The robot repair center is a building in the Capital Wasteland, south-southwest of Canterbury Commons.
Background
Before the Great War, the building was a large robot showroom and workshop called "Darren's Discounts". It sold robots at discount prices. The name suggests pre-War people would have traded in their used robots and they would be repaired and sold second hand for a low price. It appears to have specialized in protectrons. In 2277, the building became the base of the Mechanist.
Layout
Building
The building is divided into an office area, the Mechanist's forge (this can be accessed by picking a hard lock which will allow the player to reach the forge without fighting) and two repair sectors, sector A and sector B. Each sector is defended by leveled robots, ranging from protectrons up to sentry bots and a leveled automated turret.
Located opposite one of the turret arrays, on a high platform, is a security console, which allows the player to trigger an "emergency pulse" (essentially a massive EMP blast) which will destroy any and all robots nearby. In order to use this pulse, the encryption key must be looted from the nearby (easy) locked safe.
There is an elevator near the entrance which can be lockpicked with a skill of 75 or above, allowing entrance to the Mechanist's forge. Otherwise, the facility is broken up into four sections: Office (left of entrance), two maintenance areas (sector A and B, which are connected by a control room on the upper level) and the forge (an upstairs area used by the Mechanist as a secret lair). Sector B is closest to the entrance, connected to the lobby by a metal door past the elevator, and the forge entrance is on the upper level of sector A.
Mechanist's Forge
To gain access to the Mechanist's office, go to the Mechanist's Forge entrance at the south-west corner of the second floor. Go through the door to find yourself in an office that contains, among other items, a coffee brewer. Activate this, and a rusty corrugated metal wall slides away revealing an intricate secret door which opens in an elaborate style.
Enclave
After the quest Waters of Life, a small Enclave outpost will appear just south of this position guarded by one Enclave officer and four turrets. The officer holds a key card that if held by the player, will stop the turrets from targeting him or her. There is a terminal in the center of the outpost that has information on why the camp is there.
Notable loot
- Nikola Tesla and You book on the workshop floor in the west room just north of the door to the Mechanist's forge. It is near a conveyor belt. It is on a counter next to a toolbox and hidden by a wrench.
- Lying, Congressional Style in a room in the Mechanist's forge accessed by the second story catwalks. The room is in the southwest corner of the area. It is on top of a desk.
- Two oversized pieces of scrap metal in the west room on the counter.
- Some 20 pieces of scrap metal can be found throughout, including ones in the robots and all the containers.
- A locked metal box (average) in the room to the left of the entrance (in the last cubicle on the left side) contains 6 pulse grenades. A nearby terminal will point you towards the hidden key.
- A single Nuka-grenade in the workbench where the Mechanist stands in the Mechanist's forge.
Notes
- The area in front of the repair center is a 'Type A' random encounter location.
- The Mechanist is not here until the player has arrived in Canterbury Commons and watched the confrontation scene.
- The Mechanist's Forge can be used as player housing, and has a "free bed", a workbench and storage.
- There is a rigged toilet trap set with microfusion cells in the bathroom of the office area.
- The emergency pulse will not damage Sergeant RL-3 if he is with the player.
- Repair sector B contains several protectrons in their base pods on the top level. Most of them are non-functioning and fall over upon opening their pods, but the ones that are still functioning are friendly and have received firmware programming to proceed down to the lobby and stand on pads, awaiting customer collection.
- In the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Old World Blues, the Securitron de-construction plant's layout is a copy of the robot repair center.
- The deactivated Protectron in the corner of the Mechanist's forge will activate and attack if the Mechanist is challenged to violence.
- Regardless of the player's character's sex, dressing in the AntAgonizer's costume will cause the Mechanist to open dialog and turn hostile.
- It is possible to keep a large number of the robots alive inside the repair center, if you rush through all the robots and turrets, you can deactivate most of them, by hacking the computer and deactivating the security, this a good opportunity to look at different types of robots and their behavior. However, the first robot at the front of the center will regardlessly continue to attack on sight.
Appearances
The robot repair center appears only in Fallout 3.
Behind the scenes
- The Snake mentioned in the note from Frank on the desk terminal might be a reference to Solid Snake from the Metal Gear Solid series, as he is said to have smuggled some pulse grenades into the repair center undetected.
- The door to the Mechanist's forge opens as the doors close at the end of each episode of "Get Smart".
Bugs
Closing the secret door using the door gear while standing in the middle of the doorway will cause the player to be stuck inside. One way to get out is to reload the game. Another way out is to go into third person mode and swirl the camera around. This allows you to sometimes reach the button, in the same way you loot Colonel Autumn when he 'dies' at Project Purity. [verified]- Sometimes when leaving the Mechanists' forge through the room with the coffee machine your follower will fall through the floor and get stuck on the conveyor belt. This can be fixed by leaving the factory. [verified]
- The key that opens the locked box of pulse grenades may not appear. [verified]
Gallery
