Ended up finding my way at the top of quarry junction after finally leaving Goodsprings, having played Caravan till level 4. I jump down without thinking, as I hadn't gone through this area on my first play through.

The Deathclaw Alpha male is serious business.

After changing my underwear, I realized my last quick save was right at the top of the quarry, and my last auto save was way too far back to consider without falling into a keyboard body slam inducing rage. So I thought I'd give it another go.

I inch my way in more carefully, and jump into the big bucket at the far end. My dinky armor piercing rounds didn't even phase him or any of his fellowship. All the noise did manage to attract someone else though... His trophy wife.

While I'm wondering if I'm going to have to just reload anyways, I take a few pot shots at what looks like 'normal' (by normal, I mean by FO3 standard) Deathclaws, and all the sudden the Deathclaw Mother goes berserk, killing everything in sight.

At this point, I'm really wishing that Xfire In-Game worked, so I could catch some video of it. And as I'm watching her move on to the Alpha Male, I jump up on the closest ledge so I can get a better view.

The Lord didn't have mercy on the Courier this play-though. She somehow managed to survive the fall right at their feet. Momma went running for some unexplained reason though. I think I heard the word make-up though... (Ai bug for sure)

He was happy to see me.

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x9/CurnelD/Idied.jpg

I died.

I remember seeing her for the first time, it was very.........interesting.

But are you saying that the DC mother killed all the other deathclaws??

Nice capture. :goodjob:

Most, yes. I'd like to say I helped a bit, but I know my bullets didn't add much.

Ty.

Thats weird, when I was there she was friendly with the rest of the deathclaws, I didn't stay to long after she chased me, nor did I see the alpha male.... (but i have already seen him on the wiki! )

That part was tough i hit Sloan about level 4 or 5 and i figured hey why not so i snapped a quick save and went forth. It did not go well, not even close to plan after about 4 tries to even kill one with my whimpy .357 magnum, i just reloaded, stole some binocs and walked away.

So i come back now that i am level 15 and i have located a .308 sniper rifle, so with my rifle, and my hot binocs i make another run at the bastards. Sneaking my way in i am ripping through melons with well placed sniper rounds thinking well this is going well. Upon stumbling across the Alpha male, it was more like fall off ledge right in front of, change of shorts and a restart later we are back again saving more often this time lol. I did manage to finally kill them all after a few reloads, but yes mama DC was for sure the hardest deathclaw to deal with.

Neat little trick i found though is towards the right side of the quarry there are a few bucket trams. You go past the crane, up the slight hill and that is the bucket tram way (conveyor belt). Position yourself up top and due to the pathing issues she can not get to you. No [censored]. You can not shoot through the steel grated walkway as she growels at you from below, yea think treed racoon but if your patient, you can get on the rails and shoot over the side. She will eventually run off towards where she was standing with her 4 babies and run back and forth. Just shoot as you get a shot and she will eventually die. IT took me about 10 minutes to kill her once i shot her for the first time but i took no damage. I will try and post a SS of the location when i get home from work this morning, can not help you getting to it but once there you pretty much golden.

Asai

I only braved quarry junction once so far myself. Was terrifying, but also one of the highlights of the game so far. I went in at around level 12 I think with maxed guns and maxed sneak I think. I didn't know what to expect, as I didn't even know I was walking into quarry junction. I saw one deathclaw before actually heading into the area and managed to kill it just barely. I thought to myself "wow those things are really tough this time, they weren't a big deal past level 10 in Fallout 3". I kept walking until I saw what looked like 2 deathclaws ahead of me. I dropped down into sneak and it showed "caution" so I activated a stealth boy just in case. I looked around and saw one of those large walkways heading up right in the middle of the quarry, so I snuck toward there. Only once I reached the top and my only stealth boy wore off did I notice that I had just gotten myself stuck in the middle of a den of deathclaws with no way to escape. So I started doing the only thing I could do, taking pot shots at them with my custom hunting rifle (extended mag and scope). I had to go slowly, one shot at a time, since I was low on ammo and NEEDED those crit sneak hits and I could only imagine 3 deathclaws rushing up the walkway towards me with no way to escape. After about 20 minutes in reality I managed to kill one and severely injure another. Then I saw that alpha male skulking around. From that point on I waited patiently for him to show up, taking sneak headshots with armor piercing rounds whenver I could. After another half hour or so I finally managed to down him. Another 20 minutes later and with only 10 hollow point rounds left I had killed another 2 regular deathclaws. I thinned out their numbers enough for me to be able to move from my perch and perhaps find an escape route. But not the way I came, god no, their were still a bunch of deathclaws that way. So I went deeper into the quarry. I managed to sneak up on another young deathclaw all by itself in a corner. But It was blocking what looked like a path to the top of the quarry. So I pulled out my assault carbine with around 100 rounds of armor piercing ammo left and unloaded everything I had into while it hacked at me, praying to god it's family didn't hear us. I managed to drop it and sneak to the top. I found the NPC I was looking for to complete my quest up there, but more importantly, a back exit. After speaking to the NPC, I snuck my way through there and found 1 young deathclaw to my right that I was able to avoid by going left. When I finally found the road I saw one last young deathclaw blocking it. Even though hollow point isn't very effective against them, I used up all my ammo shooting it from afar then rushed TOWARDS it like a madman firing my assault carbine using regular bullets. I was able drop it them move on, greatfull for having survived.

This whole thing took me around 1 and half real time hours to complete and my only save was an autosave back in sloan that just didn't feel prudent to reload. While it was tempting when I was just carefully sitting in the middle of the quarry, low on ammo and water, I'm glad I didn't. I used up all my food and water in there to stop myself from getting dehydrated or starved, and lost hundreds of caps worth of ammunition. But it made one hell of a story.

I agree with this being one of the highlights of the game. (At least combatively.) I honestly don't think anyone else aside from OE could have pulled off an area like this. It forces you to play smart, instead of just sitting back and sniping or rolling in with an LMG blazing. An absolute blast.

And for the post above, Deathclaw mothers and matriarch have a frenzy mode when one of their baby death-claws are killed. They go berserk and attack everything in sight.

As far as deathclaw lairs go, the quarry blows death wind cave out of the water.

Death wind cave was just a crawl. You knew what was coming as soon as you stepped in the door. And you had an easy out, since you're confronted right after the door.

The quarry just kinda lures you in, one way or another, and then all the sudden you're stuck with no way out but through the ugliest deathclaws you've ever seen.


On a related note, last reload, I got the Alpha to follow me up one of the ramps. They don't seem like they're physically able to, at first, for for some reason, he lost interest, and just wondered right up, then I caught his attention. I let him chase me to the top of the middle set of conveyors/gravel sifter, and knocked his ass off with my last fat man. (Common occurrence during these last reloads, since I only found 3 before I got here.) Got to level 5 while fighting with him and others, but all my ammo was gone after that last MiniNuke, and my escape was still blocked.

I remember seeing the death claws for the 1st time in FONV.. i was out strolling one nite and came across a chalk drawing of a deathclaw with the text "warning death claws ahead" written, i was like whats that then? So i carried on walking casually for a little bit and heard something that sounded big running towards me......... AAAAAAAAAAH WTF is that.......>dead<

My first experiences with Deathclaws on this game didn't go so well either. I was happily making my way to Black Mountain when I look to my left to see a whole pack of Deathclaws, about 10 of them I could see initially, I thought, what the hell, and engaged them. Little did I know behind me were about another 5 Deathclaws, I didn't live long enough to see how many there really were.