Big Trouble in Big Town

 is a Fallout 3 quest. It is also an Xbox 360 and PC achievement.

Objectives and walkthrough
Flash, a local resident of Big Town, asks you to go secure some hostages from super mutants in the Germantown police station. Use the upper level door to gain entry to the station and make your way down to the ground level.

Once you're on the ground level find Red and get her cell door open (pick the lock, open it with a Germantown jailor's key found on mutants, or use the lockup computer with a password found upstairs). Talk to her and she'll thank you for rescuing her and tell you about her friend Shorty. Rescuing Shorty is optional and gives good karma.But Before leaving the area you might want to explore a bit, if you have at least 50 lock picking you can pick the locks on the two armories in the H.Q., one of them has a few conventional weapons while the other has the coveted "Fat Man". :)

Afterwards, exit the building and make your way back to Big Town, dealing with any super mutants remaining in the area.

When you make it to Big Town they will both thank you and Red will tell you that she heard the super mutants discussing yet another attack on Big Town and ask for your help. If you accept you'll be rewarded with good karma upon completion. 1-2 super mutants will storm into the area (if you difficulty is higher, more Mutants can appear), but the residents are pretty weak, so it's your job to take the mutants out.
 * With a high enough Small Guns skill you can teach/train them how to shoot.
 * With a high enough Science skill you can also reactivate some broken robots in the junkyard. (Currently buggy.)
 * With a high enough Sneak teach the residents how to sneak.
 * With a high enough Explosives you can help the residents to make a minefield. (IMPORTANT NOTE: If the minefield is still active when escorting Stinky from Little Lamplight, he will set off the mines as if he were a hostile! Make sure to have him wait wile you clear out the remaining mines)

Once the super mutants have been dealt with, the residents consider you their hero. Talk to Timebomb after the attack and he'll give you his Lucky 8 Ball with a +1 Luck bonus. Also, if you cured Timebomb in the clinic before saving Red and Shorty, Red will heal you for free.

Shorty
If a player rescues Red and does not enter the basement to rescue Shorty, after returning Red to Big Town and fighting off the super mutants, the player will no longer be able to rescue Shorty. He will still be in the basement, but the speech between him and the super mutant captor will carry on as if the player was not present. Upon defeating the mutant, Shorty will remain in the crouched, cuffed position and speak as if he was back in Big Town.

Bittercup Pappy Speech
This bug allows for the fastest experience gains possible. It only works before the Big Town quest has been completed.

With the Lady Killer perk, Bittercup can be hit on and made to reveal a history with the men of the town. After that, the Pappy NPC will offer a dialog option about Bittercup with a Speech skill check, and the option will never go away. It can be repeatedly selected for 5xp each time the check is successfully made. If the player has a Speech skill of 50, the Speech check will have a 100% chance of success. If the player has maxed out the Swift Learner perk, it will be worth 7xp each time.

If going for the achievements to reach Level 8, 14, and 20 with different Karma ratings, the quickest way is to grind experience with Neutral Karma, but save the game shortly before reaching each milestone level. That save can then be used to leave town, do good or bad things until the Karma changes, and then come back to make the next level.

Sometimes even if you haven't started the quest Bittercup doesn't appear anywhere in Big Town. No matter where you look she isn't there. So for me the unlimited exp. perk won't ever work.

Robots
At least on the PC and the Xbox 360 (happens on the PS3 as well) the broken robots option is bugged. When you go to find the robots, they are nowhere to be found in the junkyard. On the PC, to get them to reappear, you have to use the following Reference ID codes to get the robots to reappear.
 * Protectron - 0002d934
 * Sentry Bot - 0002c11b

Since the player.placeatme command does not work with RefIDs, you have to go through this set of commands: (in big town, near the junkyard, press ~ to open the console, then type these in. After each line, hit enter)
 * PRID 2d934
 * kill
 * resurrect
 * disable
 * enable
 * PRID 2c11b
 * kill
 * resurrect
 * disable
 * enable

After each enable command the console should write something about bot being set to Patrol. After exiting the console, you should now see both bots. Even though they are up and running, you still need to go up to each of them, activate them, and choose repair bot, and the protectron may be outside patrolling bigtown.

Note: If you can't find the robots after respawning them, player.moveto 2d934 or player.moveto 2c11b should take you to the location they have respawned (usually the junkyard inside town).

Make sure you do hang around after doing this, for it won't be long before Super Mutants attack the town (4 total, you will get positive Karma when they're dead). Afterward talk to Red and she will thank you for having defeated the Super Mutants.

Disappearing Town
(not confirmed)

Sometimes after the attack when you return to the town (after all the dialouge) there will be a super mutant roaming the town and all the townspeople will have gone missing (happened to me on two occasions, when I taught Small Arms and Mining and I know I cleared the town of any threats..could be just part of the plot, though).

If you choose to help the town by fixing the robots and does not perform action( probably because there arent any robots). You can leave the town and come back later, and you will find all the town folks are dead, probably killed by the supermutants.

Behind the scenes
The name of this achievement could be a nod to the 1986 film Big Trouble in Little China.

Loot

 * D.C. Journal of Internal Medicine in the Germantown Police HQ, upper floor, in the conference room bookcase.
 * Lying, Congressional Style in the Germantown Police HQ, ground floor, in the classroom, on the rusty child-sized desk.
 * Tumblers Today in the Germantown Police HQ basement, in the locked weapons closet.
 * Fat Man in the Germantown Police HQ basement, in the locked weapons closet.
 * 8 Ball of luck (has a hidden +1 to LCK) is given to you by Timebomb as a reward for completing the quest. This will only happen if you go into Red's and revive him (requires a Medicine skill of 40).