Duck and Cover

You really need an anti-materiel rifle and a cozy, unreachable sniper spot to fight those things.

Am I the only one that has the master repair dickhead in the Brotherhood safe house repair all my gear, then steal the bottle caps back off him afterward? Free repair ftw.

POOPERSCOOPER wrote:How many of you are playing on hardcore? I'm playing regular right now but I'm thinking of turning it on to feel more hardcore.

It's very worthwhile.

Wolfman Walt wrote:So. I was wandering the Mojave thinking I'm cool with my hunting rifle and my cool shades when suddenly a Deathclaw came and wrecked my shit up completely.

Been there, done that. It was a sad, sad day.

SenisterDenister wrote:Gifted

Or because Gifted was the most broken and unbalanced Trait available in Fallout. Seven stat points was insane.

Retlaw83 wrote:You really need an anti-materiel rifle and a cozy, unreachable sniper spot to fight those things.

Or to wield This Machine and befriend Boone, the 1st Recon Sniper. It'll be deathclaw chow, baby Aim for the eyes!

These days I actually find Giant Radscorpions to be more troublesome since they've got so thick armor on them.

On my second playthrough I decided I was going to be a female who worked for the Legion, because on my first playthrough I was a dude who conversed with the Legion mostly through bullets to the face.

After hearing what some legionnaires said and talking to Siri, my skin was crawling and I felt icky by the time I left the Fort, so I don't see my original plan happening.

Legion plotline is tough. You've gotta do some pretty morally unsound shit, and not in a snidely whiplash "Mr. Burke" kinda way. Very up close and personal.

Retlaw83 wrote:You really need an anti-materiel rifle and a cozy, unreachable sniper spot to fight those things.

Where can you get an anti-materiel rifle? Haven't come across one yet. It looks like there is one in the Gun Runner's kiosk outside their base, but I haven't taken the chance of breaking in yet.

Aonaran wrote:Am I the only one that has the master repair dickhead in the Brotherhood safe house repair all my gear, then steal the bottle caps back off him afterward? Free repair ftw.

You paid the price from stealing. Karma.

King of Creation wrote:Where can you get an anti-materiel rifle? Haven't come across one yet. It looks like there is one in the Gun Runner's kiosk outside their base, but I haven't taken the chance of breaking in yet.

The robot vendor in the kiosk starts selling the rifle at some point. As far as I'm aware, they seem to get more money every 3 or 4 days but I'm yet to understand what causes merchants to refresh their inventories.

Alternatively, you could just grab yourself the electric bazooka. Just head due south from the raided farmstead, southeast of wolfhorn ranch. Bring some pulse grenades, though.

Tofu Man wrote:Alternatively, you could just grab yourself the electric bazooka. Just head due south from the raided farmstead, southeast of wolfhorn ranch. Bring some pulse grenades, though.

Yach, that shit was tough. If you go there, though, remember to bring Arcade Gannon with you...

Tofu Man wrote:The robot vendor in the kiosk starts selling the rifle at some point. As far as I'm aware, they seem to get more money every 3 or 4 days but I'm yet to understand what causes merchants to refresh their inventories.

Dirty level-scaling.

New Vegas doesn't have level-scaling, everything is set in stone hence the Damage Threshold system to keep it balanced. The reason the items got in stock there were because inventories refresh after a few days. The reason it wasn't there when you first got there was simply because it wasn't in stock.

However I found an anti-materiel rifle in the Brotherhood bunker and got it there for Boone. I didn't find the BoS or actually get to the New Vegas outskirts until like level 16, and even now at 22 I've yet to actually enter the city itself. I keep getting distracted by all of the side missions.

I haven't really fucked with companions too much, so maybe one of you folks can answer this. Do you still have to feed ammo to your companions? Using your example, you gave Boone the Anti-Materiel, do you then have to keep him supplied with ammo for it?

If you have ammo on them they use it, however I think they can use a weapon without ammo. I'm not entirely sure, though. I had Boone using a Marksman Rifle for a while but he chewed through the ammo like fucking crazy and when he ran out he switched back to his default (which I assume has infinite ammo). Actually, I think if you give them any ranged weapon that's not their default they require ammunition for it.

Yeah, that is my problem with companions, you can't trust them with rare ammo. They have no discretion. They would just as soon shoot a radroach as a Deatclaw, both of which they'd shoot with precious 50 cal.

The Marksman Carbine uses 5.56, so its cheap and since companions don't wear down weapon and armor condition its pretty inexpensive to maintain. I keep the anti-materiel rifle on ED-E and only give it to Boone when we come across something big to conserve ammunition.

Pretty sharp strategy. I only now am playing a guns character (after 2 plays with Melee/Unarmed) and I've just discovered the joy of Surplus ammo for the Ratslayer. Varmint rifles are so abundant that I don't really care how much it tears the weapon up, there is always another to repair it with around the corner. Gotta say, I am LOVING the ammo subtypes as well as the added complexity they bring to the game, shame none of this cool shit will carry over to Fallout 4...

SenisterDenister wrote:New Vegas doesn't have level-scalingeverything is set in stone

No.

If you have doubts open the geck and see for yourself, the gun runner shop for instance sells different level-dependent tiers of equipment. If you only qualify for tier 1 then no matter how many times the store refreshes itself it will still only have tier 1 items available.

The level scaling applies to creatures and npcs too. How do you like your random robber wielding daedric weapons against you?

First playthrough complete, level 30, went 'solo'. Nice. Time for something else, then? Still about 50% of the map unexplored.

Aonaran wrote:I haven't really fucked with companions too much, so maybe one of you folks can answer this. Do you still have to feed ammo to your companions? Using your example, you gave Boone the Anti-Materiel, do you then have to keep him supplied with ammo for it?

You gotta feed them ammo. Veronica specializes in unarmed combat, and I once saw her punch the entire Atomic Wrangler to death with a series of one-punch take downs after I accidentally (read, purposefully) shot the blackjack dealer in the back of the head. She's easily the most entertaining companion I've gotten so for (Felicia Day voices her brilliantly) but she's bugged and doesn't level up with you like the other companions. However, there's a mod that fixes that.