Old Guns is a Minutemen main quest and achievement/trophy in Fallout 4.
Quick walkthrough
| Minutemen main quest: Old Guns | |||||||||||||
| Return to the Castle. | |||||||||||||
| Open the access to the lower tunnels by clearing the rubble through the workshop. | |||||||||||||
| Explore the lower tunnels and destroy Sarge. | |||||||||||||
| Gain access to the Castle's armory. | |||||||||||||
| Talk to Ronnie Shaw. | |||||||||||||
| Build an artillery piece and assign a settler to it at the Castle. | |||||||||||||
| Follow Ronnie Shaw. | |||||||||||||
| Head to the target area. | |||||||||||||
| (Optional) Keep the radio on and tuned to Radio Freedom. | |||||||||||||
| Throw an Artillery smoke grenade into the target area. | |||||||||||||
| Speak to Preston Garvey. | |||||||||||||
| Reward: 300+ XP Artillery schematic Artillery smoke grenade Ronnie Shaw at The Castle | |||||||||||||
| Leads to: With Our Powers Combined | |||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough
Starting the quest
This quest can be received from Preston Garvey in Sanctuary at a certain point in the game. Alternatively, a few days after securing the Castle, one will be approached and engaged in conversation by a woman named Ronnie Shaw, or by listening to Radio Freedom. She tells of the Castle's untapped armory. After some dialogue, the Old Guns quest will begin. Ronnie will lead the player to a large hydraulic steel door within the Castle. Since the door cannot be opened from the outside, the player character will need to find another way around. Ronnie then leads them inside the Castle's halls into the old general's office where a hallway (now blocked by rubble) leads to the armory.
Lower tunnels
Ronnie Shaw will ask to clear the rubble. Using the workshop, the Sole Survivor can scrap the rubble and gain access to the lower tunnels leading to the armory. Inside are a few rooms with general junk and a shelf with ten cannonballs for the Broadsider. There are also some minor defenses--mines and a single level-dependent turret. This initial area has some environmental radiation. Just beyond, across from the chemistry station is a power generator with a fusion core.
Guarding the far entrance is a heavy sentry bot called Sarge. Once the bot is destroyed, Shaw will gain access into the next room where General McGann's body is found and a computer containing his last entries. The next door leads to the West Bastion.
West Bastion
Shaw will access a terminal that will open the armory. Inside is an array of plunder, including an artillery schematic and some artillery smoke grenades (inside a yellow ammo box container on the metal shelf), which are needed for the next part of the quest. After taking the schematic, it will add an artillery piece to the workshop under a new Special category. Speak to Ronnie and she will ask to build the artillery piece. Place it (some pre-existing spots exist on the walls if preferred) and assign a settler to them. After doing this, speak to Ronnie again and she wants to test the new artillery.
Testing the Artillery Guns
Shaw asks the Sole Survivor to keep the Minutemen radio station on Radio Freedom (optional) and to throw a grenade into the test site (shown on the compass, and with a quest marker). If the radio station is on, the Sole Survivor will hear Ronnie speaking on it. On approaching the test site, throw an artillery smoke grenade into the site and step back. After a few seconds the guns will fire and Ronnie will say the test was a success. After this, speak to Preston Garvey and complete the quest.
Quest stages
Companion reactions
- Hancock is indifferent to accepting or completing the quest, but likes watching the artillery fire destroy the area around the target building.
- Paladin Danse will dislike activating the artillery if he is present during the quest.
Notes
- Sarge will commonly be unable to pass the archway leading out from the long room he spawns in.
- Most companions will like testing the artillery guns, so one may consider sending companions without max affinity to the Castle before advancing this quest. However, Danse will dislike using the artillery; alluding to the fact that The Prydwen could be destroyed with these weapons (as seen in With Our Powers Combined).
- After a day has passed and the artillery has been fired, Ronnie Shaw will become available as a weapon vendor and sell The Last Minute. She is active during typical merchant hours, and the quest does not need to be turned into Preston before she offers her service.
Behind the scenes
There is a reference to the short story "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe during this quest. After entering the locked room with General McGann's body inside, the player character can find Amontillado wine next to the corpse as well as a broken wall with a skeleton shackled inside across from the body. In the short story, a man hates another for insulting him. As revenge for the slight, the murderer lures his victim down into a cellar by promising him a drink of Amontillado wine, and buries him alive inside a wall in this same fashion. This short story was actually based on an urban legend about Fort Independence, wherein an officer is buried alive by the soldiers for killing a favored officer in a duel. In-game the wine bottle has the name "P. Edgar" written on it.
Bugs
Deactivating Sarge with the Robotics perk doesn't trigger the next script, therefore the player character needs to destroy the robot to proceed or on PC open console and type setstage 000aa778 470. If Ronnie still does not react set the stage to 480 to open the door.[verified]- If starting the quest after having already retrieved either the artillery blueprints or smoke grenades (via console commands, etc), one will not be able to progress. However, this can be fixed by adding the smoke grenades to the inventory if not having any. This can be done with the console command player.additem 0012e2ca. If the quest still does not proceed, teleport through the wall by getting the door open or toggling noclip and grab the blueprint from the table.[verified]
- Ronnie Shaw may get stuck "taking a knee" if knocked out during the fight with Sarge, preventing her from progressing the quest. Going back upstairs and returning, or sleeping in a bed in the room seems to reset her and allows her to work on the terminal.[verified]
- When exiting the Tunnels into the West Bastion, Ronnie may loiter in the room with the button to open the metal door to the bastion and not proceed down the hall to the armory; attempting to talk to her will not initiate conversation and the quest will not proceed. Using console commands to place her near the armory doors will cause her to eventually enter it, and the quest will proceed normally.
- Ronnie stops being a vendor and gets locked in "trade mode" when talked to even when she is in the armory. Seems to happen at random.[verified]
- Tuning into Radio Freedom after throwing the smoke grenade may cause the broadcaster to leave his post and refuse to return.[verified] To fix:
- Open up console using ~
- Select the radio transmitter (hex value should be 0009FF48[EP])
- Type: setpapyrusvar bAllowPlayerAssignment True.
- Assign any settler to the radio transmitter; this should force the Minuteman to sit down and start using it again.
- The artillery may fail to fire after throwing the smoke grenade, completing all other quest objectives without triggering the "Speak to Preston Garvey" objective, rendering the quest unbeatable. Applying the radio-fix above, and then throwing another smoke grenade to the same area as earlier in the quest, can trigger the artillery, and the quest will continue.[verified] Another possible fix is to use a command to modify the timescale:
- Open up console using ~
- Type: set timescale 50.
- Wait and see if the artillery is firing and if your quest can go on.
- Revert back to timescale default value, type: set timescale 20.
- The radio operator may complain that he can not use the radio as it needs more power even though the required amount of power is provided. He then refuses to sit at the radio and no other NPC can be assigned to the task. If it occurs before this quest is completed, it renders this quest uncompleteable. Could be linked with Ronnie Shaw suddenly ceasing to be a vendor.[verified]
- Ronnie gets stuck behind the door that the computer terminal needs to open and the terminal says inaccessible. This happens when Ronnie takes a knee in the hallway prior to entering the room with the sentry bot. When a bottle cap mine is placed at the right corner of the room's doorway and the the mine goes off (triggered by the sentry bot), Ronnie disappears and the sentry bot gets stuck. Once the bot is defeated, Ronnie appears behind the security door and cannot come through to unlock the terminal.[verified]
- When doing this quest, once underground in the Castle's armory, there is a chance Ronnie Shaw can die and spawn in the other side of the room preventing her from opening the door that only she is able to open, which is game breaking as it prevents you from completing the quest.[verified]
- To fix, move Ronnie to the player with 55ec9.moveto player.
- When Ronnie leads the player outside for a test firing after building the artillery and collecting the smoke grenades, if extensive work had been done on the walls and/or outside prior or before this quest, Ronnie will continually attempt to reach the location needed for the test fire, but the quest will never progress.[verified]
- To fix, progress the stage manually with setstage Min03 800.
Gallery
