--------------- FALLOUT TACTICS --------------- - FAQ V2.5 - by Guiler (J Novakouski - guilersk@earthlink.net) This guide may be reproduced only with my permission, for non-profit purposes only. You may download, save, modify, or use this for personal reasons only, but I would appreciate that you send any suggestions and updates to me, guilersk@earthlink.net to help make this the best FAQ it can be. If you would like to post a copy of this on your fansite, email me at guilersk@earthlink.net. In addition, if you do so, I will automatically send you any updates I have made. FALLOUT TACTICS is (c) 2001 Interplay Entertainment Corp This is by no means complete, but it ought to help you play the game. If you know of something that I don't, drop me a line at guilersk@earthlink.net and I'll credit you for it. Note that while these people get credit for sending stuff in, they might not want to be badgered with emails, so you're best off sending questions and suggestions directly to me at: guilersk@earthlink.net Special thanx to the following contributors: "Adam Shahid" mantispid@technologist.com) Alastair Hutcheson (ali_qzx@yahoo.com) André Devaux (andre.devaux@iac.unibe.ch) Andres J. (Orkperson@aol.com) Andrew Lusk-Hahn (ajlusk@yahoo.com) Andy (AndiEQ@gmx.de) "Angus Lai" (sakuragk@home.com) "Arthur B. Byrne" (abb3w@mindspring.com) "Ashley K. Lovins" (aklovins@earthlink.net) Benjamin Winston (lemurking@hotmail.com) Booga (blaze@cx.net) Booze Miller (karnovbox@hotmail.com) brian (brian@natescape.com) Rafal Kubat (prozacbob@home.com) chad athey (ice_b_chilly88@hotmail.com) Chaltione Bonkfriks (chaltione@netcom.no) Charles J DeVito (rhe1@gte.net) Chew, Christopher (XSSC SGP) (Christopher.chew@xssc.sgp.xerox.com) Chris369@aol.com Chris Calvert (darkw0lf@vampirehunter.com) Chris Lynch (chris_lynch@cyberus.ca) "Chris Pendergrass" (cpndrgrs@earthlink.net) Christoph (veitc000@mail.uni-mainz.de) Clown (zion99@pacific.net.sg) Colin (colin2@TOOLKITMAIL.COM) "Daniel Caine" (Dan.Caine@btinternet.com) Danny Hioe (rajasinga@satumail.com) David Ng (chemgear@hotmail.com) david.s.jannke@accenture.com David S. (Pyro139989@aol.com) Dhany Permana (dhany@dhany.com) (Draconfyre@aol.com) "Edward Adams" (eadams_01@yahoo.co.uk) (Epsilitory@aol.com) Ferri (babeh@pacific.net.sg) Forrest (wee_wee@pacific.net.sg) Gabriel (arkangyl@bellsouth.net) Garred Whalen (gfishfunk@hotmail.com) Garry Upton (unclegarry@cei.net) Gilkey, Gregory (gsg@lucent.com) Glenn M. Sanford (sanfordphd@mac.com) Grev (grevinator1@hotmail.com) Houston Bruck (hbruck321@hotmail.com) iweird (iweird77@hotmail.com) Jason Salem (res06fsh@gte.net) Jason Wang (darkstrangefox@yahoo.com) Jeffrey Ross (jwr208@is9.nyu.edu) Jim "ShowLow" Sorrick (showlo@cybertrails.com) Joiro Hatagaya (joiro@latnet.lv) Jonas Karlsson (sweet_jonas@hotmail.com) Josemaria Hernandez (jmh53@cornell.edu) Justin Cramer (thinredpaste@yahoo.com) Kam Fung Keith Steiger (ksteiger@home.com) Ken Boren (eeroboren@pacific.net.ph) Kenny Wong (kenjai@netvigator.com) Kevin WeiserKittyH Kulsz (Kulsz@aol.com) Kyriel (kane255@jps.net) lobar (lobar@home.com) Louie Imperial (sfvanguard@yahoo.com) (Mach1014@aol.com) (Magical0@aol.com) "Marcus Robinson" (sucramuk@hotmail.com) Matt (mrbilljoe@yahoo.com) "Matthew wong" (mattwong48@hotmail.com) Mike Fletcher (callidus69@hotmail.com) mike perlewitz (yodawon@yahoo.com) Nightfall@mindspring.com Pak Chung (pchung@vt.edu) Paradox (paradox@japan.com) Patrick Bryan (trickzillion@earthlink.net) Phil Chermak (philchermak@hotmail.com) Philip L. McMahon (doorguy@doorbot.com) Phred (phred@guerro.com) Rajmohan Rajagopalan (mohan@math.cornell.edu) Ray Macey (raymacey@hotmail.com) Rick Schneider (ras501@hotmail.com) Rob Healy (sparky501@earthlink.net) Rob Knebel (robdalajara@yahoo.com) Robert Luong (kays8yrold@hotmail.com) ROBERT L BURGESS (CHEPOT@prodigy.net) sean wilkins (showcase74@hotmail.com) Sean Yeo da Syko Shane Feather (xcaliber1999@aol.com) Shen Borbe (internet_sniper@hotmail.com) Shirwyn Dalgliesh (shirwyn@vcn.bc.ca) Snyder, Adam (ASnyder@wmsgaming.com) "Teoh Siang Swee" (drekan40@hotmail.com) "Tom Carlsen" (TomCarlsen@citywestwater.com.au) "Tomas "Reveille" Rodriguez, Jr." (reveille@shinyboxofdogs.com) (Trickstaar@aol.com) Uliasea (uliasea@aventa.de) "Vanni Loriggio" (hakkenshi@hotmail.com) Wansheng Zhu (wz140@hotmail.com) "Wright, Stephen J" (Stephen.Wright@unisys.com) ygdrasil (ygdrasil@bcc.com.uz) And extra thanks to KJ (batistutaforever@hotmail.com) for all his help on the special encounters and everything in general! TABLE OF CONTENTS: -Version History -Character Creation -Tough Guy Suggestions (NEW! 2.4) -Weapons Chart (NEW! 2.3) -Perk Table (NEW! 2.3) -Walkthrough 0.0 SPECIAL ENCOUNTERS 0.1 BROTHERS GRIMM 0.2 COPPERTOPS 0.3 BAZAAR DAY 0.4 EVERREADY BUNNIES 0.5 TITANIC 0.6 FARMER 0.7 TRADER 0.8 BRAHMIN POKER 0.9 PITCH BLACK 0.10 L33TISTS 0.11 REAVER DANCE 0.12 CANADIAN INVASION 0.13 PHIL THE NUKA COLA GUY 0.14 B-1000 0.15 KOMODO MAN 0.16 SIXTH SENSE 0.17 GAS STATION 0.18 PIPBOY 0.19 UPRISING 0.20 CPF vs. PFC 0.21 BRAHMIN ARMOR 0.22 DEATHCLAW LIBERATION 0.23 4 HORSEMEN OF THE POST-APOCALYPSE 0.24 BRAHMIN TIPPING 0.25 MIR 0.26 AMELIA 0.27 HERMIT 0.28 MERCHANT 1.0 BRAHMIN WOOD 1.1 BUNKER 1 2.0 FREEPORT 2.1 BUNKER 2 3.0 ROCK FALLS 3.1 BUNKER 3 4.0 MACOMB 4.1 BUNKER 4 5.0 PREORIA 5.1 BUNKER 5 6.0 QUINCY 6.1 BUNKER 6 7.0 MARDIN 7.1 BUNKER 7 8.0 ST. LOUIS 8.1 BUNKER 8 9.0 JEFFERSON 9.1 BUNKER 9 10.0 KANSAS CITY 10.1 BUNKER 10 11.0 OSCEOLLA 11.1 BUNKER 11 12.0 JUNCTION CITY 12.1 BUNKER 12 13.0 GREAT BEND 13.1 BUNKER 13 14.0 COLDWATER 14.1 BUNKER 14 15.0 NEWTON 15.1 BUNKER 15 16.0 CANYON CITY 16.1 BUNKER 16 17.0 BUENA VISTA 17.1 BUNKER 17 18.0 SCOTT CITY 18.1 BUNKER 18 19.0 CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN 20.0 VAULT 0 21.0 BONUS MISSION (SPRINGFIELD) VERSION HISTORY: 1.0- created, missions 1-4 3/25/2001 1.1- added Preoria (mission 5), Macomb mine trick 3/26/2001 1.2- added Quincy (6) and several player suggestions 3/28/2001 1.3- added Mardin (7) 3/30/2001 1.4- added St. Louis 3/31/2001 1.5- added Jefferson 4/1/2001 1.6- added Osceolla and Junction City 4/4/2001 1.7- added Great Bend and Special Encounters 4/8/2001 1.8- added Coldwater and part of Newton 4/8/2001 1.8.5- added a whole bunch of mail and player suggestions 4/11/2001 1.9- added up to the middle of the last mission 4/16/2001 2.0- complete to end of game. Missing bonus mission (soon) 4/17/2001 2.1- added a WHOOOOOOLE lot of suggestions and a littl bit on the patch 4/23/2001 2.2- added more suggestions (bonus mission coming soon!) Also started marking updates so you don't have to go looking...4/30/2001 2.3- added bonus mission, weapons table, and perks table 5/12/2001 2.4- updates, added 'bandage' note 5/20/2001 2.5- updates 5/28/2001 CHARACTER CREATION: For all you Fallout people: Much as Icewind Dale was the combat version of Baldur's Gate, so this is the combat version of Fallout. Your silly skills like science, repair, and whatnot have little place here. You're much better off picking skills that allow you to be killin' stuff, so to speak. For all you Laser Squad/XCOM/Jagged Alliance people: This is a lot more RPG than you've ever had before. Imagine; you can actually see the amount of experience you've got, and pick the skills you want to increase when you level! Because of this customization, You shouldn't 'throw away' soldiers on suicide missions, as some of the games listed above need you to do. It's much better to go cautiously and retreat crippled soldiers from the field of battle. As this game is made for killing, I naturally have some suggestions on how to make a killer character. We want you to excel at the death- dealing on high levels, so I suggest working towards the 'sniper' and/or 'slayer' perks. On the way you should take Bonus Rate of Fire (or Bonus HtH if Slayer), Bonus Ranged/HtH Damage (again, depending on Sniper or Slayer), More Criticals, Better Criticals, and Sharpshooter (if Sniper). If you can't get these, take Action Boy (essential if you don't have max agil), Educated, Flexible, Gain (statistic), Swift Learner, Packrat, Strong Back, Ranger, or Explorer. UPDATE: As of 1.0, sniper is worthless, and Better criticals seems worthless too. I am in the midst of re-evaluating the worth of the perks. ----2.4---- "Kenny Wong" (kenjai@netvigator.com) writes: Bonus moves perk is useless in CTB mode. Duh! I made a slayer type char with this thinking he'd close in faster when I started with TB mode. But in CTB, nothing seems to change. -------- However, some of these perks have nasty attribute Requirements, which is a good reason why you should take Gifted. I also suggest Fast Shot, as Fast Shot and Bonus Rate of Fire means that it costs 2 points to fire a weapon; with 10 action points, that's 5 shots a round. Keep in mind that targetted shots, which is what you lose for taking fast shot, can be mighty useful because they give you an increased chance of critical hit, so it's really a trade-off; you get more shots, but you don't have a chance to take more effective shots. I suggest the following attributes (with Gifted on): ST 6 (8 if a Slayer) PE 8 (absolute minimum 8 if a sniper) EN 6 CH 5 (more is helpful) IN 6 (absolute minimum 6 if a sniper) AG 10(absolute minimum 8 if a sniper or slayer) LK 6 (for all those critical-based skills) "Daniel Caine" (Dan.Caine@btinternet.com) adds: Charisma seems broken, I designed a sniper character (Pe 10) and set my CH to 2 I still get all three recruits (more since the patch on the first Bunker) as I did with my previous Character who had CH 5. Those extra 3 points come in very useful. ----2.3---- On the other hand, since you won't get sniper until the end, you might want to be a heavy weapons specialist; Fallout Tactics rewards the heavy weapons person bigtime in this game with the Browning M2, easily the best long range weapon in the game. The problem is that it has a strength requirement of 9 and the ammo is hard to come by and terribly expensive. So in that case, you still want fast shot (more rounds out per combat turn) but you want more strength (9) and a bit less of the other stats (endurance can probably suffer here). UPDATE: I finally beat the game, and got sniper for the 2nd half of the last mission. It was totally not worth it; the difference between this and Fallout 2 is unbelievable; I highly suspect that there is a bug that prevents sniper from working. None of my guys exhibited any more critical hits than usual, and far less than I would get with even targetted shots. Sniper is a crock, and I'm pretty ticked off about it. So, instead of sniper, take increased critical hits and bonus rate of fire (bonus rate of fire just might be the best perk in the game). The path of melee can be very rewarding. If you get close enough to hit the enemy without him tearing you to pieces (sneak and cover), you can really rip it up with them, so to speak. If you're good, you will likely knock them down and cost them lots of action points, so many that they will stay down constantly (CTB) or not have enough action points left to attack you with (TB). This is hard with mutants, but it can be done. For Tag skills, small guns is essential, and then later Energy Weapons and Big Guns if you intend to use stuff like rockets and chainguns. Big Guns is crucial if you intend to even flirt with the Browning. Also useful is Lockpick, Unarmed or Melee if you plan to go the Slayer route, Bartering, and maybe Outdoorsman. Also take Stealth if you're the Slayer; you need to get close to kill them, so getting close without being seen is the best way, especially if you have Silent Death. Rafal Kubat (prozacbob@home.com) wrote in with this sly trick: If you want a REALLY good final sniper then Set up your character as follows, it works great for me ST 5/6 PE 8/9 EN 2 (i'll explain) CH 8 IN 9 AG 8 LK 6 The 2 Endurance will harm you at the beginning of the game, but by exploiting a bug in the game you can get it up to 12 without a problem. When you find the Gas Station Random Encounter (Usually Located 1 square north, 3 squares west of Bunker Beta), go in there THE FIRST TIME with everything possible. Trade for the Elixir of Life and anything else you might find useful, then take the elixir, and put it on the shelf where the Tool Box is (also put anything else that you want unlimited of in there) Then exit the encounter, come back in. Take all that equipment back, and exit the encounter again. Come back in, and now all those items that you put on the shelf (and everything that you sold to the woman, i sold her everything so she cant even move) is gonna be there for the rest of the game. This is great cause u can put things such as those much needed shotgun shells and other ammo as well as a whole s***load of doctors bags/first aid kits. I now never run out of medical supplies, stim packs, drugs, or elixirs thanks to this. Do this a bunch of times an you'll have 12 endurance from the elixirs, and about 200 hps, (you can drink more elixirs just cause they give u 15 hps a piece), my guys are invulnerable now, and all this with no official "cheating". Note: you can do this with any encounter in the game. You can even drop the items on the ground like this. ----2.4---- (Trickstaar@aol.com) writes: I found out something very interesting using a variation of the item duplication cheat I found on your FAQ. If you go to a special encounter that allows you to bring your vehicle(s) in, like L33tists, Deathclaw Liberation, Merchant, etc., you can leave your vehicle at the encounter and then come back over and over again to get more of the vehicle you left,a just like items. I tried this with the Tank at CPF Vs PFC and now I have two tanks. I unloaded the tank before leaving it, as usually leaving a vehicle behind deletes the stuff inside, but I am not sure if it would do that in a special encounter or not. Also I tried to go back with my two tanks to get a third, but I had some weird graphics error where the turrets for the tanks where floating away from the tanks. It then kicked me out of the encounter, but it did leave a circle showing where I had left my tank. That means I now have three (well four, I tried again to go into the encounter with two tanks to get a third), but I don't know how to get the third and fourth while driving my two tanks. It should probably be suggested to only do this cheat once or at least don't drive two tanks in to get a third, you could always stock pile the vehicles to the various bases. Then: I tried out the code further and you can leave the vehicle loaded and the stuff inside gets duplicated as well. Also the vehicles function well in combat, I ran a fight with my two tanks and it went well (other than not having a second good pilot or gunner). -------- UPDATE: The duplication bug is DEAD in 1.25, according to several sources. Kenny Wong (kenjai@netvigator.com) writes: The mutate! perk will change traits. However, if you don't have a trait to start with, then you just get a free trait. Not so useful for your main char, but could be useful for your squadies. Imagine a whole team of gifted squadies.... and The mutate! perk (getting a trait for nothing) still works in 1.25. ------------- I have done this. It rocks. I totally recommend it. Do it around L12 so your skills won't suffer too badly. Chris Calvert (darkw0lf@vampirehunter.com) suggests: Here is a tip I came up with that will provide infinite experience points. This works best if you have at least 30% in lockpicks and a set of lockpicks as well. Just go to a level with a safe (Rock Falls or Preoria for example) and move the char equipped with the lockpicks next to the safe and keep hitting '2' (hotkey for lockpick skill) and clicking the safe. You will unlock and then lock the safe. Each successful locking or unlocking will provide a minimum of 15 exp points. The higher your skill (obviously) the more often you will be successful. Also you do not always get just 15 points. You can get more, and it is partly random and partly based on your skill. I had a char with 30% do this and the max he got was 24 points, but my char with 80% in the lockpicking skill got a max of 47 points. ------------- Booga (blaze@cx.net) suggests: There's this odd bug that my friends and I managed to find out. Exploiting the bug will make the game unfun though. Here's how it goes. First, you need a vehicle...then, before you exit the map into the world map, make all your character crawl INTO the vehicle then exit the map. Whenever you come across a random encounter or next mission, your characters will start standing, but the values for crawling will still be there (doesn't work when going back to base or some special encounter). Keep crawling into the vehicle everytime and the values for the crawl will stack up onto each other. Keep doing this and even without increasing your gun skills!! However, this only works for your NPCs. I think the programmers remembered to reset the main character but not the NPCs. Most of my NPCs have all guns skills above 500% using this method, but remember, melee skills WILL suck...(reaching -1000%) ------------- blaze@storm.cx.net writes: As of v1.25, the crawl into vehicle bug doesn't work anymore. ----2.2---- For money problems, (Mach1014@aol.com) suggests: To help you out with your money problems, simply enlist in the services of an amazing gambler. In my game, Stumpy has it tagged and it was already high. If you use him a few times and add all his skill points to gambling, he should be able to swindle most of the mechanics in the game, the medical officer and the quartermaster at the gamma outpost. Its all about trial and error, save and load. if you stock up on everything anyone who gambles has, and do a decent amount of looting, money should no longer be any issue. ------------- Pak Chung (pchung@vt.edu) adds: I found some tricks about gambling that really saved me lots of money, in bunker gamma ( i think ), the quater master will gamble with you. so you merely can some of the most expensive stuffs from this bunker through gambling. first of all, you dont really need gambling skill, get as much cash as possible, lets say you want to get the power armor, it cost it 20000 each, so lets say this is the first time you gamble with this quater master, put as much money as u can something around 30000, and even without gambling skill u can still win neartly 100% of the time, but the drawback is, everytime the quater master lose, he will change the rate, the next time you bet with him, for a power armor lets say, he will only bet for like 25000 or so ( the more money u put for betting the higher chance you win, if u put 1 dollars to bet with his power armor u will never win ) I managed to get 4 power armors and 1 advanced power armor before he drop the rate to a level that i will never win ( like 12000 to bet for stuffs worth 20000) -------- Chaltione Bonkfriks (chaltione@netcom.no) adds: I have noticed a little bug: whenever you gamble with ANYONE, you can just put in whatever you want from them, and put in nothing from your side, and keep clicking on gamble. Eventually you'll win the gamble. That way i gambled away everything (4000+ lbs) the quartermaster in bunker gamma had with a character with only 14% gamble skill and 4 luck. It is still working with patch 1.25. ----2.3---- Try it out! you'll end up with loads of stuff that way... Josemaria Hernandez (jmh53@cornell.edu) adds: I tried using mentats to see if it would help some npcs get perks like sharpshooter. Does not seem to work unfortunately. Still using buffouts for your heavy guns guys so they can use Browning's in the missions before power armor is not a bad thing esp since they last the whole mission. Leader is a great perk btw. everyone in the squad under the influence gets +1 agility and added 5 bonus to armor class (I think). I would highly recommend just loitering around the wastelands. As far as I know there is no time pressure to finish the game and its a great way to load up on stuff and XP. For some reason when I encounter bots in the waste they are always under gunned, they fire one or two rounds then run out of ammo. They then rush you and you can pound them into scrap and get huge XP. One time I ran across 2 behemoths and 5 or 6 humanoids. I was lucky enough to critical hit both behemoths before they got into range and knocked them out. At the end of it all I got 5000 xps for that one encounter. I have leveled up around 4 or 5 times just wandering the wastes and am still in Newton but fighting with level 21 characters now. Another cool trick is just leaving ctb mode on during these random encounters. When encountering mutants and reavers you should be able to get away without suffering a hit at all. Pancor's armed with the purple shells are great against smaller bots; with bonus rate of fire i can fire twice and by the second burst kill 3 or 4 bots. ------------- Louie Imperial (sfvanguard@yahoo.com) and I have been having a discussion about the value of the Divine Favor Perk; while it has a high ability requirement (CHR of 8), he says it pays off handsomely, as it increases your highest stat by +1 and reduces the number of levels it takes to get perks (so if you'd normally get one every 3 levels, you get one every 2 levels instead). I have yet to experiment with this, but he thinks highly of it, so give it a shot. shirwyn@vcn.bc.ca suggests: On the Awareness Perk I've noticed that you only need to have one character with it and they all can use it. The trick is to have any of your characters get a line of sight on the enemy then click, just once, on the character bar name of the of the one with Awareness (even if that charcter is on the other side of the map) and the info shows up. Probably a glitch but enjoy it while it lasts. ----2.2---- "Robert Luong" (kays8yrold@hotmail.com) writes: Regarding the Bullhorn call/trap (something like that)... Weird thing w/ this accessory. Just put it on your hands and you gain +4 strength and your HP's shoot up to around 7 million(My main had 8str initially). You don't need to use it, just put it in one of the weapon slots. But you also become addicted to buffouts. I dunno if that had any effect cuz it didn't lower any of my stats nor affect my fighting ability. Try it out=) You can have a guy w/ a Strength of 3(min to use handgun, 4 is min for rifles/smg) then after the 1st mission buy this thing at the alpha bunker. Then when you get to beta bunker you can do that elixer thing for your endurance. Gives you more points to put into other stats...if you're careful enough that is.. and later... Basically all I needed to do was brave thru' the 1st mission. Str. of 3 gave me the ability to use handguns. I did CTB cuz there were some benefits I could gain from a high agility. With handguns costing 4AP per turn, you can shoot 3 times before they even get one off.(AP bar slowly regains 1AP in b/w shots) With kamakaze I hoped after 3 shots they'd die=) You just have to be very careful in CTB or it's suicidal. Anyways, after the 1st mission, go back to alpha bunker, buy the bullhorn, equip on free slot. Automatic 12 Str., 70million HP, and your small arms goes into 70million% too. it was crazy=) No one ever misses. Every shot is a critical. Now, only thing you gotta be careful of is when u're addicted you have a random chance of dying. But I went for months with out dying, then all of a sudden after I complete a mission I die. I just unequip the bullhorn for a sec everynow and then just to be safe. Sucks, but only if you didn't save. I guess that's the only drawback. I haven't patched the game yet either. So what you said with it not working, could be cuz you patched it already. I'll give you some screenshots I took whenever I find out how to transfer them to this comp. ----2.3---- I was not able to get this to work, but I've had it independently confirmed by Paradox (paradox@japan.com), so I'm pretty sure it works. Give this one a shot, although it's sort of an in-game cheat. "Marcus Robinson" (sucramuk@hotmail.com) adds: Note that if you hold shift when you click the credits button in the main menu, just like in Fallout 2 you'll see comments from the makers. ----2.3---- Kam Fung suggests: The Leadership perk works really well if you have people in you party with 7 (I think...) agility, the +1 your party gains from the perk is enough to push their action points up to 9/round. This is enough to change stance twice (up and down) and take a targeted shot, the armour class bonus is gravy. The thing is, the perk doesn't appear to work when you're in a vehicle (as of 1.25). Perhaps it doesn't realize your team is in close proximity when they are in a vehicle? Here's something to try when you have a whole whack of one item (like AK47's or SAW's) and they just don't bring home the bacon anymore: don't just sell them to the quartermaster, the mechanic and the healer will both give you great prices for items they don't have. It also appears that the quartermasters at all the bases have the same stuff, so selling to different bases for more money doesn't appear to work. Similarly, traders will give you better prices than the quartermasters if they don't have a lot of an item. I find I can usually sell about 10 of an item before the value starts to drop a lot. ----2.3---- André Devaux (andre.devaux@iac.unibe.ch) writes: 1) I've noticed that the starting equipment of your main character depends partially on your tag skills. If you tag some skills, you get additional items to start with. I haven't tried out every skill yet, but here is what I found out: -Gambling nets you 500 BOS scripts -Doctor gives you a doctors bag (yay!) -Throwing adds a few spears, some rocks and one fragmentation grenade The following skills give no bonus items: Stealth, Lockpick, Big Guns, Energy Weapons 2) In answer to Daniel Caine: charisma has no effect on which NPCs you can hire. It soley depends on your rank (you can hire NPCs of the same or lower rank than you). BUT: Promotions seem to depend on your CH score. Higher charisma seems to let you gain ranks quicker. For example, my CH 2 character got promoted to senior initiate only after the second mission while another one with a charisma score of 7 got promoted after the first. I've tried this several times and solved the first mission always in the same way. ----2.5---- UPDATE 2.4: The 'Bandaged' Debacle Now, I have been getting a lot of questions about the 'bandaged' state. I'd like to write something definitive about it here so I don't get any more questions about it. If you are bandaged, you must use the doctor bag to remove that state. Put the doctor bag in the hand of the character with the highest 'Doctor' skill. Click on the bag icon (in your hand) and then click on the poor guy who is 'bandaged'. Note; this can include the doctor himself! Now, prior to the 1.25 patch, you had to have been damaged; that is, missing at least 1 hit point. After the 1.25 patch, this is fixed, and you may successfully use it on someone who is not damaged. TOUGH GUY SUGGESTIONS (UPDATE 2.4): Andy (AndiEQ@gmx.de) wrote in with some suggestions for Tough Guy mode: Perks: Dont pick a perk until lvl 9 because if u cancel the perk dialog u wont loose the ability to choose later, so wait until lvl 9 and than look what perks u want, the best perks are avaible in lvl 6 and 9 and 12, u can easy work without perks up to lvl 9. Pick the mutate perk first and choose gifted if u want have some extra perks avaible. If u safed all perks to lvl 9 u will be able to choose mutate first and than get new perks avaible and still have 2 perks left to spend. It is also wise to pick the Fast Shot skill from mutate if your char has already good stats. Teams and char buliding: i tryed first play with a full sniper team (high PE and AGI + Ranged DMG Bonus perks and or sniper perk).... worked well up to mission 8, but than with all the rocket luncher guys and long range hard hitting weapons i did loose in that mission over and over and over ...... dont ask how long i tryed this mission.... finaly i figured that i had spend more points into sneak ... so i had could sneak behind the hard guys and fire them down at 1 burst... even with 6 sneaking snipers u wont be able to kill 2 rocked guys ... so i started over and well teh new team was a blast :-) new team: 4x sneaker (tag skill from lvl 1 and pushed sneak fast to 121) 2 of the sneaker are special in small and 2 in big guns (think of sneaking with 2 rocket luncher and fire them on a hard guys from back ... no chance hehe) 2x long range heavy weapon/sniper combo .. (heavy weapon/small weapon/ maybe engery as tag skill and high perception or at least with the perk/gifted trick able to get sharpshooter in 9 and get so to PE 8 or 9.... start with 6 PE ... mutate .. gifted ... get 7 PE + Sharpshooter than 9 PE ... so look for nice guys with at least 5 LK and 5 Agi/Int and 6 PE + Tag combo) normal use your 4 sneakes against hard guys and burst them from the back so they cant even get 1 round or rocket out on u.... pick hit the deck in lvl 12 as perk, because it lower the chance to get killed from rocket guys or mines. Pick ranged bonus dmg or sharpshooter also for all and awerness this helps to keep u informed. i also choosed night vision for all in my team, because u get a big range advantage at night and sneak also work better. Because u cant save in hard mode, u want realy fight at night so that the chance is bigger u dont get killed if u run into traps or hidded guys and get killed in first encounter. I did equiped the 4x sneaker team with long range or long range burst weapons (hunter rifle, ak47, m16, sniper rifle) in primary mode and 2x SAW/rocket lancher and 2x CAWs for burst mode. The 2x heavy snipers with 2 SAWs/M2/rocket lancher. my own char: STR: 9 (for use M2 at 5 feet in sneak mode ... hehe) PE: 7 (to upgrade to sharpshooter + bonus dmg) EN: 6 CH: 2 INT: 10 (more skills) AGI: 7 (8 Action points are enough ... fast shot rocks) lK: 6 (sharpshooter/dmg bonus) Fast Shot + Gifted heavy weapons + doctor + sneak perks: night vision comprensive (read all books) bonus ranged dmg/sharpshooter hit the deck thats a good start at lvl 12 i choose doctor because there isnt realy 1 nice doc with sneak and usefull stats, with 10 int u will also be able to get small guns fast up to 114 and than u can start put more into heavy guns and doc skill... also u need a doc in first line if sneak fail and u get under heavy fire and your friends get blinded or crippled. ----2.4---- WEAPONS CHART (UPDATE 2.5) Thanks greatly to André Devaux (andre.devaux@iac.unibe.ch) for providing this chart; he did all of it, so all of the credit is his! It's missing some of the guns later on in the game, but those will be added pretty soon. (AndiEQ@gmx.de) writes in with some general observations about weapons: some infos to weapons and how to compare the dmg/range/ammo so how u choose the best weapon for your team ? just by the displayed dmg of the weapon ? NO ! some infos to weapons in BOS in general: all weapons with a burst mode arnt so precision like the single shot mode weapons even if they have the same range ! example: the ak47 or m16 have nice range in single shot mode, but with a huting rifle u will still get a higher percantage for aiming than with a burst weapon of the same range ! In burst mode a weapon do much more dmg than it is displayed. Displayed is always the single shot mode, burst mode need to be calced ! how to compare single shot and energy weapons: just by range and dmg that is displayed. But think of the armor types, normal energy dmg will get more absorb than normal dmg, so normal weapons can do more dmg against a well armored guy ! It is also a good idea to not compare the max dmg a single shot weapon do, just compare the minimum dmg. how to compare burst weapons: compare the range than the normal burst dmg displayed, now u need calc the ammo and how many rounds per burst are driven out. Example: SAW can hold 30 rounds and u can shot 3 times.. ergo 10 rounds per burst of 7.62 mm and 20-30 dmg displayed Vindicator can hold 100 rounds and u can shot 4 times .. ergo 25 rounds per burst of 7.62mm and 16-25 dmg displayed M60 can hold 50 rounds and u can shot 5 times .. ergo 10 rounds per burst of 7.62mm and 18-26 dmg displayed wich weapon is better now ? for ammo/dmg the vindicator is best, even if the saw have higer dmg displayed, but the vindicator get out more than twice of the same ammo than the saw ! Since the M60 and SAW have same ammo/burst rate the saw wins over the M60 in ammo/dmg how to compare ammo: I did not notice a difference between the ammo types in general if no special dmg or penetration factor is displayed. The only thing i notice is the shotgun shells do more dmg than other burst weapons compared for his burst/ammo mode. Also shotgun shells have a nice area effect in hurt groups. So a CAWs or a Jackhammer are very deadly weapons on short range and with the special dmg bonus ammo they can kill 3 low armored mutants in short range at 1 burst even if only 2.5 shells are pumped out at 1 burst ! I did not notice any difference between ammo types like 50mm, 5.56mm or 7.62mm or .303mm. So just compare the dmg displayed. 9mm ammo is the worst because the normal ball get dmg and penetration penalty. U should choose your ammo so that the dmg/penetration is average and/or u have some types of special ammo avaible for your gun, so the shotgun weapons are the best for dmg/ammo/burst in short range because u have 3 types of ammo to load and the dmg done with just 2.5 shells in 1 burst is awesome. best ranged heavy burst weapons in game: Gaus Minigun: weapon from hell !!!! (could not test it yet but stats sounds damm nice) Vindicator: high dmg / high range / ammo sucker (cant shot in prone mode) M2: high dmg / high range / heavy like hell SAW: good dmg / high range / good overall power M60: good dmg / med range / nice magazine of ammo avenger: fair dmg / med range best small burst weapons in game: Jackhammer: high dmg / low range / good overall power CAWs: high dmg / low range / good overall power Fn Fal: good dmg / nice range / good overall power Neostead: good dmg / low range Ak47: good dmg / med range M16: fair dmg / good range happy bursting :-) ----2.5---- Fallout Tactics - Weapon Chart (v. 1.2) ============================== Small Guns (Note: all revolvers cost 1 AP less to fire) ======================================================================= Ammo Type: 2mm Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes ROF ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Gauss Pistol 22-32 50 12 4 Single 1 Ammo Type: .303mm Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes ROF ----------------------------------------------------------------------- M-14 7-16 32 20 5 Burst 8 8-18 40 Single 1 Ammo Type: 44. Mag Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes ROF ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 44 M29 Revolver 14-21 18 6 4 Single 1 Desert Eagle 15-23 25 8 4 Single 1 Mark XIX Ammo Type: .45 Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes ROF ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Colt 45 12-18 17 12 3 Triple 3 22 Single 1 Casull Revolver 13-18 15 6 4 Single 1 Ammo Type: 5.56mm Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes ROF ----------------------------------------------------------------------- M16A1 8-19 36 24 5 Burst 8 10-22 42 Single 1 Ammo Type: 7.62mm Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes ROF ----------------------------------------------------------------------- AK47 10-22 28 24 5 Burst 5 12-25 35 Single 1 Hunting Rifle 8-20 40 10 5 Single 1 Ammo Type: 9mm Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes ROF ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FN P90C 13-21 18 50 4 Burst 5 16-25 22 Single 1 MP38 10-21 16 30 4 Burst 6 12-24 20 Single 1 Sten Gun 14-21 16 32 4 Burst 3 16-24 18 Single 1 MP5 H&K 8-17 20 30 4 Burst 6 10-20 25 Single 1 Walther MPL 10-17 20 32 5 Burst 4 12-20 25 Single 1 Scorpio 8-16 18 32 4 Burst 4 9-18 22 Single 1 Uzi 7-14 16 25 4 Burst 5 8-16 20 Single 1 9mm M9FS Beretta 8-15 17 15 3 Triple 3 22 Single 1 Calico M950 7-14 16 50 3 Triple 3 22 Single 1 Browning HP 7-14 16 12 3 Triple 3 20 Single 1 9mm HSI Mauser 6-14 28 7 3 Single 1 Zip Gun 6-12 22 1 3 Single 1 Ammo Type: 12 gauge Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes ROF ----------------------------------------------------------------------- H&K CAWS 18-28 30 10 6 Single 1 16-25 24 Burst ? Neostead Combat SG 15-25 22 12 6 Single 1 13-22 17 Burst 3 Pump-action Shotgun 14-24 14 5 5 Single 1 Beretta 470 Silver- 12-22 14 2 4 Single 1 hawk 10-19 Double 2 Ammo Type: 30.06 Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes ROF ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M1 Garand 12-24 40 8 5 Single 1 Ammo Type: Speargun Bolts Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes ROF ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Spear Gun 3-15 25 1 4 Single 1 Ammo Type: Needler Cartridge Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes ROF ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Needler Pistol 13-27 30 10 3 Single 1 +Poison ======================================================================= Big Guns ======================================================================= Ammo Type: 5.56mm Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes ROF -------------------------------------------------------------------- Avenger MiniGun 7-11 35 120 7 Burst 40 Ammo Type: 7.62mm Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes ROF -------------------------------------------------------------------- M60 18-26 35 50 7 Burst 10 Ammo Type: Rockets Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes ROF ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Rocket Launcher 60-120 40 1 6 Single(5) 1 ======================================================================= Ammo ======================================================================= Type Damage mod Penetration mod ------------------------------------------------------ Speargun Bolts 0 0 9mm Ball -11% -20% 9mm JHP +60% -20% 9mm AP -25% +50% 7.62mm 0 0 .45 0 0 12 gauge 0 0 12 gauge flechette +60% -20% 12 ga. Slug Shells -11% +31% .44 magnum Ball -11% -20% .44 magnum JHP +60% -20% Small Energy Cell(SEC) 0 0 Large Energy Cell (LEC) 0 0 5.56 0 0 Explosive Rocket +60% +11% .50 Cal DU 0 +50% HN Needler Cartridge 0 0 ======================================================================= Melee Weapons ======================================================================= Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes -------------------------------------------------------------------- Dynamite Spear 10-30 2 - 4 Thrust (4) Ripper 15-22 1 30 (SEC) 4 Swing (4) Diamond Spear 15-20 2 - 4 Thrust (4) Cattle Prod 12-20 1 20 (SEC) 5 Swing (4) 3-6 Overload (3) Micro-Sledge 8-20 1 - 5 Swing (4) 9-21 2 Thrust (4) Piston Spear 6-20 2 - 4 Thrust (4) Monkey Wrench 8-18 1 - 5 Swing (3) Combat Knife 7-18 1 - 1 Thrust (3) 6-14 Swing (4) Claw Hammer 4-16 1 - 5 Claw (4) 3-10 Head (4) Dak Targ 5-15 1 - 1 Thrust (4) 4-12 Swing (3) Club 5-15 2 - 4 Swing (3) 5-15 Thrust (4) Crowbar 3-15 1 - 4 Swing (3) 3-15 Thrust (4) Machete 3-15 1 - 4 Swing (4) Cleaver 6-14 1 - 4 Swing (4) Knife 1-14 1 - 1 Thrust (4) 1-11 Swing (4) Axe Handle 4-12 2 - 4 Swing (4) Scalpel 3-12 1 - 1 Thrust (4) 3-10 Swing (4) Iron Pipe 2-12 1 - 5 Swing (4) Slugger 3-11 2 - 4 Swing (4) 3-11 Thrust (4) Deco-Filament 3-10 1 - 1 Swing (3) Festering Spear 3-10 2 - 4 Thrust (4) +Poison Spear 3-10 2 - 4 Thrust (4) Barbed Spear 7-8 2 - 4 Thrust (4) Throwing Knife 3-6 1 - 1 Thrust (3) Switchblade 2-5 1 - 1 Swing (3) 2-6 Thrust (4) Sharpened Pole 2-5 2 - 4 Thrust (4) Shiv 1-5 1 - 1 Swing (3) 1-6 Thrust (4) Broken Bottle 1-5 1 - 1 Swing (3) 1-6 Thrust (4) Plunger 1-4 2 - 1 Swing (4) 1-4 Thrust (4) ======================================================================= Hand-to-Hand Weapons ======================================================================= Name Damage Range Clip Min Str Modes --------------------------------------------------------------------- Power Fist 12-24 1 25 (SEC) 1 Punch (3) Razor Claws 6-24 1 - 1 Punch (3) Punch Gun 10-20 1 3 (12 gauge) 1 Punch (3) Impact Gloves 8-16 1 - 1 Punch (3) Punch Dagger 5-14 1 - 1 Punch (3) Mace Gloves 6-10 1 - 1 Punch (4) Lacerators 5-10 1 - 1 Punch (3) Tiger Claws 4-6 1 - 1 Punch (3) Sappers 4-6 1 - 1 Punch (3) Brass Knuckles 2-5 1 - 1 Punch (3) ======================================================================= Throwing Weapons ======================================================================= Name Damage Range Min Str Mode -------------------------------------------------------------------- Diamond Spear 22-30 8 4 Throw (5) Dynamite Spear 10-30 8 4 Throw (5) Piston Spear 9-30 8 4 Throw (5) Festering Spear 4-13 8 4 Throw (5), Poison Spear 3-12 8 4 Throw (5) Fantasy Ball 8-10 15 1 Throw (2) Barbed Spear 8-9 8 4 Throw (5) Powder Bag 4-7 16 1 Throw (2), Stuns Chakram 4-6 15 1 Throw (2) Dart 3-6 16 1 Throw (2) Throwing Knife 3-6 16 1 Throw (5) Throwing Star 2-6 15 1 Throw (2) Sharpened Pole 2-6 8 4 Throw (5) Rock 1-4 15 1 Throw (2) ======================================================================= Grenades (uses throwing skill) ======================================================================= Name Damage Range Min Str Notes -------------------------------------------------------------------- Incendiary 41-61 15 4 Fire damage Acid Grenade 31-61 15 4 Fragmentation 31-51 15 4 Boom Bugs 11-26 15 4 Molotov Cocktail 9-21 18 4 Fire damage Flash Grendades 4-10 15 4 Stuns ======================================================================= Armor ======================================================================= Name AC Normal Fire Gas Expl. Energy Elec. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Advanced Power Armor 35 18/60% 15/65% 7/45% 10/50% 17/55% 0/0% Power Armor 30 13/55% 13/60% 5/30% 9/45% 6/60% 0/0% Tesla Armor 15 4/35% 7/45% 0/0% 4/20% 15/85% 0/0% Environmental Armor MkII 10 6/40% 5/42% 20/90% 9/45% 6/60% 0/0% Environmental Armor 10 5/40% 4/40% 13/70% 6/40% 5/55% 0/0% Metal Armor MkII 15 4/35% 4/20% 0/0% 4/30% 4/45% 0/0% Metal Armor 10 4/30% 4/15% 0/0% 4/25% 3/37% 0/0% Leather Armor MkII 20 3/25% 1/17% 0/0% 1/25% 1/30% 0/0% Leather Armor 15 2/25% 0/15% 0/0% 0/20% 0/25% 0/0% Ghoul Armor 10 0/20% 0/10% 0/0% 0/20% 0/25% 0/0% Notes: - The first number of each category is the damage absorption, the second the damage resistance. - Absorption is first substracted from the damage roll of any attack. - Then the remaining damage gets reduced by the amount of damage resistance you have. - Metal Armor and Metal Armor MkII: -25% Stealth. - Ghoul Armor can only be worn by ghouls. ======================================================================= PERKS TABLE (UPDATE 2.3): André Devaux (andre.devaux@iac.unibe.ch) has come through again and provided a perk table (something which I admittedly should have done some time ago)! I have added occasional comments to it, but the main body of the work is his. Perk List ========= Rating follows this scale: useless, bad, average, good, very good, must have. Please note that this rating is solely based on my opinons. If you like one perk, then by all means take it regardless of my rating! One last thing: take the "one time bonus to skills" perks only if there's nothing else around or you really need those skill points. But there's nearly always something more useful to take... Level 2: Prerequisites Ranks Comments / Rating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brown Noser CH 5, IN 6 1? Useless? Die Hard EN 6, 1 Useless First Aid 40% Level 3: Prerequisites Ranks Comments / Rating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Awareness PE 5 1 Average, only one char. needs it (GUILER SAYS: I'd say good, but it's true that only 1 person should have it) Bonus HtH Damage ST 6, AG 6 3 Very good for Slayers Comprehension IN 6 1 Average (GUILER SAYS: I usually give all my books to the main char. If you save your books until you get this, or get it early, this is OK, but you will get enough books in the game that you will never really need it) Drunken Master Unarmed 60% 1 Bad (GUILER SAYS: Jackie Chan, yes. FT, maybe not) Faster Healing EN 6 3 Useless Flower Child EN 5 1 Must have if you like using drugs Gunner AG 6, 1 ? Small Guns 40% (GUILER SAYS: Not many missions with vehicles...) Healer PE 7, AG 6, IN 5, 2? Good, but only for your medic First Aid 40% Here and Now None 1 Useless, too weak a bonus Lead Foot PE 6, AG 6, 1 Not very useful Piloting 60% Night Vision PE 6 1 Average (good for snipers) Quick Pockets AG 5 1 Average Rad Child EN 6, Ghouls only 1 ? Scout PE 7 1 Bad Stat! AG 6, 1 Useless, it's better to use stimpack during First Aid 75%, combat. And outside of combat you have as Doctor 50% much time as you want. Stonewall ST 6 1 Bad Strong Back ST 6, EN 6 3 Average to good (depends on carry cap.) Survivalist EN 6 1 Bad Outdoorsman 40% Swift Learner IN 4 3 Very good, take it early Team Player CH 4 1 Good "Kenny Wong" (kenjai@netvigator.com) adds: Team player is bugged. It doesn't work at all! Should work the opposite of Loner, where all your skills get +10% and go blue when near someone, but nothing happens. ----2.4---- I've actually seen it work before; but I am inclined to believe it only works near other team players. Thief None 1 Average Toughness EN 6, LK 6 3 Bad "Kenny Wong" (kenjai@netvigator.com) adds: Toughness is actually pretty good (IMO) 3 Toughness + advanced power armor = 90% damage resistance. Even with 1 Toughness you still get 70%. Probably most usefull if you're playing Tough Guy. ----2.4---- Level 4: Prerequisites Ranks Comments / Rating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bracing EN 5, 1 Good (if you have low ST) Big Guns 60% Death Sense IN 5, 1 ? Deathclaw only Flexible AG 6 1 Average "Kenny Wong" (kenjai@netvigator.com) adds: Felixble is good only in turn based, and pre-1.25 at that, when the computer didn't go into overwatch. ----2.4---- Hit the Deck AG 6 1 Average to good Leader CH 6 1 Very good Loner CH ( 5, 1 Bad Outdoorsman 40% "Kenny Wong" (kenjai@netvigator.com) writes: Loner is currently bugged. The bonus is on all the time even when you're standing next to someone. This actually makes it pretty good as you get +10% to all skills at all times! Unfortunately, you need a low CH, which conflicts with Divine Favour. Bummer. ----2.4---- Steady Arm ST 6, 1 Must Have? Mutants only Level 6: Prerequisites Ranks Comments / Rating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adrenaline Rush ST ( 6 1 Useless Bone Head ? 1 Useless ? Bonus Move AG 5 2 Very good, but useless for CTB Bonus Ranged Damage AG 6, LK 6 2 Very good for gunners Cancerous Growth ST ( 7, 1 ? Ghouls Only Educated IN 6 3 Average (good if you're Gifted) Gambler Gambling 50% 1 Average Ghost Sneak 60% 1 Bad to Average (bonus only in darkness) Harmless Steal 50% 1 Average Not for Deathclaws! Heave Ho! ST ( 9 1 Bad More Criticals LK 6 3 Very good (especially for snipers) Not for Mutants! Negotiator Barter 70% 1 Average Pack Rat None 1 Average (only if you have low ST) Pathfinder EN 6, 2 Useless, theres no time limit in this Outdoorsman 40% game! Quick Recovery AG 5 1 Average Rad Resistance EN 6, IN 4 2 Bad, two Rad-X pills will do the trick Not for Ghouls! Ranger PE 6 1 Average (only one char. has to take it) Salesman Barter 50% 1 Average Not for Animals! Silent Running AG 6, Sneak 50% 1 Very Good for Slayers Snakeater EN 3 2 Useless Stunt Man ST 6, EN 6, AG 6 1 Average? Not for Animals! Way of the Fruit CH 6 1 ? Not for Animals! (GUILER SAYS: gives a bonus to str if you eat a fruit. Kind of like drugs but with no drawbacks) Level 8: Prerequisites Ranks Comments / Rating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bluff Master CH 3 1 Bad Brutish Hulk ST 7, EN 5 1 ? Deathclaws only Psychotic EN 5 1 ? Mutants only Tunnel Rat AG 6 1 Good (especially for Snipers) Level 9: Prerequisites Ranks Comments / Rating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Better Criticals PE 6, AG 4, LK 6 1 Doesn't seem to work? (GUILER SAYS: compared with F2, this perk is a crock; no instant death if )100. The only difference I noted was that I always did damage with knockdowns, as opposed to people without it who sometimes did knock downs w/o damage) Crazy Bomber In 6, Traps 60% 1 Bad, just blow up those mines Not for Animals! Demolition Expert AG 4, Traps 75% 1 Useless, could be useful in MP games? Dodger AG 6 1 Bad (bonus to AC is quite weak) Explorer None 1 Useless (GUILER SAYS: Maybe get 1 if you don't want to wander the wasteland for all of the SE's. Certainly gravy, though) Light Step AG 5, LK 5 1 Useless (don't step on traps) Mutate! None 1 Must have: give NPCs the Gifted trait! Pyromaniac Big Guns 75% 1 Average, works only with Flamer Sharpshooter PE 7, IN 6 2? Very Good for Snipers Level 10: Prerequisites Ranks Comments / Rating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hide of Scars EN 6 1 ? Deathclaws only Level 12: Prerequisites Ranks Comments / Rating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Action Boy AG 5 2 Very good (Must have if AG ( 10) "Kenny Wong" (kenjai@netvigator.com) adds: Action Boy is very good in TB mode, but isn't all that good in CTB mode, especially in prolonged firefights. Example: assuming you originally had 9aps, armed with a 5ap burst weapon. In CTB, you'd fire, pause, fire, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause, fire, etc. With Action Boy, you'd fire, fire, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause, fire, etc. The only difference is in the opening rounds. Obviously though, in TB, there's a world of difference between firing once/round and twice/round. ----2.4---- Bonsai Outdoorsman 40%, 1 ? Science 40% (GUILER SAYS: fruit grows on your head. Ghouls Only Use with Way of Fruit) Gain (Stat) Stat ( race max. 1 Must Have HtH Evade Unarmed 75% 1 Good (only for Slayers) Lifegiver EN 4 2 Very Good "Kenny Wong" (kenjai@netvigator.com) Lifegiver is a must have if you're playing Tough Guy (obvious really) ----2.4---- Living Anatomy Doctor 60% 1 Very Good (for the bonus damage to living) "Kenny Wong" (kenjai@netvigator.com) adds: Living anatomy is useless by the endgame. ----2.4---- Master Thief Steal 50%, 1 Average Lockpick 50% Master Trader CH 7, Barter 75% 1 Average Not for Animals! Medic! First Aid 40% or 1 Average Doctor 40% Mr. Fixit Repair 40% or 1 Average Science 40% Not for Animals! Tag! None 1 Must have! (GUILER SAYS: Tag energy weapons late in life) Talon of Fear ST 6, Unarmed 60% 1 ? Deathclaws only Tough Hide EN ( 8 1 ? Mutants only Weapon Handling ST ( 10, AG 5 1 Good if you have low ST Not for Animals! Level 14 Prerequisites Ranks Comments / Rating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Divine Favor CH ) 7 1 I have heard MANY good things about this one. Gives you a perk 1 level earlier, so every 2 levels for normals, 3 for ghouls, etc. ----2.5---- Level 15: Prerequisites Ranks Comments / Rating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bonus HtH Attacks AG 6 1 Must have for Slayers Bonus Rate of Fire AG 7, PE 6, IN 6 1 Must have for ranged fighters Pickpocket AG 8, Steal 80% 1 Very good if you like stealing Level 16: Prerequisites Ranks Comments / Rating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bend the Rules LK 6 1 Could be good (GUILER SAYS: Doesn't exist in the game?) ----2.4---- Level 18: Prerequisites Ranks Comments / Rating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Silent Death AG 10, Sneak 80% 1 Very good for Slayers Unarmed 80% Level 20: Prerequisites Ranks Comments / Rating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Break the Rules LK 6 1 Possibly very good (GUILER SAYS: Doesn't exist in the game?) ----2.4---- Level 24: Prerequisites Ranks Comments / Rating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Slayer ST 8, AG 8, 1 Must have for Slayers Unarmed 80% Sniper PE 8, AG 8, 1 Doesn't seem to work? Small Guns 80% (GUILER SAYS: Curse them for breaking Sniper! CUUUURSE THEEEEEM!!!!!) WALKTHROUGH: Please note that I play Turn-based. Squad Turn-based is good for the XCOM/ Jagged Alliance crowd, and regular Turn-based is good for Fallout fans. CTB is good for suicidal RTS gamers, who will probably have a lot of trouble and frustration playing this game that way. There are benefits of CTB games, but I prefer not to play that way. I do occasionally set it to CTB when fighting off hordes of melee'ers, though. I just line everyone up like a firing squad aimed at the charging melee guys and mow them down. With that in mind, let's begin. 0.0 SPECIAL ENCOUNTERS: Special encounters can happen at any time in the wasteland, and may appear based on your luck, your Outdoorsman skills, and the Explorer and Scout Perks. They are generally benign and/or silly. Once you have discovered them, a small green circle (much like the normal mission circles) will appear on the map where you found them and you will be able to return to them whenever you like. UPDATE 2.2 It really seems that most of the encounters appear in the same spots; not to say that the same encounter will appear in a spot, but rather that certain spots are activated when you start the game, and the encounters they house are swapped around. With this in mind (and no need to flood me with email, but...) if you want to help, write down the locations of the encounters you've found and send them in. I want to compare them to see if there really is a pattern or what. Please give the locations in relation to mission locations or bunkers. (I have a bad feeling about this...) KJ (batistutaforever@hotmail.com) adds: The best way to know if you found a special encounter is if your party was travelling in a vehicle and the vehicle "disappeared" in the map. You will get back in when you exit the encounter but the next time you go into another encounter, your party will be out of the vehicle. Take Note!!! In the merchant and the l33tists encounter, you will still retain your vehicle. -------- "Daniel Caine" (Dan.Caine@btinternet.com) has a great tip: You can get multiple special encounters in the same square. Once you have found a sector just run back and forth over the very corners of the square, and as you can see, I have managed to get up to four encounters per square. Also I have found that it is pointless spending perks on explorer or ranger. I am managing fine as you can see, with just Rebecca who starts out with the scout skill. Another thing, once you get two or three encounters in a square, you cant get another in it until you visit a different encounter giving square. Therefore on S.E. runs it is better to have 2 or three known squares on the go. They do stay the same from game to game, although the actual encounters differ slightly. I have also found a solution to the very anoying "Character Swap" bug found with the Four Horsemen S.E. It is still applicable after the patch even though the readme says it is fixed. Anyway to avoid having your lead character swapped, you have to know when it is going to occur. Basically when I came accross it I re-loaded. That encounter will be next. Either go onto an empty wilderness map by clicking on your little triangle, or do a random encounter. In my game the Hummer pilot is my main character and so has to be selected in order to drive. Position the vehicle a distance from the exit grid, then click on the exit grid to leave, however as you start to move, select a different character. When you then encounter the Four Horsemen, the character you selected will have swapped places with another member of your party, NOT your lead character though. Then you can just re-order them via the character screen. This is an important tip, as if you are doing S.E. runs you will come accross the Horsemen and it can seriously screw up your game. Below is a list of a few S.E. squares, I have more than this, but these are accessible from early in the game. and in conjunction with the tips above allow you to rack up a fair number of them. 2 Sq North of Bunker Beta 1 Sq North, 3 Sq West of Bunker Beta 1 Sq West, 3 Sq South of Brahmin Wood 2 Sq South of Preoria 2 Sq South, 3 Sq West of Macomb 1 Sq East, 3 Sq South of Macomb Like I said there are plenty more than this, near Jefferson and Kansas for example, but these are plenty to be going on with. ----2.3---- 0.1 BROTHERS GRIMM: There are 2 mutants in a small area. One of them is wounded. Heal up the wounded one and (I think) they will join your roster back at the brotherhood. Charles J DeVito (rhe1@gte.net) adds: Yes, if you heal the wounded brother, the two of them will end up as available recruits. They're both rank 11 (Paladin Commander), so not available til fairly late in the game. One is a melee specialist, the other is big guns/energy weapons and has (according to his character description) a habit of wearing women's clothing. ---------- 0.2 COPPERTOPS: This is a large building filled with treadmills and people called 'human batteries'. At the end of the row is a humanoid robot and there are lockers by the side of every pair of 'human batteries'. The lockers are locked, but if you open them, they contain 200 sm energy cells each. Destroying the humanoid robot, who raves about taking over the world, netted me 27 XP and the 100 rounds of 7.62 that he had on his person, and little else. I'm curious to know what else can be done with this encounter. 0.3 BAZAAR DAY: I haven't actually gotten this yet, but I've heard about it from several different people. The first one I heard from was Danny Hioe (rajasinga@satumail.com), and he gave a description of the Devilthorn Coat, which can be gotten here. Jonas Karlsson (sweet_jonas@hotmail.com) gives a more complete description, saying: In case you haven't encountered the "Bazaar Day", which might be a special encounter, I'll tell you a little bit about it. On my way to some mission I stumbled on this Bazar Day, it consists of a bunch of civilians that sell stuff. One of them has a very rare item, in fact it states that it is a "unique item". It is an armor of some kind with the name "Devilthorn Coat". It costed something around 24 000 ringpulls, but I had a lot of weapon that I could trade with. Once in my possession, I got almost hilarious of joy, the armour provided with 100 AC, +10 strength, +50 resist fire, -6 damage from enemies, furtheron it was indestructable. When you have read this far I guess you see that it is some kind of joke, probably an item from Diablo 2 or something, and it is rather unusable since it requires a strength of 75! ------------- KJ (batistutaforever@hotmail.com) adds: mainly just five civilians around selling extremely cheap goods, cheaper than typical Brotherhood of Steel fashion. There is one guy who sold a 24987rp armor and i stole it. Turned out to be a Diablo 2 fakie. Nice momento, but no dice. I have not checked out whether the supply would be replenished or not. ------------- Chris Lynch (chris_lynch@cyberus.ca) writes: In the bazaar day special encounter the devilthorn coat can actually be worn if you get your strength over 75. It is with the use of a cheat you can get from www.avault.com ------------- (Please note that I neither use nor endorse this editor; please do not ask me questions about it, as I don't know a thing about it.) Wansheng Zhu (wz140@hotmail.com) adds: I just read about the bazaar day encounter in your faq and i noticed that they mentioned that you can buy something called the "Devilthorn Coat", and than i read the stats, and i remembered that these stats are exactly the same as a "unique armor" which can be found in Diablo 1. The stats are exactly the same and even the str. req. are the same, but the real armor is called "Demonspike Coat". It was actually a great piece of armor in Diablo 1, too bad you can't use it in Fallout Tactics. Anyways, just thought i should tell you this since some ppl thought it was from Diablo 2. ------------- "Adam Shahid" (mantispid@technologist.com) adds: The 'Bazaar Day' special encounter itself is actually poking fun at 'Bazaar Days' (usually on Saturdays) in the online RPG 'EverQuest'. The things the civilians in the bazaar shout are all typical things you hear people shouting in EverQuest. The 'Devilthorn' armor is poking fun at Diablo 1, though. ----2.2---- Jonas Karlsson (sweet_jonas@hotmail.com) adds: The number of civilians who sell items are five, except the Devilthorn Coat they also offer some stimpacks and other various items. And besides that one of them has what I think is a Ghoul armor, so if you have Ghouls in your squad, pick it up. I bought the Devilthorn Coat and brought it to a BOS bunker, when I returned to Bazaar Day she had another copy of it for sale, so it seems that some parts of their supply gets replenished. In a nearby room there are some gamble tables, but noone to play with. I encountered Bazaar Day just outside Preoria, to the north. ------------- "sean wilkins" (showcase74@hotmail.com) adds: ok, regarding the devil thorne coat and day of bazaar, or whatever, ok it is an encounter with people who are talking about EverQuest and there are a few items you can get and the devil thorne coat IS from diablo and as far as i know useless, even with a hack of 100 of all stats, so. but i believe you can also get another armor there you cant use, i think it is for ghoul or super mutant, it has no description. also the bazaar is located early on and usual SE of preoria, i have only gotten it there, it is like 3 south and 3 east, or close too it. there are also some medical items for trade and some ammo, so basically the whole encounter is to listen to the comments of the people, as they make fun of EQ, talking about groups and corpse runs etc... ----2.5---- 0.4 ENERGIZER BUNNIES: KJ (batistutaforever@hotmail.com) writes: There's some 30 neutral dots on your maps but the bunnies cannot be seen. They just say it keeps goin' and goin' and all that. Not much use except if you have a shotgun or something you could blash them all but just killing one of them (10 xp) then set everyone at agreesive. The bunnies will be blasted!!! Great fun since they don't fight back!!! ---------- "Tomas "Reveille" Rodriguez, Jr." (reveille@shinyboxofdogs.com) adds: This pertains to the random encounter 0.4 (Energizer bunnies) with the neutral, invisible targets. If you attack (throw a grenade or whatnot) and kill all the targets, be aware that this DESTROYS your reputation and rank. I went from a Rank 9 Junior Paladin who was a Shield of Hope, down to a Rank 7 Senior Knight who was a Demon Spawn.. A bit of a surprise, and not worth the tiny amount of XP you get from killing them. :) Of course, if you like being evil, this random encounter is for you. ---------- 0.5 TITANIC: KJ (batistutaforever@hotmail.com) writes: Jack's dead!!! **Sniff** But it's ok. He left a sketch (pretty comical but useless) and an expensive jewellery for you! ----------- 0.6 FARMER: KJ (batistutaforever@hotmail.com) writes: I never got the farmer to do anything but guys said that he could sell you stuff. Pretty useless considering the "stuff" is Colt 45 and some bullets and food. Anyway i stole from him. It seems that he won't attack you if caught. ------- 0.7 TRADER: KJ (batistutaforever@hotmail.com) writes: A merchant with nice stuff and some raiders. If you don't have some 70 hp each or a vechicle, don't attack!!! But the rewards are pretty good though, 4 pancor jackhammers, the best shotgun, and lots of money, bullets and useful stuff. YUMYUM! ------------ Louie Imperial (sfvanguard@yahoo.com) writes: There are two raiders and two civilians plus the trader. The raiders both have AK47 while the the civilians - one with 9mm M9FS beretta and the other one has Neostead Combat SG. He sells in exchange for rp. He's got with him 1 environmental armor, a rocket launcher, a Flamer pistol, 12 ga EMP and 12 ga Slug Shells for the shotgun, a P220 SigSauer, a Desert Eagle Mark XIX 44, a needler pistol, 1 FN P90c, .44 magnum AP ammo, 5.56m ammo, Basic Shogun Shells, small energy cells, afterburners, mentats, radaway, acid grenade, flash grenade, inciendary grenade, 1 avenger minigun, stimpaks, 7.62mm ammo, 1 festering spear and shiv plus the others i have not mentioned. Again, you can steal it from him if you have a high percentage in steal - this will make it a whole lot easier than just to buy it from him. ----2.2---- lobar (lobar@home.com) adds: I just recruited Babs when I encountered these guys. If you have no problems with stealing, she's perfect for the job. I put her in stealthmode and picked the place clean. Some gaurds have small enery cells on them and cattle prods while others have Panzers and 12 ga. ammo. The merchant was a breeze too and was loaded with tons of stuff. I think the more you steal the greater your chance at being caught because the merchant himself did eventually catch me. So take less and be selective. Normally I do not steal, but for raiders I make the exception. I used Babs to replace Rebecca since Babs has more balanced stats, and her skills as a whole were much better. ----2.2---- 0.8 BRAHMIN POKER: KJ (batistutaforever@hotmail.com) writes: A couple of those cute two-headed creatures playing Poker! Cool! Cooler once you check their tables for Ring Pulls. Some 30000 of them! Oh and one of the gamblers say something from Fallout 2! I won't spoil it, but if you can't remember, it's in Modoc, and a Brahim too. ------------ 0.9 PITCH BLACK: Some twenty deathclaws in a radiation and dark place. At first there is a guy who taunts you. Merely follow him until he attacks the deathclaws (I feel sorry for him) then run in the direction he WAS heading. Keep on going until you see an exit grid. The deathclaws are HARD! As you are without a vehicle, it means lots less protection. However the saving grace is that the deathclaws are only agreesive when you near them and comes in two packs. Skip them until some mission 9. ------------ "Tom Carlsen" (TomCarlsen@citywestwater.com.au) adds: There is an encounter spot Pitch Black at the location 1 grid point NW of Quincy. This is a stage which is pitch dark except for a few glowing spots illuminating a path through the place. There are about 18 Deathclaws on each side of the path. There is also a guy named Riddick here. He will walk past the squad and head towards the extraction point. Let him go all the way through as the Deathclaws will not attack him. If you can make it through to the extraction point alive, you will get to recruit him. He can see in the dark and is fairly decent. --------- lobar (lobar@home.com) adds: Oh man, I wish I knew about waiting until Ripley walked all the way through. One less recruit to worry about I guess. Anyway, if people are going to fight, it's best to head off to one side of the glowing path. This way you encounter the Deathclaws in smaller numbers. I tried running straight up the path, but I never made it. The Deathclaws out run you, and when you go up the middle, they charge in from all sides including from a head of you. I got circled real fast and we all died. Could be they modified this encounter with the patch. The trick that finally made the world of difference was using the Voodoo drug with all my people. It adds +2 AG, +3 LK, +20% to your damage resistance, and +25% to your critical chance (which also gets raised with the luck addition too). End result, you move faster, fight better, take less damage, and get more criticals that are better. I was able to take down a Deathclaw with one shot from a revolver. Made this fight much easier with the high lucks. ----2.2---- Joiro Hatagaya (joiro@latnet.lv) adds: It is actually a reference to the movie "Pitch Black" which is about a space ship crew crash landing on a planet full of bloodthirsty creatures living deep underground in darkness and fearing light. Shortly after the crash landing a total eclipse starts and the crew find themselves depending on a murderer named Riddick who is able to see in darkness thanks to a special eye operation. The random encounter references a part of the movie, where the remaining people are moving to a certain location, using light to scare away the creatures. ----2.2---- 0.10 L33TISTS: 2 guys, named Ph4tman and L33tleboy. The names themselves are references to the 2 atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and the spellings are reference to '1337'-speak; the corruption of spelling often used by script kiddies and adolescent gamers. It's pretty l4me, if you ask me, but you're probably familiar with it if you've played Quake, Counter- strike, Tribes, or even Diablo II in some cases. Much like their real- world counterparts, these guys are pretty worthless. One of them has some afterburner gum. 0.11 REAVER DANCE: A group of Reavers, dancing up on stage. Your guess is as good as mine. Christoph (veitc000@mail.uni-mainz.de) adds: concerning encounter 0.11: "Reaver dance" = a reference to "Riverdance", an Irish stepdance show which has been popular in Europe for a few years. (Don't know if elsewhere). Basically looks like someone very drunk is orchestrating some puppets on strings. ---------- 0.12 CANADIAN INVASION: A group of tribals, reenacting the Canadian Invasion. They will attack you, and you will most likely destroy them. Here you can get the Supper Soaker which can use acid for ammo (you've found some of it in previous missions). A pretty good medium-range weapon, but with a high AP cost. 0.13 PHIL THE NUKA COLA GUY: (Magical0@aol.com) writes: A guy in a red jacket riding on a bike complaining about delivering cola. I killed him and he had a Hundred plain nuka cola and one Fusion nuka cola. ---------- "Tom Carlsen" (TomCarlsen@citywestwater.com.au) adds: Also, forgot to add something else I discovered. The Nuka Cola guy that cruises around on his bike can be killed and his bike can be stolen. The mechanic at bunker epsilon has a "jet bike key" that can be stolen, but not bought. If you kill the nuka cola guy after you obtain this key you can drive off on his bike. Lots of fun. -------- 0.14 B-1000: (Magical0@aol.com) writes: Part cow, part machine. Odd little Brahmin with 999 health that gives up an UZI when it dies. ---------- 0.15 KOMODO MAN: (Magical0@aol.com) writes: Basically the post-apocalyptic version of the crocodile hunter. Humorous to watch for a little while. ---------- 0.16 SIXTH SENSE: Charles J DeVito (rhe1@gte.net) writes: A herd of ghost brahmin surrounding a brahmin named Cole. Cole says "I see dead brahmin". No one has anything of any interest if you kill them. ---------- 0.17 GAS STATION: Charles J DeVito (rhe1@gte.net) writes: An old woman in a gas station who sells things, including an "Elixir of Vitality". It cost about 5000K rp, but raises endurance by one point permanently. ---------- 0.18 PIPBOY: Charles J DeVito (rhe1@gte.net) writes: A small area with a real live Pip Boy. He carries some 7.62 ammo and a machine gun. ---------- I have heard that he will join your party if it only has 5 members in it. He's supposed to be pretty good, but can't change stance. Andres J. (Orkperson@aol.com) adds: The Pipboy random encounter, if you have less than 6 people, gives you the pipboy character, his statistics are as follows.... Level 10 ST-7 EN-7 (I believe.. I used the vitality drink a few times so it's either 6 or 7) PE-6 CH-5 IN-6 AG-6 LK-10 His tags are: Small Guns Bigs Guns Energy Weapons Sneak All are below 80, but can be developed much higher in time. Only trait is the lovable Bloody Mess Perks are: Flexible (Bulls***!!! He can't even crouch or lay prone!!!) Stunt man (Pretty useless, but, hey...) Tag! (That's why he's got 4...) And 2 others, which I can't remember, but aren't of any real importance. He cannot lay prone or croutch, and, in spite of his very, very short appearance, -seems- to have all the characteristics of standing at all times. Any idiot with basic math skills can tell you he has 6, that's right, 6 goddamned extra character points, so he has a total of 11 extra points instead of the normal 5 you and everyone else you've ever seen before had. Hells yes, that little guy rules. Gains perks at the normal (3 levels to a perk) rate, despite the fact he has 5 when he's at level 10... Please note: He can run and walk, both are just a -tad- bit slower then a normal human's. My personal evaluation------ The Pipboy is, if you can look past his numerous, yet pretty small problems, a good, all around character, possibly a keeper until the end of the game, or, at least until a robot manages to jump him with a lead pipe. His relatively high strength (7), extremely high luck (10!!), and tag skills in all gun categories make him a very, very good carrier for the lighter heavy weapons (Bren gun, M-60, Avenger, Laser Gatling, etc.) and as a covert operative who manages to pack quite the punch with his heavy weapons and energy skills. Now, I don't know why in the hell they made his perception so low, but, if you want (Like I did), you can give him a Gain Perception and a sharpshooter, this will bring him up to a whopping 9 in perception for shooting purposes (as if there was any other purpose.) If you do this, give him the Mutate (to add fast shot) and bonus rate of fire, and he is a EXCELLENT SNIPER. I mean this, I really do. Allow me to explain. The high ST allows for the heavier, harder-hitting varient of weapons. The ridiculously high LK affordes him with a extremely high critical chance. The 9 PE means he can actually aim the damn thing The weapon skills allow him to blow away anything in his path in the most ethical way. And, the sneak tag allows him to get into the best possible position unspotted. The perfect sniper. F***ing A. Hand him a laser rifle, or, if you get some power armor, a Browning, and you'll never have another worry as long as you live. If not, he makes a exemplory grunt, a fine scout, and, it just feels so damn good to have the little dude in your group! He's as cute as a button. Bugs -Might just be me... Probably is... But he seems to get crippled a bit easier. -After you get him out of the random encounter, his name appears as "CORE-pipboy" instead of the usual, sensical "PipBoy". Wierd, huh? ----2.4---- 0.19 UPRISING: Charles J DeVito (rhe1@gte.net) writes: A BOS bunker entrance (that you can't enter) with two BOS soldiers out front, standing over the butchered corpses of about 12 civilians. The civilians have only junk. The BOS scum have avenger miniguns, but killing them will reduce both your reputation and rank within the brotherhood. ----------- Sean Yeo da Syko adds: i just encountered uprising and used voodoo to kill the BoS scum without penalties and they were vindicator miniguns, not avengers. ----2.4---- 0.20 CPF vs. PFC: brian (brian@natescape.com) writes: Two groups of tribals are yelling at each other, one group is purple, and the other red. They stand near banners declaring thier affiliation. You can attack one without rousing the other. I only killed one side (I like red) so I don't know what everyone has, but the side I killed had nothing of real value. Just a Monty Python reference, I guess. Neither attacks and you can't talk to them. i just went agressive to see what would happen. ----------- 0.21 BRAHMIN ARMOR: KJ (batistutaforever@hotmail.com) writes: Once you get in you are facing a wall. when you get out, you will see an enclosed compound with four turrets. the 4 are stange though, as i saw they have some 300 hp but was destroyed with a single hit each from my pancor. they can do REAL damage, so beware. there is a brahim in the compound but it always get wasted in the second round. maybe you can save him or something. however, the skin it drops can turn you into a brahim! cool but you cannot attack. oh, and the 4 turrets contain micro fusion cells too. ----------- Uliasea (uliasea@aventa.de) adds: It's about the special encounter "Brahmin armour". I found that this armour isn't by far useless - if you've a supermutant in your group. While everybody else wearing this armour looks like a brahmin and cannot attack, your mutant can wear it without changing his outlook, he CAN still attack and has a good armour value (at least better than wearing nothing beside his skin...) -------- 0.22 DEATHCLAW LIBERATION: I found this on the way to Preoria from Bunker Delta. A humanitarian goes into a cage of deathclaws to free them and gets killed. You then get to kill the deathclaws. The humanitarian is called 'Janet Badall', a reference to Jane Goodall, who is a wildlife expert, specializing in primates. 0.23 4 HORSEMEN OF THE POST-APOCALYPSE "Kyriel" (kane255@jps.net) writes: they're pretty lame actualy, all they do is talk, say things like "maybe we should switch sides.." or.. "6.1 billion people gone, just like that *snap*" etc etc...they have around 14,100 some odd HP, and only punch you, however, i didnt have the resources to kill them, so i didnt... -------- Mike Fletcher (callidus69@hotmail.com) adds: it is each horseman of the apocaplpse,war,famine,pestilence,death, they are standing around a campfire whining. one funny crack was made by WAR, he says "i wish they would stop saying i never change, i can change. (in reference to the war, war never changes at the beginning of each fallout episode) each says almost dead, so i attacked them, 1 .50 cal mg 1 vindicator MG, 2 plasma rifles, 1 sniper rifle. i ran outta ammo before they were dead, i killed 3 before being reduced to fists. this leads me to believe that each has HP up around 20k - 25k. tho they are unarmed and have no equipment apart from hands and feet so they cant hurt me i shudder to think at their health points if they were at full health. --------- Garry Upton (unclegarry@cei.net) adds: I killed War - horseman of the post-apocalypse...and got a whopping 269 experience. If you want to take them on, bring lots of Dr's bags and give everyone pistols with lots of ammo. Don't use burst, and have them all target the same guy. Put it on CTB and walk away. Check to see if you need to heal any crippled limbs every now and then. ----2.5---- Rob Knebel (robdalajara@yahoo.com) writes in, saying: This is in regards to what, precisely, the Four Horsemen special encounter does, and why it tends to mess with so many people's games. It makes the character in the group with the lowest Charisma the leader. If, for some godawful reason, your main character has a Charisma of 1, you'll have no problems at all with these guys. If not, the character with the lowest charisma will be your new leader. Easily remedied, though...just pump up your former leader with some Mutie, then reenter the SE. ----2.5---- Hopefully Rob's tip will help out everyone who got screwed with in this encounter. Thanks much! 0.24 BRAHMIN TIPPING: Ferri (babeh@pacific.net.sg) writes: A field filled with many brahmins. Clicking on any 1 of them will tip them. Imagine a brahmin with a very very heavy head =P --------- 0.25 MIR (Magical0@aol.com) writes: No, really, Mir. The space station. Apparently in this alternate universe the space station crashed into middle America. Nothing to do but it is kind of interesting to see what the artists did with their free time. --------- 0.26 AMELIA Andrew Lusk-Hahn (ajlusk@yahoo.com) writes: I found a huge crashed air plane in the wasteland. There isn't anything you can do to it besides get the cross air looking thing over the front end of the plane, but you can't repair it or anything. The name of the encounter is "Amelia". ---------- I'm guessing that this is a reference to Amelia Earhart(sp?), a female aviator in the early part of the 20th century who disappeared in a transatlantic flight. 0.27 HERMIT: Louie Imperial (sfvanguard@yahoo.com) writes: There are five wolves around there and one hermit. The hermit sells 12 ga. flechette shells for the shotgun, a 9mm Calico M950, a plasma grenade, a scout handbook, a couple of dynamites and a metal armor plus some other items not much worth taking. You can steal it from him if you have a high percentage in steal - this will make it a whole lot easier than just to buy it from him. -------- 0.28 MERCHANT: "Vanni Loriggio" (hakkenshi@hotmail.com) writes: Just thought you might like to know : one of the special encounters you described in your Walkthrough is named incorrectly. I got the Merchant encounter and they didn't have Pancors - that's an encounter called Trader (IIRC). Merchant, on the other hand, sells nice stuff : an FN FAL, 2 science books, a piloting book, good explosives and fairly rare ammo, not to mention a GAUSS PISTOL (no 2mm EC ammo though). He also carries a Browning M2, so if you overdose him on Voodoo (use it on him till he dies) you get ALL his stock plus his Browning without losing rep. Cheap yes, but when you have an FN FAL in Macomb, it makes a difference :) Oh, and the Farmer now has nice stuff too (as of patch 1.25), including a Small Guns book and an Outdoorsman one (other OK stuff as well). ----2.2---- BRAHMIN WOOD (MISSION 1): 1.0 You're going to start with Stitch the medic and Farsight the sniper. In combat, Stitch is pretty useless due to his low perception; he will only do any damage when close, and then he will do a lot of damage because of his shotgun. Farsight is good enough at range, although she will miss often. Your character should start with an MP5, a submachine gun which is middling with range, and can do lots up close with a burst. Burst isn't all that accurate at range, however, and burns ammo fast. You'd best get yourself a rifle ASAP if you have good perception (which you ought to if you're a sniper) and work in concert with Farsight to pick off people from afar or middling distances, and have Stitch patch you up when you're hit. One of the best tactics is to duck behind a wall, and on your turn stand up, fire a round or two, and then duck down so you can't be seen. Keep this in mind as I describe the areas below. UPDATE: with the fix for overwatch in 1.25, the crouch-)stand-)fire-) crouch doesn't work as well anymore; they will fire on you when you stand. However, they will only get 1 round off, so it's better than 2 or 3... You start in a ruin. Go NE and talk to the village elder. Then crouch everyone and move to the bridge, N of you. There are a couple guards NW of you past the rocks, and one NE of you, patrolling, with a dog. Try to engage them one at a time; get into the rocks if you can, and remain crouched because you are harder to hit that way. Also, if you hide behind the rock structure with the firepit in front of it, you can take potshots at the NW guy without being hit (only Farsight has this capability with her rifle). When done, DON'T FORGET TO RELOAD YOUR WEAPONS. This is done easily by selecting everyone and hitting the 'R' key. "Kenny Wong" (kenjai@netvigator.com) adds: You can reload for 0ap by dragging the weapon from one hand to the other. More usefull in TB than CTB as you'll still need to switch weapons, which takes about 1-2aps worth in real time. -------- The guy to the NE has a Mauser (a 9mm pistol) and a baseball bat. You want your main character to loot him because the ammo he has is useful for the MP5. The NW one has a zip gun (1-shot, sucks), ammo, and a stimpak, great for healing. Advance NW to the bunker. There is a guy patrolling the area. Advance on him and cut him down. Then position 2 people (including Farsight) to the SW, against the wall, and put them on agressive attack. Use the 3rd to bait the guy out of the bunker, and your other 2 will ambush him. In a close-quarters fight, you should be ok, especially with stitch's shotgun. Loot the 2 bodies to get a 44 (a good pistol) and an uzi. .44 should go to Farsight, who needs a close weapon, as the rifle can be innaccurate up close. Put it in her 2nd weapon slot and RELOAD. Head into the bunker to get the chest, wherein you may find a key and rifle ammo, as well as a stimpak (rifle ammo goes to Farsight). Then head SW to the ruin and talk to the shaman. Now go back NE and into the door by the bunker. Make sure you're on agressive (or not, if you intend to sneak) and open the door. There is a guard inside, and hopefully you'll hit him once or twice. Also note the guard outside by the garden, and the dog running around out there. Crouch inside and use the walls for cover once the initial guy is down and try to hide behind the walls. Stand up, take a shot, and then duck. Don't get too close, though, as he has a shotgun, which sucks for range but does a prodigious amount of damage should it hit. Loot the raider inside and the shelf next to the blue shelf. Also take the booze on the ground. Also loot the shotgun guy for more shells for stitch. Advance NW to the tent. Loot the shelf inside, then go N to the area with the sleeping people. Put yourself on passive sentry mode and get as close as you dare so as to kill them before they can do anything at all. Getting Stitch near the dogs is a good idea as he can kill them both with one good shot from the shotgun, if you're lucky. Go through the gate here into the Brahmin pen. Do not injure them. This next part is a bit tricky. You want to make sure not to hit any of the civilians in the tent, and yet there are 2 guards in there who need to be killed. Put stitch at the N entrance and the other 2 at the south entrance. Advance the south team in on agressive to shoot the one guy, and move Stitch around to shoot at the guy who runs in among the kids. Alternately, put your MP5 guy there to try to hit him hard before he runs in among the kids. If you're lucky, nobody will be hurt, but this part is hard. Definitely save beforehand. Go out the NE door when you're sure the sentry isn't around, and into the tent N of you. Kill the guy inside and take his speargun. Also loot the shelf for shotgun shells and drugs (worth money). Sentry time. Put the MP5 guy in the tent with the kids, then set all to agressive. You want to ambush the sentry because she has a rifle, which has some serious accuracy bonuses, so you want to hit her fast and hard, at short range, so she won't be able to get away and have the advantage. Put Farsight and Stitch in the N tent, near the door, on agressive, and the MP5 guy in the tent with the hostages (alternately put Stitch there for shotgun power) and wait for her to come around. When dead, give the rifle immediately to the main character and put the MP5 in the 2nd slot. Now move NW to the next bunker, on crouch. The guy will notice you, but you should be able to kill him quickly with 2 rifles. Unlock the door and go in. Inexplicably, he has both shotgun shells and rifle bullets, which you can split between the two riflemen. Also loot the crate in here. Head out the next door, across the street, and into the little parking lot that might once have been a basketball field. Beware the guards here and do not make a frontal assault on the bunker. Instead, move down behind the tin wall, killing resistance on the way. You will kill one guy there who wants to ambush you, and also the sentry who moves back and forth. From there, move to the trees in the middle and advance cautiously. Shoot the guards when they activate; hopefully you are close enough to do damage. If not, you'll have to go around the back of the bunker. Give the 3rd rifle off of the guard here to stitch, for his 2nd slot, and make sure to loot the crate for grenades and first aid. Then carefully move through the hole in the SW wall and to the sniper post (with the ladder). Go up the ladder with your main char on aggressive, ideally with the MP5 selected, on burst. You ought to blow him to smithereens. Once up here you might be able to see other guys and shoot them, so look around with the rifle on, set to aggressive. Before you leave, get the stimpak and rifle bullets in the crate. Move SE through the next wall, into the next ruined area, this one with wood floors. If you didn't snipe him, there's a guy here with a pistol who you can deal with. Then move SE to the buliding with the burning barrel. There are 2 guys here, waiting in ambush, along with a dog, so be careful. Move SW into the room with the wood floors and tin walls. There is an uzi- packing thug here that shouldn't cause too much trouble if you're careful. Next move W into the courtyard and take out the 2 sentries there, from cover if you can. Move around the building N (on the east side) and come around to surprise the sentry on the west side. Once he's gone, you can either get onto the roof to shoot people from there, or go in the front door. The best way to finish this mission is to walk out a single step, fire a shot or two, and then move back behind cover. They won't be able to take a single shot at you. It's pretty easy if you ask me. The only risk is when you take the first step out, as there is a guy on the right side with a machine gun. Either set your MP5 to burst and go on the right side, or do the left side to activate TB combat and then machinegun him on your next turn. Whatever you do, do it crouched. UPDATE: with the fix for overwatch in 1.25, you *will* get shot at when you go around the corner, so keep this in mind. If you have a lot of trouble, do it crouched. Killing Horus ought to send you up a level. Put all your points in small guns; I'm not kidding. It will be very hard on you if you don't. Loot the bodies for stuff. There is also a crate and a box and a locked box. The locked box is tricky to open without extra lockpick points, but contains 2 stimpaks (not earthshattering if you miss them). Go all the way back and talk to the shaman, who will give you heal powder. Then go back to the Elder and talk to him; he will give you a detonator if no natives died. Then, step on to the green patch nearby to leave. Head back to the bunker for healing, equipment, and new recruits. BUNKER 1: Hit 'M' to see the map, and head directly to the Recruits pool. Pick up 3 people (you might see more than 3 with high charisma), and then outfit them with all the loot you have, ideally with a rifle and a neostead apiece. All of them suck at riflery, with low perceptions and middling 'small guns' skills, so they will be backup and mules for now. Note that though they are wearing leather armor, they don't get the bonuses for it; this is a bug. Unequip the armor, then equip it to fix this. Head to the Equipment store to sell off your stuff and buy anything neat they might have. I suggest selling all your drugs as they are addictive and expensive; I don't ever use them and I find that if I do, i suffer because I get addicted. Buy yourself some lockpicks and some rifle ammo if you need it. And, if you're a melee person, get a mace glove or sappers. Make sure to do all buying and selling with the person with the highest barter skill. Kenny Wong (kenjai@netvigator.com) writes: (Unconfirmed) Items seem to sell for more if the quartermaster doesn't have a lot of it in stock. The 1st AK-47 I sold was way more than the 57th one. This means it's much better if you sell all 57 of 'em in one go rather than selling 2 or 3 at a time. Just have the whole party loaded up, have your barterer within talking distance of the quartermaster, then shift everything over. (Gotta confirm this myself, but I'm definately sure my 57th AK went for a measily 67 scripts, while my 1st one went for a few hundred.) ------------- Rick Schneider (ras501@hotmail.com) adds: Heya! I just thought I'd give some more info on selling stuff to the quartermaster. The price you get does indeed go down depending on how many he has in stock. But selling all at once does not gain you anything, the calculations are figured in to the total sale based on quantity. If selling 1 gun gets you $100, selling 20 will give you a lot less $2000. ------------- I have seen this myself; heavy machineguns that once would sell for over 1K have been reduced in price to less than 100. Once you start to hit the point of diminishing returns (especially for larger guns), either come back for them in a scavenging run (a vehicle helps) or don't bother at all (unless you have a vehicle, in which case you can put it all in the vehicle; even the scouter has no inventory limit). Rob Healy (sparky501@earthlink.net) suggests: Drugs are useful because you can use them on other people. If you use more than six of a drug (Voodoo works great! -- cheap and plentifull) the person will overdose and be knocked out. Any more usually kills the person. Try this at the bunkers for some great guns early in the game (if you don't mind killing some of your comrades.) Also -- combat is not iniatiated when you do this, so if you know you wil have to fight someone later you can kill them first using this method. ------------- "Matthew wong" (mattwong48@hotmail.com) tried this and says: Basically I'm writing to say I tried something in your guide but it didn't work. It's the suggestion by Rob Healy that killing a brotherhood of steel by overdosing them on drugs. The problem is after you kill said person you get a cinematic picture having you character thrown out of the brotherhood. ----2.3---- Anybody know what he could have done wrong? Was this fixed in the 1.25 patch? Once done with this, head to the briefing room to get your next mission. You are to go to Freeport. Head out via the green exit area. "Kevin Weiser" (kweiser@themushroom.com) writes: I think this may be a fluke, but after I completed the first mission of the game, right after I left I had a random encounter. 4 civilian girls against radiscorpions. I killed the scorps, but they got 2 of the girls. on the bodies were NeoStead Shotguns! Yes, I had 2 (two) Neosteads from the 2nd mission on. It makes the game MUCH easier, let me tell you. Deathclaws are not much of a problem, as a burst from the Neostead does 80+ damage. ------- Phil Chermak (philchermak@hotmail.com) adds: In response to Kevin Weiser's notice about the NeoStead shotguns, it's not a fluke. In the sector directly west of Brahmin Wood, it's fairly common to run into encounters involving both citizens and radscorpions. In these encounters, the citizens randomly carry various items, including 9mm berettas, stimpaks, NeoSteads, and standard shotgun ammo. By continuously finding this type of encounter, you can easily stockpile NeoSteads by allowing the radscorpions to munch the citizens. It's also a good (but tedious) way to stockpile shotgun ammo, which will otherwise be hard to come by if you liberally use the NeoSteads. ------- SERIOUSLY consider walking around on the square W of Brahmin wood to get these encounters. Neosteads are worth good money and do great damage, and they will make the next couple missions much easier. You MAY have to do this before entering the bunker the first time, so keep that in mind. FREEPORT (MISSION 2): 2.0 If on aggressive, you'll likely snipe a guy and a dog off to the E as soon as you enter. Then advance up to the line of cars and duck behind them, standing to fire at the combatants on the ridge. Don't fire unless you have at least a 30% chance to hit; you will just waste ammo. There are 3 ways in to the complex, as advised by the map. I suggest taking the south route as you can get to your contact there. It is highly advisable to keep the alarm from sounding if you can help it, so engage the gaurds quickly and quietly so as not to send them running to the sirens. Move SE towards the SE stairs. You can kill the bridge guards if you want since they don't have guns (pretty dumb if ya ask me), but there are sentries that walk around with guns. The N section with the still is especially highly guarded, with a guy with an AK47; a great weapon, but you have to take it from him. KJ (batistutaforever@hotmail.com) suggests: shooting the alcohol still nets you a 200 xp. -------- The south side is pretty lightly guarded, and in a tent (on the W side of the gorge) is a shelf with stuff and a sleeping guy, easily ambushed. Move to the agreed meeting point and find the guy with red armor. He is in the building, crouched. From there, go NE to the room with the bookshelf. Kill the guy with the spear and his buddy nearby. Get the scouting manual on the shelf and read it for outdoorsman skill. Go NE again and kill the spear guy there by the fire. Head E into the wood- floored room and loot the cabinet. Once there, move the squad N to NE of the porthole building with the sleeping guards. Sneak in and then kill them quickly. Then move SW to the room with the locked door and 'Ripley the prisoner'. You may have to sneak, and/or shoot the guards in the main street before they set off the alarm. This will be tricky, and if you find it difficult, you'll likely have to go all the way around through the still area, killing those foes, and come from both sides, the north and the south side of the street, to get enough shots off to kill them before the siren goes off. You can try to pick the lock, but it'll be difficult. If you do, she'll open the door and run off. Go into the tent nearby and rescue the elder. Ware the guys in the bunker in the street. Shooting nearby will probably set off the guards to attack you, and they'll start coming out of the tents. If you're good enough, you can pick them off 1 at a time as they come at you, but crouch and take cover just in case. When done, loot the bodies and tents for some good stuff. If you're lucky, you won't have awoken most of the guards, and they will be sleeping in the tents. Just walk your guys up to the door on passive sentry, and then activate agressive; 6 free shots at 95%. Execution style, as it were. Head N from here to the little compound with the guy locked inside. Getting through the door is difficult. I have yet to actually get in there, and would be most interested to find out what was inside... chad athey (ice_b_chilly88@hotmail.com) writes: Concerning the locked house that you were interested in getting into on the Freeport mission, one of the guards that generally hangs around the tent the elder's in has the key. In fact, If I remember correctly, in addition to the key he has better loot than any other guard in the Freeport mission. Hope that helps. ----------- Gabriel (arkangyl@bellsouth.net) writes: In Freeport just North of the (northeast) building with the two sleeping guards which is northwest of the guard by the fire, there is a locker with an AK-47 (your first one to get - and not on a person) and some ammo or other stuff. You can return their to confirm the contents. I only bring this up since this weapon can help out immensely on this mission and gives you at least two by the end of this mission. ----------- Next, head E toward the still. Stop in the room full of boxes to kill a guy and loot a crate. Then continue toward the still. There will be guys sleeping here, and a guy with an AK right near the still, so be careful and crouch on the approach. If you have to, hide behind the crates and move out, shoot at him, and then move back out of sight. Once they're all dead, go talk to the Tribal Elder and tell him to go to the exit area, then proceed there yourself. BUNKER 2: Return to the bunker and talk to the new tribals there; the girl has a gun magazine you can buy. Check out the new recruits to see if you like anyone there. ROCK FALLS (MISSION 3): 3.0 Head E and then NE towards the 2nd entrance, noted on the map. The first obstacle is the camp to the east. Sneak up and engage them from a distance. By now you ought to have 2 good snipers (you and Farsight, if you're a sniper) and a 3rd, Rebecca, might be available at the base. The others ought to be at least passable at the rifle, as well. If you're not too close, they likely won't hit you. Follow the same idea for the next group to the NE. They'll probably run out into the field, and you can hit them from there. When they're down, you can head NE, to the E of the garbage wall. Watch for the sniper post across the street to the NE. There's a guy with an AK up there and he has buddies in the building below him. Take him out and then approach the building slowly to get his friends (2). You should get 2 AK's from this; if you're into automatics, they'll be your friends for a while. I prefer the hunting rifle with a secondary automatic weapon myself, or a shotgun. Go N to the car wall, and then around it to get the crate in the SW corner, made by the L of cars. Be aware that there is a raider there with an auto- matic weapon, which you might not have seen if she was crouching. Head N to the gap in the wall crouched. Set to aggressive, and then stand. You might to see some guards and shoot them. Once done, head around the perimeter wall around back, and beware of the mines there. The slower you go, the more mines you'll discover with your eyes, rather than your feet. You probably don't have anyone who can disarm them, so just leave them be. shirwyn@vcn.bc.ca adds: Going down on your belly makes it easier to spot land mines. ----2.2---- Now you can head NW towards the gate control if you like. Pick the door if you can to get at the gate control. From there, you can get into the area with the boss raider. Once through with him, we can proceed to clean up the rest of them. You can either go in the ground floor or the top floor. The ground floor is locked, and might pose a problem, so you may have to go upstairs; ware the sniper there. Downstairs, 'Jesse' might be able to shoot at you through obscure mapping errors. Specifically, there is a spot to the right of the door that allows you to shoot at the second floor. If you feel lucky, put your best shot there and take care of the 2 guys upstairs. Eventually you should get into the door, and make sure everyone is lined up outside to see in and set to aggressive. If you can't you'll have to to upstairs and then down the indoor stairs, a dicey proposition at best. Of course, if you go in the ground floor and then upstairs, you'll have 2 or 3 enemies to contend with, which is also a pain. It might be best to go up the outside stairs and take care of them through the door. Of course, then you have to contend with the enemies on the balcony. You can also hit guys on the walls from the balcony, a good idea in my opinion, allowing you to get up on the walls and fire at them. Inside the small room is a safe which eluded me for some time. I tried clicking on it and it said 'out of reach', but it can be accessed. You must move the character to the left of the safe; in fact, put them right on the left side of the safe. Then use picklocks to try to open it. I picked it on my first try, but this might be an anomaly. Rebecca is good for that, with high picklocks and possibly a kit you should have bought at the base. Inside are ring pulls, RadAway, and a Traps book. As with most books, either give it to the expert or your main character. As you likely don't have a trap character yet, it should go to the main character or be saved. Next you ought to get up on the wall to fire at your the nearby field. Make a complete circuit of the 'C' and then go down off the wall and back out to the mine-laced area. Go into the field next to the brahmin building and shoot at the guy in the building to the W ('Bo the Raider'). Make sure to loot him because he has several grenades on him. There is also a locked chest with a science book in it. Head out into the parking lot area to the SW. Go to the yellow-lit building to the S and assault the guy there. Open his chest and take the fruit (?) and equipment. Also loot the bookcase for healing supplies. Then go around the corner to deal with 'Daisy the Raider'. It's a real pain in the neck because she has so many guys to help her that you can't go around the corner without getting shot to hell. Your best shot is to move in a crawl or prone, and move slowly so as to only activate the two guards nearest to you, and hope you don't get hit too bad; it helps to be against the wall farthest from them (the S wall). When done, loot the bodies BUT DON'T FREE THE GUY YET; he'll head for the gate and get shot to heck by the guards there. Free him later. From Daisy you get the gate key, so if you couldn't pick the door up north near the beginning of this mission, you can use this key to open it. lobar (lobar@home.com) adds: In the one mission with Daisy the raider, I've found that if you put everyone into a crawl position and stealth mode, you can move right up the first barrier within the room without being detected. Nightime seems to work best. I group my people together, put them in offensive mode, and raise them to a kneel at once. Good results this way. Special Note, before the patch you could switch stances to aviod damage but now you can't. So the lay/kneel/shoot/lay tatic does not work. The enemies go into overwatch and shoot as you kneel back up again. Best to stay kneeling and keep shooting. ----2.2---- Cross the road to the NW and head to the building there, flanked by skull torches. It is literally full of guards, so be careful. In here is Luke, the last of the raider bosses. Kill him and you get a pile of XP, enough to go up a level, usually. There's also a shelf and a bookshelf here. From here head east to the next yellow-lit building. Loot the table and head north to the room with the cell door. Don't miss the chest out front. Use the key from the raider in the last building to unlock the door, and talk to the guy there. Now you should head out the front gate to make sure the coast is clear. The best way to do this is actually to go up on the wall again and clear everyone away. Once you've done this, head out the gate and shoot the guys in the green escape area; there are several, unfortunately. Don't miss the chest by the gate; it's on the right side. When the gate is clear, go get the scientist and Nanuk. Before you leave, make sure the clear out the NW section (a small parking lot-type area) for XP and loot. BUNKER 3: After talking with the general, he will tell you that you need to move to a new bunker in the south. Do so. There will likely be several encounters on the way, so save it often in case you find something you can't handle. When you arrive, you will be given 2 missions: go to Macomb to help a guy with supplies, and go to Preoria to get some batteries. For the sake of order, I will describe the Macomb mission first. lobar (lobar@home.com) writes: With the Beta Bunker, there is a merchant tucked away in behind the Quater Master. I found him by accident, I took a stroll to see if anything was there. You could mention this guy, since people just may miss him. He has lots of useful stuff plus he will gamble as well. ----2.2---- MACOMB (MISSION 4): 4.0 Shirwyn Dalgliesh (shirwyn@vcn.bc.ca) writes: Also I think we both missed a golden opportunity at Macomb. I haven't had the chance to go back and check it but I think that this is where you're supposed to pick up your dog trainer. I was suspicious at the end mission brief when the General got so hot and bothered about sending all the civilians off to labour camps. Any time the General was happy about being a fascist it's safe to bet you've missed something. Then when I got to Great Bend the guy in the locked house was seriously pissed off about a sister of his that had got hooked up with a raider and died in a Brotherhood labour camp. I seem to remember one of the civilians after the second set of dogs at Macomb calling out "Stop, please stop." as he ran into my guns but I just wrote him off as being a trick like the raider that attacks you even if you give him food. Now I'm wondering if there's some way to recruit him. Like I said I haven't tried it yet but next time I think I'll head west on that side street before that second set of dogs and see if there's anybody willing to talk. It might have been that woman in the park just north and west of that last gate. ----2.2---- UPDATE 2.2 Since I've had many people write stuff in, I want to compile a list of all the good stuff you can do with vehicles, since this is the first one you get. FIRST: vehicles have unlimited inventory. Put somebody in there and hit 'i' and it will bring up a second inventory next to yours. This is the vehicle's, and you can fill it with whatever you want and it won't go away, ever (bugs aside). SECOND: many people can't figure out how to get in or out of the vehicle. Ctrl-left click on it to get in, and Ctrl-left click on the ground next to it to get out of it. THIRD: running over a foe will lock it permanently in the prone position as long as you remain on top of it. It will be unable to make attacks and you can shoot it at point blank range with the prone bonus. It might be easiest to leave the Hummer here for now. Head SW down the road a little and then into the large warehouse full of cardboard boxes. Retrieve the toolkit, which will be necessary to fix the hummer if it gets messed up. Move down the street some more and fight off the rooftop guards. Then go into the building at the end of the street, to the NW, with gray hexagonal windows (the one next to the gate). Inside is the control for the gate and 2 guards. Try to pick them off separately, not that they're that difficult. Once done, open the gate with the control and don't forget the chest in the back room. Now head W towards the car junkyard. You will see a bunch of dogs eating a civilian. Advance towards them, and kill them and the snipers on the roofs. The civilian corpse has a whole pile of medical supplies and (expensive) drugs, so make sure to get it. When done, head S to the building with the chest on its roof, and watch for the raider up there, as well as the one on the adjacent roof. Go up here and head SE down the line of bridged roofs, so as to take out all resistance down the street from the elevated position. Don't forget to get that chest, though, as it has an important key. lobar (lobar@home.com) adds: In regards to the roof tops across the street (where the chest with key is) I have noted that after the patch, it is suicide to climb up on the chest end. The raiders are in overwatch /aggresive sentry mode and always burst you as you get to the top. They have always managed to either kill my climber or knock them off the ladder. Even in stealth mode, they get spotted. When I climb up the end where you talk to the raider and he tells you about the key, then it's much easier to get the drop on the raiders up there. I've played this mission before and after the patch, and the after patch version is much more dangerous. I think they did this so that people would find a use for this raider who tells you about the key. ----2.2---- UPDATE 2.3: I managed to climb up this ladder, but only at night could I get away with it. Next, head into the Bowlarama. Kill the 3 guys by slowly advancing on the entrance and moving out of cover, and then go in and take the dynamite out of the ice chest (a big white freezer against the NE wall). lobar (lobar@home.com) adds: The bowlerama building and going after the guys on its roof. One tactic that works well is to distract them. From across the street where you find the chest with the key, I take one person and start shooting at the guys on the roof. They all come running to attack that person. They have AK-47's which are out of range from the far side of the street so your decoy is relatively safe. A hunting rifle will have range in your hands. This leaves things fairly clear for the rest of your squad to climb up there and attack them from behind. SECRET DOOR! The secret door is in the section just after the second gate. I've also noted that the grenade chucker is far more dangerous and annoying now. It almost seems they have beefed him up. Anyway, if you follow the row of buildings towards the library you'll see a park across from the library. Look to the ruined buildings to the edge of the map and you'll see at the end, part of a car sticking out of a collapsed garage. Well, you can walk people through this garage into the park and then to the exit grid. Kneeling and stealthed, I've managed to get people up onto the balcony where the raider with the rocket launcher is and kill him before he gets any shots off. Then I just snipe everyone else I can see. From here you can walk up behind everything right up to the mine field. Of special note, you'll only be able to get 2 or 3 people through before the garage closes and they can't go back. So I take my best snipers. I've done this before and after the patch. Not sure if it's a bug, but the way the park and buildings are layed out, I think it's legit. I've been able to clear the whole area with 2 people. Hunting rifles are good since you out distance most of what you face, and there are lots of high spots to shoot from. ----2.2---- Head out the S door and go NE to the ladder and up so you can get at the next set of guards on the roofs. By now you might have killed them all, so just get their loot. Head to the SE end of the road, to find the control for the next gate. Nearby is a raider who wants food in exchange for the knowledge of where the gate key is. He'll attack you anyway, though. He says it's in that chest on the roof that you already got! What a coincidence... Use the key on the door and open the gate with the controls. Be careful because there is a guy behind the door, down the street, with a rocket launcher. He also has a pal with a machinegun and a grenadier to boot. The grenadier is particularly pesky because he is stealthed. I had a stealth character sneak around behind his position (the building) and attack him, and when he stood up to get at her, my other guys took him out. When he is dealt with, you can open up the next door; the controls are behind the bunker with the rocket guy. Head down the street past the control SE (NOT through the gate) and towards the library. Talk to the librarian in there twice. He wants you to find his glasses. Now head back to the gate you opened and go through it, down the street. The building to the north is full of raiders; best clean them out one at a time, using cover if you can, crouched. Don't miss the desk when you're done. The building just to the NE of that one has an ice chest and a raider in it. For some reason, the civilian seems to have incredible marksmanship; I'm not sure why. This requires either a sacrifice of damage, or really annoying and tedious sneaking and firing techniques. This appears to be because he has armor-piercing bullets. Inside the ice chest are some molotov cocktails and a repair kit. "Ray Macey" (raymacey@hotmail.com) adds: Just thought I should let you know that the highly accurate civilian in the Macomb mission is apprently meant to be Austin Powers, seeing as how he called out 'Groovy Baby' or 'Shagadelic Baby' (the exact words escape me) before he blew the absolute #$%# out of me. It explains his accuracy and the armour piercing bullets :) ----2.4---- Next job is the next building up the street, to the NE. The doors in front are closed and sort of hard to see. Ware the civilians on the roof and in the street. Open the doors and prepare for an ambush. There are 3 or 4 guys there which you can hide from using the doorway. The hardest one might be the one right at the door, but a shotgun blast or a full-auto burst should do the trick on him. This is the courthouse, and there are raiders in the courtroom too, so beware. You can go up the stairs if you want to try to get an advantage on them, which might be wise. You can also see foes in other buildings from up here, so give it a shot. You must at least go upstairs to use the controls on the balcony. Head out the gate you just opened and watch for mines. Head N to clear out the building there and watch for sentries to the NW. There is a guy on the roof, up in the alley here, too, on the NE side. Getting the hummer past the mines is a difficult task. If you can't disarm them (they are very hard to disarm), you have to do the following (this is by no means easy, and took me abotu 12 tries). Go south of the first one, onto the sidewalk. Continue past the next 2, and then turn north a bit and drive in between the last 2. This is tricky, and you may end up getting mad and hitting one or two and then repairing later. It CAN be done, but it is not easy, not by a long shot. Shane Feather (xcaliber1999@aol.com) writes: When referring to the mines in Macomb( or elsewhere), if you are not able to disarm them just have your best sniper stand several feet away and force fire at them. One good hit will clear away that pesky mine. Be sure and be several feet away though as the translational damage is widespread. Even with a very high attack percentage it takes several shots...just keep trying. I think the game assigns a high damage stopping ability to the ground on top of the mine...and it almost takes a critical hit to score enough damage to set them off. Also the two Brahmin in the pen next to this area will wander out and take two of them out for you if you open both gates on their pen, also an exploding cow is a great stress reliever. --------------------- Houston Bruck (hbruck321@hotmail.com) writes: If anyone is having a little trouble in the Macomb mission disarming those mines, I've got a little tip. I was having some trouble force firing on the mines, and I could not for the life of me drive though the mines. So I got some dynamite and activated it near the mines. To get close enough it seems that you have to put the trap skill on, and click on top of the mines. Once there activate some dynamite and run, that should take care of the problem. -HB ---------------------- Chris369@aol.com suggests: Another way to disable mines is to lob fragmentation grenades at them. In the Macomb mission where the road is mined, there is a grenadier who I got somewhere around 14 frag grendades off him. I have the grenades to Rebecca, who with a Throwing skill of only 32 was able to lob a grenade far enough to blow up the mine and avoid damage. One grenade per mine is all that is needed. You also only have to clear one side of the road. Just have to be careful when driving the Hummer. ----------------------- KJ (batistutaforever@hotmail.com) suggests: When shooting mines, shotguns work best with their 12 ga. Rounds. It can easily set off any mines. And in the beginning of the game, the shotguns rule! It works just like burst even for single-shots, and uses only one bullet! However you have to be careful about your party, you may hit them and considering they are quite near to you, it's painful. Also, if you manage to get the merchant encounter early in the game, you can get the pancor jackhammers and have an easy ride till the mutants mission where your range and skill is tested. ----------- lobar (lobar@home.com) adds: The mines. Another effective way to destroy them is to lay down on the ground and force fire burst attacks. (Generally, laying on the ground puts you on the same level with the mines and gives you better results however you decide to do it.) You can line you squad up one beside each other and burst down the street. Just move them forward in formation by using the 'F' key before you mouse click. There is also one mine that is not active, it's the one without the red ring around it. You can pick it up and take it along to use or sell. Using dynamite also works well and I've been able to place the dynamite beside the mines and have it work that way. I've never had to place dynamite on top of a mine. ----2.2---- Go back to the gate, and around the building with the civilians on it. Watch for mines, and move slowly. You're moving into an ambush area here, with people in the building to the south of the intersection and in the alley to the north. Use the building on the W for cover. Watch out for the grenadier(s) on the NE side of the intersection. The chest in the room with the snipers (and a large radiation bath in the back room) has the librarian's glasses. Return them to him. He give you a book for free; unless you traded him for it before, in which case you just get your objective completed. KJ (batistutaforever@hotmail.com) adds: The librarian's glasses. Some people do not know how to return it to him. It happened for me and I figured out that you must barter and give it to him. This would help. --------- Head back to the intersection and go SW into the alley there and up the ladder onto the roof to loot the bodies of the civilians there. Once done, go back to the intersection and SE this time, down the road. You will find a guy in a building on the NE side of the street and a bunch of dogs in the street; not too much challenge there. Continue down the street until you find a civilian or two that need killin', at the end of the road. As you advance, more will come from the street to the SW and throw rocks at you. No, you shouldn't be worried. Head SW and go into the N 2-story building next to the gate. You might be forced to fight on the way there, just a civilian and a raider or two. Unfortunately, you might activate the raiders down by the exit grid, which will be two more things to keep your hands full with. Once done with them, head into the building and up the stairs, to the roof. From here you can go across the bridges to get loot from some of the snipers at the intersection before. You would think that you could get to the top floor of the library from here, but in fact you can't, from anywhere. Just head up to the gate and pick a point past it; there appears to be a map hole that you can get through, but it will only let female figures through. If they ever fix it, you'll have to come through the ruined building to the southeast, though, or the road to the north. shirwyn@vcn.bc.ca adds: Female characters can go through some tight areas that men can't(i.e. the alleys in Macomb and the gap on the plateau above Peoria). ----2.2---- And now we come to the end of it, which features several snipers and a man with a bazooka. There are about a half a dozen all told; you're better off inching down the street along the south, so as to pick off the snipers in the south building 1 at a time. What I do is go into the south building and put my best shots on the roof, picking off the enemies one at a time. Some- times they will be stupid enough to charge you, 1 or 2 at a time, and you can pick them off easily enough that way. Just be careful of the bazooka guy. His aim is usually way off if he's firing from far away, but if you get up close, kiss your butt goodbye. The barricades here can be easily destroyed with small arms fire. Chris369@aol.com suggests: Also in the Macomb mission, the rocket launcher guy at the end of the mission can easily be taken out from behind by sneaking a guy up to the building and climbing the ladder. -------------------- Once done, move the hummer up to the exit area. You should get confirmation of mission end, and then you can return to base. 4.1 BUNKER 4: Get out of the hummer (everyone will run if you drive around in it). You won't be given any more missions. Next is Preoria. Buy some rad-X while you are at the base; you'll need it. PREORIA (MISSION 5): 5.0 The people here are friendly. One of the tents has a chest with ammo and rad-away in it, so go get that. Talk to some of them if you like, and then head up one of the ladders onto the cliff. In the northern-most corner are 2 dead raiders with a bunch of stuff on them. There is also another dead raider about halfway down the NE map edge. He's got some prodigious loot too, but the dead tribal nearby only has some voodoo. Before you head down the stairs, talk to the shaman, by the garden at the N end of the village. He will give you Rad-X. Note that you can steal from the turrets here; each has about 40 large energy cells. Booze Miller (karnovbox@hotmail.com) adds: I Found out something about the Surface Turrets in the Preoria Mission... They have unlimited Ammo. I had Rage Take out the batteries in these toys before hand thinking they would run out of ammo... They didn't. Oh well, at least I didnt lose a single tribal to their bad aim. I had 3 guys with Neosteds standing right in front of them and Beth and Kevin with A Powerglove and that crazy Ripper Sword... Melee attacks rock against these things. ----2.4---- "Arthur B. Byrne" (abb3w@mindspring.com) suggests: I've come up with a somewhat expensive trick for making this mission substantially easier, although I think this is exploiting a mis-feature. The turrets are vulnerable to chemical overdose, if you use drugs on them. So, if you don't use drugs for anything else, you can simplify your life a lot, and get a slew of energy cells. Three psycho or four afterburner will give the turrets a lethal overdose. I recommend using this to take out the three turrets up in the village, so you don't need to worry about civilian casualties when you flip the "off" switch for the downstairs ones. There are other drugs that will kill, but they all take more doses. Once you can turn the turrets on and off safely, it's a lot easier to kill them. (I like a couple of powerfists myself.) Of course, you don't get any XP for drugging a turret to death, but they're only about 14 XP w/ a group of 6 characters, and you still get the microfusion cells. They may eventually patch it so chemicals don't do anything to mechanicals, but in the meantime, it's vastly simplifies a happy ending. ----2.5---- Head down the stairs and look out for the radscorpion behind the stairs. Loot the dead tribals for items when the scorpion is dead. Head S to the room with the shelves and through the door there. In the next room are some roaches behindsome machines, and you'll fight a number of smaller roaches on the way. They go down in 1 or 2 hits, so it ought not to be a problem. In the ice chest is fruit and a super stimpak. Move out into the hallway carefully to pick off the smaller roaches. Beware the larger one further down (I swear, those things creep me out). Move down the hall, to the room at the end. There are some small roaches inside, with shelves and a fridge. On the shelves here is the Yellow Pass Key, important for later. In the fridge is Rad-away, which you will need. Return to the stairs area and head NE this time. Stop in the first room on the right. Inside are roaches, worth XP, but nothing else. The first room on the leftalso features some small roaches and little else. Head up to the 2nd room on the left and find the single crate in the middle of the room for a little loot. Go around the corner (SE) and take out the roaches in the room to the SW. You can then get at the desk with the science book inside. Now you must get into the room to the NE, which has 2 large roaches in it. Position most of your guys right outside the door, in line of sight with them if you can 'perceive' where they are from outside, and when you open the door you ought to be able to at least severely wound them on the first volley. Your reward is the ice chest, crate, fridge, and shelf. While most of it is food, you also get some small energy cells. Your next task is to clear the exercise room, the next room to the NE. There are 2 doors, one at the NW end and one at the SE end. There are many roaches in here, and 2 big ones. There is a locker against the NE wall with rad-away in it. Now head into the room across the way, to the SE, which will be a complex of rooms, including an office. Try to head to the entrance and fire on the several large roaches from afar, drawing them to you where you can hit them in the room with the shelves. There are 4 or 5 of them, and be careful because they can spit. Once they are subdies, check the desk in the bunk room for a gun magazine, and the big white desk under the monitor, in the room with the hole in the floor (the biggest one). Then, head into the office. If you have the yellow pass key, you can open the large yellow vault door here. You get Rad-X, flechette shells, and a fusion battery from the lockers, and a science book and a 44 from the locked safe (my lockpick was 100, plus the kit). The 44 is a nice weapon because it takes 1 less AP to use; this means that if you have 10 Agility and Fast shot, you can get off 5 shots a round. My weapon of choice at close range, although it has to reload pretty often. Head back into the hallway and, up to the double doors, which should open automatically for you. It might be a good idea to power up the facility using the control here, but it will put the turrets on line. As any Fallout gamer knows, the defense systems (the turrets) are the first things to break in the event of an attack (I'm gonna shoot the contractors that did this job, you can be sure). But they don't really break. Nooooooo... they go HOSTILE on anyone that moves (grumble mutter spit). In any case, be careful of them. They are guns, not roaches, and will do much more damage as a result. Once the backup power is on, you can go through the next set of doors. Doing so will activate the alarm though (but it does say 'have a nice day'). Go and loot the splattered Vault 0 citizen for some stimpaks. The turrts are very hard to take out with small arms fire. Wait for the turrets to kill off the cockroaches they can see. You won't be able to see anything, but you should hear firing. Each of the turrets has about 350 HP, and you'll be lucky to do more than 1 point of damage to them each time. The turrets go up and down, so if you don't have explosives, the best trick might be to wait for them to go down and then run past them. You don't have much time, though, so you'll have to use cover to do it. Bonus move is a real boon here if you use TB. The turrets have pretty bad accuracy, but save it before you try this (best to do it 1 guy at a time) so you don't get chewed up too bad. You could try putting your best grenadier at the pile of boxes in the middle of the floor, there to chuck grenades at them, but it's hard to do and doesn't do as much damage as you might expect. You could also try targeted attacks on its various parts to try and cripple it. I couldn't find it in the manual, but a targeted attack is done by activating the small dot with a circle around it in the lower right-hand corner of your weapon button. Destroying the turrets will not get you any XP. They do, however, have a large amount of power cells on them (for your weapons, not for the quest). In fact, if you can steal all their power cells with a thief character and then let them fire at you from long range, using up their ammo, they will pose no more threat to you. george indigo (yodawon@yahoo.com) suggests: easy way to take out turrets is to out range them with your snipers they will still shoot but only about 1 in 20 will actually hit you will on the other hand you get about 85% on the targetted attack target their sensor hitting this knocks them out then blast them with any ap rounds you have with your attackers. This also works great when shooting through windows. It does require alot of ammo though. ------------ Justin Cramer (thinredpaste@yahoo.com) writes: I found this interesting tidbit about the turrets in preoria. They can't stand up to melee attacks. Sounds wierd, but if you get right up next to them, they can't hit you at all, and you can tear em apart with a crowbar. takes a long time, but its very satisfying to know that you took out a heavily armed and armored enemy with a piece of metal, swung like mad. Of course, it's a little tougher if there's a pair of turrets, so you might want to snipe or grenade one and then beat the crud out of the second. ------------- Gilkey, Gregory (gsg@lucent.com) writes: This might be a bug that the player can use to his/her advantage. During real time the turrets are going up and down with a certain rhythm. However, if you initiate combat while the turret his down, it will stay down while the turn-based combat system is active. I stood my characters up and ran (actual walked) all the way past them with ease. I even tried to "steal" the Large cells. I kept getting caught however, the turret never came up to shoot at me. Of course, this only works if you use the turn-based combat system. I only used it with the squad-based combat system. ------------- KittyH suggests: Turn on CTB and passive and just run like heck past them. ------------- Chris369@aol.com writes: In the Preoria mission, I've found it easiest to just run past each of the turrets, moving guys one at a time. I take a guy, put him on ignore (so that he won't stop and shoot something), go into CTB mode, and dash past it . Haven't taken more than one hit from a turret per guy this way, and a lot of times don't take any hits. For short distances, such as across a hallway in the field of fire of a turret (the third turret comes to mind), I take each guy, and go into Individual mode once he has all his action points. Quite often the turret won't fire as it doesn't have/get a turn. The lack of opportunity fire seems like a bug to me, so this might get fixed in a patch. -------------- (This can be difficult as you have to time it right like an RTS and turn off the control fast enough if you still intend to save the villagers.) lobar (lobar@home.com) sends a monster of a tip, saying: Preoria (killing Turrets Made Real Easy) I have become a specialist in killing these things quick and easy. A well balanced group can deal out well over 100pts of damage per combat turn. Most importantly, turrets are terrible shots at close range. If you stand beside one, it rarely ever hits you. When facing the first two you encounter, make sure to stand someone beside each so both turrets are firing point blank at someone. Otherwise the second turret will be at range and cut you to pieces. Weapons of choice; Power Fist, Ripper, Neostead. Other effective Weapon; Diamond Spears. Power Fists and Rippers will do their full range of damage. In case of the Power Fist, in the hands of someone with 9AP, that's three attacks. Really effective. The cattle prod is effective as well, but does smaller damage. I'd rather put the batteries into a Ripper or Fist. More bang for your buck. Neosteads rule. Burst mode is okay, but wastes ammo. Better to do aimed shots into the sensors. Damage averages between 20 and 50 pts. Critical hits do far more and sometimes knocks the turret out. (Once Ice shot one in the sensors and did 616 points of damage in one shot!! I was really impressed). At point blank range, you rarely ever miss. Diamond Spears. Not bad but only do 6-8 points of damage. Might be better if used by a Melee Weapon character type but I don't play those so I am unsure. In general these spears are effective agianst many things because the diamond tips act as armor piercing. Every other weapon is a waste of time. You may get lucky with a critical hit on an aimed shot to the sensors, but this is very rare. AP ammo used to work great, got all kinds knockouts with it, but after the patch, this ammo is just as useless as the rest. Flash grenades seem to always stun turrets, but they still fire at you anyway so again, waste of ammo there too. Though the stunn effect may reduce their chance to hit which could prove helpful when you first charge up to them to reach point blank range. Tactics, place one person with a Neostead right beside the turret. To either side of the Neostead you place a person with a power fist or ripper. In behind the Neostead person is where the diamond spear people go. Reason, even though you are doing aimed shots with the Neostead, it still sprays buckshot around. If you have people ringing too much of the turret, you'll end up hitting them as well. Either side of the Neostead person has proven safe, and since spear thrusts have a range of 2, you can stand behind the Neostead person in safety. Generally, I go in with two Neosteads, two spears, a powerfist and a ripper. This way when you fight the first two turrets, you can split the group in two and have a balanced set of attacks on each. With one turret, I've managed to get two Neosteads beside it with each flanked by powerfists, and still did not shoot my own people. The Leader Perk works well here. I had one person, Ice I think, with a Neostead and Diamond Spear. At 9AP, she could do an aimed shot with the Neostead and thrust with the spear. Good way to stack up your attacks and pile on the damage. As a group you can polish these things off really quick. Each turret will gain you some where between 650 and 700 Small Fusion Cells. Well worth the effort. You can leave this mission with thousands of these things of which you can save some for later while trading some off to recoupe the Small energy cells you used up. Later on, when you have big weapons and better armor you can go for the ones in the rooms you have to run through and the ones on the surface. One way to keep the Villiagers safe from the surface turrets is to place one of your people in front of each surface turret. When they pop up, they'll shoot at the closest target, you, and at point blank range, it's rare that they will ever hit. Later on with better equipent, you send one person down to flip the switch, and your surface team, waiting point blank, rips them apart when they pop up. Once they're gone, you can go for the ones you left in the rooms below. For the rooms where you have 10 seconds to run through, an easier way to make the time limit is to run through the first two rooms. In the third room with the lockers and one destroyed turret, lay your people down just past the row of barrels and flip the switch. The turrets in the first two rooms have their line of site blocked by the wall under the windows, and the one in this room is blocked by the barrels. You can also crawl up to the lockers and search them this way without getting shot. Only tricky part is getting past the last turret. If you crawl to the edge of the barrels, then stand and run into the hallway beyond you should make it. You may take a hit or two. I just wind up running into the corner and destroy the turret. ----2.2---- Once past this obstacle, head out into the hall. You will be ambushed by 2 radscorpions to the south and a turret to the north. This turret is best (and more easily) avoided. The door to the SW cannot be opened yet, so you have to go NE, towards the turret. Try to get into the workshop across the hall to the SE. You will discover a number of cockroaches and radscorpions in adjoining rooms. If it is too much to handle, bait them out into the hall where the turret can take care of them. Head SE into the adjoining room with the workbench and shelves. The work- bench has a microsledge, which is good for melee types. Go into the next room, the one with the flashing light. You can see cockroaches and scorpions coming towards you, but what you can't see is the scorpion hiding by the locker. You have been warned. In the locker is one of the quest batteries and poison antidote. Move SE and get the fruit on the dumpster. There will be several bugs in the next room that will come for you, so be warned. Move NE to the automatic door and send your fastest person in to activate the controls. Try to avoid the turret in there. Once the power is switched on, head back around to the workroom with the windows and out into the hallway with the turret. Hopefully you can shoot all the bugs in the conference room through the windows here; you don't want to have to fight them and dodge the turret at the same time. Now for the dangerous part. You must run past the turret into the workshop past it, and try to get at the crate right near it, and then run into the conference room behind. A good tactic is to use the power generator room nearby to aid you in this. The crate only has a roast bug in it, so it's safe to skip if you're not exhaustive. The workroom only has a repair kit in it, so you can skip that, too, if you want. But you should try to get into the conference room. Actually, it's not the conference room that is important, but rather the hall to the NE of the conference room. The conference room does have a table with some good stuff on it, though. The hall beyond also has a turret, which ought to be avoided. Go to the room at the north end of the hall, the medical-looking room. There are several items on the table here next to a terminal that opens the door to the second room. In the fridge is Rad-X and another yellow pass key. There are also lockers in the corner with medical items and texts. Go into the back room and get the medical items on the table there. Go across the hall to the room with the shelves. Use the yellow pass key to open the vault door and go in. Disarm the trap on the desk and open it to get Leather Armour Mark II (previously, there were 2 suits available for sale at the store) and some ammo. Now, do you feel lucky? In the locker at the end of the hall near the turret is a bunch of cool stuff: an M16, a custom revolver, and a large amount of ammo. The revolver is much like the magnum, 1 less point to fire, and the m16 does little more damage than the hunting rifle (less than the AK) with the same range, so it's up to you. Head back to the set of doors that were closed before, right by the double set of turrets at the beginning of this section. Go through those doors and use the controls there. The unfortunate thing is that it will activate the surface defenses in 10 seconds. This means you have 10 seconds to move whoever you want through the door before the guns start killing tribals topside. Run them through the doors and then have at least 1 person stay behind to pull the control again, switching to internal systems again. This will continue, if you intend to save the inhabitants of the town above. You must open the doors for a short time and then close them after everyone has run through. The first room has a single turret to avoid. The second has 2, and even if you switched off the security and slaughtered the villagers, they will still attack you. This is hard because these turrets aren't flaky like the last working pair you encountered. They attack you, and attack you, and attack you. You can try to destroy them, but it's probably better to try to run by them. This will take many tries. The next room has 2 more turrets in it, one of which is dead. Make sure to loot it for about 40 power cells or so. There are also 3 lockers in here, with another M16 and ammo, and antidote. Once through there, you end up dashing right into a hall full of bugs. Fun, eh? The best tactic, I believe (assuming you can't easily destroy the turrets) is to advance using the walls of boxes and then just make a straight dash for the room beyond and the hall beyond that, and hug the NW wall by the door in the hall as you pick off the bugs. Advance 1 or 2 at a time, if you can. UPDATE 2.3: The absolute easiest way to do this is to hit enter and go into TB mode before you even switch the console on. Because the turrets never change stance in TB, they will never pop up, and thus never fire at you. Beyond the green bathtub room are some more bugs and a single shelf containing a cats paw magazine and some other forgettables. Still, if you want to go... Now we see where the Rad X can come in handy. Take 2 before heading into the green bathtub room (we'll be back for the rest of the complex in a minute). It's best to only send 1 or 2 people down here; any more and your radX runs out fast. The shelf room is teeming with bugs, so be careful. I have found that the magnum is great on bugs. Give it a shot. Head to the hall across from the bunk room (to the SW). There you find a radscorpion and some bugs in the bathroom. In the closed room across from the bathroom are small roaches and ammo on the shelf. Move SW down the hall and kill some bugs on the way. Watch for the SE turret, by the green wall. Go get the lockers around the corner in the NW room. It contains 3 M-14s and associated ammo. They are passable rifles, but not as good as the hunting rifles or even the automatics. Now head S to the room full of boxes. It has several smaller roaches in it but nothing serious. The classroom, however, has a scorpion right around the corner. Make sure to loot the crate for ammo in the middle of the box room. From the classroom you ought to be able to shoot more bugs in the shelf room to the SE and then advance into the room with the bookshelf and ice chest. Loot them and then continue to the shelf room. Watch for the scorpion behind the shelves to the N, and then go up to the door of the next room. It should open automatically. I found a large cockroach in this room that appeared to be stuck in the scenery, a bug presumably (ironic). Disarm the trap on the shelf and take its contents (ironically, a traps book). Loot the lockers for an electronic lockpick (crucial later) and stimpaks. If you want to get the locker in the next room, open the door to the green room and use 2 rad-X's if you haven't already. Be aware that this room is full of large roaches. Try to stay near the door and take them one at a time, especially since you should only be using 1 person to go in there to conserve rad-x's. There is also a big freaking roach in there called 'Roachor', pretty much the Godzilla of roaches. He is hiding and you won't be able to see him until you get close to him (he's between the door and the locker), but when you do, move back and shoot him from afar. It is possible to hit him from the other room, so do so. KJ (batistutaforever@hotmail.com) adds: The big bug, I assumed it is Roachor, is stuck in the map, but it still can attack you. Beware! ----------- In the locker is the last battery. Proceed to the exit, avoiding the turrets in reverse order. Talk to the shaman on the way out, and then the elder, too, who will give you another battery. UPDATE 2.2 The elder will only give you the battery if no villagers died. Kep this in mind. "Angus Lai" (sakuragk@home.com) adds: I am playing v1.25. This might be a bug. When I got 3 fusion batteries in the mission in Preoria and saved the tribals, the elder was suppose to give me the fourth battery. However, when I talked to him with 3 of my batteries in my inventory, the forth battery did no show up, even he said he have given it to me. So, I dropped the 3 batteries on the ground and talked to the elder, and I got the fourth battery. I got 150pt exp for having 4 batteries, and another 150pt exp when leaving mission. ----2.3---- lobar (lobar@home.com) adds: As a final note, for anyone wanting to come back to Preoria at a later time, a problem exisists with having the exit grid crossing the only entrance to the villiage. How you get around this is easy. Just run your people across the grid one or two at a time to the other side. So long as your whole team is not touching it at once, you can move across it without triggering the map exit routine. ----2.2---- 5.1 BUNKER 5 More Leather Armour Mark II is available, as is your first set of metal armor. Pick that up and ammo for your .44 (I actually used all the .44 in the mission). If you like the revolver, consider getting more .45 for the Casull revolver as a backup. Your next mission is Quincy. mike perlewitz (yodawon@yahoo.com) notes: there is a dealer in base beta behind the arms dealers i didn't find him til after preoria but he could be there earlier he trades meds for wasteland cash ------------- 6.0 QUINCY (MISSION 6): Your first task is to get into the building with the mayor. Talk to Arlene to the E and she'll tell you what to do. With that in mind, head NE to the square, 1-level building behind the fence. It's a schoolhouse full of dead roaches. Move out the back, onto the porch, and towards the basketball court. Head NW up to the porch and shoot the 2 guys guarding it. Then, go up to the windows and begin having it out on the baby deathclaws, if you don't have a sneaker type to kill them silently (not that they're easy to kill quickly; they have a lot of hp; about 120). All the more reason to stay by the windows; if you do so, they shouldn't come get you, as they can't see you. This might be an AI bug, but it works, and Deathclaws would shred you otherwise. Matt (mrbilljoe@yahoo.com) writes: A Helpful hint on killing non-baby deathclaws in real-time. Have at least 3 people go, one guy should aim at the right leg, and one aims at the left, and one (the one who the deathclaw first attacks) runs around like all hell broke loose. --------- (david.s.jannke@accenture.com) suggests: Sneak people upstairs to take out the captain before you go after the people on the porch. Sneak downstairs and three deathclaws and their handlers will be asleep. Use 'steal' to plant radio controlled explosives (or standard explosives if you like, but radio controlled are more fun). Set all the explosives to the same frequency. Now go outside and take out the guys on the porch. As the deathclaws come out push the button. BOOM-SPLAT. No deathclaws. Alternatively you can push the button as the wakeup call for the guards (which I did). Apparently the effect of explosives is magnified if they are in your inventory when they go off as RC explosives usually don't do that much damage. If you are lucky the explosion takes out handlers and the porch guards as well. Very pretty when it all works right. ---------- (At this point you can either go up the stairs or use the ladder on the junked truck outside to get onto the roof and then down onto the balcony to ambush the commander from behind. I usually go up the stairs.) Now you must go up the stairs. This is the really hard part, for you see, as soon as you go up, the commander there runs over and sounds the alarm, which you really can't allow, as it will get the main alarm set off and all the hostages in town will die. You have to get everyone (or 1 really good shot) up the stairs to take a shot, and hope that the person who takes the first shot can do enough damage to the guy to kill him so he won't set off the other alarm. TB is essential here. Shotguns can be good for this, as well as the magnum. Using the shotgun with flechette is a good plan. If you have it double-barrelled, so much the better. Benjamin Winston (lemurking@hotmail.com) writes: To not risk anything at all, I snuck three people behind the commander(one had a sneak of 15%, so its easy), two with shotguns, one with hunting rifle(eyes) and aggressived them all at once, killing him instantly. --------- Clown (zion99@pacific.net.sg) suggests: one thing i did right at the start was to have stumpy creep past everybody, install a landmine(the big ones taken from macomb) in front of the alarm, get out of the room, and fire a shot at the commander to alert him. he will then run to the alarm and the first part of the mission is finished. 8-) i love mines. they took out the deathclaws too. oh yar, deathclaws CAN climb ladders after you. ---------- lobar (lobar@home.com) suggests: In Quincy, when doing the town hall mission one tactic that works well is this. Place one person on the roof with the big siren, to act as a spotter. This way you will see all the patrolling beastmen around the grounds and on the roofs of the town hall. There is a fence, opposite side of the building from it's front door you can stealth to. When the gaurds are furthest away, you can make it to a ladder and climb up without being detected. At this point I use Rage, stealth 85%, and an AK-47 to take out the men on the roof. In stealth, from behind, with a full burst, closer range, you take them out in one shot. This will not start an extended combat, and the other beastmen won't sound the alarm. With the roof patrol gone, it's easy to get the rest of your party onto the roof. From there I use one person inside the second floor and go down to the first. Once one of the beast men there spots you, run up the stairs and he chases you. Kill him on the sencond and stealth the group down to the first floor. As a group, attack the other beastman which usually kills him first volley, leaving the Deathclaw to deal with. The deathclaw does not sound the alarm, so you are free to deal with just him. ----2.2---- With the death of the commander, the objective is complete. Get his key and open up the door locking the mayor in. Talk to the mayor several times and get the key on the ground as well as the ammo on the shelf. Go out onto the balcony, up the ladder, and over to the siren and disable it. Many people have asked: "How do I know if the siren is disabled?" This is not a silly question, because it doesn't stop moving. To make sure it is disabled, toggle your minimap to the text box and then 'use' the siren control box in the fenced area with the siren. You will get an experience bonus. If you don't get the XP bonus, it's not disabled yet. When you do, the siren will keep spinning, but pay it no mind. I consider this to be buggy behavior/bad game design, but no one is perfect, I suppose... Now each building has their own built-in siren, as well as the 'global' siren. Disabling the one on the roof only guarantees that all of the hostages won't be killed at once; it does not guarantee that the guys in any one building won't set off their siren and kill the occupants of that singular building. Now head W and S a little, towards the longish building with the stairs that go up to the roof. Pick off the sentry patrolling the S end of the tracks and prepare an ambush for the deathclaw that is about to come. If he sees or hears your shots, he's going to come off the porch-type area in the front of the building and head right for you. If you're not ready, the only think you can do is switch to automatics and pray. Otherwise, if you're lucky, you might be able to set a dynamite trap up and lure him over it, preferably with guys packing shotguns and magnums waiting a short distance away to finish him off. Deathclaws move fast, have about 200hp, and hit HARD. I had to fill it with lead for 2 solid rounds to put it down when it snuck up on me, and I only escaped unscathed because Stitch (of all people) knocked it unconcious with a lucky shot. Finish off the 2nd and 3rd sentries to the NW and head into ghoul town. The ghouls are holed up in a building to the W. Talk to Elliot once you're in a secure position, and a number of beast lords and dogs will begin an assault from the NW. You must fight them off, hopefully with few ghoul casualties. There are several deathclaws, too, which is the hard part. Hopefully you can hit them with grenades, though. Use the NW wall as cover and the gap in the fence where they charge as a bottleneck for shotgun blasts, grenades, and automatic fire. "Kenny Wong" (kenjai@netvigator.com) writes: You can throw grenades through walls if you can see the other side. Which means you can throw it into buildings and such at certain places. -------- Benjamin Winston (lemurking@hotmail.com) writes: As for Deathclaws and the ghouls of Quincy, I managed to keep all the ghouls alive by not talking to them until afterwards. To kill the deathclaws, I put 5 people in a balcony w/ hunting rifle(eyes or head) and had the sixth run around in circles untill the Deathclaw was dead. ---------- Once you've put the waves down, talk to Elliot again. He asks you to go get his brother. The brother is in the building where the deathclaws were, right to the NW. Be careful because there are still a couple beast lords in there, but only with pistols. Go in, talk to Gorgi, and loot the civilians. When you go back to talk to Elliot again, he says that the ghouls will join the brotherhood, so now you have ghouls in your recruits pool back at the base. Head back east to the large building adjacent to the train tracks. You want to get into the town hall to save the mayor's daugher, and you're going to have to take out the sentries out front to do it, without them setting off the sirens. I did this by going up onto the 2nd floor and picking off 2 from there and waiting for the 3rd to come around from the door to the NE. Also try to get at the wandering beast lord and his pack of dogs and the one on the roof of the town hall. Now you must assault the building itself. Inside are several beast lords and a deathclaw, not easy pickins. One of the guards has a Garand automatic rifle, which is superior to the hunding rifles you might have, both in range and damage, so grab that before you go. You have a couple of choices here. First, you can go in the front door. Simple, direct, but has the risk of people setting off the alarm before you can stop them. You can go in the side door, but it's locked and you have to pick it, and the deathclaw is right nearby. Also, you can go up on the second floor using the ladder which is near the side door. There is a single guard up there, on the rear (NE) balcony, but it will only net you the ability to go down the stairs, which is quite near the front door anyway. If you can do it, open up the side door when you can sense that the sentry is near it. He'll be close and you can ambush him and then hopefully shut the door before the deathclaw goes. End combat, and then do it again for the rifle sentry in the middle of the room. Make sure that you can get out the door before the deathclaw can get to you! Deathclaws can't open doors, it seems, so you should be okay on that account. Okay, now how do you kill him, now that he's behind the door? Hope you didn't 'end combat' yet. Put your fastest person in front of the door (this works best with a fast shot magnum), put everyone else nearby on overwatch and then open the door, fire a couple rounds, and then close the door. It takes 2 AP to do a door action. If this tedious turkey shoot isn't to your taste, go around front and have at it; you should be able to put him down before he gets to you, hopefully. Go into the small room with the desk and the girl in it. Talk to her and then get the key in the cabinet. You must go into the next room (the larger one with the stairs) with everyone on passive, then hit agressive and watch them chew up the opposition. Take the loot, including a new submachine gun, and get the incendiary grenades from the desk. "ROBERT L BURGESS" (CHEPOT@prodigy.net) adds: An easy way to save the mayor's daughter in Quincy is to send a thief sneaking down the stairs in the building where the daughter is being held hostage (getting your party on the roof should already have been explained). The sneak can bypass the Beastlords and the Deathclaw by crawling around the north wall of sandbags. The sneak then crawls past the three sleeping guards in the next room, and enters the room with the mayor's daughter. I found that you can open any door while crawling (and sneaking) without waking up or alerting anyone present (bug?). Once your thief character is inside the room with the daughter, have him or her lock the two doors leading into the room. (This is easily done by using "Lockpick" on an already unlocked door.) Then the remainder of your party can waltz down the stairs into the open and slaughter everyone in the room without a care in the world. The only danger present here at first was the possibility that either the Deathclaw or the three thugs in the next room would charge into the room when alerted and kill the daughter, but with the doors locked, that danger is moot. Though he may be able to open doors, the Deathclaw can't unlock 'em, and the three thugs won't have the time, if you're an efficient slayer. It was a pleasure to potshot the Deathclaw while he continually tried to open the locked door ;-) So much for the vaunted Deathclaw intelligence! Please note that if you messily or noisily kill anyone near the room (or on the roof) where the three sleepers are located you run the danger of waking up at least one of the sleepers, and this won't work. ----2.4---- Go down the ladder to the underground passage. Open up the door and advance to near the body. Behind each wall though, on either side, is a guy waiting to shoot you. The solution to this is to chuck a grenade at the civilian body to hit them both and put you in TB mode. Advance up the hall and grab the crate full of ammo on the way. Head into the room at the end of the hall and send 1 person up the ladder at a time, so you can control where they go. Wait until you can sense the sentry in the room, and then wait for him to turn around, and then send your best short-range attacker around the corner to take care of him. There is a good chance that the guys outside will have heard you. They will be crowded against the NW wall. Leave 1 or 2 people by the wall to keep the AI occupied and send at least 1 into the NE room to disable the alarm and use the controls to open the cells. Be aware that one guy is guarding the door. Go into the south cell and open up the chest in there to get the Neostead shotgun. The Neostead can lay on the hurting fast because it's automatic and will remain on your active list for a while. Why the raiders locked it up and didn't use it themselves, I'll never know. Go up onto the roof and begin shooting people, particularly the beastlord commander to the E and all the guys near alarms. This might be a good time to test out the Neostead. When done (hopefully Felix is still alive), talk to him. Then go up on the towers and start picking off guys on the ground. If you can't get them from there, try the SW balcony. Failing this, you can either ignore them or go out the door and face them, but as there are 2 guys and 2 baby deathclaws, that might not be such a good idea. You can either head out back through the passage, or out through the gate on the SE wall of the compound, into the gallows area. The door is locked however, and requires a key that you probably don't have yet. Your next mission is the power plant, a large gray building lit with yellow light which is S of the brothel on your map. There is exactly 1 way into the power plant, that being the large ramp on the SE side. Prepare for battle, as you're going to have to take out the commander before he primes the charge to blow up the plant, or hope you can defuse it in time. Head up the stairs and then down the set of stairs in the back. If you like, you can use the power switch to turn off the lights and make it harder to shoot. Wait until you perceive the commander (a female who wanders back and forth) come near the stairs and go around the corner. Hopefully, if enough of your guys open up on her, she'll go down hard and fast. Now you just have to deal with the 4 other guards. Throw yourself at them so they don't kill the prisoners (if you are so inclined). There are 2 in the north behind a bunker and 2 in the SW. When done, you get some XP, and you get even more if you disarm the bombs. Take the traps and keep them for if you should ever need a remote explosion. Now that you're done with this, you should try freeing the prostitutes in the brothel across the street. This one is particularly tricky because any hostile action in the area will cause the beast lords inside to attack the prostitutes. You must focus your attacks on anyone you see inside, at the cost of your own hp, if you wish to save the prostitutes in time. The more you save, the more XP you get. Tom Carlsen (TomCarlsen@citywestwater.com.au) asks: Just had a quick question about the Quincy mission. I noticed when I went into the underground passage under where the daughter is kept that there is an underground passage under the brothel as well. I racked my brain trying to work out how to get in there, coz I like to be thorough. I was wondering if you'd found a way in there. -------- "Edward Adams" (eadams_01@yahoo.co.uk) answers: In the Quincy mission, I noticed another reader sent in a note about an area beneath the brothel that you can view as you take the underground passage from the town hall to the prison. Well, I found a way into that area, but unfortunately it seems that the level designers either forgot about it or didn't want to finish it. It's very difficult to get to (there's an underground ladder with no sprite above ground, and a staircase behind a wall that you can't click on unless you're already underground... suffice to say it took me a while to get in). Once inside, there's a nice promising looking chest that you CAN'T interact with, and a tunnel that you CAN'T go down. Don't ask me what happened, like I said, I think the level designers forgot about it... :) -------- "Chris Pendergrass" (cpndrgrs@earthlink.net) adds: If you go south-east from the helicopter (or north-east from the brothel) you will run into a group of trees next to the map edge. There is a burning barrel nearby. It takes some patience, but if you move your mouse slowly over the trees it will eventually turn into a descend arrow. Now those guys in the brothel are in for a little surprise. -------- Now, the real challenge. Head to the church. Inside are 2 deathclaws, eager to eat you. The best way to get them is to stay outside, near the windows (not next to them; the AI apparently can strike through windows) and pound them with small arms fire until they wilt. Your reward is the chest inside, which includes a field medic kit, metal armour mark II, and 9mm hollow pt. This is probably the first metal armour mark II you've found, so make sure to get it. Philip L. McMahon (doorguy@doorbot.com) adds: To the east of the church is a crashed helicopter with two large rocks just to the south of it. Behind these rocks are two adult deathclaw (hidden) and a Beastlord (hidden as well). I had some fun with them: Farther south, there is an elevated platform in the northeastern corner of the prison yard. I sent all of my characters but my fastest up there to lie in wait. I then sent my fastest character near enough to the hidden Deathclaw and Beastlord to throw a grenade. This got their attention, and unhid them. They attacked me and I led them right back to the prison corner. When they get close enough, they will attempt to attack the players on the platform, but will not be able to reach. They will run back and forth in front of those on the platform, allowing you to kill them at your leisure. In the meantime I got my fastest character away from the Deathclaw and let her snipe the lone Beastlord. --------- At this point, return to the mayor because the mission (as far as i've found) is over. If you find anything else noteworthy on this level, mail me about it. Jim "ShowLow" Sorrick (showlo@cybertrails.com) suggests: In Quincy, After freeing the Mayor, and silencing the alarm, I snuck/killed my way right to the detention center...that way, I at least had the Neostad before dealing with any Big Deathclaws. I then "snuck" in the building where the daughter is being held through the tunnel...was a bit tougher getting the two sentries by the dead civilian because they are facing you, but it can be done. Then, came up..wasted the sleeping beastlords...snuck into the room where the daughter is, she wont go cause ya havent killed the deathclaw yet....first time I did this...that occasional bug appeared and the deathclaw and a beastlord were attacking me thru the wall...then the deathclaw opened the door....so yes, they CAN open doors...at least it did once....needless to say...had to reload and did same again...this time no bug...deathclaw didnt see me, but I could "sense" exactly where it was. I snuck all my guys to the north office that is behind the deathclaw...placed 2 det traps in doorway...placed all my guys around the office so they had clear field of fire...then attacked...deathclaw came in...det traps and everybody got nice hits in...only one charactor took a hit from the deathclaw before it died. Then...went to ghoul area...sneak your group 2 or so at a time to a spot near the stairs on south side of building that lead to roof..Wait for south sentry patrolling tracks to turn and start heading north...sneak all your guys up onto the roof..crawling and sneaking....keep em by the edge so they can see the tracks...when you are above a doorway that has graffitti (a "mutated" happy face), its a wooden building, position your guys there....right above doorway, put em on aggressive..and wait...someone usually sees ya and attacks....the deathclaw is standing right below you and will go in and out the door below you..when he goes in..end combat..keep everybody on aggro...deathclaw comes out again..blam...really helped with Target throwing grenades down on the Deathclaw..got it in about 3 rounds with zero injuries from the creature. -------- 6.1 BUNKER 6 If you saved the ghouls, you can now recruit them into your party. 2 more sets of metal armour are available at the store. Also available are needler cartridges, but you won't have any of those unless you've been pickpocketing people at the base. If you have not enabled the bonus mission, leave the game and do so now; info on this can be found under 21.0, Springfield. "Teoh Siang Swee" (drekan40@hotmail.com) suggests: This is my submission for the tips section. For those who do not wan't to duplicate or in any way rely on a bug to get extra healing equipment, this is how to basically strip the base of medical supplies. After the Quincy mision, ghouls will be availble to be recruited. Among them is a very good theif named Babs. Basically, I got Babs into my squad, sometimes rotating my 6th member out, steal from whoever is in the base and then rotate Babs out and the other member back in. The thing with the medical officer is that his inventory display shows everything he has, and this includes all the medical supplies he's willing to sell so at 94% steal Babs has little trouble robbing him blind. The same with the base mechanics and Kerr the merchant. Don't bother trying this on the Quarter Master as his inventory only shows what he personally has and not what he's selling, so don't even think of free guns...unless you wannna releive a general or 2 of theirs. Barnaky and Dekkers miniguns can be stolen, but it's quite hard. I tried and only succeeded at the 8th try. ----2.3---- 7.0 MARDIN (MISSION 7): Since there don't seem to be any alarms, the foes aren't any big problem, and there are no hostages to save, you can pretty much go nuts while topside. The ones right near the gate stand a good chance of seeing you from the outset anyway, and they will run towards you like idiots, being melee-types. Slaughter them, and then advance slowly on each group, killing them all in turn. One of the guards near the gate has a CAWS, which is a good auto shotgun and is in fact even better than the Neostead you got on the previous mission. If you value close-range high damage weapons, get it. Watch for the baby deathclaw near the NE shack; don't let him surprise you. Also, the area around the fridge, near the middle of the map, is trapped with puffers, a type of mine. The fridge only has beer and stinky meat in it, so you don't really have to get it if you don't want to. See if you can find the splattered ghoul by the fridge area; he has a gun magazine on him. Watch out for the small mines near him, though. They are hard to see. Also don't miss the box and shelf by the fire, NW of the ghoul bits; you get your first shotgun slugs there. Where you actually go down into the lair is your choice; I preferred to go in the collapsed section because it meant i didn't have to get radiated. Note that the guys in the cemetary will fire on you before you get there, and one of them is a particularly good shot. There is a back stair in the cemetary which leads to a small tomb with a guy who has a bunch of stimpaks, being eaten by a couple small roaches. It's worth the trip if you're in the area. If you go down the collapsed section, as I suggest, the first area is open and full of bugs. Check for radscorpions around corners by standing still for a moment. Head SE down the corridors. Eventually you will come to a set of stairs leading down and a ladder leading into a pit. You may, by some freak map error, be able to see and kill Emperor Daarr from here; I could at least shoot at him from different spots on the stairs. Don't pass up the opportunity if you can do it. He is a tremendous melee enemy. Make sure also to shoot at any deathclaws you can in the pit below. The problem is, you can never get them all. There is usually at least 1 waiting under the platform where you are standing. If you cannot get it, you must go into the pit to fight it, and if this isn't acceptable, you have to leave and go in another entrance. Once you've disposed of the deathclaws, go up the other ladder on the SE end of the pit. You should now be in the jail section, with 2 guards. The jail section is where some of the deathclaws are held. You can let them out using the controls, if you want. Or, you can just shoot them through the windows. Proceed past the cells to the next area up the stairs. There are a couple guards here and the deathclaw mother, who asks you to free her. Do so using the key on one of the guards surrounding her cage, and she will go and attack the leader for you, and all of the deathclaws in the level will convert to your side. With the aid of the deathclaws, beating Daarr should be a simple task. Be careful because he critically hits a lot (he may have the 'slayer' perk). shirwyn@vcn.bc.ca adds: Be careful not to hit any Deathclaws with stray bullets in Mardin, after you've made your deal with the matriarch, or they'll go hostile again. ----2.2---- Get the 10000 RP from the guy's chest and the neostead off of one of his guards. Move back into the deathclaw cell area to the NW and up into the jail area. There are civilians in these cells, and several guards about, some with good weaponry, so be careful. Try to free the prisoners using your lockpick ability, but don't open their doors until you've cleared a path to the exit, or they will all die. What happens after this is a large amount of room-to-room fighting. It's kind of tedious and wears your fighters down after a while, which is why I suggested going around the back way to kill the leader. You can in fact leave now if you don't want the loot and XP that the rest of the base provides; just go out the way you came in. It would be silly in the extreme for me to describe how to fight room to room, so I'll just put in the highlights. By the stairs up to the graveyard there is a guy with a needler pistol, the first one so far. It can poison with its damage, so definitely keep it on hand. There is another Neostead on one of the guards in a large group that is camped between the main entrance and the throne room. Once you're done, head back to base. If you freed the matron, you can now recruit deathclaws into your ranks at the base. 7.1 BUNKER 7 There should be several new recruits, including deathclaws, and more metal armour for sale at the store. After you're done, you have to switch bunkers again. The bunker is situated to the south. Once you get there, barter with the mechanic for 2 books and an expanded lockpick set. Pick open the locker next to him to get a strange story. I'm pretty sure it's about the programmers... 8.0 ST. LOUIS (MISSION 8): Make sure you bring a medic and a grenadier. Loot the workbench and get everyone into the APC. Start off NE and head towards the bridge. When on the bridge, stop, and start firing at the mutants entrenched there. You won't take any damage from their attacks, but the APC might, which is why those repair books will help if you get hit. Mutants have about 80 hp; more than regular guys, but less than deathclaws, but they also have metal armor, so be careful. Best to pick them off from a distance. Watch out for the one in the SE bunker, too. The guns they have are great, but eat up ammo real fast, so be careful. Don't feel bashful about picking up stuff; even if you can't care it, the APC can, and you're going to drive it back to base. Especially if you are short on money, pick up everything you can; the machineguns the mutants have can add up in cash value quickly. Move NE/N along the track and up to the gap between ledges, where you will encounter the 2nd group of supermutants. If you feel luck, try to run them over with the APC, but watch out for the one in the east rocks with the rocket launcher. Kulsz (Kulsz@aol.com) writes: I found that driving right up to the guys with the rocket launchers makes them a lot less willing to fire, as they have a tendency to critically miss. FOUR super mutants did themselves in that way-made it a lot easier. That level made me see the wisdom of having a heavy weapons guy in the group. I had to rely on sharpshooters through the whole thing! ------------ Once you're done, loot all the bodies for some decent stuff. Don't forget the rocket guy. When done, head west past the rocks. Stop at the bunker and go in, disarm the trap on the chest, and take the sniper rifle, your new best friend. Now you have to get to Barnaky, either by using a north bridge or a west bridge. If you go through a west bridge, you face the super-mutant army front line forces, which are rather formidable. It's up to you if you feel up to the challenge. A good idea just might be to set up pretty far away and pick them all off with the sniper rifle. Takes time but saves damage and reloads. Watch out for the minefield though. Kenny Wong (kenjai@netvigator.com) suggests: In St. Louis, you can drive the APC over the trenches from the north of the map. Just dont drive it into the trenches coz you won't be able to drive it out. ---------------- Colin (colin2@TOOLKITMAIL.COM) adds: I don't know if anyone has told you about this yet, but in the St. Louis Mission, not only can you drive the APC across the Trenches, but also, at the very northeastren edge of the southern trench, you can cross the toxic stream in the APC. Not only that, but you can also drive along the other side of the stream, right up to the bridge. If you try to go any farther though, land mines will waste the APC, and you will lose the mission. I haven't been able to get anyone close enough to check for traps, but i'm pretty sure they are there. ------ Get as far into the wire maze as you can and then disembark. You have to get to Barnaky's position on foot. Watch for mutants in trenches; there are at least 2 who are hiding, waiting to ambush you. There is a person in the trench who you must talk to, Burke. He's trapped (and he's a real (expletive), but you have to do what he asks. Disarm him and you'll get 950 XP and he'll kill himself, so you can take the C4 on him. Now for the really fun part. You can try to get into the mutant base to look for the general. It is heavily guarded and you'll get chewed to pieces if you take a frontal assault. However the front bridge is the only way in. You really have to engage the enemy at extreme long range and pick them off so that their guns can't hit you. If you're lucky, the enemies will run down the corridor to melee with you and step on the mines there, killing themselves. As an aside, try to get the chest that's by the moat, behind sandbags at the most E corner of the mutant base. Make sure to watch for mines. The real catch is that it's locked, of course. It contains a new assault rifle that you have not yet seen, but it's not all that great, honestly. The super mutants at the gate, however, are armed with Browning M2s, which are mighty fine weapons. They also have over 150 hp each, so keep that in mind. If you kill them though, you get a whole lot of XP, because you're not meant to at this point in the game. If you can't flush the ones out of the bunker, chuck grenades. The great thing about grenades is 'close enough' will buy you as much damage as 'direct hit'. Forrest (wee_wee@pacific.net.sg) suggests: I'm writing to tell you that in St Louis, the front door *isn't* the only way to get into the mutant base. If you can sneak or run (running takes a lot of luck, though... the front door guardians can take at least 2 potshots at you) across the bridge, you can turn right, run past the Enfield chest, past a few mutants and enter the mutant base through a sort of gully or canyon. A handy "back door" for the mutants to escape, probably. What I did was to snipe off the mutants guarding the right side of the base, run Jo and Stitch through the back door, and take out the mutants from behind. This is *much* easier than trying to take out the mutant base from the front, although it's still by no means an easy task. ----2.3---- Other than the mutants, there is no loot in the base, and no general. It's time to proceed to point 3. Instead of going across the mine field, it might be a good idea to head back to point 1 and then head NW from point 1 towards point 3 by taking the N-most bridge (you avoid the mines that way). You'll have to go past 2 bunkers inhabited by super-mutants. There are also a few mines here, so be careful. Watch for a mutant on the left with a rocket and one on the right with grenades. I like to move up to bait out the grenadier and then back up while firing at him so he keeps running to get closer but never throws. Then, inch forward, and the rocket guy will usually hit the rocks in front of him if you move up so you can only barely see him. Then you can finish him off with small arms fire. Blast the barricades with bullets and continue up the path (make sure to check for the mines on the bridge). Up the path is a small bunker with 2 rocket guys. You can try to snipe him but the rockets have good range. Still, they aren't that accurate, so use your best judgement. I like to sneak up on them and use grenades when i can. At this point, after the rocket guys, the path terminates in a rockslide, so you will have to continue SW. Loot the bodies of the fallen on the way but beware of mutants waiting in ambush. At the end of the SW passage are the trenches, which you must go NW along. The mutants in the trenches may or may not be up for a fight; I shot them once or twice and they kept their heads down. At the end of the NW passage, however, is a bunker with another rocket guy and a chest. Snipe him if you can, but if he goes for cover, flush him out with grenades. The chest is full of doctor supplies and the mutant has a key on him. When you are ready to proceed, head NE from the bunker. Loot the fallen on the way. You're going to need those medical suplies because Talon squad needs to be healed. Talon squad is waiting in a pit just to the NE of that bunker you were just at. Use your medic to heal them up. Use up your first aid kits before you start using the good stuff. Once you heal them up, they will be put in the APC and you have to drive them back to the beginning of the level. 8.1 BUNKER 8 Metal Armour Mark II is in abundance here, as are shotgun slugs now. There should also be 2 more sniper rifles; if you like them as much as I do, you'll snatch them up right quick. If you sacked the mutant base, you ought to have a fortune in M2s and SAWS heavy machinguns. KJ adds: After the St. Louis mission, the trader in BOS Beta will arrive in Gamma. He still trades rps for med supplies, which is useful if you have the poker encounter and cannot get the rps off your back. --------- 9.0 JEFFERSON (MISSION 9): The mission provides you with a scouter; it's small (2 people only) and fast, but has few hit points. It's probably more trouble than it's worth, but some people really like vehicles, so use it if you want. Move E from the start, to the S side of the tanker truck, and try to pick off the rocket mutants on the roof to the NE with snipers. If you go around the N side, they will have the opportunity to fire on you, which will be disasterous if you're bunched together. Try to spread out your forces so the mutant rockets, grenades and machineguns will at most hit 2 people, but keep them close enough so they can all fire on the same enemy. Once you've suppressed or removed fire from the roof, move to the SE, along the south side of the building, with your trapper in the lead. Head towards the ruined wall in the SW wall of the building and disarm the mines there. If you cannot disarm them (you should have a trapper with decent skill by now) you can try shooting them, but it takes time and you have to stand far away so as not to be hit by the explosion radius. Go up the hallway N of you and into the room with the chest (the middle one along the NW wall). Find and disarm the mine near the chest and then disarm the trap itself. Inside is some 7.62, grenades, stimpaks, and some .50 cal which is used for the Browning M2s if you got one from last mission and have someone with 9 str to wield it... Now you have 2 choices; go up the stairs in the NE corner, into a large room with a mutant behind a bunker, or go up the S stairs into a room with no mutant but a room nearby with a mutant behind a bunker (to the NW) and access to the next (SE building). I choose the latter. Move W to the doorway and around the corner. The mutant is usually on 'sneak' so you can't see him. Chuck a grenade or two, and if he activates, it's firing squad time. If not, finish him with grenades. Open the door behind the bunker and snipe the mutant behind the sandbags there. Retrieve the ammo from the mutant and the bookcase behind him and head up to the next level using the stairs in the W corner of the building. Clean off the roof and go to the N corner to get your first energy weapon, the laser pistol. Yay. While here, pick off as many mutants as you can from the rooftop; you have a definite advantage while up here with a sniper rifle or 3. Go around the entire perimeter of the roof; you never know where they will be hiding. When done, head back down to the street and NE towards the bunker. The mutant should be either dead or prone by now from your firing from the roof, so flush him out with grenades and finish him off. Move up to the next building, right to the NE, flush out the mutant, and then loot his body and the bookshelf and the room he's in for more ammo and stimpaks. Go a little SE and into the second part of the same building. This is actually the railroad station, here. Head up onto the second floor and try to take out the mutants up there. Be careful because one of them on the 2nd floor has a flamer, a deadly weapon up close. Kill him and take the flamer, as well as the sniper rifle in the fridge (?). Now head SE down the street again. Move S into the alley with the phone booth near the mouth, and watch for mines. Head SE to the W-most corner of the darker gray building (the one next to the chopper) and sneak in and out in TB to kill the mutants inside. Note that there is also one in the next room over, with the freezers. Once you've done that, you can pick off the mutants wandering around outside through the windows in this little cafe. Now go out of the building and E towards the first power station. Watch out for the 2 melee'ers which will charge you out of the bunker. If you are far enough away, they won't make the slightest impression as you gun them down with your rifles. Get both the crate in the bunker AND the one in the NW corner of the generator field (it's hidden behind a wall). Then use small arms fire to destroy the generator. 2000 XP for this one. Move out of the generator field, and W around the field through the gap in the N fence. This is better than having to fight the mutants and their barricades from the front; now you can do it from behind, if you wish. The barricade is on the road E of field, and features several mutants hiding in bunkers and guard posts. If you can, get into the ruined building behind the barricade and get up onto the second level to get a bookcase with shotgun ammo and stimpaks. You can also shoot up a grenadier from here, but be careful because he's close and can throw at you. Once you've gotten the shelf, head a little NE (to where that grenadier was) and go into the building behind him to get a chest. There is more .50 cal in there for you. Next, go into the building W of here; there is a mutant inside, usually crouched, and a workbench that you can loot for grenades and liquor. Head back out onto the street and up to the ruined warehouse with the giant hole blown in one corner. Get the bookshelf loot inside and then go up the street, toward the 2nd goal on your map. Rather unfortunately, this area is guarded by turrets as well as mutants. You can try to avoid the turrets, or hit them with explosives, or make targetted attacks on their sensors to blind/knock them out. In general, it's easier than Preoria because you have more cover and more options. Just stay out of range and if you have a lot of 7.62 for the sniper rifles, you should be ok. Just keep firing. This is a good time to use CTB once you're sure you're out of range. You'll use up ammo pretty fast, but you ought to have plenty from all the mutant SAW machineguns. I have a theory that if you destroy the generator, it will put the turrets offline, but haven't tested it yet... Benjamin Winston (lemurking@hotmail.com) writes: I dunno if you've tested it or not but it does work. The (possible Downside) is that i only got 35 xp for each, but they do shut down. --------- ygdrasil (ygdrasil@bcc.com.uz) contradicts this, saying: In your FT FAQ, when you describe the Jefferson mission, you wonder if destroying second generator disables the turrets. The answer is no. It doesn't. It was my first thought too, and I checked this, but turrets keep firing even after generators are destroyed. ----2.3---- I'll have to try this myself and see which it is; I suppose you're best off assuming that it won't do it, to save yourself the trouble of sneaking in there and destroying it only to have the turrets turn on you anyway. Still, it might be worth a shot. Just advance slowly and take out the mutants from a distance and you should be okay. Several are grenadiers and will charge you like morons and you will cut them down quickly. Get the chest in front of the generator and destroy it with small arms fire, like the rest. Head down under the underpass. You will find an open area with a couple mutants and several crates scattered around. Fight off the mutants and head up to the enclosed bunker area to the NW with 2 crates in it. The mutant there has a Browning M2, so watch out. Try to take it with you to sell it. Beware the bunker along the fence to the N with a crate in it; there is a machinegunner in there. Flush him out with grenades and then hit him hard. Now head to the next building to the NE, the large one on 'stilts' so to speak. Go up the stairs. I have found that for some reason my females could not get up the stairs, but the males did just fine. Strange... Up on the 2nd floor is a mutant with a rocket. Other than that, there is little else to do in this area. Head back up to the street and towards the next barricade, up the road. You can either assault it directly and have to deal with the guys in the building with brownings, or go around the back, to the E, and get through the mine field at the edge of the map along the SE border. Make sure to loot the bookcase in the building with these 2 guys because there is an environmental armor there; it's hell on the stats, but it has good protection. Go back onto the street and up to the field with the large white tanks in it, behind the wooden fence. Kill off the mutant in the bunker there and take his browning for cash later. If you don't have enough room to carry it on your characters, put it on someone and get into the vehicle. Then hit 'I' to activate the vehicle's inventory, and you can drag items from your characters into the vehicle. Move NW along the road and towards the final power generator. You're going to have to assault the defenses head-on this time unless you want to send the whole team underground through the radiation, so advance cautiously and kill them at long distance. Weave your way through the defenses; this isn't anything you haven't seen before. Use grenades to get them out of hiding, and then put them down with heavy fire. Keith Steiger (ksteiger@home.com) adds: West of the warehouse that contains the final power generator, there's a spot where the ground drops away from under the fence. You can crawl under the fence there. You have to then head SE to attack the third power generator, but since all the super mutants are expecting you to be coming down the road, they're facing away from you... and you can attack them from slightly longer ranges, too. ----2.4---- In a crate by the generator is a 2nd suit of environmental armor. Take it and use it (unless you sneak). Destroy the generator and head for the now open main gate. Position everyone in front of the gate and have your best-armored person move forward a little to activate the conversation. The commander there will then go hostile and your troops will tear her apart, firing-squad style. Get the science book out of the fridge there and then go in the main doors. Talk to the mutant scientist and then go in the back (the NW corner and loot the desk for a key. "Glenn M. Sanford" (sanfordphd@mac.com) suggests: On the Jefferson level, my grenadier was able to kill all of the commanders and several other mutants with incendiary grenades from outside the building. I simply stationed my main character near the entrance (out of the line of sight) so the roof was removed. At that point, I was able to have select both my main character and grenadier and do a forced fire near the targets. This only worked with the roof removed. I have not had a chance to try this elsewhere. ---------- Get everyone up the stairs and go into the generator room to destroy it. This is the end of the mission. You can go out the back now if you want, and leave the area, but know that the scouter won't come with you if you do. Of course, you can now go downstairs if you want. Just go around the the W wall of the factory, outside, and go in the door there to the room that is locked from the other side. There is one mutant in there, but he didn't attack me. It seems that once the generators are destroyed, none of the mutants are hostile. Go down the stairs there (you can barely see them behind the wall). Loot the bookshelf down here for some meds. And now where only the brave need apply. Send someone with the enviro armor and a Rad-X into the bathroom and down the radioactive sludge tunnel. When it gets to narrow down, crouch and go on. You will come to a camp of a sort, with a chest containing some food and a book. Grab the stuff and head back to your friends. "Phred" (phred@guerro.com) adds: There are 5 mutants behind the factory to the east - 4 of which carry M2's - that are just ripe for the killing once you've killed the commander (maybe they swarm out if there is a prolonged battle with him, not sure.) In any event, you have to walk up a long corridor that begins with a pair of doors right to the north of the little lake area that is south east of the factory. They are just sitting ducks but its nice to get the XP and the gear. Note you might want to drive the scouter up there as those M2's are heavy and it doesn't hurt to run down the mutants either. Second, if you leave the scientist and the lab alone, you'll get a 'thank you' from the general. Conversly, if you destory the lab you'll get berated by him for giving in to your destructive nature. ----2.4---- Now you're done. Go get the scouter, loot the bodies of any of the fallen that you missed and dump the equipment in the scouter, and then leave. 9.1 BUNKER 9: There are 2 enviro armors and an enviro armor MK II available for purchase. Your SAW guns probably aren't bringing in much cash anymore, so next mission don't even bother to pick them up. 10.0 KANSAS CITY (MISSION 10): You want heavy weapons and snipers. LOTS OF HEAVY WEAPONS AND SNIPERS. You will have very little time to get your squad into position before you must start repelling mutants. I highly suggest TB mode here, as every second and every shot counts at times. There will be no time to set up the mines from the crate here; that will have to wait until later. The mutants will attack from all 3 directions at once; logic dictates that you send 2 people to each gate. This is a silly Idea. The main attack will come from the south. You need to send 4 people there, preferably with heavy weapons. Leave 2 at the west gate. The north gate is better defended, and has mines to boot, so you need not send anyone there. Getting on the roof can pay off quick, as you have to move less to get within shot of the enemy, and your range is extended. Unfortunately for me, I did this at night, so my range was terrible. This made it a bit more difficult, although the mutant rockets were made less accurate as well. shirwyn@vcn.bc.ca adds: If you move your people fast enough at the Cathedral in Kansas City you can put a sniper and a heavy weapon person with a rocket launcher up to the south tower at the west gate and to the gap in the parapet at the south gate. Look for the ladder south along the interior of the wall from your insertion point. ----2.2---- There are a lot of mutants. The south and west are the heaviest, with light resistance to the north. By 'light' I mean, only a half-dozen, as opposed to easily twice that many on BOTH the south and west. Focus your heavy weapons attacks primarily in the south, where they have miniguns. Machine- gunners can get away with the west, because it's mostly a melee charge, and the north is weak enough almost to be held by the ghouls themselves. They also set up mines in the north, which is a nice touch. Have the snipers pick off the enemy rocket and minigun wielders. This is by no means easy, but using cover behind the bunkers you shouldn't be hit often. Do targetted shots if you can to knock out or blind. You can't kill them fast enough, so you need to cripple enough of them so that a significant portion of their forces are rendered (relatively) ineffective. A good idea is to do an arm aim, so they can't use the large weapons they use with a cripple strike. Burst weapons are very good here; anything that can hit several people at once. Assault shotguns are key once they get close. If you don't have anyone at a gate, the ghouls will yell out when a gate is under attack or taking casualties. This is useful, to know when to take 1 or 2 people off one gate and move them to another. Bonus move is extremely helpful here as it will let you get to the other gates faster. Usually the north gate will get in trouble before you're finished with the other gates, so plan accordingly. Once you're done, move everyone out the west gate and kill the mutants on top of the 2 watchtowers, if you haven't already. Make sure to loot all the bodies for ammuntion. Head around to the north and do the same there. Go through the gap in the fence to the N and over to the airfield building to get a tommy gun and medical supplies on the shelves in there. Once you're done here, you're ready to head south. Loot the bodies to get the avenger miniguns, among other things, and start to force your way down the street, picking off mutants in buildings. A good trick to use is to run to the wall of the building and then hit enter to start TB. Then, move in front of a window (or door), fire, and then move out of sight. More often than not, the AI has no idea what to do and just stands in the building like an idiot. This works equally well in all the levels, so give it a shot if you haven't already. Ironically, two of the ghouls at the south gate are armed with sniper rifles; how they got equipment that even the brotherhood runs out of, i'll never know, but these are good for stealing or looting off of dead ghouls. "Dhany Permana" (dhany@dhany.com) adds: Just some additional information about Kansas City, I found out that most of the ghouls have sniper rifles not just two of them on the south gate (like the one you told on the FAQ), I was even able to get at least 4 rifles, arming my entire squad with sniper rifles and still have some left to sell. ------------- From the south gate, head NE go get to the buildings near the airfield. Resistance is relatively light here, and you can get a science book in the N-most building. Now start making your way S and SW, cleaning out the buildings. It's pretty routine. Just switch to TB, move into view, fire, and move out of view. The first commander (at 2) can be killed by moving to the west of that building and firing through the holes in the wall at range. This way you do not have to confront him by going in the front door. At point #2 you can get an FN-FAL from the icebox in the commander's hut. It has respectable damage, but the range isn't great. Keep it if you preferred the AK to the hunting rifle. There are also 2 Neosteads hiding behind a pot in the corner, as well as shotgun ammo and explosive rockets. I had a persistent problem with the guy on the roof of the 4th point, so I went around west and came in through the SW enntrance. Unfortunately, I found a guard there, too, so be careful. Inside is the commander, 2 guards, and 3 chests, one of which has a pancor jackhammer, the best shotgun yet. This should be the last of the commanders. Return to the Bishop. If many of the ghouls have died (which happened to me), you get the bomb but no other reward. Kenny Wong (kenjai@netvigator.com) adds: If you complete the mission with minimal deaths (I only had 1 ghoul die on me the 2nd time through,) then the bishop will assist in the research efforts, and your general will give out some "Setting an example of excellence" speech. Other than that, nothing special seems to happen. I was still promoted even when the ghouls got slaughtered the 1st time. I think it's impossible to not lose a ghoul in this level. The one I lost was standing in the middle of the street by the south gate, and was promptly surrounded and 'gutted alive' Oh well.... There's also another science book on this level in one of the buildings on the south side in some bookshelf or something like that. Finally, my grenadier came out tops in this lvl in the mop-up action, because his grenades were able to go through building walls!!! He'd 'percieve' a mutie behind a wall, and just start throwing grenades in. Only works with frag grenades though. Molotovs and other types of grenades don't work.... Definitely a bug. ------ Charles J DeVito (rhe1@gte.net) adds: I managed to complete Kansas City without loosing a single ghoul. The south gate was the hardest, but not because of the southern most ghoul who gets surrounded by melee mutants (easy to take down by moving a guy with a shotgun next to them and bursting them in a direction not facing any ghouls). Rather the mutant who slips in from the right side around the edge of the cathedral wall, armed with a minigun, is the tricky bit. I left two machine gunners to cover the west gate, send Farsight (armed with a sniper rifle and a shotgun) to the north gate, and had everyone else cover the south gate. When returning to your bunker after the mission, a ghoul named Hazmat is present. I don't know if he is or not if you get ghouls killed during the mission, but his dialogue implies that he wouldn't be. He states something along the lines that he was sent to deliver the instruction manuals for the bomb, as promised by the Bishop. You can barter with him for some Rad-away, but that's about it. ------ Chew, Christopher (XSSC SGP) (Christopher.chew@xssc.sgp.xerox.com) adds: Inside one of the huts containing a mutie commander just sw of the south gate, there are 3 lockers. One of those 3 lockers gave me a laser pistol. I managed to complete this mission without losing a single ghoul. However, I could not find any ghoul named Hazmat in the bunker. Incidentally, 6 plasma grenades were available for barter from the quartermaster. I did Kansas City before Jefferson though. ------ 10.1 BUNKER 10: Another avenger minigun is available at the store, as are some rockets for the first time. 11.0 OSCEOLLA (MISSION 11): Look in the crates right S of you to see if you need any of it. There are some medical supplies, mines, and remote explosives. Head N towards the guard post, advancing slowly. Once you start shooting them down, they ought to start charging you, one or two at a time, which should be easy pickings. Take targetted shots at their eyes and arms so they can't see you and can't use their weapons. The building to the W of the guardhouse has a crate in it with ammo for your sniper rifles, miniguns, and Brownings, and also first aid kits. The guardhouse itself only offers a little ammo and some liquor and drugs on a bookshelf. A direct assault on the gates will usually get you killed really fast. If you must go in the front door, you have to pick off the enemy from range, where his Brownings can't tear you to pieces in less than a round. Once you have engaged them, they will usually come out to meet you, where you have the advantage. Move around to the NW where the wreck of the airship is. There is an old madman living there, and three are 3 crates, all with stimpaks. If you make it all the way to the junkyard, there is a crate there with shotgun shells and medical supplies. Avoid the sniper tower as they get quite a range and accuracy bonus for being so many stories up. Another way to get into the base is the underground entrance found to the east of the base proper. The only problem with this is that there are 3 well-entrenched guards protecting it, and dislodging them is difficult, especially considering the lack of cover on the approach. The only real cover is provided by the ruined building nearby, but you have to return to the insertion point and head directly towards it from there to avoid getting cut down on the way to it. The problem is that the tunnel is filled with radioactive goo, and it will only get you into the base; once you go up the ladder next to the fuel tank, the mutants will tear you apart. Regrettably, the best way is probably to go in one of the main gates after you've sniped off the guards. The trick is that when you go in one gate, there will inevitably be guards nearby to get you immediately. What I find useful is to go in one gate a little bit and shoot everything I can see, and then go in the other gate and do the same, and slowly work my way in, switching gates to get the best firing position on those mutants who are guarding the opposite gate. You can also use the back gate (more of a hole in the wall than anything) for this purpose, but the back gate is effectively covered by the snipers so be careful if you do. Feel free to shoot up all the explodables on the base; there are fuel tanks, petrol tanks, oil barrels, etc, and will do effective damage if someone is next to them. If you're really having trouble, try this: First, pick off all the gate guards and anyone that will come out after you. Come in through the West gate, and head E to the ruined gray truck with the barrel next to it and use it as cover to shoot the guys by the large tank to the NE. Then, move N an use it and the raised platform as cover to fire on the guys on the raised platform by the NW stairs. Then, use the raised platform to fire on all the guys N of that area, around the 4 white tanks. Hide behind the bunker to the S of the small rusted building and throw grenades at the doorway. This ought to hit and kill the mutants inside after about 6 or 7 of them. Inside that small rusted building is som .50 cal and some medical supplies on a bookshelf. Snyder, Adam (ASnyder@wmsgaming.com) writes: You can skirt the base either east or west, keeping an eye out for mines. Then If you're brave enough (i.e. have enough flechette rounds left) sneak up to the sniper's nest and take them both out. With good bursts and a little luck you can secure the platform in a couple rounds and crack the base's defenses from on high. Taking a shot at even 0% will send your target running right into range. Infiltrating the base from the west was no problem at all this way. ---------------- Now we get to go underground. Either one seems to do; they both lead to rooms that are closed with no opposition to ambush you once you get down there. Be aware that the doors open automatically, though. I arbitrarily chose the NW one. The first bookshelf you come to contains a medkit and ammo. You next go through the NE room and then into a room full of gas tanks. Do not go in that room; rather, fire at the gas tank you can see from afar, so you roast the mutants in the room. If you all go in there, they will blow up the tanks and your whole squad will die. In the next room you find Toccomatta, a mutant that will speak to you. He will die, and then you can loot his body for a letter and impact gloves. There is another shelf with more medical supplies. Now for the cafeteria. This room is a bit harder. Move your guys in view of the open doorway, so they can see in, but don't get too close. In this way you can shoot the melee guy at the other end of the room. Once he's down, throw grenades through the door to get the 2nd guy, hiding behind the boxes to ambush you. While you're doing this, one of the guys might come out from behind the bar to get you, so be ready. There is an annoying part of this, though; the guy by the boxes has a tendency to move back once the shooting starts, causing the door to close, so you have to get your grenadier close to the door to open it, but try not to let him/her hit him/herself when trying to get the guy there. If you are in TB you can try to run through, but if he is on overwatch, you are dead; his flamethrower will end it. "Garred Whalen" (gfishfunk@hotmail.com) suggests: In the underground cafeteria, I found the most effecient way to kill all four mutants was, using only two guys, to have my best sniper take out one at a time while a good big guns guy stood perpendicular to the door, so when each individual mutant runs at the sniper, who is standing against the back wall, they get mowed down by the big guns guy. Next, in order to take out the guy with the flame thrower, have the big guns guy crawl across the floor, right in front of him! Bring the big guns guy to the bottom left corner, so he is out of range from the flame thrower, and let him wail with something like a Browning M2, and the mutant won't last a second. ----2.5---- The last room is a bit tricky. You have to stick to TB, move towards the door to open it, fire, and then move away to close it. Alternately, keep someone with a crappy firing ability (this is usually the medic) beside the door against the wall, and move your people in line with the door to fire, and then move them away again after a shot. Gammorin has 150 hp, so this will take time, but it isn't anything that you can't handle. Snyder, Adam (ASnyder@wmsgaming.com) adds: In Gamorrin's room there is a holodisk just sitting on the floor by the table. Run your cursor over the west wall slowly. The angle of the wall hides it from view (I stumbled across it completely by accident; even when I knew where it was I couldn't see it). The debrief makes mention of it being Gamorrin's journals and the Elders are reviewing it. I think about 1300xp reward for recovering it ------------- Make sure to loot the chest in this room to get a briefcase, which gets you extra brownie points with the brotherhood. The mission is over; leave. 11.1 BUNKER 11: There is now some environmental armor for sale, both Mark I and Mark II. The Mark II offers better defense, but compromises your perception by 1 and several of your skills. Take this into consideration before buying it. You can now recruit mutants; most of them are melee-oriented, though, so you have to plan accordingly. You must get to the next bunker before you are given your next mission. DO NOT BRING YOUR APC TO BUNKER DELTA. IF YOU DO, THERE IS A BUG THAT WILL NOT ALLOW IT TO LEAVE. The height of the APC is greater than the height of the garage, and thus it will not move under any circumstances once you've got it in Bunker Delta. I hope it is fixed in a patch. *grumble* 12.0 JUNCTION CITY (MISSION 12): Bring a medic. This mission starts out with some nonviolent activity. Go in and talk to some of the civilians and head for the mechanic's shack. On the way you will meet chuck who will sell you a fake robot part. He also has a book and a plasma grenade (the first one so far). Casey will talk to you and mention that she needs a doctor for her father. Heal him and she will join you. First aid will do. In the large building N of the starting gate you can find a fridge and an ice chest. The fridge has fruit x3. Upstairs is a hostile brahmin. Oddly, he is equipped with a cattle prod. The Pit is the local bar; it features the brotherhood-hating 'Angry Rick'. Talk to him 3 times and he will give you the robot piece. Go upstairs to get a book on the bookshelf. The building in the town center (it's actually several buildings attached together) has some neat stuff in it, including flechette shells, medical supplies, a book, and slugs (in a locked chest). Juan's Emporium has very little selection, but he will sell you a robot part and tell you that his friend Hank has a piece too. Hank is in a building S of town, but you're too late to save him. The Reavers have killed him (the ones waiting outside to ambush you) and have taken his robot piece. You can get your first plasma rifle here, though. The northernmost building in town has some drugs on a bookshelf inside. The mayor will give you his piece if you destroy the Reavers up north. Upstairs in the town hall you can find 'papers', the use of which is unclear, but it weighs nothing, so it's best to get them anyways, as well as the ring pulls there. After you get 2 pieces of the robot, the Reavers will attack. It's a good idea to get everyone but the guy who's going to get the last part up on the north wall, since that is where they will attack from. You will have the advantage, and hopefully you can keep any townspeople from dying. There are a whole lot of reavers, so this could be quite a trick. "Dhany Permana" (dhany@dhany.com) adds: Junction City part: I have a fine trick to defeat the reavers with minimal losses. Since the reavers will attack you when you have 2 robot parts then do not collect those parts yet. Go to the northern part of the city walls and start shooting at the reavers. They will start running to you but you can kill them one by one pretty easy since you have an advantage from the height. This way, you'll be able to kill most of the reavers before going for the attack on their base,you'll safe your hp a lot plus no civilian casualties(not even the enforcer!!). ---------- This is a good idea if they keep getting close, but because my guys were up on the walls with sniper rifles, the Reavers never got close enough to fire on me. The Reavers are equipped with energy weapons; energy rifles, which have quite a kick, and could be useful once you get your hands on them. Unfortunately, they rely on your energy weapon skill which probably isn't very high right now. The have almost as much range as the sniper rifle and do more damage, but you'd have to tag energy and start building it up pretty fast to get any use out of them right now, unless you invested for them in advance. Ammunition for them is much harder to come by than that of the sniper rifle or Browning/minigun weapons, so keep that in mind if you intend to use them. There is also the matter of action points; energy weapons take 1 more point to use, so this is definitely something to take into consideration, expecially if you like TB and/or targetted shots. Plasma rifles do even more damage, with less range, with the same AP penalty. By the end of the game, all you will get is energy weapon ammo, so definitely consider their use in the long run. Once you have killed all of the charging reavers (trivial if you all have sniper rifles), head out to attack the Reavers at their camp. First head N to take care of the bunch behind the fence (and the 1 SW of them). Watch out for acid sprayers. You should begin to loot the bodies so you don't forget later. They have laser rifles, Steyrs (a 5.56 auto rifle), grenade launchers, avengers, sniper rifles, and other miscellaneous stuff. They have a *lot* of stimpaks, so stock up. Also, take the grenades for the launcher. They are worth a surprisingly large amount of money in comparison to their worth in combat. Use the cover as you advance, and be assured that the Reavers will too. If they hide, use grenades on their positions to flush them out and then tear them apart with heavy fire. This ought to be academic by now. Once you get into the cabin, disarm the trap on the door, use the key from the dead civilian's body outside to open it, and move your grenadier in. Throw grenades near the workbench to hit the Reaver who is waiting to ambush you and keep at it until he dies (he probably won't move out to fight you). Get the robot torso from the workbench and go upstairs. There are several guys up here, but if you throw some grenades into the bedroom and then step in/out of sight, you shouldn't have any trouble with this one. Snyder, Adam (ASnyder@wmsgaming.com) writes: In the far northwest, there's a stairway leading down to a long underground tunnel filled with giant rats and tons of goodies. I don't know where it leads yet, but there's enough guns and ammo down there to outfit a new squad. ------ Grev (grevinator1@hotmail.com) adds: In the upper northwest of the Juntion City map there is a hole in the ground that leads to a tunnel with two rooms and tons of supplies. There are giant rats guarding all the treasure...however, for some reason they can't go through the doors of the rooms, must be another glitch. Anyway in this circumstance it works towards your advantage. stand a couple hexes worth of space outside the room and snipe the giant rats in the first room. then continue down the tunnel, if you cant fight the rats farther down the tunnel, just let them chase you back to the room and use the same tactic as before, it works every time. The tunnel comes up through a long shaft in the middle of the city in one of the multi level buildings. If you try to use the tunnel going in from the city entrance the ladder is out of sight and cant be selected from any view. You can beat the tunnel at any point in the mission because there are no reavers anywhere near the north west tunnel entrance... ------- When done, return to the mayor for your reward, then exit. 12.1 BUNKER 12: The equipment store now sells tank shells (for when you get the tank) and plasma pistols (NOW they have the energy weapons...). You are given 2 missions again, Great Bend and Coldwater. For sake of linearity, I go with Great Bend next. 13.0 GREAT BEND (MISSION 13): (Draconfyre@aol.com) suggests: I fould a way to beat the Great Bend level on CTB mode with ease. Firstly, go to coldwater and do that mission first, that way when you get back you can get a suit of power armor before the great bend. Now, get a Pancor Jackhammer and about 250-300 slugs. My character had Fast Shot, Bonus Rate of Fire, and sharpshooter. I could at medium range do up to 150 points of damage with a burst of slugs against the robots in the great bend. The great thing is that with the power armor most of the robots (except the security bots and like 2 of the humanoid bots) cannot do jack against you. I thus had my main character walking through a solid wall of gunfire from the robots to pop them at point blank range for upwards of 200 damage. I went through the entire thing with just that one character. For the Security bots i just went to single shot mode (which only took 2 AP with the fast shot and bonus ROF) and blasted them asunder. ---------- This is an argument to do Coldwater first (it is easier, and you can get power armor, so it's up to you). Bring MINES. Lots of them. There is no information on the map for you here; you are supposed to infiltrate it yourself. Be assured that much death awaits you here. Go around the tanker to the NE and talk to Jake there 3 times. He tells you that the humans are hiding underground (what few there are) and that the robots are disorganized lately, as if their leader were gone. The robots are entrenched up the street. They have automatic rifles and take little damage from physical weapons like rifles unless you score a critical. For these reasons, it's probably a good idea to use explosives and targetted shots, and maybe the energy weapons if you have 'em (I cannot vouch for their effectiveness as my energy weapon skill was pretty terrible at the time). Patrick Bryan (trickzillion@earthlink.net) suggests: In your fallout tactics guide, you say that you dont know how effective energy weapons are in the Great Bend level. Well, i decided i'd try to help you (if someone else hasn't). I had bout 105-115% on my energy weapons, and i tore it up. ----------- There you have it; energy weapons are good for this level. It's probably a good idea to invest in energy weapons near the beginning then (something I have learned the hard way). You're going to have to be slow and deliberate and take each one down one at a time, especially with small arms fire. Heavy weapons fire does more damage, but has a much smaller ROF, so it will still take time. Concentrate your fire on the melee ones so they don't get to you, and watch out for ones that try to ambush you. The one on the other side of the car that Jake is hiding behind is a good example. Make sure to loot all the civilians in the area. One of the victims here is Ripley the prisoner, if you managed to free her before, and she has a whole ton of books on her body here, pretty much 1 of each kind. Watch out for the sniper bot past the busted brown car to the north (by the low building). Go into the building to use the control to open the gate in front of you. Try to spot the patrolling robots past the gate and shoot at them through openings before you open it so you don't have to face them head-on once the gate is opened. Make sure to get the canister of acid from the shelf in the control room. This acid is used in the 'Supper Soaker' which you get from the canadian invasion encounter (a special encounter). Go through the gate, find the door to the north in the metal fence (it's hard to spot at first, just run the mouse along the metal wall until you find it) and open it. Go in and fight the load lifters in the hanger. Mines work best against them, but you can eventually get em with small arms fire. They have security bot friends, too. If you really have trouble, get up on the platform above the hangar entrance using the ladder on the SE wall and drop grenades on them. You could also back up behind the door and take pot shots at them with your sniper. It is time-consuming with small-arms fire, so I highly suggest using your sniper(s) and setting the game to CTB once you're in a spot where they can't hit you. Go into the factory and loot the crate for mines and grenades. Loot all the bodies for books, power for energy weapons, and stimpaks, and then get in the locker to get beer and plasma grenades. From the windows by the locker you ought to be able to get at the bots in the field behind with excellent cover, no less. Take this opportunity, although keep in mind that grenades and rockets won't work well here. Leave this large building and go into the smaller adjacent one with the human inside. Pick the lock and go inside. He is a bit of an arse, but he has a chest with some good stuff. Leave and move NE along the fence until you find a break in it. There is a bot on the other side, and if you throw grenades at the corner, you'll hit him and the AI likely won't come after you (TB). Watch out for the security bots in the hangar, though. Once you clean them out, you can get the Browning Auto Rifle, a new light machine gun that can also fire single, as well as burst. Unfortunately, ammo for it is hard to come by. This weapon is found on a dead civilian in here. Unlock the door at the top of the stairs to get into the office, and inside you will find some super stims and a CAWS on a dead civilian. Go out into the street and to the NE. You will see Gloria on a mattress there, behind some stuff. Getting to her however, is not an easy thing. You must go through the junkyard to do so. You must destroy a barricade by the entrance to the junkyard, which is between a large wrecked orange train and the hangar/warehouse you were just in. If you have not fought the 5 or so 'bots yet (from the warehouse window from before), you will have to fight them now, in close quarters. Make your way to the fridge against the NW wall. On the way you will meet at least 2 'bots, waiting to ambush you near the fridge. The fridge has a pair of super stims in it. Continue E and find a crate with fruit in it. From there you can head down to meet Gloria, S. You can barter with her; she's a hooker. She has some drugs, but little else. From here, however, you can get into the back entrance of the steel mill by way of the bridge here with a dead raider on it. This is harder than it sounds, because there are several bots in there waiting for you in defensive positions. Use the wrapped steel poles as cover; when you duck behind them, they can't see you, so stand, fire, and then duck. There is plenty of cover if you need to do melee. Unfortunately, there is no back door to the steel mill, so you must go around the side to the front. Here you will meet several lifters and a humanoid bot. Try to bait them down the long corridor where you can hit them and run, or get them caught on the obstructions there. If you can, mine the area so they run over them and destroy themselves. Mines are key; I cannot stress their use enough. Considering that you can mine the whole side of the building with impunity, and then lead the lifters there, this should not be a problem (assuming you came from the back). In the steel mill you will find 2 dead civilians (one with a super tool kit) and 2 lockers (with medical supplies and enviro armor). Now that you are done here, proceed SW. You will come to a fence at the end which you must head NW along. At the end you find a Pacification Bot in a shed next to a control. Use the control to open the nearby gate on the S fence. Do not destroy the bot. Go through the open gate and destroy the bots there. I discovered a neat trick here; make sure you're in TB. Then, position 5 of your guys by the gate (where they can't see pac-bot), and set them on overwatch. Have the 6th at the controls. Open the gate, they all fire on what they can see. close it, then overwatch through your guys. Repeat as desired. Takes a few minutes, but really rips em up with no return fire. Move up the street to the barricades, but do not destroy them. There are 2 melee bots behind them, and you can use the barricades as cover to shoot them at your leisure. These ought to be the last of them; this nets you just about 50,000 XP, which ought to send you up about 1 or 2 levels (nice!) Before you leave, send someone down into the chasm between the 2 halves of the area to get a raider at the north end who has a new machinegun and some loot. You can also find a small tunnel (duck to enter it) that leads you to Mike, the nasty guy. UPDATE 2.4 I've heard from several people who report that they can't beat the mission without killing the pacification bot. I'd like to hear if this is a common problem (perhaps caused by the patch) or people have been missing something and so the pacification bot is an alternate target. Suggestions? 13.1 BUNKER 13: If you're as lucky as I was, you should be able to get a suit of power armor right now. At 100 barter and 5 charisma, it clocks in at 20K. Hope you've been saving. Rather unfortunately, this armor doesn't make you huge, like in the other fallouts, but it does make you look pretty cool (at least better than the enviro armour) and it lends +3 strength, as well as giving plenty of protection. 14.0 COLDWATER (MISSION 14): This mission is pretty easy. Bring a thief, if you want to pick the civilians clean. Talk to the Auditor General first. He's right near the beginning; you can't miss him. From there, move NE to the first tier of buildings and begin making your way along them. The first building just has a civilian. The next one has a marketplace with some basic, unexciting goods, but one of them has a gun mag. Next to this is a church with a drunken preacher (a Fallout tradition). Snyder, Adam (ASnyder@wmsgaming.com) suggests: In Coldwater, the drunken priest Father Donald is standing in front of an altar. You can crawl underneath the altar from the side to reveal a hidden chamber with an ice chest. Some big guns and ammo, and I remember there being something unusual there, but I'm not certain any more. ---------- The room next to this actually has some foes in it, behind a bunker. They aren't hard, not with your current skill and firepower, and especially with incendiary grenades. The one at the crux of this tier is a cockroach race, and there is a guy there, Don Vinchenzo, who wants you to kill Ma Baker and he says he'll reward you with some stuff. Jason Wang (darkstrangefox@yahoo.com) adds: Hey, just as a side note, in Coldwater, Don-something wants you to assassinate Ma Baker right? Well, it turns out that she is a undercover brotherhood squad leader, you get to hear commander dekker sob as he tells you to "wear a black suit," which is what don tells you to do too. That, and I don't think Don gives you anything worth it, plus that Ma Baker took a whole load of drugs and traumas... I ended up just Browning her. ----2.4---- Go down through the SW rooms and out the door, and then into the nearby bar. The bartender will trade if you want. The next building SE of that is a shop where you can buy some weapons and a science book. That's all that's interesting on the ground floor. Time to go to tier 2. The stairs up are located by the 2 raiders you killed, behind the bunker near the church. At the top of them, you will find that the room to the NW of you is inhabited by raiders, one of them a grenadier. Once done with them, it'd probably be easier to head back SE and check out the bar there. A guy named Simon says the raiders kidnapped his sister. If you follow him, he will lead you do a room with his sister and a guy. Shoot him up good, and then talk to him for a small reward. Go to the SE-most building (you have to go outside, out the door, and shoot the guys inside through the windows. Watch out for the grenadier. Inside is a crate with guns and ammo. Now head back NW to the casino, where the 3 guards were. The bartender will trade with you for some crappy items, and some of the people here have a large amount of ring pulls you can gamble for or steal. Now the fun part. There are 2 guys at the SW entrance waiting to ambush you when you come out the door. Stick it to them instead by throwing grenades at their position from the safety of the doorway. Move SW from here and find the room with the 2 crates and a guard. Kill him and take the contents of the crates; weapons and grenades. Go around the corner and unlock the room with the bookshelf to get .50 cal and a trauma pack. Now you should head for the 3rd tier. I went up the stairs next to the stairs between the 1st and 2 tiers, where you came up last time. In the NW room are 2 guys with rifles who are easily dispatched. Head SE to find more guards and Ma Baker, who the Don wants you to assassinate. She doesn't say anything, she'll just trade with you if you want. If you want to kill her without a fuss, use drugs or super/ultra/trauma packs on her so she dies from the damage or overdose. Josemaria Hernandez (jmh53@cornell.edu) suggests: The end of the Coldwater mission is interesting. I think you should write to NOT kill Ma baker. I found that when I killed her i got like 3492 xp or something like that while if I did not kill her i got an additional 5000 xp at the mission for not doing anything (on top of i think 30000 for finishing the mission). ---------- Continue SE to clean out the rest of the guards and take their stuff (they give good XP, despite being pretty easy). Then head back NW towards the crux of the L. Be careful as there are a couple guys W of the crux, one of whom has a rocket. Behind their position are the stairs you should use to get up to the next level. Before doing that, get the cabinet in the W-most room on this level to get acid and incendiary grenades. Up here you find your first guy in power armor. He has a flame weapon, so don't get close. He has 2 more buds in the NE hall, so watch out. Loot the broken power armor off the dead guy and take it with you to return to the inspector guy. Head NE down the hall, SE down the next one, and out into the room, out the door, and onto the steppe. Disarm the mine in front of the boxes and loot their contents. Head SE but watch for mines. There are a lot of them, and at 106%, I could not disarm them. If they give you problems, snipe them or throw grenades or dynamite, even. You will come to a large building with double doors set into the cliff. The door is trapped multiple times, and locked, and will not admit you no matter how you try. Instead, continue SE (get the crate against the wall on the way), past the sandbags with the 2 guys (grenade them), and into the door at the end of the cliff. There are several guys in there, so mill around the entrance and fire in at them while using the door as cover. Loot the power armor off of this guy and use the control in this room to shut off the lights, if you think it will help. Watch for the guy in the hall with the browning. Head out into the hall cautiously to try to avoid fire from the next room, and avoid the patches of light; that will give your enemy something to aim at. The boss is in the last room. He's hard to see if the lights are out, but if you know where he is (and you will when he speaks), you can hit him with rockets, grenades, and other heavy area weapons. Make sure to keep an eye out for the guy who's near the door you come through, so he doesn't ambush you. Just step in the open doorway, fire, move out of sight, and repeat. When done, loot the last guy for his power armor and return to the inspector. I don't think you have to actually give them to him though. It dissappears from your inventory after the mission. 14.1 BUNKER 14: Another suit of power armor is available (at least it was for me, anyway). After selling all my stuff and buying the 2 sets of power armor so far available, I still had 97K of scrip left. This is why I recommend scavenging your stuff into vehicles and having a good barter. If you really have trouble scavenging money together, go out into the waste and fight as many Reaver encounters as you can, taking all of their stuff back to base to sell. Make sure you're in a vehicle so you get infinite inventory. This is also an excellent way to get many pulse grenades, as the Reavers carry 1 or 2, about every other battle. Next is Newton. 15.0 NEWTON (MISSION 15): Your first job is to secure the tank; not a bad task. The problem is that the tank only holds 5 people, so you either don't use it or leave someone behind; mixing people and vehicles only tends to get people run over. The tank will not move, anyway, unless you repair it first. Hope you brought repair kits, as the closest one is in building 3. Once repaired, the tank is a monster with 500hp; but it starts at 60, and won't even move. "Jeffrey Ross" (jwr208@is9.nyu.edu) writes: In Newton, it seems to me that you really didn't take advantage of the tank--it unexpectedly can fit through a lot of very small openings--I'm not sure whether this depends on your pilot skill. For example, I was able to drive the tank around the perimeter of the building in which you discover the first Reaver Elder. I drove the tank to the caved in hole in the eastern wall of that building and fought the tank bot "tank to tank." I kicked its ass by the way--neither the tank bot nor the hoverbots seemed to be able to penetrate the armor on the tank for more than 10 points of damage. Similarly, the tank made handling the turrets in the second Reaver Elder building a lot easier. I just drove the tank as close to the entrance to that building as possible (there are sandbags preventing you from getting too close). My snipers, brownings and vindicator miniguns took at the turrets in about 45 seconds in CTB--my tank didn't take a scratch, more importantly, neither did any of my squad. then later... I finished newton last night. The best part was crushing all the scurry bots by the reaver camp. I ran the tank right over them and my guys were able to shoot them while they were immobilized. The tank shells dont have much range, but they did hundreds of points of damage to the tank bot.] ----2.2---- (UPDATE 2.2) I imagine this is especially good if you have a lot of repair; it certainly removes the worry of friendly fire, as when you're in a vehicle you cannot hit anybody else who is in there with you. It's also great because you can fun over enemies and they can't get up. Try to clear out the building to the NE, first. Kill off the bot by the open hole in the SW wall, N of the tank, and then use the sandbags as duck & cover against the one in the corner. Head on up the stairs when done (don't miss looting the minigun guy; he has some 3000 rounds of ammo) and loot the workbench for dynamite and medical supplies. Now the fun part; to go out the door, and into the waiting arms of a bot. You're best shot is to fire a shot anywhere, to get you into TB, and then send the grenadier out the door to hide behind the sandbags and hit the guy with grenades. From out here on the balcony, you ought to be able to use snipers to hit a variety of targets around the building. Just be wary of the scurry bots on the roof with you. They will not activate until you get onto the S balcony, at which time they will charge you. Leave everyone inside the building and have one guy venture onto the balcony. When they activate, move that guy back inside and shut the door. The bots can't open it and you will tear them to pieces. Cross the bridge to the SW and open the door and go in. Watch for the scurry bot to attack from the SE. If he's a pain, get behind the door and close it. Set everyone to overwatch, then have one person open the door and then close it. Your overwatch guys will eventually kill it. Go into the building and get into the boardroom. Talk to the Reaver and she will join your squad temporarily. Get her to the exit. Find the safe on this floor in the NE-most ruined office and open it for meds (doctor bag). If you feel lucky, try to foil the robot ambush in the hall. There are 2 of them, and they are vicious, especially on overwatch. Open the door to the outside and pick off the bots in the parking lot. If you have to, open and close the door on TB if you can't get them (hoverbots can be nasty with their rockets). Once done with them, move out onto the balcony and hit the tank bot from above, where it cannot get you. This monster has a heinous amount of hp, and will take quite some time to take down. Loot the Reaver bodies and head SW, towards objective 2 on your minimap. Now comes a tricky/tedious part. The way you get into the objective 2 building is through a hole in a wall guarded by 2 turrets. You may choose to start TB and then move in and out of sight, as before, to kill the things before they get you. These are rather a bit more accurate than their previous counterparts, and they have heavy machineguns that will kill anyone without power armor instantly, and maim anyone with it. You can fight them or run up the stairs and use the console to disable them (past a bunch of mines, in addition to any gunfire the turrets aim your way--the console is described below). Shen Borbe (internet_sniper@hotmail.com) suggests: To take out the first first turret, one closest to the stairs, take a sniper character(I had a Laser Rifle equipped which killed the turrets in a short amount of time, but a standard sniper rifle would work, although it'd take longer) in overwatch mode and position him(standing or crouching, couldn't remember which) behind the sandbag barricade until he can see the turret inside, interestingly the sniper should be able to destroy the turret without any return fire. To take out the second turret down the hall, take the sniper and position it(standing or crouching) next to but not behind, the small pile of sandbags that connects to the fence(which is just opposite the doorway). ----------- "Ashley K. Lovins" (aklovins@earthlink.net) suggests: In Newton, concerning the building housing the Ambassador, the one with the two turrets in the entrance foyer: I found that it's possible to run up the boxes on the outside of the building, into the hole in the wall. From there you can proceed upstairs, disarm the mines, and make your way to the turret control panel. This method removes any need to face the turret's firepower. ----2.3---- The turrets are packing a lot of .50 cal, a hint as to their power. Loot their bodies if you need the ammo and proceed up the stairs. You may now find that the top of the stairs is festooned with traps. Talk to the Reaver in the room. If he doesn't join your party, it means that the other Reaver has not yet been sent to the extraction point. Otherwise, he will join, and you'd be wise to send him running right back to the exit. If you go up the stairs that are not guarded by mines, you walk right into turret range again; however, if you get past the mines and go up the other set of stairs (use the door partly hidden behind the wall) you find a control that disables the turret. You can then go up and fight off the spider bot for possession of the box by the turret. The box contains 3 pulse grenades; use them wisely. Leave the building and head for site 3, to the SE. Make sure to loot all the bodies on the way; some of them have stimpaks. The only way to get into the building is to go north of it and then around, but you will find your- self in the firing line of a bot with a minigun, as well as his friends, 2 scurry bots hidden in the ground and one in the corner. Beware their ambush. If you're feeling sly, stick your sniper(s) on the roof of building 2 and run towards it with one guy acting as the decoy; they will rip anybody following him apart. Loot the box near the bot for some acid and move carefully through the gap in the fence; 2 more bots wait to ambush you there. Use the sandbags for cover, as well as the way through the fence. Don't miss the pot by the bot with the laser rifle; it has acid grenades. Go into the building, onto the platform in the middle and down the ladders. Go into the laboratory room with the safe and talk to the 3rd Reaver elder. He will join your group. Give his science book to someone and get him to the evac point. Then open up the safe and take the prototype pulse rifle. Head on upstairs if you need rockets or 30 cal; there is some on a shelf in the office with the flag. Go out the door and NE, towards the train yard where the next building is. A bunch of scurry bots will pop up and attack, and you can fight back with the aid of the Reavers there. Run around to the back and up the stairs, and then out onto the balcony. Try to lure them to the back there where they can't get up the stairs, and you can pound on them with no repurcussions. Go into the garage there and get the last Reaver leader. He'll join and you can send him back to the evac area, and your mission is complete; except for extras. Don't miss the already-open chest above the garage; just close it and open it again. It has more .50 cal. Get into the Reaver barracks area. It is protected with drones, but they shouldn't be too hard to take down; the entrance to the area is between the 2 glowing pools. You can find some loot on the dead Reavers, including 2 plasma grenades. There are also pulse grenades in a pot, acid on a shelf, and a couple stimpaks. Consider heading to the NW section of the map, with the open field. There is a chest in front of a building with some drugs and rockets in it. It is also trapped with a scurrier nearby, so be careful. On the W-most section of the map is a small area guarded by 2 hidden bots. There is a whole bunch of .50 cal in a pot here, as well as a couple vindicator miniguns. (Epsilitory@aol.com) adds: Just a tip, in Newton in the bottom right corner of the map, there is an area with a lot of interconnected buildings. From the entrance go to the right and walk down the path.The 2nd building on the left with a ladder eventually leads to another building where there is a suit of Advanced Power armor in a fridge. it boosts ur strength alot, my guy now has over 10. -------------------- 15.1 BUNKER 15: This time I was able to get EMP rockets and shotgun shells, but no more power armor. You must switch bunkers again. At the new bunker, the mechanic will trade with you (for free) a strange item called the jet bike key. I'm not sure if it has any use, but it sounds like a reference to Chrono Trigger. UPDATE: Tom Carlsen (TomCarlsen@citywestwater.com.au) says that the key is used in the operation of Phil the Nuka Cola Guy's bike. 2 more missions open up, but I will go chronologically again. Next is Canyon City. 16.0 CANYON CITY (MISSION 16): Bring remote detonator traps (6-12 of them) and a remote detonator. Move up to the short wall bounded by oil drums and use it as cover to take out the 5 bots in the street. When I say 5, I mean it; some of them are hiding. Make sure to loot the remote detonator traps off of the dead robots; you will need them later, if you don't already have some. Up the street, one of the robots has your new best friend; a gauss pistol. Get it and the remote detonator off of this 6th bot. The gauss is a small guns weapon with the same firing speed as a revolver (1 less than normal) and it does a whole lot more damage. It has the same range as a sniper rifle, and does almost as much max damage, but much more min damage. Now, with my main character having bonus rate of fire and fast shot, he can fire the gauss pistol at a cost of 1AP; this means, 10 shots (of a 12 round clip) of about 20-30 dmg each round (ignoring reloads). Of course, robot armor can reduce this, but it reduces all shots; it's hard not to see the value of a ROF like that, especially with the 'more criticals' perk (and maybe sniper too, if they ever get it working right). Go into the small hut and loot the workbench for C4 and some other equipment. When done, go over to the door in the wall (SW of the hut) and open it. Destroy the scurry bots there (there are several), and move up to the building with the humming in it. Inside is a power node. You can destroy it, but it will only repair itself. There is only one way to make sure it doesn't come back; destroy all the other nodes at the same time. This can be accomplished by 2 ways that I know of; either split up all 6 guys and fire on each of them at the same time (once you've cleared the map) or leave about 2 charges of remote detonator next to it, trapped with a code you can remember. Do the same with all of the nodes, and then at the end use the remote detonator to blow them all sky-high. Nightfall@mindspring.com adds: On the level where you have to destroy the 6 nodes..you can actually use the Science skill to do it one at a time..not like the skill is good for anything else. ----2.5---- Head SW from here to get to the ladder up to the high platform. From up here, you can see miles around, all of the bots in the area. Send your snipers up here and take out everything you possibly can. Ken Boren (eeroboren@pacific.net.ph) suggests: just a tip, on that really good sniper platform you can take out the turrets guarding the building with the pacbot. take out both of them and loot them. in my case, i got a whopping 220+ explosive rockets. i sold 190 of them and got around 30k so its a good deal. -------- Go down the ladder when done, and across the street to the door and through it. You should have destroyed most of the resistance in this courtyard, but there will be 1 or 2 bots left, most likely. From here, you want to make your way W, all the way to the next street, and then S to the building holding the 2nd energy node. On the way is a trench with a couple of bots in it. When you get to the building with the power node in it, first go around the side to the SE wall and use the control to disable the lights around the minigun turrets inside. Then, walk around the outside of the building to try to activate the pair of scurry bots inside so you can shoot them through the windows. Now, since the lights are out, the turrets won't attack unless attacked, so set yourself to passive guard and set up the explosives near the power node. That's 2 down. Get to the street and head NW until you find a sidewalk leading NE, towards objective 3. You will find the building relatively unguarded (or at least I did). Set the explosives and head back SW again, back the way you came. Get out onto the street and head NW. Kill off the bots in the trenches and loot the chest in one of them for a great deal of ammunition. Right near the trenchesat the end of the road is the entrance to #4's building. Open up the small metal door and kill the sentry bots inside. The energy node is in a room right by the door. Set the explosives; that makes 4. Head out the truck door of the Nuka Cola plant (yes, that is where you are), and to the NW. To get to nodes 5 and 6, you have 2 choices; take the underground passage using the ladder near the Nuka Cola plant and fight a load lifter and a turret in very close quarters, or try to fight off a well-entrenched force near the only aboveground entrance to the building. Neither is easy or quick. For what it's worth, I chose the aboveground solution because it offered a lot of cover. If you come in from the outside, you can disable the control out front which is protected by mines. I'm pretty sure this diables the turrets out front, and you can get to it from a ladder leading down to the SE of the bunker emplacements, right near node 1. This is a good idea if you cannot or don't want to fight off the pair of turrets there. Head in the front door (a large thing with a sphere-ish lock on the front) and destroy the pacification bot. The thing has a tremendous amount of HP, so expect it to take a while. It does not move much, but has an impressive area attack (electrical) that it can hit you with. If he proves to be too much for you, you can always go into one of the side doors. Otherwise, open the door to the next room, which is full of scurry bots and a bot with a minigun. This is a new minigun, though; a gatling laser. Move into the next room and lure the tank bot towards you. If you have mines, great. If not, he can't get through the doorway, so you can hit him from inside the previous room. Once he is down you should be able to easily get to node 5; just watch out for the bots waiting to ambush you in there. Proceed to the NE room and then up the stairs. Open the door to the large SE room and use the doorway as cover to destroy the bots in there inside the bunker-type structure. Use the terminal in here, for XP. Head into the conference room and use the terminal for a bunch of XP. Then open up the door to the last node. It is protected by some scurry bots, not a big issue by now. Use the terminal in here, and then plant the explosives. Hit that remote detonator button, and watch the fun begin. The mission is now over, and you can leave. 16.1 BUNKER 16: I was able to get a pulse pistol, 3 more power armors, and an advanced power armor, in addition to a gauss pistol and associated ammo. But boy, did it cost me. Nonetheless, I did do it, so it can be done. You may also be able to recruit a robot now. 17.0 BUENA VISTA (MISSION 17): Bring someone with science. You are going to get yelled at immediately by a paladin commander. Your map in the corner is toast, and the only thing to go on is the mission map in the pipboy. The paladins are going to charge pretty quick, and are likely to get themselves killed pretty quick. Now, you might feel obligated to run into the gap in the wall right in front of you, but the problem is that there is no way out of there; it is a dead end. Instead, head around to the SW get to the entrance sealed by the force barrier. Watch for ambushing scurry bots on the way. Your ultimate goal is to get to the switching console at the SE corner of the map, but you are going to have to fight a lot on the way. The next obstacle is a bunker with 4 bots in it, around the corner past the energy barrier. The problem is that you cannot see them until you are up close; they are hidden behind the wall. Head W and engage the one in the trench with the flamer; the gunfire ought to wake them up in the bunker, and you can fight them from a distance (unless, of course you like melee). I've found that pelting them with grenades and rockets isn't very effective, but you might find otherwise. Past the bunker is a door in the crappy metal wall that can be distinguished by the fact that it is higher than the rest of the wall. Go in and notice that you will be ambushed by scurry bots. You can either fight it out at close range with shotguns or hide behind the door and do the old overwatch trick. Next you must deal with a pair of robot emplacements, one in the ruined building in front of the next force gate, and another to the SE in a bunker. Also watch for the pair of scurry bots by the force gate. An interesting trick I learned from this area is that if you are in CTB and you load the game, anybody that is under cover will stand up to strike at you. So I stayed a good distance away from the bunker, and then I loaded the game and the bots stood up and took my volley, fired a shot (usually missing) and ducked. Then I saved it and loaded the game I just saved, and the bots came up for another volley. Neat trick. Move SE past the bunker and take out the scurry bots and the bots in the bunker with the terminal. Once you've gotten them, you can use the terminal to shut off the force gates. Go in through the one right there and head toward the main gate in. A behemoth hidden behind a force fence will activate and start to attack you. Your best bet is to back right up and use the wall as cover until it is out of ammo, or you knock it out. It is really hard to do much damge to it, so you may instead not want to use this gate, but rather the first one you came across to the NW. However, if you do destroy it, it's worth over 2000 XP. If you come from the other way, you have to deal with 3 scurry bots and a tankbot. Use the science skill to open up the door using the terminal and prepare to battle the turrets overlooking the ramp. There are probably a whole bunch of dead paladins here, as they were stupid and charged the gate. Head down the ramp carefully, because you are about to be ambushed from all sides by security drones. Charging in gets you caught in a crossfire. Instead, use one of your guys as bait and draw them out to you, where you can hit them from the short wall halfway down the ramp. Send your bait over to one side so he doesn't get hit by everything. Destroy the energy node at the bottom of the ramp; it will not repair itself. Once you have done that, there is one way out of this room; the door on the SE wall. Beware of the security bot waiting for you, and go through. Use the console there. Go into the NE room and talk to Percy, then take his stuff. Go out into the hall and beware the tankbot and his security bot friends. Then go across the hall into the small room and then NE into the terminal room. There is a bot and a couple of scurry bots, too. The open/close door trick works well here. Use the terminal to open up a door at the end of the hall. Head back out into the hall and through the open door at the N end. Go up the stairs and do battle with the security bots across the room. Go up onto the catwalk and destroy the load lifters below, then move NW. An alarm will go off and a whole bunch of security bots will be set free on you. Now is the time for any area attacks you've got. The humanoid bot that sets off the alarm is by the alarm console up there, so if you can get to him before he sets it off and destroy him (good luck), you can potentially stop the bots from being set free. I imagine that the only way to do this is to sneak with the pancor or a pulse grenade. Head up the massive set of stairs near the alarm console and towards the turret there. Either use cover or engage it from range. Beware! It has good range and accuracy, not to mention damage. Go down the ladders by the turret and to the NW door. Either use that to get to the power node in the NW, or go up on the catwalk and get to it from there. Once it is down, head to the room with the aircraft in it. Use the console. This will destroy the door to the reactor. Unfortunately, there are a lot of bots waiting for you in there...best be careful. You are better off heading back up to the catwalk and hitting themfrom there, since they do not seem to spawn in until the door is open. Before you take down the reactor, try to get the other power node. You can do so by getting to the E end of the catwalk and heading down the ladder there. Then proceed to the reactor room and destroy the reactor and the 2 turbines. This should complete the mission, and you can leave via the exit grid (use the map to find out just where that is). 17.1 BUNKER 17: The first pulse rifle and gauss rifle were available now, as was the first Tesla armor (although I consider power armor to be much superior). The gauss rifle is great, but costs an extra AP to use; keep that in mind. 18.0 SCOTT CITY (MISSION 18): It helps to have a lock-picker on this mission. Your map is still screwed, so you have to rely on the pipboy map. If you can destroy the 4 interference towers, the effect will go away, so it's something to look for. As you head up the road, you will be attacked by several humanoid bots, some hover bots, and a behemoth, so watch out; you'd best seek cover as quickly as you can where it cannot get you. Once you're done, head into the junkyard to get to the 2 jamming towers in it. The first is along the outside, guarded by a number of humanoid bots with miniguns and a hover bot or 2. Getting to the next is a trick as there is a pacification bot in the way, along with some hoverbots. The 2nd is protected by some humanoid bots at the N end of the area. Be careful, as the place is rife with scurry bots, waiting to pop up at inopportune moments. Between the 2 jammers is a 2-story building with a metal shelf on the top floor. I was unable to get in, and would be interested to know how to do so and what is inside. Ken Boren (eeroboren@pacific.net.ph) writes: about the building in scott city with a metal shelf in it. use the key you got from elaine's cell. i forgot what you get but i think you get some meds and ammo. nothing fantastic though. -------- "Uliasea" (uliasea@aventa.de) adds: For me it was quite easy: I used my lockpick skill (132, together with the electronic device) and opened it with my third trial. Inside I looted a dead civilian (stimpack, revolver, ammunition, iguana-on-a-stick) and the metal shelf ("guns & bullets" magazine, first aid kit). -------- Now head over to the internment camp, noted on your map as the large unmarked circle. The entrance is protected by some hover bots to the N and a couple of humanoid bots inside the entrance. Before you go in, just take out the jamming dish right to the N of the gate (there is a guy with a grenade launcher hiding behind the car, so watch out). Then go in and waste the last dish; you should have your map back. The first building you come to is locked, so I hope you have a lock-picker. There is a storage area in the back of it with a sentry bot and a crate with a whole lot of dynamite in it. The building behind that has another sentry bot in the alley between them and an additional one inside. There are several hostages and several dead naked people, reminiscent of Diablo, almost. In the back room with the bodies is a book, on the floor. The third building, perpendicular to the first 2, has its own security bot and a couple of prisoners. Open up their cells and free them, but don't have them follow you or they will just get killed. Don't miss the pot in Elaine's cell for a key. Move up the street slowly and keep an eye out for bots and turrets. On the crosswise SE street you will find another behemoth, so keep an eye out for him. Try to head into the building behind the 4th jamming dish; it is sort of L-shaped. Before you go in, run around out front and try to take cheap shots at the guys inside, especially the load lifters who will ruin you if they get close. Actually getting into the building requires going up the side (to meet the next behemoth) or going up the stairs in the middle. Inside, find some crates with plasma grenades and rockets. Go into the smaller half of the building, to the SE, and up the stairs to cross the bridge to the next SE building. Go into the 2nd floor of that building and dispose of the 2 security bots. Then, go down the stairs and fight off 2 more of them. Destroy the oil drums in there, too, to make sure you activate the hover bot which is hiding in the back, waiting to get you. Go into the hallway to the SE and go into the locker room; beware the plasma-rifle bearing bot, waiting to ambush you. There is a locker in here with some loot. Alastair Hutcheson (ali_qzx@yahoo.com) adds: in the scott city mission, in the room with the security bots and oildrums, it is possible to crawl in to a tunnel behind one of the larger oil tanks(?) the tunnel leads to a room with a chest i couldn't open the chest, my character said that is was impossible or out of range probably a design flaw. ----2.5---- Move E to get to the next building, the one with the alarm console on the roof. Watch out for the scurry bots on the way, and be advised that there are a whole bunch of humanoid bots in there, too. I chose to draw them out of the building into a protracted firefight, using the night as cover. When you're done, you can access the 2 lockers against the NW wall in here. Go up the stairs and battle the hoverbot. Then head N along the catwalk to the N-most buildings. This way you can avoid the behomoth on the ground there. The first (S-most) building in the string has nothing to offer, so pay it no mind. The second one is full of hover bots, and I mean *full*. At the north end (which is sort of like the '3rd' building because of the way it is split in half), are 2 lockers with some loot in them. At the SE end are a couple of dead civilians, one of whom has medical supplies. You are now ready to assault the main building from the roof. The primary walkway is protected by a number of bots and a turret, so watch out for them. You enter on the middle level, under the turret, into a large warehouse area. There are security bots around, so be careful. There is also a behemoth in here, eager to end your career. Find the terminal on this floor and use it (it is near the south end) and then go back up the stairs and to the SE to find a small room, isolated from the rest of the building, outside on the catwalk. Inside are 2 security bots and 2 lockers. The door is locked and trapped so be careful. Once you've done this, you should head to the NE office in the warehouse/factory. Beware the bot under the stairs and the one in the office. I found the one under the stairs hard to deal with so I went up on the catwalk and dropped grenades on his head (well, the ground near his head anyways). Go up the stairs in the office and loot the crate. Then, go up the next stairs if you want to get to the roof here. Alternately, you can come from another set of stairs near the SE wall. Either way, your ultimate destination is the brownish building on the N end. The larger room on the SE end holds general Barnaky's body. Loot it for some XP and his locket. The center square building holds a whole bunch of humanoid bots with plasma weapons. It is essentially a guardhouse, and is somewhat difficult to take out directly, but if you use cover and try to take them down piecemeal, you'll have a much easier time of it. Just move in and out of view with the autoshotguns and you'll be fine. Make sure to do it because there are 3 books on the shelf inside and there is a gauss minigun, used by one of the bots, and a first aid kit and book on the table (not in a container; move the pointer around to find them). The SW building contains absolutely nothing. The brown building's door is flanked by 2 turrets that you should have taken down from range by now. If not, you'll have an awful time getting them up close without going around the corner for cover. Once they're down, it's all clear sailing. Go in and talk to Kerr. To get the good mission ending, you must kill him. I had difficulty targetting him so I just set C4 to kill him. Alternately, I think you can use the 'poison' item on him. Once this is done, you can leave the map. shirwyn@vcn.bc.ca adds: At Buena Vista the turrets guarding the trader's torture room can be turned off by a console on the ground level of the same building (so long as you can get past the two Behemoths to throw the switch). ----2.2---- 18.1 BASE 18: Got 2 more Advanced power armors this time around. Use the gauss minigun to help pay for them, if you don't plan on using it; it's worth quite a bit. Now this is it; don't skimp on the supplies. Money gets you nothing here. You must spend every last bit because you'll likely need it, and you won't get another chance to spend it. Make sure you get lots of Rad-X and Rad- Away before you leave. 19.0 CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN (MISSION 19): Make sure you have at least one guy with science, and Barnaky's locket. Hits away. You must get the nuclear APC to the gate of the mountain, and then get into the bunker for shelter. Easier said than done. You can either drive the APC around and repair it as it gets hit (not such a good idea) or clear out the path by hand so you don't risk it getting destroyed all the time. Move up the road and take care of the bots on the left and the hover bots in the center. Then go into the bunker on the right and secure it; there are 2 security bots waiting to ambush you in there. Then use the N-most terminal for more info. You can attempt to pick open the door to the ladder, but it was too difficult for me; I was unable to do it. If you could, it would be very useful as a shortcut to get away from the blast. Continue up the road and watch for mines and bots in the rocks. If you decide to go NE, into the first canyon, you first have to face off with a pair of scurry bots and some rocket guys up on the cliff. Once inside the canyon, you will find a hover bot waiting to ruin your day. Your reward, at the end of the canyon, is a locked box with some dynamite and a repair kit. The 2nd canyon isn't friendly either, witha bunch of sentry bots guarding it, and they are above you so they can get the drop on you. There is also a scurry bot in there, too. They are guarding a small crate with some gauss ammo and a little .50 cal. It's up to you if it's worth it. Head for the NW ramp, and get close enough to activate the turret, then back up and let it have it. Watch for bots in the N side; they love to snipe. Don't miss the storage area at the base of the ramp. Though it is trapped with 2 scurry bots, and the box itself is set with a claymore, there are some super stims in there if you need them. At the top of the ramp there is a pacification bot waiting to ambush you on the SW side, and a pair of bots on the NE side, so be careful. What I did was sneak up onto the cliff to the left and hit the pac bot in the sensors to knock him out, then I hammered on him by himself. That done, I took on the other bots across the way. Don't forget to destroy the generator by the pac bot. Up the NE road is a line of bots, waiting to end your career. They have miniguns, and will hit your whole party if you're grouped. My only advice is to use the cliff itself as cover and pick them off 1 by 1 as you move slowly (pixel-wise) to the NW. Once that is through, and the turrets are down too, you can move around the next corner where you can be ambushed by 3 more bots with pistols. Continue along the road and fight off the turret on the crossbar, parallel to the bridge. If you feel lucky, and want to get the drop on everyone, take the ladder behind the crossbeam up to a stash with some scurry bots and a rocket bot. They will be hard to beat coming up the ladder, but if you can do it, you can get the drop on everyone from here on out. Continue along the road to find some bots and barricades, and some mines as well. Watch for hover bots on the cliff because they have nasty range with their height. The 2nd bridge, nearby, features a bot with a gauss rifle, something you should seriously consider using if you have the ammo. Past the bridge, watch for bots up on the cliff and in the rocks on the N side, and also security bots on the road. There is also a bunker with a gauss-wielding bot and a box with gauss ammo. Also, hidden on the S side is a small ladder that leads down to a shack with a chest in it. There is a repair kit and super stims inside. Also down here is the top entrance to the bunker, flanked by 2 scurry bots. Once you go in, the door will open for you from this side, but it will close behind you and you won't be able to get back through it. Keep going until you find a ladder up the cliff. Go up it. From here you can snipe really really far. Use this to your advantage to get the turrets and behemoth below. The whole place is festooned with scurry bots though; they won't come up unless you're down there. Make sure to get the guys in front of the gate before you get off the cliff Now, everyone else should be dead, so get the rocket and put it at the gate. I suggest having 1 guy do it, and have the other 5 already in the bunker so you only have to direct 1 guy. Remember, run for the ladder by the small building, near the 2nd bridge. 20.0 VAULT 0 (MISSION 20): Everybody take a Rad-X, just to be sure. Your map is screwed, so it's back to square one and the pipboy map. Talk to Maximus. Most of the people here will trade with you, so resupply if you can. Use the terminal (using science) to get your map back. Unfortunately, this opens the door and a whole mess of security bots come out. Once they're dead, take their stuff and trade it to the paladins for more gear that you'll need. Or, let them fight (and hopefully die) and you can take their stuff that way. Get to the main intersection, right to the SE, and head SW, towards #2 (the security station). Open the door and fight off the minigun guy behind the door, and his 2 security bot friends. He's got another minigun pal near the red terminal, so watch for him, too. Down the NW hall are a whole bunch of bots who will charge, with covering fire from a minigun guy so watch out for that. Oddly enough, if 1 guy is facing a minigun guy from afar, he won't get hit, but if you have a crowd, someone is guaranteed to be hit. My solution; move one guy into view, and as they charge him the other guys you've got will open up on them. Oddly enough, this worked great in CTB and I wasn't hit once. You can of course attempt to get into the security room directly, from this first room you find, but then the door will announce itself to be locked and laugh at your pitiful attempt to pick it. So much for the easy way. Head NW. Pass the 2 conference rooms and then look SW. You will be charged by a tank bot. Let him have it. If you have, trouble, get into the door of the NW room and use it for cover; he can't get in the door. Of course, that room presents its own problems. It is guarded by a bunch of humanoid bots and you need to use the terminal with 'science' to open the door. Once inside, however, you get access to 4 lockers. They are locked, but contain cool stuff like EMP equipment and gauss stuff, and books (like you need them now). Move SE down past the next corner, up to a large door. Prepare for a room'o death. As soon as you walk in, 2 minigun bots will open up, so the appropriate action might be to move in and out of sight and try to knock them out so you can finish them off. You should take this opportunity to open up the NW door and get at the lockers inside. However, there are 2 turrets there waiting to kill you, so you might want to back everyone up and have one unlucky sot open it for you in TB and then run for cover. Alternately, you could use the security terminal in the SE room to deactivate the lock and turn off the turrets. Inside you find books, another sunbeam minigun, medical supplies, and some ammo including depleted uranium .50 cal, the best ammo for your browning. It has max penetration, and ignores so much armor that the bots may as well be naked. Save it for a crowd and then go nuts; you won't be disappointed. Head SE again, into the next room. This one has several humanoid bots in it, waiting to ambush you, especially the minigun types. There are also a number of load lifters, so you'll want to back up into the previous room and let em have it once they get up to the doorway. There are also laser guys to the right and left as you come in. This might be a good time to use the old move in/out of view TB trick. There are guys hiding all over the place in here and there must be about a dozen of them. Use the terminal in the corner of this room. This will open up the door to the room in the NW. Go there, loot it, and return, then head E into the room with the terminal that you couldn't get to from the other side. This will open up the nearby door and another door in the cryogenics area. On a quick note, the walls here are buggy, so if you see a red dot light up on your minimap to the SE, stop your team (hit del) and see if you can hit the enemy from where you are. More often than not, you can. Head back to the main intersection, and from there, SE to the cryogenics wing. You will round the corner and run straight into a bunch of security bots who will rip you up if you aren't lucky and/or careful. TB around the corner, here. The whole place is festooned with security bots, so be on the lookout for them and take appropriate cover. As you move down the corridor and round the corner, you will find yet more security bots behind cover. The SW rooms have little of interest, but the NE one has a locker in it. Unfortunately, it also has turrets, and security bots, and all manner of unhealthy defenses. You can pick the door lock and then stand to the side; the door will stay open as long as you are nearby. The best trick for this is the hide-behind the doorway trick, but I bet you already knew that. The turrets are packing enough .50 cal to last you a lifetime, and there are a few medical supplies in the locker. Further down the hall are more bots in the S room and some Vault 0 citizens in the N room, along with a bot. Loot the body for a severed head, which you will need later. Science up the terminal if you can to open the dental exam door and loot the NE lockers. If your science doesn't cut it, just use the head on the dental scanner by the door to the power area. Head back to the crossroads and NE this time, through the open door. If it is not open, use the head on the dental scanner. The first room has 2 turret and 2 bots. I found that they couldn't hit me from where I was standing at the door, so I just hammered them from afar. Again, these turrets pack over 5000 .50 cal each, so stock up. Use the terminal to open up the force wall and shoot the bots behind it. There area about 4. Then go into this room with lots of goop pools and head for the door at the N end. Make sure you have 100% rad resistance before going in here. Go in the door at the N end, kill the 2 bots, and science both of the terminals to put them off-line. Go through the doorway that you removed the force beams from. A tank bot will come charging down the hall towards you. Then move up past it to the single door in the hallway. Behind it are a trio of security bots. There are more as you move towards the next door, at the E end of this room. Move into the hall beyond, NW, NE, and then look SE down the long corridor. There are a bunch of bots including a pacification bot. As you move down the hall, you will run into more bots, security bots, and about 10 or so scurry bots. Your job is to use science on all 3 consoles you come across to activate the power plants. You get 40 XP for activating them, so if you really feel like standing around forever you can get infinite XP. Once you get all of them activated, you get a boatload of XP. Don't miss the locker in the 3rd room, and the 2 lockers in the SW room at the end of the corridor. Note: you have to duck to get to them. I couldn't manage to get one of them open, and i'm wondering what was inside... "Jason Salem" (res06fsh@gte.net) replies: In vault0, the room where you need to duck inside to get to two lockers, you mention that you hadn't gotten into the second locker. I've just succeeded at getting it open. It took 2 tries with 182% total modified skill (I removed my armor also to get to this number), mk2 electronic lockpick. All that was in there was a pulse rifle and 50 micro fusion cells. ----2.2---- Return to the elevator, where you started. Move everyone onto the green space and you should be all set. You will be transported to the bottom of the vault. Open up the double door and you are faced with the big fight. Good luck. You should be able to do the old hiding trick and you can even do the old open/close door trick if you like. Doing that can make this fight, the final one, a cheese-fest, but if you can't win any other way, or don't give a crap about honor, it's the easiest way. Just have one guy open the door and either set the rest to overwatch or set yourself to squad TB so the rest of the guys can fire, then have the last guy close the door. If Barnaky gets close, he might detect that you have the locket on you (you *do* have it with you, don't you?) and he will turn neutral. UPDATE: with the fix for overwatch in 1.25, you *will* get shot at every time you open the door, so keep this in mind. Crouch if you have a lot of difficulty. Now head SE and watch out for the turrets flanking the bridge. There are 4 altogether. Head around to the front door and you will find the calculator and 5 brains. Now, the only way I know how to proceed is to kill the brains. This lowers your karma by quite a bit, but I didn't know what else to do. Killing them will open up the N-most door of the 3 doors in the back. Go in there and through the next door and you'll have to fight a bunch more bots behind those low walls, as well as a pair of turrets in the back. Do the open/close door trick again, then go to the back and open up the field with the terminal. Kill the brain beyond. The next door has opened. Head there now. Yet again, you'll have to face a crowd of bots and turrets to get to the next brain. Gets repetetive. Kill the brain and then head to the 3rd and last door. This time they are sneaky: they aren't in view of the door. So instead, hide around the corner and shoot at them. Sigh. Once you've taken them down you can get at the last brain, and killing it releases the calculator wall. Go back to the calculator, and it will speak to you. Talk to it a couple times and then use the terminal next to it. This will give you ENDING #1. Alternately, force-fire on it and kill it to get ENDING #2. (ENDING #2 suggested by David S. (Pyro139989@aol.com)) David Ng (chemgear@hotmail.com) and Rajmohan Rajagopalan (mohan@math.cornell.edu) wrote in that there is also an ENDING #3; during the countdown, after you talk to the calculator, talk to Barnaky (if he's still alive). He will donate his brain instead. UPDATE 2.2 I've also been told there is a 4th ending, which depends on your karma if you are the one that uses the machine. This ending was previously difficult to get because of the karma hit from killing the brains. Thanks to iweird (iweird77@hotmail.com) who got the first word in on this one. Pak Chung (pchung@vt.edu) adds: It doesnt make any difference, but for those karma freak like myself, here is how: dont enter the room, stand at the door, and ctrl-rightclick on the calculator to kill it without messing with the robots in the 3 chambers and killing the brains. and no karma loss too. Then: I just found a way to destroy brains in the ending part without losing karma, so you can get the good ending ( if your karma is good at that point ). Just use time bombs or C4 plastique, bring at least 9, cuz the 3 brains inside have 220 Hp each, will take 2 bombs each to kill while those 5 brains outside only have 30 Hp so can kill them with 3 bombs ----2.2---- "Wright, Stephen J" (Stephen.Wright@unisys.com) adds: Something I did in the last level. I read about using time bombs/C4 to blow up the brains without a Karma Loss, but I only had 4 packages of C4. I used two well placed C4s to kill the four (?) easier brains (so I don't know for sure if this works with them). After killing the first "big brain" with my last two I thought I was in trouble. But I found out something else that works. I had a guy who was good with throwing. I forced him to throw EMP grenades NEXT TO the brains, as opposed to AT the brains. The splash damage killed the brains, but my Karma was unchanged. ----2.5---- 21.0 BONUS MISSION (SPRINGFIELD) (UPDATE 2.2) While I haven't written the walkthrough for this one yet, I'm told it's pretty easy, so here's how to unlock it (and if 14 Degrees East/Black Isle/Interplay has a problem with this, please let me know and I will remove it forthwith; I respect the people that put this together and will comply with their wishes. Hopefully this will not include a letter from a lawyer). Go into your fallout tacticscore directory and open up bos.cfg. Find the line that says: {misc.bonusMission} = {false} and change it to: {misc.bonusMission} = {true} Now, I wasn't told by anyone how to do it. I did find a utility online that does this for you, and by observing its function, I noticed it inserted {misc.bonusMission} = {true} at the bottom of the file. While this is nice, I'm not sure if it conflicts with the original statement, so it's best just to change the original line. THE BONUS MISSION IS NOT AVAILABLE UNTIL YOU ARE AT BUNKER BETA (2) AND HAVE COMPLETED MISSIONS 4-6!!!! I put that in caps so people won't mail me about how they can't get into the mission yet. You *may* have to restart your game to get this to work; I'm not sure yet. I will update later as more information becomes available. Any info people have on this would be helpful. I already know that the cheat utility enables it and displays it on the map, so please don't mail me regarding this. UPDATE 2.3: This town bears more than a passing resemblance, in some aspects, to the Springfield of the Simpsons. I'm just putting this here so I don't get about sixty emails in the next couple of days saying 'hey, it's like the Simpsons' and whatnot... Now here's the walkthrough for Springfield. You start next to the town guard Carino. Talk to him to get some info and then head NW up the street. If you didn't get the bonus CD, you'll notice purple tiles on the roof of the graveyard house because you don't have the extra couple of tiles that are provided on the CD. Now, the unpleasant part is that if you continue up the street, you walk right into the firing sight of the raiders, especially if it's night, because there is a brightly lit area right behind the first barricade you must go around, and it will provide an ample killing field for the raiders if you just walk right in. Unfortunately, there isn't another way to the NW. I suggest switching to TB and running your guys through (if it's night) so you don't get hit too bad. There are 2 guys hiding right around the corner, and right there is the raider buggy, a silly little vehicle. Kill them and the guys that come around the corner, as well as the guys up the street if you can. Then, go into the bar and talk to the bartender. He can trade you some drugs if you need them. The buggy, which you might want to take has room for 2 people. Pretty much, its only use is a portable equipment hauler. Move up the street and take out the barricade and loot the chest behind it for some repair kits. Take a quick detour SW get into the graveyard church to loot the pot by the cross for a gun and some ammo. Then head into the 3-level hotel thing NW of that. Get the desk in the N room on the first floor and the footlocker behind the desk and then head up to the 2nd level. There is a grenadier (who only seems to hit himself with his own grenades) and then there are the entrenched guys behind the sandbags. You might want to go in through the apartment rooms and surprise them from behind. Once you've gotten through them (be careful because there is a guy in the S room and the door is trapped) you can go after the chest in the NE room. There is a guy in there and some ammo in the box. For some reason, I got a bunch of XP for opening it (not sure why). Head up the street and go onto the roof of planet donut and get the chest up there, and also try to pick off people from the high vantage point. Head up the street when done and go into the wooden hotel up up to the 2nd floor to get a fridge full of food. Just NW of here is a fortified building with a gate across the street. Go through the hotel and out the back door to surprise the guys from behind and avoid the crossfire from the guys hiding by the gate. Shoot some guys from the hotel, if you can, and then head up the back. There will be 2 guys by the door you go out, two guys by a barricade, and a dead ghoul between them. Go in the back door and up the ladder. Dispose of the guy behind the sandbag wall, being careful to avoid the mine set up in the floor, and then loot the nearby crate. Disarm the booby trap on the door and go out onto the porch there. Climb up to the roof if you're brave; there are 3 guys waiting to shoot you up there before you can even react. You'll get shot at, but then shoot the gas tank nearby real quick for a messy end to 2 of them (I got a great idea guys! Let's hide out behind this explosive stuff!) Alternately, if you have a lot of trouble from here, us the ladder in the back by the door on the ground floor. Once the 3rd guy is down (stand/fire/duck), walk over to the ladder down in the center of the roof and wait for the roaches to come over. You ought to be able to shoot them pretty quick and then you can go down to try to get into the safe. It's not locked, and it has ammo, dynamite, and stimpaks. When ready, cross the street and open up the gate. There are a whole lot of guys waiting behind the gate, so don't be too shy to use the buggy for cover if you need it. Beat up everyone in the park (is that Jebediah Springfield?) and then head SE into dirt road area. There are 3 dead ghouls behind some sandbags but only 1 has loot. Move down the road and watch for raiders behind barricades. Head into the large market and through the gate in the NE wall. Watch out for the guys waiting to ambush you behind it. (Also don't miss the pot by the gate). Considering the number of them, you might have to use the buggy for this trip, too. Move NW and collect the chest in the middle of the field and head through the gate. Go into the first building, the large white one, and up to the 2nd floor and out onto the roof. There should be a couple guys there you can kill and loot before heading to the town hall. Now, you can't shoot at them (they aren't 'red') until the head guy talks to you, so your best bet is to set up your guys behind the barricade and send a fast one forward so that he can get behind cover before the firing starts. After the guy speaks, you'll have about a second to reposition yourself before the fun starts, so use it. If you can, deploy 1 or more snipers in the tower on the roof of the white building nearby. This part is hard simply because there are so many of them to fight. I just back up to the white building and take them out from range, but this can take a while, so be prepared. You can't really use the barricade in the middle of the street because they are above you and the guy on the other side will stand up and machinegun you. When you've put them all down, you should go in and talk to the mayor. He will open the gate in the park and give a speech. This is important because this is the only way to get the raider buggy out. Make sure to loot all the bodies before this, because they will be wiped from the map after you talk to the mayor. Extra special thanks to Revolution reader Guiler!
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