Avowed Fallout min-maxer here, but love the handloads too much to bother with energy weapons this time around. Or melee. Or Unarmed.

Loadout:

Gobi Sniper (.308 handload) -for close encounters....bwhaha
Silenced Sniper with Carbon Fibre (.308 handload)...sniping legion.
Anti-Material ( .50 cal Match)..for shooting God.
Tricked-out 10mm SMG (With 10mm JSP rounds - and yes, it DOES make a difference)...spray-and-pray-and-loot.
Mysterious Revolver (.44 handloads - chewed a bunch of buffout extreme and read a few books/magazines as my survival skill this time around was pathetic, you need 45 survival to learn the .44 handload)...casual-like carnage. Also love the musical riff.
Tesla Canon (of pain) Mostly the odd Fiend or wasteland bandit. Noticed that it sometimes makes the others run for the hills.
Alien blaster (God, I love this thing, I managed to accidently find it at level 3, who'd a thought them aliens wouldn't like the varmit rifle?;o)...for killing God's buddies.
Pulse pistol (robo-toaster, could have an energy skill of 1 and it's still a 2-shot killer)...take that, tin man!
Combat Shotgun ( with 12-gauge Coin, Slug and Magnum rounds. The coin rounds are quite fun! Slug = close range HURT, fast reloads too. Magnum is great for multiple enemies combined with shotgun surgeon)...for close-R encounters.

Musings:
22. cal silenced machine gun is...oddly effective and horrible to ironsight. The way it goes through Condition means you need Jury-rig Perk ASAP.
Tried the light machine gun, too inaccurate for my liking and the SMG chewed through VATS much less. Bonus marks for cool/awesome (as soon as you equip it, you need to empty a box of 5.56 into someone), negative karma for being as accurate as the 9mm submachinegun.
Tried the CMZ Prototype...holy crapsticks, that's a fast way to go through ammo, chews up supermutants like marshmellow. Note - Armour-piercing is a VERY expensive way to show people you hate them.
Loved the Heavy Incenerator, but didn't have enough energy weapon skill to make the weight tradeoff (Although the fuel is everywhere!)
The 12.7 mm weapons; the SMG (although can be silenced, awesome!) chews through the magazine too quickly unless you're single-shotting via iron sights and condition drops way too fast.
The 12.7mm Pistol is little better, but does hit like a lump of rebar.
The Grenade rifle was...interesting.
The Auto-grenade launcher would be HORRIBLE in the wrong hands, especially combined with the various extended demo and area of effect perks. Ammo was...if not in short supply, needful fo a 90 barter skill and frequent vendour-whoring.

Don't try at home!
Used both Incenerator and the grenade hose in Scorpion Gulch - there were radscorp chunks raining down for 5 minutes after I'd finished firing. Also fun to use in the Black Mountain crater.

Sads:
The Fatman...eh, get more fun booby-trapping an area with mines and sticking a lump of C4 somewhere. Cheaper too. Only 16 or so of those things in Vegas.
Anyone know if they do the sympathetic explosion like F3? You could really ruin someone's day in F3 with that.


Avoid:
9mm, unless starting.
Silenced .22 cal, unless you've got a stealth skill of less than 50.
Single-shot shotgun, unless you're down to using your fists versus a giant radscorp
Caravan Shotgun - stop buggering about and buy a damned hunting shotgun!
Any weapons that's unmodifiable, non-unique or uses a standard ammo type. (The Gauss Rifle is a rare exception to this as it seriously hurts.)


Needs more:
Dakka!
Nukes!
Mods! I want to mod the damn LMG into something USEFUL.
Ammo Types. (Tracer would be niiiice.)
Level-up Perks! (Nah, but man, you really notice the difference in F3 versus F-vegas)
Random Weirdness
Bug fixes.


Nighty,
-Tir

Yeah, I found there seems to be a sharp trade-off between dakka and effectiveness. I played through the Hoover Dam, and the sniper rifle was way more effective than the LMG, Grenade Machine Gun, OR the Fat Man - although those were more pleasing on a purely visceral level.

I never found much use for the Gobi rifle vs. the sniper rifle. Seems like my sniper rifle did more damage, had the same reload time, was lighter and accurate for further.

The best weapon in the game though was probably the Holy Frag Grenades.

I still have never found a Hunting Shotgun - Lever-Action was the closest I ever got, so I gave up on them.

You should check-out This mod, it adds 127 new weapon mods

yo dawg, we herd you liek lasors...

The sniper rifle gets nerfed in the latest patch apparently. Base damage drops to 42, presumably crits drop too.

What I've read indicates this is a correction rather than an actual nerf. Either way, it makes the Gobi superior if you don't need/want a suppresor, which is how it should be.

Hm, interesting.

I won't deny it's not warranted, but I do like being able to go -fwip- and people's heads explode without their buddies being any wiser.

wut? O.o

Not to mention sniping Deathclaws and having the damn things duck unexpectedly. That second shot can stop you from having run to the hills popping stimpacks and shooting backwards with something heavy.

God, who else made the mistake of sniping one of those baby deathclaws and a whole fraggin NEST erupt out of the desert ready to eat you? Those blind ones seem to be able to track you anywhere.

Interestingly, Deathclaws are damaged less by mines, etc, than in F3.

Vipers - use the ratslayer
Fiends - use whatever, but the silenced sniper is great.
Powdergangers - Use Lucy. Or even Rex.
Legion - Use a damned scope.


-Tir

Indeed. I was rather disappointed when, clearing out the deathclaw nest, the anti-material rifle just could not compare to the sniper rifle. Honestly, the AM rifle is almost completely useless, except when there's only one enemy, who has slightly more hit points than the sniper rifle will do in one shot, but fewer hit points than the AM rifle does in one shot. It worked alright for nightkin (and setting brahmin on fire), but that's about it.

Sniper rifle with hand loads flat out beats the AM due to it's crit multiplier. Unless your pulling sneak attack crits, the sniper will do consitently higher damage.

With 20% crit chance:

Sniper 90+60 all the time for 750 over five shots
AM 110+80 1/5 of the time for 630 over five shots

Sneak Attacks it's 210 vs 270 in the AMs favor.

Following the patch, the Gobi should still pull those numbers, the base sniper rifle will be down a third or so but as the only suppressed weapon of the 3 will be easier to make SAs with.

Bought New Vegas yesterday or the day before for half-off through Steam: 40% discount from their holiday sale, another 10% because I already owned Fallout 3. Damn, I loves me some Steam sales.

Anyway, I just had a little chat with Boxcar in Nipton, and I'm thinking those Legion fucks need to die. Favorite weapons so far: cowboy repeater, varmint rifle, single shotgun, in that order. The shotgun would be higher on the list if it didn't use up so much AP per shot.

Boxcar is so much more fun to talk to if you've cleaned out NCRCF. Poor guy just can't catch a break.

Think next time I'll make sure I've got 15 Med-X on hand when I talk to him so he can sleep the sleep of angels.

I was amused when Boxcar described me as "the Powder Gangers' grim fuckin' reaper" to my face. I'd only killed maybe five or six by that point.



Also, holy crap those Legionaries are tough. I'll come back to them when I have an anti-materiel rifle or something.

Get a Shotgun or something automatic to take them on.

It was clear to me why it happened.

blar

Has anyone else experienced a phenomenon where you go into VATS, queue up attacks, start the sequence, and your character just stands there? Eventually, VATS ends with my character having done nothing and expended no AP. It's happened three times now.

No, I haven't really had that issue - just pathing problems with trying to shoot a mans and it sticking around in slow mo while my .50 cal incindiery round spangs off a bush.

I laughed at the grim reaper comment.

The legionaries were super easy. I just impulsively attacked them using a worn out 10mm pistol. The key in Fallout always has been to run around corners and go for headshots as the enemy follows you around said corner. Or eyeball shots back when you could still do those. I remember that was the only chance you'd have to kill Metzger and all his goons in Fallout 2 if you weren't meta gaming hard. You had to run around the level and make gratuitous use of the corners. It worked better with the Benny Hill chase music.

It happened to be - followed quickly by a death and reload (as my failing to do anything in VATS didn't apply to the bad guy too).

My biggest issue was for some reason the game thought the mouse was clicked when it wasn't. When I figured it out though it was just an inconvenience.

Anything do

I, too, got the same deal on x-mas. I was too busy finishing Assassin's Creed 2 though, so I haven't started with Vegas until today. So far, I've seen a radscorpion nest and killed a dozen Powder Gangers. I like new music myself, but I've only played about an hour so far. We'll see where I go from here.

The more I learn about Caesar's Legion, the more I want to commit full-on genocide.

Anybody else think karma loss from stealing should be based on faction standings? It makes sense to lose karma if you steal from friends, but not from enemies. Why is stripping Powder Gangers' corpses OK, but not ransacking NCRCF?

Yes. Fortunately, if you fight against Legion, your karma will most likely be so high that stealing a few odds and ends won't be an issue (and if you side with the Legion, you probably don't rightly care).

Well, if we really want to get into specifics here... and I do...

Originally in Fallout there was only one "that gun" which was a reward from a farmer for clearing out his house of raiders. It fired .223 rounds and was supposedly a pared down hunting rifle (which were .223s as well until New Vegas, where they became .308s and Fallout 3 where they were... .38s or something retarded).

Fallout 2 you could just find the damn things on merchants, they may have even been dropped by higher level encounters.

Fallout 3 - missing. Apparently people complained about "that gun" not being in the game. Personally, I hate that name for it, I always called it the .223 pistol.

More on topic now, in New Vegas we have "that gun" which is a .223/5.56 pistol and "this machine" which is an M1 Garand which fires .308/7.62 so really and truly, no, "That Gun" is not at all related to "This Machine".

All that said and done, I wish That Gun was more powerful, aside from the Gauss pistol in Fallout 2 it was the strongest projectile handgun.

I remember the .223 pistol from Fallout. It was ridiculously powerful for what it was. In real life it would have bden totally impractical but in that game it was practically your only hope later in the game if your only combat skill was small guns. That was in Fallout 1 where you had to defeat multiple super mutants where you needed an eyeball critical to kill one but one hit anywhere from an energy weapon would kill you. I remember maxing out small guns and opening fire with the .223 pistol from really far away. Like, I scrolled the screen from really far away. And you didn't want to cheese with power armor metagaming in Fallout 2.

I'm doing my second playthrough, in the first finishing the game as "independant" Vegas.

So for my second playthrough I thought I'd try to side with the Legion.

God dammit, the game makes it ridiculously hard for you to want to do any other ending than independant vegas. The Legion are seriously losers. They are not portrayed as a viable "evil" choice. Plus every character you talk to basically hints that you should go with free vegas. It's a shame they put so much effort into giving choices only to make it obvious what your choice should be. Looks like you had 2 sets of designers working on the game.

Tonight, things I've learned:
1. Do not feed the deathclaws.
2. Do not feed the radscoprions.
3. Stealing NCR armor is handy.
4. Look up Marty Robbins some time.

About what level should one attempt to root out that deathclaw nest by Sloan? (If ever)

around 15 i think, as then there are some armor reduction/bypass perks unlocked.

Or bulk up so that you do not get any reductions on the heavy weapons...

Lack of turpentine causes me rage. I've been carrying around like 11 gecko hides since the beginning of the game just waiting to get enough turpentine to tan them.

Serria Madrie Expansion Pack!

First of all - it's made of pain and hurt and fear.

Second of all, level cap to 35 (THANK the Vault!)

Third of all: "Recommended that the courier be level 20 before beginning." Try 30. And for god's sake, be a superhuman if you're doing it hardcore.


Ok, mid-way through the entire thing and I have to say it's a LOT better than every other DLC F3's had (apart from Zeta) due to the sheer unpleasantness of it all. It's NOT kind. Spoilers will follow in the new thread, only click if you want to make things a lot less nasty for yourselves.

Abraxo Cleaner FTW!

OK, will someone please explain to me how Legionaries can stand up to multiple direct hits with a plasma rifle? Granted, my skill isn't the greatest, but it's still a blast of superheated ionized gas.

Because they're MEN, and MEN shrug off things like superheated ionized gas, especially if their main meals are designed around lentils.


Tir.

Note to self: Save stealth boys for raiding shops.

Made off with thousands of caps worth of gear (from silver rush) with one.

Huh. I just picked up all the gear from the Silver Rush (pick up, not take), carried it over to the bathroom where nobody can see me, and then took the items with no problems. The people there didn't seem to notice I never came back with the product that I was, er, test driving.

The metal pot upstairs helps with the little fiddly stuff like energy cells.



-k

I just paid for everything with Massacre Express - for everything you need.

(Not on purpose. I'm just terrible at following instructions.)

The same reason that just about anyone can soak a 9mm headshot?

I am enjoying the game a lot. I am planning to take a day trip to the real Goodsprings to see the school house. I found out that the Goodsprings school house is a real schoolhouse and the oldest one in the state of Nevada. Much like in Fallout I will carry many bottles of purified water with me when I go.

I feel that Hardcore mode could be more hardcore. In real life, if I'm doing stuff outdoors in Nevada, I would need to drink a lot more water than is being portrayed in the game. I'd also need to rest and sleep a lot more, get rest in the shade more, and so forth. Of course you don't want to go overboard in a role playing game, but at least they could make your H2O go up faster.

I'm still stoked about reloading at reloading benches. Just about everyone I know who really lives in Nevada, and who does shooting sports regularly, also reloads. Reloading was the perfect way to get into a Western theme in my opinion. Lots of those guys don't necessarily have a lot of money so reloading is the only way they can shoot enough to get really good. Also, if you exclusively shoot low powered LRN cartridges you pretty much drastically reduce wear and tear on your barrel and your firearm life will be greatly extended. I feel like this game really managed to get some cultural education in about firearms regarding reloading, and even different cartridge types, such as +P loads, and so on.

Where are you finding .308 ammo? I'm virtually awash in microfusion cells at level 13 (1300+), but I don't think I've ever had more than a dozen rounds of .308 at a time.

The Legion, if you could believe it. Cottonwood Cove is awash in Hunting Rifles and ammunition for such.

I was usually buying it at the Gun Runners as well. Once I had enough casings, I tended to reload my own to keep the streak going.

Check out Contreras at McCarran as well. My gf walked into his "shop" last night and he had around 1500 .308 rounds, 1300 12.7 rounds, and countless 5.56 and a good amount of 45-70 gov't.

I put Harding in charge of the brotherhood, and what he asks you to become a member of the Brotherhood is to wipe out the Van Graffs (also, did everyone hear what Whatshername, the chick from the brotherhood, says when you walk into van Graffs for the first time? Hilarious).

Anyway, Harding says go kill them all, I'll send some men to recuperate the gear. I really wish there had been a dialogue option to say what I instantly thought - "Don't bother"

http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20101029




-k

What she says is actually part of starting her personal quest . . which is pretty much fucked up <.<
furthermore the van graffs factor into the rose of cassidy personal quest too.

The true viable "evil" choice in New Vegas is to take on the mantel of The Defiler and destroy all living (and some non-living) things in your path.

"Caesar's vision was flawed. He wanted to impose order."