You Can Depend on Me is a side quest in Fallout: New Vegas.
Quick walkthrough[]
| Side Quest: You Can Depend on Me | |||||||||||||
| Deliver the Crimson Caravan invoice to Dr. Hildern at Camp McCarran. | |||||||||||||
| Convince Henry Jamison to quit. | |||||||||||||
| Buy out Cassidy Caravans from Rose of Sharon Cassidy. | |||||||||||||
| (Optional) Get the Gun Runners' manufacturing specifications. | |||||||||||||
| Reward: 500 caps 550 XP (Including optionals) NCR fame | |||||||||||||
| Leads to: Pressing Matters | |||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough[]
The quest is triggered by visiting Alice McLafferty at the Crimson Caravan Company, in the main office towards the east side. The player can be directed to her beforehand if they talked with Cass in the Mojave Outpost and started Heartache by the Number.
Talking to Alice, she will state she has no openings for caravaneers nor guards, but she does have an offer for a runner job, a delivery of an invoice to Dr. Hildern at Camp McCarran. He can be found in the Camp McCarran terminal building on the first floor, facing Colonel Hsu's office and looking right. The player has the option to listen to his diatribe that triggers There Stands the Grass or simply deliver the invoice.
Returning to Alice at the Crimson Caravan Company, she is impressed with the Courier's work and offers more work if they're interested. In need of a capable actor in her stead, she offers three jobs that will advance the company's position in the Mojave as well as clear some of the muck out of their coffers:
Catching Cassidy Caravans[]
Alice is interested in acquiring one of Crimson Caravan's competitors in the wastes, Cassidy Caravans, and knows that its current owner, Cass, is amenable to the buyout because she is trying to leave the caravan business. She says to look for Cassidy at the Mojave Outpost where she does trade with the NCR.
At the outpost, Cass can be found sitting on the left end of the bar. Discussing giving up the caravan with her gets Cass riled up; she built the operation with her own hands and she won't just drop it for nothing, the Cassidy pride is still worth it to her. Several skill checks can be used to get her signature on the offer:
- 50 Barter will get her to accept the buyout with a bonus pay of 750 caps.
- 75 Barter will persuade her to accept the buyout after a drinking challenge, requiring 12 samples of whiskey and 6 Endurance to succeed (END 8 and 10 will lead to unique dialogue, but the challenge is still won).
- 50 Speech will convince her that wasting her days in the outpost is a poor conclusion, but she'll still need to be cleared by Ranger Jackson (requires completing Can You Find it in Your Heart? or by killing Ranger Jackson undetected).
- 75 Speech gets her to accept the buyout without any need for payment by exploiting her pride and how it led to the destruction of her own caravan.
- If none of the above checks can be accomplished, the quest can still be completed by killing Cass undetected, but it will not garner payment from Alice.
This completes the first part of Heartache by the Number and unlocks Cass as a possible companion. It's advised to finish this quest before continuing with hers as it will have major ramifications for the Crimson Caravan Company depending on the choices made.
Letting go of a leech[]
Alice has gotten tired of dealing with one of her workers, Henry Jamison, who was hired solely due to his family's wealthy connections in both the company and NCR, who wastes most of his time and caps at the Strip. Since just kicking him out would come back to bite her hard, Alice wants Henry to willingly quit his job and free up space on her payroll, and asks the player character to convince him.
Henry can be found at the Atomic Wrangler Casino in Freeside, standing at a slot machine by the bar since he got kicked out of Gomorrah over a sizable debt to the Omertas. Several options can be used to convince him:
- Having a Liked reputation with the NCR, resulting in receiving 500 caps.
- A Mixed reputation will unlock a different dialogue option with the same result.
- Promising him that the company will pay off his debt and provide his demanded severance pay, resulting in receiving 300 caps.
- Passing a subsequent 50 Barter skill check to persuade him to forgo the severance pay, resulting in receiving 400 caps.
- Passing a 50 Speech skill check to scare him with a threat to rat him out to the Omertas, resulting in receiving 500 caps.
- Killing Henry, resulting in receiving 150 caps.
Running off the Runners[]
Alice is greatly interested in finding out the manufacturing processes vital to the operations of the Gun Runners. She tasks the player with infiltrating the factory they used to produce their high-end weapons to find any information, but says that she'd prefer it be done stealthily and undetected so that the Gun Runners don't get suspicious. The player has the option to completely skip this portion of the quest and still complete it, but doing so will bypass the 500 caps payment from Alice.
Located right next to the Gun Runners kiosk, the factory is surrounded by a metal fence with a gate with an Average lock. A high Sneak skill or use of a Stealth Boy is recommendable to get in and out without being noticed.
- There is a shift change sometime between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. (while the gunsmiths are asleep), during which the player character can follow a guard through the locked gate. The guard will leave the door unattended briefly to patrol the compound. By moving quickly and quietly, the building can be entered, the data retrieved, and the compound exited before the guard returns to their post. At this point, the gunsmiths may still be awake. In this case, waiting until around 6 a.m. is recommendable, as the gunsmiths will go to sleep at this time.
Once inside the factory, head all the way to the back of the building. Download the information from the computer terminal to the right and then escape. If any of the Gun Runner gunsmiths or guards were killed, Alice will be highly displeased and only pay 300 caps. If nobody was killed, but the player was detected, Alice will pay 400 caps. If nobody was killed and the player was never detected, she will be highly pleased and pay the full 500 caps.
Once all three tasks have been accomplished for Alice, the quest is completed and talking to her again for more work triggers Pressing Matters.
Quest stages[]
Notes[]
- If the Courier gets caught by the Gun Runners while completing the quest's optional objective, it may affect the ending of Heartache by the Number. In this case, both Alice McLafferty and Gloria Van Graff will be killed at the hands of vengeful Gun Runners in the ending slides.
- Killing everyone will not result in trading with the Vendortron becoming unavailable. However, killing Isaac will result in an unmarked quest becoming unavailable.
Behind the scenes[]
"You Can Depend on Me" is a 1961 single by Brenda Lee, it was featured a year later on her album "Brenda, That's All."
Bugs[]
Sometimes, Henry Jamison may have no dialogue options, just "bye" due to the fact you never received or the game removed the quest item.[verified]
If you have completed There Stands the Grass, Doctor Hildern might glitch and will not accept the invoice, preventing Alice from updating the quest to the point of being able to buy Cassidy Caravans, which prevents both Heartache by the Number and Birds of a Feather from being completed since Cass cannot be recruited before Alice is informed about Hildern's delivery. As for the Xbox 360 and PS3, there is no known way to correct the lack of an option to give Dr. Hildern the invoice. For PC, it is possible to advance the quest by using the console command setstage 000EDB37 15, which will mark the Dr. Hildern part of the quest complete.[verified]- When you complete this quest and hand in the holotape schematics taken from the Gun Runners, a lot of items/weapons/apparel will disappear from your inventory. A possible way around this is to give all your items to a companion, however this might fail as well.[verified]
- During the first objective of the quest, Doctor Hildern may never appear, though he does show up on the compass. There is no fix for the Xbox 360 leaving the quest impossible to complete.[verified]
- When you walk out of the office after giving the invoice to Thomas Hildern, there will be none of your HUD showing and you can hear a very deep breathing sound. Also, you will not be able to move or access your Pip-Boy.[verified]
- This may be a design oversight, but when you download the specifications to your Pip-Boy, and sneak out, regardless of whether or not you're wearing a Stealth Boy, you will be caught and attacked.[verified]
- When sneaking into the Gun Runners factory without killing any of them, Blake's inventory will not change.[verified]
- Getting the plans in a non-violent way by simply sneaking in and out can sometimes cause the Gun Runner guards to become hostile, even after leaving the Gun Runners factory and the policed area. This can be fixed by simply waiting a couple of days. They should then return to their neutral stance. Alternatively, close the gate at night so they can't see you, save and reload while within range of the guards forcing their script to reset.[verified]
- If you have killed Van Graffs as a part of the quest Tend to Your Business, talking to Cass will start the quest Heartache by the Number from the part where Cass asks you to kill Alice McLafferty. Killing Cass is the only way to continue this quest.[verified]
- After stealing the pre-War schematics, fast traveling back to the Crimson Caravan will cause a freeze while loading.[verified]
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