Fallout New Vegas

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 3:38 am

Finished Honest Hearts, took the extermination route. I may go back and try the evacuation route and see if I like the idea.

The story was VERY very sad, but finding the story in order to read them in order is completely optional, which is making the players miss a LOT. I enjoy finding the tidbits, the Father, the Sorrows, and how Joshua Graham / Daniel, and New Canaanites came about.

Tried a couple "find the stuff" quests and got the unique rifle.

Tried to play a game of caravan, but I can't play any of the cards. All I can do is discard until I got no cards left. Weird...

I think I'll start doing some challenges / trophies just to kill things with the unique weapons.

As I've been to almost every place on the map (except just a handful of places) and gotten almost every weapon except the two expansion packs left.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 3:41 am

Started Old World Blues, didn't quite realize it's "Spock's Brain"

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 5:54 pm

I'm half way through OWB I think. I'm just exploring the place.

Survivalist rifle is great against any of the lobotomites and Y-17 Trauma suits. 2-3 shots to the head (esp. when helped with slasher / steady) put them down quickly.

The roboscorps, on the other hand, is a bit of a problem. Those tail stinger shots are nasty.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 12:23 am

Finished OWB... playing non-stop basically, and probably missed a ton of implants and whatnot. I can go back for a bit more.

The story's cute, but then, I'm already maxed out at level 50. So I'm basically playing for the challenge, and collecting the various weapons.

And no, I don't intend to kill a Deathclaw with a rinky-dink 22 caliber pistol.

dbt1949 · Post by **dbt1949** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 12:10 pm

I had to go the god mode to do that.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 3:25 am

Finished Lonesome road. It's a pretty short DLC comparing to others. I brought along the Anti-Material 50 cal rifle. it just PWNs everybody if I can catch them unaware, even deathclaws, and I can easily pick up AP ammo for this off almost ANY of the marked men. If they *are* aware of me then I resort to my SleepyTime 10 mm SMG (silenced) and maybe a grenade or two. Also picked up the Red Glare rocket launcher which seems to be WAY underpowered. Those rockets don't seem to kill any one even when I empty the whole magazine at someone.

I found the shoulder-mounted guns to be rather... useless. It's basically a cuter-looking minigun (firing a different round), much like the cyberdog guns at the Big MT.

I may go try the Courier's Mile, though it's likely a mostly suicide mission, even when I'm level 50.

I'm debating whether to use the Ulysses Duster (which is +50 rad resist) and his breating mask (another 25, plus the built-in so I don't even need to take Rad-X) or should I go pick up some Power Armor (have to leave my Remnant Power Armor in the Divide when it's too beat up). and take Rad-X. Or should I use the Stealth Suite Mk 2?

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:01 am

Went to Courier's Mile, and oh boy, that's ONE nasty place. Rad all around, which means it's almost ****ing impossible to kill the irradiated folks, who are HEALED by it. You basically have to bring like 5-10 mines, mine the perimeter without getting spotted, then throw a grenade over the area to tease them into attacking you. Then you hit them as they hit the mines.

Found the two warheads in that area, and finally, all 30 warheads in the Divide (I missed one before the missile launch site). Then went after all five ED-E upgrades. I don't feel like going after all of Ulysses' audio logs though.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 3:56 am

Went back to Big MT and found Christine's COS Recon Armor. Big MT is almost all empty now.

Sold so much stuff that most merchants got no caps left, but I've been spending $$$ trying to get all the implants. My weapons collection is now most impressive, as I'm after unique weapons and stuff.

oh, and did that mission under the Camp Searchlight Church. It's kinda funny how the two Legionaires were tricked into opening the nuke wastes.

Accidentally killed one of the King's with a explosive round against a Freeside Thug.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:22 am

Ran out of things to do, basically. I picked up a katana and is slicing and dicing Fiends around Vault 3. Just for the heck of it, I went inside the vault and cleaned it out too. Fiends are actively RUNNING AWAY from me. Sorry, no quarter for you! Once went to cower in a corner screaming "Don't kill me, please!" And still got her head sliced off. Another got "brained" with a 9 Iron.

Maybe I should try to finish the Battle for Hoover Dam with just pistols as bringing out the big guns is way too... unsportsman-like.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 2:09 am

Looking into the mods / patches, and holy ****. Some of these mods are really for OCD people. SIX types of food, different effects for different stuff, far more emphasis on survival (eating raw food will poison you, for example),

And the various patches are too numerous, and many of them are compilations of other mods, and not all of them work with other combinations...

* Mission Mojave (several editions) fixes bugs, FOOK compatible
* FOOK (Fallout Overhaul Kit) NV Edition, fixes bugs and goofs, adds merchants, and some rebalance issues
* nVamp ( New Vegas Advanced Mod Project ), I can't find a description on what this one fixes
* Warzone -- imagine running into a literal war between two or more factions in new areas of the map...
* Bounty-Hunter (1 and 2) -- new quests that adds hunting down people, much like Three-Card Bounty mod
* A World of Pain -- out of places to explore? Here's a few more
* XFO -- revamps the game, removes skill and level caps, improves AI, and more

Then there's the truly WTF mods... such as the prostitution mod. (Don't ask) Bouncing... uh... boobies mod (really!)

Sarkus · Post by **Sarkus** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 1:22 am

Yeah, there are some gratuitous sex mods, just like Fallout 3 ended up with. I don't think anyone did a toned down sex mod, though. There was one for Fallout 3 that was in the spirit of the first two games (i.e. fade to black). Never saw anything like that for New Vegas, just the more graphic mods.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 4:18 am

Playing with Nexus Mod Manager and Fallout Mod Manager right now. Downloaded several mods, but looks like I missed a few files so I'm getting graphical glitches. Also, the inventory sorter isn't sorting right as a lot of the DLC items are not getting sorted. I think I need to download some of those "patches".

I'm starting to see how the structure of the game engine allows for this sort of "patching", as any item can be "overriden" by loading a different update later. However, it also makes for loading mods a bit of a pain. Seems every mod have additional files, and loading them in the wrong order is bad!

Having Warzones loaded is a load of fun, as the different factions are having 10 v 10 battles and it's interesting, like NCR vs. Legion, NCR vs. Fiends, Vipers vs Super Mutants, and so on. If they are near one of your quest areas, even better!

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 4:30 am

Try the New Vegas Bounties line. It's a lot of fun playing through some of those missions. Add Warzone and there's tons of loot and I'm not even picking up all the stuff I can.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 10:31 pm

Can't get the New Vegas Bounty II to work properly. Just crashes when I try to go into West Vegas Ruins to catch the second guy.

EDIT: Going after all the OTHER bounties first.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 5:33 am

"Finished" New Vegas Bounties 2 except for two quests, which one just crashes the game, and the other is sort of a puzzle.

Whoever did this did a great job, added a ton of saloons all around, a ton of bunkers and caves and such, some even with extra solutions that may be handled through deceit as well as firepower. He even added a new companion, a Ghoul Doc Friday (i.e. Doc Holiday) that can be recruited, as well as an off-map area that's like a small town.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 2:36 am

Decided to try a bit more of the Warzone stuff. They added a special "bunker passage" to a new zone called "Barstow". And it's a HUGE battlefield, with constantly spawning Fiends, and even NCR troopers, augmented with rangers and heavy troopers, have problem holding the line. I must have picked off like 100 fiends left and right as I explored the ruins of Barstow (I had the silenced COS rifle though). I didn't even bother picking up weapons any more. I know I can't carry them all.

EDIT: one particular "did I just do that?" moment

In Barstow, which is a new area added by Warzones mod, I just found this fiend in the distance, and I'm going to snipe him. So I lined up VATS... aimed for head, and fired. I missed.

Except the shot went into the engine compartment of a truck behind the Fiend, and KABOOM! It exploded, sending the Fiend 30 ft into the air (higher than the 3 story building, really) and landed BEHIND ME (and I'm quite far away).

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 11:55 pm

Tried the Deserter's Fortress Mod. Seems the designer left out some meshes as I basically dropped through the floor, and decided to play with the lore a bit, though the story seems to fit with the tons of horrific experiments the government played on the people in the Fallout-verse (if you read the Fallout lore, lots of vaults were subjected to experiments, social and otherwise, resulting in many vaults getting decimated). Unfortunately, they didn't put in enough "gateway" events or hints to turn back, so I basically went a different way than the designer intended, still finished the game, but didn't get all the "treasures" or got the full story.

And they ramped up the difficulty to the max. I got killed by... Tunnelers! (they used to be extremely weak)

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 3:58 am

Was trying the NVEC, which is "New Vegas Error Corrections". it's supposed to patch all the errors. However, I think it's conflicting with Mission Mojave mod I had loaded, as well as Project Nevada and Fallout Overhaul Kit (FOOK). Looks like I have to pick one or the other, darn it. Game play stutters like heck now, even with multi-threading turned on.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:43 pm

Found "Clean Deluxe" which eliminates a lot of useless stuff and frame rate is now smooth as butter. I'll post a load order later that includes a lot of mods.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 4:58 am

Looks like I will have to uninstall NVEC, as it's causing errors more often than it's not. Also, something here requires NV Script Extender, and that's another layer of problems.

Whoever did this "Warzones" thing for FNV used existing territory brilliantly by generating basically faction battles at preset locations every few game days (usually, just before you arrive) so you can choose to participate, or watch the battle unfold, and loot the bodies.

I'm STILL finding more locations of these battles as I explore the wastes (he did include a map, but it's not exact...)

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 10:56 am

It's been a couple more months, and I think I'll give this one last try. I'll be starting over from scratch, this time with a better idea of what to expect. Less of an open world, for one thing. Last time I had a 'noble gunslinger' character concept, which I think was part of why I had trouble. The character could never get his feet under him, as the writing is too morally gray to support him. This time, I think, I'm going to take advantage of that with an opportunistic, greedy character with a bit of a sadistic streak and see if that works any better. Less of Richard Boone's Paladin, more Al Swearengen meets Bugsy Siegel.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 1:21 pm

I played a noble guy all around, killing guys who're hostile or try to attack me. I think my reputation is pretty much Messiah even after I took the "Thought You Died" perk.

The trick basically is only kill people (and critters) who needed killing, and get the right companion at the right times. I went with "guns" and "speech" as my primary attributes, as I don't like sneaking or unarmed / melee fighting. And it worked well enough.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 1:25 pm

Installed "A World of Pain", which added over 100 locations to the Wastes... from small rooms to deathclaw infested caverns and labs, to fireants, giant rats, remnant labs, that seem to integrate into many existing locations. I'm finding new vaults (40 and 41), a "teleporter hub" to various other tiny and large rooms around the wastes (many linked to existing areas, such as Nellis Array, BOS Bunker, as well are new locations). And I'm sure there's a lot more to go.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 2:04 pm

I tried World of Pain last time I played and ended up uninstalling it after the level 1 powder gangers that attack the first city showed up with high end laser weapons and armor that tripled the power of anything I should have had access to.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 2:22 pm

World of Pain is definitely for high level characters only (figure at least level 25 if not 40).

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 4:01 am

I think I had the wrong mods loaded or something.

It's having very peculiar visual effect.

I was using the Vintorez 5mm which is a SILENT assault rifle that fires the 5mm ammo (it's supposed to be a Soviet Spetznas weapon) I have EVE (energy visual enhancement, which adds special effects to all the energy weapons). When I fire the Vintorez, I get bullet trails like tracer rounds (or lasers, depending on your viewpoint).

Right now I'm playing this "stealth warrior" who has the Vintorez (silent), Sniper Rifle with Silencer / light stock (silent) and a high-power assault rifle or LMG, probably FN FAL as it shares the ammo with the sniper rifle, and whatever stealthy armor I can get.

This World of Pain is great as I'm still finding areas to explore. There's a sewer in Lipton that leads to underground tunnels, which leads to weapons research facility, which then links to something else, and so on.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 4:13 am

Seems this "enemy blowing up' thing is a part of AWOP design... Apparently you're not supposed to loot everybody you see, esp. armor.

This results in some truly... funny kills.

Once I shot this guy with the Vintorez, and one of the death animations is the guy basically... turns glowing red and "explodes". Except this guy actually levitated, THROUGH the ceiling, and basically died "out of view", though chunks of something fell back to ground. I think AWOP basically had them wear the explosive collars that make them 'self-destruct" when you kill them.

Found another several areas... the new player house in Goodsprings where you need to do a few quests to get it is cute one. There's also "Underground" and Freetech, a bunch of unfinished vaults, and so on.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 3:29 pm

I am playing through AWOP's "main quest", between the "Underground" war against the Tech Raiders and Fiends and whatnot.

They really cranked up the hurt in this mod. I'm now running into Tech Raiders wearing high-end power armor T-45's and the bosses are wearing T-51s and even Enclave Tesla armor. Fortunately I am killing them just as dead with my upgraded tri-beam laser and when stealth is needed, my upgraded sniper rifle. Fortunately, the loot is just as great. I even found a guy armed with the very very special "Alien Blaster" (which was only available with that Wilderness Trait, usually).

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 10:32 pm

This game really dialed up the hurt. In fact, it actually managed to KILL my lvl 50 character through a booby trap rigged with MiniNukes, among other things. Wow.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 11:33 pm

I still need to reinstall this and get back to it. Soon I keep telling myself. the thing putting me off is finding the mods I want. All i care about are graphics, sounds, bodies ...bout it really. Im a member of all the Nexus sites so guess ill check there the day before im ready and grab everything I think ill need.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 3:28 am

Found Headbanger's Turf (part of AWOP) and talked to the guy who want some parts for special weapons.

Unfortunately, I had already killed the guys and didn't find the parts he wanted. I've already emptied the whole place (Bonnie Spring Sewers) AND the Visitor's Center. I also seem to have used my tri-beam laser too well, as I managed to vaporize the enemy leader, and apparently there's a bug that caused his body to disappear (or fell through the door, I don't know) so that there's nothing for me to grab.

I tried to play Fortune Canyon Mod, and also ran into a bug: can't enter one of the mines. Game just crashes. Argh! So at least two out of four goals can't be completed.

Tried to activate another mod: a player underground bunker. Unfortunately, this one just crashed the game PERIOD. Can't even see the main menu.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 1:27 pm

Kept playing through AWOP, and can't get into the Freeside Bank. There's supposedly some crates blocking the areas, except I can't find the crates that can be moved.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 12:59 pm

Finished the "underground" quest as I killed just about every Tech Raider in the HQ area and the Arena. That was fun, ambushing about 20-30 boss level guys, many in power armor. However, it doesn't say who to go back for the "reward".

What's with the Armory's 3 keys? Where's the third one?

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Wed Apr 18, 2012 2:56 am

Was checking out all the different mod patches when I ran into a compatibility and borked the run enough so not even the main menu will load.

Finally killed the mods and found a combo that worked. Some of those optional files under FOOK just doesn't work at all.

Found a mod that lets you run the app in a "borderless window" so you can alt-tab out of it properly. Not sure if I have a use for that.

Tried some HUD enhancements. Wanted to like Darnified UI mod, as it's colorful, but none of the fonts match up to my odd widescreen res of 1366x768. Argh!

Found aHUD (adjustable HUD) and iHud (immersive HUD). The format lets you relocate the indicators, while the latter auto-hides the indicators only show them when appropriate. Used Unified HUD to install them with the mods. Then added MTUI to add more lines of text on screen.

Now Weapons Mod Menu complains that it's not installed properly (shows which mods are compatible with what weapons and whether you have any), and lets you uninstall mods. I'm debating if I should try the WME or WMX, both of which adds like 100+ weapon mods to the game.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Thu Apr 19, 2012 3:19 am

Argh! Tried to optimize the mods and ended up breaking it... AGAIN.

Spend three hours getting the order back to one that worked, but managed to add in NVCE (which fixes up the NPC characters and whatnot), weapon mod vending machine, and one other quest thing.

How the **** did other players manage to load like over 100 modules? I had problems with just like 30-40.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 11:28 pm

Blackhawk wrote:It's been a couple more months, and I think I'll give this one last try. I'll be starting over from scratch, this time with a better idea of what to expect. Less of an open world, for one thing. Last time I had a 'noble gunslinger' character concept, which I think was part of why I had trouble. The character could never get his feet under him, as the writing is too morally gray to support him. This time, I think, I'm going to take advantage of that with an opportunistic, greedy character with a bit of a sadistic streak and see if that works any better. Less of Richard Boone's Paladin, more Al Swearengen meets Bugsy Siegel.

Well, a little over two months later and I've finished the game plus all four DLC. My last save was at 68 hours, and I had just hit 40 killing the last fellow before the credits rolled.

It went much better this time. The new philosophy worked a lot better. New Vegas is a lot more gray than Fallout 3 was. I loved Honest Hearts and Old World Blues. I found Dead Money to be tedious and irritating, and Lonesome Road was OK, but it just felt like an obstacle course.

Very fun ride, and I'm glad I went back, but I'm also very ready to be done. It can be an incredibly frustrating game at times, between some horribly bugged quests and frequent crashes (the game would lock up once every ten or fifteen zone loads.)

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 3:05 am

Try some mods. A World of Pain, Vegas Bounties 1 and 2, etc. are pretty good.

Sarkus · Post by **Sarkus** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 5:15 am

Blackhawk wrote:I loved Honest Hearts and Old World Blues. I found Dead Money to be tedious and irritating, and Lonesome Road was OK, but it just felt like an obstacle course.

Honest Hearts is not commonly liked, so I'm interested in what you found so compelling. I personally liked it because of the "Survivalist" story that you reveal slowly, but then I also like the story part of Dead Money as well.

I know what you mean by burned out, though. I haven't touched the game in quite awhile, though I did do the bounty mods that Kasey recommends. They were a nice way to keep busy while waiting for the final DLC's to roll out last year.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 9:37 am

Sarkus wrote:Honest Hearts is not commonly liked, so I'm interested in what you found so compelling. I personally liked it because of the "Survivalist" story that you reveal slowly, but then I also like the story part of Dead Money as well.

Honest Hearts - I liked the setting, for one thing. I found it a nice change. I enjoyed the way the story was told, and I enjoyed exploring the Tribal culture, which has the potential to be really interesting.

The story of Dead Money was fine. It was the level design that ruined it for me. Back and forth, back and forth across a multi-level maze full of dead ends built from identical red-brown buildings, fighting the same enemies over and over. Now, I did enjoy the way they stripped you and made (especially for the first half) every bullet you found meaningful, and the second part, once you're in the Sierra Madre wasn't bad.

Kasey Chang wrote:Try some mods. A World of Pain, Vegas Bounties 1 and 2, etc. are pretty good.

I was running probably 30 different mods. Vegas Bounties was nice, although I didn't play it until the end. I hated World of Pain. I thought it was horribly balanced and consisted mostly of figuring out the most ridiculous things they could throw at the player, then throwing ten of them.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 3:29 pm

AWOP really needs to be explored by a super-tough character, like level 40+ gunner with top of the line sniper rifles and heavy energy weapons. Some of those underground areas full of Deathclaws are just brutal and you pretty much have to play it like a ninja with guns.