Novac

 is a town in the Mojave Wasteland in 2281.

Background
The faded and cracked concrete and peeling buildings give the impression of depression; and indeed, Novac is little more than a lonely desert highway motel with multiple buildings that have been fortified for the protection of its inhabitants. Watching over them is the landmark of the area: a giant fabricated tyrannosaurus rex biting off the top of "The World's 2nd Largest Thermometer". The interior of "Dinky" also serves as the city center (a converted gift shop from pre-war times, with a sniper's nest in Dinky's mouth). Dinky is the "attraction" that drew in tourists. Some of the locals are friendly folk, though most aren't trusting of outsiders. They appreciate the protection of the NCR, but are afraid of what's going on at the REPCONN rocket plant up the road. The local law, Ranger Andy, is unable to investigate due to an injury.

Layout
Novac consists of a residential area with many houses, including Jeannie May Crawford's house, the McBride house, No-bark's shack, and a couple of normal Novac houses with Novac settlers living in them.

The main part of Novac is the motel area. Here you can find the Dino-Bite Gift Shop, 8 motel rooms, and the Dino Dee-lite Front Desk where you can buy a motel room for 100 caps from Jeannie May Crawford (or if you do enough quests for Novac the room will be free). Across the street is a gas station with some spare parts, a Workbench and a Reloading bench.

There are two graves you can open with a Shovel beside one of the residences that runs parallel to the Hotel's Main building, as well as a Kitchen Tent that various Traveling Merchants rest in front of. Near the grave site is a shanty that contains a usable Workbench. As with all graves walking near them will trigger faint, ghostly whispering.

The Dino Dee-Lite hotel room you can acquire is located up the stairs on the immediate left once entering the Hotel Compound. Inside is a bed and storage facilities that are safe to store your items in (except the briefcase next to the door and the garbage can in the bathroom).

Inhabitants

 * Doctor Straus
 * Bruce Isaac
 * Cliff Briscoe
 * Manny Vargas
 * Craig Boone
 * Daisy Whitman
 * Jeannie May Crawford
 * No-Bark Noonan
 * Alice McBride
 * Dusty McBride
 * Ranger Andy

Notable loot

 * D.C. Journal of Internal Medicine can be found on the bed in Ranger Andy's Room.
 * That Gun is inside Dino Bite Gift Shop inside a locked closet behind all the Rocket souvenirs on a metal shelf or sold by Cliff Briscoe at the Dinky the Dinosaur Shop.
 * Sunset Sarsaparilla star bottle cap in the kitchen of a house called "Novac House" North-East of Jeannie May Crawford's house. The bottlecap is in the kitchen on the table to the left as the player enters.
 * Sunset Sarsaparilla star bottle cap in Daisy Whitman's room, the last motel room of the second floor. The cap is marked as property so taking it is stealing and you will lose karma for doing so. It is suggested not to kill Daisy Whitman due to her being essential to complete For Auld Lang Syne
 * Cliff Briscoe sells skill magazines in the Dino Bite Gift Shop: Milsurp Review, Tæles of Chivalrie, Locksmith's Reader, Meeting People, and Salesman Weekly.

Related Quests

 * One for My Baby: Help Boone seek vengeance for his wife's death.
 * Come Fly With Me: Investigate ghoul activity at the REPCONN facility west of Novac.
 * The Screams of Brahmin (quest): Find out what is killing off Dusty McBride's brahmin.
 * They Went That-a-Way: Find the man who shot you.

Appearances
appears only in Fallout: New Vegas.

Behind the scenes
Unlike most other towns in the Mojave, Novac has no real-world equivalent. However, it has many similarities with Baker, home of the world's largest thermometer, and clearly takes some inspiration from Claude Bell's Dinosaurs.

Bugs

 * The free storage room given to you at the Dino Dee-lite Motel can sometimes become bugged. Trying to enter it will cause your game to freeze.
 * Buying the key to the storage room in the dinosaur statue's gift shop and collecting the rocket souvenirs inside may cause your game to freeze. It may also cause previous saved game files to become corrupt. You may have to start a new game. It is recommended to buy the rockets individually.
 * There is a traveling merchant around the dinosaur statue, attempting to buy all her Caravan cards will cause the game to freeze.
 * There is sometimes a tumbleweed in the middle of the road across from the Dino Dee-Lite lobby entrance that doesn't move and can't be picked up.
 * If you push Manny Vargas or Boone onto the teeth of the dinosaur and then do a Ranger Takedown on him, he will fall off of the dinosaur, and then fly back up, creating humorous results.