Big Trouble in Big Town

 is a Fallout 3 quest. It is also a Xbox 360/PC achievement and a PlayStation 3 Trophy.

Objectives and walkthrough
The residents of Big Town have been constantly harassed by Super Mutants, who capture residents and take them off to the Germantown Police HQ. With the town doctor, Red, now gone, the town's hopes of survival are looking slim. When the player first enters, he/she may learn about the town's problems. One of the residents will give the player the quest if asked about their missing friends.


 * Note: The first time you enter Big Town, it is advised to go to scrapyard there, find the wrecked Protectron, and use the Grab feature to drag the Protectron under the roof of one of the nearby houses (each of the small houses in Big Town has a roof over its entrance). This is recommended because dead (or in this case, wrecked) Protectron have a habit of glitching out and flying very high into the air once you enter their area. This glitch causes the Protectron to possibly end up far away from Big Town, and since it is needed for the quest (if you choose the option to fix their robots), it can seriously delay or even break the quest.

Rescue
Once at the Germantown Police HQ, some Super Mutants and Centaurs will be roaming about. There are two possible entrances to the station: the first is using the higher door on the north side. If the player has 100 Lockpick, the lower door on the west side may also be entered, and puts them very close to Red's location. If the former is chosen, some hallways of Super Mutants, Radroaches, and the occasional trap need to be traversed.

Red is located in a jail cell on the ground floor. The cell door can either be picked, opened with a computer upstairs, or opened with the Germantown Jailors Key, found on a Super Mutant. When spoken to, Red thanks the player for rescuing her, granting Good Karma and tells about her friend Shorty, in the kitchen downstairs. As an optional objective, the player may go through the basement in order to rescue him. He will be found in the kitchen, in conversation with a Super Mutant who wishes to eat him. If the conversation goes on long enough, the mutant will eventually start shooting Shorty. Saving him will provide the player with more good Karma. Because of a bug, if he is going to be rescued, it should be done so sooner rather than later.

Note that there is lots of good loot to be found in the police headquarters. Most notably, one lock in the basement contains several conventional weapons, alongside a Fat Man. They can either be obtained now while the player is here, or later.

If Red Dies...
If Red dies at any point during the quest, it will not immediately fail. The objectives will update to tell the player to go to Big Town to explain her death. Shorty may still be rescued and returned if Red dies. When the player speaks with Flash and tells him about his friend's demise, he will give the player 200 Caps, stating that his town won't be needing it anymore. The quest will be failed at this point.

The Attack
Once Red (and Shorty, if the player chose to help him) has been rescued, the player is to return to Big Town. Speak to Red at this point to be thanked; if you ask for a reward, you will receive 300 Bottlecaps. 200 more can be obtained through a Speech Check, if the player is fine with some Bad Karma. Optionally, the caps can be returned afterward to gain the Karma back.

While the quest is technically over at this point, Red will drop a bombshell of information: the Super Mutants plan to attack the city yet again. Not knowing very many combative skills, Red asks for the player's help in defending the city. Depending on the player's skill levels, the townspeople may be taught a variety of Super Mutant countermeasures.


 * With at least 50 in the Small Guns skill, they may be taught how to use conventional firearms.
 * With at least 50 in the Sneak skill, they may be taught how to effectively hide from the mutants. Simply go into sneak mode to show them this.
 * With at least 50 in the Science skill, they may be taught how to build robots to use as bodyguards. If this is chosen, follow them into the junkyard, and interact with the Sentry Bot and Protectron there to reactivate them. Note that there are a few bugs associated with this option.
 * With at least 50 in the Explosives skill, they may be taught how to make a minefield. Demonstrate by throwing a mine on the bridge. Note that there is a bug associated with this option.

Alternatively, the player may not teach them anything, and either leave them to their fate, or help fight the mutants anyway. Although the residents are weak, weapons, ammo, and armor can be reverse pick-pocketed into their inventories to give them a better chance (especially if the Small Guns option wasn't chosen). Fast traveling from and to Big Town is required to get them to equip their new items. In addition, Red and Shorty may have items simply given to them whilst traveling with the player, and if the unmarked quest A Sticky Situation was completed, Sticky will be around to help with the defense as well.

Shortly after preparations are made, a number of Super Mutants (which varies depending on the player's actions) will attack. If Sneak was not chosen, the Super Mutants must be defeated to complete it. However, if Sneak was chosen, two Super Mutants will enter, try to find the townspeople, and if uninterrupted, eventually leave.

Rewards
In addition to the 300/500 Cap reward, once the Super Mutants are dead/gone, the townspeople will thank the player character, naming him/her as their hero. Good Karma will be obtained for helping defend the town. Moreover, if Timebomb was healed in the unmarked quest Ticking Timebomb prior to the attack, and he survived it, he will give the player his Lucky 8 Ball. Red will heal the player for 50 caps, but once Timebomb has been healed she will heal the player for free.

NOTE: You do NOT need to save Timebomb before the attack; if it is done after the attack, he will still give you his Lucky 8 Ball.

Bugs

 * Although it is more of a design bug than a bug with the quest itself, after the two Super Mutants in the Germantown Police HQ finish their conversation, one of them will set off the shotgun trap as he walks away.


 * If the player chooses to turn on the Station Alarm in Germantown Police Headquaters by activating a 911 terminal on the ground floor, Red may let herself out of her cell and can be found wandering the halls battling Radroaches. She will not be able to be interacted with until the Radroaches are killed (by either Red or the player) and she returns to her cell. After interacting with her and telling her to wait while Shorty is rescued, she will let herself back out of her cell and "hide/flee" as if being attacked on the floor in the cell area. The player will again be unable to interact with her until the player returns with Shorty.


 * If Red is rescued and returned to Big Town without rescuing Shorty, the latter will be impossible to rescue on a subsequent trip. When the area he is in is approached, the conversation between him and the Super Mutant will proceed as normal, but won't notice the player's presence. If the Super Mutant is killed, Shorty will give all his dialogue options as he would back in Big Town.


 * If Red is killed before speaking with her, the quest will update to go to Big Town to explain her death to the townspeople. However, if Shorty is rescued afterward, the quest will update to tell the player to go rescue Red, despite her being dead. Similarly, if Shorty is killed and Red rescued afterward, if the player doesn't tell her about his death and asks if there are any others in the building, the quest will update to give the optional objective of rescuing Shorty.


 * On rare occasion, if the conversation between Shorty and the Super Mutant is interrupted, they may continue to converse while the player fights the Super Mutant. If the Mutant is killed, it will still continue to speak!


 * On unpatched versions of the game, the robots may fail to appear. If the option to build robotic bodyguards is chosen, the townspeople will all approach the junkyard, with the robots nowhere to be found. It will at that point be impossible to proceed through the quest. The console on the PC version may still be used to summon them (RefIDs 0002d934 and 0002c11b). If, for whatever reason, you can't update to the patch, you can use the commands prid {REFID}, kill, resurrect, disable, enable to get them back.


 * A side-effect of a problem with destroyed Protectrons can lead to a bug on the patched version of the quest. When one spawns, it is often in the ground, causing it to get wedged and launched a considerable distance away. So when the robotic bodyguards option is chosen to defend the town, the Sentry Bot is there, but the Protectron could be far away. When the Sentry Bot is activated, a townsperson will run off to activate the Protectron, likely getting himself and the robot killed on the return trip. This also subsequently causes a massive delay in the Super Mutant attack. If the player finds the Protectron themselves, they can activate it, giving it a much better chance of surviving. It can usually be found in the vicinity of the town; usually behind the south end. On the PC version, the console command player.moveto 2d934 can be used to find it. It's notable that when the player enters Big Town for the first time, the Protectron will be in the right place. It is possible to fix this issue by activating the Sentry Bot, then waiting several hours (this author waited around 10 hours). When the waiting period is over, the Protectron and all citizens may be present and accounted for, and the super mutants will all spawn at once. If you're good enough, killing them all while protecting everyone is easy enough.
 * On the PC version, there is a very easy way to move the lost Protectron back into town by using 2 console commands. Firstly use prid 2d934 to select the Protectron (do not close the console yet) and then moveto player to move it to where you are standing.
 * This author found the Protectron on a roof near the town entrance - the roof of the building to the player's right, if the player is facing the bridge from inside the town. To get onto this roof, move behind the plywood partition and carefully jump on the barrels, then jump onto the roof. This can be a tricky maneuver, if the barrels are moved to the wrong position. Failing this, one can also try to use the other barrels nearby to do the same, but the first method is the easiest method. (Oddly enough, two Outcast Soldiers and a Outcast Robobrain spawned in the town as well, and helped defeat the Super Mutants. Once the Mutants were defeated, the Soldiers left, and the Robobrain's corpse remained. It then took several moments for the battle's end to be recognized - perhaps the Outcasts chased the Mutants away. Until the Good Karma was rewarded, Red and Timebomb did not speak their post-battle lines.)Hoogathy 23:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
 * This author saw it fly off to the east really high up and found it in the road on the east side of the town.


 * If the Landmine option is chosen, they will not recognize Sticky as an ally, causing them to explode if the unmarked quest A Sticky Situation is not completed. Fast traveling to the town can circumvent this, and will prevent him from being blown up in the future.


 * If the Sneak option is chosen, and the player waits (via the Wait option) for the Super Mutant attack, they will spawn in front of the bridge. If they do not detect the player, they will continue to stand there until the townspeople have all hidden themselves. If they detect the player quickly enough, the option will botch, and all the Big Towners will immediately engage the Sledgehammer-wielding Mutants in combat. They must be defeated to complete this objective.


 * Sometimes, the Super Mutant attack on the town may fail to begin. If this happens, a solution may be to enter a house, Wait, and exit.


 * It is possible that Red will teleport from police station to Deathclaw Sanctuary leading to Red being killed by a Deathclaw


 * It has been reported that Flash can sometimes vanish after the attack, even if he survives it.


 * On rare occasions, Timebomb may not give the player his Lucky 8 Ball, even if he was healed and the subsequent Super Mutant attack was repelled successfully (Note : in very hard difficulty there are two waves of Super Mutants, Timebomb will only give the Lucky 8 Ball at the end of the attack.).


 * Sometimes, upon reloading between different saves and then coming back to my own save with the Big Town quest, Red and Shorty may both already be at Big Town without having to rescue them. Their dialogue proceeds as though they were rescued, including rewards and the option of defending Big Town from Super Mutants, but without the operation to train them.


 * On the U.S. PC version, if you choose the explosives / minefield option and have a companion with you, your companion may set off the explosives planted by the townspeople if you get to close to the bridge before the Super Mutants arrive. (To prevent this, simply have your companion wait near the back of the town.)


 * At the back of Germantown Police Station there is a burned out car. When walked into, it will shoot you into the air much like the elevator glitches on COD:WAW.  This has only been tested on Xbox 360.