Always wondered, does chugging down 3 sarsaparilla's (or whatever) as fast a you can, do 3x as much good as just drinking one and waiting until its affects wear off to drink another? Or are the multiple drinks just overwriting each other, wasting the previous ones?

They stack. Even in non-hardcoe.

Yes, they stack. Useful for getting your health up in a pinch... :banghead:

Yes they stack. One of the best ways to regenerate health quickly is to chug down four or five Sunsets (may want to take the time for the "bottle cap added" message to disappear if you're trying to get star caps) and then laugh as you mow down mooks with impunity.

P.S.: That's also a good way to dehydrate yourself quickly in hardcoe so have water ready to go.

LOL! Seriously? They went so far as to make sodapop like the Sunset a diuretic, like cola's are in real life?

Ha, I am embarrassed to say I did not think they sacked. I always carried around different types of food to heal. :ermm:

Yes, it does stack. And if you're wondering whether the time frame or the HP refill rate increases, the HP refill rate increases, while the time frame remains the same. I tested this when I chugged down x3 Sunsets and at the EFF screen on the Pip-Boy, It said +6 HP instead of +2 HP.

What? No way, are you guys on xbox? Ive checked on mine and they do not stack. I get +2hp/s no matter how much i take.
Stimpacks also do not stack in hardcoe like some one else here said they do#

I'm going to have to agree with you, sir. This sounded too good to be true, so I tested it out on XBox360 (on hardcoe & Hard difficulty) with up-to-date patches.

To clarify:

Healing items do not stack with themselves, they queue up. So if you drink two Dirty Waters at the same time, you don't actually get +10 hp for 5s; You get +5 hp for 10s.

However, there IS an advantage to taking a variety of different consumables at the same time, because their effects DO stack. For example, consuming a Dirty Water (+5 hp for 5s) and a Purified Water (+5 hp for 5s) will provide +10 hp total for 5s. This means when your health is really low or you have a breather in a tough battle, consume a variety of different healing items at the same time from the Pip-Boy menu.

Combining these two facts:

1. I recommend that you carry and consume a wide variety of consumables when you are in the midst of a high-damage battle or if you really need to recover health quickly in any scenario. (Pack Rat makes this a bit less cumbersome by cutting the weight of nearly all consumables in half.)

2. I also recommend that you queue up a bunch of slower-acting health items (e.g., drinking 6 Sunset Sarsaparillas) before a more drawn-out battle. I did this simply to get the weight out of my inventory during a brutal attempt on Camp Forlorn Hope and it saved my life when I got attacked by 2 power-armored NCR soldiers with miniguns and an AMR-toting ranger at the same time.

3. Obviously if a battle is going to be long AND intense, you're going to want to combine both strategies. Take 3 or 4 of everything and don't worry about your HP for a while!

^^ Alright, now I do not feel like an idot! I thought I had tested this a long time ago, but I was thinking a patch changed it. Still will need to confirm

I NEVER knew that nice question OP. I always scattered items for a quick heal like a gecko kabob, a stim pack, purified water, and a soda of some kind all taken together but i never figured it could be done with sodas interesting, sorry bout the smoke it is nothing to worry about just me thinking that is all.

Asai

OK, easy test. took my half dead character who had 55 out of 235 hp lefy. Drank 6 Sunset Sass straight in a row.. Healed completly up. So, yes they stack.

I think some of the confusion is the definition of "stack." The OP was asking if using 2 Sunset Sas. in rapid click progression would be a waste, eg. if only one could be "active" at a time. The answer to that was no, not a waste...you can drink lots of drinks at once in NV (and thus not have to keep going in & out of Pipboy) and they are not 'wasted' as the healing capability of each one is used (assuming you need all of the potential healing of course). If a single Sunset Sas heals 50hp, taking 2 at once is going to heal 100hp (over time).

But some people define 'stack' as increasing the rate of healing over the same period of time, and that's different. I'm not personally positive on that one. I'll say that when I drink multiple sodas, it can sometimes feel like the HP bar is going up far more rapidly than it does if I only take 1 at a time. But this could be an illusion, I haven't pulled out a stopwatch & timed it. I'd suspect tho that it's at least supposed to be like jleeper81 described - that the HP per second doesn't stack, only the total amount gained over a total extended duration.

Luckily you don't need the GECK or even a stopwatch to prove this one... Just drink one Sunset Sarsaparilla, note the rate of health increase in the Pip-Boy (under STATUS -> EFF), which should be +2 hp. Then drink a second one. You'll note that the HP gain remains the same (+2). But nothing is wasted, because the effect will last twice as long.
To verify that taking duplicate consumables causes them to QUEUE UP and not stack, drink one Sunset Sarsaparilla and count aloud until it says that it wore off. Then chug two at the same time and do the same thing. The difference between 25s and 50s should be obvious.
So no, there is no way to "waste" consumables simply by taking them at the same time. And no, consumables don't stack WITH THEMSELVES; Instead, they QUEUE UP. And remember, different consumables (e.g., Sunset Sarsaparilla + Stimpak) DO stack with EACH OTHER.
But don't take my word for it! Try it out!

P.S. As I said earlier, I'm on the Xbox360 with latest patches and hardcoe Mode / Hard Difficulty, so maybe PC users or non-HC players are seeing something different. But I think this is just another case of wishful thinking or a misunderstanding of math...