The Place Where Fallout Purists Whine

[tristy]

Bark scorpions are easy, yes, but when there's 12 of them swarming on you, it's annoying. I can't be prepared for deathclaws when I'm only level 4, either.

I left Hidden Valley and went in some direction towards a city, presumably the Strip, I saw a very large tower that looked like the space needle. Then 4 deathclaws jumped me.

But, really, what point does Hidden Valley serve? My lockpick isn't 50 yet, so I can't get into one of the two bunkers.

[OctoberRaven]

MASSIVE FUCKING SPOILER:

It's a Brotherhood of Steel bunker; you can access it either by having Veronica as your sidekick or getting far enough in ED-E's side quest.

Once you get on their good side, though, you can buy a Thermal Lance, which is basically a super-deadly melee weapon.

Also, yeah, if you're level 4, you really should avoid that stretch of highway. Besides, south leads you to Mojave Outpost, which is a great place to get rich with Caravan.

[tristy]

I don't understand the card game so I'm going to stay away from it.

[OctoberRaven]

It's pretty easy to figure out. Only thing I'm not 100% sure on is how queens work; I think they let you play cards lower than the one you just played.

But the important things to remember is, Kings double card values, Jacks remove cards from play, and jokers are pretty much useless.

Easiest way to learn is practice. Or if you got the Collectors Edition, the card pack as rules for caravan instead of rules for poker.

[LL!]

Queen lets you switch directions. So, if you're going lower, you put a queen next to your latest cards, and it'll let you play higher hands.

[OctoberRaven]

There you go.

In general, I find that having a deck consisting only of 7-10, Jacks, Queens, and Kings will make sure you win in ten turns or less 90% of the time.

[lanky316]

Managed to pick this up new for ~£20 so once I've finished installing the new hard drive for the PS3 you'll be able to hear my hapless cries of "how on Earth do you do X" for the long term future.

[Kaney]

I just got Boone added to my team. Is it possible to have multiple companions? One of the achievements seems to imply as much, but I assume it'd get a bit unweildy after a while.

I kinda hate the karma system in this. I've been doing good deeds all over, yet my reputation is "Evil - Pirate of the Wastes". Why? Because I steal some stuff every now and then. No one complained when Link strode into peoples houses and helped himself! Sigh.

[Fitzy]

You are allowed two companions at a time, a human and a robot.

[OctoberRaven]

Well, in Link to the Past, Link was already an outlaw...

Anyway, you can only have one humanoid companion and one non-humanoid companion, HOWEVER you get the trophy for recruiting them all (you can dismiss them and make them hang out at Vault 38).

Also, Karma doesn't mean crap. Reputation is what matters, which is completely different from karma and is based on factions.

[Kaney]

Hm. Thats weird then since the Powder Gangers hate me, and I have good reputation with Novac, Primm and Goodsprings.

[EddieRuckus]

You can be the nicest and have a lot of karma and Goodsprings may hate you because you did something wrong to them, or you can be the evilest son of a bitch and the Legion or Powdergangers may hate you for things you've done to them. Karma and rep are unrelated to a degree.

[EWB's Best Poster.]

Yes I was a little saddened by the fact they created reps, but karma didnt count for anything really and yet is still there.

Youll find its simply not a huge factor that it was in fallout 3.

[Ruki]

I wanted to be neutral, but when I eventually checked my karma? I was very good.

[EWB's Best Poster.]

Comes from killing ghouls and fiends Id guess. You get a lot of karma for that.

Just steal shit.

[tristy]

I honestly do like how some quests can't be completed unless one of your skills is high enough. Just met the King (Elvis?), and I couldn't finish anything for him since my medicine isn't high enough. And now i'm deathly low on caps and can't rehire the bodyguard. Goddamnit Also made a mistake, fucked up and walked past two guards in a shop that sold only laser/plasma guns, and all 5 of them attacked me. Sucks.

Oh yeah, I'm also wondering what other places sell gun mods? I got a few good ones in Goodsprings and... that one town with the dinosaur statue. All of the other places I've discovered don't even have shops like that. I went back to Primm just to check one more time and see if they do now, and the casino was deserted except for the robot. Then a gang of hobos stormed in and I promptly blew all of their heads off with my revolver.

[EddieRuckus]

If you can pass a gun check, I believe the Gun Runners guy at the 188 outpost has some, along with the arms merchant near the top part. Gun Runners(near one of the entrances to freeside) has quite a few as well, and the Van Graffs at Silver Rush in Freeside have them for energy weapons. I know I've come across a lot more, so I'll add to this post or reply later when I recall them.

Ah, fallout wiki has a place of all the vendors:

There are currently 12 vendors who offer weapon mods in the Mojave Desert. Inventory of mods changes with stock rotation every 73 hours game time.

Alexander, 188 Trading Post (Need at least 40 guns skill to pass challenge)

Blake, Crimson Caravan Camp

Chet, Goodsprings

Cliff Briscoe, Novac

Dale Barton, The Fort

Gloria Van Graff, Silver Rush, Freeside

Knight Torres, Hidden Valley

Michelle, 188 Trading Post

Mick, Mick and Ralph's, Freeside

Old Lady Gibson, Gibson Scrap Yard

Vendortron, Gun Runners

Arms Merchant, 188 Trading Post

[EWB's Best Poster.]

You want money, just learn to play caravan. Once you learn the rules, you can win in 6 minutes tops.

If you want, I can type up how I play it.

[9 to 5]

Yes please.

[EWB's Best Poster.]

ok. No problem.

I'll try to make this as simple as possible.

Caravan is basically like playing 3 hands of blackjack at once. You want your hand to end up between 21 and 26. the closer to 26 the better.

The "deck" I choose is basically 3 colours and a bunch of kings. I dont use other face cards, and basically other than the kings in the deck I work in three suits with 10s' 9's 8's and some 4s and 5's (adds up to about 30 cards.) I throw in a few aces too, just to bump up a hand from say 24 to 25...

its in the laying down of the cards that I think they should have done a better job.

Basically as I said you are playing three hands at once. Caravans. So I like to lay down 10s or 9's of one colour each to start. Since my deck has only three suits, its more likely to have one of each colour to play.

Now, heres where Fallout fails, since they dont tell you this or show you. Once you lay down a card, the slot "next" to it for the next card is basically for modifier cards (face cards and jokers) only. You have to press DOWN to lay down the next card in each "caravan".

So here is how I play. Play the highest number card of each suit down. The first card in a caravan states only cards of that suit may be played from that point on in each caravan. So a 10 of Hearts means only hearts.

The card "below it" (remember you have to press DOWN to play the next caravan cards, if you dont you are simply modding the card you are selecting, which can only be really done with face cards), that defines if cards you are playing are going to be played going up, or down in value. So playing a low card means you have to only play cards of higher value than that. For SOME reason, suits dont really matter for the "value" card, in my experiance.

Any card played below that must be then of that suit, and higher or lower value than previous cards based on the second card you played.

All I do myself is play kings with my cards. Kings double the value of the card selected. Play a king on that, it doubles again. So an 8 becomes a 16, then a 32. You dont need suits for kings either, so take as many as you can to increase the chance of it.

So I start with a ten in each "caravan" then double it with a king, then play a four five or six, and thats it. Once each hand is in that range, you win.

To repeat, just play a ten, play a king on it (beside it), double that value to a 20, then play a 4 5 or 6 to get to 24 25 or 26. Do it for each caravan and its game over.

You can win 14k in caps by just walking around to traders that play the game in about 20 min.