Ranger station Foxtrot

Ranger station Foxtrot is a Ranger outpost in the Mojave Wasteland.

Background
Located directly north of the Red Rock Canyon, nestled at the foot of a radio mast in a dead-end mountainous gulch. Although the station is only accessible from Highway 157, it is used to monitor the activities of the Great Khans. The small outpost itself is reasonably well-run, however the remoteness and tedium around the camp have led to a higher than average scotch consumption rate. With scotch bottles being left around camp.

Location
This outpost is only accessible by following Nevada State Route 157 up the Spring Mountain range. The trail that leads from the road is directly east of the Silver Peak Mine, from there it leads south. The camp itself is nestled in the dead-end gulch.

Layout
The camp has one tent, set up at the foot of the radio mast, with a campfire in front of it, surrounded by sleeping bags and bedrolls. A reloading bench is set against the tent wall outside. Rangers in need can use the outhouse in the back.

Inhabitants

 * Ranger Kudlow (commanding officer)
 * Comm Officer Lenk
 * 2 regular patrol Rangers

Notable loot

 * Duck and Cover!: On the table with the radio, right hand side.

Bugs

 * A collision blocker is placed on the mountain wall above the station. It is possible to become trapped if the player walks to the station from Remnant's Bunker over the mountain top. Fast travelling is impossible, as the player is in mid air, necessitating loading the save game.

Behind the scenes

 * There was clearly going to be something far bigger here than what ended up in the finished game. Behind the main tent there is in fact a hatch that leads to an underground base. This is present in the finished game, but disabled so the player can never go in there, nor even see it was there to begin with. Inside the fairly sizeable base is just a series of dorm rooms for the soldiers, and low level loot such as ammo, etc. While nothing terribly exciting is present here, it is clear quite some effort has been put into making it look lived in and believable. The Form ID for the hatch is 10C1FA. If enabled, it appears behind the tent, towards the outhouse.
 * There's also a trigger in the underground base's ceiling that doesn't do terribly much, but talks about being a test trigger for the quest here. Looking at the leftovers in RSFoxtrotQuestSCRIPT this seems to have been part of the original implementation of the quest 'Return To Sender'. Its dummied code suggests the original implementation was a colossal mess with separate quests used to mark the progress made at each Ranger station which would then update the main quest once they were all completed. There's also a similarly named quest called "RSFoxtrotQuestTestSCRIPT" that simply resets/starts the Return to Sender quest so the next stage can be tested inside this area. It seems originally the player had to access computers at each location, when in the final game you have to talk to the comm officers at each camp. Presumably the computer terminal that had to be reached for the quest was originally located in here (there is indeed one in the right hand side of the building).


 * There are three cut characters here, Private Biggs, Private Harcourt and Ranger Chauncey. There are only player lines left to talk to the first two of these characters that are not part of any quest (but do indicate they were originally part of a deleted quest named VFreeformRSFoxtrot) Biggs thinks Harcourt is a jinx and will give the player something (caps?) to kill her in order to hopefully make the rest of the squad safer. Private Harcourt could be flirted with via the line "I think a man would be very lucky indeed to catch you." This is also somewhat interesting if this is indeed the case, as the final game's characters at this location are indeed all female.
 * VFreeformRSFoxtrotPrivateBiggsTopic000 to VFreeformRSFoxtrotPrivateBiggsTopic012
 * VFreeformRSFoxtrotPrivateHarcourtTopic000 to VFreeformRSFoxtrotPrivateHarcourtTopic013


 * Chauncey is a unique super mutant Ranger who was seemingly cut early on and has no dialogue at all. According to J.E. Sawyer he was present due to the proximity to Jacobstown (presumably he came from there) and was meant to have a comically undersized human helmet on his giant mutant head. Interestingly neither Harcourt nor Biggs have actual models in game, yet Chauncey actually does (FoxtrotSuperMutantRanger). However, Chauncey has no dialogue and is, to all intents and purposes, just another super mutant.
 * VMSRSFoxtrotLogNote is a cut note that was originally intended to end the Foxtrot part of the quest 'Return to Sender'. In the final game you simply talk to Ranger Kudrow. The note also suggests there WAS a major incident where NCR soldiers died due to a skirmish with the Great Khans, but of course no deathclaws were involved! It does however suggest the Khans used dogs, so possibly this is why the message was cut - in the final game there's zero evidence they use any animals in their dealings. Quest Stage 10 of VMSRSGlobalCommBreakdown shows the original messy way this quest was handled, with each station having its own separate quest that would feedback to the main quest.

Appearances
Ranger station Foxtrot appears only in Fallout: New Vegas.