So I have been playing New Vegas with hardcoe mode on in very hard difficulty. I find so much food that I thinking about starting a small chain of convinient store in every major settlement in New Vegas. How so? And don't let me get on the water. I thought that difficulty would reduce the abundant of supply you found in hardcoe mode but It seems to only increase HP and damage of your enemies. This is quite disappointing.

The so-called 'hardcoe' mode is really a misnomer, it adds a survivalist sheen to the game, which is cool but if you're expecting it to be hardcoe scrabbling for survival you're going to be disappointed, sad to say. I do agree that the amount of conveniently-placed food is ridiculous. I always play on hardcoe mode and I've never had to scrounge for food, ever.

(Incidentally the increased damage and HP of your enemies is probably an effect of the very hard difficulty, not hardcoe mode.)

What type of food are you talking about?

Food that is growing on plants?
Pre-war food?
Food that people cooked up?
Meats you get from animals and bugs?

I don't find it odd that there is alot of food around. It doesn't give you that much health and it doesn't reduce hunger that much. Unless you have a high survival skill and you can make more complex meals. Some meats if you eat uncooked can weaken you.

I find I normally run out of water and food stuffs.

Mostly these two types. By the time I finish the gecko steaks I cook up from the tutorial quest I usually will have a bunch of other foodstuffs. Even with moderate survival skill (say 30) gecko steaks reduce FOD by more than a hundred, brahmin steaks almost two hundred. It's basically impossible to starve yourself to death unless you try really really hard. Random stuff like noodles or whatever are less filling but still.

Water I do run out of sometimes, but not since I got the Vault 13 canteen in Courier's Stash.

Though maybe that's because I'm a scavenger by default, when I arrive somewhere I open every single unowned container I can open.

EDIT: Okay, I'm not sure why I thought brahmin steaks reduce hunger by almost 200. They reduce half that. But my general point still stands.

I agree with Styles, the amount of food in the Mojave makes sense. The water also makes sense since not only would people be stockpiling in case of nuclear war, but the Colorado river isn't irradiated and it is quite a big water source.

There are mods if you're on the that can make food and water rarer.

Because it's not irradiated.

Mr. House saved Vegas during the great war, stopping 70 of the 77 missiles sent towards the Mojave. The seven that did make it, there's signs within the Mojave that at least three hit areas quite far from Vegas itself (The Devil's Throat, the far southern part of the map, two at Black Mountain), so that leaves three that COULD'VE hit close to Vegas. (could've) As for those four, it's been 200 years since they hit, so yeah, New Vegas is in pretty good condition compared to other parts of the world.

I had the same experience. I tagged survival, and found throughout most of the game I almost never wanted for food or water, unless I was careless and forgot to take some of the plentiful amounts I had stockpiled with me. As for opening convenience stores, hell, I wish I could open my own restaurant I have so much surplus!

Well, I can tolerance animals and bugs keep dancing the saricfice ritual to feed me. It makes sure no one get bored roaming the Mojave desert. But I think the the pre-war food and the products from plantation out of place. When is the last time you munching some 200 years old TV dinners O_o ? Wouldn't they become dust by then? It would make more sense if the pre-war food come to life due to radiation/wierd science and become some wierd monster than to have people eat them. And I doubt that agricuture would really kick off in New Vegas, giving that it's a big hot rocky empty desert. You don't just plant something in the sand, water it and expect to harvest something. It's just wrong to see some random farm and ranch in New Vegas.


This is why I ditched the canteen 5 minutes into the game. There are enough clean or dirty water (which could be easily purified) lying around already.

There should be a mod that removes all the water bottle from the game and force you to pack your own water with the Vault 13 canteen. Whenever you take the water from a radiated source, you get some dirty water while clean source produce the clean one.

It's an alternate universe where people were kept incredibly paranoid about nuclear war with the commie Chinese. There would have been stockpilng and as for how pre war food would survive, I would expect anything from a universe that has Nuka Cola in it.
Project Nevada not only allows you to configure how rare food is, but also allows you to remove its healing abilities and gives it different categories. A Sealed Salisbury Steak will give you a lot more benefits then a Stale one.

No, not the "it's just a game/it's not real/it's an alternate universe" agurment again. You can't just assume flawed gameplay feauture as unofficial intended feature or cannon lore. I can partly agree with the agriculture on dessert because we never truly know how powerful G.E.C.K can be. Nevertherless, there are no place in the lore that explain how 200 years old food still exist.

P.S thank you very much for suggesting me the mod : )

Ever been to Hoover Dam? Seen that lake over there? Well, here's your water source.
Also, hardcoe doesn't increase HP and damage of your enemies at all.
Waht it does, besides introducing Sliders for Water, Food and Sleep

- Stimpacks, Food and other Healing items heal over time, not instantly
- Stimpacks don't heal crippled limbs anymore. You need a Doctors Bag or specific healing chems
- Sleeping doesn't heal you
- Ammo has weight
- Companions can die

Umm, why do you post this? I'm more than halfway through the game in hardcoe-Very hard already. Of course I know what hardcoe is. Btw lake Las Vegas is at the same size as a swimming pool. Would have make more sense If they say the source were the Colorado river (I am not American, sorry If I'm confused with the name).

Here's the reason why i'm posting this.




Umm, the river is there, too. Just sayin...
Also Lake Mead's a bit bigger than a swimming pool, and resonates well with the overall size of the map.

Err, what is in the quote that makes you think I don't get hardcoe mode ? About lake mead, yeah it's my bad. I mistake the lake for the river and thought that they get water from the tiny Lake Las Vegas puddle instead.

Anyway, back to topic, higher difficulty should reduce amount of supply in hardcoe mode.

@qkle

Because of that claim here



This is factually wrong.

Irrigation can work wonders. There are ample historical precedents for these - the ancient Egyptians managed it, for instance.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

The Lobotomite isn't using the "it's fantasy, it doesn't have to make sense" argument when he says "it's an alternate universe". In an alternate timeline where society never progresses beyond the '50s and are perpetually paranoid about Chinese invasion or nuclear fallout, it makes sense that people would be massively stockpiling long-lasting packed food. Though it still doesn't make much sense that any of this food would still been uneaten two hundred years later, considering that most of them aren't exactly well-hidden.

I always just pretended that the 'pre-war' food in FNV was just food manufactured in the NCR and imported to the Mojave. Makes more sense that way.

@Tranquillus Well, it would have make sense if the farm were diretly placed along the river. But from what we see in the game, farmer in New Vegas only place farm near the source of water and that's it, no fertilization, or fancy terraforming at all.

I didn't read Lobotomite post carefully, silly me. I agree that people could have been stockpilling massive amount of food in those vaults or some private/government apocalyptic warehouses. Yeah, come to think of it, all those can food could also be post-war product. There are no information about how industrial California can be but it is probable that they already have factory up and running.

Remember though the context in which you see it - we're told quite explicitly that the NCR farms are failing. The not making sense is quite in-universe.

Yeah I'd agree it's not that there's too much of food and water, it's that Starvation and Dehydration levels aren't presented well enough to properly convey life in a desert. It's too easy to find items to throw together a couple of Caravan Lunches and stuff, or find a Trader and stock up on Purified Water - which is why I limit what my character can carry. But yeah, Caravan Lunches, I don't think my food requirement has ever gotten so far as to need one (-15 Dehydration and -200 Starvation), lol, but I like that it's implemented... it's just superfluous given the rate at which Dehydration and Starvations levels move.

One other thing that the Rebalance module of Project Nevada allows you to do is configure how quickly your dehydration, starvation and sleep levels rise in a day. This is a big mod with four modules, but you can choose to only download the Rebalance one if you don't want anything else.

Pre-war food survives thanks to Science! or what ever Willy Wonka was working on for soda that never goes flat.

Would I want to eat it? No I would not. The amount of pre-war food in the Mojave would be explained a couple of ways. As other mentioned the pre-war stockpiles of food we massive. The other is that the people of the Mojave farm crops and animals. There are alot of animals to hunt and wild food to gather. So with all that fresh food around, there is no need to eat a 200 year old tv dinner. Fresh corn and meat or a 200 year old can of pork and beans. What would you pick? lol

Can I point out that, technically, without modern technology Vegas shouldn't even be habitable? It was a flat desert plain before humanity came along and decided to build a city there. There was, IIRC, literally no water to be had beyond what humanity piped in initially.

So, really, considering New Vegas has running water, etc... I would say that area is actually in massively better condition than the rest of the world. After all, two hundred years later of possibly near-nonexistant maintenance and the water and power systems are still mostly intact.

Now, before anyone calls this illogical, let me remind you parts of the Roman aqueduct are still intact and usable. That one, we're only talking about close to a thousand years of no maintenance.

Las Vegas has water from artesian aquifers. People first settled in Las Vegas because it had water, Vegas is Spanish for Meadow. When the population boomed, they started having to pump water from the Colorado River. After the nuclear war, the population of Vegas is nothing as it once was. So there would be enough water to go around. Since Las Vegas was saved by Mr.House, alot of the water systems that take water from the Colorado is still in place.