4961

FarCry 3? Semi-open (some areas are gated by the story) and has lots of opportunity for sniper shooting.

4962

Seconded. I really liked New Vegas, one of my favorite games of the last number of years and I’d rate the Witcher 2 right up there with it, I’ve actually played it through 3 times.

4963

So coming back to this after quite a while (thanks to the modding thread Zak recently launched), I have a pretty old save and after resurrecting the game I realized that there’s not much of a breadcrumb trail to work with, in terms of figuring out where you were, what you were doing and how to continue. For instance, with my most recent save from a few years back, Follows-Chalk is a companion, but nothing in the game is telling me where I was intending to go or where I should go to continue this quest.

4965

I loved Vegas from Goodsprings through Novac. That was the wasteland I wanted to see and play in. But once you go north, it got too “civilized”. I would have preferred a wasteland of small towns and ranches, isolated farmsteads and hamlets, with my avatar wandering around them.

4966

Fallout 4 announcement coming soon?

4967

Newb question: just starting out, finished tutorial area, assigned to go to Primm in main quest. But I get my ass handed to me in Primm pretty quickly because I have next to no ammo. Should I head elsewhere first to grind and loot for ammo? Is there a stash somewhere in Goodsprings or on the way to Primm?

4968

Hey, look who else is playing Fallout: New Vegas! I just went mod crazy – well, mod crazy for me means actually trying a mod or two, including some interface stuff and a weather mod – and started playing again. I originally had a really rough time with the Xbox 360 version back when it was released. I figure I got about half way through the game before a bug brought everything to a screeching halt. The problem was identified many months later as a particular cowboy hat in my inventory. TRUE STORY.

You shouldn’t have to do much (any?) grinding to deal with Primm. You are using VATS for combat, right? If you play this as a real-time first person shooter, you’re going to be hurting for ammo in the early game. It’s possible, but I don’t recommend it. If you don’t have enough ammo even for VATS combat, just fall back and scrape some together in Goodsprings. Remember that the economy in Fallout is almost strictly a matter of how much time you want to spend scrounging. Just collect stuff and sell it to the general store next to the saloon. Or break down the ammo you don’t need at the bench next to the general store and make the ammo you do need. You really shouldn’t be short on bullets. Metro 2033 this ain’t!

If you have any more questions, post away. It looks like we’re both going to be working our way through this! Are you playing on hardcore mode, in which you have to eat, drink, and sleep? I heart hardcore mode. Some folks feel it add busywork, but for me, it’s a powerful part of the post-apocalyptic theming. I love having to worry about clean drinking water and where I’m going to sleep for the night. Seriously.

-Tom

4969

I just started started recently too, and didn’t have much of an issue with Primm (Legion Assassins on the other hand…). There are a couple of little things to find around Goodsprings that may help get some experience and maybe some ammo (the prison, someone asks you to do a rescue, that kind of thing). As Tom said, collect everything you can and sell it, cigarettes are great because they are light and worth decent money early on. I took out the Primm guys with the variant rifle, a pistol, and lots of use of VATS. Are you having issues with clearing out the casino or the outside guys?

4970

Here is a mod list that I use with very easy instructions on how and what to install. Some mods might not be to your taste, but for me it was the only way I could hope to really mod NV. I then added Willow (the best companion mod) and a few others not listed on the link… and broke the game. So back to step one for me, but until I screwed it up, the game ran great. Willow didn’t mess anything up, but I got too mod-happy and with little true knowledge of how to mod, I screwed it up. Anyway, hopefully someone here finds the link useful.

4971

Oh man, you did go crazy! :) That seems way over the top for anyone who isn’t familiar with how to manage mods. I think the better advice is to just grab one or two for starters to get a feel for the process (I recommend JE Sawyer’s own mod if you’re into the whole survival aspect, or the Nevada Skies weather mod if you want to bring the world even more alive). Then fold in a couple more as you go. Unless you’re hip to the whole scene of modding a Bethesda game, the guiding principle should be extreme moderation!

Get it? MODeration. But seriously, folks, a little goes a long way.

-Tom

4972

The only mods I’m using are Yukichigai Unofficial Patch and Conelrad Radio for more music variety. (Along with NV Mod Organizer). What UI mods are you using?

You are using VATS for combat, right? If you play this as a real-time first person shooter, you’re going to be hurting for ammo in the early game. It’s possible, but I don’t recommend it.

That’s probably been my problem. I have used VATS for some of the combat, but for critters and such I have tended to not bother, or to just forget about VATS and lapse into a FPS mindset, and then blow through ammo. So I think you nailed the issue.

If you don’t have enough ammo even for VATS combat, just fall back and scrape some together in Goodsprings.

At this point I have next to nothing, so I will head back to Goodsprings and scrounge what I can. Then I have to memorize that hotkey that gets me into VATS mode and use it everytime.

Just collect stuff and sell it to the general store next to the saloon. Or break down the ammo you don’t need at the bench next to the general store and make the ammo you do need. You really shouldn’t be short on bullets. Metro 2033 this ain’t!

Another good tip. Thanks.

If you have any more questions, post away. It looks like we’re both going to be working our way through this!

Absolutely!

Are you playing on hardcore mode, in which you have to eat, drink, and sleep? I heart hardcore mode. Some folks feel it add busywork, but for me, it’s a powerful part of the post-apocalyptic theming. I love having to worry about clean drinking water and where I’m going to sleep for the night. Seriously.

-Tom

I’d love to try hardcore but figured I’d better wait until after an initial playthrough. And given my problems so far, that was probably a wise choice :o.

It was in the casino. I think I did use VATS for the outside guys, but that brought me down to zero rifle ammo and very little pistol ammo.

As an aside, there’s a locally-owned (i.e. non-Gamestop) video game store near me that sells used strat guides, and I found a pristine hardcover F:NV game guide, collector’s edition. Inside is a stamp that says “Limited Edition” #082297." Is that for real or a joke? They did a limited edition in hardcover?

4973

Yeah, that started happening with big releases a couple years ago I think. I have a limited edition of the Borderlands 2 strategy guide, not because it’s better than the Internet (it’s significantly worse) but it’s pretty.

4974

I’ve been playing the hell out of this lately, just wandering around. I finished the main quest about what, 2,3,4? years ago and can’t remember how things resolved. Where is Boone? Where is Cassidy Rose? Why do the Powder Gangers like me and the NCR doesn’t so much? It’s an amnesiac slowly waking up and remembering a former life. I finally got the power armor quest done and man is that stuff fun. Rad resistance and 25 armor! The only problem is I have to remember to take it off before fast traveling as its Brotherhood and the NCR seem to rather dislike people in Brotherhood power armor.

I love the desert feel and looking around for miles. IMHO this is one of the most fun sniper games ever made.

4975

I recently re-installed this as well, ready for a pre-Fallout 4 play-through. Going pretty light on the mods, I just went for unofficial fixes, UI, and some light graphical enhancements.

So Yukichigai obviously, ‘MTUI’ which is the UI mod I think most people use, Autosave Manager (in case of corrupted autosaves, you have backups), Interior Lighting Overhaul, Essential Visual Enhancements, More Grass, and the Couriers Stash Pre-order Pack Selector (for turning off a bunch of free cheat stuff you get at the start).

4976

By an amazing coincidence, I also picked this up again after a long time, just last week. All the Fallout 4 excitement got me to download the latest version of the ENB mod and dive back in. And I also happened to be at Primm.

4977

If you don’t like to use VATS and would rather play FPS-style, then you might consider using a bullet-time mod instead. I used one on my last FO3 play-through, and intend to use it on my next FNV play-through as well.

4978

I didn’t think I’d like hardcore mode, that it would be too intrusive, but I figured I had to try it on my second go around and it’s pretty interesting. It definitely makes exploring the wasteland a much riskier affair, but can be mitigated with proper planning, and packing. I wouldn’t do it on my first playthrough personally, I enjoy sightseeing a little too much to want to have to worry about all that overhead, but if you really like the game it’s definitely worth tinkering with.

4979

Which ENB are you using?

4980

I think hardcore mode makes F:NV so much better. For one thing I can almost never find rad away even from a vendor. Purified water isluchbhaerer to find so you end up really treasuring a broken sink that has fresh water. Recently I delved deep into a vault that was radioactive the whole time. I got completely lost and had to fight off tons of ghouls in an unarmored radiation suit (the cool yellow one) because I was getting so sick. I was in there so long I was getting hunger and dehydration sickness too. I was forced to drink out of toilets that irradiated me further and eating food just made it worse. At some point I became leg crippled and limped out of there at around 980/1000 radiation. I decided not to fast travel but limp back to the medical clinic. Along the way I had to be very careful and avoid anything that looked even remotely radioactive. The system they created just really gels when you play it hardcore.

4981

I looked at a few of them and settled on a mod that puts more info on the main screen, so I don’t have to constantly check the Pipboy. Looking at the Fallout Mod Manager, it’s called oHUD. I’ve got info running along the right side of the screen showing time of day, my needs ratings, my encumbrance, my DT, and my resistances. It’s super configurable, so you can show whatever info you want at any position on the screen. Very handy.

I’ve also got a mod called Neotropics Weapon Display that lets me check the stats for a weapon like how many action points it takes to fire, the reloading time, the range, and so forth. It’s odd to me that info isn’t listed in the game without a mod. I’ve got a mod called Quick Trade that lets me open the trade menu by just right clicking a NPC. I’ve got a mod called Grenade Hotkey, that lets me chuck a grenade by tapping the G key. And finally I downloaded a flashlight mod, FlashlightNVSE, because I’m using the weather mod (Nevada Skies) to make night pitch black. That, along with weather, really brings alive the environment and the sense of the passage of time.

There are a few radar mods that give you a Halo style top-down display of everyone around you. I tried that for a bit, but then took it out. It felt a bit too gamey to have eyes in the back of my head. It’d be cool if something like that was built into power armor or a specific type of headset, but it felt cheesy to have it on without any sort of ingame justification.

-Tom