Hardcore tips

[TurboPerHour]

This will be my third playthrough and I want to on Hardcore this time. Do you guys know any tips that will help me? And any useful perks?

[Haxel Haze]

repair 50 and make plenty of weapon repair kits
put your survival up and make food/water more useful
crafting can be a life savior
*almost* any perk with a survival requirement

[Bansheebutt]

You really don't need to do anything drastically different.

[The_Messiah_of_Rodents]

Maize...abuse maize

[Oblivion]

always have a large stockpile of stimpacks, doctors bags, food, water, and rad away on hand.

[Belanos]

Don't hang on to 10,000 rounds of ammo in your inventory, it will weigh you down too much. And give some Stimpaks to your companions, even ED-E for some reason. You don't want them dying in the middle of a fight. And if you get into a battle with any creature that uses poison, keep a close eye on your followers. You may have to go through a bunch of Stimpaks to keep them alive before the poison wears off. ED-E is immune though.

[Our Savior]

hardcore is quite easy, only thing is dont carry ammo you dont need.

[キールス]

Don't bother bringing purified water/dirty water. The cost of drinking tap water and curing rads to buying purified/dirty water is too big.

Its cheaper to just drink wherever even if its highly irradiated.

It also would not be bad to get at least level 25 survival. That will let you cook geckos, radroaches and rats(not mole rats).

You should also decide if you want to be tough or stealthy. If you want to be a tough character make sure you have END of at least 8.

For stealthy characters make sure you get:

PE: 6
AG: not lower than 6
LU: 6

Agility mostly for movespeed and PE + LU for the better criticals perk.

Getting ED-E early will also help you avoid alot of fights.

Edit:

Dirty and Purified Water also weights alot.

[Belanos]

Originally posted by Kirus:

Don't bother bringing purified water/dirty water. The cost of drinking tap water and curing rads to buying purified/dirty water is too big.

I always have a stash of 10 Purified Water with me, and I've never had to buy any. Not only do you find a bunch when you explore, but with a Survival skill of 30 you can pretty much make as much as you need with the Cactus Water recipe. And at 50 you can purify Dirty water.

Originally posted by Kirus:

Dirty and Purified Water also weights alot.

Which is pretty much irrelevant when you can get two followers to carry stuff for you.

[di eshor ribly]

Probably my favorite perk to have in a Hardcore game (if you can survive long enough to reach the level requirement) is Them's Good Eats. The blood sausages and thin red pastes you get from killing anything non-robotic give quite a lot of health, they are plentiful *varies by how much stuff you kill*, and weigh very little.

Cannibal, Tribal Wisdom, and Ghastly Scavenger are also pretty useful for keeping you fed and healthy, but I wouldn't take more than 1-2 of those perks at a time.

[キールス]

Originally posted by Belanos:

Originally posted by Kirus:

Don't bother bringing purified water/dirty water. The cost of drinking tap water and curing rads to buying purified/dirty water is too big.

I always have a stash of 10 Purified Water with me, and I've never had to buy any. Not only do you find a bunch when you explore, but with a Survival skill of 30 you can pretty much make as much as you need with the Cactus Water recipe. And at 50 you can purify Dirty water.

Originally posted by Kirus:

Dirty and Purified Water also weights alot.

Which is pretty much irrelevant when you can get two followers to carry stuff for you.

Yeah but why bother switching inventories just to drink water when its everywhere.

That inventory space is better used for something else like ammo, meds, food, alternate weapons/armor imo.

[Belanos]

Originally posted by Kirus:

Yeah but why bother switching inventories just to drink water when its everywhere.

Because I'd rather drink Purified Water that didn't cost me anything rather than have to stock up on Radaways, because the only water source in the area at the time was a toilet that would dose me with 15 Rads.

[キールス]

Originally posted by Belanos:

Originally posted by Kirus:

Yeah but why bother switching inventories just to drink water when its everywhere.

Because I'd rather drink Purified Water that didn't cost me anything rather than have to stock up on Radaways, because the only water source in the area at the time was a toilet that would dose me with 15 Rads.

It only costs 100 caps to completly heal rads from a doctor and you will usually get 3-5 rads per 50 H2Ofrom drinking on irradiated tap water. It will probably take you 20-33 sips before you get irradiated.

With Purified water, you need either crafting materials or caps from which you get 50/75 H2O. Each purified water costs around 20 caps or more depending on your charisma and barter skill.

If you compare the cost of letting a doctor heal your rads to buying water, drinking from irradiated tap water is x4-6 more cost efficient and easier to do.

Lugging water around also costs you inventory space that could be used to maybe carry jury rigging equipment, other crafting materials for i.e. repair kits, more ammo, a spare fatmat/missile launcher, sniper gear, etc.

And why would you drink from a toilet? Usually there would be a sink next to it. I mean common.

[Akasaki]

Well...another tip for hardcore is to use your companion's carry space and tell them to stay passive and use range weapon.

Dont sleep while you are thirsty or hungry.

Keep safety stock of your antivenom. (Until you get to owb)

[Belanos]

Originally posted by Kirus:

Each purified water costs around 20 caps or more depending on your charisma and barter skill.

As I mentioned earlier, I always have a stash of Purified Water on hand, sometimes as many as 100 bottles of it in my fridge at the Lucky 38. And I have never, ever had to buy any. It's not difficult making your own and it doesn't require all that much in the way of crafting materials. So being able to drink pure water whenever I need it, I never even have to pay a doctor to heal my radiation. Which keeps more Caps in my pocket than using your approach.

If you compare the cost of letting a doctor heal your rads to buying water, drinking from irradiated tap water is x4-6 more cost efficient and easier to do.

Again. I have never bought Purified Water, I either find it or make my own. Nor have I ever paid a doctor to heal me of radiation poisoning. I find enough Rad Away to take care of my own needs.

And why would you drink from a toilet? Usually there would be a sink next to it.

Not always. And there are areas, like the Repcomm test area or Vault 34, where all the water is heavily irradiated. By carrying my own Purified Water with me, I don't have to worry about it.

Lugging water around also costs you inventory space that could be used to maybe carry jury rigging equipment, other crafting materials for i.e. repair kits, more ammo, a spare fatmat/missile launcher, sniper gear, etc.

You'd be a fool to carry around crafting equipment, you should just be leaving all of that at your home base, and make your things and do your repairs there. As for ammo, I always have more than I need anyway, having a few bottles of water is not going to impact my ability to carry what I need. Same goes for my weapons. The only thing I really need to use my inventory for is to haul loot off to the nearest merchant and sell it off. Plus I have two followers to help me with that. So your objections are moot, and I'm in fact saving more money than you are by not having to go to a doctor periodically.

[キールス]

Originally posted by Belanos:

As I mentioned earlier, I always have a stash of Purified Water on hand, sometimes as many as 100 bottles of it in my fridge at the Lucky 38. And I have never, ever had to buy any. It's not difficult making your own and it doesn't require all that much in the way of crafting materials. So being able to drink pure water whenever I need it, I never even have to pay a doctor to heal my radiation. Which keeps more Caps in my pocket than using your approach.

I merely used the caps to h2o comparison to help people see the value of just drinking from a sink compared to lugging purified water. I would imagine you would need to find and gather components to craft purified water or mass purified water. You would have to be an absolute hoarder to do that. Not everyone picks up everything that they see.

Not only that you cannot have to find a reliable source of those crafting components to maintain it. A sink/drinking station will always have water and it never disappears.

It is still a an easily accesible and reliable source of water compared to crafting a ton of purified water.

Again. I have never bought Purified Water, I either find it or make my own. Nor have I ever paid a doctor to heal me of radiation poisoning. I find enough Rad Away to take care of my own needs.

I doubt that would happen if you play with JSawyer ultimate installed but I guess loot in lower difficuties will prevent you from going to the doctor. But that only reinforces my arguement that using water from the environment/buildings is a more efficient and easy way to deal with dehydration. You can just use any irradiated sources of water and use rad away to cure irradiation.

Not always. And there are areas, like the Repcomm test area or Vault 34, where all the water is heavily irradiated. By carrying my own Purified Water with me, I don't have to worry about it.

But you just said you loot enough Rad Away for your needs? Why is this a concern?

You'd be a fool to carry around crafting equipment, you should just be leaving all of that at your home base, and make your things and do your repairs there. As for ammo, I always have more than I need anyway, having a few bottles of water is not going to impact my ability to carry what I need. Same goes for my weapons. The only thing I really need to use my inventory for is to haul loot off to the nearest merchant and sell it off. Plus I have two followers to help me with that. So your objections are moot, and I'm in fact saving more money than you are by not having to go to a doctor periodically.

Why would you prefer going in and out of your home base to craft when there are companions that can do that for you. That is an ineffcient and annoying way to craft for a Hardcore playthough IMHO.