Fallout: New Vegas — How to Repair Gear

01.  Open the Pip-Boy
02.  (PS3) Use L1 or R1 to expose the Item screen
03.  Highlight the item you wish to repair.
04.   Press triangle.  Any item you may use to repair will be listed below.
05.   Highlight item to use for parts and Press X.

There are two types  of “items” you may repair — armor and weapons.  In Fallout 3, repairs were based on your Repair skill.  If you had 20 for your repair skill, you could only complete a 20 percent repair.  In New Vegas, repair works differently.  If you have 20 points in repair, you can repair an item adding 20 percent to its current condition.  I’ll provide an example to help you understand.  These are not exact figures — just an example.

Repair: 30 — takes 13 of same item to get a full repair.
Repair: 60 — takes 6 of same item to get a full repair.
Repair: 90 — takes 3 of same item to get a full repair.

Get the idea.  You can make a full repair no matter what your Repair skill is.  It only determines how good your repair efforts  are or how many items it will take to make a full repair.

If you have 50 points in your repair skill, you can craft weapon repair kits at a work bench.  There are plenty of supplies around to make enough kits to last until you get the Jury Riggin perk.

Recipe for Weapon Repair Kit:
— 1 Duct Tape
— 1 Scrap Electronics
— 1 Wonder Glue
— 1 Wrenches
— 2 Scrap Metal

Make sure you are holding the weapon that needs to be repaired before using a repair kit.

You can also vist several vendors that can make repairs:
Mojave Outpost Admin Bldg: Officer behind counter — 100 percent repairs
Gibson Scrap Yard — Old Lady Gibson — 70 percent repairs

Fallout: New Vegas — A Good Start

This is a no B.S. post.  It will be short and to the point.  If you are trying to figure out how to acquire good armor and a good weapon right away, read this.  Make your way to Camp Golf and head into the resort house.  Look right once inside.  There is a room filled with cots where the NCR rangers sleep.  There is  a combat helmet and combat armor sitting on a shelf.  You will have to steal both.  Simply pick them up and walk into another room or out of sight of the rangers, drop the item, and pick it up.  It makes stealing much easier.

Now, the hard part.  You can acquire an Assault Rifle and Marksman Rifle ealry in the game from the Nellis Communications Array.  Two boomers are dead inside the building.  The rifles are sitting next to them.  What makes this hard is getting past the shelling.  Follow the path indicated in the image below.

Fallout: New Vegas Nellis AFB

The idea is to hug the ridge line until you reach the fence.  If you get hung up along the way, you might not make it.   Attemp to open the gate and respond to the sentry’s challenge.  Speak with Mother Pearl and immediately speak with the female NPC that took you to her.  She will give you the quest that provides the key to enter the array.

You can also pick up combat armor off of two dead bodies at Durable Dunn’s Sacked Caravan.

Good luck.

Fallout: New Vegas — Approach to Camp Searchlight

Camp Searchlight is located east of Wolfhorn Ranch.  It is a community patrolled by a small contingent of NCR soldiers who took it upon themselves to warn travelers to stay out.  The town is crawling with ghouls, feral ghouls, glowing ghouls, and radscropions.  Speak to the Seargent in charge of the patrol to find out what happened here and why the ghouls are dressed like NCR soldiers.

There are two ways to approach the situation:
1.  Go charging in and fight it out.
2.  Take out as many ghouls as possible from a distance (sniping).

Things are easier if you have Boone with you.  He gives you the Spotter perk which highlights enemies in red.  I recommend using a sniper rifle or a modified hunting rifle with a scope.  Both weapons use .308 rounds.  It is also beneficial to modifiy your rifle with a silencer.  Stay outside of town and snipe as many ghouls as possible.  While you are at it, you can snipe any radscorpions that show up.  Once you have reduced the number of ghouls, you may enter the town and activate the turret systems if you have a high enough Science skill.  Don’t forget to put on your radiation suit and take some rad-x.  If you get exposed to too much radiation, visit a doctor and pay 100 caps to be cured.

Fallout: New Vegas — How to get a sniper rifle.

An actual sniper rifle may be obtained from the top bunk in the 1st Recon tent at Camp McCarran (verified for PS3 patched to 1.6).  However, your guns skill will prevent you from using the weapon effectively.  That leaves you with the choice of being a “steady” junkie (which steadies your weapon) or using an alternative at lower levels.  My personal choice is the Ratslayer (a unique varmint rifle modded with a silencer, night scope, and larger clips).  It is found in the Brock Flower cave populated by giant mutated rats.  Don’t worry.  There is a perfect solution for dealing with the infestation — powder charges.  Collect all the powder charges you can find — along with frag mines — and use them to slow down our furry little friends.  Lay them down like bread crumbs behind you.  Be sure to hold a few back to deal with the rats that remain.  Of course, you could always use a stealth boy.  But, where is the fun in that?

Fallout: New Vegas — Where to Rest

The wasteland surrounding New Vegas is vast. It could take you a long time to explore everything. However, as you explore check out the many abandoned trailers and homes. Many of these abandoned homes have beds you may rest in. For normal difficutly, you are only required to rest for 1 hour to recover full health. I don’t know what is required in hardcore mode. I imagine 8 hours is the default and also dependent upon injuries. If you haven’t found places to rest, you haven’t really explored.

Fallout: New Vegas — How to increase SPECIAL points.

You do not have to go all over the map in search of bobble heads to increase you SPECIAL points this time. Instead, explore the immediate area near the Crimson Caravan Company and locate the New Vegas Clinic. The doctor there sells implants you may purchase tthat increase your SPECIAL score by 1 for each statistic. The implants are not cheap. Each implant will cost 4,000 caps. You may also purchase two other, more expensive, implants. Speak to the doctor to find out what they are. Enjoy the game.