So, going north through Sloan is pretty much a no go, so we head back towards the split in the road and go the other direction. Hopefully, we will get further this way. It's quite the detour, I mean if we somehow could get past those
invisible walls mountains to the north, we could get to Vegas in no time at all.
Ah well, I'm sure it won't take us that long to get there.
We can see Primm already vaguely in the distance. All that is really noticeable at this point is the rollercoaster.
More Powder Gangers. I would be complaining, but they are extremely easy caps/ammo, so I'll let it go.
You can use this campfire like the one in the survival tutorial with Sunny. We won't be using survival much at all this playthrough, but eventually we'll get to it.
Come on, it's not stealing when they're dead!
...
Okay, that would sound bad out of context. They're Powder Gangers though, they're kind of assholes anyway.
The way the game gives karma is less fucked than Fallout 3, but it has its moments. Less karma given through more ambiguous choices throughout the plotline, but there are some hostile NPC's that attack you on sight that will give you good karma for killing them. So trying to maintain an evil karma can be a pain in the ass.
Of course, karma isn't quite as important as it is in Fallout 3. Really, all it changes is the flavor of ending you get in the epilogue.
Just saying it in advance, I love the Vikki and Vance Casino. The story of Vikki and Vance is quite hilarious, in my opinion. More on that later.
Obviously we aren't getting anywhere near Los Angeles (Which is currently the Boneyard from Fallout 1, it's mentioned briefly in New Vegas), but we will be visiting Nipton a bit later on.
That rollercoaster better be functioning.
This will probably be your first encounter with the NCR in New Vegas.
This trooper warns us of the Powder Gangers currently besieging Primm. I fail to see the crisis here. They're Powder Gangers, not fucking Super Mutants.
This half of Primm is mostly rubble and a NCR camp.
This is the NCR camp. Pretty... unimpressive.
There is a grand total of like three people at the camp anyway.
"What are you doing here?"
"We were sent out here to hold back the tide of convicts from the correctional facility. As you can probably tell, we aren't doing the kind of job we could be doing."
No, you're not considering the convicts have besieged the town that's literally feet away from where you are right now.
"What's the problem with your mission?"
"The mission isn't a problem. The problem is with supplies. The convicts are better armed and organized than our intel initially suggested."
They're really not well armed at all. Their guns are kind of shit and their armor is pretty subpar too.
I guess they assumed they were just armed with toothpicks and maybe the rare butterknife.
"I'm trying to get some reinforcements here, maybe some guns with some firepower, but... shit... things are just going slow."
We can help them out, but it's rather unintuitive. We would have to have helped out the Powder Gangers in Goodsprings (Or just ignore the sidequest altogether) and then do their questline. At the end of the questline we would betray the Powder Gangers to the NCR, then we would get to storm the prison. We can't do that now, however.
Definitely will show it off on a later playthrough though.
"Tell me about the correctional facility."
"Most people just call it NCRCF. That's NCR Correctional Facility. A little bit ago the convicts there staged a coup, killed the guards that weren't able to escape, and have been ransacking the area since then."
"Do you have any information on the convicts?"
"Not much. They've taken to calling themselves Powder Gangers. Mostly because they've taken to using the explosives meant to clear boulders as weapons. They got organized faster than I would have thought, most of them at least. Thankfully the small group in town here seem to have split off from the main force, so they aren't getting anything in the way of support."
The small group in town is three people guarding the outside. It's really silly that the people of Primm plus the NCR could not at least take the town back by themselves.
Welp, let's go see what's up in town.
It's across this bridge. However, the NCR doesn't warn us that there are mines on it, so we have to disarm them ourselves.
There really is no reason to go sneaking into the town, as the Powder Gangers are pathetic anyways, but it's a habit of mine.
There are some shacks on the side that are the homes of the Deputy and the Sheriff. There is not much of interest in the Deputy's house, but let's check out the Sheriff's.
As soon as you walk inside you'll probably hear the sound that happens when a limb explodes or someone is gibbed...
The sheriff and his wife were killed by the Powder Gangers, but what is interesting is that for some reason the engine doesn't have them gibbed in advance, so it happens as soon as you walk through the door.
There is a Cowboy Repeater under that bed. It's nearly broken, but we take it anyway. It may be useful in the future, even if that just means bashing a ghoul in the face with it or something.
They have a reloading bench in here as well.
Well, fuck stealth.
The 9mm pistol is fairly useful at this point in the game. I'm not using the Weathered 10mm pistol as I'm saving up the ammo and the gun is pretty powerful anyway.
This Powder Ganger tried to flee into the Mojave Express building, but we gun him down before he gets inside.
There is some ammo and a skill magazine up here.
All of the people of Primm are holed up in the Vikki and Vance casino. This is Johnson Nash, he runs the Mojave Express and he is probably the most important NPC in the town.
"Who are you?"
"Johnson Nash's my name. Husband to Ruby Nash. Lived in Primm going on eight years now, thick and thin. I'm a trader primarily, for what it's worth with things like they are. I also run the local Mojave Express outpost."
Right now, that doesn't mean anything to us but the Courier knows about it, obviously.
"I'm a courirer with the Mojave Express."
"Well, I don't got any work right now, sorry to say."
"I lost a package I was supposed to deliver."
"I'll tell you whatever I can. Do you have a delivery order you can show me?"
"What can you tell me about this job?"
This is where things get interesting.
"Oh, so you're talking about one of them packages. That job had strange written all over it."
So already we know there wasn't anything ordinary about the package we were running.
"But we couldn't turn down the caps."
"What was strange about it?"
"That cowboy robot had us hire six couriers."
So Victor isn't as innocuous as was first let on...
"Each was carrying something a little different. A pair of dice, a chess piece, that kind of stuff. Last word I had from the office, it looked like payment had been received for the other five jobs. Guess it was just your chip that didn't make it. First deadbeat we hired to do the job canceled. Hope a storm from the Divide skins him alive. Well, that's where you came in."
What seemed to be a few incidental lines of dialogue turned into an entire DLC.
"He canceled?"
"Yeah, got this look when he saw you next down on the Courier list. His expression turned right around, asked me if your name was for real. I said, sure as lack of rain, you were still kicking. Then he turned down the job, just like that, I asked if he was sure, it was good money. No, let "Courier Six" carry the package, that's what he said - like the Mojave'd sort you out or something. Then he just up and walked out."
"Do you know who he was? Where he went?"
"No idea. Sounds like you two had a history for him to act like that. And turn down the money, too. Hope he didn't see any trouble in that package of yours. Maybe he thought your name was bad luck. Not for me to say."
Hrm, sounds like quite the character. I wonder if we will meet this person later in our travels.
"Cowboy robot? You mean the one over there?"
Apparently there is another cowboy robot, Primm Slim. Can't see him right now, he's in the middle of the casino.
"Nope. Different fella. Bigger. Had himself a face on a screen, and he talked more like you or me."
Yup, it's Victor. I don't believe we can go back to Goodsprings and talk to him about it, as he has probably moved on by now.
Not that that is the last we will see of Victor. Far from it.
"Some men stole my package. A man in a checkered suit and some thugs. Did they pass this way?"
"Well, now that you mention it, a few nights back one of the townies was out scavenging for supplies. He said he saw a fella with a daisy suit come through with some of them Great Khan misfits. They was talking about a chip."
"One of those men shot me. I need to know the best way to get to them."
You know, now that I think about it, this seems a bit ill-advised. Wouldn't you want to avoid people who shoot at you?
"Well for that your best bet is going to be talking to Deputy Beagle. Since they came to town he was keeping a good bit of notes on them, and he was slinking around Bison Steve when your pretty-boy frined came through. He may have heard where they were going."
Well, let's go save the Deputy.
Here is a better look at the Vikki and Vance Casino. It isn't open right now, and actually getting it open is rather confusing. Like I said before, I like the backstory behind the casino, but we can get to that after the casino offically opens.
Now we're entering the Bison Steve Casino, which is connected to the rollercoaster. The Powder Gangers are holed up inside there, let's take care of them.
Place is kind of run down, I see why they don't use it anymore.
Like all the other Powder Gangers, these guys go down without any difficulty.
The lobby is alright though.
Let's sneak through this maintenace door so that we avoid fighting the Powder Gangers head on.
Of course, we're not extremely sneaky, so they'll notice us anyways. Oh well.
Even before we were in their line of sight, they attacked us.
I use VATS a lot less in this game for two reasons. The first being that there are ironsights now, so accurately aiming isn't too difficult. Second, you are no longer practically invinicible during VATS. The 90% VATS damage resistance is gone, meaning that you're vulernable while using it. Not saying that it can't be hideously overpowered in this game as well, but much less so than Fallout 3.
There is only two Powder Gangers left in the main room. These Powder Gangers actually heard the gunshots and came over here to fight us, which is unusual in this game. I mean, the AI is still terrible, but that was a nice little trick.
Even though I complain about how much the Varmint Rifle sucks (Less so modded, but still rather subpar) the Powder Gangers go down in like 2 or 3 hits from it depending on where you hit them.
This is the leader of this particular group of Powder Gangers. He has an Incinerator, and he is rather dangerous. However, I switch to the Weathered 10mm Pistol and take him down quite easily.
It's pretty damn strong, I have to say.
Oooh, Sunset Sarsaparilla. Wait, wasn't there a deputy we had to save?
Oh, there you are. Right where I left you.
This is Deputy Beagle. He is kind of a prick.
"You must be Deputy Beagle."
"Why, yes I am. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm in a bit of a predicament here. I'd be most appreciative if you'd set me free."
"I hear you may have information on some Khans that came through here with a guy in a checkered suit."
"Indeed I do good sir, and I would be thrilled to share that information with you as soon as I am released from captivity."
"I'll set you free now."
"Oh that's just marvelous. I think I'll be making my way outisde now. The air's a little close in here."
"Sure, run away. You don't look like you'd be much help."
He really isn't, he dies pretty much instantly.
"Then I'll defer to your superior appraisal of character and prowess in contests of arms and see you outside!"'
While we cleared out the bottom floor of the hotel, there are still more enemies in the upper levels.
There are still Nuka-Cola machines of course. I don't believe they randomly give Quantums anymore, however.
There are a lot of Powder Gangers up here, but as was shown before, Powder Gangers aren't very smart. They just kind of run at you, guns blazing, right into your line of fire.
Oh look, medical supplies. I'll take that-
Cut that out! Can't you see I'm trying to steal stimpaks over here?
Dynamite is like a weaker frag grenade. We don't have a very good explosives skill, but it should prove useful anyways.
The dynamite hardly hurts them, so let's finish the job.
Half the time I miss the possibel screen caps in which someone gets gibbed by the Single Shotgun, because the reloading animation blocks out the view.
You notice how all the Powder Gangers decided to fight me in this room. I think the large majority of Powder Gangers in this area came in here to fight me, and that certainly was not a bright idea.
Just let the bodies pile up.
In the middle of all that, we level up.
Put the obligatory points into Lockpick (Forgot to mention that there are two hard locks earlier in the Bison Steve Hotel. We'll come back for the stuff there later) and some points into Guns.
The more skill points, the better.
Oh yeah, we can repair this elevator too. Not really much of a point.
This is what I was talking about earlier, the gun kind of gets in the way...
Most of the rooms are boarded up.
Past a very easy locked door (You can get a key off a Powder Ganger as well) is this room.
There is still some enviromental storytelling in this game, but not as much as Fallout 3 had. To compensate for that, the actual story and characters are much better than Fallout 3's.
I know that isn't saying much.
Another Powder Ganger comes wandering into that room.
There are still a couple Powder Gangers left outside. They're on the rollercoaster, which sadly, is non functioning.
Well, at least we get to walk on it.
You know, it probably wasn't a smart idea for this guy to hang out on the rollercoaster. You don't have any cover, and it's not like you can just jump off the tracks without hurting yourself on the ground.
We cripple his leg, but suddenly turns right around and legs it in the other direction.
He doesn't get far of course.
Huh, I've never climbed this hill on the rollercoaster before.
Quite pretty up here.
I was too distracted by the scenery to notice the missing section of track ahead and...
Whoops. Well, let's go back to the Vikki and Vance Casino and chat with the Deputy now that the Powder Ganger problem is sorted.
Here he is.
Oh fuck you.
"Breaking myself out of a hostage situation - not to diminish your role in it, of course - but it was quite thrilling. Problem is, there's still no law in Primm. What're we to do the next time ruffians menace us and hold us hostage?"
"What are you talking about? You're the sheriff now!"
"Oh no! I'm just the deputy. And I can't be a deputy without a sheriff. It's called chain of command."
Erm, I don't think you get how this works. Though, putting this guy in charge of the safety of the town is probably not a very smart idea in retrospect.
"What are the qualifications for a Sheriff?"
No, we can't become sheriff. This isn't like Skyrim where you become leader of a faction just after doing a few chores for them. (Hyperbole)
"It should be someone brave like you, but more of a homebody. Someone who'll settle down and watch over us. I heard the Powder Gangers talking about someone in the prison named Meyers who has some experience as a sheriff. He may be a good choice."
We'll we're not getting into the prison without being shot at, so let's think of the alternative.
"Also, with the NCR so close by, you may be able to get them to take over the town. Not sure why they haven't helped out already."
Guess we're going with getting shot at by convicts.
"I'll help bring law and order back to Primm."
The sidequests in this game usually flow much better than they do in Fallout 3. There is an actual logical reason to do them and they usually don't feel completely random.
"You will? That's just marvelous! I'll start thinking up questions for the interview! The sheriff that was incarcerated up at NCRCF may be a good choice."
There is really no reason not to go with the sheriff at NCRCF, unless you're doing a pro-NCR run or roleplaying. You get the best ending for Primm with him and you get a discount at Nash's store.
"You also may be able to convince that NCR guy across the road to take the town under his wing, although martial law doesn't sound so fun."
Well, looks like we're going to have to find the town a sheriff. I know we can get the info on the people who shot us regardless of helping him or not, but there are some benefits to doing this sidequest after all.
I shouldn't have been so lazy lol.