Underground Undercover is a Railroad main quest and an achievement/trophy in Fallout 4.
Quick walkthrough[]
| Railroad main quest: Underground Undercover | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Talk with Tinker Tom. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Upload encrypted message on any Institute terminal. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Read Patriot's reply. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Meet Patriot. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Follow Liam Binet to meet Z1-14. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Talk to Desdemona. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Enter report on terminal. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Talk with P.A.M. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Get password from Cambridge Polymer Labs. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Return to Desdemona. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Give password to Liam Binet. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Meet with Z1-14. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wait 24 hours. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Meet with Z1-14. | (Optional) Deposit weapons for rebels. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kill tunnel guards. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Return to Z1-14. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Do Institute quests until Powering Up is complete. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Meet with Z1-14. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Warn Desdemona. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reward: 600+ XP 500 caps Railway rifle Railway spikes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leads to: Precipice of War | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough[]
After the Sole Survivor gets into the Institute, the Railroad wants them to make contact with an anonymous person inside, nicknamed Patriot, who has been helping synths escape. Tinker Tom modifies the Network scanner holotape, or provides the encrypted message holotape, in order to be able to upload a message for Patriot to the Institute's network in the hopes that Patriot sees it and comes forward to identify themselves.
After uploading the message, the Sole Survivor should read the 'Urgent Reply' message, which turns out to be a message from Patriot telling the Sole Survivor to meet him in a maintenance closet. Patriot turns out to be Liam Binet, an Institute scientist and son of Alan Binet, the head of the Robotics department. Liam expresses surprise that anyone decoded the messages he was sending out with each synth he freed and were then able to contact him back, and he is excited at the prospect of coordinating with the Railroad.
He introduces the Sole Survivor to a synth named Z1-14 who has been working with him to help synths escape. They discuss how many synths are ready to leave and propose a plan to free all thirteen at once with the Sole Survivor's help. To escape, Liam will need to bypass SRB electronic security to open some doors, but he isn't able to crack it. Instead, he requests a pre-War admin password from the surface. He recommends asking the Railroad for any leads on where to find one. The player must complete the quest Institutionalized at this point in order to be able to leave the Institute compound.
The Sole Survivor returns to Desdemona at Railroad HQ and is instructed to enter their mission report in the terminal in P.A.M.'s office. P.A.M. analyzes the data and recommends that the login credentials for Wilfred Bergman may be found in Cambridge Polymer Labs. Desdemona instructs the Sole Survivor to retrieve it while they consider Liam's plan.
The password can be found in the laboratory section of the building on the second floor. In order to access it, however, the quest Cambridge Polymer Labs must be completed before escape from the building is possible.
Looking over Liam's plan, Desdemona concludes that if it is successful, it may never be possible for Liam to free another synth ever again due to the Institute going on high-alert following such a security breach. She proposes instead that they should use this opportunity to free every synth in the Institute. To do that would require the synths themselves to rise up and fight for their freedom, instead of operating in the shadows. She instructs the Sole Survivor to give Liam the password he requested, but then to cut him loose and coordinate with Z1-14 instead from then on.
Back in the Institute, the Sole Survivor gives Liam the password, then meets with Z1-14 to discuss Desdemona's proposal. He agrees with the plan and asks for 24 hours to ensure that it is possible. He speaks with the other synths and is surprised at how many volunteers he receives. They will need weapons, however, so he requests that the Sole Survivor aid them by killing a few guards so they can stage a construction accident, allowing a few synths to go into hiding in order to construct weapons. The Sole Survivor may optionally offer to provide additional weapons, which Z1-14 instructs to be placed in a maintenance closet.
The guards are in a maintenance tunnel between Synth Retention and Robotics. After they are dispatched, the worker synths will give their thanks and collapse the tunnel after the Sole Survivor departs. Speaking with Z1-14, he gives his thanks as well and states that they need time to prepare. In the meantime, the Sole Survivor should keep working with Father until they are ready. At this point the quest is put on hold until the Institute orders the Sole Survivor to take on the Railroad during End of the Line.
After meeting with the Directorate, a runner will arrive in the meeting room with a message from Z1-14 that the Sole Survivor's quarters have flooded and they are needed there immediately. When they arrive, Z1-14 states that he's discovered that the Brotherhood of Steel has found the Railroad HQ and are preparing to attack, so the Railroad needs to be warned as soon as possible.
Quest stages[]
Notes[]
- The signal interceptor does not need to be built with the Railroad to be able to start this quest. After finishing The Molecular Level, simply talk with Desdemona and accept her offer to work with the Railroad and this quest begins.
- Tinker Tom will provide the encrypted message holotape unless the player character has the network scanner holotape in their possession, in which case he will modify it to provide the means to contact Patriot. If the modified network scanner is subsequently given to another faction (Sturges or Proctor Ingram) before sending the encrypted message, a new objective will appear to return to Tinker Tom to collect the encrypted message holotape.
- Becoming enemies with the Institute fails this quest and any other incomplete Railroad quests, starting the optional Railroad quest, Burning Cover, thus ending the Railroad questline.
- If Tradecraft is not completed before becoming banished from the Institute, this quest does not start at the conclusion of Tradecraft, and is unavailable. Similarly, Burning Cover also does not start and is unavailable.
- At quest stage 500, returning to the Railroad starts a speech from Desdemona where she refers to them as "the Wanderer" instead of their actual, chosen code name.
- As continuing to work with Father means completing Mass Fusion, the Brotherhood of Steel becomes hostile to the Sole Survivor afterwards.
- The optional "deposit weapons" objective is completed when weapons (not counting explosive weapons such as land mines and grenades) have been placed in the marked locker 8-10 times. Placing a stack of weapons is seen by the game as only one weapon, so the player character must put them in the crate one at a time. It is not however, necessary to exit out between each deposit.[verified]
- This objective updates even after its completion; removing enough weapons from the locker will unmark it as completed while Underground Undercover is active.
- If all of the guards are not dispatched quickly enough in the tunnels after the Sole Survivor is detected, the Institute may become hostile.
- The final meeting with Z1-14 (after completing Powering Up) causes Operation Ticonderoga to fail. Despite the warning that Z1-14 needs to see the player character right away, the player character can go and finish Operation Ticonderoga and return to Z1-14 after it is complete.
- Even if the player character completed most of this quest (up until the objective "Keep working with Father") and is still allied with the Railroad, should the player become Banished from the Institute and begin working with the Minutemen to take down the Institute, Z1-14 will be hostile and will fight the player character alongside Institute forces during The Nuclear Option (Minutemen). There is no option to warn Z1-14 or ally him with the Minutemen's fight against the Institute. There are no friendly rebel synths. Triggering the evacuation has no effect on Z1-14.
- X6-88 hates almost every move the Sole Survivor does in this quest, and will become hostile if they attack the guards, which makes the Sole Survivor an enemy of the Institute.
- Completion of this quest will allow legendary variants of the railway rifle to be found randomly as loot on legendary enemies.
- The console command Set LegendaryRailwayRifle to 0 will enable them to be looted if one cannot, or does not wish to, complete this quest.
Behind the scenes[]
 | The following is based on Fallout 4 cut content. |
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Cut content for Institute SRB indicates that one ending (if not the ending) for this quest would have involved Z1-14 escaping the Institute on his own, and/or being caught by the Synth Retention Bureau. An unused Institute terminal associated with a location marker in the SRB (and a separate unused entry on a non-cut SRB terminal) reveal details of Z1-14 escaping, to be recaptured pending courser availability. A separate SRB location marker, RR201Z114CellMarker, indicates that Z1-14 may have been recaptured and imprisoned in the SRB's synth reprogramming cells. The quest stages associated with the terminal (and likely also these events) are 1300, 1400, and 1600, all of which have been removed from the quest entries and provide no further details.
| End of information based on Fallout 4 cut content |
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Bugs[]
Sometimes Liam won't move after telling the Survivor to follow him. The Survivor cannot talk to Z1-14 when Liam is stuck in the storage room. To solve this, go to Z1-14 (or at least merely leave the closet area), then use the console command 000ab2ec.moveto player.[verified]- Sometimes the "Continue working with Father" objective never ends, even past Mass Fusion and Powering Up. One can use the console command setstage 00b2d48 910 or alternatively you can use the command setstage 00b2d48 1025 to move past this glitch. Talking to Liam Binet could also trigger a runner to come get you on Z1-14's behalf.[verified]. Leaving the institute and then returning might also trigger the messenger to appear and send you to your quarters.
- Sometimes the encrypted message holotape will not be added to your inventory. A console fix for this is: player.additem 0020b00e 1. Possibly because the player teleports before the quest item is given to the player and the player continues the quest with the network scanner holotape which, for some reason, contains quest related data to be uploaded for the undercover agent.[verified]
- Should Tinker Tom get downed in combat with other NPCs prior to the player securing the vertibird, Tom may remain incapacitated by the entrance door to each new area the player spawns into. The player will not be able to revive him with a stimpak, and as such he will not be able to fly the vertibird, effectively bringing the quest to a complete halt.[verified]
- When prompted to kill the tunnel guards, only 4 of the 5 guards spawn. This results in the 5th guard marker spawning beneath the floor.[verified]
- It is possible that Desdemona will not initiate dialogue when trying to warn her about the Brotherhood.[verified]
- PC beta patch 1.3 resolves this issue in at least some cases.[verified]
- This may be caused by Glory being dead. To fix go to Railroad HQ and use recycleactor 000508ee and 000508ee.moveto player in the console. You can also fix by prid 00508ee followed by resurrect and finally moveto player. This must be done before Z1-14 informs the Sole Survivor of the impending Brotherhood attack.[verified]
- This may also be caused by Deacon being dead. Follow the previous steps, but replace Glory's ID with Deacon's: 00050976.[verified]
- Make sure you've finished the side quest "Operation Ticonderoga". If Drummer Boy tells you that "Dez has an op for you" as you enter RailRoad HQ to warn them about BoS, this is usually the conflict. Find a save right before (or directly after) you're about to have your first board meeting as Director with The Institute. Finish the board meeting, but ignore the synth who approaches you telling you Z1-14 wants to see you. Don't let him engage in conversation with you, fast travel straight to RailRoad HQ, and Desdemona will give you the "Operation Ticonderoga" quest. Double-check that Deacon and Glory are alive. Finish the quest, report back, and fast travel back to The Institute. Go up to the room where the meeting took place, wait for the synth, talk to Z1-14, and Desdemona should no longer "be busy".[verified]
- It is possible that during and after Glory assists the player during the quest Memory Interrupted she can either become stuck in the area or die, resulting in a halt to progress for Underground Undercover. This is because Glory is involved in a dialogue with the player during the Brotherhood of Steel warning event. To avoid this, the player should follow Glory out of the Malden Center Station as she can become stuck on metro gates or other objects.[verified]
- If Deacon is dead, this can also cause the same issue.
- The quest can be force completed by using either the command setstage rr201 1100 or completequest rr201 at the Railroad HQ. However, this will not initiate the next quest, Precipice of War. This method is only effective if a way to force start the next quest is available.
- This may be caused by Brotherhood important NPCs being dead. To fix use recycleactor in the console for every dead body left in the Prydwen, Boston Airport, and Cambridge Police Station. It is uncertain though who exactly causes this. This must be done before Z1-14 informs the Sole Survivor of the impending Brotherhood attack.
- This bug can also occur if the player character has not killed any members of the Brotherhood of Steel in the Prydwen, Boston Airport, or the Cambridge Police Station, or if Glory is still alive.
- If "Warn Desdemona" is active and the Brotherhood didn't become hostile during Mass Fusion, either by activating the fast travel point manually and thus skipping the confrontation or by using the console to bypass that stage of the quest, the NPCs on the Prydwen will talk to the Sole Survivor as if the assault on the Railroad had already taken place and failed.[verified]
- If you meet Father, but refuse to join him, the Survivor will be ejected and forced to use the Minutemen to get into the Institute. This is suggested by Desdemona as the only remaining option. However, after the Institute is destroyed by the Minutemen, Railroad actions will be confusing. They will act as though Glory had been killed, saying "Without Glory..." and other such lines. Her death happens on the full Railroad quest line, but didn't happen in this situation. Glory will still be walking around the HQ, but will remain silent and not react with you or anyone else. She just "haunts" the HQ.[verified]
