To unlock and be able to get to the fort you have to progress through Bob the miner, Jenny the herbalist and Joe the junkyard guy's quest lines. More on all three below.

Did you know that when you equip a backpack this gives you 4 hot key activated quick slots? When you open your prepper status you will see 4 pockets. Put any food, or grenade you want into the slots. This also negates their weight in your inventory. Then simply push the number on your keyboard and voila. Wish I had know this at the start.

Placing the waterloo 1815, This can be tricky to place. Simply hover the waterloo over the floor where you want it, then slowly bring your mouse down to slightly under the floor level. At some point in the travel it will "settle" onto the floor.

As of 1.07 you can shoot enemies that are behind path blocking fallen trees and rocks. They cant get to you so its as safe as you can be. Knock those rats down and then chop up the tree or mine the rock.

The Room upgrade "factory" chip set not only shortens workbench time, but also cooking time. It however does not appear to speed up non-prepper input jobs. For instance I tested the food dryer in both an upgraded factory room, and a non upgraded room. Both took the same amount of time to dry a stack. I suspect the same is true for the oil refinery and smelter. So keep your stove and workbench in a "factory" room, for faster work times.

If you ever come across a box marked Army, grab it for tear down to get the plans to make them. They hold a whopping 36 storage slots, compared to the plain storage box that only holds 20 slots. They are both the same size, and they stack on each other really well. To my knowledge only the freezer holds the same amount of stuff, and the army chests are half the size.

As of 1.1 the room upgrade "freezer" chip now affects decay rates for things stored in chests and boxes. It also affect things stored in the open air, such as on shelves or the floor in the room. I do not know if this simply slows decay significantly or indefinitely like the chest freezers.

As of 1.07 You can stack the water bucket collectors with no affect on collection rate. I have them stacked up on top of each other 4 high with no change in rates.

To unlock the fort location you will need to build max trust with Joe by completing his missions before he will tell you where to find the fort.

These missions include getting a tin foil sheet, that you can find while exploring the desert with the repaired car. Finding his dog in the forest which for me was forest level 4-7. Finding the radio signal which involves giving Joe the materials to make a radio antenna for your car then taking said car deep into the desert. Every time you stop in an area click on the antenna, as you go deeper the message will get clearer.

Once you have done all his missions he will tell you where to find the fort.

Before you can drive to the fort you must progress through both Jenny the herbalists and Bob the miners quest lines. Jenny's quest line revolves around guarana, first gathering it in the wilds of the forest then onto ever increasing amounts of homegrown with a final request for 99 guarana fruits. As a final quest you must also go deep into the forest to find out about a pilot friend of hers. This ties into fort observer as you also find a keycard that is needed to gain access to the fort.

There is also complimentary quest with Joe from the junkyard losing his dog. Since you have to go deep into the forest anyway you might as well hold off on finding the plane till you need to find Joe's lost dog as well. Note you get the level 4 mining card from Joe at the junkyard during one of his quests.

Special thanks to towerdefence661 for the following section. Bob the miner's quest line also must be done since that triggers Jenny the herbalist to give you the stay awake pill. His quests involve at first finding his jacket, then moving on towards getting him glasses. You get the glasses from Jenny the Herbalist's potted plant named bob, simply select the plant that she is holding to trigger the conversation. After that return them to Bob the miner, He will tell you to stay away from the 5th level of the mines due to dangerous hydrogen. Make your way to level 5 of the mines where you will come across Bob the miner. Once through his conversation and finding out about the "sleepless" you will be able to return to the forest and talk to Jenny who will provide you with the stay awake pill.

Special thanks to noire126 for the following. You need to also complete the Geiger counter request from minuteman, minuteman will also mention the fort in after fulfilling that request in a letter.

You pretty much have to do every quest from every person to get access to the fort.

Before you leave for the fort make sure you grab a full stack of food, I went with only a stack of 5 dried meats and I was seriously challenged at the AI fight stage. I would recommend at least 10 cans or other high stamina food.

Grab two or three energy drinks, while inside the base you can hit up vending machines for more drinks.

Plenty of ammo, I would suggest about 100 rounds. Though if your good at melee combat 50 and the fancy nail adorned baseball bat will get the job done.

Gas, I brought 20 cans to fuel up the car to max. There might be some leftover in the car for your next desert trip. Right click the car and select "drive" then in the car menu you click on the drive to Fort option on the left side of the car menu, thanks to ☣ Leech ☢ for pointing that out.

This might be a bug on 1.05 but when I left for this whole trip I lost all my plants that I had growing in my greenhouses even though my auto waterer had a full tank. You might want to harvest and then use the grab function on each of your garden plots so you get the seeds back. I had 6 greenhouses and was only growing guarana. Not sure if the grab function gives you seeds back for all plants or only guarana.

Drive and drive and....drive. Watch for the govt sat, it appears in the sky and floats over the horizon. Now you know what the postman stares at.

After your long drive you arrive at the fort and are instantly assailed by wave after wave of coyote and snake attacks. Once defeated you will make your way to the front door and talk to the AI.

The AI wont open the door for you till you drop all the stuff he doesn't like. Open the panel under the AI screen and click deposit all. Its far simpler and faster then trying to do it manually.

Once he opens the door begin the long stroll over to the door on your far right. You can click "inspect" on the planes and get a musing about the past from your prepper.

Once you enter the fort you should be on the lookout for anything containing electronics or plastic. Most of the computers on this base the AI wont let you take, but there are a few broken ones you can nab.

There are a few things along the way to the end that you can "Inspect" and get more backstory on Mr. Prepper. Make your way all the way to the right and find the door to the AI chamber.

Once inside the room with the AI chip you need, you will find both a workbench and a bed. Also don't miss nabbing the true prepper treasure of the fort, a bunch of rifles! At minimum you need to grab two of the rifles, one for yourself and one for the minuteman guy that you exchange letters with. I was able to grab all the rifles and have plenty of room left for more of the random stuff you can find along the way. Grab one of the yellow atomic barrels to break down for schematics that I believe are only found in the fort.

Now grab the floating AI ball and go to the workbench then dismantle it. The AI wont like that and will lock you in, drag the empty ball out of your inventory and put it back where you found it. The AI still wont like that but you now have a clue on what to do next. Grab the empty ball and go to the workstation. At this point you may have gathered enough electronics and plastic to make the fake AI ball recipe. From Gyger "There are 4 computers that you can collect in the AI chamber, 2 are better hidden than the others. This should give you the required electronics." From Posterna "There is a computer hidden behind one of the crates inside the room"

You might not have enough materials so just reassemble the AI core and go to sleep in the bed. Once you put the AI core back the door will reopen and you can leave the room. Do so and then go to the right and through the door. There are two "inspect" items in here, one the huge Xray screen and then the small tech helmet underneath the screen.

Now that you have enough materials, grab the AI core again. Go to the workbench and take apart the core then build the "fake" AI core. Place the fake core where you found the original core, the AI wont like that and will threaten you but then let you out anyway. Leave the AI Core room and make your way to the exit.

This is a very annoying "battle" with a few things that you haven't seen before.

The goal is when you see the "loading bar" on the overhead screens, you need to run arround and activate the computers that suddenly and randomly have an orange screen. By clicking each of these you slowly run out the "health" on the loading bar.

The first complication will be rocks falling on your head, you have a short warning where you will see some dust clouds falling down to get out of the way of the rocks. If you are a hotshot it probably wont be difficult for you, if however you are not fast on your reactions you must keep an eye on your health at all times. Eat those high value foods when your health is low hero... ahem I mean mr. prepper.

The next complications that appear are red computer screens, basically these are grenades. If your near one of these they will damage you when they blow. Continue dodging rockfalls, watch out for the red screens and activate the orange screens.

At some point red computer screen grenades will also start randomly flying at you from the left and right. Dodge these as well.

Eventually after dodging all these hazards and activating the orange screens you will find you have defeated the AI "boss". You are now free to return to your bunker at your leisure.

I hope this helps a few people until better guides come along.