So I've reached the Trading Post 188, and met Veronica. A nice lady, she is, very fun dialogues. Trouble is, I've already got Boone. Is is worthwhile to replace him with Veronica?

My character is- so far, at least- NCR-allied (but not a fanatical follower), reasonably well-behaved (doesn't mind stealing an occasional useful item so long as no one gets hurt... except those who deserve it) and prefers long-range sniping to close-in wet work. On one hand, Boone has certainly proven his worth in combat. His hunting rifle is quite powerful; he is FAST (all too often beats me to a kill), and his Spotter perk is pretty helpful, especially in low-visibility conditions and areas like the El Dorado Dry Lake. Him and the ED-E-ot provide me with a great early warning+ targeting system, Veronica's combat usefulness, on the other hand, is an unknown quantity at this point. Boone has high Sneak, which helps keep the party stealthed. Finally, Boone is much easier to find equipment for; his weapons needs mostly match mine, so I was up until now selling off any Unarmed, melee and energy weapons and ammo as unnecessary; if I now hire Veronica- who has Unarmed as a priority and Energy Weapons as a second tagged combat skill- I'll have to either purchase new weapons for her or leave her under-armed until I find something. My observation so far tells me that that very few opponents use Unarmed class weapons, so "finding something" will be a problem.

On the other hand, having Boone in my party is like wandering around with a clone of myself- sniper, NCR, First Recon beret, etc. BORING. Having a pretty girl along is usually more entertaining, even if I chose Confirmed Bachelor for practical reasons. Using different weapons classes means that I don't need to wonder whether a particular weapon is better used by me or given to a follower- if it's Unarmed or energy, to Veronica it goes (although, like I said, it will require a considerable initial investment). Veronica's melee preference MAY be useful to tie down fast or sneaky enemies while I shoot them (like I said, her combat worth is an unknown quantity for me). Most importantly, though, Veronica's perk makes her a walking workbench- I'll be able to craft Weapons Repair Kits and possibly other things without having to fast-travel somewhere for that. (Probably also useful for reducing carry weight in junk-rich places like the REPCONN building somewhat). Another annoying thing about Boone is that he refuses to not just wear, but CARRY Legion armor. I keep finding myself over-encumbered by Legion gear that neither Boone nor ED-E will carry, and it's annoying as hell.

What I don't know is which of the two has more bugs and faction/rep issues associated with them. Bugs are, of course, a priority; if Veronica is going to glitch my game a lot, I'm not interested for now. But Veronica is BoS and may be helpful later on, while Boone's involvement in the Bitter Springs massacre could be a burden with factions I've not met yet.

Can anyone advise me on this?







Two more questions unrelated to the previous one:

1)I have a Sniper rifle in COMPLETELY broken condition. Repairing it for money costs an absurd amount. Is it at all possible to repair the damn thing myself? (My Repair is currently 50; 70 with a magazine).

2) NONE of the merchants I've met so far EVER restock their stuff. Or their supply of caps. Not Goodsprings, not Primm, not Mojave Outpost, not Novac, not Old Lady Gibson; remains to be seen if the gun runners at 188 restock at all. How do I get them to restock, and is it at all possible?


Thanks in advance.

Just use Sharon Cassidy. She's a woman, she uses guns and dynamite, her perk allows you to drink alcohol without any negative effects, and she's pleasant to have around. I find Boone to be too grim and Veronica is a little annoying.

Having Boone will make all Legion hostile/red towards him and to you. He has an (understandable) grudge against them and thus it's about his character and his quest. But if you do not want to be hostile to the Legion, he isn't not the companion to choose.

Veronica is more melee-oriented in terms of her skills (I think she's high in Unarmed, for the fists) and how they level. Boone is Guns oriented, altho his Melee skill (not unarmed) is also quite good/high.
Veronica is Brotherhood. At one point in the game, a certain decision may make her leave.
Boone will leave if your rep with NCR is low (below Neutral) or you start killing too many NCR. Or if your Legion rep gets too high.
edti: Since version 1.2, Boone is behaving a lot more buggy for some people. But that's unpredictable/individual. If he's acting ok for you, no problem.
Veronica used to have a leveling problem but it should be fixed in 1.2


Most are supposed to reset about every 3 days (tho some may take longer I think?) but there is/was a bug where the game always starts on Sunday when you load it. If you save the game and exit to main menu and then reload the game, it can reset their inventory/caps for some people.

It depends on your playstyle. If you're not going to take the Spray and Pray perk, you may run into some trouble with Veronica as she can definitely ruin your shot... I've experienced it once. God the scope was bloody. She walked right into my scope and got a sneak attack critical to the face... wasn't pretty.

If you don't want Boone around, I would honestly suggest Raul. Sure, he may be a repair man but I actually enjoy him using the Mysterious Magnum while I run with the All-American. He's pretty darn effective with it and I, for one, don't regret giving him it to use. After all, the music actually fits the whole "Mexican Cowboy" theme he's all about. Ah I wish I would consider taking the Mysterious Stranger perk more often..



The only way is to either find a repair dealer that has a really low repair skill level, I can't name off of the top of my head as I've never used repair dealers in the past few playthroughs, or to find another Sniper Rifle, regardless whether or not its broken, and repair it there. If you get your repair up to 90, then you can take Jury Rigging which will enable you more options to repair weapons.



Should but her HP is still 215 for me even after I do the whole disable, enable, kill, resurrect, give perk back to her, etc.. deal. Looks like I may need to reactive that fix after all..

That's too bad. She's not my fave but if you like having a melee/unarmed companion she's awesome. I'll have to switch back to 1.2 sometime and check if she's bugged for me still too.
It's possible that starting a new game might make her fix work...I noticed that it seems some of their set stats etc. are saved into the savegame file and won't change back even if you switch game versions. But that could be some tech issue with my switching things around so...

If you want to be pro NCR, or more specifically, anti Legion, then go for Boone. As said earlier, the key faction related difference is that it will make you hostile to every legionary you come across. I personally dumped Boone after a short while, not because he isn't good (he is), but I wanted to stay neutral to the Legion until I found out more.

You won't have to purchase new weapons for Veronica right away. You will chance upon some energy weapons as you go further into the game. Until then, keep her set to 'melee' as she is rubbish with her default 10mm pistol.

Oh don't worry. Even with her level 12 stats, she still kicks butt. Charisma and Veronica go together oh so perfectly... And yes, punching people along with her makes is doubly fun. When I was doing a Guns + Sneak character, she just didn't fit in with the whole idea.

As for the second thing, I can't be sure myself.. but I do know this: Before Patch 1.2, the Community Bugfix Patch actually didn't fix Veronica for me so I had to get the actual esp it came from and install that and that worked. Its really weird... Here, give me a few moments while I enable the Veronica-specific .esp and get back to you.

Edit: Just reactived the .esp and she now has 310 HP... did my game patch incorrectly or something? The Community patch is deactivated as well so its only this .esp that's solely fixing it.

Oh the Legion is already sending assassins after me. My character's been after their blood since Nipton.

I actually killed and skinned both dogs of the Legion group that I met in Nipton as they were walking away. Sneak+ Silenced 22- they never noticed a thing.


Boone's been acting OK for me. Alternating between the rifle and the knife too much perhaps; I didn't like him going melee on a Mr. Gutsy at Helios 1, although it could be because he didn't have a clear shot from up the stairs.


Well it doesn't. I've been playing for a while- definitely a lot more than 3 game days, although I don't usually sleep or wait. Save/loaded, quit the game and started the day after- they just don't renew. And I'm in a dire need of a hunting rifle scope...

Try this:

You save near your vendor of choice, I personally prefer not to look at the vendor directly, just be beside them, close down the game, load up the game and save again, and it should work... Well, it works for me. I've tried saving and going to main menu and that doesn't work out for me.

As others have noted, it depends on your playstyle - but Veronica is very powerful with her default Power Fist, and and it's fun to watch her knock people's heads off with one shot. Whether she's annoying is again personal preference - personally, I really enjoy her combination of upbeat + [censored]. If you ever want her to use ranged, you need to get her a better weapon (and she'll complain :biggrin: ).

Plus, she's decorative . Well, depending what you get her to wear. http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/8465/veroelitescribesrobe.jpg

Smart@ss is censored? Ah, well.

WANT

@OP:

Veronica is my favorite companion as far as the story/dialogs go. IMO, shes the most "believable" and realistic character and I dont really find her humor annoying. With your character, you could use her to lure enemies out into the open while you snipe them. You'd just set her to aggressive and let the show begin. Shes also a good match if you decide to go unarmed/melee. However, if you're looking to roleplay a relationship type thing (assuming you ment something like that with your Confirmed Batchelor comment) you'd be disappointed to find out that she, is, infact, a lisbian.

You also might want to consider Cass, like others have said, because she is an NCR loyalist and would make an interesting partner for a sniper. Also, Arcade would be appropriate provided you convince the Followers to help the NCR.

i found boone annoying because if you sneak up close to a enemy and you get caught, boone will take out his knfie which he svcks using and will normally get knocked out within 5 seconds leaving you on youre own. Veronica is better if you are up close and personal which i find is pretty common.

Heh, yes. Her dialogues seem to be thoroughly amusing.


My preferred tactic right now is to snipe from long range, and have my followers protect me when enemies get close. I set both Boone and Ed-e-ot for passive. Boone is very useful for the sniping part- at the outer limits of visibility, or with targets partially obscured by an obstacle, the red highlighting makes aiming a lot easier, plus I don't need to zoom out of the scope to verify that the target is dead.

I now have a semi-decent ranged weapon for Veronica- the Q35 matter modulator. Of the unarmed, all I have is a Bladed Gauntlet in a not very good condition, and Spiked Knuckles. Neither is better than Veronica's default Power fist from what I can tell.

She's had a female lover. Doesn't follow that she is a lisbian, unless there's more information later on. She could be bisixual.

She sure is a hell of a flirt though.


Trouble is, it will take me a long time to get either of them. I have still not gone further than the Repconn headquarters, and there's still stuff I have to do down south (I wonder how hard it'd be to do the Nelson part of Restoring Hope).

I don't care for Cass' Whiskey perk much. I'm yet to find any real use for drugs and alcohol. Plus I'm finding it hard to manage my carry weight as it is, and hauling around whiskeys for "just in case" doesn't go well with that.

I know that Cass gets Shotgun Surgeon though, and she could be a good close-in support with a low-spread shotgun. Will consider her later on.


Veronica seems to have quite a list of bugs associated with her in the Fallout Wiki.


Skyline- Thanks. The shopkeepers restocked. They seem to retain any items I sell to them forever though.

I have this same issue but luckily, it seems, just at the gunrunners at 188. And just the gunrunner guy, the chick by the army truck and the pop and daughter shop update fine. Since I can find most stuff at other merchants I don't usually bother but my fix is somewhat similar to yours. I stand near the vendor and save the game. Do a quit to main menu. Then I shut my xbox off by physically hitting the on/off on the xbox (using the controller to shut down doesn't work as a fix for this bug). Then I turn the xbox back on, either hit on/off again on xbox or you can use your controller to turn it on for this. Load the game up or wait for it to load up if you have auto-load on. When you continue the game the that particular merchant is restocked, regardless whether it is Sunday or Wednesday or whatever day (I noticed the "normal" restock times are on those two days). I don't recall if the other merchants are restocked, I don't think so. Also, I've only tried this with the guy at 188 since the other vendors work as intended (I assume).

Boone is great if your are hunting 'Claws. He usually dropped 'em faster than I could even when I was using AP ammo. On the other hand I got tired of trying to get him to talk and finally gave up on him. Another factor was trying to keep both of us in .308 ammo - Boone runs through it quickly!! Boone and I agree on the Legion so that was never an issue.

I usually play a shooter type character and Veronica made a great counterpoint for me. Weapon wise there are a few powerful power glove type weapons out there that can make her quite a powerful hitter. As for ranged weapons I tried letting her use Annabelle but she usually ended up hurting me more than the bad guys! In my current play through she is having a lot of fun with the Heavy Incinerator :flamethrower: She even usually hits the enemy with it!! Veronica's special skill is not very useful imo but overall I think she is a great companion!

Cassie is pretty good too although she is more of a clone of my usual character. Once Cass gets hold of the All American it can be tough keeping her in 5.56.. One thing about her though, in her later conversations she can get X rated at times. :facepalm: Keep that in mind if kids or elders are around

I never understood why anybody would pick Boone at the start anyway. He svcks so much with that hunting rifle that it isn't even funny. He can't aim with it and whenever he does, he barely does damage. (This is a reference for only at the start, level 5'ish)

Veronica, just picked up, already packs a punch. She at least has more than 1 dialog whenever you force her to be your mule.

I've never tried Boone at later levels, so meh.

...sorry, wrong info posted, and removed.

I used Boone as he is available early on and even post-patch have had no trouble with him. Yes, he's rather morose and I also don't even bother finding out his life story. I also have ED-E by the way.

Anyway, just did the Black Mountain quest and found Raul and dropped Boone so I could see what he's like. Raul's perk is useful and he's OK with the Lucky revolver I gave him.

On a side note I noticed on Wiki that the voice actor for Raul is Danny Trujo who I think I've seen in some films like Con Air or I could be thinking of someone else.

Sometimes one of your games never restrocks merchants, according to the wiki.

I recommend going the guy in Goodsprings, Chet, waiting 3 days to see if he hestocks, then start playing your game, just incase they never restock.

@TheStatueThief (and anyone else who's interested): here's a link to the scribe's robe: http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35301

If you're not doing Boone's personal quest, you're missing a lot. He doesn't stay exactly the same throughout his story, which is compelling. Maybe on another play-through, you'll give him a chance. The quests to trigger him are good too.

The above is all IMHO.

You said you have Confirmed bach go to the mojave outpost and talk to major knight and free repair.

Is it just me, or is veronica wearing the Deathclaw cape a la fallout 2?

I forgot about that! Thanks.

Should Veronica just be kept with the Ballistic Fist? Also what range weapon is good with her?