How is it that you can go from Pool Cue wielding Fiends too those with Laser RCWs and Plasma Rifles? Those are some pretty expensive weapons and I don't really see Motor-Head goes down to the Silver Rush and trading...... nothing, the Fiends spend all their caps on chems, who supplies them with their gear?

What makes you think they would buy them? The alternative seems obvious enough.

Probably they get them from traders and caravans - once they and their guards lie dead on the ground.

I was under the impression that anyone who couldn't run fast enough or fight them off is who supplied them.

I actually don't think they were originally supposed to have them, I think the designers thought there were too few ways to get energy weapons and ammo for them so they put them on a numerous enemy. If you've got Veronica with you when you go into Vault 3, she says something like "No power armor, no energy weapons, but they are giving the NCR more trouble than the Brotherhood ever did"

This makes me believe they were added after the voice work was done.

I don't see many caravans with Plasma Rifles, Van Graff maybe but do you really see an organized trading organization dealing in such expensive equipment using the same dangerous routes after they lose a few caravans. I suppose you could stay they trade what they steal but I thought they traded most for drugs from the Khans.

Every route is a dangerous route. Just because it's safe for the PC doesn't mean it's not dangerous for everyone else. They basically pop up everywhere, unexpectedly.

Hmmm... Fair enough, I did just get attacked by some near the Crimson Caravan place and Freeside North Entrance, where I have to say I have never encountered them before. The jump from pool cue to Laser Rifle just seems wierd, that's some expensive tech and the Van Graff family is a powerful trading organisation from New Reno.

Do all farts in the game need to be justified?

They just kill people and take their [censored], simple as that.

The Van Graffs point out that they (the Van Graffs) don't have the ability to fight the NCR.
The NCR point out that the Fiends, on the other hand, do. The Fiends could beat the snot out of the Van Graffs.

Yeah I suppose, and the Fiends do have the stones to attack Camp McCarren in one of the endings (even if it is unsuccessful).

You could ask the same question why so many people are running around raggedy-*ssed with state of the art weaponry in a dozen hell-holes in the third world.

Guns = power. That's enough reason for people to arm themselves. It doesn't matter the cost, they will get weaponry if they want to. With a lack of decent centralised government, a lack of 'rule of law', weapons become a currency and major commodity in their own right.

Looked at one way, FNV is a fairly good depiction of what is happening around the real world today, it's almost as if the devs simply designed the FNV world based on what's happening in any number of places now.

The gun runner in the tradiing outpost mentioned that any energy weapon shipment have a protection, they will be disabled if somebody ambush the caravan. You will find such a disabled shipment in one small fiend camp at the edge of the city, so I don't think robbery is a explanation. The Van Graffs on the other hand have a shady deal going on without the manpower to do this but a huge armory of energy weapons.

Those are specifically Gun Runner shipments. There are, I'm sure, other caravans that either transport or are armed with higher-tech weapons.

My theory is that the Fiends get their stuff in one of two ways:
1) Slaughtering and stealing
and
2) Trading stuff with groups seeking to undermine the NCR, such as families on the Strip, the Great Khans, and maybe even the Legion.

Some good points being made here. What I kept thinking was, "hmmm...these guys are really a pain in the butt to the NCR, so anyone that wants to see the NCR hurt or distracted could be helping them out..." Wouldn't be the first time someone gave nice guns to an enemy of their enemy.

Forget the ending. Their are 5-7 regular fiend groups I check out when I want weapons/ammo/money. Near McCarran and to the SW.

1) Gang at Vault 3.
2) Group at around Zapps signs to east of Vault 3
3) A couple at pump station
4) A few at Steelworks, fighting Mr Steely/Whatever
5) A group west of Steelworks, near red rail cars

6) Ongoing battle between NCR troopers and Fiends near abandoned warehouse outside McCarran. Maybe half the time 1 dead NCR trooper to loot also
7) A pair of NCR troopers who have killed 1/2 fiends in that area also. I never see the battle, I just loot the dead fiend(s)

I think it takes what? 3 days game time for them to respawn? I love going to vault 3, getting all the clowns to follow me, then running
around the vault building, dropping mines or using grenades at the corners after I take out the melee fighters first.

I don't know who supplies the Fiends, but the Fiends supply me...