LadyCrimson

I know that, but when I start a new game, since I know of the quest, I may as well pick them early on and then I don't have to think about it later.

Boone definitely cares about your NCR rep. But I think you have to get to the 'you are hated' level before he starts warning you. Smiling Troublemaker isn't an issue tho. He'll also confront you if you kill too many NCR soldiers, w/the usual confrontation options. Gorgon, sounds like Boone recruit quest might be bugged. As long as you found the 'evidence' and used the right person, aren't hated by NCR etc., he should be willing to join.

If it's a repair quest, I just do it with a repair skill, or move on. I think it's cool that tin cans can be used in a quest or recipies and stuff, but there's enough of them that I won't bother hoarding them. At the same time, I have no issues skipping a quest that has me do stuff like that if it's not something my character is interested in doing. It was a Contreras related side quest from that guy who stands near the bench of the robot-run shop. I wanted This Machine and the non-tin can option w/Isaac required 80 in either speech or barter. And I also use Novac hotel as my storage. Lucky38 seems like too much trouble to get to, and all I need is 3-4 containers. It feels more private (hehe) and like it's "mine" too. Plus I didn't side with House and I think eventually you can't send your guys to 38 if you go against him? Also, am curious...the wiki mentions that waiting/fired companions in the Lucky 38 will sometimes "take" food items away, eg such items disappear. Occasionally from their inventory, too, if you have them carry such stuff for you. Has anyone actually noticed this happen? Wonder if it's a bug or by design. Re:survival - I am a packrat and often like alchemy in other games, but Survival/cooking has no motivation for me even so. There's nothing from it I'd want or need. So I pick herbs (early on) if I run by it and sell them, but that's it.

At least the actual save file tells you which chr. it belongs to. I've resorted to copying all saves of one character to my own folders and then copying them back and forth depending who I want to play...so all the saves in the list are of the one chr, at least. Pain in the butt tho.

Yeah...after a point in the game I started only getting stuff on the map, and didn't really go in to do anything because I was afraid of "breaking" stuff. So I still had to a lot of it to do from scratch. I'd still broken Papa Khan's bit tho. :/

Btw, is there some tech reason why the save game menu = one huge long scroll-fest list instead of having them separated by character list menus? Scrolling through 60+saves is bad enough when you have multiple chrs....I can't imagine going for all 1000!

Went back to my "main" character that was close to the endgame. She still had tons of sidequests left to do but gar, too much, maybe later. So I just barreled through the NCR main quests. Lvl 26, Very Hard. The stuff near the end became a bit tedious for me, at least on the NCR path. By that I mean, all the back & forth for quests...back and forth, back and forth...that NCR commander chick was annoying too. All business, no fun, get out of my face lady. heh If it wasn't for Boone I'd have whacked her a few times. Since I was using Boone the whole time, I was pleased that whatever I'd done gave him the relatively good epilogue. Not a happy one so much, but at least he didn't commit suicide or turn into a bitter, evil mercenary or something! Made me feel like I'd "saved" him from himself...kind of. He'll always be damaged. Poor Boone. Great job Obsidian, and of course I have to thank Jason Marsden for what I think is his awesome voice work on Boone. Now I can go back to mucking about. Fun stuff....fun game.

Since I can't use the cowboy effectively at the moment, I gave it to Boone, thinking he'd be fine with it. But the bug seems to affect Boone as well...it doesn't freeze my controls, but when I give it to him to use, he fires his shots, reloads, then crouches for long seconds as if stuck...it's actually quite funny.

Dear Obsidian: I have no problem with exploding heads, S&M armor, flying bloody body parts, or liberal cursing, but I draw the line at walking into the Dino-Bite Gift Shop and getting a nice view of Cliff Briscoe rooting around in his nose. Ewwww.....lol

I'm apparently not a comic person because titanium+knee+surgery only made me think of the 70's TV bionic man.

I just like Davison's Bumper expensive sword. But yea, he does have some cool dialogue.

I'd like to confirm that doesn't work for me, either. As soon as I went into online mode, Steam auto-downloaded the patch, despite my having that setting checked. Edit: also, that Boone now acts buggier/crazier than before, since the patch. Nothing major, but he goes melee a lot more often (draws it for a few seconds then suddenly switches to his rifle) and graphical glitches like his rifle being upside down or stuck to his chest when he holsters it. Last time, completely uninstalling the game and re-downloading it from Steam helped (not from backup) but I don't feel like spending an hour+ waiting for the download yet again.

It's called I didn't play dress up or with dollies when I was a child, and now thanks to the power of computer games, I'm making up for it.

P.S. I hear sometimes he can be bugged, tho. Oh, and @ Thorton_AP, there's the one quest that uses tin cans...so I stick those in a container too. lol.

No, you can talk to Manny. The key is

Anesthesia (appendectomy) didn't make me feel nauseous...but it did make me appreciate being out cold for serious pain. Next time I need any major surgery I want to be put into a coma for three weeks. Glad it went well, Hurl.

I don't want her naked, I want her to wear non-armor. The idea of running around killing in dirty pre-war dresses...the wild female duo...would amuse me. Besides, I imagine she'd look better in this hat than Boone does.

Since I can't get Cass with low Barter/Speech, I tried Veronica a while, with one of my now far-too-many characters/save games. Those lines she says every single time I open her inventory drove me insane. The fact I can't play 'dress up the paper doll' with her like I could with Boone was disappointing. I mean, I can get Boone down to his skivvies since his Grunt Armor is removable from his inventory, unlike Veronica's robe thing. All companions should be able to get down to their skivvies, it's like a game law! After an hour of her inventory lines, however, I ditched her. Even thought about killing her, especially when she said "Everyone always says that" when I told her we must part. But I left her alive....for now. Time to see if I can get Arcade w/out any skill checks...

Using small frame as well, because it does make it harder. But yeah, not using hardcore mode. It sounds nice in theory but I have a hard enough time thinking about quests/locales/npc's & other data, let alone checking a thirst meter or however it works. If ammo had weight, I'd leave most ammo in a room and only carry the two types I actually use. The only thing I use the benches for anymore is repair kits so everything else gets sold. In terms of carry weight...so far all that does is make it much simpler to make cash - a big time-spent advantage. I don't switch weapons much. I am firmly stuck on snipers, so I use the Varmint until I find something better, (usually the .357 rifles) then the Sniper. I keep one lighter weapon like the 10mm and spiked knuckles for 'extra'. Everything else that gets put into my inventory gets sold, or put into a container in a hotel room until I need it. Killing 10 bandits along the road & I have 10 rifles and 10mm guns + all kinds of other things to sell. >.> 1st time I kept a lot more, but now familiar w/what I need/don't need so... I think some of it of course is the foreknowledge, like with most games. The 1st time thru Repconn I was "only" on Norm. difficulty and lvl 6 or 8, and it did take me a while, partly because of I had no weight-mod then and constant trips back to town, lol. I'm guessing you'll find a 2nd time through there not quite as tough. Although if you were using energy weapons, maybe that's part of it? The way some here were talking, sounded like they can be a little weaker early in the game? Oh and btw, there is an almost-peaceful solution to Repconn that doesn't require you to fight many of the nightkin if you want. But I kill 'em anyway. :D My current set up with the very slow leveling/decreased exp. for killing etc. has been working out fairly well. I'm not dying (yet, still early), but it's definitely starting to feel a bit more challenging. Not just for combat, but because I can't do most skill checks. It makes for a certain type of non-combat related (kind of) challenge. It's awesome! heheh

I now have this bug, since getting the 1.2 tiny update. Before I only had a slight delay before I could fire after reloading sometimes, but controls didn't freeze. Now when I reload they do freeze, and not just when crouched. Also, I couldn't reinstall the older version from Steam's backup, since Install from Backup wants me online/steam to work, and then it installs the new stuff at the same time. This is why I prefer systems that allow me to do my own patching w/separate patch files.. Sigh.

Never mind, I suddenly remembered. Another brainfart.

Well, it's going to depend on your build/stats/skills as well as your strategy - eg how much combat you purposely avoid, either by sneaking or dialogue options etc. Since you can easily reach Freeside/NV with only having to fight the occasional bandit but still having plenty of caps to get into Vegas if you want, it's not hard at all. Actually, you can even get to Vegas via the deathclaw direction. But because Novac is my first fave area I do it first (I usually skip Primm/ignore Powder Ganges entirely....). Currently I'm lvl 2 and almost in Novac & I've wiped out every jackal bandit, idle convict, occasional small radscorpion & non-glowing zombie etc. with out much trouble at all. Yesterday w/a different chr. I did the entire Come Fly With Me/Repconn at lvl 3. Since I had foreknowledge, it took about 20 minutes. I came close to dying a few times, but that's it. In Very Hard/non-hardcore, I'm not saying it's super-duper-easy (w/out a companion)...but as a sniper/gunner, it's not hard at all. I still hardly ever have to use a stimpack in combat and the caps still pile up like mad even tho I'm not exploring much at all. I stick to main road, skip Primm, etc.

Reporting that the new patch does NOT make my need for the .dll fix go away, as some websites are saying it might. Tried removing the .dll and in Red Rock (or any area that has a lot of objects/partially underground objects like rocks), in certain spots fps still dipped into the low 20's or worse. Put the .dll back in, goes back up to 60-70fps. Oh well.

Starting over again (w/same chr., I reload a save in DocMitch's house) because I can't stop fiddling with the exp. stuff/deciding what I want out of it. xpbase at default of 200 xpbumpbase to 500 (from 150) (will need 3 or 4 times exp to reach lvl 20 I think) xpRewards for hack, speech and pick lock cut by half xpRewards for killing enemies/npc lowered so nothing should give me more than 10xp rewards for area/secret discovery set to 1 instead of 10. Should at least make getting to lvl 16 take a good while, and getting to lvl 22+ take a very long while, if ever. I'll self-gimp a bit more & stick with this one until level 12 and see how it goes.

Oh...I see. I've never had them get lost via Fast Travel etc. so that didn't occur to me. Would make sense!