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[LTK]

Dodged a major bullet today! It makes me so glad I'm not playing it on a console. After leaving ED-E with the Brotherhood for an upgrade, I noticed a warning in the wiki that ED-E's inventory will be empty upon return. There was over 100kg of items in there. Fortunately, there was a console command that allowed me to reclaim the inventory afterwards. Phew!

I got around to visiting Black Mountain recently and met Raul. I can scavenge enough materials for weapon repair kits - although wrenches can be bothersome - to keep my weapons working; is he worth having as a companion?

[Felrender]

He make weapons lose less durability per attack.

Also he is voiced by Danny "Fucking" Trejo.

So yes.

[tHEfOOL]

where exactly is Raul?

[KvP]

Black Mountain. For an easy shortcut edge along the invisible wall in the mountains west and a little north of Helios One - eventually you'll get close enough to the eastern edge of Black Mountain that the map marker will activate and you'll be able to fast travel there without taking the road north of Goodsprings, past all the deathclaws.

[LTK]

It's actually pretty easy to reach the road at Neil's shack (traversing it is another matter), even when there are Deathclaws around every corner. There is one young one near the digger which is easily sniped, and the rest probably won't notice you if you're careful. Still, it's not recommended to take the winding road all the way up, when there are two shortcuts to be taken. Because, fuck fast travel, that's for pussies.

This may be a spoiler if you'd rather discover them yourself. Be warned. Both roads can be traced from Hidden Valley, where you'll need to find the crater with all the centaurs in it. To the north is an unlocked gate that leads to the second turn in the road, and to the east you can find a high path that leads directly to the village, with a locked gate (Hard). Be careful with this path, as it's difficult (if not impossible) for your companions to follow here, so they will take the long way past all the super mutant checkpoints.

With all the super mutants camped along that road, I was expecting a place much bigger than three little houses and two Nightkin defending the place. I thought I was actually going to need Neil's help in killing the guards up there. Meet me at the village at the summit, he says. All the fighting was already over when I got there!

He make weapons lose less durability per attack.

Also he is voiced by Danny "Fucking" Trejo.

So yes.

As I said, weapon durability is no problem for me, seeing as I nab every bit of wonderglue and duct tape available for weapon repair kits. Veronica also lets me craft them whenever I want. As for being voiced by Danny Trejo...good point. I think I'll recruit him when I get tired of Veronica.

[Johnny C]

you can also head north past helios one if you don't mind passing a valley called "scorpion gulch." the northeast path from scorpion gulch leads to a large crater with several centaurs and evolved milling around, including tabitha's favourite, moe (there's also two dead brotherhood of steel soldiers in the crater; they're part of a quest). if you stick to the left wall you can climb up on the ridge that overlooks the crater and safely snipe the centaurs. then if you go back down off the ridge and stick to the right wall you'll come to an open gate. neil still shows up to warn you off and start the quest, but the gate is more than halfway up the mountain, so you save yrself the trouble of killing deathclaws and a bunch of super mutants.

[Johnny C]

oh i didn't read the post directly above mine. but your companions can totally follow you in through the gate.

[Storm Rider]

Do the Super Mutants scale to your level? Because when I went to Black Mountain, all the Super Mutants were Masters and the fight up to the station was actually fairly tough. Hearing people getting Raul early in the game makes it sound like it must because fighting Masters at low level sounds like an exercise in frustration.

[tHEfOOL]

when i went up black mountain i was lvl 27, i just used my trusty anti-material rifle and marksmans carbine, made it a piece of cake since the super mutants never even knew i was there because i killed them from such long range 

[LTK]

I've got my difficulty set to Very Hard and yes, Super Mutants are Very Hard to kill. In fact, the only creatures can soak up multiple clips of my best guns while still getting close enough to punch my face in are Super Mutants and Deathclaws, and the occasional Giant Radscorpion (but not since Bug Stomper 3). I only stand a chance because of Boone and/or Veronica's ability to dish out insane amounts of damage, as well as companions' magical regeneration after each fight. Am I the only one who thinks this is excessive? I got rid of Boone because he exploded every head in a 200m radius without giving me a chance to aim down my sights, but now I have Veronica who punches Super Mutants' faces in while my shotgun blasts have nearly no effect.

In Hardcore Mode, companions ought to require healing like everyone else. No one in their right mind continues a game when their companion is dead, so you might as well re-enable having them knocked unconscious, requiring a Doctor's Bag to revive. That way, you can survive really challenging fights where your companions are already down without having to start over. Maybe there's a mod for that?

Now I'm at level 21, and I just found my first fully automatic rifle in the entire game, an Assault Carbine bought from the 188 ex-NCR chick. Before that, I found a proper sniper rifle from the Brotherhood armory in Hidden Valley. Also, having finally put enough points in Repair for Hand Loader, I broke down all .308 ammo and turned it into .308 JSP Hand Load (x1.50 damage). Let the fun times begin!

[Johnny C]

Do the Super Mutants scale to your level? Because when I went to Black Mountain, all the Super Mutants were Masters and the fight up to the station was actually fairly tough. Hearing people getting Raul early in the game makes it sound like it must because fighting Masters at low level sounds like an exercise in frustration.

super mutants and deathclaws scale up to your level throughout the game. i think giant creatures scale up too but i don't think they scale all the way to your level.

[KvP]

Rumor's going around (courtesy of OXM, apparently) that the eye of Bethesda is set upon acquisition of Obsidian.

Stranger things have happened.

[Storm Rider]

If it happens, I called it about two years ago.

That being said, I actually don't think that would be a terrible idea for either party. Bethesda's relationship with Obsidian has (at least to the outside) been better than just about any other publisher they've ever worked with. New Vegas was very clearly done on a strict deadline with a specific budget, but all things considered Obsidian performed to standard in putting the game out on time and Bethesda for their part allowed them a lot of leeway in tinkering with the gameplay systems they had established in 3. Bethesda (or more accurately Zenimax, but it's basically the same thing with respect to games) is flush with cash right now for whatever reason, and Obsidian is one of the most visible independent studios that is actually feasible to buy out (unlike Valve or something). It makes sense for them to be able to pick the brains of the custodians of the Fallout franchise and possibly use them to make New Vegas-like standalone spinoffs in the off years, and hopefully Obsidian would still be able to do their weird pet projects in the process.

[Tom]

That seems very likely but I'd hope that it would actually be a case of Obsidian does Fallout and Bethesda keeps developing TES.

My critical chance for Energy Weapons is crazy crazy. I get a critical on 1-2 guys in a group and the resulting meltdown(s) takes care of rest.

[KvP]

Oh by the way the patch (all platforms) has been submitted and will drop soon. I'm not sure if this is just a stability / bugfixing patch or if it addresses content issues as well. 100% sure Josh Sawyer said that there would be some balance tweaks in the pipeline. Which is good, since there are a number of pretty important things that need fixing. Boone and Veronica have leveling issues, the former being overpowered (100+ in guns when you get him) and the latter underpowered (an issue with her not gaining HP). There's also some weirdness with companion quests dependent on when you tackle things. Also the beam splitter mod for laser rifles actually makes the weapon far less effective.

It reminds me a lot of Baldur's Gate 2, actually. There were a really surprising amount of under-the-hood code issues and fuckups that players never noticed until fans fixed them manually.

[snalin]

Veronica pretty much straight up murders anything, and you can give her power armor, so I don't see the big issue with her being too weak. But, yeah, Boone has as high DPS as the PC, but has the plus of never missing and finding new targets ultra fast, so all you hear in close combat is "ploooshhhh, ploooshhhh" as  whatever you are fighting disintegrate into bloody pulps, before you even get to look at the compass to see where the fuck those red dots are.

[Caleb]

. Also the beam splitter mod for laser rifles actually makes the weapon far less effective.

Oh man!  Thanks for that!  I have been lugging around one of those and was about to upgrade in game.

[Johnny C]

i hope the patch fixes all the quests that are broken

[snalin]

Cass' quest chain goes horribly awry if you first *spoler* go to the gun runners, pick her up, and murder the runners when they try to down her. Then you can start the quest chain and she'll be all like "somebody killed my caravan with laser weapons I wonder who?"

We just murdered them to avenge it, that's who. Dammit.
*spoiler*

Ending fight was a bitch until I remembered that I brought my stealth boy, my C4 and my fat man. Oh hell yeah, kaboooom! I won the game for the NCR, but it really bothered me that there wasn't an option to help the NCR by using the army of robots you have lying around. It's completely logical to me to just let them go apeshit on the legion, since they live in the middle of the legion stronghold.

[KvP]

So yeah, all us speculators were most likely right.

The textures for these graffiti live in a folder in the game files called "nvdlcgraffiti", and all the textures share the filename "nvgraffitisierra". Interestingly, this folder contains a number of other textures, sharing the filename "nvgraffitihonesthearts". These read:
"Where's New Canaan, anyway?"
"The Burned Man Walks!"
"Joshua Graham Lives!"

[Johnny C]

sorry, speculating that new canaan or grand canyon will be a location? that'll be so cool

[Tom]

Woot, finished my first (NCR) play-through. I'll start fresh when I get Dead Money and finish up Independent.

[KvP]

Josh Sawyer is the best thing about Formspring.

Confirmed Bachelor is considered a homosexual perk? Neither the name, the art nor the description gave any indication of that.

Confirmed Bachelor is a euphemism for a gay man. The icon art shows Vault Boy giving a massage to a naked Vault Boy with a heart floating over his head. I'm amazed that people look at that and sincerely come away thinking, "Hey, looks like a couple of bros just having a good time and giving a friendly massage."

Later on:

whos the homo that insisted on being so heavy handed with the gay dialogue and references in the game?

Alarm at the presence of homosexual dialogue topics is pretty interesting considering the majority of them only appear if you voluntarily take a perk that identifies your character as homosexual.

[Tom]

This game has truly deserved it's Rainbow Seal of Approval^TM

[KvP]

Patch is out.

[snalin]

That list of fixed quests is hilarious. Is there any that didn't need fixing?

[Scandanavian War Machine]

thought the patch had come out for 360 so I started up a new character last night.

going to try Hardcore Mode again for the achievement but it might be hard trying to carry all my survival shit around without companions since i decided to go with 1 Str. and boost everything else to 7/8/9 for some reason. Didn't tag any weapon skills so I could decide what to use later based on what's available. Probably gonna go with Guns, or maybe Energy Weapons....haven't really decided yet.

Sided with the Powder Gangers for the first time and they're not nearly as evil as they seemed. I mean, they're definitely jerks, but I wouldn't say they are "evil."


Sorry, Sunny Smiles.

[KvP]

The full changelog would be a novella, but I can say that balance-wise, a lot of energy weapon stats were changed (usually a change to DAM and ammo cost), energy ammo was modified (duh), sniper rifle and Gobi DAM/crit chance multipliers were lowered, missile launcher and fat man had DAM increases, a boatload of recipes were made a lot simpler (fewer ingredients and a lower count per ingredient), Caravan AI should now play face cards against the player, merchants will stop playing Caravan with the player after five games, and "some other stuff".

[Scandanavian War Machine]

from the Penny Arcade forums:

Top fixes:

* Companions now show up as waypoints on the map
* Companions will always fast travel with you, unless told to wait or sent away
* Fix: DLC error/save corruption
* Fix: Entering the strip after Debt Collector causes crash and autosave corruption
* Fix: Using Mojave Express dropbox can cause DLC warnings
* Crafting menu now filters valid (bright) recipes to the top of the list
* Weathered pistol no longer glitches when applying mods

After the break, see other issues/quests the patch covers...

In addition, this patch addresses issues with the following areas:

* Pip-Boy Interface
* Pre-Order DLC Items
* Reputation System
* Radio Stations
* Companion fixes
* Companion Quests
* Repair Menu
* Caravan
* Weapons and Weapon Mods
* Hardcore Mode
* Perks
* Skills
* Crafting Recipes
* Crafting Menu
* Mojave Express
* Chems/Addiction
* Doctors
* Vendors

And fixes for the following quests:

* Ain’t That a Kick in the Head
* By a Campfire on The Trail
* They Went That-a-Way
* My Kind of Town
* Boulder City Showdown
* Ring a Ding Ding!
* King’s Gambit
* For The Republic, Part 2
* Render Unto Caesar
* Et Tumor, Brute?
* The House Always Wins
* Wild Card
* Beyond the Beef
* GI Blues
* How Little We Know
* Oh My Papa
* Still In The Dark
* You’ll Know It When It Happens
* Arizona Killer
* Eureka!
* Veni, Vidi, Vici
* All or Nothing
* No Gods, No Masters
* Birds of a Feather
* I Put A Spell On you
* Come Fly With Me
* That Lucky Old Sun
* Don’t Make a Beggar of Me
* The White Wash
* Ghost Town Gunfight
* Restoring Hope
* Bleed Me Dry
* Aba Daba Honeymoon
* Tend To Your Business
* Wang Dang Atomic Tango
* Flags of Our Foul-Ups
* Debt Collector
* Talent Pool
* Left My Heart
* Someone To Watch Over Me
* Hard Luck Blues

And some changes the community has gathered

* Companions now fast travel to the appropriate location when dismissed by the player
* Companions now show up as waypoints on the local map.
* EC/ECP/MC ammo (standard) now has -2 DT
* EC/ECP/MC ammo (over charge) now has -5 DT
* EC/ECP/MC ammo (max charge) now has -10 DT
* Multiplas rifle now consumes 3 units of ammo per shot (previously 6)
* Plasma Defender now consumes 2 units of ammo per shot (previously 3)
* All reputation safehouses have been updated with additional supplies (armor, weapons, ammunition, skill magazines)
* All-purpose science suit can now be found in the Followers safehouse
* Legion Vexillarius armor, Legion Centurion armor and Legion Praetorian armor, sniper rifle, displacer glove, and machete gladius can now be found in the Caesar's Legion safehouse
* NCR Ranger combat armor, NCR salvaged power armor, NCR Ranger patrol armor, Hunting revolver, Trail carbine, Assault carbine can now be found in the NCR Ranger safehouse
* Recon armor, T-51b power armor, and T-45d power armor, all in poor condition, as well as Tesla cannon, Gatling laser and some ammo can be found in the Brotherhood of Steel safehouse.
* 12.7 ammo can now be made at reloading benches
* Some weapons mods like the night scope have the nightvision sight.
* ED-E´s laser zapper (after updating his weapon system in ED-E My Love) now shoots blue lasers.
* Stimpak's value was increased from 25 to 75 and super stimpak's from 100 to 150
* Crafting mass purified water requires 5 bottles of dirty water, 2 glass pitchers, and 1 surgical tubing. It also makes only 4 bottles of purified water.
* Mines in front of Primm removed.
* Sniper rifle now does 42 DAM instead of 62 (at least if you have the Hand Loader perk).
* More .50 MG and 12.7mm ammo available from vendors (e.g. Gun Runners)
* The Atomic Wrangler Casino now provides tiered rewards when gambling. (1st: Beer, 2nd: Dapper Gambler Hat, 3rd: Dapper Gambler Suit)
* Weight of the empty syringe has reduced to 0.0



Also Reload Bug is fixed.

YAYYY

[LTK]

You know, not using fast travel brings an entirely new level of depth to playing New Vegas. Oh, the Crimson Caravan Company wants me to go to the southern Mojave Outpost for a trade deal? Normally you'd zip over there through the world map, and hork down a few steaks when you get there for the starvation penalty, but I'm walking there like a proper Courier. This forces you to plan your trips according to the quests you need to complete.

I'm over in the area of Vegas, and there are a couple of things I need done before continuing on to the Strip. I have Veronica with me, and she wants to get back to the BoS bunker asap. But I still have a quest running there, so I search out the missing Brotherhood patrol on Nellis AFB first. I pick up a shitload of quests while I'm there, but those will have to wait. I come across Raul's shack while I'm looking for the train tunnel. That reminds me, I still have to set him free from Black Mountain. The quickest way there is directly south, past the quarry full of Deathclaws. Luckily, I just raided Vault 34's armoury (All American yeahh), so I figure I have a good chance at taking out enough to slip through. On my way there, though, I find the Ranger Safehouse, and surprisingly, I have a key for it! This means I can stash some of the heavier stuff I've been hauling around, particularly Annabelle and a massive pile of missiles I never use. Leaving the safehouse, I manage to kill five deathclaws (thank you, Riot Shotgun) and avoid the rest of them to reach the path up to Black Mountain. Now, the plan is to send Raul back to his shack, deal with Veronica and the Brotherhood afterward. Then I'll go to the Mojave outpost to track down the Cassidies, followed by a detour through Novac to retrieve the important stuff from my motel room and then back to Vegas.

You'll probably think I'm crazy, but it does wonders for the immersion, as well as extending the playtime you get from a single character (obviously). 

[snalin]

Stock up on plenty of ammo for the all-american before the endgame, with it you can kill everything really fast.

[Tom]

Q-35 Matter Modulator with Meltdown is more fun though.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

Yeah, I think I'm actually gonna try to use Energy Weapons on my new character, so I can see this Meltdown in action.  It sounds really cool but I never use EW so I haven't gotten to use it yet.

Also, I'm finding out that 1 Str. is not really a very good thing to do. Definitely gonna have to Intense Training it up a bit so I can use weapons besides the Throwing Spear, Dynamite, and the Laser Pistol.

I completely forgot about Str. requirments for guns in this one. Oops!

[Tom]

CH, LK and PE are things you can skimp on. ED-E renders PE useless with the Enhanced Sensors Perk

[Johnny C]

dude next playthrough is going to be the most strength and luck i can manage. maybe some endurance or agility thrown in there. it's going to be worth it when i'm hurling critical melee attacks at deathclaws at level six.

[Johnny C]

to quote some dude on something awful

crits rule everything around me

[Storm Rider]

Charisma and Perception are also very useful in some cases too. Charisma buffs your companions more than you think, and Perception is essential if you intend to use Energy Weapons and affects several of the crit-boosting perks if I'm remembering correctly. Obsidian really did a great job of making you pick and choose, actually. There's very few easy dump skills/stats.

[tHEfOOL]

dude next playthrough is going to be the most strength and luck i can manage. maybe some endurance or agility thrown in there. it's going to be worth it when i'm hurling critical melee attacks at deathclaws at level six.

i ALWAYS go for high strength, 8 or 9 at least, that way i can carry more loot. plus my character had fairly low unarmed skill and still i could always fall back on trusty old love and hate (or as i call em "love hat") and still woop some ass when i run out of ammo

[Johnny C]

i'm at level thirty and i'm nowhere near wanting to be done my playthrough btw

[Felrender]

I've gotten halfway through characters and changed over to a different gimmick like three times now.

But I think my Lemmy run is going to be the one I finish.

[snalin]

I've found out from previous Fallout experience that intelligence never, ever is a dump stat. In the first ones, skilling up faster allowed you to boost your character a lot in the early game - you got 5+int*2 skill points, so with 10 int, you'd get 25 skill points a level, meaning that you could from level 1 to level 2 boost one tagged stat 50 points. Which again would mean being able to kill stuff with guns (woo!) instead of just missing all the time. A good idea would be to take the skilled perk (you always took that anyways, didn't you?), subtract 1 from everything and max intel, and distribute the rest as normal. This was even more game-breaking in Fallout 3, but then again, getting good in anything in that game seemed to be game breaking. New Vegas wasn't as bad in this regards, but I still wished that I'd boosted my intelligence high from start (natural 9 + 1 from implants), and done the rest later on. I'm not sure if I need to max out all of my skills, but it feels good to jump from laser canon to minigun to sniper rifle to super-sledge and back again.

[KvP]

The Powergamer build in FO1/2 always had Luck as a dump stat, gifted and finesse as traits, and small guns / energy weapons / utility skill (usually speech) as skills.

[Alex C]

I never, ever took Skilled and I always found Finesse to be a pinch overrated in FO1&2 since in the early-to-mid game it's a bit harder to rely on crits than many people seemed willing to admit. I tended to favor Gifted+Small Frame, since the latter trait was really only problematic if you were an incorrigible pack rat.

[KvP]

GOTY, easily

[LeeC]

your link no worky. 

being that they are in that part of the world they have to have an area 51 DLC at some point.

[snalin]

to see the link, click f5!

[Felrender]

your link no worky. 

being that they are in that part of the world they have to have an area 51 DLC at some point.

JE Sawyer addressed this on his Formspring.  Bethesda already did aliens, so Obsidian isn't looking at doing an alien DLC.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

Area 51 doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with aliens

just like real-life, it's far more likely that it's just experimental aircraft and other secret, but terrestrial, things


but yeah they probably are going to skip it altogether, which kind of bums me out....but not too much.

oh yeah, and the patch is live on 360! Sadly, it looks like they took out a new glitch that I got last night when I started yet another hardcore game which saw none of my Survival meters go up at all, for any reason. I played for several hours last night, got up to level 4 or 5, and my h20, food, and sleep meters never moved above zero.

Now they're back to normal   

[LeeC]

I wish the ranger hat had stats, looks cool.

[KvP]

Dead Money trailer.