So i did all the New Reno quests before stepping foot in Broken Hills, which included me killing off the rocketman.

Now i find that i can't fully complete the Broken Hill quests and i can't recruit Marcus. How the fuck was i to know that some underworld "pharmacist" aka drug dealer would have the part i need to fix a damn uranium minding operation? It just doesn't get any more out of the left field than that.

Maybe i overlooked it or just don't remember, but i can't recall any clues that i may need Rocketman for anything of this sort when i was talking to him doing New Reno quests.

It's not "random" and it's not "out of the left field", it's simply a missed opportunity. Whether it's hinted at, blatently advertised, or completely obscure, it's still just a missed opportunity. This is not a game where 100% completion is necessary, or even do-able.

^ This.

Which should be evidenced by the fact that you "completed" everything in New Reno and yet Renesco is dead.



** SPOILER BELOW **













Only one of the potential solutions involves Renesco's death. And it's not the optimum solution.

** SPOILER **

haha how is a drug dealing "pharmacist" having a part for a fucking uranium mine operation not a pretty random inclusion? There's no logic there.

I'm not bashing the game with that descriptor of "random", it's just the truth. Some aspects of this games story/quests/etc. could not be more "out there". Plenty of things have an understandable tie in, you come across something later in your travels that ties into something from before and think, "ahh, well neat, i can see how that makes sense", or things are in some way hinted at or clued off, but then there's other things, like the example here, that are just thrown in there. That's what i find bothersome. I can accept some off the wall shit in a world like Fallouts, but give me a clue or something towards future endeavors(unless, again, i simply totally overlooked one here).

And i wasn't necessarily going for 100% completion(proved clear early on that was an impossibility for me), just really wanted to have a supermutant in my party, if even for the momentary gimmicky fun until his assuredly wanton minigunning cost me too many reloads as my other allies die via friendly fire. Was quite lame to find out some earlier act canceled that out. Seriously, did anybody stop and think, "shit i may need this renesco guy to help out some supermutants with their uranium mine, better not kill him yet!"? Who could imagine he'd play such a vital role in another area's quests?

I have a feeling i did much of the game in an odd order. Do most people hit up New Reno prior to Broken Hills. Seemed the game led me towards New Reno before the latter, so i ran through all that.

" you "completed" everything in New Reno and yet Renesco is dead"

Clearly my meaning is i exhausted all the quests available to me in New Reno, based on my in-game choices. Fixing this mine via Renesco was not a New Reno quest, it's a Broken Hills one.

So you expect a post-nuclear anarchy to be logical? Get real.

Here I thought this was going to be a gripe about how you're level 3 and random-encountered 25 level 6 enemies or something.

It's simply a quality of deep RPGs, I understand how it is frustrating, but it is nothing unusual or random or obscure or far-fetched. I almost never like to complete any quests until I've hit a dead end of exploration and know there's nothing like that out there to be encountered. Fun stuff!

Does this happen? If so, what sort of strategies are needed to win such encounter (assuming it is possible to do so)?

Maybe not to that extreme? But there are definitely times when a random encounter WILL KICK YOUR ASS simply because of what was generated and there is no way to win, you've got to reload your last save or hope you can escape to an exit somehow. It's been a while, but I remember there being numerous times early in Fallout 2 where I'd random encounter 10-20 giant mantis(es?) while travelling at an early level with no hope of winning, or more simply in Fallout 1 being level 5 or 8 and random-encountering a group of 10-20 raiders fighting each other or something else where, unless you're one of those uber-gamers I suppose, you've really got no chance at winning.

It is easier to win odds like that if you're good with grenades or have are specced in big guns.

The easiest way to almost guarantee you will experience this kind of butt-whooping is to immediately head South at the start of the game.

You should in short order encounter enemies in power armor while only having a spear. ;)

Slightly less extreme is to head South from Redding once you get there - same enemies, but you might be a few levels higher and have some half-decent equipment.

For the most part - there are likely no strategies to win, just get to the exit and you'll live.

In general, the best way to live is to avoid these fights in general - but if you're using the RP then initial encounters (even going in the direction the plot points you to) can still be difficult. So, again, just run if you're getting whooped. And save before you travel anywhere!

Yeah you're right, the air purifier/filter (not specifically for Uranium mines) should be available from the local hardware store. So you should just be able to head there.

Oh wait, there is no local hardware store.

Guess you'd have to ask one of the mafia bosses, drug dealers, gun merchants, idiot-savant weapon modification experts, prostitutes or crack heads then? I'm sure they're all much more likely to stock air purifiers for sale than an educated guy who manages a pharmacy.


By the way I remember the first time I played this game I did something similar - I whacked someone for Mr. Bishop so I closed off a certain quest-line later on. I didn't actually find out until I looked at a walkthrough though since I wasn't even offered the mission.

" I can accept some off the wall shit in a world like Fallouts, but give me a clue or something towards future endeavors"

The question was answered in the post you quotted from.

I have no idea how to multiquote...

"It's simply a quality of deep RPGs, I understand how it is frustrating, but it is nothing unusual or random or obscure or far-fetched."

I agree with the first part, disagree with the rest. Certainly adds more depth to the experience, and the trial and error nature of it makes for a funner ride ultimately as it helps simulate the uncertainties such a world would present. That said, this example is quite random.

" I almost never like to complete any quests until I've hit a dead end of exploration and know there's nothing like that out there to be encountered. "

That becomes absurdly time consuming though. You essentially would have to travel around from place to place before undertaking any given quest, and after completing any given quest, to see what effect it could have or what it may have impacted elsewhere.

"while travelling at an early level with no hope of winning"

This, i only encoutnered situations like this early on. I found Fallout 2 to be quite rough in the early goings, far more challenging then the first. You're low on health/armor, you're low on stats all around, your weapon is weak, i found ammo levels to be a major issue very early in my game. I had to reload a crapton of times just trying to travel from what city to the next.

It didn't help that i had no intention of playing melee, so i put nothing into that. Well with ammo short, and a weaker gun, and a total trash ability to aim that gun, and a weak melee ability to boot, combat can be a very rough ordeal.

It does make it quite fun as you often feel like you're truly fighting for survival and every item/bullet you pick up counts, feels like you're really scrounging around this wasteland desperately seeking a way to tough shit out. None of this lasts too long though, not once your weapons/money/stats improve.

"Guess you'd have to ask one of the mafia bosses, drug dealers, gun merchants, idiot-savant weapon modification experts, prostitutes or crack heads then? I'm sure they're all much more likely to stock air purifiers for sale than an educated guy who manages a pharmacy. "

haha i see what you're doing with all that. However, we all know there's plenty of merchants/characters you encounter who have some tech device or item for you yet they don't know what the hell it is or what it's significance is. Plus, since i hit up New Reno first, i had no way of knowing i'd even need this item for a mine.

And i never took Rocketman to be some legitimate pharmacist/doctor/whatever anyways. The dude was a drug peddler for the mob. haha i didn't think i was dealing with Walter White here.

"By the way I remember the first time I played this game I did something similar - I whacked someone for Mr. Bishop so I closed off a certain quest-line later on. I didn't actually find out until I looked at a walkthrough though since I wasn't even offered the mission"

I fucked something up with the briefcast i'm supposed to deliver from Vault City. Was that to Mr Bishop? Sounds familiar. Either way, i think i made the enormous mistake of asking for money for the task back in VC, something i guess the mafioso somehow gets wind of and then will never trust me ever again.

Yeah he comes across more as an arrogant twit in general. I can't remember what the requirements are (if there are stat requirements for example and/or just order of conversation requirements), but you can find out a bit of his background and how much he hates being the "rocket man".

Actually my stuff-up was after delivering the case to Bishop, he sends me to whack someone in another city. Then later on this other quest just stops because the guy I was to deliver the other thing to was now dead - but I didn't even realise there was more to the quest initially because there is no indication that you're even missing anything, as in I just wasn't offered that quest or even a hint it existed. Which to be fair does actually make some sense - it would be much more annoying if I WERE given a quest to deliver something to a dead man...

Speaking of that briefcase, one thing that gets my goat with the Fallout games is this bizarre idea that it's a "bad thing" to ask for money for something. Which makes no sense. I mean, society has collapsed, everyone's fighting to survive, but if I dare to ask for money for wiping out an entire gang/army, that's somehow a BAD thing and gets me a LESSER reward?!

So yeah, Mr. Moore is too much of a pussy to take this valuable stuff out of VC himself, which he wants to do to further his "revolution" or whatever. No worries, here's a total stranger, let's see if he's willing to hike across the wasteland with a mysterious unopenable briefcase which he won't be told the contents of. But he'd better be willing to do it for free, or else!

Sure if you don't ask for money you do end up getting paid (and get further jobs from Bishop), but I still don't see what's wrong with asking what I'm getting out of delivering a mystery case, especially as seeing that if Vault City found out about it I don't think they'd be too happy. Luckily they can't in the game, but you know what I mean...

It's even more annoying in that there's only vague consistency here. Sometimes you become more "evil" by asking for money (not so bad - I can deal with that), yet sometimes you get a lesser reward for some reason (actually happens a fair few times), and the worst one of all - sometimes asking for money gets you some/more money, but no experience points! How the hell does that make sense? Having a choice between cash or experience is pretty lame - you've DONE the damn job, just by DOING the job that's the experience - not whether you're being nice to the person who gave it to you!

Anyway, rant over - these are all minor things that repeated play throughs (or a detailed walkthrough after you've beaten the game once) can let you know...

Gotta love them people playing Fallout games and complaining about consequences.


What have ducking nu-gaming dorrito awesome buttons done, man. Fuck this, man.

I'm pretty sure Fallout 3 had choices and consequences. It's just they were so artificially balanced (e.g. you had the exact same number of evil, neutral and good characters that could join you).

To give it credit, I do recall you being able to have ghouls wipe out Tenpenny Tower if you so chose, or to nuke one of the main locations in the game (thereby shutting off those quests if you didn't do them beforehand).

Apart from that it was pretty bland though. Not enough quests, far too many locations which happened to be infested with various lame baddies to wipe out. A first-person shooter disguised as an RPG which didn't even have proper first-person shooter controls.