LadyCrimson

The hats were in ...something else I don't like about melee in this game:having to stare at the overly huge image of my bat/hammer/whatever that takes over 1/3 of the screen.

Yeah, I do skip the monorail one. I like having that route into Vegas still intact.

I've pretty much given up on trying to get "good" combat screens of FNV, because even with video stills you either end up w/a shot of companions, or they look like some variation of the ones below, which imo is boring. Just coming straight at ya. True of all 1st person games, actually. I guess that's why you end up with so many huge "post your character armor/gear" threads instead of "cool/fun screenshot" threads.

That's my point about it being buggy. For me that option was never available, even tho I had enough to pass any checks. If I clicked on the check sentence option, he'd just arrest me w/no other dialogue/opportunity to get out of it and if I didn't want to be immediately arrested I'd have to kill him in the open, taking the rep hit.

Oddly enough, I don't like the Sims, but I do like making npc's in rpg's do silly things if available. They put those hats & clothes in, after all. Maybe I'm role-playing. Yea, that must be it. You think they'd wear their armor & weapons 24 hrs a day for months on end? Nooooo, I don't think so....gotta make time for sleep & par-tays! Most of the time I am playing the game. But the funny makes me smile.

I think you have to do the small quests for Contreras 'til he gives you the package to give to the guy in a shop in Freeside. Then you can tell Boyd you have proof, and she'll reward you without further delay/no computer hacking. Or kill him first then tell her. But if you want to keep him as a merchant you have to say 'goodbye' to the ncr in the store before he tries to arrest you, tell Contr., and then go back to store & use stealth to kill him. No rep hit.

I just have a strange sense of funny I guess.

For some people, Veronica never levels past 12 without a fixer mod. That's a fairly bad bug. I've no objection to fixing the guns skill scaling for Boone, either. I think he'd still seem overpowered even so. Ranged/guns just are. I also didn't realize for a long time that they'd sometimes use stimpacks if they were in their inventory. Occasionally useful, but they don't use them until their health is pretty low, and in Hardcore probably not very effective. Wheel's better. ------------------------------------------------- Another mod, this one about aesthetics. I think it gives companions the 'lucky 38' random idle-type routines, except when they're still hired with you. They'll still re-equip weapons/attack enemies if they come in range, and you can still put them in normal 'wait' mode instead. Funny stuff. It works with the CHAR.-based more-companions mod I posted earlier but overall doesn't seem to stack well with most companion mods. It's just for kicks anyway. http://newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34955

Found this mod that allows more companions but bases number you can have on your Charisma. I like that RPG concept (since Charisma is otherwise mostly useless to most). Seems to work. I'm happy with 2 humans and 1-2 non-humans. http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36949

That Contreras quest is really buggy. Even when I pass the skill check the guy in the store never gives me the option to 'work with him' and I didn't have to hack Contreras' terminal in order to get Boyd to arrest him, among other things. But I finally figured out how to get This Machine without taking an NCR rep hit/losing him as a merchant. I also discovered if you kill Contreras you get all his money, including any you spent buying all his stuff. You can abuse that quite badly if you want, if you don't care about him being a merchant rest of the game. Plus you can still turn him into Boyd, and his corpse ends up lying in the jail cell floor! haha!

@virumor - So I take it that the multi-companion mod is working out ok in terms not causing more bugs? I mean, they made it sound like too many companions w/variable inventory might be a problem & that's why they didn't allow it in the first place. I could definitely get into at least having two human npc's. I wasn't that into the non-human ones. Decided my fave armor looks-wise (besides the chained prostitute clothing, heh) is the combat-reinforced (17dt). Because it doesn't look pinkish like the Mark-2 ones. The YCS/186 energy rifle (rifle version of Pushy): Craigy immediately equipped it for that sexy DPS, but...it confirmed his *Energy* weapon skill definitely isn't bugged, because 70% of the time his shots with it badly miss (the dot flash in top of pic). Course when he does hit, it's almost instant death. It was amusing for a while but it sucks up ammo like soda through a straw so back in storage it goes. I bet Arcade Gannon would like it?

That 2nd Divinity2 pic made me think of Drakan. I always like flying transportation mounts in games...just not fighting from their backs. That's always awkward.

Yeah, that's what I ideally like in expansions as well. I like new areas too, but I like when they mix some new stuff into the original game. Kind of like what they did with Diablo2:LOD/patches. There was the whole new Act5 bit, but also skill changes, item changes, etc. that were implemented across the board. However I don't like the way Blizzard completely changes skills & rules as drastically and constantly as they do...I mostly want to see new enemies, npc's, skills/options etc. to choose from to add incentive to start a new chr with, plus the new "area". You can still give players the option to use their leveled up chr. to leap into the new area if they want...but...yeah.

I went against my usual magical inclination and went for swords, and came out some kind of Paladin.

Hm. That longer description doesn't intrigue me too much. My only experience with DLC is Borderlands, and while I did like those quite a bit, I found one issue I have is that they felt disconnected from the main/original game that got you hooked in the first place. Just new set pieces for your chr. to run through, with harder difficulty or new monsters etc. I understand why that is (DLC isn't "expansion") but I'm not sure if I can look past that for a game like this vs. BL. But I'll still give this a shot when it's out for pc, I'm sure. I'm weak willed, and I must have more. :D

@cant - I know, it's crazy, isn't it? Even pre-Vegas-main-plot, where I've spent a lot more time, I still come across the occasional quest I missed or skipped (and forgot I'd skipped) before. I think I read there's over 150 known quests...even if you can't do them all in one run, that's still a heck of a lot to discover.

Largely agree, hindsight is always 20/20. I certainly wasn't trying to plink Cottonwood cove at lvl 3 on my first playthrough. heh It's what I love about this game tho...for me even when I know how to do something, how to do a quest, there's so many different ways to approach it combat wise (even when using the same weapons tactics) that I can do it over and over and still giggle. Yeah, I had to reload there a few times too. Close quarters is my enemy. I finally had to use a Stealthboy to get to the top ridge (still had to fight the smaller ones on the way) and it seemed to confuse the legendary one enough that I could snipe it from there.

Snipers are definitely balance breaking too, imo....but since I love sniping, I don't care. There's nothing like taking down Cottonwood Cove at lvl 3 by sniping, and all those named Legion guys can do is run around the buildings like aimless chickens because they can't see me squatting at the top of the hill. I did try melee once, and only once, so I do kinda know what you mean, tho. I had maybe 17melee skill, was lvl1, and I took a half-broken baseball bat to three Viper bandits or some such (not deathclaws, but hey, I was lvl1) and it seemed to break their arms in 1 swing, causing them to drop their guns and then they were dead. (edit) I can definitely see if you build w/melee in mind you'd be a powerhouse. I just don't find melee emotionally satisfying, that's all.

I think the point/issue that most (or at least many) people don't build their characters with destroying DeathClaws hand to hand in mind. I sure don't. I still refuse to use melee/build with melee in mind, so it's nigh impossible for my chrs. Guns of some kind or nothing, baby, it's how I roll.

I've been playing more FNV as time goes on, & starting to neglect a lot of little things in order to do so. Like, right now I'm wearing a pair of ragged pants I haven't worn in years, because the dirty clothes pile is just shy of the ceiling. But at least it's not as bad as when I first started WoW, or even Diablo2, years ago. eg, at least I still eat and sleep regularly.

It's not that great killing wise, imo. But it is a good weapon. Sometimes I wish I could get him to use a laser rifle something, tho, either for tactic preferences or for kicks if nothing else....and he won't.

Arcade's default weapon is also "powerful" enough that it's difficult to get him to use anything else. But since it's a pretty good weapon I don't mind.

I'm not sure if you actually wanted spoilers so I'm covering them up: There's a bunch of temporary ones that will follow you for short period of time, but I don't usually bother with those. In terms of Boone....again not sure if you really wanted outright spoilers or not but here's the really big hints:Save any Legion hostages and kill/destroy Legion. Peaceful solutions to anti-Legion quests won't impress Boone. Craigy does have quite a few rep-building quests (edit:&once u know what they are, easy to do early) but one problem is that at least two of them many people will do before even meeting him in Novac, so you can lose those opportunities very early in the game. There aren't many for him in the late-game stage so if you wait to hire him you may have done most of them already. Then there's that one where trying to gain the rep point may result in a bugged-out, locked-in-room Boyd, which is bad for other quests.

If you're getting nvidia driver errors that sometimes crash the game, apparently some people have issues with the Realtek PCIe Gigabyte (onboard) LAN Card. It's used on the ASUS P6T mobo, maybe others. Drivers for this hardware can have issues with some nvidia cards & driver version 7.3+ may make it worse. Not that this would be/is the source of all or even most of FNV CTD's...just one of them. But for me if it means even one less CTD per play session...going to put in different LAN hardware see what happens.

--Deathclaws from a distance are no problem. Up close they are definitely SuperBad, put there to knock the gamer-ego out of you. That ignoring DT thing is so not right. heh --I've been 'testing' perks w/one character and Living Anatomy seems bugged? Or maybe I don't know how to use it? When I first picked/activated it and left the level up screen, I saw HP/DT numbers under my companion's health bar. Then I went into the world and I saw....nothing. No numbers or health bars anywhere. Not under companion name, not under enemy names (yes I got up close to them), not under NPC names. --Higher charisma works well for companions, but that Ferocious Loyalty perk is useless. If I'm at 50% or lower health, it's usually because I'm also 1 second from death by a 2nd hit...and companions can't pull aggro away from you most of the time so...useless. I figured it would be, but had to check it out. --Arcade has one of the best lines when you tell him to use melee. And why is he taller than everyone else, by default? Guess he's special. --I finally figured out which setting controlled player height. I can no longer look through door peepholes, just like in real life. It's great!