If things are too hard, get companions. They're sort of overpowered.
The first companion you can get (that I know of) is available when you get to the second town, Primm, and is a broken robot on a table in the Mojave Express' building. If you repair it, either with a high Repair and Science skill, or with spare parts, it will join you, and really make things a lot easier. Really, it should be able to solo anything you run into around that level.
Oh, and even if you have played FO3 and you know the controls and stuff, I'd recommend doing the tutorial quests. They're not too long, and the tutorial quest chain, and the follow-up, is pretty easy XP.
Any preliminary tips (that won't spoil or break the game?) That is, I'll find the gamebreaking exploits on my own.
Man, the only thing I can tell you is that New Vegas is much more varied than Fallout3. Your experience points aren't affected by your difficulty level anymore, but it's best to stay on Normal. If you stay on Normal throughout the game, you will have a helluva hard time making through ends meet, but towards the end, you will have a blast.
Just also wanna make something more clear to you. There are many, many more dialogue options that require skills to pass. This isn't a percentage rate anymore, it's a threshold. If you have 44 repair skill and the dialogue requires 45, you won't make the skill option. So while you're trying to stay alive out there, make sure your medicine, science, repair, barter, speech, survival, and explosives skills are above normal.
What else.... OH YEAH. Don't sacrifice your charisma stat like I did at the beginning. You won't die, since you probably used it for good stats, but you will have a helluva hard time surviving. You will literally buy everything 2x as normal and sell things for half price.
Don't sacrifice your charisma stat like I did at the beginning.
Interesting. I posted this same thread on Escapist (I got a lot more replies there) and a couple people said don't even worry about Charisma since all it does is add Companion strength and a couple points into Barter and whatnot.
If you're gonna do some HUGE gambling when you hit Vegas get a Luck stat of 8 and you'll get good cards 95% of the time in Blackjack. Be sure to do a lot of exploring. Also when you run into a guy named Boone in Novac and accept his quest open the safe in the Dino-Dee-Lite and take the Bill of Sale. You'll be able to figure out who did it. I've made this mistake many times NEVER EVER go past the signs that say DANGER! in the Goodsprings cemetery or go past the west side of Hidden Valley. There will ALWAYS be a Giant Radscorpion that you won't be able to take down in normal when you're below level 16.
Oh yeah and when you complete Boone's quest and show him the Bill of Sale and say "Why not come with me? We'll be able to kill more of the Legion that way." He'll be you're companion. He can take down mostly anything that you face with his scoped hunting rifle.
The best tip that I have is to definintly take all of the tutorials in the beginning because sunny smiles gives you TONS of 5.56 ammo that will help you get through until you find better guns and ammo
Yeah, I assumed you didn't need the Charisma stat like in Fallout3. Big shocker for me when I started New Vegas! I ended up trying VERY hard to just scrounge up enough ammo to shoot.
And then there's the dialogue options...
"What can I do you for? (Christ he's ugly!)"
"Yeah hi, I need to you to give me an army to help defend this city it's kinda important and stuff"
"Why would I ever want to do that for? (Look at his boules the size of hills!)"
"Cuz it's just important, now help!"
"....no..."
These are all very helpful. Im going to purchase Fall Out Vegas very soon!
New Vegas is a highly-varied, multi-linear version of Fallout3. I think you won't be disappointed!
The best tip that I have is to definitively take all of the tutorials in the beginning because sunny smiles gives you TONS of 5.56 ammo that will help you get through until you find better guns and ammo
I plan to do that anyway. Just because I played FO3 to death, doesn't mean they changed a few things in sequels. Controls or otherwise.
