Variable Removal is a Railroad radiant quest in Fallout 4. It requires the Sole Survivor to go to a random location and eliminate a courser.
Quick walkthrough
| Railroad radiant quest: Variable Removal | |||||||||||||
| Speak to P.A.M. Accept the mission. | |||||||||||||
| Head to the designated location. Kill the courser. | |||||||||||||
| Report to P.A.M. | |||||||||||||
| Reward: 300 XP 100–300 caps | |||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough
- Eliminate the courser — The Pip-Boy will have been updated with the location of the courser (they are located at random locations throughout the commonwealth). Travel to that location and eliminate the courser.
- Report back to P.A.M. — Return to P.A.M. at the Railroad HQ. She will congratulate the player character for a job well done and give them bottlecaps or a weapon as a reward.
Possible locations
Quest stages
Notes
- When initiating this quest, P.A.M.'s dialogue will differ depending on whether or not the Institute has been destroyed.
- When the Institute is friendly to the Sole Survivor, killing the courser does not make them hostile, although it is still considered to be a murder and will be registered as such in the crime stats.
- In this case, the courser will have standard dialogue. The fact the courser is non-aggressive makes it possible to (depending on one's perk level) pickpocket or reverse-pickpocket them first.
- When attacking the courser, it will not actually begin fighting back until it has been hit several times, though any nearby synth soldiers will begin attacking immediately.
- It is possible for this quest to point to a location in an installed add-on.
- P.A.M. states that there are three coursers to be removed, and she does not give any more quests after the third courser is killed.
- P.A.M. can send the player to the same location multiple times.
- Once Mass Fusion has been started, P.A.M. will not communicate with the player character, including giving rewards or acknowledging completion of the quest.
Bugs
Sometimes the quest will not be given again once completed, likely due to an error in the radiant quest system.[verified]- If P.A.M. is reprogrammed and brought back to the Prydwen after the completion of Tactical Thinking, the quest will still be given as if you are still a member of the Railroad.[verified]
- One can use the console command setstage 00186c79 300 to fix this.
- The radiant target may sometimes fail to change and can become locked into one location, e.g. only ever having the courser appear at University Point and not at any other location.[verified]
- If the target location is the RobCo Battlezone, the courser may spawn beneath the arena and cannot be reached to complete the quest.[verified]
- It is possible to use the console command MoveToQuestTarget <QuestID> to teleport to the courser and then to P.A.M.
- If the quest sends the player character to ArcJet Systems before Call to Arms has been completed, the courser may spawn behind the wall of junk that blocks your path to the engine core and will be unreachable.[verified]
- On PC, it is possible to use the tcl console command to clip into the area with the courser.
