It is strongly recommended to have the rebreather equipped when swimming through to loot these areas. The flooded areas are long and difficult to swim through with enough time to return for air before taking drowning damage. The overseer's area can be accessed either through a locked door in front of you as you enter the area, or through a locked door in the atrium. However, activating the function does nothing, stating that the system is offline. In the southern section of the living quarters is a bedroom containing a terminal with a user named 'Billy boy' and a function called 'Compose Automated Blast Message'. Two of the rooms in the living quarters each have a deceased Fiend on a bed, surrounded by empty syringes, Jet, and Psycho. Alternatively, the cage door can be picked without karma loss, and no Fiends will become hostile. Daniel, the Fiend who holds the key to the cage, can be found in one of the southernmost rooms of the living quarters (see the unmarked quest I Love Bananas). The cage also holds the body of the fourth captive, Carter, who managed to escape to search the Vault for weapons before being caught and subsequently killed. On the main floor of the living quarters there is a cage holding three captives: Rick Lancer, Rachael and Dennis.

Within the recreation area, there is a locked door leading to the maintenance wing. The recreation area includes pool tables, a room with a holotape projector, and several storage rooms. Vault 3 seems to have a much larger recreational area than other vaults. Many of the Vault's walls are covered with graffiti, presumably done by the occupying Fiends. If one enters using a Speech check (64) or wearing Great Khan armor, they are able to navigate the Vault without being attacked. Inside, the entrance is guarded by a female Fiend, who will question you about what you are doing there. The Vault's isolation didn't affect the residents for generations, they maintained an orderly, democratic society, and, unlike other Vaults (in particular Vault 101), the overseer wasn't 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 grown steadily stronger since, 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. Д®xploiting the Vault dwellers' naivety and lack of security, the Fiends successfully conned themselves into the Vault, upon which they killed every single inhabitant 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 well 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 the four Vaults in the Mojave that contain living human inhabitants, the others being Vault 19, Vault 21, and Vault 34.

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