Forum:Suggestions for a Completionist?

Alright, I got New Vegas a while ago, but haven't really gotten into it yet; being a completionist, I have an innate desire to see as much as possible for my playthroughs, something which is complicated due to the somewhat contrived system of criss-crossing quests and such New Vegas (I can see what they were going for, providing a more dynamic world and what not, but really it's just another overly-formulaic case of "you have to be here at X with Y while also doing Z" if you want to see something special/complete a hidden quest/get unique dialogue/etc).

Anyway, I'm trying to figure out how best to tackle this, and would really appreciate some help; my inclinations run toward saving as many people as possible and such, so I'm planning on siding with the NCR (to be fair, they aren't really "nice" per say, but all the alternatives, even independence, end up causing too much chaos), so what advice would you give to someone who wants to do all the companion quests, as many side and unmarked quests as possible, get as much information as possible (dialogue, notes, etc), visit all the locations, and get as many items as possible while still following said tract (noting I also wish to get the best [see: most moral] possible ending for each settlement/character).

In particular, I'm looking for an order of quests that would allow me to accomplish said goal, or even just the order I should visit settlements to reach my goal; once I get a baseline path, I believe I should be able to expand on the rest myself to ensure I'm getting to do as much as possible.

Thanks for your time and your help,

-- Haegemonia ( talk ) 18:36, April 17, 2011 (UTC)

I play on xbox, and in order to earn all the achivements, you must beat it atleast 4 times. So there's really no rush in trying to do every mission. This time around do your NCR missions, the next time you could side with legion and their quests, and so on.Pappy002 22:47, April 17, 2011 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, I have really bad OCD, so I am compelled to complete as much as possible even on my first playthrough. Also, once I've done all the quest lines, knowing the best order for this will really help to experience the most will make any further playthroughs (in which I will likely do an NCR path). Also, I'm on PC, so I don't worry about achievements too much there.


 * I obviously realize that choosing any one faction will result in mutually exclusive quests, but if anyone can help me out with a good order that allows me to experience the very most possible it will be greatly appreciated. Also, even just knowing the best order to do the settlements in would really help. -- Haegemonia ( talk ) 23:50, April 17, 2011 (UTC)

completionist type note: the compass showing you direction sometimes has upside down triangles on it. these indicate locations, if thee triangle is filled in it is a location you have been to before, if it is open (not solid) then it is a location you have not been to before. near goodsprings is a location Goodsprings Cave which you will not be sent to on a quest but can find through noticing the empty triangle on the compass. hold off going there for a while, it is just far enough outside goodsprings that it causes you to 'finalize' your character and you want to finish Sunny Smiles' quests before doing setting your character in stone in case you decide you just don't like the way your character is developing.

for the start, perform as normal until you complete the sunny smiles quests and she sends you to talk to Trudy, DO NOT TALK TO TRUDY, do not enter the prospector saloon (you can but if you do it will cause problems with vendors not restocking until you complete either Run Goodsprings Run or Ghosttown Gunfight, the first is bad and involves killing townspeople and the second closes off the NCCF quests). Now you can go to the goodsprings cave, perhaps stopping to talk to Barton Thorn who wanders around the trailer near when Sunny Smiles has you cook up healing powder. Now you want to go to the North California Correctional Facility (NCCF) which is not on your map but is North and East of Prim, if you follow the road south out of goodsprings you will come to an intersection with a shack (Jean's Skydiving) on the south east corner of the intersection (this is due east of Barton Thorn & where Sunny Smiles had a ccooking fire). From Jean's Skydiving if you look SE you will see a swamp/marsh/wetland area with a line of hills on the far side, the NCCF is on the east side of that line of hills. There should be two Powder Gangers (hostile humans, they are escaped prisoners from the NCCF)nearby usually fighting bloatflies in the swamp, you want to avoid killing too many Powder Gangers at this point, and by happy coincidence if you or the bloatflies kill the two here you can get a Powder Gang outfit from them which will many of the rest you might encounter from being hostile if worn.

Head to the NCCF (be careful off the road, there are mines) and find the front gate which will be guarded by Dawes, who sees through your disguise but doesn't attack. You can bribe him to let you in, or sneak behind him and steal the key or kill him from stealth and loot the key off his body, the key being necessary to get into the prison. Inside the prison you can wander around until you find the boss (no need for a powder gang disguise inside the prison), Eddie who has a few quests for you. The final quest for Eddie is to find out about the NCR plans to attack. IF you side with Eddie, when you tell him about the plans the NCR attacks, if you side with the NCR and tell Eddie about the plans the NCR will also attack and the NCR AT THE PRISON will usually be hostile to you if they attack (not outside the prison though unless you kill too many NCR soldiers attacking the prison, and lose enough reputation with the NCR). Given this information you might not want to tell Eddie about the attack. Before talking to the NCR sergeant leading the attack on the NCCF, you should travel back to Goodsprings and talk to Trudy and finish the Goodsprings quests.

That's the only place I can think of where certain quests must be completed in a weird order to avoid closing them off. You do probably want to go to the Mohave Outpost before heading to Nipton. Most areas you will wind up traveling to at least twice because of the way quests are set up, so if you find yourself heading to explore an area which is too tough for you to handle realize that you will probably be back there sometime and can go explore there on your next trip through. In Boulder City it is a good idea to use diplomacy, the bad-ass approach makes some later quests much harder to start. Companions (even Ed-E) have quests which are triggered by taking them certain places - it is hard to get all the companion quests triggered in one play-through but it is possible. When you go to New Vegas, it will help a lot if you go to the Thorn (travel through the ruins north and outside Freeside until you find an entrance to Westside) and outside the south entrance to Westside there is a manhole to The Thorn, where there is a quest line that vaguely piggybacks on other quests. Arcade Gannon is a companion NPC who might still be tricky to recruit, it used to be that you had to recruit him the first time you talked to him or he became unrecruitable (supposed to be changed but I've never tested it).

For the most part the devs did a pretty good job for completionists, most of the time if you complete the goals of a quest before you get the quest you can still complete the quest by talking to the quest giver again.75.67.224.12 04:35, April 18, 2011 (UTC)


 * two things I got wrong that I just noticed. first the triangles are not upside down. second it is the NCRCF not the NCCF, there is an NCCF in California in RL but it is a Los Angeles county facility.75.67.224.12 19:35, April 18, 2011 (UTC)


 * Wow, pretty thorough, my thanks for the info; in addition to the above, one thing that I'm still curious about is cases where active quests intersect, i.e. if your doing quest A and you are also doing quest B you are given a new opportunity, get to see something extra, etc. -- Haegemonia ( talk ) 21:02, April 18, 2011 (UTC)


 * Usually you just go and explore an entire area, the few areas which are not accessible without the associated quest are all single quest areas. It doesn't mean you cannot go to areas multiple times only completing the quests you currently have, but most of the areas are open for exploration without any quests.  There are a few quest items which you can only pick up when you have the quest for them (actually I can only think of one) but MOST quest items are weightless and cannot be sold to merchants or dropped easily by mistake, or but away in storage somewhere (the only two items I can think of are the pulse gun and the Archimedes 2 rangefinder which you can sell/drop/store by mistake, there may be more).  The devs put a lot of work into making the game open and making it hard for players to ruin their games through that openness, the result was not perfect but very good - remember though,  anything one person can make, some other person can find a way to foul up. 75.67.224.12 02:49, April 19, 2011 (UTC)

Ranger Andy, Ranger Station Charlie, and the quest Return to Sender/ DO NOT talk to Ranger Andy before going to Ranger Station Charlie for the quest Return To Sender. The quest Return To Sender is started at Camp Forlorn Hope and the Ranger Station Charlie portion is only completable BEFORE talking to Ranger Andy and BEFORE completing the quest Ring-A-Ding-Ding - either will change Ranger Station Charlie and  make the Return to Sender quest uncompletable. Ranger Andy is in Novac, so keep in mind not to talk to him when you first go there (after completing the Ranger Station Charlie portion of Return To Sender there are no problem interactions between Ranger Andy's quest and the Ring-A-Ding-Ding quest - either can be at any status).75.67.224.12 05:11, April 19, 2011 (UTC) .

I'm at Lvl 35 and just got back from the Sierra Madre. I'm liked by the Legion and have their safe house key and am idolized by the NCR and have that key too. From this point, I could play any of the 4 endings instead of starting a new game. Good advise about Ranger Andy, he's needed for Raul's upgrade. Good advise about the NCRCF before Goodsprings. Go to Hidden Valley for the first time without Veronica and play it so you blow up the snoopy rangers radio; that way you get his hunting rifle. Take Comprehension as your Lvl 6 perk and spend the early part of the game on a book hunt. Make a list on paper of books and their locations and keep up with what books you found by crossing them off your list. I wanted to take Cowboy but knew I wouldn't be using melee weapons often. Cowboy required 45xp in Melee and I made sure 16 of those were from books. My Lvl 35 character has Upgraded Veronica, Cass, Raul, Rex & ED-E. I have Lily but she's not upgraded. Arcade and Boone will not join me untill I lose my liked status from the legion. Because of this, Boxcars is still waiting in Nipton. I need him for Logan's radiation suits and to rescue the Powder Gang hostages for history points with Boone. Squalor 16:40, April 19, 2011 (UTC)

I too am afflicted with completionism so I share your pain. Useful notes: - Complete the Great Khans quest Aba Daba Honeymoon before rescuing Anders from Vault 3 and killing Motor-Runner for Colonel Hsu - It's quite possible to complete all the weapon achievements in a single game. By level 30/35 you should be able to kill most enemies with even your worst weapon skill. - Silenced weapons are your friend for killing without generating Infamy - Complete the Bitter Springs quest before Boone's companion quest as sometimes quest-giving NPCs can die - You must lie to Michael Angelo in your first conversation or you lose the chance to do the Classic Inspiration quest - don't be too moral here, that was my mistake - As mentioned above, complete the NCRCF quests before entering the Goodsprings Saloon after Sunny's tutorial quests --Actreal 07:35, April 21, 2011 (UTC)


 * Alright... I'm going to try composing an order in which to do the various quests and such, which I'll post here; if you guys see any problems, please alert me. Once again, thanks for all your help. -- Haegemonia ( talk ) 16:58, April 21, 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, scratch that for now; I think I'm just going to jump in with these tips, utilizing the wiki on a step-by-step basis as I go. However, before I start (mind you, that won't be for a while, my computer is in for repairs) what would really help is a good order to visit the towns in (just need a list) as well as a good order to get the companions in (with the knowledge that I plan on doing all their quests). -- Haegemonia ( talk ) 19:30, April 21, 2011 (UTC)

It don't matter what towns you visit in what order, but doing quests in order somewhat does matter. Off the top of my head, don't talk to Ranger Andy, or finish Volare untill you have Raul. Depending on what you want to do for Veronica, wait to do either Vault 22, or Helios one. If you already did them, then you can still get the pulse gun. If I can think of anymore I'll let ya know.Pappy002 20:23, April 21, 2011 (UTC)

I did Helios one early; for the extra Science book and the Followers rep. I wonder how many players choose the sun gun (C-finder) instead of the book or the other choices ? I did the Freeside quests right after Sunny Smiles because I wanted the Followers safehouse key and the skill magazines. Did all except Kings and Silver Rush, saved those for later. Then Novac brahmin (free room & Boone's beret), NCRCF (Speech book), Mojave outpost (don't talk too much to Boxcars), Primm (for a 2nd good place to sell) and Hidden Valley (to access their armory). After I got in BoS I got Veronica and went to Broc Flower Cave. Squalor 16:33, April 22, 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks guys; with your help and by going through the wiki, I have managed to plot out a course that will see me complete as very much as possible. It took me a while, but it will make sure my completionist tendencies will be satisfied. Thanks again! -- Haegemonia ( talk ) 23:26, April 24, 2011 (UTC)

I'm the same way, i want my moneys worth, so I do every little thing possible in every game I play. I'm still looking for all the flags in the first assassins creed game. But when you finish your game, who ever you side with, your gonna wanna play the next faction, and while you are, your gonna get bored because you done most of the missions. When I started my legion game, it felt like a job doing all the missions just to get exp. There weren't many legion quests, so I had to do a bunch if NCR quests befor I went to see caeser. That's why I tell you theres really no rush in doing all the missions on your first game. It's got multiple endings, plus, some missions have different ways to finish, which influence the endings.Pappy002 05:24, April 25, 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh, don't worry, I designed my course such that it can easily work for any faction, any outcome. It took me a REALLY long time to finish, just making sure I arrayed things such that I could see everything, but I'm glad I did it. Only thing I have to do now is compile a list of notes & holotapes by area and I'll be good to go... Well, once my bloody computer is finished being repaired. -- Haegemonia ( talk ) 13:32, April 25, 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of seeing everything, there's this house. North and a little West of the New Vegas clinic, SouthEast of Carlyle St.Claire's house but close. This house has a Average lock on it. Anyone ever been in there ? Squalor 00:48, April 26, 2011 (UTC)
 * are you thinking of the house full of maize plants and a still? if so I think it is probably part of some dropped moonshiner quest (there are 3 stills I've found in game and one of those stills is the only reason one might ever go to Hell's Hotel aside from wanting to see everything or get the book). also there is a store with locked doors, booby trqaps and a decent condition sniper rifle in a hard locked closet which fits your description although is nowhere near the house of Maize.75.67.224.12 16:58, April 26, 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the house of Maize. I found it ,,,,, interesting. Squalor 23:41, April 26, 2011 (UTC)