The wasteland survival guide is a book in progress written by Moira of Megaton. She intends to work on the book in order to make it easier for inexperienced people to survive in the wastelands. The book is divided into three distinct chapters, each with three portions. Moira asks you to assist her by performing various tasks and returning to her when they're done.
The result of the book depends highly on how well you complete your objectives — in addition, you can manipulate the "style" of the book depending on the dialog options available to you.
There are five styles:
- Standard
- Intelligent, which requires high intelligence or perception attributes
- Endurant, which requires high strength or endurance attributes
- Slyness, which requires high agility or charisma attributes
- Humorous/Snideful
Chapter 1[edit]
| Task | Main reward | Optional reward |
|---|---|---|
| Scavenging | Iguana Bits | Food Sanitizer |
| Radiation | Rad-X and Radaway. | Rad Regeneration perk |
| Minefield | Frag Grenades | Bottlecap mine schematic |
| Chapter 1 | Stimpacks | |
Scavenging[edit]
In the first chapter, newcomers need to know about good scavenging points and where to collect resources. An example of a scavenging point would be the Super Duper Mart located somewhere to the east — your objective is to find a small stock of food and medicine if possible.
Most of the mall is already looted, with a few stands knocked about. However, there is still some items available within the mall for collection.
The food is accessible in the front-right corner of the building and is stored in the refrigerator. In the region, you can also collect a few items and weaponry as well as a key to access the medicine.
The medicine or first aid equipment is located on the opposite corner of the mall. Note that entering this area may trigger reinforcements to enter the mall.
In the medicine area, you have the option of starting a Protectron to help attack the raiders. It will seek out enemies and open fire, however it will also attack you unless you are carrying the office ID (located directly on the maintenance terminal.)
Radiation Poisoning[edit]
Moria wants to know how to recognize radiation poisoning and how to treat it. To complete this task, achieve at least minor radiation poisoning.
You can obtain radiation poisoning by drinking from water supplies (such as from sinks), eating irradiated food or meat from animals, or by being in a radioactive area (including surface water). The easiest method of doing this quest is by just standing by the bomb in the center of town and waiting until you hit your desired rad level.
Minefield[edit]
A major issue in the wasteland is that there is an occasional minefield — one ghost town is located far to the north-east and is littered with live explosive mines. In order to determine the best method to traverse minefields, she asks you to reach the playground in the center of the city.
The mines in the city were planted by a sniper that wants to be left alone. Even if the mines are dangerous, it is possible that one of his shots can hit a car, causing it to explode. You can't avoid the sniper's attack on the cars, as he fires on them even when he can't see you.
While you can kill Arkansas, he is one of the necessary individuals to complete the Strictly Business quest.
When you complete the mission and return to Moria with a frag mine, you can get some explosives.
Chapter 2[edit]
| Task | Main reward | Optional reward |
|---|---|---|
| Mole Rats | None | Jet & Psycho |
| Mirelurks | None | Stealth Boys and Shady Hat |
| Injuries | Med-X | Environment Suit |
| Chapter 2 | Ammunition | |
Repelling Mole Rats[edit]
Moria wants a humane method of dealing with mole rats that are aggressive, and wants you to test a repellent stick. While you can attack any mole rat you want, there is a high concentration of them in the Tepid Sewers.
Mole Rats will die a few seconds after you hit them. Hitting them twice is far more effective; it's an instant kill on the second hit. Any further hits performed on them with the repellant stick (which can only be obtained on live specimens through cheating) will have no effect, and not count towards quest completion.
Mirelurks[edit]
Mirelurks are heavily armoured creatures that are not fully understood — their weak point is their face. However, in order to get better information about these animals, you need to infiltrate their nest and plant an observation device within their eggs.
In order to best research their life cycle, you need to avoid killing any mirelurks, and thus need to use stealth. By the time you've completed the Galaxy News radio quest, you should have at found a few Stealth boys within the musem to help on the this mission.
Injuries[edit]
Become at least 50% injured, preferably with a crippled limb. If you want, you can step on a live landmine or get hit with an explosive attack — these are quite effective at limb injuries on a per-hit point basis than other attacks, but be careful to avoid getting killed.
If you have trouble getting a crippled limb, you can regain hit points by drinking from water sources, as limb injuries are not healed by drinking.
Note: A high Medicine skill allows you to write the section for Moria, and complete the bonus objective without injury.
Chapter 3[edit]
| Task | Main reward | Optional reward |
|---|---|---|
| History | Mentats | 10% discount at Rivet City |
| RoboCo | Pulse Grenades | Big Book of Science |
| Library | Bottlecaps | Lying, Congressional Style |
| Chapter 3 | Survival Expert Perk (varies on performance and style), Mini Nuke, Wasteland Survival Guide. | |
History of Rivet city[edit]
In order to determine how cities are made in the post-apocalyptic world, you need to determine the history of River city.
When you are able to gain access to Rivet city, you will need to check with the locals to get the true story of the settlement. Your first and easiest contact is Bannon in the Potomac Attire ship — he is the member of the city council and claims that he has converted the rusty boat into the safest stronghold within the wastelands.
Betty from the bar on the lower deck has a different story, and states that Bannon wasn't even born here. She states that only person who knows the true history is either gone or dead.
From discussions with other people in the carrier, you can determine that true history can be found in the front of the ship — which is broken off the main section. To enter, you need a lockpick skill of 100 or find another entry point. You may return to Moria instead if you have trouble completing this section.
- One water entry point is found on the broken side of the ship, located underwater. The entrance is identified by a small entry tunnel. Note that this entry is dangerous as you can start taking damage from lack of oxygen rather quickly (although stimpacks or other healing items can negate some damage.) There are two mirelurks covering that entrance, although you will have to find solid ground before you can attack.
- The lockpick skill of 100 allows you to bypass the watery path and mirelurks entirely, when going in or out.
Once you reach Pinkerton, you can obtain the history of Rivet City and how it was founded. You can then return to Moria.
RoboCo Mainframe[edit]
Note: A science skill of 50 or higher is recommended. You can bypass it with the Robotics Expert perk.
The RoboCo facility gives a great example on how to use old technology — when you plug in a widget into their mainframe, you gain access to their terminals and robots. The facility is located south-west of Megaton. Tinker Joe patrols around the area, where you can purchase robotic supplies or a robot (if you have Neutral Karma).
The enemies in the facility are usually small pests, nothing more dangerous than mole rats or rad roaches.
The mainframe is located in the remote section of the building, on one of the upper floors. Inserting the widget will activate the mainframe and various robots within the facility.
However, the robots are initially hostile. To fix that, hack into the system and disable the liquidation protocol; or re-enable it if you wish. Report back to Moria once you are satisfied.
The mainframe gives a set of three combat options:
- Pest extermination, which causes robots to attack mole rats
- Total liquidation, which causes robots to attack humans
- Stress testing, which causes robots to attack everything.
Library[edit]
The Arlington library contains books and information concerning the past. For the best information about humanity, Moria would like you to retrieve an information dump from one of the library computers, or at least take a look at the card catalogue.
At the entrance to the library, you encounter a scholar of the Brother of Steel, who's looking for pre-war books (not counting skill books). It you tell her that you are looking for the card catalog, she will give you the password to the front desk terminal so that you can complete your basic mission.
If you want the information dump, you'll have to advance to the archive section. This portion of the library is a home to raiders, who covered the entrance with a baseball launcher. There are also frag mines and turrets on the way to the information dump, but the archives themselves do not require any additional passwords to obtain.
Once you collected the information, return to Moria.
Note: You can automatically complete this section if you have the Robotics Expert perk (complete with the optional objective).
Wasteland survival Perk[edit]
Completing this quest gives you the wasteland survival perk, which increases your resistance to poison and radiation. You also gain a bonus depending on the style of the book:
- Standard: Health
- Intelligent: Medicine and Science skills
- Endurant: Damage resistance
- Slyness: Speech and sneak skills
- Humorous: Critical strike chance.
The quality of the bonus depends on how many bonus objectives you completed. Completing less then 5 gives a small bonus, 5-8 gives a medium bonus, while getting all 9 objectives gives a big bonus. The description of the book will also change depending on the number of bonus objectives you complete and the style.
Your research efforts will be reported on Galaxy News Radio, with commentary based on the quality of the book.
Dreamcrusher Perk[edit]
It is possible to convince Moria to give up on the book. If you do so, you've crushed her dreams and gain a perk that reduces the chance of incoming critical strikes by 50%. Since she is no longer writing the survival guide, she can focus on the store, providing items for a cheaper price as well as having a better repair rate.
Destroying Megaton[edit]
Detonating the explosive within Megaton does not kill Moria, nor does it prevent you from completing her quest (unless you kill her). However, she will heading to either Underworld or Rivet City.