Hello all, I've been an avid player of New Vegas since the day it was released (the only game I went to a midnight release for, actually). For awhile now, I've been playing both the 360 and PC versions, and am looking to do a hardcoe run on the PC (I have all 4 DLCs as well as Gunrunners' Arsenal). I only have a vague idea of where to begin, but I have my first 3 skills I'm going to tag:

Melee (no need to worry about bullets)
Speech (high speech level will be invaluable)
Survival (so all food and drinks will restore a higher amount of HP)

And the SPECIAL will look like this (if me remembering that you get 5 points to distribute at character creation is right. if i'm wrong, please correct me):

S - 7
P - 5
E - 7
C - 6
I - 5
A - 5
L - 5

I would like to know if this is a decent starting build, as well as any tips you guys have for playing on hardcoe. Not sure what difficulty I'm going to pick yet, though.

I'm slightly confused. You don't generally have to make any special accomodations for playing on hardcoe with the exception that explosives ammo is especially heavy and hard to cope with. Practically any character build that works on non-hardcoe will work on hardcoe to the point where I'm not even sure why anyone wouldn't have hardcoe turned on by default.

Queue

How much does ammo weigh then? Cuz I tend to hoard ammo even for a gun I dont have, because i may use it later.

That's going to be your concern. The heaviest ammunitions are Missiles, Flamer Fuel, .50 MG, .45, .308, & Microfusion Cells. Pack Rat helps a lot with them. Ammo doesn't weigh a whole lot, but every hundred rounds or so is usually a couple pounds. Not a huge deal, but it can hinder you.

Stockpiling bullets still does work, but you'll have to leave the ones you aren't using at home.

-Nukeknockout

I'm doing a similar thing right now - my first ever Melee/Unarmed hardcoe character. I thought it would be awful, but its surprisingly powerful.

My special is this -

SPECIAL - STR 7 PER 3 END 8 CHR 1 INT 6 AGL 6 LCK 9

I've tagged Science, Melee and Sneak, while raising Unarmed as a fourth skill. I've had to increase a few other skills for some perk requirements, but other than that, I'm going with the four mentioned here. Also, this is my first ever New Vegas character that will have no points placed in Speech. At all.

I've found that for a close quarters melee fighter the Travel Light perk is rather nice. Stick to light armour, take this perk and your running speed is very fast. It really closes the gap between you and enemies with gun, therefore negating their ranged advantage.

My opinion? Un-tag Speech and go with Sneak. Use Sneak crits. with Melee and weapons so you won't have to use so much ammo. I tend to use a Hunting Rifle (or Paciencia, since you have GRA. Can be bought at Novac.) for longer shots and a Pistol or Shotgun (not SMG; ammo eater) for close range. If you're not a Sneaky type then just tag Guns. Less ammo you have to worry about, the better. It's good you tagged Survival, that's useful especially when you get into Dead Money.

As for your SPECIAL, seems good to me. My only issue with that is Charisma is too high, Charisma isn't that valuable in New Vegas. I would take that down and put the points into Agility and Intelligence. But that's just me.

Other than that, seems good.

Like Nuke said it helps to know what is the heaviest ammo types, but it also helps to know what is the lightest ammo types.

BB's are the lightest, followed by 22LR, 5mm, Flamer Fuel(normal actually only weighs 0.02 lbs), ECP and 5.56mm. An Assault Carbine could be a good back up weapon and 500 5mm rounds with Pack rat(essential) only weighs just over 4 lbs. Getting the Vigilant Recycler perk also allows you to convert EW ammo into Optimized ammo which weigh less then standard rounds, take off more DT and do more damage.

Pack Rat also really helps with your water, food and crafting supplies

Making Energy Weapons your primary combat skill isn't a bad thing. In fact, it's got several good things going for it. Semi-universal ammunition is pretty nice. The pistols use Energy Cells, the rifles use Microfusion Cells, the RCW + heavies use Electron Charge Packs. This makes carrying alternate weapons much simpler. You can carry a lightweight laser pistol for killing 'pest' enemies, a heavier Plasma Defender for close-in work, and both use Energy Cells, even through the defender does much heavier damage. Though honestly I find that a modded Laser Rifle, which is easy to obtain, is more than enough weapon until you get the Holorifle. And the Holorifle is more than enough weapon for the rest of the game, though you could play around with the pulse gun or the sonic emitter or a Gauss rifle for giggles, I suppose...and all without using up the Holorifle's MFC supply.

A tag-set of Energy Weapons + Repair + Science, and maxing them all out before worrying about other skills has served me very, very well in the past. Jury Rigging and Vigilant Recycler are the only low/mid-level perks that are 'must haves' for energy weapons as well, though Finesse is a blessing, and Better Criticals is a beast. But this gives you lots of room to customize your progression without worrying about a strict leveling scheme. LUCK is your baby for an EWeps build, though. Lots and lots and lots of crits, leaving nothing in your wake but dismembered or disintegrate/dissolved corpses.

After those three skills, I'd work on getting Survival up to 60 or so, for 'Them's Good Eatin'' in the future, as well as the ability to make useful food and such.

In general, the recharger weapons aren't worth their weight, except for the MF Hyperbreeder Alpha.

Well, I started on this build and I have to say, drinking food and eating is actually required haha. Before on my regular playthrough id just ignore it, but now...its actually important, and the game became really fun for me. In addition, I'm packing lots of punches with the Bladed Gauntlet I got at the start (having the mod A World of Pain in place gives you options to choose a pre-selected set of gear before you leave Doc Mitchell's house).

If you are a hoarder you are going to need high Strength for carrying things, about 8 should do you until you can get the Strong Back perk.

And Barter of 60 for Pack Rat. And if you're really a hoarder, use Project Nevada's cyberware module to increase your carry weight, along with Powered Power Armor, to further increase your carry weight...and maybe a backpack mod on top of it all.

Touche, my good man... Touche.

I was walking around with a carry weight of 450 last playthrough in my suped-up T-51b. Most of it was taken up by 5mm ammo for my minigun. Took a while to get enough ammo to feel comfortable using nothing but the mini for the Dam.

Have your medical high so stem packs give more health, when i beat it on hard core i had 100 speech, guns, and medical, survival is really useless to tell the truth, but it does help for cooking and in hard core. bring your Int. up to 7 so you can get boone your veronica easy.