2 silly questions

[Celicni]

Hi, I've got 2 questions that are making me feel...well...stupid...
1)How do I enter the carlson estate? I do not mean about the guard, I passed him, but I can't enter the house cause I see no door (and it's positioned in SUCH A BAD WAY that I can't see the front of it).
2)Is gauss rifle a small guns weapon, and if so, where do I get it easily (and also can it make aimed shots cause wiki didn't include that).
Bonus: Sniper rifle vs gauss?
Edit: Fallout 2, though I guess it's to be obvious seeing as I said carlson estate.

 

[J_Fred]

Not silly questions. I'm assuming you don't mind spoilers.

1. There are a few options. First, you can go in guns blazing by "repairing" the force field emitter, which allows you access. (This will also, in a very round about way, net you an M72 Gauss Rifle... so 2 birds 1 stone there). But it's quite difficult. Secondly, you can steal a pass from Gunther (guy in the tux across the road), and just walk right in. Finally you can talk to Merk after you get Dr. Henry's papers for him, and he'll get you a job interview for $50.

2. The m72 Gauss rifle can be purchased in San Francisco, looted from the corpse of any NCR guard or Shi guard in San Fran that has the weapon, or from cave robbers in random encounters at high levels. Either option is quite pricey (or at least resource/time intensive), even in the non updated FO2. I honestly think it's easier to just buy it straight out in SanFran. You can in fact make aimed shots with this weapon, so long as you don't have "Fast Shot" as a trait. The Gauss Rifle is an end-game sniper rifle. It has the same range, the ammo penetrates more armor (nearly anything), and is more accurate to boot. The only reason to use the Sniper is if you don't have any 2mm EC ammo for the M72 and/or don't have a good energy weapon as a back up (recommended anyway).


Hope this helps.

 

[Celicni]

About 1. I said I already entered past the guard, but here's the part that makes me feel stupid: I don't know how to enter the house. It's faced in a bad angle and I can't see any doors to enter.

 

[Yamu]

Yeah, the design was a bit rubbish on that one, or the engine limitations were, anyway. The door is set just about where you'd expect it to be, right in the middle of the front of the house in the wall that's hardest to see or interact with. I suspect they were aware of the problem and positioned the two guards there to act as a marker, but that doesn't do much good when you can stand there scrabbling at the wall like a fool forever and not find it unless you're lucky. I normally end up feeling around for it with the pointer in examine mode, just like one usually had to do for the side door to the Skum Pitt in Junktown in the first game. Here, courtesy of The Vault wiki, is a picture of the presidential mansion on proper display, which should help out a bit:



I don't often have reason to pay a visit to Carlson since most of my characters run to the squeaky-clean side of the karma scale (or at least too clean to go that far down the Bishop questline), but if I remember correctly, his kid will often be playing around out in the courtyard and you can send him in to tell his dad you're there, upon which he'll handily open the door for you and it's just a matter of you running in after him (though be quick, as I can't remember whether it's one of those doors that automatically closes itself).

As to Gauss weaponry, it is all classified under small guns, and it is truly, truly top-shelf. Incredible stopping power, devastating crits, low AP costs... The sniper rifle isn't anywhere near the same league, nor are any other small guns with the possible exception of the H&K G11e (if burst fire is your thing). The only downsides are their rarity (and cost!) and the scarcity of their ammo. As J_Fred says, they're end-game guns, generally unavailable in static locations until you reach San Francisco, though if you're really good at surviving concentrated fire and you don't care about committing the odd mass murder here or there they can be looted from certain NCR guards.

I know you said this is your first playthrough... I'm not going to assume you're as slow as I was (it took me over 20 games to spot this), but just in case you're not sure what J_Fred is talking about when he mentions the high-level cave robbers: Most of the time when you get a random encounter on a map that has a cave mouth in the middle of a cliff face, you can actually enter the cave (though there's no visible exit grid) and it will be filled with random baddies. Most commonly it's typical wasteland fauna, but they can also contain bandits or even deathclaws. Around level 20, the bandits will pretty reliably have access to gauss guns when you run across them, though it's usually only 1 or two of them per cave.

 

[Celicni]

Thanks, you're a life saver I gotta encounter some of those bandits there, cause I always just skipped random encounters (one thing that's weird to me though was when I ran into "a group of rangers fending off the masters' army"...isn't the master dead and his armies gone? And why did the rangers, which I am a part of, start shooting me when I killed all the baddies )
Oh, and I usually go on the...neutral-good side (I'll kill good guys if I can REALLY profit from it but most of the time I'm good), so the part of my "casino massacre" in my previous thread was bishop as well...in fact I didn't like any of those guys so I killed them all including bishop. I have no actual reason to enter that house, I just wanna explore it a bit

 

[J_Fred]

Keep in mind that if you go the high-level bandit route to get the M72, you've got to kill people armed... with M72s. No easy task. Outside of Bounty Hunters and Enclave troops, the Bandits are probably the most dangerous human foes in the game. High HP, AC, Sequence and AP coupled with late game weaponry make for formidable enemies. Though I think the payoff (money, weapons, ammo) is fair for the risk incurred.

The Master created an Army of die-hard adherents for and to his "greater cause." It's not unrealistic to think that certain splinter factions (or a main horde) exist a generation later, especially considering Mutants are biologically immortal... kind of like certain crustaceans (think of a lobster). Their cell regeneration never dwindles. Though Super Mutants can be killed, just not of "natural" causes (a plasma bolt between the eyes isn't natural, apparently). On top of this, Mariposa is still enterable and serviceable even after the Vault Dweller destroys it, IIRC (someone more knowledgeable in the lore feel free to correct me).

As to the ranger aggro behaviors. It is more than likely you either hit them accidentally or they accidentally hit you. For some reason the enemy/npc AI doesn't take into account accidents... which is quite hypocritical as they are so prone to such inclinations themselves. This will cause them to immediately flag you as a threat, and behave as such.

I kill Bishop in almost every playthrough. Though I make sure Westin knows it, so I can get cash on top of the satisfaction of knowing Bishop's rotting corpse is drifting in his own personal swimming pool. Plus, I sleep with his wife and daughter as well, if I have the charm for it. Too bad a super charismatic person can't convince them to tag team the hero, though that's just pouring salt in the wound by adding incest to death I guess. But I digress...

I wish there were more questions like this on these forums. I love discussing lore and play through styles.

 

[lujo]

Hi, I've got 2 questions that are making me feel...well...stupid...
1)How do I enter the carlson estate? I do not mean about the guard, I passed him, but I can't enter the house cause I see no door (and it's positioned in SUCH A BAD WAY that I can't see the front of it).

The door is between the guards, one of those stupidly placed ones where you're clicking on empty air when you see a "hand".

2)Is gauss rifle a small guns weapon, and if so, where do I get it easily (and also can it make aimed shots cause wiki didn't include that).
Bonus: Sniper rifle vs gauss?

Gauss rifle is small guns, and you can't get it anywhere easily, because it kind of has 0 downsides. Well, techincally, buying it is pretty easy, by the time you find a shop where you can buy it you should be rolling in cash, so that's pretty easy. You can't find a free one lying on the ground or in a locker though. There's a reason for that, kinda.

It's sort of a generic "best at everything" gun, range, damage, AP, penetration, it's all either no questions best or just as good as the best. The only thing it doesn't do is AoE. Pro's of sniper rifle compared to it are... none, in effect, besides more acessible ammo, and the fact that there are a million free one's around the map. Pro's of anything compared to it are also kinda none even most stuff that isn't small guns. If you can make aimed shots it'll kill pretty much anything at max range, if you can't it means you took fast shot, and then you take bonus rate of fire and it just takes more clicks/ammo to kill anything at any range w it. It's basically the designated "boring invinvincible gun" of Fallout 2.