Fallout 2
  
PC

Warning: The following contains information that will help you solve Fallout 
  2. Please, DO NOT READ FROM START TO FINISH. You'll just spoil the game. Yeah, 
  like you care what we say. Oh, go cheat, yah big cheater...
 
FALLOUT 2 WALKTHROUGH (second edition)
  ======================================

  Before I get Started
  --------------------

OK, so my previous version missed a whole load of quests (seems like
my role-playing was more of the trigger-happy type :), and a few of
the real simple ones I just forgot to write about.  Much of what was
missing I discovered myself after I decided to play it again, to see
what was new in the _second_ 1.02 beta patch.  (Why can't they just
give it a new number, if it's a new patch, anyway?)  Other stuff,
however, was contributed by fellow players, and I'd like to take the
time to thank them.

Many thanks to Roland Ng (rolandng@cyberway.com.sg) for pointing out a
couple or so quests I never found on my own, plus a few which I forgot
to write about (like listening to Stacy's cat story), plus some info
on special encounters.  (Heck, you can thank him for giving me the
idea to write about the special encounters at all, 'cause the first
time I considered them to be WAY too OOC to bother writing about :)

Thanks to George Moutsiakis (GeorgeM@sequoiasw.com)  , for pointing out
another couple of things I have missed in the previous version.
Namely, Anna's quests in the Den, and the fake citizenship thingie
for Vault City.

Thanks to "Dan Larson"(danlar@montana.com)  for pointing out Anna's
quests, too.  (Looks like I must have been real thick to miss
something this obvious :)

Second, in spite of the .DOC extension, this is NOT a MS Word
document, but a plain text file.  (The file size would probably be a
lot larger if it were in the inflated Word format.)  I.e., it is best
viewed with a fixed width font.  I.e., if you are viewing or printing
it with Word, or another word processor, I'd advise that you select
all the text, then select a fixed width font, like Courier New 10
point.  Otherwise the underlines will be of different width than what
they're underlining (but other than that, the text will still be
readable.)

Third, yes, you can you can put this text on your web page, print it,
distribute it on a CD, whatever, but only as long as you don't modify
it in any way.  Particularly, don't start pulling real lame tricks,
like claiming undeserved credit for it.  Other than that, I don't mind
your distributing it.

And finally, well, this is probably the final version of this
walkthrough.  I don't intend to continue updating this walkthrough any
further.  I probably missed a bunch of quests, and I know it.  But it
IS possible to finish the game by this walkthrough, and it does
contain more info than I suspect many people would find on their own.
Much less with their first character.  And if you want absolute
perfection, like one of my friends keeps preaching about, I'm affraid
you'll have to explore for it on your own.

Don't get me wrong.  It's an excellent game, no doubt.  It's more
complex than _any_ RPG or adventure I remember of.  In fact, it may
well be about the only game I'd really call a _Role-Playing_ Game, and
not just a mis-named arcade like most RPG's these days.  It takes a
whole lot of experimenting with different characters to find every
single detail.  But...  I've already been playing it for many hundreds
of hours already, probably _much_ more than I've played any other
game.  And, well, it comes to a point where enough is enough.  I don't
think I'll start it again any time soon, no matter how tempting may be
to check out some new suggestion.

AND I'll probably temporarily lose my Internet access soon, on account
of moving somewhere else.

  DISCLAIMERS
  -----------

First of all, I am NOT affiliated with either Interplay or Black Isle
Studios.  This text is NOT endorsed by them in any way, so please
don't hassle them with questions or suggestions about THIS text.

I'm just a player, and I happened to _massively_ enjoy the game.  An
intelligent and complex RPG like Fallout 2 is IMHO a most welcome
surprise in this world of no-brainer "3D real-time" shoot-em-ups and
"real-time strategies" with good graphics but brain-dead AI.  I'd
definitely like to see more games like Fallout, as opposed to the
millions of Quake and C&C clones, which I vowed never to buy one
again.  Back to Fallout 2, I enjoyed it so much that I started doing
it again and again, to see what I've missed.  And at some point
I've started writing this text to keep track of what I've done.

Second, yes, this is a walkthrough and it does contain spoilers.  In
fact, it's full of them.  If you'd rather explore, don't read it.  My
advice is to explore, and fully enjoy this damn good game.  But if
you'd rather ruin your fun with a walkthrough, here it is.

Third, it's an adult game.  It deals with drugs, violence, sex and
foul language.  Hence, the walkthrough deals with them, too.  If
you're easily offended, don't read this, and don't play the game.

Fourth, bear in mind that it's a complex game, and not all quests are
available to everyone, or may not be done in the same way by everyone.
A lot of them depend on your character's skills.  E.g., you can't
discuss medicine with the Vault City doctor, nor explore their medical
database on the computer, unless you have good doctor skill.  A lot of
quests depend on speech skill, btw.  Other quests depend on your
gender.  E.g., you can't date the nurse if you're a female, nor screw
Metzger for half of Vic's price if you're male.  Yet other stuff
depend on what you've done before, like who you've joined and what's
your reputation.  Yet other stuff depend on stats.  E.g., you can't
arm-wrestle Francis the super-mutant, if you've got 6 strength.  I.e.,
your mileage may vary.

For the same reason, there may well be a lot of quests that I have
missed myself.  I did play several male and a female characters, but
my karma and most reps were (very) positive, and some of my skills
were always under-par.  E.g., I can only pray that there was no quest
based on energy weapons, melee, thrown, gambling, or which needed a
real high outdoorsman skill, because I severely lacked those most of
the time.  Other quests I just didn't want to do, because they looked
too evil for my taste.

Fifth, most of this stuff you don't really need to do to finish the
game.  In fact, other than giving xp and/or money, most quests have
nothing to do whatsoever with your ability to finish the game.  At
most, they'll make a difference on the endgame animation, but most
won't even do that.  At least in theory, I think you could just go
south along the coast, do Navarro and San Francisco, and then the
final Enclave battles.  Of course, you wouldn't survive there with a
novice character, but that's another story.

  General Stuff to Bear in Mind
  -----------------------------

Save your game often.  The skill checks are much harder than in
Fallout 1.  Particularly before stealing, do save your game.  Even
with 10 dex, 300 stealing and sneaking skill, with the Pickpocket
perk, and sneaking from the back (although it shouldn't matter with
that perk), I did often botch stealing small stuff, like stimpacks.

Save before _exiting_ a combat or before finishing a quest, if you're
close to level up (above level 4-5 or so), and have npc's in your
party.  NPC's have a chance to level up, too, when you do.  Mostly, at
level ups where you get a perk, I think, though occasionally it did
happen to me at other levels, too.  So save, and then exit combat.  If
you levelled up, and no npc did, reload and try again a few times.
You don't want to carry around a bunch of wimps, when you could have
almost decent fighters with you.  Remember though, that npc's can only
level up only so far, and only so often.  If they've all had 5
level-ups or so, they can't get any further, so don't bother.

Steal lots.  Some stuff, like the Bozar (or whatever... can't tell "a"
from "o" on their funky font) I only saw in one shop, and even there
only after doing a bunch of quests, and very expensive.  On the other
hand, you can get 3 of them by stealing from the green armoured guards
outside NCR.  Other stuff, like ammo and stimpacks, are just too
expensive to buy in shops.

Be prepared for serious financial trouble.  In Fallout 1, it was damn
easy to swindle merchants.  In the sequel, it isn't.  I had around 200
barter skill on one character, and over 2000 karma, and was idolized
in that city, and still my goods would be priced 2-3 times less than
the merchants' goods.  Plus, now most npc's leave very little cash and
stuff to sell (particularly, most don't leave armours.)  Briefly, you
can't run around buying everything you see.

Watch your step.  Particularly when you get a party, and give them
ranged weapons, they just _love_ using burst mode and spraying bullets
at an enemy that's _behind_ you.  I had an adrenaline rush each time I
saw Marcus pull out his minigun.

Watch your aim.  It seems a lot easier to accidentally hit a team mate
or inocent bystander, than it was in Fallout 1.  Even with insanely
high skills.  Particularly if you use burst mode.

Avoid mixed encounters.  If you encounter something like "a patroll
fighting highwaymen", just say no, if you get the choice.  If not,
just run like hell for the exit grid.  Unless you feel tough enough to
fight _both_, that is.  Usually, either a patroller will hit one of
your men, or viceversa, and next thing you know, both sides are
shooting at you.

When you get a new gun, don't just look at the gun's damage.  Also
examine the ammo.  The ammo almost always has its own AP, DR and final
damage modifiers.  Yes, that's on top of the weapon's min-max damage
numbers.  Yes, these effects can go as far as making a weapon better
than another, even though the min-max damage numbers say otherwise.

Forget about AP ammo.  I think the game's model is plain screwed up.
AP ammo does penetrate slightly more often, but does _insignificant_
damage, if you ask me.  The only exception I know of is the needler
ammo, whose AP ammo has a damage modifier that looks suspiciously like
the JHP modifier for other weapons.  Personally, I've found JHP ammo
to be the best, even against the best armoured opponents, which is why
I say the model is screwed up.  JHP should realistically just go splat
on armour, and even more so in the case of metal plate armour or power
armour.  For that matter, forget about the 14mm pistols, when you find
them:  I only found AP ammo for them.

Specialize.  As I've said, some skill checks are insanely difficult.
You can't bring all your skills to high enough levels, even with the
"Skilled" trait and 10 int.  So screw some skills.  E.g., you probably
don't need thrown weapons, since all grenades were very disappointing
for my taste.  I also screwed melee weapons, since you can get just as
good weapons based on the "unarmed" skill, and you need unarmed for a
couple of quests.  Energy weapons can also safely be ignored, since by
the time you get them, your enemies will be using "Advanced Power
Armours" which make the Gatling Laser almost useless for the ammo
weight used, and that's the toughest energy weapon I've found.  For
that matter, it IS possible to kick righteous donkey with just the
"small guns" skill, and without the large ones, particularly with the
"fast shot" trait. Your call, though.


Think in terms of action points, not in terms of what's natural.
E.g., if you've opened your inventory in combat, make damn sure to do
everything you need.  You can reload/change two weapons with 120
bullets each AND use 10 stimpacks in a row for just 4 AP, or just 2 AP
with the "Quick Pockets" perk.  (Tho, personally, I'd say other perks
are more useful to pick, but it's your call.)

For that reason, reload your weapons after every combat.  The rest of
the ammo in a weapon is not lost if you reload, and it helps if you
don't have to waste time reloading at the beginning of the next fight.

For that reason, again, you may want to judge a weapon not only by the
damage per shot, but also in terms of how many shots you can do per
turn with it.  Should be obvious, tho.

If you get a good tight group or line-up of enemies, go burst mode on
them.  If you've got one of your own men in the way, don't.  Actually,
if you got your own men in the way, don't go for an unlikely aimed
shot, either.  (E.g., don't for the eyes, in the dark, from far away
with a short range pistol, when it says you have 17% chance to
actually hit.)  Chances are you won't just miss and hit another body
part, as would realistically happen, but you'll often critically miss
and hit someone else instead.  Yet another game model screw up, if you
ask me, but be warned nevertheless.

Check out areas obscured by walls.  I.e., move close to the west and
south edges of all rooms and corridors.  The designers seem to have
_loved_ placing containers hidden by walls, and there's good loot to
be gained that way.

If you decide to have a weapon upgraded, get the ammo out of it first.
When you get the upgraded weapon, what the game effectively does isn't
upgrade your item, but _replace_ your item with another.  And it'll be
filled with new ammo.  Hey, it may not mean many bullets, but it's for
free.  (Same applies for upgrading flamethrower fuel, btw.  Fuel, like
all ammo, is handled in packs, not by piece.  By loading/unloading
your flamer, you can create incomplete packs, like, say 5 fuel tanks,
which upon upgrade will be replaced by a full 10 fuel tank pack.  OK,
so it's cheating :)

  Creating a Character
  --------------------

My advice is to experiment and see the effects for yourself.  But if
you _really_ want a pre-rolled character, my favourite was something
like picking the "Gifted" trait for more points, and then setting the
stats to something like:

 ST:  6
 PE:  7
 EN:  5
 CH:  6
 IN:  9
 AG:  8
 LK:  6

Let me explain.

Strength 6 is enough for any ranged weapon in the game.  More strength
does NOT mean more damage with rifles and pistols.  Plus, by the end
of the game, the Advanced Power Armour will give you a +4 to strength.
(And before that, the regular power armour is +3.)  But the max is 10.
Hence, if you had distributed more than 6 to strength, at the expense
of other stats, basically those extra points are lost, and all you'll
have is a bunch of under-par other stats.

Mind you, with strength 6 at the start of the game you'll do buggerall
damage with your fists, as well as be limited to 175 lbs carry weight.
But as soon as you get a pistol, you don't need melee damage, and when
you get party members and then a car, the carry weight will be much
less of a problem.

Perception is essential for sniping at a range.  Ideally, you'd want
as much of it as you can.  But 7 still gets you a reasonable range,
and more than that is basically overkill at the expense of other
stats, IMHO.  And it's enough to get most perks that have a perception
requirement, except for "Sniper".  Sniper is a very good perk, but if
you want it, you can just get a "Gain Perception" perk before it.

Endurance basically determines your hp gain per level, poison res, and
radiation res.  For the hp gain per level, you can pick the
"Lifegiver" perk twice later, and it'll give you massive hp per level,
even with buggerall endurance.  You only need 4 endurance to get the
perk, so you may even try with it that low, and distribute the extra
point to PE.  Poison resistance never was a problem for me, and for
radiation, IMHO you either need to get it to 95% or don't need it at
all.  To get it to 95%, you'll need two RadX's anyway, so your natural
one is basically irrelevant.

One point where you will miss high endurance is the "Strong Back"
perk.  With endurance under 6, you won't get it.  Then again, as I've
said, carry weight was the least of my problems after getting the car.

Charisma is mainly important for the number of party members you get.
A value of 6 means you can get 3 party members, in addition to
yourself.  Or 4 with the "Magnetic Personality" perk, tho I always
found other perks more useful.  Charisma allegedly also modifies npc's
reactions towards you, or so the manual says, but with 6 I didn't
notice any getting hostile for non-obvious reasons.  In any case,
saving often is a good idea anyway, regardless of your charisma.

Intelligence is very important.  It determines the number of skill
points you get per level, and with "Gifted" you'll be hurting for
skill points.  I'd even advise getting the "Gain Intelligence" perk at
level 15.  It also determines what you can say in a conversation.

Agility, apart from the obvious armour class, sets how many Action
Points you get per turn.  With 8 agility, you get 9 AP, which with the
right perks/traits can be more than enough IMHO.  To get 10 AP, you'd
need 10 agility, which means severely downgrading other stats, so IMHO
it's not worth it.

Luck is not only for the initial critical chance, or I would have just
set it to 5.  But you also need at least 6 luck to get "Better
Criticals", "Bonus Ranged Damage", and "More Criticals" later.

Now you still have one trait left, so let's look at what you can
choose.

Fast Metabolism -- As it says, it increases your natural healing rate,
but kills your natural radiation and poison resistances.  As I've
said, I never had much use for natural radiation and poison
resistances, anyway, so it's not that much of an inconvenience.  Then
again, I never had much use for a high natural healing rate, either.

Bruiser -- increases strength by 2, turns your AP to a crap value.  As
a side-note, as with any stat increasing trait, you can then proceed
to decrease strength by 2, and use those two points on any other stat
of your choice.  E.g., you can use "Bruiser" to get two extra points
to AG, IN, EN, or PE instead of ST.  But be warned that the AP penalty
is a right pain in the behind, so it was never my favourite trait.

Small Frame -- +1 to AG, but you can carry very little weight.  Just
as with Bruiser, you could just as well use the point elsewhere, such
as PE, IN or EN.  Be warned that the resulting carry weight penalty
can be a major pain in the behind.  With 6 ST and "Small Frame" you'll
only be able to carry 100 pounds of equipment.  That IS a problem very
soon.  While I could and did stay under 175 lbs carried weight for
most of the game, under 100 was way too tight. Your call, though.

One Hander -- Basically, reverses the range penalties for
pistols/SMG's and rifles.  Without it, you're accurate with rifles,
but have crap accuracy with a pistol.  With it, you're accurate with a
pistol or SMG, but have bad accuracy with a rifle or minigun.  IMHO,
it's a pretty good trade-off, though I've always found "Fast Shot" to
be a better choice.

Finesse -- +10 to critical chance, but it lowers the normal damage you
do.  It's not a particularly bad trade-off, but not one of my
favourites, either.

Kamikaze -- It gives you a relatively minor increase to sequence, but
nukes your natural AC.  IMHO it's a pretty bad choice.  Most battles
are not one-on-one, and don't end in 1 or 2 turns, either.  And beyond
the first turn, it's a problem of you move, they move, you move, they
move, etc.  I.e., everyone does get a move per turn, regardless of the
sequence number.  I.e., who made the first move doesn't really make
that huge a difference.  And no AC makes the beginning of the game a
bit more tricky.  By the end of the game, noone seemed to miss me, no
matter how high the AC, and they seemed to sequence before me anyway,
no matter how high the sequence.  So my advice would be to forget
about this trait.

Heavy Handed -- You get +4 to melee damage, BUT your criticals will
always be less powerful.  Yes, that includes critical hits with ranged
weapons.  Personally, I'd advise against it, since most of the game I
fought with guns, and with this trait it means only disadvantage
without any advantage.

Fast Shot -- This is definitely my personal favourite.  Let me
explain.  With 9 AP, and most handguns and rifles, it means you can do
TWO normal shots per turn, while without it you'd get only ONE aimed
shot.  With a .44 magnum or P90c or a Gauss Pistol, it means _three_
normal shots per turn with this trait, versus one aimed and one normal
without it.  Etc.

After you also pick the "Bonus Rate of Fire" perk, it gets even
better.  With a .44 magnum or P90c or Gauss Pistol and "Fast shot" you
get _4_ normal shots per turn, versus 2 aimed ones without it.  If you
also pick a level of "Action Boy" on top of "Bonus Rate of Fire", it's
_5_ normal shots with "Fast shot" vs 2 aimed ones without it.

Now I know that aimed shots cause more criticals, but they're also a
lot more difficult to succeed.  Me, I'd much rather go with wholesale
distribution of ammo, than with a few aimed shots.

Bloody Mess -- as the manual says, it just forces the most violent
animations, but other than that it has no influence on game outcome.
Beats me why bother picking it, unless you're in it just for seeing
loads of gore.

Jinxed -- This trait makes fights look almost surrealistic.  Everyone
will keep dropping weapons, losing ammo, crippling themselves,
shooting allies, etc.  Unlike what the manual says, it seems to have a
lot less influence on you than on npc's, but it does have a lot of
influence on the people in your party.  After seeing Sulik lose the
third weapon or so to critical failures, I just restarted and picked a
different trait.  This trait is a bad choice, if you ask me.

Good Natured -- You lose 10% on all your 6 combat skills, but get +15%
to 4 other skills.  The sum of points gained equals that of points
lost, if that's not obvious.  Since at least half of your combat
skills you'll never really need to use (energy weapons, melee,
thrown), this basically allows you to shift points that would be
useless there to more useful skills.  And for the skills you do plan
to use, you can always tag them, and compensate the difference pretty
fast.  So IMHO it's one of the very good choices of traits.  Not as
good as "Fast Shot", but definitely a close second choice.  About the
only problem is that the reduced combat skills make the fights in the
Temple of Trials _much_ harder.

Chem Reliant -- useless trait if you ask me, since I avoided chems
like the plague.

Chem Resistant -- ditto.

Sex Appeal -- effectively, I _think_ it _slightly_ improves the
initial reaction towards you for members of the opposite sex, but
lowers the initial reaction of others.  After playing with and without
this trait, my conclusion is that there's no real gain from it.  A
good karma and reputation will do you more good, anyway.

Skilled -- as it says, you get +5 skill points per level, but only get
a perk every 4 levels.  Could be interesting to use it to compensate
for the -5 skill points per level from "Gifted", but you'll end up
wandering the desert for kill xp for years to get the same perks as
someone without it.  It's not necessarily a bad choice, but not one of
my favourites, either.

Gifted -- we just used it, remember?

Again, bear in mind that quests depend on stats and skills.  This
particular character will NOT be able to do everything in the
walkthrough, or at least not in this order.  Some quests were done
with completely different characters.  So don't bother telling me that
you couldn't use it to do this and that.  If you think you can do
better, please do create your own character the way you want.

  Temple of Trials
  ----------------

This area doesn't seem to have any other purpose than to give you some
xp, so try to make the most out of it.  Search all the rooms.

I've found unarmed to work best on both ants and scorpions, especially
since it uses less action points than the spear, and has more chances
to hit.  Take _one_ swing, then run away.  Repeat as necessary.
Yes, it takes half of forever and then some, but remember:  if they've
spent enough AP running after you, they won't have enough left to
attack you.  So basically you can slowly dish out damage, without
taking any.  Don't hurry, particularly with the scorpions, since they
can poison you with each good attack.

The second area, in addition to ants and scorpions, also has traps all
over the floor.  Move one hex at a time, careful not to step on the
raised plates.  (Those mis-shapen ovals.)  You can also try disarming
them, since you get 25 xp per disarmed trap, and that's a lot at level
1.  It may require more than one try per trap.  If you're at disarming
them, make sure you've scanned all the area, particularly near the
west walls.

At the end of the second area there's a door you can't lockpick.  Get
a plastic explosive from one of those vase thingies, and put it in one
of your ready item slots.  Now go facing the door, _save_, and use the
explosive.  It'll automatically be dropped on the floor.  Then get the
hell out of there running.  At what skill you have now, it's
guaranteed to go off prematurely, and you don't want to be within the
blast radius.

Before blasting the door, you may want to check out the raised plate
under it, tho.  There are only 1 or 2 pixel rows of it visible, so
it'll take some precise clicking exercise to disarm it.  Lame trick,
if you ask me, but, hell, that's another 25 xp to rake up.  After
blasting the door, it's covered by the debris, or so it looked to me.

In the last area, there's a room with a large burning pit in the
middle, and a tribesman in front of a door.  Explore the rest of the
area before going there, then rest to heal yourself, and save.  He'll
tell you that you must beat him unarmed.  Do so.  If you don't have
the "Fast Shot" perk, just keep aiming for a leg or for the groin.  If
you picked "Fast Shot" just swing and pray for a good hit.  (WTH has
fast shooting a _ranged_ weapon have to do with _melee_ attacks?
Especially since you don't get the speed bonus for melee.  Oh,
well...)

After you've beaten the snot outta him, go back and pick your gear
from the chest outside the room.  Then open the door he was in front
of, and go through it to pick your sacred Vault 13 jumpsuit. Hmm...

  Arroyo Village
  --------------

After getting the jumpsuit, go talk to the elder, to receive a canteen
and some money.  It's a lot less money than it seems, but, hey, it's
for free. Ask about how to get to Klamath.

Now go talk to everyone else in the tribe.  I think a dude near the
stone head will teach you some unarmed, but only if you have very
little.  At least he always offered to teach me, but never actually
did.  And a geezer in a tent will teach you melee weapons.  Talk to
Feargus near the well, and then use the repair skill on the well for
100xp.

The shaman will ask you to weed his garden.  There are two large
plants that shoot at you in there, so get in close and punch the hell
out of them.  Then go back to the shaman for some well earned healing
powder.  Personally, I didn't find much use for the powder, since it
temporarily lowers your perception by 1, each time you use it.

A cousin will ask you to find his dog (I think he wasn't there before
the patch).  To the north-west there's an area with some geckos, and
there's where the dog is.  You can kill the geckos for some xp, though
at this point they may be a slight bit on the tough side.  Try to pick
them when isolated, so you don't end up fighting more than one at a
time.  Also, there you can find some herbs that are components for
healing powder, but as I've said, I didn't use the powder.  (They're
also components for stimpacks, if my memory doesn't fail me, but only
much later and only if you have Myron in your group.)

When you're ready, you can go south, and then across the bridge, and
out to the world map.  Head east to Klamath.

(I'm told that you can watch the bridge guard sharpen his spear, then
ask him about it, get a flint from your aunt, and have him sharpen
yours, too.  I returned to Arroyo to check this rumour, and it didn't
work.  Maybe you need to do it before leaving the village?  Try for
yourself, I guess.  A sharpened spear does better damage than a
sledgehammer, so it may be worth the time to check this out.  Then
again, it's based on melee weapons.)

  Klamath
  -------

In Klamath, your mission is to find Vic the trader, so ask around for
him.  He's missing.  He's left for the Den, so also ask which way to
the Den. Don't hurry to the Den yet, though.  There's still some
exploring to do here.

Particularly, be sure to search through Vic's house, and get the radio
in there.  Don't sell the radio.  You will need it to rescue Vic from
the slavers in the Den. Also take the ammo and the pipe rifle while
you're at it.  The pipe rifle is crap, but you can sell it for a few
bucks.

Be sure to ask Mrs. Buckner about the missing trapper. That way you'll
get the location of the toxic caves where you can go rescue him.
Don't go there yet.

There's also a tribal warrior in there, called Sulik, which you can
take in your group.  At this point, he's a damn good addition to your
group, and a much better fighter than you are.  Unfortunately, he's
paying for some damages, and he needs 350$ before he can join you.
You don't have them yet.  You can also get Sulik for free after
rescuing the trapper from the toxic caves, but IMHO it's a lot better
to have him with you in there (those golden geckos are a pain in the
butt when you're level 3 or 4.)

For the money, you can try lockpicking doors and nicking stuff from
people's cupboards.  Also, Whiskey Bob offers to pay you 50 bucks if
you'll go refuel his still.  Only problem is that the area is full of
geckos, but fortunately you don't have to kill them all.  Just go
there, enter the hut, pick a lump of firewood, and use it on the
still.  Nick the bottle on the floor (you can sell it for a few
bucks), then return and talk to Bob again for the money.

There's another bar in this area, whose owner will sometimes ask you
for the location of Whiskey Bob's still, if you've taken that quest
first.  Sometimes he never asks, though.  Maybe it's based on rep?  Or
on whether you've finished the quest already?  Personally, I never
told him, since I play good honest characters.  So I don't know what
happens if you do.  One thing, though:  make your mind fast.  If you
refuse the first time you're asked, that's it, and you'll never have
the chance again.  You can also barter with the bartender for some
items that could be pretty useful at this point, but you probably
won't have the cash to afford them at this point, anyway.

Another person in this bar will offer to teach you more unarmed.  You
can humour him by playing dumb and asking him to teach magic spells,
and in the end saying he pulls your leg.  You'll get a free beer, and
be a bit more liked.  (Apparently everyone likes a new idiot in town.)
The teaching is good though:  +10 to both unarmed and melee weapons,
which at this point makes a huge difference.

Go to the west section of the town and find a guy who'll talk to you.
He'll tell you about the rat problem.  Ask for the key, and tell him
you'll help with the rat problem when he asks for money.  Alternately,
you can get the key from a dog in the other part of the town.  Just
talk to the mutt, then give it some brahmin jerky.  You can find tons
of jerky in various cupboards all over the town.

Go through that door.  (I lockpicked it for 25 xp, even though I had
the key :) Be sure to check the deserted guns store, and take the two
pairs of rubber boots.  You'll need them to get through the toxic
caves.  Kill all the rats, and enter the open manhole in a building.
(What on Earth is a manhole doing in a building?)  Generally speaking,
explore this area well, and be sure to kill all the rats.  They don't
give much xp each, but there are lots of them, and it totals over 3k
xp.  Not bad at all, at this point.  Best use your fists, if you ask
me, since it doesn't use expensive ammo.

At some point, you'll find a giant rat named Keeng Ra'at, or "the rat
god".  Kill it, and you've solved Klamath's rat problem.  Keep
exploring until you find a way to reach the surface somewhere else
than you've entered.  There's a car there, from which you'll get a
fuel injection system.  Hang on to it, you'll be needing it later.
Now go back.

Back to Mrs. Buckner's bar, there's an area to the north-west, where
there's a repair bot gone nuts.  It helps to have Sulik with you here,
since otherwise the robot will probably run away before you can kill
it and get the xp.  There's a crashed vertibird (weird helicopter)
here, and a couple of corpses.  One of them had a yellow key card last
times I played, tho I'm pretty sure it didn't have anything the many
times before.  It may have something to do with the fact that I
applied the 1.02 beta patch, or it may be random.  Beats me what's
that key supposed to unlock, so it's an useless item.

Go back to the bar.  There's a fellow named Torr there, who says
bipedal bug-men are mutilating his cattle.  Well, he doesn't use big
words like "bipedal", and says "moo-moos" instead of cattle.
Brain-dead fellow, really.  Go there and kill the... small scorpions.
The first time I played, that was enough for the game to say I did the
quest.  Every single time I tried after that, it said I failed to
protect all the brahmin.  Bugger me if I know what I did wrong.  I
even tried killing the Dunton brothers in the area. Nice try, but no.

You can also visit the "Bath house" in Klamath, which is really a
brothel, if you have more money than sense.  If you've chosen Jenny,
you can also talk to her after you've screwed her.  (Doesn't actually
show you screwing :)  It also works if you have a female character,
the only difference being what she says after the act.

Unfortunately, I've never found any benefit from screwing Jenny, apart
from getting a "Gigolo" title on my Karma sheet.  She didn't tell me
anything I couldn't find out from other people (well, except that Vic
was a regular customer, but that didn't help me at all in the game :)
So why spend 125$ there?  Why spend cash on the other prostitutes, in
almost every single town?  Is there a point I'm missing here?

If you've got Sulik and the boots, you can exit the town and go to the
toxic caves.

  Toxic Caves
  -----------

Be sure everyone in the party has a pair of rubber boots in their
inventory, or they'll be taking damage fast from the slime on the
floor.  Better save now, since there is a good probability that the
boots will be destroyed before you finish the cave.  If that happens,
just reload.  There's also a spare pair of boots in a room to the
south, near the entrance, beyond a pool of green slime and a gecko.

Basically, what you need to do is fight your way through the caves,
find Smiley (the missing trapper) and escort him out of the caves.

You may also want to try to repair the power generator in that room,
while you're there.  Doesn't seem to give any xp, though.  Speaking of
the generator, apparently that's half of what's needed to use the
elevator there.  It says you need an electronic device to open it.

I came back there much later with a mark II electronic lockpick, and
you can enter and go down into a sort of small ruined depot.  There's
decent stuff in there, such as a Mark II Combat Armour, but by the
time you do get the electronic lockpick and enough skill to open this
door, you probably have much better equipment already.  There's a
sentry robot down there with a rocket launcher.  Like all explosives
in the game, missiles are IMHO beyond crappy, but he launches three
missiles per turn.  Again, by the time you get the electronic
lockpick, you can probably survive that quite easily.  Also in there
you can find some 4.7mm caseless ammo, some 2mm EC ammo for your Gauss
Pistol, a Bozar and some .223 ammo for it, plus some other stuff.

After escorting Smiley out, go back to Klamath and talk to him in the
bar.  He'll teach you how to skin geckos.  Now those pelts do fetch a
decent price, particularly the golden gecko ones.  Which, given the
game's general cash shortage, can be very welcome.  On the other hand,
they're also much too heavy for the price, if you ask me.  Me, I'd
rather carry a spare gun from a robber's corpse, since it sells
better and weighs less.

He'll also teach you a little outdoors skill.  About as much as you'd
learn from a book, but it's still an improvement.  Mrs. Buckner will
give you 100 bucks if you say you don't need a reward.  Or, if you
haven't taken Sulik yet, you can get him for free now.

  The Den
  -------

The Den is a pretty annoying place, and the most annoying thing about
it are the freakin' kids stationed near all doors.  The little
bastards will steal items from you when you pass near them (e.g., when
you go through the door.)  Normally I wouldn't even think of doing
that, though it's just a game, but after being robbed naked for a few
games, my curiosity got the best of me, and I decided I want to see
what happends if I shoot the bastards.  Got flagged as a child killer,
and lost Sulik from the party.  Fair enough, I suppose.  I reloaded,
so I don't know more about that.

You'll want to talk to Smitty on the west edge.  It's the guy in the
house in the middle of the car graveyard.  He'll tell you that you can
have the car there for 2000$ and a fuel cell controller, which right
now you don't have.  Without the patch, you could get the car even if
you didn't have the controller, by showing Smitty the injection system
instead, and then saying you give him the money and the controller.
You still had to have the cash, though.

The car serves a couple of purposes.  First, it shortens travel time
_lots_.  Second, its trunk serves as a container for your stuff.  And
it can hold quite a bit of stuff.  It can come in very handy for
storing lots of loot to sell, or lots of different types of weapons
and ammo for later.

Also in this area there's Becky's bar and casino.  You can get a
couple of easy quests from Becky.  First one is getting some money
back from Fred.  I spotted the poor sod with half of it, which I then
got back from Becky.  Second one is getting a book back from a geezer
in the east half of the town.  Just go talk to him a couple of times,
then look for a book on the ground almost anywhere in the eastern
half.  First time I found it in the outhouse, second time near a
burning barrel, third time near another barrel, etc.

Also in the western area there's Lara and her gang (the bunch in metal
armours).  She'll ask you to find out what's in the crates in the
church in the western half.  I went there and told the moron at the
door that Metzger's sent me to check the contents, 'cause he wants to
be sure.  Got 500 xp for bulshitting the guard, and another 500 xp for
examining the crates.  Then she'll ask you to ask Metzger if she can
fight Tyler's gang (the bunch at the church).  Metzger's the head of
the Slavers' Guild (the bunch in leather armour, in the east half of
town.)  Do so.  Then she'll ask you to find a weakness in Tyler's
gang.  Just go there and talk to the moron.  He'll tell you that most
of their gang goes to a party that night.

Now if you want to get your money for this last mission, you'll have
to go with Lara when she fights Tyler's gang.  She says that you don't
have to fight, just be there.  However, most of the Tyler's buddies
were happily shooting at Lara, and I didn't have the nerve to find out
if I still get paid if she dies.  So I had to do most of the work

there, too.

Be prepared for a long fight, since the 10mm you have at this point
doesn't do much damage against metal armour (and even less if you try
AP ammo, so don't.)

For that reason, IMHO you'd better get Vic in your party first.  If
nothing else, it gives those guards an extra someone to shoot at.  In
fact, you'll probably want to take Vic before even starting Lara's
quests, if you can afford that, since you'll probably get a level up
sometime during them, and it'd be nice to have the moron lavel up,
too, before a real battle.

Also in the western half, there's some geezer in a house full of
addicts, who'll get upset and make an "Animaniacs" type fuss if you
ask about his accent.  (As a sidenote, that's the one thing I DON'T
like about this sequel:  the heavy Out-Of-Character content, such as
references to its being just a game, or to cartoon shows or to Monty
Python.  It definitely ruins my role-playing.)  If you can bear to
wade through his BS and keep asking him, you find out he's a
shopkeeper of sorts.  More of like a fence, actually, since he's the
one paying the kids to steal.  He's got good merchandise, though, if
you have the cash, and here's where you can buy your missing items
back.

There's also a geezer named Joey, who can pinpoint New Reno and some
other town on your map.  Not strictly necessary, since you can find
those locations (and more) from Vault City, anyway.  He'll also offer
to sell you Jet, a highly addictive drug, for a ludicrious price.
About 10 times or so more expensive than anywhere else in town.  My
advice is to stay clear of Jet, since it'll be a permanent addiction
until you get the antidote, and that's much later.

Still in the western half, there's a Brotherhood of Steel building
with a guard, but he won't let you in right now.  You can gain
entrance to all Brotherhood of Steel buildings much later, after
bringing them the vertibird plans in San Francisco.  However, this
particular building was empty, anyway.  I.e., don't lose time with it.
(BTW, the one in NCR is empty, too.)

Next to the Brotherhood of Steel building, there's a haunted house,
but the ghost is only visible at night, around midnight, and there's a
geezer showing a ghoul for a mummy.  Talk to the ghost.  Talk to Mom,
in her restaurant in the eastern side, and ask about the locket.  Talk
to Joey.  You can either buy the locket, or BS an already scared Joey
that the gost will come for him.  Bring it to the ghost for some xp.
Now take the bones.  Get a shovel.  Go find Anna's grave in the
cemetery, again in the eastern side.  Dig it up (use the shovel on
it).  Click on it.  Transfer the bones to it.  Use the shovel on it
again.  More xp.

You don't have anything to do with the ghoul, until you've received
the quest to find the ghoul, from Gecko village.  Anyway, if you
really want to see the ghoul, be smart and lockpick your way through
the thrashed room (with the ghost), instead of passing through the
front door and between the two thieving kids.

This just about covers the western part, so let's get to the eastern
one.

The main attraction in the eastern part is the Slavers' Guild.  There
are a few silly things you could do here, such as joining the Guild.
That means getting a slaver tattoo on the forehead, which turns Sulik
against you, and I highly suspect will make it impossible to do other
quests later.  So I just reloaded.  Apparently you can also try to
sell Sulik as a slave, but I didn't use that option, either.  I really
needed him more as a fighter.

Vic is a prisoner there, since he sold Metzger a broken radio, and now
he must fix it.  But he doesn't have the parts, so he's basically
screwed up.  Get permission to talk to him (e.g., from the guard in
front of his door), and he'll tell you he needs the radio back in his
house in Klamath for parts.  You did bring it along, didn't you?  So
give him the radio.  Metzger still won't let Vic go, even after he's
fixed the radio.  Ask if some money will help, and he'll ask for
1000$.  If you're with the female character, you can screw Metzger for
half the price, which at this point means pretty much.

Alternately, you can get Vic after killing Metzger, which is a quest,
too.  Only problem is that at this point you're probably NOT prepared
to deal with a dozen slavers shooting at you.  Trust me, you'll need
better armour and better firepower than the lousy 10mm you probably
have now.

After you buy Vic, you can take him in your party.  Initially, Vic is
good at repairing things, and he'll do the repairing for you whenever
you use the repair skill.  He can also use small guns (pistols and
rifles), so get him a 10mm for now.  Mind you, he's pretty inept at it
now, so don't give him a burst mode weapon for now, unless you have a
death wish.  But he gets much better after he gets his level maxxed
up, AND he can use armour, unlike other tougher npc's (like Marcus or
Goris).  Also, by the end of the game, he could use the M72 Gauss Rifle
(sort of a rail-gun), which Sulik didn't want to use.  Briefly, in the
long run he's not that bad a partner to have around.

Speaking of Vic and guns, keep him well supplied with ammo.  He's
pretty inept at hand-to-hand combat, and he stays that way.  He also
doesn't have too great hp, so you don't want him in the front line.

If you have good stealing skill, you can make some cash by stealing
the guards' ammo and Metzger's shotgun and ammo.  At this point, the
shotgun is a good weapon, though, so maybe don't sell it.  Just save
before each steal, and be sure to do it from the behind, sneaking.
Don't go for a steal from the front.

There's a bar just west of the slavers, with another couple of those
thieving bastards up front.  Its owner sells booze at an overly
inflated price and bad mouths Becky to all his customers for having
lower prices.  He asks you to find out where she gets her whiskey.  I
didn't like the guy, so I didn't.  If you're with a male character,
you can pay to screw a prostitute here, though it beats me what's the
point.  If you're with a female, you can screw a customer for some
cash.  (Hey, it comes in very handy for buying Vic :)

There's also "Mom's" joint south of the slavers.  "Mom" will ask you
to take a dinner to Smitty, the dude in the junkyard at the western
end of the town.  You'll get some xp and a stimpak if you do.  If you
talk to Mom after that, you get a free rat meal, though again I fail
to see any point in it.

The drunk in the back is Karl, who's missing in Modoc, and contrary to
what I first assumed, it IS possible to talk to him now about the
ghosts.  Just don't give him any money, or he'll be perpetually drunk.
Ask him about his story.

A girl in here can tell you about her cat.  Boring story, but if you
encourage her to speak, you'll get 200xp at the end of it.  (Someone
said it was 250 for them.  Is it random?  Or is one of us remembering
wrong?)

Last, but not least, you also can dig the other graves in the
graveyard if you have a shovel.  There's not much loot to be found
here, but it's more than nothing I suppose.  You'll get flagged as a
grave robber, and I think you lose some karma per grave dug, but other
than that it doesn't seem to have much influence on the game's
outcome.

When you're through here, just leave for Vault City...

  Modoc
  -----

Modoc is a small (and dieing) farming community right between the Den
and Vault City.  You may stop here for a couple of small quests, if
you want to, but unless you did hear Karl's story in the Den, I'd
advise against starting the main quest (the haunted farm one) yet.  It
ends up with you having to go for Karl at the Den, and with a very
tight time limit at that.  You can take it on the way back from Vault
City, when you return to the Den with the fuel cell controller for the
car.  That's where I'll talk about it, anyway, so skip a few pages
down if you did talk to Karl already and you want to do it now.

You can have a rural style shotgun wedding here, if you seduce the
butcher's daughter or son.  My favourite was seducing the daughter
with the female character.  I sure had a laugh at that wedding.
Unfortunately, however, either spouse are real lousy party members and
they do NOT level up ever.  I.e., they're useless.  Me, I'd say just
reload after having the laugh at the wedding.

You can take a quest to guard some brahmin from a large pack of wild
dogs, from the butcher.  It pays 1000$ if you don't screw up.  Be
warned that although brahmin are pretty robust, the dogs are fast and
many.  Hit the "A" key to get into combat mode fast:  it gives you a
better chance of moving into position before the dogs get there.  Then
move right north of the cattle, and start sniping the dogs.  It helps
if you have a better weapon than the lousy 10mm pistol (e.g., if
you've pacified some robbers on the way.)  Preferably a hunting rifle,
since it has much better accuracy at long range.

On your way back, you can use your doctor skill (if you have good
doctor skills, that is) on an injured brahmin.  You get some xp, and
she starts following you for a while.  I've heard that you can sell
her to the butcher, but I never had the heart to do it.  Then again,
maybe it's just a rumour.

The tanner asks you to find his boy, but that boils down to the same
haunted farm quest, so you may as well skip it for now.

In the north-east corner, there's Rose's bar.  She has a Deathclaw in
her barn as a chicken, and you'll get 100xp if you enter the barn.
Then again, that puts you in combat with the Deathclaw, and for this
moment she's a bit tough.  Personally, I'd say just leave the barn
alone.  You can enter the brahmin fries eating contest here, but be
warned that you'll get poisoned, and as far as I can tell there's no
xp in it anyway.

A senile bum in the far back room gives you a quest to find his gold
watch.  Talk to his friend Farrel.  Go out, open the outhouse and go
down.  (Yech!)  There's a passage blocked by some cave-in.  Put an
explosive there, and get the hell out, fast.  That means, run for the
ladder.  Kablam!  Now the outhouse blows and all the area is covered
in crap.  Gross, but real funny.  Go back down, fight the molerat,
retrieve the watch.  (Looks like a box.)  Go give the watch to Farrel,
for 1500xp.  Alternately, you can give the watch to the senile bum,
and you can either tell him where you found it (and he'll accuse you
that you're the thief) or lie that Farrel is indeed the thief.

Beats me why'd you want to accuse Farrel, except maybe for that warm
fuzzy feeling that you're a son-of-a-bitch :) If you accuse Farrel,
you can no longer do Farrel's quest, if you haven't done it already.

You can also get an easy quest from Farrel, in the house sout-east
of Rose's.  Namely, you have to kill all rats in his garden.  I had no
problems killing them unarmed, to save ammo usage.

When you're finished here, leave for the Vault City...

  Vault City
  ----------

This is one annoying bunch of brain-dead bigots, if you ask me.  I
still fancy puting holes in a few obtuse heads, starting with the
First Citizen. Sadly, I didn't.

Anyway, you start in the Courtyard.  This is where outsiders work hard
and pay high taxes, so the Citizens in the actual Vault City can
prosper. So what else is new?

In the courtyard, you can talk to a woman whose husband has been
arrested and taken to the Servant (a.k.a. slave) Allocation Center.
You'll rescue him when you go inside.

Also talk to the kid nearby.  Go pick his doll from behind the bar
(hidden by the wall, so get in close) and give it back to him for
100xp.  Then listen to the kid.  Go click on those rocks and you'll
get a wrench.  Keep it.  (Alternately, you can dismember the doll in
front of the kid, and still get the 100xp.  You won't hear about the
wrench, though.)

Talk to the brahmin dealer about the canteen Vic bought from him.
He'll give you the locations of a bunch of towns.

A poor sod is massively radiated in a tent.  You can use two
rad-away's on him, for a little xp.  Way too little for the cost of

the Rad-Away, if you ask me, but, hey, it gives you that warm fuzzy
feeling that you saved someone's life (and that you're an idiot :)

Another poor sod will give you a quest to buy him a plow.  Bad part is
that it costs money.  Good part is that he'll give you a Desert Eagle
automatic for it, which costs more than the plow.  (Why didn't he buy
the plow himself, then?) And you get some xp, too.

At the clinic, you can repair the auto-doc for a little xp.  In fact,
please do.  You'll need the auto-doc repaired if you later decide to
do the combat implant operations here.  With a defective auto-doc,
you'd die.

Go north.  If you've arrived before 8 AM or after 6 PM, you can enter
the deserted Customs office, lockpick the locker, and get a Day Pass
for free.  Then go back south, wait until 8 AM, and come back.  If you
arrived in the daytime, you can try to bulshit the Customs officer
that you have urgent business with the First Citizen, and still get
the pass for free.

Drop any booze or drugs you may have (except for RadX and Rad-Away),
then talk to the guards.  They'll search you and let you in.

(According to George Moutsiakis, you can get fake citizenship papers
from Skeev in the Customs office, and then you wouldn't get searched.
Personally, I didn't try it out, so I don't know more details.  But
feel free to try for yourself, if you want to.)

Go to the Maintenance Center.  Talk to Val. After the long talk
between Val and Vic is over, talk to her again.  She'll want a wrench
and pliers.  The wrench you got from the kid's doll quest, and pliers
I had from the rat area in Klamath and a locker behind Smitty in the
Den. Give them to her.  Talk to her again, then leave.

Go to the Servant Allocation Center, and talk to officer Barkus.  If
you have decent speech skill, try to bullshit him that Joshua has some
outsider disease.  Or you can always offer a substantial "donation"
(a.k.a. bribe) for his release, if you have more money than brains.

Talk to the officer in the Correction Center.  He'll give you a quest
to scout the area around Gecko village.

Talk to the dude in the Information Center.  He'll tell you that books
are converted to electronic format.  Tell him you prefer books, and
he'll bring you some books for free.

Go to the Council.  Talk to First Citizen Lynette (one mother of all
bigots, and bloothirsty to boot) and she'll give you a quest to solve
the problem with Gecko village's defective nuclear plant poisoning
their underground water.  What she really wants is everyone in Gecko
dead, so don't bother coming back to her later when you find a better
solution.

Leave.  On the way out, talk to Joshua (the sod you just rescued).  Go
to Gecko (might as well scout the area, as asked, while you're at it.)

  Gecko Village
  -------------

First thing here, go talk to Harold in the Manager's Office.  He'll
tell you they need a Hydroelectric Magnetosphere Regulator (or
something like that), to fix their plant so it no longer leaks
radioactive coolant.

If you want to, you can also pick a doctor ghoul named Lenny in here.
Good thing about him is that he's humanoid enough to wear an armour,
and he has superb hp on top of that.  Heck, he _starts_ with 129
hp, which is more than Vic will ever have.  Briefly, he won't die too
easily.  And allegedly he's a doctor, which can come in quite handy,
though you can't take him with you in Vault City (where you need
doctor skill for the computer).  In practice, I never noticed an
option to ask him to heal me when he's in the group, and he's utterly
inept even at healing _himself_.  Another bad part is that he's a real
lousy fighter, has poor AP, and has remarkably poor strength to boot.
And he'll stay that way for the rest of the game.  In case I have to
spell it out for you, it means he'll have massive penalties with most
firearms.  That can be changed by giving him a power armour, but
that's only MUCH later.  And yet another bad part is that in many
places you either aren't enter with a ghoul or mutant (e.g., Vault
City) or people will refuse to talk to you if you have one in your
party.  Of course, you can leave them at the door, but that makes it
more tricky to level them up:  if you do a quest and level up, and
they're not in your party, they don't get a chance to level up, too.

Speaking of Vault City, interestingly enough, if you have Lenny the
_ghoul_ with you, the guards tell you to get the _mutant_ away from
the gate.  And if you're with Marcus the _mutant_, they say _ghouls_
are not allowed inside.  I.e., the messages are switched.  Bug?

On the overall, I'd say he's not much of an advantage to have around.

Go north.  A merchant ghoul will give you a quest to find Woody in the
Den. Another ghoul can modify weapons, but don't do it yet.  He'll
tell you he needs a super toolkit.  Yet another ghoul will tall you
that greed is good, and tell you to take a disc to Vault City with an
interesting business proposal.

(Yeah, right... greed is good...  Watch the ending movie to see how
the ghouls were occupied by Vault City troops, and turned into slaves,
because the bigots in Vault City wanted what he was offering, but
didn't want to pay.)

That's it for now. Go back to Vault City.

  Vault City (again)
  ------------------

Go to the gate at 8AM and enter the actual city with your Day Pass.

Go talk to Val again, and if you've given her the pliers and wrench
last time, now she'll give you the super toolkit that the ghoul in
Gecko wanted. She can also modify weapons, but don't do it now.

Talk to the officer in the Correction Center, if you've scouted around
Gecko, for your reward.  Ask for more work, and you'll get an
assignment to scout the road to NCR.  You'll do that much later,
anyway.  Also talk to him about the raiders.

Go to the Council.  Don't talk to the First Citizen, or she'll sic the
guards on you for trying to fix the ghouls' reactor instead of
slaughtering them.  Talk to McClure, the councilman in the right-most
room, and tell him how you can fix the plant in Gecko.  He'll say it's
an acceptable solution, and authorize you to pick the Hy-Mag from
Amenities.  Tell him you're affraid Lynette will not make you a
citizen if you repair the reactor.  He'll tell you that he'll make you
a citizen himself.  Also give him the economic data disc from the
greedy ghoul in Gecko.  More xp for you.

Go back to amenities, and pick the hy-mag. Leave for Gecko...

  Gecko (again)
  -------------

Go north and exchange the toolkit for a fuel cell controller.  You'll
need that for the car, so hang on to it.  He'll also tell you he needs
something else from one of the ghouls in the reactor.

Go in the reactor building.  You'll have to reach Festus, a ghoul in
the far east room.  Unfortunately, you have to pass through a door
which needs a yellow keycard, and noone gave me the card, even though
they had asked me to repair their reactor.  The one from the crashed
vertibird didn't work, and lockpicking the door causes the guards to
attack you.  So I just stole the keycard from one of the guards in
front of the door.  (And I also stole both guards' ammo, while I was
at it :)

Later I found that there was a yellow key in a locker elsewhere on the
floor, so you may want to look for that if your steal skill sucks.
Also in a cupboard this area is a blue keycard which, although I think
it's useless here, fits a door in the Navarro base later.  There is a
similar blue key in the Navarro base, too, so it's not strictly
necessary to carry this one along, but if you have this one from
Gecko, you can take the back door into Navarro.

The only problem here is that Festus is scared silly of repairing the
reactor, for some reason.  With good speech skill, I could convince
him.  Without, I had to install it myself.  To install it yourself,
you can try to program the repair bot.  Me, I just told Sulik and Vic
to stay there, took the one RadX I had, and made a run through the
reactor room, then used the repair skill on the thingie next to the
valve on the eastern wall.  I took a lot of damage and got radiated in
the process.  Too bad I didn't have 2 RadX's, but one Rad-Away took
care of that.  (And got me addicted to Rad-Away...  WTH??)

Now for the transformer the ghoul up north wants, you can steal a
requisition form from Festus, then go with it at the ghoul with the
supply cabinet.  Or you can steal the transformer directly from the
ghoul with the supply cabinet, since in the game there is no actual
supply cabinet, and he has all the items on him.

Talk to Festus again, and he'll give you a disc with the reactor data
that you can use on the Vault City central computer to optimize the
reactor. Leave this building for now.

Go to the ghoul north, and give him the transformer.  He'll offer to
modify a weapon for you for free.  Neat, huh?  Installing the night
sight on a FN FAL was my favourite, since then I could use it at night
to snipe the slavers back at the Den, while they had massive penalties
aiming at me in the dark.  On the bad side, it doesn't have JHP ammo,
and generally the single shot damage is a bit disappointing, while the
burst mode uses too much ammo. But normally it's the most expensive
weapon upgrade, so I figured I'd better make the most out of that
offer to do it for free.

Leave back for Vault City...

  Vault City (yet again)
  ----------------------

Go talk to McClure, and tell him you've solved the problem.  He'll
make you a citizen.  I also asked him for permission to use the
reactor disc on their computer.  I'm not sure it was actually
necessary, but what the hey...  (If you ask him about the optimization
before telling him you repaired it, and becoming a citizen, he'll run
do it for you.)

Now go into the actual vault.  If you have good medical skill, search
their medical database computer, on the first floor.  You'll find the
details of combat implants.  Keep searching for a while, and you'll
get 500xp.  You can also discuss medicine with their doctor.

Talk to the nurse.  Ask about the city, then work your way to how
there aren't any children, and how come people don't just get pregnant
from having sex.  There's 300xp in it if you convince her they may
well be all sterile from radiation.  Another 300xp if you can convince
her to go see the outside world if she's that bored inside.  If you
have a male character, you can also date the nurse for 100xp.  And you
can do the whole sterility conversation again, up to the point where
you get the choice to "donate".  That's worth 500xp.

The doctor will also ask you for some Jet for his research.  Since now
you're a citizen, you're no longer searched at the gate, so you can do
this whenever you have some Jet to spare.  (Can be found on some
bandit corpses.)

Go into the vault and search though all the lockers and footlockers,
on floors 2 and 3.  Most of them are hidden by walls and locked, so
a decent lockpick skill comes in very handy.  (The stacked crates just
contain tons of water chips which arrived here instead of Vault 13 :)


On the second floor, the rattling vent contains a bunch of
micro-fusion cells.  A hidden footlocker contains a computer voice
module, which you'll need later to fix the vault 13 computer.  Take
it, and keep it for now.

On the 3'rd floor, make sure you have the reactor data disc in your
ready item slot, before clicking on the central computer.  It's the
talking computer.  You can also use the science skill on a terminal
near the south-west corner of the level for 300 xp.

After you get the computer to optimize the Gecko reactor data, leave
the vault.  Outside, stop to talk to the geezer preaching in an
intersection, pretend to be interested, and get a suitcase for the
Bishop family in New Reno. Leave the city and head for Gecko.

  Gecko (yet again)
  -----------------

Nothing much left to do here, except go talk to Festus and then go use
the optimized reactor disc on their computer.

You can also try to bait an Enclave trooper by hacking into their
network.  It will give you an idea of what you're up against, but if
you screw up, he'll say he's sent troops to get you.  I hanged around
for a few minutes to see if the Enclave troopers arrive (though I knew
I had no chance in hell to survive the encounter), but they didn't.
Maybe they needed more time?  I reloaded just in case.

You can talk again to Harold, ask him about what he does, say you
didn't want to see their city destroyed, and work your way to telling
him the story of the Vault Dweller. He'll give you something.

Btw, before I leave the subject of Gecko, there's a building with a
manhole in the north section, where you find some brainwashed ghouls
and an overgrown molerat called The Brain, who wants Cheesy Poofs from
you and plans to take over the world.  Other than being another
gratuitious "Animaniacs" plug, he can give you hints on how to do the
Gecko quests if you talk to him before you finish them.  I fail to see
any point in this exercise, so you may skip this area completely.

Interestingly enough, if you talk to him after you've killed the "rat
god" in Klamath, The Brain will be sad about it.  This has made me
wonder if you can't find a more peaceful solution for Klamath's rat
problem by talking to The Brain first.  Nope, there's no option to
tell The Brain about Klamath.

That's it.  Leave and head back to the Den, via Modoc.

  Modoc (again)
  -------------

Talk to the dude in the general store, and take the haunted farm
quest.  Then go talk to Balthas the tanner, and ask about his problem.
Talk to the dog.  Click on the boards on the well, then use a rope on
the well. Go down on the rope.

Nothing much to do here, except see the cave-in.  There's Johnny's BB
gun down here, but it's a crappy weapon.  You can get the ammo out of
it, though, for later when you get the LE BB gun, which rocks.  I
can't rem