Overview
Guide outlining every achievement, and my tips on how I aquired each of them. Includes achievements for each DLC as well.I would say if you are an expert at playing this game, these achievements shouldn’t be too hard just a bit time consuming.My tips are by no means exclusive, these are just how I approached each one.
Introduction
New Vegas is a great game, one of my favourites of all time. So I decided to go for every achievement which was also really fun to do. I thought I could share how I got each achievement as a guide for anyone else who wanted to fully complete this great game.
I would say if you are an expert at playing this game, these achievements shouldn’t be too hard just a bit time consuming.
My tips are by no means exclusive, these are just how I approached each one.
Should be obvious but I’ll state it anyway, this guide won’t reference mods or console commands to make these easier.
Base Game Achievements Part 1
This section is for all the achievements found in the base game.
1. New Kid (See “The Boss”)
2. Up and Comer (See “The Boss”)
3. The Boss
4. Ol’ Buddy Ol’ Pal
You will likely have the opportunity to recruit ED-E from Primm first, or possibly Boone. Fulfill whatever requirments are needed, then ask them to join you and you’ll get the achievement.
5. The Whole Gang’s Here
These include;
1. ED-E in Primm
2. Cass at the Mojave outpost
3. Boone in Novac
4. Veronica at the 188 Trading Post
5. Raul at Black Mountain
6. Rex from The King
7. Lillie at Jacobstown
8. Arcade Gannon at Old Mormon Fort in Freeside
6. Crafty
This is easy. Get a bunch of drained energy cells, and recycle them. You’ll get this in no time.
7. Mod Machine
This can be tricky. There are not that many mods in the game and they can be expensive. You also need to be a high level for many of the mods to appear at weapon vendors. I did this on one of my early playthroughs at the end game. I broke each of the banks (hints later on how to do that) and bought a bunch of mods from the Gun Runners, as well as getting mods normally during the course of the game.
8. Walker of the Mojave
Should come pretty quickly over the course of the game.
9. Master of the Mojave
As long as you don’t fast travel everywhere and actually go exploring, you will eventually get this.
10. Globe Trotter
Snow Globe locations are;
1. In front of one of the gravestones in Goodsprings Cemetery
2. On the desk in front of you when you enter Hoover Dam visitor centre
3. On the desk in front of you when you enter the main building at Jacobstown
4. Inside the boomer’s museum on the desk to your right as you enter
5. Inside mormon’s fort in the tower to your right as you enter. Go to the top floor and it’s on the bookshelf
6. In Vault 21 It’s inside a locked room which can be picked, or the key can be found on Sarah as you enter
7. After you first talk to Mr. House, you can access the Cocktail Lounge. Go left behind the bar it’s behind one of the cash registers.
11. You Run Barter Town
I like to sell whatever I can find so I got this by the time I reached Freeside by trading with almost everyone, in particular the gun runners. If you want this quickly, make a save and buy lots of weapons then sell everything you have to the gun runners to hopefully get the achievement.
12. Blast Mastery
If you make an energy build, you’ll get this no problem. You likely won’t be able to get it early game, due to the overall lack of energy weapons. Becomes easier later on.
13. Love the Bomb
Pretty easy due to the amount of damage dealt from one explosion. The Powder Gangers provide plenty of explosives to rack up damage points early on, buy some launchers from vendors to finish it off.
14. Lead Dealer
Really easy. Guns are your likely choice of combat early game, you should get this one without even trying.
15. No Tumbler Fumbler
If you don’t pump points into lockpicking early you might have to go out of your way to get this one. One piece of advice is if you hack a computer that allows you to disengage a lock, don’t select that and pick the lock manualy. This also helps with the “Hack the Mojave” achievement.
16. Stim-ply Amazing
If stimpacks are your primary method of healing then you should get this quickly. Just make sure you have plenty of stimpacks before you initiate combat and use them to heal every time.
17. New Vegas Samurai
I rarely use melee or unarmed combat. Unless I’m doing a challenge run, I don’t see the logic in using close quarters weapons when many enemies have guns, also Deathclaws. Still this wasn’t too hard, just took some time. I had a decent melee weapon and used it on any weaker enemy I found and eventually got it. Melee builds will likely get it quicker.
18. Old Time Brawler
Same deal as New Vegas Samurai. Either make this your primary build, or defeat weaker enemies to gradually rack up damage points.
19. Jury Rigger
If your playing smart, you should get this fairly quickly. I’m pretty sure weapon repair kits don’t count but I could be wrong about that.
20. Hack the Mojave
Easier of course if you get high science as soon as possible. Hack any terminal you can.
21. Artful Pocketer
This would take ages by normal means. I never find a real need to pick many pockets in New Vegas. A well known exploit though is Sarah in Vault 21. For some reason some of the items in her inventory won’t leave her inventory, yet it will still count as you taking it. So put on a stealth boy and start rapidly taking stuff from her. I would suggest saving every 5 times incase you are caught and don’t want to lose reputation.
22. Outstanding Orator
There are quite a few speech checks in the game. As long as you are increasing your speech often you should be able to pass most of them. Keep hold of some Mentats or meeting people magazines to increase charisma and speech whenever you need it.
23. Desert Survivalist
If you focus on having high survival, and use food as your primary means of healing (which in Hardcore is a good idea) you will get this in time. If you have low survival this will take forever, so either read some magazines to make higher quality food, and/or nearly drown yourself and heal with food over and over again. Drinks won’t work, so don’t chug lots of Sasparilla expecting to get this.
Base Game Achievements Part 2
24. Know when to Fold Them
25. Caravan Master
I really like caravan, I know a lot of people don’t. Still 30 games takes a long time. There are many clips on youtube of so called “exploits” to win everytime but I could never get them to work, so I actually learnt how to play and made my own stratergy to win most of the time. Ringo is the easiest to play against, so stick with him if you do this all in one go. The rules are quite extensive so check out a video on the rules of play. Here is my stratergy if you want it:
1.From Ace – 6 pick all the Diamonds and Spades (you can use any two suites but these are the two I use)
2. Then from 7 -10 pick every card.
3. Take all the Kings and Jacks. Ignore the other royals, they don’t help much.
4. When the round starts, put your three highest cards as the start of your piles, then naturally start building to at least 21.
5. as your opponent starts getting close to 21, use any jacks or kings to screw with him. Ringo normally doesn’t start messing with your pile until at least 2 of his are done. Sometimes he does it sooner, but normally he waits. So keep messing with his to prevent him from finishing two piles.
6. Remember you only need two piles between 21 and 26 (and above his opposite pile) to “win” that caravan. So if he is winning one and you are winning one, quickly get the third between 21 and 26 to win.
26. Little Wheel
Really easy. You don’t even have to win anything, just get 10 chips and bet one chip at a time.
27. Double Down
Easy, same as before
28. The Courier who broke the Bank
– Get banned from all the Strip’s casinos
I make a point of doing this in each playthrough as you can get a lot of caps. To do this you need to get enough total winnings in a casino to be banned from playing in that casino. You should get a high luck stat for this, at least 8 in my opinion. You can do this at any game, but I find the slot machines or blackjack are the easiest to do this.
29. Hardcore
Hardcore mode adds several stipulations to make the game a bit more challenging. When prompted at the beginning of the game, click yes and DON’T TURN IT OFF until you beat the battle of hoover dam. Honestly it isn’t too hard. You don’t have to play better, just smarter. The only parts that really frustrated me were, ammo carrying weight and companions can die. My advice would be pick one style of combat and stick to it to limit how much ammo you are carrying (if you want to do explosives, good luck) and save often for when your companions die.
30. Ain’t That a Kick in the Head
Story related quest, and at the start of the game. Can’t be missed
31. They Went That ‘A-way
story related quest. Can’t be missed
32. Ring A Ding Ding
This is the quest where you confront Benny in the Tops. The only story path which doesn’t require you to do this is if you went straight to the NCR after talking to Mr. House when you enter New Vegas and did their questline, as none of their quests require you to confront Benny or aquire the Platinum Chip.
33. The House Always Wins
You’ll get this as you progress through the story if you side with Mr. House.
34. For the Republic
Same as before but side with the NCR
35. Render Unto Ceaser
Again, progress through the story but siding with Ceaser
36. Wild Card
Choose to have Yes Man help you take over New Vegas rather than side with any of the other factions.
37. All Or Nothing
Finish the game siding with Mr House
38. Veni Vidi Vici
Finish the game siding with the Legion (you villian)
39. Eureka
Finish the game siding with the NCR
40. No Gods, No Monsters
My prefered quest line. Finish the game with Yes Man
41. Come Fly with Me
You’ll get this quest from Manny in Novac, or simply enter the Repconn test site. You will be tasked with helping get the ghouls out of the facility. One of the ghouls, Jason Bright, will ask for your assistance in getting some “demons” out of their way. A pretty fun quest
42. Talent Pool
You get this quest from the Theatre in the Tops. You will be tasked with finding some new acts. Pretty easy and quick.
43. Return to Sender
You get this quest from the main tent in Camp Forlorn Hope after speaking to Reyes. You will be tasked with going to various camps on the map, and finally Camp Golf. There is a lot of back and forth in this quest, but still fairly straight forward. Just watch out for Deathclaws and Cazadors on your way to the camp near Bitter Springs
44. Arizona Killer
During the legion’s quest line, you will get this quest. You will be tasked with assassinating the president. I hate siding with the legion, but this quest is pretty fun.
45. You’ll Know It When It Happens
For every other questline you will instead be tasked with protecting the president. You need to have a good reputation with NCR to be given this quest.
The better reputation you have, the more access you will be given during the security sweep wich helps. Be on the lookout for:
1. A sniper on the the closest tower behind the stage
2. A bomb on the vertibird
3. An engineer who approaches the stage halfway through. He has a detenator for the vertibird, but will also try to run up to the president to kill him.
46. GI Blues
Talk to The King in Freeside and he’ll give you a series of missions. Finish them all for the achievement.
47. That Lucky Old Sun
Go to Helios 1, and complete the quest. It doesn’t matter where you send the energy to, or activate ARCHEMIDIES.
Base Game Achievements Part 3
48. Volare
Once you make it to the boomers, you will be asked to help out around Nellis. You can either complete a bunch of their quests, or give Jack lots of scrap metal (I think about 50 is enough to max out your reputation with the boomers). Once you have a high enough reputation, you will be prompted to talk to Mother Pearl again. This will trigger the start of Volare.
49. The Legend of the Hidden Star
This one sucks. You need to find 50 star bottle caps and take them to festus at the Sunset Sasparilla headquaters. Once you do the quest will fail and you’ll be given another quest. Once you finish that one you’ll get the achievement. Finding 50 star caps is a nightmare. You could in theory just drink enough bottles of Sasparilla until you get enough but that would take a while (also luck has no influence on how often you get one). I would suggest finding a guide to help find enough. I don’t know how long it would take someone to find enough without a guide.
DLC Achievements – Dead Money
From here on are the achievements for all the DLCs.
I personally really like Dead Money, which I know is a polorising opinion. I loved the survival aspect of it, just didn’t really like the constant backtracking.
1. Assemble Your Crew
Your first task in this DLC will be to find the three companions you will need to progress. It’s story related and cannot be missed
2. Cash Out
There are three possible endings to the DLC, two give you achievements, one will seal you in the vault forever. For this one you need to convince Elijah to confront you in the vault. He can be tricky to kill. Once you’ve killed him, escape the vault.
3. Safety Deposit Box
This is the other ending achievement (save if you want to get both in one playthrough). As Elijah is coming to the vault, quickly run down the back corridors you came from. He will be trapped behind forcefields whilst you escape back up the elevator. I’ve seen some people sneak around him before the forcefield appears but I can never get it to work. The original method works fine though.
4. Having a Ball
This is another story related quest. After taking everyone to their assigned locations, you will activate the gala.
5. Sierra Madre Souvenir Aficionado
The chips are used to purchase items to help you through the DLC. Pick up chips wherever you can. If you don’t have enough after leaving the Casino itself, get the rest before you leave the DLC as you cannot return.
Old world blues
Old World Blues is a great expansion. A whole new map you can explore at your own pace, and lots of optional stuff to explore. My only issue is the really, really long intro dialouge.
1. Cardiac Arrest
You have to do a seires of stealth based trails. If you have a high stealth skill, this should be really easy.
2. Make Up Your Mind
Finish a rather humerous conversation with your actual brain. WARNING!!: this dialouge is badly bugged. If you get the brain to think about “the stuff you’ve done in the wasteland” he can potentially get stuck in a loop. For example for me he went “Jason Bright flying into the great unknown. Helios 1 coming back online” and looped those indefinetly. Save before talking to your brain, and reload if this happens and avoid choosing the same options.
3. Making Friends
you will be given a quest to explore the big empty for holodiscs which reactivate all off the AI in the sink. Some are useful, some are worthless. I would suggest doing this after finishing the main quest (so the ending slideshow has happened) or else you will get a REALLY long slideshow talking about each of them individually. Don’t worry, you can return to the Big Empty anytime to complete this.
4. Spinaltapped
You will have to complete some tasks in a high school simulation to test the sonic device. Isn’t hard, but a little long.
5. Outsmarted
Honest Hearts
I like this one as well. Sure the quests are quite dull, but the map is very open and fun to explore.
1. When we remembered Zion
Simply start the DLC. Simple as that
2. In a Foreign Land
Finish; the Grand Staircase, the Advance Scouts, the Treacherous Road, and River Monsters. Then talk to Daniel to get the achievement.
3. Restore our Fortunes
Finish; Roadside Attraction, Tourist Trap and Gone Fishin. Once these are completed, you will complete the quest, Deliverer of Sorrows, and you’ll get the achievemene.
4. May My Hand Forget Its Skill
One of the two endings. Save if you wish to get the other one. Choose to help evacuate zion instead of confronting the White Legs.
5. O Daughter of Babylon
Choose to defeat the White Legs rather than evacuate Zion.
Lonesome Road
Not a fan of how linear this DLC is. But I love the dialogue between the Courier and Uylesses. However these are my absolute least favourite achievements in the entire game. The Warhead one especially is one of the most tedious things New Vegas will have you do. There is a really good guide which outlines where everything you have to search for can be found so check that one out for details.
1. Ed-Ecated
Found in the divide are various upgrades for ED-E, which will be transferred to the ED-E back in the Mojave. Use the before mentioned guide to find them all.
2. Condemmed to Repeat It
This is story related, and you will recieve it roughly half way through the DLC
3. Hometown Hero
Finish the DLC
4. Rockets Red Glare
You’ll find the Divide’s signature weapon early on. Throughout the DLC there are various commisaries that ED-E can activate where you can by it’s upgrades. Buy all of them. They are quite expensive, so bring a lot of caps. Remember you can always return to this DLC later.
5. Warhead Hunter
Early on you will get a detonator for the warheads. I hate this so much. Consult the guide I mentioned earlier to find all these, it will take quite a while. I’ve done it once, and i’m never doing it again.
GRA Achievements
These achievements are included in the Gun Runners’ Arsenal DLC. There are two damage based achievements, and three challenge based achievements.
1. Curios and Relics
A Unique weapon is any unique variant of a standard weapon, such as Dinner Bell or Maria etc. They must be from the base game and none of the expansions.
2. Master of the Arsenal
You should find during the game weapons that have “(GRA)” next to them in your pip-boy. Use any of these and over time you’ll get it. You should start the game with a Laser Pistol (GRA) which you can use to get some damage points early.
For the star challenge achievements, I shall provide tips for each one as well as tell you which one’s I did and which I think would be the easiest.
For challenges that require you to kill one or more enemies with a certain weapon or perk, only the killing blow has to be with the required weapon. Use this to your advantage against tougher enemies.
3. Up to the Challenge
1) A Slave Obeys – Kill Mr House with a 9-Iron or Nephi’s Golf Driver. I did this one
This is an easy one, Nephi can be found south of South Vegas Ruins East Entrance. A 9-Iron can be found in various locations. One of the first is a house in Nipton, look for the house with a hostile Mr Gutsy, it’s found in there.
2) Kill 15 Robots with a 5.56mm pistol (GRA) I did this one
The 5.56mm pistol can be bought from various vendors. The earliest is Lacey at Mojave Outpost. Any robot will count, so go to Repconn Headquarters, Sunset Sasparilla Headquarters, the Strip etc. and start killing robots.
3) Kill 20 animals with Fat Mans or Fat Mines
Should be fairly simple due to the power of these weapons. Simply find a group of animals and launch nuclear fury on them. Know the difference between animals and abominations, as abominations don’t count
4) Kill 15 Feral ghouls with Maria, Gehenna or Holy Frag Grenades. I did this one
Pretty easy with Maria, which can be got from Benny. Gehenna is weapon bought from the Vendor at the Gun Runners. Holy Frag Grenades can be found in Camp Searchlight with wild wasteland trait.
5) kill 10 abominations with katanas, dynamite, machetes, throwing spears, throwing knives, and/or throwing hatchets.
Probably the hardest of the one star challenges but shouldnt be too bad. I would recommend going after Nightstalkers or Spore creatures if you choose to do this one.
6) Cripple 5 right arms with shotguns (EXCEPT THE STURDY CARAVAN SHOTGUN)
should be easy. simply use vats and unload into someone’s right arm till it’s crippled. It also works on: wings, claws, forearms etc.
GRA Achievements Part 2
4. Combat Veteran
things get a little tougher now.
1) Kill 5 members of NCR or Legion Hitsquads with any weapon affected by the cowboy perk. I did this one
As you start to get a negative reputation with NCR and/or the Legion, they will occaionally send hitsquads to attck you. Simply kill five with any weapon with the cowboy perk.
2) Kill Ceasar with a combat knife
This will be tricky. If you are wiping out the fort, which you should do at some point for fun, you will have to enter Ceasar’s tent to kill him and there are a lot of guards in there. Normally I launch some missles to thin out the room but that would kill Ceasar here so you have to be more careful. If you are not yet vilified you could walk up to him, quickly weaken him then kill him with the knife. Then run like hell. Good luck with this one
3) kill 10 Chairmen, White Gloves, or Omertas with any submachine gun, light machine gun, or minigun.
these are the three families that run the casinos on the strip. shouldn’t be too tricky, but you will lose reputation with the strip, so expect resistance if you ever return.
4) kill Benny with his own gun, Maria.
I’d imagine this could be a little hard. My tactic would be to try and pickpocket him. If your sneak skill isn’t high enough, you could engage combat, aim at his pistol and shoot it to break it. Then pick it up and repair it with some 9mm pistols to use it against him.
5) kill 15 super mutants with 5.56mm pistols, Plasma Defenders, plasma grenades, power fists, Rippers, or the Bozar. I did this one with the 5.56mm pistol
Might be harder at lower levels but once you become a powerful courier this shouldn’t be too bad. Remember only the killing blow has to be with one of the required weapons. You’ll find nightkin during Come Fly with Me, at Jacobstown, at Blackmountain (before finishing Crazy, Crazy, Crazy) and an encampment can be found north east of Ranger Station Bravo, which respawns after three in game days.
6) kill 20 Fiends, Vipers, or Jackals with tire irons, baseball bats, lead pipes, machetes, .44 Magnum revolvers, and/or sawed-off shotguns. I did this one with the .44 magnum revolver.
Like super mutants, at high levels these raiders will be nothing you can’t handle. so grab a weapon and purge the wasteland of raiders.
7) cripple Caesar’s head with a throwing spear.
This is trickier than the previous Caesar challenge as if you accidently kill him with the spear before crippling him, it won’t count. I’d again say get close to him and turn up the difficulty to increase his DT, then once crippled turn it down again and run. I’d be impressed to hear if anyone could get this and then kill him with the combat knife.
Edit *16/12/2019 so someone actually managed to do it. Kill Ceasar with the combat knife after crippling him with the spear, in one go. Hats off to NightCoreMoon for doing it, and sharing with me how it was done. Have a read:
“I played on easy for a story playthrough and tried to get the “even a god king can bleed” as well as the “historical propriety” achievements simultaneously. It was pretty easy. One throwing spear point blank to the head, one chippy-chop with chance’s knife, bada bing bada boom dead salad. It took me a couple tries though. I went in at first on every single drug and uh, well, instant dead and no achievement. So I reloaded, DIDN’T do drugs (like a good kid), and MISSED. So I reloaded, didn’t do drugs, got gud, hit him in the head, stabbed him to death, THEN i did all the drugs and killed the praetorians. Not too hard, just stay sober.”
5. Pros Only
If the percentage of players who have actually got this achievement is anything to go by, this is one of the hardest in the game. It isn’t necessarily difficult but it is very easy to screw yourself out of getting some of these which can cost you the achievement. Good luck
1) kill any ten named Legion members with hunting revolvers, Ranger Sequoias, brush guns, service rifles, hunting rifles, or cowboy repeaters. I did this one
Named members means exactly that. They have a name rather than a generic rank as their display name. You need to decide you are going for this before you start killing named members without the right weapon as there are a limited amount in the game. Brush guns are tough, so I used this to pick them off.
2) kill any 15 named NCR Rangers or commissioned officers (Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Colonel, General) using a machete, Ripper, chainsaw, throwing spear, or ballistic fist. I did this one
Not sure why I did this and the legion challenge as both groups were then after me but oh well. There are considerably more named NCR characters than legion but you have to kill more to compensate. Using a long ranged weapon to weaken them, I then moved in with either the machete or ballistic fist. These are not the best weapons to kill NCR troopers with, so I would recommend doing some of the other challenges
3) kill 10 Mojave Wasteland cazadores with tin grenades, long-fuse dynamite, and time bombs.
not as hard as you might think. Use a long ranged weapon to cripple their wings, this will reduce their speed significantly. you can then throw long-fuse dynamite at them. Your only issue is that they like to travel in groups so try and get them down to one or two, then cripple both their wings and try and get them both with the dynamite.
Three star challenge no. 4
kill 5 adult Mojave Wasteland deathclaws with .22 pistols, switchblades, boxing tape, recharger rifles, or dynamite.
I would recommend finishing the Thorn questline. Then fight one deathclaw and weaken it with a powerful weapon. Then finish it off with one of the weapons. Be careful though as the thorn as quite glitchy so save often if you go with this method.
5) kill 10 Mojave Wasteland Mister Gutsies or sentry bots with brass knuckles, spiked knuckles, tire irons, or lead pipes. I did this one
Probably the simplest one to do. Go to Repconn Headquarters, the crashed vertibird, the strip etc. and kill the required robots. Try and get this one as early as you can, as very late game you might struggle to find the required robots.
Conclusion
You now know a method for each achievement in Fallout New Vegas!!
Thanks so much for reading my first guide, I appreciate any feedback and hoped you enjoyed and it was helpful for you.