Let's Play Fallout: New Vegas [The Servant]

[AlternatePFG]

[HEADING=1]Chapter XLI - Quantum Drink[/HEADING]​

Spoiler

This was originally meant to be a mini-update but as you'll soon find out there were... complications with this quest, so it went a bit longer.

We're almost out of sidequests (And with that, almost out of reasons to put off the main story any longer) so let's continue onto the next one. You get the quest in a pretty odd place, Girdershade. It's in the middle of nowhere, our closest fast travel point is Vault 112.

Today we will be revisiting a place that I said we would certainly not be revisiting. Where is it? Well, due to rules of foreshadowing I can't say anything but I'll give you a hint: There's Nuka-Cola Quantum in it.

Can you spot the "city" among all that brown rubble? This time it's a city built under an underpass, which is about just as dangerous. The pillars could collapse and crush them, from a distance you see them visibly crumbling.

We are really in such a remote area of the map, what could these people be doing out here?

Well, let's go check this house out. There are a ton of empty nuka-cola bottles on the outside of the house. I get that it's post apocalpytic, but does anyone have a sense of cleanliness in this game?

Oh right, if Tenpenny Tower is anything to go by, being clean is pretty much the same is being evil.

Meet half the population of Girdershade.

I wonder if they get visitors often. I mean they should, by many, many raiders (Evergreen Mills is just down the road.) but apaprently they're fine all by themselves. This is the most absurd "settlement" in this game. Oh wait, Lamplight...

"I take it you're here to check out my Nuka-Cola collection and take the tour?"

Oh yes, we've wandered into this particular area of the wasteland just to see her world renowned Nuka Cola collected, composed of a special Nuka Cola neon sign, a lamp, a fridge, some banners and that's pretty much about it.

"Nuka-Cola collection? Wow!"

As in "Wow, I can't believe anyone would be stupid enough to collect this crap".

"I have one of the... no, THE best Nuka-Cola collection in the Capital Wasteland."

I bet there's some stiff competition.

"Heck, I've won the Nuka-Cola Fan Club Collection Award for the last ten years in a row!"

"There's a Nuka-Cola Fan Club?"

"Yep, I'm the President, the Recording Secretary and the Treasurer. Once a year, we gather here in Girdershade to have a cook off using Nuka-Cola in the recipe. Last year I won with my "Poached Roach in Nuka-Sauce" Delicious!"

Okay, I find this woman and her whole Nuka-Cola collection thing to be pretty funny but here's the problem: the game's really, really grim world doesn't fit the ton of the most of the sidequests, or for that matter, main quests at all. The game is trying to have themes of "survival" in it, but the problem is that there's silly stuff like this that completely undermines this.

True, Fallout 2 had way more silly stuff than 3 did, but that's what it set out to do. The sidequests in this game really just undermine the setting entirely. Don't get me started on Zeta or Little Lamplight.

"Wait a minute. How many members are in your club?"

"Well... only two right now. Me and Ronald. But membership is open to the public! You can join if you like!"

This has gone from being midly funny, to being rather unintentionally pitiful and sad.

"Who's Ronald?"

One of the dialogue options here is, no joke: "Wow, this conversation is getting boring..."

If you have to make a dialogue option lampshading how boring this conversation is, that means you're probably doing something wrong.

"Ronald? Oh! I'm sorry, I figured you met him already. He usually chats with people who enter Girdershade. He's my neighbor and my protector as he calls it. Imagine if some nasty Raider wanted to take my stuff... he'd show them a thing or two!"

Well, here's the thing, raiders usually come in groups. I seriously doubt he could fight them off.

"He's such a sweetie, you should talk to him!"

Spoiler: He's an asshole.

"Yeah, he sounds great. So, you mentioned a tour or something?"

"I sure did! Want to take it now? How can you resist? This stuff is so cool!"

Admittedly, the Nuka-Cola stuff is pretty cool, I just wish you could collect more stuff like that for your own house. (True, you can get the machine, a lamp and a clock but more would be nice.)

"Yes, of course!"

I hate there is no middle ground between extreme enthusiasm and outright saying "Screw this, I'm outta here". I mean, at the very least we could humor her.

"Well, come on then! Let me show you around! But no free Nuka-Cola until the end of tour!"

We have about 100 bottles of Nuka-Cola back at home base. We certainly can wait for our free bottle.

She gives you a brief history of Nuka-Cola...

Number one choice of refreshment? What about fresh water?

Wait, I get the nagging feeling that we're supposed to be doing something else.

Before you ask, yes the Nuka-Cola stays ice cold no matter how long it sits in your inventory. These things aren't anything to scoff at though, they're like cheap stimpaks. If we ever buy the nuka-cola machine for our house, we can get a ton of these.

"Pardon me... I tend ot lose myself when I hold onto a Nuka-Cola."

Let's back away slowly...

"Before I get to the little proposition I have for you let me tell you a little bit about Nuka-Cola Quantum."

Oh great, another sidequest.

"Quantum? Never heard of it before."

What do you mean? We've already collected a dozen or so of these damn things.

"Well, right before the bombs fell, the good folks at Nuka-Cola developed what they hoped was an improvement on the original formula. Calling it Nuka-Cola Quantum, it was said to have "Twice the calories, twice the carbohydrates, twice the caffeine and twice the taste!"

"So, what went wrong?"

"Well, the flavor certainly wasn't the issue. The public was just split on the unique feature of the Quantum's appearance. You see, to make it stand out on store shelves and to give it that extra kick, the formula called for a mild isotope."

Wow, most drinks would just place a fancy new label and maybe some caffeine to solve that, but not Nuka-Cola! Everything is better with radiation.

"The effect was a drink that nont only boosted your energy, but also glowed with a bright blue light!"

And probably also gave you cancer.

"Wait, did you say it has an isotope in it? As in it's radioactive?"

In the Nuka-Cola Plant, you actually found some research terminals that said the test batch of this stuff was actually lethal.

"Oh no, only ever-so-mildly! No ill effects were ever recorded."

Well, that's because the world ended before any of the effects showed up.

"Well, it does have the unique property of making your... ummm... your pee glow."

Yeah, I'm sure that's perfectly healthy.

"What's your interest in all this?"

"I love the stuff! I can't get enough of it! I thought I was hooked on regular Nuka-Cola, but the Quantum beats it by a long shot! I've got to have MORE!"

Oh great, now she's taken on a drug addict tone. I guess we can list drug supplier to our protagonists resume.

"So, that's where I come in, I guess."

"That's right! You bring me Nuka-Cola Quantum and I pay you... handsomely I might add. For every bottle you bring me, I pay you some caps. You know, for expenses. But if you're super cool and find like enough bottles to fill my Nuka-Cola machine, 30 in all, I've got a super secret cool prize for you!"

I'm not going to spoil it for anyone who hasn't done this quest before, but the quest reward is going to make you rip your hair out in anger.

"[Speech, 100%] Come on, Sierra. No secrets between friends!"

Friends? We just met each other first a minute ago.

"[SUCCESS] Oh, okay! I have a schematic for the Nuka Grenade... the only one in the whole Capital Wasteland. Bring me the bottles and it's yours."

I wonder how you make a Nuka-Grenade....

"Imagine the look on the target's face when they are burning alive in an effervescent explosion of cola and fruit flavors!"

Now I'll forever associate cola with people burning to death. Great.

"So, what do you say? Will you bring me the bottles?"

"Okay, Sierra. You've got a deal."

"Oh goodie! I can taste the Quantum already! Good luck to you, sweetie!"

I wonder how many other wastelanders she has sent off to their deaths. Ah well, they don't have the advantage of an arsenal of unique weapons. Forget the water purifier, the Enclave really should be after all the unique weapons in the wasteland.

"Do you even have a clue as to where I can start looking?"

Quantum's usually are one per location at the most, but there a few areas with more than one or two. There are 107 bottles of this stuff in the entire game, including DLC's. With every Nuka-Cola machine you open, there's a 10% of finding a quantum. No, you can't save scum to get it. I've tried. Well, you can. The contents of a Nuka-Cola machine are decided when you enter a cell (area) in the game. If you save before entering, you can keep on reloading the saves to get the Quantum if you really want it.

Do you really want to waste your time with that though? It could take a lot of tries, considering the 10% chance of actually getting one.

"In fact, I do! Ha! Surprised you didn't I? Your best bet would be to find the ruins of the D.C. Nuka-Cola Bottling Facility. Find the shipping manifests inside. With them in hand, you should have a good clue as to where the Quantum was delivered. While you're there, you may even be able to find some bottles of Quantum!"

Lovely. Let's get out of here-

God damn it. This is Ronald, the other half of Girdershade's population.

Paradise? This place might be more brown and ugly looking than Megaton.

"I was checking out Sierra's Nuka-Cola Collection."

I assume this is the only reason someone would visit Girdershade.

"That's all huh? Better be. Because I warn you, I don't like anyone messing around with my woman."

This is getting creepy...

"She never said anything about you two being together."

"Well, that's likely because it's none of anyone's business but ours. But hey she's a fine looking lady. I mean, you're no slouch either, but a man has his standards you know?"

Is there a punch this guy in the face option?

"What are you driving at?"

"Wow, you are as naive as you look. How do I put it? I'd love to do the horizontal bop with her... you know, plow her bean field. Come on, kid."

"That's disgusting!"

Why is there no "I don't really give a shit about what's going on between you" option?

"What are you, a nun?"

Another random annoyance, would these people really know anything about nuns?

"Bah, maybe you're just not old enough to understand yet."

You know, this is really the only NPC in this game who treats you like a child. You'd think it would come up more, I mean you're only 18.

"Needless to say, she's got what I want. That's where you come into the picture."

What? Fuck that, I'm not getting involved in that nonsense.

"Look, I've got things to do, I'm not interested."

"Fine. Oh, and I wouldn't bother running back to Sierra and warning her about our little chat. She won't even understand what you're talking about. She may be a looker, but she's a bit vacant in the smarts department."

What a pleasant person.

Now let's get out of Girdershade and onto our Nuka-Cola hunt. The bottling plant is our first place to go, the shipping manifest can point us in areas with a sizable amount of Quantum. If Dad was still alive in this game, he'd be quite pissed at us for wasting our time like this, we can't even justify it by saying we're helping people.

We already have 16 Quantums. So we're already halfway done with the quest.

This is the bottling plant.

There are a ton of old decrepit banners hanging on the wall. Alright, now I know this games setting is bullshit: Those banners don't last a few months, let alone 2 centuries. (Only mostly kidding about the bullshit part.)

There are some protectrons here, but they go down with two shots from the Blackhawk.

It's even a unique model of protectron.

Holy shit, what the hell is that?! It's glowing!

So apparently, the nuka-cola has mutated the Mirelurks and turned them into NukaLurks. Great.

They're pretty much identical to normal mirelurks, except well, they're glowing neon blue. At least they aren't hunters.

Ew. The water is glowing neon blue in this place, even wading through this stuff probably isn't healthy.]

Well, at least we get a short respite from the constant brown that is this game.

We go up into the office area, and yup, still filled with glowing mirelurks.

Shipping is where we need to head to, so let's get over there.

You open up a closet and this skeleton falls out. According to a note left in the room, these people were locked in here and left to starve by the buildings security robots for doing the most minor of things.

This is the conveyor belt. We need to find some way to turn it on.

We have to get past this robot before we can do that of course.

We manage to speech check him into thinking we're supposed to be here.

Crap. One of the places is in Paradise Falls, which is a place we don't want to visit quite yet. Let's hope that there's enough in Old Olney (Deathclaw town) and the Super Duper Mart.

So, we leave the bottling plant. Not before turning on the conveyor belt and getting three Quantums. Sorry for not showing that.

So we're back in Super Duper Mart. It's been a long time, hasn't it? I'm feeling nostalgic already, sniff. Rememer the time we murdered all the raiders in here and took all their stuff? Good times.

We've waited 37 updates to open this door.

So now we're in the Super Duper Mart's storeroom.

There's a ton of weaponry back here, including a mini-nuke. Why would a grocery store need this is beyond me.

There's the Quantums we've been looking for. Only 3 of them unfortunately, but it's better than nothing.

Oh shit, the raiders walk in the building right when we decide to leave. You think they'd notice something being wrong months ago (In game time) when we cleared out the place. Let's be stealthy here...

The Perforator is always good for that.

The guy behind her apparently doesn't notice the raiders head being blown off only a few feet ahead of him. I suppose random heads exploding is commonplace around here.

The other guy is taken out right after, with another stealth crit. I love this weapon, it's wonderful.

So now we're at Old Olney. Due to me not remembering where the Quantum truck is, we end up fighting every single deathclaw on the outside of the city.

This deathclaw charges towards us to give the customary Old Olney "hug". We'll have none of that, crippling his leg should slow him down.

The deathclaws in Fallout 3 aren't nearly as dangerous as the deathclaws in New Vegas, but they still can do a large amount of damage. It's just that they don't shrug off pretty much any small arms fire like they do in New Vegas.

Old Olney is pretty annoying to navigate. Most of it is rubble.

Level 20! If we were playing without Broken Steel, we would have hit the level cap here. As it stands, we're 2/3 of the way towards the level cap.

I'd like to point out how many skills we have capped.

We get Grim Reaper's Sprint because it's an absolutely broken perk. The idea, is that when we kill an enemy in VATS, we get all of our AP back. All of it. We can totally break the game even more with our high agility coupled with this perk.

After much searching, we find the Quantum truck.

There's about 5 Quantums here. I'd ask why someone hasn't scavenged the truck yet, but then I realize that this is right outside Old Olney.

Welp, we have a bit of a problem. We need 3 more Quantums. Either we go to Paradise Falls before we want to go there or just go to random places in the wasteland looking for 3 Quantums. That would be just tedious. There is a third option however...

Yup, we're returning to The Pitt. Why? There's an area in The Pitt with exactly 3 Quantums that we need. And this is the one location in The Pitt that we didn't visit.

I missed you so much omnipresent orange filter!

This is where we need to go. Some ruined apartments just outside of the entrance to Haven. You would probably go through this area if you helped Ashur flood the city with trogs.

The place is kind of shitty looking. I guess a nuclear war and 2 centuries without cleaning does that to a building.

There's our first Quantum. (Spoiler: The second one is on a shelve just below this, but I was too stupid to see it. So I spend about 15 minutes looking for the final bottle before finding it. D'oh.)

This is a rather cool and large location. It's teeming with trogs though, that's why I have the 10mm pistol out. Trogs are so weak that the 10mm pistol can actually see some legitimate use here.

There's a lot of trogs here. It's somehow a nice change from constant super mutants and mirelurks though, I'll give it that.

Grim Reaper's Sprint was the best perk in the game until Broken Steel came around. There was another level 20 perk, called Explorer but the thing about Explorer is that once you have all the waypoints on your map, the world kind of loses it's wonder a bit. You know what I mean?

You can also find a room with 3 Chinese Assault rifles in it. This would have came in handy during The Pitt, huh?

After getting the last of the three Quantums, we're ready to leave this shithole.

This time I'm sure that we will never be returning to The Pitt.

So now we're back at Girdershade. Let's unload all 30 bottles at once.

"I have the last of the Quantum!"

By that I mean, we've been carrying around all 30 bottles to give to her at once.

"You've done it! My machine is finally full! Well, like I promised, here's the schematic for the Nuka Grenade. You've sure earned it! If you find any more bottles, be sure and bring them by. I'll be glad to keep paying for them."

Cool, we got the Nuka Grenade recipe. What do you need to make it?

-Turpentine
-Tin Can
-Abraxo Cleaner
-Nuka-Cola Quantum

WHAT?! We've spent all that time getting Nuka-Cola Quantum, and our reward is a recipe that uses Nuka-Cola Quantum. We've already used up a third of the games Nuka-Cola Quantums, and we've already visited all the locations with a lot of Quantum, except for Paradise Falls. The reward for this quest is just a kick in the balls, at least you get 1200 caps for turning in all 30 as well.

Fuck this quest.

Before we leave Girdershade, there is one more thing we need to do. Let's get ourselves a nice, unique sawed-off shotgun.

This guy is carrying it. It is extremely difficult to stealth from him, but there's a bit of an exploit you see...

We shoot the gun out of his hands, and put our gun away so we end combat without actually killing him. (Though he's so weak that we nearly end up killing him anyways.) Then we just pick up the gun.

Alright since we shot it so much it's broken, but we can easily repair it with a normal sawed-off shotgun. This same method can be used to get the La Longue Carbine in New Vegas, the unique Cowboy Repeater.

The Kneecapper is again, really overpowered. It isn't nearly to the overpowered extreme that the Terrible Shotgun is (Like DustyDrB aptly put, pretty much one shotgun shell that crits with that gun is the equivalent to a mini-nuke in terms of damage.) but it does way more damage than the normal sawed-off and has a surprisingly good range for a shotgun.

The guy completely ignores the fact that we nearly shot him to death, forgives us and goes back to sleep. It's not like I'm complaining.

(One last thing, if you talk to this guy he tells you to avoid the Dunwich Building directly to south of Girdershade. He says it's bad mojo. We'll be visiting the Dunwich Building after Point Lookout.)

So that's one quest down, one more to go. I don't mind collection quests too much, but the reward for this quest outright punishes you for doing it in the first place. There are other ways to get a Nuka Grenade schematic, but if this was your first time playing through you probably wouldn't know what the reward for this quest was. Even though the Nuka Grenade isn't all that great a weapon, it's really just the principle of the matter. You can't actually steal your Quantums back from the Nuka Cola machine, it's locked and she doesn't drop a key for it if she dies.

Let's hope the next quest isn't as pointless.

So, that's it for The Nuka-Cola Challenge. What did you think of this particular quest? Did the reward annoy you as much as it did me? Did you manage to get the unique sawed-off shotgun?

 

[ChupathingyX]

You get the quest in a pretty odd place, Girdershade. It's in the middle of nowhere, our closest fast travel point is Vault 112.

Which settlement isn't in the middle of nowhere?

In the Nuka-Cola Plant, you actually found some research terminals that said the test batch of this stuff was actually lethal.

Which is strange as to why it doesn't have any horrible (besides rads) side effects.

"Well, that's likely because it's none of anyone's business but ours. But hey she's a fine looking lady. I mean, you're no slouch either, but a man has his standards you know?"

Is there a punch this guy in the face option?

"What are you driving at?"

"Wow, you are as naive as you look. How do I put it? I'd love to do the horizontal bop with her... you know, plow her bean field. Come on, kid."

"That's disgusting!"

Wouldn't this have been a perfect time for a "Lady Killer" speech check?

I'm pretty sure that isn't the only place that image can be used. There's a certain DLC where that image would be shown the entire time...

This time I'm sure that we will never be returning to The Pitt.

Not even to get the unique Chinese hat located there?

So, that's it for The Nuka-Cola Challenge. What did you think of this particular quest? Did the reward annoy you as much as it did me? Did you manage to get the unique sawed-off shotgun?

Didn't like it, although in general I don't like collection quests (not to be confused with "fetch quests", which I don't mind).

Yes the reward annoyed me, after finding all those quantums it just seemed pointless, the Kneecapper seemed more like a reward.

 

[Aidinthel]

There are a ton of old decrepit banners hanging on the wall. Alright, now I know this games setting is bullshit: Those banners don't last a few months, let alone 2 centuries. (Only mostly kidding about the bullshit part.)

Whenever you notice anything like that, the answer is "Radiation did it." Fallout works on 1950s science-fiction B-movie logic.

I stumbled on that quest fairly late in the game and used the wiki to do it, so it was just a matter of fast traveling to the various locations to pick up the bottles I had previously ignored.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

-snip-

It seems my last post didn't go through. Very well

Yes. The quest reward was stupid. I don't even USE explosives.

Also, isn't there a sidequest involving a town of canibals? Or something like that? Do you know what I'm talking about?

 

[AlternatePFG]

-snip-

It seems my last post didn't go through. Very well

Yes. The quest reward was stupid. I don't even USE explosives.

Also, isn't there a sidequest involving a town of canibals? Or something like that? Do you know what I'm talking about?

You mean Andale? It isn't considered a major sidequest, but yeah, we'll probably be visiting Andale. We already passed it during the "Following Dad" mini-update, I might spend a mini-update exploring some of the more interesting standalone locations.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

-snip-

It seems my last post didn't go through. Very well

Yes. The quest reward was stupid. I don't even USE explosives.

Also, isn't there a sidequest involving a town of canibals? Or something like that? Do you know what I'm talking about?

You mean Andale? It isn't considered a major sidequest, but yeah, we'll probably be visiting Andale. We already passed it during the "Following Dad" mini-update, I might spend a mini-update exploring some of the more interesting standalone locations.

Also, from what I understand, there's a mod that lets you kill children in Fallout 3. If you wanted to, you could to a "non-canon" (read:do this and then reload a real save) run through Little Lamplight where you murder everyone.

Just sayin'

 

[AlternatePFG]

Also, from what I understand, there's a mod that lets you kill children in Fallout 3. If you wanted to, you could to a "non-canon" (read:do this and then reload a real save) run through Little Lamplight where you murder everyone.

Just sayin'

Oh, I have big non-canon plans for an update after Broken Steel. I don't think I'll be downloading the mod, this LP will be mod free, perhaps except for a short update showcasing some mods.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Also, from what I understand, there's a mod that lets you kill children in Fallout 3. If you wanted to, you could to a "non-canon" (read:do this and then reload a real save) run through Little Lamplight where you murder everyone.

Just sayin'

Oh, I have big non-canon plans for an update after Broken Steel. I don't think I'll be downloading the mod, this LP will be mod free, perhaps except for a short update showcasing some mods.

Yeah, I don't really bother with mods for the few PC games I have

I tried one for Neverwinter Nights 2, and it just didn't work for some reason. Ah well.

 

[AlternatePFG]

This is a really short update, originally I just wanted to show off the house in Georgetown, but things got a bit more complicated from there. Even then, it's going to be a very short update. I simply wanted to show off an interesting location that we certainly would not be seeing if we just did the sidequests or main storyline.

[HEADING=1]Mini-Update - Some Minor Matters[/HEADING]​

Spoiler

So there is this one extremely minor location in the game, most people would probably miss it. It's pretty much one interior cell and that's it. There's absolutely no items of interest (Except for a speech skill book, but for obvious reasons, we don't need) and it's not involved in any sidequests in anyway. It's just an interesting reference to something that actually fits with story, rather than detract from it.

We're in Georgetown. Georgetown on a whole is a very interesting part of the game, it looks very nice and actually has some buildings with some actual color. The problem is that 99% of the buildings are boarded up, and cannot be explored. This is one of the few that can. Let's check it out.

The place itself is just kind of a crappy run down townhome. On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything at all of interest in here.

There's a robot you can activate in here.

You can tell the robot to do a few things. You can deactivate it completely, tell it walk the dog, pick up some groceries, read the children a bedtime story or put it in security mode. If you tell it to walk the dog, it'll go outside and then attack you for some strange reason. You can also send it to the grocery store, which gets it pretty much instantly killed by some super mutants across the street. Putting it security mode has it roam the house randomly.

Let's try the fourth option.

The robot slowly hovers off to do it's job.

The robot reads the poem, unaware the kid has long been dead.

This whole house is actually a reference to the Ray Bradbury short story, There Will Come Soft Rains. [http://www.jerrywbrown.com/datafile/datafile/110/ThereWillComeSoftRains_Bradbury.pdf] (Which is based on the poem of the same name.) I pretty much got the reference right away, because I read that short story awhile back. It's an interesting read if nothing else, I'm somewhat surprised that Bethesda actually referenced it in the game. (Let's face it, a lot of the other "references" are pretty stupid.) I actually really liked this reference, as small as it is. I feel like it fits with the game and it's pretty unobtrusive.

It's a nice touch is all I'm saying.

Oddly enough, apparently you can find the dog's body outside, that hasn't decayed in over 2 centuries apparently. I guess they don't have a dog skeleton model or something. It's like I could find the damn thing, I had to look it up on the wiki. Apparently the thing is glitchy as hell and might end up floating in the air, stuck in a wall or doing other such nonsense.

Now for something completely different. I wanted to make a routine trip to Tenpenny Tower to get some more ammo, repair some weapons, etc. I wasn't going to show this but something interesting happened.

The first sign that something was up was the fact that there were two ghouls outside, by themselves and the door guard was nowhere to be found.

The lobby is completely empty. Uh oh, somethings up. Let's check the basement.

Oh shit, how did this feral ghoul get in here? What's with all the blood?

We immediately blast its head off.

God damn it. I thought killing Roy would stop this from happening, but nope, it happens anyway. I guess the implication is that the ghouls killed residents anyway.

They even killed Dashwood, who was a nice guy and actually liked ghouls. Someone is going to answer for this.

Of course, instead of talking, the ghouls attack us right away.

It goes about as well for him as you'd expect.

If there's any consolation to this, we get access to the shop inventories when we kill them now.

We fight the other ghouls too, this time with a flamer we looted from the other store.

They killed every single person in this tower. There is no one left alive inside the tower now. Roy is dead. Gustavo is dead. Tenpenny is dead, even though he's been dead a pretty long time now.

And soon after we fight the ghouls outside. They really don't stand a chance.

Oh yeah, by the way? We lose karma for this. Fuck you game.

Well, Tenpenny Tower is a ghost town. So, I guess I wasn't able to successfully trick the game after all. The only way for this quest line to have an ending that doesn't involve wiping one group out is simply not getting involved at all.

Ah well, let's just continue on now. I already said everything I needed to say about that stupid quest during it's respective update.

On an unrelated note, it's taken me a while to think about it, but I actually like the Gun Runner's Arsenal DLC. The new weapon mods actually really change up the model of the weapon and some of the new weapons are awesome. Shame there aren't any mods for the new 5.56mm Pistol or Battle Rifle though.

The new flamethrower is all kinds of awesome. It shoots blue flame.

 

[Berenzen]

Spoiler

So there is this one extremely minor location in the game, most people would probably miss it. It's pretty much one interior cell and that's it. There's absolutely no items of interest (Except for a speech skill book, but for obvious reasons, we don't need) and it's not involved in any sidequests in anyway. It's just an interesting reference to something that actually fits with story, rather than detract from it.

We're in Georgetown. Georgetown on a whole is a very interesting part of the game, it looks very nice and actually has some buildings with some actual color. The problem is that 99% of the buildings are boarded up, and cannot be explored. This is one of the few that can. Let's check it out.

The place itself is just kind of a crappy run down townhome. On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything at all of interest in here.

There's a robot you can activate in here.

You can tell the robot to do a few things. You can deactivate it completely, tell it walk the dog, pick up some groceries, read the children a bedtime story or put it in security mode. If you tell it to walk the dog, it'll go outside and then attack you for some strange reason. You can also send it to the grocery store, which gets it pretty much instantly killed by some super mutants across the street. Putting it security mode has it roam the house randomly.

Let's try the fourth option.

The robot slowly hovers off to do it's job.

The robot reads the poem, unaware the kid has long been dead.

This whole house is actually a reference to the Ray Bradbury short story, There Will Come Soft Rains. [http://www.jerrywbrown.com/datafile/datafile/110/ThereWillComeSoftRains_Bradbury.pdf] (Which is based on the poem of the same name.) I pretty much got the reference right away, because I read that short story awhile back. It's an interesting read if nothing else, I'm somewhat surprised that Bethesda actually referenced it in the game. (Let's face it, a lot of the other "references" are pretty stupid.) I actually really liked this reference, as small as it is. I feel like it fits with the game and it's pretty unobtrusive.

It's a nice touch is all I'm saying.

Oddly enough, apparently you can find the dog's body outside, that hasn't decayed in over 2 centuries apparently. I guess they don't have a dog skeleton model or something. It's like I could find the damn thing, I had to look it up on the wiki. Apparently the thing is glitchy as hell and might end up floating in the air, stuck in a wall or doing other such nonsense.

Now for something completely different. I wanted to make a routine trip to Tenpenny Tower to get some more ammo, repair some weapons, etc. I wasn't going to show this but something interesting happened.

The first sign that something was up was the fact that there were two ghouls outside, by themselves and the door guard was nowhere to be found.

The lobby is completely empty. Uh oh, somethings up. Let's check the basement.

Oh shit, how did this feral ghoul get in here? What's with all the blood?

We immediately blast its head off.

God damn it. I thought killing Roy would stop this from happening, but nope, it happens anyway. I guess the implication is that the ghouls killed residents anyway.

They even killed Dashwood, who was a nice guy and actually liked ghouls. Someone is going to answer for this.

Of course, instead of talking, the ghouls attack us right away.

It goes about as well for him as you'd expect.

If there's any consolation to this, we get access to the shop inventories when we kill them now.

We fight the other ghouls too, this time with a flamer we looted from the other store.

They killed every single person in this tower. There is no one left alive inside the tower now. Roy is dead. Gustavo is dead. Tenpenny is dead, even though he's been dead a pretty long time now.

And soon after we fight the ghouls outside. They really don't stand a chance.

Oh yeah, by the way? We lose karma for this. Fuck you game.

Well, Tenpenny Tower is a ghost town. So, I guess I wasn't able to successfully trick the game after all. The only way for this quest line to have an ending that doesn't involve wiping one group out is simply not getting involved at all.

Ah well, let's just continue on now. I already said everything I needed to say about that stupid quest during it's respective update.

On an unrelated note, it's taken me a while to think about it, but I actually like the Gun Runner's Arsenal DLC. The new weapon mods actually really change up the model of the weapon and some of the new weapons are awesome. Shame there aren't any mods for the new 5.56mm Pistol or Battle Rifle though.

The new flamethrower is all kinds of awesome. It shoots blue flame.

Yeah, I'm liking the new GRA, especially the new anti-materiel rifle mods and the Bozar.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

This is a really short update, originally I just wanted to show off the house in Georgetown, but things got a bit more complicated from there. Even then, it's going to be a very short update. I simply wanted to show off an interesting location that we certainly would not be seeing if we just did the sidequests or main storyline.

[HEADING=1]Mini-Update - Some Minor Matters[/HEADING]​

Spoiler

So there is this one extremely minor location in the game, most people would probably miss it. It's pretty much one interior cell and that's it. There's absolutely no items of interest (Except for a speech skill book, but for obvious reasons, we don't need) and it's not involved in any sidequests in anyway. It's just an interesting reference to something that actually fits with story, rather than detract from it.

We're in Georgetown. Georgetown on a whole is a very interesting part of the game, it looks very nice and actually has some buildings with some actual color. The problem is that 99% of the buildings are boarded up, and cannot be explored. This is one of the few that can. Let's check it out.

The place itself is just kind of a crappy run down townhome. On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything at all of interest in here.

There's a robot you can activate in here.

You can tell the robot to do a few things. You can deactivate it completely, tell it walk the dog, pick up some groceries, read the children a bedtime story or put it in security mode. If you tell it to walk the dog, it'll go outside and then attack you for some strange reason. You can also send it to the grocery store, which gets it pretty much instantly killed by some super mutants across the street. Putting it security mode has it roam the house randomly.

Let's try the fourth option.

The robot slowly hovers off to do it's job.

The robot reads the poem, unaware the kid has long been dead.

This whole house is actually a reference to the Ray Bradbury short story, There Will Come Soft Rains. [http://www.jerrywbrown.com/datafile/datafile/110/ThereWillComeSoftRains_Bradbury.pdf] (Which is based on the poem of the same name.) I pretty much got the reference right away, because I read that short story awhile back. It's an interesting read if nothing else, I'm somewhat surprised that Bethesda actually referenced it in the game. (Let's face it, a lot of the other "references" are pretty stupid.) I actually really liked this reference, as small as it is. I feel like it fits with the game and it's pretty unobtrusive.

It's a nice touch is all I'm saying.

Oddly enough, apparently you can find the dog's body outside, that hasn't decayed in over 2 centuries apparently. I guess they don't have a dog skeleton model or something. It's like I could find the damn thing, I had to look it up on the wiki. Apparently the thing is glitchy as hell and might end up floating in the air, stuck in a wall or doing other such nonsense.

Now for something completely different. I wanted to make a routine trip to Tenpenny Tower to get some more ammo, repair some weapons, etc. I wasn't going to show this but something interesting happened.

The first sign that something was up was the fact that there were two ghouls outside, by themselves and the door guard was nowhere to be found.

The lobby is completely empty. Uh oh, somethings up. Let's check the basement.

Oh shit, how did this feral ghoul get in here? What's with all the blood?

We immediately blast its head off.

God damn it. I thought killing Roy would stop this from happening, but nope, it happens anyway. I guess the implication is that the ghouls killed residents anyway.

They even killed Dashwood, who was a nice guy and actually liked ghouls. Someone is going to answer for this.

Of course, instead of talking, the ghouls attack us right away.

It goes about as well for him as you'd expect.

If there's any consolation to this, we get access to the shop inventories when we kill them now.

We fight the other ghouls too, this time with a flamer we looted from the other store.

They killed every single person in this tower. There is no one left alive inside the tower now. Roy is dead. Gustavo is dead. Tenpenny is dead, even though he's been dead a pretty long time now.

And soon after we fight the ghouls outside. They really don't stand a chance.

Oh yeah, by the way? We lose karma for this. Fuck you game.

Well, Tenpenny Tower is a ghost town. So, I guess I wasn't able to successfully trick the game after all. The only way for this quest line to have an ending that doesn't involve wiping one group out is simply not getting involved at all.

Ah well, let's just continue on now. I already said everything I needed to say about that stupid quest during it's respective update.

On an unrelated note, it's taken me a while to think about it, but I actually like the Gun Runner's Arsenal DLC. The new weapon mods actually really change up the model of the weapon and some of the new weapons are awesome. Shame there aren't any mods for the new 5.56mm Pistol or Battle Rifle though.

The new flamethrower is all kinds of awesome. It shoots blue flame.

Ahhhh. Too bad it didn't work. Oh well

And the gun runner DLC looks really cool. I take it that you recomend it highly?

 

[AlternatePFG]

Ahhhh. Too bad it didn't work. Oh well

And the gun runner DLC looks really cool. I take it that you recomend it highly?

For 4 bucks, it's a pretty cool weapon pack. Especially if you're playing on consoles, while there was a mod that added a ton of weapon mods to weapons that didn't already had them, consoles couldn't get it. Even if you have the PC version, the mods have cool visual changes on the weapons and are pretty well integrated into the game.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Ahhhh. Too bad it didn't work. Oh well

And the gun runner DLC looks really cool. I take it that you recomend it highly?

For 4 bucks, it's a pretty cool weapon pack. Especially if you're playing on consoles, while there was a mod that added a ton of weapon mods to weapons that didn't already had them, consoles couldn't get it. Even if you have the PC version, the mods have cool visual changes on the weapons and are pretty well integrated into the game.

Sounds like fun. I'm a console player, at the moment.

Is there still no unique Silenced .22 Pistol? Sadface

Oh well. I'll likely be picking it up anyways.

As a side note, have you played Deus Ex: Human Revolution yet? That is, if you plan to.

 

[AlternatePFG]

Sounds like fun. I'm a console player, at the moment.

Is there still no unique Silenced .22 Pistol? Sadface

Oh well. I'll likely be picking it up anyways.

As a side note, have you played Deus Ex: Human Revolution yet? That is, if you plan to.

Oh yeah. Rented it, beat it. It's probably my favorite game of the year so far, once I can afford it, I'll probably buy the PC version.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Sounds like fun. I'm a console player, at the moment.

Is there still no unique Silenced .22 Pistol? Sadface

Oh well. I'll likely be picking it up anyways.

As a side note, have you played Deus Ex: Human Revolution yet? That is, if you plan to.

Oh yeah. Rented it, beat it. It's probably my favorite game of the year so far, once I can afford it, I'll probably buy the PC version.

I see. I've heard mixed things about the gameplay balance

If I get it, what play style would you recomend?

 

[AlternatePFG]

I see. I've heard mixed things about the gameplay balance

If I get it, what play style would you recomend?

I primarily played a stealth character, but was pretty much balanced in anything. Specializing really doesn't have much of a point in the game.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

I see. I've heard mixed things about the gameplay balance

If I get it, what play style would you recomend?

I primarily played a stealth character, but was pretty much balanced in anything. Specializing really doesn't have much of a point in the game.

Sounds like fun. I'll likely play it over break. I'm currently on a video game hiatus

I've not played the other Deus Ex games though. Thank goodness this is a prequil, right?

 

[DustyDrB]

I see. I've heard mixed things about the gameplay balance

If I get it, what play style would you recomend?

I primarily played a stealth character, but was pretty much balanced in anything. Specializing really doesn't have much of a point in the game.

I enjoyed being specialized for the challenge. I'm a big fan of self-imposed restrictions. I may have failed the

Spoiler: Good Soul

"Save Malik"

part a ridiculous amount of times, but I had a ton of fun doing it while staying true to my "rules".

 

[Aidinthel]

I told you that would happen in the tower. Actually, you got lucky. None of the corpses appeared for me, everyone was just gone. I then killed all the ghouls just like you did. The way I see it, if they can't get along in this world then they can damn well learn to get along in the next one.

 

[JamesStone]

To make up for yesterday's short update, I have a big one in store for you guys today.

[HEADING=1]Chapter XV - The Fate of The Pitt[/HEADING]​

Spoiler

Last update, we were given the choice between helping the slaves bargain, by stealing the cure for a disease that is epidemic in the Pitt, for their freedom, or helping Ashur and the raiders stop their rebellion and taking out their leader, Wernher.

Of course, Wernher completely failed to mention to us that the cure in question, is a baby.

Instead of giving the baby to the ill-equipped slaves, who are probably not very knowledgeable in that particular area of science is probably a bad idea, so we decide to help Ashur.

Our goal now is talk to to Midea to find Wernher. For some reason, Wernher finally has chosen now to actually show his face.

We walk out the door, and you can already hear the chaos that's going on. Raiders are fighting with the slaves, who are all armed with auto-axes.

How the fuck did the slaves manage to hide all these weapons underneath the raiders nose, and mobilize in the time it took us to enter and leave Haven? The guards must be blind.

We avoid killing the slaves because we're playing a good character and not only are we trying to stay in character, you get bad karma for defending yourself against the people armed with chainsaws trying to kill you.

I know the game has only been out for a couple of weeks, tops, but I'm already getting bad flashbacks about the last level of Human Revolution when playing this part. That final part of the game was a pain in the ass on a pacifist playthrough. (I wasn't on a pacifist playthrough, but I wasn't playing a shoot everyone in sight playthrough, either.)

The raiders can take the slaves pretty easy, as well, the raiders are armed with guns that can gun down the slaves before they can even get into range with their wimpy, broken auto-axes.

You know, this all could have been avoided if the raiders and slaves were a bit more sensible.

An impressive battle at the very least. Uptown is a bit weird in it's layout but it's a cool idea I suppose.

Now it's time to confront Midea and ask her about Wernher's location.

"You're not the first to win their freedom and forget where they came from."

I didn't come from here though, you idiot.

"Did you know the cure is actually a baby?"

"Of course I knew, you dolt. I also knew it's the only chance we had of finding a cure and ransoming our freedom."

I hate how the PC can't call them out on this, and tell them that by endangering the kid, they're endangering their only chance for a cure and by extension, their only chance for freedom.

"If they ever find a cure, do you think they'll share it with us? Of course not. Why waste medicine on people you'll just work to death, anyway?"

"If you want to live, you'll tell me where Wernher is hiding."

"[SUCCESS] Fine, if it'll get you out of the way, go check under the blast furnace in the steelyard. Look for a rooftop door in the southwest. It's got a blue light, you can't miss it. But Wernher will put you in your place."

"Your riot isn't going to change anything. Except getting the slaves killed..."

"They'd rather die for freedom than die working for the raiders."

Forget this then, we know Wernher's location and we can find him now. Note that for some strange reason, if you have the Child at Heart perk, you can convince Midea to see the error of her ways. Why is it Child at Heart? I have no idea, presumably it has to do with the baby, but isn't Child at Heart only meant to work on kids in the game? Is it implying that Midea has the mental capacity of a 9 year old?

That might be true actually.

Some of the slaves are still working though... Odd.

There's still some gunned down slaves at the outside of the Mill, so something went on over here.

As soon as you walk through the door, a dozen slaves rush at you with auto-axes. Fighting them would be pretty easy, but would take a huge chunk out of our karma and be rather out of character for Lily, so instead we just run to the door to the Steelyard.

The raiders are actually pretty outnumbered here. Let's not stick around.

The raider behind the desk is probably shitting his pants.

They chase us out of the Mill, I wonder if they follow us to the Steelyard...

Nope, they don't. Phew. No more pacifism by running past enemies in this game at least. That's what sucks about pacifism playthroughs in many RPG's most of the time you just have to run away and hope not to get killed in the process. Deus Ex and Human Revolution both give you useful non-lethal combat options which is nice, except for Human Revolution's aforementioned "Oh god I'm out of P.E.P.S. ammo and I have to run away from enemies now" final level.

Still plenty of trogs in the Steelyard, even though we cleared it out on a previous update. These things really aren't much of a threat at all though, more of a minor nuisance.

Wernher's hideout is right by an area we already passed, so it should be easy getting there.

Oops. So much for pacifism.

Not shown: Me running all the way back here from the entrance of the Mill, because killing the guard makes Wernher instantly hostile for some stupid reason.

Wernher has a makeshift lab set up in here, but the place doesn't look at that clean and well suited for experiments.

"...Wait. Where's the cure? Did you lose it? Where is that little bastard?"

"Your plans are over, Wernher. Ashur knows everything."

"And you just went along with, did you? To hell with everyone else but you, huh? Here, I thought that you of all people would understand that sometimes you have to get your hands dirty to make a difference."

That's what I'm doing right now. These conversations piss me off, as you don't get many dialogue options at all to justify why you did this, and the game just gives you "I'm not kidnapping a kid" rather than "It's for the greater good, etc."

"But you're just a coward, afraid of making a choice. Afraid of changing the world!"

"[Speech, 57%] One chance, Wernher. Leave now, and never come back."

"[SUCCESS] Sure, fine. Obviously, you've joined with Ashur and I think you've got a bright future as a lackey. You really do."

I'd rather be Ashur's lackey than your lackey.

"But you know what? Fuck this city, and fuck the raiders, fuck the slaves, and fuck you too, fucker. I'm gone."

How eloquent. Here is where the whole grey morality thing of The Pitt falls apart. Wernher really is just an asshole trying to use the slaves as an excuse to gain power over the Pitt for himself. If you leave him in charge, the slaves are still slaves. Slaves without food (unless you count trog meat) or protection, who will probably be wiped out by a random group of raiders walking by. I don't think they have the proper scientific knowledge of to get the cure from the baby either. The slaves aren't even very sympathetic either. Helping Wernher and the slaves effectively kills everyone, not just the raiders.

Yet somehow, after that, killing Wernher gives bad karma.

Fuck this game.

It's so hard to resist shooting Wernher in the back, but that's not something our character would do. We're a lawful good "only shoot when necessary" right?

One has to wonder if the wasteland would be a better place without people like Wernher though and if he's still around, there's nothing stopping him from pulling this shit again.

So this is their lab. Not impressive, and in the middle of a polluted Steelyard.

There's one more thing to check out in the Steelyard before returning to Ashur for our reward. The power plant. Why not? This DLC is short enough as it is.

The slave attacks us on the way out. I shoot her, and she runs off.

It's still counts if she isn't dead! :V

The power plant is the only other location we have left to visit. (Except for the underground but that's only accessible if we help Wernher anyways.)

To the surprise of no one, the power plant is somewhat irradiated. One would wonder why the entire Steelyard area isn't at least somewhat irradiated, but I digress.

We encounter some wildmen getting chased down and eaten by trogs. Again, the trogs are scripted to take them down in one hit, but trogs are really not scary at all, unless they surprise you.

Guess they had to use them a ton though, considering they're the only new enemy in this DLC.

You know, if they ever decided to clear out the Steelyard, they could maybe get the power plant back up in running again...?

Hope you like trogs, because you have to fight a ton of them in this place.

You can hear some trogs eating a corpse upstairs. The idea is that this place was inhabited by the wildmen up until you came in. Or at least that's the only explanation why there's some beds in here and a ton of freshly dead corpses.

Coming up is an interesting bit of environmental storytelling and one of the few interesting terminal entries in this game.

You find a skeleton of a man, who obviously committed suicide and a computer terminal nearby with some entries with some details of what happened at the power plant.

It's an interesting read. [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Supply_plant_terminal_entries#Tom_McMullin.27s_entries]

I mean, it's not on level of the Survivalist Journals from Honest Hearts by any means, but I still particularly liked them.

On an upper floor, you can find the aforementioned bed with a unique auto-axe by the name of the "Man-Opener". It's even glitcher than the normal auto-axe and that's saying something.

That's it for the power plant. There's a bit more if you do Wernher's side of the quest, but since we haven't, there isn't much else for us here. Nice area though, I guess.

We encounter a wildman outside the building.

Still love that VATS.

We head further down the train tracks in the Steelyard but we get attacked by a large group of trogs along the way. Past them is a good stash of ingots.

We could go down their if we helped Wernher or killed him and took the key, but alas, we did not.

Not pictured: Me walking all the way back to the Mill.

Raiders are still having trouble with the slaves. Going to walk away and hope no one notices us...

Quick jump cut to Haven. I did not realize you could quick travel in The Pitt until now. Huh. Well, you learn something new every day.

Ashur patiently waits for our return.

"The Pitt has a bright future ahead of it, and so do you."

"What do you mean about the city's future?"

"Now that Marie's back, we have a chance at curing the disease that's been ravaging The Pitt since the bombs. Without it killing our kids, we can grow like a real city. No more bringing in slaves. No more forced labor. Things can get better. It's taken me a lot of work to rebuild this city. With your help, it's finally going to have a chance."

"What's going to become of the workers?"

"Right now, nothing. Until we can reproduce a treatment from Marie, they'll have to keep working. Otherwise, this city falls apart. But once we do have a cure, things will be different. We won't need to kidnap people for our city. We'll be able to grow naturally. Until then, this is the way it has to be. It's just what has to be done."

"So, how about my reward?"

"You've keep the city in one piece and put a stop to Wernher's plans. Yeah, I guess you've earned one. As a full citizen of The Pitt, you'll have full access to the ammo press in the Mill. It's how I keep my soldiers well armed, so make good use of it."

If we helped Wernher, we'd pretty much get the same rewards, plus Ashur's armor. You get the armor anyway for getting 100 ingots in the Steelyard though.

"And I think Sandra's made some progress with the cure. So here's a little something to help with radiation."

"So, what do I do now?"

"That's up to you. We'll keep working on the cure and keep the city running. You're free to come and go as you like. Of course, you can help out at the mill by collecting metal from the Steelyard. It'd help lighten the load on the workers. And if you want to work on Sandra's good side, you can always bring her toys for Marie. It's a little thing, but it'd make a difference."

I think the most important thing for Ashur to do is hire a less psychotic staff but that's just me.

"Where did you get that powered armor?"

"This thing? It's a relic from my time with the Brotherhood of Steel, decades ago. It's been through so much that they'd hardly recognize it as one of theirs. A little like me, come to think of it."

"Do you ever miss the Brotherhood of Steel?"

"Not in the slightest. During the Scourge, we looted The Pitt and left the rest of it to rot. I was just a dumb convert who got stuck here afterwards. See, beneath it all, the Brotherhood's just lazy. It's easier to loot a dying city than the work to bring it back to life, so that's what they did."

That's what everyone in the Captial Wasteland is doing.

"They're so obsessed with the technology of the past, they don't care what needs to be done for today and tomorrow. It takes real work to rebuild and run a city. But there isn't a machine to do it for them, so the Brotherhood ain't interested. Good riddance."

"I have to go now."

"You're always welcome in The Pitt."

Oh fuck you game. A lot more people would have died if we helped the slaves, that's all I have left to say on the matter. The game pretty much comes out and says "You bastard" here, which is something it loves doing by the way. (Three Dog's/The Games reaction to you killing Roy in the Tenpenny Tower quest or the evil ending voiceover stick out the most.)

So much for moral ambiguity. Say bye to Ashur, this is probably the last we'll see of him. Too bad he isn't a companion or something.

And now, we finally leave The Pitt. What do I think of the DLC overall?

I think it's pretty obvious that Bethesda was trying to do an actually interesting ambiguous choice here. It is much better than the main game which is pretty much black and white with few exceptions and even those exceptions end up being infuriatingly stupid.

It's just that there are way too many problems with helping the slaves in this scenario. Wernher is an asshole who'd probably keep things the exact same way, except for him being the head honcho instead of Ashur. The slaves are hardly able to survive out here as it is, and their only source of food and protection is gone. Even if the slaves did not die right after yanking control from the raiders, there is a good possibility that the cure they want will never be created.

Now, if the choice for the slaves was to return back to the wasteland or if Wernher was less of an asshole, then I think we'd be getting somewhere.

The Pitt also kind of highlights some of major problems with the main game as well. Limited dialogue options that usually make your character look like a dolt and some rather weird scripting issues that will probably change on repeat playthroughs. The level design is actually pretty nice, I think all the locations in The Pitt are pretty interesting.

The weapons are okay I guess. The Auto-Axe is cool, but so buggy that it's hardly worth using, and the Infiltrator is pretty much just a silenced and scoped assault rifle.

The armor on the other hand, is pretty cool. There's a few more variants of the raider armors, and Ashur's power armor is awesome. Not worth going on a fetch quest for 100 ingots though. (Only applies to Ashur's ending.)

Here's the kicker though: The Pitt is incredibly short. This playthrough of The Pitt took me maybe 90 minutes, if you were being more through in finding all the ingots and such, you could get more time out of it, but isn't that saying something when they're trying to drag out an already short DLC with a prolonged fetch quest?

Packaged in with the GOTY edition, sure I think The Pitt is a great addition to the game but buying it on it's own is certainly not worth it.

The somewhat improved writing does give me a little bit of hope though. Maybe Bethesda will learn it's lessons from The Pitt and actually improve their storytelling for the next Fallout ga- Oh wait, Mothership Zeta came after this DLC, didn't it?

Nevermind.

We're home. Somehow, I missed the Capital Wasteland.

Okay question time: What did you think about The Pitt?

This is a very long text, please read it all.

I´m sorry for only awnsering now, you probably have already forgotten this, but I think this viewpoint is pretty naive. I understand your reasons, but your argument is flawed. Ashur is using what I like to call the "dictator argument". First, I just don´t understand how mining and processing metal and steel would help to developt a cure. I mean, it´s not like they need funding. If they did, I´m pretty sure that they could produce bottlecaps in those metal refineries and then paint them to look like actual Nuka-caps, and I bet my sweet ass most iidiots in the Wasteland wouldn´t tell the difference.
Second, even if this work was necessary, the raiders are a pretty powerful force. As seen in the attack to Uptown during the "revolution", the raiders are same by same as the slaves, not to mention that those guys are much more phisically capable than the washed out slaves. Not to mention that most pitt slaves are from the Capital Wasteland. Which means that instead of using people that already had the Pitt disease, they just kidnapped healthy (by comparison) people in the wasteland because they didn´t want to spoil their hands with hard work. And even if by some force of magic, the only thing raiders were good was firing guns, do you really think that Ashur would let the slaves free. Think for a second. If you were made to work by someone, badly treated, seeing your companions die from exaustion or by being shot down by raiders, just to improve an industry that is ultimately useless in the Wasteland(seriously, why in the fuck's name they would need a steelyard other than making guns and ammo?) you would just walk away in the first chance you had to kill the bastards who did this to you? Most likely Ashur would keep making them work or just gunned them down.

Now, let´s take a look at the slave´s side, shall we? If the industry is so damn important for them to find a cure, the slaves would just keep working, but this time by choice, and I´ve the ideia that people work better when you aren´t throwing grenades at them. Even if some people gave up and went away, you could just hire more by making bottlecaps in the presses and giving them paycheck. Also, it´s said in game that most slaves are form the Capital Wasteland. Midea is probably from there to 'cause she didn't developted the disease that affects most Pitt slaves (the lack of face marks hints that away), so she could be educated, and she is, seeing that if you side with Werhner she is the one in charge to developting the cure. And don´t you think the coincidence that the baby´s mother is the only educated person in a ray of 100kms?
Again, if the slaves knowledge proves to be insuficient, they can just search and recruit other scientists to help them, a bit like project Purity, but much more big and with much more incentives to join in (this time, they have the cure right in front of them, they just need to find out how to use it. Project Purity started from scratch, but it was still able to collect a bunch of specialists). And if you´re worried about them hurting the child, if you speak again to Werhner he will say that Midea isn´t letting anyone hurting Maria, much to his displeasure (yeah, he´s a complete asshole, but he can be a powerless asshole if you follow step nº3)

Third. It is possible to side with the slaves without making Werhner the new Pitt overlord. Just to the normal mission, but first spare Sandra, and then refuse to release the trogs to uptown. That way, there will still be some raiders alive, including Ashur and his wife, so the slaves most likely won´t attack them, because the lost would be bigger than the win, stoping werhner from taking over Ashur´s place, and I doubt that ex-slaves, now armed with their ex-master´s weapons, would thake kindly to being explored again. And no, this is not contradicting my previous statement. The slaves got free and killed a lot of raiders. That is probably enough.

I´m finished. Please tell me what you thought.