Old School Ghoul is an unmarked companion quest in Fallout: New Vegas.[1]
Quick walkthrough[]
| Travel to Nellis Air Force Base and speak to Loyal. | |||||
| Let Raul speak about Loyal. | |||||
| Unmarked Quest: Old School Ghoul | |||||
| Travel to Camp McCarran or Camp Forlorn Hope and speak to Corporal Sterling. | |||||
| Let Raul speak about Sterling. | |||||
| Speak with Ranger Andy in Novac. | |||||
| Let Raul speak about Ranger Andy. | |||||
| Help Raul decide on whether or not to pick up his guns again. | |||||
| Reward: Old Vaquero OR Full Maintenance depending on choice. | |||||
Detailed walkthrough[]
To start the quest, the Courier must have first rescued Raul Tejada from his imprisonment by Tabitha and the State of Utobitha at Black Mountain during Crazy, Crazy, Crazy and then recruited him as a companion. Next, one must exhaust the full amount of Raul's current dialogue options over questions about himself until one gets to the topic about the value of elderly people in society, to which Raul wonders if they might know any old people who can help prove their point.
Completing this quest involves bringing Raul to visit three specific NPCs in the Mojave Wasteland:
- Loyal at the Nellis Air Force Base.
- Corporal Sterling in Camp McCarran.
- Ranger Andy in Novac.
There is no set order to which character should be approached first, but it is advised to exhaust every dialogue option when conversing with each one while Raul is nearby to ensure the completion flag is triggered. At the end of each interaction, Raul will start a conversation with the Courier that revolves around both his observation of the characters and anecdotes about his history. One has the option of skipping listening to the latter parts of the conversation at no penalty.
To enter Nellis Air Force Base, one must first survive the Boomers' artillery bombardment and then start Volare! for Pearl in order to freely walk around the area. From there, one can typically find Loyal in either his own house, the mess hall, or the hangar opposite from that one. After ending the conversation with Loyal, Raul will initiate a conversation concerning his life during and before the Great War.
At Camp McCarran, one can find Corporal Sterling in a large tent near the southwest corner of the tent city outside the main terminal building. If Three-Card Bounty has already been completed by turning in the Fiend bounties to Major Dhatri, his squad will have been reassigned to Camp Forlorn Hope, in which he can then be found in the Camp Forlorn Hope command center. After initiating and ending the conversation with Sterling, Raul will initiate a conversation about the tragedies of his life that drove him into his current worldview.
At Novac, Ranger Andy can be found in his bungalow second to the left of the Dinky the T-Rex statue across from the Dino Dee-lite Motel. The key topics to trigger are what he does in Novac ("What do you do here?") and what happened to his leg ("Did you do something to your leg?" or "What happened?") Raul must hear these answers, so repeating dialogue that has already been heard may be necessary. Learning the Ranger Takedown unarmed move from Andy is not necessary for the trigger. After this, leave the building and wait a few seconds for Raul to run up and talk. Raul will initiate a conversation concerning the Courier's opinion of Ranger Andy's place as a crippled, older man in a harsh world. This is the final conversation wherein he ties the stories of the three men the player character has met thus far to his own story.
Once Raul has revealed all three parts of his life story, he will come to a decision, the manner of which is influenced entirely by the Courier's dialogue responses during the progression of this quest. However, he may be swayed to the other alternative by passing a Speech check of 66.
- If the Courier convinces Raul to return to the ways of his gunslinging past, then, after completing the final dialogue, Raul will receive the Old Vaquero perk, increasing his rate of fire with revolvers and lever-action rifles by 33%. Raul's outfit will change to the vaquero outfit, and he will continue to provide the Regular Maintenance perk, which reduces the rate of equipment degradation by 50%.
- If the Courier convinces Raul not to return to the way of the vaquero, but to contribute in other ways, then Raul's outfit will change to the Armored Petró-Chico outfit, and the Regular Maintenance perk will be replaced by the Full Maintenance perk, which reduces the rate of equipment degradation by 75%.
Whether or not this quest is complete before the Second Battle of Hoover Dam will decide the ending that Raul receives at the end of the game.
Notes[]
- The non-playable characters can be talked to in any order.
- If the quest doesn't start, speak to Loyal and Raul will come to talk to the Courier, then they can proceed to speak with the other two non-player characters.
- If Raul doesn't come to talk after speaking with one of the people, leaving the location of the person spoken to may prompt the response.
- Despite Raul's sympathies for the Legion, it is not possible to complete this quest if the Courier has been branded a terrorist by the NCR. Even wearing NCR faction-clothing will not help it advance, as Ranger Andy, in particular, can see through faction disguises. No negative effect will come from completing this quest before completing Legion quests.
Bugs[]
It is possible that talking to Ranger Andy in Novac will not trigger Raul to speak to the Courier. This will make it impossible to start or continue the quest, even if one has not learned Ranger Takedown prior to having Raul with them.
- Note: this bug may be corrected on the PC version by using console commands. See the section marked "Quick Walkthrough" for details.
- For Xbox Users, loading the previous autosave from exiting the bungalow, and then Raul may initiate the dialogue.[verified]
- Another solution for Xbox users is to change the sequence of which NPC Raul overhears, i.e. instead of going to Ranger Andy last, go to him first or second before either Loyal and Sterling.[verified]
- It is possible that Ranger Andy will not engage in dialogue at all, resulting in an inability to progress in the quest. Even though the HUD will zoom in to make it seem as if he is about to talk, the HUD will automatically zoom back out, making it impossible to speak with Ranger Andy. [verified]
- If the Courier has already learned the Ranger Takedown technique from Ranger Andy in Novac without Raul present, this can be corrected by using the console and typing the following exactly: [verified]
- set "000e61a5".MetRangerAndy to 1. This must be done in an indoor area. Transition to an outdoor area and Raul should initiate conversation. If that console command doesn't do the trick, try set "000e61a5".MetRangerAndy to 2, then talk to Raul and pick his new dialogue option about Ranger Andy.
- Worth a try if nothing else is working with the Ranger Andy/Raul interaction. If all dialogue options with Ranger Andy have been completed, open the console and target Ranger Andy, or enter prid 0008f0b8. This can reset all his dialogue options by entering rdf. (This will also reset any other NPC dialogue, so be careful!) Once this has been done, close the console and speak to Ranger Andy. He will now talk as if himself and the Courier never met, allowing the Courier to trigger the Raul interaction, once walking outside, if he is a companion.
- Also, if Raul does not relay more of his story after speaking with Corporal Sterling, a similar console command: may be used set "000e61a5".MetCorporalSterling to 1. Again, if the previous console command doesn't help one can try set "000e61a5".MetCorporalSterling to 2 and select the dialogue line about Sterling.
- And, lastly, if Raul is not engaging in dialogue after meeting Loyal, one can use the console to fix that as well: set "000e61a5".MetLoyal to 1 will open the "spontaneous" dialogue, set "000e61a5".MetLoyal to 2 will give the ability to talk to him — "You wanted to say something about Loyal…".
- It is possible that Raul will engage in conversation with the player about Loyal even if Volare! has been completed and Loyal's conversation tree has been exhausted. This event was triggered just by walking close to Loyal. [verified]
- It is possible that the Courier will be unable to talk with Corporal Sterling (sometimes other members of First Recon are also affected). He only replies with a generic line without opening dialogue if he is stationed at Camp Forlorn Hope. This happens if the Courier asks First Recon stationed in Camp McCarran for help taking down Driver Nephi and kills him solo, so members of First Recon are transferred to Camp Forlorn Hope. This may be fixed by spawning Driver Nephi and letting the rangers kill him: player.placeleveledactoratme 000f56ff. [verified]
- Raul doesn't start the final conversation after talking to all 3 Characters and receiving all 3 NPC-related dialogues from Raul. To avoid this, the Courier must not talk to Loyal after completing the quest Volare!, when he thanks them for making his dreams a reality; can't initiate the side-quest I Don't Hurt Anymore AND talk to Corporal Sterling; can't talk to Ranger Andy prior to having Raul as a companion. After having Raul as a companion one can talk with Loyal, Corporal Sterling and Ranger Andy in whatever order you want, as long these conditions have been fulfilled. (This was tested in three different playthroughs.) Sometimes, if the final conversation does not occur, it can be remedied by declining to continue listening to Raul's conversation after speaking to the last person, by saying "Not now Raul", and then re-entering the related dialogue (on Xbox with Corporal Sterling last). This can also be fixed by trying different responses when Raul asks for your opinion on the NPC talked to before he begins his last story. Keep in mind, this may mean changing the decision Raul makes at the end of the quest, so make sure you can pass his speech check to ensure you get the ending you desire. However, there is another possible alternative do the quest backward, meaning start with Loyal, then Sterling and lastly Andy.
- If Raul won't initiate the final conversation, open the console, click on Raul and try the following commands: set "000e61a5".RepairTrack to 2 followed by set "000e61a5".GunSlingerTrack to 2 and finally startconversation player vDialogueRaulRaulTejadaTopic084. [verified]
- Note that it's not case sensitive, and you MUST click on Raul before entering the "startconversation" command.
- If Raul won't initiate the final conversation and speech check, It may have something to do with the responses you give Raul. Depending on your responses to his queries regarding how the older individuals are carrying on their lives, it has an effect on which perk Raul wants to take, and therefore which perk you would have to speech check him into taking. For example, saying "Ranger Andy just doesn't believe in himself and that's the only thing holding him back" gives a +1 of sorts toward Old Vaquero, whereas answering that he's finding a way to make himself useful in his old age (or whatever) gives +1 to Full Maintenance. There are more than two given options to respond to Raul, so 'neutral' choices are mixed in; this makes it easy to end up with a 'tie,' which can bug out the remainder of Raul's conversation so that the option to convince him towards one goal or the other via the speech check just doesn't happen (because the game isn't sure which one to give you). A way to resolve this is to choose all dialogue options that are geared toward persuading either the Old Vaquero or the Full Maintenance.[verified]
- There is a possibility that if one fast-travels immediately after exiting Ranger Andy's Bungalow, Raul's dialogue option will not be triggered. Just wait a minute to see if the trigger occurs. Note: This may have been fixed in a patch, as if you "Talk To" Raul, one can scroll down & ask him what he wanted to say after visiting Ranger Andy's, but didn't have the chance to. [verified]
- Loyal may go missing after completing Volare! This is because the hanger with the B29 is replaced with another cell. Loyal may be stuck in the old cell. [verified]
- To fix this, enter player.placeatme 000fed42 into the console when you're in the B29 version of the hangar.
- A known bug occurs with Corporal Sterling where he sometimes disappears from the game. After completing the quest Three-Card Bounty, when Corporal Sterling and First Recon should be relocated to Camp Forlorn Hope, they all disappear instead, making the quest impossible to finish. [verified]
References[]
- ↑ Quest name from Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide
