Birds of a Feather is a side quest in Fallout: New Vegas.
Quick walkthrough[]
| Side Quest: Birds of a Feather | |||||||||||||||
| Speak with Gloria Van Graff in the Silver Rush. | |||||||||||||||
| Work with Simon as a Van Graff guard. | |||||||||||||||
| Let each visitor in unchecked or Demand they submit to a search (65 Speech required) or Refuse them entry. | |||||||||||||||
| All five visitors checked before entry/refused entry. | Allow the fourth visitor in unchecked. | ||||||||||||||
| Quest failure | |||||||||||||||
| Speak with Gloria. | |||||||||||||||
| Deliver the package to the strange man. | |||||||||||||||
| Return to Gloria. | |||||||||||||||
| Speak with Jean-Baptiste Cutting. | |||||||||||||||
| Locate Rose of Sharon Cassidy and bring her to the Silver Rush. | Cass already dead: Inform Jean-Baptiste of Cassidy's death. | ||||||||||||||
| Speak with Gloria. | |||||||||||||||
| Go to the abandoned warehouse and oversee the Legion weapon deal. | |||||||||||||||
| Speak with Gloria again. | |||||||||||||||
| Reward: 600 XP Van Graff combat armor 1000 caps NCR fame Freeside fame | |||||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough[]
In the slums of Freeside, across the street from the Atomic Wrangler Casino, one can find the Silver Rush, occupied by a faction of the Van Graff family from New California, headed by Gloria Van Graff with assistance from her brother, Jean-Baptiste Cutting where they run a weapons business selling high-end energy weapons to any buyer with the caps to make it through their doors. One will have to leave all their weapons with the door guard, Simon (unlike the casinos of the Strip, there is no option to retain holdout weapons, so one will be completely disarmed).
When first entering, Gloria will be in the middle of a negotiation with a client, and her brother then vaporizing a captive to intimidate the man. Once the main floor is opened, one must go and speak with Gloria. She offers service as a weapons merchant and one can also ask her about available work; the latter leads to Gloria offering them security work guarding the Silver Rush's front door. If accepted, she will tell them to meet Simon outside so he can show them the ropes, starting the quest.
Guard duty[]
Return to Simon outside. He explains that the job mostly consists of standing around wearing the family's custom gear and surveying for incoming customers that must be checked for any weapons before being let in as well as running off any would-be troublemakers. He then equips the player character with Van Graff combat armor and their choice of a Van Graff-custom laser or plasma weapon.
Once the player character takes their post to the left side of the casino doors, a series of five individuals will start appearing and attempting to enter the Silver Rush and must be handled accordingly.
- Visitor 1 is a drunk.
- Visitor 2 is a regular gambler.
- Visitor 3 is another gambler who has a problem with being searched; one must pass a 65 Speech check to convince him to allow the search without incident, otherwise he can only be let in unchecked or rudely denied entrance.
- Visitor 4 is a seemingly average man claiming to do business, but in reality he is carrying a hidden bomb, and if allowed to enter, will detonate it inside the Silver Rush, killing everyone inside and destroying most of the inventory as well as failing the quest. Asking to search him or about his drunkenness will result in him turning hostile and must be killed (but the bomb won't go off here).
The last visitor is the Kings member Pacer (if he was not killed beforehand such as during the assassination route of Kings' Gambit). He came to talk to Gloria but instead demands the player character do it for him. One can respond that they will do as he asks, in which case he will mock them, calling them a "good dog," or tell Pacer to deliver his own message, with Simon complimenting them for keeping a cool head. If one tells him to leave and then taunts him, he will turn hostile and attack; after killing Pacer, Simon will remark that Gloria will be furious over the matter. This also fails G.I. Blues if it was not already completed.
Once all five visitors are dealt with (and the fourth one was not allowed to enter the casino), enter the Silver Rush again and report to Gloria, where the caps rewarded will depend on how they handled their guard duties:
- If one followed Simon's instructions and treated all customers politely, including the first drunk, and chose dialogue options with Pacer about agreeing to speak with Gloria or asking 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 player character had trouble following instructions but did not do too bad, earning 200 caps.
- If all customers were let in without searching them with the exception of the fourth, 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 them, but they deserve some reward for preventing the bomber from blowing up the store, earning 100 caps.
Note: The quest can also be failed at this stage if Simon is attacked or the player character walks away from their post with the Van Graff equipment (getting to the door of the Atomic Wrangler will cross the threshold for Simon to begin attacking).
Package courier[]
After proving some level of competence at being a guard, Gloria informs the player character that they are getting replaced but has a new job in mind: carrying a package to deliver to a man found east of the Durable Dunn's sacked caravan site. One can also pass a 75 Speech skill check to get 200 additional caps from the man. Killing the man after the exchange will incur Legion infamy and fail the quest. If any enemies are nearby when approaching the man, he will flee the area and the quest will fail.
Cutting and Cassidy[]
Returning to Gloria at the Silver Rush, she tells the player character that her brother needs help with a matter and that she volunteered them as an assistant. Jean-Baptiste asks them to find and bring the owner of Cassidy Caravans, Rose of Sharon Cassidy to him so that he can have "a talk" with her. If asked where she is, he says he doesn't know and suggests talking to Alice McLafferty at the Crimson Caravan Company, who will in turn reveal that Cass is stopped over at the barracks in the Mojave Outpost far to the southwest of New Vegas.
At the barracks, Cass will refuse to leave until she gets her caravan papers sorted, also advising the player character to look for work with Crimson Caravan, triggering Heartache by the Number and leading into You Can Depend on Me; the latter quest must be progressed up to being sent back to Cass to buy her caravan for Alice in order to gain her as a companion (see that quest's page for details). If she is already available as a companion, the bulk of this stage can be skipped by taking her straight to Freeside, or by killing her outright (though doing so will incur NCR infamy and turn the Outpost troops hostile).
Once she is brought to Jean-Baptiste at the Silver Rush, he tells Cass that he was responsible for the massacre of her caravan and that the Crimson Caravan Company and Van Graffs are shutting her down. One can either stand by and let Cass be killed or use the Terrifying Presence perk to threaten Jean-Baptiste, which turns the Van Graffs hostile, thus causing the quest to fail. If Cass is killed, one will permanently lose her as a companion and fail Heartache by the Number and Jean-Baptiste will pay 350 caps as a reward.
Trading with the Legion[]
After helping her brother, Gloria will then ask the player character to help her with one more job and attend an arms deal with the Legion being carried out in an abandoned warehouse, Gloria being wary if things might get rough.
Upon reaching the warehouse, in the midst of the deal, NCR troopers will storm in, and together with the Van Graffs, the legionnaires will be killed. It is not required for the player character to directly kill any Legionaries, as the NCR and the Van Graffs will easily take care of them. Gloria thanks them for their assistance in her enterprise, rewarding 1000 caps, Freeside and NCR fame, and allowing them to keep their set of Van Graff combat armor, completing the quest.
Quest stages[]
Notes[]
- When Simon announces that a customer is approaching, one can simply wait for one hour and the walking NPC will appear in front instantly rather than waiting 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 during this quest 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.
- 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 perk Terrifying Presence, 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 acting as a door guard, the olayer character 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).
- 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.
- The fourth visitor 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 player character, 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.
- 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, Simon 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 and can read the note it carries.
- The Official Game Guide erroneously states that a Speech 60 skill check is required to convince the third visitor that arrives while guarding the door to submit to a search, when it is actually a Speech 65 skill check.
- On PC, it is possible to complete this quest and still keep Cass as a companion using console commands. 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.
- On PC, it is also possible to skip the stage of bringing Cass to Jean-Baptiste using console commands. Talk with Jean-Baptiste and tell him you'll go find her. Afterwards, enter the following the commands into the console: SetObjectiveCompleted VMS29a 40 1, SetObjectiveCompleted VMS29a 46 1, and SetObjectiveDisplayed VMS29a 49 1.
- 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.
- If one has failed Don't Tread on the Bear!, 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 replace the Courier as the door guard of the Silver Rush, nobody ever does.
 | The following is based on Fallout: New Vegas cut content. |
|---|
- Originally, the execution scene that serves as the intro to the quest was longer. 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 |
|---|
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)
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||