The Vault door, which is opened by the adjacent control panel, is connected directly to the South Vegas ruins and therefore provides no loading point for the Vault interior. Its location can be gained from the colonel at Camp McCarran after volunteering to help with the gang problem, from Elder McNamara of the Brotherhood of Steel during the quest Still in the Dark, from Diane during the quest Aba Daba Honeymoon or from Private Ortega in the barracks at the NCR sharecropper farms. The Vault is located under a building in the South Vegas ruins and is the base of operations for a gang known as the Fiends. The Vault's isolation did not affect the residents for generations, they maintained an orderly, democratic society and, unlike other Vaults (in particular Vault 101), the overseer was not a dictator or megalomaniac. In many ways, Vault 3 was the ideal post-apocalyptic community. Using the vault as an impenetrable base of operations, the Fiends have since grown steadily stronger, becoming a serious threat to the people living on the outskirts of southwestern New Vegas as well as a constant nuisance to the New California Republic Army command stationed at Camp McCarran. Įxploiting the Vault dwellers' naivety and lack of security, the Fiends successfully conned themselves into the Vault, upon which they killed the inhabitants and claimed the Vault for themselves. However, this also brought the Vault to the attention of the Fiends. For a couple of weeks, it went well and the inhabitants made a good living. The original Vault 3 inhabitants opened their doors and began to trade with people outside of the Vault. All was going well in the Vault until a water leak occurred sometime in the 23rd century, forcing the residents to open the Vault to find help. Nestled within the South Vegas ruins, Vault 3 was one of the seventeen control Vaults, resulting in it not having an experiment. Vault 3 is one of four Vaults in the Mojave that contains living human inhabitants, the others being Vault 19, Vault 21, and Vault 34.