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When you're ready for the assault on the Military Base, keep in mind you can ask a few paladins from the Brotherhood to assist for extra (hehe) support.

The Military Base is one of your final objectives of the game. It can be done before or after the Cathedral, it makes no difference since you have two main quests really form one goal: to end the mutant threats. Since the Master and the Cathedral is perhaps a more dramatic ending, I'll leave that for last, though it isn't any more difficult than the Base, and actually can be quite a bit easier depending on how you approach it. Yet, by now you've got the most powerful weapons and armor (if you've followed the walkthrough) and are definitely ready for a base assault.

One thing I'd like you to keep in mind is that there is a less obvious approach to infiltrating the base, ala Splinter Cell and other stealth games. It requires that you wear the purple robes you may have gotten from either the Children of the Cathedral hospital in The Hub Merchant area, or from the Cathedral itself. For details, I'll leave that to other walkthroughs, but suffice it to say you wear your robes most of the time, take the radio off the courtyard guard, read this walkthrough for at least some advice and it should unfold for you. With that approach, prey you are good at persuasion and/or sneaking.


Military Base Areas

• Entrance: the first place you enter. The courtyard, where you attempt to make it past the guards and inside
• Stronghold Level 1: the 1st level of the base, with shielded areas and several super mutants
• Stronghold Level 2: the 2nd level of the base, the same but with more mutants
• Vats Level 1: super mutants, shielded areas and traps
• Vats Level 2: super mutants, Lieutenant, CoC members and the control room

Military Base Quests

Here is a list of the significant quests in the Military Base, each with a brief synopsis containing at least one way to solve it. The remaining ways, and possibly other minor quests I will leave up to you.

Gain Entrance:

If it wasn't obvious before, I'll make it so now. The less obvious approach is to use a radio if you have one in the courtyard area and trick the mutants into leaving the area. For this you'll get 1500xp, but three of them will leave. The other approach is a frontal assault. On the main entrance guard, check his remains for a holodisc with the appropriate entrance code and another radio. Take it if you do not yet have one, as it can come in handy inside.

You can also lockpick the door with a high skill, or a set of electronic lockpicks to help.

Learn to Disable the Shields:

You'll want to kill everything you can in each level of the base, as your escape will be timed and you won't want that to be jeapordized.

The first order of business is to learn to turn the shields on and off. The northeastern most computer on the east side nestled in a group of several computers is the one you'll want to head toward. You can walk through Red force fields while taking some damage each time, but you must disable the yellow fields. Make your way to the computer that's not called a Mach IV, and you'll have a couple options. You may continue to use it over and over until you hack into it. This is because you play Blackjack with it and are somehow able to get in via a backdoor. Optionally, you can use your science on it until it says that they are disabled, though I did not notice any difference. Finally, you may use your radio on it to jury rig a remote control to turn the yellow force fields on and off. Afterward, put your radio in an active slot and simply use it to toggle them.

Now that that is over with...

Make Your Way to the Lieutenant & Initiate Self-Destruct:

Level 1, apart from the computer and the shields, is fairly self-explanatory. Kill anything that moves, loot their bodies, disable the yellow fields, and make your way down via the elevators. On level 3 (Vats Level 1), there is a large room with several traps which your character may be able to circumvent via careful walking. Also on that level, take the southwestern elevator to level 4 (Vats Level 2) as the other one across the large room to the east is in disrepair.

Once you've made it to the Vats Level 2, you'll find a robot named Mr. Handy on the southwestern side. You can use Repair and Science on it to get it to run into the doors to the control room for 1000xp. On the east side of this level is the Lieutenant, the biggest baddest super mutant of them all, though he goes down just like the rest of them with only slightly more hp. He may attempt to talk to you and enter conversation, and if he does, ask for the location of Vault 13. If you tell him, sit back and relax to one of the endings. However, for the good ending, kill him and his two goons armed to the teeth. When they're gone, take the key from the nearby locked locker. It can come in handy for a method of beating the game later at the Cathedral.

Is everything clear except for the control room? Well, head on up to the northwestern room of the Vats Level 2. If you talk to any of the CoC fanatics, they will explode (good for a chuckle). Now use your Science skill on the control computer in the north side of the room to learn some of the control codes. Then use the computer and "initiate 3 minute silent self-destruct sequence". On my game, if you weren't able to hack the codes, it was 31914-1041-1251514, the fourth one down from the top. Now exit the way you came, and you'll be treated to a nice FMV, and the ending, if you've already taken care of the Cathedral. Major congratulations, regardless.