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Update 2 ? Tutorial Action
Well, I'm out, it's time to track down the guy who robbed and shot me and hey what's in the mailbox?
And thus began about ten minutes of running all over Goodsprings, robbing all the random settlers houses' and mailboxes.
What a fancy bottlecap! I'll keep it.
Also in this house: a Single Shotgun and some ammo. Which I also stole, of course.
That must be the metal fella Mitchell told me about.
Thanks for digging me out of that grave.
Victor's screen just kinda does this scanning thing, like any old screwy CRT might.
How did you happen to find me?
I was out for a stroll that night when I heard the commotion up at the old bone orchard. Saw what looked like a bunch of bad eggs so I laid low.
Once they'd run off, I dug you up to see if you were still kicking. Turns out, you were, so I hauled you off to the Doc right quick.
Do you know those men who attacked me?
He also does a decent job of jesturing with his "hands". It's the little touches.
I've never seen a robot like you before.
I'm a Securitron, RobCo security model 2060-B. If you ever see any of my brothers, tell them Victor says howdy.
Goodbye.
Happy trails!
Looting done and thanks for digging us out of a grave given, we come to the Prospector Saloon like Mitchell suggested!
We enter and a dog barks.
Doc Mitchell said you could teach me to survive in the desert. Seeing as I just recovered from being shot in the head, I admit I may need a few pointers.
Meet me outside, behind the saloon.
Right behind you.
She hands us a Varmint Rifle and some ammo:
Obsidian tightened up the FPS elements for New Vegas. If I just try to shoot like this:
I of course miss horribly ? the bullet strikes somewhere just to the right of an entirely different bottle from the one I have the crosshairs on.
Holding mouse 2 zooms in and uses the iron sights (or a scope, if one is present). This works a lot better, and I knock that bottle right back down.
Try crouching down and staying still. It'll help your aim.
She's right ? there's still appreciable weapon sway right now. A few things affect weapon sway ? mostly weapon skill, whether or not your crouching, and if you have a crippled arm ? but we have sufficient Guns skill to pull off the Varmint Rifle. Sneaking pretty much eliminates sway, at least at this range. We knock the other two down no problem.
Got that right. I'm looking to fight a guy who interferes with the postal service.
Tell you what. I gotta go chase geckos away from our water supply anyway. Darn critters are attracted to it. Why don't you come along?
I could just end the tutorial, but what kind of LP would that be?
Okay, I'm in.
Aaaand she just takes off running immediately:
A short jog later:
Bunch of little monsters is what they are. Seems like Doc Mitchell treats more gecko bites than anything else. Let's see if we can get a little closer. If we move quietly, we can get the jump on 'em. More likely to hit something vital that way.
Crouching is also, of course, how we move stealthily! Note the little [DETECTED] up top. That's just Sunny and Cheyenne noticing us, not the geckos. What Sunny is insinuating there is that if we make a hit on something that doesn't see us, we get a Sneak Attack Critical ? much more devastating than a normal crit! The way critical hits work in Fallout 3 and New Vegas is that each weapon has a set addon to damage ? some it's, say, +10, +20, whatever, you get the picture. A sneak attack critical an additional 2x multiplier. Nasty stuff!
Bit tough to see (if you look, you can juuuuuuuust see the crests) but there's a gecko right under the ironsights here. I get a solid SAC off on him and he goes down like that. I deliberately provoke his friend, though, so I can show VATS:
Looks real similar to the old aimed shots from Fallout 1 and 2, if a little lacking in choices. No more running around shooting everything in the eyes, or kicking every enemy in the groin for us, I'm afraid. Also my chances suck here so I exit VATS and let the gecko get a little closer.
Much better. Just like in Fallout 1 and 2, we have Action Points ? however, these are used only in VATS (because otherwise combat is real time, so burning them to move would be awful). We have enough to line up two VATS shots with the Varmint Rifle. Different weapons have different VATS costs and generally the lighter the weapon, the more VATS shots you can get off. A few perks affect this as well.
I know how you feel buddy 
I do a better job than some checkered shirt losers I've met, though.
There's two more wells that still need clearing. You want, you can come along. It'd be worth a few caps to me.
Sure, I'll come with you.
She just gave us more ammo. Way more than we'll need, too! Always worth doing this quest if just for that.
Come with me.
Geckos come sprinting along at the second well.
And they're attacking some lady at the third!
I came up here to draw water, but here, you should have what I got. You look thirsty.
Regional influence is back, baby! Much more sensible than a universal good/evil scale, I think. Anyway, let's talk to Sunny and get our reward.
Here's a little spending money for the trouble.
Thought I might teach you about living off the land, and making useful things for yourself. Interested?
Couldn't hurt. No telling where this chase is gonna lead me.
Lemme think now... I know I've seen Broc Flowers growing up at the graveyard. And I seem to remember there being Xander Root over by the schoolhouse.
Bring those back to me, and we'll get cooking.
Can do.
On the way back to Goodsprings, our first Wild Wasteland encounter!
Note the woozy Vault Boy.
Yep, it's a Kingdom of the Crystal Skull joke! We'll take the hat though.
The sun won't glare quite so hard now!
The school. It's got giant mantis nymphs. They're weak.
And here's what Sunny sent us here for. Let's see about the graveyard now, look for clues.
SCORPIONS
And shoot some scorpions, yes.
We have bloatflies around the cemetary, too. We kill them. They're dumb and shoot stingers at us like weird jerks.
Ahh, here's what we came for.
The guy who shot us left kind of an evidence trail!
Also these things are in the game. We can later sell them for 2000 caps a pop, but I'm not really going to keep a sharp eye out for them because fuck that noise.
Shit in hand, we go visit Sunny. It's a good thing we have a magic Pip-Boy compass, because she moved around on us.
All right now. We're gonna be making something folks on the trail call Healing Powder.
Sounds useful.
Go on over to that campfire now. Give it a try.
I'm not gonna do this sort of thing much either, honestly. More than enough stimpacks.
Sometimes it won't be a campfire you need. Might need to do some work on your guns and ammo, maybe. Important thing is it's all the same idea. You just need to find the right place to set up shop. Work bench or... a reloading bench, whatever.
I'm heading back now. Hope I didn't miss anything good on the jukebox. Cheyenne would never forgive me.
Uh, okay.
Hey, do me a favor. Trudy ? she's the bartender up at the Prospector, kind of the town mom ? she likes to meet newcomers. She'd be cross with me if I didn't ask you to poke your head in and say hi.
Can do!
That's a hook for the next big Goodsprings quest. We'll get to that. First, and more importantly, who's this jerk?
What's wrong?
My girl is trapped by geckos on the ridge and I can't get to her. Please, she's going to die!
Where is she?
Go up the path past the broken radio tower and go to the right... they're at the top of the trail.
I'll see what I can do.
I could change up Courier here, but I'm okay with how he is. ONWARD
Geckos.
Oh jesus christ they can jump! 
GECKO TRAIN COMIN' THROUGH
Hey, I picked up a shotgun a while ago!
And we leveled up from that!
We get a decent chunk of skill points. I put them into Guns, Lockpick, and Repair.
We also get a perk this level! They're every second level, less common that Fallout 3's one-per-level and more common than the every-third-level from 1 and 2. I pick Intense Training and put the perk into Endurance for REASONS.
Bear traps. So easy to disarm.
Imagine 4 balls on the edge of a cliff...
It's pretty well known at this point, but this thing is a reference to SA Forums comedy goldmine Zyborne Clock.
Fuck you, Johnny.
We also picked up a new gun from a box on the hill.
Oh hey, it's Barton. Better tell him his girlfriend died or ran off or something.
Ohhh okay! Gonna kill you now.
With our new 10mm pistol, we have 4 VATS actions with a full AP fillup. They all go into Barton's head.
We steal his stuff as revenge for his planned doing that to us.
also this gecko clipped into then got stuck in a rock
Now we can talk repairing!
Fallout 3 introduced a few things, one of which was item health. You have two of the same item, you can take parts from one and put them in the other to make a more intact thingamabob.
Like so. A big improvement over Fallout 3's method is that each item in New Vegas has some time at full effectiveness instead of instantly losing its effectiveness after using a gun once or getting hit by one mutated fly's stinger projectile.
We spot some coyotes on the way back and shoot them.
Don't worry, I use all the parts of the whatever I kill.
Fast travel is still A Thing. First introduced in Oblivion, it's been in every Bethesda game since (all three of them).
You enter caves in New Vegas by walking up to the mouth and activating the sheer blackness. There's some coyotes in Goodsprings Cave. We kill 'em, no problem. The repaired 9mm is doing a good job!
Lets loot these corpses and duffle bag though.
One...
Two and...
GAH
Don't suppose you'd care to trade? I'm missing a few essentials and- oh, screw this. Lying just ain't in my nature. I'll tell it to you straight. I've been following you for a good bit now.
Go on...
It started off innocently enough. I was travelling, as I often do, and happened to observe you picking up one of those blue-star caps. You didn't show any reaction to it, so I figured you didn't know what you'd gotten your hands on.
Why didn't you say anything then and there?
I had to make sure of your disposition. There's a lot of jumpy folks out there that'd shoot a man as soon as talk to him. Now that's we're conversing, though, I can tell you what I know about those caps.
Those caps with the blue star on them, the tale goes, are the key to that treasure. They're called Sunset Sarsaparilla Stars.
So you collect these caps too?
Nah, I gave it up years ago. Too dangerous. And even if I did still collect them, I'd tell you the same. There's people out there so mad with the idea of treasure that they'll attack strangers just on the suspicion that they have some of those caps.
Thanks for the info, but I'll be going now.
No problem. If you do end up trying to collect more stars, watch out for a man named Allen Marks. He's killed several people for their stars already.
And the duffle.
Also a dead ghoul. We'll learn more about these guys later.
Ooh, sparky bits. Not bad.
Next time: Selling shit, a quest, and then peacing out of Goodsprings!