Thanks, Ureniashtram !! I tried to get that Arcade Gannon to even talk to me - he was rude as H - I had Veronica as a follower and did not want to give her up for him, so couldn't get his quest (and didn't know it would lead me to the remnants, either - only that you would get a special "family remnant power armor" as a quest reward - for some reason my brain didn't put the two together, ROFL!!).

Same, I had Boone and he was a really good ally paired with ED-E so I wasn't interested in recruiting anybody else.

That Arcade was really rude, obnoxious - and not a great fighter from what I hear. Veronica is tough as nails in the early levels. At level 30 she kind of loses it, and you become ready to get rid of her and get Boone. I had ED-E last game, I am going after him in this one too - although he makes stealth hard with all his racket - I kind of like his victory music and battle music.

ED-E is my favorite really. He's not as strong as the dog is but he highlights every enemy near you and the music was a great touch. When I first got him I thought my game was screwed up, then realized it was ED-E playing the music.

Boone is great with a rifle and melee weapons. I gave him the chainsaw you get from Motor-runner and bought him a .50 cal when I got one.

Veronica LOVES the chainsaw, and it is hilarious to watch her with it. She hollers something when she uses it, I can't remember what since I haven't gotten that in this game yet. Whatever you do, don't give her frag grenades. She uses them for everything - she will spot an enemy and (even though you have told her NOT to engage till you do) will yell out at the top of her lungs "WATCH OUT!" - and lob a grenade. Makes it hard to be stealthy.

Veronica has an awesome punch without any weapons in the low levels, she has some fisto-type unarmed device.

The only thing with Veronica - I haven't found any way to get her to use a gun. There must be some way, I just haven't figured it out yet. I have given her the Tessla Cannon, a (game-modded) hunting rifle, a sniper rifle, shotguns, laser rifles, plasma rifles, etc. - she won't use them no matter what - even in the Deathclaw Promentary she is out there trying to duke it out with Deathclaws (and doing remarkably well, I might add - but she can only take just so many hits).

I give Boone the chainsaw and another melee weapon. maybe the shish kabob? I don't remember, it was sword or something that did lots of damage, but he always switched between the 2 seemingly at random. one fight will be the the saw, the next with the other weapon. maybe they were degrading and he was switching to the current best weapon? idk.

I've never seen Veronica's armor or weapons I give her degrade - but if they are in broke condition she never fixes them, even if you give her the piece to do it. I have to take it from her, fix it, then give it back.

They must all be high melee characters, I know Veronica will take melee or unarmed weapons over anything. Armor: she will put on whatever you give her that has a higher DT.

Boone only uses melee at close range, he'll use a rifle normally. But yeah I checked the wiki and he has very high melee rating.

It's always cool when you equip BoS armor on you companions.

Wow, does Boone let you put BOS armor on him? Veronica will NOT let you put NCR, Legion, etc - any other faction's armor on her !!

You are probably right, I bet I had to buy him non-affiliated power armor.

It really bothers me when I just want Veronica to carry some armor - and she dumps it on the ground saying she can't wear that - she doesn't have to, I just didn't have the weight allowance left to carry it, lol.

Still though, I think it is kind of cool that they have their loyalties.

I must have bought him some T-45d because I think the set the BoS gives you is affiliated. I obviously bought T-51b for myself. I like the look of the 45d better than the 51b but I want the best for me lol.

There is also some remnant power armor - one of the guys atop the Deathclaw Promentary is all in remnant armor I think - (they never showed up for me yet, only their weapons both games).

I never found it either. If I did, I'd give that set to Boone if he'd wear it. I want the strength bonus the T51b gives so I can use heavy weapons better

I went to that med clinic and had strength implant put in - my strength is 8 now. That made a much bigger difference than I ever thought it would, really surprising how much of a difference it has made in my character's toughness.

I totally forgot about that clinic and never bought anything. not that I had the caps for it.

Most are 4000 caps, but two of them are 8000 caps.

I was basically broke after I bought the .50 cal rifles and power armor. How did you make money in New Vegas?

I loot every place I find, repair and then sell anything I can't use. Some places give you awesome amts of caps - there is one cave that pays better than the Sunshine Sasperilla headquarters. Black Mountain has a good haul in that upside down satelite dish/tent thing.

I even sell off any excess ammo for guns I do not have - leaving myself only 25 @ for emergencies just in case I get into a battle and have to pick up a gun and start firing.

Last game my repair was really high so I didn't have to pay anyone except for special weapons. This game it is only medium, that is hurting me a little. Also, last game my endurance was lower so I couldn't get as many implants - I planned ahead this game and raised it early on (wasting perks on bringing my special up).

I got the Black Widow Perk this game for the first time in any Fallout game and have yet to see ANY time it came into use !!! What a waste THAT was !!!

Also, I drank every Sunset Sasperilla I got my hands on, it does add up too, believe it or not, lol. Both games I had every place on the map (just about) explored and looted.

Last game I did a lot of stealing, but this game I am not doing much of that at all - only skill books and snow globes this game.

Also, some unique weapons I didn't want I sold - they are high dollar items.

Oh say, when you add that DLC on and it gives you five extra levels - does it add perks (every other level) or just levels? Anyone know?

I ended up using just about everything I found. High value weapons were used to fix or replace the one I had.

I loot like crazy and sell anything I don't need and I still end up poor as H. Do I have an active effect called "hole in pocket'?

ROFL !!! Well, if you are going to be broke anyway you may as well just run straight over there after selling, lol.

That is one thing I like so much about this game, they gave us some things to spend on - in Fallout 3 there was nothing to spend on, my caps amounts were always ridiculously high.

Oh, here is something I did in both Fallout 3 and New Vegas - wear items that increase your barter skill whenever selling or paying for repairs - like a "wandering trader hat" It adds +5 to your trading skills: They pay you + 10% higher for items you are selling/charge 10 % less for items they are selling - every little bit adds up.

I did that for a little bit... then I would find a shiny new gun or something worth a lot of caps to sell and drop that. Or sometimes I'd just sell it after I was done selling everything else too.

It is only one pound, I carry it with me everywhere - there aren't many of them in the game. My problem is forgetting to put it on sometimes when I go to sell. If it is indoors I don't mind reloading the autosave and redoing the whole sale - but if I've gone to that robot I just take the loss.

You can never get them all (unless your endurance is at 10 - and who would do that) - so you have to choose which you want to do before starting. One of them ups your endurance by 1. I always do strength and the two great additions, then luck. I had one left and tried to raise endurance - it should have allowed me to get one more, right? Didn't work. They still wouldn't let me - so I reloaded the autosave at the door and upped agility - what a huge difference that agility boost makes in wandering the Mohave. My girl is faster and can jump higher.

The thing is, I can't stand the idea of wasting my SPECIAL all on endurance, especially when intelligence gives you extra skill points to distribute; without strength you are nothing against the enemies, etc. - So I can only end up with about 5 of the implants. (2 at 8,000 and 3 at 4,000 - that is under 30,000. Just in case I can get more I try to walk in the clinic with about 35,000).

Also - (something that really ticked me off) - wearing clothing that ups your endurance has no effect, the clinic can see through the ploy - I don't see why that wouldn't work.

I always wondered if you could go back to the Doctor that saved you's and re-do your SPECIAL, boost up endurance - get your implants - then go back to the docs house and redo them again putting them all where you wanted them again.

LOL I don't think I've seen more than 10 grand at once in that game.

I have never had over that amount. Some people made caps gambling before they patched the game - can't now. I haven't gambled yet - or played Caravan - but TK posted instructions on here for playing Caravan that sounded like a sure thing to win caps - I haven't tried it yet.

I've got more money than the game can count, it can only count to like a million caps and then after that it just adds a plus sign.

I got it all by exploiting the money glitch in Primm before it was patched.

I used to make money gambling but yeah it's fail now. I was so mad after that patch. I'm not going to learn how to play caravan though. when they first explained how to play it I was just lol wat.

Me too, but TK has a sure-fire way to win it (although I haven't tried it so can't vouch yet) - I think it is on page one of this very thread.

Actually, if you really do want to exploit caravan to its fullest, This video can help.

That is, if you really don't mind being a cheap [blamo!].

WOOOOOW

they should just explain it like that in the game.

Wow, great vid !!! I have not played a single game yet, or gambled in any casino - not really sure why, lol.

skip the casino you cannot win a single hand at anything anymore

I read that somewhere yesterday when I was looking up something on the WIKI. I wonder if the patch fixed the New Vegas Computer Hacking Glitch.

since Caravan is so easy to win I might just rely on that for caps whenever I play that buggy pos again.

Yes, I am making my second attempt to see if the game holds up long enough for me to see the final battle.

I wish you luck. I was so disappointed by how buggy the game was in general that it'll be a while before I play again. The game really is good, but it needs some serious fixing and cleaning.

You aren't kidding. I haven't been able to load the DLC once yet that it didn't crash the game.

That is totally unacceptable. Have you complained to Obsidian yet?

I have not, I think I've only complained on here and on the BGSF. (and to anyone who would listen at work).

get your game completely updated then try re-downloading the DLC. You need to redownload it just in case the original DLC did not download correctly. If that does not work, you need to contact Obsidian.

Okay, I did redownload it once, but installed the patch afterward - that may have been the mess up. I'll try reversing the order and downloading it again - after I've been given a chance to whip the Legate's butt !!!

Does anyone know if the DLC gives you the opportunity to choose any more perks than the vanilla game's 15 perks?

get it working yet?

I haven't even had time to turn on the 360 this past week. Took off work to be with my dog after her surgery and had a busier week than I would have working, lol.

If you're on the 360 and you have Dead Money you'll have to have the latest patch installed to play the game or it will freeze every time.

Yes, I wonder if it matters if I download the patch after the DLC, is there a specific order it should be downloaded? I wouldn't think so since the patch was made to FIX the problems of the DLC - but my game crashes totally every time I DL the patch OR the DLC OR both - and then it crashed and corrupted all the save files (at F'N LEVEL 30 !!!! GAAAAAAH !!!! ) When I did the "Come Fly With Me" quest. I very nearly died of a heart attack, but somehow pulled it together and started another game. I am now at level 30 and will FREAK OUT if it corrupts my save files again !!!!

Are you trying to DL Dead Money from the marketplace or the main screen of the game? I think you should delete the Dead Money DLC if it is partially installed and re download it from the marketplace (not the main menu of NV), then clear the HD cache and start the game. It should prompt you to download the patch and it should work fine...at least it did for me on the first try.

There shouldn't be any issues since you're on a console there obviously can't be any compatibility issues.

The only thing I know for a fact is that if you've got Dead Money installed on the HD and you decline to install the patch when it pops up the game will freeze every time.

Good luck, let us know what happens.

Yeah, I cleaned the hard drive cache, the game cache, redownloaded both the DLC and the patch - still crashed the game. I'm not taking another chance on losing a level 30 character - I'd like to play this one to the end, start another game and then fiddle with the DLC and patch on the new game so I don't lose a whole played game again.