Survival is a skill in Fallout: New Vegas. It replaces the Outdoorsman skill from Fallout and Fallout 2.

Overview

The Survival skill allows you to create powerful poisons, chems, and consumable food and drink items at camp fires scattered around the wasteland as the skill is increased.

Higher levels of the Survival skill also increase the effectiveness of food items including stat changes, whether they are made from Survival recipes or not, up to a tripling effect at a skill level of 100. However, this does include negative effects such as penalties to Strength or increases to the player's Dehydration, Starvation and Sleep levels while in Hardcore mode.

For example, the gecko steak:

Heals 2 HP per second for 15 seconds at Level 15 Survival skill.

Heals 3 HP per second for 15 seconds at Level 30 Survival skill.

Heals 6 HP per second for 15 seconds at Level 100 Survival skill.

Note: Higher skill does not increase the damage of poisons.

While the skills name "Survival" would denote it simply being a practiced form of subsistence, the Survival skill also encompasses the (relatively) finer points of cuisine in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. This is well displayed with the Courier being able to prepare such food items as the wasteland omelet, fire ant fricassée and brahmin Wellington.

Equation

Example: A starting Endurance of 5 and Luck of 5.

In-game, health restoration and any other bonus from items are affected by the Survival skill with the following equation:

Note: The resulting total is rounded down if it is not a whole number.

In basic terms, food items become twice as effective with a Survival skill of 50, and three times as effective with a Survival skill of 100. This progression is linear, meaning at a skill level of 75 food items are 2.5x as effective, and so on.

Increasing skill

Survival in quests and exploration

Survival-based perks

Appearances

Survival appears only in Fallout: New Vegas, although it is based on Outdoorsman from Fallout and Fallout 2.

See also