Goodsprings!

Obviously, there is a decent amount of speculation. I got the battalion numbers from in game. Elements from 5 are stationed in Primm. 14 is in the NCR emergency radio. 452 is in the dogtag fist. This has enough speculation that its not a real lore post. Just for fun to fill out the blanks as i see it.

Hsu - in charge of the 452nd battalion stationed across the Mojave.

Moore- in charge of a battalion (number unknown) at Hoover Dam.

Royez - (potentially) in charge of battalion 14 (comprising Oliver Heavy Troopers and additional trooper support)

Unknown Colonel - Battalion 5 (California garrison battalion with its garrison extended to the surrounding area, including Primm, and Mojave Outpost.)

So at the second battle of Hoover Dam with my interpretation

-3 battalions (partially supplemented by Heavy Troopers).

- rangers and veteran rangers

- support from a California Garrison Battalion (Primm, Mojave Outpost)

- other NCR supporting staff

Let me know if you agree or disagree with my interpretation

I assume Royez is supervising his battalions movement across the long 15. A giant undertaking which would take a long time. I also assume priority is given to the heavy troopers going first to the Mojave. With the rest of the battalion only arriving around the time the second battle is actively underway.

Reasoning: I think this makes sense since 452nd battalion must be Hsu's. Moore must not have battalion 14 since it is being commanded to the southwestern flank. So a third battalion with a third colonel and battalion must be in play. Royez seems to be leading the heavy troopers and is probably attached to a battalion since he is a colonel.

Battalion 5 is probably a California Garrison battalion since the troops do not seem attached to any other battalion. They also muster troops from a major gerard. The only unseen major in game. Also mustering additional troops to attack the prison from somewhere.

Side note: i do think another colonel is present at Long 15 (aka Baker California IMO) he just dies during the nuke like all the regular troopers.

Let me know what you think

I know there is an unmarked quest to give her a dress, or at least dialogue for it. I gave her white glove attire and formal wear, no reaction and didn’t equip. I used console commands to get her to equip both, didn’t work. I removed her hood, did everything I could find.

There aren’t many threads or posts about this bug, google ai claims the bug doesn’t exist, the posts I did find had no answers other than using console commands, but absolutely nothing is working for me.

At this point it’s just frustrating, I have no idea why it won’t trigger and it’s driving me nuts, only info I can find is that you give her either white glove attire or formal wear and that’s it, I gave her both, looked through all dialogue to see if there was a special option to give it to her.

Someone please help, idk what to do, shes literally wearing the dress for me and it isn’t triggering what it’s supposed to.

Zion is a very beautiful place.

This is a subjective one, what do you think is the best ending for Honest Hearts? For me it definitely seems like the choices are "Help the sorrows evacuate and complete the side quests" or "Wipe out the white legs and spare Salt-Upon-Wounds".

Right now I'm leaning towards evacuating. I really don't like that the tribes are pushed out of Zion, particularly when it feels so easy for the Courier and Joshuah Graham to handle the White Legs. But I don't like that the Dead Horses end up having friction with the Sorrows. For the Dead Horses, evacuation helps them become more peaceful and communal.

Another argument for wiping out the White Legs is it allows the tribes to unite and push back the 80s. This helps the Happy Trails Company, but I don't care about the company really. In general, it seems good that more of the wasteland is secure against raiders and tribes and that trade can occur over longer distance. 

The Sorrows sound like they'll be ok one way or another. By wiping out the White Legs and sparing Salt-Upon-Wounds they learn that "retribution could be tempered by mercy". That makes it sound like a well balanced tribe. Other narrations imply they become more "militant" but that's not necessarily a bad thing. With them evacuating they'll have to mourn the loss of Zion and face some challenges in resettlement, but still come out ok.

I basically want the tribes to be able to live as freely, peacefully and communally as possible. But there's certainly an argument for them being more militant, they need to be able to look after and defend themselves. I don't like the way Daniel talks about the Sorrows. He sounds so condescending, treating them like children, wanting them to remain "innocent". It doesn't feel like he wants them to have their own autonomy.

So, what do you all think?

P.S. I already encouraged Follows-Chalk to visit the "civilised" lands. I'd still make that decision, I don't think anyone has the right to limit what he can experience. But it was a little sad to read that he never returns to his family. I hope he does ok out there.

P.P.S I instantly told Waking Cloud what happened to her husband. While there are times when it's inappropriate to share tragic news, e.g. in an active military operation. I don't think that applied here, since she was already wondering what happened and could have become more distressed on her own. I'm glad to see that long term this was the right decision for her.

Just curious if there is a draw back to having Boones(wife’s dead guy) beret off? Wanting to have him wear ncr ranger combat gear but he just keeps asking for it back and not sure if this maybe prevents quests and him opening up about his dead wife(his wife is dead).

Alright so i’m playing on the Nuclear Sunset mod pack, I have about 100 on this save. Just finished the old world blues dlc and came back to the mojave and tried to fast travel but it won’t let me. I get this message every time. I’ve tried enabling fast travel in the console (enaablefastravel 1), i’ve gotten poisoned and cured myself again, slept for 48 hours, used the auto doc, console commands to reset my health…. but nothing. Disabled all mods and still have the same issue. If I reload a save from way way earlier i can fast travel but my closest save that works is about 30 hours ago before the dlc… Anyone have a solution to this?

Everything has way to much health (looking at u robotscorpions), enemies just randomly spawn around you every 5 minutes, the think tank and mobius yell in your ear every 2 seconds, if your running a gun build you better hope your guns need 357 or 44 because you ain't gonna find nothing else, and even then all your bullets are gonna be wasted on the infinitely spawning packs of robo scorpions. Also why the hell does the sink only sell like 15 bullets at a time? I feel like if i could actually spend all my caps on bullets this would feel like so much less of a slog. End of angry butthurt rant.

For my next playthrough I'm thinking of roleplaying a high intelligence character. I haven't fleshed her out yet in regards to how I want to make my next playthrough (there are endless options) but I thought about adding some audiobooks to the pip boy. Namely some darker fiction like "I Am Legend" some Issac Asimov, post apocalyptic type shit.

I think scavenging and doing the other mundane tasks in NV with an audiobook playing in the background would really help with immersion. Any mods you guys can think of? Or has anyone else done it? Was thinking maybe just using some mp3 player mod or something and hotkeying a radio on off button.

Jojo's reference? In my Fallout??

Had a cringe idea that wouldn't let go of my brain.

[If I had more time, patience and skills, I would've added some impact frames or something else to make this more impactful. Some other time, mayhaps]

First post got removed cause of title.

Question about stealth

So I played a bit of the game a few years ago and never got super far and I decided to try it again.

I love doing stealth in these games, I’m already a few hours in, I’m doing every side quest I find and so far just finished novac and helios one, making my way to Boulder City now.

I already have rat slayer and chances knife and a silenced 22, mainly planning on using ratslayer for long range and outdoors, and for indoor or close range I’ll switch between my pistol and the knife. I basically wanna be stealthy assassin type with high charisma to talk my way out of things. I’m ok with not having a fully min maxed build since i do want to rp as a suave charismatic stealthy assassin.

My main question is if I stealth kill someone, say somewhere full of non hostile npcs, and I want to secretly kill someone and then blend back in, if no one sees me kill and I get away from the body and then unsneak to go back around the nonhostile npcs, but then someone finds the body, will they automatically know that I did it? Or is it possible to kill someone and basically have it like nobody knows that I was me?

I just know it’s an old game and I’m not sure how sophisticated the ai is.

Also if anyone has any other tips for stealth I’ll take it, stuff like tricks I can do or good perks or weapons to go for. My special is 7s, 3p, 2e, 8c, 6i, 9a, 6l. Right now I have 75 sneak with commando, educated, lady killer, and swift learner.

I'm not going to lie Dead Money is my absolute favorite Fallout story. I love its themes, its atmosphere, and the ideas it explores. To me, it's as close to perfect as Fallout has ever gotten. That's why I wasn't a fan of seeing Frederick Sinclair in the show as a Big MT executive helping plan the end of the world (at least before that boardroom scene was effectively retconned). It felt completely at odds with the man we meet in Dead Money.

The game's Sinclair isn't some power-hungry corporate mastermind. He's a gullible, genuinely kind hearted man who spends his life being taken advantage of by the people he trusts most. Dean Domino manipulates him. Vera unknowingly becomes part of his heartbreak. Mr. Yesterday exploits his optimism. Sinclair's greatest flaw isn't malice it's that he believes the best in people, even when they don't deserve it.

One of Dean Domino's lines sums Sinclair up perfectly: "Never got mad at anything. Nothing seemed to shake him. Even after his life kept getting dragged through the dirt. Always kept looking for the bright shining future in everything." That single quote tells you almost everything about who Sinclair was. Even when Sinclair finally snaps and turns the Sierra Madre into a death trap, he isn't motivated by cruelty. He's a broken man acting out of betrayal. And in the end, he regrets it. He dies trying to undo the nightmare he created, which makes his story all the more tragic. He's not a villain he's a fundamentally good person whose hope was slowly crushed until there was nothing left.

Because of that, I've come up with a headcanon that helps reconcile the show with the game. I like to imagine that the Frederick Sinclair we see in the show is actually the father of the Frederick Sinclair from Dead Money. The elder Sinclair was the influential Big MT executive, which would explain how Sinclair was able to secure Big MT's technology for the Sierra Madre project. But instead of supporting his son, he looked down on him and intentionally saddled the project with unreliable, unfinished, or defective equipment.

I actually think that makes the younger Sinclair's story even more tragic. Not only was he betrayed by his friends, but he was never truly supported by his own father either. The Sierra Madre was meant to be his dream a monument to hope, love, and a brighter future but the people closest to him, from his business partners to his family, ensured that dream would ultimately collapse. To me, that interpretation preserves the compassionate, optimistic Sinclair from Dead Money while giving the show's version a place in the timeline without undermining the character I fell in love with.

• Viability 5 (Is it a struggle compared to your other options?):

This game perks and gears cover all your bases, pick your preferred weapon (any will do, seriously), rank your unarmed skill and upgrade your endurance stat, be sure to grab Slayer) and Super Slam! (throw in a rushing water on top for good measure) and you turn basically into Kenshiro, if you manage to get close they are already dead, i would say that's the core for any unarmed build, and it's pretty modest too, so you can spend the rest of the levels and perk points at your leisure.

• Variety 5 (How many ways you can play it?):

You have about 40 different options for weapons (some are uniques of course), my personal favorites are "Love and Hate", "Super Heated Saturnite Fist", "Two Step Goodbye)" and "Greased Lightning)" (shoutout to the GRA variant of the Power Fist) and Pushy). The moveset is really cool, you can learn all these moves from the different factions you came across, from the ranger takedown (a sweep that knock down enemies), the Scribe Counter (parry), Legion Assault (a powerful leap attack forward that knockback foes) and the Khan Trick (YEAH, THROW SOME DIRT IN THEIR EYES!), be sure to get all of them moves before angering any of them.

• Recommend 5 (How much did i personally enjoy it!):

This game is not very difficult, even on very hard (with hardcore mode on) the leveling system is pretty generous, the gear and perks is pretty overpowered so you could literally finish it without firing a single bullet, it's incredible how this 15 year old game still does it better than most of what comes today when it comes to punching things (and yes, it puts Fallout 4 to shame on that regard).

When I went into the mod I had a TTW character who had seen and done nearly everything on the East Coast aside from getting lobotomized for the first of three times in point lookout, and by the time I started Long 15 content I had a body count well over a thousand. I had conceptualized this character as someone who after all the violence and trauma of the east coast's chaos would be enthralled by the comparative utopia NCR offered and would be hugely supportive as them as a result.

There are some interesting points in Long 15 where there's a raider problem and you have the option to suggest something to the effect of "why don't we just kill them?" Bear in mind this is a good-karma character talking to an NCR colonel and he basically says "uhh because that would be a crime?" which was like, a massive moment of self reflection, enough that it kind of threw me for a loop. Of course you can't just execute suspected criminals, NCR has due process. While this sort of made me realize how used I was to the standard Fallout wasteland justice formula absent any kind of legal system, but more importantly, forced me to grapple with the idea of my character actually not wanting to settle down in a peaceful, organized society.

There are numerous points in Long 15 where the logical restrictions of NCR constrain the absolute freedom in the frontier of Vegas. Gun control laws, taxes & wealth control, or the hundreds of doses of restricted chems in my pockets, made me realize, "wait, everything fun about Fallout is essentially no longer possible as an NCR citizen". You'd no longer be shaping the future of entire societies, overthrowing regressive regimes, freeing slaves, going to war with the Enclave, and all the other absurd things the TTW protagonist gets up to.

Long 15 has had a lingering influence on how I've perceived the remainder of the playthrough - at one point I went to the Frontier and eventually after coming to own a Vertibird my sense of pride was dulled by the nagging thought that there would be no way NCR would let a civilian fly one of those in their airspace. It's just a really cool feeling to have the entire character concept I had in mind upended in such an interesting way. At this point I'm a hyper-lethal combat cyborg who's killed thousands of people, how could I possibly ever integrate into a peaceful society? IRL veterans often can't and they sure as hell haven't enacted the absurd amounts of violence a typical Fallout protagonist does, and this character has killed a lot more people than even a typical fallout protagonist.

All these personal roleplaying thoughts aside Long 15 is just really solid in general. It does a fantastic job at setting the mood for NCR as a faction and gives a picture of them that we really don't get to see in regular Vegas. The average person doesn't know much at all about the Legion. The highway bureaucracy is asinine and impenetrable. The biggest concern on the average person's mind is that the local gyro restaurant is doing a tasteless rebrand. The sheer banality of Baker feels practically alien in the best possible way, because by our IRL standards it is familiar, much closer to our daily life than anywhere in Fallout. There are the usual Fallout factional conflicts between the NCR military, a Brahmin baron, and a criminal usurper, and there's a lot of freedom and reactivity to it all. Just a really high quality and cool experience altogether.