Vault 3

"Underground Troubles"

Vault 3 is one of the vaults constructed by the Vault-Tec Corporation in the Mojave Wasteland. It was constructed in the southwestern part of Las Vegas, on the outskirts of the city's industrial sector. Save for some flooding in the lower levels, the vault is still in working condition in 2281. It is occupied by the Fiends, who killed all of the vault's original occupants. The Fiends use Vault 3 as a secure fortress and drug den.

Background
Vault 3 is one of four vaults in the Mojave that contains living human inhabitants, the others being Vault 19, Vault 21, and Vault 34. Nestled within the South Vegas ruins, Vault 3 was one of the seventeen control Vaults, resulting in it not having an experiment. All was going well in the vault until a water leak occurred sometime in the 23rd century, forcing the residents to open the vault to find help. The original Vault 3 inhabitants opened their doors and began to trade with people outside of the vault. For a couple of weeks, it went well and the inhabitants made a good living. However, this also brought the vault to the attention of the Fiends.

Exploiting the vault dwellers' naivety and lack of security, the Fiends successfully conned themselves into the vault, upon which they killed the inhabitants and claimed the vault for themselves. Using the vault as an impenetrable base of operations, the Fiends have since grown steadily stronger, becoming a serious threat to the people living on the outskirts of southwestern New Vegas as well as a constant nuisance to the New California Republic Army command stationed at Camp McCarran.

In many ways, Vault 3 was the ideal post-apocalyptic community. The vault's isolation didn't affect the residents for generations, they maintained an orderly, democratic society and, unlike other vaults (in particular Vault 101), the overseer wasn't a dictator or megalomaniac.

Layout
The vault is located under a building in the South Vegas ruins and is the base of operations for a gang known as the Fiends. Its location can be gained from the colonel at Camp McCarran after volunteering to help with the gang problem, from Elder McNamara of the Brotherhood of Steel during the quest Still in the Dark, from Diane during the quest Aba Daba Honeymoon or from Private Ortega in the barracks at the NCR sharecropper farms.

The vault door, which is opened by the adjacent control panel, is connected directly to the South Vegas ruins and therefore provides no loading point for the vault interior. This explains the lack of a door opening sequence.

Inside the entrance is a Fiend guard, who will question the Courier on what they are doing there. If the Courier successfully passes a Speech check of 64 or if they are wearing Great Khan armor, they can navigate the vault without being attacked. The Courier can remove the armor after the initial dialogue with the guard. This guard levels with the Courier, and will have a high HP at higher levels, with a maximum of 260 HP at level 30.

The walls of the vault are covered with graffiti, presumably done by the occupying Fiends. Much of the graffiti in the vault is the same as that which can be found on the Brotherhood's bunkers in Hidden Valley. In one of the toilets, there is graffiti on the wall of a stick man and woman. It's an enlarged version of the one in Hidden Valley. Overall, there are about five hackable terminals inside the vault, which contain information about the vault's history.

Vault 3 consists of three areas:

Recreation area
Vault 3 seems to have a much larger recreational area than the other vaults. The recreation area also includes several pool tables and some minor loot. There is a locked door containing multiple Nuka-Cola bottles, one Nuka-Cola Quartz, and one Nuka-Cola Victory. Within the recreation area, there is a locked door leading to the maintenance wing.

Maintenance wing
The leader of the Fiends in the vault, Motor-Runner, can be found in his throne room in the northern part of the maintenance wing along with his two guard dogs, BoneGnash and GhashBone.

Living quarters
On the main floor of the living quarters, there is a cage holding three captives, including Rick Lancer, Rachael and Dennis. The cage also holds the body of the fourth captive, Carter, who managed to escape to search the vault for weapons before being caught and subsequently killed. Daniel, the Fiend who holds the key to the cage can be found in one of the southernmost rooms of the living quarters. Alternatively, the cage door can be picked without Karma loss, and no Fiends will become hostile regardless of detection. In addition, the captives will leave the cage and walk in the crouched "sneak" position past all of the Fiends in the vault to the front entrance, and the Fiends seemingly pay them no mind.

Two of the rooms in the living quarters each have a deceased Fiend on a bed, surrounded by empty syringes, Jet and Psycho. Around the southern part of the living quarters is a bedroom containing a terminal with an administrator "Billy boy" and a function called "Compose Automated Blast Message." However, this does nothing, stating that the system is offline. Some of the vault is flooded, and the flooded areas are long and difficult to swim through with enough time to return for air before taking drowning damage. In addition, the water is irradiated at 1 rad/sec. The rebreather or Turbo will aid in searching these areas.

Notable loot
If the Fiends are non-hostile, looting will not make them hostile, nor will it impact Karma.

Recreation area

 * Behind a Very Easy locked door (northwestmost room) connected to the main part of the recreation area is a room with a Nuka-Cola Quartz, Nuka-Cola Victory and 20-30 pool cues.
 * Several bobby pins in front of every locked door, lying on the floor. They are barely noticeable due to their size and low visibility.
 * 90 empty Nuka-Cola bottles and 17 milk bottles spread throughout the area.

Living quarters

 * A Chinese Army: Special Ops Training Manual on the bookshelf, in the large bedroom behind a door secured with an Average locked terminal, immediately opposite the entrance to the living quarters from the recreation area. The book is on a shelf immediately to the right upon entering.
 * Sunset Sarsaparilla star bottle cap on a desk in a room next to a bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla in a southern room of the living quarters, one floor above the flooded area. It's in the room across the hall from the room with a terminal that says "Hello Billy boy!" when accessed.
 * A pair of binoculars are on the bookshelf outside the overseer's office. Another pair are on the shelf next to the observation window in the overseer's office.
 * There's a 25% chance of finding a Vault 3 utility jumpsuit in the 25 lockers spread throughout the living quarters and maintenance wing.

Maintenance wing

 * Motor-Runner's helmet - Worn by Motor-Runner.
 * The reverse pulse cleaner for the Brotherhood of Steel quest Still in the Dark can be found in a locker inside Motor-Runner's throne room.

Related quests

 * Aba Daba Honeymoon
 * Still in the Dark
 * Bounty Killer
 * I Love Bananas
 * Suits You, Sarah

Appearances
Vault 3 appears only in Fallout: New Vegas.

Behind the scenes

 * Vault 3 was designed by Akil Hooper.
 * One of the rooms in the vault contains graffiti of the name "Germaine" crossed out with the name "Bret" written above. This may be a reference to the musical comedy act "The Flight of Conchords," whose band members' names are Bret and Jemaine.
 * Vault 3 is likely an allusion to Vault 13. Both are indefinitely-sealed vaults that find themselves confronted by a malfunction of the vault water system. Water rationing is implemented, and, because no replacement parts are available, the vault dwellers choose to open the door and engage with the outside world for the first time. Where the two narratives diverge is that, whereas Vault 13's overseer acts with an excess of caution in engaging the outside world (much to the chagrin of Vault 13's dissidents), Vault 3's overseer acts with an excess of recklessness (again, over the objections of Vault 3's dissidents). In this way, Vault 3 functions to demonstrate how things in Fallout might have been, had things gone just a bit differently.


 * There are some instances of cut content in the location, outlined in the source text Spare Us the Cutter, including:
 * There is a cut Wild Wasteland encounter where Motor-Runner's dogs would have their names changed to "Donnie" and "Marie" (as in Osmond).
 * There is a half-finished dialogue topic for the jailer character where the player character can say to him they are lost. In the final game, this is just turned into a non-interactive greeting topic where the jailer tells the player character they are lost.
 * There are a huge number of email notes cut from here that form a whole backstory for the original occupants of the vault (e.g. V03GeorgeEmail1 etc).

Bugs

 * When entering the vault, the Fiend will talk to you. If you pass the Speech check or are wearing Great Khan clothing, she will tell the other Fiends not to attack. Regardless of that happening (even on previous visits) the Fiends may still randomly become hostile and attack. This appears to be due to the companion code still highlighting some Fiends as enemies, and happens even if you tell them to wait outside the vault. Instead, send them back to the Lucky 38 and go on completely alone. Note that killing the attacking Fiends in the vault does not always cause other Fiends to attack you. Usually, the Fiends in the entrance room of the vault will never attack if you passed the speech check and you don't attack them. Motor-Runner will also never become hostile unless you attack him.
 * Running to access living quarters and fast-access the door many times, the recreation area Fiends will become friendly again, and exiting Vault 3 will fix this bug.
 * Occasionally when you save inside the vault, the save files will spontaneously become inaccessible, leaving them useless.
 * The entry on the overseer's terminal that unlocks the two submerged storerooms doesn't always work, and sometimes leaves both doors locked with a Hard lock.
 * If you go to the jail cells, look in the cell, and press 'sit bench' you will appear inside the locked cell. To get out either pick the lock or do the same thing on the bench outside the cell.
 * Sometimes the ghoul Dennis will spawn outside of his cell and move freely throughout the vault, or a Fiend will spawn inside the cell with the prisoners.
 * After finding Bryce Anders' body and hacking the computer to open the door, Captain Curtis walks into the vault and starts talking to you as if you were in Camp McCarran.
 * If you pass the Speech check to enter Vault 3 and immediately go to talk to Motor-Runner, sometimes if you go to look for Bryce Anders afterward, he will not be there and the secret door will be open. If you return to Captain Curtis he will talk to the player as if Anders had been rescued.
 * Sometimes when inside the living quarters, Great Khans will appear, or "pop in" and will bug your character and make them seem like they are floating, leaving the crosshairs slightly up from where they should be and 3rd person mode will result in a slight zoom as if transitioning to this mode but will not complete the full transition. This seems to resolve itself once all the Great Khans have loaded.
 * At the bottom of Vault 3, there is a door that is too low for ED-E to go through. Sometimes ED-E goes further into the vault, but cannot get back through the door and is therefore stuck. Loading a new game and telling ED-E to wait on one side of the door fixes it.