Birds of a Feather is a side quest in Fallout: New Vegas.
Quick walkthrough[]
| Side Quest: Birds of a Feather | |||||||||||||
| Talk to Gloria Van Graff about work. | |||||||||||||
| Guard the entrance to the Silver Rush, dealing with the potential customers by remaining polite. | |||||||||||||
| Talk to Gloria. | |||||||||||||
| Deliver the package to the undercover Legionary. | |||||||||||||
| Return to Gloria. | |||||||||||||
| Talk to Jean-Baptiste Cutting. | |||||||||||||
| Find Rose of Sharon Cassidy and bring her to Jean-Baptiste. | IF Rose of Sharon Cassidy is dead: Inform Jean-Baptiste of Cassidy's demise. | ||||||||||||
| Talk to Gloria. | |||||||||||||
| Go to the abandoned warehouse and oversee the deal. | |||||||||||||
| Return to Gloria. | |||||||||||||
| Reward: 600 XP Van Graff combat armor 1000 caps NCR fame Freeside fame | |||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough[]
Guard duty[]
Upon asking Gloria Van Graff for work, she will offer the Courier a position as an entrance guard. If accepted, she will tell them to meet Simon outside so he can show them the ropes. When confirming to him that they are the new guard, he will give the Courier Van Graff combat armor and their choice of a laser or plasma rifle.
Upon taking their post next to the door of the Silver Rush, Simon will instruct the Courier to keep out undesirables, search potential customers as well as not start any fights or abandon their post. Afterwards, a series of customers will approach the Courier, wishing to enter the store.
The first person is a drunk, the second is a normal gambler, the third has a problem with being searched. This individual requires a 65 Speech check to search them without incident, otherwise they can be let in or rudely denied entrance. The fourth is a man claiming to look for something to replace his revolver, but in reality is there to kill the Van Graffs in revenge for an unspecified action against his family. He is carrying a bomb, and if he is allowed to enter, will blow up the entire store, killing everyone inside and destroying most of the inventory. This will fail the quest. Choosing to search him or asking if he has been drinking will result in him turning hostile.
The last person to appear is Pacer, if he is still alive. He wishes to talk with Gloria, but decides to allow the Courier to pass along a message for him instead. The Courier can say they will do as he asks, in which case he will mock them, calling them a "good dog." He can also be told to deliver his own message, with Simon complimenting the Courier for keeping a cool head. If one tells him to leave and then taunts him, he will attack. Once killed, Simon will remark that Gloria will be furious over the matter and G.I. Blues will fail if not already completed. Report to Gloria, and depending on the Courier's actions, she will pay 100-300 caps.
- If one followed Simon's instructions and treated all customers politely, including the drunk, and agreed with Pacer about speaking with Gloria or asked Pacer why he would not speak with Gloria himself, she will pay 300 caps as a bonus.
- If some customers were let in without patting them down and/or Pacer was killed, she will comment that the Courier had trouble following instructions but did not do too bad and will pay them 200 caps.
- If all customers were let in without searching them with the exception of the suicide bomber, she will comment that they let every jackass off the street inside, and if Pacer was killed, that they robbed her of her revenge and for that alone she should kill the Courier, but they deserve some reward for preventing the bomber from blowing up the store and she will pay 100 caps.
- The quest will also fail if Simon is attacked or the Courier leaves their post.
Van Graff package[]
Gloria will then inform the player character that they have found someone else for the guard position but she will offer them a new job to deliver the Van Graff package to a man who can be found east of Durable Dunn's sacked caravan. With a Speech check of 75, one can get 200 caps from the man. Killing the man after the exchange will gain infamy with Caesar's Legion and fail the quest. If any enemies are nearby when the Courier finds the man, he will flee the area and the quest will fail.
Once the package is delivered. Gloria will inform them that Jean-Baptiste Cutting needs help with a matter and that she volunteered the Courier to assist him. Jean-Baptiste will tell them to bring Rose of Sharon Cassidy to him so that he can have a talk with her. If he is asked where she is, he will suggest talking to Alice McLafferty at the Crimson Caravan Company. Alice tells the player character to check the Mojave Outpost, which is west of Nipton.
Bringing Cass[]
Upon asking Cass if she will follow the player character to Freeside, she will say that she is waiting for her papers to clear. One must first ask her if there is any work available, which will start the side quest You Can Depend on Me. The objective relating to Cassidy Caravans must be completed before Cass will follow the player character. If one has a human companion with them when attempting to recruit Cass, one will need to send them away to allow Cass to follow the player character. One can also avoid this altogether if she is already available as a companion or by killing her at the Outpost, though killing her in open sight will incur NCR infamy and turn the troops there hostile. If she is brought to Jean-Baptiste and he is talked to, he will mention that he is responsible for the massacre of her caravan and that the Crimson Caravan Company and Van Graffs are shutting her down. The Courier can either let him kill her or threaten him not to, in which case the Van Graffs will turn hostile and the quest will fail. If Cass is killed, one will permanently lose her as a companion and fail her companion quest Heartache by the Number. The player character will successfully finish this part of the quest and receive 350 caps as a reward. Jean-Baptiste will tell them to talk to Gloria, who will initiate the final portion of this quest.
Legion deal[]
Gloria will ask the player character to help her with one more job. A deal with the Legion is going down in the abandoned warehouse, and things might get rough. During the deal, NCR troopers storm in, and together with the Van Graffs, they take out the Legion. The Courier is actually not required to kill any Legionaries, as the NCR and the Van Graffs will easily take care of them. The reward for "helping" Gloria is 1000 caps, Freeside and NCR fame, and the Van Graff combat armor.
Quest stages[]
Notes[]
- When Simon announces that a customer is approaching, one can use the wait action for customers to appear instantly at the player character rather than wait for them to walk over in real time.
- While Simon will assist the player character in killing the suicide bomber, he will not assist them in killing Pacer if he is turned hostile.
- Pacer will have unique dialogue with the Courier if G.I. Blues was previously completed by helping eliminate the NCR missionaries instead of brokering peace with the Kings, in which he will be more cordial instead of condescending.[1]
- Once Gloria has been spoken to, the final part of the quest begins immediately and one will not be able to retrieve any items from Cass's body that she may have been carrying for them. But one can take them from her ashes at the end of the quest.
- If Cass is killed instead of recruited, the journal will update to tell the player character to 'Let Jean-Baptiste know that the Cassidy girl is dead'. Upon returning to him, the player character will still be rewarded and the quest will continue as normal.
- Normally, one is forced to either let Cassidy die or fight the Van Graffs as soon as one initiates dialogue with Jean-Baptise, however with the Terrifying Presence perk, one can exit the dialogue and take more time before coming to a final decision on how to handle the situation. This option works countless times, but the quest will not continue until a permanent solution is chosen.
- As of patch 1.2.0.31x, completing Heartache by the Number peacefully will turn the Van Graffs permanently hostile. Apparently, word gets around that the player character turned them in to the NCR. This makes it impossible to complete both Birds of a Feather and Heartache by the Number in the same playthrough.
- Upon completing the first part of the quest where the player character guards the door, they will be able to come and go from the Silver Rush without having their weapons confiscated by Simon.
- It is possible to steal from the footlocker next to Simon and get the Van Graff combat armor. However, once one steals it, it becomes stuck in their inventory marked as a quest item. Because the armor is a quest item, it does not actually weigh anything even though it says it weighs 25. If one completes this quest and receives another set of the armor, they will stack, removing the quest item tag from the original stolen armor and giving back its weight. (Fixed in v140525, the crate is empty and the armor is forcibly removed).
- The gambler who tries to get inside with a bomb carries a note explaining his actions, reading:
- If one pickpockets the bomb from the man who wants to blow up the Silver Rush and then lets him in, the store will still explode.
- If the suicide bomber and/or Pacer is killed by Simon or the Courier, their bodies will be placed in the dumpster to the right of the Silver Rush's door, provided it has not been disintegrated or melted.
- Killing the strange man will result in Caesar's Legion infamy and will fail the quest.
- The player character can start this quest by bringing Cass to the Silver Rush and talking to Jean-Baptiste Cutting. The quest will begin and, after a short dialogue, he will attack Cass. However, since the player character has never gone through the earlier stages of the quest, the door guard will still take all the player character's weapons on entry, and will continue to do so even if one goes out and back in after Cass is dead. This makes it harder to complete the final stage, because after talking to Gloria Van Graff to start the final section, one automatically fast-travels to the abandoned warehouse, still with no weapons except for concealed ones.
- If Cass has already been recruited as a companion and has left to head west because of the one's evil Karma, the only way to complete the "kill Cass" section of the quest is to try to catch her before she leaves the map and kill her. Her path back to the west passes through the locked gate at the Mojave Outpost.
- The man that is executed by Baptiste upon entering the Silver Rush for the first time is actually a Van Graff thug, and will attack the player character if they attack other Van Graffs, or walk past them during the killing.
- After killing the fourth customer, if the player goes to the dumpster on the side of the Silver Rush, they will see the gambler's dead body.
- The official player's guide erroneously states that a Speech check of 60 is required to convince the third visitor that arrives while guarding the door to submit to a search, when a Speech check of 65 is actually required.
 | The following is based on Fallout: New Vegas cut content. |
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- Originally the intro to the quest was longer. The execution had more to it, however this was cut. The intro originally had Gloria say that she and the man they are executing were in love. She caught him cheating on her at a Casino and she is now using him as an example for Mr. Soren to show even if she loves him, she will kill him, as a show to never break faith with her organization.
| End of information based on Fallout: New Vegas cut content |
|---|
- It is possible to complete this quest on PC and still have Cass as a companion. When Jean-Bapitise is killing Cass, her body will turn into a pile of ash. While her corpse is still disintegrating, go into the console, select her, and type resurrect. The quest will then proceed normally. If this does not work, see bugs.
- It is possible to skip the stage of bringing Cass to Jean-Baptiste and keep her as a companion on PC by going into the console and type setobjectivedisplayed 124123 49 1. Then do not talk with Jean-Baptiste but go directly to Gloria for the next and last stage.
- If Craig Boone is in the player's company when transported to the Abandoned warehouse to deal with the Legion, he is not automatically hostile to them, nor are they hostile to him, and hostility only occurs when the gas grenade is thrown into the Legion troops.
- Letting the fourth man in while guarding the door causes the quest to fail shortly after. An explosion is heard from within the shop, knocking the player and Simon down to the ground, doing no damage but giving small amounts of radiation. Simon will rush in to witness the aftermath. Everyone inside the store will be dead and some of the shop items that were originally on display will no longer be salvageable, though everything behind the locked door on the first floor will still be intact. The second floor will also be unaffected by the explosion. Talking to Simon afterwards causes him to sarcastically thank the player character for his new unemployment status, and then turn hostile.
- If one has sided with Caesar's Legion, all of the NCR troopers who ambush the legionaries during the exchange will be hostile. Killing them, however, has no impact on the quest and one is free to do so without affecting anything but one's NCR reputation.
- The prime legionaries encountered in the warehouse are equipped with Legion veteran armor instead of Legion prime armor.
- Despite Gloria claiming that someone else will be replacing the Courier as the door guard of the Silver Rush, nobody ever does.
Bugs[]
After dealing with the fourth customer, Pacer walks by and starts a chat with Simon. If one aims at Pacer's head, he interrupts the chat and will just stand there. The quest log will not be updated and the quest will not advance. [verified]- While the player character is guarding the entrance of the Silver Rush with Simon, if he is spoken to he will say, "Welcome to the Silver Rush" as if he had never met you before. [verified]
- When Simon goes to the chest to "get your stuff," he repeatedly does the standard animation but never opens the chest to give the player character their equipment. The quest can be continued, but unless you can pick the lock and steal the equipment, the equipment can not be acquired. This may be avoided by going to the other side of the door and waiting until one becomes fixed in position. Simon will then continue the animation and give them their equipment. [verified]
- During the door guarding section of the quest, the fourth visitor may cause Simon to freeze in place if the Courier was the one who dealt the finishing blow. The bug occurs when Simon asks the Courier to move the dead body, but any resulting action taken would fail to trigger the fifth visitor to come. And worst, upon getting too far away from the door entrance, Simon will turn hostile as if the player character is running off with Van Graff property. The easiest way to avoid this is to let Simon kill the fourth customer by himself as he's more than capable. [verified]
- A solution is to type SetStage 00124123 30 in console to start the next bit of the quest, asking the Courier to deliver a package at the cost of losing the guard duty rewards.
- More so in the second leg, when going to the point to meet up with the strange man, you will find him standing on a set of rocks as one grows closer to him. At a certain point, he will glitch into the rock, disappearing and unable to interact with the Courier, yet he is still marked on your compass. [verified]
- After telling Gloria that the package has been delivered, she tells the courier to speak with Jean-Baptiste. However, it is possible for him to be in the locked part of the building and he will not appear, even after waiting for more than 24 hours in increments of 1 hour. One can wait for 1 in-game hour outside of the building or fix it by using these console commands: prid 0010d8e5, then moveto player, Or use Sneak and Lockpick to enter the back room. A Stealth Boy proves useful here, and after talking to Jean one can loot the store with impunity. [verified]
- Jean-Baptiste Cutting may not turn hostile when told "Shoot and you'll regret it". Instead he will simply walk over to Cass, say his line and kill her. [verified]
- If Cass is told to go wait at the Lucky 38 after the player character tells Jean-Baptiste to kill her, he will then follow her all the way to the Lucky 38, only traveling when the player character is in the same area as him, and also being able to walk right in to the Lucky 38 without any penalty and will go to one's suite and kill her. He also does not have to talk to Victor to use the elevator. [verified]
- Sometimes, after siding with Cass and eliminating all the enemies in the building, the player character will not be able to loot Jean-Baptiste's body. Targeting it and pressing the interaction button will not bring the equipment exchange menu. In this case, try leaving the building and/or saving and loading somewhere far away and returning back there. [verified]
- If this doesn't help, one can loot the body by opening the console, targeting and selecting the body and entering activate. The equipment exchange menu will appear, close the console and take whatever you want. This will, however, not be effective if Jean-Baptiste was turned into a pile of ash or goo.
- If the fourth customer is turned into a pile of goo, Pacer may not show up and Simon may not speak anymore. [verified]
- If Pacer is dead before the player character begins this quest, they may not be able to finish the door guard sequence. [verified]
- After completing the delivery, sometimes the other objectives will say to deliver the package again instead of get Cass to follow the player character to the Silver Rush. A way to solve the problem is ask Jean-Baptiste Cutting again and it may refresh the objectives after about 10 seconds of waiting. [verified]
- Upon successfully resurrecting Cass while Jean-Baptiste is killing her, Jean-Baptiste will freeze in place, looking at Cass, talking to her like she is some random NPC and the cut-scene will not end, rendering the player character unable to move. [verified]
- Sometimes after guarding the door, it remains inactive and the player character is locked outside permanently. [verified]
- A solution to this is to put into the console 'prid 111510' which will target the door and then put 'SetDestroyed 0' which will 'destroy' the door make them usable again.
- After letting the fourth customer in the shop, the bomb they are carrying explodes but no explosion sound is heard, nor does anyone get knocked down from the blast. To make matters more complicating: the quests continues as if it was still active, with Simon staring at the door. However, Pacer never comes and the door to the Silver Rush remains inaccessible. The only way to continue is to fail the quest by moving too far away from the door. [verified]
- If the quest Kings' Gambit has been completed before this one and chose to kill Pacer, the last conversation when guarding the door will not occur. This will make Gloria pay the player only 200 caps, as their performance was not satisfactory, even if they passed the Speech check and treated all customers politely. [verified]
- PC users can avoid this using the console command set VMS29a.PacerEncounter to 1 which will have the dialog checks behave as though Pacer visited and was handled "correctly".
References[]
- ↑ Pacer: "Hey, you're the one who helped us out with those NCR chumps. You really get around, don't you?"
The Courier: "Good to see you too, Pacer."
Pacer: "I'm sure it's the highlight of your day. Anyway, I gotta bounce. Things to do, and all that."
(Pacer's dialogue)
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