Obtained by Elijah at Little Yangtze during his investigation of the Big MT, these collars are more advanced then the more commonly seen slave collar due to Elijah's adjustments. He altered and improved them during his stay in the Big MT, so now they can be detonated remotely through a special radio frequency, as well as being programmed to detonate should other slave collars go inactive (due to the wearers death). Because of these added features, Elijah finds the collars a perfect tool to get unsuspecting wanderers of the wastes to aid him in his efforts to break into the Sierra Madre vault.
Providing a Damage Threshold of 3, this special collar was developed in the Big MT. It can be remotely detonated by Elijah should the wearer try to disobey his order, or attempt to escape the Sierra Madre. Being far from perfect, the collar can be accidentally set off by certain radio frequencies. This makes it a dangerous thing to wear around any of the casino's decayed, yet still active, radios or speakers. Coming within 8 yards of a radio or 12 yards of a speaker will start a 10-second countdown; if the player does not leave the radius or disable the radio or speaker within that time the collar explodes, the player will die instantly. If the player has Christine Royce as a companion, the countdown is extended to 15 seconds.
An additional feature of the collar, installed or activated by Elijah when it became clear that groups tended to fail because of fighting among themselves, is a dead man's switch function. This will detonate all collars within a specified group should one of those members die or be killed. The signal can, however, be blocked by Saturnite alloys.
When going into third person view, the collar may not be visible at all.
Even after the completion of the DLC, and the collar has been taken off, your character will still have the collar effect script (Proven by spawning one of the three companions in Dead Money into the wasteland and killing them).
Despite the radio signals presenting a time limit before the collar explodes, when in close proximity, it is possible to sleep in a bed for many hours while the collar is beeping.
Even with the use of inventory editors, reducing the quality of the Dead Money collar to 0 will only remove the item from the players inventory. The player can still be blown up if he or she stays around a radio too long.
If you can't find the radio source, throw a frag grenade into the general area it is suspected to be in. Table radios in particular are very sensitive to blast and easily destroyed.
Red speakers cannot be destroyed, so pass them as soon as possible.
Sometimes the "frequency range" is too wide to pass, maybe there is an alternate route to take or there is a terminal you can use to shut them down.
Some red speakers have switches and can be turned off.
Upon hearing unusual sound in the area, look for the radio emitters first.
Radios don't have to be turned off. They can be destroyed by a single bullet or grenade blast.
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