I never thought of it that way. But I can see your point. The river if packed with 'lurks. And the Deathclaw Sanctuary is up on the heights on the eastern side. I think that satellite station with the orbital weapon is over there too.

I´ve only seen tmar call it that but I thought it´s a good name for it

That explains why I didn't find it in the Wiki.

It happens extremely rarely but it happens - my new protagonist in New Vegas is a woman. This is my second woman in New Vegas (the first one was Sylvia in 2010) and my 3rd woman in my overall gaming history (I only had one more woman in Morrowind). I may have had a few test characters here and there, that were women but they weren't serious characters. Anyway...
--
Blondie has been many things – a bouncer, a caravan guard, a courier, a hooker, a mercenary, a scavenger, maybe even a raider.

Yet she hasn't been one thing. She hasn't been shot in the head.

Until now.

Now this changed and she can add another unforgettable experience to her not-so-cheery life. But she survived it and now she's relentlessly pursuing her attackers - a man in a checkered suit with a shining pistol and his thugs. Once she finds the man in the suit, she'll "vaporize the mother-[censored]'s head and stuff his own cigs in his goo pile. 'cos nobody shoots Blondie in the head and lives to tell 'bout it."

Before leaving Goodsprings, she helped Ringo defend against Powder Gangers. In fact the entire town was under attack but most residents locked inside their houses and waited for Blondie, Ringo and Sunny to deal with the Powder Gangers. "Brahmin [censored] is more worth than this [censored] Goodsprings. 'cept the old Doc and Sunny, the rest are miserable selfish mother-[censored]," said Blondie after the fight was over because almost nobody from Goodsprings joined the fight.

With a bad taste in her mouth, she leaves Goodsprings, heading for Primm.

"Maybe it were better if I was dead.
But I ain't.
And now somebody has to pay. "

From Primm to Nipton and to Novac,
Blondie walks and rarely talks,
leaving piles of goo behind,
of those that weren't very kind.

To give her pistol some rest,
she brings a knife to the fest.
Swing here and swing there,
body parts flying everyhwere!

At last she comes to a little town,
only to be turned down,
by a local sniper whelp,
who requires Blondie's help.

And so Blondied headed west,
to a forsaken ghouls' nest,
she brings her pistol and her knife,
not to lose her precious life.

Lopov! That poem is wonderful!!!

Awesome, Lopov!

----

Still running around with Gunny, he works so well as a moving gun platform. I can set him up somewhere, draw some mutie attention and ran back past him and let him deal with it

We were just in and around DC but are now back in Megaton

That is an awesome poem!

I'm I... I'm speechless Lopov. I love how everything rhymes! Damn.

Thanks!

She has seen the lights of New Vegas, she has seen addicted gamblers winning & losing, she has seen debauchery and hypocrisy of the Strip, and now that she's seen it all, Blondie says:

"[censored] it. I prefer Wasteland."

She killed Benny, the man who tried to kill her, and that was it. She refuses to have anything to do with Mr House or anyone else at the Strip. There is something shady going on behind that glamour and Blondie wants none of it. She prefers wasteland, no matter how dangerous and unpredictable. She prefers running from a deathclaw than staying for one minute longer at the Strip. Before leaving, she caused a stir at the Strip. Not only did she kill Benny, one of the most influential people in Vegas, she also turned down Mr House's invitation by vaporizing his favorite robot, who despite saving her life, turned out to be a mechanical pawn in Mr House's scheme. She had to flee from the Strip, while several Mr House's robots were shooting at her but the second when she escaped from Vegas, she felt free once again.

Now she's back in the Wasteland, eager to do some bounty hunting. Unless necessary, she's not returning to the Strip.

I was down on the Strip (for real) last week. Good to see nothing's changed!

As the old saying goes Acadian, the more things change, the more they stay the same...

I have yet to have a character to go beyond killing Benny either. Lonesome Dove is the only one who followed the main quest even that far. She didn't give a hoot about New Vegas or Mr. House and his platinum chip either. They can all roast under the Nevada sun for all she cares.

Indeed, that's where the questline ends for my characters too. I like catching up on Benny and get revenge, but that's it. Though I did the MQ once, with my first character, just to experience it.

Blondie killed both Yes Man and Victor, BTW. Yes Man is essential but he couldn't avoid being vaporized. It's still possible that he'll respawn, though. And she killed Victor just outside the Lucky 38, probably making the House's questline impossible to complete because Victor is supposed to open the main door.

Blondie's game will focus on the magnificent New Vegas Bounties Mod and anything that happens in between.

Joe King found a grandma to hang out and drink with. I forget her name, but she lives right on the river across from several Metro stations.

Joe is supposed to be doing the mirelurk quest for Moira, but he's currently taking a break. He hates mirelurks.

Grandma Sparkle! She runs Wilhelms Wharf, and says her sons are off huntin' 'lurks. I wonder if her sons are the ones inside the Anchorage Memorial?

I always wondered whether her sons are actual NPCs or are they just mentioned, yet they never existed.

Mirelurks can be dangerous at low to mid levels, especially mirelurk hunters that have a nasty habit of appearing even at low levels. Make sure that Joe is prepared to deal with them because they can cripple him quickly.

This is truth about the 'lurks. I have found that the secret to killing them is to always go for the face. It is the only part of their bodies that are not armored.

Of course lots of mines works fine too. Especially Bottlecap Mines.

Correct, Joe aims for their face. They still manage to knock him around though. That would actually be cool if Grandma Sparkle's kin could somehow meet up with Joe. He's actually kind of aimless at the moment. He doesn't know what he wants to do, other than hang with Gran'ma.

I'd say that it's good that Joe is aimless because he can do some random traveling which usually turns out to be fun.
--
Blondie made it to Goodsprings via the northern road, leading from Bonnie Springs through cazador-infested hills to Goodsprings. It feels like she was to hell and back! She killed two young deathclaws and twelve cazadors. Now her leather armor is barely wearable, she's almost out of energy cells, she used one Super Stimpak, 5-6 regular stimpaks and one antivenom. She hopes that Chet, the merchant of Goodsprings, has some energy cells available else she'll have to rely on her combat knife until she finds some proper ammunition.

After she'll rest and resupply, she'll head to Primm to enlist as a bounty hunter.

Only one antivenom! That would probably be a record for me against Cazadors. I hate those things. The way they flop around makes them hard to hit, especially at long range. Lonesome Dove took to using explosive rounds for her .50 cal rifle against them. The area of effect damage did the trick.

Well, she had no more than one.

But she was poisoned afterwards again, and had to use stimpaks and sarsaparillas to prevent death.

P.S.
I once had a character that died on this road. He was poisoned by cazadores and another one attacked and he attacked him in VATS, I spent all of his AP so he had around 4-5 hits on that cazador. The beast didn't even touch him but after the VATS sequence was over, he just fell to the ground, definitely because of the poison but VATS lasted so long that there was no time to heal in between.

So...

Joe King is completely useless. Seriously, all he wants to do is hang out in the Megaton area, and for some reason he enjoys the company of Grandma Sparkle. So (RP wise) he'll probably spend a lot of time in this general area of the Wasteland. He might occasionally go raid some raiders, but it seems like he's not really interested in quests.

But this is not a bad thing. I thought of Cho Zen~Wahn, my original FO3 character who was created before Margey. As soon as I thought of Cho I got this sort of 'pick me!' feeling. He's doing the Main Quest after all, looking for his father. So I'm returning to Cho's game today. Cicadas sing outside my door, and it's sunny outside. What a backdrop to play some Fallout.

Are you saying that Joe King was just goofing around...?

At least you had a character to fall back on in case this happened

The clue (apparently) is in his name, right? It's weird. As soon as I thought of Joe I got this sort of serious, determined feeling. I wish I had his birthday so I can have a peek at his astrology.

Wow, he's only Level 3. I am glad I abandoned his game last year, at least I know plenty of things about how FO works compared to last year.

FO3's main quest is interesting and it'll keep you entertained for a while, because knowing you, you won't just rush through it. And the best thing is that you can keep on playing even when you're done with it.

Oh of course. Very true. Cho is already sidetracked into doing the landmine quest for Moira. He can't follow his dad's trail because stupid Moriarty wants 300 caps for this information about Cho's dad. Which, of course, saddens me. Cho tried going on Moriarty's computer when nobody was looking, unfortunately his Science, which is rather high at 40, is not high enough (50 is needed). I dumped a lot into Science and Small Guns and gave him the Lady Killer perk for some reason.

Last I saw Cho, he was headed toward Minetown or whatever it's called.

It's OK if you're going to the Minefield, it's an interesting quest but...

there are many other options to get the wanted info from Moriarty, you don't need to pay him, just exhaust all of his dialogue options or pay attention to who in the saloon really dislikes Moriarty and he / she might help Cho.

EDIT: I tried using spoilers on the text above but for some reason the text disappears when I put it into spoiler tags.

It's okay, I blurred my eyes so I wouldn't actually read it. I read the first few words, but my goldfish-style memory will easily lose that bit of ROM. I like that Moriarty is being a hard-ass. I want this to not be too easy.

I am in no rush to beat this game, in other words.

If you search the entire wasteland, you will eventually find more clues to where Dear old Dad is!

I bet you have to follow the MQ for that? I found him by accident, I didn´t find any real clue.

I found him by accident the first time as well. Ronny, my first character in FO3, went to

Wow, I bet your rite! .. Now it is rly time 2 baet da gaem , pwn some toons1

Blondie traveled with Veronica for a few days but she's again alone from today. While Veronica was good in combat, Blondie didn't like that there was always someone walking behind her and she's used to traveling alone.

Besides, Blondie has become a serious bounty hunter and she wants to deal with her victims alone. Not to menion that her way of talking and behavior can get crude at times, which is a consequence of her improper upbringing because she was more or less forced to look after herself alone, and it wasn't easy for a girl to survive the dangerous wastes.

Veronica, on the other hand, is educated, talks in a fine way and would be a perfect daughter-in-law if only she was interested in men. So she didn't really connect with Blondie. They parted ways as friends at the Powder Gangers Camp South and promised to have a drink together next time Blondie passes through the 188 Trading post.

Blondie's plan is to get to Novac via a shortcut and from there continue her search for Tony Idaho, a new drug lord in the Mojave. Her primary weapons are still the combat knife and Plasma Defender but she also carries a Laser RCW to kill her enemies from afar - but for now the Laser RCW is still unused by her.

I was at Meijer yesterday, and there as an employee sweeping up the parking lot who was wearing a Stormchaser Hat. I swear it was just like that, except he did not have the goggles. I was tempted to ask him if it really did give him a +1 to Perception, but I didn't think he'd understand...

Ha ha maybe he plays some Fallout, eh?

Today something happened that hasn´t happened in a very, very, very long time. Megaton settlers run up to me and give me stuff for my assistance. Maybe they´ve decided they´re thankful again...

Maybe you did something that increased your karma?

I guess it is possible that I´ve let my karma down a little, but if that´s the case it wasn´t noticeable. Still am the Last, Best Hope..


And today I heard something I don´t think I´ve heard before. While fighting mutants one of them shouted "Hot potatoe!!"

I think I may have heard the "hot potato" before, when throwing grenades. Usually they just say "run away!"

Thing is, I didn´t throw a nade at the time. He said it though just as I locked him in VATS to throw one..

My favorite is throwing grenades at Raiders, and hearing them say "Oh [censored]!" and then BOOM!

YES!! I love it when they react like this. They lose all their machismo. My favorite is "[censored] this, I'm outta here!"

Blondie spent six days in Novac with her boyfriend Andy who is 30 years her senior, but now it's time to say goodbye for awhile. Andy accompanied her to Harper's shack and now they're sleeping there - in the morning Blondie will continue via Primm Pass to Primm to her employer Steven Randall, while Andy will return back to his bungalow in Novac.

Thanks to Blondie, Interstate 15 is free of deathclaws and thus passable again. She picked the beasts off from a safe distance with YCS/186, a powerful variant of the standard Gauss Rifle. She didn't really get paid as much as she hoped for, but the passable road is also an advantage for her because reaching northern parts of the Mojave is now significantly easier.

I remember doing that with Lonesome Dove. I think it took over a hundred rounds from her Anti-Material Rifle.

It took her a lot of MF cells too but she didn't do it in one time, she cleared out surrounding areas about a week before she cleared out the inner place. From a distance, deathclaws didn't stand a chance against YCS/186 but from up close they'd still kill her in a few seconds, I guess.

I am doing some gaming with Cho Zen~Wahn today. He is ultimately following his father's footsteps, but right now needs caps & supplies. So he's exploring the metro system, killing ghouls mostly

Blondie spent the New Year's Eve alone, sitting on a porch outside her motel room in Novac, smoking cigarettes and drinking absinthe. The night was even more quiet than usual and it looked like even NCR and Legion gave each other some rest. With Andy gone, she doesn't have anyone to celebrate with, not that celebrating is popular in the Mojave anyway. Some fear her, some shun her, some respect her, yet they all know there's blood on her hands and that's why nobody likes to have her around.

Here is an appropriate theme song for Blondie

Since Lopov forced me, I rolled a new FONV toon to beat the game with, Cyhiraeth, the Irish Adventurer. I have had an idea kicking around in my head for some time for an NCR secret agent. She is someone so secret that the rest of the NCR in the Mojave does not know about her. Maybe someone working directly for the President. Her mission is to infiltrate New Vegas, get to Mr. House, and either assassinate him, or get something on him to make him cooperate with the NCR. A Mojave Express Courier was the prefect cover for her. Things went all wrong when Bugsy Siegel Benny shot her in the head though, scrambling her brains, and wiping out her memories. So now she is wandering the Mojave, trying to pick up the pieces of her mind. Everyone once and a while she has flashes, especially when she is around NCR soldiers or sites.

With a character like this, I ought to be motivated to actually do the main quest.

I was originally thinking of making her a Shotgun and pistol character. But the last few days of using the Sturdy Caravan Shotgun has left me very unimpressed with shotguns. This is even with using some mods to fix the broken critical hit damage, and make the ammo more effective at penetrating armor. Today I picked up a Single Shotgun, and was amazed at how much better it was than the Caravan. When I left off Cyhiraeth had come across a wandering merchant, and bought a Lever Action Shotgun. We'll see how that works.

Likewise, the .357 revolver Cyhiraeth picked up rather early started out pretty good. But now that she is 7th level or so, it does not do much more than tickle the Giant Radscorpions and Feral Ghouls she has been running across. I have been looking through the wiki for better, but cannot find anything in the western Mojave. Except of course for Lucky. But it is locked up, and takes a Lockpick of 75 to get into. Cyhiraeth has been forced to put every point into her Guns skill to stay alive, so that hasn't happened.

She did pick up a Service Rifle from the Ranger Station in the south west corner of the map. That has been surprisingly good against lightly armored targets. The fast rate of fire, really lets it put down a lot of fire on baddies. So she might just use that some more instead. I am also looking at some of the automatic rifles now too. The All-American is off a bit to the north of her now, so she might go make a try for that.

Edit: I played a little more, and the Lever Action Shotgun has done alright so far. I also managed to get Cy's Lockpicking up high enough that when combined with the Locksmith magazine, she can get into Hard level locks. So she just got her hands on Lucky.

Great song and lyrics, thank you!


Cyhiraeth has an interesting backstory, it also gives her an excuse for losing her memory regarding the Divide, that is, if she'll ever do the DLC content.


There's a mod called NVR - Lock kicking & Lock Bombing, which allows you to bypass locks by using either force or explosives though you have to meet some skill requirements to succeed or use very powerful explosives, like C4 which are hard to find at low levels.

Now that I read the entire post, I see that she already has Lucky. Goodman, a dead gentleman, used Lucky and I loved it, not only because of stats but also because of its design.

Anyway, nice to see another girl roaming the Mojave, what is her 3rd tagged skill? (besides Guns and Lockpick, I assume)