Megaton

, is an odd-looking, sprawling settlement, surrounded by thick, impenetrable walls. It features a sliding front gate guarded by a Sniper named Stockholm and a rusty robot named Deputy Weld. You can head in and out as you like, and it is wise to holster your weapon. It is the largest extant civilian settlement in the Capital Wasteland other than Rivet City.


 * Megaton is the first town the player will encounter after leaving the vault. Some new players to the game may pass it up, but looking right in front of you after leaving Vault 101, it will look like a big pile of junk when it's actually a large town.

Location
Megaton is south of Springvale and west of Grayditch, on the border of the wasteland northwest of the urban DC areas.
 * The easiest way to get here is straight southeast from Vault 101, from which it is easily visible. You can also go east to Springvale, and straight south from there.

Origin and History
Megaton was built by a large group of people who originally planned to seek shelter in Vault 101 but were denied access. So without shelter, they sought refuge in a large crater made by a large megaton bomb and (according to manya) a large commercial aircraft. They then constructed a place to call home out of pieces of metal/aircraft found nearby at a decimated air station, which was either Dulles International or Reagan National Airport. They were aided by the Children of the Atom, who worshiped the undetonated bomb in the crater they were building around.

The Plane
The large plane still can be seen in pieces throughout the town. The cockpit and nose cone are built into Craterside Supply apparently housing inaccessible living space to Moira. The main section of the fuselage is used as the armory, and the rear end of the plane is on the roof of Lucas Simms' house providing an extra sniper nest and speculated residence to Stockholm. You can get there via a trap-door in the ceiling of the Sheriff's house. The wings make up the two large "fins" that are symmetrically aligned next to Megaton's main gate, and the two engines are separated. One is used to work the pulley mechanism for the main gates, and the other one is above the path to the common house providing breeze. Another way to get up there is to jump on the roof from the fence near the water station. Although it takes longer, you can talk to Stockholm this way.

Related quests

 * Following in His Footsteps The central storyline of Fallout 3.
 * The Power of the Atom - A side-quest in Megaton that revolves around disarming or detonating the bomb landing you your first wasteland house.
 * The Wasteland Survival Guide - Moira Brown, the owner of the local general shop Craterside Supply gives this mission.
 * Treatment - Talk to Walter to start this mini quest.
 * Walter's Scrap Metal
 * Church Donations
 * Leo's Drug Habit
 * Blood Ties - Lucy West will ask you to deliver a letter to her family in Arefu.
 * You can start The Replicated Man quest, if you go up to Craterside Supply on a table behind the desk by the door there is a holotape along with a pistol and Radaway. If you sneak into the Megaton Clinic's backroom there is a holotape by a computer there starting the quest as well. The holotape can be also found in Nathan and Manya's House. Sometimes Victoria Watts appears outside Megaton, next to Micky. So you can also start the quest by talking to her.



Notable loot

 * Inside Lucas Simms' House, on the desk in the second most bedroom on the second floor is the Bobblehead - Strength (Be sure to collect this before destroying the city if you intend to do so).
 * 4 Pre-War Book in Billy Creel's House
 * A Grognak the Barbarian in Jericho's house.
 * Multiple guns and ammo can be found in the armory, in which you must destroy or deactivate Deputy Steel.
 * A Chinese Army: Special Ops Training Manual can be found on a shelf in a ruined house at the top of the hill between Megaton and the Super-Duper Mart. The house is next to a big, rusty, domed silo.
 * The Hollowed-Out Rock located off the southwest edge of Megaton contains a Sniper Rifle, ammo, Stealth Boy, Stimpacks and a note from "E" to "S" entitled: "As Requested".
 * If you do not mind losing some karma, you can go to The Brass Lantern and get an easy 300 caps. If you go inside and take a left and then go through another door, there is a terminal. Hack it and there will be a option saying "open floor safe." Once you select that, leave the terminal. To the right of the terminal, on the floor, there should be a square that is the floor safe. Open it up and you get an easy 300 caps.

Bugs

 * When entering Megaton, the game occasionally places characters in a starting position that is adjacent to (rather than on) the walkways or balconies, causing those characters to fall to their deaths. Walter is particularly prone to this problem, as his starting position is often supposed to be leaning against the railing outside of his workplace.   (The bugs noted below may also be a result of this glitch.)  Characters who die this way can be resurrected using the console (click on the character's body and type 'resurrect').
 * This problem is more likely to occur for players who visit Megaton regularly and thus frequently cause the map to reload. NPC die-off is less likely if you simply visit Megaton less; i.e. if you use Super Duper Mart as your home base instead, and simply visit Megaton for shopping and quests (i.e. The Wasteland Survival Guide).


 * There is a bug where the praying Confessor Cromwell will die unexpectedly. the second most annoying guy in the game. His death does not affect any quests. It's possible that this is intentional, as the water, like all other sources of water in the game, is highly radioactive.


 * There is another bug where Nathan might be found dead in the Radioactive Water. When this happens you will not be able to talk to Manya anymore as all she will do is talk about her missing Nathan. If you bring a follower into Megaton and start jumping from level to level, there is a possibility that they will also jump and fall to their deaths (Tested on 360).


 * If the player blows up Megaton, he or she will often experience lag if they go back to the ruins.


 * If you used cheats to max out your caps, when you fast travel back to Megaton, you will have your caps reduced to 20 or so caps, and if you sleep in your Megaton house, your caps will mysteriously vanish without a trace.


 * If you have good karma and the town starts to give you presents, the settler that gives them to you may be stuck in one of the bathrooms. Just check the bathrooms if you don't ever get rewards.


 * In the Players House in Megaton, there are two main places where you can get stuck ( which is very unfortunate because you cannot fast travel to get out of there). In your room if you jump behind your bed you will not be able to get back out unless you load your last saved game. Another is downstairs in your house in the chair next to your Bobblehead Collector's Stand, if you jump behind that chair you will be unable to jump out and again you will have to load your last saved game.


 * There is a bug when entering the Brass Lantern, Dogmeat will attack Leo and Andy unprovoked.


 * Before the patch mentioned below was released, sometimes you may have found that characters were missing, and their corpses were nowhere to be found. On the Xbox 360 version, those characters can be found providing they are not dead. To find them, go into Lucas Simm's house and go into the hatch that goes to the piece of the plane on top of his house. From there, go up the stairs and toward the balcony facing toward the center of Megaton. You might want to tell any partners, including Dogmeat, to stay put here. It is also a good idea to save before attempting each jump in this sequence. Jump on the railing on the right, then turn around facing the plane. Then, jump on the left side of the plane. It does not look like there is a safe place to land, but there is. Once you get there, walk around a bit on the side of the plane and keep trying to jump to the top. You can go right through the little fence on the top of the plane. Be careful not to fall in the hole in the middle of it when you do get to the top. Next, go in front of the turbine, face it, then run toward it and jump slightly to the right of it. You should land on a higher elevation. Now walk toward the back of the plane, where the wall around Megaton is. When you get to the edge of the tail, save so you can just load back up and try again if you miss. Also, you should make sure you have full health before you attempt this jump. Now jump off the tail of the plane and over the wall and if you got it, you should be on the other side of the wall. Now you want to walk slightly north of where Springvale School would be on your world map. The best way to do this is to set a marker on Springvale School on your world map, and keep checking your map to make sure you are walking toward it. Eventually, you should see all the missing characters standing right next to each other. In my file, before the patch, I found Lucas Simms, Colin Moriarty, Billy Creel, and Walter. After the patch, only Lucas Simms was brought back within the walls of Megaton.

Megaton Bug Fixes (Patch 1.1)

 * As of the December 15th, 2008 (PS3) and January 13th, 2009 (Xbox 360/PC) releases of the Fallout 3 patch, the issues regarding unexpected NPC disappearances and deaths have been fixed. Upon entering Megaton, if they haven't died previously, you should now be able to find all of your missing NPCs including the biggest offenders, Walter, Billy Creel, Colin Moriarty, and Andy Stahl.

Note: As of the patch 1.4.06 I still had Colin Moriarty disappear from Megaton and be found in the same location in the void.

Trivia

 * The bomb in the center of Megaton may have been a result of a Chinese bombing run. The reason the bomb didn't explode upon impact is unknown, probably mechanical failure.

The destruction of Megaton
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