Finishing up in Malden was easy.
There were only 6 more ghouls in the vicinity in the neighboring buildings.
The only places I avoided were Malden middle school, because that place had nothing that interested me, the subway because it creeps me out, and the hospital because I just didn't want to...
Even the vault under the school had nothing memorable to get in there from what I could recall.
I killed a few ghouls in the police station. Again nothing of value. That was the place where one of the Eddie Winter tapes could be found in game but I didnt find it.
'I guess that's a ripple effect of turning Eddie Winter in.' I mused to myself.
The only other place of interest for me in Malden was the Slocum Joe HQ, where I acquired a recipe for BuzzBites. Which was this world's equivalent of donut holes.
Useless but I collected it anyway cuz why not?
With Malden cleared of exactly 20 ghouls, I left back to Taffington to rest.
My quest completed and I hit level 29 with half my XP filled for the next level.
I took the [Nuclear Physicist] perk and put the special point into STR to increase my carry weight.
The next day I rolled up my sleeping bag and made my way towards Skylanes Flight 1981.
I ran into a pack of feral dogs on my way but they were easy to kill. The stopping power of Fuckbringer is no joke. One quick use of VATS and 6 dogs went down before they could encircle me.
The wreckage of Skylanes Flight 1981 occurred the day the bombs dropped.
The force of the blast caused the plane to crash, taking a section of highway down with it.
The plane was in pieces and both wings had separated but the engines on the wings looked mostly intact.
There seems to have been some scavengers that picked through the wreckage before me.
I wasn't sure if I was now going to be able to get everything I needed here.
I jumped up to the top of the left wing of the plane. As I got closer to the engine, I started getting a small rad spike.
'Shit, the isotope containment casing cracked.'
I started rooting around the engine for usuable parts and easily ignored the incoming rads.
My rad regen was higher than the rads I was soaking up so there was no danger to me.
After stripping the usuable parts from that engine I hopped over to the other wing and repeated the process.
I was able to get some parts that were in good condition such as one fusion igniter, two diffusers, one air intake receptacle and a bunch of copper wire.
Much of the rest was useless. But now I was at an impasse. I didnt get everything I needed. I was only able to scavenge enough from this plane to almost complete the one main thruster.
As for the VTT, vertical takeoff thrusters, I planned to scrap Mr. Gutsy robots and take the thrusters off of them.
Which wasnt hard since I already had a few in storage.
*ding*
"Hm. The system updated my quest? That's convenient." I smiled as I looked at the optional markers I now had.
[Side Quest- Raid Skylanes Flight 1981 for parts to build your aircraft. Reward:4000xp, 2000 caps.]>[Optional: Optional: Loot the crashed vertibird in Concord. Optional: Loot the crashed Stingway Deluxe south of Covenant. Optional: Loot ArcJet Systems]
The system gave me a few other choices in the area.
"The closest would be the Stingray, and then the Vertibird followed by ArcJet Systems... ArcJet seems like the better place than wasting my time on more wreckages. But then again it never hurts to check right?"
The last thing I did before leaving the plane wreckage was to strip section of the aluminum alloy that the hull of the plane was made out of.
I cut sections and rolled up and put them in my inventory.
They were pretty lightweight but I noticed my carry weight was now at 266/325.
'I really need some more robots to carry my stuff. But I have had so much to do, I've barely had time to assemble more.'
Getting robots that can do my work for me was on my list of things to do but the opportunity hasn't presented itself.
'But if I remember correctly then my manpower issues might be solved soon.'
I left the plane wreckage and made my way south, doing my best to avoid encounters with wasteland creatures to save time even though I wouldn't mind the XP.
I'm also not cocky enough to think I am invincible right now and It is best to avoid danger when possible.
I followed the marker on my map until I reached another highway that was crumbling.
I looked up and saw the tail section of the crashed plane I was looking for.
Getting up there was easy since I had the Marsupial mutation. A few well placed jumps and I managed to reach the broken section of highway where the plane was.
The plane I was looking at was surprisingly intact.
It looked like it got knocked out of the sky and crashed here, killing the pilot on impact.
But the plane held up and I could tell the damage to the inside was minimal.
The Stingray Deluxe is a small turbojet aircraft with a braced wing design and a V-tail.
The single-seater military fighter jet was coincidentally made by ArcJet. So I held hope that even if I couldn't get everything I needed off this thing then ArkJet definitely will have it.
I opened the cockpit and found a skeleton inside wearing a pilot's outfit.
I lifted the skeleton and threw it out and then climbed inside.
The instruments were mostly intact, so I scavenged as much as I could. I then started dismantling the engine with a smile on my face.
I spend three hours ripping the plane apart and when all was said and done, I was nearly fully encumbered.
"Shit. Need to stop at the vault and offload before heading to ArcJet."
The sun was getting low, so I decided to put it off until morning. I slept inside what remained of the fighter jet and then left when the sun came up.
In the morning, before leaving the area, I walked over to a nearby building. This was a place called Watts Consumer Electronics.
I remembered this place had several robots that were deactivated.
As I enter Wattz, the first floor was filled with shelves and few deactivated robots.
My grin couldn't be wider as I now remembered there were many robots here for me to take.
As I walked through aisles grabbing all the valuable junk items, I counted two protectrons and a mr. Handy.
The basement had several more robots as well as a holotape with a Protectron Override Program.
This was a valuable holotape that I didnt have even though I had the magazine in my vault.
With this holotape I can take control of any protectron as long as I can touch them.
My robotics expert perk allows me to instantly hack just by using my touch.
At the Advanced rank of the perk, I can shut them down or make them self destruct, instantly. Inciting them or taking command over them right now would require me to manually hack the code so it would take time.
If I can get to Master rank, I could take control of any robot with just my touch.
But with this holotape, any Protectron I touch can instantly become mine.
I scoured the place for loot and then activated the robots at the terminal.
When they activated, they were still using military protocols since the programmer that worked in this place quit before making them suitable for domestic use.
Which is fortunate for me since I want the protectrons to remain capable of fighting.
The robots were initially hostile but I was able to hack the Protectrons before they could engage me and shut down just the mr. Handys.
The robots were still in very good condition even after 50 years and I couldn't be happier at this score.
The protectrons are already mine thanks to the override program, the handys on the other hand needed to be manually disconnected from the Wattz terminal and reprogrammed to see me as their owner.
This took several hours of mental effort, sorting through code and altering certain protocols so I can use them as I intended.
By the time I had finished it was already 3pm, so the robots and I departed. I had the robots go on thier own but I uploaded the coordinates for ArkJet so they could meet me there.
My destination now is Concord to see if the crashed vertibird on the Museum of Freedom has anything useful.
I no longer saw a need to stop at the vault to offload my inventory. I had a gang of bots now and will have even more soon.