Talk:I Fought the Law

Military orders
You can bypass speaking to the locals at all by pickpocketing "Military Orders" from Hayes, similarly if you do this prior to taking I fought the law the option to find out what's going on will be listed as incomplete, however returning to Eddie with the orders will still be accepted so it has no bearing on gameplay (just a visual glitch where the box isn't checked off). I will rewrite this article later as it's pretty messy. Mictlantecuhtli 22:44, October 26, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for saying that, there was some jackass primm resident that got killed somehow and I couldn't get around the "talk to residents" crap. I pp the orders and BLAM checkmark in the box, time to go tell eddie ;)

The bug.
It says in the article under the bug sections that not killing the Powder Gangers in the cell blocks might be the cause of Mr. New Vegas and the ending epilogue not recognizing the NCRCF was retaken, however I meticilously killed everyone in each cell block before I joined the NCR in the administration building, as well as the visitor's centre and all the towers.

I also killed everyone in the administration including Eddie, the doctor and Scrambler with the assistance of the NCR, I then reported to the Sgt. who was still alive along with all the other troops, got a complete in my quest log and everything; the NCR even remain in the NCRCF, they sleep there and idle there now. Eating and sitting on the chairs and everything.

However Mr. New Vegas still says the NCRCF retake was a failiure on the radio, unfortunately very bugged. Has anyone successfully gotten the ending epilogue where it says it was retaken as well as confirmation from Mr. New Vegas on the radio?85.167.61.147 00:24, October 29, 2010 (UTC)
 * I got cozy with the powder gangers and then used the silenced .22 to kill everyone but Eddie (I only became hated with the powder gangers because my kills were not detected), when the NCR raided the place everyone was already dead except for him. Mr. New Vegas believes Primm Slim is sheriff of Primm (though Meyers actually is), but I haven't heard him report on the prison a single time. Mictlantecuhtli 16:05, October 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * Sigh it really is bugged, I made Primm Slim sheriff, and Mr. New Vegas refuses to aknowledge it. Seems the game is intent on reporting exactly the opposite of what you do.85.167.61.147 00:24, October 29, 201

Did any of you clear prison block A and B?Ragedaoneanlonely 19:27, October 31, 2010 (UTC)
 * Like I said in my original edit, yeah I killed everyone in cell block a and b, as well as everyone in the towers. I triple checked the whole site including interiors and there was no one left alive, still Mr. New Vegas says the retake failed. Sgt. Lee was alive and I reported back to him, in fact no NCR NPCs got killed at all, they cleaned house, and now they live and patrol in there, one of them even sits at the warden's desc on top on Eddies corpse all day. I dunno', really bugged quest.85.167.61.147 05:18, November 5, 2010 (UTC)

im usually pretty good at figuring out how to get around bugs but this one has me stumped. i killed everything in cell block A and B, all the sniper towers, and everything in the administrative building except eddie. no matter how i go about it, mr new vegas says i failed.

i even took the quest from ncr in primm, went to ncrcf and killed eddie before meeting the sgt, which results in an instant quest complete when you talk to the sgt to start the raid... still fail on the radio.

for one last extreme measure, just to see if it would give me ncr success, i reported back to eddie and when the ncr came in i put on an ncr armor so they wernt hostile and let them kill eddie. they all hang out in the place like they own it now.... Mr. New Vegas says "ncr fails to retake the ncrcf"....

im considering just killing eddie and failing the quest because it really annoys me to hear the incorrect junk on the radio.

--

i just deleted what i wrote here because it doesnt work. someone on another forum said if you do the powder gangers first before any other quests you can get proper credit, but it doesnt work, i tried it and it still reports as failed on the radio.

after thinking about it, im fairly sure the person was thinking about the issues with Eddie being hostile and getting the quests, not the fact it reports as failed on the radio and game ending even though you succeeded, and your quest log shows succeeded.

anyways im just leaving the quest at the point where i have to make the choice between Eddie or the NCR and moving on with the game, its obviously terribly bugged and rigged.

the whole thing really is rigged badly. even if you help cobb take over goodsprings the powder gangers that are all over the road between goodsprings and the prison are still hostile, still attack you, and you get bad reputation just for defending yourself.

this has to be the worst implemented faction in the entire game. the whole NCRCF deal just comes off as if it was implemented in the last minute before release and noone bothered to play test it.
 * It seems that NCR taking over the prison wasn't even implemented: http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/254858-request-ncr-prison-bug-fix/page__p__2311008#entry2311008
 * Sorry about the poor formatting, I'm new to this. 92.80.153.220 23:18, November 12, 2010 (UTC)

Rewards?
What do you get? I was vilified by the PG, and I support the NCR. I helped goodsprings, so I just couldnt get this quest.
 * Experience and reputation, that's about it. Mictlantecuhtli 11:20, October 30, 2010 (UTC)

I helped Goodsprings and I'm accepted by the NCR, hated by PG, yet wearing Power Ganger Guard armor I could do the quest. Dawes called me out on it being a disguise, but he let me in anyways. Nobody attacked or ran away from me, everyone was calm and normal..? - 216.73.65.98 17:00, November 8, 2010 (UTC)

The loot from the powder gangers is a good bonus though.Ragedaoneanlonely 19:25, October 31, 2010 (UTC)

-- if you turn in to ncr and help them you get 300xp and ncr reputation gains.

if you turn in to eddie you get 200xp, 100 caps, and some various chems. i didnt see any reputation change at all.

considering the quest is bugged and reports ncr failure no matter what you do, i suppose its simply a matter of personal preference.

You don't get reputation in the powdergangers if you report to Eddie, just 300-330 XP, 100 caps, chems and sometimes dynamite and powder if you have a good rep. You don't have to get involved in the fight. You can just walk away. Then, despite what the radio says, if you don't help the powdergangers the NCR will always win the fight very easily. If you want to support the powder gangers with minimal casualties you have to do the hard job yourself because they are very weak, even if you reverse-pickpocket them .308 rifles with piercing ammo. So get a powerful silenced gun (eg an Enhanced sniper rifle) and spend a stealth boy to remain undetected. Then you can dispatch almost all the NCR troopers by yourself and don't lose any reputation in the NCR. Eddie will thank you for your help but again you don't gain any reputation among the powdergangers. As stated above it is just a matter of personal taste. In this case it is best to delay the end of this quest until you get a decent level, 20+. If you don't want to make a choice for the petty 300XP just don't report to Eddie and Both powder gangers and NCR troopers will live happily ever after.--Croquignol 21:46, January 11, 2011 (UTC)

Bugs section
i removed the section saying that not clearing out the barracks could cause it to bug, because its just going to cause people to waste their time in a futile effort.

ive tried multiple times and it doesnt change a thing. ive tried pretty much every scenario possible in the game to get around the bugs, and nothing works.

leaving it there is just misinforming people and wasting their time, period.

i also changed the section about lt. hayes, because if you fast travel back once in a while he will be walking out of town and you can talk to him there, or you may find him just outside of town fighting geckos.

ive done this quest a couple dozen times from earler saves trying to figure a way around the bugs, thats how i know.

Another bug, very common to Obsidian's implementation is that all the stuff in the NCRCF remains property of the Powder Gangers, even though they are all dead. Taking anything will result in negative karma. This happens everywhere in the wasteland, but in this case it is probably tied to the failure to credit NCR with taking the prison. With only 3 game testers from Obsidian and 69 from Bethesda, they had a small army testing New Vegas. Unless they ignored their Q&A reports, they must have known about all the bugs before releasing and did so anyway.
 * What makes you think that’s a bug and not by design? Just because you kill someone doesn’t mean taking their stuff afterward isn’t stealing.  Also seeing as the prison was originally NCR the items contained within are most likely tagged as theirs not the Powder gangers. ReapTheChaos 08:44, May 29, 2011 (UTC)

Bugs section
After playing it though 4 times, I've also given up on making this quest work. Instead I just stealth attack all the Powder Gang camps, raid the admin building's refrigerator & pick Eddie's pocket once or twice each game week. So in the long run the over all pay off is far greater than compleating the quest either way. Who knows, maybe one day they will put out a patch to fix this obviously glitched quest.

Sig Line : That was broke afore I got here ; p 06:42, April 24, 2011 (UTC)

Update
Did the recent update fix the quest or do anything? The update notes said it fixed some RNV broadcasts.

Console fix
is there a console fix for this? I know i had to use a bunch to make fallout 3 work properly.

Missing ending
It seems that there was never radio and cinematic files made for the pro-ncr ending, so the quest has no files to reference, making it impossible to complete the quest for the NCR.

Ending
Accidently slaughtered everyone (LOL) at NCRCF except Eddie, then opted to side with Eddie and not NCR. Reverse pick-pocketed MKII combat armor & helmet and LMG with AP ammo on Eddie. Disguised myself as NCR and then, with followers, blocked 2nd entrance inside Admin Building allowing only 1 or 2 NCR troopers to squeeze past at a time. Worked like a charm...Eddie able to gun down NCR troopers with ease all by his lonesome.

Getting quest from Eddie with hostile Powder Gangers reputation
A Stealth Boy didn't seem to help (as soon as I stood up to talk, Eddie turned hostile), but I did manage to get to him: I snuck to just outside of the left side of the doorway to his room, then stood up and ran straight at him while mashing the action key (via an auto-repeat macro on my G15 keyboard). It's also important to aim high enough to not accidentally grab stuff from the desk. The only problem is that he turns hostile after the conversation and chases you; on my first attempt (not counting the embarrassing one where ED-E was too close to the outside of the admin building and killed Eddie when he came out), he waited outside of the admin building and never gave up looking for me. On my second attempt, he chased me all the way outside of the NCRCF compound before giving up, somehow maiming his leg in the process (stepped on a mine maybe? I don't think I shot at him). Hopefully the bum leg will slow him down when I turn in the quest steps :) --(talk 23:56, 7 January 2012 (UTC)