I'm running through a place right now called Freeside....trying to get to that tall building.

It's turning out to be a burden.

What are some things I should first see/do?

I want to try and get lots of money and good items/implants

Wait...it's saying I need a key or 2000 caps...

What???

You don't have to pay those caps, it's just a check to make sure you're an important individual.

i ran as level 1

i have 0 caps.

there's no "sneak around?"

In Freeside, gamble in the Atomic Wrangler.

You need to pass speech/barter checks to increase potential profit from quite a few quests in the area, so I don't recommend working for anyone for now. Although I believe The Kings will pay you the maximum potential amount without any dialogue checks, and their final reward gives you the option of joining them, gaining 1000 caps or getting a free Strip passport (which lets you bypass the credit check).

You can also pay 500 caps for a passport at Mick & Ralph's, or 250 with a barter check.

...why? There's nothing you'll be able to do at level one except maybe gamble.

The 2000 caps is like a credit check to keep out undesirables. You can blast through the robots as an alternative haha but good luck with that at level 1. You're probably going to level just getting that money, is there a particular reason you are trying to stay level 1 or you just like maschism? If you don't mind leveling up, i'd recommend you know checking out some of the other jillion areas of the game before you go trying to gamble caps you don't have

Eh. my main is about level 9 and has done a lot of exploring and main quest lilne. Kind of got bored. Made a melee char and toying around. Had no idea New Vegas was so elaborate though. It's like a maze just getting to it.

Im at Mick and Ralphs

I dont see that passport?

hmm theres an option talking about "special items" but i need 30 speech to activate it

I think "special items" refers to the weapons guy, who sells you better weapons once you pass a speech check. The one with the passports is the NPC closest to the entrance.

Your best bet is to gamble, abusing quick save/load. It's a lot easier if you have pre-order items as you can get a few hundred to around a thousand caps from selling them, depending on which DLC you have.

come at vegas from the south, into McCarran NCR base first.. then you can hop a monorail onto the Strip without paying anything.. or credit checking.. or whatever..

darn yea i dont have enough speech for that option either--requires 50.

i didnt get the deck of cards in goodspring to do caravan. unfort.

i guess ill have to try and find the king and do his quest.

You want to visit:

* Silver Rush - best energy guns store in the game
* Gun Runners - same for everything non-energy
* Crimson Caravan - ton of upgrades here
* Usanagi Clinic - implants for SPECIAL
* McCarran Camp - great store, ton of cool quests like bounty hunting Fiend leaders, three unique weapons in one area too.
* Old Mormon Fort - Followers of Apocalypse home (they are like Brotherhood of Steel but without guns and armor :-p)
* All open casinos (with Luck 10 you can earn bazillions of money)

Until they ban you...
I would settle for the option to gamble with a currency thats worthless after I have been banned, its annoying, casinos everwhere but I cant gamble. I hope a dlc/patch dose something. Damn it I dont want any money just let me gamble, I hope they find some soloution. Also for caps just play caravan, you get less, but you can keep repeating it.

I'd like to be able to open my own casino and pimp it out.Then earn on it.

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34733

Easy. Was gonna make it myself (only for the ban), but that will do.

Caravan is boring once you get the hang of it. Too easy to win, NPCs are really bad. At least gambling has that aspect of it (if you don't keep saving and reloading).

Its nothing new , i made it to vegas , gambled and now i have lvl 1 with all implants in me.

Hint:
If you wanna make it to the strip , gamble at the atomic wrangler to get the 2k to pass to the strip , after that it was just a matter of time to gamble my way up close to a casino limit and then work the slots to win the jackpot. 40k from one casino ftw. Its also good to buy the naughty nightwear for the +1 luck at Mikes in freeside to help with gambling.