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About this mod
Creates the option to reach the Institute without going through all the preliminary quests.
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This mod allows you to - you guessed it - take a shortcut during the main quest. More specifically, it allows you to reach the Institute on your own. Possibly right after exiting the Vault if you can tackle high-level enemies. Technical details will be listed at the end (if you want to skip my rambling) and obviously contain spoilers so bail out if you haven't finished at least the first two acts of the game.
My reasons for creating this are twofold and both are going back to some aspects of Fallout 3 and New Vegas:
Firstly, I loved New Vegas for its companions, you really could have had the feeling you could develop a relationship with them and you valued them because you could lose them. Some of the Fallout 4's companions too have really nice personalities but the do NOT feel like your comrades in a dangerous post-apocalyptic world because nothing can ever happen to them (unless they are synths and members of a fanatical order at the same time and such :-D ). And while it's not hard to create or download a mod that makes them mortal, the fact that some of them are related to the main quest-line can have consequences the game will not handle as some quests will not start properly if they are dead. Shortly, the first purpose of this mod is to allow the player advance in the game (at least to a certain point) even if companions like Nick, Piper or Dogmeat are already dead. However, the mod itself does NOT make them mortal. You need Mortal Companions or a similar mod for that.
Secondly, when playing Fallout 3 for the first time, you would leave the vault, go to Megaton, go to GNR, go to Rivet City, go to Jefferson Memorial and go save dad from Tranquility Lane. However, when playing Fallout 3 for the 198th time, you could... Well, you could go straight to dad, if you didn't want to play the previous quests for the 198th time. I feel this is even a bigger issue with Fallout 4 because all the beginnings feel almost the same. After leaving Vault 101, you could at least go in multiple directions. After leaving Vault 111, which is essentially exactly in the top left corner on the map, you have almost no choice what direction to take - you will go more or lest south-east. Not to mention that huge parts of the game are actually locked away until you reach the Institute (or at least kill Kellogg).
My first priority was keeping the mod clean and compatible. I wanted to touch as few cells and vanilla quests as possible, so that nothing in the game breaks and it is compatible with other mods. BE WARNED THOUGH! I am more than sure there will be some little inconsistencies and maybe some big ones (which haven't fixed yet).
As for COMPATIBILITY, this mod currently only edits the Public Works Maintenance Area cell (ID: InstituteTunnel01) and makes little changes to a few main quest related quests. Any mod that edits the Public Works Maintenance Area cell or any of the main quests has the potential to cause issues (loading this mod AFTER them in your load order should minimize the risks, though). The game should mostly handle if this mod's quest edits are overridden but it will cause issues and inconsistencies.
I used the obvious way: Public Works Maintenance Area - the way to reach the Institute during the Minutemen version of the "The Nuclear Option" quest. You just need to get to the Public Works Maintenance Area, you will find a "feral" ghoul in an Institute outfit there. Kill him and take the note he's carrying - this will start the new "Public Works Maintenance" quest. From there you can activate the keypad on the wall to open the grate blocking the way to the pipe that leads deeper into the interior. It think the quest objectives are pretty self-explanatory so you will know exactly what to do.
After entering the code to the keypad, your current main quest-line progress will be checked and one of the following scenarios will happen:
Finally, potential warnings:
My reasons for creating this are twofold and both are going back to some aspects of Fallout 3 and New Vegas:
Firstly, I loved New Vegas for its companions, you really could have had the feeling you could develop a relationship with them and you valued them because you could lose them. Some of the Fallout 4's companions too have really nice personalities but the do NOT feel like your comrades in a dangerous post-apocalyptic world because nothing can ever happen to them (unless they are synths and members of a fanatical order at the same time and such :-D ). And while it's not hard to create or download a mod that makes them mortal, the fact that some of them are related to the main quest-line can have consequences the game will not handle as some quests will not start properly if they are dead. Shortly, the first purpose of this mod is to allow the player advance in the game (at least to a certain point) even if companions like Nick, Piper or Dogmeat are already dead. However, the mod itself does NOT make them mortal. You need Mortal Companions or a similar mod for that.
Secondly, when playing Fallout 3 for the first time, you would leave the vault, go to Megaton, go to GNR, go to Rivet City, go to Jefferson Memorial and go save dad from Tranquility Lane. However, when playing Fallout 3 for the 198th time, you could... Well, you could go straight to dad, if you didn't want to play the previous quests for the 198th time. I feel this is even a bigger issue with Fallout 4 because all the beginnings feel almost the same. After leaving Vault 101, you could at least go in multiple directions. After leaving Vault 111, which is essentially exactly in the top left corner on the map, you have almost no choice what direction to take - you will go more or lest south-east. Not to mention that huge parts of the game are actually locked away until you reach the Institute (or at least kill Kellogg).
My first priority was keeping the mod clean and compatible. I wanted to touch as few cells and vanilla quests as possible, so that nothing in the game breaks and it is compatible with other mods. BE WARNED THOUGH! I am more than sure there will be some little inconsistencies and maybe some big ones (which haven't fixed yet).
As for COMPATIBILITY, this mod currently only edits the Public Works Maintenance Area cell (ID: InstituteTunnel01) and makes little changes to a few main quest related quests. Any mod that edits the Public Works Maintenance Area cell or any of the main quests has the potential to cause issues (loading this mod AFTER them in your load order should minimize the risks, though). The game should mostly handle if this mod's quest edits are overridden but it will cause issues and inconsistencies.
So time fore the big question. HOW to get into the Institute on your own?
I used the obvious way: Public Works Maintenance Area - the way to reach the Institute during the Minutemen version of the "The Nuclear Option" quest. You just need to get to the Public Works Maintenance Area, you will find a "feral" ghoul in an Institute outfit there. Kill him and take the note he's carrying - this will start the new "Public Works Maintenance" quest. From there you can activate the keypad on the wall to open the grate blocking the way to the pipe that leads deeper into the interior. It think the quest objectives are pretty self-explanatory so you will know exactly what to do.
- To activate the keypad you need the code, which is in the chest behind the terminal security gate (or Sturges can tell you the code during The Nuclear Option - in that case the "Public Works Maintenance" quest is mostly redundant but will proceed normally because it needs to undo some changes I did to the cell so that The Nuclear Option can hopefully proceed).
- To access the terminal, you must either hack its Expert protection, or use the "PWM Terminal Password" found in the nearby toolbox.
- To open the toolbox, you must either unlock its Expert lock, or use the "PWM Toolbox Key" which is held by a random boss enemy in a random dungeon.
After entering the code to the keypad, your current main quest-line progress will be checked and one of the following scenarios will happen:
- IF you have already killed Kellogg and finished the "Reunions" quest, the grate will open and you can navigate your way through Public Works Maintenance Area to the pipe leading to the Institute.
- IF Kellogg is still alive and the "Reunions" quest didn't start yet, the way you came will close (it will open again once you finish the quest), Kellogg will reveal his presence and taunt you via intercom just like in Fort Hagen and the "Reunions" quest will start, the grate will open and you can navigate your way through Public Works Maintenance Area to the pipe leading to the institute. The access to the pipe will be locked, you must first deal with Kellogg, kill him and access his terminal - this will finish the "Reunions" quest, unlock and open the access to the pipe and a nearby ham radio will play the Prydwen introduction announcement. Kellogg's death and Brotherhood's arrival are expected to have happened before reaching the Institute and I think this workaround works relatively OK given the Public Works Maintenance Area's environment. The player is also expected to have faced a courser so I changed one of the synth workers in the loop scene to a female Courser - conveniently enough, it uses a female voice in the scene so you can consider it a vanilla bug-fix. :-D And yes, I do realize that there other things player is expected to have done before reaching the Institute but like I said, at this point this mod's purpose is not to address every single one of them.
- IF Kellogg is still alive and the "Reunions" quest has already started. The grate will not open and you are told to follow the Kellogg lead. This is a fail-safe option, too many things can go wrong if you started and progressed the quest the normal way so the access is blocked during this stage in the main quest-line. You can return after killing Kellogg and finishing Reunions, the grate should open then.
Finally, potential warnings:
- If you want to side with the Railroad, you MUST complete "Tradecraft" and become an agent BEFORE reaching the Institute. If "Road to Freedom" or "Tradecraft" are still running when reaching the Institute, they will fail and the Railroad members will refuse to deal with you.
- You can bring companions to the Institute via PWM. Just make sure they are firiendly (or not :-D ).