Broken Hills is a town inhabited by humans, Super Mutants, and Ghouls in Fallout 2.
Background[edit]
Led by its sheriff Marcus, who founded the town with their friend Jacob.[1] The Broken Hills mine is the center of its economy.[1] The mine is worked by the town's super mutant population and the operational refinery operated by ghouls. If uranium ore is purchased from a caravan, the refinery will produce refined uranium in return. The town is powered by a small reactor that runs off of uranium slugs.
The uranium trade runs to the NCR and Vault City as well as herding brahmin across the wastes. Other communities trade valuable medical supplies and money for uranium ore. Ever since the mine's air purifier broke down, uranium production has halted, leading to an economic crisis in Broken Hills.
Location[edit]
Broken Hills can be found twenty squares east and fifteen squares south of Arroyo.
Layout[edit]
Random encounters in the Broken Hills area feature Unity patrols of humans, ghouls, and mutants which are friendly to player characters with positive karma.
| Broken Hills mine | ||
|---|---|---|
| ↑ | ||
| Broken Hills Downtown | → | Broken Hills Residential |
| ↓ | ||
| Broken Hills underground |
Downtown[edit]
Ghouls operate the uranium plant which is located downtown. Marcus can be found in front of the jail, and player characters in need of work can visit the caravan office, operated by Bill. Liz runs the general store in town.
Residential[edit]
The residential area houses ghouls and super mutants, as well as one scientist, his chess-playing radscorpion, and a talking spore plant.
Mine[edit]
The Broken Hills uranium mine is worked by the town's super mutant population.
Underground[edit]
Francis tells the Chosen One that they have seen people here and to investigate, starting the quest Find the missing people for Marcus.
Inhabitants[edit]
Notes[edit]
Uranium ore can be obtained either from a wandering merchant in a random encounter in the Broken hills area or from the hidden cave to the right of the entrance just inside the uranium mine.
Vault City travel log[edit]
- Broken Hills: A mining community to the south of Vault City that mines uranium ore. The ore is traded to Vault City in exchange for medical supplies, mostly Rad-X and RadAway. Humans are believed to be forced to live with mutants and ghouls within the town. Due to the nature of the inhabitants and the high probability of contamination, Vault Citizens should avoid Broken Hills at ALL costs!
- Population: No current census, but believed to be in the hundreds of residents.
- Government: Rumor has it a MUTANT serves as the First Citizen of this community. This is extremely unlikely, as most mutants are incapable of higher reasoning. If this rumor IS true, it is another reason to avoid Broken Hills altogether.
- Background radiation count: Current readings are unavailable. Believed high.
- Mutation rate: Believed high. Broken Hills most likely has a high rate of degenerative mutations.”— Vault City travel log
Appearances[edit]
Broken Hills appears in Fallout 2 and is mentioned by Marcus in Fallout: New Vegas.
Behind the Scenes[edit]
- Broken Hills is a real world location, Broken Hills, Nevada, a ghost town with a gold and silver mine of the same name.
- Dan Spitzley, Nick Kesting, John Deiley, and Colin McComb are all credited with working on Broken Hills.[Pub 1]
Bugs[edit]
- Access to the normally inaccessible section of the map on the westernmost edge is possible, on the square adjacent to the fence on one side and the red exit grid on the other. By clicking on the other side of the fence, the Chosen One will walk offscreen, and come back on the other side of the fence. There are footlockers in this new area containing the town's store's inventories.
- If explosives are armed with an extended wait period and placed into the first footlocker, returning to speak with a shopkeeper will result in that individual now having lit explosives in their inventory.
- Even if Jacob is in jail, his inventory in the new room will still restock.
- Refrain from saving, reloading or changing from one zone to another while the armed explosives are waiting to go off, as this can cause crashes.
- An infinite money exploit exists at the uranium refinery behind the caravan office. Bring uranium ore to the glowing white ghoul. If the player character agrees to have the ore refined for $1000, which takes one in-game day, the ghoul will ask to buy it back for $1500. At the dialogue screen where the ghoul buys the refined ore, repeat the conversation to sell repetitively, using the relevant number keys to speed the process.
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chosen One: "Who are you?"
Marcus: "I’m Marcus. Helped build the place. Now I’m sheriff."
Chosen One: "You helped build this place? That must have been a long time ago…"
Marcus: "Long story. Want it short or the whole thing?"
Chosen One: "Hell, I’m not too busy. Let’s hear it all."
Marcus: "Right...After the Master and the vats were destroyed, I wandered a bit. No place to go. One day got attacked by this fool wearin’ power armor."
Chosen One: "Really?"
Marcus: "That was Jacob, from the Brotherhood of Steel. He’d sworn some oath to destroy muties. We tussled for a while – probably a day or two. After a while, we just started laughing. What was the point?"
Chosen One: "Then what?"
Marcus: "We became friends. Headed off together. Then other people started following us. Guess they figured if they weren’t safe with a mutie and a Steel Knight, safe just wasn’t going to happen."
Chosen One: "So you set up here. Why?"
Marcus: "Uranium mine. I knew there was one around from old maps. Now anybody’s welcome here – ‘long as they act right. Others might not think much of us, but nobody’s more free than we are. There ya go."
(Marcus' dialogue)
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