On one of my first playthroughs before the DLCs were released I had left the group of scientists at the door to the memorial and went off to do more side quests.
I will say though that when I did that I ended up having to deal with vertibirds unloading enclave soldiers all the time when I was trying to walk through the wasteland.
When I play the game I like to do the sidequests right before I go down into Vault 112, seems to be the best spot before the last part of the main quest really takes off.
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