Fallout 3 Walkthrough - The Wasteland Survival Guide - Robots and Rivet City
Rivet City History
It’s time for a bit of a journey into the past. Your new mission is to figure out the exact history behind the establishment of Rivet City. There is naturally a lot more footwork to this then you might imagine.
First, make sure that you don’t talk to Dr. Li unless you have already meet her as part of the main quest. It will mess things up a bit if you meet her now.
Then just go inside and start asking people. Someone should point you toward Bannon. You can go to him first if you want. He’ll tell you that he founded the city, which seems unlikely. Time to fact check. You should be able to talk to Belle Bonny or Seagrave Holmes to get the real story. A man named Pinkerton was apparently one of the first founders. You need to find him in the abandoned part of the ship.
You can also take a different route to find this out. If you start with Vera Weatherly, she’ll just refer you to Seagrave Holmes in the first place. It is important to talk to a few people first though. Otherwise the quest might not register both objectives. If you go to Pinkerton immediately, the game has been known to not record it correctly.
Getting to Pinkerton isn’t that hard actually. If you have 100 points in Lockpick, then you can just walk down the other pier and pick the very hard lock to get inside. If not, then get down into the water and swim in between the crack. Then look down to see an access point. Enter this underwater door and swim along the ship’s corridors. Move quickly and get out of the water to fight a few Mirelurks. You can’t fight them underwater, so move quickly.
Get up the steps and look for all the traps around here. Clear them out or dodge the tripwires. Then find Pinkerton. Talk to him and tell him that Bannon claims to be the founder. He’ll give you the real records. You can also get his password and find the records on his computer. Backtrack and use the electrical switch to open the very hard door and leave.
Report to Moira. You’ll get some free mentats and a 10% discount for all of the dealers inside Rivet City. You can give a snide answer or use your Intelligence, Charisma, or Strength.
Widgets and RobCo Factory
This is actually a pretty fun and easy test. You just have to take this widget and pop it into the RobCo mainframe. You’ll need 50 points in Science if you want to complete the optional objective though.
If you already have the Robotics Expert perk, then you can just explain it all to her and accomplish both objectives.
If not, then head into the marked factory. It’s to the southwest of Megaton and near Tenpenny Tower. Go inside and watch out for the radroaches and mole rats hanging around down here. They are the only enemies you’ll face though, so don’t worry too much. All the robots are inactive.
Go upstairs and work your way to giant mainframe that should be marked on your local map. Then just activate it to pop in the widget. Alright, now hack the computer quickly. The robots are on their old setup to defend the factory against a Communist invasion. That means that they’ll shoot you on sight. Hack the computer terminal and change the settings. You can just shut them down, but that’s no fun. Turn off the third line of code to make them friendly to you. Then turn on their pest control and stress test routines. This makes them hunt the radroaches and also shoot each other. It also counts for hacking the mainframe and completes the optional objective. You can then walk out peacefully and loot a lot of good equipment on the way out.
Report back to Moira for your loot. You’ll get some pulse grenades and a big book of science for your efforts. You can give a snide answer or use your Strength, Charisma, or Intelligence.
A Trip to the Library
This one is actually pretty easy and a little cool. The Arlington Library is marked on your map. It’s in the same basic vincity as the RobCo Factory. Just walk over to the front door and go inside. Scribe Yearling stops you at the door. Don’t be a jerk. Be nice and explain that you’re looking for the archives. She’ll give her own little quest and the password for the check-in desk. You can use this to get the card catalog, but you might as well just get that later since we’re doing the optional quest.
The Brotherhood of Steel is already trying to secure the library, so it actually isn’t a hard level. Go past Yearling and into the next area of the library on the first floor. Follow the 2 Brotherhood of Steel soldiers and help them kill the 7 or so raiders in here. They’re pretty effective, so they should take out a few on their own. Go forward and to the right on the first floor to find the door to the Media Archives.
Go up the stairs and watch out for a baseball machine. Kill the 3 raiders who should come charging out. They shouldn’t be well armed, so just shoot them before they get into melee range. Advance and turn to the right. Go down the marked corridor. Go into an office on the left side and climb up the collapsed sections of floor. Move forward and go through the wire mesh. There are about 5 raiders in the area with the computer. There might be one with a missile launcher. Shoot him first obviously. Then take out the other 4 and work your way to the central computer in the room. Access it and download the entire library archives and go ahead and dowload the card catalog too. There is also a safe in the corner that should have a good deal of caps in it, so pick that if you can. Also grab the pre-war book by the archives. It’s an easy 100 caps.
Backtrack out and claim your reward from Yearling for the book. Then go to Moria and make your final report. Like always, you can give a snide answer or use Endurance, Intelligence, or Agility to answer the question. She’ll reward you with some caps and a Speech book as a reward.
Aftermath
Alright, the quest is now complete. Moira will give you a rough draft of the first book. You should be able to judge how your input affected the final product. You will receive a mini nuke as a reward for your quest, a bit of good karma, and finally the Survival Expert Perk that you earned.
If you completed all 9 of the optional objectives, then you will be a Survival Guru. This means a +6% to rad resistance and poison resistance. You will also receive a unique bonus depending on your answers. As I suggested at the beginning of the guide, you should probably have gone for snide or tough. This would result in a +3% to critical hit chance or a +6 to your damage resistance. There are also some skill boosts for the others.
As a side note, you will eventually come across a wasteland survivor with the book. If you wrote a good one, then they will survive their fight and reward you with a bit of money.
Other than that, you’re done with all of Moira’s quests. Congratulations. You just completed one of the largest quest lines in Fallout 3.
This post is part of the series: Fallout 3 Walkthrough - Wasteland Survival Guide
The Wasteland Survival Guide is a long quest consisting of 9 separate missions for Moira. This quest is one that will last for a good portion of the game and encourage new exploration in the wasteland. If you want help meeting Moira’s challenges and getting the best rewards, then look here.
