Current Events > Fallout New Vegas playthrough (Spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's great.
I feel ridiculous hoarding every piece of metal and tape I see.
I made Boone wear something lamer, took his shades and beret. He just does this dejected "I'd really like my Beret back please." But no, he's been demoted from Dale to Bill.
I made two bullets out of a whole heap of tin cans.
I don't have any guns.

Actually this is kind of interesting.
There's areas where they take your weapons, but you can bring a bunch of innocuous ingredients and Veronica can assemble them.
I'm definitely gonna try and Barter up to 70 for Pack Rat, since most of the things you need weigh 1lb. I found out the other day that ED-E can make Satchel Charges if you have the perk from the Divide and enough points in Explosives. Kind of takes some of the novelty out of this, but the other weapons are still cool.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

It's great.
I feel ridiculous hoarding every piece of metal and tape I see.

Just wait until you've got a stash of Nuka Grenades and a target worth using them on

synth_real posted...

Just wait until you've got a stash of Nuka Grenades and a target worth using them on

This's the plan. I just saw Fat Mine on the recipe list and I have to try that too.
Problem is Nuka Chemist is all the way down at lv22. My character's made of paper and I'm trying not to antagonise the NCR, Legion or House so it's a slow grind.

You can turn Gecko remains into leather belts. I thought it was going to be a unique clothing item, but it turns out all it does is fill your inventory with regular leather belts. Extra caps I guess.
Edit: Oh there is armor, it's on the Survival menu.

"Hand it over. That thing. Your duct tape." - The Courier, ominously standing in the devastation left by the first MFC Cluster he'd thrown at an enemy in a long time.

i always go for the gecko-backed reinforced leather armor, it's some of the best light armor in the game, perfect for light touch, travel light, etc

Okay this is real. New run.
Melee + Explosives. Emphasis on maintaining Blade of the Best/Superheated Saturnite Fist and hoarding tape for MFC Clusters. No allegiance, allowed to grab up armfuls of EXP wherever it's available though. OWB early-ish for crafting materials.

Something I keep wondering is is it actually optimal to have a companion with you? They can take out extra enemies and end some fights faster, but if I solo everything I'm making faster progress towards challenges and the exp boosts/perks.

Scrap electronics feel too scarce without DLC. I ran up and down Repconn HQ and only found scrap metal. I'm always hesitant to go to OWB because you're locked in there until you've finished it and because the cutscenes and the beginning and the end are seriously pushing it. Melee ended up being the primary option and it got really strong really fast meaning nothing really needed a high power explosive to deal with it.

Might go for a "pacifist" run since companion kills don't add to your own count. It might have to be a Mr House run since I don't think the companions would attack him unprovoked and the other factions want him gone.
I've been using the Four Eyes trait for the past couple of runs and I'm liking it. Could be handy for the skill checks. I could also push my luck and put points in charisma again

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Melee ended up being the primary option and it got really strong really fast meaning nothing really needed a high power explosive to deal with it.

When I did a melee/explosives run, I found it was better to use the plentiful explosives first, because only the top-end explosive weapons actually scale well against enemies with lots of health. I found stuff like even the grenade rifle became pretty weak in the DLCs. I ended up using explosive weapons first to soften the enemies up, then charged into melee range to mop up.

What you want with this kind of build is for the explosives to take out the legs or ragdoll the enemy. And you have places where the enemies attack from a range so you're stuck throwing grenades and hoping they don't fly off in the wrong direction. And then you have places like Quarry Junction where it just seems like a pain to set up a trap for every Deathclaw.
It almost makes you miss the Dart Gun.

Maybe having Red Glare on hand for ranged enemies was the answer all along.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

And then you have places like Quarry Junction where it just seems like a pain to set up a trap for every Deathclaw.

Quarry Junction is exactly the kind of place you want MFC clusters for. Aggro them with the missile launcher, then cluster bomb them once they're in range.

I took everything to Dead Wind Cavern and tried it out there.
The Nuka Grenades were the the best one. One instantly took out one of the Legendary Deathclaw's legs.
Sneak attack crits with MFC Clusters are crazy. There were some parts where already aggroed Deathclaws ran through clusters like they were nothing though.
I set up some rows of Satchel Charges to see how effective they were and they were great. Time Bombs not so great but still kind of fun to just throw out there and see what happens.

What I've learned is that I should really be using that safe in the Novac room, hoarding every known crafting ingredient. Abraxo Cleaners are reasonable to come across, Turpentine's a pain to find. Nevada Agave Fruit lets you make Nuka Cola so I need to find a spot on the map where there's a lot of that respawning.

Trying something different to keep things fresh.
People have been saying the Ratslayer's busted for years and I'd just never bothered to go into Broc Flower Cave. I finally got it and I'm using it with Paciencia. Ratslayer really makes it own ammo if you sneak crit the NCR guys at the outpost, each gives you 25 more. Also took Bloody Mess for the first time in who knows how long. Mainly looking for ways to turn the damage up even more.
I've been neglecting Repair in favor of Lockpick because I heard the rifle in the box at the Sniper's Nest is really strong a while ago.

Also read that if you trade 5 dog tags at a time to the Decanus guy for food, you get the best tag to Legion rep ratio because the scaling makes giving them all at once not worth it. I got the Lucky Shades really fast.

Ratslayer is probably top 3 for early game weapons, especially for a sneaky type.

Falls off hard but it's a head exploder for the first third or so.

Also the best Legion rep grind is a dialogue glitch with one of the dudes at the port that goes to Caesar's place, forgot the name.

If you have Explosives skill you can repeat a skill check in conversation, get a boost every time for free.

It's even like just down the hill from the Legion cabin, I think.

I'll go there, repeat myself for a little while, run like 800 meters, grab my shades, and then murder the dude who works at the cabin and never do anything nice for those fuckin' LARPing rapists ever again.

DrizztLink posted...

If you have Explosives skill you can repeat a skill check in conversation, get a boost every time for free.

The same Decanus guy lets you show him how to disarm mines if you have 50 Explosives. Didn't know you could loop him though.

I got the Gobi Campaign Rifle too. It has the +crit chance +crit damage Paciencia has and it fires faster but it doesn't feel as satisfying to use.
Ratslayer has fallen off for the most part but stealth crits + fight the power + better criticals have to count for something. It's also nice taking shots from afar using 556 instead of eating into the 308 ammo. I think it's worth keeping.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

I got the Gobi Campaign Rifle too. It has the +crit chance +crit damage Paciencia has and it fires faster but it doesn't feel as satisfying to use.

Paciencia has higher crit damage than the Gobi, the same crit damage as the Anti-Materiel Rifle. Load that bad boy up with JSP hand loads and one-shot Deathclaws with sneak attack headshots.
ViewtifulJoe posted...

Ratslayer has fallen off for the most part but stealth crits + fight the power + better criticals have to count for something.

It's useful to keep around for enemies that aren't worth using more valuable ammo on.

synth_real posted...

Load that bad boy up with JSP hand loads and one-shot Deathclaws with sneak attack headshots.

I haven't really messed around with hand loads or crafting bullets in general. Every time I craft I normally have loads of 3 ingredient then less than 10 of the 4th. Energy Weapons' ammo is such a better deal.
Normally if I'm doing some kind of sniper run, I go straight to Contreras at McCarran who sells crazy amounts of 308.
I'm down to try something else though.

synth_real posted...

It's useful to keep around for enemies that aren't worth using more valuable ammo on.

That.

I meant it falls off as a main weapon, it's still worth keeping for the little guys.

i remember ratslayer was my main weapon for a really long time in my very first playthrough so many years ago, before you could just look up anything you wanted on the wiki... maybe i'll do a ratslayer-only playthrough, next

viewmaster_pi posted...

i remember ratslayer was my main weapon for a really long time in my very first playthrough so many years ago, before you could just look up anything you wanted on the wiki... maybe i'll do a ratslayer-only playthrough, next

Put them in a repair jumpsuit and have them be a wandering exterminator with an extremely shaky grasp on what rats actually are.