The Commonwealth Ranger School

The Commonwealth Ranger School at Fort Becker, in the video game mod, allows Fallout 4 players to learn a variety of outdoor skills through 3 easily achievable training phases and 10 training mission types. Players get bonuses, team weapons and new missions as they progress through the training.

The Commonwealth Ranger School is a simplification of the real-world Mojave Ranger School syllabus, which uses the same phases and missions to train airsoft players to run the same operations, while shooting each other with plastic BB’s at an NCR fort in the Mojave Desert. That’s as close to Live-Action Fallout as you can get without radiation.

The Basic Concept

When a Fallout 4 player downloads a mod (modification), they are changing the base game into an entirely different video game. There are many thousands of mods for weapons, clothing, game cheats and every other conceivable code change that can be done within the game.

85% of Fallout players use mods, and it’s extremely easy to do.

The War of the Commonwealth

In Fallout 4 The War of the Commonwealth has been ebbing and flowing for 20 years between various factions. The Minutemen were struggling to establish some law and order, or at least fewer raiders, but the war has seen the Minutemen whittled down until the organization has lost effectiveness. The last of the Minutemen were wiped out recently during the Quincy Massacre.

Commonwealth Ranger School: Fort Becker

In game, the player ascends from the depths of Vault 111 and finds a dead Minuteman Courier outside the vault, with a note warning that Sanctuary, the small community just below the vault, has been overrun by raiders. The courier is carrying some reports that update the player on the raider-filled world they’ve popped up into, and some gear that the player will desperately need, fairly soon.

The basic game story directs the player to Sanctuary for the cleanup and starting chores, but in the mod there are a lot of raiders in Sanctuary, and the player will definitely not survive going downhill from the vault. The basic plan is to get the artillery at Fort Becker back in action and blow them out, which will require getting the fort repaired enough for the fort staff to operate the big gun.

The back trail from the vault leads to Fort Becker, which can be seen from the vault. A location quest will pop up telling the player to go up the trail to the Ranger School, and when they approach the building the quest completion will ring up some Experience Points (XP) as well as the code to the Ranger School Student Computer Terminal.

Ranger School Student Computer Terminal

The Ranger School Student Computer Terminal is on the wall at the school building, along with a box of holotapes that contain the Ranger Basic Course, School Library and some school documents. The holotapes can be taken by the player and watched from any terminal in the game that accepts holotapes, so the player doesn’t have to stand in front of the school terminal while doing the course work.

Players get access to better gear and more complex missions as they complete the quests associated with the holotapes. The rough draft holotapes are text based and exist as place holders. The final holotapes will have audio as well as video, or links to the training video for that lesson.

The Basic Storyline

The player has popped up into a world where Sanctuary and other settlements were settled and occupied until being abandoned fairly recently ahead of the Gunner and raider surge, or overrun entirely. The Minutemen had a series of artillery fire bases around the Commonwealth, which have all been overrun, and everyone has been told to fall back to Fort Becker, but there’s no way to know who got the message.

The Fort Becker Refugee Center has some limited resources, and the fort is holding out against frequent raider attacks, so everyone who can hold a weapon or a shovel is being told to meet there to regroup. The basic plan is to get the artillery working at Fort Becker and then move out against the raiders with fire support, and retake the Minuteman fire bases, preferably before the Gunners can repair the big guns at the fire bases and start using them against the refugees.

In-game, the fort will need repair, hostiles and dangerous predators cleared, generators, water filters and other tech repaired and parts found for the artillery piece. Once these achievements are met the settlers will manage the big gun while the player goes out and calls in artillery, starting with the 50-60 raiders massing in Sanctuary getting ready to assault the fort…

The Commonwealth Ranger School: Fort Becker FO4 mod gives the player a fully vanilla (uses only original game components) game map with fire bases, training materials, and custom characters, items and quests in a repeatable format that allows the player to continue expanding their forts and settlements once they graduate the Ranger Basic Course.

The Commonwealth Ranger School: Fort Becker FO4 mod should work with almost every other mod and players will shortly have a list of recommended mods that have been tested with Commonwealth Ranger School: Fort Becker.

Ranger Basic Online Course

The online Commonwealth Ranger Basic Course () is a trimmed down version of the Mojave Ranger Basic Course at www.MojaveRangerSchool.com/basiccourse.

The free Commonwealth Ranger Field Manual (this book) has the background details for the storyline and player resources, and is a trimmed down version of the Mojave Ranger Field Manual – www.MojaveRangerSchool.com/FMdownload

Mojave Rangers: The Game – www.MojaveRangerSchool.com/thegame

Mojave Rangers is a Fallout-themed Live-Action Role Play game that uses GURPS tabletop RPG modules and a Fallout: New Vegas mod, and airsoft/Milsim, to teach real-world first aid, radio and outdoor skills

• free to download and play from anywhere
  • basic story line – a new type of well-trained and well-equipped raider led by Brotherhood of Steel or Caesar’s Legion ‘advisors’ has been threatening NCR resources in the Mojave
  • The Commonwealth Rangers are a volunteer civilian group that runs security, medical and tech routes in the Mojave Desert
  • GURPS (Generic Universal Role Play System) modules with Commonwealth Ranger stories and adventures for tabletop roleplay games

• • Fallout: New Vegas mod that incorporates Commonwealth Rangers and Mojave Raiders into the basic video game
  • free persistent airsoft/milsim game, with instructions for how to develop local clubs