Okay, been a while since I've last logged in lol.
I've basically been wasting every second of my free time on this game for the past few weeks. Wanted to see if I could improve this clunky old game with some mods, and it turned out well enough. It's mostly just performance enhancers, but they do a loooot of good for the game – less frequent crashes, better looking game, waaaaay fewer glitches etc.
Created a whole new save file to test these out, and I'm already Level 49, going through Old World Blues for the second time ever. Finished Dead Money by trapping Elijah in the vault this time, which was pretty satisfying. It's absurd just how much money the game gives you after completing that quest; obviously you can't carry all those gold bars laid out on the table, but even taking only the weightless money from inside that vault is enough to make you rich for the rest of the game. I got like 170K caps already and still have a few thousand pre-war dollars to spare. (Granted I also scavenge and resell pretty much everything I see but that's beside the point.)
Got pretty much every implant I could ever want, every perk I found useful... I'm 1 level from the cap and already got almost all my skills up to 100, save for Explosives. Did almost every quest there is in the game save for the remaining Old World Blues and Lonesome Road story missions... Oh yeah, and the main questline. I mean I killed Benny already but only because I wanted to get inside the Fort; somehow I'm Accepted by them, currently. Nevermind the fact that I killed Cpt. Curtis, ruined their relations with the Khans, wiped out Nelson and Cottonwood Cove and the slave camp and the Bitter Springs raiding party and the Techatticup Mine...
So far I'm Idolized by pretty much any other faction that isn't the nearly-extinct Gangers (Merciful Thug for helping out the Vault 19 dudes with their Khan initiation) or the BoS (impossible to get them to like you that much afaik). Oh yeah, and Freeside. I guess I could buy some reputation points from the Wrangler but I don't think you gain anything from it? I don't remember.
Primm Slimm is sheriff, as it should always be. Got kicked out of all casinos already, pretty much in one night. Helped Cachino out with his bosses and made the White Glove Society quit their cannibalism shit while I was at it. I don't know if that was supposed to happen, but Troike was executed by the Omertas as I told him to go rig the termite explosion himself. Found the blackmail note after that happened and honestly felt pretty shitty about it – you're made to think he's an asshole from the info the game hands you about him, but turns out he was just played by the mob and made into their puppet. Oh well.
Killed pretty much all the Fiends as well, but not before selling them some drugs, of course. That Aba Daba Honeymoon quest is ridiculously easy to softlock – I had to teleport Hostetler to me because the Pip-Boy told me to head to fucking Boise Idaho to find him, he was way up north.
For some reason, Ranger Anders wasn't in Vault 3 when I came to check on him after killing everyone. Reporting back to Hsu revealed he had made his way alone to McCarran, apparently, but he still thanked me anyways. At least he didn't die, I suppose.
Finished the Misfits quest by siding with Poindexter for the first time, as I reckoned if I'm going to betray the NCR anyway, I might as well not send the washed out troopers to battle and instead just keep them from dying. After finishing it, however, is when I realized that they'll probably be deployed at the dam anyway since the faked reports are so positive, and I may have inavertedly sentenced them to death by not providing them with the proper training, so... yeah.
While on the topic of Camp Golf, Chief Hanlon is alive and pardoned. After many many playthroughs have I finally understood the motives behind what he does in the game. I honestly found myself agreeing with his plan, partially, which is why I sided with him.
I feel like I mostly helped the NCR throughout the game, but looking back, it was a bit unecessary if they won't even remain in the Mojave after endgame. At least I kept Westside's water flowing in The White Wash and sent them the power supply in That Lucky Old Sun.
All companion quests are done, too, save for Arcade's as I have to upload Yes Man to the 38 before it can trigger... This time Waking Cloud didn't die, luckily, as last playthrough I accidentally saved right as she was being attacked by a cazador iirc. Veronica decided to stay in the Brotherhood for the first time in any of my playthroughs – which, looking back, is probably the best outcome anyway. At least those Followers don't have to die for no reason. Gave Rex Violetta's brain 'cause I just happened to have it on me at the time, but the specific benefits don't even matter anyway since he's basically my least favorite companion.
Sent ED-E to the Followers as always, rushed through Raul's quest just for the sake of finishing it, helped Boone forgive himself for Bitter Springs, advised Lily to just keep doing what she was doing and take her medicine sporadically, and didn't kill the Van Graffs or Crimson Caravan for Cass (though the Freeside crier was still hostile to me, for some reason... RIP). Saved God this time, as well, which honestly made me very glad. I didn't know you could "merge" his two personalities like that and the ending I ended up getting was very bittersweet. The entire ending of Dead Money is honestly very emotional, almost certainly my favorite DLC when it comes down purely to the characters, the scenery and backstory; it can be a pain in the ass to get through, but still. This time it was considerably easier, as I took the Solar Powered perk. It just meant that I had to pretty much skip through the nights by looking around for the surprisingly rare beds in the map and sleeping until 6 AM. Doing that effectively cancels out all the Cloud damage you take for playing in Hardcore mode, which is by far the most annoying part of Dead Money. Caused me to miss out on pretty much all the exploration on my first playthrough, just because I was so uncomfortable being outside and having my HP slowly deteriorate. The lack of stimpaks and the sheer amount of bullets you need to take down the ghost people didn't help, either.
Whole game becomes way too easy if you have a riot shotgun, really. You just gotta get the knockback perk, gather enough ammo and you pretty much won the game, it's too overpowered. Got through the Dead Wind Cavern for the Bleed Me Dry quest in like 3 minutes or so, didn't get hit once. All you need is a high crit multiplier (wearing a 1st Recon beret and Joshua's armor is more than enough to do it) and you're set. The leveled OWB enemies are getting pretty annoying atm, but it's not like a real challenge or anything. Let's see if Lonesome Road is any different; hadn't tried it last playthrough either.
