I played hardcore mode by leveling up survival and regenerating my face with a tasty snack.
I had scores of unused stimpaks sitting in my inventory because I never really needed to use any of them... every now and then I'd pull one out just because I felt bad for them. Survival was pretty broken.
One of the mods I’m using, Project Nevada, lets you switch off the healing food and drink provide - meaning, for example, that the Sarsparilla no longer behaves like a discount (and fairly heavy) stimpak.
For some reason the healing of Nuka-Cola still occurs, but since they’re rather uncommon, I’m fine with popping one or two to get my HP back up.
I managed to get plenty of stims through a... less honest method.
Let’s just say I think the gambling can be pretty bullshit (which, admittedly, is kinda like it is in real life) if you don’t have a high Luck stat, and that I gave myself a high luck stat. I switched back, afterwards. It’s a single player game, so the fact people cheat will only really bother you if you let it.
Incidentially, I think the final section of Dead Money, before you reach the vault, is literally the game at its fucking worst. Speakers you can’t destroy in places where you don’t know where you’re safe, and a final section where you’re forced to slip past a number of holograms to deactivate a force field.
Died multiple times trying to deal with that bullshit.
Have died a few times in Old World Blues from melee enemies. Haven’t seen Cazadores... at all in this run, really. Not looking forward to the buggers, though.
How do you smash a window like that? I've tried hitting it with my concussion hammer, and it didn't work.
Knock back from a hammer or shotgun works - other melee and guns can do the job, but beware of recieving bullets of your own trying to push the guard through.
A wrench and I believe a long blade can smash a window if thrown. I thought concussion hammers could, too, but maybe I was mistaken.
Shooting the window directly with a gun will break it - though a pacifist/ghost likely wouldn’t carry one of those, anyway.
Grenades that harm people can smash windows, too.
Finally, a slipstream can make you move fast enough to smash a window while it’s active.
Those are the only ways I know of.