On http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_crafting it says "One of the reloading bench's primary purposes is to convert different forms of ammunition to others, making otherwise useless ammo immediately valuable. However, these conversions do not share the same hulls needed, sharing only lead, powder, and primer, so these are not a straight conversion."
So I conclude that your previous ammo disappears and you have new ammo right, but how do I know what ammo I want and what ammo turns into what ammo?


And the caravan game someone always wants to play but it says I dont have the cards to play it.

Please leave comments spoiler free or in bold text write spoiler alert

Ammo disappears and you get component parts (look at the "breakdown" list in your link. To make the new rounds you need to have the components to make them.

Example:

9mm Round -> Case, 9mm, Lead (11), Powder, Pistol (5), Primer, Small Pistol

you want to make:

.357 Magnum -> Case, .357 Magnum, Lead (14), Powder, Pistol (6), Primer, Small Pistol

So all you do is compare the needed lead, powder(type is important), and primer(type is also important here) that you need for the ammo desired. You then need to have cases of the ammo type you want to make. Then just use the bench and pick the one you want to make.

A character in Goodsprings gives them to you, along with a copy of the rules.

Not too hard to get a Caravan deck early on-




How about [spoiler] tags that hide them behind a button you have to click?

Kinda helped me understand a little more thank you.
Not that I dont understand I do, my problem is how do you know what ammo is for what gun.



Im new here so I did not know sorry


Thank you

Hmm...easiest two ways are looking at a weapon to see what caliber it uses, or looking at the http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_weapons on the Wiki- one caution though, the Wiki's list includes all the unique weapons as well so you could consider it a bit spoiler-ish.

The variants aren't too tricky, all having the same base name...for instance any weapon that uses ".357 magnum round" will also use ".357 magnum HP" (Hollow Point) and ".357 JFP Hand Load." For the full no-holds-barred listing, again the http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_ammunition comes through with the same caution as before.



Hehehe. Don't sweat that, just wanted to toss it out early on the "so now you do" premise. Stick around here, you'll see a lot of those buttons.

It tells you when you highlight them, IIRC it's right beside the cnd bar.

If you already missed the opportunity to get the deck, you can buy cards from the traveling Caravan merchants as well as other people that sell things, and you sometimes will find them on the dead. Without the deck though, it's a little glitched, you have to put them in some sort of container (I put them in the garbage) then re-add them to your inventory for them to count as part of your deck. Once you have 30, you can play Caravan.

Oh yeah I found two cards on some dead people, but Ill try to jus purchase the deck or go back to megaton...wow I said megaton I meant goodspring and get it off ringo if possible thanks guys.

I feel like a re tardy now because I was asking a question for something I already knew, but I got confused with the benches when I saw it on fallout wiki, its not the ammo crafting that Im confused with its the other one.

work bench thats the one i have problems with the conversion thingy :/

Ammo crafting is the easiest thing in the world lol, thats why I kept getthing confused on what you guys said to me.

Ah thanks for the Spoiler! Just kidding there. I just find it funny you ask for no spoilers and you post it yourself.

Really? i didnt think so but sorry, its so early in the game I dont think anyone would mind.

But um so any ideas on the new I put up?

That's not a spoiler.

Anyway what do you need to know about the workbenches? They seem pretty simple.

Lemme turn my game on and Ill post again when i bump into one. thank you

IMHO, ammo crafting is only worth doing if you have the hand loader perk and can craft the special ammo from there, because standard ammo is common and cheap enough that you don't really get an huge advantage from crafting it.

You can get most of the raw materials from the gun runners though don't expect to get huge amounts of extra ammo that way. But if anything, ammo crafting, handloading perk or not, is good for converting ammo you don't use to ammo you use most often.

Unfortunately you can only break down standard ammo, not the hollow point or armor piercing siblings, nor can you craft HP and AP ammo types, making the the skill less useful overall, especially without the hand loader perk which allows you to craft more specialty ammo types that are actually better than the usual HP and AP ammo.

If you are using the Ranger Sequoia the Brush Gun which uses the rare .45-70 Gov't and/or any rifle that fires .308 rounds, then the Hand Loader perk and ammo crafting becomes much more valuable for the following rounds:

• .45-70 Gov SWC Hand Load
  
• 308 JSP Hand Load
  
• The 10mm FJP Hand Load is also handy for the 10mm pistol. If you have 50 sneak it's a great holdout weapon, especially using all the mods and the hand load ammo

You mean people actually understand how to play Caravan?

Actually I think I know how to play, I asked my girlfreind to look it up and she did and explained it very well to me.

Its all about just having 3 piles of cards and u have to have each pile between 21 and 26. <-- the number of cards adding up. EX: 8 spades +2 spades = 10 points to that pile

Thats just all u need to know the rest u can read it or just find out as u play

Caravan is actually easy. The most confusing part to me was the controls (which aren't highlighted or explained well) and the lack of proper play from your opponent.

Caravan is easy to understand if you stay away from the face cards, which do weird things. Only try to figure out the face cards once you have a solid grasp on how to work with numbers and suits.

Face cards can be useful depending on your strategy of course.

My Caravan strategy is to stack the deck with 6s, 10s, Jacks and Kings:

• The first round lay down all your 6's on each caravan
  
• If you don't have any face up 6s on the first drop, discard the Jacks until you get a 6 and then lay them down as the first card for each 3 caravans as you get them
  
• If you don't have any 6's nor any Jacks (for discard) then discard a 10 or a King (remember you only need 2 or 3 of each, you can discard the rest)
  
• Lay 10s on top of 6s to get 16
  
• Lay the Kings on top of 10s (which doubles the 10) to get a 26, if you have two 26 bid caravans that usually wins you the game, though sometimes you have to wait for your opponent to get 21 or above on the opposing bids
  
• Suits do not matter since you are going in ascending order so Queens are not necessary.

Strategy for the Jacks:

• Jacks are useful for eliminating caravans on either side (your side if you have an unworkable bid or the opponents caravan if they outbid or are tied with you)
  
• For this deck you should save the Jacks for breaking up an opponent's 26 (to eliminate the chance for a tie) or simply discard them if you don't have enough face-up cards (6s, 10s and/or kings) to build your own 26

Don't bother with jacks. Kings are useful for you and against the enemy, more useful than jacks.

If you play a jack on an enemy he can just put another card on there to get back to 26, if you use a king it pushes him over 26 and he has to either use a jack on his own stack or discard it.

The only problem i had with caravan was that if your second card in a stack is lower than the first all the rest have to be lower than the one before, if its higher all the rest have to be higher than the one before, other than that it was pretty easy to win. I just stopped playing because they never had very much money.

I never thought of playing a King that way, thanks for the tip. I guess it's time to rebuild that old caravan deck...

You don't lose ammo, but you can break it down to get supplys you might need for higher calibre ammunition. Also, keep your eye out in miscelaneous sections in traders' inventories, there's always a chance they could have powder and primer (cases are free, btw), though the Repair skill is the biggest obstacle.

And for cards; like everyone's said, you get them from a man named Ringo in Goodsprings. You should find him early in the game and it should be obvious what he wants when you find him (quest).
If you want to find more cards, look in trader's inventory (the section that lists everything, you won't find it anywhere else, not even misc.) and they should be easy to spot, usually 3 caps a card.

I don't like getting ringo's deck. I prefer to build a deck from scratch.

For one reason it's easier to build a good deck without those useless jokers and 2-4 cards. For the other reason, it looks better to have a mismatched deck from a bunch of different casinos than a full deck of Topps cards.

It's not hard as long as you buy all the cards you can from stores and traveling merchants, you'll have a good deck in no time.