I played through the whole game in hard core mode and never put any points into survival. I just bought food or looted it and if I needed water I bought it or drank from a lake.

Anyone else realize that a high medicine skill does NOT increased how much stimpacks heal your companions for?

I'm in the Survival is a fun skill camp. Don't use it, then don't worry about it and spend your points else where. Just press the X button or whatever if you want your instant health from stimpaks. I actually like that the game on hardcoe is trying to simulate the need to live off the land even if it's a bit of a chore. I enjoy collecting the various components and cooking my food like I'd imagine one would while walking around the Mojave. It's an immersion factor for me.

As for HP from food? Makes sense to me. Food is what your body runs off of and hunger is a reminder that your body needs help. I personally view loss of HP more as a measure of endurance/stamina/fortitude rather than internal hemorrhaging, unless it's a crippled limb. Can't quite wrap my mind around a small syringe replacing my lost blood or fixing holes in my body. Maybe it's a little exaggerated with that "salad" recipe, but for me it works just find. Most of that food doesn't give a huge healing bonus anyways. Plus, I like the image of Popeye gulping down some spinach when he's getting a beat down.

As for the Stat increases, again, I look at it as the typical Post-Apoc American is eating a diet mainly of Fancy Lads, Potato Crisps, Gumdrops, and the occasional uncooked Gecko meat. In other words, they are malnourished and still have an average of 5 in every SPECIAL stat. Now I come along with my 55+ Survival skill, and I'm cooking well prepared (and tasty!) Brahmin Steaks, Bloat Fly Sliders, and Trail mix. Of course I'm getting some added boosts to my stats from Bighorner Steaks...I've just eaten something that's filled with nutrition.

I haven't even mentioned how it ties into some of my favorite perks: Animal Friend (no brainer), Entomolgist (Hey a scientist knows a lot about bugs, but a survivalist knows how to kill 'em quicker) and Hunter.

Survival is a great flavor skill that has some cool uses. Or you can just skip it altogether and call it a waste of time (similar to Energy Weapons). Either way it adds something to the game for someone to do.

I fail to see the importance of the skill when the FOD, H20 and SLP meters go up so crazy slow and that you get showered with food and water items.
I've never had a problem with the meters or finding water or food.
So upgrading the food to give a slightly better outcome?
By going around and finding specific ingredients to craft one thing?
Nope.
Useless skill.
Would make it a better skill if it meant I could lay traps, get a +damage against animals (there is one perk that gives +75% crit damage) and if my proficiency with knifes, throwing spears/knifes/hatchets and other tribal esque weapons got upped with it.
But at the moment I don't see it as a useful skill, maybe for roleplaying but even then I'd just get bored with it.

I think its useful but not necessary, depending on your style of play.

It's essential for cowboys as you need a 60 in the skill to load SWC ammo for the .44 mag. Also, I NEVER use stimpacks, just bighorner steaks.

PS

That 'hard' hardcoe mod sounds really cool... I think I might use it on the next play through. It'll give me an excuse to play cowboy again!

You might be thinking of the Hunter perk (75% more crit damage on animals) which Survival skill is USEFUL in attaining as early as level 2.

I'm all in favor of the traps or some other bonuses, but, really there's already perks associated with hatchets/knives (Cowboy) and the +damage to animals is a Challenge Perk (Animal Control up to 3/6/10% + damage). Maybe Survival skill could double those bonuses (6/12/20%) or reduce the number of kills required.

So I disagree with it being useless, but sure, it could be improved. I definitely see how it could be boring.

On the subject of H2O/FOD/SLP meters... they need to raise faster, but the first warning level should have no ill effects. Right now, the game doesn't offer an easy way to monitor your H2O/FOD/SLP meter (unless you install a UI mod), so the first warning that you get is when you suddenly lose a point of END or something and the faint H2O/FOD/SLP icons start glowing in the HUD. That's rather abrupt, going from a "everything is fine" to "you have lost a point of END!" without some warning stage between.

(RAD is easier to keep track of due to the anolog dial on the Pipboy. Health is easy to keep track of because it's a multi-step meter on the HUD.)

So I would change it so that you don't start running into issues until your H2O/FOD/SLP meters hit 400+, but change the calculations so that those meters rise 2x or 3x faster then default.

you're still owing us the story, why to put points on survival after this mod strips it out of its greatest benefit

I'm playing on hardcoe and I'm just trying out the survival skill just due to the fact it's new. I have noticed that the food items really are helpful. I also used it to get the Rad Child perk which is awesome since your health regenerates with minimal negative affects quite well with the first level of radiation sickness, and it's always regenerating. I'm still going to explore my options a bit and just see how well my character can hold up, survive and get rich of hunting and selling campfire items I don't need. I could care less about beating the game at this point anyway.

It seems to me that Survival is essentially in competition with Medicine; on my second playthrough, I've put more points into Survival, and so most of my healing now comes from food rather than stimpacks. However, most of the recipes aren't worth the hassle involved -- survival should be about turning less into more, not the other way round as it is at the moment -- so I'm not sure how useful it is to raise it beyond 50 or so for the related perks. The pros for picking Survival over Medicine are (it seems to me) that some of the foodstuffs offer nice stat bonuses in addition to healing, and, um, well I suppose food is cheaper than stimpacks. The cons are that stimpacks are weightless whereas carrying 20 gecko steaks is quite a burden, and Medicine seems to be involved in more quests than Survival is. As it is at the moment, my future characters will probably go back to putting points in Medicine rather than Survival, but maybe if the recipes were re-jigged to be more practical and you could cook up recipes at any stove or oven, rather than just campfires, then it might be more worthwhile. (The campfire thing irritates me; you have to hoard like a mofo if you want to get the most out of survival, and yet there's not a campfire near any of the "main" houses. This is a curious design choice to say the least.)

The hardcoe mode aspect's irrelevant, I think; there's ample food and water waiting to be scavenged, and anyway the food and sleep meters fill up way too slowly to actually ever be a concern. I can stay up for days on end and not even get mildly sleep-deprived in NV.

I think it's well balanced in game.

It's just like Energy weapons skill when you got guns skill... one balances the other.
You don't need to raise both, just one.

With survival, you don't need to raise it, but you'll have to carry a lot more stuff, which eventually force you to invest in strength.... (at least till you have a companion).

I did not put a single point in survival and, through the 1st part of the game, had lots of inventory issues... just by the sheer number of things I had to carry.

Even on hardcoe its useless, you have enough water for dehydration always. And you only need 25 for Gecko steak which was all my hardcoe character ate more or less except for food i found. You get 25 from special+ books before you even get to the strip.