The Powder Gangers is a dead end. If you join them it is either an early grave, or hatred by everyone (bye bye Vegas!) Ever wanted to live the life of a raider. Forever hated, lacking food, warmth, and sanity? Always alone? Well join the Powder Gangers. Not only are they the lowest level of raider, they get [censored] over the fastest. Sure, the powder gangers have a few quests, assassinate this guy, shoot that guy, get some information for me. 3 quests!

"yippee! This might take me places in game! Maybe they will lead me to the legion!" I couldn't be more wrong. Around the 3rd mission, you have to find out information from Primm seeing if the NCR is going to take over the powder gangers base. Oh [censored] siege warfare by the looks of it, this should be fun. No, if your this far betray the Powder Ganger [censored]ers. The NCR blows some dynamite on the walls, and come storming in. Shooting you, and everyone around you with automatic weapons. One thing you will notice is that the powder gangers are falling like skittles from a rainbow, but the fact that your 1-5 level ass is no match for NCR. Time to run!

Guess what now numb nuts! YOUR A [censored] BANDIT NOW! Towns hate you, the NCR hates you, so travel will be all [censored] up. Not to mention that legion openly shoots holes into anyone, especially Powder Gangers. Go to Nipton if you don't believe me, they got a special cross for you. You are the reject of the wasteland, hope your survival, medicine, repair, and survival is up to par, enjoy your horrible life.

Now don't take this as the game has a hole in it, even though this quest line was disappointing, it made sense. The Powder Gangers didn't stand a chance, and when I start my character over, I'm going to try to make my way straight to the legion if I can, even if I have to do some NCR dirty work.

lol i was going to ask how do you even join them until i read this...does seem like it would be fun for an actual raider playthrough though..

anyway how do you actually go about joining them..after i meet joe cobb if i take a walk to the prison i just get mobbed by the jerks and if i set up the ambush in primm for the caravan guy and dont fire a single shot i at the very least get shunned by the Powder gangers.

thus attacked on site.

Yeah I was hoping that the Powder Gangers could've put a good word forward on my behalf for the big league badasses (Khans, Vegas families, maybe even the Legion - even a minor rep incerase or just a recognition 'Yeah I heard you gave those NCR wimps a beating at NCRCF..." would've been nice) but you don't really benefit at all for pissing off NCR.

It's not impossible to kill the NCR tho, they're all pretty bunched up at the hole so I just tossed some dynamite there and they were pretty beat up after that.

For anyone who just did this, all's not lost, especially if you don't want to side with NCR later. The ranger they send after you won't incur extra rep penalty if you kill her, and her stuff is pretty nice early on. If you can kill her, that is, I had to pump myself full of chems to manage it. Might be wise to hang around near Legion bases when the time's up if you wanna kill her off.

Hmm I did the Powder Gangers quests and people don't hate me. I'm shunned from the NCR due to killing a bunch of them (I want to side with the Legion on this playthrough anyway) but that's it. HMM?

Well there's Cooke. I don't know if you get anything else as far as Powder Gangers go, but it's a possibility.

Also, I think in that quest, you only get NCR infamy if you fight them. Fact is, they can't win. I did the quest twice, once for each side, and both times something like 10 Powder Gangers were inside the cell blocks but wouldn't engage the NCR troops until you went inside. If you do, the NCR is outnumbered something like 4 to 1.

Even if they do push through, they still have to kill Eddie and that means fighting the bodyguards, Scrambler and ultimately dying to Eddie's plasma pistol.

Basically, you can side with the Power Gangers and just stay away. Eddie even states so when the attack starts. When the attack starts, if you side with the NCR, it's implied that they're outnumbered and not confident in their chances of winning the battle.

However, assuming there's no more quests from them after NCRCF, it's pretty pointless to help them. I did with my first character and I was unable to talk to Boone, had to wear NCR armor to get past crazy fanatics (most of the time they're not troopers either) and was hated by half of the settlements in the Mojave desert. That's not worth a small weekly supply of dynamite and gun powder. Killing random NCR is fun, sure, but that early in the game can hurt you by limiting what somewhat neutral quests you can acquire. Then again, it gave me a reason to watch some fireworks in Helios One.

Also, it's pretty clearly stated at the beginning of the game (likely after NCRCF though) that the Legion wants the Powder Gangers eliminated. They hate everyone.

And as far as Raider goes - that's the Legion. A new kind of raider, one far more brutal, but also more educated than the enemies he faces. If you want to be hated by everyone, you can just make a chain of betrayal (Goodsprings -> Powder Gangers -> NCR and so on).

i am a BAMF in with the Legion, Luxe and Bomers....all i need to survive