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Hardcore Tips (By Bryn)

    • 180 posts
    February 21, 2015 1:48 PM EST

    By Bryn

    For the longest time I was afraid or uninterested in hardcore mode for New Vegas. Now after playing through it, I can't go back. A few people on the blog that I have talked to have said hardcore mode intimidates them so I hope to provide some tips and tricks that will make the challenge less daunting and more fun.

    1. The perk Pack Rat is 100% required: At first it seems pointless, all items that weigh less than 2 will then weigh half as much? What's good about that. Well when you horde food and water on your character like me, you'll want as much as possible. And you'll also want enough space to store your loot and other items you'd wish to sell for caps or food, chems, etc. It also makes managing your food and water better because you can have double the normal amount for half the weight. So 20 purified bottles of water = 10 units instead of 20. And the effect doesn't go away if you have stacks of the item, so that's also useful. And of course, the ammo weight restriction is effected by this and since higher end ammo for better guns weighs a lot, this will help.

    2. Have at least 1 player home: By having a place to safely store your supplies you can have a place to keep your heavier merchandise and spare ammo, crafting materials, food, water, and anything you can't carry and don't want to sell. I always only keep 1 so I don't have to worry where did I put some items.

    3. Melee and Stealth are your friends: With the ammo weight added you won't always have that much ammo, more often than not you will have less than 200 rounds for any particular weapon. that may seem a lot, but with heavily armor targets it won't do much so you'll end up using more than usual and with the gun sway you will miss a lot. So to have a way to fight back even without bullets you should keep a backup melee or unarmed weapon. Not only is melee and unarmed in this game amazing thanks to some of the perks and unique weapons or armor or special unarmed moves, it is also compliments with pretty much every follower except for maybe Rex and Grandma.... And do I even need to go into depth on how useful sneak attacks are?  

    4. SURVIVAL.... USE IT: So few actually craft food or stuff from campfires using survival or even use food outside of lowering your hunger meter and it's kind of sad, especially since with maxed out survival you get a much more effective and plentiful replacement for stimpacks and other drugs thanks to the perk that gives you thin and thick red paste and blood or black blood sausages. Collect them materials and get crafting!

    And arguably the most important two rules

    5. Getting hit with melee degrades not only armor durability but also weapon durability: So don't think you can just go running into combat with your supersledge, able to tank shots because of your healing items. It'll cause your weapon to be more and more damaged each time, and without weapon repair kits from crafting (again... USE IT) or replacements which in some cases get unbelievably heavy (and don't bring up the broken perk known as jury rigging) you'll be spending a fortune regularly repairing it and your armor...

    6. CARRY... ONLY... 1-2... GUNS... MAX: Seriously, if you're going to carry a gun and use it, pick that and one other, preferably 1 as a pistol and the other is a shotgun or rifle. If you are going to use a gun you will be storing as much ammo as you can, and it's more useful to store 1-2 types of ammo for guns than all types of ammo trying to debate which you will sell or buy.

    If I think of more ill add them, but hopefully this will help all of you.

    • 9 posts
    February 27, 2015 9:55 PM EST
    Thanks for the tips
  • April 29, 2015 3:33 PM EDT

    Keep your followers loaded up with stimpacks too

  • July 23, 2015 8:47 AM EDT
    Noice. What rifle or pistol though? .44 and a marksman carbine?
    • 1913 posts
    July 23, 2015 9:35 AM EDT
    Whatever type of rifle or pistol works for you. Be it the strongest in the game, the fastest fire rate, or one you just like using.

    Those are solo choices though, especially with the unique versions.