Making money legally with Repair

[Laclongquan]

Repairman (lvl18) in Sierra Madre, or more like, other style can emulate this way too.

Using WRK to fix Automatic Rifle, Police Pistol, then trade for prewar money from hologram vendor. Later on trade with casino vendor into chips, then chips back into WRK.

Knife spear fixed with throwing knife spear and sell for prewar money, later on trade for chips.

Sierra Madre Armor/Helmet can be fixed with dirty/grimy clothes and trade for prewar money. Thank god its light armor. If it's medium armor I would have to save SMA for Mojave.
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There is a bug of the cashier wont change. But there is a fix right here in this forum. So alls well.

For hardcore need, can pay for: pork beans can for food, radaway to fix radiation from drinking water from faucets. Drink Sierra Martini instead of buffout, and pay for mentats and steady. No sleep thanks to Clinic's autodoc, plus it's central unlike police station bed in a corner of the map. Ruined store is too off-the-map .

Sometimes we even pay for stimpack just so we can wander listlessly in the red cloud~ Though really, looted stims should be more than enough for ya~

[Laclongquan]

Cooking in Sierra Madre
- Sierra Madre Martini, the unique drink. Think of it as the improved version of Buffout. I just dont have to pay for buffout anymore. And a good way to utilize tin cans, junk foods.
- Found two lunchbox lying around the ruined cafe and Salida del sol. Two more from containers in villa and casino,4-5 more in the vault, dunno if it's fixed drop. making two caravan lunch for hearty meal during extended run in the villa.
- There is a few radroaches which we make into steamed ones. This, looted canned foods and bought pork bean are our usual snacks.
- Can pick up a few dirty water bottles. Should be more than enough for drinks (even with the double needs increase mod I use) but I keep using the faucets to the point of need RadAway to deal with rads (because using increased rads mod).

[Laclongquan]

Currently messing too much with (un)install mods, and dragging their order around... so now I can NOT load old saves. Loading, it black screen freeze the sounds of audio, and must Task Manager it to escape.

So a restart with starting in Mojave.

Back story:

Maria is educated in Vault 101 for a while until she got sent away by James on a train toward the fabled West. After some years working as Courier, now she's lying on a doctor's operating bed, losing quite a few memories of old time, but still have Dad's old note from the day of departure.

She can make her way toward Freeside to get on that train to get back, a not very easy trek with gangs of raiders populate the Vegas deserts and wild plains, and two armies fighting each other with great bloodshed.

But the insulting act of Benning using HIS Maria to shoot her in the FACE... that one has so much hilarity value she's sure the courier community will laugh about it for years to come. That joke require some payback. Yesterday if she can, but in as near future as she can manage. Or she would sit up in her death bed and wondering aloud about it to her grave.

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Extra power giving to Maria beside the usual character creation stuffs
- All Capital Wasteland schematics (because testing to see how they work in Mojave from start)
- Dad's Wasteland Suit (for rememberance and usage)
- Doctor Li's Glasses And Oufit (for entertainment purpose, because good old James is quite a lady-magnet, so you can feel free to imagine how would James have a full suit of Li to sent along with his daughter).
- Well-heeled gambler hat and naughty nightwear (because naughty Maria)

[Laclongquan]

Mod:
A combo of Better Raider amors, MOjave Raiders, More Enemies Fiends2, Mojave Wildlife, Hardened than you beta, and MoreSpawn3. This make the Mojave pretty dangerous during early level. The raiders get an increase in defense and some in HP. The animals are active: ant get modified to shoot plasma, etc...
++++ For hilarity, Pythonesque Fiends provide extra voiced dialog "Tis but a scratch"

Tougher Barter increase merchant's ability to haggle. They are bloody cutthroats now. Uninvested in Barter, it can be a mark up of 50% either way. Get Barter to 50 with mag, chems, and outfits... price is better a bit. You are in need of traders with discount as a loot disposal tool. At 50 Barter with such a trader, you can sell loot at 90% value.

And of course, Slower Level Rate 3x. This shit make sure I stay at low level quite long, because Jury Rigging would have helped me out of this financial hole~

But the critical issue is starting in Mojave at such conditions. Original low skill, hard environment... this is marvellous.

[Laclongquan]

Slower Level Rate 3x slow everything down to the early stage.

I am reduced to repair... stuffs to make shopping's money. Thank god we sometimes find metal reinforced and leather reinforced armor in store. They then could be fixed with metal/leather armor and keep a decent incidental income.

But usual income is to fix raider armor (180 caps apiece), NCR/Legion armors, (loot from fights rather than kill them myself). And to sell unfixed armors if it's uneconomical to fix it.

Best disposal merchants are Trudy (but low cap), Nash (best of all with Meyes), Khan Armorer (with Liked rep) Dino Gift shop (even with discount it's not equal to other).

[Laclongquan]

Thanks to a combo of AWOP4DM which add a bunch of buildings to SM Villa, More Ghost People to SM, and Ghost People Respawn, these mods make sure the practically-back-to-back 2nd run of Dead Money stay interesting.

Basically this combo of mod turn SM into action game, not horror, since they increase combat portion way up.

The loots from extra ghosts repay the cost of shopping for buffs from vendor machine (buffout, mentats, steady, martini, sugar bombs) as well as bullets money. Mind, this is thanks to Tougher Barter too, as it make the hologram vendor very tough to convert the extra loot into prewar money, which later on can change to chips. Otherwise the extra loots can be pretty damn beneficial.

Even so, I still travel back to Mojave ladden with bought souvenirs (so to speak, figuratively speaking, since we can buy them from machine in the bunker).

[Laclongquan]

Back to Zion. This time a combo of mod
- Ghost in Zion park, to arrange for a bunch of ghosts in Ranger station and General Store courtyard.
- WL and NPC respawn after MQ, so to allow a better revisit. The silent empty of Zion park would not be fun.
- Medicine Stick version of Cowboy Repeater, Trail Carbine, Brush Gun get added to White Legs leveled list. At level 20 some of them use MS-TC. Normally it might break the economy. But this game also have tougher barter AND the bunch of hard Ghosts which are expensive to kill.
- Harder Than You Beta still running after Mojave because they modified wild life. So Giant Ant keep shooting plasma, Gecko are poisonous, etc... A tough Zion is going to be had by all~
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This time I just have Gobi and Lil Devil. A big load of bullet ingredients, discounted the leads, and a big load of Weapon Repair Kits. it might not be enough, not with Tougher Barter.
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And no, it's not breaking economy. There are only two merchants, with Daniel sell under 1k worth of aid items, and Joshua sell more, but still very limited. We have a muzzle on our bullet expenditure: shoot too much and no more. I run out of lead making bullet several times.
The alternative is use more energy weapons, and with our low skill it's expensive. Oh well~

[Laclongquan]

We are better than barely enough ammo for the whole thing, but only tiniest bit.
+++ The biggest drain is the damn Ghosts, which are buffed to the point of require Ghost hunter perk to break their limbs. And their high HP drain our ammo, then they resurrect, which mean needing a coup de grace, specifically aim at their head/limbs after they falling down.
+++ The Medicine Stick line of weapons doesnt really break anything. It just replace other weapons in the leveled list, is all. And it's thematic, so I recommend this mod for any HH player.
+++ And as I foresee, the single source of ammo come from Joshua is the limit on our adventure. You can only sell so much, and you can only buy so much~ Everything else, loot from the fallen corpse of White Legs.
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After completion, when we return to Zion Canyon, the While Legs respawn on Three Marys river and cavern, plus the two camps in Big Horn Bluffs. The river is blocked like during the final quest and one pack of WL in the place where final scene happen. So that's a source of targets to hunt.

Daniel/Sorrows and Joshua/Dead Horse return to their respective place. The two small shops are there, so we can buy some local specialties, like daturana and whatnots~

[Laclongquan]

A separate note on Automatic Rifle

This gun have the highest spread in the whole game. So if you aim at head or body, even with 95%, you still very much likely to miss.

The key is aim at legs. The spread would drive bullets upward and there's more chance for it to hit. I estimate a double chance.

I keep messing with this gun because it's the only heavy machine gun using high caliber bullets, .308. No such thing for .50BMG. As such, it's something of a must have tool for fighting with Super Mutant Masters class and upward.

And yeah, FIDO shooting .44 is not a bad thing to use. Problem is~ Shooting a dog gun is something of a immushun breaker~ THAT and .44 dont have anti-armored variant

[Laclongquan]

On Old World Blues, aka Big Empty, aka Big Mountain adventure.
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Prepared mods
- Better Lobotomite armor mod: patient gown = DT8, Lob suit = DT12. These will make them more durable before your very skilled hand shooting at them. And if they wear mask or gogles, they would be even tougher.
- FEmale lobotomite Spawn: this fix a vanilla bug of not spawning females. now they do.
- Lobotomite Tweaks: This give them the same perks as player (heartless, spineless, brainless). Even tougher.
- Mysterious broadcast radio mod. This enhance the song playlist of Old World Blues radio.
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OWB utilize the same tactic of HH and Dead Money: limited shopping. UNFORTUNATELY, the damn Sink interface is bugged, and require us to stay out of there in the wild for 4 days before restocking even once. After completion, it become normal again: 3 days in game time and it restock. scratch that, it doesnt fix itself.
+++ One can argue that it's intentional, since the Brains stress the necessity to go out and do your job quickly, no dawdling. So completing ASAP, or at least stay out long time before returning is desirable.
+++ Counter: Shop -- Sleep 1 hour in the Sink to get Well Rested Bonus --> Do needful works until bonus expired --> go to Z-38 facility and jump into the central light column 6 times (each 12 hour)--->go somewhere to actual rest for exhaustion ---> return to Sink. This procedure would be satisfying the requirement without feeling faking sleep.
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Due to limited shopping source, we should be very limited in what we can use... UNFORTUNATELY, everybody and his dog these days know to carry all their inventory before initiating this DLC. So the whole damn thing is moot~ The whole Sink is just an annoyance instead.
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Overabundance of dog meat. Okay to good source of Nightstalker egg, tail, blood and cazador poison gland.
Great amount of bullets in containers around the map, what the Old World left behind~
A great chance to use up .357 and .44 ammo with the two dog guns. It's not exactly the most economical use of bullets, but it's not as if we lack gunpowder or anything~