Do you have to join The Railroad?

[AtomicJukebox]

I noticed something a while after starting my latest playthrough - when it comes to analyzing the courser chip, the game has you go straight to Tinker Tom even if you haven't joined The Railroad. This got me thinking... do you have to join them to complete the game? It doesn't seem like much of a choice if you have to use Tinker Tom to complete the main story. I would like to do more of an evil playthrough, but I see The Railroad as the good guys. I can't find any alternative to Tinker Tom, so what's the deal?

[DoctorKaizeld]

No you dont have to join them. You can convince them to take you to tinker tom without joining. Or at least i was able to... Edited June 6, 2017 by qwertyzeldar

[Deleted35607895User]

I just completed that quest yesterday. Just talk to them and walk away.

[Deleted2433418User]

You can kill them off and then use Tinkers terminal to decode the chip.. you don´t need them ,just the terminal,at least that´s what i do.. open their little puzzledoor,nuke them and the rest will mosey out the door to their "hideout" just grenade,fire,grenade,fire until the last of the gits lie dead on the floor,then you can saunter over to the terminal that IS NOT ENCRYPTED(so much for conspiracy-theorist number ones abilities) and decode the chip..

[Moraelin]

In all fairness, the #1 conspiracy theorist came up with

- "follow the freedom trail" being known to everyone and their little dog in the Commonwealth (seriously, people talk about it in DC, which is under Institute control), and their hideout actually being at the end of the historical Freedom Trail

- and a big frikken painted note to look for their secret lanterns

- the password "RAILROAD" for the railroad

- and pointing out the letters along the way

- a code entry system that can be attacked one letter at a time, which is inherently an incredibly weak defense. Seriuously, you can crack the password in 10 minutes by dumb brute force

- ... also because allowsa any number of tries, instead of locking up

 

Seriously, the only way to be any dumber about security would be to put a big "RAILROAD SECRET HIDEOUT" neon sign on the church and put the key under the doormat.

 

Add to that the fact that:

 

- dead-drop and other chalk signs are on a blackboard instead of being a secret taught in person. So once the institute took one safehouse (and actually they took several) they should know the secret signs already

- and they never change (the same signs are in the Switchboard) so even just capturing and torturing one "tourist" would let the Institute know all the chalk signs

- Tinker-Tom is actively against putting cameras to have some early warning

- The BOS figured out within days that there's something fishy about the teleportation signal bursts, the Railroad after decades still doesn't even know they exist, much less attempt to triangulate their position

- Even though they "rescue" synths that were teleported out (there is no other way in or out of the Institute) and dig in their memory at the Den, they STILL don't know about teleportation

 

Etc.

 

I get the distinct impression that the RR only still exists because Father wanted to leave YOU a way into the Institute.

 

That or the Institute is even more brain dead.

[TheGadget1945]

I refused to help them when I got into the Institute and I avoided Tinker Tom except for decoding the chip so that I didn't get his tiresome MILA missions. After I destroyed the Institute with the Minutemen, Desdemona thanked me but when I approach PAM she is convinced I have destroyed the Prydwen and tries to give missions to kill remaining BOS patrols.