Look, the Mojave is a total mess. You step out of Doc Mitchell’s house in Goodsprings, the sun hits your eyes, and suddenly you're expected to solve a political crisis involving a guy in a checkered suit and a literal army of Roman cosplayers. It’s a lot. If you’ve played Fallout: New Vegas before, you know the game doesn't really care about your feelings. It will let you wander north into a nest of Deathclaws at level two just because it thinks it’s funny.
Most Fallout New Vegas tips you find online tell you to just "level up your guns skill." No kidding. That’s like telling someone to breathe if they want to stay alive. The real trick to mastering this game lies in understanding the weird, often broken mechanics that Obsidian Entertainment left under the hood. It’s about knowing which skills actually matter and which ones are just there for flavor.
Why Your Character Build Probably Sucks
Charisma is a lie. Seriously. In almost every other RPG, being charming is a superpower, but in the Mojave, Charisma is a "dump stat." Unless you really care about your companions' nerve—which gives them a slight boost to damage and armor—you can leave Charisma at 1. Honestly, just put those points into Intelligence or Luck instead.
Intelligence is king. It determines how many skill points you get every time you level up. If you start with 10 Intelligence, you’re basically a god by level 30 because you’ll have enough points to max out everything that matters.
Then there’s Luck. People sleep on Luck. If you set your Luck to 8 or 9, you can basically walk into the Ultra-Luxe or the Tops and bankrupt them in twenty minutes. It makes every critical hit feel like a mini-nuke. If you aren't playing a high-Luck build, you're just making the game harder for yourself for no reason.
The Great Skills Debate: Speech vs. Everything Else
If you want to actually see the best content in the game, you need to prioritize Speech. It’s not just for avoiding fights, though it does that perfectly. It opens up quest paths that are otherwise totally invisible. Some of the best dialogue in gaming history is locked behind Speech checks.
But don't ignore Science and Lockpick. The Mojave is covered in locked doors and terminals that hold the best loot in the game. You'll find yourself staring at a "Very Hard" lock on a safe containing a unique weapon and feeling a very specific type of regret if your skill is only at 45.
Survival vs. Medicine
Survival is actually useful now. In Fallout 3, it didn't exist, but here, it changes how food and drink affect you. If you’re playing on Hardcore Mode—which you absolutely should if you want the "real" experience—Survival is more important than Medicine. Cooking a Bighorner steak that restores a massive chunk of health is often better than wasting a Stimpak that only heals you over time.
Fallout New Vegas Tips for the Early Game
Don't go north. Everyone says it, and nobody listens. You’ll see the New Vegas strip on the horizon and think, "I can make that." You can't. The road north through Sloan is guarded by Deathclaws that will ignore your armor and turn you into a red mist. Follow the intended path. Go south through Primm, head east to Novac, and then loop back up.
While you're in Primm, fix ED-E. You need a Repair skill of 65, or a Science skill of 55 (plus some scrap metal and electronics). ED-E is arguably the best companion for the early game because his perk, "Enhanced Sensors," lets you see enemies on your compass from miles away. It prevents those heart-attack moments where a Legion raiding party spawns behind a rock and starts lobbing grenades at your head.
✨ Don't miss: Finding The Best Sims 4 Tardis String Lights For Your Next Build
The Novac Shortcut
Once you hit Novac, talk to Manny Vargas or just break into his room to find out where the guy in the checkered suit went. But before you leave, go to the Dino Bite gift shop and buy "That Gun." It uses 5.56mm ammo, which is everywhere, and it has a high crit chance. It’s one of the most reliable sidearms you’ll find until you start hitting the DLC areas.
Dealing With Factions Without Ruining Your Life
The reputation system is complicated. You can be a "Wild Child" or a "Smiling Troublemaker," and honestly, trying to stay neutral is a headache. My advice? Pick a side early, but don't commit until you have to. You can work for the NCR, the Legion, and Mr. House all at the same time for a surprisingly long period.
Eventually, you'll reach a point of no return. The game will literally give you a quest called "Beware the Wrath of Caesar!" or "Don't Tread on the Bear!" that warns you if you keep helping one side, the other will hate you forever.
- The NCR: Great for gear and backup, but they’re stretched thin and kind of incompetent.
- The Legion: If you want to play a villain, this is it. Their gear is mostly melee-focused, which can be tough.
- Mr. House: The "status quo" option. He’s a jerk, but he has the Securitrons.
- Yes Man: The wild card. This is the path for people who want to rule the Mojave themselves.
The beauty of these Fallout New Vegas tips is that there is no "wrong" way to play, but there is definitely a "more profitable" way. If you play your cards right, you can finish almost every side quest for every faction before you ever have to make a final choice.
Hardcore Mode Isn't Actually That Hard
People get intimidated by the "Hardcore" tag. Don't be. It adds three meters: Dehydration, Hunger, and Sleep Deprivation. It also makes Stimpaks heal over time instead of instantly and gives ammo weight.
Ammo weight is the real killer. You can't just carry 5,000 rounds of 5.56mm anymore. You have to be selective. It forces you to actually use different weapons. Maybe you carry a rifle for long range and a 10mm pistol for close encounters because carrying 12-gauge shotgun shells is too heavy.
Hardcore mode makes the world feel alive. It makes that dirty sink in a vault look like a miracle when you're dying of thirst. It turns the game from a power fantasy into a survival western.
The Economy of the Mojave
Caps are easy to come by if you know where to look. Most players just sell every piece of junk they find. That’s a mistake. Instead, focus on "Value to Weight" ratio. If an item weighs 10 pounds and is worth 50 caps, leave it. If it weighs 0.5 pounds and is worth 20 caps, take every single one. Pre-war money is weightless and sells for a decent amount.
And then there's the casinos. If your Luck is 7 or higher, wear the Naughty Nightwear (you can buy it at Mick & Ralph’s in Freeside) to bump it up. Play Blackjack. Don't play the slots; they're rigged even with high luck. Blackjack is basically a license to print money. Once you get banned from every casino on the strip, you'll have enough caps to buy every unique weapon and implant in the game.
The Medical Clinic
Speaking of implants, go to the New Vegas Medical Clinic. Doctor Usanagi sells permanent stat boosts. They’re expensive—usually 4,000 caps each—but they are the only way to permanently raise your SPECIAL stats outside of the "Intense Training" perk. This is why you shouldn't start the game with any stat at 10. Start at 9, then buy the implant to get to 10. It’s much more efficient.
Combat Nuance: Damage Threshold (DT)
This is the biggest difference between New Vegas and Fallout 3 or Fallout 4. New Vegas uses Damage Threshold (DT) instead of Damage Resistance (DR). If an enemy has a DT of 15 and your gun only does 14 damage per shot, you are basically tickling them. You’ll see a little red shield icon next to their health bar.
👉 See also: Baldur's Gate 3 classes: What Most People Get Wrong
When you see that shield, stop shooting. You're wasting ammo. You need to switch to armor-piercing (AP) rounds or a higher-caliber weapon. This is why the Anti-Materiel Rifle is so famous—it doesn't care about DT. It just deletes whatever is in front of it.
Always carry a variety of ammo types. Hand Loader and Vigilant Recycler perks are amazing for this. They let you break down crappy ammo and turn it into "Match" or "Overcharge" rounds at a reloading bench. It sounds tedious, but the 20% damage boost is the difference between killing a Super Mutant in one shot or five.
Essential Actionable Steps for Your Next Playthrough
If you're starting a new save right now, follow this sequence to get the best start possible:
- Set Intelligence to 9 and Luck to 8. You can fix the rest later with implants and gear.
- Tag Speech, Lockpick, and Science. These give you the most agency in how quests play out.
- Take the "Skilled" Trait. It gives +5 to every skill in exchange for a 10% reduction in XP gain. Since the level cap is high, the XP penalty literally doesn't matter, but the +65 total skill points at level 1 is massive.
- B-line for the Snowglobes. There’s one in Goodsprings Cemetery and one in the Mormon Fort in Freeside. Find them and sell them to Mr. House’s robot, Jane, for 2,000 caps each.
- Get the Jury Rigging Perk at Level 14. This is the single best perk in the game. It lets you repair a high-end weapon (like a Sniper Rifle) with a crappy weapon (like a BB gun or a Service Rifle). It saves you tens of thousands of caps in repair costs.
The Mojave doesn't have to be a death trap. It's a playground, provided you know which rules to break and which ones to exploit. Take your time, talk to the NPCs, and remember that sometimes the best solution to a problem isn't a bullet—it's just knowing the right thing to say. Or having 10 Luck and a deck of cards.