Wasteland 3 Heads or Tails Quest - Save the Hoon Homestead or Arapaho Caravan

In Wasteland 3, the Colorado landscape has become a frozen, irradiated disaster. And to make matters worse, the first time you properly venture out you have a tough decision to make in the Heads or Tails quest.

As you go out into Colorado, the surviving brother, Erastus Dorsey will chin your radio taunting you to come to the Hoon Homestead. He wants revenge for his sibling, and has taken hostages to force you and your fellow do-gooding Rangers into action. But when fire up the Kodiak and set off after him, Ramirez will call saying there’s an Arapaho caravan in urgent need of assistance.

They're carrying an important shipment of power armour for the Marshals, and it's put in no uncertain terms that The Patriarch would expect you to rush to their aid.

Now it's up to you to make the choice: Do you save the Hoon Homestead, or the Arapaho Caravan?

To help you make your decision, here’s what happens with either.

Wasteland 3 Heads or Tails quest - Hoon Homestead

If you choose to go and help the Hoon Homestead first, roll down the road and go over to the right.

Enter the homestead, and you’ll come face-to-face with the Dorsey gang. Set up your crew for an ambush, then attack.

Before you can act, Erastus will start a conversation. Here, you have a couple of options. If you want violence, to tip the odds in your favour, you can apologize for the death of his brother, then ask if you can call it even - this then gives you a Hard Ass 2 check to demoralise his followers and heavily debuff them for the coming fight.

To resolve the stand-off peacefully, there's a Kiss Ass 2 check to scare away the Dorsey followers and who will convince their leader to call things off without bloodshed. This comes with the caveat that you "haven't heard the last of him".

Or if you can't pass those checks, or just want to batter some thugs, you can inflame the conversation and start a fair fight - which isn't too difficult.

Whichever route you choose, when you're done head inside and speak to Angus Hoon. For saving them, they give you a automatic rifle skill book and a ton of ammo. You can steal the rifle above the fireplace, but the Hoon family will attack you. It’s not very powerful, so not really worth the aggro of taking - especially since your non-created followers will turn on you for the action.

Out back of the Hoon Homestead, at the end of the path there’s a hidden entrance to a bunker. Inside you need 4 Sneaky S**t to disarm the alarm, then 3 Mechanics to open the door with a generator. Around the corner, stand one character on the panel on the floor, then interact with the terminal with a different character to release the creep and then unlock the bunker with another character. You can then grab the loot from inside.

Finally, if you’re an animal whisperer, you can also take the two headed goat Billy and Jean with you. It is a decent fighting companion in addition to the flat buff you receive.

Once you return to your Kodiak, you can then head out to help the convoy (even though the quest is technically finished). Once you get there you see it’s destroyed. There are still some hard-hitting growlers to fight, and a bunker to get an explosives skill book and tape from (Lockpick 5) on the right-hand side of the area.

Wastelander 3 Heads or Tails quest - Arapaho Caravan

If you decide that you want to help the Arapaho Caravan, then roll down from Colorado Springs and over to the left, towards The Bizarre from the Unwelcome Guests quest (which we have a guide for here).

Even though it seems like the right moral thing to go after the civilians, these Scar Collector guys - who we haven't met so far in Wasteland 3 - are real, real baddies. You'll be squaring up to quite a few guys with powerful weaponry, buzzsaws for arms, and giant bombs strapped to their backs.

This is the tougher fight of the two options, and there's no chance at reasoning with them. But, you will have more options at your disposal to take them out.

As you come into the area, you can bear left through the door and you can sneak around the Scar Collectors. This requires level 4 Lockpick.

Around the side you can use a suture kit to save Georgia Overdrive without alerting the dudes.

Then in the building through the secret path you can turn off their turrets all at once.

From here, there's nothing left to do other than position your characters and start the party. Plus you can use your Kodiak in the battle!

During the battle, more enemies will rush in from the building on the right-hand side of the area. Focus your fire on one or two Collectors at once to make sure you take them down quickly, and draw their aggro with the Kodiak. With them down, use injury kits on Shotgun, then speak to and heal Drive Train. Identify yourself and she’ll put in the good word with the Marshals for you.

You can also use a Kiss Ass 5 check for 10 repair kits. As you leave you’ll report in to HQ, and then hear the Dorseys storm the Hoon House.

If you go and try to check on the Hoons, Bo Hoon faces you down with an RPG. I disarmed him and let him go. If you enter the Hoon Homestead area with them dead, you see the house totally destroyed, but you can still loot the skill book from one of the bodies. However, you will not be able to get the Goat follower, loot the bunker, or take the AR from above the mantle.

As well as the book though, you can get a Waste Wolf follower from the southern side of the house, or in the northern part of the area next to the grave. These require 5 Animal Whisperer to charm.

To be cynical, I'd say based solely on the rewards, you're weighing up whether you want the goat follower or not. Then whether you're interested in more XP from fighting the Scars, or getting more loot from the bunker behind the Hoon's house.

The moral implications are for you to decide, but since you still get the auto rifle skill book, there's not a lot of practical difference either way. If you do choose to save the caravan, you'll later see the power armour being put to 'good' use by the Marshals to oppress refugees - but the town will be safe from the thoroughly evil Scars.

With that story completed, you're free to move onto the rest of the Full House quest series - including Big Trouble in Little Vegas.

But you could always hit another optional quest next, like Don't You Be My Neighbour.