Old World Blues Skill Checks
Old World Blues Skill Checks 8,8/10 8104 votes
No, the skill checks are more or less just flavour so you can lure him down in whatever way you choose; he comes down anyway. There's a similar one in Old World Blues, when the brain asks what you're going to do about the Think Tank and you have a bunch of 'witty' one-liners based on your various weapons skills.
How To Start Old World Blues
| For the main article of the Old World Blues add-on, see Old World Blues (add-on). |
Old World Blues
location
given by
reward
Completing the add-on
Big Mountain Transportalponder!
Big Mountain Transportalponder!
editor id
| Previous quest |
|---|
| Sonic Emitter Upgrade X-2: Strange Transmissions! X-8: High School Horror! X-13: Attack of the Infiltrator! |
Make up Your Mind
requirements
gamescore
trophy type
Outsmarted
requirements
gamescore
trophy type
“Here and now got its ups and downs, but.. focusing on the past like it was any better? That's just Old World Blues.”— Blind Diode Jefferson, Old World Blues
Old World Blues is the final main quest of the Fallout: New Vegasadd-onOld World Blues.
After completing this quest, the Make up Your Mind and Outsmartedachievements/trophies will be earned.
Quick walkthroughEdit
| Main Quest: Old World Blues | |||||||||||||
| Talk to Dr. Klein. | |||||||||||||
| Enter the Forbidden Zone. | |||||||||||||
| Defeat or disable the X-42 giant robo-scorpion. | |||||||||||||
| Enter Mobius' lair and reason with him. | Enter Mobius' lair and kill him. | ||||||||||||
| Reclaim or reason with your brain. | |||||||||||||
| Reason with Dr. Klein. | Kill all of the Think Tank doctors. | ||||||||||||
| Reward: Completing the add-on, the Big Mountain Transportalponder!, and the Make up Your Mind and Outsmarted achievements/trophies. | |||||||||||||
Detailed walkthroughEdit
The Courier can begin this quest by speaking to Dr. Klein, where the good doctor will tell them that it's time to go to the Forbidden Zone and get their brain back. He also asks the Courier to deal with Dr. Mobius. Optional Speech checks are available:
- Lockpick 75
- Repair 75
- Science 65
- Sneak 45
- Followed by Science 85 or Medicine 85.
The player character should begin by traveling to the Forbidden Zone, once there, the Courier will encounter several robo-scorpions surrounding the entrance. After dealing with them and entering the zone itself, Dr. Mobius will release his most powerful creation, the X-42 giant robo-scorpion.
- Enter the room further to the right with stairs that leads to a terminal, which gives the player character the option of activating the X-42 backup generator, or overloading it and causing some damage.
- Enter the room to the left and use the terminal to access turret controls (Average lock) to turn them upon the X-42 giant robo-scorpion. Although they will not be sufficient to destroy the X-42, they will cause a lot of damage.
- Activating the protectrons in the room to the right from the dome's entrance will distract the robot long enough to get to the shutdown terminal or other terminals.
- Enter the balcony room on the far left side of the zone from the entrance, that contains a computer terminal (Very Hard lock). If hacked, it gives the option to permanently disable the X-42 giant robo-scorpion. Access to this room is via the stairs on the far left side of the room. If the Courier lacks the necessary Science skill, the password to the computer is on a holotape to the left of the leftmost protectron bay.
- Alternatively, if the Courier has the Robotics Expert perk, they can sneak up and disable it, but the X-42 giant robo-scorpion will restart itself after a set amount of time has passed.
After defeating it, the Courier must confront Dr. Mobius. To do so, take the stairs to the left of the entrance and enter the door on the right. There they will meet Dr. Mobius, who is not hostile.
Here there are two choices: reason with him or kill him. Fallout new vegas the tops.
Option 1: Reason with Dr. Mobius
If reasoning with Dr. Mobius is chosen, he will direct the Courier to their brain where they must convince it to return. Optional speech checks are available with him:
- Repair 75
- Science 50
- Speech 65
- Intelligence 7 (x2)
- Perception 7, Medicine 65, Guns 75 (do all 3, repeat conversation line)
- Intelligence 7.
Option 2: Fight Mobius
If the Courier chooses to fight Mobius, Dr. Mobius will release 5 MK4B robo-scorpions. They will need to defeat Mobius and the robo-scorpions to continue. 1066 XP will be given for defeating Mobius.
Once Dr. Mobius is dealt with, the Courier must then speak to their brain, and convince it to join them again. Having high Medicine, Speech or Science will give them a significant advantage and make the dialogue much easier. The use of the unique dialogue provided by Confirmed Bachelor/Cherchez La Femme/Black Widow will result in a somewhat humorous, if mortified response from the brain that does not help much. Talking to the brain and convincing it to help in the final quest stage will grant the Make up Your Mind achievement/trophy. Optional speech checks:
- Speech 75 (x2). Choosing to have the brain reinserted into the Courier's body will result in replacing the Brainless perk with the Big Brained perk, which yields +10% DT (Damage Threshold).
If Mobius is alive After acquiring the brain, the Courier needs to speak to Dr. Mobius again. He'll tell them more about what the Think Tank is all about and suggests dealing with them, instead of him. The choice is up to the Courier.
If Mobius is dead Walk up to the Courier's brain and speak with it, thus re-acquiring it.
After making the choice, the Courier needs to go to the Think Tank. Then, the quest will end to a cut-scene. After that, The Courier will have their Brains installed.
There they have the option of using the Sink's Auto-Doc to retrieve their original heart and spine.
- Choosing to replace their original heart results in replacing the Heartless perk with the Cardiac Arrest perk (healing chems are 50% more effective)
- Choosing to replace their original spine results in replacing the Spineless perk with the Reinforced Spine perk (STR and DT bonuses doubled (+2))
- If the Courier decides to leave their heart and spine, they can be replaced at any time they wish. Then they must choose to deal with the 5 members of the Think Tank through violence or reason.
Option: Reason with the Think Tank
For those wishing to reason, the speech checks are:
Old World Blues Skill Checks
- Speech 75
- Medicine 85 or Science 100.
- If the Courier has completed at least three of the four side quests What's in a Name?, On the Same Wavelength, A Brain's Best Friend and Coming Out of Her Shell, they can tell Klein to confer with his colleagues and the others support the view of the Courier, which allows them to reason with the Think Tank without the high skill checks.
Option: Fight with the Think Tank
The Courier must destroy all five members of the Think Tank.
After completing the quest, and watching the ending slide show, the Courier is given the Big Mountain Transportalponder!. This will allow one to return to the Big MT via The Sink balcony at any time, or from Big MT to the Mojave Drive-in, although using it is limited to locations within the Mojave Wasteland, and cannot be used in areas such as the Strip or while in combat. Furthermore, upon completion, all active personalities in The Sink will cheer for the Courier's victory, with a particularly drawn-out and rambling congratulations from Blind Diode Jefferson.
After the slide show ends, (and the Courier convinced the brain to come back), the brain will either be located in the far left room, (where the heart and spine have been stored) or in the Courier's inventory. They will then be able to re-transplant and de-transplant their brain later at any time or leave it in the storage facility. Doing so will change brain, heart, and spine-related perks.
Quest stagesEdit
| Stage | Status | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | Return to the Think Tank and let Dr. Klein know you have completed your tasks. | |
| 20 | Travel to the Forbidden Zone Dome. | |
| 25 | Disable or destroy the X-42 giant robo-scorpion. | |
| 30 | Confront Dr. Mobius at the Forbidden Zone Dome. | |
| 35 | (Optional) Satisfy Dr. Mobius's curiosity about what it's like to be killed. | |
| 40 | Retrieve your brain from the Forbidden Zone. | |
| 50 | Confront Dr. Klein at the Think Tank and end your imprisonment at Big MT. | |
| 51 | (Optional) Retrieve the Sink Auto-Doc's personality holotape from Y-17 to restore the Auto-Doc's functionality. | |
| 52 | (Optional) Use the Sink Auto-Doc to retrieve your original heart. | |
| 53 | (Optional) Use the Sink Auto-Doc to retrieve your original spine. | |
| 60 | Kill Dr. Klein and the other members of the Think Tank. | |
| 70 | Leave the Think Tank. |
NotesEdit
- The Courier can return to Big MT after the completion of this quest with the Big Mountain Transportalponder!
- If the Courier decides to complete this quest with violence, and has not yet completed the Think Tank's personal quests, the quests will not be completable, but the message saying that the quest has been failed will not be received.
BugsEdit
- PCXbox 360 After finishing this quest by either killing or talking to the doctors in the Think Tank, the game may crash as the player tries to leave. This bug occurs in hardcore mode when the player has a hunger greater than zero. If this is the case, turning hardcore off temporarily may allow to continue bug free to the end. [verified]
- Xbox 360 When speaking with Dr. Klein at the end of the add-on, some dialogue may repeat when the other brains are trying to keep the player alive. [verified]
- Xbox 360 If the Forbidden Zone is entered without first killing the robo-scorpions outside, upon exiting, all of the robo-scorpions will be gone. [verified]
- PCPlaystation 3 While entering the Forbidden Zone, the X-42 giant robo-scorpion may not attack unless it is approached. This will remain the case even when attacking the X-42 giant robo-scorpion. [verified]
- PCPlaystation 3Xbox 360 When the brain is asked if it wants to be reunited with the Courier, choosing the compromise option, the second choice, 'So, what, you'd rather just stay here? Never leaving that tank of.. whatever that stuff is?', will result in a never-ending loop of the brain talking about the quests. This only seems to happen if the player has completed Come Fly With Me and That Lucky Old Sun. If this happens, reload the autosave where the player entered Mobius' room and pick alternate dialogue options. [verified]
- An easy fix on the PC is to open the developer's console and enter closeallmenus. This closes out of the conversation for the player to try again.
- PCPlaystation 3 If certain choices are made in dialogue, it is impossible to reason with Mobius and killing him becomes the only option, even if the correct skill checks are completed. [verified]
- A possible fix for this bug involves a repair check to fix Mobius' monitor, which can re-initiate the dialogue path needed to avoid killing Mobius.
- Playstation 3Xbox 360 When the protectrons inside the Forbidden Zone dome are activated, a seemingly unlimited number of them may keep attacking the X-42, creating an effective distraction when attempting to destroy the X-42 giant robo-scorpion. [verified]
GalleryEdit
Bypass the X-42 giant robo-scorpion
Deal with Mobius
Showdown with the think tanks
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Fallout: New Vegas - Old World Blues Review
Page 1 of 2
With Chris Avellone back in the writer's chair, it was pretty much expected that the brand-new Fallout: New Vegas DLC, Old World Blues, would sport a more adventurous design than Honest Hearts, and perhaps even the survival-horror experiment that was Dead Money. The end result, though, is perhaps even a little overboard for what most fans of the series could have expected - it's equal parts Planescape: Torment in terms of morbid absurdity, and 1950s cheeseball sci-fi film. Despite the odd combination, though, Old World Blues is the strongest DLC for New Vegas yet. The real question isn't so much 'should you get it', but what it represents for the Fallout
franchise, and for its fans. Like all previous DLCs, Old World Blues begins with the Courier receiving a radio invitation, this time to a midnight screening of an old film, drive-in style. Upon arriving for the event, however, it's pretty clear that things aren't all they seem, with a crashed satellite projecting a strange image on-screen. Like clockwork, the Courier loses consciousness, and, after the opening title crawl, finds him or herself clad in a hospital gown, surgical scars still healing, overlooking an unfamiliar industrial wasteland from above. That wasteland, the Big Empty, or more correctly, Big Mountain, is an ancient pre-War science complex, home to all sorts of lost technology, housed in forgotten laboratories.
It doesn't take long for the residents of Big Mountain, old scientists whose brains have been preserved in robotic exoskeletons, to make themselves known. Housed in the Think Tank, a massive dome structure at the centre of the Big Empty, the unsettling brain-bots, led by one Dr. Klein, are tenuous allies, making it clear that, in a world ruled by the fleshless, a mere human has little status. To add injury to insult, the Courier's brain, heart and spine have been removed, replaced with a set of mechanical replacements. The Think Tank use these brainless human shells as caretakers and guardians, but it seems that the Courier is the first one who has maintained any sort of intelligence post-surgery. During introductions, Dr. Mobius, a rogue brain-bot who has sealed himself away from the others, interrupts and begins taunting the Think Tank, setting up the villain for the majority of the story.
What begins as scientific fascination for the brain-bots slowly turns into partnership, as they need help in gathering blueprints and schematics from many of the outlying facilities, and the Courier, well.. needing one's brain back is as good a motive as any. From here, the Big Empty opens up for free exploration, with a number of additional side-quests becoming apparent upon speaking to several of the Think Tank's curious inhabitants. It's all standard New Vegas fare - travel here, collect this, kill that, but it's all handled with a degree of freshness, creativity and design focus that makes for a more entertaining experience than it sounds, helping to dress up what are ultimately fairly standard quests. The structure is altogether predictable, with the three main quests eventually converging into a finale, but it all works well given Old World Blues' gameplay, which goes back to open-world exploration and dungeon-delving.
Of course, the usual set of features is offered up, which seem targeted more towards high-level characters. There's the expected level cap increase and new perks to be had, both gained through gameplay and through leveling up, but an assortment of new weaponry ensure that Couriers devoted to Energy Weapons especially will have some exciting new toys to play with. Some of these are just incidental to the environment: Proton Axes provide melee characters an anti-robot option, for instance. Others, like the Sonic Emitter (a gun that weaponises soundwaves), are used to advance the plot and open up new areas to explore. These touches help flesh out the world and give a bit more meaning to the new gear, ensuring you use it even if it's not necessarily as powerful as some of the rest you might have. Meanwhile, the new Robo-Scorpions are about as ludicrous and ineffective in combat as they sound, but some of the other enemies, including ancient, skeletal corpses trapped in automated 'trauma suits', put up a fairly serious fight.
The Courier's time at the Big Empty also sees him or her set up with some interesting accommodations. The Sink, a guest room on top of the Think Tank itself, can be spruced up by installing computerised personalities into many of the appliances scattered about, providing both gameplay functions (smelting down coffee mugs into spare parts) as well as a few additional quests. I'm not the type of role-playing fan who feels the need to own a house, but even I felt compelled to finish everything simply because there's both good loot and some entertaining dialogue attached to it. The simple fact is that this wasn't a necessary thing to include in Old World Blues - it's not integral to my enjoyment, and Obsidian could have done well enough without including that bizarre cast of eclectic appliances, but it's yet another extra touch that helps to make Old World Blues feel like more than just another run-of-the-mill, 'three bullet points' DLC. Even the lengthy dialogue sequences with frequent skill checks (which can bring up new quests in some cases), additional locations, the tie-ins to the franchise history and lore, all go beyond what might be expected.
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