The House Always Wins I

"There's talk of somebody going into the Lucky 38. That's bullshit."

- Omerta thug

The House Always Wins is an eight-part quest in ''Fallout: New Vegas.

Summary
This series of quests leads to one of the many Fallout: New Vegas endings. Mr. House tasks you to retrieve the platinum chip from Benny and use it at the Fort to upgrade the Securitrons, then bring it back to the Lucky 38 so that Mr. House can upgrade them, although it is possible to do it the other way round. You will then have to eliminate, take control of, or gain the trust of different factions so that Mr. House's plan will work. You may kill Benny along with House to allow you and Yes Man to take over the plan.

Part One
You must retrieve the platinum chip from Benny and bring it back to Mr. House so he can upgrade his robotic army. This quest will complete upon delivery of the chip, but Part Two may need to be completed first depending on your actions. Note that the following options can be done without actually speaking to Mr. House, since it ties in with Ring-a-Ding-Ding!

Option: Speak to Swank
One way to deal with Benny is by telling his right-hand man, Swank (located at the front desk), about Benny's planned rebellion. Swank is initially suspicious of your accusation, but you can convince him using one of two ways:
 * Passing 3 Speech checks (15, 30, and 45)
 * Presenting Swank with discarded cigarette butts (Benny's preferred brand) left by your grave in Goodsprings, the note left with Manny Vargas in Novac by Benny's bodyguards (completing the quest he offers, pickpocketing the note, or reading his terminal will allow you to obtain it), and Benny's lighter (obtained from the remaining Great Khans at Boulder City).

Once Swank is concerned you may be right, he will return your weapons to you and tell you to go up to Benny's suite to search for additional evidence. Once obtained and shown to Swank, he will help you eliminate Benny. After talking to Swank and receiving your weapons back, killing Benny should reap a positive Karma bonus and no retaliation from the remaining gamblers and bodyguards in Vegas. Doing so also completes the quest Ring-a-Ding-Ding!

Option: Speak to Benny
An alternative to speaking with Swank is to skip straight to Benny, who is waiting near the Presidential Suite. He will offer you a key to the room. Benny will prefer to meet you with his bodyguards, but you can convince him through a 60 Speech check to leave them outside. Once you and Benny are in the Presidential Suite, you can:
 * Kill him and take the chip. As long as you keep the fighting inside the suite, (you can still ask Benny questions about his plan to take over Vegas and then kill him) no one outside will notice or care.
 * Agree to partner up and help him take over New Vegas.
 * Say you'll consider his partnership offer.
 * If you convinced Benny to come without his guards, and then decided to think about his offer you will be ambushed by Guards, and Benny will run off to The Fort and get captured by Caesar's Legion.

Option: Seduce Benny
With the Black Widow Perk, you can seduce Benny and get into his suite without any trouble. You can choose to attack him as soon as you get into his suite, or you can have sex with him and then kill him in his sleep after doing the deed. Either way, the quest proceeds as above. You can also have sex with him and then just fall asleep, in which case Benny will be gone in the morning and have left you a note. Benny would then be captured by Caesar's Legion, forcing you to go to the Fort to retrieve the platinum chip.

Completion
Once you've killed Benny and obtained the chip, you can return to Mr. House with the chip and watch his Securitron demonstration in the basement. You will never come back to this location, so take what little loot is in the room while you can.

If you failed to kill Benny, then you must complete Part Two, which will complete this quest at the same time.

Part Two
For part two of the quest, you must travel to Cottonwood Cove and take a raft to The Fort, where Mr. House's secure bunker is located. If you already collected the platinum chip, Mr. House will return it to you; if not, you'll need to get it back from Benny when you get there.

The player must begin Render Unto Caesar in order to gain access to The Fort. This will be given to you by Vulpes Inculta, who will approach you in disguise on the Strip right after you leave the Tops. If you killed Vulpes, Alerio will grant this quest instead. You will be granted the Mark of Caesar, which resets your Legion reputation to neutral. Note that further violence against the Legion will not be excused.

From this point, you have several options.

Alternatively, you can simply speak with Caesar, let him give you the chip and escape. To do so (be sure to have a few Stealth Boys with you) all you have to do is walk to the exit, use a couple of Stealth Boys and steal the footlocker key from one of the guards (To retreive your weapons) and simple walk out the door. Be aware, you will arrive at Cottonwood Cove so plenty of the Legions will be here. As soon as you spawn here be sure to use a further few Stealth Boys to reduce the risk of anyone seeing you, and then swim off into the water- you can then fast travel to The Strip North Gate and then carry on the mission.

Option: Play along with Caesar
Whether you intend to aid him or not, one way to get into The Fort is to do as the Legion says. Don't take Craig Boone, as he will shoot Legion on sight unless you're wearing Legion armor. Travel to Cottonwood Cove and meet Cursor Lucullus at the docks. He will take you to the fort. Upon arrival you will be stripped of all "banned" items (all detectable weapons, certain medical supplies, and the platinum chip if applicable). A Speech check can be used to keep the medical supplies. Your items will be stored in a locked box by the gates, the key to which is held by the guards. Even if you pickpocket the key without getting caught, opening the box will turn the Legion hostile on the spot, regardless of how you do it.

The next step is to meet up with Caesar and discuss his wishes. He will ask you to destroy House's bunker and return the platinum chip. The bunker is located in a weather monitoring station at the back of the camp. Note that while Caesar asks you to destroy the bunker, he will not actually check to see if you followed through. The objective for his mission completes regardless of your actions. Next you will need to head to the bunker. Here a Legionary will give you your equipment back. Open the doors on the ground inside the weather station using the chip and venture down the stairs to the elevator.

Inside the bunker, you will encounter Mr. House, who will brief you on the mission. Your goal is to reach the terminal inside the bunker to upgrade the Securitrons to the Securitron Mark II operating system. The entire bunker is mildly radioactive (+1 rads per second) and is inhabited by hostile Protectrons and turrets. A nearby room has terminals which can be used to deactivate the turrets and robots. A science skill of 50 can disable the turrets, while the robots require a skill of 75. Upon reaching the end, you can install the chip and upgrade the Securitrons. Caesar will take the large rumble as proof of the bunker's destruction.

If you haven't killed him yet, Benny will be in Caesar's tent. Caesar will offer you the choice of how he is to die; crucifixion or a duel to the death with machetes. You have several options:
 * Kill Benny.
 * Untie Benny. Doing so will turn the Legion hostile and they'll probably beat him to death even if you survive.
 * Give Benny a Stealth Boy and a bobby pin to escape himself. This will end the same as the second option unless you sneak along with him. Assuming he escapes, you'll never see him again.
 * Note that while Benny is still tied up, you can pickpocket Benny's Maria without any repercussions. Even if he catches you, he will not try to retrieve it from you.

Option: Get past Caesar
If you've once again become vilified with the Legion, or simply don't like the Legion, you can still complete this quest.

The first option is to disguise yourself as one of the Legion. Don't take your companions as the guards will notice and a shootout will ensue. Make your way through Cottonwood Cove to the Fort as normal. Speak to no one but the dock officer and avoid all legion dogs or else you'll be caught. Make your way to the bunker. The guards inside will recognize you, but they can be killed without alerting the rest of the camp as long as you remain disguised. Complete the mission as before and return the way you came.

The second option is to simply kill everything in sight. Instead of speaking to Cursor Lucullus, whom you'll have killed, just target and activate the raft to get to the fort. Kill everything between you and the bunker and complete the quest as normal. You don't have to kill Caesar if you don't want to.

Completion
Once the Securitrons are upgraded, head back to the Lucky 38 and talk to Mr. House. If you just obtained the platinum chip, Part One will complete prior to Part Three starting.

Part Three
You must make your way to Nellis AFB and befriend the Boomers.

When approaching Nellis AFB, you must dodge a barrage of artillery shells, which do a substantial amount of damage. The Boomers fire in 10 round barrages. Alternatively, you can bypass the artillery by gaining access to the train tunnel to the southeast (100 Lockpick skill).

Also, expect to encounter deathclaws on the approach to the tunnel entrance. Once on the other side of the tunnel, it is possible to still be bombarded by the shells.

Upon reaching the gate, you will be allowed to enter Nellis AFB and you must complete quests to earn fame from the Boomers. Once you have completed all the quests for loyalty and have earned the status of Accepted, talk to the Boomer leader and this portion of the quest will be complete.

Note: If you have already become Idolized by The Boomers but have not completed the Volare! quest raising the B-29 from Lake Mead, you cannot complete this mission the non-violent way. The speech options don't come up with Loyal or Pearl, they just refer you back to their quest. If you have already become Idolized by the Boomers, you will still need to go see Pearl to ask for their support of Mr. House, which you will be able to earn. Then you can report back to Mr. House.

If you choose to neutralise the leadership of the Boomers this is what you have to do.

Once you get past the initial bombardment when you approach Nellis Airforce Base for the first time, walk up to the gate and talk to Raquel. As long as you keep choosing the top option she will take you straight to Mother Pearl. Once you have finished, you just have to kill Mother Pearl how ever you like but doing so will grant negative Karma as well as failing the side quest Young Hearts. On her corpse you will find a 40mm Grenade Launcher with 30 40mm Grenade and some Frag Grenades.

Please note killing Mother Pearl will mean all the Boomers immediately turn hostile towards you!

Next on your hit list will be Loyal. He is located at the Nellis Hangars a little bit further north than Mother Pearl's Hut. Once you find him he is pretty easy to kill as he only attacks you with knives and sledgehammers. Killing Loyal will cause you fail the Sunshine Boogie side quest.

After you have killed the 2 above mentioned, simply return to Mr House and inform him of what has happened to move on to the next part of the quest.

Warning: Completing Part III will cause you to fail Don't Tread on the Bear which will lock you out of all NCR quests.

Part Four
Mr. House asks the player to convince the Omertas to ally with Mr. House. The player can achieve this by completing How Little We Know, or killing all the Omertas. Upon doing either, the player must then return to Mr. House. If you have previously done either, the quest will mark as completed automatically. House will pay you anyway, just to avoid discouraging you. Alternatively, the player can just refuse to surrender his weapons upon entering the casino and thus turn the Omertas hostile. There is no need to kill any of them, leaving and speaking to House will fail the quest but allow the player to proceed to part 5. This is the fastest way to pass this section but forfeits the rewards.


 * Completing The House Always Wins: IV will cause the player to fail Beware the Wrath of Caesar! and Render Unto Caesar.

If you have already finished How Little We Know by siding with Nero and Big Sal, then you will automatically fail part IV when talking to Mr. House, unless you can pass a [Speech Check of 50] and tell him the Omerta's plans and then say you infiltrated them in order to gain their confidence.

Part Five
Wipe out the Brotherhood of Steel by destroying its underground bunker. There is no alternative means of completing this quest. House vehemently despises the Brotherhood and will settle for nothing less.

The player must travel to Hidden Valley and enter the Brotherhood of Steel bunker. If the player has not interacted with the Brotherhood of Steel, they must complete an orientation by convincing a Ranger in an adjacent bunker to leave (if Veronica is a companion, the player can enter without the orientation). For details on this portion of the quest, please see Still in the Dark.

Once the player has access to the bunker, they may complete the mission by activating the self-destruct sequence, or by killing all Brotherhood personnel. Note that upon activating the self-destruct, the entire base will lockdown. The doors can only be opened with a Lockpick skill of 100 or by taking a key from the guards protecting the Elder. The Brotherhood will also become hostile to you.

Option: Initiate bunker self-destruct sequence
In order to initiate the self-destruct sequence, the player must obtain the three keycards to arm it, or have a Science of 100. Assuming the former, the keycards are held by the Elder, the Head Paladin, and the Head Scribe. The Elder may either be McNamara or Hardin, depending on how you completed Still in the Dark. If you did not oust McNamara as Elder, then Hardin will be the Head Paladin; if you did, Ramos will now be Head Paladin. The Head Scribe will always be Taggart. The keycards must either be pickpocketed or taken off the corpses of the relevant individuals, though the latter may be difficult to achieve without turning the entire base hostile.

McNamara, Hardin, and Taggart are located on Level 2 of the bunker. McNamara and Hardin will either be in the meeting room or the adjacent quarters. Taggart is usually right by the self-destruct. Ramos can be found at the security station on Level 1 near the entrance if Hardin is Elder.

After the keycards have been obtained, the password for the self-destruct can be generated from the Override Code Generator terminal (green) next to the actual self-destruct terminal (blue). Once activated, the player becomes vilified by the Brotherhood. You can kill everyone in your path or sneak. Upon exiting, the bunker will explode. There is a chance that there will be 5 paladins waiting to kill the player outside.


 * If Veronica has already chosen to leave the Brotherhood, she will not go inside the bunker, but remain outside. After destroying the bunker, when you exit she will initiate a conversation saying that she will not tolerate you fighting the Brotherhood, but she does not leave, she only tells you that this is your last chance. If she chose to remain in the Brotherhood, then she will abandon you as a companion and you will no longer be able to talk to her.

Option: Kill all Brotherhood personnel
Killing all Brotherhood personnel in the bunker will also complete the objective. This path will lead to karma loss, as some of the named Brotherhood scribes and paladins are considered "good" NPCs. However, this can be accomplished without the a karma loss by hacking the turret control unit, and turning them against all Brotherhood personnel.

Part Six
You must protect President Kimball from an assassination attempt. Start by proceeding to Hoover Dam and talk to the Ranger in charge, Ranger Grant. The game then forces you to wait until the next day. After talking to the ranger again he will explain the plan of the day. The quickest way to do this quest is to follow the Ranger to the observation deck, then tell the Ranger that you are ready and a Vertibird will land above you. Next, go up the ladder on the side and wait until you see an engineer.

Putting the jumpsuit on will allow access without resistance.
 * If you haven't been granted full access to all areas you will need to pass a 50 point speech test to get past the guard to the ladder without turning everyone hostile. Alternatively, there is an NCR jumpsuit in a locker in the closet with the blood in, negative karma will be given if the suit is taken but is a good option if speech is low.

After he passes, examine the Vertibird and you will see that there is a bomb - if you have 50 Repair or Explosives you can disarm it, otherwise you'll need to steal the detonator from the engineer. Talk to the Ranger once more and tell him about the bomb. The president is then rushed to the Vertibird and quest is completed. If you wish, you can say nothing to hear out the entire speech, though if you do you'll need to kill the sniper that tries to take out Kimball from the tower behind his podium.

Alternatively,

You can hack into the computer behind the reception counter on the first level of the terminal building(the building on which the helipad is), behind Grant's original position, and check the sniper's positions. You'll know you've hit it when a notification comes up informing you that there was a recent unauthorized user. The sniper on the terminal building is harmless: pay no attention to him. Due to an oversight by the developers, there is no sniper on the ridge to the north, nor is there any way to make your way onto the ridge. The sniper on the generator tower behind the president's podium is also innocuous, though the tower isn't. Once you've hacked the computer, make your way to Ranger Grant and tell him you're prepared for the president's visit. The sequence will begin, and you'll have to head straight to the tower. Go up the ladder on the side, and activate the radio. A condescending douche will come on and ask what you're doing on the radio. Choose the witty retort, and then sit through the president's speech until the Legion sniper appears and attempts to shoot the president. Since you spoke on the radio, you don't even have to fight the person, as the other Ranger on the tower will kill him, and the Legion sniper won't shoot back. After his death, use the radio to tell Grant about the sniper. After that, you'll win at the quest. ALTERNATIVELY TO THAT, you could use a sniper rifle of some sort(best shot is the Anti-Mat Rifle) to kill the engineer on the helipad after performing the aforementioned steps, but before the sniper shows up. After the engineer's death, the Quest will be done with.


 * You must be on good terms with the NCR for this quest to be made available. If you are not, it will fail automatically and the quest will skip to Part Seven. Wearing a faction disguise will have the same effect even if you are in good standing with them (the faction must be an enemy of the NCR (for example the Brotherhood of Steel or Caesar's Legion).


 * Some armor causes factions' entries to be removed from the "Reputation" listing on your Pip-Boy. If the particular armor that you are wearing while you report back to Mr. House after completing "The House Always Wins V" results in the NCR's entry being removed, you will automatically fail part VI.

Part Seven
The player must install the override module at the El Dorado substation. Several NCR troops guard the substation and warn the player that there will be trouble if they enter.
 * Alternatively, wearing NCR armor can cause the guards to refrain from shooting on sight.

After accessing the terminal, the player will gain Infamy with the NCR. Upon completion, return to Mr. House.

Part Eight
Report to Mr. House when you are ready.

Journal entries
Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

Part VIII

Bugs

 * Sometimes when you retrieve the Platinum Chip from Benny, and are approached by the Legion emissary, you will be unable to tell your companions to return to the Lucky 38, nor will you be able to get Arcade Gannon to follow you after recruiting him for the first time.


 * Message indicating quest failed, despite not having started, while deep within Vault 11. May have been related to activating Lucky 38 override in H&H Hardware or at Camp Golf earlier in game while exploring. Possibly related to Still in the Dark Questline or be entirely related to Vault 11.Confirmed on PC, Xbox and PS3. Update: The 8 turrets down in the bottom level of Vault 11 are of the Lucky 38 Faction. Killing them may be why you are failing this quest. Simply let your companions take out the turrets and you should be fine.
 * If you want to reset failed (grayed out) quest do the following: Open console and type * * *.
 * Note: Depending on at which part the long quest "The House Always Wins" failed, you have to enter different resetquest, setstage and setobjectivedisplay QuestIDs and StageIndexs. For example, to reset "The House always Wins, II", where Mr. House orders you to enter the Secret Bunker at Fortification Hill, you would have to enter  . See Fallout:New_Vegas_Quest_IDs for a complete list of Quest IDs & StageIndexs and SetStage Info at TES: Construction Set Wiki for further details on the setstage command.


 * If you are under the affects of mentats before you give the chip to Mr. House in the part II, when being transported to the basement you will be stuck at the door unable to do anything with no HUD and no pipboy. The solution is to let the mentats wear off before you give the chip to house.


 * When transported to the basement to watch the Securitrons update, if you're wearing the rebreather gained in Nellis Base you'll be stuck at the door (can't move, can't use PipBoy) with no other option than reloading a save. So be sure to take it off before heading down. (No problems doing this on PC after patch)


 * After eliminating the Omertas, Mr. House doesn't recognize that they are gone. To remedy this, load a save point before killing Big Sal and Nero, go talk to Mr. House and make sure you go through all the dialogue on what to do about the Omertas. After this, killing Big Sal and Nero and returning to Mr. House should allow you to finish the quest.


 * Upon completing part II, returning the platinum chip and receiving your reward, the dialog will end and the screen fades out. When the screen fades back in, the character may be frozen in place and unable to interact with Mr. House.


 * When working on Part IV of the mission, there will be an option while talking to the Omerta receptionist that says [Barter x/55], meaning you need at least 55 Barter to choose it. But upon using a Salesman Weekly to raise Barter to 55, the option goes away, and you are left with the [Strength x/8] option or the option to hand over 300 caps. Leveling up the Barter skill does not help.


 * When trying to complete Part II, sometimes trying to talk to Mr House fails. Instead of initiating conversation, the player only receives the dull click sound emitted when pressing the action button when no action can be made, despite the message 'A) Talk to Mr House.' This may be caused by two things: either having helped the Boomers at Nellis before completing Part II, or not looking in Benny's suite and finding Yes Man.


 * When you have activated the self-destruct sequence in Part V, sometimes the door to leave the bunker will be locked. You must pick the lock with a level 100 lockpick skill, pickpocket the bunker key, or kill a person with the bunker key. Current known people with the key are; The Elder at the time and Paladin/Head Paladin Ramos.


 * During Part V, even if you've begun killing members of the Brotherhood and are vilified, some members will not attack you.


 * If you have any companions with you during Part V, they may die as a result of the explosion if they don't get out of the bunker in time. Station any companions you have with you outside before setting off the self-destruct, or be prepared to lose them.


 * Sometimes when trying to complete Part VI and protect President Kimball, President Kimball stays at the microphone, even after the speech was cut short. This results in not being able to finish the quest. Standing on the platform near the president does trigger the running animation but the president stays on his place. Reloading the save doesn't resolve this problem.


 * When trying to complete Part II, Victor may not be standing outside the Lucky 38. When you enter you will be attacked by the two securitrons inside and the copy of victor that controls the elevator with no way to yield. The quest cannot be completed if this happens because you will not be able to get to Mr. house without the elevator. The suspected cause of this is killing Victor's original copy (the one that follows you). The only known way to fix it is by loading a save from before killing Victor.


 * If you kill Benny, take the chip, and/or speak with Yes-Man before meeting with House (and thus prior to starting The House Always Wins, I), once you bring the chip to House, two bugs may occur:
 * First, you may be able to use Barter to increase the payment to 1,250, but House will still only give you 1,000.
 * Second, House will teleport you to the basement to observe the upgrade, but once there, the quest freezes. You can walk to the waypoint marker on the observation platform but the quest will not update and since you can't interact with the elevator, you'll be trapped. This may also happen for another unknown reason. This portion of the bug can be fixed with this mod.


 * In Part II after exiting the secret bunker, (Regardless if you did anything or not) Caesar's Legion may "forget" that you are trying to help them and you will then gain Legion Infamy and be attacked, leaving the player no choice but to fight them or reload an earlier save, before talking to Caesar.


 * If the player returns to the Lucky 38 and gives the Platinum chip to Mr. House before activating the securitron army at the fort, the quest becomes stuck. Mr. House will send the player to activate the bots but he doesn't return the chip to the player so that the player can't actually enter the vault resulting in a broken quest. The only way around this is to activate the bots before turning in the chip to Mr. House, or, if you're on PC, giving yourself another Platinum Chip using the console command "player.additem 1164fb 1".


 * When you try to go to the Lucky 38 to talk to Mr. House, the robots attack you and the quest fails automatically. This happens if, when you show up on the strip for the first time you go see Benny (and follow the story to activate the securitrons in the bunker) before you go see Mr. House.


 * During Part II of the quest when you go up to the elevator to go back to Mr.House you will be unable to speak to Victor rendering the quest unable to be completed. (Link to a solution: http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/falloutnewvegas/show_msgs.php?pid=959558&topic_id=m-1-57466971 (works even with the new update) )
 * Bringing a companion inside and talking to them, and then exiting the conversation while standing near Victor can cause the menu to change floors to pop up, thus fixing the glitch.


 * Sometimes, if your reputation with the NCR is too low to complete the "You'll Know It When It Happens" Quest (aka The House Always Wins, Part VI), Mr. House will fail to recognize this and send you to Hoover Dam anyway. Upon arriving at Hoover Dam, you will fail "You'll Know It When It Happens," but the active goal for "The House Always Wins" will still direct you to Hoover Dam and prompt you to search for Ranger Grant.  Furthermore, your reputation with the NCR will drop, and the soldiers at Hoover Dam may become hostile.  Upon speaking to Mr. House again, he will still demand you go to Hoover Dam to save President Kimball. Reloading a save prior to completing "The House Always Wins, Part V," may cause Mr. House to immediately recognized your NCR reputation is too low and start Part VII of the quest instead.

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