Fallout New Vegas - Hardcore Build

Other than raising some survival for more water and food effects, the game basically plays the same. The 'hardcore' portion means only couple things:

• ammo has weight
• need to keep water/food
• followers can die

At the end of the day, you'll simply fast travel to your base, usually Goodsprings with multiple external containers, mail box, workbench, nearby camp site with bed, rad free water source, and restock.

Sleep, eat, drink, restock, and then you are off.

I always play hardcore. The game is laughably easy otherwise. I really miss the mode when I'm playing Fallout 3.

Here are some major differences:

• You cannot heal your limbs with stimpacks. You need to use Doctor's Bags, actual doctors, Hydra, or sleep in an owned bed. This makes doctor's bags significantly more important, which matters because they have weight, unlike stimpacks. This also makes Adamantium Skeleton much more useful.

• Healing takes time. Nothing heals you instantly. You will need to notice when you are being damaged and start healing then, as once you are critically injured it is too late. This makes skills like Medicine and Survival more important, as they allow you to heal more quickly. Different healing sources stack, so it can be useful to carry several different kinds of healing, like healing powder, bitter drink, sunset sasparilla, and so on. This way, you can eat a whole bunch of items at once and heal more quickly than you are being damaged.

• Ammo has weight. This is huge. You need to start weighing the value of ammo against other things you could carry, as it's not free to carry. This makes various perks like Vigilant Recycler, Hand Loader, and Pack Rat more useful.

• You need to eat, drink, and sleep. This gives you a reason to carry food and water, which are just redundant with stimpacks otherwise. Your thirst can go up pretty quickly if you don't stop and drink from a sink or fountain occasionally, as this zeros out your thirst meter. I am aware of where clean water sources can be found, and make a point of grabbing a drink when I'm near one. I rarely suffer from sleep deprivation, but will often grab an hour of sleep when I walk by an unowned bedroll to maintain.

• Followers can die. Followers are still exceptionally powerful, but you need to manage them at least a little bit by giving them equipment and stimpacks. I have played through the game on hardcore without killing a single person or animal by letting my follower do all the work. This can make Spray and Pray and Ferocious Loyalty more effective, especially if you're using explosives or Meltdown.

So you don't need to make a whole different build for hardcore, but a few perks become more useful and you need to engage in additional resource management.