Hard Luck Blues is an NCR side quest in Fallout: New Vegas.
Quick walkthrough[]
| Quest: Hard Luck Blues | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (Optional) Speak to Morgan Blake at the NCR sharecropper farms. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reach the east pump station and examine the terminal inside. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pass a 50 Science skill check to restore the network connection. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reach Vault 34 to find the source of the radiation leak. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Undo the security lockdown and enter the reactor room. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Use the control terminal to deal with the radiation leak. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Seal the vents to save the farms while killing the Vault 34 dwellers. | Transfer control to save the human Vault 34 dwellers while dooming the farms. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reward: 200-250 XP NCR fame | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough[]
Trouble on the farms[]
The quest is started by going to the NCR sharecropper farms south of Freeside's east gate and speaking to one of the workers, Morgan Blake; if she is not tending crops during the day, she may be in the sharecropper barracks at night. Speaking with her about life on the farms, Blake remarks that their crop yields are faring poorly, and she thinks there may be something in the water, asking the player character to investigate the matter and check out the east pump station for sources of contamination.
- The quest can also begin in two alternative ways: entering the east pump station independently or accessing the main terminal below the overseer's office in Vault 34 and reading the SOS entry independently.
Follow east along the pipe bisecting the farms to reach the east pump station, and enter the larger building (the door marked "East Pump Station" rather than "East Cistern"). Inside, activate the terminal on the corner desk. It will show a damaged network connection that requires a 50 Science skill check be passed to repair. Once the terminal has been repaired and activated, one will find a message marked "Warning," revealing serious contamination in the pump station pipes by an immense amount of radiation. The quest marker will change to investigating the mountains to the east where the groundwater is being siphoned to try and find out where the radiation is coming from.
The old Vault[]
Reaching the eastern face of the mountain cliffs, the player character will discover old nuclear waste barrels propped up outside the surface access to Vault 34, with the danger to the farms coming from within.
Note: Before proceeding into Vault 34 it is advisable to make adequate preparations. The vault, as well as the area directly in front of it, is saturated with radiation; large amounts of Rad-X and RadAway or a radiation suit will be necessary. Alternatively, as most of the enemies inside do not respawn, one may periodically go to a doctor to have radiation removed. However, one must keep an eye on the Rad gauge at the top right of the screen, making sure one is out before its maximum is reached. There is an Average-locked safe with about a dozen Rad-X and RadAway inside the vault clinic. Note that even with high radiation resistance, one will still frequently be taking a minimum of +1 rad/sec, as Rad Resistance is capped at 85%.
The exterior and interior of the caves are inhabited by golden geckos and a few pockets of radiation. Upon reaching the open blast door of the vault, one will discover that it is full of feral ghouls including some glowing ones, and is constantly emitting a low level of radiation in all parts. The layout of the vault corridors is constricted, with some areas underwater (acquiring the rebreather from Jack at Nellis AFB during Volare! may be advisable). Armor with a high Damage Threshold and/or Rad Resistance is also strongly recommended. Entering certain areas and/or completing certain actions in the vault will cause more ghouls to spawn nearby and attack, as well.
The Vault 34 cave has an alternative entrance at the summit of the bluffs. Unlike most cave entrances, the summit entrance is situated vertically, slightly recessed into the rockface. This entrance is labelled simply as "Enter Cave". This short, circuitous cave has a few golden geckos and minor loot. Deep within the cave lies Vault 34's open vault door. The vault population has been transformed into feral ghouls, and the security officers have become glowing ones.
Vault 34 had severe problems with overpopulation, compounded by an overstocked armory. To access (and loot) the armory, the Vault 34 security terminal, the Vault 34 utility terminal, and the overseer's terminal must be accessed. If one has an insufficient Science skill level to hack the Very Hard terminals, the first two passwords can be found on the ghoulified corpses of vault technicians that lay underwater, trapped beneath desks, in two separate but nearby locations. Both locations have stairs that go down into radioactive water, and each location is marked with a stream of water falling from the ceiling. Neither location needs to be drained to loot the glowing one technicians for the passwords (security terminal password and utility terminal password).
The overseer's door is unlocked through the terminal in the security room. To access the security room, activate the terminal in the utility room, located next to the entrance to the armory, and select Activate Pump to drain the flooded level. The clinic (first door before the overseer's room) has an Average-locked wall safe containing 11 Rad-X and eight RadAway. These supplies can prove useful as there is a lot of radiation in the next rooms. Exiting the utility room, the security room lies to the right; this door is underwater and inaccessible until the pump is activated. Past this door lies the terminal to unlock the overseer's room.
Head back to the overseer's door, and kill the overseer waiting inside. The overseer is a boss-type creature, with very high health. As soon as the door to his room is opened, he will engage, together with two Vault-Tec turrets in his room. The door to the small corridor leading up to the overseer's office will close momentarily. At least two hostile ghouls will spawn behind it and engage the player from behind. Space is very tight and companions will likely obstruct the player's maneuverability. The overseer's pathing sometimes gets caught momentarily on his platform, affording the player a few seconds to unload freely. Note that like all turrets, the Vault-Tec turrets explode when destroyed; they should be the player's first target as they do a great deal of damage across their field of fire encompassing the entire room, and the explosion from destroying them will also damage the overseer.
The terminal at the back of the overseer's office accepts the password he drops to unlock the armory door. The armory interior has several items of loot and ammo containers including: several suits of Vault 34 security armor and helmets, a combat knife, 10mm pistol, many 10mm SMGs, a sniper rifle, an assault carbine, a marksman carbine, the unique marksman carbine All-American, a minigun, a riot shotgun, a missile launcher, missiles, 2 grenade launchers, a few C-4 plastic explosives, and the unique pulse gun (found inside a Very Hard-locked chest that can be opened with Col. Blackwell's key found in Pearl's barracks at Nellis AFB) that can be acquired as part of I Could Make You Care with Veronica.
A deathly choice[]
To stop the radiation leak, descend beneath the overseer's desk to the reactor room. Past the dripping corridors, there is a room with half-flooded stairs. In the back, to the left of the stairs, there is a large, red-and-gray mainframe terminal. The terminal gives information about opening a reactor door, closing the exterior vents and rerouting vault control. Reading the SOS message makes the alternative quest ending available as well as starting the quest if one has skipped the above steps.
Open the reactor door to the left of the terminal that unlocks it. There are two vault technicians transformed into glowing ones in the room. Once done, access the computer terminal in the room (the key to unlock this terminal can be found on the overseer's body). It presents the final choice as to how to end the quest.
On both terminals, the SOS entry reveals that a group of non-ghoul Vault dwellers are trapped in the (unreachable) underwater side of the vault, threatened by the increasing radiation levels that also threaten the sharecropper farms. One has the choice to:
- Seal the ventilation to cut off the radiation leak but leaving the Vault dwellers to perish.
- Reroute control of the computer system to the Vault dwellers, saving them but leaving the radiation leak open and dooming the sharecropper farms.
Make the decision by entering the command first through the terminal in the reactor room, then backtrack to the mainframe terminal in the previous room to confirm the command. After one of two resolutions is chosen, no further commands can be entered through the terminal.
Neither decision affects one's Karma, but choosing to help the sharecroppers will garner NCR fame and 100 XP. If one chooses to help the Vault dwellers, they will earn 150 XP only.
In the case of the latter, the rescued Vault 34 dwellers, led by Horowitz, will travel to the Aerotech Office Park east of Camp McCarran, taking up residence at Suite 300. It takes them about a day or two to make their way there after being freed by the player. Dialogue with Horowitz offers the option to request a "Vault trinket" but normally no item is added to the player's inventory (occasionally, a single food sanitizer may be added to the player's inventory when this option is selected).
Quest stages[]
Notes[]
- There is a second corpse that contains the password on the opposite end of the floor (also underwater), making it possible to access the armory before swimming down for the utility terminal password.
- If the player failed to speak with Victor after initially talking to him at Goodsprings, it is possible for him to show up in the tunnels on the way to the wasteland from the vault.
- If the quest is failed (by killing Morgan Blake), the option to save either the vault dwellers or the NCR sharecropper farms will still be available, including the rewards such as NCR fame.
Behind the scenes[]
The quest name is a reference to the 1950 blues song "Hard Luck Blues" first recorded by blues/soul artist Roy Brown, for whom it achieved a No.1 on the R&B chart. Interestingly, the lyrics speak of a vagrant with a life very similar to that of the Lone Wanderer from Fallout 3.
Bugs[]
If you have a human follower die near Vault 34 (Boone in the example experienced) and have ED-E as companion waiting elsewhere, it can sometimes cause ED-E to fast travel to you once you are in Vault 34. ED-E will also frequently ignore wait commands. [verified]
If you choose to save the trapped vault dwellers from Vault 34 and meet them at "Aerotech Office Park" the player will have an option to ask for a reward "Vault trinket", which doesn't actually add anything to player's inventory. Furthermore, dialogues appear to be looped and bugged. The vault dwellers might not appear at Suite 300 at all despite the quest being finished and your Pip-Boy entry showing that you saved them.[verified]
- Sometimes after waiting 3–4 days and returning to the office park the vault dwellers will appear.
- The terminal in the East Pump Station may be accessible even without the required Science skill of 50; the terminal will turn on and the "WARNING" message will still be readable. This also happens with West Pump Station sometimes. [verified]
- Two feral ghouls come through the broken glass near the reactor and attack you, they have no names and allow no searching of their bodies after being killed. [verified]
- After choosing to save the trapped vault dwellers, one may encounter a docile glowing one. Sadly, the player cannot engage it in dialogue. It is marked as an ally, both in V.A.T.S. and as a tick mark on the mini-map. Like the unnamed feral ghouls, the glowing one has no name and nothing in its inventory. [verified]
- Sometimes the terminal in the reactor room will be locked with the message "terminal locked please contact an administrator" with no way of activating it and not being able to finish the quest. Ensure the player grabs the overseer's password from the overseer's corpse beforehand. [verified]
- Upon entering the overseer's office, he will be dead and no feral ghouls will swarm you. [verified]
- Upon entering the overseer's office and destroying the turrets, he will not attack the Courier and will stand behind his desk until killed. [verified]
- The vault dwellers will not be found in Aerotech suite 300. [verified]
- Entering Vault 34 with ED-E as a companion may trigger a glitch causing him to become trapped within a corridor ceiling rendering him unplayable. [verified]
- Possible workaround: Ask ED-E to move back using the companion wheel to unstick. [verified]
- Workaround: use Gun Runners' terminal to dismiss ED-E, then retrieve him in Primm.
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