Maybe its because I'm not using the workbench and reloading bench as much but it seems keeping yourself well equipped with weapons and armor is brutally expensive. At level 23 I finally bought a sniper rifle and it has drastically helped my wasteland survival (Giant Radscorpions are now beatable, even in number) but keeping it repaired is draining my caps (I've never found a sniper rifle on an enemy). Other than just killing/looting people how do you all keep enough caps to repair items you can't readily find?

Also, is there a Leather Armor Reinforced x2? I'm doing well with what I have but I've been wearing the same armor for 13 levels...

Thanks all.

Take the jury rig perk. If your repair is high enough. Sniper can be repaired using a lot of things at that point. Leather armor can be repaired with pre-war clothing too.

Jury rigging is awesome. Unique weapons can be repaired and, if you find a raider with metal armor, you can repair power armor for nothing....need 90 repair.

I NEVER REPAIR STUFF AT STORES.

Either weapon repair kit, find a new not-broken armor or jury rigging.

Jury Rigging and weapon repair kits.

Repairing high end weapons and armor in stores will bankrupt the richest courier.

Your really having that much trouble with caps? Take the scrounger perk, make it a necessary part of playing to explore 2 locations every day, take the Jury Rigging perk, play caravan and gamble in the casinos, and sell all unnecessary items! I found myself with 30k caps at one point, which I used all on implants.. heh.

What everyone else said

I wear stuff until it deteriorates to 50% Then either find something to repair it with or get newer stuff.
I hoard all armor - especially combat/recon (because that's all I've managed to get my hands on thus far), just store it in a cupboard somewhere (I use the house directly opposite from the general store and saloon in Goodsprings. It's handy to just fast travel there and do the repairing needed and sell stuff to Chet who's always got loads of caps on him.

Take Raul as a companion. He slows the deterioration of your equipment.

This. I collected the materials for them the whole time through the game ("ooh, some duct tape" grab "hah, wrenches on that workbench" grab, etc, etc) and dropped them off in my house whenever I was there. Periodically, I'd take whatever I'd collected out and wander over to a workbench to make a few more. It makes keeping your expensive weapons in good condition quite easy and cheap.

Well...I found a glitch (or not?) where the gun runner guards all respawn when their inventory restocks. That's 3 suits of fairly well maintained combat armor, and 3 hunting rifles at moderate condition each time. I had about 100,000 caps by the end of the game.

Loot Loot Loot!

I end up going to the Gun Runners selling all my cap and buying all the ammo i need and still usually turn a profit :celebration: Remeber to use your pack hors..i mean companion too!

I have two sets of the reinforced combat armour, upgraded weapons and a few rare ones to boot. I recruited Cass recently and outfitted her in new armour, a new modded weapon, shed load of ammon for the gun and still made a profit out of the loot i handed over.

I got barter, repair and guns as tagged, got them to 100, selling hunting rifles for 2k and cowboy repeaters for 1k at full HP, have around 30k caps with riot shotgun, 2x AMR, hunting shotgun, LMG and a lot of ammo bought from the gun runners.

You definetly need to work a little harder as far as an economic stand point in this game, which I actually enjoy. Here is what you do: the good thing is, the vendors have loads of caps (FO3 they would have at most about 800 I believe). First thing is to pick up your two companions. This will give you a combined carry weight of about 600 pounds (depending on what you carry with you all the time). Then you make sure and dig through everything, and anything you see. Make sure it has a good weight to value ratio. Load up as you play your game, and make a point to stop by the vendors when you start getting to your max weight. I have a little over 100,000 caps right now, and I've bought all implants, and best weapons/armor.

Of all the problems with the game both real and perceived, not having enough caps is not even on the list.

Repairing weapons
- add points to your repair skill
- learn to use the workbench. You can make weapon repair kits at repair = 50 with duct tape, scrap metal, scrap electronics, wonderglue and wrenches. All these can be found or bought cheap. Great for rare weapons like snipers.
- choose weapons that other factions drop often.
- get the jury rigging perk
- use Raul as a companion

For armor, its more difficult, but I never spend caps on repair. Just switch to another suit or repair the one you have with more of the same. Also, there is nothing demanding that all your equipment must be 100% all the time.

Learn to love the Weapon Repair Kit. That leaves armor that you need to pay for repairs. Combat Armor Mk2, Reinforced is costing me 8,000 caps to repair to 100% when it hits 50% CND. I'm pretty much farting that from looting high end weapons now.

Jury Rigging perk is more geared to those that can't be bothered to make the kits, or use caps as a way of keeping score in the game. Me, caps are useless if unspent and snatching up the parts for the repair kits is no big deal.

heres one way, well thats if you can get away with it and don't mind bad karma from stealing. Go into a merchant and steal everything inside. then sell it back to them. Also anything you sell make sure its repaired.

Also if you never use the 44 mag revolver I notice several times on at least 4 different merchants that it went for over 500 caps ever the armor I was wearing was around 400 caps at the time it was reinforced leather. If you repair things and then check the price. You would be surprised what they will pay for.

like the others said the jury rigging perk, next time you want a sniper rifle go to camp macarren and on the top bunk inside a tent toward the front of the camp is a sniper rifle, once you know where to find the stuff you can get all your weapons just by knowing where to go or stealing them ,the ncr camps have lots of gear, so early on thats what i do, you can also get a gauss rifle pretty early on off that mercenary near the northern boundary of the map, also raise your repair to 25 asap and you can make repair kits very easily with the right supplies, duct tape, scrap metal and scrap electronics, wonderglue etc.. and that makes repairing some weapons for use early on easier, also conserve supplies and ammo, use repair kits sparingly that will help you, but the game is tough early on.

Luck 10 and hit the strip. 75k caps easy and the 'Courier Broke the Bank" achievement. Also try getting kicked out of the Atomic Wrangler. They throw you out at around 8k to 10k caps. You can still go into all of the casinos but the floor bosses won't let you near the games I also just -happened- to be wearing the suave gambler's hat as well. Wonder if it did anything?

Just learn how to gamble, I gambled in every casino till I got kicked out and I've been sitting at 80k+ constantly since then, I'm currently at 120k after exploring and selling some stuff.

Few things...

First, when you say sniper rifle, do you mean the anti-materiel rifle? Because that one uses .50 caliber bullets and I've yet to find them in the Wasteland, that I can remember. However, the actual sniper rifle (and the Gobi sniper rifle), along with the hunting rifle, use .308 bullets. And I've found those across the Mojave, and on enemies. Not always AP or HP rounds, but still.

Second, I've only ever bought a few weapons. I've found most of my weapons (and to the best of my knowledge, you can't really buy the uniques).

Third, with regard to repairs, make sure you get your repair skill up, and then try and land the Jury Rigging perk. Helps a lot. You can repair any armor with similar ranked armor (Light with light, medium with medium, etc), and any weapon with a similar weapon.

Finally, specifically with scavenging, vendors will buy anything, from bent tin cans to conductors/fission batteries/etc. I usually do a few scavenging runs, where I head to Novac, dump off all but the most essential weighted items (I'm not in hardcoe mode), for myself and my companions. Then I go around, scavenging anything with a decent weight-to-value ratio. If I come across enemies, I make sure to take their weapons and ammo, and if they're similar, I repair them up (now that I have the jury rigging, it's easier). I then head to Gun Runners, and I've found them to have 8000 caps when restocked. I then trade my crap for bullets (and occasionally, weapons). I never make a ton of caps, but it's more than enough to keep the ammo well stocked. If I wanted to, however, I could very well make 8000 caps off of one sale to Gun Runners. You just have to be willing to spend time collecting junk.

There's in a loophole with Caravan in that with the merchants that play (Mojave Outpost, Novac, Primm) you can buy whatever you want from them and then win back all of your caps. I typically buy all the ammo they have (since it's weightless in non-HC) and whatever I can use to repair my own stuff (and again, Jury Rigging is a great perk) and then win back all the caps I just spent. Caravan is a really easy game to master once you figure it out. Even when you lose, you can keep playing until you win it all back.

I haven't seen any posts about this, so I don't know if it's happening with everyone: Caravan is glitched for me in that I win double what I bet. Lacey at Mojave Outpost caps out around 8,500 caps when she's restocked, but I can regularly take her for 16K. The guy in Novac sells C4 now for 1K per. He typically has 10-15 for sale, so if I buy all those and his ammo, when combined with the betting glitch, I'm taking him for 17K, and I can do that every 4 days if I want. Alternatively, I could buy his entire inventory, win back all my caps, sell what I don't want to the merchants at 188 and be up around 25K in about 15-20 minutes of play.

I've won over 260K and have been sitting on over 160K for several levels. It's completely ridiculous and takes all of the fun out of struggling and really earning the caps to buy what you want. But if you're strapped, there you go.

Easiest way to make caps? Get 7 or 8 Luk and spend half an hour in the casinos, you'll be banned from all of them after you walk away with all of their caps.

i dont need i have over 900000 caps

/shrug

I never paid to repair anything in my first run. It was easy enough to do it with found or bought parts. (Of course, the armor I used was Reinforced Leather and then the Vault 34 Security armor - both repairable with common and cheap stuff.)

I'm level 23 at the moment and have I think 82000 caps.

Take the Jury Rigger perk, it makes things simpler...

Breakdown any ammo you don't need. I say it's worth it to do this rather than just selling unused ammo. You can often remake the ammo into something more useful.

Be careful. My armor hardly ever need any serious repairs, because I rarely get hit. Use cover, engage melle and unarmed opponents at a distance, and put some points into sneak and get the silent running perk. It helps.

If all else fails, Knight over at the Mojave Outpost can repair your gear to 100%, and all the money you give him can be pickpocketed right back off him as soon as your done. I recommend saving before attempting to pickpocket it off him though as it is somewhat difficult. Just reload until you get it back.