Okay, so I'm trying to Help Vault City out by taking care of their Raider problem (Originally so I could get the quest from the First Citizen to talk to Westin, so I had an excuse to get close to him to kill him for the Bishops. Since I inadvertently became a Made Man for the Wrights, now it's just to be a do-gooder).

The only problem is...I don't know where the damn Cave they're coming from is. I've wandered all over between Broken Hills and Vault City, fought tons of Raider Random Encounters on the off chance one might drop a map...no joy. I've got Eight Perception and 50% Outdoorsman, so I don't know why I'm missing it (as I've had it appear in previous playthroughs).

Any assistance (Even where a map might be located) would be appreciated.

according to the Vault wiki it is south-southwest of Vault City
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/The_Nearly_Ultimate_Fallout_2_Guide#Raiders

I've been going south-southwest. It's not showing up. I was hoping there was a map located somewhere in-game (Dialogue from Stark indicates as much) so I wouldn't just be wandering aimlessly around the Wasteland.

Hell, I can't even find a screenshot of the Pipboy Map in order to narrow down the search. It's driving me bonkers.

yes i do believe i remember you needing to find a map in order to get the location. check

A map would be in Bishop's wall safe. Do you have any mods installed?

Damn, I was afraid of that. *Charges up the Pulse Rifle* Time to pay a "social" visit to the Shark Club. I doubt they'll like me now that I'm a Made Man of the Wrights. Well, maybe I'll get lucky and sneak to the top floor with Bishop's daughter again. :hubbahubba:


And the only Mod I have installed is the Restoration Project.

Yeah that might explain it. It think RP keeps the base hidden until you find its whereabouts. In the unmodded version it was there just like any other location, which made the maps obsolete. Good way of doing it, but a little disorienting if you've also played it unmodded.

The Restoration Project makes it impossible to find the Raiders location normally. There are two ways. One is to get the map, and the other is a special occurrence as you leave Vault City at midnight (related to your Outdoorsman, but you can keep trying).

Visit http://numerometria.com/F2RP_WT.htm for more information. It has most things about the RP there too, so it might have spoilers (though they're mostly irrelevant).

Hm, now the choice is do I keep going from where I am or just reload and keep trying the Vault City at Midnight approach?

I got Bishop's daughter to get me onto the top floor, and I got the map from the safe then made a run for the exit to the second floor (Because really, that's kinda cold - offing a girl's father after pleasuring the girl? I'm no Evil Character), and while it's not like Bishop's goon squad can stop me (Me in Advanced Power Amor Mark II, Cassidy in Power Armor, K-9, and Skynet), I'd rather not waste the ammo.

Well you can try your luck with the outdoorsman check, or you can try your luck at a sneak check right past Bishop. As you probably guessed, sneaking works alot differently with the original engine and mechanics. If you want to try and sneak, hug the north side of the main room behind the chairs. Ooor, if you want to use 'Cheese' you can use the A combat repeat trick, though I have a feeling this might be fixed in the RP.

Walk up to one hex away from Bishop's door (make sure it's open). Enter combat mode. Run/walk as far as you can towards the stairs. When you leave combat, you should be well out of Bishop's dialogue range. You might see it as cheating, but that's life for you. One combat round is enough, and it works with the RP.

Nah, I decided against it. I remember Sneak not being worth the skill points from when I first played Fallout 2 in College, so I just reloaded the save file and headed back to Vault City. First night I attempted it, I got access to the Raiders. One short conversation with Shadow Who Walks later, and now I've got free run of the Caverns. No wasted ammo and no chance for mishaps (I hate losing companions. Especially after Vic and Sulik bought it to a Morton Brother's Light Infantry Weapon and Goris was killed by Super Mutants in Mariposa).

Well that's the beauty of sneak, you don't need to invest points in it for a one time reload fest I do enjoy kicking those raiders hard though.

Eh, I always play the Nice Guy Goodie Goodie, so resolving conflicts without bloodshed is always my first choice. Though now with that taken care of, I'm quickly running out of quests to do. I may end up having to rescue my stupid tribesmen from the Enclave in not too long. But first I think I'll stop by Mariposa and take out that Super Mutant Magician on Level 4. Get some revenge for Goris, and hopefully this time K-9 doesn't just stand there watching while his Deathclaw pets rip me to pieces.

I do enjoy the standoff with Melchoir, though for years I haven't been able to get him to do his spiel, not matter if my game is patched, unpatched, modded or what, he always just says "stop" and no matter what I do he acts as if I came too close and combat begins. I know it's not much, but I do miss it

I swear, Melchior is bugged. I've had Sulik just stand there like a muppet (armed with a Mega Power Fist) while I got savaged by the Deathclaws. Other times he went charging towards the utterly harmless Melchior, while I got savaged by Deathclaws. On hard difficulty this means that I get about eight Deathclaw attack rounds for my every one. Even with Power Armor, that's pretty fatal.

Then I throw in my next strategy. Use my NPCs to block the little bottleneck leading up to Melchior, then shoot him. Melchior still attacks, but the Deathclaws (and later the other critters) just stand in front of him. And my NPCs don't do anything either. So I snipe the Deathclaws, and then after I kill a few I end up with accuracy ratings of about -150 (I think it might have something to do with the corpses).

I'd enjoy that fight more if it was actually functional.

I think alot of it is down to the bottleneck, usually when NPCs get blocked it messes with their scripting, and sometimes they don't reassess and just stand there. The bottleneck is a good way to break up the hoard though, I wouldn't go as far as to pre-block with one of my party members, as given the bugs it seems more of an exploit than it should be. Maybe someone could put a word to Killap about it for his next RP update. I also encountered a major scripting issue in a random encounter. Inside the cave were a load of bandits, I'm talking loads. And the loot they were guarding was a very healthy amount of caps, plus loot from the kills, alot of .44s shotguns etc, stocked with ammo to spare, problem is they never brought them out to fight, infact most were happily content just standing there whilst I filled them with bullets turn after turn, or attacking me with fists over their more than capable firepower. So yeah, there are definitely a few NPC blunders that could be addressed.

Yeah, that second encounter didn't go down so well either. Cassidy helped out at least, but Skynet and K-9 just stood there and watched in mute testimony while I got dragged beneath that mass of Deathclaws and ripped open like canned goods.

Ungrateful robots!

Also I think the Deathclaws are stronger then normal. Using the YK42B Pulse Rifle, I can usually reduce a Deathclaw to ash in two turns, if that. I got three solid whacks in the 30-50 damage range, and the thing only registered as "Wounded". Not "Severely Wounded" or "Almost Dead", just "Wounded". After three turns, I was too busy getting knocked down by the swarm to fire off any shots.

They are more powerful. They're equivalent to "Tough Deathclaws", and have 310 health. Not sure about DR and damage. All of Melchior's pets are the more powerful versions (the Floaters are Nasty Floaters, but I don't think I've ever seen the more powerful Mole Rats anywhere else).

Oh, he summons more then just Deathclaws? He manages to call out four Deathclaws before I ice him.

Oh yeah he summons all manner of vicious beasties, you could say the F.E.V has toughened them up somewhat. Though out of everything the deathclaws have to be the worst, the critical chance ratio of a deathclaw is insulting to say the least As for their DR, I'd say it's something close to Combat Armour MkII or Brotherhood Armour, I know it's definitely better than normal Combat armour at least. Sustaining only 8(?) damage from a Ryder LE. Whereas normal Ryder LE vs Combat Armour amounts to 12 damage, so draw your own conclusions. Whichever way you look at it, you're coming out bleeding no matter what you're wearing

Times like this I wish I still had my Melchior save just to go and see. I have the one right after I killed him, but none from before.

EDIT:
They have a DT of 10 and DR of 50. Which is better then any combat armor. About equivalent to a normal suit of Power Armor, more or less.