Fallout: New Vegas - Fall 2010

Felix Threepaper wrote:
Redherring wrote:

Right then.

After several attempts at this where I didn't get past the tutorial - on the first attempt I barely made it past the character creation - I finally got into the groove and 48 hours playtime later I think I have some idea of what is going on.

I don't have time for multiple playthroughs so I've used a far bit of googling to steer the outcomes in the general direction I want them to go.

I've sided with the NCR and got up to the point of no return, then sidetracked to finish off the DLC and anything else I like the look of.

Question: other than facing (and presumably beating) the Legion in the end game, I'd really like to mess with them as much as possible beforehand. Are there any non-obvious side quests that allow this? I've been to a few of their camps with Boone and ED-E and just shot everyone, but I'd like to do more.
Also if I go to the main camp and shoot everyone there, will it affect the end game?

AFAIR you can shoot up all of Caesar's camp, including Caesar, and someone else steps in to be leader and set up the end game the same as if Caesar were alive. Obviously, though, shooting them all up will close off a bunch of Caesar's Legion quests.

You can absolutely kill Caesar and from what I can tell it doesn't change the non-Legion quest lines any. In my current game I went to his compound early on looking for something related to a different quest line. The Legion already hated me for wiping out the "cleaning crew" you run into at Nipton. Needless to say they opened fire as soon as I approached the main gate to his area. This of course quickly degenerated into a running gun fight that spilled into the main compound. Once it was all over, and after MANY reloads I might add, everyone was dead including Caesar. Now everywhere I go people comment on how he is gone, NCR troopers always mention they would have loved to have been there when it happened. The one down side is the Legion constantly sends out elite hit squads to take me out. They literally track me down anywhere in the game I go, even out in the middle of the desert. Fortunately I'm pretty decent level now with power armor, a devastating rail gun, Ed-E, and Boone. They usually don't get close enough to fire off more than one or two shots before we drop them. They are my go to companions, as you can see from the screenshot below:

IMAGE(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/393301514959464149/72AF2D0C3883B3F258D9369AECD07449A0717AEC/)

My first character made enemies with the Legion very early in the game, thanks to both Boone and rescuing the prisoners that had been taken by that first Legion encounter in Nipton. When a certain Legion guy offered Caesar's token in New Vegas, I killed him and so by the time I got to Caesar's encampment, I had no choice but to wipe them all out because too many saw through the Legion disguise and were not fooled. The only quests it ruined were Legion-based and of course I was unable to have any conversations with Caesar, so missed out on all of those. Never actually got through the game with this character because I got into the middle of a DLC and lost motivation for it before I could get back to the mainland.

My most recent character did not make enemies of the Legion until very late in the game because I used this character for all four endings, and the events with the non-Legion factions didn't really change at all. The only difference is that I wasn't constantly being hassled with uber-powerful Legion patrols as a low-ish level character, and I had no complaints about that not happening. (I still rescued the prisoners, but used stealth so that the Legion guards wouldn't see what was going on, and I didn't use Boone as a companion except when doing his special quests when doing the NCR ending.

I've played something like 150 hours of NV, mostly in one character, and never knew about this. That is badass.

Those Legion kill squads are brutal. I thank them for one of my most-cherished video game moments.

They had come for me and I, like bekkilyn experienced, was underpowered at the time. I shot and ran, ran and shot, dropped mines and threw grenades. I hid and healed, and they found me and I ran. It was like that for probably only five minutes but it felt longer. A lot longer. At the end, I was crippled, limping, was low on ammo, and was a good walking distance from any help. I try not to fast travel and can't recall if I did or not.

What a game.

I shot up Nipton and rescued some slaves early on, but took the pardon from Caesar so I could go to the camp to get the chip for that main quest. Since then I've already gone too far to complete any quests for the Legion. Only met one assassin squad so far, probably because I've mostly been in the various DLC areas. So I guess we'll be paying Caesar a visit ... after I get my brain back.

After a modest 54 hours according to Steam - finished up Lonesome Road last night then went to the final mission. That was a bit of an anticlimax - run, shoot a lot of Legion soldiers, talk to a guy, shoot the guy because even with speech 100 I apparently couldn't talk him into surrendering.

I was tempted to launch nukes at the Legion at the end of Lonesome Road but decided not to - I'm not that evil. I did go back to the Fort and took Caesar down, Boone was quite pleased after that.

I did "enough" to get fairly good results from the end sequence, although apparently I completely missed the "Vault 19 Powder Gangers" so their reign of terror continued.

I think those guys are over on the west side of Vegas. I think you can get quests leading you to them from the people in the northwest slums, but I'm not certain. It's been awhile.

edit: oh, wait, the Powder Gangers might be the gang that took over the prison near, um, Nipton maybe? They're one of the first groups of bad guys you encounter. But the "Vault" part makes me think it's the west side of Vegas, because there's no vault near the Powder Ganger prison that I remember.

I think it's more southwest of Vegas along one of the roads connecting the two main interstates, but yes, there's a powder ganger vault and it's filled with friendly (literally) powder gangers who will give you a quest, though you have a choice over whose quest in that vault you will complete, which probably has an effect on the ending too.

Huh, I wonder if I never got to that one? The one I'm thinking of has always ended up in a massacre, but I don't remember details.

I have never found one of the key cards in that vault to enter the second area.

Also, completely independent of this: go to hell, cazadores.

Malor wrote:

Huh, I wonder if I never got to that one? The one I'm thinking of has always ended up in a massacre, but I don't remember details.

I wonder if you're thinking about the vault full of fiends that is in the Old Ruins west of New Vegas. If so, the vault with powder gangers is definitely different and is south-ish of the vault with the fiends.

The vault 19 powder gangers can also turn hostile depending on how you deal with the Khans.

Arise!

I just bought this on Steam. After finishing Witcher 3 I wanted to reward myself and this has been on my wishlist for years!

Anyway my big question before I dive in is what mods should I install? This thread is 107 pages long so I am reluctant to read the whole thing to find recommendations. Could you folks just hit me up?

farley3k wrote:

Arise!

I just bought this on Steam. After finishing Witcher 3 I wanted to reward myself and this has been on my wishlist for years!

Anyway my big question before I dive in is what mods should I install? This thread is 107 pages long so I am reluctant to read the whole thing to find recommendations. Could you folks just hit me up?

I ran it when it came out without mods and had a good time. I’m interested to see what the recommendations are though.

It's still in beta but I am excited to try the Project California mod.

A whole new area in California that serves as a prequel to New Vegas.

Phew...It's been a long time and I don't know what's out there any more, however, I can unreservedly recommend Tales from the Burning Sands, created by GWJ's very own Puce Moose. His accompanying Gun Runner's Arsenal mods are nice also.

Fallout New California mod is currently out in Beta. You can get it on Nexus.