1) Merchant Matters

NPC - Jericho

Schematic - Nuka-Grenade (Doc Hoff)

Schematic - Rock-It Launcher (Crazy Wolfgang)

Schematic - Shishkebab (Lucky Harith)

Either you’ve just come back to Megaton after completing the Rivet City Run (huzzah!), or you chickened out. Either way, you’re at Megaton. Before we head inside and do any of that questy stuff, let’s have a talk about the kinda-sorta important wandering merchants that prowl the Wasteland.

There are four of them, each selling a variety of goodies. Crazy Wolfgang sell junk, if you need a Tin Can, Crutch, or some other component for a Schematic, he’s your guy. Crow sells armor and clothes, Doc Hoff sells drugs, and by drugs, he means anything that can be consumed. Finally and most imporantly Lucky Harith sells guns and ammo.

They wander the Wastelands, making stops at Canterbury Commons, Paradise Falls, Evergreen Mills, Agatha’s House, Megaton, and Rivet City. In Canterbury Commons you can talk to Uncle Roe and invest in their caravans, expanding their inventories and available Caps, which is in every way beneficial for you when you starting hauling in Gatling Lasers, Enclave Power Armor, Tri-Beam Laser Rifles, Plasma Rifles, and ther expensive toys. Also, they’ll give you gifts for investing in them! That’s a ways off, however, as we have nowhere near the money nor the need to invest in anything other than our immediate survival.

They also sell a number of Schematics, as listed above, when you can afford them. Be warned, however, that the expansion is not nice to these merchants. A single Albino Radscorpion can easily kill one, its Brahmin, and any bodyguard they might have. Make it a priority to get those Schematics off of them while they’re still around. You don’t want to get to level 30 only to find out Doc Hoff has been killed and there’s no way you can get his Schematic for the Nuka Grenade. Anywho, you’ve been warned. Now, onward-to Megaton!

2) Lucas Simms: Mayor, and Sheriff - (Megaton)

When you arrive inside you’ll be greeted by Lucas Simms. He’ll tell you some information about Megaton. Ask him about the bomb and offer to disarm it. He’ll offer you 100 Caps, but you can get him to raise it to 500 with a successful Speech challenge.. and you might as well, the 400 extra Caps will come in handy. At this stage in the game, this could require a few save/loads, but the extra caps are worth it. Also, if you agree to help him you can ask him about your dad… he’ll be more talkative now, ultimately sending you to Moriarty for more information.

3) Walter’s Water Worries - (Megaton - Water Treatment Plant)

Head west, past the Sheriff’s house, and up a ramp to the Water Processing Plant. Inside during the day, or outside at night you can often find an old man named Walter. Ask him what you can do to help, and he’ll tell you to go around looking at pipes for leaks.

Now that you have that quest, head back to the entrance of town and go down the ramp leading south. On your left you’ll find the first leaky pipe, and you’ll need a Repair skill of 30 or more to fix it, which is nothing for me. Now head south and go around the left of the bomb when you reach it and up some stairs to the south-east… stairs, not a ramp. Along the stairs to your right, you’ll find the second leak. The final leak is much trickier to find, as it’s on the roof of the Children of the Atom building. From where you are, head up the stairs until you reach the wall of Megaton, then follow it around to the west. Go past Moriarty’s and the Men’s Restroom and down the stairs leading to Craterside Supply. From the door to Craterside supply, head east and look below the Power of the Atom globe. You should see the leaky pipe merrily spewing water just under it. Save your game and jump from the Craterside Supply platform to the roof the pipe is on and fix it. Whew! Now head east and go to the lower roof, and finally down to the ramp. Sure beats jumping down, eh?

Go back to Walter and tell him you fixed the pipes. You’ll get a whopping 100 experience points and 200 caps for your trouble, and he’ll offer to trade money for any Scrap Metal you find. This is by far the best perk of completing his quest, as he’ll give you caps for what is otherwise garbage, and you’ll also get five experience for each piece of Scrap Metal you bring him. Now head over to Moriarty’s Saloon.

4) The Courier wink (Megaton - Moriarty’s Saloon)

You’ll hear Gob complaining about the GNR network, and- depending who is around-Nova and Jericho chastising him for it. Go talk to Lucy West, the blonde girl sitting to the right of the door. She’ll ask you to deliver a message to her family in Arefu, which triggers the quest “Blood Ties” . We’ll be delaying this one for a while, but it doesn’t hurt to pick it up now, eh?

5) Mister Burke’s Explosive Proposition

Further to the right you’ll find a man in white named Mister Burke. He’ll chat you up if you get too close and ask you to do the opposite of what Lucas Simms asked you to do-detonate the bomb in the middle of Megaton. All you have to do is connect a Pulse Charge to the bomb, and you’ll get paid. You can make a Speech attempt to scrounge 500 extra caps off of him, like with Lucas. If you have the Black Widow perk you can bypass the Speech check, or convince Mister Burke to simply leave the poor town alone. You should try to succeed at the Speech challenge just for the experience, and once done, ask Burke what to do if you can’t set the charge. He’ll tell you about Leo Stahl. So… time to take a trip to the Water Treatment Plant at night.

6) Leo’s Addiction

Wait until nightfall… unless it already is, of course (lucky you!), then head to the Water Treatment Plant, where you should find Leo Stahl sitting by a desk in the back room. Pick the first option multiple times to get a Speech check, which shouldn’t be too hard compared to Mister Burke and Lucas. Convince him to get off drugs and you’ll get a 100 experience point reward, and he’ll give you the key to his stash, which is a wonderful treasure trove of meds and over 100 Caps.

7) To Boom, or Not to Boom?

Now, there are three ways to deal with Megaton’s bomb, detailed over the next three steps-you should read them all, and pick the option that intrigues you the most.

Tattle on Mister Burke

This is the Good Karma option… although the tattling itself is optional. If you run back and tell Lucas, he’ll get riled up and come to deal with Mister Burke. Naturally, he puts Mister Burke under arrest, and just as naturally Mister Burke decides to shoot Lucas with a Silenced 10mm Pistol as soon as his back is turned. You can pre-empt Burke by shooting him in V.A.T.S. as he’s preparing to shoot Lucas… but if they both die, you’re not getting any reward. If Lucas lives, you can disarm the bomb and claim your reward… and get Mister Burke’s Scoped .44 Magnum and his nifty clothes. The best way, as far as rewards go (monetary, gear, and XP), is to use Speech to get Burke to pay you extra, then go get Leo Stahl off drugs, tattle on Burke and kill him before Lucas bites it, and then finish the mission… This approach gets you Burke’s gear, Leo’s drugs, and a good bit of extra quest XP.

Disarm the Bomb

If you just disarm the bomb, Mister Burke will be none too happy. Talk to Lucas Simms for your reward of 100 caps (or 500, if you used Speech to get him to give you more) and 300 experience. Also, you’ll get your own cozy hovel in Megaton, which is the real prize here.

Plant the Pulse Charge

If you go along with Mister Burke, you can tell him you don’t think you’re up to the task and he’ll tell you to see Leo Stahl about getting something to help you out… by this he means drugs. If your Explosives skill is under 25, go see Leo in the Water Processing Plant. You can convince him to sell you drugs, or if your Speech is high enough you can get him to quit and take his stash. Popping a box of Mentants can temporarily raise your Perception by up to five points (to a maximum of ten, of course), which will subsequently raise your Explosives skill by up to ten points. If that’s still not enough… you’re going to either have to acquire some clothing that boosts your stats, or go out and level up.

Assuming you have an Explosives score of 25 (before or after Mentats), put the Pulse Charge on the bomb and go meet Burke in Tenpenny Tower, which is far to the south-west of Megaton (just follow the quest marker for this one). Once you get there, ask to see Mister Burke, go up the elevator to reach the Penthouse Suites, let the guard open the door to Tenpenny’s room and go through the double doors to the balcony. Talk to Mister Burke and then activate the remote detonator, and watch one of Fallout 3’s more iconic scenes. Best if viewed at dusk. You’ll get the standard main quest reward of 300 experience, 500 Caps, or 1000 if you used Black Widow or Speech on Burke, and your very own Penthouse in Tenpenny Tower.

8) Home Ownership - (My Megaton House… or Tenpenny Suite)

Book - Big Book of Science (Tenpenny Tower only)

Book - Lying, Congressional Style (both)

Book - Nikola Tesla and You (Megaton only)

Despite getting the most Caps for blowing the city up, it’s just more convenient to get into your home in Megaton. We’ll continue with the guide as if you’d disarmed the bomb… or at least as if you hadn’t blown up Megaton (yet). If you want to get the suite at Tenpenny, you should put it off until you’re done with Megaton. Craters don’t make for much questing. Drop off the excess gear you’ve been accumulating since the Rivet City run. Excess gear at this point includes everything but Power Fists, a Hunting Rifle, whatever armor you choose to wear, and any weightless gear (like meds).

Before we continue, there are several things you should know about your new home:

• You can buy upgrades for them from a vendor in the town your home is in, (you’ll be told who sells it to you) including themes, (which typically come with useful goodies), aesthetic items, like Nuka-Cola dispensers, and truly useful items, like the My First Infirmary . These things are expensive however, and the Infirmary should be on the top of your list.
• The My First Infirmary heals you fully, removes all your Rads, and fixes injured body parts. Absolutely essential for making Rads a non issue.
• My First Laboratory freely creates one random drug a day, including Buffout, Jet, Rad Away, Rad-X, Stimpaks, etc. It also cures any addictions to drugs you might have. Pretty nice, but not essential.
• The Workbench allows you to create items from Schematics. Of course, you can do this at any Workbench in the game, like the one in Craterside Supply, or… well, there are lots of them. Still, it’s more convenient to have it at home, where you can store all your components.
• In both houses you’ll get a Mr. Handy robobutler, who can perform a variety of tasks… Firstly, he’ll tell you where you can buy more stuff, in case you forget. Secondly, he can dispense five bottles of Purified Water every couple of days for free… apparently from his ‘condensation unit’. You now have infinite Purified Water to heal yourself with, sell, or give away to beggars to raise your Karma. Thirdly he can give you a haircut, allowing you to change your hair style/color at any time. And lastly, he can tell jokes. There aren’t very many, and they’re all science themed, but they’re worth a listen.
• You now have a bed, which you can… you guessed it… sleep in! Return home when you’re hurt and restore all your health and get rid of crippling wounds for free. Best of all though, sleeping in your own bed

will give you the temporary Well Rested perk, which gives you a 10% bonus on all XP earned for eight hours. This stacks with Swift Learner , and is in every way favorable.

• If you buy the Vault theme for your house, it’ll look… well, like a vault the next time you go in. It’ll have a bunch of useless machines, some food, and a 10mm Pistol upstairs, but nothing to go crazy about.
• The Raider theme will get you a good bit of blood, guts, and corpses on meat hooks. You’ll also get some Beer, Med-X, Whiskey, an Assault Rifle, a 10mm Pistol, and some Frag Grenades.
• With the Wasteland Explorer theme you’ll get some skulls, a motorcycle, a picnic table, plenty of Pork N’Beans, Beer, Whiskey, two 10mm Pistols, and a Hunting Rifle.
• The Science theme will get you some mechanical junk strewn about, very similar to the Vault theme. In Megaton you’ll get a copy of Nikola Tesla and You , and in Tenpenny Tower you’ll get a Big Book of Science .
• With the Pre-War theme you’ll get a nice little household with furniture, rugs, and some knick-knacks like an Intact Garden Gnome and tricycle. You’ll also get a bunch of food.
• The Love Machine theme will put some entwined figures hanging from the ceiling, a tree wrapped in holiday lights, clothes, Whiskey, Vodka, and every variety of glasses in your house. You’ll also get some drugs upstairs, and a copy of Lying, Congressional Syle on the desk in your room. If you get the Tenpenny Tower Suite, you’ll get a Lying, Congressional Style from this theme, too. Loving is lying, no matter where you live.

Most imporantly, you have places to store your loot! If you’re a pack rat like me, then you’ll end up storing tons of loot, all separated by category into different containers. There’s good reason to store some goodies, though, and below you’ll find a list of some items you might want to store, and why:

When you’re done with your house… if you got it… head east over to Jericho’s house, it’s the one right next to yours. Makes you feel safe, living right next to him, eh?

9) Robbing Jericho - (Megaton - Jericho’s House)

Book - Grognak the Barbarian

Jericho is a former (although not necessarily reformed) Raider who spends most of his time drinking in Moriarty’s Saloon and getting turned down by Nova. You can recruit him as a party member if your karma is low enough. Go into his house and grab the Grognak the Barbarian on the floor by a teddy bear. Now return to Moriarty’s Saloon.

10) Dad’s Direction

We were here earlier, but now we’re ready to follow through on Lucas Simm’s advice and talk to Moriarty, who might know something about Dad. Talk to Moriarty (he’ll be in the bar during the day) and ask him about your dad. He’ll claim to remember you from when you were a kid, and tell you that your dad was here. Succeed at a Speech challenge and he’ll tell you more about your dad-apparently the old man headed south-east into the city, and that he was heading for Galaxy News Radio. There is a more lucrative way of going about getting this information, however.

Instead of talking to Moriarty, find Gob the Ghoul. If you’re nice to him, you can use Speech to get him to tell you about Moriarty’s terminal in the back. The terminal is locked [Average], but you can get his password from the locked [Very Easy] cabinet in his office. Still too hard? Jeeze… pick pocket Moriarty’s Office Key from Moriarty or Gob first then. Even better yet, go ask Nova about the terminal after using Speech on Gob, and she’ll give you the password if you succeed at yet another Speech check. You should look at Moriarty’s terminal regardless of what you do to get info on people in town. This is another way to find out Leo is a junkie, if you didn’t get Mister Burke to tell you.

If you fail at the Speech check with Moriarty, he’ll ask you for 100 Caps for the information. If you pay him, he’ll tell you. If you say you don’t have the money, he’ll ask you to do a job for him and get the money from a junkie out in Springvale named Silver. If you bug him again before doing his job, he’ll raise the cost to 300 caps, and you’ll have to succeed at a Speech check to lower him back down to 100. Although it’s probably not necessary for most people, we’ll cover dealing with Silver next. If you don’t need/want to do it, head over to the Craterside Supply store and skip the next step in the guide.

11) Soliciting Silver

Book - Pugilism Illustrated

If you need to deal with Silver, head over to Springvale (which is north of Megaton). Make this your active quest and follow the solid green arrow on your compass to find her house. On your way there, don’t be afraid to loot around Springvale, especially make sure you get the Pugilism Illustrated in one of the mailboxes. Go inside Silver’s ranch and talk to her. She’ll tell a bit of a different story than Moriarty did. You can use Speech to get her to give you all the Caps she earned (400) or you can just ask her for the Caps she owes and she’ll give you 300… Or you could just kill her and take the caps. Either way, return to Moriarty and pay him 100 caps for the information.

If you decide to go out of your way to deal with Silver, you could end up succeeding at multiple Speech challenges (Gob, Nova, Silver) and cash in 300 caps (400 Caps from Silver, minus the 100 Caps Moriarty wants). You can (and should) still take a gander at Moriarty’s terminal when you get back. When you have Moriarty’s information, head over to Craterside Supply.