There is a particular type of weapon that Boone will actually pick up if he sees it dropped in the game world. I think it's the hunting rifle, so if you can, find out where you will find enemies who are wielding hunting rifles, go kill them and then take Boone there. He might pick it up. Alternatively you can equip him with another weapon. Try using the sniper rifle, assault carbines, varmint rifles... Might not be the same thing as him having his original weapon, but at least he won't be useless right?

Ok after typing that, I checked the wikia page and it seems there are possible solutions to this bug. Read here - http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Boone%27s_scoped_hunting_rifle (and make sure you check out the Talk page as well)

Lots of spoilers in your questions mate ;)

You can just walk up to those guys and untie them. It will be free xp, and if you're lucky, the legion might not even attack you. They didn't attack me, but they did attack my friend so YMMV. Even if they do, it's only a handful of them, so the lost rep won't be so bad. Trust me, you will kill a whole bunch of people from all sorts of factions in the game. If you have RP issues with it, then just ignore the quest.

For the Novac safe, just go in at night and pick the lock. Or else pickpocket the key from the lady who runs the place (I think this should work, not sure though, I picked the lock). You might find yourself surprised when you see the contents of the safe.

To repair 'That Gun', I would recommend using repair kits. Figure out how to craft them, and start collecting the items as and when you see them, because later on weapons will cost thousands of caps to repair. The kits will be very handy then.

No particular place to get good weapons, you will get them as you play the game. Robots I can't help you, my character was totally useless against them. I assume energy weapons would be a good idea, not sure. Caps will flow freely once you reach The Strip, don't worry about it. I doubt there is really anything you need lots of caps for before that. You could take the perk to get more caps in the game world, or raise your barter skill (very useful). There is a particular, limited item in the game world that fetches 2000 caps each. Not sure if you have found any yet, so I won't spoil it for you. What I've written should be hint enough if you come across them.

Hacking 101... There are a set of words on the terminal when you try to hack it. You get 4 attempts to choose the correct answer. The hacking minigame is a bit like playing Hangman... you make a guess, the computer tells you how many letters were correct and then you continue guessing like that till you get the right answer. If there were no matches, then you will know that any letter appearing in your guess is not in the real password. Likewise, if there are matching letters, then you have to apply a process of elimination to get the password. Save before hacking a terminal, and quit after 3 tries if you can't get it and start again. It's a mix of reasoning and guesswork really.

Shooting out specific limbs/body parts is good to impair the enemy. Shooting out an enemy's legs means they cannot attack you, so if you find someone rushing you, then that's something to try. Shooting the hand that is holding their weapon will mean that they cannot use that weapon against you. Or just go for the head and get it over with :)

Crafting is pretty easy. You can cook stuff at a campfire, or make ammo at a reloading bench. Go to the place, activate them and you will be shown the recipes you can make and the materials required for them. As your survival skill increases, more recipes become known to you. Try it once, you will get a hang of it very easily.

AP rounds are good against robots but if you want the best option then follow the main quest till you get to Freeside. There is an energy weapons dealer that sells a Pulse Gun which will make short work of any robot, turret or even Power Armored enemy.

HACKING MODIFIERS
Highlight any combination that includes closed pairs such as these:
[ ]
< >
()
If it highlights gibberish between them like a word (or just highlights an open & close next to each other) , click it and it'll either eliminate a dud password or reset your number of remaining attempts back to 4


Hacking is a hangman style thing as has been said, you pick a word at random and the system tells you how many letters you got right and you use logical deduction to figure out the rest. Say if you pick 2 words that end in ING and you get at least 3 letters right in each, the chances are good that the word ends in ING. You can discount any word that doesn't end in ING and then use any other correct letters to narrow your guess


SAMPLE PASSWORDS
Sneaking
Stealing
Staplers

If the correct password was 'Stealing', selecting Sneaking would give you 6/8 correct because the only letters different are the T/N & L/K. If you selected Staplers, you'd get 3/8 correct because only the ST at the start and the L towarsds the end match the proper password.

Your best result (other than guessing right first time), is when you get a guess with 0 letters correct, scan through the remaining words and any matches between your last guess and this next word immediately eliminates it as the password. Its pretty much the same with getting 1 right, if you pick something that starts with ST and you get 1 letter right, the password definitely does not start with ST

Never knew about that one, thanks!:D

I always use at least 2 guesses before using the brackets because quite often I get my guess allowance replenished on the first go

I think that having a high science skill increases the number of removal/replenish items, either that or gives you less words to choose from

I did not know that, nice to know.

What I typically do is look through the list for the words with the most letters in common. Usually one of those ends up being the answer. Not sure if that's reliable, but if they aren't it you've pretty much got it solved there. That other tip you're gave is going to be quite useful as well.
I've heard that having a higher skill level makes it easier, I think that's how it works. Or at least it seems like the number of possibilities is shrinking.

I love this game. I play it for a few hours at a time, savoring it. Not too far into the main quest yet, I'm only in Novac, but good gravy, it just feels like Wasteland/Fallout in ways F3 did not.

And I actually liked F3 ;)

Bugs and writing aside, FO3 wasn't a bad game, it just wasn't really much more than a FO themed FPS.

I agree in certain respects, but I feel BethSoft tried too hard for the apocalypse and not enough for the Nuclear Winter, if that makes sense.

There wouldn't be a nuclear winter. By the point in time that FO3 is taking place, the bombs were ancient history. Even Tambora's inspired winter only lasted a single year, and with the amount of nukes flying you'd still only see a few decades of that tops.

Unless, I'm missing your point.

No... my point wasn't about an actual nuclear winter, it was about the inevitable situation around the world that would happen from a nuclear winter. F3 seemed more focused on a "Madmax" type of story, though there were plenty of items and references to a nuclear holocaust.

Hope this makes more sense :)
-Cym

Well the apocalypse in Fallout is based on the science of Fallout which is what science fiction thought in the 1950's.

Right. I get that. I'm just not feeling eloquent enough to describe what I'm feeling regarding Fallout 3. As I said, I love the game, it's just that Fallout: New Vegas seems much more in the spirit of Fallout than F3 was, in my experience.

That was the first thing I said, actually ;) I don't hate F3, I just didn't enjoy it as much as I'm enjoying NV.

No you are right in a sense. I think what New Vegas embraces is that silly science more than Fallout 3 did. If anything Fallout 3 was a little too serious for it's own good. NV is that touch sillier and therefore suits the silly Fallout world that bit better than Fallout 3 did.

Thank you, D, that was the point I was trying to make. I hadn't eaten all day and couldn't express it appropriately. +rep