Wheel of Fortune is a side quest in Fallout: New Vegas.
Quick walkthrough[]
| Side Quest: Wheel of Fortune | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reach Camp Searchlight and speak with Logan in the NCR storage room beneath the west-side church; agree to help the prospectors get radiation suits to explore Searchlight. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hack the Average-locked terminal in the storage room to learn about the radiation suit package taken somewhere close to Nipton, then tell Logan; pass a 50 Speech skill check to negotiate increased payment. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Speak with Boxcars in the general store to locate the hidden supply cave containing the package. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bring the package to Logan. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Follow Logan and his men into the police station and fire station; locate and acquire each piece of old NCR gear in both buildings. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Survive the attack from Logan and his men. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reward: 100 XP (Optional) Various loot carried by Logan's group | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough[]
The leadup to the quest is started by traveling to Camp Searchlight south-southeast of Novac and west of Cottonwood Cove and finding the trapdoor in the back corner of the church sitting on the west side of the irradiated former NCR base. In the NCR storage room one enters, they will find a group of prospectors led by Logan. After initial aggression and refusing to speak about his reason for being there, one can offer to help with the problem, to which he offers them the chance to by getting through the security encryption on the nearby terminal, which has an Average-level lock; one is required to hack the terminal in order to trigger the quest, so having at least 50 Science or temporarily achieving it via equipment bonuses or consumables is advisable before entering the storage room. He says that it contains the location of some radiation suits his crew needs to survive in the irradiated town. One can also ask additional questions from Logan including that his crew was hired by Alice McLafferty of the Crimson Caravan to salvage whatever they could find in Searchlight now that the NCR had abandoned it. After hacking the terminal, the player character will learn that the package with the suits in it had been intercepted coming from the west, near Nipton. One must then take this information to Logan, and he will offer to cut them in on the profits if they can bring back the suits for his crew, triggering the quest; passing a subsequent 50 Speech skill check leads to negotiating a better share of the loot only after Logan has the suits.
Following Highway 95 to the west into Nipton, if one is entering the town for the first time, an encounter with Vulpes Inculta of Caesar's Legion occurs outside the town hall on the north end. The one to talk to about getting help finding the suits is Boxcars, the crippled Powder Ganger residing in the general store. Speaking with him, asking about supplies being taken from the town gets him to direct the player character to the location of the hidden supply cave, found north of Nipton nestled amongst the rocky cliffs; the door will have an Average-level lock on it, so having at least 50 Lockpick or temporarily achieving it via equipment bonuses or consumables is advisable. Inside the cave, the package is found in one of two footlockers sitting on the ground in the center, with a spare suit in case the player character can use it.
Upon returning the package to the mercenaries, Logan will thank them and then lead the equipped prospectors out of the storage room into the town. Their first objective will be at the Searchlight police station, in the northeast corner of the town. A small amount of feral trooper ghouls will spawn and attack the prospectors on sight in the streets two times before and after searching the police station. Inside the police station, one will encounter multiple feral trooper ghouls as well. The NCR salvage parts must all be found before giving them to Logan, otherwise he will remark that there's still more to find. The requested parts and their respective locations in the police station are as follows:
- One NCR 9mm submachine gun: Located in the right hand jail cell.
- One NCR 10mm pistol: On the desk located in the northwest corner of the office.
- Two NCR computer parts: In the office. In both the second and fifth desks from the left in the semi-circle of desks in the center of the office.
- Three NCR frag grenade: On the bottom, middle shelf on the east wall of the storage room.
- One NCR grenade rifle: On the stack of boxes next to the aforementioned shelves along the east wall of the storage room.
- Two NCR radio parts: In the office. In the third desk from the left in the semi-circle of desks in the center of the office. The second radio parts are found in the leftmost desk in the cluster of three desks in the northeast corner of the room.
After handing over the salvaged parts to Logan, he will lead the crew to next travel to the heavily irradiated Searchlight fire station. In the truck bay right after the entrance, a colossal radscorpion queen will be encountered; it is advisable to help the prospectors kill the creature, otherwise if she manages to kill Logan, the quest will be rendered incomplete. Inside the upper level of the fire station, Logan will send the player character to find more NCR salvage parts; because access to the fire station is only possible during this quest (or taking the key from Logan's body), the upper level contains a couple of unique items to find unrelated to the quest:
- Knock-Knock - a unique variant of the fire axe, found in the restroom on the left, second stall behind a skeleton on the toilet.
- One Sunset Sarsaparilla star bottle cap - On the back table in the kitchen.
The requested parts and their respective locations in the fire station are as follows:
- One NCR 9mm submachine gun: Located on the shelves in the room with the Chief Fire Officer terminal.
- Two NCR frag grenade: On the shelves in the room with the Chief Fire Officer terminal. Same room as the 9mm submachine gun.
- Two NCR radio parts: On top of a small table in the room with the beds.
- Four NCR computer parts: Split between two duffle bags in the room with the beds.
- One NCR 10mm pistol: On top of a table in the kitchen.
After handing over the second batch of salvage to Logan, he will thank the player character before betraying them to keep more of the profit, turning hostile along with his crew, who must all be killed to complete the quest.
Quest stages[]
Notes[]
- Even if all the ghouls in the area were killed before taking the quest, new instances will still spawn in the camp twice: upon leaving the storage room and heading to the police station, and upon leaving the police station and heading to the fire station. However, if one reactivated the automated turrets around the town before leaving the storage room with the mercenaries after bringing the package, they will assist in killing the new ghoul enemies.
- If one takes the NCR parts from Logan's corpse at the end of the quest, no weight is added to the player character's inventory despite what it says, but they will permanently be retained in their inventory. PC users can use console commands to remove them.
- formid for NCR 9mm submachine gun: 001482FB
- formid for NCR 10mm pistol: 001482FA
- formid for NCR computer parts: 001482F7
- formid for NCR frag grenade: 001482F5
- formid for NCR grenade rifle: 001482FC
- formid for NCR radio parts: 001482F6
- Killing Logan or Boxcars prior to obtaining this quest will cause it to fail.
- After talking to Boxcars and before getting the suits, Logan can be killed with a silenced weapon while hidden in the supply room and the quest will be completed. The other people in the room will not turn hostile.
- If the quest cannot be completed due to a glitch, and the player character still needs the keys to the Searchlight fire and police stations, Logan can be killed for the keys. However, they cannot be pickpocketed, as they will not appear in his inventory.
- If one has a negative reputation with the Powder Gangers, Boxcars can still be spoken with to complete this quest.
Behind the scenes[]
- The quest name is a reference to the 1951 standard "Wheel of Fortune" famously recorded by Kay Starr.
- It also serves as a reference to the mythological concept of the "Wheel of Fortune," or Rota Fortunae, associated with the Roman goddess Fortuna (known as Tyche in Greek mythology), and originating from the concept of the Zodiac. Fortuna who owns the wheel but cannot control it would spin it at random, changing the positions of mortals whose finite lives are positioned on the wheel, with some suffering great misfortune and others gaining great fortune, all as a representation of the fickle and capricious nature of destiny.
Bugs[]
Sometimes, Logan will keep telling the player character that there must be more NCR parts in the police station, even though they collected everything. [verified]
- To complete this quest, just kill Logan and all NCR items will be removed from one's inventory, marking Wheel of Fortune completed. [verified]
- If the player character kills Logan and loots the NCR radio and NCR computer parts, these will be marked as quest items and cannot be dropped from one's inventory. [verified]
- Sometimes, after giving or not giving Boxcars Med-X doses, he will no longer have a dialogue option other than "Goodbye," thereby breaking the Wheel of Fortune quest. [verified]
- This can be fixed by opening the command console and typing resetquest 131E7C, this will reset his dialogue regarding giving him Med-X and allows for advancing the quest.
- Logan and his cronies can be killed in the fire station and quest will be completed. [verified]
- Exploring the Hidden Supply Cave just outside Nipton prior to this quest can cause the dialogue option relating to it to become unavailable when speaking to Boxcars, thus preventing the quest from progressing. Walking outside and coming back in can fix this. [verified]
- Sometimes, the footlocker supposedly containing the radiation suit package is inaccessible, leaving the radiation suit package impossible to obtain. This can be fixed by reloading the autosave. [verified]
- To advance the quest to the proper phase, where the footlocker containing the "radiation suit package" spawns, you can use the console ('~' key to open the console) and type: setstage 0014050D 15.
- If Boxcars is bugged and does not provide the radiation suit dialogue, one can try resetting the Booted quest with the console command resetquest 131E7C. [verified]
- In some cases, the NCR 9mm submachine gun or the NCR grenade launcher will not be where it is supposed to be. In this case, Logan will persist in telling the player character there must be more NCR equipment. Nothing can induce him to move on to the fire station, so the quest must be abandoned. A suggested solution is to use an explosive in the room where the grenade launcher should be, and the resulting blast will make it appear. [verified]
- If the player character has already given Boxcars the maximum number of Med-X prior to this quest, they are only given the goodbye option when talking to him, resulting in the quest being bugged and cannot be completed. [verified]
- If one speaks to Boxcars, the dialogue box will open, but there will be no dialogue option to find the supply cave. [verified]
- When having ED-E and Arcade Gannon as an active companion and Boone in the Lucky 38 Casino, Boone will sometimes randomly appear asking if "its time" when entering the NCR Storage room.[verified]
- While the group is following the player character, using the Big Mountain Transportalponder! will cause Logan and the prospectors to be teleported onto the sink's balcony.[verified]
- The player character may not be able to initiate dialogue with Logan, thus making the quest impossible to start. [verified]
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