I'm level 4 and I;m on hardcoe very hard. its not that bad yet, but I am having a struggle finding a companion. Halp?

and other tips you see helpful, please post. Too bad I'm on the 360, or I would be making a Lets play xD

There is a broken robot at the courier office in Primm. You can fix him with either a high enough repair skill or the right replacement parts. That's the first companion you're meant to find. The next one you'll probably find is Boone in Novac. The rest are a bit later on.

Actually Cass is in Mojave outpost,but i never tried to recruit her, so im not sure if u can right away.

Boone is the second you can reasonably get, Cass will not join you til after you have completed parts of another quest up near the Strip. After Boone, you can find Veronica at the 188.

The most useful tip I can think of is don't forget that your companions can permanently die in hardcoe mode, so make sure they have as good armour as possible, make sure to keep them at full health, and manually administer stimpaks from the companion wheel if they need help in battle.

ED-E...but do watch out for it.

There is Lily in Jacobstown and Raul Tejada at Black Mountain.

With companions its best to play off your skill.

If you are ranged go with a close combat ally like LIly, or Veronica (I picked Veronica... on my energy run)

If you want to snipe Boone, or Raul.

If you want to just shoot crap up Cass, or Raul

If you want to hack/beat things up only Lilly, or Veronica.

secondary allies are just that secondary... Take Ed-E till you find Rex... only thing will you have to decide between the two.

As for the best advice I can give a Harcore/Hard mode player I would say, unless you are going for highest karma ach. (is there one?), take Canabilism. After so many eatings (and getting health back from it) you will be able to take cuts with you for later.
Its a great way to keep your health up... and keeps need for food down (not that the later is really that big of a problem).

^
If you'd rather not risk the karma hit from eating your fellow man, hunt geckos for their meat. Gecko meat can keep your hunger down considerably once converted to gecko stake at a campfire.

As for your companions, BEWARE when traveling with Boone. He will open fire on any Legion soldiers you encounter while traveling together, which could make your adventures a little more difficult on down the road.

Karma has little to no effect in fallout NV. Unlike fallout 3 where Karma was everything, this game reputations are everything.

I just completed my third playthrough with 160+ hours and 50/50 achievements... Karma is non existent for me. Not at one point did I stop and ask myself will this have a negative impact on my game play, because it doesn't.

You can literally steal and rob every single thing you see and nothing bad will happen so long as you don't get caught. Even if they catch you, just hostler your weapon and run. If you run far enough they stop the chase and you get away clean.




But back on topic... Pick up ED-E and boone, you can get them within the first 30-60 minutes of the game. Just follow the questline until Novac where you pick up boone. My word of widsom is don't waste time exploring anything until you reach Novac, because it will send you all the way back down that path again anyway later in the game. Not to mention if you take one wrong step down there you end up with Giant Radscorpions or feral Reavers... Which if they don't kill you, will take 100s of bullets to bring down.

Once you have boone as a sniper, and ED-E for the extended ranged radar, you practically just eat a sandwich while they beat the game for you.

@Narbays

Karma is just as important as reputation in NV. Sure you can steal from the good folks of Goodsprings resulting in negative karma, but the second you're caught, you're are forced to run to protect you're reputation.

Like you said, "so long as you don't get caught." You completely contradicted the point you were trying to make.

160+ hrs and 50/50 achievements? Good for you!

Karma means nothing in Fallout NV? O.K.!!!

Clearly you have some issues. I did not list my hours played and achievements to stroke my epeen. I simply listed that so that you can know I played the game three time through and my opinion has merit.

I did not contradict myself what so ever. If you get caught and you turn around and put a riot shotgun to the crowd, it will effect your reputation. If you steal every, single, piece of goodsprings and run when you get caught... Nothing happens. If you have the worst possible Karma quest givers will still interact with you, unlike FO3.

I gunned down boone and an entire NCR squad and before I could get the rangers to start hunting me I did two NCR quests that brought me back up to liked. I finished the game through the NCR chain, even while killing numerous NCR characters in the early stages.

@Narbays

But, would you not agree that your aggressive/negative actions against the NCR earlier would have ruined your reputation had you not improved relations? You're trying to say that karma means nothing in Fallout NV but it clearly is as important as reputation.

I didn't just buy this game last week. I'm well into my 6th playthrough myself.

Now who's contradicting themeselves?

Karma has nothing to do with reputation, you're comparing apples to oranges.

If you steal an entire armory from the NCR and run away in the unlikely even of getting caught; if you even have a clue as to what the left control button does... Then nothing happens.

You can go around cannibilizing every and stealing and have a level 30 devil Karma and then NCR will still let you side with them to finish the game and shoot at those that oppose you.

Umm, tips for hardcoe? Eat, sleep, and drink.

I wouldn't confuse "hardcoe" with "hard difficulty"

It's more of a rolpleplaying thing than an increased difficulty.

Agreed, just an added nuisance. I had to keep my companions stocked with water/food at all times. Never even took survival past 45 skill either...

By the end of the game on hard, hardcoe I had 30+ superstims and 100+ stimpacks too... I think I used superstims twice, both on the legendary radscorpion in the firehouse.

double post

triple post, forum died for a sec

@Narbays

Getting caught stealing from or eating the carcass of any faction or group (for example NCR) will result in negative karma and diminishes your reputation with the NCR. Even if you show no aggression towards them while you're commiting the crime. Unless you're constantly stealing NCR supplies and unable to hide your actions, they'll still accept your help but they'll see you as somewhat of a troublemaker or dark hero. Go to any outpost or town and start blatantly stealing from them.I guarantee you that you'll gain negative karma AND infamy.

Karma doesn't affect reputation? pfft

You could've easily posted your HC game mode tips without attacking mine. The post above my tip recommend cannibalism and i suggested an alternative that won't give negative karma. No harm in that.

BTW, OP...save your dirty waters that you find. With a high enough Survival skill, they can be converted into Cactus Water which yield a nice -H2O effect as well as restore HP.

I saw that last play but what bothers me is that in order make the recipie you have to use empty soda bottles, which aparently are different from empty Nuka Cola or Sunset Sasparillia bottles...... go figure. But yes it is a handy recipie to have. Another is the bloatfly i want to say suprise but that is not it, but the bloatfly recipie also takes care of both food and water requirements and is not as difficult to find the mats for it.

Asai

^ @Asai

Ah yes...the Bloatfly slider. Another tasty treat that's relatively easy to make. It helps that you can find bloatflies around the Jean skydiving building near the Goodsprings source.

A little tip about the empty soda bottles: outside the Mojave Outpost (the one where Cass is in the bar), there's a truck which has quite a hefty stash of them inside. You might have already found them, but it's always good to stock up on them, I find.

I made a mistake when recommending Cactus Water. It can be made with just empty soda bottles and a type of cactus fruit. -90h2o 3hp(5sec)

Dirty water is used in making Mass Purified water, which for some unknown reason, is no better than cactus water other than the quantity you get compared to cactus water.

A large ammount of empty soda bottles can be found on the road towards REPCONN as well as inside the test site. REPCONN test site is a figurative gold mine for any would be master crafters and survival chefs who are looking for usefull items to help survive the hardcoe Very Hard Mojave.