1) Abducted!

At the beginning of the game we got ourselves the quest “Not of This World” upon exiting Vault 101. It’s finally time to get around to tackling this quest. Head back to Megaton (or Tenpenny Tower, if you reside there) and drop off all your non-essential gear. You’re going to want to travel light so you can carry as much new expansion loot as possible. Once you’re ready, head to the map marker north-west of the Greener Pastures Disposal Site (this is where the Alien Blaster could be found in the original game.) When you approach the crashed Recon Craft Theta, you’ll be beamed up into an alien ship.

2) Probed!

Watch the cutscene and… um… yeah. This is one of the weirder expansions, folks. When you’re done being molested by the Aliens you’ll wake up in a cell, where some lady named Somah will chat with you about your prediciment. At length she’ll suggest a breakout scheme-the oldest trick in the book, in fact. You two are going to fight, and when the Aliens come to break it up you’ll pounce on them-good thing your Unarmed is up to snuff, right? If that’s not the oldest trick in the book, it’s certainly up there.

3) The Oldest Trick in the Book

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Alien Captive Recorded Log #15

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Agree to fight Somah and eventually a pair of Aliens will show up to subdue you. Pummel them to death and take their nifty Shock Batons. Exit the cell and another pair of Aliens will show up-again, they’re not too strong. You can activate some “Release Mechanisms” to gain access to other cells. There’s a Rivet City Security guard who isn’t very helpful, but you can kill them for their armor if you don’t mind losing some karma. In another cell is a dead Enclave Officer, for what that’s worth. Continue to the east to find an oval shaped room and activate the “Controls” to download Alien Captive Recorded Log #15 , Alien Captive Recorded Log #22 , and Alien Captive Recorded Log #14 .

4) Archway of Life

Turn around and explore to the west, going through a circular doorway to find your first “Healing Archway”, which will restore some of your health… provided you’re injured below a certain threshold when you walk through it. You won’t get too many chances to sleep, so those will be the best way of restoring your health without shooting yourself full of Stimpaks.

5) Sabotage For Sally

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Alien Captive Recorded Log #12

Continue west into another room, where you’ll find more “Controls” from which you can download Alien Captive Recorded Log #3 , Alien Captive Recorded Log #1 , and Alien Captive Recorded Log #12 . Head through a doorway to the south, where you’ll find a girl named Sally stuck in her cell. To achieve this goal, she’ll ask you to blow up the generator to the south. Do this by activating the “Control” and three “Core Coolant Switches” will rise up. Activate all three of them and get away from the generator and watch it blow!

6) To the Steamworks

Once the generator is destroyed an alarm will sound. Talk to Sally, who will claim to have seen a good bit of the alien ship. Accept her help and she’ll crawl into a duct along the floor in the room to the north. Somah is pessimistic, but Sally comes through, and her ability to squeeze into small places will prove invaluable throughout this expansion. Continue west to find a door you can’t open yet. Alrighty. Turn south and enter a side-room and dispose of another Alien. Here is where you’ll find your gear, as well as a “Switch” that opens the door in the northern room. Continue through that door and on to the Steamworks.

7) Some Help From Sally

Sally will bid you to wait when you enter this level, as Aliens patrol nearby. After a few moments the danger will pass, and Sally will talk to you again to formulate a plan to deal with the Aliens. After getting your gear back you should be more than a match for the Aliens-but if you want to indulge the story the operative plan is to give Sally a grenade, as she can sneak up behind the Aliens. Your job? Distract them. Sneak up to the Aliens and Sally should come through, dispatching all three of them with one well-placed grenade.

8) Through the Steamworks

Sneak opposite (north from) the now-dead Aliens and turn west. Sally will warn you that more Aliens are coming, and will endeavor to open a door for you. Note that these Aliens are tougher versions than you’ve yet encountered, and as a general rule of thumb-shields are not a good sign. Energy Weapons seem to be the answer, and fortunately they’re abundant.

If you go west down a hallway you’ll reach another small room with a Healing Arch inside. This also bypasses most of the Aliens in the hall… but what fun is that? More importantly, who doesn’t like scoring Alien loot? Kill every Alien you see and search the hallway. Instead of going into detail about each new item you can find around the ship, we might as well just discuss them now… along with some general tips to help get you by.

• Aliens with Shock Batons are about to start being joined by Aliens with distinctive new weapons, namely the Alien Atomizer and the Alien Disintegrator. Once you get your hands on these new weapons, they will serve you very well against your alien oppressors. That or just sneak around and smite them with the Deathclaw Guantlet .
• Look at the walls, as you’ll often find shelves filled with alien junk. Sometimes, however, you’ll find actually useful stuff:
• Alien Epoxy can be used from the “Aid” tab of you Pip-Boy 3000, and like Weapon Repair Kits in Fallout: New Vegas, it’ll improve the condition of your equipped weapons.
• Alien Biogel will heal you (Hit Points +30), but you should use Stimpaks instead, as you’ll soon find a way to upgrade Alien Biogel. Even better, just use Healing Archways.
• Alien Crystals come in large and small sizes… maybe they’re some form of alien currency?
• Alien Power Modules are ammunition for the new weapons you’ll be finding. If you’ve conservative, you can end up with 3000+ by the end of this expansion.
• Use Healing Arches to heal yourself as you take damage. You can modify them to heal more (at the cost of them burning out after several uses), but why give up unlimited, stable healing?

9) Alien Drones

Continue west a short distance to reach a bend in the hallway, then turn north and go through a door to reach a room with a pair of Aliens skulking about, and a container full of goodies. To the north will be a larger, multi-level room crawling with Aliens and a new foe-a Support Drone… which isn’t much of a threat. There are also steam pipes a-belchin’ on the lower level. You can reach the upper levels of this room either by crossing the lower level to the north and taking some stairs up, or from heading up another flight of stairs in the previous room, to the west. There are some side-rooms along the western edge of the upper level that can be looted, but to progress through the level you’ll want to head through a doorway on the northern end of the lower level.

10) There Are No Innocent Aliens

Go through the door and turn east to reach a steamy bridge. On this bridge you’ll find some Alien Workers. They’re harmless, but if they’re spooked they’ll still turn hostile and run around, which is annoying. Sally will advocate on their behalf, and you lose karma if you kill them, but they still tend to end up dead on my game… if for no better reason than get red of the annoying red ticks on the compass. Cross the bridge and go through a doorway to the east. Keep going through another door to the east (passing by a Healing Arch in a cubby to the north).

11) Out of the Steam

Enter another room with steam-spewing machinery in the middle. Head to the eastern side of the room to find some stairs to the upper level, then continue up them to the south, then west (looting a container along the way), before crossing a bridge to the north. Continue through a door to find a room with a lone Alien guard and a Turret. Dispatch them and continue north into another room, through a Healing Arch, down some stairs, and into a tunnel. Turn west to reach a room with several steaming pillars, dispatch some Aliens, and head through a door to the north, turn west, and go up some stairs. Enter a room, kill some Aliens… you know the drill. Sally will pop out, but ignore her. Instead, go through a partially opened door to the west to score two containers, a Healing Arch, and a shelf full of goodies. Cross another steamy bridge to the east until you reach a fork. If you continue east you’ll find some meager loot, so grab it and head south to find… another fork! It’s a phantom fork, though-all that lies to the south is a Turret, so head west and dispatch another Turret and head into a hallway which leads to the Engineering Core.

12) Engineering Core

And so the escape continues. Head up some stairs and go through the door to the right. Near the door leading to the “Decompression Chamber” you’ll find Sally, whose efforts to use a “Teleportation Matrix” leading to the “Observation Deck” have been thwarted. Obviously the aliens don’t like you running around their ship. Fortunately, there’s a plan B.

13) Plan B

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Go through a door to the south to enter into a large room with a door at each cardinal direction. Continue south through another door, as the other doors are inaccessible right now. Welcome to the stasis room. She’ll tell you that you need to get the “space man” to go outside (as in, to outer space), which he can do since he’s wearing a Spacesuit. The quest “Not of This World” ends and “Among the Stars” begins.

Before you wake “the guy in armor” and the “cowboy” up, activate the “Controls” to get Alien Captive Recorded Log #6 , Alien Captive Recorded Log #7 , Alien Captive Recorded Log #8 , and Alien Captive Recorded Log #5 .