Craterside Supply… you’d better get used to this place, especially if you’ve got a home in Megaton. You’ll likely be buying a few things from Moira, but more importantly, she’ll give us a length series of quests which will take us far and wide. These quests are split into three groups of three, which need to be completed before the next three can begin. We’ll settle for doing the first four quests right now, which will give us an excuse to explore certain lucrative areas (and all the areas roughly along the way to said lucrative areas!) During this, we’ll score some sweet loot, level up, and generally do those typical RPG things that we all love so much.

1) Research Assistant - (Megaton - Craterside Supply)

Schematic - Rock-It Launcher (Moira Brown)

Talk to Moira Brown and she’ll ask you to write the forward to her book. Ask about the vault suit and she’ll offer it up if you help her with her book. Give her a forward and she’ll give you the Armored Vault 101 Jumpsuit, then she’ll ask you to help with research. By all means, help her. It’s one of the most involved quests in the game, and if you do well, it gives you one of the best perks out there. You’ll have three quests to choose from at this point, to get food, to handle radiation sickness, or to play with landmines. The radiation one is by far the easiest, as it doesn’t even require you to leave Megaton. Of course, if you don’t want to spend the effort… you know… playing the game… you can talk Moira out of her crazy idea and get the Dream Crusher perk. This is in every way inferior to the perks you’d get otherwise, and it doesn’t give me the excuse we’re looking for to explore more areas, so… Let’s give Moira a hand.

2) Glowing, for Science!

You’ll be asked to get enough radiation to suffer from radiation sickness, 200 Rads to be precise… but if you want the good perk at the end, you’ll have to go above and beyond for Moira, and get yourself 600 Rads. Head outside, stand in the irradiated water near the bomb and drink up. You’ll get 18 Rads a drink, as well as 2 Rads/second for being in the water. Once you get 600 Rads, head back up to Moira.

Another little rub about “The Wasteland Survival Guide” quests: after completing each quest you’ll have to go back to Moira and give her a brief report about it (which is what we’re doing right now). Completing optional objectives will ensure you get a superior perk when this is all over, but what, exactly, you say in these reports determines the benefits that perk will give you. The most useful bonuses can be obtained by picking snarky/sarcastic/snide comments (which will result in you getting a bonus to Critical Hit Chance when this is all over) or acting tough (which will bestow damage resistance). The latter approach often requires higher Strength or Endurance than my character has, but there’s a solution-pop a Buffout before talking to Moira and you should get the options you’re looking for. Whatever you do, however, never [Lie] to Moira. This will ensure you get the crappiest version of the post-quest perk.

Anywho, Moira will remove all your Rads and you’ll get the Rad Regeneration perk and some meds.

3) Super-Duper Scavenging

Now that’s done, ask her about gathering food. Seems she wants you to go down to the Super-Duper Mart and see what you can scavenge. For the best perk at the end of the quest, you must also find medicine in the Super-Duper Mart. So, lets head to the Super-Duper Mart! And explore the surrounding areas while we’re at it.

4) Foreign Books in the Ruins

Book - Chinese Army: Spec. Ops. Training Manual

Super-Duper Mart will be marked on your map, and is due east of Megaton.. if you were errant in your pilgrimage to Rivet City, you might have already found it. If you passed by the Sewer Waystation, you were certainly in sight of it. On route, if you see a water tower look around for a rusty silo. Head over to the silo and look for a ruined house north of the silo. Inside the house on a bookshelf is a Chinese Army: Spec. Ops . Training Manual, as well as some other loot scattered about. Once you’re done, continue on to Super-Duper Mart.

5) Sam Warrick

Now that we’re out an about around Megaton you might find a man wandering about by the name of Sam Warrick. He is not your friend, and will shoot at you with a Sniper Rifle should he find you. He’s not hard, just run up and kill him when you find him. It’s entirely possible you may have found him around Megaton on your way to Rivet City, or even on your first trip to Megaton! If that’s the case, kill him and be one Sniper Rifle richer. If you don’t find him… don’t sweat it, he’s pretty random.

6) Bridge Shelter

Book - Duck and Cover!

Time for another detour before we reach Super-Duper Mart. From the front parking lot of Super-Duper Mart head north to the river, or more specifically a small bridge running over the river. Go down under the bridge and follow it to the opposite bank. You’ll find a little shelter built under the bridge with a shopping cart and a ‘Do Not Enter’ sign in front. Disarm the landmine on the ground behind the cart (this might be easier if you physicall manipulate the cart and move it out of the way.) You’ll find some grenades and, most importantly, a Duck and Cover! book. Also note the bed for your sleeping pleasure, should you need to heal any.

7) Parking Lot Raider Initiation

Outside of Super-Duper Mart you’ll find a random encounter. Usually it’s the “Raider Initiation” encounter… It’s not quite so “random” of an encounter when it seems to occur here so dependably, but since it can occur randomly elsewhere… anyways, many of them have melee weapons, but a few have guns, so you shouldn’t run into the thick of them. Take a shot (or a few shots) at them to get their attention and slink around the corner. Use a Power Fist to nab them when they chase you. When you’re they’re all dead and looted head inside Super-Duper Mart. Don’t be squeamish about heading back to town to stash or sell your well-won Raider loot.

8) Super-Duper Slaying (Super-Duper Mart)

This place is crawling with Raiders, so you might want to be sneaky. Clear the Raiders out however you wish and be sure to loot around, Saving the back of the store for last. Be warned that these are some of the tougher Raiders out there, they’ll have good weapons, like Assault Rifles, 10mm Submachine Guns, and Combat Shotguns… you shouldn’t be expecting a bunch of bums with Nail Boards and Hunting Rifles. Don’t explore the south-west corner of the store just yet.

9) Finding Food

You can find what you’re looking for either in the closed off area in the front corner of the store opposite the bathrooms or in the back, both of which are fridges labeled “Food Storage”. Loot them and eep looking, you still have medicine to find. Also of note are the two Laser Pistols and two Stimpaks in the front of the store. When you’re ready go through the door in the back.

10) Searching for Medicine

Book - Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor

Go past the door to your left first, and go right. Loot the area, if you don’t have a 25 Science or a 50 Lockpick , pick up the Super-Duper Pharmacy Key in the metal crate, if you do have enough Science / Lockpick , might as well get the experience, right? Head back through the neglected doorway and grab the various loot strewn about, including the Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor . Either hack the computer and unlock the door [Easy], or pick the lock [Average] and head into the backroom. Some Raiders will come on the intercom and smell something fishy. When you come out, the store will be repopulated with Raiders. Now to explain hacking…

It’s really quite simple, you pick a word, and if any of the letters in that word match the letter placement on the actual password, it’ll tell you. Say you pick the word “CONTENT”, and you’re informed that 1/7 of the letters are correct… well, that doesn’t help you out too much, but even that should eliminate a few words. Say you also had the word “BARRENS” in the list as a possible password-from the information you got earlier by selecting “CONTENTS”, you know “BARRENS” isn’t a possible answer. You should try to select common prefixes or suffixes when password hunting. If you pick a word that ends in “-TION”, and you don’t get at least four correct letters, you can safely eliminate all words ending in “-TION”… then again, finding a really uncommon word with no suffixes/prefixes can help, too. If you pick a word and get zero correct letters, you can eliminate every other password that shares a letter placement.

After using up your initial guesses, don’t fret-you still have options. Throughout the garbled nonsense between possible passwords you’ll often find brackets. When two such brackets on the same line enclose around random symbols, you’ll be able to highlight them. Selecting them will do one of two things-eliminate a dud password, or, less commonly, replenish your guesses. So, the routine is simple-guess passwords that might give you a good clue, when you hit one guess, search for enclosed brackets on the same line: (), [] or {}.

If you’re ever nearly out of guesses and you don’t have any more brackets to use, just give up and log out. The password will change, but you’ll get all your guesses back. It’s better to try again than it is to get locked out of a computer for good. And of course, there’s always save/load. Never get locked out of a computer!!

11) The Pharmacy

Once inside, loot around the place. You really want the Mini-Nuke, and the Nuke-Cola Quantums, and the meds, and, and, and everything! Take all you can carry and open the Pharmacy Supplies on the wall. Now that you have all Moira wants, all that’s left is to sneak out.. If you want to distract the bad guys outside, grab the Office Employee ID on top of the computer and hack the automated maintenence console [Very Easy]. This will start the Protectron in the pod, who will go around the store bothering the Raiders. He will last all of two seconds, but it might be enough distraction to get away, or to kill the Raiders.

12) Return to Moira

Now it’s time to return to Moira. Again, if you need to pop some drugs to get your attributes high enough to answer Moira the way you want to, do so. She’ll give you a Food Sanitizer, which makes your food give you less Rads when you eat it… but since you have a bed, you can sleep for free and not gain any Rads. Why carry around the seven pound hunk of junk? Stash it and ask for your next assignment. Now she wants you to go to Minefield, a supposedly haunted town. Your task? Reach a playground in the middle of town and return with a disarmed mine. Minefield is to the north east of Megaton, and it might just be your furthest expedition afield yet.