I installed the Harder hardcoe Rates mod yesterday and it is a tremendous improvement over the vanilla hardcoe mode.

Here is the link: http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloa...e.php?id=34954

It's not really about realism so much as making the game more balanced, so you actually have a little bit more reason to worry about finding food, water and sleeping. The vanilla hardcoe is simply too easy, because there is so much food and water everywhere and you don't need to sleep very often.

I went with the "hardcoe Refined Rates" and it seems to be just about the perfect adjustment for making your SLP, H20 and FOD levels climb at exactly the right pace to make the game much more enjoyable.

In order to install, you need to copy the .esp file to your Data folder inside steamapps/common/Fallout New Vegas/ and if you are using the 4GB Exe Loader, as I was, you will need to go back to using the regular loader, go into Data Files and check the box next to "harder hardcoe rates," run the game and save. When you exit and restart the game using the 4GB Loader continuing from your save, the mod will be active.

There are two other options, "hardcoe Triple Rates" and "hardcoe Double Rates" - here is a breakdown of the SLP, H20 and FOD levels after 24 hrs with vanilla vs. the different options for this mod:

=========================
CHART (After 24 Hours)
=====
Vanilla
=====
------------|-H20-|-FOD-|-SLP-|
24HRs--|-288--|-96----|-48--|

======
Double (200% Rates)
======
------------|-H20-|-FOD-|-SLP-|
24HRs--|-576--|-216--|-96--|

======
Triple (400% Rates)
======
------------|-H20-|-FOD-|-SLP-|
24HRs--|-1152|-380-|-180-|

======
Refined (Custom Rates)
======
------------|-H20-|-FOD-|-SLP-|
24HRs--|-576--|-432--|-216--|