Exploring Acadia¶

There’s a few things to see in Acadia, so why not explore the place properly and pick up some new quests while you’re here? From Kasumi on the third level, let’s get to exploring. There’s a bunch of loot here, but the best cache is to the north, in the room near (west of) the storage room. Head inside and hack a Terminal [Master] beyond which is another storage room full of loot, including four Ammo Boxes, a Duffle Bag, an Explosives Box, three Mini Nukes and a Steamer Trunk.

As good as that loot is, there’s little else to see on this level as of yet, so head upstairs and talk to Cog, who you can trade with if you want. He’s a general store merchant, and sells you a little bit of everything, despite his constant whining that he has nothing of interest. In fact, he’s also got a legendary “Recon Marine Chest Piece” that grants the ability “Reduces damage while standing and not moving by 15%”.

There’s also Dejen walking around here, who’ll sell you arms, armor and ammo, including a legendary Two-Shot Lever Action Rifle, “Old Reliable” Saves you the trouble of hunting for one, right? He also sells “Sergeant Ash” , a Flamer that has a “20% chance to cripple the target’s leg.”

There are several named Synths wandering around here, but most of them are completely uninteresting, save Aster, who acts as the town’s doctor… or would that be mechanic? Whatever, offer to help her and she’ll give you the incredibly trivial task of collecting Aster plants, for which she’ll reward you with a paltry sum of Caps.

Now head up to the first floor, where all the important Synths dwell. Talk to Chase and she’ll compliment you, tell you about her job, and make a veiled threat. Pass a moderate speech check “How do you find them?” to learn a bit about how she operates, and exactly what kind of Synth she is. Offer to help and she’ll tell you to go looking for a Synth who failed to arrive at Acadia, staring the quest “The Arrival” .

Next talk to ol’ big-eared Faraday and he’ll babble about how much work he does, doing his best to make the impression that he’s the only thing keeping DiMA, Far Harbor and Acadia operational. Pry his data banks for information, then offer to help him, too, and he’ll tell you about some hardware that failed to arrive. No, not another synth. Pass the moderate speech check “What happened?” to learn more details (or at least learn that Faraday doesn’t have a clue) then ask for money (you can talk him up to 200, 300 and finally 400 if you can pass an easy, moderate and hard speech check accordingly) before agreeing and subsequently starting the quest “Data Recovery” .

The Arrival¶

Like Chase mentioned, your first step in locating the Synth is to head for Far Harbor and talk to Brooks, the general store guy. Go talk to him and he will feign ignorance, but tell him his designation number like Chase gave you and he’ll play along quickly. Good robot! Remember who your masters are! Anyways, turns out our synth flew the coop shortly after arriving. After meeting with Brooks, he ran out of town, into the fog, last seen heading south…

Well, it isn’t much to go on, so let’s head out south and start looking for him. Continue south past “Beaver Creek Lanes” and follow the path past a Red Rocket station (which looks like someone is building a motorcycle in) and then up to a house to the south where the marker is. Here, examine the bloodstain on the floor to get some more markers telling you to follow a blood trail. Do so and follow the blood down the road southeast. It is smattered out and sporadic, but the markers guide you to where you need to go. Follow it to a house on the edge of a cliff and enter. You’ll be told by some (amazingly non-violent Trappers) that they aren’t about to let good meat get away. Yeah, it seems the poor Synth was eaten by cannibals. Look like synths are good for something, after all!

There is a moderate speech check you can pass here if you wish (may as well since it is some free XP), but the Trappers will give you the “Missing Synth’s Head” as an item since you were tracking him and tell you to leave them be… Hah, yeah right… you know what to do. Take out all three trappers here to avenge our unknown Synth Refugee. Note that the poor synth’s head wasn’t recorded up in the important items list up above. Don’t want to spoil things for you ahead of time! You’re welcome.

Head back to Chase and let her know what happened. She seems to have seen this type of thing before, but still she’ll offer you a reward here. She starts out with 200 Caps, but you can up this to 250, 300 or 400 Caps if you can pass an easy, moderate and hard skill checks respectively. You also get a leveled rifle here (nothing unique), but a free weapon… well, it’s still something.

While you’re here, be sure to talk to Dejen here (the dark-skinned synth who sells weapons - he likes to hang out around Cog, by the counter in the large room on the second floor) who will now have a quest for you. He seems to trust you a bit more now that he knows you can run quests. He will ask you to track down and kill a Courser that is in Far Harbor for him. Accept the job to get the quest “Hunting the Hunter” .

Hunting the Hunter¶

This won’t be the first Courser you’ve killed, unless you are playing this DLC super early or something!? Either way, this quest is very easy and won’t require you to run around everywhere. Once you get the quest, look at the map and you’ll see your prey is just to the southeast of Acadia.

This area is un-marked, but is along a road and near a Trapper outpost, so he may be attacking the Trappers when you show up. Still, fighting a Courser can be tricky so be sure to QUICKSAVE as a precaution and then try to find him as you approach. He is likely using a Stealth Boy, so you need to aim where he appears to be and spray the area with bullets (oh Explosive weapons, is there anything you can’t do?). Do so until you can target him and then use critical hits to finish him off.

Once he is dead, loot his corpse and report back to Dejen of your success and to complete the quest. Very easy. No big rewards, unfortunately.

Old Pond House¶

Last quest! Promise! This “Data Recovery” mission is rather convenient if you plan to follow the main storyline, as it takes you south-west of Acadia to the Southwest Harbor location, from which The Nucleus is just to the north-east. Along the way, however, you’ll run into the Old Pond House area. Turn that frown upside down, however - it’s just one place, one more of a rapidly dwindling supply of areas to explore. Kill the half dozen or so Trappers in and around the house, then find a Safe [Novice] in the second floor bedroom and the Explosives Box in the attic. See? Not too bad.

Data Recovery (Southwest Harbor)¶

Continue south-west from the Old Pond House to reach Southwest Harbor, which is perilously close to the Vim! Pop Factory… a place that’s still being saved for later. The Trappers at Southwest Harbor have no such stay of execution, however, so put them out of their fog-addled misery. If you travel due south-west you’ll come across an unmarked store now populated by a few Ghouls, but aside from a Safe [Novice] inside, there’s not much purpose to visiting.

Keep venturing south-west until you reach the buildings that mark the Trapper-fortress of Southwest Harbor. The entirety of the Trapper operation consists of about eight Trappers and two Turrets, but the size of the area really works against them, as it’s unlikely you’ll be in direct conflict with more than three or four at a time. Exterminate them, and once the area is clear, check the waterline to the south-west. You should spot a boat here with all the fire around it. Go check it out to find two “Storage Drive” units on the deck, which is precisely what you were sent to retrieve. There is also a Steamer Trunk in the cabin you can loot, and “Victoria’s Trunk” which will sadly require a key you don’t have yet. There’s also another Steamer Trunk along the south-eastern part of the Trapper camp, on the second floor of a ruined building, at the foot of a bed.

Loot the area as much as you care to, then return to Faraday to complete both “Data Recovery” and “Acadian Ideals” . Neat. Best of all, you’re now down with side-quests in Acadia!