Nipton

Nipton is a town in the southern Mojave Wasteland inhabited by Caesar's Legion. Vulpes Inculta is the leader of the members here in Nipton. Before Vulpes came in, the town was full of gamblers, thieves, and prostitutes. Vulpes had the brilliant idea to have a lottery to "save" them. One winner is spared, second place were crippled, third place winners became slaves, and the rest are crucified or decapitated.

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 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 burning as you walk the streets.

Nipton serves as a pit-stop for the player on their way to Novac for the main quest They Went That-a-Way

Layout

 * Nipton Hall - Outside of the 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 Caesar's Legion Mongrels that depending on your reputation with the Legion may attack you.
 * Nipton road service station
 * Nipton General Store has Boxcars (an injured powder ganger, you can give him Med-X to get him to tell you what happened) inside and an easy locked door. There is also a Salesman Weekly on the counter. He will also provide you with the location of the Hidden Supply Cave if you are on the Wheel of Fortune quest.
 * Boxcars will mention he was about to go to sleep, because the pain is less, if you are disguised as a Legion, and will worry about getting attacked again.
 * If you are on bad terms with the Powder Gangers, Boxcars will say, "Now what, the Powder gangers Grim Reaper is here", and ask what have they done to deserve this. (Done with Legion outfit, then switched to another non-faction outfit in the same room.)
 * Nipton Hotel is a small establishment with several NCR Trooper corpses dumped unceremoniously inside.

Notable Loot

 * Upon entering Nipton Town Hall, you may find a "worn key" directly to the right, behind the counter. Beware of the mine that could also be behind the counter near the key. This key unlocks the first door on the right down the hall. Included in the room is an explosives crate, gun case, and various ammo and health items.
 * There is a Big Book of Science and Programmer's Digest (2) sitting on the Mayor's desk on the 3rd floor of the Nipton Town Hall. Behind the desk, there is a shattered bookcase with Future Weapons Today (no on PS3?) and a laser pistol.
 * There is some .44 magnum ammo on the assembly level near the dead wastelander, watch out for a mine near the corpse.
 * In the average locked door behind the Mayor's desk there is lots of loot, including a Nuka-Cola Victory and plasma rifle in a gun cabinet.
 * The house to the right of Nipton Hall, with a brahmin skull on the mailbox, contains a Mister Gutsy as well as an average level safe, a .357 magnum, leather armor, a workbench, various items for use of the workbench and a copy of "Today's Physician" in the mailbox (feel free to condense info) This house also contains a plasma pistol under a workbench and a laser rifle in the bathtub. 9mm SMG under the shelves in the kitchen, and a single shotgun in the corner to the left as you enter the bedroom as well. There`s a Plasma Pistol under the workbench too.
 * The Nipton home directly east of Nipton General Store "Trading Post", with sandbags lined up in front of it, is HEAVILY booby trapped. If you manage to survive the frag mine traps, rigged single shotgun traps (x2) and the bark scorpion trap (watch out for the pressure plate in the bathroom door) there is a grenade rifle in the safe in the bathroom. There is also a note in the tool cabinet titled declaration of vital essence.
 * Inside Nipton Hotel - a house on the far northwest away from the other houses contains 4 NCR bodies complete with decent armor and an easy locked cash register.
 * To the east, across the train tracks, there's a wrecked truck with a Sunset Sarsaparilla case with a star bottlecap laying on top, and lots of Sunset inside. There is also a gun case with goodies next to the Sunset Sarsaparilla.
 * In the wooden house directly south of Nipton Trading Post there is a Sunset Sarsaparilla star bottle cap on the dresser in the bedroom.
 * On the south side of Nipton, in the fenced off trailer park area, you will find a dead wastelander with a laser rifle, there is also stuff in the burned out fire near him, point it.
 * If you kill the Legion members you will be able to collect cowboy repeaters, a ripper, and a few machetes.
 * There's a safe in the upstairs of the Nipton General Store with has a pistol some rounds and a stimpak.
 * As always check the mailboxes for magazines.

Appearances
Nipton appears in Fallout: New Vegas.

Behind the Scenes

 * The real Nipton is an unincorporated town in California with a population of 20, and is located just east of the California/Nevada state line. Founded in 1900 by local gold miners, Nipton experienced something of a boom in the mid-1980s, as its state lottery office was the closest in California to Nevada, which lacked a lottery of its own. However, Nipton's popularity plummeted sharply in 1996 with the opening of a second lottery office - the only road to which ran through the newly-founded, casino-rich town of Primm, Nevada.
 * There are two signs on the road directly southwest 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.
 * The Legion's sacking of Nipton could be an allusion to Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery", in that the winner of the lottery is murdered by the other townsfolk. This is mentioned by the Caesar's Legion patrol and in Mayor Steyen's office, there is also an 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.
 * 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 the film "Star Wars", 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 note "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

 * Up the road past the Nevada border, the guards will sometimes walk in the air when they spot you. They are perched on the hills as you come up.
 * Note on above bug: If you reach the overturned caravan on the road (near the orange cone/land mine) and attempt to climb the hill on the left (where one guy is perched on top), you will get stuck on the mountain, right before reaching the top. There is nothing visible in the way but it is as if you are in quicksand.
 * On a shelf in the room behind the Mayor's office, there is a 10mm pistol with a value of 749. When this gun is collected while another 10mm pistol is in your inventory, it may become listed as only one pistol, but you can drop the new pistol and your previous pistol separately.
 * 10/22/10 post patch bug occurs here. If a player loads up a save in Nipton after installing the patch, the game crashes while using V.A.T.S or fast-travel. One solution is to delete the patch, save somewhere other than Nipton, re-update and reload.
 * You can kill Vulpes Inculta, and the 4 guards that accompany him, upon meeting them, with a glitch that lets you enter the Nipton Town Hall and somehow doesn't let them all follow you. The glitch happens on successive re-loads after dying trying to fight them all off inside the town hall building. The game will reload and all or some of the enemies outside won't come into the building. There is a clunking noise, but they will stay outside for some reason. You can kill the hounds inside and recover AP, then go out the door and VATS the legs of the legionares, or whatever, again and again.
 * 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 exclaiming he won the lottery, despite having already been to Nipton and hearing his ramble (experienced after fast traveling to Nipton).