[quote=generalmx]
jlf65 wrote:
Hmm - it's Project Nevada that makes the food such an issue, especially in hardcore mode. PLain vanilla without hardcore, I agree, food isn't an issue. The chems are also more important with PN in hardcore - for example, you run out of doctor's bags and run into raiders - half of them throwing grenades, and the other half shooting at you with hunting and assault rifles. You NEED to pop some Med-X to ignore your crippled limbs so you can fight, and HC means you can't just inject the limb with a stimpak. Pop some more chems to do more damage, steady your aim, boost your AP... it's a whole 'nother game compared to vanilla normal mode.
Note for food in the Capital Wasteland with PN I've been OK since I installed the mod "Simple Roasted Food": http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/55859
I of course needed to make my own PN compatibility patch which added the flags that PN adds to all food, as well as rebalances the food in comparison to PN's values. I plan on releasing the patch on Nexus but haven't yet. Most food from the mod only restores 15-30 hunger which is nothing compared to vanilla values, but at least the meat can be farmed at a low level easily enough and once cooked won't increase the PN dynamic HTS values. I consider it proper balancing for the Capital Wasteland where food is scarcer. I also play with PN Rebalance on at least "Tough Bargain" so buying food is silly expensive at the beginning.
For the OP's question: really if all you do is use a mod like PN Rebalance and up the trader difficulty / balance you will likely find serious use for crafting. I highly recommend this as caps can be too easy to come by especially in the Mojave Wasteland.
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Yeah it's tougher bargains and loot rarity that are the key to making cooking useful IMO. I use the FWE preset for PN which includes the tough bargain option you mentioned and then go in and manually set loot rarity levels at 25/15/10/5% for very common/common/rare/very rare items. I think that only affects randomly generated loot though, not manually placed stuff. So for example you'll still find the same amount of food and medicine in the fridges and medicine cabinet in Super Duper Mart, but you're a lot less likely to find it in random boxes or dead raiders.
