Hard Luck Blues Hard Luck Blues is a in " " . Detailed walkthrough . Go to the NCR Sharecropper Farms and speak to Morgan Blake . If she is not tending crops on the farm , she may be in the sharecropper barracks . She says that crops are faring poorly , and thinks there may be something in the water . Blake will ask you to investigate the East pump station to find the source of the contamination . Agreeing to help her begins the quest . Another way to begin the quest is by directly going to the main terminal below the overseer ' s office of Vault 34 and reading the SOS entry . Travel east along the pipe to the East pump station . Enter the larger building ( the door marked " East Pump Station " rather than " East Cistern " ) and activate the terminal on the desk . It has a damaged network connection which must be restored ( 50 Science skill required ) before it will activate properly . Once the terminal has been repaired and activated , read the message marked " Warning " . The message tells you about a problem the pumping station is having with radiation contaminating the pipes . If you have not already visited the farms and received this quest , reading this message will cause it to start . Before proceeding to Vault 34 it is wise to make adequate preparations . The Vault is saturated with radiation ; large amounts of Rad - X and will be necessary . There is an Average locked safe with about a dozen Rad - X and RadAway inside the vault clinic . Note that you will frequently be taking a minimum of + 1 RAD / sec even with high radiation resistance as Rad Resistance is capped at 85 % . The Vault is full of feral ghouls with high health and strong melee , and the corridors are badly constricted . Some areas are underwater . High DT armor , preferably with Rad Resist , is strongly recommended . New enemies will frequently spawn or otherwise appear behind the Courier from areas already traversed . Head east towards the Vault 34 map marker . Right before the main cave entrance lies a truck with many radioactive barrels surrounded by a group of s . The Vault 34 cave has two entrances - the second is at the summit of the bluffs . Unlike most cave entrances , the summit entrance is situated vertically , slightly recessed into the rockface . This entrance is labelled simply as " Enter Cave " . This short , circuitous cave has a few golden geckos and minor loot . Deep within the cave lies Vault 34 ' s open Vault door . The Vault population has been transformed into s , and the security officers have become s . Vault 34 had severe problems with overpopulation , compounded by an overstocked armory . To access ( and loot ) the armory , the Vault 34 security terminal , the Vault 34 utility terminal , and the Overseer ' s terminal must be accessed . If you have insufficient Science skill to hack the Very Hard terminals , the first two passwords can be found on glowing one corpses ( Vault technicians ) that lay underwater , trapped beneath desks , in two separate but nearby locations . Both locations have stairs that go down into radioactive water , and each location is marked with a stream of water falling from the ceiling . Neither location needs to be drained to loot the glowing one technicians for the passwords ( security terminal password and utility terminal password ) . The rebreather is very useful here . The overseer ' s door is unlocked through the terminal in the security room . To access the security room , activate the terminal in the Utility Room , located next to the entrance to the armory , and select Activate Pump to drain the flooded level . The clinic ( first door before the Overseer ' s room ) has an Average wall safe containing eleven Rad - X and eight RadAway . You will need these supplies as there is a lot of radiation in the next rooms . Exiting the Utility Room , the Security Room lies to the right ; this door is underwater and inaccessible until the pump is activated . Past this door lies the terminal to unlock the overseer ' s room . Head back to the Overseer ' s door , and kill the Overseer waiting inside . The Overseer is a boss - type creature , with very high health . As soon as the door to his room is opened , the Overseer will engage , together with two Vault - Tec turrets in his room . The door to the small corridor leading up to the Overseer ' s Office will close momentarily . At least two hostile ghouls will spawn behind it and engage the player from behind . Space is very tight and companions will likely obstruct the player ' s maneuverability . The Overseer ' s pathing sometimes gets caught momentarily on his platform , affording the player a few seconds to unload freely . Note that like all turrets , the Vault - Tec turrets explode when destroyed ; they should be the player ' s first target as they do a great deal of damage across their field of fire encompassing the entire room , and the explosion from destroying them will also damage the Overseer . The terminal at the back of the Overseer ' s Office accepts the password he drops to unlock the armory door . The armory has lots of useful equipment . Several suits of Vault 34 security armor and helmets , a , , many , a , an assault carbine , the All - American , a Marksman carbine , a , a riot shotgun , a , missiles , 2 s , a few C - 4 plastic explosive s , and the ( inside a very hard locked chest , can be opened with a key found in Pearl ' s barracks ) . Descend beneath the Overseer ' s desk to the Reactor room . Past the dripping corridors , there is a room with half - flooded stairs . In the back , to the left of the stairs , there is a large , red - and - gray mainframe terminal . The terminal gives some vague information about opening a reactor door , closing the exterior vents and rerouting vault control . Reading the SOS message makes the alternative quest ending available as well as starting the quest if you have skipped the above steps . Open the reactor door - it is just to the left of the terminal that unlocks it . There are two vault technicians transformed into glowing ones in the room . Kill them and access the computer terminal in the room ( key to unlock this terminal can be found on the overseer ' s body ) . It presents the final choice as to how to end the quest . Human vault dwellers are trapped in the ( unreachable ) underwater side of the vault . Either disable the reactor , removing the radiation contaminating the NCR Sharecropper Farms , or reroute control of the computer system to the Vault dwellers . Enter the command first through the terminal in the reactor room , then backtrack to the mainframe terminal in the previous room to confirm the command . After one of two resolutions is chosen , no further commands can be entered through the terminal . Neither decision gives you Karma , but if you choose to help the Sharecroppers you will get a faction boost with New California Republic and 100 XP . If you choose to help the dwellers , you will earn 150 XP . The rescued Vault 34 dwellers , led by Horowitz , will travel to the Aerotech Office Park east of Camp McCarran , taking up residence at Suite 300 . It takes them about a day or two to make their way there after being freed by the player . Dialogue with Horowitz offers the option to request a " Vault Trinket " but normally no item is added to the player ' s inventory . Occasionally a food sanitizer may be added to the player ' s inventory when this option is selected . Behind the scenes . " Hard Luck Blues " is a blues song first recorded in 1950 by blues / soul artist Roy Brown , for whom it achieved a No . 1 on the R & B chart . The lyrics speak of a vagrant with a life very similar to that of the Lone Wanderer .