Form Ranks¶

To properly start the Minutemen end quests, you have to become an enemy of the Institute, which can be done in several ways. First, you can simply flat-out refuse when Father asks you to join him. Of course, you were instructed to agree and/or be ambiguous so you could explore the Institute in greater detail. After that, you need to turn the Institute hostile towards you, which can be done quite easily by murdering somebody in the Institute. If you want to put a fine point on things, you could just gun Father down, which would obviously do the trick definitively. Doesn’t have to be Father, though, any living member of the Institute should do fine. When the quest “Institutionalized” tells you to exit the Institute, when you get text saying you’re an enemy of the Institute, or when everybody turns hostile, you’ll know you’ve done the job. Leave the Institute and the quest “Form Ranks” will start. Before you go off and talk to Preston as the quest demands, however, return to Sturges and give him the Network Scanner holotape to complete “Inside Job” . Once done, talk to Preston, who will tell you that baddies have been looking all mean-like at The Castle, and you should probably head over there. This ends “Form Ranks” and starts “Defend the Castle” .

Defend the Castle¶

When you arrive Ronnie will talk to you and warn you of an imminent Institute attack, but you fortunately have time to prepare, build up defenses, all that fun stuff. If you already build turrets as suggested earlier (not to mention artillery during “Old Guns”) you should be in good shape to proceed. If you want to grab Power Armor before the fight starts, now’s the time for that, too.

The attack will soon start, with enemy Synths coming in from South Boston. Head to the north-east and take them on (listening to Radio Freedom helps give you enemy notifications, by the way). Note that there is a car out this way you can blow up to extremely damage any enemies near it. The enemies over here will likely have a Courser as well, who may go into stealth mode, so just beware of that.

From here enemies will next attack from the “main gate” out of the east. Go help deal with them and from here things will start to ramp up significantly. The “Defend the Castle” percentage will rise up as you fight to show you your progress, but after these two main gate attacks, Synths will start to appear from both directions and will even be warped in directly to the courtyard itself. Additionally, they will start to appear on the walls and in the castle hallways, using the doorway frames to hide behind to protect themselves. You should be very proficient at switching between weapons here and should have a long-range and short-range option ready to go at all times. Use something like a Shotgun or your Unarmed/Melee weapons (if you are trained for them) for short-range hallway fighting and try not to use VATS if you are close to the enemy. Save that for long-range fighting and to guarantee hits and finishing enemies off.

The forces of Synths are quite overwhelming at times, especially if you are light on castle defenses so be absolutely sure to keep a close eye on your health. It is therefore important to prioritize killing off enemies as you go, to thin the number of Synths shooting at you. Eventually you’ll have to fend off several powerful Coursers, who can be absolutely brutal and will run rampant over your Minutemen. There can also randomly be legendary versions of enemies attacking as well, so be sure that you loot them once you kill them for the random legendary gear they drop! If you have to, head into the castle hallways and take cover and heal there (as well as giving your AP a chance to recover). Preston and Ronnie are essential NPCs here so they will always provide a distraction, as will occasional boosts of Minutemen forces.

There’s not much more to say: keep protecting The Castle and soon you will be at 100%. Even if the enemies aren’t dead by this time, you will see them retreat and can try to kill them as they do so. You will be told to speak to Ronnie after they leave. The quest “The Nuclear Option” will also appear (despite you not having officially completed this quest yet! Heh). Go talk to Ronnie and after that go talk to Preston. This will officially complete this quest while Preston tells you that thanks to Sturges you have found a way into the Institute and can strike back. This however is all covered under “The Nuclear Option” quest, so we’ll cover that in another section. Great job defending the Castle! What a fight!