger has in itself no effect in the game.

I don't list many of the numerous references in the game, but "R.E. Danforth's Non-Explosive Burning Fluid" is from a classic anthology of poems called Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. (It's also on a headstone in Nashkel in Baldur's Gate.) You may not find this specific headstone in the Den as the messages are distributed randomly between the grave markers in the Den, Redding and Golgotha when you enter the respective maps, although there are some that are always in the same place, such as the Winslow graves, Richard Wright, and so on.

If Tyler has been killed for any reason, Metzger will attack as soon as you talk to him.

On the slave run map with tents there's a brown chest you can't open unless you have a good Steal skill, and if you do you get a message about stealing from the shaman's things. This is actually a script that was originally going to be used for Hakunin's chest.

In v1.0, if a slaver is killed in a slave run he may get up again, then freeze the game.

Generally, whenever you decline a monetary reward you get karma points instead. Also in some cases you get other alternative rewards (in which case I will note it in the walkthrough, of course).

Because of how critter data is handled, chems used on one critter will affect all critters that share the same template. This means that if a slaver uses Psycho, all slavers will gain Damage Resistance, and if one of them uses Jet, all of them will gain AP. If you think this is cheating you can leave the map and return, or save the game and reload; doing so will cause the game to lose track of such changes. This feature can also be used in your favour if you ever have several identical people, e.g. caravan guards, fighting on your side. The game does properly keep track of drug effects on your party members.

If you did quest 6, then whoever you fought for - Marc and Tyler, or Lara and her three gangsters - will still have a green outline and will fight on your side against the slavers if you take the fight down to the church. Taxi Driver adds: "Tyler happens to be rendered with one of the 'player' animations, meaning he can use any weapon in the game. Add a bit of spice to the slaver fight by giving him a Bozar or Vindicator Minigun! He may not be good with it, but I think this is a really classy way to clear out the East Side. Marc can only use a few weapons, but he can use sledgehammers which means you could have a bit of fun by giving him a Super Sledge. You can also load them up with Super Stimpaks and performance-enhancing drugs (or use the drugs on them yourself before beginning combat)." Tyler seems to favour small arms, so if you give him a Bozar he may stick to his Desert Eagle. Also I couldn't get him to use a Gauss Rifle at all; he'd equip it but not attack with it. He did OK with a Gauss Pistol, though. It should work with Lara as well, but you have to give her the stuff after the church fight since her inventory is purged before the attack.

Kit relates a strategy for this battle: "You can kill Metzger and his band of slavers at level 3 with a bit of ease. I have done it on several occasions. What you do is go with Lara's gang to fight the guards at the church. Once in combat mode, hightail it to Mom's Diner. At the diner, there is a back room with windows looking out towards the Slaver's Guild. What I did was pick the slavers off from the window, and take cover to the side of the window so that the slavers cannot hit you back. Lara's gang eventually helps out, but they are underpowered." As long as you have the firepower and ammunition to take the slavers out you shouldn't need to involve the gang (also at that time of day the darkness will be working against you); the slavers will tend to gather around your first victim and won't come running around the diner.

PC and Björn Welin both claim that using Psycho for this fight works wonders even at low levels. Tubby will probably have a dose or two, Frankie has one but you'd have to kill him for it, and the guard outside of Vic's door has one you can steal. With your Damage Resistance maximized you'll usually only take a couple of points of damage per shot, if any. However, you'll still be hurt by critical hits. When testing this I found that I was slowly whittling the guards down while they used up all their ammo and finally started to run from me, so if you're alone and lack a way to deliver damage reliably this will still be a tedious project at best. PC also brings up stealing anything you can from Metzger and his people, while Björn Welin recommends using Jet in conjunction with Psycho on yourself and Sulik, reloading if you get addicted.

Pennyliu123 suggests stealing Metzger's Shotgun, locking the doors, and attacking through the window; only one or two of the slavers will be able to fire back at the same time, and if you step carefully between shots you may be able to stop them from returning fire at all. The Shotgun has a rather short range, though - shorter than the 10mm Pistols - so I'd prefer a Hunting Rifle for this method.

Sadly, Metzger won't react if you storm into his house flashing the Ranger Pin in your active item slot or if you try to push it up his nose. Nor does the Ranger map quest in NCR (about the "safe houses in the north") tie in with Metzger in any way.

1. Collect money from Fred.
   
   Talk to Becky, ask for work and offer to collect the debt. Fred can be found somewhere around, usually in Flick's house, looking like one of the other junkies (but identified as "a citizen of the Den"). You should demand $200 from him (you can do it even with mediocre IN and/or Speech, if you follow the conversation patiently) and once you do, you can let him keep $100 or $150 and return to Rebecca for $100 and 200 xp. If you let Fred keep any money at all, return after some time (either 3, 4, 5 or 6 months, randomly decided); he'll have used your money to get rich in Becky's casino, and rewards you with $2000, 200 Small Energy Cell, 250 Micro Fusion Cell and a Plasma Grenade.

   You were supposed to get different rewards from Fred - $500, $1000 or the full $2000 plus stuff - depending on how much money you let him keep and what you said to him. However, a scripting glitch ensures you'll always get the best reward (the variable in question doesn't carry over to the "new" Fred). So it doesn't matter if you only let him keep $100 (which means you break even after you return to Becky).

   You can give Rebecca $200 regardless of how things went with Fred, as long as you've at least entered dialogue with him after getting the quest. Of course, you won't get Fred's reward if he doesn't know you paid his debt. If Fred dies before you talk to him, you won't be able to get quest 2.

   Rebecca won't give you any jobs while your karma is below 0.

2. Get book from Derek.
   
   You get this quest from Rebecca next. The book is found on the ground in the east part of town, in any of four possible locations:
   
   
   • In the graveyard, just east of the church.
   • In the outhouse north of the Hole.
   • Behind a wall just southwest of the car behind Metzger's.
   • Beside a barrel south of the graveyard.
   
   Return it to Becky for $80 and 300 xp. Derek is the guy standing directly outside Mom's, he too is "a citizen of the Den". He doesn't make a lot of sense and you don't even have to know he exists, it makes no difference for the quest.
   
   
3. Lara wants to know what is guarded in the church.
   
   Lara is the head of the punks on the west side. To complete this quest you must talk your way past the guards for 500 xp (700 xp if you do it before talking to Lara, 300 xp if you're a slaver), then examine the crates (500 xp) and report back for $200. If you don't make the Speech check you can bull your way in with ST 8. If all else fails, rest one hour and talk to Tyler again to get in, but then you won't get any xp for entering the church. Sneaking to get inside the church doesn't work, Marc will always spot you. If you get into a fight and kill off Tyler or Metzger before finishing this quest, you don't get any reward and it will terminate this chain of quests; the same is true for the next three quests.
   
   
4. Get permission from Metzger for gang war.
   
   Lara sends you to Metzger as an errand-boy (or -girl). Pretty straightforward, you get 200 xp and can return to Lara for $50.
   
   
5. Find weakness in Tyler's gang guarding the church.
   
   Simply go to the church and talk to Tyler to find out his gang is throwing a party, for 200 xp. If your CH is low, just keep trying. Give this information to Lara, but she won't give you any cash as yet.
   
   
6. Help Lara attack Tyler's gang.
   
   If you agree to go along for the fight, you'll find yourself outside the church. Lara will pay $400 for your help whether you actually fight or not. (If she's not alive at the end of the fight you can get the cash from her corpse.) It doesn't hurt to join in and try to grab as many kills (and thereby xp) as possible. You only need to kill the guard outside for the quest to finish, but go inside the church and continue the fight there.
   
   There is another way to finish this quest. Tell Lara you need to prepare (you have until 6 a.m.), head over to Tyler and tell him about the plan, and he'll ask you to take out Lara instead when the time comes. Return to Lara for the attack but turn on her when the battle starts, taking the $400 from her corpse and earning $100 and 1000 xp from Tyler (for "helping Lara's gang to win the battle"). I wonder why you get bad karma from killing Lara instead of Tyler; I mean, aren't they both just random thugs? What, betrayal is bad? Oh well.
   
   And, oh, two more somewhat counter-intuitive ways to finish the quest. One is to side with Lara, but then kill her entire crew before they can kill Marc. This earns you 1000 xp (again for "helping Lara") and the $400 from Lara's corpse, but no reward from Tyler (since he's not around). The fourth is to talk to Tyler as above and get to the fighting part, then take out Marc and Tyler even though they're green and Lara's gang is outlined in red. You then get 1100 xp for "successfully ambushing Lara's gang" (whee). Note however that if Lara is alive at this point she won't reward you, and the $400 won't be in her inventory (but if she died during the fight it'll be there as usual). It seems safe to assume that you were supposed to get xp from siding with Lara in the normal manner as well, but you'd have to kill Tyler for that to trigger, and you can't.

   Whichever side you fight for, you can run off the map as soon as you're teleported to the east side, then return and collect your reward (money from either gang leader, and 1000 xp if you sided with Tyler). There won't be any bodies to loot, though (so no $400 from Lara if you sided with Tyler).

   You may notice that where Marc and Tyler are standing there's a scenery object called "Floor" which interferes negatively with looting. If you try to click on a portion of a body which lies atop the floor you won't get the hand icon. You'll still be able to loot the body if there's a part that's sticking out from the floor thing. You may also be able to return once the body has decomposed and pick up the items (for some items like pistols you must wait for the blood to vanish as well). These floor things appear among other places at a New Reno casino entrance and the Vault 15 vault door, and carpets and haybeds may complicate looting as well.

7. Deliver a meal to Smitty for Mom.
   
   Mom will ask you to do this. Smitty will give you a Stimpak if you deliver the meal within 24 hours, and in any case you earn 150 xp and Mom will give you a free meal with pretty much rat in it which replenishes 5-20 HP. While you're there, ask Mom about vaults and she'll put Vault City on your world map.
   
   
8. Free Vic from his debt by getting his radio from his house in Klamath and paying Metzger.
   
   Pretty obvious what this is about. To get the guard outside Vic's door to let you through, you can:
   
   
   • Talk to Metzger to get his permission.
   • Ask nicely and pass a Speech check.
   • Attempt a bribe, pass a Barter check and pay the guard $300.
   • Pass the Barter check, tell him "Screw you" then nag him until he lets you in.
   • Fail two Speech and/or Barter checks so he tells you to talk to Metzger, then nag him until he lets you in.
   • Choose the "Meko veek" and "Seve" options if your IN is lower than 4.
   • Become a Slaver.
   • Have Science tagged or above 59%.
   • Have Repair tagged or above 59%.
   • Sneak-Lockpick the door.
   
   Failing all this, think with portals or something. Talking to Vic solves Arroyo quest 2, though this isn't worth any xp in itself. Give him his radio (generic ones won't do). Return to Metzger and he will demand $1000 for Vic's freedom. If you're a woman with CH 6 you can sleep with Metzger to take $500 off the price, but nah. You should definitely make this investment unless you're going solo (or want an all-mêlée party). You can also free Vic simply by killing Metzger. Once he's free, Vic will put Vault City on your world map, and you get 200 xp for talking to him about being a trader. Then you can have him join your party.
   
   
9. Sabotage Becky's still.
   
   Go to Rebecca and ask for a drink so you know how much her drinks cost. Go to Frankie at the Hole, ask why his drinks cost more. He'll ask you to find out why Becky's drinks are so cheap. Return to Becky's, then wait until the guard by the door to the stairs goes over to the roulette table to talk to the female croupier (2-3 minutes, and you need to keep away from him). Pick the door, go downstairs and find a still. Return to Frankie for $100 and 400 xp, and he'll give you this quest. You can now tell him to buy his drinks from Rebecca for 900 xp, or else you can grab the nearby Crowbar and take it to the still (you can actually save yourself a couple of trips by doing this before even getting your first assignment), return for $500 and 700 xp, and then you can tell him to buy whiskey from Rebecca for 900 xp (but you have to do it in the same conversation). If you break the still Becky won't talk to you (or let you gamble), so don't do this until after she rewards you for killing Metzger.

   You can use Dynamite to blow up the still. I don't know why you'd want to do this, since there is no minimum ST requirement to use the Crowbar. Or a Tool. Or a Wrench.

   3-7 days after you destroy the still, Becky will have repaired it (but you need to leave and enter the map once to start the timer, and again for the still to be fixed (and a third time for the still to actually look whole, but never mind that)). This doesn't do much except you can't report back to Frankie unless you destroy it again. A small detail is that if you tell Frankie to buy his whiskey from Rebecca, his price will drop from $20 to $6 after the still is rebuilt and if Rebecca's alive.

   A v1.0 bug discovered by Deep Black: if you tell Frankie about the still and then conclude the quest by telling him to buy Rebecca's liquor or saying you won't destroy the still, Rebecca will accuse you of having done so even if you haven't.

10. Get car part for Smitty.
    
    Smitty in the junkyard has a car to sell you, only it doesn't work. Bring a Fuel Cell Controller (which you can get later) and he'll install it and give you the car for only $2000. If you have the Fuel Cell Regulator from Klamath, he'll install that too for $750, and the car will need 50% less fuel. Once you install the Controller you may want to trade for Smitty's Micro Fusion Cells (you'll likely have surplus weaponry at this point), which he restocks every 3-5 days.

    You can actually get the car without paying Smitty! Thing is, first you have to kill him. Then, use the Fuel Cell Controller on the car. If your Repair skill is high enough (110% will do, keep trying until you make it) you'll install it successfully. Unfortunately you can't install the Fuel Cell Regulator by yourself, so this is a pretty desperate measure.

    You can use the trunk for storage even though you haven't bought the car yet.

    If you use any item on the car before buying it, Smitty will come running out of the shack waving his arms and ask what the hell you think you're doing. If you do it again after that, he'll turn hostile! Needless to say this hurts your game pretty much (though you can Sneak up to him and talk to him to buy the car anyway). In my very first game I managed to do this with Smitty up in the shack, so I never noticed, and because I had only one save slot I had to replay the entire game up to this point. So, rule of thumb: don't touch other people's cars.

    At any time you buy an item or a favour from someone with money, see if it's possible to barter or (if you're that kind of person) steal it back, assuming you're carrying stuff you don't really need. Sometimes the money just disappears, though.

    In v1.0 you can get the car without having the part, though you still have to pay the $2000. Just ask Smitty what he does, then again about the car and you'll get the option to buy it. There's also a bug where if you leave the map on foot after getting the car, it disappears permanently, leaving the trunk.

11. Return Anna's locket.
    
    Now this is a weird one. The Great Ananias in the southern building in the west part of town will tell you about a ghost in the next room. Go there between midnight and 4 a.m., and you'll notice a shimmering figure. Bring out the Scooby snacks! "Talk" to the ghost and make sure you learn she's looking for her stolen locket. Go to Mom's for clues, she'll point you toward Joey. Confront him and either scare him with Anna's revenge (IN 6 needed), pay him ($50, or $20 with good Barter), threaten him (ST 5 and a Speech check, if you fail he'll attack), or kill him, and you'll get the locket. Return to Anna and give her the locket for 250 xp. It's so beautiful... Look what just materialized all over the carpet. Grab the bones, bring a Shovel (by coincidence there are two in this very room) and head over to the cemetery, where you'll find Anna's grave. Dig it up (once you've talked to Anna it won't make you a Grave Digger), put the bones in it and use the shovel again to cover it up for 1200 more xp (message window will say 600).

    Jörgen Thuresson adds: "You can kill the ghost in the Den. All you need to do is to cause a massive critical above a certain threshold. I did this once when I was fooling around and started shooting with my .44 Magnum. It was hilarious! Anna did the overkill animation and the body stayed around the clock. I was laughing my head off at the time. My locket! Mine!" Those massive crits are the ones that bypass armour; further investigation shows Anna has no resistance to plasma damage. Killing her has no special effect except triggering a little bug that removes a couple of unimportant dialogue options to ask people about Vic.

    Note that there may be another gravestone with the name Anna on it ("done to death by a banana"). This is not the grave of Anna Winslow.

    You can take the locket to the ghost in the unused Den area, and get Anna's Bones that way... but then you'll have the "real" Anna hanging around forever. Or you can give the locket to either ghost, quickly steal it back and give it to the other, and you'll have two bags of Anna's Bones which you can bury one at a time for a total of 2900 xp... This is cheating, of course.

    The ghost is something of an anomaly in the Fallout world. There were mental powers in the first game, but such things are by many considered viable in science fiction. Weird science aside, there aren't many examples of the blatantly supernatural in these games (unless you count those special encounters which are meant as obvious jokes). Seymour the talking plant and Hakunin dream sequences come to mind.

Modoc

"Was Jonny abducted by aliens?"
"Woof?"
"Okay, okay... Maybe someplace else, then?"
--The Chosen One and Laddie

Warlord has a strategy which is a lot like mine: "You should have a Frag Grenade by now, so you throw it on the largest pack of dogs. The aim is to turn as many of them against you as possible. Then every turn you shoot some new ones - they will let the brahmin be and turn against you. If you have Sulik and Vic you should manage to kill them without serious problems. This way you can save all the brahmin." Just, well, try to get one of them killed at least.

If you don't manage to save a single brahmin (which happens if you leave the map without killing the dogs), things get a little buggy. Every time you talk to Grisham after that he'll demand $1500 from you. If you have IN 6 you can tell him they weren't worth that much, but this may trigger another bug which sends you back to the pastures, and paying him has no effect in any case.

There may be other brahmin in the pen; if so, when you try to let them out they'll probably jam in the gate, being 2-hex critters. Placing yourself or a party member on one side of the gate helps them manoeuvre. After you release the brahmin, there will be a special encounter waiting for you somewhere in the wilds around Modoc...

If you leave the map after Bess gets out of the pen but before she gets off the map, she'll disappear and you don't get the karma rise or the reputation drop, and I don't see what would be the point of that.

There's a nasty bug here you have to look out for: if you sleep with Miria or Davin and don't follow through with the wedding, your party members stop following you; they will come with you from map to map but stay rooted except in combat mode. This can be fixed by either of the following: 1) Getting married. 2) Having the Val/Vic conversation in Vault City. 3) Watching the Vault 13 video sequence. 4) Watching the Brotherhood video sequence in SF. Note that even if you don't have any party members at the time, you will still experience the effects of the bug if you should ever pick up any.

More bugs: If you assassinate Grisham before sleeping with Miria or Davin, the game will freeze when he's supposed to walk in on you. If you assassinate Jo (or if he died fighting the Slags) the game will freeze as it tries to arrange the wedding ceremony. Another bug will strike if you sleep with a person of opposite gender and pull the doctor stunt, and Grisham is blocked from leaving the room so that he ends up moping in a corner. If you then sleep with either of them again there will be a permanent blackout. It's quite possible there are other combinations of circumstances here which lead to the same kind of problem.

Actually you can just run from Grisham instead of talking to him or waiting for the ceremony to begin, but then all of Modoc will turn hostile (and you get the party bug).

If you pick Miria, don't choose the "you know you want it" dialogue - even though it's not clear from the wording, you'll rape her and turn the townspeople hostile! Even stranger, female characters can do this too.

You get your new spouse for an NPC even if you're already at your NPC limit, but remember, if you then kick someone out you can't get them back again unless you kick another one out in their stead (and you cannot disband your spouse). Miria will gain 2 Antidotes and 4 Stimpaks after you marry her, Davin 1 Tool and 2 Stimpaks.

After you are married you will no longer be able to guard the brahmin or sell Bess if you didn't do that already. If you get Separated from your spouse, and then return to Grisham and tell him you think he or she is dead, he'll have a heart attack and die. I'm not sure this does anyone any good.

IN<4: You can get a free omelet every time you talk to Rose (but nothing else).

If you open the door to the henhouse but leave the map without killing the... um, chicken, it will kill everyone on the map, including idle NPCs! And if you ever come back, it will hunt you down... Oddly enough this does not affect your town reputation.

1. Farrel has a rodent problem in his garden. Remove the infestation.
   
   Farrel lives to the southeast of the B & B. He'll want you to kill some rats for him for 300 xp and no cash. The rats in question are more dangerous than most because some of them poison and radiate you if they hit you... so send in your NPCs who are immune to that sort of thing and use ranged weapons yourself. Look, free Rope for use with the town well.

   If it seems like you've killed all the rats but the end of the quest hasn't triggered, look for extra rats in the woods to the right or off the edge of the map. More than once, however, I've been unable to finish this quest because a rat simply wouldn't show up. There should be six big ones and five small ones. Save before accepting the quest to be safe.

   IN<4: You get a Cookie for a reward!

   If you accuse Farrel of being a thief in quest 2 and/or 3, he won't give you this one if you didn't already get it.

   If you don't wrap this quest up at once you may find that you killed all the rats but cannot tell Farrel you did, or that you can report success even though you didn't actually complete the task. This is because the butcher on Main Street uses the same flag that keeps track of whether you killed all the rats. To set the rats to killed, go to Main Street and rest until evening, watching for the butcher's float that signals the end of his workday, then return to Farrel; to have the rats set to non-killed so that you can return to the garden, visit Main Street in the day.

   There are Rocks in the garden. Some can be tough to spot. Gotta catch 'em all!

2. Cornelius has lost his gold pocket watch. Find it and return it to him.
   
   Cornelius and Farrel aren't friends any more because Cornelius accused Farrel of stealing his watch. Cornelius is actually a wee bit senile but will give you this quest if you tell him he "needs serious help". On a hunch, head over to the toilet, open it and climb down. You'll arrive in a dung-ridden cave, blocked to the north by rubble. Plant some Dynamite (set it for 3 minutes, it doesn't really matter) in front of the rubble and use the ladder. Yes, this is the fabled "toilet explosion". Har! You just redecorated half of Modoc in a very creative manner, earning 500 xp in the process. Return down the ladder, go north, fight a lone rat and search its nest... for Cornelius' Gold Watch, and also a Shovel (that and the rake must be the lost tools Farrel was talking about), a Fruit, and a useful Bag! Now go back to Farrel or Cornelius, give either of them the watch and say the rat had it for 1500 xp.

   If you assassinate Farrel, Cornelius will talk about nothing else (so you can't get or finish the quest if you didn't already), and if you say you did it all of Modoc will become hostile.

   The placement of your Dynamite determines whether you take damage or not in the explosion as well as whether the rocks are cleared. Firstly, to trigger the toilet explosion proper the blast must "touch" the pile of rocks (being within 2 paces or so). Secondly, you and any NPCs will take damage if you're within the blast radius when you climb the ladder (the game always detonates explosives when you leave a map, hence why the timer wasn't important). If you're alone, you can easily avoid damage by setting the Dynamite as close to the rocks as possible, and if a party member is standing too close, prod him or her away before using the ladder. Saving first is of course recommendable in any case. It is actually possible (though unlikely) to survive the explosion if you stay down in the hole and hug a corner as the Dynamite goes off, but you might have difficulties with party members who insist on staying in the middle of the room ("Vic was hit for 6772 points of damage and was killed." Whee). If you do this, you still have to exit the toilet and go down again for the rubble to disappear, so there's nothing to be gained.

   After the toilet explosion the Bed & Breakfast map switches to a new one altogether, which means that any items dropped here or put in containers (other than the lost and found box) will be lost. Dropped-off NPCs will manage the transition, though, with the exception of Laddie. This also means there are twelve new Rocks on the ground, a Spear by the junk heap and a new Shovel lying over at the stables. Also note there are Rocks down in the toilet and the mole rat cave (you won't find all of them unless you know exactly where they are). Collect them Rocks.

   If you're having trouble finding the Bag, look at the lower tip of the crescent formed by the rat's nest. The Bag has the same graphics as a bag of coins, and the little brown "flag" is just visible above the pile of trash.

   On the walls of the toilet you can find four goo-covered computer terminals and monitors. This is nothing but scenery. A little further down the cave you can find "cave art" on the walls.

3. Farrel wants you to find Cornelius' gold pocket watch. Find it and return it to Farrel.
   
   If you talk to Farrel he'll also ask you to find the watch, and doing so will strike out both quest entries. I'll use this space to describe two "evil" ways of finishing the quest. Firstly, you may notice a partly hidden "safe" (locker) in Farrel's house. If you try to open it, he'll tell you to scram. (If you try it again he'll turn hostile, but it's empty so don't bother.) Go to Cornelius and tell him Farrel is keeping the watch in his safe; they'll have a fight, and you'll have completed the quest for no xp and quite a reputation drop. Useless. The other way is to get the watch, return it to Cornelius and say Farrel had stolen it. This is worth 500 xp.

   If you're taking advantage of the barter trick (see Arroyo quest 3) or the Bag bug to keep the watch, you can get xp for both quests by "giving" it to Farrel first, then going to Cornelius to reactivate the quest and handing it to him as well. After that the fun's over, though.

4. Jonny is missing. Find him and bring him home to Balthas.
   
   The leatherworker Balthas is missing his kid. To find this out you need PE 6, to offer to look for Jonny you need IN 6, and for Balthas to give you the quest your standing in Modoc must be Neutral or better. You won't find Jonny in Modoc (see Ghost Farm) but there's a minor diversion here. Go to the town well, remove the boards and use a Rope on the well. Climb down. On the ground here are a few coins (you trade in 1 karma for each coin... neither the karma amount nor the gold matters, so I'd take it just because you can) and, in the north end, a BB Gun. You can now return to Balthas and say you found Jonny's gun down the well, after which he'll believe Jonny is dead (plus he takes the gun, which is worth $300 fully loaded, so maybe this is not a good idea).
   
   If you are Accepted in Modoc or better when you get the quest, Balthas will tell you to take Jonny's dog Laddie along with you (he'll join even if you're at the NPC limit). Follow Laddie over to the town well and talk to him for some great dialogue. Laddie will stay with you until Jonny has been found... and it's something of a give-away that he stays with you even after you hand Balthas the BB Gun. :)

   If you have problems getting Laddie to follow you, try doing the Modoc quests in a different order. More specifically, don't start off by setting Bess free, since it will be difficult to recover from the big reputation drop. Doing some simple quest right off like guarding Grisham's brahmin or killing Farrel's rodents will make you popular enough.

   Laddie will go into a permanent woofing mode if you bring Jonny's BB Gun to the main street map while Laddie is there (either because he's with you or because he was standing there anyway). This means you can't talk to him to drop him off (if he was in your party) or recruit him (if he wasn't, but he'll still join you if you did this before getting the quest). He'll also woof whenever you talk to him with the BB Gun in your inventory. If for some reason you want Laddie as a permanent NPC, ignore the BB Gun, or park Laddie on the B & B map while you get the rifle and sell it to Balthas or put it on one of your mules.

   Silly as it may seem, this is the only time in the game you use a Rope. Don't these people realize that ropes are staple objects in CRPGs? You used tons of them in Wasteland.

5. Jonny's in the Slag caves. Find a way to get Jonny back home to Balthas.
   
   This will pop up once you talk to Jonny, if you got quest 4. Vegeir won't release Jonny until you've completed quests 7-8, but after that, he'll even give you an escort to Modoc, and then you can talk to Balthas for a Combat Leather Jacket and 2500 xp.

   If you've left Laddie on another map than Modoc Main Street, he still won't rejoin your party after you rescue Jonny. The only way to keep him (if for some reason you want to) is to not bring Laddie to Jonny and not bring Jonny to Modoc.

6. Something strange is happening at the farm northeast of Modoc. Investigate and report back to Jo.
   
   Talk to Jo and ask about a G.E.C.K. and he'll give you this quest and put the Ghost Farm on the world map. Asking him to cut off his finger to seal the deal does nothing except lower your karma. Next head out to the farm. One way of completing this quest is to kill the Slags, then returning to Jo for 500 xp. He won't be very happy if you tell him those you killed were normal people and not ghosts, though. The better way is to talk to the Slags (see the Ghost Farm section) and get quest 7.

   If you report that you killed the Slags, then leave the map and return, you can't buy stuff from Balthas or Jo any more. The same thing happens if the townspeople attack the farm during quests 7-8. You will be able to get free omelets from Rose, though (see below).

7. Deliver Slag message to Jo in Modoc.
   
   This means just bringing the Slag Message to Jo, and then you move on to quest 8 unless you immediately tell Jo you want to take no further part in what's going on, in which case you get 700 xp. People will then act a little weirdly: traders and townsfolk in Modoc will talk as if there's going to be a deal with the Slags, the Slags act as if they're waiting for it to happen, and Jo won't talk to you again at all. After 31 days Modoc will attack the Ghost Farm; see the next quest for details.

   Whichever way you choose to deal with the Slag matter, from this point on Rose will allow you to riffle through the lost and found box and give you free omelets whenever you want them, but you won't be able to order any of the other stuff any more. The lost and found box is sometimes empty and sometimes has random items: Knives, Throwing Knives, Stimpaks, 10mm JHP, a Leather Jacket or a 10mm Pistol. On very rare occasions (1 chance in 200 every time you enter the map) you can find a 10mm SMG in there. If you're impatient you can exercise your Steal skill on the box, and due to what must be considered a glitch you can loot it freely if you stand on the hex just to the right of it.

   IN<4: Stupid characters earn 2000 xp upon delivery of the note and trigger the happy ending for Modoc but do not get quest 8. You also get a discount on Jo's stuff, but only until you leave dialogue.

8. Jo is suspecious of the Slags. Find out about the dead bodies at the Ghost Farm and find out what happened to Karl.
   
   Feeling a bit "suspecious", Jo will give you a month (31 days to be precise, just enough time to go to the Den and back on foot) to prove the Slags are not dangerous. If you've been paying attention you shouldn't need it; inform him of the fake bodies (you can also ask Vegeir about those) and Karl being in the Den, and you'll have paved the way for an alliance between Modoc and the Slags for 3500 xp, plus you can now tell Karl to return to his home. Jo will tell you about Gecko but not actually put in on your map, and you also get a one-time discount big enough to get all his stuff if you trade back and forth for a while.
   
   If for some reason you can't or won't find out about the bodies or Karl, you can tell Jo you want out (same 700 xp as before), or tell him to attack the Slags. The latter will teleport you to the Farm, where the townsfolk make a more formidable fighting force than you might have credited them with. Basically you kill a few guards and ghosts, and then the game assumes that everyone else on the farm was killed too (if you go down the manhole, Vegeir will be there alone for you to deal with). You don't gain any quest xp for this, and it spoils your chances of saving Jonny. If you fail to inform Jo of Karl and the bodies in 31 days, the townspeople will attack on their own with basically the same results (if you go to the Ghost Farm afterwards you may find some ammo and stuff lying on the ground at the farm).

   If you don't give Jo the requested information right away, you must tell him about Karl before you tell him about the bodies, or you won't be able to tell Karl to return to Modoc.

   If you run off the map during the attack on the Slags, the protectors and ghosts will be dead when you return and the Modoc people will have returned home, alive.

Ghost Farm

"Oh no! Don't you know Rose uses dog in her dishes!? Laddie is probably a burger by now."
--Jonny

Due to the nature and distribution of the various Slag critters, you don't have to kill everyone above and below ground for the "Slag counter" to reach zero so that you can report back to Jo (but if you're evil I suppose you'd want to do that anyway). Jonny and the protectors will disappear after you leave the map if the game considers the Slags exterminated by you, while the others remain until you've been back to Modoc.

If you're playing without children there won't be any here, naturally. So you can't find or rescue Jonny. Laddie will still run up to the invisible Jonny and stay there. Sucks, doesn't it?

If you talk to Jonny with Laddie around and fail to gain his trust, you won't be able to talk to Vegeir about him. If Laddie isn't with you, just hearing Jonny's name is enough.

IN<4: Vegeir won't know you delivered the message so you don't get any reward.

Vault City

"PING! I Say!"
--Vault City medical terminal

Vault City is a good example of a place where people will tell you to stay away from lockers, shelves etc. But it doesn't hurt to try once!

This is one of two places in the game (New Reno being the other) where most people will have new things to say after you complete the game. You'll have access to the inner city and the vault even if you didn't before. This also means that unexplored quest options may be cut off as key figures only respond to you with floats or new dialogue. Randal's Amenities shop effectively shuts down, but you can steal stuff from him safely if you really must have something: just click on him until he stops talking and then loot him clean (this is the same bug that befalls Salvatore in New Reno).

Once you get to this part of the world map (if not sooner), money and bartering will become less balanced than it has been. Up until now you haven't always been able to trade for everything you wanted, right? Well, shortly your pecuniary problems should be no more. Just hang around till you get a random encounter like "merchant party fending off raiders", "raiders fending off raiders", "raiders being butchered by a mantis", or the like. Once the fight begins, get out of the way and wait until there are only a few people left to kill, then kill the rest if you don't like them. Loot the corpses for stuff like Combat Shotguns, H&K CAWS's or Assault Rifles, and from this point on you should be able to trade for anything you ever want in a shop, even with Barter at 30% or lower. Of course, you can also choose to run from such encounters for the opposite reason, that you don't want to spoil the balance just yet.

Talking to himself, Ed will mention a brahmin which goes: "Moo, I say." This is a reference to the "talking brahmin" special encounter in Fallout. Moo.

Sean Meskill notes: "After bartering with Happy Harry (you needn't make a purchase), a bunch of stuff will be dumped into his 'stealable' inventory and you can then pinch whatever you please." This stuff represents a selection of his normal shop inventory; he only gets it once, but will keep it unless you relieve him of it. Additionally, the Micro Fusion Cell and Leather Armor Mark II in his shop inventory do not restock.

In v1.0 Harry's inventory was kept in one of the shelves, and you could take it if you passed a Steal check, but failure would mean mortal combat.

Kwiatmen666: "As long as Puking Charlie lies on the ground you can keep using RadAways on him getting 100 xp each time."

A bug: if you have only one NPC and have the car, you won't be able to ask for healing for the NPC. If you have two NPCs and the car you'll get the single-NPC rate, but if one of them is the Brain Bot again you won't be able to heal them.

You cannot ask for healing for yourself if you have crippled limbs but full HP. This also goes for Lenny, Dr Fung and some but not all dialogue nodes of Dr Troy.

If you didn't repair the autodoc yet, the toes will grow back in 30 days. This also happens if you return to the Toxic Caves and step in the goo after having the toes removed. This can be repeated indefinitely and you get a new Mutated Toe each time. Don't use the Toe on yourself or any party member since it will lower your Maximum Hit Points for some time, though not permanently.

IN<4: The autodoc will never malfunction for a stupid character. Also you can get two special perks here. After you purchase healing, you get the option to "ride agin"; select this and you gain the Autodoc Raised hit points perk which gives +2 to max HP. However, for each time you "ride the autodoc" after that, you gain a level of the perk Autodoc Lowered hit points which gives -2 HP instead. Also beware that these are bugged; if you click them on your character sheet the game will immediately crash. Sébastien Caisse adds: "What's really stupid is that the script which gives you the bonus checks your IN, and if you have IN 10, then you get +4 instead of +2... but, um... you need IN 3 or less to get the 'ride agin' prompt..." There goes the Autodoc Raised hit points II perk, I suppose.

• Dermal Impact Armor: $7000 ($5000), 2 days.
• Dermal Impact Asslt. Enhance.: $40,000 ($30,000), 5 days, CH -1.
• Phoenix Armor Implants: $10,000 ($8000), 3 days (though he says two).
• Phoenix Assault Enhancement: $50,000 ($40,000), 6 days, CH -1.

If you didn't fix the autodoc before getting an implant, you die. Funny, huh?

Your CH variable can actually drop below 1, although it's never treated as anything less than 1. You'll notice this "debt" if you later raise your CH by means of Mentats, Gain Charisma or the like. Same thing goes if you lose your ear in New Reno.

• Stroll into the Customs Office at night, pick the locker and take the Day Pass.
• Stand behind the locker where Wallace can't see you, pick it and take the Day Pass.
• With Speech 75% or IN 7 you can convince Wallace you must see the First Citizen (just pick the long, eloquent dialogue choices). He'll give you a Day Pass.
• Offer to find the raider base. Do this (see Raiders) and return, Wallace will give you a Day Pass.
• Talk to Wallace wearing only your vault suit, or the Bridgekeeper's Robes, and he'll slap a Day Pass on you faster than a gecko on Jet. This happens automatically if you talk to him with IN<4.
• Tell Wallace you're a trader. If you have any (Golden) Gecko Pelts, (Refined) Uranium Ore or a Gold Nugget in your inventory you can show them to him, or if you have any humanoid party members other than Cassidy you can simply claim you're about to sell them into slavery. You can then fork out $500 for a Day Pass.
• Pickpocket Wallace for a Day Pass.
• If you know of the Jet problem in Redding, ask Wallace about Redding and say you know why the shipments have slowed. He'll give you a Day Pass.
• Talk to Skeev and buy False Citizenship Papers off him for $200 ($150 with Barter 50%), then threaten to expose him and he'll give you $300 back! This is by far the best option. You can turn him in to Wallace, but this requires giving up your False Citizenship Papers (with Speech 75% you can ask for a Day Pass in exchange).
• Talk to Skeev with an IN<4 character and you'll end up inside the vault as a "servant" (but you'll be able to leave without anyone reacting).
• If you destroyed the Enclave you'll be allowed to enter, even if you were previously banned.

The reason Wallace will see your vault suit under the Bridgekeeper's Robes is simply that the game forgets to check for it when determining if the character is "naked". This bug affects some dialogues slightly - Lynette and the President, to name a couple - but only has any real effect on Wallace and Dogmeat.

As pointed out by Jaroslaw Zablotowicz, once you show the False Citizenship Papers to the gate guards and Randal you have no further need of them, even if you hand the papers over to Wallace.

Marcus and/or Lenny will not be allowed to enter the inner city unless you're Captain of the Guard. Incidentally, the guard's objections to them have been mixed up. Should you bring either of them inside anyway people will turn hostile, which is bad. Goris fits in just fine, apparently on account of his inconspicuous cloak.

IN<4: There are many people downtown who'll get you permanently banished from Vault City if you talk to them and wait for them to call the guards, such as Lydia, Dr Troy, Lynette (even if you wear only the vault suit, though the conversation is different) and McClure. The "Shamble off" option should always get you safely out of a conversation, though sometimes you can only choose between being thrown out or resisting. If you've had previous non-stupid dealings with them they may either treat you like any stupid character, or they may present you with no valid dialogue options, or they may just leave you be (Lydia will not call the guards on true citizens, for instance). There's a dialogue glitch when you talk to the gate guards for the first time: if you get two identical lines, the first leads to combat and the second ends dialogue.

If you kill any of the three shopkeepers here you don't get their goods. Also you cannot use the barter button to trade with Randal before you get permission to do so.

If you press the barter button instead of asking Randal to trade you'll have to pay a more expensive rate, because you miss out on the barter modifier (he's one of several shopkeepers in the game who work that way). The Sub-amenities shops will offer you lower prices if you're not a citizen. The reason for this is that the person who coded Vault City and New Reno apparently thought the signs of barter modifiers worked the other way around (which also means Randal's stuff was not really supposed to be cheap).

In v1.0 the Sub-amenities shopkeepers kept their wares in containers in the shops and if you had decent Steal you could loot them clean, though failing a check would net you first a warning and then banishment - even if the shopkeepers were invisible at the time!

IN<4: Talking to Barkus in the Servant Allocation Center gets you inside the vault. You can leave any time you want to, and also talk to Barkus again at any time to get back in.

With PE 9 and IN 9 you can find a "hidden" conversation path if you ask Barkus where the servants come from... whee, or something.

If you become Captain of the Guard and talk to Stark with Cassidy in your party, you can order him to pardon Cassidy and pay him restitution. This will earn you $500 and 500 measly xp. If you're wondering how to become Captain this is described in the NCR section, quest 3.

After you become Captain you can also loot some containers that you couldn't before. The four buildings where you can do this are the Corrections Center, the small building opposite, the small building closest to the exit grid in the council area, and the Customs Office. You will notice that these containers are all watched by officials or guards in metal armour; regular citizens will not let you take their stuff.

There's a cheat you can use to enter the vault without citizenship. Move up close to the opening, enter combat mode and run onto the exit grid. It doesn't piss off the guards, either. "Hello Mr Evil Spy Marauder, no way you'll get past us, oh, except if you come barging like a homicidal maniac."

• LK 1: Alcohol Lowered hit points II (HP -4)
• LK 2: Alcohol Lowered hit points (HP -2)
• LK 9: Alcohol Raised hit points (HP +2)
• LK 10: Alcohol Raised hit points II (HP +4)

If you become Captain of the Guard, you can bring Lenny and Marcus here without Dr Troy entering combat mode. If you let him heal Marcus, you end up with some extra ammo: 20 7.62mm, 50 5mm JHP, 20 9mm ball, 24 10mm JHP, 10 .45 caliber, 40 .44 Magnum JHP, 40 .44 magnum FMJ and 50 .233 FMJ! Be careful not to talk to Lynette with either of them in your party, though... she'll throw you out of Vault City for good.

• Convince Phyllis to see the outside world (choose the "similarity of citizens" path): 300 xp.
• With Doctor 75% and PE 6 you can get Phyllis to talk to the doctor about potential sterility in Vault City (choose the "no children" path) for 300 xp.
• Male characters only can date her for 100 xp if they have CH 6 and one of the following: Sex Appeal, Kama Sutra Master, CH 9 or Speech 75%.
• Male characters only can donate a sperm sample in the no children thread. With IN 4 you get 50 xp, with IN 5-6 you get 250 xp, and with IN>6 you get 500 xp. If you ask for a magazine you get a Cat's Paw Magazine!

Generally you need a certain Science proficiency (51% here, though Doctor 76% will do as well) to use computers. Also if you don't have IN 4 you usually can't use them no matter how high your Science skill. Computers that can be used for something are almost always called something other than "computer" when you move the mouse pointer over them, like in this case "Vault City medical terminal", but there are exceptions.

If you got the clue from the Magic 8-Ball (see New Reno), use the computer nearest to the entrance to gain 2 Stimpaks and 1 Super Stimpak.

If you've entered the vault illegally or by being stupid you may want to stay away from the armoury, since there's a bug that can trap you in there forever. This is the door that Martin is keeping an eye on, so if you try to open it, he'll "stop" you by entering combat mode. (He won't attack, but your NPCs may attack him!) To enter the room anyway, toggle Sneak mode, pick the door and open it, but oddly you cannot use the same method to get out. You can't get party members to open the door, either - they just pass through it like ghosts. Killing Martin or scaring him away does not help, since the actual bug is that the door checks if it sees you, not if Martin sees you. There are two ways to avoid this. One is simply being a citizen (which you'd normally be if you're inside the vault), in which case Martin won't stop you opening the door. Also if he's on level 2 it will be OK. The armoury contains some guns (free 10mm SMG), grenades and ammo, but nothing important.

IN<4: Reaching into the computer will give you an electric shock and damage depending on your current Hit Points (it will never kill you, even if you're at 1 HP). Apparently this was also supposed to raise your Damage Resistance to electrical damage, but it doesn't. As long as you open the computer (you don't have to get shocked) you can get the travel log without the PE requirement.

1. Deliver Moore's briefcase to Mr. Bishop in New Reno.
   
   Thomas Moore stands in the inner city preaching. If you play along, and providing Bishop is not dead, Moore will give you a briefcase to deliver to New Reno (which shows up on the map). If you happen to piss him off in conversation, you can always mollify him again unless you're a Slaver. Just don't ask him for payment or threaten to turn him in, or he'll put a note in the briefcase telling Bishop to kill you on arrival... which is bad. You get 500 xp and $250 for a successful delivery. Note that you must take this quest if you want to do missions for Bishop later.

   After you've made the delivery and learned Moore is an NCR agent, you can turn him in to Lynette for 500 xp. I see no problem with this since Moore is a fanatic, you don't lose any karma, and Bishop doesn't care. Just don't mention brahmin maulings or you won't be welcome in Vault City for much longer. If you're not a citizen you can only do this when you show Lynette Bishop's Holodisk.

   From the Fallout Bible: "Two Super Stimpaks should appear in Bishop's inventory after you deliver the right case." They do, too!

   Slavers can actually get this quest providing they have CH 9 or Speech 96%.

2. Get a plow for Mr. Smith.
   
   Smith lives in a tent in the north part of the Courtyard. He needs a plow which Harry is selling. Simply buy the plow for Smith ($800, $600 with Barter 51%) and he'll repay you with 250 xp, a Desert Eagle .44 and 20 .44 Magnum JHP. You can ask $150 from Smith in advance, but then you don't get the other reward so you can figure how good that is.
   
   
3. Deliver a sample of jet to Dr. Troy.
   
   Getting this quest is a little tricky. First you must have Doctor 75% so that you qualify for the medical tour. There are now two non-obvious dialogue paths that lead to this quest. Tell him that you're something of a doctor, and when he offers the tour, either try to leave conversation directly, or else take the tour, but directly afterwards leave conversation. (You can always take the tour later, but there's no reason not to do it right away.) In either case he'll stop you and ask if you, being an outsider, could do him a special service, namely smuggle some Jet into the vault (see quest 7 for details on how to do that). Give it to him for $1000 but no xp. If you have Jet in your inventory when you get the quest, you can ask $1200 for it with Barter 75%, or $1500 with Barter 95%; doing this will also provide you with an extra (inconsequential) line if you have Chem Reliant or are addicted to Jet. Anyway, if you return three months later he'll have churned out two doses of Jet Antidote for you, which you should take to Doc Johnson in Redding; see that section for the rest.
   
   The time needed for the doctor to produce the antidote on his own can be shortened to one month if you've talked to Myron about Jet production; when handing over the Jet, start the dialogue thread that begins "you don't want to inhale that crap". If you have Myron with you at this point the two of them will compare notes, but it's not necessary. For this you get 750 xp. However, you cannot get these xp if you have the New Reno quest active, so you should first do this and then talk to Myron to get the New Reno quest before Dr Troy can make an antidote to maximize your xp.

   If you tell Dr Troy you're Captain of the Guard he sensibly won't ask you to smuggle Jet for him.

   There's also an unlikely way to get only 500 xp and shorten the time needed to make the antidote to two months. For this you must talk to Myron about Jet before he joins you, and leave dialogue once he says "And that's all yer ever gonna learn" (you need some IN and Science to get there). Then go to Troy and hand him the Jet without having Myron in your party.

   Instead of taking the quest, you can blackmail Troy for $500 each month ($1000 with Barter 75%, if you press him for more he'll call the guards). If you do, don't ever go to him for medical treatment or you'll get hit for 6999 Hit Points or so... but you also get some really funny dialogue. :) If you don't like him much you can turn him in to Lynette and he'll be removed from Vault City (you must be a citizen or Lynette will remove you instead). You can't talk to Phyllis any more if you do this.

   You won't get this quest if you've already told him about the endorphin blockers after talking to Myron, so do all this in the right order, OK? In case you're not sure which that is, see quest 7 in New Reno.

   In v1.0 you would always be offered this quest after leaving dialogue with Dr Troy for the first time. It was supposed to be like that in the updated script as well, but a little bug snuck in (gasp).

   The Jet Antidote is slightly bugged. Firstly, if you are addicted to Jet when you use it, you don't lose the dose. Secondly, you can use it to raise your stats permanently, although this is a pointless kind of cheating. In any case here's one way of doing it which works for me most of the time. All you need is a supply of Jet and one Jet Antidote. Step 1: use 2 or more Jet, making sure you get addicted, then 1 Jet Antidote. Step 2: rest for 24 hours (the game will exit from the Pipboy automatically). Step 3: repeat step 1. Step 4: rest for a few days, then check your stats. For every repetition of the cycle after the first, your ST and PE should go up by 1 and your AP by 1 or 2. Fun, eh?

4. Solve the Gecko powerplant problem.
   
   Talk to Lynette about becoming a citizen, until she mentions you could become a citizen by doing Vault City a special favour. Continued in the Gecko section, quest 1. If you return and tell Lynette you destroyed the plant, she won't be happy; if you mention anything about a reward, she'll even ban you from VC forever (she likes doing that). If you tell her you fixed the plant, she won't be happy either, and again will throw you out of town if you talk back to her. If you tell her you took care of the problem but don't mention fixing the plant, she's OK with it, but you don't get any kind of reward. Talk to McClure instead once you fix the plant and he'll make you a citizen of Vault City. Now you can go and tease Lynette. :)

   It doesn't matter if you pick the line about Lynette blocking your citizenship or not before going to get the Hy-Mag. McClure will always make you a citizen once you fix the reactor. Of course, that won't stop Lynette from tossing you out for any of the reasons she usually would.

5. Deliver Lynette's holodisk to Westin in NCR.
   
   If you've killed the raiders and bring Bishop's Holodisk from New Reno to Lynette, you get 2500 xp and this quest. NCR will appear on the map if it wasn't there already. Pretty straightforward; see NCR for details on how to reach Westin. Giving the disk to him reaps you 2000 xp. If you return without the Westin Holodisk you get $1000, otherwise you "only" get the reward for that quest but no money.

   If Westin is dead when you deliver Bishop's Holodisk, you logically don't get this quest, but you do get the 2500 xp, as well as $500 if you don't ask for a reward.

6. Rescue Amanda's husband, Joshua.
   
   Amanda lives in the eastern corner of the Courtyard. Joshua is in the Servant Allocation Center in the inner city. If you talk to Barkus you can arrange Joshua's release in one of several ways:
   
   
   • Offer a bribe (from $250 to $1000 depending on your Barter skill).
   • Make something up about a mysterious disease which Joshua has contracted (Speech 80% or Doctor 75%).
   • If you're a citizen, you can tell Barkus Joshua is a bad influence on the other servants or that he may be infected (Speech 75%).
   • If you're Captain you can just order his release.
   
   In either case you get 500 xp if you set him free. Go to his tent in the Courtyard and talk to his wife for an added reward of $32.

   You won't get the quest if you're a Slaver or a Childkiller or if your karma is less than 0.

   After you collect the reward, Joshua and his family will leave once you exit the map, so make sure you get the Wrench from Curtis first.

   If you're male you can ask Amanda for sex as payment instead of money. Sorta cruel.

7. Deliver beer and booze (10 each) to Lydia.
   
   Lydia the bartender complains there is no real booze to be had (if you broach the topic, at any rate), and asks you to smuggle 10 Beer and 10 Booze, which you should easily have been able to accumulate (if you knew this quest was coming, anyway), into the city. This can be accomplished easily by either a) being a citizen, b) being in possession of False Citizenship Papers, c) dropping the booze before being searched and then picking them up after the gate opens, or d) putting the stuff on your party members as you're entering the city, as they are apparently above suspicion. Those guards are kinda dumb. Your reward is $300 and 250 xp. By the way, Lydia can put Gecko, Broken Hills, Redding and New Reno on your world map.
   
   
8. Deliver pliers (tools) and a wrench to Valerie.
   
   Valerie in the Maintenance building will complain that the Super Tool Kit she ordered hasn't arrived yet. Simply give her a Tool (if you didn't bring one from Klamath or the Den, one of the Amenities shops carries it) and the Wrench from before for $50 and 250 xp. Wait one day (a good window to do quest 9 for Stark and enter Gecko for the first time) then return for your bonus reward, a brand new Super Tool Kit. The funny thing is, if you reload and don't give her the tools, the tool kits won't arrive at the same time they would have if you had... er, never mind. You can steal the extra 4 Super Tool Kits from Val if you're a greedy bastard (it doesn't appear to interfere with her ability to carry on with her job). She will now upgrade a few weapons for money, and cheaper than the competition (see table in the Items section). As with Andy you get a discount if you have CH 6 or Barter 75%. Getting a .44 Magnum (Speed Load) or Super Cattle Prod isn't too bad, but there's a free upgrade coming up in Gecko.

   If Vic is with you there'll be a long conversation between him and Valerie, who happens to be his daughter. When that's over with, talk to her again for the quest. After you bring her the tools you can talk to Val about Vic, and if you have CH 8 or Speech 75% you can tell her to give him a chance for 250 xp.

   If you're playing a game without children you obviously can't get the Wrench from Curtis. In this case there's a Wrench in one of the mine headquarters in Redding you can pick up without too much trouble, plus there's one in the vault if you have access to that (or use the combat mode trick). Another way is to try to find a ghoul caravan along the Gecko-Broken Hills trade route, since they carry Wrenches.

   If you're upgrading the Cattle Prod, don't ask for the discount! There's a bug which makes her return a normal Cattle Prod instead of the upgraded version. Just pay the full $750 and you'll get the real thing.

9. Scout the eight sectors around Gecko and return to Stark.
   
   Just run a circle around Gecko (which Stark puts on your world map) and return for $300 and 350 xp.
   
   
10. Enter NCR and return to Stark.
    
    Next he'll want you to go to NCR. Do this at the earliest convenience, and make sure to visit the Hubologist and get your Luck boost while you're there. Return for $500, 750 xp and a free Motion Sensor. Neato. Needless to say taking this quest puts NCR on your world map.

Gecko

"Apples rule. If it weren't for a conspiracy on the part of fruit manufacturers we'd all have apples."
--Wooz

Well, it was a little more dangerous in v1.0 because of a bug that would make some ghouls attack you unprovoked, ruining your chances of finishing quests in Gecko. Jeremy Lowe: "There are three (in my experience) who do this: one of the ghouls in the first shack on the right as you enter the junkyard; a ghoul lurking behind the Harp bar (makes it very tricky to get into the plant); and a ghoul guard in the power plant - he's the one in the long corridor beside the entrance to the reactor core proper." Tim Weber chips in: "I don't know about the first two ghouls, but the last one, near the reactor core, will always attack me whenever I contact the Enclave on the computer. Other than that he just leaves me alone. (Unless of course I cause a meltdown, but that's hardly surprising.)" When I tested it myself the two nameless glowing ones in the reactor building would enter combat, and also the guard in the long corridor if I did the Enclave thing. The bug is caused by incorrect variable assignment, so there's no telling what will set off any particular ghoul.

For some funny comments, try to Sneak past some ghouls in the plant.

If you press barter instead of asking Percy to barter in dialogue you'll have to pay "normal" prices for his stuff.

Skeeter is afflicted with the same bug as Eldridge in New Reno, so that if you have Barter 91% or more he'll do upgrades for free.

1. Solve the Gecko powerplant problem.
   
   Talk to Harold to get this quest in Gecko. (No matter if you get it here or in VC it pops up for both towns in your Pipboy.) First off, the evil way of finishing this, which includes blowing up the power plant. There are three ways to do this, all of which require you to go to the room next to the reactor room:
   
   
   • Firstly, the way of the robot. Access the computer and initialize it using the codes containing the letters A, B and C in that order. Next you'll have to figure out how to operate the robot. Choose the coolant maintenance sequence, read the instructions on how to operate the robot, then enter a program. If you don't want to use trial and error, the correct sequence corresponds to the order of the planets starting with the outmost and going inwards... and if that doesn't mean anything to you, examine the machinery around the rim of the reactor and direct the robot to each one in turn. Then add the command to shut the coolant valve. Once the robot accomplishes this, you get 550 xp and turn all the ghouls in the plant hostile!
   • Next, the way of the seriously radiated. Instead of using the robot you could walk over to the valve and shut it yourself, but you and any party members take 10 damage for each few steps you take in the reactor room. You need to use the valve three times to shut it (with a ST check for each attempt), after which you'll take 15 damage instead. Not really recommended... and taking Rad-X will not alleviate the damage, only protect you from being permanently radiated. Plus you get no xp.
   • Finally, the way of the devious is to simply hand the Clipboard with the coolant report to Hank, and the dumbass will do your work for you. Plus, you can get the hell out of there while he lumbers over to the coolant valve. You get 550 xp for this also.

   While you're fiddling with the computer, there's a great sequence which is rather easy to miss. Choose the option to "Initiate general maintenance sequence", and try to download the code (you need Science 50% for this). Enter the codes with the letters X, Y and Z in that order, then choose "List other stations" and "More". Choose any of the first two dialogue options, and look... a talking head! You can have a great time chatting with this dude, but it doesn't actually do anything (i.e. no gunships show up with gatlings blazing or anything).

   After you've started the meltdown, you and your party members (except Lenny) will take hits from radiation as you battle your way out (unless you managed to run out while Hank or the robot was going to the valve). There's no time limit; you can actually stay for as long as you want, providing you can handle the damage and radiation. You get another 2500 xp when you leave the reactor, which is now impossible to re-enter (it's not as if you'd want to). Ghouls in the town outside will only attack if you talk to them, and named ghouls like Skeeter, Harold or Wooz don't turn hostile at all - unless you start fighting other ghouls nearby. 24 hours afterwards everyone in Gecko will be gone, including Lenny if he was there but not in your party (taking with him any equipment he was carrying), but excepting Lumpy and the dogs in the junkyard. Congratulations, you are evil.

   If you leave the map while Hank is going to the valve, the plant is destroyed but you don't get the extra 550 xp. This also happens if you enter the robot commands in the order 2, 4, 1, 5, 3 (note that this is the wrong order, it's a bug) and send the robot on its way, even though it never reaches the valve.

   If instead you want to do good, then you'll have learned from Harold that all the reactor needs is a good hydrospheratic magnulator or something of the like. Return to Vault City... but don't tell Lynette the good news, or she'll ban you from VC forever (did I mention she likes doing that?). Instead talk to McClure and he'll tell you to get the hydramagolator from Randal in the Amenities shop. If you have the Gecko Holodisk you'll be giving it to McClure at this time (see quest 2 below). Go to Randal and pick up the part (animated picture, cool). Once you get back to the Gecko plant there are again three ways of installing the part:
   
   
   • Run like heck through the reactor room, taking 10 damage every few steps, use the part on the machinery with the red wheel (Repair check) for 4000 xp, then run like heck out of there. This is still kinda dumb.
   • Talk to Festus. He's dubious, so you must make a Speech check to get him to install the part for 4250 xp.
   • Go through the robot procedure, same program as before except the last step is installing the part instead of shutting off the coolant valve. 4500 xp for this.

   As above you can enter the commands in the incorrect order 2, 4, 1, 5, 3 and then leave the plant to fix it for 4000 xp, providing the robot has the part. No point in this, of course, but this is the nearly ultimate guide so there you have it.

   If you fiddled with the robot controls before getting the Hydroelectric Part, you must choose "Back" and "Initiate Repair Sequence" for the part to be transferred to the robot.

   Note that after you've gone through all that trouble to fix the plant, you can still use the robot or manual way of turning off the coolant valve for 550 more xp (if you used the robot) and 2500 xp for blowing up the plant. Similarly you can sabotage the plant and then use the Hydroelectric Part for 4000 xp (manual) or 4500 xp (robot) before the plant blows up.

   From Sebastian Cassten: "If you let Festus install the Hydroelectric Part for you and use the barter trick to keep it, you can afterwards do the 'running way' and get 4000 xp more." If the plant is already optimized when you do this, it will be un-optimized and you'll be able to do that entire quest all over again.

   Leaving the power plant while the robot is still walking can cause it to get stuck. In this case you can go into the reactor and steal the part from the robot, or kill it, and do the repairing yourself.

   Go to Harold after fixing the plant, ask him what he does and tell him of your ancestor. He'll give you 3 Super Stimpaks and 5 Stimpaks. You can only access this thread once, so make sure you follow the conversation right up to the end. Also if you ever got into Lenny's thread about the G.E.C.K. ("Vault 13 owes us one") then you won't get the Stimpaks, because the same variable is used to determine if you've been through either thread.

2. Optimize the powerplant.
   
   Obviously you can only finish this is if you installed the part instead of shutting down the reactor. After you've fixed the reactor, talk to Festus again and he'll give you a Reactor Holodisk to take to the Vault City central computer. Since you fixed the plant McClure will make you a citizen, so you'll have access to the vault. If you talk to McClure about optimizing the reactor before telling him you repaired it, he'll have the data optimized for you, saving you the trip into the vault. In any case, return to Festus with the optimized disk and use it on the reactor computer for 2500 more xp.
   
   There's another way you can go about this for a few more xp. In the junkyard, go down the manhole in the shack to the left of the abandoned reactor building and you'll find a few access tunnels guarded by ghouls. There's a tough ghoul named Zomak standing by the entrance to the cave, who has some stuff for thieves to steal. In the back of the cave you find The Brain, a mutated mole rat who plans to take over the world. Sound familiar? Just go along with whatever he says and he'll give you a Talisman (which doesn't do anything) and tell you to talk to Gordon about optimization data. This tunnel crawl isn't strictly necessary since Gordon will give you the Gecko Holodisk even if you don't speak to the rat at all, providing you talk to him before you repair the reactor (or after you optimize it, but then you'd have scant use for the disk).

   If you carry any Cheezy Poofs in your inventory, the rat won't talk to you until you've given him all of them to eat. If you refuse to part with them, he'll attack. If you've killed Keeng Ra'at, The Brain will muse upon the passing of his "sole remaining kin" the first time you initiate dialogue.

   Anyway, when you talk to Gordon he'll do Gordon Gekko's routine from Wall Street, and you can agree to bring the aforementioned disk to someone in Vault City. McClure is the obvious choice here; you get 750 xp for handing it to him. You can go to The Brain after all this is done but he has nothing useful to say. Gordon will give you another holodisk after you talk to the Brain if you got the first one without having done so.

   If you talk to McClure about the Gecko Holodisk after you fix the plant but before you talk to Festus about optimization, you end up not giving the disk to McClure. You must then get the Reactor Holodisk from Festus before you can make another attempt. Note that you'll miss out on the 750 xp if you optimize the data before giving the Gecko Holodisk to McClure (for a non-citizen, carrying the Gecko Holodisk when you hand him the Reactor Holodisk is enough).

   If you got two Gecko Holodisks from Gordon (bug), you can give both of them to McClure (also bug). If you're not a citizen, you have to give the first one to him when you tell him about the needed part, and the second when you give him the Reactor Holodisk. The other way is to show him a Gecko Holodisk after fixing the plant and becoming a citizen, but before getting the Reactor Holodisk from Festus. After you get the Reactor Holodisk, McClure will take both Gecko Holodisks off your hands. (In fact, at this point you can exploit the Bag bug and hand him any number of disks.) Just don't keep both in your inventory when you hand him the first one, since he'll take all you have.

   In v1.0 you can complete this quest by taking the Reactor Holodisk straight to the terminal without bothering to analyse the data.

   If you optimize the plant you sort of condemn the ghouls... since then you get the bad ending for Gecko, where VC annex them to gain full control of the power plant. To get the "neutral" ending, fix but don't optimize the plant. See Endings for more details.

3. Get super repair kit for Skeeter.
   
   Ask Skeeter in the junkyard about car parts, and he'll trade you a Fuel Cell Controller (the thing needed to run the car in the Den) for a Super Tool Kit. Normally you'll have the one Valerie gave you, or Smitty in the Den may have one to barter (40% chance every time he restocks, actually). If you already have the kit he asks you for it right away. 250 xp is in this. If you kill him the part will appear on his body and the other ghouls won't care.

   Before the patch, you could steal the car part from Skeeter, but then again, before the patch you could get the car without the Controller, as well.

4. Get 3-step plasma transformer for Skeeter.
   
   Skeeter will ask for this when you bring him the Tool Kit, if at the time you are carrying at least one weapon that he can upgrade. Jeremy in the reactor has the part in question. Steal it from him, or give him a Part Requisition Form. The latter can be found in Harold's house and on Festus. If you ask Festus for it, you can make up any of four excuses and get it if you pass a Speech check or if he likes you; you can also steal it off him, if you like that better... or barter for it. Whatever. Return to Skeeter and he'll give you 350 xp and a free weapon upgrade, which means you should get the .44 Magnum (Speed Load). Yum! If you don't want to wait for Skeeter to give you the quest, just bring the part to him (you can get it from Jeremy without having the quest active).

   You can actually steal the part and then get one more for each Requisition Form... and Skeeter will perform one free upgrade for each one. You even get the 350 xp each time. Well, why not go for a Scoped Hunting Rifle? Note that you have to give him something to upgrade before you can get another reward.

5. Find Woody the ghoul for Percy. Try the Den.
   
   Go to the Den (Percy puts it on your map, though I've a feeling you've been there) and pay the Great Ananias $25 to see the mummy. Turns out it's Woody. Wake him up and watch him run for 1000 xp. Return to Percy for your reward of 4 RadAway and 3 Rad-X. Not that you will ever find a use for those in this game...

Raiders

"Wish I had some other map I could go to."
--Mercenary

If you finish the game and wonder why there's an unused button on the world map screen, it's supposed to be the Raiders button. Before the patch it did show up, but mislabelled "Arroyo". It seems they didn't quite manage to fix it.

Notice how the raider base as well as Broken Hills happen to be on a beeline between Vault City and NCR, in approximately the same way that Modoc is on a beeline between the Den and Vault City, Redding is on a beeline from the Den to New Reno, and Shady Sands was on a beeline between Vault 13 and Vault 15 in Fallout...?

If you go down the manhole and back up again, your car will be gone, but don't worry. Just leave the area, access the town map and go to the cliff, and the car will be there. This is one of several bugs that the patch readme file claims were fixed but which weren't.

Fighting the raiders will be a lot easier if you approach from the well. Just show yourself in the narrow opening to the main room, and they'll come running for you. Run back behind the nearest corner, then forego your turn repeatedly. Cassidy or someone can stand there shooting them to bits at point blank range with a Combat Shotgun, while they ignore him and pile up in the narrow passage trying to reach you; this also works to some extent for an HtH party. If you approach from behind the fence you'll have a hard time keeping the raiders from sniping you with their FN FALs. However, if you have a Scoped Hunting Rifle and Small Guns 150% or so, feel free to snipe right back from where they can't get to you.

Although there have been rumours that you don't always have to fight the raiders, this is not true.

When you tell Lynette you found or wiped out the raiders, you can demand money for your information if you're a citizen: $100, $200, $400 or $500. This is pretty bad, though. Firstly, if your Barter skill is not up to what you ask, Lynette will have you expelled from the city and revoke your citizenship. Secondly, you can't ask on both occasions, so the most you can get out of it is $500. Thirdly, if you do this she won't give you the usual reward of $1000 (and 1000 xp) when you destroy the raiders. Well, this somehow seems like familiar CRPG behaviour.

A rumour says that it was originally meant to be much harder to find the raider camp, which makes a lot of sense given how Stark talks about it being nigh on impossible. Supposedly you'd either have to find Bishop's map, or perform a quest involving this tribal guide somehow. Designer Chris Avellone has said that you were supposed to be able to talk Shadow-Who-Walks out of helping the raiders and thus "break their strength" (see below) without having to fight them.

IN<4: You can only open the safe by repeatedly "twisting its nose" (LK 9). You can't disarm the trap, but you can set it off by dropping some explosives of your own next to it.

If you left any raiders alive in the base when you get the 2000 xp, they die and you don't get any xp for them (though you can loot their corpses), so make sure you finish them all off before leaving the map. This includes Shadow-Who-Walks. Maybe they get so angry they have a collective aneurysm.

If you have Bishop's Holodisk you can't show it to Lynette until after you give her the Account Book. Importantly, if you have both the book and the disk in your inventory when you report back to Lynette, you miss out on the reward for finding the Account Book and skip directly to Vault City quest 5. So drop the Holodisk first.

Broken Hills

"Sometimes I feel like a magic 8-ball. I just spout random sayings and walk away."
--Broken Hills resident

If when you ask Liz about the stash you choose the "it's all over town" line, you'll get stuck in dialogue mode. This is a serious bug that happens because the script tries to start a fight when you're still in dialogue. You can press 1 and Esc to exit, but you'll have to shut down the game entirely before you can play normally again. This also happens if you tell her "You" when she asks what you had in mind to kill, or if you fail a Speech check after giving her the "reliable source" line (save often!).

Liz restocks every 2-4 days, while Bill, Jacob and Holliday all restock every 3 days. For the latter three, prices will be significantly lower (50% in the case of Bill and the doctor) if you ask them to barter in dialogue instead of hitting the barter button. John L. Hunter points out that Liz's table restocks even after she is killed, though you still need Steal 25-30% to access it.

IN<4: Every time you trade with Liz, she takes a tenth of your money afterwards and calls it a "service charge". How's that for charity? Jacob only takes a small "tip". You need IN 2 to ask them to trade, but even if you have IN 1 you can get around this simply by pressing the barter button, which also circumvents the service charge. This means you have to pay their expensive rate, of course, but a stupid character wouldn't get Jacob's cheap rate anyway.

IN<4: You only get to shovel crap once (need IN 2 for this), so you don't get the perk.

If you have the car you won't be able to ask for party healing if you only have one NPC, but if you get the free healing he'll heal everyone anyway.

IN<4: Each time you pay for healing it costs $100 but you don't get healed, which is probably a bug (or is this old man really... evil?).

Only two containers on the western map have anything in them (except for the hidden footlockers, see below): one bookcase in Marcus' house which holds a Rubber Doll, and the small pot outside the house on the top right which holds a Cat's Paw. (Obviously these are for Typhon, along with the Rotgut from the bar.) The containers on the eastern Broken Hills map are all empty - the only item lying around is the Fuzzy Painting in Eric's house. Lazy, lazy level designers!

On the subject of "cheating within the workings of the game"... By the exit grid where you arrive in town, position your character between the exit and the the fence to the north, on the hex which is half offscreen. Then click on the other side of the fence and you'll end up there. Now, in the upper left corner of the map you'll find a few footlockers whose contents you can grab if you want to. They contain, from left to right: nothing, Jacob's stock, Holliday's stock and Bill's stock. All of them reset to full every three days, too, even Jacob's after you put him in jail. If the exit grid causes you trouble, instead go directly south, then work your way past the brahmin pen and the houses by clicking on the ground further away on the map. This way you can skirt around the map on the "outside" to reach the footlockers, even bypassing the exit grid on the right. The empty box is actually used for temporarily storing a shopkeeper's usual inventory while you're trading with them. As pointed out by John L. Hunter, you can stuff armed explosives into this box, then run quickly back and talk to a shopkeeper; after you leave dialogue they'll carry the explosives. Could be of interest if you want to try a really crazy assassination technique.

IN<4: The first time you pass the Agility test the Professor will give you a packet of Mentats. Actually he carries a ton.

If you don't kill the scorpion you might want to steal the Spectacles off it. You can even steal its tail! If you want to hear it talk, get caught stealing from it.

There's an infinite experience bug here... if Stodgers is prevented from leaving the map, you can save and reload, and you'll be able to talk to him again with the same outcome. Saving will make him stop if he's running, as will entering combat mode. Placing an NPC in the narrow passage will ensure that Stodgers can't get anywhere at all, so that you can repeat this as many times as you like. Telling NPCs to wait means they won't take damage from the gas, but also that they won't level up with you if you take advantage of the bug.

There's an infinite money bug here... if you take the extra $500, you can talk to the ghoul over and over again, choosing the same line and gaining $1500 each time. Once you're satisfied, either keep the ore or give it to him (though you can't get any more xp). Real Fallout 2 players don't take advantage of poor stupid ghouls in this way.

Some random encounter merchants in the Broken Hills area carry Uranium Ore, so it's possible to do the refining bit without finding Chuck Stodgers in the mine.

1. Fix the mine's air purifier.
   
   Go to Zaius in the building next to the mine entrance, agree to go get the spare parts and fix the purifier. If you ask for money you can get anything from $500 to $1000 depending on your bartering skills (you need to leave and re-enter dialogue at least once to get the last increment, which requires well over Barter 100%); you get half of it right away. Next you'll have to go to New Reno (which appears on your map) and get the Mine Parts from Renesco, which is very straightforward (except that you may have to deal with car thieves, see the New Reno section, quest 2). Note that if you ask Zaius for money he won't tell you the password to get the parts for free!
   
   Once you have the parts, return to the mine and head into it - leaving behind any party members who can't soak up about 30-50 damage without croaking. You need to use the Mine Parts on the purifier at the top of the map, so as the tunnels branch, go right, left, then left again, and you should be on the right track. As you run, you and all organic, non-canine party members plus the Robodog will occasionally take 10-15 damage, but unless you're all wimps it shouldn't be a problem, and it stops once you use the parts on the purifier (1500 xp). You can now kill off the vermin and even a deathclaw if you want to. Return outside for a reward from Zaius; if you asked for money you get the remaining half, if not you get a Combat Shotgun which is worth more.

   There is one way to avoid damage from the radon gas in the mine - wearing any kind of Power Armor, although you probably won't have it at this point. Several other kinds of protection have been said to do the trick, including having the Dermal Impact Armor, carrying or using the Oxygen Tank, running through the mine in combat mode, and having the Toughness perk. These do not work; staying in combat mode in fact means you'll take more damage. After you read a number of Fallout 2 walkthroughs you get used to the idea that sometimes you'll be fed information which simply isn't true, speculation that at one point or another got written down as fact.

2. Find the missing people for Marcus.
   
   Talk to Marcus and ask him what's new. Better tell him you'll do this for free. Over in the east part of town, you may notice there are three entrances to the underground (outhouse behind Eric's, carpet two houses east of Eric's, and manhole in field). Go down, beat up the ants (or pick them off from a distance, because your NPCs will happily fire bursts of valuable ammo at the ants if they get the chance), and walk into the room with the mutilated bodies. You get 500 xp for this. (The bodies won't show up until you've actually got the quest.) If you examine the bodies you notice they've been shot, but it makes no difference if you do or not. Take the note from the severed female body and read it. Your character will say you'd better not tell Marcus about the note... and in fact, you can't. If you talk to Zaius he only sends you to Francis. Turns out Francis killed those people... in self-defence, he says. You'll have to let him go, for 1000 xp, because if you attack him the whole town comes to his aid. The next step is to tell Marcus about the bodies. You should put this off until you've done quests 4 and 5 though, because Marcus will put Jacob away if he hasn't already done so. If you asked for money before you get $500, else he hands you a Scoped Hunting Rifle which is worth more.
   
   
3. Beat Francis at arm wrestling.
   
   Francis is the super mutant in the bar. For you to have any realistic chance of beating him, your ST and EN should correspond to 9/9 or better (8/10 will work, though you may have to reload a lot). Taking two Buffout should do the trick. You need ST 8 just to take him on, and must be level 6 or higher. There's a random element, so save before trying. If you lose, you'll find yourself the not-so-proud owner of a Ball Gag. If you win, Francis gives you a Power Fist and you gain 350 xp. Make sure you do this before you confront him with the note in quest 2.

   IN<4: You need IN 2 to challenge Francis; the other requirements are the same.

   You can use 2 Buffout on Francis and wait 6 hours for his stats to drop, allowing you to beat him a little more easily (8/5 should be enough). The effect is smaller than if you use them on yourself, though, so this is for when you just can't get your own stats into range, or you live in fear of chem addiction. There's no point in saving after using the chems on him, since the game doesn't save such changes to critters and he'll be back to normal once you reload.

4. Break Manson and Franc out of prison.
   
   Talk to Jacob and don't tell him you like mutants (if you do you can't get this quest any more). You can go to Marcus right away and turn Jacob and Aileen in for 2500 xp... but that's unnecessary. Instead go to the jail, and make sure it's daytime and that you don't have a weapon ready, or the guards may shoot you on sight. There are basically three ways to solve the quest:
   
   
   • With IN 7 and CH 7 you can talk the guard into giving you the key.
   • You can kill the guards (beware that Minigun) without anyone else in town noticing and take the key.
   • Unlock the door using Lockpick, or obtain the key through stealing (quite difficult even with good Steal) or barter (it's worth $0) and use that. You have to wait until the guard walks to the far end of the room, since he will stop you if he sees you tampering with the door (Sneak helps), and attack if this happens two times separated by more than a few seconds. A trick once you've unlocked the door is to walk into one of the adjacent rooms and one of your party members will probably walk through the jail door for you, assuming you have any.
   
   Once the door is open you're teleported back to Jacob for 1500 xp. If you fought the guards or if you were given the key you don't have to free the prisoners to return to Jacob for the next quest, though you get no xp for this one until you return and open the door (but you can do this even after you turn Jacob in, in which case Franc and Manson end up in Jacob's house while Jacob remains in prison).

   Talk to Manson through the bars before talking to Jacob, ask him about Broken Hills and choose the long answer. You'll get 300 xp for "preaching open-mindedness to Manson". If you talk to Franc before getting this quest and tell him you hate mutants, he sends you to Jacob with a recommendation.

   Beware that if you choose the "Err... no, not really" line, the guard will turn hostile in about a minute, which could catch you a bit off guard.

5. Blow up the mine's air purifier.
   
   Jacob will give you this task after you complete quest 4. The objective is to bring the Explosive Switch to the mine purifier. Now's a good time to turn him in! Go to Marcus and tell him all about the evil plans and you gain 2500 xp. Jacob and his band will end up in the jail. The same thing happens if you tell Marcus where he can find the escaped convicts.
   
   If you want to go through with the plan, run into the mine (see quest 1 for details) and use the switch on the purifier. (Using the switch after you expose the conspiracy will just make it disappear.) You'll gain 1500 xp and be teleported outside the mine. Return to Jacob and he'll say you can go loot Liz' basement for a reward (works the same as if you hear about it from Phil). You'll notice there are no mutants left in town except for Elmo the drunk, and Bill closes down his store and offers no more jobs.
   
   
6. Divert more electrical power to Eric's home.
   
   Eric's in the east part of town. Agree to get him more power for his air conditioning. Go to the power station at the entrance to town, and either talk Brian into giving Eric additional power using Speech (you only get one shot at this dialogue path), or use Science on the computer to the left, and you get 1000 xp. If you manage a critical success on the computer you get 1500 xp instead for optimizing the power grid. If you fail critically you'll get shocked for 10-15 points of damage. Return to Eric for a reward of either $150, one dose of Buffout (you won't be offered this if you already beat Francis), or extra karma and the location of NCR. I'd take the Buffout.

   Need more Buffout to beat Francis at armwrestling? You can steal a lot more of it and some Mentats from Eric. And the $150. So maybe you should choose the karma reward instead. :)

Redding

"Why, I hear that tribals eat their damn dead."
"How else could we grok their essence?"
--Josh and the Chosen One

There's a bug here which actually goes for his next two quests as well (number 2 and 4 in the quest list): as long as you don't agree to take the next quest, Marion will give you whatever monetary reward you had coming every time you talk to him.

The sheriff gives you a badge, but it doesn't make any difference whether you bring it along or not. As far as the game is concerned you can dip it in chocolate and eat it the first thing you do. Also, if you're a Ranger when you come here, Marion will recognize you for such a one. (He doesn't if you talk to him after you do his quests.) This doesn't make any difference to anything, either.

This isn't very interesting, but you can kill Rooney, then use Sneak to talk to the sheriff (who will have turned hostile along with the rest of the town). He'll complain, but he'll give you your reward and tell you to get on with the next quest. Also you can go to Ascorti and get a funny dialogue out of it. Then load your previous save game, because sooner or later you'll have to fight everyone.

It seems reasonable to assume that it's an oversight that this does not have a quest entry in the Pipboy... as well as the business with Mayor Ascorti and the mine.

Jon Lynch: "In Redding, you can use the Doctor skill to heal the sheriff's broken leg, although he won't realize you did this and will still whine about it. Note that this will not work on the cook in Navarro."

You can actually kill all the wanamingos before buying the deed, and once you do Ascorti will immediately know the mine is cleared so you can sell it back.

It takes about Gambling 80% to break even at the slot machines, but if you win too much the machine will stop functioning for one day. To break even at the craps table you need about Gambling 110%. With 120% you'll win slowly but steadily; just weigh down the 5 key for a while. Any more than that and you can win tens of thousands of bucks in a short time, though it beats me why anyone would want to spend skill points on Gambling before the point where they'd get almost infinite cash from looting guns anyway. As pointed out by Misha, the skill check is easier at lower bets and you can win at Gambling 100% if you press down 1 instead, although it will take longer. Note that to use a slot machine you must stand to one side of it; the game doesn't seem to care that the person blocking the machine is you. In v1.0 you didn't get any money from winning.

Lou who owns the saloon won't talk to you if you've some non-human NPCs in your party (Lenny, Marcus, Robodog, Goris, Laddie or the Brain Bot (best brain only)), so you'll have to drop them off if you want to talk to her (which is usually only when you're doing quest 2).

• Dermal Impact Armor: $5000, 2 days.
• Dermal Impact Asslt. Enhance.: $30,000, 5 days, CH -1.
• Phoenix Armor Implants: $8000, 3 days.
• Phoenix Assault Enhancement: $30,000 (though he says and checks for $48,000), 6 days, CH -1.

If anyone in your party is hurt or you are radiated, the opening dialogue will look a little different and you won't get the option to ask about implants, so you'll have to let him treat you or treat yourself first.

• During each trip you'll face from zero to four encounters. The caravan leader will tell you if it's OK to move on ("Let's move out"). If it's a hostile encounter, you'll need to kill the bad guys (even if they don't initiate combat themselves).
• If you run off the map before the all-clear is given, this counts as abandoning the caravan and will put you on the world map. The caravan leader will effectively be dead, so you won't get any pay or more caravan jobs from him.
• You won't get to bring your car, and illogically the caravan path does not light up on the world map, although the specific squares where you have encounters do.
• If the caravan leader dies, he'll still be around invisibly to give the all-clear signal.
• If you steal from or attack caravan drivers or guards, the others won't care. Killing Stanwell, Wade or Savinelli turns Redding hostile, though.
• Sometimes you may have to run off an encounter map twice to make any progress.
• Beware the generally buggy behaviour of caravans. Things that can happen include the caravan "dissolving" on the world map although there was no obvious threat, and caravan leaders not being present on arrival or refusing to talk to you.

For the Redding caravans, if the caravan leader dies along the way but you still make it to your destination, a clerk should turn up (sometimes doesn't) and pay you a reduced wage or nothing at all. You can talk to him over and over again and get $50, $100 or $150 each time (he will only state the correct amount if it's $150). In any case there won't be any more caravans on that route.

If you run into New Reno mobsters, you must kill them to proceed with the caravan even though they count as good critters and aren't hostile. If you encounter a Den caravan, the slaves do not raise the "hostiles on map" counter when created, but decrease it when killed. Thus if you kill all of them (and it's hard to stop your fellow guards from doing so) the hostiles counter will actually drop below zero, which leads your caravan master not to realize that the encounter is over.

Some caravan encounters involve better weaponry than the corresponding world map encounters, notably claim jumpers, homesteaders and prospectors around Redding.

You should just about be able to take the wanamingos on if you've done everything described previously in this walkthrough and are at level 12 or so (with NPCs). Combat Shotguns rule, while a 10mm SMG does next to no damage to these armoured critters. If you're the sniping kind, shots to the eyes are effective at long range, while if they get too close (and it's hard to stop them) you should try to cripple their legs. Crippling any limb will make them flee, but going for the legs makes them worse at it.

Actually you have to kill all wanamingos but one to clear the mine. You don't have to kill the eggs, but why let them live so they can come after you?

There's a rather well hidden Metal Armor Mark II lying in the room northeast of the elevator. Look to the right of the broken crate.

If you enter the casino from the manhole, and then kill the guard behind the metal door quietly (using Super Stimpaks or planting explosives), you can loot the fridge and footlocker for several thousand Mine Scrips as well as the contents of the store, but not much more. Beware that if you let the guard see you and then leave, he'll shoot on sight when you return, so be prepared to off him as soon as you open the metal door.

1. Kill Frog Morton.
   
   Your fourth and final mission for Sheriff Marion. Morton's gang resides in the old Wanamingo Mine building to the west and only appears when you get this quest, along with some mines dotted among the ruins (15 in all). You might want to go to this map before that so you can pick off the rats at your leisure. Morton's gang will be heavily armed, but at level 10-12 you should be able to gun them down as they come pouring out of the building. There are also three men in the buildings to the south. You gain 3000 xp when the whole gang is dead, and $1000 from the sheriff. Marion then informs you that Froggy has three brothers who'll be coming after you, namely Snake, Toad and Newt Morton. You'll run across these on the world map, one by one, but, well, that's just more weapons and ammo for you.

   If a bandit spots a mine it is automatically disarmed, but the rats will set them off if they're still around.

   Frog's H&K G11 is a neat weapon at this point, problem is you probably won't have much ammo for it yet. Buster in NCR can sell you some, and there's a heap in the Toxic Caves. If you can kill Frog before he can attack, you'll have 100 rounds to use on the wanamingos.

   You can get to the area behind the large building if you go to the top of the screen, just left of the exit grid, then click on the ground on the other side of the fence (if you don't position your character correctly you might step on the exit grid trying to get there). There is nothing to see or pick up back there, however.

2. Find out who cut the whore.
   
   Marion's third task (for some reason they're numbered in reverse chronological order). Go to the Malamute saloon and talk to Lou for a clue: a Morningstar Mine scrip (though you don't actually get one). Well then, go to the Morningstar Mine and ask around. The offender, Obidiah Hakeswill, will confess to the crime as soon as you adress him, whereupon you can kill him ($500 from Marion but no quest xp), let him go (no xp and no money from the sheriff) or take him into custody (1250 xp and $500).

   There are two possible bugs here. Firstly, killing Hakeswill before you get the quest and returning to the sheriff will earn you the reward of $500 and an offer to do quest 1, meaning you can no longer get the first two jobs if you didn't already. Secondly, as found by Szappy, if you let Hakeswill go and then insult the sheriff, dialogue may revert to before you even got the first job, though this will have no actual effect.

3. Find the excavator chip.
   
   There are two chips to be found in the mine, both on the lowest level with the toughest wanamingos. You get one from the excavator, and there's another one found on the ground to the northeast, next to one of the manufacturing doohikeys. Sadly you can only sell one of them, so head over to either Dan McGrew or Marge LeBarge and sell it for $1000 and 2500 xp. Which of them you choose has no effect other than it may decide which ending you get for Redding.

   Basically, Dan supports New Reno and Marge supports NCR. It seems the designers couldn't quite make up their minds, though, as Jimmy Hoffa has them mixed up, and if you sell the chip to McGrew then LeBarge will go on about "those prissy NCR bastards" McGrew is in league with...

4. Break up the bar brawl.
   
   This is Sheriff Marion's second task for you. Head into the bar and talk to the two miners who are facing off. If you ask them to back down, they will, but nothing happens. Therefore you have to threaten them with some of the old ultra-violence and put one of them or both in jail (but don't provoke them into a fight, the whole town will turn against you). Except for what kind of comments the Sheriff and McGrew will give you, it doesn't matter one bit what you do. Your reward is 1500 xp and $300 from the sheriff.

   You cannot complete this quest by talking both parties out of a fight, you have to put someone in jail. The patch notes state that getting Bette to back down should set the quest to complete, but in actuality it only sets the quest variable to the same value that it would get if you ran out the door! (Getting Caminetto to back down does nothing in either version.) So essentially, all this "bugfix" did was make a lot of people think there's a way of finishing the quest properly without throwing anyone in jail, although there never was. I always arrest them both for fairness' sake. In case you really must know, Kokoweef is the "good" mine, but let's not judge a bar brawler by her employer, shall we?

   If you kill the miners and use Sneak to talk to the sheriff, you'll be rewarded with $150, and of course he'll want to kill you, too.

New Reno

"Watch out! Pink deathclaw, three o'clock!"
--New Reno junkie

For each family boss, there's a way to assassinate them (noted below) without getting blamed for it. Note that killing a boss "silently" (Super Stimpaks etc.; see the NCR section) or in these special ways will not remove your Made Man status, but attacking anyone in the family openly will.

If you have a family quest active when you turn that family hostile, the quest will be crossed out (set to failed) in your quest list. If you manage to talk to your employer without him attacking you may get some unexpected dialogue in this case (this happens, for instance, if you kill the guard who goes to check Bishop's safe and then talk to Bishop).

It's possible to be listed on your character sheet as Made Man for all four families at the same time, as outlined by Sébastien Caisse: "Once you've become a Made Man for a specific family, this family won't attack you any more. First you need to do all the possible quests for them, and not collect the final reward, and not assassinate Salvatore (until you're a Made Man for him). The trick is basically to sneak past everyone and collect your final reward by talking to the bosses before they engage in combat." Ryan P. Fialcowitz and Joshua Jansen then looked into the particulars and found there is another constraint: you must become Made Man for Bishop first, since Bishop's dialogue will change for the worse if you're already with some other family. This means that if you want all four you must end up allied with either the Wrights or the Mordinos. You will need to use a combination of Sneaking and running in combat mode to reach all bosses - saving a lot is recommended. Getting through the door to Salvatore is one of the tricky parts, but John Gaw points out: "If you talk to Mason while on good grounds, you can go into attack mode later and open the door with no problem whatsoever." Two more things should be noted. Firstly, despite what your character sheet says you will only be Made Man for one family at a time as far as the game is concerned, so there's no real reward for doing all this. Secondly, attacking the family you joined last will remove all Made Man labels from your list of reputations, but attacking any other family, including one you joined earlier, has no effect on them.

IN<4: You can pretty much forget about most things in New Reno, since you can't join any family (or do any other quest). Also you can't get Golgotha, Stables or the Sierra Army Depot on your world map.

If you're a Prizefighter, Porn Star, Slaver or Made Man and use Sneak in New Reno you may receive comments from its inhabitants that could lead you to believe it's harder to sneak in these cases; however, they don't change the actual probability of being detected.

• Oral attention: Strength.
• Basic, dirty sex (CH<6): Agility.
• Full body workout (CH>5): Agility.
• Just talk: Intelligence.
• "Special... dramatic... request" (IN>5): Strength.

The stat boost is actually imparted by an item that Miss Kitty tries to use on you or whichever NPC (would be ST in that case). Apparently most often something gets in her way and you don't get the bonus, though you can sometimes see her running a little bit and then returning to her position.

As pointed out by Gibbering Idiot, the "talk" option counts as having sex. The first time you choose this you gain a permanent +3% to Speech, or +2% if you've tagged that skill.

Because of a bug the special request option will always cost $703, even if you're a Made Man or if you finish the game.

Any character with at least CH 9 can ask Miss Kitty for a date, but you'll have to wait for it until you've finished the game, at which point the option will be open to all non-stupid characters.

If you bring Marcus for some "action" at the Cat's Paw and talk to him afterwards, he reveals that Mutants aren't actually sterile. So much for Vree's autopsy report. :) (Though Chris Avellone says super mutants are really sterile, which settles that I suppose.)

New Reno bartenders will charge you more if you're a Prizefighter, if you're a Made Man for their family, or if you finished the game, and you ask them to trade in dialogue. Drug dealers charge you more if you've finished the game, if you're a Prizefighter, if you're a Porn Star, or if you're a Made Man for any family, and you ask them to trade in dialogue. Drug dealers also correctly charge you more if you carry a lot of money (which in their eyes amounts to $200 or more), but you can still circumvent this by pressing the barter button.

If you plant more than one pair of dice on a casino dealer before talking to her, the dice will all disappear, and a dealer with no dice will tell you that her table has been closed down due to someone tampering with the dice. This is a remnant of an unimplemented feature where you could improve your chances by planting Loaded Dice (the dealers would originally have been equipped with normal ones).

If you got the correct clue from the Magic 8-Ball, use the toilet which brings up the hand icon to recover 1 Frag Grenade, 1 Plasma Grenade and 1 Pulse Grenade.

You may notice that Big Jesus' health isn't what it should be. Use a dose of Jet, Psycho, Buffout or (the cheapest option) Nuka-Cola on him; he'll have a heart attack, you get 1000 xp and can just walk out of there. Isn't it ironic? Unlike Boss Salvatore you don't get these extra xp if you kill Big Jesus in combat, so once you turn on the Mordino family this should be your first move.

If you're a Slaver you can sell some of your pardners to Big Jesus (Vic for $100, Cassidy for $100, Miria for $250, Davin for $200, Brain Bot (best brain only) for $500, Robodog for $500). To get this option you must either speak to Little Jesus about the subject, or ask Big Jesus about his health (Doctor 51% or Science 76%) or about Richard Wright (if you have that quest) and then say you have more questions. You can haggle once for each NPC and double the price with a successful Barter check, but any more than that and he kicks you out. Like Barkus, Big Jesus bids on one slave at a time starting with Miria/Davin. The slaves you sell don't disappear, though, they just leave your party and remain standing where they were. If you talk to them their dialogue will be as if you never recruited them in the first place, and things can get rather screwed up (e.g. if you try to sleep with Miria again the game gets stuck in a permanent blackout).

If you have Myron with you when you go to Big Jesus, he'll attack. Big Jesus that is.

Tom Hibbs found a bug: "An infinite number of Jet vials can be obtained from Jagged Jimmy J. After the first 2 that he gives you, he continues to give 1 free Jet each time you thank him and ask what else is in stock (this doesn't work if you just click the barter button). By seeing JJJ's wares and then clicking done without bartering anything, your Jet supply can climb infinitely." This only works the first time you get to this node.

IN<4: If you are a Made Man, Porn Star or a Prizefighter or if you finished the game, talk to Jimmy, and when he recognizes you choose the "mortal coil" line. This will paralyze his brain so that you can take all his stuff, which is not a lot.

Boxing isn't very difficult, at least not on normal difficulty. In fact, without having spent a single point on Unarmed (it was at 65%) and using normal gloves, I was able to easily kill the first two boxers in the first round, then win by knockout against the two tough ones. If you find you don't inflict any damage, go for aimed blows to the head. Just remember to ask Little for some time to rest so you can save before each match, and heal up if necessary (during matches you regain a number of HP equal to your EN at the end of every full round).

If you have the Plated Boxing Gloves in your inventory when you talk to Stuart Little, you'll be fighting with them in the ring. You always get a normal pair of Boxing Gloves in your inventory just before the first match, but if you enter subsequent fights without any gloves at all in your inventory, you end up in the ring with no gloves!

At the start of every match, if you have either kind of gloves, you gain a permanent +3 bonus to your Damage Threshold for normal damage (to a maximum of 100), -1 to your DT for plasma and explosive damage, and a bonus to Damage Resistance for each listed damage type except fire (to a maximum of 90%). If you only have normal gloves you get +1% DR for all four types, but if you have plated ones you get +2% for normal damage, +5% for laser damage and +1% for the others. (There's also a -1% penalty to your unlisted EMP resistance, but this doesn't matter in the least; your electricity resistance is unaffected.) You get to keep these bonuses even if you lose that match. Therefore, in the fourth match, you can kick your opponent, ask Little for another shot, then win the final match (the Masticator's replacement is significantly weaker and doesn't bite) and you'll have got a fifth toughness bonus for only $500. Even factoring in the DT penalties that's better than any combat implant! Silencer muses: "Perhaps the resistance boosts were just supposed to be temporary and not permanent - that'd explain why plated gloves give you better ones, since you can block and shield your sorry face better with them." That only covers one damage type, though.

Before you win the Prizefighter title it's actually possible to get infinite rematches, although this is the result of two bugs. If you've won the game, Little's dialogue will always go as if you're talking to him for the first time, meaning you can ask about boxing, negotiate a deal and get your "first" match (though the game keeps track of how many opponents you have defeated). If you have still not won the game, you have to leave dialogue after losing a fight, talk to him again, ask for a rematch and fail a Speech check (which is impossible if you're at 100% or above). He will then let you box again. Note that the only reason for doing this is to up your resistances, which is a bit cheesy. In fact, knowing that you can raise them arbitrarily puts a damper on my desire to get that fifth bonus, since I usually have no problem taking advantage of limited glitches but have no interest in the unlimited ones.

This isn't kickboxing. If you switch to kicking or take off your gloves and then land a blow, you'll be disqualified. (How do you take off boxing gloves in the ring, anyway? With your teeth?)

If you lose by knockout there may be a bug that makes you lose the rematch before you even get to start fighting. This is because when combat ends directly after you score a critical failure that makes you lose your next turn, the game remembers that you have a lost turn coming up, and if that happens to be at the start of the next fight you lose again. Simply entering combat mode once in between the fights to get rid of this "debt" should take care of the matter (assuming you wouldn't rather reload after such an unfortunate occurrence).

If you have about 115 HP or fewer and the Masticator hits you, you may get the message "In the heat of the fight, the Masticator tears your ear off." If you look in your inventory you'll now have a Player's Ear item... and your CH drops by 1 permanently. This is not so good, so you should probably do what the game says and reload. If you keep fighting, though, and have Unarmed at about 160% or higher, you may end up with a Masticator's Ear as well - vengeance is sweet! No use for it, I'm afraid, but it's worth $750. In the unpatched version losing your ear could give you a bonus to your CH, because the command to change the stat was being used incorrectly. This bonus would be equal to your current CH minus one, except if this would take your new CH above 10 in which case nothing would happen.

At the beginning of each round starting with the second, after the ring girl appears and the other boxer runs towards you, there's a small window where you can press A to enter combat mode. You can use this extra round to attack your opponent, or you can use it to kill the ring girl. The latter changes nothing except that the ring girl will be lying in a pool of blood instead of walking around and saying "Round 3!" or whatever. Well, I thought it was hilarious anyway. If you manage to kill your opponent in this combat round, you will be stuck forever inside the ring after the announcer makes a brief appearance. You can get an odd item - the Special Boxer Weapon, a useless sort of club - by killing the ring girl, then knocking a boxer unconscious on the same hex and looting his body before the combat round ends. There's another opportunity to enter combat mode right at the end of a match where you can kill the announcer (if you don't manage this in one hit you'll have to keep pressing A), but again this will leave you trapped.

Stupid characters can box providing they are male and have ST 6. Aside from getting no pay and no rematch, things work the same.

IN<4: You can become a Porn Star, but you get no pay.

The Corsican Brother initially won't talk to you if you're a Slaver, but he will if you become a Prizefighter or Made Man. The bitches will attack at once if you touch the bookcase.

After the first time you won't be allowed to make a film if you're addicted to Jet. If you insist on shooting anyway, the Corsican Brother won't talk to you again (but you get to keep your Porn Star status).

After you defeat the Enclave you can come here and star in a special movie for $2000, even if you were never a Porn Star. Stupid characters get paid for it, too. You can't make any more regular movies, though.

The stand-up comedian is one of the true highlights of the game. Make sure you hear all his routines. There are eight regular ones, and there is a special routine if you bring Myron. After you beat the Enclave he has a new one with you in it. There should have been an eleventh line after the Enclave if you managed to impregnate Angela or Leslie Anne Bishop ("So did you hear about the stupid Bishop daughter that got knocked up?"); he doesn't actually say it due to a bug, but he does blow up to the amusement of the onlookers.

Don't kill the Masticator in the basement if you're planning to box, because this will make Stuart Little disappear. The Masticator will actually count as dead after you've faced him in the ring, so if you lost to him and are going for a rematch, you can't leave the map in between.

• A clue to listen to what Curtis says in Vault City to get the Wrench.
• A clue to set Bess free in Modoc after selling her.
• A clue to get the Hintbook from Father Tully after the game.
• A hint that you need high ST and EN to beat Francis at arm wrestling.
• Mention of the existence of the Easter Egg.
• Information about the "Trash" cross in Golgotha.
• The secret password to a computer in the Vault City vault.
• Information about the Desperado toilet with the grenades.

• If you've tried to open Mr Bishop's safe but didn't yet, you can get the combination to that from Mrs Bishop if you ask about Mr Bishop (you'll still have to disarm the trap).
• If you sleep with Mrs Bishop after Mr Bishop has passed on, ask about her family and tell her she should move on (IN 7) for 1000 xp.
• You can get NCR and/or Vault City on the world map by asking about her husband's plans.
• How to kill Mr Bishop - see the assassination note below.

If you have really, really lousy stats (like, your ST, EN and AG were all lowered to 1 in a freak accident with a character editor), Mrs Bishop falls asleep during lovemaking, so you won't get to ask her about anything. She'll still murmur the combination to the safe.

Sleeping with Ms or Mrs Bishop with a male character may create a new ending for New Reno depending on what else you do here. If you have a Condom in your inventory it'll be used up, though, and will prevent this.

There's a bug here that could startle you a bit. When going with Ms or Mrs Bishop, if you save and reload the game while on the top floor, your entire party will have disappeared when you return to the first floor. To fix this, sleep with either of them again (they'll return downstairs when the game loads the map anew, you can go down to the basement of the casino to make this happen) and your NPCs should be back. Or you could just drop everyone from your party before talking to your lady of choice. You may also experience car trunk deprival symptoms in this situation, but it should return once you drive to another map. Interestingly, NPCs can earn levels while invisible. Fighting Lenny in NCR will restore to visibility any party members that normally disappear during that fight (they'll appear when you move to another map).

Fall_ark found out how to exploit the invisibility bug to recruit an army. With CH 10, fill your party up to the 5-NPC limit, then make it disappear. Other NPCs will now think your party is empty, so you can get them to join you until you are again at the normal limit. When this is done, turn your "old" party visible again, and finally mop up those NPCs who will join you regardless of the current party count: Miria/Davin, Laddie, K-9 (initially), pariah dog (optionally). You could get evil Brain Bot for free as well, but you don't have to, since the good one can be fit within your "regular" party of ten. Minor points to consider: 1) Once your army is assembled you probably won't want to tell anyone to leave since getting them back will be a lot of work, and it may not even be possible to get back up to full strength by repeating the procedure. 2) Invisible party members may cause minor problems in places like Vault City and NCR, though this should be easy to plan around. Being Captain in Vault City helps greatly if you plan to go back there later, but avoid Lynette. 3) Since you're cheating anyway, you might as well use the save/load chem trick to get your CH high enough using Mentats, if needed. 4) If you don't want to fight Navarro when you come for K-9 with your huge party, you can prep it in advance and assassinate Schreber and "Snookie" to establish a clear path from the vent.

IN<4: You can go with both Ms and Mrs Bishop if you meet their respective requirements, and you can open Mrs Bishop's safe this way, but you don't get to talk to her after sex.

It's not recommended to steal from Mrs Bishop; if you fail, a guard is supposed to come running, but this causes my game to freeze. It seems to work for Ms Bishop, though: she runs away, and a guard comes running to attack.

You can also open the other two safes with Dynamite, and this will cause the guard to come running as well. If you try to pick a safe and fail the Lockpick check, then there's a small chance proportional to your LK that you can open the safe by spinning the dial randomly. This works for Mrs Bishop's safe as well even though it cannot be cracked normally.

If you wiped out the raiders, then if you ever turn down a job offered by Bishop he'll know you did it and say you have to take the job (without pay) to even the score. (He may say you had Skynet with you even if you never met the freaking bot yet - he really means Sulik, but the variables are mixed up.) If you didn't kill the raiders, but slept with Ms and/or Mrs Bishop, he'll use that as leverage instead with the same results. If you still won't do it, he'll attack. Getting into these conversations at all is bad, as you can see from the ending of quest 10. If you do become Made Man and then talk to Bishop again he'll start up these dialogues (assuming you did anything to offend him) and you'll have no choice but to fight him.

The way to assassinate Mr Bishop isn't very obvious. First you have to sleep with Mrs Bishop. In bed, ask her about her husband, ask her if they love each other, then about Mr Bishop's "other pursuits". You'll now get the option to ask if she wants you to kill him. With Traps 76% you can suggest an "accident", and Mrs Bishop then tells you about the trap on Mr Bishop's safe. Use Repair (again you need 76%) on the safe to change the combination. Go downstairs and wait 10 minutes with your Pipboy and you'll hear a boom from upstairs, which may kill Mr Bishop - at other times I've seen it do only 1 point of damage to him. You get no xp for this, though. If you already disarmed the trap, the game will tell you to replace it before you can change the combination. Attempting to do so will crash the game, however. The solution to this is to go to the basement (changing maps) and return, whereupon the trap will be re-armed.

It's not a good idea to "teleport" to the second floor by sleeping with Ms or Mrs Bishop before you've got permission from the guards to see Mr Bishop, or he'll attack if he sees you on the way out (keep close to the wall, try to run past in combat mode, or Sneak if you have to). Later on it may not matter as much, since Mr Bishop doesn't seem to mind that much that you're sleeping with his wife as long as you're working for him, but as usual if you talk to a boss too many times before finishing a job you may find yourself looking at dialogue choices which all lead to combat. To be safe, only follow the ladies upstairs when you were going to talk to Bishop anyway.

To kill Boss Salvatore, simply steal his Oxygen Tank. In order to make a true assassination, for which you get 2000 xp, three conditions need to be met: 1) Salvatore must not carry an Oxygen Tank, 2) you must carry the Poison Tank from the Desperado basement (scripting error), and 3) Salvatore must not be hostile. You can also get 500 xp if you "whack" Salvatore somewhat less subtly, or if you don't have the Poison Tank. In this case Mason will turn hostile, but you can still get away without a fight by leaving the place while waiting for Salvatore to snuff it. Note that if you steal the Oxygen Tank, wait for Salvatore's "attack" to begin and then plant the tank back onto him, he'll call for the guards.

Being a Made Man of any family will give you access to Eldridge's special stock, which includes a Bozar and a Super Sledge. Which items he has at a particular time is slightly random, just like shops in general. If you don't see what you want, try leaving and re-entering the barter window; if that doesn't work, return at a later date (2-4 days). Should you kill Eldridge this stock will appear in his corpse along with his regular wares, even if you were never a Made Man.

Eldridge's upgrade prices were supposed to be influenced by Barter, but the only effect of this is that if you have Barter at 91% or more, all upgrades will be free. Otherwise, see the Items section.

IN<4: You can't get any upgrades, here or anywhere else in the game. What's more, if you talk to Algernon and "shoot" him... he dies!

A little to the left of the broken mattress in the rightmost corner of the basement, you can see a partly obscured pot. In it you find the Easter Egg. Oh joy.

After you've been to the Enclave, Eldridge becomes a little bugged. If you buy stuff from him he says you'll get a discount but he overcharges you horribly (this is the same reversed barter modifier bug as in Vault City and with the casino bartenders), and if asked for upgrades he always attacks (because the script points to the wrong node).

You can loot the poor box for -3 karma. Better money-for-karma ratio than in the Modoc well, anyway. If you ask Father Tully for money to buy hootch he'll rob the box for you, but you still suffer the karma drop. You can also donate at least one coin to gain 3 karma. What's more, both the gain and the loss happen only once, so you can withdraw your donation and return for more every week. In the back of the church there's a small garden with 2 Broc Flowers and 3 Xander Roots. Nice detail, easily missed.

In v1.0 you can talk to Father Tully about any number of topics as long as you give him something to drink and make sure not to end the dialogue.

If you return to Father Tully after finishing the game, he'll give you the Fallout 2 Hintbook which gives you 10,000 xp every time you use it and raises all your skills to 300% (possibly 299% if tagged). While on that topic, New Reno is one of the two places (Vault City being the other) where people will have new dialogue or floating text after you complete the game. Notably, there's the line about using the Mutated Toe on Horrigan.

If you're a Slaver, or if you're a Made Man of another family, you can't talk to the kids to begin with. If you're wearing any kind of Power Armor, you have to remove it before they'll talk to you. Incidentally, there's lots of different floating dialogue from townspeople in New Reno if you're wearing Power Armor.

If you already did quest 6 you won't get the 1500 xp, but if you're up to it you can get more kill xp than that out of this encounter. You should only do battle if you already finished your business with the Salvatores, though, because they'll know somehow and turn hostile.

To assassinate Boss Wright, give the kid a gun and tell him to wave it in his father's face and pull the trigger. You don't get any xp for this, though. You can still get the desert transaction by talking to the kids again. You can prevent the kids from shooting themselves or Orville if you steal the gun back before leaving the map.

Use Traps on Orville's safe, and even if it tells you that you were successful, don't stop until you get the message that you gained 100 xp (free Dynamite!). You can then pick it and take the stuff inside. If you leave the map and return, the safe will be re-trapped and locked (more free Dynamite!). In Orville's room, Ethyl's room, and the one on the bottom left, you can take plenty of stuff from the shelves without anyone complaining.

IN<4: You can follow the kids to the secret transaction by choosing one of the "incest" lines and then the first option each time after that. If you talk to Mrs Wright she gives you a Flower, a Nuka-Cola and $3. Finally rich!

1. Find a way into the Sierra Army Base.
   
   See the SAD section for how to accomplish this. Once you've actually been inside, return to Orville and you'll be a Made Man (1000 xp). In addition to the normal perks this means you can go to the station and get some Booze and Beer from the shelves without anyone making a fuss.

   If you contaminate the base with a virus before reporting back, you get no reward. It's not like you deserve one.

2. Recover your stolen car.
   
   The first time you leave your car behind on Virgin Street, it will be gone when you return (the car, not the street). Don't worry, it's not actually a car bug (as many people have believed, with some justification). If you walk over to where the car was standing you'll get the option to follow the tracks. If you ask Jules about it he'll be very evasive, but if you threaten him he'll show you where the car was taken. The best option is to talk to Cody, the boy outside the Cat's Paw, and ask him to lead you to the car, which earns you 500 xp. You can also ask him who stole it (he'll indicate Jules was involved), but then you have to tell Jules you'll kill him if anything happens to Cody, before you leave this map, or else, well, something will happen to Cody. If by any chance you let something happen to Cody you can confront Jules about it, in which case he makes a run for it.

   If you approach Cody in any kind of Power Armor, or if you offer him drugs or food, or if you're a Slaver or Childkiller, or if you have Lenny or Marcus in your party, or if your karma is -101 or lower, or if you have IN<4 and tell him anything other than that your car has been stolen, he'll run away. If you wait for a minute without leaving the map he'll calm down so you can try again, or else he'll never talk to you again.

   Anyway. Once you're at the chop shop, go into the garage and seek out T-Ray. There are a few ways to get your car back:
   
   
   • If you're a Made Man of the Bishops you can tell him Bishop sent you for the car. He'll want money, and you can then offer him $1500, $900 or nothing; as long as you throw Bishop's name around he'll be too scared to object. When he mentions batteries the message window will say "Error" and you get 1002 xp. This is because the script really should have displayed line #1002 in T-Ray's dialogue file and given you 750 xp for getting free batteries (which you don't), but now it tries to print the non-existent line #750 instead...
   • Trick T-Ray into thinking you're a Made Man if you're not. This is bugged so that you make it if you fail your Speech check and your CH is 7 or less. You can actually talk to him again and again until you succeed (that is, fail). As regards money and xp this works exactly as above except you gain 750 additional xp.
   • Pay T-Ray $1000 for the car ($750 or $500 with good to decent Barter).
   • Sleep with him if you're female with CH>6 or Porn Star.
   • Try to drive away. The chop shop people will initiate combat after you do this twice. In case the critter who caught you is a cowardly mechanic he'll run away; you can then use the car again and off you go. If it's a thug, however, you'll have to...
   • Kill the whole bunch.
   
   You get 750 xp for resolving the situation in any of the first five ways; if you drove off you have to return to get the xp. If you left T-Ray alive you can pay him $500 ($300 with decent Barter) for a general car upgrade: increased trunk space (which is a blessing) and better engine performance. It's important that you get this upgrade right away, because once you drive the car off the map and return you'll lose all dialogue choices due to a scripting glitch (the "drive away" strategy is not really recommended for this reason). You can, of course, blow everyone away after the deal is complete, for the combat xp and the stuff in their lockers.

   The Made Man thing is bugged in more ways than one (in fact, T-Ray is certainly the most heavily bugged person in this game). Firstly, $2700 is taken from your inventory as soon as T-Ray mentions payment (assuming you let him), and if you then offer $1500 or $900 you'll lose that sum in addition to the $2700. It all ends up in T-Ray's inventory, though, so it may not be a problem. If you exit dialogue directly when you lose the $2700 the car will be yours, but then you don't get the xp for tricking T-Ray or for the batteries.

   You can access the trunk while the car is still not "yours".

   IN<4: You can get to the chop shop by following the car tracks, or by following Cody. You can only get the car back by driving away or killing everyone, though, so no upgrades for you.

   If you have already won the game when you buy your car back, talk to T-Ray again after getting the trunk upgrade and he'll offer you free "grav-plates" which will make the car zoom around the map and reduce fuel consumption to next to nothing. Because of T-Ray's dialogue bug you can't leave the map with the car until you've finished the game if you want the grav-plates, or he'll just stare at you stupidly when you come to visit him. (Contrary to popular lore, however, you can have it stolen before then, and even buy it back - as long as you leave it in the chop shop!) A carless game is no fun, so if you're going for the plates it simply means you must never leave your car unattended on Virgin Street. One way to go about this is to talk to Jules when you get to New Reno the first time to get Golgotha on the world map, leave the car there, return to New Reno on foot and walk to 2nd Street. Now return for the car, and for the rest of the game you can park it on any of the other New Reno maps. (A quicker, if not 100% legit way of accomplishing this is to hit 2 through 4 on the New Reno town map instead of making the round trip.) Unless you really want to see the effects of the grav-plates, I'd say a better car during the game is much preferable to an even better car after the game.

   T-Ray says you can buy batteries from him (and if you're Made Man of the Bishops you're supposed to get them for free), but he never has any. You can hit the barter button in case you want to trade back whatever cash he got from you for junk. In fact there's a scripting bug here so that he checks your inventory for Small Energy Cell or Micro Fusion Cell, so if you carry any of these he'll say he has some batteries to sell - only he doesn't.

   Female characters can also keep on making love to T-Ray for the upgrade and/or batteries. This is heavily bugged, and you won't get either although the message window says you do. Keep on making sweet love and T-Ray will blow up, but this causes my game to black out (I hear the "explosion" sounds but my screen stays black after the fade-out). One time, though, I was able to sleep with him repeatedly without even getting the car back for my troubles, and after a while of this he blew up properly. Tvoinpyer adds on the blackout: "You can save your game at that moment although you cannot see anything. Press F4 and Enter twice. That should save the game. Then exit the game (Ctrl-Q followed by Y), restart Fallout 2 and load the saved game. If all goes well it should load the map with T-Ray blown up." The procedure as described will overwrite the first save slot; quicksaving with F6 also works.

3. Find out who was responsible for Richard Wright's overdose.
   
   Go to Keith Wright and ask for work. He won't let you in if you're a Berserker or Childkiller or have -101 karma or worse, and you must also pass a Speech check (more difficult for Slavers). You'll get in with a recommendation from Chris Wright at the railway station, but he's got the same standards only he's very strict about the Slaver thing. In any case, talk to Orville Wright. If you maintain Richard may have taken Jet on his own accord, Orville will attack, so don't (Chris is also a bit touchy concerning this matter). Keith Wright will name the usual suspects: Jules, Jimmy J, Little Jesus and Renesco; with IN 7 you can also ask him to tell you which room was Richard's. Go there and search the bookcase inside the door... you'll find a Jet canister behind it, and 500 xp. If you walk around talking to the dealers they all point the finger at each other. But if you show the Empty Jet Canister to Jagged Jimmy J, he can tell you it was poisoned (500 xp), and if you mention this to Renesco, you find out the Salvatores ordered a poisoned canister from him (1000 xp). Another way of going about this is to dig up Richard's grave in Golgotha (which Renesco will put on the map if you ask him about Richard) and examine it to find he was poisoned and then mentioning this to Renesco, for the same total amount of xp (but you'll be a Grave Digger this way, which you may or may not care about). You can confront the Salvatores with this info, but it just leads to a fight.
   
   Return to Orville. If you opened the grave, don't tell him. Now, you can finger any of the four dealers involved for 500 xp, $250, 2 Booze and 20 Shotgun Shells as long as you've talked to them or heard anyone else name them as suspects. If the person in question is dead already, then Orville will attack. Otherwise the accused person will disappear, and that's that. However, if you tell Orville about the involvement of the Salvatores you get $350, 2 Booze and 40 Shotgun Shells, and if you manage to deduce their motive (IN 7 needed, plus you must know about all the families) you also get 2000 xp. It doesn't matter if Salvatore is dead or not.

   You can get both the 500 xp for "fingering a suspect" and the 2000 xp for cracking the case if you first say Richard was poisoned, then happen to mention Renesco's name, then tell Orville that Renesco wasn't ultimately responsible for the murder and finally figure out the Salvatores' motive. Renesco won't come to any harm this way, either. Note that you can't do this the other way around, i.e. fingering Renesco and then say the Salvatores were behind him.

   If you finger Little Jesus, the Mordino family will turn hostile.

   If you're playing an evil character, one way of getting the Wright quests is to talk to Chris or Keith Wright while you're still not too evil and get permission to talk to Mr Wright. Another, trickier way is to force-feed Keith some alcohol to lower his Perception, enter Sneak mode, open the door and talk to Mr Wright. Take his first quest, finger a suspect you don't like (or go and finish the quest properly if you want), then take the second quest to get the SAD on your world map. Note that you must be sneaking all the time while talking to Orville, since he will attack if he sees you after you open the door without permission.

   Turning the Wright family hostile will set this quest to failed even if you already finished it or never got it (in which case it appears crossed out in your Pipboy). This has no effect in the game, but may change the ending for this quest as well as (in rare cases) the ending for New Reno.

   In the unpatched version you get 2000 additional xp when first saying Richard was poisoned.

4. Track down Pretty Boy Lloyd, recover the stolen money, and make an... example of him.
   
   Rule number one: Mason is an arrogant asshole. The temptation to kill him is great, but we need him alive for now. Tell him you have information or want a job to get an audience with Salvatore. You can piss Salvatore off in any number of ways, try not to do that. Before leaving, might as well pick up a Laser Pistol from the footlocker for Eldridge. To find Lloyd you need to go to the basement of the Desperado casino. There are some rats down here, and stuff on the floor... plus one human rat behind a locked door, Mr Lloyd himself. Rule number two: You can't let Lloyd get away alive, or Salvatore will know it and you will be attacked when you return. You can get Lloyd to tell you where the money is buried in Golgotha (which appears on your map), and kill him right away, or get him to come along with you (which is best, requires IN 6). You can intimidate him if you have ST 6, if you're wearing any kind of power or combat armour, if you're a Berserker, or if you have at least one follower. This way you can make him give you his money, and if you let him scamper you can still go and pick up the treasure, but Salvatore won't shower you with flowers.
   
   

   Though Lloyd's bugs are not as obvious and significant as T-Ray's, there are probably even more of them: he has maybe two dozen minor script errors, inconsistencies and redundancies. For instance, following specific routes through the dialogue in town and/or in Golgotha you may be led to the grave but not be able to enter it, or be able to enter it though you haven't heard of it.

   If you came by yourself, walk to the third grave from the right in the top section. (Lloyd's directions don't make any sense and the grave is not marked "Arch Stanton".) Use Traps on it and you get a Plastic Explosive in your inventory. Then use a Shovel (you won't become a Grave Digger) and walk onto the open grave to enter the fallout shelter and collect the $1000. By the way, you can't enter the grave if you come here before talking to Lloyd about it.
   
   If you came with Lloyd, you can tell him to dig, in which case you get the Plastic Explosive, or you can dig yourself, in which case the bomb goes off in your face and Lloyd attacks, or you can check for traps, in which case you may find the Plastic Explosive or set it off (to find it you should first pass a Sneak check or have IN 7 and Traps 51%, then have Traps 51% or pass a Traps check). If nothing went boom, you can choose to let Lloyd go down first (he attacks when you follow), go down first yourself (he attacks when you come back up, why didn't he make a run for it, the stupid git?), or tell him to go down, then throw the landmine in after him, which is fun ("All in a day's work"), but costs you a Plastic Explosive. If you let him go down and then wait for him to come back up he'll escape somehow, so don't do that.

   If you already visited Golgotha and used Traps on the grave to get the Plastic Explosives, there'll be another one once you've talked to Lloyd (and the grave will be covered if you dug it up).

   If you kill Lloyd you lose 10 karma, no matter if he attacked you first. However, if any of your party members deals the final blow, you don't lose any karma. Even more strangely, dropping the landmine on Lloyd only costs you 5 karma.

   If you have Sneak 76% or Sneak tagged, you can tell Lloyd he can take off on his own, then follow him from New Reno to Golgotha. If you pass either a Sneak check or an Outdoorsman check, you'll find Lloyd having retrieved the cash (but not the Plastic Explosives) and making his way down across the map; he'll enter combat immediately when he spots you. If you fail both skill checks, you'll only find an empty fallout shelter and no Lloyd.
   
   Returning to Mr Salvatore there are a million things you can say to piss him or Mason off, as usual. If you killed Lloyd and give the correct amount to Salvatore you get 500 xp, $500, and the next quest (if Renesco's dead he doesn't have any more work for you).

   If you talk to Lloyd before getting this quest the dialogue is a bit different (you can tell him to give you his money which amounts to $57, but you'll get it later anyway), but you can get the same results and follow him to Golgotha without the IN 6 requirement. Then when you get the quest you can tell Mason you already took care of Lloyd.

   When talking to Salvatore there's always a respectful line that you get with CH 6 or IN 8 which will make him respect you more, and a coarse line which will not. If you want to get quest 6 and become a Made Man later on you must pick most of the respectful ones.

5. Go visit Renesco the Rocketman and collect Mr. Salvatore's tribute of $1000.
   
   Make sure you have plenty of room in your inventory. Go to Renesco and ask for the tribute, keep telling him Salvatore sent you. Don't even consider going back to Salvatore for confirmation, Mason will not be impressed. Also don't threaten with violence or Renesco won't talk to you again. When he says he's broke, suggest that he give you a discount in exchange for you paying the tribute (IN 7 needed), and then tell him you want to see his stuff right away (you won't get another chance). You can now get all his stuff for a song. When you return to Salvatore and give him $1000, you get $250 back ($100 if he doesn't like your manners) and 750 xp, so in the end you get several thousand bucks' worth of equipment for $751. Oh, and before you return for the next Salvatore quest, make sure you've heard from Father Tully or Jules about the "lightbringers".

   When you enter the barter screen after getting the discount, Renesco's stuff (except the money) may be worth $0 right away. It can also happen that the cost is merely reduced by a factor. In my case that factor was initially 5; however, after I left the barter screen and re-entered by telling him again I wanted to make "purchases", the prices were reduced by a factor of 100 instead (this is because the discount modifier is applied each time you enter that dialogue node). By trading things back and forth, you can quickly and easily get the whole of Renesco's inventory for a mere $1 (including his cash - trade something for it which you can then get back for free).

   Even if you put the $1000 for the tribute in Renesco's inventory, he'll still say he can't afford it. What a dork.

   Unlike the quest to get the Corsican Brothers' money for Mordino or getting Becky's money in the Den, you can actually give Salvatore $1000 without even going to see Renesco. Since money's money it does make some sense.

6. Help guard a secret transaction taking place in the desert.
   
   You will only be offered this job if Salvatore likes you, and if you didn't destroy the Enclave (but you probably didn't yet). If you know about the laser weapons, you get the opportunity to ask for one, which Salvatore will grant unless he barely trusts you enough to give you the quest. When you talk to Mason (he'll give you 24 hours to prepare, and attack if you're late) tell him Salvatore said to give you a lightbringer and then ask for training. You get a Laser Pistol, and your Energy Weapons skill will go up by 5%. Next you're teleported to the desert meeting place. Some more foreshadowing... a fresher vertibird than the one in Klamath, and those guys look like the one on the monitor in the Gecko power plant. Don't move an inch until you're told you can go, or everyone will start shooting at you. Once the transaction is complete you're free to move wherever you want, but there isn't much to do. Leave the screen and return to Salvatore for 1000 xp. If you turn down his offer to become a Made Man, he'll attack. If you accept, you get another 1000 xp, and you can still attack him if you want, so what's to lose? Then go pick up your "armload" of items from Mason. If Mason and Salvatore like you, you get $300, 80 Small Energy Cell and a Metal Armor Mark II. If Salvatore likes you but Mason doesn't, you get $150 and a Metal Armor. Finally if none of them likes you, you only get lousy $50. In either case you also get a Laser Pistol if you didn't get one before the quest.

   Winning Mason's approval is easy: just put up with his remarks and don't be snide. Getting Salvatore's respect counter high enough is trickier, since it's not enough simply to follow the dialogue and pick the polite options. The trick is to raise it when you first meet him by saying you have information and using his name, then immediately leave dialogue by saying you're in the wrong room (which amazingly doesn't make him want to see you dead). You only have to do this once if you follow the optimal dialogue path afterwards, but it doesn't hurt to repeat a few times.

   You can do this quest and get the 1500 xp from following the Wright kids to see the transaction, if you go with the Wrights first. However, if you get this quest but tell Mason you need more time, then go to the Wright kids and follow them, you'll end up among the Salvatores and not get the 1500 xp. Uh, so don't do that.

   Taking out the women in power armour isn't at all impossible (they're armed with Pancor Jackhammers), but then the Salvatores will be hostile when you return to New Reno. If you want to fight them, do this quest first and follow the Wright kids later.

   Okan S. Tezcan adds: "When you've completed the secret transaction job Salvatore has given to you, go talk to him with Intelligence 3 or less. When he asks you to join their family, because you're dumb you can't talk to him and the dialogue screen closes. You don't join the family, you gain the job's xp, plus you can repeat this. Every time you talk to him, it happens as if you have done the job again and you get 1000 xp for free."

   Lon Giese relates: "Sometimes after becoming a Made Man of the Salvatores, Boss Salvatore stops talking to me or reacting to anything unless I attack him or his people, then he will try to run away. Even if I steal his Oxygen Tank and/or plant the Poison Tank there is absolutely no reaction. The only notable thing he does is to stand and wave his arms occasionally. When I get this bug Boss Mordino will claim Salvatore is still alive if I killed Salvatore in combat." The bug triggers if you click on Salvatore after becoming a Made Man, or after being told he has no use for you; at that point his script freezes, failing to set the proper variable if he's killed and making an assassination impossible (you can test this by shooting him once and then checking your character sheet - if you're still a Made Man, the bug is active). If you save and load the game, though, he should be back to "normal" for as long as you don't click on him again, so all is not lost if you happen to set off the bug.

7. Find some endorphin blockers to make a cure for Jet.
   
   Talk to Myron (see the Stables) and ask him about a cure for Jet addiction. With IN 7 and Science 81% (or IN 9 and Science 76%) you can convince him there might be a cure, and you get this quest, 2000 xp, and a hint that you should go to Vault City next (it appears on your map). (He also mentions "pre-holocaust bases", which is a reference to an unimplemented area.) Go there and talk to Dr Troy for another 2000 xp, and you get 2 Jet Antidotes (this crosses out Vault City quest 3 even if you didn't have it). See the Redding section for info on what to do next.

   If you already picked up the antidote from Dr Troy, or if you successfully blackmailed him, you can't ask Myron or Troy about a cure any more. Therefore, get the VC quest to deliver Jet, get Myron and talk to him about Jet, deliver the sample and introduce Myron to the doctor, then immediately talk to Myron about the cure and talk to the doctor about endorphin blockers, and you'll have got all the xp you can from these quests.

   This quest is never crossed out on your quest list.

8. Bust up Wright's still beneath the train station.
   
   Save before talking to Mrs Wright, for there are lots of dialogue paths that end with her not talking to you any more. Also make sure that you've heard about the Wright family (you don't have to know about the stills) from, say, Jules or Chris Wright at the train station. Ask about her husband and say his alcohol business is making New Reno a worse place to live in; she'll tell you to meet her the next morning at the church. Go to Father Tully's and wait until 6 a.m. When Mrs Wright shows up, offer to wreck the stills and go to the basement where they are. (While you're there, don't miss the ice fridge among the barrels, containing a Cat's Paw Magazine among other things.) Stand in the niche beside any of the first three stills from the right, then use Science or Repair or a Crowbar, Tool or Wrench on the still to destroy them all for 500 xp. You can also use Dynamite, but that will alert the Wrights (you can run out of the building before the Dynamite goes off and they won't turn hostile right away, but probably will later on). Once you return to Mrs Wright, ask for a cash reward and you get $237 and the Louisville Slugger, a one-of-a-kind weapon. This quest doesn't affect your other business with the Wrights in any way.

   You can also tell Mrs Wright she should bust the stills herself... and she does. You get the 500 xp right away, and the message box exclaims "*Sigh*". What the heck? You get no other reward this way, though.

   Mrs Wright won't talk to you at all if you're a Porn Star or a Slaver, except if you already got the quest in which case you can finish it.

   Before destroying the stills, you can use a Scorpion Tail on them if you want. What happens? Well, Orville Wright will mention it if you become a Made Man of the Wrights and ask him what's up. Also junkies and addicts across town will fall over dead as time passes... including Father Tully!

   If you destroy the stills in between getting the quest and meeting Mrs Wright by the church, you don't get any xp (unless you tell her to destroy the stills herself), though you do get the bat and money.

9. Assassinate Westin in NCR without making it look like a murder.
   
   You're offered this job after you deliver Moore's briefcase. (If you already killed Westin, he gives you the next quest instead.) Bishop will offer $500, but you can make him give you $750 (Barter) or $1000 (Barter or IN 8) instead. Due to a bug you'll actually get $1000 if you ask for $750, but due to another bug it's easier to make the Barter check for $1000 (go figure). Make sure you've done all quests in NCR and Vault City involving Westin, then head over to NCR (which appears on your map) and Westin's ranch. Use the Poison from Doc Jubilee's house or a dose of Jet, Buffout or Psycho on Westin, and he'll have a heart attack. Killing him by planting explosives works as well (natural death, yeah), but a Sneak-kill does not. Return to Bishop for your monetary reward, 2000 xp and the next quest (unless you killed Westin normally, in which case Bishop will be unhappy).

   If you talk to Bishop after delivering the briefcase, without being a Made Man or having an active quest, and he doesn't have any job to give you, Bishop will accuse you of screwing up the Westin assassination (whether you have done so or not) and violence follows. Typically this happens because you killed Westin and/or Carlson out of turn.

   For some major overkill, use a Super Stimpak on Westin and he gets hits with 10,000 points of damage! This even fulfils the "without making it look like murder" condition.

10. Murder Carlson in NCR.
    
    Do this (see the NCR section). Upon return you get 2500 xp for whacking Carlson, and 1000 xp for becoming a Made Man of the Bishop family. But if you ever got into the conversation about the raiders or sleeping with his wife/daughter where Bishop forced you into working for him, he apparently doesn't trust you enough to make you a Made Man, so he attacks instead. Also he attacks if you turn down his offer. If you already killed Carlson, Bishop won't give you this quest.

    If you didn't also perform quest 9 for Bishop you won't get to be a Made Man if you ask for more work after this, but you will if you pick the "pleasure doing business" line. What's more, due to a bug you get no money if you settle for the $500 that Bishop offers you. With IN 8, however, you can ask for $1000 and get it too.

11. Deliver ten Cat's Paw magazines to Miss Kitty.
    
    Go to the Cat's Paw carrying a magazine and ask Miss Kitty what it is, and she'll ask for ten of them. Return once you have that many. She'll offer $500... you can ask for $750, but don't do that! Instead choose the dialogue line about the stickiness of issue five. You'll get a duplicate issue which raises Energy Weapons by 10% when "consumed"! In any case you get 1000 xp for delivering the magazines. If you're having problems finding 10 Cat's Paw Magazines, here's a list of places to look:
    
    
    • In an outhouse in Klamath.
    • On a girl in the bathhouse (steal).
    • In the bookcase in the Duntons' locked room.
    • The Duntons have one in their shop inventory each time they restock.
    • Flick in the Den has a 50% chance of getting one when he restocks.
    • In a bookshelf in Cassidy's bar.
    • Male characters can get one from Phyllis.
    • In a footlocker on level 2 of the Vault City vault.
    • On a ghoul at The Harp (steal).
    • On two of the ghouls in the Gecko reactor (steal).
    • One in the raiders' safe and one in a footlocker on the same map.
    • In a pot on the first Broken Hills map (steal back from Typhon after giving it to him).
    • In a bookcase in Myron's room at the Stables.
    • In an ice chest in the Wrights' basement.
    • In Bishop's safe.
    • In a desk on level 2 of the SAD.
    • In a desk on level 2 of Vault 15.
    • In a locker in the Navarro hangar.
    
    
12. Deliver a laser pistol to Eldridge.
    
    After you've heard about the lightbringers from Jules or Father Tully, you can ask Eldridge about them and offer to bring him one. For this he'll pay you $1500, and you get 500 xp. Nothing more to it.

    He won't accept a Magneto-Laser Pistol, so you can't let Algernon upgrade it for the ammo before you part with the gun.

13. Deliver Big Jesus's package to Ramirez at the Stables.
    
    Go to Big Jesus on the first floor of the Desperado and ask for work. If you didn't get the introduction from Little Jesus you first have to pass a Speech check, but you can try this any number of times as long as you don't start pleading. Next he'll accept you if you're male and have ST 6, or if you're wearing any kind of combat or power armour; if not, you have to pass another Speech check (which is easier if you have CH 6). Anyway, when you accept the quest you're teleported to the Stables, where you should enter through the nearest door. Give the box to Ramirez for 500 xp. While you're here, might as well look around a little. Mordino will give you $100 and the next quest when you return to him. Once you've got the job it doesn't matter if you pick the "Senor" lines or not.

    You can open the box and find 5 Jet... but if you give the opened box to Ramirez (still 500 xp) he'll attack, and the whole Mordino family will want to kill you, which is bad at this stage.

    I have experienced a car bug when taking this quest, as described in the Addenda section. It ordinarily shouldn't happen; if the car is on Virgin Street when you start the journey it should be stolen if it wasn't before, otherwise it should remain there. Save before taking the quest if you want to be safe.

14. Collect tribute from the Corsican Brothers.
    
    Go to the Corsican Brother at the Golden Globes. He'll give you $250 right away, and you get a chance to audition for a movie (same as usual). Return with the cash to Mordino and you get to keep $125 plus you get 500 xp and the next quest.

    If you get all fifteen New Reno quests, the Pipboy window won't be able to display this one and the next. Move the mouse around below the window and you'll see them.

15. Assassinate Boss Salvatore for Big Jesus Mordino.
    
    You get 750 xp and $500 when you return after killing Salvatore (1000 xp if you managed a proper assassination). With a CH of 6 or more you also get a Leather Armor Mark II and a "Grease Gun". If you get the armour and either thank him properly or have CH 9, Mordino will ask you to become a Made Man of the Mordinos. Accept and you get 1000 xp, decline and you get assaulted. If you already killed Salvatore you don't get the quest.

Golgotha

"Nothing more boring than bein' in a coffin for months."
--Coffin Willie

• $237
• 2 Flower
• 3 Knife
• 1 Mirrored Shades
• 90 Morningstar Mine Scrip
• 1 Leather Jacket
• 2 10mm SMG
• 1 Switchblade
• 1 Leather Armor
• 1 Doctor's Bag
• 1 Empty Hypodermic
• 1 Shovel
• 1 Crowbar
• 1 Rope
• 2 Rot Gut
• 1 Shotgun
• 20 12 ga. Shotgun Shells
• 1 Gold Tooth
• 1 Pack of Marked Cards
• 1 Loaded Dice
• 2 Gamma Gulp Beer
• 1 Roentgen Rum
• 1 Spear
• 1 Healing Powder
• 1 Metal Armor
• 1 Spiked Knuckles

• 1 Buffout
• 3 Jet
• 1 Antidote
• 40 .44 Magnum JHP
• 1 .44 Magnum Revolver
• $171
• 1 Gold Nugget

Dig up the grave on the top left of the bottom section, and you'll unearth a ghoul who walks away muttering. If Lenny is with you it turns out the ghoul is his dad, but nothing else happens, and if you kill Coffin Willie then Lenny doesn't react. Doing this does not make you a Grave Digger.

Over in the right section there is a solitary cross marked "Trash" which brings up the hand icon when you place the mouse pointer over it. If you got the clue from the Magic 8-Ball, manipulate it to gain $374. You are now officially rich. Note: due to a bug you must also have got the clue for the toilet grenades, but that shouldn't be any problem.

The Stables

"You should be glad I'm with you to point out all your stupid mistakes."
--Myron

Here's an almost completely pointless and absurdly obscure way of going to the Stables. You need IN 7, CH 6 and Science 76% and must be female to do it, and you must not have recruited Myron yet. First you must talk to Marjorie Reed about her research until she mentions that Myron receives a lot of prostitute visitors. Then return to New Reno and talk to Jagged Jimmy J about Myron until he tells you how these prostitutes are selected (Jules has a similar set of dialogue, but doesn't provide the crucial info). This allows you to go to Miss Kitty and ask her if you can volunteer to go see Myron. You are then deposited outside the Stables compound with no further instructions. Only thing is, since you had to talk to Reed for this to happen, you have obviously already been there, so the only thing you get for your troubles is 500 xp.

The script which makes Myron react if you search his tables is still active after you recruit him, but all that happens is that he'll enter combat mode and run away for one round (though he may also choose to use up Jet if he's still carrying it). On an amusing note, you can kill Myron in front of the guards once you recruit him and they won't bat an eyelid.

IN<4: You can't get Myron to join you, but you can make him give you everything in his inventory. If you're a woman with CH 6 or more, this dialogue is different. If you first introduce yourself then try to leave conversation, Myron will offer a sleeping drug. If you have EN 7 or Chem Resistant but not Chem Reliant, you'll withstand the effects and can then get all of Myron's stuff if you pick the lines 1, 2 and 2. If you succumb to the drug Myron will have his way with you (All: Eww!) and try to use a Booze on you.

Myron will spawn some items the first time you either recruit him, attack him or tell him to give you all his stuff: 3 Super Stimpaks, 3 Stimpaks, 2 Jet and 1 Red Condom. This doesn't make much of a practical difference except if you were going to sneak in and steal his things without talking to him, or blow him up.

Tom Hibbs: "There is a bug where Myron's guards become obscenely interested in being near you. Before Myron is invited to join your party, if he yells for the guards they run in and stand very close to you, running after you when you move. They won't attack you, but it is impossible to lock them inside another room which can become extremely annoying. This can lead to them cornering you in tight areas since you can't push them away." The trigger for this is that you appear sneaking or armed before Myron when he's schedulded to make a float.

Sierra Army Depot

"Is that a REAL robot?"
"Yeah, but don't bother it. I think it wants to destroy the human race."
--Wright kid and The Chosen One

• 1 Plasma Grenade
• 3 Frag Grenade
• 2 Desert Eagle .44
• 2 10mm SMG
• 2 10mm Pistol
• 1 Assault Rifle
• 24 10mm AP
• 1 Sniper Rifle

No, you can't take the Howitzer Shell back to the New Reno Arms and use it on the howitzer in the basement. It would have been cool. I remember back in Needles...

In the depot, dropping a Dynamite next to a forcefield emitter will cause it to turn into a red forcefield or destroy it entirely depending on whether you pass a Traps check, but it also sets off the alarm. If you damage an emitter but don't knock out the field, setting another charge right away may cause the game to crash.

Take Dixon's Eye to Mason in New Reno and tell him something clever about the Mason-Dixon line. No, wait, you can't. Daaamn.

If you release the robots on level 1 then turn off the alarm, they may turn invisible again depending on where they are (the "cloaked" area is a rectangle covering the hidden compartments and the space in between, but not the side corridors). If you disabled the alarm using the terminal they'll keep making floats even if they're not visible.

Attempting to hack the terminal and failing will shut you out permanently from this terminal and the alarm terminal on level 2, and vice versa.

The reason why the alarm terminal doesn't release the bots is actually that it's bugged and sets the wrong variable, so that instead you'll end up with what looks like a permanent RadAway addiction on your character sheet. Though this may be mostly annoying (your Radiation Resistance is unaffected), it does seem to protect you from "real" RadAway addiction.

It's possible to get permanently stuck here, as told by David Lönn: "The door to the elevator on level one is open because I opened it earlier but didn't use it, so I don't need the eye, which now has been dropped somewhere on the floor. I enter, and take the elevator to level three. The door shuts behind me, and I'm effectively stuck. I haven't got Dixon's or Clifton's Eye, so I can't access either of the elevators. I haven't got any explosives on me. And, it appears that my puny Repair skill isn't able to bring down the forcefields, no matter how many times I try." A Repair skill of 41% is necessary to have any chance of disabling the forcefields (a Tool will help, but not a Super Tool Kit). Another way to get stuck is to let Vic get you inside the forcefields and wait until they turn back on. Then shoot Vic.

The bots in this room, with one exception, will not fight back if attacked, nor does this alert the other bots on the level. In all they're worth 8250 xp, which isn't so bad when you first get here. The exception is the rocketbot closest to the yellow forcefield. Though your NPCs won't fire on the active bot, they may hit it while trying to burst-fire at something behind it, so you'd better save first. Or put this off until later when you're cleaning out the base for fun and experience.

If you want some xp, you can go around using Repair or a Tool on each of the dormant bots. You'll gain either 200 xp (if you succeed and get the message "You seem to have disabled the robot") or 75 xp (if you fail and get the message "You seem to have repaired the robot completely", which will heal the bot if it was damaged). This goes for all bots in the depot except the passive ones in the repair bay. Sometimes, it seems, this can also produce freak messages from other parts of the game. The "disabled" bots will still fight you if it comes to that, though they don't mill about or initiate combat themselves.

Destroyed rocketbots aren't lootable, but you can still search them if there's another, lootable body on the same hex (like a dead riflebot or an unconscious NPC); you can then access the rocketbot by clicking the arrows in the loot interface. Some of them will have Miniguns that you can pick up no matter how the robot was killed. Others will be armed with Robo Rocket Launchers and that's a little trickier; see the Toxic Caves section for how to get hold of these. The passive bots don't have anything.

The repair system doesn't actually do anything if you leave it on (it's related to an unimplemented feature with repair bots).

If you anger Skynet, then talk to it again and agree to help, it'll turn the alarm off for level 3 but at the same time turn it on for levels 1-2, to encourage you to stay and finish the job. Angering Skynet is the only way to release the four rocketbots inside the wall on level 3, and like the robots on level 1, they can turn magically invisible when called off. The robots inside the wall on level 4 are never released; there aren't even any secret door scripts in place. In the unpatched version the conditions for opening the sliding panels on level 3 corresponded to the general alarm state of the depot, but they were then made floor-specific leading to the state of things as described above.

• Use a Robot Motivator on it. The easiest way to get one of these is on level 1, but every riflebot in the depot has one.
• Use a Bio Med Gel on it. There's one right there on the floor, I guess the designers felt sorry for those who might have failed to hold on to the one found on level 1.
• Use a Brain on it. You get these on level 4. The quality of your new robot will depend on the quality of the brain used. You get 500 xp for installing the brain no matter which one it is.

Once you "extract" Skynet, the alarm computers plus the password computer on level 1 will stop functioning, so you may want to get whatever xp you can out of them first.

If you manage to piss off Skynet (by telling it you're Dixon or being sarcastic) and then use the Cybernetic Brain on the robot, it won't thank you. Once you exit the depot it will kill one of your other NPCs instantly (but not Marcus, Goris or any dog), then attack. If you assemble the bot before talking to Skynet at all then it will be friendly, even if you had triggered the alarm on level 3. Evil Skynet will join you over the party limit. Sebastian Cassten reports that you can get evil Skynet in your party permanently: enter combat mode directly after leaving the depot and run back inside (or towards the red exit grid). If you leave the map without Skynet going hostile it'll hang around for good, forever talking about "proceeding to the surface". It will level up as usual and you can access its combat control screen (allowing you to arm and disarm it by changing its weapon preferences), but not tell it to stay put or repair itself.

In v1.0 you get no xp for installing the brain.

You cannot use the extractor on Laddie, K-9, Robodog, or the Brain Bot unless it has the best brain. Isn't it a little weird that you get a human brain out after you put in a cybernetic one?

You lose 100 karma each time you kill someone this way. Oh, so this is more evil than going after a kid with a rocket launcher?

If more than one NPC are in the extraction chamber, they all die but you get no brain. It's kinda funny to hear them screaming in synch, though.

You can't get any organ except for brains. If you retrieve a virus, any virus, the vial will break and you have one minute to leave the depot before dying (the countdown says four, but it's bugged). Even if you get out you'll die immediately if you ever come back in.

New California Republic

"Tandi job. Me want."
"You can't take the president's job!"
"No?"
"NO! You are dumb."
--The Chosen One and Gunther

Buster's guards carry Bozars which you can steal. I don't 'cause it's silly, plus at this point in the game I wouldn't meet the ST requirement. If you really want one you should be able to take a hike to the Toxic Caves. Speaking of stealing, with a high skill you can use Steal on the shelves and take any amount of stuff from them right in front of Buster. I would have to say this is even sillier.

As found by Jonathan Cook, if you press 0 when talking to Buster, he'll swap his own inventory with that of the current shelf (which is randomly selected if you just talk to him). This will allow you to steal some stuff directly from him if you are so inclined.

In the department of useless stuff we have the fact that you can go behind Buster's store, go left along the very top of the map until you hit the edge, then work your way down by scrolling and clicking on ahead. You can get as far as south of the saloon, but have to return the same way.

• One option is to fight Lenny the super mutant alone in a secret basement, limited to these weapons: Knife, Club, Sledgehammer, Spear, Rock, Crowbar, Brass Knuckles, Super Sledge, Ripper, Cattle Prod, Spiked Knuckles, Power Fist, Combat Knife, Sharpened Spear. To get this you must have "talked" to Lenny at least once. To make it a lot easier you could steal Lenny's Stimpaks and Power Fist before the fight. Mira gives you a Booze if you talk to her afterwards.
• If you have Myron in your party, tell Merk you know someone who can make Jet. Merk then offers to take Myron off your hands for $1000. (If you choose the "can't do anything illegal" line, Merk won't like you any more.) Due to a bug, Myron still stays in your party.
• Tell Merk you're a "badass mofo" if you're a Childkiller or Berserker.
• Take quest 7. If you already killed the Hubologist, Merk will act as if you did it for him.

If you have a Bag o' stuff, you must drop it before going to fight Lenny. This is because the Bag is one of the items taken from you - and when you get it back, it's empty! Also guns will be loaded when returned, and if you had separate heaps of the same weapon (with different number of bullets in them, or in your active item slots) you will find yourself with a greater number of guns than you started out with. This is because the script counts all remaining objects when removing each stack; for instance, if you had eight Desert Eagles of which one was in an item slot you'd end up with fifteen after the fight, the script seeing eight before removing the first, then counting the remaining seven. Imagine that... a bug.

Some NPCs won't be hidden by the game when you enter the ring, and will fight Lenny with you: Laddie, Dogmeat, Goris, the pariah dog, K-9 or any inferior Brain Bot. If they die, stuff left on their corpses when you leave the basement is lost.

Don't save the game during your fight with Lenny, since if you have to reload you will be stuck in the ring after you kill him. The same kind of bug apparently plagued the ring fights in New Reno and San Francisco in the unpatched version. Although the readme says they're fixed I would still advise against saving during any ring fight.

The fake vault location changes after you leave it for the first time, so any items dropped in there will be lost. More importantly, your car will disappear if you drive there and leave on foot.

Saving and/or loading the game while Merk is walking somewhere may cause him to stop and go silent, or teleport him to his destination, depending on the time and location. Leaving the map and returning or resting for a few hours will get him unstuck if necessary.

There's an infinite money bug here if you like to exploit those (and didn't get enough money from the refinery bug in Broken Hills). Unless you've killed the Hubologist, you can ask Merk for more work after completing quest 1, and then fight Lenny (if you didn't already), or sell Myron for yet another $1000, and yet another $1000, and so on, until you either agree to kill the Hubologist or kill her anyway.

If you got Merk's name from Doofus and tell him you've heard he's the man to talk to, he'll refuse to talk to you until you kill Doofus. Doing so changes nothing, so don't choose this dialogue path.

Make a habit of never going directly to the downtown map when you enter NCR unless you're absolutely sure your NPCs aren't wielding weapons. Once you're there you have very little time to tell them to put their weapons away. On the Council map you start some distance from the nearest cop, so that's OK, and on Westin's ranch they don't care. The three inferior Brain Bots are not checked for weapons, but at the same time the cops are probably laughing at you for being stuck with bad NPCs.

Some say Goris' Claw poses a problem when moving around in NCR; however, the cops' script doesn't check for his presence (it's the same with and without the patch), and testing shows no reaction at all.

If you're the kind of player who likes to kill shopkeepers for their wares, take care, because after Duppo dies you may not be able to access his tables any more (save first and see). I don't know if this is a common occurrence.

• Talk Jack out of it, if you have Speech 80% or the Speaker perk. The easiest dialogue path here is 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2 (there's only one node where it doesn't matter what you say). If you succeed, you earn 6000 xp. Talk to Dorothy for another 3000 xp (although it doesn't say on your screen), a Big Book of Science, a Scout Handbook, a First Aid Book and a Deans Electronics.
• Wait for Jack to begin his routine ("Bite me! This is Jack!") and blast him with a couple of Jackhammer bursts at point blank range. Watch out - if you don't kill him, he'll shoot back! Tell Dorothy there was no alternative to killing him, and you get the books and 3000 xp. If you tell her there was a way to avoid bloodshed, you don't get anything except loot from Jack.
• Let him blow up, then repair the bank of monitors on the wall (not the nearby computer) with either Science or Repair. (You can do this even if you don't get the option to tell Dorothy you're good at repairing things, which requires Repair 65%.) You'll get the 3000 xp and books reward, plus the stuff you find in Jack's body parts.
• Let him blow up, then stand back and watch as Dorothy fails to repair the computer. She may die in the resulting explosion, in which case you can pick up a Scout Handbook and Deans Electronics from the ground, but as you can imagine you get no other reward for this. The forcefields to Westin's and Carlson's estates go down... but if you enter the Westin map without permission from the guard you have to kill him (no one else cares), and if you enter Carlson's yard without permission you have to fight an entire mapful of guards, which is bad, so there's no point to any of this.

If you don't wait until Jack begins talking before shooting him, Dorothy and/or the guards may attack you.

If you steal the two books Dorothy is carrying before getting the reward, she only gives you the two (Science and First Aid manuals) she is not.

You can repair the computer before anything else happens, and talk to Dorothy for her xp and book reward. If Jack then damages the computer and you fix it again, she'll give you another 3000 xp and two more books.

In the unpatched version you could get infinite rewards from Dorothy by using Repair on the computer repeatedly and talking to her in between.

Funny detail: as Jack blows up, during the death animation you can click on his body parts flying through the air and get more of Jack's spoken lines from them. You can shoot at them, too - but if you don't kill him he may pull himself together and shoot back!

If your LK is 1 and gets lowered, it will remain at 1 but if you later get the Gain Luck perk it won't do anything (since technically it will raise the Luck variable from 0 to 1). This goes for the zeta scan in San Francisco as well, of course.

IN<4: The guard will let you into Westin's estate if you choose the "Uh..." line.

If you want to get out from Westin's estate and Grant met with an accident or something, use Science or Repair on the computer by the gate, or blow it up with Dynamite. Although you can get 50 xp by using Repair on the forcefield emitter, you can't disable it this way. The cops downtown won't react if you slaughtered the people on the ranch.

Merk (and possibly his two henchmen) will reside in the north wing from 8.00 to 12.00 and in the vestibule from 12.01 to 16.00. If you try to talk to him in his room he'll shoo you out and attack if you stick around, unless you're a Porn Star (of either gender). Carlson's guards don't care if you kill him.

Strap: "I always loved assassinating Carlson in the NCR by planting explosives on his kid and sending him in to see his daddy."

There's a rumour that the Shiv can be used for this assassination, but it actually can't. I suppose what keeps this rumour around is that there's a certain logic to it: the Shiv is a non-detectable weapon and NCR is the place where you're not allowed to brandish weapons, and what else would you use a Shiv for but an assassination?

NCR is another area with lots of empty containers. If I'm not mistaken the only stuff you can find in the downtown area is: map in Ranger HQ, Dr Henry's papers, some stuff in Dusty's Cantina, and Doc Jubilee's bookcase. Except for Duppo's wares, of course, and the locked containers in the police HQ that you have to kill everyone to get to. The council and ranch areas are completely empty.

1. Retrive papers from Dr Henry.
   
   When you return to Merk after quest 7, you'll get the option to take this job (you only get one chance to accept, unless you choose the "information" line, in which case you get another chance). When you return with the papers (just "retrive" them from the desk at the doctor's place) you get 1000 xp and $1000. If for some inscrutable reason you killed Dr Henry Merk will attack after giving you the reward, and Lenny and Mira will join him in the fight (with CH 9 you can pay him $500 to let you go... yeah, right).
   
   
2. Test mutagenic serum on a super-mutant. Try Broken Hills.
   
   Talk to Dr Henry with at least Science 80%, ask about cyber-genetics and he'll ask you to inject a super mutant with a prototype serum. Well, find a super mutant and use it on them, and the mutant melts into a puddle of bones and goo (1000 xp). Seems Dr Henry has to work some on his cyber-genetics skills. Return to Dr Henry ("He's dead, Jim") and you get Cyberdog for an NPC if you want, but you probably don't.

   For some reason I think Elmo in Broken Hills makes for a suitable test subject. If you're evil, you can use the serum on Gond in the Ranger hideout. The other Rangers will attack, but the guards don't mind if you kill them. If you use the serum on Lenny in the Rawhide Saloon, the patrons will offer startled floats and Merk will turn hostile. You can also use it on Marcus if he gets too annoying. Cristian Golumbovici reports that using the serum on Frank Horrigan at the end of the game does nothing. Then again he's not your average super mutant (and more specifically, he doesn't have the correct kill type).

   If you use the serum on a super mutant in combat mode, you get the 1000 xp and complete the quest but the mutant will take one or a few turns before dying. If you kill it before then and loot the corpse the Mutagenic Serum may still be there. This way you can use the serum on, for instance, Grundel in the Military Base and still get combat xp for killing him. Nimrod adds: "If you get into combat with a supermutant, kill him, and have enough AP left over before combat ends, you can use the serum on the dead body and complete the quest. This can be used in the NCR if you fight Lenny since the hypo doesn't get taken away when you enter the ring, meaning you can complete the quest quickly without leaving town or needing to kill any friendly super mutants. The only quirk is you don't get the toxic meltdown animation. Using it on him in combat got me stuck in the ring. However using it on him after he's dead but before the combat ends doesn't get you stuck." The Masticator warns: "When fighting Lenny the super mutant, if you use the anti-mutant syringe before you damage him in combat he will fall on the floor and he is counted as alive, but unable to move. This traps you in unending combat mode. However, if you damage him at least once before using the syringe he dies normally." Using the serum on him while he's still alive will make Merk hostile, though (assuming you kill Lenny before the serum takes effect, so that you don't get stuck). As far as I know, other mutants don't cause this bad freeze-up.

   If you talk to Cyberdog after reporting back, you can ask Dr Henry about cyber-genetics again and get the whole quest all over again. Another bug is that if you turn him down after he describes his work, asking him again will eject you from dialogue. Saving and loading the game fixes this.

3. Deliver Westin's holodisk to Lynette in Vault City.
   
   When you deliver Bishop's Holodisk to Westin he'll ask if you're a Vault City citizen, and if you are he gives you this quest. (If you have the quest to kill Westin you can do it before you leave, since there's no additional reward once you deliver his disk.) For a successful delivery you get 1500 xp, a H&K G11 and 2 Frag Grenades, which Randal in Vault City will supply.

   If Lynette thinks highly enough of you when you deliver the holodisk, she'll make you Captain of the Guard, a position which has several advantages as decribed in the Vault City section. To pull this off you need CH 8 and getting Lynette's "respect counter" high enough by adressing her as First Citizen at every turn. The easiest way to do this requires Speech 75% and being a citizen (which you obviously are since Westin gave you his disk), and can be done right before giving the disk to Lynette. Say you have a question for her, ask why they don't live in a vault, and then pick the last option to leave dialogue. Do this 10-15 times (or more if necessary) to raise the respect counter before giving her the disk. If you become Captain, you get 2500 xp for the delivery instead of the usual 1500 xp.

4. Get the map from the NCR Rangers, for Vortis the slaver.
   
   Save before talking to Vortis in the bazaar, because if you're good and annoy him he won't talk to you any more. Also the overseer in metal armour will attack if he sees you between 4 a.m. and 12 a.m., so rest until noon to be safe. Ask for work and agree to get a map. Just walk over to the Rangers' headquarters in downtown NCR (the place with a super mutant and people in Combat Armor) and take the map from a table in the garage, then return to Vortis for $500. Now's a good time to finish quest 5. I think you're still being a good guy, because obviously they won't have an opportunity to actually use the map before you wipe them out...
   
   
5. Free the slaves in the slave pen, for the Rangers.
   
   First get quest 4 for the slavers. Then talk to Elise, say you hate slavers, and agree to prove yourself. Go to the slavers, hand them the map and bump them off, which should be easy. Free the slaves by accessing the terminals (use any skill or the hand icon, the check is for both Science and Lockpick). Then return and join the Rangers for 3000 xp and a Ranger Pin.

   You can become a Ranger the first time you talk to Elise, by telling her you hate slavers but then that you have to think about what she has said, and leaving dialogue. When you talk to her again and agree to become a Ranger you get the 3000 xp right away and the quest pops up crossed out in your Pipboy.

   You actually only have to open one set of cages before returning to Elise, and oddly enough you can kill all the slaves first and still finish the quest. If you free the slaves before taking the quest, you don't get it. Obviously you can't get this quest if you're a Slaver. Elise and Gond won't attack you, but the guy with the Minigun does if you talk to him.

6. Deliver Hubologist's field report to AHS-9 in San Francisco.
   
   You can get this quest in two ways. One is to answer "Yes" when talking to the Hubologist for the first time, and then either choose the "Transcendency" line to trick her into thinking you're higher ranked than she is (Speech check), or choose the "aura" line and then ask how things are going (IN 8 and Speech 65%). She'll then give you this quest. The other way is to get Merk's quest to kill the Hubologist and tell her, but say you won't do it. Although the dialogue ends at this point, you'll get the letter in your inventory and the quest in your Pipboy. Delivering the report yields 500 meagre xp with no additional reward from either AHS-9 or the Hubologist in NCR. Hmpf. At least you can kill the Hubologist for Merk and still finish this quest.
   
   
7. Kill Hubologist in NCR for Merk.
   
   Remember to get the zeta scan and delivery quest first! When the Hubologist is dead you earn 2000 xp and can return to Merk for his next task. You get these xp even if you don't talk to Merk first.

   Now for a quick lesson in how to kill silently for fun and amusement. Basically there are three ways to do this: 1) Feed your victim a number of Super Stimpaks in quick succession (put one in an active item slot and use them from there for convenience). Each one does 9 damage, so you should have the Awareness perk and divide the HP of your intended victim by that number, rounding up. Wait 10 minutes using the Pipboy, and voilà. 2) Set an explosive to go off and plant it on your victim using Steal, or drop it one or two hexes away while sneaking (darkness helps). If your target doesn't die from the blast you'll enter combat mode which is usually bad, and the same happens if another critter is harmed by the blast. However, you can circumvent these effects by running far away from anyone who's allied with the victim before the bomb goes off. If you can survive the blast you can even keep the explosives in your own inventory and stand next to the victim. A clever variation of this is the concept of "satchel charges", as described by Corpse: "I found a cool way to assassinate people with explosives. If you have the Bag you find in the Modoc mole rat lair, just place the explosives in it, set the timer (while they are in the Bag), then drop the Bag with the explosives next to your victim and run. Kaboom! You could even do that when they are with a large group of goons and no one will notice. This also works if you place the explosives in any container (a locker or a desk etc.) near your victim." If you're setting more than one bomb at once, make sure there's a wall or something behind the victim so they don't get thrown back by the first blast and avoid the others. 3) Enter Sneak mode and dispatch your victim in normal combat, but you only have one round in which to do it. It doesn't matter if you use a "loud" weapon and most often it doesn't matter if there are people around. You'll probably have to hit end turn once before being able to end combat, but if you've played the game up until this point you may already know it often works that way.

   If you kill someone using Dynamite, crashes may occur. Just try again and eventually it should work (or if not, well, switch to another method). People have also reported crashes when using the Pipboy to wait for Dynamite to explode, or leaving the current map (which forces explosives to go off), but it's my belief that these things do not in themselves cause the crashes. Also, as noted previously in the guide, it's not a good idea to save while there are explosives waiting to go off.

   It is not recommended that you run off a map while waiting for explosives to kill someone. Although they will take damage and die as appropriate, any code related to their death (like setting death variables or moving shop inventories) will not be executed, which could halt quests in their tracks or cause other problems. For instance, in the case of the Enlightened One, you wouldn't get the 2000 xp and Merk would never consider the task to be completed.

   Running off the map while waiting for someone to die of a Super Stimpak overdose is also likely to crash the game. This will not happen for all nameless characters like NCR townspeople, but you can be sure that it happens with any critter that needs to set variables or do other things upon dying (and the Enlightened One is one of them). There is normally no reason to do this anyway.

   In some areas killing certain people will make others hostile even if you manage a "silent" kill (e.g. Torr in downtown Klamath, AHS-9 or Westin if you do the Sneak-kill). You may not be attacked right away, but attempts to communicate or walk around openly are likely to end badly. This is because some death scripts set variables and so on regardless of how that death came about. Death by Dynamite or Super Stimpak should only have this effect in very rare cases, though.

8. Stop brahmin raids.
   
   Go to Westin's ranch and talk to Felix. With a recommendation from Dumont or Lynette, or if you have IN<4, he'll unlock the door for you. Westin will ask you to solve the mystery of his disappearing brahmin if you tell him Dumont sent you, or if you have IN<4, or if you ask him where to find Vault 13, or if you killed Bishop for him and ask if there's any more work. Talk to Felix again and you're teleported to the pastures. Wait a while... and two talking deathclaws appear and depart. You can now return to Westin and tell him he only has to post a guard for 1000 xp and $200. He'll also give you the location of Vault 15, which you probably don't need.

   If you have a high Outdoorsman skill (100%) an exit grid will pop up in the northeast corner when the deathclaws are gone. Go there and follow them to their lair... Vault 13! There's actually a small glitch you can exploit here, but not to any great use. Even if the rocks aren't removed to reveal the new exit, you can click one of the hexes at the top that are half offscreen, and your character will run off the screen further down and onto the exit grid! You then get to go to Vault 13; however, it doesn't actually appear on your world map.

   If you should leave the pastures by either exit grid before the deathclaws appear, or if you refuse to follow Felix to the pastures in the first place, you can't end the quest. This can be fixed by pressing 6 on the NCR town map (this is cheating), which brings you to the cow map so you can finish the quest (Felix and Westin will wait indefinitely for this).

   If you already repaired the computer in Vault 13 you won't get this quest (except if you ask Westin for work directly after reporting that you killed Bishop), but you can use the same dialogue options to meet Westin. If you've talked to Gruthar before following Felix to the pastures, the deathclaws there will call you by name!

   Don't attack the brahmin, because the game may lock up if you're in combat mode when the deathclaws appear. If you kill the brahmin afterwards Felix and Westin don't seem to care. For that matter, you can kill the two deathclaws for 2400 combat xp and the deathclaws in Vault 13 won't care either.

9. Eliminate Mr. Bishop.
   
   When you have Bishop's quest to kill Westin, tell him Bishop sent you and listen to what Westin's got to say. He'll offer you 50% more than Bishop did, and you can either tell him how much you were going to get or lie, adding 50% to your base payment (meaning Westin will offer $2250 if Bishop was offering you $1000 to begin with). Now all you have to do is kill Bishop in whichever way and return for your payment but no xp. A much better idea is to kill Westin and get Bishop's next quest.
   
   
10. Retrive Parts/Gain Access to Vault 15.
    
    Sheriff Dumont, Deputy Karl, Dusty, Doc Jubilee and the slave overseer have all mentioned that President Tandi is looking for a "specialist". Go to the Congress House and tell first Feargus and then Gunther that you're there for the job. Talk to Tandi and take this quest to "retrive" the computer parts, but don't ask for a reward! She'll put Vault 15 on your world map, of course, and give you infinite holodisks if you ask her about NCR. If you want to you can go to Deputy Karl and ask to see the prisoner. Attack him once and he'll give you some background information. No one cares if you kill him, actually. Off to Vault 15, then.

    That's another Feargus right there. If you use Steal, First Aid or Doctor on him, for some reason he walks out of the building and disappears! I think that's some kind of bug. If you leave the map while he's still walking, he'll stop and you can then talk to him as usual. You can come in to see Tandi and get the job by assassinating Feargus and Gunther, but then it'll be hard to pick up the reward.

    To complete this quest, either "win condition" will do. To secure access to the vault you must have killed Darion and talked to Zeke about letting NCR annex the Squat, in which case you don't need the parts. Or else you could just walk into the vault, take the parts and return with those without dealing with Darion. Tandi sends you to Gunther who will reward you with 5000 xp and $6000 no matter if you killed Darion, got the parts, or both. If you asked for money before, you only get $500 (but the same amount of xp). People are strange.

    If you discovered Vault 13 and was allowed entry by Gruthar, you can tell Tandi about it when you report back about Vault 15 (and only then). If the deathclaws are still there, you have no option but to tell her about them, in which case she will think you're crazy. However, if you killed Gruthar, or if you visited Vault 13 after the Enclave killed the deathclaws, you can tell her it's free for the taking, and you will then gain a bonus when collecting the reward from Gunther. If you ask for $20,000 you will get that in addition to your normal monetary reward, otherwise the bonus will be "only" $10,000. In each case you also gain 2000 xp and 35 karma, so I don't see why you shouldn't ask for the twenty grand.

11. "Take care of Officer Jack" for Mira.
    
    Talk to Mira with a stupid character and at least ST 7; Merk will point you in her direction if you talk to him. She'll tell you to climb a rope over the city wall (it appears near the right edge of the map, you don't really need it). If it's nighttime when you enter downtown, Jack will be in the police station. Wait until dawn, and he'll walk over to the power station and threaten to blow himself up (see above), which is the best opportunity to waste him (2000 xp) without annoying anyone; you can actually let him blow himself up with the same result. When he's dead, head over to the bazaar and talk to Mira for your reward - a HK P90c!

    This quest pops up when Jack dies even if it wasn't active before, so you can go and get Mira's reward although you don't get the extra xp for killing Jack. All characters can do this. If you let Jack blow himself up she says she's giving you a rad-a-waster, but you don't get any Booze in your inventory like you would if you bought one. If you killed him yourself, however, she gives you the HK P90c.

    For a normally non-stupid character, the best time to get this quest would be after talking Jack out of blowing himself up. Use Mentats, Psycho and/or Buffout to get the quest, then go kill Jack silently in his cell for the 2000 xp. You must remain stupid to collect the reward.

    If you fought Lenny in the ring, Mira's dialogue will be different and you won't get the quest, and if you already got the quest you don't get Mira's reward (whether you're stupid or not).

12. Complete brahmin drive.
    
    Talk to Duppo about work and he'll give you this quest. The caravan master shows up outside the gate to Westin's estate around 8 a.m. next morning and waits there for 6 hours, although he won't disappear as long as you stay on this map. You should save your game before talking to the caravan leader, and keep that slot intact until you're done with this quest, because like all caravan jobs it's buggy as hell. On your way to Redding you'll face 1-4 random encounters of extremely varying difficulty (see Redding for caravan behaviour). Upon arrival you earn cash depending on how many brahmin survived: $0 (0), $1000 (1-3), $2000 (4-5) or $3000 (6-10), but no quest xp. Since you actually walk all the way from NCR to Redding this quest will take a while in game time (more than 2 months walking back and forth). If you have the car you don't get to bring it. Of course, you could take your chances with another caravan... If you ask Duppo about work after this quest, he'll tell you to come back in a few months, but this dialogue never changes no matter how long you wait.

    This caravan job differs from the usual ones in a few ways. Firstly, Hal won't give the all-clear signal out loud, so you'll have to use your own judgement (remember that mobsters must be killed). Secondly, you can abandon this caravan - or even kill everyone in it! - and still go to Redding and pick up your reward (always $1000 in this case, unless all the brahmin died before you left the caravan). Thirdly, there will be one less guard for each of your NPCs if you have any.

    Don't click on Hal in caravan encounters, because this will reset the "encounter counter" (as well as every other caravan variable such as the number of guards and brahmin), meaning you can literally get infinite encounters. While this could be a good thing if you want lots of xp and weapons - some of these encounters are much tougher, but also more rewarding, than normal ones - it could also get a bit annoying. Remember to bring plenty of ammo...

Vault 15

"Uh... I have information that... could lead to establishing a network of... um, all the existing vaults throughout the country. That's it."
--The Chosen One

If you can't be bothered to rescue people, kill Zeke for the keycard, then kill Dalia or initiate quest 3 so that you can get her to move. If you kill one squatter the others won't turn hostile.

The forcefield can be temporarily disabled using Repair on the emitter as usual. Using explosives is a more expensive and also less reliable way; most likely the first Dynamite will only make the field flicker for a few seconds, but the second should take it out. If you try using Lockpick, Science or Repair on the forcefield itself, you end up taking 10-15 points of damage.

On level 3 you find the anomalous HK P90c which is initially loaded with 9mm ammo (but can only be reloaded with 10mm). It's been theorized that this weapon was originally meant to use this calibre, but that it was changed either inadvertently or because of the scarcity of 9mm ammo. Some robbers in caves with HK P90c's also carry 9mm ammo, although their guns are loaded with 10mm ammo.

1. Give Spy Holodisk to authority in NCR.
   
   The computer in Darion's room will give you a Spy Holodisk if you pass a Science check. Tell Tandi and then Gunther about it, show him the holodisk for proof (IN 7 required) and you get 4000 xp and $4000. Feargus, the spy in question, walks away, and there doesn't seem to be anything you can do to stop him. He'll also leave if you tell him you've learned there is a spy.

   In the unpatched game you could steal the holodisk back from Gunther and give it to him for another reward, over and over again.

   IN<4: You can get the Spy Holodisk from the computer and even tell Tandi about it, but you can't report to Gunther and get the reward because of the IN requirement. This could be an oversight, or maybe your character has the memory of a goldfish.

2. Kill Darion.
   
   Talk to Zeke after quest 3 and he'll ask you to kill Darion and give you the keycard you need to enter the Vault. (He'll also put the NCR on your map in case you needed that.) You get 6000 xp for this deed. You can enter the room on level 3 where Darion is without anyone attacking at once as long as you don't talk to them or move too close to Darion; his guards won't budge even if you fight the other Khans on this level. Position your party members around the room and initiate combat by talking to Darion, or shooting someone. If you talk to him you can actually barter his ammo, Stimpaks and Buffout for some empty guns from level 2 or something, but that's silly. After you kill Darion everyone in the vault will turn hostile (except for the doctor, of course), which is a problem because they insist on using those chems which are rightfully yours!

   If for some reason you don't get the quest from Zeke, it pops up crossed out once you kill Darion, and everything else happens the same anyway as long as you talk to Zeke afterwards.

3. Rescue Chrissy.
   
   Someone's overheard your conversation with Rebecca. Go over to Dalia and she'll let you pass. Leave the map to the northeast. You can now go about this in one of three ways:
   
   
   • Sneaky way: go along the top of the screen (Sneak isn't necessary, but it helps), disarm the trap on the door on the north side of the building (you need to use Traps twice, once to find the trap and again to disarm it), pick the lock, do the same thing with the door to the northeast, and there's Chrissy. Tell her to come along. If Phil sees you leaving he'll attack at once.
   • Diplomatic way: approach Phil, and choose the "one of us will die" line. He'll hand you the key to the shack, but if you talk to him again he'll attack. Using the key on any of the trapped doors will unlock it and disarm the trap at the same time, but where's the fun in that?
   • Aggressive way: blast Phil and Karla into little pieces. Karla has a Sniper Rifle, so don't let her catch you out in the open.
   
   Returning to Rebecca you get 2500 xp and an introduction to Zeke so you can get quests 2 and 4. Incidentally, if you kill Zeke and Dalia first instead of getting this quest properly it still plays out the same (except you can't talk Phil out of fighting), including Rebecca going to "talk to Zeke".
   
   
4. Complete deal with NCR.
   
   Even if you don't get this from Zeke it's automatically taken care of in conversation with Tandi when you finish NCR quest 10, unless you did it by only delivering the parts. You don't gain any xp for this quest, it just sort of happens (and decides which ending you get for Vault 15). There's not even any need to return to Vault 15 afterwards if you didn't leave anything there.

   One thing of notice, though: the Squat map will change, leaving any items you may have left there inaccessible, though your car will be on the new map if it was parked there, idle NPCs will be waiting (except for Laddie), and items on critters will remain. Zeke will stand in his redecorated NCR-style house complaining that you've doomed the squatters, which is something of a bug. The manhole in Zeke's house will now be accessible, though.

Vault 13

"When I was five, my uncle was decapitated by a watermelon."
--Dave

IN<4: Gruthar will always let you in, no matter your karma. Thus an evil character could get inside the vault using chems.

You can sneak in or run past Gruthar in combat mode and no one will treat you differently. You can then examine and fix the computer and return to Gruthar for your reward even if you don't meet his moral standards.

Due to what is most likely a bug, Gruthar will turn hostile if you use any of the Steal, First Aid or Doctor skills on him, attacking the next time you talk to him.

When you kill some of the deathclaws using a pulse weapon with the violence level on maximum, they'll disintegrate leaving a strange purple square on the ground. This is not actually supposed to happen. You can pick up the Claw items and even wield them yourself, but they're not very good as mêlée weapons go.

If Matt dies but Gruthar remains alive, the game will crash if you leave the vault and return, or if you save and load in the vault. This happens regardless of whether you kill him yourself or he is killed by the deathclaws. You can move freely between the three levels and finish what business you have, but don't bring about Matt's demise unless you're killing the deathclaws or you don't plan to return to Vault 13 until after the massacre.

1. Fix the Vault 13 computer.
   
   The computer is in the Overseer's room on level 3. Looking inside it will lead you to discover the problem. Get a Computer Voice Module and use it on the terminal (or just access the terminal with the module in your inventory) to fix it. If you ask Jimmy about where to get one he will in a clairvoyant fashion point you in the direction of Vault City and New Reno. Talk to Gruthar afterwards for 5000 xp, and if you didn't already take the G.E.C.K. he'll hand it to you.

   IN<4: Gruthar won't hand you the G.E.C.K., so you'll have to help yourself. I'm sure that kind of thing comes quite naturally by now.

   Two weeks after you get the 5000 xp from Gruthar, Frank Horrigan and his Enclave goons will arrive to butcher the deathclaws (unless you're there, of course, in which case they just wait until you've left). Everyone dies but Goris, and you can use the computer to see a video sequence of what happened. In order to keep the deathclaws alive to the end of the game, don't collect the reward (see the Endings section for more on this). Killing Gruthar stops the massacre from happening, but then you'll get the bad ending anyway. A little weirdly, it's perfectly possible to trigger the massacre after you've been to the Enclave and killed Horrigan.

   Mark Furmage adds: "When you watch the killing of Gruthar the pack leader in the 'hologram' the game actually generates the people in the hall, so if you're in dire need of thrills and have a lot of explosives you can kill Gruthar and the Enclave patrolmen. Watch out for Horrigan as he seems to be able to hit your character through Gruthar's still living body... or dead body if you throw some explosives near him. The bodies disappear when the hologram finishes, you get the xp however." Only one charge will go off at a time, so it's very difficult to kill any of the Enclave soldiers. Having NPCs around helps, as they will be visible and may end up attacking the soldiers or even your invisible self. Sebastian Cassten even managed to kill Horrigan using an elaborate scheme that I'll just sum up briefly. Get a number of NPCs with the capacity to deal lots of damage (like Marcus with a Vindicator Minigun and plenty of ammunition). Then give them ridiculous amounts of AP (you can get them to 99) using a vast supply of Jet and the save/load trick (see Items) - but do it quickly, since the duration is only five minutes. Place an NPC (Goris might be suitable for this) in the doorway from the corridor so that the rest won't follow you when you go to activate the recording. Finally, you can tell some or all of your people to attack "the strongest" to make them focus on getting Horrigan. Hopefully your explosives should result in enough combat rounds for them to get the job done with their artificially increased number of attacks.

2. Talk to Goris.
   
   Gruthar can give you this "quest" by telling you Goris has more knowledge in certain matters. You complete the quest simply by entering dialogue with Goris. After you've asked him a lot of stuff (he puts the Military Base on your map when you ask him what he knows about the Enclave) you can ask him to join your party. Beware that if you leave conversation before you've asked him everything you can, afterwards you'll only be able to ask him to join you (unless for some reason he won't, in which case you get another shot at the questions).

Military Base

"I hope dad comes back soon. I miss his magic tricks."
--Melchior Jr.

If you stick an armed Dynamite on the pole, it will look like it's duplicated - on the pole and on the ground at the same time - but this is just the game's way of remembering that the Dynamite on the pole was armed, so that it can be removed if it should go off before you push the cart. Um, never mind.

If you walk into the room with the locker and scroll the screen to the right, you'll see two super duper mutants talking about how to prepare a "rat surprise".

All your base are belong to us.

Pennyliu123 found a strategy for this fight which requires you to have one or more NPCs. Make sure they follow you past the bottleneck at the entrance to Melchior's room. Once he turns hostile, you can run back just behind the wooden support; with any luck one of your NPCs will move to block the passage. Melchior's pets, unable to reach you, will gather around him instead, so that you and (at times) your NPCs can shoot at them freely. You should definitely save first as there may be crashes.

You can get items from fire geckos the same way you get items from rocketbots (see the SAD section). Bodies you can use for the purpose include Melchior, NPCs (dead or unconscious), and unfortunate Enclave soldiers near the elevator. Normally a fire gecko corpse contains a Golden Gecko Pelt, which is hardly worth the extra effort. If killed with a 0-damage critical to the eyes, however, they will instead leave their Flame Breath behind. This is a kind of flamethrower which looks like a big rifle but uses the Small Guns skill and which cannot be reloaded. You can also get these items in random encounters (using NPCs) or at the Toxic waste dump (using NPCs or other geckos). An alternative way of getting the Flame Breath is to knock a gecko unconscious on a hex where there is already a lootable corpse present, but this requires a bit of luck and they may end up using all their "ammo" while you're waiting for them to stop in the right spot.

San Francisco

"What sort of stupid questions?"
"Oh, like: 'Why can't I use a sword or a chainsaw on my monitor?'"
--The Chosen One and Dave Handy

The first time you come here, if you walk towards the village square you'll see two people in a fighting ring, who exchange a few blows and then disappear. Those are the martial arts dudes of this town. Beware that once you've triggered the scripted sequence, you mustn't leave the map before they've left the ring (this is possible if you run towards the exit as soon as they begin), or Lo Pan will be stuck inside (see Addenda for a bug note on how wrong this can get).

Don't bother searching any of the containers, they're all empty including the lockers. It makes me think this place was designed by the same people that made Broken Hills. In fact all containers in all SF areas are empty, with a few easily enumerated exceptions: the two lockers in the Brotherhood building, and the lockers and footlockers and one bookcase in the Hubologist base.

If you worry about paying for expensive Power Armors that you may not need later, you can use this formula. Take the number of party members that can wear armour (Sulik, Vic, Cassidy, Lenny, Myron, Miria/Davin), add yourself, deduct three (the number of "free" Power Armors found on the mainland), and add one if you plan to finish Dr Jing's quest later on. Now you have the number of suits you need to buy from the stores.

The left table in the Red 888 Guns store restocks money which does not go into the shopkeeper's inventory until you access that table (most often you'll be buying ammo off the other one). Unlike most shops the money restocks separately on the respective shop owners, $2000-5000 every one to three weeks. If you have traded them more cash than that it won't disappear, but neither will they get more.

• Dermal Impact Armor: $5500, 2 days.
• Dermal Impact Asslt. Enhance.: $33,000, 5 days, CH -1.
• Phoenix Armor Implants: $8500, 3 days.
• Phoenix Assault Enhancement: $49,000, 4 days, CH -1.

Beware that Dr Fung is horribly bugged, so getting either of the two Enhancements here will not raise your Damage Resistance any, and furthermore, if you already got the Enhancements somewhere else, Dr Fung will offer to perform the first upgrade again, with the mayhap surprising result that you'll lose Damage Resistance. These two bugs happen for the same reason: while the other two doctors remove the "basic" perk when they give you the "enhanced" perk, Dr Fung leaves the basic perk in place, which apparently causes the game to ignore the effects of the advanced one. When you arrive with an advanced upgrade given to you by another doctor, Dr Fung sees only that you don't have the basic one and tries to give you that - with the result that the game will disregard the advanced one you already had, effectively lowering your DR. "Painless" Doc Johnson is cheaper anyway, so always go there.

If you ask Dr Fung to trade after he refuses to heal you because you cannot pay, you'll get stuck on an empty barter screen.

IN<4: The first time you talk to Dr Fung he'll offer you free healing whether you need it or not, after that you won't be able to talk to him (but you can barter with him if you want).

Remember that if you're wearing Power Armor, it raises your ST and thereby your Unarmed, so removing it may help things. You can also lower your ST and AG using the after-effects of Buffout if your Unarmed is hovering above 99%.

You can get training from both Lo Pan and the Dragon, assuming your karma changes by 500 or so in between. Hmm, fat chance.

Beware of bugs while fighting. If you end combat after killing your opponent but before you get the "You win" sign you'll be trapped inside the ring, in which case you must reload immediately since there's no way to get out. To be safe, stick to end turn at all times. It can also happen - when fighting the Dragon's people, at least - that you start winning fights automatically in the first round, but that all fighters remain in the ring and beat you up between fights! Sébastien Caisse comments: "You've probably noticed that in fights, when you get the 'You win' message, you have an extra round, often used by some people to kill the opponent - making bugs appear. However this round was actually provided to save your game. The only 100% 'glitchless' way is to not kill anyone." Depending on your fighting skills, perks and damage you may have to try hard not to do that. I've actually managed to kill every single fighter without any bugs appearing.

If you begin the game having CH 10 but not the Gifted trait, you won't be able to use ACE's Charisma increase to offset the penalty of a dermal implant. You can go through with the operation but it won't do anything.

You gain skill points based on your Intelligence when you first enter the character screen after levelling up. Thus if you don't view your character sheet at all for a few levels (but not more than three, or you'll miss a perk!) before raising your IN, you'll get skill points based retroactively on your new IN. This should also work with the Hubologist IN rise, but obviously not the Gain Intelligence perk.

In v1.0 asking ACE to cure you of radiation would add an amount of radiation equal to your current radiation level.

If you kill any of the named vagrants and Sneak over to Badger (so he doesn't get to enter combat mode) and talk to him, he'll say he turned the Shi and the Hubologists against you through his computer. The Shi will turn hostile, but not the Hubologists. Well, that's pretty useless.

One of the black-haired female vagrants has a rare XL70E3, but you'd have to kill her for it (Super Stimpaks will do, if you don't plan to wipe out everyone here). The other one has a Gauss Rifle, as does Marc. Several of the other punks walk around with H&K G11s that you can steal if you are so inclined. At this point in the game money and extra weaponry should mean very little to you.

Once you set sail you won't be able to return to the mainland before finishing the game, so you should decide what NPCs, items and weaponry you should bring. Strictly speaking you don't need to bring anything at all, but if your character doesn't have a high IN and/or Speech, you may want to bring plenty of ammo and some devastating weaponry.

A player who calls himself Mikes_29 has made the point that if you plan on levelling up on random encounters in the wasteland, you should do it before the Enclave. This way you have something to look forward to, whereas playing when there is nothing left to do will most likely feel significantly less rewarding (and then you'll be able to get any number of free xp by other means). One argument for making no xp runs at all before taking on the Enclave is that this way of boosting your character makes it mostly irrelevant how well you performed during the earlier stages of the game. But this is all up to you, of course.

Apart from doing quest 8, you can get the password from Ken Lee by asking for fuel if you have the tanker fuel quest active (you get one chance) and pass a difficult Speech check. You can still get the quests from him afterwards.

I think the only thing you can do at a workstation that you can't do from the mainframe is read a personnel file in the biology database, which is not important. However, one big difference is that from the chemistry workstations you can divert fuel to the tanker and the space shuttle, if you have both those quest, while the mainframe will realize after you move the fuel to one place that there isn't any left. This is a bug.

Asking him to format the Hubologist hard drive (Speech check needed) for 0 xp has two minor effects: firstly you gain 25 karma, and secondly AHS-9 will not give you quest 4 if you ask him for work (but AHS-7 will). If you mock Dave afterwards, he attacks. Apart from that no one cares. Additionally, Misha found that if you told Dave that Vikki likes him you can have him do this as many times as you like and obtain the karma bonus each time. If you don't mind exploiting a bug this is probably the easiest way of quickly raising your karma by a large amount.

• Tell the AHS-7 you have a letter for the AHS-9, if you have the quest from NCR.
• Tell the AHS-7 you need to see Crocket, if you've spoken to Lao Chou or Dr Jing about him.
• Tell the AHS-7 you're thinking of joining the Hubologists.
• Use Repair on the forcefield emitters. No one seems to mind.
• With IN<4 the AHS-7 will let you pass if you got the alignment in NCR or if you say you want to get one.

Beware another scripted sequence bug: if you leave this map after setting off the speech but before it's finished, Vikki and Juan will remain on the podium, completely unresponsive.

The AHS-9 will give you the same quests and rewards as the AHS-7. It doesn't matter which one of them you report back to.

IN<4: The whole thing is a bit different for a stupid character. If you got the zeta scan in NCR you can head on in and get quest 4 from the AHS-9 only. If you didn't, then you'll get the alignment from Juan and Vikki, not from the AHS-7. Note that if you have IN 3 then the "good" result of this scan will make you unstupid, which is probably not what you want (especially considering the reward for quest 4, see below), so I'd recommend getting the scan in NCR instead.

If you become a Hubologist, none of Dr Fung, Lo Pan or the Dragon in Chinatown will talk to you (so you may want to do all quests related to them first). Strangely enough, the Shi will. If you fight the Hubologists you'll be able to talk to these people again (this is a change from v1.0).

In one of the footlockers you will find a pointless oddity: two lit Flares. Their unlimited duration might have been a good thing, if they had actually emitted light, which they don't, and if anyone had ever used Flares anyway. They can be sold, though.

There's a slight glitch here: you can pay Crocket to upgrade multiple armours as long as you don't leave dialogue, and lose money (assuming you pay, that is) and one Power Armor each time, but naturally when he's done you only get one back. This would be sort of the opposite of bug exploitation.

If you fight the Hubologists you can't talk to Crocket any more (assuming he survives).

The forcefields in the Hubologist and Shi bases can be taken out with Repair or Dynamite without alerting anyone (if you use explosives and fail a Traps roll the field will just flicker for 1-2 minutes). You'll have to do this in order to get out once you start killing people in either place. Bring a Tool if you want to be able to disable the forcefields in combat mode.

1. Steal the vertibird plans from the Hubologists.
   
   You'll get this quest from Ken Lee if you gave the Vertibird Plans to the Hubologists. One way of stealing them is to ask Dave Handy to copy the plans for you when you get him to do stuff for you (you can then drop them and ask for more, but there's no need for that). You get this option even if you don't have the quest active, as long as the Shi have asked you for the plans. Badger can also hack into the Hubologist computer for you if you give him a day or three. Bringing them back to Dr Wong earns you 5000 xp.

   You can get the quest to retrieve the plans from Navarro and then to steal them if you give the plans to the Hubologists in the meantime. Even if you have both quests active you still only get one reward for bringing a copy, though.

   Once you've delivered a set of the plans to a faction they can't lose it; all you can do is copy it for the other faction. So you can't literally steal the plans back and forth forever. Uh, in case anyone was wondering. :)

2. The navigation computer needs the NavComp part to work.
   
   Once you have the NavCom Parts from Vault 13 and the Tanker Fob from Navarro, go to the navagational (sic) computer, taking the ladder from the locked room in the hold, and use the parts on it for 2000 xp.
   
   
3. You need to use a FOB to access the navigation computer.
   
   You get this quest when you examine the lock mechanism in the hold of the tanker or after talking to the captain. Bring the Tanker Fob from Navarro and use it on the thingy beside the door in the hold to open the door and gain 2000 xp.
   
   
4. Kill the Shi emperor.
   
   You can get this task from the AHS-7 (or AHS-9) after killing Badger, or if you tell the AHS-9 that you've come to kill him on behalf of the Shi, or if you have IN<4 in which case you only get this one. As you may already know, the Shi Emperor is actually a computer in the room behind the throne (the whole thing is kinda reminiscent of the Dead Nations in Planescape: Torment), and one way of doing this quest is to hack into it and format the hard drive. This isn't exactly a good idea, since all the Shi including those in Chinatown and all the shopkeepers will turn hostile. However, the other way is to kill Ken Lee, which can be done with Super Stimpaks without offending a soul. You get 5000 xp when you return to AHS-7 or AHS-9 with news of your Kirk-like computer-wrecking skills or Stimpak sneakiness, but then the AHS-9 will basically tell you to piss off.

   If you already got the fuel for the Hubologists you only get one chance to ask AHS-7 for this quest, and you won't be able to report back to him (for that, go to the AHS-9 instead). You can restore this dialogue by moving the fuel on to the tanker.

   IN<4: The AHS-9 will actually have a reward for the stupid character: preparing the tanker just like after the Brotherhood quest (see below). Thus you get 5000 extra xp for getting the fuel (even if you already secured it), and what's more, the thing is bugged so that you can talk to the AHS-9 again for 5000 xp each time.

   It's not possible to be rewarded for both assassination quests. If you start by formatting the computer you won't be able to talk to Ken Lee later, and after you collect your reward for killing AHS-9 you won't be able to close this one by talking to AHS-7.

5. The Hubologists need plans for a vertibird from Navarro.
   
   Harry the rocket supervisor will give you this quest once you become a Hubologist. Navarro will show up on the map so you can go there for the plans. Hand them over for 5000 xp.
   
   
5. Steal the vertibird plans from the Shi.
   
   You get this quest from Harry instead of (or in addition to) quest 5 (the other quest 5... which will then be quest 4, since you didn't get quest 1. Get it?) if you've given the Vertibird Plans to the Shi. If Badger owes you a favour he can get the plans for you in a day or three (and/or the fuel for the tanker, if you have that quest), and gets whacked by the Shi afterwards. See quest 1 for additional notes. 5000 xp as usual.

   You were also supposed to be able to copy the plans by hacking into the Shi physics database yourself, but this is bugged and you never get the item in your inventory.

6. The Hubologists need fuel for their spaceship.
   
   This is Harry's second quest. Dave Handy or Badger cannot get this fuel for you, you must either deal with Dr Jing (see quest 15) or hack the Shi computer system. Getting the fuel is worth 6000 xp, and as in quest 10 you get 3000 more if you do it from the Shi mainframe (but you get these even if you got permission from Lee). If you already moved fuel from the Shi you can only get it from a workstation.
   
   
7. Kill Badger so the tanker vagrants will embrace the Hub.
   
   This is the first task the AHS-7 (or AHS-9) gives you when you become a Hubologist. Walk over to the tanker and kill Badger in your preferred way (Super Stimpaks or a Bozar to the eyes), then return to the AHS-7 for your reward of 3000 xp. Now for quest 4.
   
   
8. Kill the AHS-9.
   
   You get this quest from Ken Lee either after giving the Vertibird Plans to the Shi, or if you tell him you've been sent by the Hubologists to kill the Emperor. Or just kill the AHS-9 anyway. You get 5000 xp when you return to Ken Lee afterwards, and he'll give you the password to the Shi computer.

   If you accepted this quest after getting the quest to kill the Emperor, the AHS-9 will know and attack if you talk to him. The same thing happens, a little counter-intuitively, if you get this one first and then get the other quest from AHS-7.

9. The Shi need plans for a vertibird from Navarro.
   
   If you ask Ken Lee in the Steel Palace for fuel or to see the Emperor, he'll charge you with giving the Vertibird Plans to Dr Wong. Navarro appears on your map. (If you already gave the plans to the Hubologists, you get quest 1 instead.) This is worth 5000 xp, and you get quest 8 if you still want to see the Emperor.

   If you already killed AHS-9, you won't get this quest.

10. The tanker needs fuel.
    
    You find out about this quest on the bridge of the tanker, from the computer or from the captain. There are several ways of getting fuel for the tanker, which is worth 5000 xp unless otherwise specified:
    
    
    • From Dr Jing after doing quest 15.
    • From Badger after doing quest 11.
    • From a Shi chemistry workstation.
    • From the Shi mainframe (a bonus of 3000 xp if you did not yet gain Ken Lee's permission to use the computer).
    • From Dave Handy after talking to Vikki (5000 xp if you tell him she made fun of him and he gets the fuel from the Shi, 3000 xp if you tell him she made fun of him and he gets it from the Hubologists, no xp if you tell him she thinks he's hot).
    • From Matthew when you complete quest 16 if you have IN<4.
    • From the AHS-9 when you complete quest 4 if you have IN<4.
    
    

    The last two options don't take fuel from any particular place. Of the others, only Handy can get the fuel if the Hubologists have it (Badger says he can, but see below). Using the workstation is the only way you can get fuel from the Shi after you've already moved it from there.

    You can get double experience by taking advantage of a glitch: tell Badger to transfer fuel (from the Shi or the Hubologists), then get the fuel in some other way while he's busy hacking, and finally return to collect Badger's xp. Another Badger bug is that if the Hubologists have the fuel and you ask him to get it from there, this triggers the completion of quest 6 over again, meaning you get 6000 xp but the fuel doesn't get transferred and this quest is left unresolved. Making use of the first bug makes the second irrelevant.

    If you let Dave Handy move the fuel from the spaceship to the tanker, this drains the Hubologists' fuel reserves so that you can go to a Shi workstation and use it for another 6000 xp. This is of course possible only because of the workstation bug. Telling Badger to steal the Hubologists' fuel does not have this effect, since he actually doesn't.

    If Handy hacks the Shi computer for the fuel it triggers Badger's death sequence (meaning you can't talk to Badger from that point).

    Someone expressed interest in how to go about the fuel thing to maximize the xp count. Taking advantage of three glitches this would seem to be: First of all, give the Vertibird Plans to the Hubologists. Go to the Shi mainframe and route the fuel to the Hubologists (9000 xp). Go to Badger and tell him to get the fuel from the Hubologists for the tanker. Go to Dave Handy and pick the "made fun" option, then tell him to move fuel to the tanker (3000 xp) and be sure to get a copy of the plans. Go to the Shi and use a workstation to move fuel to the Hubologists (6000 xp), wait and return to Badger (6000 xp). Finally lower your IN using drugs and get another 5000 xp for fuel when you give the plans to the Brotherhood. In all, 29,000 xp. You could also include the stupid reward for quest 4 in this scheme, but that's on the dark path (and yet another glitch). If you don't want to cheat at all I suppose you'd only get 12,000 xp: 9000 from the Shi mainframe and 3000 from Handy.

11. Find Badger's girlfriend in the hold below the ship.
    
    Once you get the tanker fuel quest or a quest to steal the Vertibird Plans, you can ask Badger to hack the Shi or Hubologist computer for you, and he will give you this task. You don't need to get it in advance, though. Go into the hold by the manhole in Badger's room or the stairs in the back, kill the monsters and aliens (good, clean fun), and go talk to Suze in the northeast corner. Lead her to one of the two stairs and she'll disappear. When you've followed her up, talk to Badger and you get 5000 xp for your troubles. If Suze is discovered and killed by the monsters (or if you kill her), you get no xp, but Badger will still hack for you after you give him 3 hours to mourn. In any case he'll only perform one hacking job for you (takes him 3 days if Suze is dead, 1 day if she lives), then you won't be able to talk to him again.

    If you let Badger hack the Shi computer, then the next time you visit the tanker after 1-3 days have passed (the timer starts when you leave and re-enter the tanker), you will see a cutscene in which he is executed by two Shi guards. No big deal since you have no further use for him, and if you have the quest to kill Badger you can now report back to the AHS-7. It all adds up. :)

    You can liven up the cutscene by dropping explosives in front of the exit (if you want to hit the Shi guards) or halfway between the exit and the barrel (if you want to hit Badger as well). Enter the tanker when the execution is scheduled to happen and set the timer on one or more charges for 20 seconds before scrolling up to trigger the cutscene. Each of the Shi will drop a H&K G11E if they have time to draw them. This won't turn the rest of the Shi hostile, but hurting Badger will turn the punks against you. Depending on circumstances (NPCs, your trap-laying skills) the cutscene may still play to the end, but should Badger die before that, the Shi will remain and you won't return to visibility. In this state you cannot initiate combat nor be attacked (though you can still piss people off), and you can't trigger spatial scripts (mostly meaning you can't use elevators or set off floor traps). The only way to get visible again is to go to NCR and perform Westin's brahmin quest, assuming you still can.

    In v1.0 the Badger cutscene would freeze the game if he was prevented from reaching his destination tile, or (less likely) if you happened to be in combat when it was scheduled to begin.

12. The Dragon wants you to take out Lo Pan - hand to hand.
    
    Ask the Dragon who he is and whether he'd like to take you on (need Unarmed 125% for this), or challenge him to a test of skills (no skill requirement, oddly enough). You'll get to fight six of his men, one at a time, after which he'll give you this quest (8000 xp). Challenge Lo Pan to a fight, kill him (2000 xp if you didn't take his test, otherwise no xp, but he's a wimp), then return to the Dragon for 3000 more xp. Although the Dragon says you have to defeat Lo Pan in honourable combat, you still get the same reward if you kill him with Super Stimpaks.

    You are fully healed before each fight including the final challenge, and you are also healed after you finish the test successfully, but not if you fail. All this is true for the next quest as well.

    If you attack "with armour and weapons" you'll have to fight the whole town. This goes for the next quest as well. If you lose a test fight, you can take the test again but must fight all six fighters from the beginning - including those you already killed. Both quests can be completed for the same xp (minus what you get for the tests) by challenging a fighter before getting the quest and then reporting back to the other. One rare exception is if Badger has been killed by the Shi, in which case the Dragon will brag about that instead of rewarding you for defeating Lo Pan.

    When losing (being down to one third of his HP), Lo Pan will pull a .223 Pistol on you. No big deal. Unfortunately you can't loot his body.

    There is an xp bug for both tests found by Sebastian Cassten: "When you've defeated your last opponent, save. When ending combat, start hitting A rapidly and you might end up in combat mode during the fade-out. Save in the blackness, then load and you'll find yourself in the ring. When leaving the ring you'll be rewarded for the test of skills twice."

13. Lo Pan wants you to take out the Dragon - hand to hand, if possible.
    
    Ask Lo Pan who he is and whether he'd like to take you on (need Unarmed 125% for this), or challenge him to a test of skills (no skill requirement). You'll get to fight six of his men, one at a time, after which he'll give you this quest (8000 xp). Challenge the Dragon to a fight and kill him (no xp), or kill him with Super Stimpaks or something, then return to Lo Pan for 3000 more xp.

    If you already completed the Dragon's skill test you lose the dialogue option to take Lo Pan's test of skills, but you can still get it by raising your Unarmed to 125%.

    You can challenge and kill Lo Pan afterwards, but it won't net you any more xp.

14. Get Chip's spleen.
    
    Chip is the bald guy outside Badger's room in the tanker. Offer to get his spleen, then head to the Flying Dragon 8 and ask the shopkeeper about the spleen, turns out Dr Wong in the Shi palace has it. Go to Wong. Now you only get one chance to get this right, so when you ask about the spleen, either make the Silence of the Lambs reference or tell him it's a human spleen. If you just tell him Chip wants the spleen back you won't get it. Also he won't give it to you if you angered him previously with the "shoved a gun under your nose" line.
    
    You get 2000 xp if you make Dr Wong promise to return the spleen. You still need someone to perform the operation, so go to Dr Fung in Chinatown. If you've met Doc Holliday in Broken Hills he'll do it for free (even if you haven't mentioned that in dialogue), otherwise he demands $1000. Next go tell Chip, wait one day until he returns to the tanker, whereupon you get 3000 more xp.

    This is one of the few "timed" quests in the game: Chip will die of his spleenless condition five days after you first agree to help. If you run around town making the necessary preparations without going off on aimless excursions into the wasteland it shouldn't be a problem.

    Killap: "Accept the quest to get Chip's spleen back. Tell him Dr Wong has it. Refuse to help put it back in, refuse again when Chip pleads for help, and then finally accept. Following this procedure will cause Chip to continue being mad at you for refusing (despite you finally accepting) and the dialogue option with Dr Fung will never appear."

    If you get the maximum number of quests for San Francisco in your Pipboy, this one and the ones below it won't show properly in the Pipboy window.

15. Get some hardened power armor from Crockett.
    
    To be able to get this quest, you must have quest 6 or 10 active and you must not have moved any fuel yet. In the Steel Palace, in the room to the south with scientists in it, there's a scowling man named Dr Jing. Tell him you need fuel and he'll tell you to get him some Hardened Power Armor, which can be obtained from Crocket in the Hubologist base (you need to give him a suit of regular Power Armor as usual). If you have this quest active you can tell Crocket that Dr Jing will probably give him rocket fuel in exchange for the armour (even if you already got fuel for the Hubologists), and he'll upgrade a suit for free. When you return to Jing with the armour, you can ask for fuel for the tanker, fuel for the Hubologists, or $20,000. Whichever you choose you get 5000 xp for this quest.

    If you deliver the armour to Jing in exchange for money or tanker fuel, every time you talk to Crocket afterwards he will whine about not getting any fuel (which means you don't get any more upgrades, even if you only got one so far), but nothing else happens. Life is hard. Note that this happens even if you never promised fuel to Crocket.

    You can actually upgrade as many suits as you like before finishing this quest. This is because Crocket never complains about lack of chemicals as long as you say you're getting the armour on behalf of Dr Jing. Getting an upgrade will make the quest dialogue option disappear, but just return to Jing and "reactivate" the quest, then go to Crocket again and follow the quest dialogue for another suit (promising him yet more fuel). Keep going back and forth until you have all the upgrades you need.

    If you trade the armour for money or fuel for the Hubologists, Jing keeps it in his inventory so that you can steal it back from under his nose. If you trade it for tanker fuel it disappears.

16. Get the vertibird plans for the Brotherhood of Steel.
    
    Matthew outside the Brotherhood building can, unlike his colleagues in the Den and NCR, actually carry on a meaningful conversation. He'll put Navarro on your map and tell you to retrieve a set of Vertibird Plans. Do this (see Navarro) and you get 20,000 xp for your troubles as well as access to the Brotherhood bunker. What's more, Matthew lets you keep the original plans so that you can use them in some of the other quests above. Two days after this Matthew will disappear (even if he's standing right in front of you, and even if you already won the game), and you can get the computer to show you exactly why.

    If your IN is less than 4 when you deliver the plans, the Brotherhood will fix the tanker so that it's ready to leave, which means you bypass the fuel, NavComp and Fob quests. You get the 5000 xp for getting the fuel as well, even if you already got it. (You can still get the xp for using the Tanker Fob and NavCom Parts if you want.)

    If you have this quest active after giving the plans to another faction you can ask Badger to get them for you when hacking, but it doesn't allow you to ask him about hacking in the first place.

    The video sequence, just like the one in Vault 13, will have your NPCs visible in it. Since this one takes place on a dummy map you can't start a fight by dropping explosives, but that didn't stop Sebastian Cassten from once again killing Horrigan and the Enclave soldiers (see the V13 section for details): "I loaded my main character with set Plastic Explosives, triggered the video, and soon after the fighting began. Somewhat annoyingly, when the first explosion goes off you'll most likely be attacked by one of your followers. However, once combat ends and though your PC is invisible, he or she is still able to fulfil all the usual functions (besides attacking that is). Thus I would suggest that before the next blast goes off you should place your character in such a way that it only causes damage to your enemies. Also, when the killing is over you might have some time left to collect a few items. There's a Turbo Plasma Rifle on Matt's body and the containers in the southwestern room are filled with the same loot as in the actual BoS bunker. So there's your second suit of Brotherhood Armor which you'd always been looking for."

Navarro

"Now I suppose you're going to tell me you're just out looking for a water chip. Do I look dumb?"
--Enclave patrolman

Due to the NPC bug described below, you will actually need to bring one NPC for Chris to think that you're alone if you have the car.

If you come in the car Chris will open dialogue at once. If you've already been here once that may result in a dialogue where your only choice is to attack and you risk putting the base on alert, so deal with Chris the first time you get here.

In the woods there are mines which are impossible to spot even with PE 10 and insanely high Traps skill.

You can have one NPC along with you and the guards still say you're alone; people you meet will act as if the NPC isn't there. This happens because most Navarro scripts assume that the car is included in the "NPC count", which it apparently isn't. Unlike Chris, though, they won't think you're not alone if you actually are. There is one crucial exception: the guard outside the commander's office will raise the alarm if anyone is with you except K-9 (you can use Sneak to avoid this), because his script was updated in the patch. Also note that if for some reason you didn't get the car from the Den, this bug will not happen.

With a few exceptions, people in the base won't talk to you if you're not wearing some kind of Power Armor. If you show up inside the base with any NPCs other than K-9 (that is, more than one), people will start attacking you.

The computer mentions that the Enclave main base is accessible by vertibird. Reportedly this was a quest which didn't get implemented (there are quite a few of those). On the other hand the guy in the comm center says the vertibirds are too complex for outsiders to handle. (Obviously he never met this kind of tribal before.)

A sign on the turrets says that tampering with them will lead to death, and in fact using any skill on them makes them attack.

Don't approach the southern gate from the inside if you didn't give the password to the guards coming from the outside, or they'll attack.

• As long as there are any turrets left on the ground level map, you won't be able to leave combat mode there. Annoying.
• Get the turrets first, and from a distance. They're not so tough to kill, but they do a lot of damage if you allow them to fire.
• Don't let your party spread out. The "stay where you are" combat option comes in handy. From the underground area you can take an elevator to the surface, kill off everyone in the surrounding area, go back down to heal your wounds if you need to, then proceed to the next lift, and so on. This is a whole lot easier than a frontal assault.
• You don't have to kill Cookie.
• If you shun ranged weapons this will be difficult, but by no means impossible. It's vital to keep your party together, so you may want to leave any reckless ones behind (Goris is impossible here). Sometimes you can sneak right up on the turrets, sometimes not; remember that smashing their sensors turns them into so much scrap metal. Try to lead people around corners and save a lot. This must be why you've been accumulating those insane amounts of Stimpaks and Super Stimpaks.
• Apart from Chris, you don't miss out on any quest xp by attacking from the start.

HtH characters can make the underground battle a whole lot easier by taking advantage of a scenery glitch. Once the battle starts, run to one of the vents facing south and stand in front of it (the edge of the hex should touch the wall). It doesn't work for all vents, but the one in the L-shaped corridor going to an elevator should do it, as well as the one in Xarn's room. You'll find the guards can't attack you with ranged weapons and instead just run up to you and stare stupidly. You can't attack them with ranged weapons, either (or even a Super Sledge), but you can hit them with unarmed attacks or mêlée weapons with range 1. The Hubologist base also has these vents, but this trick doesn't seem to work there.

1. Deal with the deathclaw.
   
   Talk to Dr Schreber in the soundproofed room and ask him about the deathclaw. Whether you offer to kill the deathclaw or not you can now get past the door to the cell. If you kill Xarn, you get 500 quest xp in addition to the 1200 kill xp. Instead you can offer to rescue him, in which case you must have the Blue Pass Key to open the door to the south (1500 xp). If you didn't bring the one from Gecko, there's one in Dr Schreber's desk. You don't have to kill Schreber for it (threaten him and he runs away, then end combat), but you should do that anyway for 1000 xp and 25 karma, and no one notices, the room being soundproof and all.
   
   If you kill Dr Schreber before getting this quest, you can kill the guard with Super Stimpaks to pass the door without alerting the base, and then get the quest from Xarn. However, if the alarm is sounded you can team up with Xarn for 1500 xp. He'll stay with you until you go near the red exit grid on the gas station map, or until you open the cell door with the Blue Pass Key. If you then go to Vault 13 he won't be there and none of the deathclaws will mention his existence.

   If Xarn leaves by the exit grid you don't get any xp right away, but you can then go and open the cell door to get them.

   You can actually get every possible quest xp from Xarn by joining him for 1500 xp, then opening the door for 1500 xp, and then finally killing him as he's on his way out for 500 xp. Of course the base would have to be on alert, and this late in the game you get a lot more xp from random encounters anyway.

2. Fix K9.
   
   You get this quest when you ask Dr Schreber about the cyberdog, or from K-9 itself after you kill Schreber. Go get the K-9 Motivator from the vertibird hangar above ground and use it on the mutt to activate it (3500 xp, Science check needed). If you have karma -100 or higher and aren't a Childkiller it'll join you at once, even if you already have your maximum number of party members. You can walk around Navarro with K-9 without anyone reacting.
   
   
3. Retrieve the FOB from the base Commander.
   
   This pops up after you ask the computer about getting to the Enclave or talk to Cookie about it. If you ask the guy outside the commander's office who gets to come in, he'll mention the cleaning crew. You must walk out of his sight and wait one hour before you can tell him you've come to clean the office (with IN<4 you can get him to believe this right away though). You can now go in, but the commander won't let you open the locker with the Tanker Fob. Either Sneak-Lockpick the locker (Sneak 60% and high Lockpick needed), or use (a lot of) Super Stimpaks on the commander. There is an easier way, for which you must have got this quest first (and need good Speech): tell the guard you've come to fetch the Tanker Fob, and the commander will let you walk right in and take it. In any case you get 3500 xp for getting the Fob out of the room.

The Enclave

"I always knew the President wanted to kill us all."
--New Reno townsperson

You can reach the Access Key options no matter your Science skill, as long as you have the Intelligence to use the computer. If you don't get the option to log on, just choose "Help", "Yes" and "Back to log on" and you'll have the option to log on using the Presidential Access Key.

If your Science level is excessively high, around 200%, you won't cause the terminal to shut down if you try to hack it, but neither will you succeed in your attempt (because the script is incomplete), so you're stuck in dialogue with only one option which loops back to itself. In the rare event that this happens, press 0 (zero) to exit dialogue.

The reason why you can bring one NPC is actually the same bug as in Navarro. The security bots which attack you if you're not alone have been updated in the patch and know they don't have to make allowances for the car counting as an NPC. This also means that if you never got the car from the Den (fat chance) the bug won't happen.

• There's no such thing as a general alert status in the Enclave. For each new map you can choose whether to leave your path of violence or grab the good stuff then attack again. Citizens and scientists will never initiate combat, but may fight back if you're in combat mode already (or run away).
• You don't have to fight Curling, Murray or the President (see below), and you can talk to them as if nothing happened even if you fought on those levels. This means you can kill off everyone for xp and equipment and still get the xp of the sneaky/diplomatic path.
• Make use of bottlenecks. Critters that don't see a clear path to you won't move at all, buying you time. Dodge behind doorways and corners a lot. Make them come to you and pick them off as they arrive. Start a fight at the edge of the map, never at the centre.
• Since both you and your opponents will be heavily armoured, it's all about criticals here. You should either be using sniping weapons (Gauss Rifle, aimed shot to the eyes or something) or efficient big guns (Avenger or Vindicator Minigun, Bozar). Without the Sniper perk this will be awfully hard, but if you have it, you can clean the place out using a .44 Magnum and plenty of .44 Magnum JHP. With a good HtH weapon and Slayer you should be fine too as long as you avoid open spaces.
• Kill the soldiers with Gauss Rifles first; they're most likely to pierce your armour and score criticals. They're usually the ones wearing "old" power armour. Also look out for the ones with Vindicator Miniguns in the presidential area. Turrets usually won't hurt you - unless they score a critical hit bypassing your armour, in which case you're dead.
• Some of the robots (not the turrets) aren't on the same team as the soldiers as far as the game engine is concerned - these are the ones on the detention level and the two closest to the entrance in the barracks. This means you can ignore them until later, or even take them out first without anyone reacting. If a robot hits an Enclave soldier the soldiers will attack the robots, but when combat ends they will turn on you; this can also lead to the Elder being executed, so watch out.
• As in Navarro, prevent your party from spreading out or running to meet the opposition. This is not least because they'll happily attack some citizen while ignoring the turret next to them which will cut them down in two turns. Chances are they'll be in the way more than anything else, so set their combat options wisely, or just dump them and go solo. Goris will simply die if you bring him here.

You can actually kill most of the prisoners through the forcefields without any dire consequences. However, if you kill the Elder, you only have until midnight when Hakunin appears and the game ends, same as if you'd attacked the villagers in Arroyo. You can still finish the game before this happens and get the happy end. If you play on, trying to leave San Francisco to the world map will also end the game. One funny thing is that if you stand to the right of the Elder's cell and kill a villager, she'll run through the forcefield and flee down the corridor!

The two eyebots sport Robo Melee Weapons that you can get using the procedure described in the Toxic Caves section. These function as decent punching weapons that require no ammo and deal electrical damage, which is pretty sweet because you can run up to someone, punch them in the eye and then watch them vanish in a violet flash. Just like in real life! Rocketbots in the Enclave carry Avenger Miniguns and/or Robo Rocket Launchers. The two on the presidential level have ordinary Miniguns in addition to the Robo Rocket Launchers; in v1.0 these were not armed at all.

If you have extremely high Traps and Lockpick values (say, 100% and 200% respectively), you can disable the electric fields on the doors and then pick them for 115 xp each time. This is not really recommended, though. The Lockpick penalty will drop for each door you open, but only if you're using the skill and not a lockpick item.

• Science: Opens all doors in the maze (using the terminals afterwards will open and close them as usual).
• Repair: Creates 1 Magic 8-Ball and restores electricity to the floor if you cut the wires so you can cut them again for 1000 xp (the floor doesn't actually start discharging unless you leave the map and come back).
• Gambling: Creates $2000-5000, 1 Loaded Dice and 1 Pack of Marked Cards.
• Outdoorsman: Creates 1 YK42B Pulse Rifle.
• Throwing: Creates 10-20 Plasma Grenade.
• First aid: Creates 1 Psycho, 1 Buffout, 1 First Aid Kit, 1 Mentats and 1 Stimpak.
• Doctor: Creates 2-4 Buffout, 1 Medical Supplies, 1 Poison, 2-4 Jet, 2-4 Super Stimpak, 2-4 Psycho, 1-2 Doctor's Bag and 2-4 Stimpak.
• Traps: Creates 2-4 Plastic Explosives, 2-4 Dynamite, 2-4 Electronic Lockpick MKII and 1 Motion Sensor.
• Speech: Creates 1 Alien Blaster.

Did I tell you about the time I took out half a squad of Enclave guards in the detention area in one round using the .44 Magnum, killing three with instant kill criticals, knocking one unconscious and wounding a fifth? Bwahahahahah.

Using the Yellow Reactor Keycard on the computer consoles does nothing, in case you're wondering. South of this room is a large inaccessible chamber with an elevator, a door entry computer and two important-looking terminals. Possibly the keycard - and the Red Reactor Keycard, which is in the database but not in the game - was supposed to be used there, but this was scrapped.

If you're wearing power armour of any type, got the car, and have one NPC with you, Murray will complain about your armour, but just dare him to report you and you'll get the usual dialogue.

You may read in a few walkthroughs that the emergency staircase won't always open when you disable the reactor and you must then fiddle with the computers in order to clear this route, or that they do open but you can use the computers to clear the way past the detention area instead. This is all incorrect, however. The state of the blast doors will always change when you start the reactor countdown, and only then.

If you activate counter insurgency without having enlisted Sgt. Granite, the troopers will come running to help Horrigan. This will happen if you activated the turrets before setting off the countdown, in which case the turrets open fire on Horrigan as soon as you enter the map. Once the turrets are gone the soldiers and Horrigan all turn on you. The soldiers will also attack you if you attack Horrigan on your own, and conversely if you attack them he'll come running.

If you let Horrigan initiate combat, the first door on the right will seal permanently shut. In this case Sgt. Granite's people and any NPCs that may have been shut in won't participate in the fight against Horrigan, but the NPCs will be with you when you get back to San Francisco. Here's a pretty odd thing you can do: Attack Horrigan without letting him talk to you, then run to the exit grid on the right and leave. When you return, Horrigan will initiate dialogue if he's nearby and the door will close. After you kill him, you can't get to the exit... but stepping on the exit grid to the barracks will mysteriously get you safely to the tanker and end the game.

In case your character is too dumb to access the terminal, or if you didn't get the Presidential Access Key, there's still a way to make this battle easier. It has to be done prior to disabling the reactor, though. You can take out the turrets by firing a few shots, then retreating through the door to the dock or behind the wall by the staircase. When you come back in again, the turrets won't be hostile, so shoot them some more. Repeat until they're all gone. Beating Horrigan in single combat with a good weapon like the Bozar shouldn't be at all impossible. Another reason to do this could be if you want to fight Horrigan "fairly", without the turrets helping either side.

Jacek Kominek points out that another way to take on Horrigan separately is to simply run back to where the turrets can't see you, in the corner above the blast doors. If the doors are open you can run away and end combat after defeating Horrigan, and the turrets won't attack when you return. Jacek also laments the ineffectiveness of mêlée weapons against Horrigan; the lack of good criticals means they can't measure up to the damage output of a good minigun. But then again, what can?

DrömmarnasStig relates a strategy: "After several aimed shots at the eyes with no effect I went for his legs. I crippled one leg and that won the fight for me. Once he runs out of ammo he changes to a mêlée weapon. From this moment forth I took one shot and used the rest of my AP for backing off, Horrigan never being able to reach me. From my brief experience I would highly recommend aimed shots at his legs (I took the Gauss Rifle for that job)." He'll be able to move just 3 hexes with a crippled leg.

Here's a bug/cheat similar to the vent bug in Navarro. Shoot Horrigan from a distance so he comes running towards you, then step behind the second door to the right and close it (Horrigan seems to be able to fire through the first one). When Horrigan runs into the doorway he'll stop and not attack. You'll then be able to hit him or shoot at him as much as you like with no return fire. This doesn't work if he's got his knife out.

Now's the time to whip out that Mutated Toe from earlier. Use it on Horrigan and... he loses 3 of his max HP. Hold me up, someone. This is exactly what happens if you use it on anyone else. And if you go to New Reno afterwards, the citizens still say "you really should have used the mutated toe on Horrigan".

After Horrigan is killed you may be able to get his weapons from his corpse, by killing one of the Enclave troopers (or an NPC) on the same hex and then using the selection arrows in the loot interface. If you click on Horrigan's body your character will run up and face the hex in question. The troopers cannot be pushed into position, but if you enter combat mode they'll come running toward you. Turning the violence level to minimal or none before killing Horrigan is necessary to make this work. Thanks to Sebastian Cassten for telling me about this.

If you inadvertently leave your party members behind when the oil rig blows, for instance if you had dropped them off on the dock, you can still save them by going to the bridge of the tanker, pressing "Go" (15,000 xp again) and returning to the rig (hmm!). If you've got time remaining on the countdown timer, you can re-recruit your NPCs and exit to San Francisco once again. It's good for a laugh anyway. Since the trips back and forth are instantaneous as far as the game timer is concerned, you may have a few minutes in which to keep doing this.

My maximum Rock count, without resorting to recurring random encounters (where they are sometimes plentiful), nor stealing (some kids and random townspeople carry lots), nor trading for them (Buster in NCR restocks them), nor digging up graves, is 111. That includes 19 from Klamath, 2 from the Den, 60 from Modoc, 2 from Redding, 5 from New Reno, 11 from San Francisco and 12 from special encounters (though you'd have to be lucky to get all of those).

• Play a reckless HtH character if you didn't already, or a cold-blooded sniper if you didn't already.
• Play a game restricting yourself to using weapons you normally wouldn't (e.g. Sharpened Pole, Pipe Rifle, 9mm Mauser, Molotov Cocktail, Gold Nugget, Wrench, XL70E3, Flamer, Rocket Launcher).
• Play a character with Intelligence less than 4.
• Play a CH 1 loner with no NPCs if you didn't already, or a squad leader if you didn't already.
• Play a game where you go everywhere, do as much stuff as you can, finish as many quests as possible, loot everything that can be looted and kill everyone who should be killed, if you didn't already.
• Play a purely evil character, scorning every good quest or action, seeking to do active harm but without resorting to mindless butchery; or conversely, play a ridiculously innocent and noble character to whom stealth and deceit are unthinkable.
• Play a "pacifist" game, never attacking or killing sentient beings, avoiding any situation where there is no diplomatic or sneaky solution and running from battles whenever possible.
• Play a "role-playing" game, where you do and say only the things you figure a person realistically would have (tricky!).
• Play a character with some comic quirk, e.g. keeping every dog NPC in the game around, or with some tragic flaw, e.g. suffering from periodic memory loss.
• Play as a Jet junkie from the moment you first encounter the drug (or, less extremely, from the moment you can maintain a steady supply).
• Play a game with game difficulty set to hard and combat difficulty set to rough if you didn't already.
• Try to finish the game as quickly as you can, using any stupid shortcut technique that helps. (See the Addenda section for what is quite likely the quickest way.)
• Play an "iron man" game or impose other restrictions upon saving and loading, or hit yourself on the head with a hammer every time you die and have to reload.
• Some combination of the above.

Endings

"I won! Fuck you! You are dumb. I have crushed you."
--Wooz

Arroyo

1. Arroyo re-settled using G.E.C.K.: You always get this, even if you don't have any G.E.C.K. at this point (for instance, if you let both of them blow up with the Enclave).

Modoc

1. Modoc is razed after Slags are killed by the townspeople: Deliver the message, then offer to help and fail, or join the people of Modoc in an attack on the Slags.
2. Modoc disperses after Slags are killed: Kill the Slags yourself, or deliver the message and immediately refuse to do any more.
3. Modoc flourishes: Make peace between Modoc and the Slags.
4. Modoc disperses due to drought: Don't deliver the message and don't kill the Slags.

The Den

1. The Den disperses: Kill Metzger and Rebecca.
2. The Den flourishes: Kill Metzger but not Rebecca.
3. The Den becomes a haven for raiders: Don't kill Metzger, kill Big Jesus Mordino.
4. The Den becomes a slaver central: Don't kill Metzger, don't kill Big Jesus Mordino.

Vault City

1. Population driven to NCR by radiation: Don't fix the power plant (blowing it up works too).
2. VC independent, Westin and Lynette marry (!): Fix the power plant, kill the raiders, expose Bishop's plan and deliver the two holodisks but do not collect the final reward from Randal (bug), and don't kill Westin or Lynette (obviously).
3. VC annexed by NCR: Fix the power plant, don't bring the Account Book or Bishop's Holodisk to Lynette.
4. VC becomes part of NCR: Fix the power plant, kill the raiders and bring the Account Book or Bishop's Holodisk to Lynette. (You get this one if you fail to get ending 2 for any reason, e.g. killing Westin or picking up the reward.)

New Reno

1. Everyone dead: Kill all four bosses.
2. Tribals arise: Impregnate either Bishop woman and leave her alive, and tell Mrs Bishop she should move on.
3. Bishop child: Impregnate either Bishop woman and leave her alive, but do not tell Mrs Bishop to move on.
4. Bishops rule: Leave the Bishop family in control (see below).
5. Salvatores rule: Leave the Salvatore family in control.
6. Mordinos rule: Leave the Mordino family in control, and don't get ending 7.
7. Mordinos wane: Leave the Mordino family in control, deliver Jet to Dr Troy but do not return for the Jet Antidote (bug).
8. Wrights seize power violently: Leave the Wright family in control, and enter the SAD.
9. Wrights attack Mordinos and get slaughtered: Leave the Wright family in control, don't enter the SAD, take but do not finish the murder quest and don't attack the Wrights.
10. Wrights rule fairly: Leave the Wright family in control, don't enter the SAD, and either finish the murder quest (in any way), turn the Wrights hostile (which sets the murder quest to finished), or do not take the murder quest at all.

• Killing a boss: sets that family's power to 0 (well, technically to -1)
• Killing a bartender, casino bouncer, generic guard or unnamed adult Wright: -1
• Mordino: killing or recruiting Myron: +20 (bug), killing Little Jesus: -1
• Bishop: breaking the raiders' strength: -20
• Salvatore: disturbing the desert transaction: -20, killing Mason: -5
• Wright: breaking the stills: -20, killing Keith Wright: -2, killing Chris Wright: -1

The two "impregnation" endings take precedence over all others. Obviously they're only available for male characters.

Richard Wright's murder

1. Murder solved: Solve the murder quest correctly.
2. True murderer never found: Finger a suspect other than the Salvatores.

You always get ending 2 if you attack the Wrights at any time during the game, even if you never got the quest to begin with.

Myron

1. Myron dead and forgotten: Hear Myron's name from Jules, Little Jesus, Renesco, Reed or Myron himself, and don't have him killed during the game.

Gecko

1. Gecko destroyed: Blow up the power plant.
2. Gecko and Vault City form uneasy truce: Fix the power plant but don't get the Reactor Holodisk from Festus.
3. Gecko invaded by Vault City: Fix and optimize the power plant.

Note that you can fall between endings 2 and 3 and thus not get any ending for Gecko even though you fixed the plant. Rumours that ending 3 is triggered by giving the Gecko Holodisk to McClure and/or performing Stark's scouting mission around Gecko are incorrect. You always get it if you optimize the plant. The best ending for Gecko, which would require you to optimize the plant and get the Gecko Holodisk from Gordon after talking to the Brain, is impossible to get due to a silly bug in the endings script.

Redding

1. Redding annexed by Vault City: Deliver the Jet antidote, leave and return to downtown Redding at least one day later, and don't kill Dr Johnson (even after the cure is administered).
2. Redding in league with New Reno: Sell the chip to McGrew, don't get ending 1.
3. Redding in league with NCR: Sell the chip to LeBarge, don't get ending 1.
4. Redding deserted: Don't sell the chip, don't get ending 1.

Broken Hills

1. Mutants dead, BH disperses: Kill the mutants in the mine.
2. Uranium runs out, BH disperses: Get Marcus to put the mutant-haters in jail.
3. Racial wars erupt, BH disperses: Do neither of the above.

New California Republic

1. NCR established: Complete the deal between NCR and Vault 15.
2. NCR expansion slowed: Don't complete the deal, don't kill Westin.
3. Carlson rules corruptly: Don't complete the deal, kill Westin but not Carlson.
4. NCR under military rule: Don't complete the deal, kill Westin and Carlson.

Vault 15

1. Vault 15 joins NCR: Complete the deal with NCR.
2. Vault 15 deserted: Don't complete the deal.

Vault 13

1. Genocide: Either kill Gruthar, or return to Vault 13 after the massacre.

You can avoid this ending (and so get none for Vault 13) if you don't trigger the massacre or if you don't return afterwards, but if you get it the game will always blame you for killing the deathclaws. This is reminiscent of the Hub and Followers ending problems in the original Fallout.

San Francisco

1. Population disperses after rampage: Turn the Shi hostile.
2. Sentient plant problems: Kill Dr Wong without turning the Shi hostile.
3. The Shi flourish: Don't turn the Shi hostile, don't kill Dr Wong.

Those Shi sure are sensitive. If you do everything normally in SF, then position yourself outside the tanker, toss a Plant Spike on one of the dockworkers and hurt him for 1 HP before ducking into the tanker and sailing off for the Enclave, you'll get the "demoralized and leaderless after your rampage" ending. I mean, it was a Plant Spike, get over it.

Tanker vagrants

1. Vagrants move on: You always get this (even if you kill them).

Encounters

"Radscorpions? What's so rad about them?"
--New Reno comedian

It seems that your effective Outdoorsman skill (chance of success before negative modifiers are applied) cannot exceed 95%, meaning there's no point in raising the skill beyond that, or carrying a Motion Sensor if you're already at that skill level.

The xp you gain from successful use of the Outdoorsman skill is equal to 100 plus the difficulty of the check (from 0 to 70 based on encounter zone, not encounter type) minus your skill level (capped at 95). If you're in the car you don't always get any xp, indicating it gives you an added independent chance (seemingly 50%) of avoiding encounters.

Some encounters come in the form of "X fending off Y", where X and Y are groups you would find in that area. In these cases, if you move out of the way you won't be attacked until they're finished with each other. Note that if you go into a cave and then come out again while this is going on, they'll forget that they were fighting, and normally hostile groups will then turn on you. In other encounters different groups work together, such as "raiders searching with wild dogs", "robbers and highwaymen" or "radscorpions hiding among spore plants". In some encounters where there are two separate groups (e.g. "aliens and deathclaws") you'll start out fighting one group, while the other will be idle and not react to your presence until combat ends (or you attack them). This will allow you to leave the map or position yourself before fighting the other group.

Don't drop important items on the ground in random encounter maps, because if you leave them there when you exit to the world map they're gone forever. This also goes for NPCs!

Merchants may trade with you depending on the sign of your karma (some will dismiss you for being a do-gooder, others for being a meanie). Inventory depends on location: New Reno merchants will have lots of drugs, for example, and VC merchants will have lots of healing items. One caravan in the NCR-Vault 13 area is a good source of Scout Handbooks. Another in the SF area has a 10% chance of carrying the rare XL70E3 each time you meet them. Some other critters can be traded with as well (e.g. fishermen, hermits, farmers), though they have nothing of value. (There is actually 1 chance in 100 that a fisherman will carry a Laser Pistol; they'll offer to sell it for $10,000, which is of course much more than it's worth.)

The traveler can put New Reno and Vault City on your world map.

In the homeless people and farmers encounters there may be a critter that is using the male, bald "yellow pyjamas" model, but which counts as a child (you can tell from his floating dialogue), and killing him makes you a Childkiller.

If you meet trappers, you can pimp Miria or Davin once to each trapper (regardless of gender) for one Gecko Pelt and one Golden Gecko Pelt if you don't have enough money to pay for them (drop your money first). If you're not married you can sleep with the trapper yourself, but you'll get poisoned. If you have IN<4, each trapper you talk to will give you a Gecko Pelt. Stochastic adds: "When in dialogue with the trappers, if you have enough money to purchase a normal Gecko Pelt, but not enough to buy a Golden Gecko Pelt, you can purchase the golden pelts for free! This only works for the in-dialogue trading, not the formal barter interface."

The rave party encounter found around the Den is extra rare because it happens only during certain hours (7 p.m. to midnight). You can actually get infinite chems in this encounter. There will be one or two people selling booze and a few others running around who sell Mentats, Buffout and Psycho. When you pay for a chem, your money goes into their inventory and they try to walk up to you and use a newly created chem dose on you. If you move away the chem will be left on the ground instead for you to pick up. When you're done, kill the partiers or just steal the money. You can also have sex with the partiers if you like. To do this you must first use a skill on them (Steal, First Aid or Doctor); this will give you an extra line of dialogue. Just ask them until they agree, and gender is not an object.

As pointed out by Jon Lynch, some people in random encounters will let you steal freely from them, to wit: the hunting party, Hubologists, bootleggers and moonshiners.

The number of critters in an encounter depends to some extent on the size of your own party. For instance, Enclave patrols will usually consist of three soldiers if you have a party of 1-3 people, but can come in squads of seven if you have a full group. Volcano draws some evil conclusions: "I have found a use for all of the useless NPCs. When I am trying to level up and acquire loot by fighting Enclave patrols, I prefer to leave my good NPCs behind. Otherwise, they end up taking a lot of damage, and take a lot of time or Stimpaks to heal up again. The problem is, when you are alone you find almost exclusively three-man patrols. Taking along a disposable NPC lets you encounter more big patrols."

The best place to level up late in the game is the strip of desert between San Francisco and New Reno. Good xp encounters include tough aliens, deathclaws, floaters and centaurs (particularly the last ones are easy), but avoid those pesky fire geckos.

• 1-6: Leather jacket, Hunting Rifle, Desert Eagle.
• 7-12: Leather armour, Assault Rifle, Super Sledge, Sniper Rifle.
• 13-18: Combat armour, Laser Rifle, Frag Grenades, Power Fist.
• 19-99: Power armour, Gauss Rifle, Plasma Grenades, Avenger Minigun.

• 9-14: 50 HP, leather armour.
• 15-18: 70 HP, combat leather jacket.
• 19-22: 90 HP, metal armour mk II.
• 23-26: 110 HP, combat armour mk II.
• 27-99: 130 HP, power armour.

• 9-13: Hunting Rifle, FN FAL.
• 14-19: Assault Rifle, Combat Shotgun.
• 20-26: Laser Rifle, H&K CAWS.
• 27-99: H&K G11.

The Mysterious Stranger can be exploited for infinite ammo. Whenever you enter an empty spot on the world map there's a chance that the stranger is standing nearby. Use Steal to get some ammo and Stimpaks. If you get caught, nothing happens. After you steal their stuff, enter combat and spend a round just running around. When combat ends they'll start moving away, but if you quickly save then load the game they'll stop. Steal again - new ammo. If they manage to get away you can just leave the map and repeat the whole thing. Also, on some random maps after combat is over the stranger doesn't quite get off the map when running away from you afterwards (works on some mountain maps), meaning if you position yourself correctly you can steal and enter combat repeatedly without having to worry about them getting away. You can get plenty of Micro Fusion Cell or 4.7mm Caseless ammo doing this. Finally there's a comparatively minor bug: a stranger carrying a Hunting Rifle will have Shotgun Shells, not .223 FMJ.

• 1-5: Leather armour (jacket look), 10mm Pistol, 10mm SMG, Spear.
• 6-10: Leather armour, Scoped Hunting Rifle, Desert Eagle, Plated Boxing Gloves (!).
• 11-14: Combat armour, Power Fist, Super Cattle Prod, .223 Pistol, HK P90c.
• 15-99: Combat armour, Pulse Rifle, FN FAL, H&K G11E, Turbo Plasma Rifle.

If you decline to enter a special encounter when you first find it, you may come across it again (because the encounter is only flagged as found when you enter the map), but it will have to be in another encounter zone (because the encounter script has a memory of its own). This is also true for encounters with map locations; these will remain on the map marked "Unknown" after you first get them, and are relocated when you run into the encounter again somewhere else. The Cafe is the only one that moves around even when it's been identified, because of a bug.

In rare cases a special encounter may not leave a location on the world map even though it usually would.

There are a few encounters where the map will reset every time you enter it, so dropped items will be lost. These are the Guardian Portal and all three "bad" encounters. They also share the feature that when you leave the area for the first time it remains labelled "Unknown". To make its proper name appear on the world map, simply enter and exit the encounter again (I wouldn't do this for the Toxic waste dump, though!).

You can't leave your car on a special encounter map unless it is out of fuel, but in that case it will appear properly even on the "resetting" maps.

Often you'll see a single Rock lying on the ground of most of the special encounter maps (to my knowledge, all special encounters but the Cafe of Broken Dreams, plus the Bess encounter). I can't help feeling there is some significance to this. Since the Rocks are randomly placed they can end up on exit grids or behind opaque scenery where you can't get them.

The summoned cows work like the ones in the mad brahmin encounter (see below). The bridgekeeper will only produce a new cow (ending combat in the process) when an existing one is killed, so you can enter combat mode and ignore the non-exploding brahmin until you've dealt with the guardian. You may want to set any NPCs to attack the strongest target.

There's a general engine bug that you may be most likely to take note of here, though it has also been observed with Enclave troops and the pariah dog. Whenever you off a critter with an instant death critical hit that does no damage, the kill doesn't completely register. As a result you get no xp for that critter, death variables will not be set and so on. In the case of the bridgekeeper this means you'll miss out on the 7500 xp if you kill him with such a hit before you wear down his Hit Points. However, there is a sure-fire way to avoid this. The Living Anatomy perk adds 5 points of damage after Damage Resistance is applied, meaning you will never score 0-damage kills against living targets like the bridgekeeper. I knew there was a reason why I like that one.

IN<4: The conversation will be a bit different. You'll only be able to ask him a question (what his name is) when he asks your name, after that you only get a "wrong" answer and a "correct" answer (both are gibberish, so you may not know which is which).

You can get 3 more Monument Chunks by using Steal on the head. If you have Steal tagged or at 95% or above you can pick them up with ease, but otherwise you'll be instantly slain, even if you don't take anything!

To my knowledge the Cola Fridge furniture object inside the house (and possibly that particular Stove as well) cannot be found anyplace else. But they don't actually do anything.

There is another, not so good way of recruiting Dogmeat: using an Iguana-on-a-stick on him (conveniently one is lying around in one of the rooms). So why is this bad? Well, most of the time it causes my game to crash, that's why. Since the vault suit thing is quick and easy, this should not be a problem.

This encounter is unique in the way that it can only be found in the central and southern parts of the world map, while the others can be found anywhere.

The reason why the Cafe effectively has a minimum level of 1 (it should really have been 6) is the same bug responsible for its repopping. Incidentally, this bug cancels out another bug (that the script checks the wrong variable, just as for the second hand grenade encounter) which would otherwise have made this encounter impossible to get in many games. See Addenda for a way to fix both of these bugs at the same time.

It is perhaps only to be expected that there have been persistent Internet rumours that the Holy Hand Grenade can actually be found in the game. This is not true, but see the Addenda section for more information.

Some would say this encounter isn't so bad, because there's a bug you may be able to exploit to raise your Luck. There are no guarantees, but this is pretty much how it works: 1) The bug doesn't have anything to do with being able to find the pariah dog in the first place, or how to approach/kill it, rather it's related to how the game keeps track of and modifies (or fails to modify) your stats. 2) To profit from the bug your original Luck must have been 5 or less. If it was 5 you must not have increased it to more than 6 (i.e. by taking the Gain Luck perk or the SF zeta scan), but raising your Luck from 4 to 7 does allow you to gain more Luck. 3) The bug triggers when your Luck has been raised from its initial value by getting Gain Luck and/or a zeta scan before the dog joins you. Although you get the Jinxed perk your Luck doesn't go to 1, and when you kill the dog your LK increases above its current value. 4) The increase in Luck is equal to your current LK minus one; e.g. it will go from 4 to 7, or from 6 or more to 10. 5) If your original Luck was 6 or higher the first part of the bug may still trigger - not losing any Luck - but you don't gain anything, either. 6) Returning to pick the dog up and kill it again works just the same, with your improved Luck as your new "original" value. 7) If you have the Gifted trait, all of the above will proceed as if your Luck was 1 lower, i.e. your original LK must be 6 or less, and it will become 2 when the dog is with you. This also means that using Mutate! to get Gifted and increase your Luck that way is not a valid trigger for the bug. The best way to go about exploiting this bug would probably be to start with LK 4, play until you run into the dog (making sure you don't get to level 12 first and miss out on getting Better Criticals at level 9), give it the slip and get the zeta scan in NCR, then return to the dog and raise your LK to 10. A slightly more complicated plan would be to start with LK 1, get the zeta scan and let the dog raise it to 5, then get Gain Luck and trigger the bug again for LK 10 - basically you get three stat points in exchange for one perk, but this interferes with getting Better Criticals.

An observation by Nevill: "Mad brahmin do not explode in combat mode - they only butt the player for an insignificant amount of damage. Also the mad brahmin that spawn in combat mode after the first ones are killed do absolutely nothing until the end of combat."

Never save in this encounter; the save may be corrupted and unloadable.

• 1+: Sharpened Spear, Spiked Knuckles
• 1-3: Knife, Rock, Spear
• 1-5: Throwing Knife, 10mm Pistol, Crowbar, Club, Brass Knuckles, Red Ryder BB Gun
• 1-10: Sharpened Pole
• 3-5: Combat Knife, Desert Eagle .44, Shotgun, Hunting Rifle
• 6-10: 10mm SMG
• 6+: 14mm Pistol, Cattle Prod
• 8+: Ripper
• 10+: Power Fist
• 11-15: Assault Rifle, Sniper Rifle
• 13+: Alien Blaster
• 15-20: Minigun

It's possible in this area to get the encounter "A merchant with some guards" which is just your random trader who won't barter with characters of good karma, but the two groups of people look almost identical. Don't get the encounters mixed up.

This encounter suffers from the bug that the brother and his thugs aren't on the same team, so if the brother starts combat the thugs won't attack until you've finished him off (assuming you don't attack them first), and vice versa. You can even get them to fight one another.

NPCs

"Wow! I feel as if I've passed some arbitrary experience value and gained more power!"
--Marcus

A few weapons use animations that aren't too obvious: the 14mm Pistol and .223 Pistol use the SMG animation, and the Tommy Gun uses the rifle animation instead of SMG.

The "throw" animation is used for Grenades, Rocks, Flares and such; Spears and Throwing Knives use the animation frames of those weapons when thrown. Note that an NPC can only use grenades if their weapon preference is set to "None", which prevents Sulik and Lenny from using such weapons even though they have the animations.

A weird thing you can do is to equip an NPC with a lit Flare. Make sure they have no other weapon, light the Flare, give it to them and make them ready it. They will effectively become a light source, and what's more, this effect stays indefinitely even after the Flare has disappeared. You can do this for everyone who can equip Flares, i.e. Vic, Davin, Marcus and Myron. You can probably guess that it looks very odd to have them all running around in a big group at night. You can set Marcus to close combat mode and let him rush forward to illuminate your enemies at night, although this should be marginally useful at best. You can actually do this with your own character, but the effect wears off when you switch maps.

You should make a habit of entering the custom combat settings for each NPC as you find them, so that they conform to your strategy and preferences as well as whatever weaponry you have provided them with.

NPCs never get radiated or poisoned. They will suffer normal after-effects from chems, though (like losing ST from Buffout or AP from Jet), and not only can they get addicted, but they can seemingly have multiple concurrent and cumulative withdrawal effects. In the case of most chems you can wait this out, but Jet addiction is permanent and the Jet Antidote doesn't work on NPCs, so you risk reducing them to wrecks with just one or a few AP. Furthermore, levelling up will interact oddly with drug use, since their current stats change without regard for temporary effects. An NPC levelling up with raised stats will have the appropriate penalties applied to his new stats, ending up below his proper values. Conversely, an NPC levelling up while in the state of short- or long-term withdrawal will effectively receive a lasting boost when the withdrawal wears off. In either case, the next level up (if there is one) will return things to normal.

If an NPC dies, and you then save and load the game or leave the map and return, the body will be gone and any carried equipment gone with it (unless they had already dropped it as a result of being fried or blown up). This happens even before you recruit them. Also beware that if an NPC dies and you save the game while still in combat mode, loading that save invariably seems to freeze the game badly at end of turn.

Beware that if you access the inventory of some party members while they're unconscious, this will have the same effect as stealing from them while they're not in your party, although they still remain with you. Notably, Vic and Myron will refuse to communicate from that point, reducing their usefulness, and Goris will turn permanently hostile once you dismiss him from your service. In v1.0 this could apparently also trigger from friendly fire (the patch notes state NPCs will not turn hostile "under most circumstances").

There is a glitch or oversight you can take advantage of to make NPCs act as mules in an almost Fallout-like fashion. Matt Sampson: "I've found a method to give NPCs infinite carrying capacity, at the expense of a little less than half their Action Points. First you tell your comrades to wait for you. Then you go into barter and trade the stuff to them like you normally do. You will notice that instead of evaluating the goods by their weight, your NPCs evaluate the goods by price. Thus, you can weigh them down with whatever goods you like. I believe I once gave Vic 800 pounds of gear." Note that if you give them really much (more than you can unload in one bartering session) you'll have to get their stuff by using Steal.

Sometimes after trading equipment to NPCs you may find that they exceed their Carry Weight allowance unexpectedly. The reason for this is that on occasion they reload weapons in their inventory that they're not using, which because of the way ammo weight is calculated will cause their total weight carried to go up (also see below for how they can actually increase the amount of ammo in their possession). If you find this excruciatingly annoying, always give them one or a few pounds less to carry than what the combat screen reports they can take.

There's an infinite ammo bug found by Raymond Schulz: Give two or more guns of the same type to an NPC who can use them, making sure that none is loaded and that there's some ammo available. When you press "use best weapon", all of the guns will be loaded using the same ammo! Unequip the wielded weapon, empty them all and repeat. Only one ammo "item" or fraction thereof will be used, e.g. if you do the trick with Cassidy, a BB Gun and a big heap of BB's, no more than 20 will go into each rifle. Something similar will happen when NPCs reload guns in combat; for instance, after equipping a 10mm SMG, reloading and firing a burst, Sulik carried a bunch of SMGs that were each just one bullet short of a full clip, while the weapon he had fired was somehow fully loaded.

Make sure you read your NPCs' comments as they level up. They range from bland early on to hilarious on the higher levels - Marcus and Myron have some priceless lines.

• Main skill: Melee Weapons.
• Other notable skills: Small Guns, Unarmed, Throwing, Outdoorsman.
• Animations: Knife, sledgehammer, spear, SMG.
• Hit Point progression by level: 85, 93, 103, 113, 123, 134.
• AP progression by level: 9, 10, 10, 11, 11, 12.
• Suggested weapon progression: Take his Sledgehammer away and replace it with a Sharpened Spear or Combat Knife at first (this is because he seems to prefer the slow Sledgehammer attack and so only gets one attack per round, as opposed to two with a spear or three with a knife). Upgrade to 10mm SMG by the Den or Vault City, upgrade to HK P90c or (Mega) Power Fist in NCR/Vault 15, give him a H&K G11E once you have enough Caseless ammo (i.e. once you reach San Francisco). If you want a safer gun-toting Sulik, give him a .223 Pistol. Of course he can also use the Super Sledge if you want him to bash people away so you can shoot them.

Will attack you if you become a Slaver, or "cause trouble in Klamath" as he puts it (but only if he is in Klamath). Will leave you if you become a Childkiller or Berserker or your karma becomes -101 or lower. Won't rejoin you if your town reputation in Klamath is Hated or worse.

• Main skill: Repair.
• Other notable skills: Small Guns, Energy Weapons (high levels).
• Animations: Throw, knife, pistol, rifle.
• Hit Point progression by level: 70, 78, 78, 102, 111, 117.
• AP progression by level: 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10.
• Suggested weapon progression: 10mm Pistol or Hunting Rifle at first, then Combat Shotgun by Vault City, Sniper Rifle or Pancor Jackhammer when you find them, eventually Gauss Rifle (once you reach SF). At the two highest levels he can also use a Pulse Pistol or Alien Blaster well if you want him to. Since his ST is 5 before his last two levels you may want to avoid giving him a H&K CAWS before then (the Gauss Rifle also has a min ST of 6, but it's so darn accurate anyway).

Will attack you if you attack his daughter Valerie in Vault City while he's in your party (but not if he's currently out of it, even if you kill her before his very eyes).

• Skill: Unarmed.
• Animations: Knife, SMG.
• Hit Point progression by level: 35 (does not level up).
• AP progression by level: 7.
• Suggested weapon progression: Sucks with anything. You can give her a 10mm SMG or even a Power Fist, but that's basically a waste of ammo. Her ST 3 won't let her use any SMG without a penalty.

Will attack you if you fight anyone in Modoc. Cannot be dropped off.

• Skill: Unarmed.
• Animations: Throw, knife, club, pistol.
• Hit Point progression by level: 35 (does not level up).
• AP progression by level: 7.
• Suggested weapon progression: Same as for Miria, although having ST 4 and different animations means he sucks with a wider and different assortment of weapons.

Will attack you if you fight anyone in Modoc. Cannot be dropped off.

• Skill: Unarmed.
• Hit Point progression by level: 20 (does not level up).
• AP progression by level: 7.
• Suggested weapon progression: None.

Will join you over the party limit at any time unless Jonny has been rescued, and unless Laddie has gone into woofing mode (see Modoc quest 4). Will attack you, but not actually stop following you, if you fight anyone in Modoc. Will leave you if you find Jonny or have him returned to Modoc.

Joshua Jansen points out that dog NPCs cannot open doors. I don't think there are any deeper applications for this in Fallout 2, but there you have it.

• Main skill: Small Guns.
• Other notable skills: Energy Weapons, Unarmed, Melee Weapons, Throwing.
• Animations: Spear, pistol, rifle.
• Hit Point progression by level: 80, 92, 104, 116, 128.
• AP progression by level: 8, 8, 9, 9, 10.
• Suggested weapon progression: Same as for Vic: his Sawed-Off Shotgun or a Hunting Rifle at first, then Combat Shotgun, Sniper Rifle or better shotguns when you find them, eventually the Gauss Rifle (once you reach SF). Like Vic he can also make use of energy pistols. Spiked Knuckles and then Mega Power Fist in an HtH party.

Don't give him Psycho, Buffout or Jet, because of his heart condition (he'll die on you). All other drugs are fine including Super Stimpaks. Contrary to what Internet rumours say, the Heart Pills have nothing to do with Cassidy.

Cassidy will not join you if you are a Slaver or Childkiller or have karma -101 or lower, but he doesn't leave if he's already in your party when you acquire these traits.

Two bugs regarding Cassidy have been reported. One makes his combat settings reset regularly, which is actually pretty annoying. Another is that his skill switches to Melee Weapons if you equip him with Power Armor, only to switch back after he gains a level. The latter is not a bug, as explained by Geoffrey Bateman: "For the first two levels, Cassidy's Small Guns skill is less than 6 points higher than his Unarmed and Melee skills, which means that the ST +3 bonus from Power Armor would boost those skills past Small Guns and make one of them his speciality. That's why it disappears as he gains levels."

Cassidy has some of the coolest combat taunts in the game... for he will sometimes recite combat messages from Wasteland ("ground round", "thin red paste", "undertaker's nightmare").

• Main skill: Doctor.
• Other notable skills: Small Guns.
• Animations: Knife, pistol, SMG.
• Hit Point progression by level: 129, 154, 181, 206.
• AP progression by level: 7, 7, 7, 7.
• Suggested weapon progression: Some kind of pistol with a ST requirement of 4, like the Desert Eagle. Maybe a 10mm SMG and then a HK P90c if you're not worried about him spraying you. If you keep him long enough to get him in Power Armor you can give him a .223 Pistol or a H&K G11E, assuming you don't have a Gauss Pistol to spare.

Lenny will leave if you acquire the Childkiller or Slaver reputations, have karma -101 or lower, or have CH 1. Will attack you if you are in Gecko and have disabled the plant or turned the ghouls hostile. Won't rejoin you if your town reputation in Gecko is Hated or worse (e.g. if you blew up the plant or killed several ghouls, but killing only one or two is OK).

• Main skill: Big Guns.
• Other notable skills: Energy Weapons, Unarmed.
• Animations: Throw, large rifle, minigun, rocket launcher.
• AC/DT/DR: 20/4/30 (1), 10/4/30 (2-4), 20/5/40 (5-6).
• Hit Point progression by level: 130, 145, 165, 175, 190, 205.
• AP progression by level: 9, 10, 11, 11, 12, 13.
• Suggested weapon progression: Minigun at first, perhaps Bozar if you find it and like to scrape other party members off walls, Turbo Plasma Rifle as soon as possible. Pulse Rifle even later on. Mega Power Fist works well if he doesn't get himself killed charging ahead.

Initially won't join you if your karma is below 0. Won't rejoin if your karma is -101 or lower or you're a Slaver or Childkiller. Will attack you if you're an enemy of Broken Hills and Marcus is not in your party (and unlike Sulik and Lenny you don't have to be in Broken Hills for him to attack). Attacking Marcus when he's not in your party will turn Broken Hills hostile no matter where you do it.

• Main skill: Science.
• Other notable skills: Energy Weapons.
• Animations: Throw, knife, pistol.
• Hit Point progression by level: 70, 77, 92, 107, 122.
• AP progression by level: 7, 7, 7, 7, 8.
• Suggested weapon progression: You can let him use the Needler Pistol until you run out of ammo for it. Get him a Plasma Pistol or if possible a Pulse Pistol. Expect him to miss a lot. If you can be bothered to chase after the Alien Blaster, you should do so.

Give Myron a Scorpion Tail and he'll make some Antidote. Give him a Broc Flower, a Xander Root and an Empty Hypodermic and he'll make a Stimpak. If you have IN 8 and Science 76% and ask him to make Stimpaks, you can enable the option to make Super Stimpaks; for this he needs a Fruit, a Nuka-Cola and a Stimpak. In practice the number of Stimpaks you can make will be limited by the number of Empty Hypodermics in the game, since you can get unlimited roots and flowers. Theoretically you could make any number of Super Stimpaks, though, since the ingredients for those replenish in shops, random encounters and working Nuka-Cola machines.

Whenever you try to ditch Myron, you can get him to promise to show you the location of a Mordino stash in Golgotha (which appears on your world map if it wasn't there before) in exchange for not doing so. He doesn't actually actively show you to it, but the stash exists; see the Golgotha section for the details. Once you dig it up, he'll promise to carry more stuff instead (apparently this was supposed to raise his Carry Weight by 10, but it doesn't work).

You can't use Jet on him, but if you put it in his inventory, he'll use it on himself in combat. Hmm...

• Skill: Unarmed (2 worst brains), Small Guns (2 best brains).
• Other notable skills: Unarmed (best brain, high levels).
• Animations: SMG, rifle.
• AC/DT/DR: 20/8/40 (1), 20/5/40 (2-6, 3 worst brains).
• Hit Point progression by level (best brain only): 115, 143, 155, 179, 197, 210
• AP progression by level (best brain only): 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10.
• Suggested weapon progression (2 best brains only): .223 Pistol, Pancor Jackhammer or HK P90c then Gauss Rifle, or H&K G11E if you want it spraying expensive ammo. It can eventually use a Power Fist to some effect, though not as well as guns.

The Brain Bot is the only NPC that can't be healed using First Aid, Doctor or chems. However, Skynet can repair itself to full HP using its internal repair systems if you tell it to. What if they shoot up its internal repair systems? Well, that's what backup internal repair systems are for.

To begin with, the Brain Bot has no protection against EMP damage. Levelling up once is enough for Skynet to gain full protection.

• Skill: Unarmed (of course - he doesn't have arms. Ha ha ha! Sorry).
• AC/DT/DR: 10/4/30.
• Hit Point progression by level: 97, 107, 107, 127, 137.
• AP progression by level: 9, 10, 11, 11, 12.
• Suggested weapon progression: None.

• Skill: Unarmed
• AC/DT/DR: 20/5/40 (1-4), 25/6/40 (5-6).
• Hit Point progression by level: 125, 134, 145, 155, 166, 175.
• AP progression by level: 11, 11, 12, 12, 13, 13.
• Suggested weapon progression: His Claw.

Initially won't join you if your karma is below 0, you have a negative town reputation in Vault 13, or you are a Berserker or Childkiller. Will leave and return to Vault 13 if your karma falls below 0 or you become a Berserker or Childkiller. Won't rejoin you if your town reputation in Vault 13 is Hated or worse (i.e. you killed a few people).

There's a bug where, if you try to pick Goris up after the Vault 13 massacre, he'll join you but every time immediately leaves your party again (because a variable is never reset). This happens if he's in Vault 13 and you didn't already go through the "pack is in trouble" thing (which would be true if you never had him in your party before). To counteract the bug just save and load the game, or leave Vault 13 so that you are outside the vault door, then return and recruit Goris.

When Goris leaves your party, either because of his pack being in trouble or because he doesn't like you, he actually tags along invisibly, waiting for you to pass by Vault 13 so he can reappear in his usual position. In this state he does not count towards the party member limit; however, as discovered by Sy he will continue to gain levels as if he were in your party.

Starseeker adds in defence of Goris: "I actually consider Goris to be a better character than most because of his high percentage of critical hits. He can usually take out a floater in one or two turns for me, and he carries more stuff." In my own experience, however, Goris doesn't compare to Sulik and Cassidy equipped with Mega Power Fists and Power Armor even at his highest level, and his relative lack of combat options tends to leave him extremely vulnerable. Also, unless you take a shortcut to pick Goris up early, you'll have to wander the wastes a lot to get him to that level.

• Skill: Unarmed (ahem).
• AC/DT/DR: 25/10/30 (1), 0/10/30 (2-5).
• Hit Point progression by level: 127, 129, 131, 133, 137.
• AP progression by level: 14, 15, 16, 17, 19.
• Suggested weapon progression: Roboteeth^TM.

Will leave if you become a Childkiller or have karma -101 or lower, and once it's left in this manner you can't pick it up again (even if your karma goes up).

Note that K-9's armour definition seems to be bugged so that it actually loses its innate AC bonus after it levels up.

• Skill: Unarmed.
• AC/DT/DR: 10/4/30 (1-4), 15/4/35 (5-6).
• Hit Point progression by level: 98, 108, 118, 128, 141, 151.
• AP progression by level: 15, 15, 15, 15, 16, 16.
• Suggested weapon progression: None.

If you ever hurt Dogmeat while he's not in your party, Mel [Gibson] shows up packing a H&K G11E and they both attack you. Early in the game that could be very dangerous. If you kill Dogmeat in a single round Mel won't appear. Additionally, when Dogmeat isn't in your party, he's considered by the game to be on the NCR team. This means if you attack him in NCR, the cops will shoot you!

• Skill: Unarmed (will not fight).
• AC/DT/DR: 20/5/40.
• Hit Point progression by level: 750 (does not level up).
• AP progression by level: 7.
• Suggested weapon progression: None.

There have been stories of the corpse of the pariah dog hanging around forever, taking up an NPC slot and not returning the player's Luck to normal. This is a specific case of the 0-damage critical kill bug.

Car

"I told 'em. 'We need traffic signs', I said. But did they listen? Noooo... let's not listen to ol' Lumpy!"
--Lumpy

What fuel you should use depends mostly on what weapons you're using. If you're into ranged combat, using SEC to refuel the car is most often the sensible choice, since several good weapons like the Pulse and Plasma Rifles use MFC. On the other hand, SEC is used by Power Fists, the Pulse Pistol and the Alien Blaster. I always end up with more than enough of both. In terms of bartering the two fuel types are exactly on a par.

Using SEC or MFC on a party member will refuel the car. Interesting, eh? It even works if the car is not on the same map! This is probably because the car is technically an NPC.

Refuelling the car can be tricky because of a bug. If, after you choose the backpack icon and select the SEC or MFC to use on the car, your mouse pointer happens to be over a critter or an object, your character might try to interact with that critter or object instead. If this happens, scroll the screen a little in whichever direction and try again. (This bug is not actually car-specific.) Also if you stand next to the trunk when refuelling, this may cause you to access the trunk instead.

The Pathfinder perk will reduce your fuel consumption by the same proportion that it diminishes travel time, i.e. 20% (see Character Design for a note on Pathfinder). It would still be a stupid way to spend a perk.

The moment when you run out of fuel is critical, because a car bug may strike and teleport the car circle across the map or make it vanish altogether. It should be a rare event in a normal game, but if you spend several years cruising the wasteland you might see it happen. To avoid this you may want to refuel regularly, and save, of course.

It can reportedly also happen that the car circle ends up within a town circle, and you won't be able to get to the car because you'll end up entering the town instead (where the car won't be). In this case the car is irretrievably lost and you should revert to a saved game immediately. Note that as long as some small part of the car circle is outside the town map square, you should be able to get to the car as long as you click outside of that square.

Since later in the game you should always have more spare weaponry than the shopkeepers can trade you cash or ammo for, there's virtually never any need to trade away ammo. Even if you don't really plan to use a Rocket Launcher at all, there's no reason to sell rockets you've found before you've sold everything else you're not going to keep, such as, I don't know, excess Combat Shotguns. So generally you should constantly be trading bulky weapons for all sorts of ammo you think might become even remotely useful.

Before the patch, the car was one of the most bugged features in the game. It can still happen after the patch that the car simply disappears (but remember there's a couple of places where your car may move but not be lost, see Raiders and New Reno). Some have said that if this happens you can usually find the car somewhere it shouldn't be (Broken Hills, New Reno, NCR, or wherever), but if you have the option you should reload or revert to an earlier save, since you won't necessarily see the car again at all.

Stupid

"Ooooh! Butunz!"
--The Chosen One

Combat

"Look, causing that much destruction wasn't easy!"
--The Chosen One

General

Tactics and party management

Suggested weapon progressions

Random weapons and ammo notes

Items

"What do I WANT? I don't really know. Most of the time I ignore my quest and walk into the homes of others, riffling through people's shelves..."
--The Chosen One

Shops may not carry certain items right away, e.g. the first time you come to NCR Buster probably won't sell the Avenger Minigun, but after a few days he might. This is simply due to normal random variation of stock and not level dependent. See Klamath for more details on shops and restocking.

In addition to the items listed here, which can all be found in the game, the items database contains other categories of items such as: Fallout discontinued items or quest items (e.g. the Stealth Boy and Psychic Nullifier), special weaponry only used by critters (e.g. Robo Rocket Launchers and Special Boxing Weapons), unused quest items (a Red Reactor Keycard and a Decomposing Body among others), and programmers having fun (e.g. Trophy of Recognition). They can be viewed if you use an inventory editor, but not all of them have images and few except for the weapons do anything. The list does include a few weapons (Holy Hand Grenade, deathclaw Claws) that can be found without using any kind of utility although they were not really meant to be.

Damage Threshold/Damage Resistance values are given for normal damage, which is by far the most common damage type for most of the game. Laser damage deviates the most from these values, but isn't used very much. Tesla Armor is special in the way that it offers extra protection against laser and plasma damage... but there's no area where enemies rely exclusively on these damage types, so be prepared to get knocked down with a Wrench or something.

There are two kinds of damage not shown on the inventory sheet: EMP and electrical. EMP is presumably only used for Pulse Grenades and everyone but robots has a very high resistance level (for the player character that resistance is actually part of the armour definitions, so a "naked" character has no such resistance!). Electrical damage is used for pulse guns, the Alien Blaster, (Super) Cattle Prods and some traps and similar hazards. As a rule of thumb, electrical resistances are the same as plasma.

The two types of Power Armor raise your ST by 3 to a maximum of 10. The two types of Advanced Power Armor raise your ST by 4.

Damage for ranged weapons is per successfully delivered bullet. Damage for mêlée weapons is excluding your character's Melee Damage.

AP cost is for the weapon's basic attack. Burst attacks cost 1 AP more for weapons with both single shot and burst capacity. Aimed attacks cost 1 AP more. Sledgehammer and Super Sledge are the only HtH weapons for which thrust and swing attacks don't have the same cost. The difference between swing and thrust attack modes is unclear, but the Fallout manual implies there isn't any (the Fallout 2 manual is silent on the matter).

Gold Nuggets, Uranium Ore and Refined Uranium Ore can all be switched to punch mode, but trying to attack will result in a "Target out of range" message (this is because their range is incorrectly set to zero in the item definitions). Rocks can be used in this way, though. It functions as an Unarmed weapon and adds your Melee Damage to the maximum damage although this doesn't show in the inventory window (the latter goes for Spears etc. as well when not thrown).

A lit Flare has the exact same properties as an unlit Flare.

The Pulse Grenade, being the only weapon that inflicts EMP damage, does no damage to non-robot critters, but it can do a lot of damage to you unless you're wearing any kind of armour. I always suspected the Chosen One to be an android. (This is actually because the main character uniquely has the EMP DR as part of the armour item definitions instead of the critter definition.) You can inflict lethal critical hits on living targets with Pulse Grenades, but unless you have the Living Anatomy perk this will cause a bug (see the Toxic Caves section) and will generally be unwanted.

The Solar Scorcher doesn't need ammo to reload, but you can only do so in bright light. This is determined by the map's overall light level, not by the time of day or the light level where you are standing; basically if you can see the spotlight around your character, it's too dark. This means that on some indoor maps like fully lit vaults you can always reload the Scorcher, while on others like the first floor of the Bishop or Mordino casino you never can - unless you have Night Vision, which affects the overall light level directly. The Scorcher deals laser damage, so it's not all that good. I would assume that ammo modifiers all default to zero in this case.

For punch and kick attacks, refer to the manual where they are described in detail. They don't go in the table since they're not items.

A dash means "don't use this (unless you really, really have to)".

Before the patch (and in Fallout) the DR modifier for .44 Magnum JHP was 50.

With a few exceptions, ammo types are first found in the same locations where you find the weapons that use them. If you want to shop for ammo, NCR and SF have the best shops by far.

Effects are permanent unless duration is specified. (Duration given for Healing Powder and Mutated Toe is for the stat penalty only.) The effect of Psycho and Rad-X wears off by one half at a time. You cannot benefit from using more than two doses of a specific chem at the same time, but additional doses can cause addiction. Stats raised by chems will drop below their original values for a period of time after the effect wears off, about as much as the initial bonus. RadAway takes full effect over the course of 4 hours. Antidote takes full effect over the course of 2 minutes.

Books raise a skill by a number depending on your current skill level, ranging from 6-7 at low skill levels (20-30%) to 1-2 (70-90%). You get twice that amount if the skill is tagged. This stops at 91% (or 92% if you raise a tagged skill from 90%). Reading a book takes from 1 to 10 hours depending on your Intelligence (i.e. 11-IN).

Geoffrey Bateman adds on book reading: "You know you can drop your stats in various ways (booze, drugs)? And of course, the skills associated with those stats drop, too. Well, not only will using manuals while your skills are lowered make them more effective, the game also applies the 91% cap to your artifically lowered skill percentage. Then when your stats go back to normal you keep the extra points." In theory you can raise Small Guns, First Aid and Science to 127%, Repair to 118% and Outdoorsman to 115% using this technique, providing that your PE, IN and AG are at 10, your EN is above 3, and all the relevant skills are at 91%. To lose 9 AG, use 2 Buffout, rest 5 hours, use 2 Monument Chunk, then rest 1 hour. To lose 9 IN, use 2 Mentats, rest 24 hours, then use 2 Psycho. To lose 9 PE, drink lots of alcohol. To lose 3 EN, use 2 Buffout, rest 6 hours, use 1 Buffout, then rest 6 hours. "Also, make sure you use all your books from the inventory screen rather than a weapon slot; time won't pass until you close it, so you don't have to worry about your stats coming back before you're done. I also suspect that this would work when using skill points (once you get to the point where it costs more than one to upgrade, obviously)." Yep, it does.

You can play with the difficulty level in a similar manner to get more out of reading books (except Guns and Bullets). Turning the difficulty from easy to normal lowers all non-combat skills by 20%; changing it from normal to hard lowers them by another 10%. You can then read books to get the skills back to 91%, and finally turn difficulty back to normal. Note that if you want to combine this with the drug technique descibed above, you'll have to do them at the same time to maximize your gain.

You can use alcoholic drinks on people in case you don't want them to shoot straight once you attack them, or if you want to lower their PE before a Sneak or Steal attempt. I haven't noticed any significant difference in combat when I've tried this, but you can use it to interfere with certain scripts (e.g. people guarding doors like Keith Wright). Beer and Booze also cause cows to fall over, but the usefulness of this is limited.

The Jet Antidote is bugged so that it is not used up if you're addicted to Jet when you use it, but I'm putting it in this category anyway. A method to exploit this is described in the Vault City section.

You can get around the 2-dose limit for chems by saving and loading; the game then won't stop you from taking two more with the usual effects. Among other things it'll help with the book trick described above, but it's obviously a form of bug exploitation.

You cannot kill anyone directly by reducing their Maximum Hit Points to 0 using Mutated Toes. However, if you hit someone who's had Toes used on them, they'll drop to their new maximum at least. If this is 0 they won't die, but if you then look at them, they'll lose their red outline and will be described as dead. You can't talk to them in this state, but you can finish them off.

The Bag is responsible for an inventory bug which sometimes lets you keep items that are really supposed to disappear from your inventory, depending on which script command is being used to remove them. Items are "protected" if they're below the Bag in your inventory, apparently because the engine can't handle the container item type properly. Ways you can exploit this include giving Cornelius' watch to both him and Farrel and get xp for both those quests, getting upgraded weapons from Algernon or Skeeter while keeping the originals, and having Myron concoct any number of Stimpaks or Super Stimpaks from the same ingredients. If you like to carry the Bag around but don't like to cheat, make sure the Bag is always near the bottom of your inventory, or make sure to relocate ingredients and weapons to the top before making chems, upgrades etc. The bug doesn't affect money or items kept in the Bag. Finally an observation from Sean Meskill regarding Algernon: "When I requested the fuel upgrade, I had a pack of 5 fuel units under my Bag. When I got my upgrade, I had a pack of 10 blue fuel above and a pack of 10 red fuel beneath."

The four medical supplies items will vanish after use if you fail a separate skill check. Applying them to a healthy subject will cause time to pass and they may be used up. Finally, the Paramedics Bag appears to be bugged; at any rate it doesn't provide a skill bonus to normal healing.

The bonuses of items such as Lockpicks and Tools vary between scripts. Though they are usually +20% and +40% respectively, they might be +10% and +50% in one script while another treats them alike. All normal doors have the +20%/+40% bonuses anyway. Also not all scripts will allow you to substitute either or both bonus items for using the actual skill. The Super Tool Kit in particular is used in so few scripts that I'd settle for a Tool if anything.

Geiger Counters and Motion Sensors use up "charges" each time you turn them on, but don't seem to care much about how long you leave them on after that (the Geiger Counter will lose a charge if you leave it on and rest for several days). They'll turn off automatically if you move to another map.

You'll find there's a bartering bug related to Geiger Counters: some of them cannot be bartered away no matter what kind of offer you make although they have a cash value displayed in the bartering interface as usual (kind of like trying to sell armed Dynamite or a lit Flare). It could have to do with the fact that traders will refuse to accept Geiger Counters whose batteries have run out, although this bug affects items with charges as well, and you can always sell Motion Sensors even if they don't have any charges.

Although there are two Mirrored Shades in the game, you can only benefit from wearing one pair, which sort of makes sense.

Saltbeef Bob's painting is actually the same item as the generic Fuzzy Painting but with a script attached to it. Moore's Briefcase, in contrast, will actually be one of two identically named items depending on your conversation with Moore.

For Valerie, the first price listed is the "normal" price and the second with a CH- or Barter-based discount (beware the Cattle Prod bug). Buster will only perform one upgrade. As noted in the walkthrough, Skeeter and Eldridge won't charge for upgrades if you have Barter at 91% or more. Algernon in Eldridge's basement will perform all upgrades, and for no charge. That pretty much makes all the others completely pointless, so what were they thinking?

All upgrades will be fully loaded on delivery, so remove any ammo before turning over items to be upgraded. If you hand in an amount of Flamethrower Fuel less than 10, you'll still get 10 Flamethrower Fuel MKII (you can use a Flamethrower to divide the ammo into packs of 5 and thus double the amount, in case you're really that crazy about Flamethrower Fuel).

The values within parentheses are the ones I arrived at statistically (150 uses) before I knew you can use FIME to find the proper ones. After doing all that work I'm not going to just throw away the results. :P

I have seen it stated that you can get addicted to Cheezy Poofs, alcohol and "Tragic" cards, but I've failed to make this happen, myself, and I suspect everyone else has as well. The Cheezy Poofs isn't a drug to begin with. Playing "Tragic" in Gecko doesn't do anything special, and in fact there's no script that touches the "Tragic" addiction variable.

Addenda

"Must break free. Strength fading. Must leave."
--The Chosen One

Talking heads

Bugs

The too many items bug

Daniel Valle may have found a way to circumvent the problem based on the theory that the corruption bug only follows the black button bug: "I noticed that the skilldex button going black happened only after I opened the Pipboy and checked out the status screen to see my missions and logs. Opening the Pipboy's primary screen or alarm clock did not cause this. My solution has been to not look at the status screen. If I really had to do so, I would quicksave and check it out, then I'd have to shut down the game and start it up again, because once the skilldex button's gone black it will stay black, even if you load save games from Arroyo, which could possibly corrupt maps even early on in the game. So far it has worked well on two games I have already beat and one I am still playing. Truly, I don't know what triggers the problem or its true cause, but if this keeps the game from locking up and corrupting maps then it will have to do." Nimrod adds to this: "I tend to travel light and not hoard items, but I can say with sureness that the evil number of Pipboy entries is twelve. I've paid close attention to this in Fallout and Fallout 2 and it's the same number in both - eleven is fine, twelve and you instantly hit problems. I should note that I've never had a map crash on me due to this problem, but I get all the black boxes where buttons should be."

How to finish the game in half an hour (if you hurry up)

Larry Eggleston Jr. used roughly the same method and managed to finish the game without saving in under twenty minutes, killing Ken Lee with Plastic Explosives instead of Super Stimpaks.

How to find and use the Holy Hand Grenade part 1

How to find and use the Holy Hand Grenade part 2

1. Use Fallout 2 DAT explorer or a similar program to extract the file Worldmap.txt from Master.dat on the CD (it's in the data folder).
2. Put this file in Fallout2\data\data on your hard drive. Telling DAT explorer to unpack the file into Fallout2\data will accomplish this.
3. Open the file with a text editor and exchange all instances of the string "(372)" with "(614)" (the parentheses are important).
4. Optionally replace "Encounter, Enc" with "Encounter,Enc" and "(616)" with "(617)" if you want to fix the Cafe of Broken Dreams repopping bug at the same time.
5. Run the game and play as usual, starting a new game or loading an old one.

Even if you killed some or all of the knights in the first encounter, they'll all be here and not be hostile towards you. I'd kill them again - they each carry 200 or 300 MFC on this map.

Using the Holy Hand Grenade on the rat may lock up the game. If this happens to you, try killing it with aimed shots to the eyes and save the grenade for something else.

If you have any NPCs one of them will become "trapped" in the car as you arrive on the map. They'll be freed if you go into the cave.

Another Rock for hoarding! Wahoo. Or in the immortal words of Rock-in-a-sock: "Geez, what are you, some kind of non-rock collector?"

Unfinished business

• A Klamath quest to expose the Duntons as cattle rustlers using the Radscorpion Limbs.
• The second encounter with King Arthur and his knights as described above.
• Sulik's sister, whose absence has spawned one of the most persistent and variform net rumours about this game. According to designer Chris Avellone it was never even decided where in the game she was going to appear.
• A second tribal village (tentatively named Primitive Village), home of Sulik and situated on the coast between Arroyo and Navarro.
• An Abbey world map location north of Gecko, featuring monks hoarding pre-war wisdom. This is also where you'd have run into Ian from the original Fallout - funny how many people from back then managed to live through those 80 years.
• An extensive underground base (the Environmental Protection Agency) west of New Reno, with up to seven levels, featuring all kinds of high-tech stuff, artificial intelligences, weapons and items. Presumably this is what Myron alludes to when he mentions pre-war bases.
• Diplomatic characters would have been able to beat the raiders by talking to Shadow-Who-Walks and making him leave their employ.
• Putting the kids in the Den in an orphanage (possibly run by Mom), with the beneficial side effect of the player not having to risk being pickpocketed any more. Also killing Metzger and telling Karl to return to Modoc should have had quest entries.
• A quest to retrieve a corpse stolen by the Hubologists from the Shi, as hinted by the existence of such an item and a log note in the Shi database.
• Going to the Enclave using the vertibird in Navarro and/or going to Navarro using the vertibird in the desert transaction.
• Use of the Red and Yellow Reactor Keycards in the Enclave reactor room.
• Use of the Heart Pills to cover up the Westin murder.
• A Shi quest tied in to the EPA, related to the ending where the Shi get their butts kicked by a sentient plant.
• The interior of the Hubologist space shuttle and three endings where the Hubologists kill themselves in different ways by means of the shuttle.
• Lenny would have been able to turn into a "glowing" ghoul from drinking radioactive beverages. This probably spawned the rumour that you can make the ghouls in the Harp glow by buying them enough booze.
• An additional twist to the Lynette-Westin holodisk exchange where the player could blackmail them with knowledge of their underhanded connection.
• A good ending for the deathclaws of Vault 13, where the Pack expands peacefully into the surrounding territory. According to John Deiley who designed Vault 13 this was scrapped because the Enclave plot necessitated the slaughter of the deathclaws.
• A good ending for Vault City and Gecko; well, actually two endings, one for each town. The good ending for Gecko which revolves around Gordon's "greed is good" scheme is only inaccessible because of a bug.
• Two VC endings where Vault City is razed and one Gecko ending where Vault City invades Gecko.
• One Broken Hills subplot with Chad the corrupt caravan leader and another concerning the mutagenic serum.
• Poking through the game files one can discover many details and features that didn't seem to make it into the game. For instance, there are images for each specific karma level, a Virgin reputation and "Tragic" and alcohol addiction; named critters that are not in the game and earlier versions of existing ones; an Arroyo exile named Kaga repeatedly trying to kill the Chosen One in special encounters; sound files for endings for the Elder, Marcus, Harold and the President; a "Li'l Chemist" kit allowing you to mix chemicals; implied uses for "useless" items such as the Ball Gag, Marked Cards and Radscorpion Limbs; a village outside Vault City whose inhabitants are trying to avoid being turned into "servants"; Merk stealing stuff from your car in NCR; getting to the SAD by finding a map in Sam Pritchard's grave (prevented by a scripting bug); getting the location of the SAD from the traveller encounter (prevented by another scripting bug); giving Jet to Fannie in Redding and eventually having her die of an overdose; the robots in the SAD going to the repair bay for maintenance and repair bots replacing killed robots with new ones; Mr. Cheater; recruiting Dr Jones in Vault 15 as an NPC; a food system; the Pipe Rifle as a "Springer Rifle" loaded with Rocks (!); and more.
• A few extra movies (e.g. meeting Gruthar, the desert transaction and getting the car).
• Lots of details and options that were disabled by scripting errors or engine issues, for instance: being able to finish the spleen quest by assassinating Dr Wong within a day after his refusal to give you the spleen; the possibility of crippled limbs resulting from falling down in the Ghost Caves or being expelled from the Modoc toilet; Rebecca attacking you if you're a Childkiller; gaining a permanent Agility bonus after sleeping with Miss Kitty; the Hintbook boosting your stats and HP; and others.
• A Phazer (sic) at the scene of the shuttle crash.
• A boatload of engine updates (ranging from very dumb to very cool) related to critter AI, interface, mechanics and features were suggested but never implemented, due to lack of time, impracticality, or incompatibility with existing code.

Things I won't add to the guide

• Karma and reputation changes: more work than it's worth.
• Monster lists and stats: if it were Wasteland, I'd do it. RadAngels and Death Anglers! Those were the days.
• Detailed weapon and armour stats: you can find these in the game (or using FIME).
• Game or combat mechanics: read the... manual.
• One-time oddities that happened to other people: have to be reproducible or "known" bugs.
• Technical troubleshooting: there are message boards for this.
• Unofficial patches: up-to-date and accurate documentation of these should be provided by their creators.
• Pop culture reference index: not going there.

Top 3 stupid Fallout 2 rumours

• "I found Sulik's sister! She was in a random encounter with slavers! No, she was in the slave pens in NCR! No, she was in a mystery location on the world map! No, she was in a locker in the Enclave! Really! She was somewhere but I can't tell you how to get there because I made it all up!"
• "I got the second Holy Hand Grenade encounter while playing the game! I'd show you the screenshots but I accidentally formatted my hard drive this morning! Look, a three-headed monkey!"
• "The Yellow Reactor Keycard opens the Toxic Caves elevator! I mean, it opens the yellow doors in the Gecko power plant! No, I mean, you use it in Navarro! No, wait, you use it on the reactor in the Enclave! At least I think I did once! Maybe I have a version of the game that no one else has, or maybe I just read it somewhere and you can't blame me for passing it on as truth!"

Frequently asked questions

• Q: Where can I find the children patch or utility X?
  A: Try the No Mutants Allowed site or any other fan site with a downloads section. Do a search. Follow some links. Look around. (Note that in earlier versions of the guide I carelessly referred to the children patch as the "kid patch", which seems to have been the main reason why lots of people believed it was nowhere to be found.)
• Q: Can you just mail or transfer them to me instead?
  A: No.
• Q: Is it OK to mail you with a bunch of screenshots, a save game folder or some other big attachment without prior notice?
  A: No. Even if I hadn't been on a modem and even if it hadn't been basic netiquette to ask first, the chance that I actually have any use for such a file is rather slim. If you have some find or game experience to relate, use words to begin with and we'll take it from there.
• Q: I can't find the Bag in Modoc. Can you give me more detailed instructions how to find it?
  A: Not really. If for some reason you simply can't locate the Bag, running a map editor and turning off the scenery should let you mark its location.
• Q: I can't trigger event X or I'm having problem Y. What am I doing wrong?
  A: Depending on what X or Y is there could be any number of reasons, really. If I gather from your description of the problem that some guide content is off or incomplete, I'll see if I can adjust it. If not, I'm afraid I don't have the time to elaborate aimlessly on things that are already in the guide or guess at the particulars of someone else's game. Try posing your question on a dedicated message board; the answer is often more simple than it seems.
• Q: I can't use item X on critter/scenery Y, it defaults to some other action.
  A: You can't always use an item from the active item slot. If you read the manual (page 35ff) you'll find that you can click and hold on a critter or piece of scenery, then choose the backpack icon, and finally select the item you want to use from inventory.
• Q: My NPCs disappeared but it's like they're around invisibly, what's up with that?
  A: Did you get cosy with Mrs Bishop? Check out the New Reno section.
• Q: I'm playing the game using mod X, and...
  A: Stop right there. This guide covers official content only. Before you report a problem or a discovery encountered in a modded game, contact the creator of the mod and/or verify that it also happens in an unmodded game. If you report that some bug or feature works differently from what's stated in the guide and it turns out that this is only because of modified content, all the time I spend trying to verify your claim will be entirely wasted.
• Q: Is there any way of avoiding or shutting off the 13-year time limit?
  A: There's a number of hacks that effectively halt or reset the game timer. However, they don't actually extend it, so at the time of writing there is no solution that doesn't come with side effects such as disrupting shop and quest timers. This may still be a decent alternative to losing a game that happened to drag on for a while.
• Q: Have you written or are you planning guides for Fallout and/or Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel?
  A: There is already a Fallout guide, as well as a Wasteland guide for those who care about that. I haven't played Fallout Tactics and frankly don't think I will. Needless to say, I won't be touching the ineptly named console title Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel with a 6-foot Sharpened Pole.
• Q: Can I host your guide on my Fallout site/general game help site?
  A: Please do, providing that your site is a non-charging, non-profit, non-exclusive enterprise. By that I mean you can't ask users for any sort of fee or service, have them jump through hoops like a registration process, or limit access to the site using some other criteria; moreover, any donations or advertising revenues must be spent entirely on maintaining the site and not on any private benefits. Yes, even if that's just your cola and cat food expenses, as long as this is more than the people who provided your site's content are getting.
• Q: Can I translate the guide into strange language X?
  A: Basically, yes; see below for more details.
• Q: It says that someone is working on a translation to strange language X, but I haven't seen any result of that. Should I go on and make my own?
  A: It will ultimately have to be your decision, based on what information I have and what you can learn from your own national fan communities, if anything. Until now I haven't really kept track of those who have volunteered to translate, which is somewhat unfortunate, as it has evidently happened that people have quietly abandoned such attempts. In more recent times, others have probably opted to wait for the next guide update after I led them to believe it wouldn't be that long. From this point on I will file away contact information for prospective translators, date-stamp their projects and flag them as pending, ongoing or finished, assuming this information is available to me. If you are actively planning a translation, if you are working on one, if you already finished one, or even if you started on one and then gave up on it, please get in touch.
• Q: Why don't you update your guide with the fixes from Killap's unofficial patch?
  A: However highly I think of Killap's work, I won't cover it for the same reason I don't cover any other mods or tweaks. It makes more sense to restrict the guide to official, universal and unchanging content and rely on separate documentation for any add-ons, provided by those who have intimate knowledge of and control over those changes, or by anyone else who would take the time to investigate them. Even if I were to include such information, it would mostly amount to a great number of not really useful notes saying, "Oh, and if you're using Killap's patch, this bug doesn't happen."
• Q: I sent you a mail, but you didn't reply.
  A: That happens (and not just to people who write to me about Fallout, believe me). The best way to get a quick response is basically to condense your query/report into a number of simple questions or bullet point notes that I can fire off equally simple replies to. Anything that requires looking into game files ("I did X to Y after doing quest Z and now things have gone all wonky"), or formulating an opinion ("Isn't my 3-page character description the niftiest"), or leaving the Fallout context behind ("My sister is a princess but she's locked up in an African tower or something") could very well end up sitting in my inbox until I feel it would be too awkward to actually do something about it. However, everything that's submitted gets read and duly considered or investigated as appropriate once I get around to updating. You can always send me a reminder if you want confirmation that I received your mail, or if there's something in particular you really want a reply to. That is, unless the reason I didn't reply was one of those listed at the top of this FAQ, in which case you shouldn't send me a reminder because geckos will carry off your fridge.
• Q: Now that you don't have to direct people in search of the children patch any longer, what's the most common answer to received queries?
  A: "It's in the guide" - applying to both questions asked and features reported. Use the search function, folks!
• Q: This thing must have taken forever to write. Are you insane?
  A: "Devoted" sounds so much better, don't you think? The guide certainly grew into something bigger than I could predict back in October 2001. Testing and playing has eaten up much more time than the actual writing, but along the way I've learned to use various editors and tools to simplify things to the point where in-game testing has almost become a formality. Plus I get lots of appreciative mail. ;)
• Q: The Awareness perk isn't that good.
  A: Go away.

Note on guide translation

• I would prefer that you keep the original HTML format and presentation style, although if you desperately want to convert the guide into Word format, RTF, pure text or PDF I won't tell you no.
• Please stay as faithful to the original as possible, meaning you shouldn't omit or move about paragraphs or information, work your own opinions into the text, or make "updates" of your own without clearly labelling them as such. Obviously you should feel free to make cosmetic changes, e.g. omit puns that wouldn't make sense in translation or modify and rearrange sentences as dictated by style or grammar.
• Add a translation credit at the top of the guide.
• Optionally add a "Translator's note" subsection in Addenda above the version history.
• Add something distinguishing to the version designation at the top and insert this in the version list, e.g. "V1.3No" if you were translating it into Norwegian. If the number of translations continues to grow, you may have to use more than just one or two letters to avoid ambiguity.
• Include your email address somewhere (translator's note, version list, or the copyright notice).

What's new

Version history

Copyright notice