Quick Links
- You'll Know It When It Happens Main Mission
- Meet Ranger Grant
- Investigate The Area (Optional)
- Disarm The Bomb
- Kill The Assassin Sniper
During your walkthrough of the story mode in Fallout: New Vegas, you will come across many main and minor factions, and you will have a choice to choose between them. Siding with one faction will mean you have to work for them in their battle against other factions.
There will be missions where you will be required to protect your faction or work undercover as a spy to cause harm to the other faction. One such main quest is You'll Know It When It Happens, which you will find a complete walkthrough of in this guide.
You'll Know It When It Happens Main Mission
This main mission will be available for you when you have sided with the New California Republic (NCR) faction and have a good reputation with them. The objective of the quest is to protect the president of NCR faction Kimball, as he visits Hoover Dam to give a speech to his people.
There is a piece of news spreading around that the president might be in danger in Hoover Dam as the Legion's faction assassins are planning to kill the president on his visit. Ranger Grant of the NCR puts you on duty to protect the life of President Kimball at all costs. Siding with NCR and protecting the president will increase your reputation in the faction.
If you want to go rogue and side with Ceaser's Legion faction, you can use this opportunity to kill President Kimball and get on good terms with the Legion faction.
Meet Ranger Grant
Head to the Hoover Dam on the eastern edge of Mojave Wasteland and enter the NCR base. Go inside the Visitor's Center and speak to the NCR officer Ranger Grant.
On your arrival, you will see Ranger Grant instructing the soldiers on the preparations that need to be done for President Kimball's safety during his visit.
After the short briefing, talk to Ranger Grant by going behind the counter he's standing in front. You can ask him questions regarding the gun permits or the schedule of the president's visit, but the response that you will get will depend on your reputation with NCR. If you have a good history with them, Ranger Grant will grant you access to open arms in the area and allow you to move freely in critical locations. If there are trust issues with the faction, he will not allow you to carry weapons in the center and restrict your access to these locations.
Once done with the questions, Ranger Grant will tell you to rest for the night and meet him in the morning. Next morning, he will inform you that the president will arrive shortly and advise you to look around for any suspicious activities and meet him at the Observation Desk after.
Investigate The Area (Optional)
After talking to Ranger Grant, you can investigate the areas for clues or go to him if you want the quest to be over quickly.
If you choose the former, head upstairs to find an engineer named Allison Valentine. She will tell you that her engineer friend, Ben, has gone missing for a while now. Go back downstairs and enter the Supply Closet, where you will find blood on the ground. Examine the blood stain (requires Perception 6) to learn that an engineer was killed here with a wrench. It will confirm that one of the Legion's assassins is disguised as an NCR engineer and is on the loose.
You can also hack into the terminal in the Visitors Center (requires Science 50) and get some information out of it. Select Security Duty Roster in the terminal program to learn about the possible sniper in position to attack the president in one of the lookout towers.
With all the information gathered on the possible attacks that might happen on President Kimball during his speech, go to Ranger Grant through the double doors upstairs and talk to him. President Kimball will arrive on the Bear Force One helicopter, which will land on the helipad on top of the Visitor's Center.
Disarm The Bomb
Once the president has arrived at Hoover Dam on his helicopter, it is now time for you to act.
You will need to head to the helipad on top of the Visitor's Center. If you have permission from Ranger Grant, you can go past the guard without him stopping you. If you don't have permission, the security guard will stop you. But you can convince the guard (Speech 50) to let you go on the helipad. The third way to go to the helipad is by going through the Visitor's Center.
If you arrive at the helipad on time, you will see an engineer placing a bomb on the helicopter. You can hide behind the engineer and pick-pocket him to get the Redundant Failsafe Detonator without him knowing. You can also wait for him to leave and examine the Vertibird for a bomb (requires Repair 50 or Explosive 50).
With the detonator or the bomb in hand, report to Ranger Grant and give the item to him. He will take President Kimball to safety and call off the speech. It will complete the main mission, and you will get the rewards.
However, if you decide not to report Ranger Grant about the findings, the quest will continue as it was. The disguised engineer and the assassin sniper will still be on the loose.
Kill The Assassin Sniper
On the helipad, head towards the edge and look at the sniper lookout tower straight ahead. You will notice a second NRC soldier come on top of the tower and push the first soldier from the tower. The second soldier is the assassin sniper on a mission to kill the president.
There are two ways you can deal with the sniper. You can use a ranged weapon and snipe him from the helipad. Or you can head to the lookout tower where he's standing and talk to him.
You will have to go to the tower without getting seen by the NRC soldiers if you don't have the permit from Ranger Grant.
Once you get close to the tower, you will see the dead body of the first soldier on the ground. Climb the ladder and talk to the assassin.
Ask the assassin about the dead soldier downstairs, and he will tell you to go down with him to check the body. Pick the option to report about the dead soldier on the radio, but he will not listen to you. After the second time, the assassin will get hostile and attack you. Kill the assassin to get rid of the threat.
Again, you can report to Ranger Grant using the radio on the tower, and the quest will be over. If you don't tell Ranger Grant about the Legion's assassin sniper and continue the quest, President Kimball will finish his speech and leave without getting attacked.
The quest will be over, and you will get 1,000 XP NCR Fame as a reward for keeping the president safe. You will also unlock the You'll Know It When It Happens trophy for completing the quest.
You can also take out the disguised engineer by picking him out of the audience and shooting at him or by talking to him, but there is no need for it. He will not know about the situation and think everything is going according to plan.
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