Fallout: New Vegas

I have 1 END because I used it as a Dump Stat and I modeled her on a character who has quite literally the lowest Constitution stat in her entire series. 8 END wouldn't exactly fit the character.

edited 9th Oct '12 4:15:33 PM by Balmung

Which character?

I based her more or less off of Lute from Fire Emblem The Sacred Stones, who happens to be a very powerful mage, very smart (and regualrly reminds everyone of it), socially awkward, and quite the Glass Cannon/Fragile Speedster.

She has a CON stat of 3, so low that she takes a speed penalty from even the lightest magic tome in the game. To my knowledge, no other Fire Emblem character has a CON stat lower than 4.

Oh thanks. I don't think I have played more than a couple of hours of any Fire Emblem game, but I have heard they are quite good.

Yeah, at least so long as you like TBS/RPG games, which I know some people haven't the patience for.

/is an alumni of Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea and the Vandal Hearts games, /smug.

I may check those Fire Emblem games out in more detail at some point. I have that many games that there are a lot I haven't cracked open yet.

edited to add:

I have linked this before, probably, but so what?

I love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szvFN6P9slg

And here is one for the NCR fans out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRX4AtqNMRQ

edited 10th Oct '12 4:18:07 AM by TamH70

Hey guys, couple of questions that I need your help with.

First off, my New Vegas for the PC has started crashing and freezing constantly. I basically can't play for more than an hour, sometimes even less, before it freezes on the loading screens. When it does it's almost impossible to reload any save files or autosaves that were made during or near the time of the crash. Are there any fan patches, updates or fixes out there that you know of?

Second, I'm thinking about doing a hardcore mode run, but the thought of having to constantly babysit my companions and a little DLC called Dead Money have me thinking it might be a bad idea for my sanity. Are there any ways to at LEAST add in some mod or line of code to make my companions invincible, and without affecting the hardcore achievement (or any others, at that) at the same time? Kinda getting bored of vanilla NV, but I don't want the mods to invalidate any achievements I earn.

I miss my YCS. I played an albino infertile female energy weapons and technology specialist who worked for the Legion (solely for the irony, really, though I tended to see her as a bit of a social darwinist). And that thing was my AMR only with ammo one can actually find in the open. Though granted, had I had the DL Cs in my first playthrough, I probably would've gone with the Holorifle. ...maybe.

In Hardcore Mode, the entire point is that you have to be more careful. All too often people rely on companions to deal with impossible situations because they're more or less immortal. But Hardcore Mode means you can't use them to plow through something you couldn't possibly do at your level. Basically, in Hardcore, don't send them into anything you wouldn't go into yourself. Oh, and save a lot. Just general insurance for the game itself, but every once in a while a companion will just up and die for no reason.

Dead Money is kind of the same way. You need to step back a bit, observe your surroundings carefully, and only when you have a definite plan of action do you go in there. Besides, even without Hardcore Mode, you'd die if they fell down anyway...I think. Even so, companions tend to be pretty durable- Christine is generally pretty awesome with most weapons, Dean's immune to the Cloud, and Dog/God, while only capable of using their fists, have TONS of HP and seem to never die anyway. And I think the developers wanted you to play that DLC in Hardcore Mode specifically. The entire point is pulling off this insane break-in heist of the centuries using garbage left behind several hundred years ago, and it really works to have a survival horror air to it. As long as you've got your wits about you and don't go charging headfirst into things, you should be fine. I actually found Dead Money really fun and super atmospheric.

edited 11th Oct '12 7:54:08 AM by GyraSolune

No answer for the freezing issue? Dang.

As for the hardcore mode? Well, I don't mind all of the other conditions that the mode brings, but the fact that the game is so incredible glitchy and full of Cazardores, landmines, glitchy-fall-through-the-wall areas and such make it a bad idea to bring along a companion, period. May as well not bring them along or do their quests at all if they're gonna die so randomly. Hence why I'm asking to see if there's a mod available to make them marked as essential without affecting anything else or the achievements.

@ Sgt Ricko There are a number of ways to help with the issues you describe. Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do to fix the saves that continue to crash, but there are some things you can do to reduce the chance of it happening again.

New Vegas Enhanced Content - The "Bug Fixes" or the "Reduce CTD" plugins seem to be what you want. They're separate from the larger file that enhances New Vegas and just reduces the errors you can run into. This includes DLC content. Ignore the "Complete" and other versions as these add more content, which is not what you seem to be looking for.

To compliment this, you'll also want the usual performance enhancers.

New Vegas Script Extender - pretty essential when running any mod New Vegas Stutter Remover 4GB Fallout New Vegas Cipscis' Auto-Save Manager - automatically saves the game every so often (with adjustable settings for how many saves used and how often it saves). Will use as many 20 slots and then overwrite the oldest of these saves so as not to bloat your hard drive. This allows you not to rely on a much older save when trying to fix problems or relying on the finicky auto-save or just one quick-save.

Would running those mods affect the ability to earn the achievements? I know your answer is probably gonna be along the lines of "achievements aren't important, just the game", but I'm curious.

Is there a mod which brings back the Dummied Out good option for the House mission involving the Bo S?

Mods should not affect achievements at all. Only console commands are considered cheating.

@ninja Brotherhood-House Alliance

edited 11th Oct '12 8:37:50 AM by DevilTakeMe

Damn, that actually existed?! I'm right at that point in the game, and that little issue was the sole thing keeping me from contining House's quest! Thanks guys, gonna install that one right now!

Oh, one thing though. I noticed Steam doesn't make it's mod folders very obvious. Any clue as to where exactly it would be tucked away at in my computer?

If yours is set up like mine, it would be under something like Program Files -> Steam -> Steam Apps -> Common -> Fallout New Vegas -> Data

Something like that.

edited 11th Oct '12 11:13:10 AM by DevilTakeMe

@Ricko: Someone probably already mentioned this, but you can use the console commend "setessential" or something to that effect for a short-term solution to the companion issue (you have to reenter it every time you restart the game.)

If you use the Nexus Mod Manager, available here:

http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/mods/modmanager/

and follow the instructions, it installs most mods without too much fuss.

I only recently discovered you can reverse pick pocket c-4, then wait for you target to walk near some more people..

Oh nice, need to try that trick in my next p/t.

Started Dead Money last night on Hardcore Mode. One the one hand: what is this bullshit about the Villa continually draining my health?! On the other, my life is so much easier now that I've been scavenging items and the vending machine codes properly this time. Automatic Rifle and fully repaired Holorifle GET!

It's the Cloud!

...I think it helps add to the atmosphere? The Cloud HP drainage won't outright kill you I think, it'll keep you down to 1 point. That way you have to conserve what food you have to be used strategically right before battles and other dangerous areas. It keeps you on your toes, which at a subconscious level, makes the whole thing easier- if you're at decent health the whole time, you're way more likely to charge in there and get yourself killed, but if you have no room for error, you'll step back and really look at the situation and what you intend to do, because that's the only way you can make it. And often the setup makes a path clearly obvious if you observe it for a while. It also helps that the Ghost People have 0 Perception and their only ranged weapons are gas bombs and throwing spears, so you can't get royally fucked up by an enemy just wandering over.

It makes me sad that the general public and critics seemed to hate Dead Money, it's so very well-designed and thought-out, and really well-written (except I kinda got the impression the entirety of Old World Blues was to create a backdrop to explain the handwaved technology in the Sierra Madre, as pretty much every side-area worked to do that). It's fucking hard, yes, but at the time it was released to players who were probably comfortably capable of committing genocide upon the entire wasteland without breaking a sweat. Honest Hearts instead gave the White Legs really good guns (which was soon offset by how you yourself could get those from them) and how really fast and deadly animals were all over the damn place (I am still astonished that at like level 14 I managed to hold off Giant Cazadores). Old World Blues didn't try to pose extensive challenge, cause you could find the place it was at very early in the game. And Lonesome Road just ALL THE DEATHCLAWS. Of all of those DM feels like the only one designed with genuine mechanical difficulty and not just because the enemies were cheap.

Oh, and don't rely that much on the Holorifle. It's meant to be a last-resort death cannon for when all your other options are depleted. There's hardly any ammo for it I believe. ...That's another thing I like about that DLC, all the weapons have explicit purposes and are very effective at them in the context of the challenge. Cosmic Knife is a quick slashy-slash and retreat weapon, the knife spear is meant more as a committed melee weapon, and the throwing knife spears are effectively a silenced sniping option but limited in number and quite heavy ammunition. The Police Pistol is your all-purpose reliable sidearm that's a bit weak but works well to just kind of have drawn out in case something jumps out at you, while the Automatic Rifle is effectively crowd control to push back hordes if they get the jump on you. Gas Bombs are for laying traps when luring enemies out (though Demo Mines might be a better option, they're tricky to find though). And the Bear Trap Fist is a potential one-shot since it cripples limbs easily, but it's slow to attack and you really have to be dedicated to using it. I think a few vanilla weapons are available, I remember a few Laser Pistols and a Hunting Shotgun near the end, but...the former seems to just be "oh shit I have 90 Energy Weapons but 15 Guns" and the latter seems to be the inverse as a substitute for the Holorifle.

</rant>

edited 12th Oct '12 4:11:04 AM by GyraSolune

Loved getting the hunting shotgun, drove me to use it in the main game.

Agreed. Dead Money is difficult because of the way it redoes the whole Fallout experience and has its own unique gameplay mechanics. Lonesome Road is hard because it spawns four boss-level deathclaws right behind you every five minutes.

Also, there were 9mm pistols and caravan shotguns scattered across the villa for vanilla weapons, and a lever action shotgun could be found in the hotel.

edited 12th Oct '12 7:14:54 AM by CPFMfan

I don't recall any deathclaws spawning anywhere except in two scripted locations. One would ambush you when you tried to enter a small mobile home while on the Long Highway, and 4 would appear near the end of the DLC once you lost EDI and reach ground level (or if you took to long, would just appear on their own). The rest were all obviously pre-placed and could be spotted with EDI's sensors easily enough.

That deathclaw on the overpass usually jumped on the roof of that r.v. once I started poking around the thing. First couple of times it got me I was keeching my knickers.