Nipton

Nipton is a town located in the southern Mojave Wasteland that has been ravaged by Caesar's Legion.

Background
Vulpes Inculta is the leader of the legionaries dealing with the "Profligates" in Nipton. Before Vulpes razed the town to the ground, it was populated by gamblers, thieves, and prostitutes. Vulpes had the brilliant idea to have a lottery to "save" them. The winner was spared, the runner-up was crippled, the third place winners became slaves, the "Lucky Losers" were decapitated for a quick death, the mayor was burned on a pile of tires, and the rest were crucified.

Layout
Upon arrival the player is greeted by Oliver Swanick, the ex-Powder Ganger who won the lottery to save his life. Alternatively, if the player stumbles upon the town hall first, Vulpes Inculta greets you. Venturing through the settlement, the player will see multiple crosses holding the losers of the lottery. The rest of the town is in ruins and burns as you walk the streets.

Outside of Nipton Hall is a crucifix along with skulls on a post and pile of junk on fire. Vulpes Inculta meets the player outside of the hall and tells them to spread the word of Caesar's Legion. After speaking to him the player is granted the quest Cold, Cold Heart. Inside the hall itself, you will find many Legion mongrels. These are automatically hostile upon entrance to the hall, but do not incur a reputation loss if killed.

Nipton General Store has a man named Boxcars inside. If you give him Med-X, he will tell you what happened. Even though Boxcars is crippled from the "lottery", he will still engage in combat if attacked.

Nipton Hotel is a small establishment with several New California Republic (NCR) Trooper corpses dumped unceremoniously inside.

The house with the sand bags in front of Nipton Hotel is heavily booby trapped; there is a Frag Mine in the corner of the living room, kitchen and the bathroom. Both of those doorways conceal shotgun traps. There is a cage with 3 Bark Scorpions inside when you enter the house. There is an Easy-Locked safe with a Grenade Rifle in it; stepping across the threshold will release the Bark Scorpions. The Average-Locked cabinet in the kitchen contains some provisions. Also, there is a dead legion recruit with a machete and armor and a helmet

Nipton town hall

 * Worn Key - Upon entering Nipton Town Hall, directly to the right, behind the counter. Beware of the mine behind the counter near the key. This key unlocks the first door on the right down the hall which leads downstairs to the basement.
 * Big Book of Science and 2 Programmer's Digest - Town Hall 3rd floor's Mayor's office, on the Mayor's desk.
 * Future Weapons Today inside the shattered cabinet behind the Mayor's desk along with a Nuka-Cola Victory behind an average locked door.

General store

 * Salesman Weekly - On the edge of the counter near the cash register.
 * Milsurp Review - upstairs, in front the easy locked door, on the floor rug (Center of it).
 * Sunset Sarsaparilla Star Bottle Cap - in the wooden house directly south of Nipton Trading Post, on the dresser in the bedroom.
 * Weapon repair kit - On the Bottom of the fallen metal shelf, to the left of Boxcars

Heavily booby-trapped house

 * Note titled Declaration of Vital Essence - inside the heavily booby-trapped Nipton home with sandbags lined up in front of it directly east of Nipton General Store "Trading Post".
 * In the Bathroom there is a Safe that has various items. Usually 40mm grenade, Grenade rifle, Patriot's Cookbook.

Other locations

 * Sunset Sarsaparilla Star Bottle Cap - on the main road to the east of Nipton, across the train tracks, inside a wrecked truck with a Sunset Sarsaparilla case. The star bottlecap is laying on top. Also a Gun cabinet inside the truck. NOTE: Near the truck there are several orange traffic cones, each with a Frag mine (Fallout: New Vegas) underneath it that doesn't seem to be able to be disarmed. Best to shoot the mines from a distance.
 * Today's Physician - in the house to the right of Nipton Hall, with a brahmin skull on the mailbox.
 * Locksmith's Reader - in mail box in first house on the right as you come out of Nipton Hall.
 * Boxing Times - in mail box of the first house on east side of Nipton Hall.
 * Fixin' Things - in mail box of the house in front right of Nipton Hall.
 * A larger than usual Red Plate is on the table right after entering one of the Nipton Houses.
 * Laser Rifle - found in the Mister Gutsy House in the bathtub.
 * Plasma pistol - found under the workbench in the Mister Gutsy House.
 * There are 4 dead NCR troopers inside the Nipton Hotel on the north-western end on town. Each have NCR faction armor on their corpse and NCR dogtags. In the back room of the hotel are filing cabinets with a small amount of various ammunition.

Appearances
Nipton appears only in Fallout: New Vegas.

Behind the scenes

 * The real Nipton is an unincorporated town in California, and is located just west of the California/Nevada state line (a sign showing the border can be found in-game). The Legion Lottery may also be a reference to the fact that Nipton has the highest lottery ticket sales in the California state lottery.
 * There are two signs on the road directly southeast of Nipton: one, facing west, welcomes travelers to Nevada; the other facing east, welcomes them to California. This is a reference to the real Nipton's immediate proximity to the border between the two states.
 * In the house with the Mister Gutsy prototype, the robot could say "kill them all and let god sort them out" a reference to the seige of Béziers during the Albigensian crusade when Arnaud Amalric said that line.
 * The Legion's sacking of Nipton could be an allusion to Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery", in which the winner of the lottery is murdered by the other townsfolk. This is mentioned by the Caesar's Legion patrol; Mayor Steyen's office corroborates this, as well as the abundance of lottery tickets strewn across town hall. There are also strong parallels between Jackson's story and the social machinations of experiment conducted in Vault 11. Finally, the real Nipton once had the most lottery ticket sales in California.
 * If you have the Wild Wasteland trait and look around in front of a destroyed building near the eastern entrance of the town, you can find the charred skeletal remains of two people named, respectively, Owen and Beru. This is a reference to a famous scene from "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope," in which Luke Skywalker returns home to find that his uncle and aunt of the same names have been incinerated in a similar fashion by Storm Troopers.
 * The Declaration of Vital Essence may be a tongue-in-cheek reference to the film "Dr. Strangelove", in which the character of Gen. Jack Ripper is highly and vocally paranoid about guarding his "precious bodily fluids".

Bugs

 * For some players, upon leaving Nipton for the first time, it becomes impossible to come back to finish any further quests as the game freezes once the Courier comes too close to the town. This happens in both fast travel and by physically walking to Nipton.
 * There's a glitch which prevents you from being able to speak with Vulpes Inculta, even when he triggers the conversation. The camera will zoom in on him like it would usually do when initiating conversation, but will then quickly retract, bringing the player back into control. Reloading doesn't seem to fix this issue.
 * On rare occasions, the player may be approached by Oliver Swanick exclaiming he won the lottery, despite having already been to Nipton and hearing his ramble (experienced after fast traveling to Nipton). (Not a glitch, Oliver normally respawns after 3 game days.)
 * Despite not having quest An Ear to the Ground found an Ear on body of dead legion member inside the house where the Mr. Gutsy is, as well as the dead legion member in the trapped sandbag house. (This is normal and can be seen on several other bodies of dead Legion members.)
 * Even though the game may state that the crucified Powder Gangers are "near death" they may stay where they are, crucified but alive indefinitely. (Only seen when fast-traveling to Nipton; if the player physically walks to Nipton it is possible that the crucified Powder Gangers will have disappeared [Presumably dead]).
 * It is unlikely that anyone on the crosses will have survived when The Courier leaves and comes back as 2 Bark Scorpions usually spawn in the main street (confirmed when fast traveling) and will sting the crucified to death.
 * Those crucified have been known to get off their cross to fight hostile creatures such as bark scorpions. When they jump off the cross to fight the scorpions, then, and only then, will they continue to fight the legionaries. They will never just get off the cross to fight the legion, there must be a bark scorpion. Once the creatures/legionaries are dead, they will get back on the cross and resume being crucified however the player will be able to talk to them as if they were a random NPC with no relevance to the story line (i.e. they will not open a dialog box but will acknowledge your presence by saying random things).
 * Sometimes the crucufied Powder Gangers will sometime appear off their crosses just to jump back on the crosses.
 * Sometimes but rarely Vulpes Inculta will not appear at this location at all, however loading a save seems to fix this.
 * The bark scorpions inside the booby trapped house are often able to escape out of their cage without the player activating the pressure plate.
 * Sometimes Oliver Swanick may be dead when the player reaches Nipton.
 * Boone will not enter the Town Hall (First Floor) but teleports to the Assembly Floor when the courier enters that floor. The particular instance was after we had killed all the legion personnel outside the hall.
 * ED-E doesn't seem to enter the Town Hall. (edit: actually he does the same as Boone, teleports to Assembly Floor)
 * Sometimes, when fast travelling to Nipton, you may find a crucified prospector instead of a Powder Ganger. He can't be removed from the cross but he can be interacted with. He will most likely be killed by the bark scorpions next time you travel there;
 * There are occasions where, upon first visiting Nipton, Vulpes Inculta and his legionaries will be hostile, even while having made no contact with the legion prior.
 * Upon entering the booby trapped house a second time, one may encounter a centaur.

Gallery
Ниптон Nipton