Mixed Signals is a main quest in the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Dead Money.
Quick walkthrough[]
| Quest: Mixed Signals | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Bring Christine to the switching station in Puesta del Sol North. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Fix the malfunctioning security door's fuse box by either passing a Repair 60 skill check or obtaining three electric box fuses from around Puesta del Sol North. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Reach the station control room and decide the next step for Christine. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Choose deceitful dialogue or use Terrifying Presence to force Christine to enter the manual bypass room. | Hack the Very Hard-locked terminal or obtain the password to gain access to the remote maintenance terminal for Christine to use. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Reward: XP Karma gain or Karma loss (optional Christine permanently leaves as a companion | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Next Quest: Trigger the Gala Event | |||||||||||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough[]
After recruiting all of the collar-bearers during their respective quests, return to Elijah at the fountain. His holographic image reveals that entering the Sierra Madre Casino & Resort requires activating the pre-War Gala Event in order to lift the security lockdown, with each of the three recruits being sent to relevant locations that suit their skills. As with the previous quests, these can be completed in any order desired.
Speaking with the mute Brotherhood scribe, passing a Science 75 skill check allows one to discern Christine's thoughts of how Elijah may be using a Pip-Boy's tech to control the fountain projector and other systems from a close-by location. She then shows an interest in the Courier's own Pip-Boy, finding the coordinates for her position in the Gala Event point to a switching station in Puesta del Sol North; passing an Intelligence 6 check discerns that she thinks she's being sent there due to her technical aptitude as a scribe which is lacked by both Dog and God and Dean Domino.
From the fountain, go west and follow the main road to the northwest until reaching the doors to Puesta del Sol North. If this is the first time going through it (instead of bringing Dean Domino trying to reach Puesta del Sol South during Strike Up the Band beforehand), there will be multiple ghost people populating the large entryway courtyard. Take a right after the archway straight ahead and keep to the left-hand wall until reaching a small area covered in Cloud; a ghost seeker will attack from the elevated overhang. Turn to the right in the Cloud pocket going through the archway with the lit lantern. Elijah will then radio in, pointing to the right-hand staircase leading to the switching station; it too is thick with the Cloud, so move quickly to reach the door at the end of the hallway.
Inside the switching station, approaching the locked interior door around the corner will reveal that a system malfunction had caused it to lock down. Christine then directs the Courier to the fuse box on the wall near the entrance, left in a state of disrepair. The fuse box can be fixed through one of two options:
- Passing a Repair 60 skill check to make immediate, effective repairs (a copy of Fixin' Things can be found on the large box to the left of the locked door)
- Obtain and use a set of three electric box fuses from toolboxes around Puesta del Sol North, as follows:
- In a toolbox near the computers to the right of the locked door.
- Exit the station's main entrance and go straight into the Cloud. There is a fuse in a toolbox on the floor immediately to the right.
- Also from the station exit, turn left instead and go down the wide stairs, turn left under the archway and keep going left until able to turn right. There will be a well-lit opening into a building. Enter and go to the top floor and out to a balcony, where there is a toolbox containing a fuse.
Once the door is unlocked, go through the station's layout, dealing with multiple speakers along the way. Some well-hidden ones will have graffiti on the walls pointing out some of their locations. Christine's Signal Interference companion perk gives plenty of time to destroy them or run past. There is one speaker to the right of the repaired door as the Courier goes through, partially hidden behind the pipes. Another is high on the right-hand wall of the alcove they pass, to their right, in the same corridor. A third speaker is found around the corner and down the stairs, well hidden under the pipes high on the left-hand wall. All three can be destroyed with weapons, but not otherwise deactivated due to their elevation.
Enter the main station area and turn right, following the walkway. Christine will draw attention to the thick haze of the Cloud below. The destination is across the broken walkway to the left. Below is a large pipe which can be jumped on and run across to the other side of the room and then jump to the base of the staircase and go up, thereby avoiding most of the cloud. To the right the walkway leads to a copy of Dean's Electronics. It is covered by a shielded speaker, so use Christine's perk to quickly run around the walkway and reach the terminal to deactivate the speaker. There is a tripwire just in front of the terminal; it can be quickly disarmed, or the speaker terminal can be carefully accessed and the trap then dealt with. Alternatively, one can disarm the grenade bouquet that would be tripped, carefully hidden on the left. The tripwire may already be disabled (or have gone off, possibly moving the skill book too) when the building is entered.
Following the walkway left from the top of the staircase (the other way from getting to the terminal) leads to a door into a room with a large computer on the left-hand wall, and a terminal in the opposite far corner containing messages related to the History's Sake challenge. Go through the door next to the first aid box on the wall and enter the next room. Here Christine will draw attention to the ventilation control system terminal on the wall in front. Activating this will clear the large Cloud pockets from the lower levels of the switching station as well as from some areas outside around Puesta del Sol. Along one wall in this room is a fridge and a row of lockers, including Ennis's locker which contains the Remote maintenance terminal password. One can either pick the Hard-level lock or look for the associated key in one of the rooms ahead.
- With the cloud vented, it is possible to go back down the stairs and safely explore the previous room for a few spare Sierra Madre Chips and a skill magazine, some ammunition near the middle of the room, two stimpaks on top of the two big metal boxes next to the ammunition, and a toolbox. A corpse lies behind a fallen piece of walkway (below the entrance walkway), wearing a Dead Money jumpsuit and carrying the See you in hell asshole note. There are several bear traps under the large pipe crossed earlier.
Opening the door next to the ventilation control terminal reveals another walkway. There is a security turret to the right at the end of the walkway, and a shielded speaker on the wall to the left. The turret can be targeted and destroyed from inside the room the Courier is still in, safely out of range of the speaker, or deactivated at a nearby terminal, directions to which are noted below (although this requires avoiding detection by the turret while moving quickly enough to escape the speaker and jumping over gaps in the catwalk). Directly across is an Average-locked door, behind which is the terminal to shut down the speaker. If the door cannot be picked, reaching the terminal instead requires running down the stairs, then taking the first right then jump across the gap. Then go left up the stairs, jump the gap and go left again, looping around into the room behind the locked door (the door can be unlocked from this side via a wall terminal next to it). With the speaker deactivated, it is safe to return to the walkway. Again, going from the ventilation control terminal, going down the stairs, and taking the first right, but then jumping the gap and going straight ahead toward the gray machinery, will lead to a copy of Chinese Army: Special Ops Training Manual (follow the left-hand catwalk around the machinery).
Alternatively, turning right again before jumping the gap to the machinery, then going down the stairs and left over the pipe will lead to the aforementioned turret control system terminal, allowing one to hack the Hard-level encryption on it. Continuing along this path will lead to the destination at the elevator.
From the room with the speaker terminal, take the door to the right of the terminal and follow the walkway south to the main computer room. (It is also possible to reach the Chinese Army: Special Ops Training Manual mentioned above by jumping across to the right from this walkway.) In the computer room, there is a desk to the left with a terminal containing a note about Ennis's locker key. The key itself is on the desk. Turning right at this terminal will lead to the marked destination in the next room. Ahead is the maintenance elevator on the left while opposite and across from it is the remote maintenance terminal.
Christine's crisis[]
Once close to the elevator, Christine will approach and initiate a conversation, expressing her fear and unwillingness to enter the manual bypass room needed to carry out her task. Passing a Perception 7 check (it will not appear with a lower level) discerns that the cramped and noisy conditions of the room at the bottom of the elevator are highly similar to those of the Auto-Doc she was trapped in at the Villa clinic, triggering her trauma.
At this point, there are a few options to get Christine to complete her task, with certain choices influencing later events related to the ending that she will receive:
- Choose the deceitful option to lie to Christine about taking the elevator to find another way, then sending her alone down into the manual bypass room. Choosing this option will complete the quest without further action but garners Karma loss and makes it impossible to keep her alive later in the questline.
- Use the Terrifying Presence perk to threaten Christine into complying, achieving the same outcome as above.
- Agree to help her find another, safer way to access the station controls, garnering Karma gain and making it possible to keep her alive later in the questline.
Note: The dialogue can be exited without deciding, and talking to Christine again will still give both the "good" and "bad" options.
If the latter option is chosen, the area can now be searched more thoroughly. Opposite the maintenance terminal and to the right of the elevator is the vending machine code for the Holorifle reinf. components, lying on top of a computer. Accessing the elevator and going down will give a written on-screen description of a tiny, cramped room full of whirring machinery, comparable to an Auto-Doc exactly as Christine feared. Going up in the elevator leads to an exit back to Puesta del Sol - an upper floor room overlooking the street. Here, there is a copy of Fixin' Things on a desk to the left, a single Mentats on the floor, a bottle of absinthe and single Buffout behind a pipe above, and random items in the containers.
To successfully help Christine, access must be gained to the remote maintenance terminal opposite the elevator. One can either hack the Very Hard-level encryption or located the remote maintenance terminal password found in Ennis's locker. Once she is told the terminal is usable, Christine will express her gratitude and offer her hand in friendship (having Cherchez La Femme unlocks unique dialogue here). Once the dialogue ends, she will take her seat at the terminal and the quest will be completed.
Quest stages[]
Bugs[]
Sometimes, even when "Ventilation Control" is activated on the terminal that removes the cloud in the station, the cloud does not go away. [verified]- The objects within the switching station are very likely to cause the Courier to get stuck in scenery. No amount of running, jumping or any other trick gets them out once they are stuck, requiring going back to an earlier save.
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