Vault 106

Vault 106 is one of the Vault-Tec Vaults. It is located south-south-east of Arefu and directly south of Kaelyn's Bed & Breakfast, a bit north of Jury Street Metro Station.

As part of the Vault Experiment, psychoactive drugs were released into the air filtration system 10 days after the door was sealed. Like Vault 101, this Vault is located in the Capital Wasteland and in 2277, it is mostly destroyed and flooded, but filled with Insane Survivors.

A Security terminal near the entrance to the Vault requires a Science skill of up to 100, depending on player level, to hack, and contains a security notice from the Overseer. The Overseer's computer also requires a Science skill of up to 100 to hack, and reveals information about the experiments. Reading these is not necessary to access any area in the Vault.

History
As part of the Vault Experiment, psychoactive drugs were released into the air filtration system 10 days after the door was sealed. It also seems the drugs are still being pumped through the vault, as evidenced by the player's vision suddenly being shaded blue and reality shifting. Accessing the computer terminals also reveals that the Overseer knew the inhabitants would be fodder for drug testing and instructed security personnel to tell those in the vault everything was fine. At the very end of the vault is a cave-like area, where skeletons and other items are located. It can be assumed that all of the sane residents of the vault went into that cave with all of the food and water they could, waiting for help or possibly trying to dig back to the surface.

It is unknown whether the hostiles are descendants of the former Vault Dwellers or whether they are possible newcomers who stumbled upon the Vault and became so affected by the drugs that they were not able to leave it and became permanent residents.

The Vault door is closed when you discover it.

Enemies

 * Several Insane Survivors" inhabit Vault 106. They wear Vault 106 Jumpsuits and wield a variety of melee weapons, such as lead pipes, knives, baseball bats, pool cues, Chinese swords (at high levels), etc. Despite not wearing armor, the Insane Survivors are slightly tougher than the average Raider enemies, which can initially mildly surprise low-level players that can break into Vault 106 early on in the game.


 * A "Vault 106 Survivor" (who has the same ambient/combat voice files as a Raider) is on the lowest level, at the end of the Science Lab section, wearing a Vault Lab Uniform and wielding a Baseball Bat. The Survivor, after taking some damage, will activate a Stealth Boy (this is evidenced by the fact that your non-human followers will have a hard time shooting the Survivor as well; if it were a hallucination, only the Lone Wanderer would have difficulty). The Stealth Boy will remain active until the Survivor is killed. When first encountered, the survivor will dissappear, and the player has a hallucination in which the Tunnel Snakes (Butch DeLoria, Wally Mack and Paul Hannon) from Vault 101 attempt to kill the player. It would seem that followers also suffer this same hallucination as they will also attack the Tunnel Snakes. After the Survivor sustains some damage, the Tunnel Snakes will use Stealth Boys and flee, and the player will see as if in an hallucination (with the purple tint). This will end after killing the survivor.

Loot

 * The Bobblehead - Science is located in the Living Quarters. After you first enter the Living Quarters (it's a two level room: top level), enter the door on the far left hand side of the room, diagonally across from where you first enter. Proceed to a hallway into a fairly large room (for a vault); this room has 3 windows on each side that look into a subterranean cave. The bobblehead is on a bookshelf against the back wall (3rd shelf).


 * A book of Nikola Tesla and You is hidden in the stack of three wooden boxes on the teacher's desk inside the classroom in the Living Quarters (the room to your left after you first enter the Living Quarters area).


 * A book of Tumblers Today is on the Science Lab level, two floors down from the Science Lab level entrance, inside a large room with 2 lockers visible from the door on an overturned mainframe cabinet.


 * Finally, there is a Mini Nuke in the final room of the Science Lab area, just past the fight with the Vault 106 Survivor.


 * There are two Vault 106 Master Keys located in the Vault. One can be found next to a functional computer terminal in the northwest corner of a room in the Living Quarters that is only accessible through the Science Labs. (You can see the room and the Science Lab's door through windows in the Living Quarters, but have to go through the Labs to get to it.) There is also a hidden key at the bottom of a shelf in the store room behind the one that you fight the Vault 106 Survivor in. This key can not be picked up without using the tcl command and going as close as possible to the key.
 * If you're facing the vault entrance door there may be Alien Power Cells around the left fence. You can walk up that hill and find a few more. However, this is only if you get the random event involving the Firelance weapon.

Trivia

 * Right outside of the vault is a Random encounter location.


 * You see doubles or triples of your Father and Amata in two separate occasions while you are affected by the drug.


 * There is a small, isolated part of the Vault located far away from the accessible area, used only in hallucinations, but accessible with the tcl command. Exploring this area, the player can find behind the locked door (in which the Vault 106 Master Key has no effect) from the "To:ME" computer terminal hallucination area, a clean, empty, vestigial Vault Atrium.


 * Some may be confused by their Local Map and have trouble finding the Science Labs door from the Living Quarters. As mentioned above, there is one door you can see through a window, but can't get to, from the Quarters. The other, reachable Lab door is accessed by heading south down a hallway directly off the ground floor of the central atrium of the Living Quarters.


 * At one point, during a hallucination, three individuals walk in three different directions out of a hallway the player is traversing. The three individuals are actually all either James (the father of the Lone Wanderer) or Amata. Players have reported seeing both (either three James' or three Amatas). Shooting one of the hallucinations in V.A.T.S. makes it disappear immediately and may give you negative karma (reported in at least one case of shooting the Amata hallucinations).


 * As you enter the Science Labs from the lower floor of the living quarters, there is a window into the room on the left. Looking through the window shows the room upside down (the floor is the ceiling and the ceiling is the floor) but going through the door into the room everything is the right way round.


 * The tunnel at the very back of the complex with skeletons may have been an attempt at escape on the part of the Overseer and the staff in on the experiment - a "back door". Unfortunately the bombs must have collapsed the tunnel, preventing their escape.
 * Support is lent to this by the fact there is a Vault 106 Master Key sitting on the bottom shelf of the shelving with the Mini Nuke. Due to clipping issues it is "welded" to the shelving and taken, but is visually identical to the key found next to the security terminal.


 * If you close the door behind you upon entering the vault (from the control panel outside of Vault 106), beware. There is no way to open the door from the inside, therefore you will be stuck in Vault 106 and you will be forced to reload an earlier save. Using the door/motor results in "This door is activated elsewhere", even though there is no other way to open the door from the inside.


 * Before being cut, the Makeshift Gas Mask was most likely located in the Connecting Room, where you encounter the Survivor, and on the table in the Medical Room, in the Science Lab where there are two air canisters. In the Official Fallout 3 Strategy guide, the items and location are still listed.

Bugs

 * In the living quarters on the second floor there is a barricade. Behind this is a locked door (hard) that leads to another door, the Overseer's office. The game should turn blue and the vault will appear clean at this point. In the office, there will be an Overseer. If you approach the window where he is standing or interact with him, the Overseer should vanish and end the hallucination.
 * Attempting to speak with him may or may not cause the game to freeze (360), crash (PC), or nothing at all (PS3).
 * If you initiate combat with the hallucination of the Overseer, you can walk back and forth through the hallway where it turns blue, and be able to walk into and out of that specific hallucination. The Overseer resets (but remains hostile) when crossing the threshold. He disappears every instance he is shot. Attempting to loot the remains will act the same as attempting to talk to him when he is "alive."
 * The hallucinations of your Dad that appear throughout Vault 106 are always the default Caucasian model, even if you choose a different race for your player character (and thus also for your father).
 * If during the Tunnel Snakes hallucination you shoot off the leg of one of the Tunnel Snakes it will still be there even after you kill The Vault 106 Survivor.
 * The Vault 106 Survivor can be quickly killed on lower difficulties without spawning the hallucinations. His eyes continue to blink even though he is dead. If you strike his corpse the hallucinations of the Tunnel Snake Gang will appear.
 * If you attack the Vault 106 Survivor to the point where the hallucination starts and then go back the way you came the blue effect will eventually stop (the Tunnel Snakes will still exist). The blue effect will come back if you go back to the room where the Vault 106 Survivor was. If you decide to leave the area and go back to the living areas during the hallucination and then come back and finish killing the Tunnel Snakes the Vault 106 Survivor will randomize(Face, gender, hair, and race can all change) after all the tunnel snakes are dead.
 * If you lead the last tunnel snake outside the room and sneak and then attack him when the hallucination ends you will be hidden. If you then sneak attack the Vault 106 Survivor the blue effect will start again as if you're hallucinating.(confirmation needed)
 * At higher levels when nearly insta-killing or insta-killing the Vault 106 Survivor (Preferably a headshot with a weapon like the sniper rifle or gauss rifle), even though the survivor might be dead, the Tunnel Snakes will literally "float" into the room without the blue hallucination backdrop. (PC Confirmed, Possible for 360 and PS3)
 * If you kill Amata in a hallucination you will receive Bad Karma.
 * Despite the Insane Survivors' natural hostility toward the player, dropping onto them a live grenade grants bad karma. (Confirmed on 360.)
 * At a random spot, right outside the Vault Entrance in the Capital Wasteland the S.P.E.C.I.A.L Skills Menu will pop up as if a perk or level up has granted a skill point to be added (ex. as if Intense Training was used), this happens numerous times and it is unknown how to stop it. The skills that the player adds points to will change sporadically. (If strength was at 5 and you added a skill point, strength may be at 3 the next time the menu pops up.(confirmation needed)
 * There appears to be an odd glitch where if you are crouched and using a Stealth Boy, the Insane Survivors will "see" you and talk to you as if they were settlers. After talking to you, they don't attack, they ignore you until you stand up or shoot them.
 * There is a bug that happens when you enter the Vault where that the blue haze will not appear, and no hallucinations will occur (360)
 * Some times when you enter vault 106 the door will lag and close making it impossible to exit usually after hallucinations (360)
 * Some hallucinations that are targeted in V.A.T.S, they will cause the game to crash if they disappear while V.A.T.S is zooming in or the player is taking out their weapon. (360, other platforms unknown.)

Appearances in game
This Vault was first mentioned in Fallout Bible 1, and subsequently appeared in Fallout 3.