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Intro
Goodneighbor is home to shady people, an Assaultron weapon vendor overly enthusiastic about murder, and several great quests for the Sole Survivor to take on. One such quest is The Big Dig.
The Big Dig has some great rewards and is also a requirement if you wish to have Goodneighbor’s mayor, Hancock, as a follower. So, grab your shovel because in this The Big Dig fallout 4 guide, we’re heading underground.
Before you begin
I highly recommend doing several other quests in Goodneighbor before completing The Big Dig. Those quests are:
- The Cleaner (Speak to Whitechapel Charlie in The Third Rail)
- The Silver Shroud (Speak to Kent in the Memory Den)
- Art Appreciation (Speak to Hancock in the Old State House)
I also recommend that you be at least level 28 before doing The Big Dig. You’ll see why soon.
Starting The Big Dig
Travel to Goodneighbor and head down the path to the left of K-L-E-O’s weapon shop. Take a right into an alley, and you’ll come across a grey door.
Head up to the door, and Bobbi No-Nose will appear asking if you’re interested in some work. You can pass a speech check to persuade her into giving you more caps, but it’s honestly chump change. Do it if you want the experience, but if you can’t pass it (Doubtful since it’s a low-level check), don’t worry about it.
Agree to help Bobbi, and she will let you in. Let The Big Dig begin!
Time To Do Some Digging
After getting inside Bobbi’s place, she’ll tell you that a couple of guys are already downstairs digging and for you to go help out. Head down the stairs and into The Dig. Keep going down, and you’ll come across two tunnel workers wondering if Bobbi will pay them this week. They’re making progress on the tunnel, too much in fact, as several mirelurks will pop up and attack. The tunnel workers flee, leaving you to deal with them.
After they’re taken care of, Bobbi will come down to find out what’s going on. Tell her what happened, and she promotes you to be her new gun. Bobbi says the job can go on as planned, but they need one more guy. She tells you to meet her at the Noodle Shop in Diamond City.
Head right over, and you’ll find Bobbi on a stool at the Noodle Shop near Myrna. She’s concealing her face with a gas mask since ghouls aren’t allowed in Diamond City. Bobbi then fills you in on a strong room beneath the mayor’s office filled with enough caps and supplies to make you both rich. Call it payback for how Diamond City treats ghouls. Fair enough, right?
But to make this plan work, you and Bobbi need the help of an old colleague of hers, Mel. Bobbi tells you he’s a tech guy, and he just so happens to be in jail here in Diamond City. Time to bust him out.
Head for the Diamond Security office east of the market past Moe Cronin, and you’ll soon come across Mel in his cell, along with several Diamond City security guards.
There are four ways to get Mel out of his cell.
Steal the jail cell key and unlock the cell door
If you have the skill, you can pickpocket the key from one of the patrolling guards. If you don’t want to take that risk, there’s a key inside the desk in the nearby office.
Once you have the key, use it to free Mel. Make sure you are in hidden status when you do this. Otherwise, the guards and everyone else in Diamond City will go hostile.
Hack the Protectron
If you speak with Mel before making your play, he will drop hints of a busted Protectron nearby as a possible means of facilitating his escape.
Hack the Expert terminal and activate the Protectron. Get into cover because the Protectron isn’t functioning correctly and will attack everyone. Including you.
At lower levels, the Protectron can kill all the guards inside. After that, finish it off, lift a key off one of the guards, and release Mel. At higher levels, the Protectron doesn’t stand a chance.
But that’s okay because, after the guards and the Protectron start fighting, one of the guards will release Mel.
Bribe, Persuade or Threaten the Guard
To the left of Mel’s cell is a security guard. Speak to him about Mel, and you have the option to bribe him 300 caps to release Mel. You can also pass a medium or hard speech check to persuade or threaten the guard to let Mel go.
Kill everyone
When I say kill everyone, I don’t just mean the guards inside the jail. Attacking them will also make every other resident in Diamond City hostile. So yes, this is an option, but for obvious reasons, not a practical one.
After getting Mel free, he’ll head outside, and the two of you can have a chat. He’ll ask why Bobbi couldn’t wait since he only had to serve one more day. Head back to Goodneighbor to continue the quest.
Digging to Diamond City
Head back to The Dig to meet up with Bobbi and Mel. Mel will introduce you to Sonya.
Sonya is a modified eyebot that can emit sonic pulses to loosen up any sediment in front of her. More effective than traditional explosives, faster, and safer. Sonya can take care of the walls, but you’re the hired gun, so you’ll be doing most of the shooting.
Take point into the next chamber after Sonya blasts through the wall. There will be a few mirklurks and hatchlings for you to kill. Once that’s taken care of, head to the northwest end of the chamber and have Sonya blast the fragile wall here. Inside is the best (Guaranteed) reward from this quest: a suit of Power Armor.
I recommended you be at least level 28 before taking on The Big Dig is because of how Power Armor spawns work. X-01 Power Armor is the highest tier of Power Armor in Fallout 4, and you have to be at least level 28 to get your hands on some. The Big Dig is one of the easiest ways to get a suit of it fairly early in the game.
Your Power Armor doesn’t come free as a mirelurk king is guarding it. Dispose of him before heading back and making a left. Have Sonya blast down the fragile wall here to keep moving forward. Once Sonya does her thing, take a left, and you’ll be inside a subway tunnel. Some feral ghouls will bother you, so get rid of them.
There are two ways you can move forward from this point. If you head left, you’ll mostly be fighting mirelurks. Head right, and you’ll have to deal with feral ghouls.
I highly recommend that you clean out both paths. Even on normal difficulty, I kill 4-6 legendary enemies when I do The Big Dig. It’s a great way to farm legendary equipment. Who knows? You might get something incredible.
Make your choice, and eventually, you’ll find yourself in what Bobbi calls the basement of a brewery. Use the nearby terminal to unlock the door and get ready for more feral ghouls.
After dealing with them, head back up the debris ramp and head left. There will be another fragile wall for Sonya to blast through. You’ll find yourself in a lit chamber. Sometimes the prompt to get Sonya to blast away walls bugs out here, so you may need to speak to Mel to get it to work. Mel will tell you to make sure you’re finished exploring before heading forward. That’s the game’s way of telling you that you’re coming up on the quest’s finale.
Once you get into the next room, Bobbi will tell you that you’re right beneath Diamond City’s strongroom. Mel will express his doubts as he thinks Diamond City is further north. There’s one way to find out.
Head back into the previous chamber so Sonya can collapse the ceiling. After the foundation comes crumbling down, Mel will rush up to see that Sonya didn’t make it. Take some time to mourn Sonya’s passing and then head upstairs and into the strongroom.
Wrong Mayor
As soon as you enter the strongroom, Bobbi will come face to face with Hancock’s bodyguard Fahrenheit and some triggermen. Bobbi planned on robbing a mayor, alright. But it’s the mayor of Goodneighbor, not Diamond City. It turns out she has something of a grudge against Hancock, and robbing him was to take him down a peg.
Mel has no interest in ripping off Hancock, but Bobbi still wants to finish the job. Seeing that you and Mel had no idea what Bobbi was up to, Fahrenheit gives you the option to head back the way you came, and everything will be even. You have three choices:
Convince Bobbi to Walk Away
If you pass a speech check, Bobbi will agree to leave. Speak with Fahrenheit, and she will tell you that you made the right choice. Fahrenheit rewards you with Ashmaker, a unique minigun that sets enemies on fire and deals 15 points of fire damage. She tells you that you should pay your respects to Hancock in person.
Betray Bobbi
Betraying Bobbi will turn her hostile as she decides to attack you and Fahrenheit’s gang. She’s tougher than she looks but goes down all the same. If you talk to Mel, he will be unhappy with how things went down, explaining that Bobbi was one of the few friends he had.
Speak to Fahrenheit, and she will reward you with Ashmaker and tell you to see Hancock.
Stay with Bobbi
Siding with Bobbi causes Fahrenheit and her men to become hostile. Fahrenheit will use Ashmaker against you, and one of her goons has a flamer, so be careful. The suit of Power Armor you picked up should come in handy.
After killing Fahrenheit and her men, loot Ashmaker and Hancock’s strongroom key off her corpse. Unlock the train car, and Bobbi will go inside to take a peek.
Speak with her so you can get your reward. If you pass a speech check, you get 250 caps. Otherwise, Bobbi gives you 200. After receiving your cut, Bobbi says you guys shouldn’t be seen together for a while. Clear out of there.
And that’s The Big Dig complete! But the story isn’t wrapped up yet, so head back to Goodneighbor.
If you sided with Bobbi
If you sided with Bobbi and killed Fahrenheit, Hancock will be waiting for you at the entrance. He knows what went down and tells you that it’s blood for blood now. He wants you to kill Bobbi and pay him 1000 caps as restitution. If you pass increasingly difficult speech checks, you can get the number down to 200.
You can’t get out of killing Bobbi, however. She’s hiding out inside the Hawthorne Estate in South Boston, a short trip northwest of Jamaica Plains. Be careful, as it’s right next to a raider encampment.
Head inside, and Bobbi will greet you. She suspects you aren’t here just to say hello, so tell her about Hancock wanting her dead. Bobbi will ask you what you plan to do.
You can kill Bobbi, pass a speech check to convince her to run, or tell her you will negotiate with Hancock on her behalf. If you kill Bobbi, everything in the house will be considered stolen goods. If you pass the speech check, Bobbi gives you 375 caps and lets you take anything inside.
If you pick negotiate with Hancock, Bobbi will still let you take anything from her house, but she will not give you any caps. Make your choice, then head back to Goodneighbor. From this point on, the end of this questline is the same whether you sided with Bobbi or Hancock.
If you sided with Hancock
Head to the Old State House’s second floor, and Hancock is hanging out by the door to the balcony. If you dealt with Bobbi, he considers the matter settled and tells you to forget about the caps you owe him. Otherwise, he will say no hard feelings about almost robbing him.
Hancock somewhat regrets how things went down. Is he becoming The Man he once fought? He says he needs to hit the road to keep from losing his edge. And who better to travel with than the guy who tried to rob him?
With that, The Big Dig storyline is complete, and you can use Hancock as a companion.
FAQs
Question: Can I go back and get the Power Armor from the first chamber if I don’t want to use it in The Big Dig?
Answer: If you had Sonya break down the wall blocking the Power Armor, yes. But if you didn’t break down that wall at all, no. Sonya is more powerful than a Fatman, Nuka grenade, and Gauss rifle combined. Nothing at your disposal can break the fragile wall. Red Faction this is not.
Question: Do I have to do the other quests in Goodneighbor before completing The Big Dig?
Answer: It’s not necessary to do these before doing The Big Dig. But for storytelling purposes, I find it better to do them while Hancock is just the mayor and not an available companion.
Question: How good of a companion is Hancock?
Answer: Well, he’s a pretty cool guy. So there’s that. But in combat, he uses a combat knife and a double-barrel shotgun. If you’re at least level 28, that shotgun is outdated and underpowered. Give him a good modded combat shotgun, and he should be good to go.
Conclusion
The Big Dig is one of the better side quests you can take on early in Fallout 4. You’ll get plenty of valuable crafting components, another set of Power Armor, a pretty nifty unique minigun, and the most laid-back companion in the game.
But there’s so much out there left to be uncovered. So, take your spoils and get back out in the Commonwealth and do some exploring!