so after you beat dead money you get the complimentary vouchers in the dropbox...so what exactly do they do?

You can redeem them for 1000 SM chips each with the vending machine in the Abandoned Bunker. Then you can buy anything the vending machine has to offer with the chips.

First you have to win 7500 chips at the Sierra Madre Casino. Then you can redeem them at the machines.

I'm guessing he didn't gamble enough at the Casino before leaving dead money.

They're basically an easy slip. You never have to search for anything like stimpaks, weapons repair kits, .308 rounds, etc in the wasteland because you can get hundreds of them at the machine for free. If the machine doesn't have something you want, you can just take the things it makes and sell it for the stuff you want.

They give you something special.

Those vouchers are basically an 'I Win' button, as anything they give that you don't need can be sold for things you do. I have yet to bother using them as I have only completed the DLC once and that was essentially a 'test' run, however steady use of the respawning vouchers at the Abandoned Bunker essentially means infinite free supplies.

Granted it's subject to the 3-day respawn period, but given how much stuff you can get for 1000 chips that shouldn't really matter. I almost wish the Vending Machine in the bunker wasn't there, however there's not much you can do with it until you find the various codes in the DLC proper. Once you do, however, you will never run out of stimpacks, .308s, or .357s again, nor will you need to visit any more merchants unless you're an energy weapons user. Those specializing in melee/unarmed will be similarly set for life.

That's pretty much it right there. All I can figure is that the devs decided the whole game economy was so badly broken to begin with that they decided to just smash it beyond all recognition.

Sure, but this is the same old song. At this point its all about will and self gimping. Throughout dead money I never once used a Sierra madre chip. Sure I turned in useless cigarette packs and other stuff for more but I never cashed a single chip in for supplies. I only used as found in the DLc environment, and a lot less seeing as my lockpicking skills are next to nothing on my current character. It's all pretty close to those asking devs to remove or an option to lock fast travel when they can easily avoid it themselves. So its in the same vein(Acknowledging both that many quests revolve fast travel. Although many NV quests are focused to make you explore or travel near cool or interesting areas. Bethesda's attempting to please some players by saying that quest givers in Skyrim will point towards a direction to traverse in real time to the destination. Whereas the machine and chips being plentiful were avoidable by Obsidian.). Currently this is remedied by....not Traveling to the abandoned bunker. Yes one location to not travel to in a game with hundreds of them is apparantly fairly hard. I understand there's people here with the mentality that if its there I'll use it. But their the same people turning around and complaining about it. In that logic if I have weight issues or a high cholesterol I should empty out the fridge because there's food there even if it affects me in a way I don't like or might be damaging to me. All about will power. Afterall, you all also managed to play the game even with the countless bugs abound.

I don't think it's that dire. You still have to collect recipes and, as others have said, no one is forcing you to use the machine. I have thousands of chips, and haven't used any on the NV side at all, although i might get some RadAway.

With such a large sandbox type game like New Vegas, some in-game way to make the game more challenging, like adjusting the difficulty slider to Hard or Very Hard and opting for hardcoe mode and especially some self control/self-gimping is needed for player who really want a challenge in the game. Players who want all the pre-war conveniences of the vending machine can take full advantage, and those that prefer to rough it out, can rely on scavenging, crafting and purchasing from traditional vendors. The best part of this type of game is that the in-game world can accommodate both types of players.

On topic with the OP, those vouchers are only redeemable through the vending machine if you get the voucher code by winning 7500 chips by gambling in the Sierra Madre Casino. From there you can redeem the vouchers "sent" to the dropbox @ the Abandoned Bunker every 3 game days. Without the vendor code it's pretty much useless...

I already have a ton of stimpacks before I went into Sierra Madre, so I'm OK there, plus I have jury rigging so weapon repair kits are more of a convenience than a necessity. I haven't really used much of them since I've gotten the perk.

I found, however that the the SM vending machines are a really good way of getting materials for turning the lunchboxes I've scavenged into Caravan Lunches, which do come in handy if you are playing hardcoe and bringing down that hunger level on the go.

Oh, the doctor bags from the vending machine are kind of handy too, especially if you went with the small frame trait on hardcoe...

I don't mind. I don't bother with the DLC much as it is frustrating at times with most characters.

I never use the machine for stims only for repair kits ans tons of chems. I wish they had a jet supply. Sadly jet was only made about 40 or so years ago in the world(I forget how long FO1 was set). My fiend would be enjoying tons of jet right now and overdose in happiness.

The thing is, at least some of us who are complaining about the 'I Win Button' nature of the Vending Machines are doing so precisely because we want to use them, but feel that doing so ruins both the game's balance and it's economy in short order.

I used them anyway on my first character, and probably will use them every time I do the DLC, because they are a game feature and those are meant to be used. Sure, I could decide I won't use them, but that should not be a decision I have to make to retain any semblance of a challenge in my game-play. Features added to the game should take game balance into account, which the Vending Machines clearly do not do, so I'll end up ruining a goodly part of the DLC's challenge by using one of its main features, and that's a real problem IMO. As for not going to the bunker in the first place, yes, that would work; game locations are meant to be traveled to and explored, though, so for me, at least, skipping the bunker is a non-starter.

See, it's not a question of whether or not self-limitation is 'too hard', it's a question of whether or not it should even be necessary, and in a game that is designed with balance and challenge in mind it shouldn't even be a question since the answer would always be 'no'. Thus myself and many others always respond to the 'self-gimp' suggestion with 'this is not an option', because we feel it really isn't one. In our collective opinion, players needing to limit or avoid the use of a particular game feature is a sign that said feature has a problem that needs fixing, because we think that players should never feel they are 'ruining' their play experience by using features they way they are meant to be used.

Bit mixed on those vouchers myself. While they are guaranteed to trash the Mojave's economy, my character already did that long before starting the DLC with the casino trick. I still have the Ultra Luxe to get tossed out of so there is up to another 47k caps (more like 15k-31k) to be had there. The vouchers will be nice to buff my stock of doctor's bags as those are on the thin side with my current character.

PS: the "Casino Trick" is playing blackjack till all the comps are earned, then switch over to slots for a chance to win big and roll waaay (max 32,000) over the bust limit. Need an 8+ luck stat for it to really work. It's not quite as awesome in the Sierra Madre casino, so the devs got wise there.

I like the use of the vending machine and the voucher, so General Masters, you don't have to outright avoid it, you can just limit its uses. I don't want to see it "changed" because people had to exploit it to its fullest.

I wasn't really asking for them to be 'changed', nor do I expect them to be, since you need the vouchers to do the really broken stuff and many characters are either (really) bad at gambling or won't be doing any and thus will not get them.

As things are I do, in fact, limit their use, mostly either getting more Insta-Mash to make Caravan Lunches or the occasional super stimpack when my supplies run low and I don't have all the parts. My point was more that their design should have taken such things into account so that the vouchers wouldn't make things ridiculous.

Fallout 1 was about 100 years ago fallout 2 was about 40 btw