Vault-Tec Agricultural Research Center

The Vault-Tec Agricultural Research Center is a location in the Forest region of Appalachia in 2102.

Background
A pre-War facility established to experiment with crop automation and fertilization, the Agricultural Center was one of the major landmarks in the small town of Flatwoods. The fleet of Mr Farmhands (customized Mr Handy robots) would automatically take care of crops, fertilizing them, planting seeds, and collecting the harvest with barely any need for human oversight. While the Great War put the facility offline, it was reactivated by McFadden and restored to operation - somewhat. McFadden was no robot technician and so didn't have a lot of ideas on how to manage the fleet beyond simply reactivating them with help from the Responders. He continued his work, but his lack of technical skill culminated in the Farmhands going rogue and Handy overseers turning the robots loose on anyone who breached the perimeter.

Layout
The Vault-Tec Agricultural Research Center consists of a main building with surrounding sheds and greenhouses that no longer house any plant life.

The main building can be accessed either via doors in the greenhouses behind the building, the main front door, or a door on the roof of the building (the roof can be accessed from the outside via a set of fire stairs). It has three floors including a basement. The ground floor contains locker rooms, bathrooms, a few hydroponics labs (one contains a chemistry station) and a reception area. One of the overseer's journal holotapes can be found on the reception desk.

The upper floor contains multiple offices, one of which contains MacFadden’s terminal and a locked (Picklock 0) wall safe. One of the offices on this floor is locked (Picklock 0) and contains a bed roll and laser gun. There is also a meeting room off the main atrium.

There is a skeleton wearing a lab coat and holding a box of rat poison under the stairs leading to the basement. The Agricultural Mainframe terminal can be found here. One of the basement rooms is partially flooded and contains a chemistry station and planters, some of which still have plants growing in them. There is also a locked fertilizer storage container in this room which can be accessed using a terminal. It contains raw fertilizer.

The three greenhouses behind the facility are largely identical. All of them contain farming materials such as garden gnomes, flower pots and bags of fertilizer as well as a locked (Picklock 0) fertilizer storage container. A few tarberries grow in the pools of dirty water near the greenhouses.

Notable loot

 * Overseer's journal, entry 1 - Holotape, found in the research center, on the front counter.
 * Note to Mac - Note, on a desk in the basement, unable to 'take'.
 * Note to Marge - Note, found on a desk next to a terminal on the second floor.
 * Three random Vault-Tec bobbleheads:
 * In a urinal on the ground floor.
 * In the office to the southeast of the back stairs, in a filing cabinet drawer on the ground, near an office desk fan.
 * On the first floor, inside a fridge to the left of the locker room.
 * Harvesting directive - Note, found on a Mr. Farmhand and reaper bot during the event Fertile Soil.
 * Three random magazines
 * On the upper floor, in the same room as MacFadden's terminal. It is sitting on a cardboard box next to the sleeping bag.
 * On the upper floor, inside the office room, next to the north-facing broken terminal which is near a door with a blue atomic painting leaning against the wall.
 * On the upper floor, in the side room with metal shelves, on a lower metal shelf near an open footlocker underneath.
 * Giant Teapot advertisement - Note, can be found in the first room after going up the stairs to the second floor.

Related quests

 * Event: Fertile Soil
 * Personal Matters

Appearances
The Vault-Tec Agricultural Research Center appears only in Fallout 76.