A Valuable Lesson

A Valuable Lesson is a side quest in Fallout: New Vegas.

Detailed walkthrough
After finding at least 50 Sunset Sarsaparilla star bottle caps, the Courier can approach Festus to receive the prize, which is the "honor" of listening to the supposedly real story of how Sunset Sarsaparilla came to be. At this point, any number of star caps exceeding 50 are simply converted into bottle caps and returned. This course of action fails the preliminary quest, The Legend of the Star.

If asked about the real prize, Festus says that, due to complaints about the story being the main prize, an additional prize was being offered that should suffice. This triggers the next and final quest, which instructs the Courier to go to the Sunset Sarsaparilla prize vault to collect the prize.

The destination is marked inside the factory. To get there, follow these instructions:
 * Starting from Festus, head through the north door and carry on across the hall to the room with the hole in the roof.
 * Walk up the wreckage to the 2nd floor.
 * Take the first left and then right. Ahead should be a very long corridor.
 * Walk straight to the end of that corridor to the room with a hole in the floor.
 * The hole then leads to the prize room.

The real prize turns out to be around 1500 bottle caps, found in thirteen Sunset Sarsaparilla crates, each averaging roughly 115 caps. There are also 319 Sunset Sarsaparilla deputy badges, which are weightless and monetarily worthless (finding them all may require pulling crates off the top shelves). Also, in the corner, lies the body of Allen Marks, a holotape, and Pew Pew, a unique laser pistol. Marks is "wearing" one of the deputy badges, which is actually just lying atop his body, taking the badge carefully will avoid moving the body that would cause the badge to fall to the floor. The holotape (which ends the quest when picked up) reveals that he was a murderer and a thief, and a computer found in the bottling area of the building seems to reveal the moment Marks broke into the factory. There are indications that several robots were damaged in the incident, but also that the intruder had been wounded in the process. According to Marks' holotape, the sealed vault was completely airtight, explaining his eventual death.