So I'm pretty much at the end game of NV and well, I feel as if there wasn't enough build up to the climix. I feel as if I didn't play right and don't want to beat it with a sour taste in my mouth. I was thinking about starting a new save and doing things right. Some of the thing I think I did wrong:

-Rushed a lot of the main missions

-Did the DLC worlds too soon (which give you rather nice gear which make things easy)

-Put off most of the side quests until just before hoover dam. Meaning A) I was over qualified for most of them Because of A my progression didn't feel natural.

It's like that "What do I do now?" feeling you get when you finish a book or binge watch a series.

What are things people can do to make a play though more interesting? Some self imposed challenges? Nothing like "No fast travel" because that would make the game a tedious. But what about things like:

-I can only use healing items I get from scavenging/loot. No buying from store/doctors or healing from the sink autodock?

Any other player challenges you guys have in mind? I also want to do hard core, but I dislike the companion permadeath. Is there a mod that disables that while still being able to play hard core? Also i'm seriously considering mods. What do you guys recommend? I like mods that enhance the game experience but still maintain the feel of the vanilla. I heard there are bug fix mods too. Those would be so great as I hated the random CTD when fast traveling in Big. MT.

for mods go to the nexus and look at the top 50 NV mods. most of those if not all of them are good mods and obviously top 50 for a reason. yes there is a mod that just makes companions get knocked unconscious even in hardcoe. I run 133 mods currently on my NV and don't have crazy performance issues or many if any CTDs. U can never fully get rid of CTDS/freezes as the engine the game is built on was just not good but there is help to lower when it happens.

Thank you. Just curious, is there a mod that changes the laser pistol/rifle sound effects to the ones they had in Fallout 3, as I liked them a lot better. Any you recommend in particular?

EDIT: I use FOMM to activate my mods right?

umm EVE is the mod thats deals with all energy weapons looks/sounds effects so i would check out that. i would get some mods that fix bugs/stability so the games runs better and project nevada/extra options is always a good one.