There are a lot of ways to make Fallout New
Vegas more difficult. You could make it so you die from taking any
damage, you could force yourself to use horrible weapons, you could even only move backwards
to get around the world. But what if you wanted to use what the developers
intended to make it more difficult? Can You Beat Fallout: New Vegas’s Hardcore
Mode Without Eating or Sleeping? First, some housekeeping. Any time I start a new playthrough in New
Vegas, I’ll get the opening shots for my beginning-of-the-playthrough spiel, then I’ll
reload a save I made early last year. I do this because of one of the mods I use:
Project Nevada, which you can think of as a base level mod that has things hundreds
and thousands of other mods use and require. This mod allows you to change a bunch of different
settings, spawn rates for ammo, your hit points based on your Endurance skill, your run speed
when a weapon is equipped, almost anything. But I prefer the default New Vegas settings. So rather than reset everything manually every
time, I load an old save, use a console command to change my name and my character’s, and
go on as if nothing happened. That’s why my characters always look generic. That’s it, the curtain is closed, back to
the game, I went all-in on what you’d expect me to for SPECIAL Stats. Luck is high because I can hear the roulette
tables calling me from here, Charisma is a dump stat as always, and the rest are just
there. Skills are Speech, Repair, and Medicine. Traits are Skilled to boost all stats and
Trigger Discipline to make gunshots more likely to not miss. Right now, time is of the essence. In Hardcore mode, you must keep track of your
drinking, eating, and sleeping if you want to survive. It’s a fairly basic system, there’s a
tracker in your Pip-Boy just like you’d see for radiation. Once any of the four, Radiation, Sleep, Hydration,
or Food reach 1000, you die. Radiation isn’t really an issue in this
run but it’s still there. Sleep increases by 1 point every 50 seconds. Food increases twice as fast, at 1 point every
25 seconds. Then there’s Hydration that increase by
1 point every 10 seconds. Now what does that mean? It means that because I cannot sleep or consume
liquid sustenance in-game, I only have 10,000 seconds of playtime to beat Fallout New Vegas
or else I die. That’s 166 minutes, or 2 hours and 46 minutes
to beat the game. That’s not a lot of time at all. Thankfully, as anyone who dreads human interaction
will be able to tell you, time itself seems to slow down when you’re trying to think
of a way to respond after someone says something. So that 10,000 seconds thing doesn’t include
dialog or when you’re in your Pip-Boy. I dropped the Vault 13 canteen, and nm first
stop in the race against the clock was Cazador Canyon to discover the Great Khans early. That was a mistake, a boo boo if you will,
because there was no reason why I had to do this now. I could’ve easily fast-traveled to Goodsprings
after I got myself a bunch of weapons and Stimpaks and made the journey wrapped in the
safety of my own arms. Cazadors stung me a couple times, I reloaded
a quicksave after most of them, any damage has the potential to be a problem. I also got a surprise hug from a Deathclaw. It managed to swipe at my ass a few times
as I expertly bobbed and weaved around the rocks while passing through a Viper camp who
would distract themselves from me with the monster. That worked out for the most part. The deathclaw either got bored or died, but
the Vipers kept coming after me and I could tell from their scent that they had some good
weapons on them. Problem was they were Viper Leaders and they
had solid armor like Combat Armor or Metal Armor. My best ranged weapon was only a 10mm Pistol. I had a Grenade Launcher too but I wanted
to conserve as much ammo as I could. Eventually I managed to decide that killing
them was a waste of time, so I sidestepped my way out of their line of sight, leveled
up, you know what I put the skill points into, entered the Canyon of the Red Rock, spoke
to nobody, and knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to kill people with visibly powerful
guns. My throwing spears were broken and wouldn’t
fly. Stupid fucking game. Good news is I never leave someone else’s
home without a blade, my master would never forgive me if I left unarmed. I took more time than I should have killing
a couple different Great Khans. I used sneak attacks on them all, I couldn’t
risk alerting the others of my actions against the only family they’ve ever known. With a sniper rifle that I have no bullets
for and the world’s fastest firing gun with an AEK and 972 in its name, I returned to
Goodsprings, bartered briefly with Chet, and began heading for the Strip. I really wanted to stop by Frankies Guns and
Ammo, but it’s a mod location and killing those within for their weapons felt like cheating
for some reason. I killed a few of the Powder Gangers littering
the road leading Northeast towards the Strip, also ended a the puppies hiding out in an
overturned semi truck, and arrived in Sloan like a virus arrives in a new country. Snuffle’s leg got the Elite Treatment option
because he played basketball and therefore was far more deserve of my professional medical
treatment than any of the ordinary peasants in the area. That was actually one of the 10 commandments. In times of turmoil, protect the celebrities. Their lives are worth more than your own. Because Lady Luck was disgusted by my performance
as of late, I couldn’t kill Snuffles and the few Quarry Junction workers without taking
very much damage. The experience they offered wasn’t worth
the hits I’d take or the ammo spent on them. Outside of Quarry Junction, I immediately
discovered Hidden Bunker and reveled in the rare opportunity to murder an entire family’s
worth of bark scorpions, which rewarded a nice 9xp per kill. I wasn’t going to work with the Brotherhood
at all. Their quest line is too long. Being stripped naked and told to go deal with
an NCR Ranger eats up valuable time. There’s some time to kill as I head towards
the Strip. My primary concern going into this run wasn’t
time, speed runners have beaten New Vegas without any glitches or exploits in under
30 minutes. Even without any specific speed run strategy,
New Vegas can be beaten in under 2.5 hours if you know what you’re doing. My concern was what affects the lack of food,
water, and sleep would have on my stats. Speech is what I was worried about specifically. If you consume no water, you’ll see decreases
in your Endurance, Perception, and Intelligence as the thirst level increases. The bigger the level, the worse the effects. A lack of sleep will hit Agility, Intelligence,
and Endurance. A lack of Food though, that lowers Strength,
Perception, and Charisma. And that’s bad. Charisma gives bonuses to Barter and Speech,
the only two skills that can be used to beat New Vegas without shedding any blood or making
the Vault Shed cry. But, I planned ahead or I got lucky that doing
no research of any kind worked to my advantage. The lowest a SPECIAL stat can be is 1. For every point in Charisma, Barter and Speech
are raised by 2. The opposite is true as well. If you’re suffering from some effect that
lowers Charisma, Barter and Speech will be lowered by 2. However, if your Charisma is already at 1,
there’s nowhere for it to go. Which means the only thing I thought might
cause problems is now a non-issue. By this point, I will have witnessed an encounter
between the NCR and Fiends, killed an NCR trooper for their outfit, and entered the
Strip via Camp McCarren. As always, I went straight to the Tops to
murder Benny. This was a little tough, sorta. Tough in the sense that I made a difficult
decision. I really wanted to use the grenade launcher
to take out everyone, it was more than powerful enough for it, but doing so would put my limbs
at risk. My toenails are too precious to me for me
to put them on the line. With Benny, the Chairmen, and almost everyone
else in the main casino area dead and beginning to rot, I wasted a small amount of time by
meeting Yes Man. Siding with Yes Man is the quickest way to
beat the game, but if speed is what you’re after, it makes no sense to meet him now. You need to get the Platinum Chip from Benny
and remove Mr House from Earth before you can tell Yes Man to meet you at the Lucky
38. If you were doing things in the proper order,
you’d get the Platinum Chip, kill House, and call for Yes Man. What I did was get the Chip, meet Yes Man,
kill House, then return to Yes Man. An extra step, if you will. In those wasted minutes, I began doing something
odd, weird, something I don’t remember doing before: using Maria as an actual gun. Then I stopped by Gomorrah to run amok in
their casino. I required as many caps I could fit in my
secret hiding hole. At my peak, I had almost 5000 chips ready
to be fished out of the woman behind the counter. I would’ve kept going but it kicked me out
of the game but I couldn’t find the guy who would offer me another reward for being
lucky, so I left, got my payment from Mr House, watched in horror as valuable minutes were
massacred and stepped on by Robert House’s massive ego, and with Speech at 100, entered
the White Glove Society gathering house to mindlessly commit felonies. The AEK was phenomenal for maybe a second
and a half, there’s a reason I hadn’t used it. Maria did an admirable job taking the lives
of the cannibals inside the casino. One could even say that Maria killed them
with an unparalleled level of style and grace. The perfect weapon for the woman who’s purposefully
starving herself to death. A couple grenades were used to mop up the
remaining White Gloves inside the eating auditorium that I decided should die. Then, like a father looking for a new significant
other because he doesn’t love his wife or son anymore, I left to become a Boomer. Just before setting off for their territory,
I sold everything I didn’t need at the Gun Runners and bought some supplies. I wasn’t sure what it was I was after, what
gun I wanted, but nothing piqued my interest so I settled on more ammo for the guns I already
had, and knew for a fact that the Boomers would be licking my feet before this day is
done. The Boomers were as boring as the mints at
the bottom of my grandmother’s purse. I killed Melvin, Stimpak’d my way through
their barrage, killed Pearl, killed a few others on my way out, and was almost 40% of
the way towards my own demise. I can’t confirm this, but part of me thinks
the rate at which your Thirst level increases gets higher the more thirsty you are. I’ll come back to that in a bit. Almost all the pieces at been laid on the
table, ready to be used to make a puzzle. After getting Veronica as a companion, I quickly
got a few things repaired by Mr Thirsty, and returned to Hidden Valley to lose my way in
the sandy darkness. Veronica got me inside, I met with Ramos,
had done everything with the Brotherhood I had to, dismissed Veronica, killed Ramos,
stole his gun, and went back to the Strip. I took the route through Freeside instead
of using the Monorail at Camp McCaren again. This would likely save time in the long run
as I could fast travel directly to the Strip’s North Gate. Crippled after a fight inside the Tops, I
spoke to Yes Man again for some stupid fucking reason, Mr House was still alive, there was
no reason to talk to him yet. Frustrated at the amount of time I’d wasted
backtracking through the Tops with a broken leg and no way to fix it, I returned to Goodsprings,
hobbled along the one road leading through town, got a farewell gift from Doc Mitchell
in the form of medical assistance that I overpaid for, and my Thirst was already up to 600. To give some insight, it was at 370 at 9:12
into this recording. After about 16 minutes, it was at 600. Maybe I’m just not understanding this. Thirst increases by 1 point every 10 seconds. That’s 6 points per minute. Assuming all 16 minutes are gameplay, no loading
screens or dialog or inventory management, that’s a theoretical total of 96 points,
16 times 9 is 96. So how the hell did it go up 230 points in
16 minutes? I couldn’t tell you. But after seeing how dramatically it increased,
I became worried that I, like all of you watching this, will run out of time. I immediately returned to the Lucky 38, threw
knives into Mister House, yes I bought throwing knives specifically for Mr House, told Yes
Man to join me, he spasmed violently seizures himself into Mr House’s former living vessel,
and I told him a certain someone could bite the dust. I’d say the words but I’m a little concerned
that saying something like that in these [current year here] times could get me put on government
list. I hadn’t gone anywhere near the El Dorito
Submarine Sandwich Shop yet, the closest location I’d found was 188 Trading Post. It was surprisingly dark and lonely in the
hills southwest of the station. My only companions were dead grass and the
plants I’ve learned to be cactuses of the extreme variety. The NCR were less than enthused by my arrival
at the station. What I think made them real mad was when I
started launching live grenades at them. They didn’t worry for very long. The four inside woke up after I powered the
Lucky 38. I’d planned on letting them live, but their
mass awakening startled me. Being startled is a satisfactory reason to
blow up a group of soldiers. There’s that government list again. With the stage set, all that remained was
to travel to the Hoover Dam to finish the fight. I checked my hydration level shortly after
my arrival. 942 out of 1000. It went up more than 300 points in less than
15 minutes. Time was not on my side, it would seem. Supplies were limited, moral was low, the
dead bodies I’d made were disheartening to those I hadn’t killed yet. yes Man comforted me with a plan of attack. Destroy the generators. The lack of water in my body was beginning
to show signs of wear and tear, primarily in the form of an annoying flashing red icon
on my hud. Soon enough, I emerged outside the office
back atop the Hoover Dam. I paid no mind to the battles being waged
on the dam itself. My life was almost over, Thirst was at 962. All those Mad Minutes I did last year had
paid off big time, I knew for a fact that I had only moments before I would drop dead,
ending the story of Hardcore Carol forever. But like I said, I knew that Speech would
be unaffected by my advanced dehydration. As long as I didn’t accidentally agree to
battle the Legate to the death, I could convince him to stand down, talk General Oliver out
of committing suicide by Courier, and I beat Fallout New Vegas’s Hardcore Mode Without
Eating, Drinking, or Sleeping. There is one last thing to attend to. Those of us who know a thing or two because
we’ve seen a thing or two know what’s going on during the ending slideshow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPb0qHjaPfc). There’s a man behind the screen reading
it. What I wanted to know is what happens if your
Thirst was at 999 right as you ended the game, would it tick over to 1000 and kill you during
the ending? No. What it does do, though, is break the game. Your character cuts off the narrator by clearing
their throat, then he shuts up and never says another word. And that’s gonna do it…
