Poll time: do you use the reloading bench in New Vegas?

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

It might seem strange, but I'd like to get a feel for how many people actually do break down and make their own ammo in NV. Personally, with 325 hours logged, I only recently really started to use them.

 

tl;dr story time!

 

For the longest time I thought it was kind of pointless; I could just buy lots of ammo. Between the Gun Runners, Crimson Caravan (once you steal Gun Runner plans for them) and Contreras, I was basically set.

 

Add into the fact that caps are easy to come by (my latest level 23 character has 200,000 caps sitting in his inventory), and I never saw the need. But then I realized something... surplus is just made to be broken down, and it SHOULD BE.

 

As you know, surplus is cheap and comes in bulk, but it wears your guns down something fierce. For the longest time I would just use it and repair my weapons, but it finally dawned on me what a waste that is. I have a mod that turns weapon repair kits into kits that can repair armor, helmets and weapons, and with Duct Tape not being nearly as common as I would like, repair kits tend to be at a premium.

 

So it took me a while, but I finally saw the light and began to use reloading benches, breaking down surplus and making normal, standard ammo from them that won't wear my weapons down nearly as much.

 

tl;dr version: it took me over 300 hours realize that breaking down surplus and making standard ammo from them is more efficient in the long run than repairing my weapons.

[KainsChylde]

As a random side note, why is duct tape so hard to come by in the game? Irl duct tape is often the easiest to find tape. Its sold everywhere for fairly cheap. In the average household if you need to tape something in a hurry that big silver roll is much easier to find than the little transparent one. So why, post-appocalypse, is the shit rarer than a $2 bill?

 

Back on topic, I rarely deal with bulk ammo. You're right that it makes more sense logistically to convert bulk ammo than to burn through guns, but I find the 100-round limitation annoying. I'd rather go melee than waste an hour at a reloading bench turning crap round useable.

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

I mainly deal with the ammo types I use the most. I'm not going to spend an hour making .44 magnum ammo, but I will break it down to get the materials from it so I can make .45 Auto ammo.

[Dee383]

I Only Ever Used Them About Twice , Cant Be Bothered With Reloading Benches .

Why Beth Didnt Incorperate Armor And Weapon Repairs At The Workbenches I Will

Never Know .. Duct Tape & Superglue In FO3 I Had So Much Of It I Started Sellin It..

[KainsChylde]

The distribution f3 versus nv for duct tape was all wrong. In an urban setting (DC) you can get it properly repaired or replaced any time you want. Duct tape and superglue, the home repair dynamic duo, aren't in high demand.

 

Meanwhile, out in the mojave, where proper repair or replacement could be a 2 county trek, you'll often hear the battle cry of the backyard fixit guy "If you can't fix it with duct tape, you didn't use enough duct tape."

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

As a random side note' date=' why is duct tape so hard to come by in the game? Irl duct tape is often the easiest to find tape. Its sold everywhere for fairly cheap.

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And 200 years later, it would mostly be used up, dried out, or otherwise fucked up.

Actually I'm suprised it isn't a high price item, able to repair armor/clothing and some other items a little.

 

As for the reloading benches, yeah breaking down surplus is the way to go.

 

However I often just use the surplus ammo as I think the weapon wear mechanic is rather poorly done and turned it off (weapons/armor still wear down from damage of course), but I think that instead weapons condition should have been split into two catagories, how dirty it is and how damaged it is, with physical damage being the least common but hardest and most expenseve to repair, and with how clean it is depending in importance based on the weapon, with some weapons requiring more regular cleaning than others to remove the chance of a jam (and with cleaning rather minimal for energy weapons).

[Kashked]

I never actually thought off using surplus ammo in that way... although I must say, even with mods decreasing the amount of ammo you find and harder economy mod, I don't really have any problems keeping myself supplied. I guess it is because of the DeadlierCombat mod, which means I don't need to expend a full clip shooting bad guys in the face from 2 meters, but rather tend to kill them with 3-4 bullets, or one-shot them if sneaking...

 

But to answer the question, no, I never use reloading benches.

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

What makes the reload bench shine is crafting specialty ammo in bulk, from JHP to AP.

[Kamen Rider Kuuga]

Things like weapon loading bug me about New Vegas; by the time you have a decent enough Guns score to actually breakdown and load most ammo, you normally don't exactly need to; even if you're following the actual story, you should have at least hit the 188 Trading Post and talked Alexander into supplying you with ammo, and from him it's a short hop to the Gun Runners proper.

 

Add onto that the fact that you can seriously rob Goodsprings and Primm blind to have more than enough caps to handle any major buys, even with shitty Barter and the Reloading Bench doesn't shine as much as it should.

 

Maybe they should have given you a massive boost to Guns while using the Reloading Bench, like in Oblivion when you used the Dwemer Forge in Battlehorn Castle, as a means to encourage you to use the thing early on when a good ammo supply is actually important.

 

 

 

I could also go on about Voracious Reader, and how by level 22 and the INT requirement it needs, the perk is basically worthless, but that's a whole other issue completely.

 

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

Yeah I agree the whole mechanic needs an overhaul, however I keep restarting my characters at around level 20 or lower, playing the unskilled char is a lot more fun to me, requires more thought to take out deathclaws.

 

That, or save up cash for an antimaterial rifle, and even with a shitty weapon skill 1hit deathclaws and anything else from so far they can't even see you, since the FPS mechanichic kinda sucks and breaks immersion in so many ways.

 

Personally I think the two benches should be combined together, give a decent skill boost, and generally allow EVEN AT STARTING LEVELS allow crafting of more basic stuff (basic ammos, etc) with special ammo types getting avalible at higher levels.

 

Actually if anyone is intersted I'd be happy to help with that too.

[Guest]

Its kind of a funny story, I have never ever used any reloading or crafting benches in my entire playtrough, except for quests that do require it, and honestly, I have no idea how they work.

And I have played fallout new vegas for a long time, and I've replayed it like 5 times.

Its just the fact that if you want to craft something, you need to search for worthless crap like wonderglue and duct tape, and I do not like my inventory cluttered, because I usually carry tons of equipment with me.

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

A big part of the problem is that the weights are done poorly, some things are silly heavy, some are silly light.

 

It's not exactly a new problem for Bethesda either.

 

Personally I wonder what restraints Bethesda put on Obsidian as far as fixing obvious shit like that that'd make F3 look even shittier (I mean why else would F3 super mutants be in FONV, their models are so horribly shitty)