So how's it going in Point Lookout? I hear there are many ghouls around. Annoying creatures. I avoid them whenever I can.

--

Having lost four best executioners in a showdown with Blondie, Caesar sent a new unit to terminate her. This group was led by a young commander that was despite his age, very experienced with hunting down and executing Caesar's enemies. The young commander knew that his fallen brothers tried to ambush Blondie but she saw through their scheme. So instead of hiding, he decided to attack her directly.

"Mighty Caesar entrusted us with a noble task - to kill the sworn enemy of the Legion, to kill Blondie and bring her head back to our great leader on a silver plate! We are leaving now, brothers, and we won't stop running until we find her! We have information that she'll soon be coming to the area west of New Vegas, accompanied by an unknown man. Caesar wants both of them dead! But beware, brothers...nobody is allowed to attack her until I say so! I will personally acknowledge her of her sins against the Legion!"

With these words the young commander ordered his assassins to follow him and they left the Fort, determined to return with Blondie's head. A few days later they spotted her walking down a lonesome road with her unknown companion. The young commander and his three assassins were running against her, their hands at their weapons, waiting for the commander's shout to attack.

However, the commander's shout was never heard. As soon as Blondie spotted them, she knew that they aren't here to pick post-war flowers. So she pulled her trustworthy MF Hyperbreeder Alpha out and started shooting - lasers were forcefully hitting the assassins and the young commander died first, never having a privilege to tell Blondie of her sins.

The remaining assassins tried and defend themselves but they stood no chance against Blondie and her companion. In just a few seconds, another Legion's elite assassin group was dispatched, their corpses now littering the crackled road. "A few more bit the dust," said Blondie, lit a cigarette and headed on. She was used to killing - be it raiders, slavers, rats or deathclaws. Almost not a day passed by that she hadn't killed somebody.

Ha ha I love that--"She pulled out her trusty MF hyperbreeder Alpha"... Good stuff!

@Lopov - I´m not in Lookout yet. Haven´t played Fallout in a few days as I´ve been getting back into That Other Game™

Well, I´m back again in the Capital Wasteland. Lookout just doesn´t do it for me, the novelty of it wore out fast with me.


So now I´m back to hunting Radscorpions, Raiders and Deathclaws again

I'm taking a break from Blondie's game because I'm traveling to Skyrim. We've been together for many hours and it's time to part ways...for now. I left her smoking a cigarette on a porch outside her motel room in Novac. But she'll be back, more blonde than ever! I'll still be uploading pics from time to time because they are way behind of events in the game.

For now...thanks to anyone that was reading her stories and/or watching her screenies!

I was sort of hoping Blondie might discover a computerized dwemer machine in the desert that could fold space & time - transporting her to Nirn. . . .

With Wasteland done, I am still in the mood for post-apocalyptic South-Western Wasteland. So I rolled a new toon to beat FONV with. Annie Mosey (Google the name and see the first thing that pops up) is an Arizona NCR Ranger who is working undercover as a spy for the NCR, pretending to be a courier and hired gun. I am thinking she would be ideal finally try doing the main quest, most likely from the NCR side of things.

Annie uses a M14 battle rifle, thanks to this mod. I have still not settled on her outfit, though I have narrowed it down to three contenders. Either a brown jacket and jeans from the Wasteland Freelancer mod, the Reinforced Leather Armor, or the Assassin's Suit from Honest Hearts. I am leaning toward the Reinforced Leather. The jeans and jacket look a bit too threadbare and vagabondish. The Assassin Suit seems a bit high-tech, and might suit an energy wielder better.

My favorite is the Reinforced Leather - she looks awesome! I don't think I've ever gotten my FO:NV character to look that good!

I spend a huge amount of time working on my character's faces. I am never satisfied. What really drives me crazy is they never look the same in the game as they do in the character editor. So I am constantly using the console to go back and change their appearance.

But I also keep in mind proportions, and the 'science' of making a beautiful person. Now everyone defines beauty differently, but certain things do help overall. If you look in this article - starting down with The Anatomy of Beauty and Well-Proportioned Faces, you will see a lot of general tips that apply to any character in any game.

Likewise, this article really goes into depth on proportions. While I don't hold a ruler up to my monitor and measure, I always try to keep everything in proportion.

I put Annie Mosey into a search engine and got a Facebook page with a middle school teacher or something, then I realized I was using BING and not Google. Oops.

I like the reinforced leather too, though you could bounce different outfits at different times, as the situation calls. She looks good, hon.

Faces can be tough, right? .. Several times in the past I have found myself getting close to what I've wanted to see, but then I just have to make a series of tweaks, and now my perfectly-sculpted female is starting to look male, or like a bag lady, or something. Oops.

Well good luck with Miss Arizona Ranger Oakley.

I have had more than one female character come out looking male! Sometimes I even stop playing a character because I cannot get them to look right.

I have been thinking of renaming Annie to Annie Ley Oak, if that helps any...

Annie has spent the last few days killin' Power Gangers and stomping on mutant bugs. Yesterday she cleared out the prison and ran back and forth to the Mojave Outpost to get Primm a new Sheriff. Today she headed east, and found the mess of Nipton. Lots of Legion killing ensued.

Annie also upgraded from her M14 to a more modern Colt M4A1 Carbine. I don't really like how FO3 and FONV do automatic weapons, but I found JIP Selective-Fire, which gives you the ability to select between single fire, burst fire, and full auto modes with any gun that is normally full auto in the game. I really am loving using the Colt, and switching between single shot for bugs, and 3 round bursts for two-legged varmints.

JIP in turn required The Mod Configuration Menu for FONV. I had no idea there was a version for FONV. I have MCM for Skyrim and love it. So I was glad to add it. JIP also needed User Interface Organizer, which I added as well.

That is when I started getting CTDs after about a half hour of playing, when I never had them before. I figured it had to be one of these mods I just added. So I got rid of UIO first. JIP Selective Fire seems to work without it, at least using display option 2, which puts your fire select down next to your ammo count in the interface. I ran the game for an hour without a CTD, so it looks like that was the culprit.

I love that carbine though I wouldn´t use it myself. To me it doesn´t fit into the Fallout universe...

You sound like Jack Reacher, with all your knowledge of guns. One of these days I should try making a Jack Reacher for Fallout 3. He'll be non-DiD; because it doesn't matter how hopeless a situation is, Jack Reacher never dies.

I also love the mod config menu in Skyrim. Makes things so much easier.

Who is Jack Reacher? Was that a Tom Cruise movie?

Yeah, he's supposed to be the same guy, although I don't think Cruise does Reacher justice. I picture him more like a guy with an Army crew cut, since he is an ex-military policeman. I read a few Reacher books this fall. A co-worker lent me her copy, and I got hooked for awhile.

Anyways, one of the things I like about his books is he always comes up with some creative ways to escape bizarre situations. And he knows a lot about guns, to the point that it makes it interesting for somebody like me to understand. So maybe I'll make a character based on Jack Reacher. He'll be unkillable, as the guy in the books seems to be.

Well, I am still getting that CTD after about an hour of playing. So it wasn't UIO after all. I am wondering if it is the FONV Stutter Remover, which I also installed recently. When I started playing FONV again a few days ago I noticed a definite stuttering problem. The Stutter Remover cleared it up after capping the FPS at 60. I think I made a few other tweaks with it as well. So I reinstalled it just with the FPS setting, and I'll see how that works. I may need to tinker with some of the settings. I remember I had to make a lot of changes to the Oblivion version before I got it working well with that game.

On the other hand, the newly renamed Annie Ley Oak has pushed farther east into the map. She has cleared out the prison and everything west, all the way down to the bottom of the map. She even visited Nipton and declared war on the Legion.

The last few nights she has been crisscrossing the ridge between the prison and Novac. Her first time was through Primm Pass, where she had a nearly heart-stopping encounter with the Deathclaw that lives there. She found the rest of its family nearby, and put her grenade launcher to use. That was really close too! Needless to say, she is minus a whole lot of stimpacks now.

She headed back west after looping south around Nipton, then back east again through Scorpion Gulch. She ended up near Helios One, and decided to lend a hand there to get the power going. Then she headed south to Novac. She has been lending a hand around there, and I last left her on the way to the Repconn facility to look into the rumors of ghoul-trouble.

In my case FONV SR caused frequent freezing that lasted for anywhere between 10-20 seconds before the game "unfroze". When I removed it, freezings were gone immediately.


That's a must in your every playthrough.

After reinstalling the NV Stutter Remover with the default settings, and only changing the FPS cap to 60, I have not had a single CTD, even after leaving the game running for several hours while I watched tv. So that took care of business.

Annie spent the day 'splorin' around the south of the map. Most of the time was spent in Camp Searchlight, where the space suit she got from the Repconn Test Site came in handy. It has the same armor as Reinforced Leather, and the same rad protection as the Advanced Rad Suit. Still with the way the FO games cap your Rad Resistance at 85%, I still went through a lot of Rad-X and Rad Away.

But in the end Annie was able to return the ghoulified Private Edwards back into NCR service. She also teamed up with the Prospectors in the basement of the ruined church, got them some rad suits, and raided the Police Station and Fire House with them. The biggest radscorpion I have ever seen was in the latter. But big or small, Annie will whack them all. In the end the Prospectors turned on Annie (of course!), so she had to kill them too.

One thing weird is happening. In spite of Annie having killed more legionaries than the Celts, Germans, and Parthians combined, Caesar's Legion does not attack Annie on sight. Instead they still turn up green on the hud until she attacks. I wonder if it is something to do with that mod I installed that delays the legion assassin teams? So far she has not had one attempt yet. I am using the one attack every 10 days .esp, and I know it has been longer than that since she killed them all in Nipton.

I did some looking though the quests in the Fallout Wiki, and I am guessing that the Legion is not automatically hostile because of a quest in the main questline. It looks like after you kill Benny you have to go to Caesar's base to do something with the platinum chip. Or you have to go there to kill Benny if he gets away in New Vegas. So I think they keep the Legion neutral to you, even if you are Vilified, so that you can walk in and do the quest.

I have only had one character who ever got far enough in the main quest to kill Benny, and that was Lonesome Dove. I never went beyond that, so I never really noticed before.

In any case, I disable the mod that delays the Legion assassination teams, and sure enough, one immediately turned up. Afterward I still found the other Legionaries in the Wasteland to be neutral though. So I turned the mod back on, since they get really annoying after a while.

In other news, Annie Ley Oak has finished exploring the southern area of the map, cleaning out Cottonwood Cove and the all the little caves around there. She even made a trip back to Dead Wind Cavern, which she never went inside before. The Deathclaws outside had nearly killed her. But Annie had picked up the CZ57 Avenger, and wanted to try it out. So after smithing up about 400 rounds of ammo for it, she went Deathclaw hunting.

Annie wasn't that thrilled with the minigun. It runs out of ammo too quickly, sprays it all around too much, and I spend too much time not shooting while it winds up. After having a premonition of danger - I reloaded from the previous save - she went back to work with her M4A1 Carbine. About 500 rounds of 5.56mm Armor Piercing and 50 or so Stimpacks later, she had cleared out the place.

But, since the Colt had proven its worth with AP rounds, she headed north afterward and visited Quarry Junction. She also stopped off in Primm to repair E-DE, just in case she needed some backup. Things went better out in the open, where she had plenty of time to see the Deathclaws coming. If I stick to VATS, I find the M4 does quite well against them. The AP rounds completely bust their armor, and even though I modded the rifle to do less damage, it still puts out a lot of bullets, with good accuracy when in burst mode. But once the action points run out it gets more diecy. E-DE had to take one for the team at one point, and I had to do another reload to save his 'life'. One swat from the Deathclaw Alpha Male had killed him. The next time out I did better, and kept E-DE alive.

Now Annie has cleared out the entire map south of Goodsprings, across Sloan, the 188 Trading Post, clear to Hoover Dam. Except for Utobitha, which I think is next on the hit list. She has started exploring the north east area too though, around Bitter Springs. So she might finish that first.

I could so make a fun caption for that minigun pic!

That will have to be my next pic for that thread!

Last night Annie finished up 'sploring the far north-east, all around the ranger station up there, The Devil's Throat, Camp Guardian, and so forth. She went all the way west to Raul's Shack. Thanks to her rescuing Raul from the clutches of Tabitha in our previous edition of the Annie Chronicles, he was there to repair her gear.

She discovered Vault 34, but did not go too far in due to the radiation. Annie will have to go back to Novac to pick up her space suit before tackling that one. Instead she continued to explore around the eastern outskirts of Vegas. Annie ran into more Deathclaws around the trainyard, and EDE kept getting killed by them. So finally she sent the robot back to Primm and handled things herself. She found the clinic and got all cybered up by Dr. Usanagi. That took all day game-time! Afterward she mosied on south, and ended up outside the Gun-Runner's kiosk.

btw. This is probably the best online map I have found of FONV. The little red and blue squares are each map location, and if you click on them, they will take you to the article on them. They are really small though, so you have to be careful not to click on the background picture around them.

As much as I like EDE, he does kind of loud you out so you can't sneak up on a Deathclaw and get a crucial shot in before the fight is on. I used to give Veronica "Pushy" to wear, and stay hidden on a high wall while she went in and belted it out with the Deathclaws,

Ooh, that Tabitha quest was a ball of fun, going up that Black Mountain!

That Gun-Runner Kiosk bleeds my finances dry so I can never afford the surgery I want - OH! Have you ever robbed that kiosk for the Caravan Company? Do they know it was you even if you are not caught? I was afraid of losing my supplier, so just never completed that quest, wondered if anyone else had done it and what happened.

Great Interactive map!

I never did do any of the Crimson Caravan quests. I didn't much like the lady that runs the place. She kind of gave me the creeps the first time I talked to her, so I didn't want to work for her. I peeked in the wiki, and see that I had the right idea. She is not a very nice person...

I have spent tons of money at Gunrunners with other characters as well. I believe that is where Lonesome Dove bought her Anti-Material Rifle and all of its mods. That cost a pretty cap! But since with Annie I am using a modded rifle, I haven't been buying anything. I have been selling. So even after getting all chromed up by Dr. Usanagi, she still has about 30k caps leftover.

I never was able to reply in the pic thread, but I modded her carbine to make it more accurate. I think the spread they give weapons in FO3 and NV is ridiculous. A while ago I made a FO3 mod to reduce the spread of all guns. I made the automatic weapons a 0.7 maximum spread, and I think 0.2 or maybe it was 0.4 minimum. That makes them a lot more reasonable. I made Annie's M4 Carbine 0.7 Max /0.2 Min spread. That gives her decent accuracy at short and medium range, and sometimes she can make good shots at long range, but not always. That way the sniper rifles still rule their niche of one shot kills from long range, but the assault rifles are actually useful when closer than that.

The JIP Selective Fire mod I am using also reduces weapon spread when you are in single shot and burst fire mods, which helps too. Annie almost always uses one or the other. It is very rare for her to actually go full auto on anything.

Annie finally got around to clearing out Vault 34, and there was quite a bit of good loot in the armory (which was a pain in the neck to get to). It has both the Assault Carbine, which is full auto, and the Marksman Carbine, which is single shot. It also has the All-American, a unique Marksman Carbine. The A-A is single shot, but still has a really high fire rate. It's damage per second was listed higher than Annie's M4, which is full auto! It also has a scope, and looks to have almost no spread. So it is a great sniper rifle and up close gun. You should try that one out mALX.

Annie Ley Oakley has been exploring in and around Camp McCarran. She did some bounty hunting, and brought 3 Fiend heads back to Major Dahtri. She also met some of the other NCR troops in and around the camp. I was pleasantly surprised to hear a familiar voice come out of Lieutenant Boyd. It's Serana! a.k.a. Laura Bailey. I kept expecting her to say "Yes, what did you need?"

Okay, I was answering these two posts when my laptop graphics card crashed (after the last Windows update) - I lost everything (so trying to remember)


I never knew that about Alice McLafferty! Gee, she seemed so nice to me, I must not read people well, lol.

So I googled her, and WOW! What a history/character she is! Plotting, manipulative - dear gods, the guys at Black Isles really know how to make a character deliciously gray! Their characters walk a fine line between ethics and motives and the blur between is neatly unclear as to whether you can actually call them a villain - Bethesda should study how they do characters, imho.

Now technically, the player actually does this too, pandying up to the NCR, Caesar's Legion, the Khans, Yes Man, Boomers, and Mr. House - all the while deciding behind the scenes who they are going to be backing in the big battle.

Me, I wanted everyone there for it, but each faction tries to force quests on you that ruin your rep with the other factions.

The only faction I really didn't care about keeping on my side was the ones with the fancy dress for Veronica - did not like them at all, lol.

What a fun game that is. I'll have to fire it up once I get some time to play. I haven't even played a single game on the new PC yet.


Oh, I'm pretty sure that vault has a special gun on the set of blocked steps before you get to the Armory, is that the gun you are talking about?



* Ooh, great idea reducing the spread - it was ridiculous! You could stand five feet from someone and let fly on them and not even hit them with a carbine in Fallout 3 - I never bothered with anything but selling them in NV, figured it wouldn't be much different. Great idea you had on fixing that, much needed!


** That Anti-Material rifle with incendiary bullets is my favorite gun in the game, lol. It saved my neck a few times with deathclaws.




*** Now, it has been a while since I played NV, and I haven't played DG yet, but did see King Coin's vids - I never recognized that voice, how could I miss it? What a great catch that was, you were right of course !!! I was highly impressed by Laura's resume, what a great job she does!


I always wonder how these voice actors are found, I mean someone like James Earl Jones is going to be automatically noticed for his voice, but these people whose voices are studiously normal - how are they found? Is it like the acting jobs, where they go on "cattle calls" and audition?

(don't worry, I'm not thinking about becoming one, my southern fried accent would keep me from being hired even if I wanted to,

It´s ridiculous how much the weapons spread the bullets, at least in FO3, so reducing that is a must. Thankfully someone at Bethsoft was kind enough to make a mod and send it to me. He also fixed the minigun so it fired as it should; fast as *****!

The All American is a different gun that what you are thinking, I think. It is at the very end of Vault 34, in the armory.

Voice-actors are like any other kind of actors. There is a documentary called I Know That Voice that is all about voice actors, and how voice acting started with the old WB cartoons like Bus Bunny. Basically you start by doing plays and the like in high school, maybe go to acting school, do auditions, get noticed by someone, and then you are off. I think once a person gets their foot in the door as a voice actor, they start to make a name for themselves in the VA field. If they are any good at least. Then other directors or film companies start looking for them. Laura Bailey's first real job was doing voice work in anime, and she's done a lot of work there. I noticed a lot of Japanese computer games in her resume as well, like one of the Final Fantasy games. So she probably went from anime from there, then to western games like Skyrim.

Annie has been exploring the area west of Vegas for the last few days. She found Jacobstown, and did what she could to help out the local super mutants living there. It seems like they should be an official faction, like the Power Gangers and Khans are. It would certainly be neat if you could recruit them to fight against the Legion in the end game.

She has gone all the way south to Vault 19, and had to clean out a pack of deathclaws around the outside. She actually found the vault by a backdoor, going in through a cave near the Whittaker Farmstead. A lot of Power Gangers inside said they wanted to surrender to the NCR, but couldn't. Naturally the game would allow me to say "Hey, just walk out the door I came in through!" Annie eventually ran across Cooke, the mastermind behind the prison escape, and naturally she killed him. that turned the rest of the Power Gangers hostile, so she had to kill them too. Oh well. I read up on the Wikia that there is indeed a quest to get the Power Gangers to surrender. So I went back to a previous save and tried again. The dialogue to start it was buried under a mountain of other repeated lines, so it was really hard to get to. But once I did, Annie was able to pull it off, and get them to surrender peacefully to the NCR.

Looks like you´re having fun out in the west, SubRosa


But how about the east? Eh? Eh?

I always pick up unique weapons in any game, like collecting them - either display them on shelves or store them in the ammo box in Victor's Shack in NV - I have probably picked up that All American in every game, but stowed it without ever looking up the stats! I am really glad you brought that to my attention, I will def test it out next time I play New Vegas.


That is so interesting about Laura Bailey's history, she really has an impressive resume - and a great voice, too.

In Oblivion there were a few voices that caught my attention, like the female Redguards had that sultry thing going on with their voice, etc; but they were almost too noticable. There are some really great voices that are much more subtle and pleasing in Fallout 3 and New Vegas imho - feminine sounding, but rich and melodious.


Mel Blanc was the only name I really knew or thought of while growing up as far as voice acting went; then movies like the Lion King/Shrek/etc - started using voices of actors that I recognized the voices of immediately; and I think (for me) that added some to the enjoyment of watching the animated vids with my children. (I don't know why, maybe because I could picture the actual actor playing the role standing in front of a mike with a headset on and saying those lines, lol).

Robin Williams had a voice acting role in almost all the vids I bought for my children, he must have had a contract with Disney or something. He was excellent in the roles while still being instantly recognizable by his voice.

But then you have people like Wes Johnson, who I never heard of before Oblivion, and instantly became a huge fan of his work; would want to buy a game/movie/etc if I saw his name in the credits (just to see another facet of his talent).


*

Oh, I never knew there was an alternate way to do that vault! I also slaughtered everyone in there, darn it!


Also, I never found that cave tunnel (probably because the quest giver was shot dead, lol).

I love reading your Annie posts, always learn new things about the game in your posts!

I love Wes Johnson. He is also the arena announcer for the Washington Capitals. It was on a documentary I saw, I think about Washington D.C. They had a little segment with him. I kept yelling at the tv "That's Mr. Burke!"

He did this interview, which whoever wrote the article really didn't edit their spelling/grammar well - but the interview is fantastic; it talks about his first forays into voice acting for TES:


http://www.thegamingliberty.com/2011/08/tr...by-wes-johnson/



I became a huge fan of his work in Oblivion, and have tried to keep up with everything he has done since - did not know about the sports announcing at all though, and the article says he has done a bit of sports announcing before the Capitals! That slipped by me, thank you for saying that; because now I have to find Youtube vids of those games being announced to hear him, lol.

Annie finished exploring everything around Vegas. She spent the last few days exploring the two Freesides, and helped out the Followers of the Apocalypse. Today she met The King and started smoothing things over between him and the NCR. I left off with her first visit to the Strip. Then she headed back to Novac to pick up Lucky, which counts as a hold-out weapon. Now she is back on the Strip, about to pay a visit to Benny...

Ooh, I'll def be interested in hearing how her visit to Benny goes! How did she get past those robot guards to enter The Strip?

Annie used her high intelligence to hack the robots. An 8 or more is all you need to get in the Strip without a passport. Or maybe it was her Science skill. I think it said Intelligence though.

There is one perk that lets you disable hostile robots if you can sneak up on them, the first time I accessed the strip it was on that perk, I got every robot on the strip disabled except Victor, Yes-man, and if I am not mistaken, Jane - they could not be put into permanent slumber (but I could be wrong about Jane).

By the time I was ready to sneak into House's sanctuary below floors, I had already disabled any robot that could stop me. Was itching to get to that army in the basement of the Hotel before I got on House's bad side, but I don't believe they are ever accessible. I did wipe out his army in Caesar's camp, but afterward got wondering if they may have been needed in the big battle at the dam. Never made it to that battle yet, I'm dying to see it happen!

(Might be Youtube is the only way, unless my PC game is more stable than the XBox 360 game was, lol).

I have never had a character take that robot disabling perk. That sounds so hilarious to disable every one of them on the Strip!


Annie finished off Benny just before bed last night. She is only my second character to do so. She used her high Speechcraft to smooth talk Benny's right hand man Swank over to her side. It took 3 separate speech checks, and she had to use Benny's Lighter (which a Khan gave to her after she negotiated for their safe release from Boulder City), and a note left behind in Novac.

Swank gave Annie the key to Benny's room, and gave her back all of her guns. So she didn't even need Lucky, which she had sneaked in past the door. But Annie still used Lucky anyhow. She has been saving it just for this. Naturally Benny tried to talk her out of it, but there was only one way that things were ever going to end for Benny. Now he sleeps with the fishes.

Annie did a little adventuring around the Strip. She took pictures for the Michale Angelo, and brought a whole bunch of vault suits to the woman in the Vault/Hotel. Both were easy since Annie has already cleaned out all the Vaults and been everywhere. She also got involved in the case of the missing Brahmin Baron's son at the Ultra-Luxe. It wasn't easy finding him and getting him out alive without a bloodbath, but Annie managed with a minimum of folks getting themselves killed.

Afterward she left The Strip and went down, literally, into the Sewers. There are only two Sewer maps, but they have access hatches all over Vegas, which would make them a handy way to sneak around the city.

Finally, she headed out to Nellis, and got past the artillery to the airbase. She spent today helping folks out, culminating in raising the sunken B-29 in Lake Meade for them.

With that Annie has been everywhere in New Vegas, except for Caesar's Fort. I am saving that for last. So I think I'll try doing the dlcs now. It will be my first time to do any of them.

Oh, the Khans just started shooting at me in Boulder, wouldn't negotiate at all ... but it might have been because I got the prisoners out the back door before approaching them via the front, urk. I did not want the Khans against me, so didn't shoot back; just ran and got out of there because I was between the Khan and the NCR and they were both shooting.

That was one of those tough quests where I felt caught between a rock and a hard place. Really wanted to stay neutral, but didn't know how to do it under the circumstance. I'd love just once to get through the game with the Khan still neutral to me, lol.






HOLY COW!!! She did all that in one day? I love the Boomers, really enjoyed doing all those quests and becoming accepted there. Did Annie sneak the girl from the Crimson Caravan up there for that boy in the hanger? They had some really great quests there, and the last play-through I didn't even steal a single thing from the armory, lol.

How does Annie fight Cazadors? That is twice she had gone through huge nests of them with seeming ease, how is she doing it? I got killed a billion times trying to even get to that vault; and died a million times more trying to just get away from that marina to get to the plane !!!

I have not done a single one of the DLC yet, I am dying to hear about Annie's experiences with them!!!

If you just walk right up to the Khans in Boulder you can talk to them. With a high enough Speech you can broker a truce between them and the NCR, where they hand over their prisoners and the NCR lets them leave in peace. Thanks to that and a few other things, Annie ended up with Idolized status with the Khans.



Annie did play Cupid and arrange for that Crimson Caravan girl to be able to safely get into Nellis. Annie didn't steal anything either. But by now she has so much stuff. She has like 80k caps, and a pile of weapons and clothes at home.

Annie's Colt M4 has been a real blessing versus the Cazadors. I have had better luck with her using that than any of my other characters. The burst fire gives me a good chance to hit with at least half its bullets, and couple of bursts will generally put one down. If all else fails I go to VATS. I took the headshot perk, and I think the Commando one, plus Action Girl. So she does really well in VATS. That is how I usually kill Deathclaws too. Oh, and I am using 5.56 Match Round and Armor Piercing with the Colt too. The Match Round for Cazadors and most other things, the Armor Piercing for Deathclaws and other armored types like the Legion.

Antivenom helps too. One of the DLCs adds one called Snakebite Tourniquet, which not only nullify's venom but gives you a resistance to poison for a while. Annie also took the Tribal Wisdom perk, which gives you a 25% poison resistance, makes you take 50% less limb damage from mutated insects, and even lets you eat them!

Oh how much I would love to be Idolized status with the Khans! I'll have to build up my speech and try doing that next time I start a game! The closest I've come was in my first game, there was some mini-quest in a cave up in the northeast that gained me some karma and reputation with the Khans, but when I got to their encampment my game crashed.

My first play-through on the 360, I did clean out that armory and also the dining hall ammo and weaponry before I'd even talked to anyone. After I started talking to the people and liking them, I felt awful about the theft. True, I was scrounging for bottlecaps at the time, but still wouldn't have done it if I'd come to know them first. After that first time I've never done that again, no matter how broke I was.


*

Oh my gosh, this is exciting advice! I am making a copy of this and print it out, going to use it as a guide the next time I play. I really hated those cazadors, could never survive the attack if there were more than two-three. Thank you, thank you!!!!!

Truthfully, the thought of using poison resistance never crossed my mind! Thank you!

For the last few days I have been playing the Honest Hearts dlc, and so far I have been having a great time. It takes you to Zion Canyon, a really cool new area that is actually a RL location in southern Utah. The place is not really that big, but like Skyrim, it divides everything vertically, into a series of terraces that loop back and forth. So it gives the impression of being much larger than it actually is.

Joshua Graham is voiced by the male Dunmer guy from Skyrim, which made me laugh. I keep expecting him to say "You dare fight a Dunmer!". I think he might be the only vendor you can buy and sell stuff to and from in the expansion. It adds some new weapons, such as a Colt .45 Model 1911, and a Thompson Submachine Gun (just called a .45 submachine gun). Plus new perks, new plants, and some new recipes. I was already using some of the latter in my regular game, such as the Grunt Perk, that gives you extra damage for 'army' rifles and pistols, and the Tribal Wisdom perk I mentioned above. I am glad I have had the dlc turned on all the time, instead of just waiting until I actually went to Zion. Because the extra perks and stuff are great for the vanilla game as well.

The best part I think are the pieces of the Survivalist's journal that you can find scattered on computers throughout the canyon. He is a man who was in the park during the great war, and lived through the 50 or so years afterward. You cannot help but feel sorry for the poor guy, who saw people come and go, encountered the first ghouls, and just lived through the death of the old world.

Those journal entries sound fascinating! Your description of Zion canyon reminded me of "The Pitt" - where Betheda took a tiny little area and just used a maze-type ribbon candy effect to make it feel much larger - it was surprising how much they managed to pack into such a small area!

That "Tribal Wisdom" perk sounds awesome! Do you have to be accepted by the Khans to receive it or have it show up on the list?

The Dunmer male voice =

Tribal Wisdom doesn't have anything to do with the Khans.You just need to be level 8 and have a Survival skill of 70. Plus Honest Hearts installed and active of course.


Today I uploaded Simplified Ammo Crafting to the FONV Nexus. It does what the name says, and makes the ammo crafting a whole lot simpler. It reduces everything to only four basic components: Shellcasings, Primer, Powder, and Lead. It allows you to breakdown any kind of cartridge into them, and then use those components to create any kind of cartridge in return. That includes Armor Piercing and Hollow Points. Gun Runners Arsenal is required, as GRA ammo is included.

There is also an optional file to use in place of the main file, that adds in the .45 ammo from Honest Hearts as well. Obviously, Honest Hearts is required to use this, in addition to GRA.

I'll have to study up on how to increase my survival stats, they were never very high in previous games.

Survival is just a regular skill, same as guns, explosives, etc... It helps with unlocking cooking recipes, and some special perks. Annie just got hers up high enough to make Gecko-Backed Reinforced Leather Armor, which has some resistance to poisons and energy.

Annie finished up Honest Hearts today. She teamed up with The Burned Man to wipe out the White Legs tribe. The White Legs were allies of Caesar, and were trying to slaughter the other tribes in Zion. Not to mention kill The Burned Man, a.k.a. Joshua Graham, Caesar's former right hand man. Annie knows what to do with Caesarians, and let her M-4 do the talking. At least until she picked up an Anti-Material Rifle. Then she had a few choice words with it as well.

When it was all over, Zion was safe for tribals once more, and Annie's work done. She headed back to the Mojave (actually several times, as it took a few trips to bring all of her loot back). Now I pondering which dlc to try next?

Are you planning to do all the DLCs, SubRosa?



As for myself I wanna come back to the Capital Wasteland, but it´s too early! Can´t do it until late March or so

I've still never played New Vegas, and I have no idea why. For those that have, is it worth a play through now that the next gen is upon us?

Yes.

It's buggy as hell even after multiple patches, which is a shame, but I can honestly say that it was one of the best games of the last generations; it's incredibly deep, has some of the best characters I've seen in any video game, has absolutely excellent worldbuilding and the gunplay is pretty damn fun.

What I would warn is this: don't go into it expecting a sandbox in the style of Oblivion or Skyrim. New Vegas is a big game and you're welcome to roam the Mojave Wasteland, but essentially what you're playing in is a massive stage that's designed to be the set of the game's story. If you go into it just to wonder and explore, you'll come away disappointed because pretty much everything you'll encounter exists to advance the plot in one way or another. If you go into it to play the story, however, you'll likely have a blast, because it's a damn good story that's well told.