Survival (Fallout: New Vegas)

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

Survival determines how much HP you will get from drinking/eating. You can also cook over an open fire and create consumable items like stimpaks with the right plans and material. Along with that, you can also tan gecko hides for fun and profit!

In Hardcore Mode Survival also governs how much a food or drink item will reduce The Courier's dehydration and starvation levels. Survival also affects attribute bonuses given by some food and drink items in addition to the amount of HP's recovered for consuming the item.

Equation

 * $$\text{Initial level}=2+(2\times\text{Endurance})+\left\lceil\frac{\text{Luck}}{2}\right\rceil$$

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


 * $$2+(2\times5)+\left\lceil\frac{5}{2}\right\rceil=15$$

In Game, Survival uses the same formula for healing as Medicine:


 * Base+(Base x 2 x Skill/100) or short  Base x (1 + Skill/50)

At skill level 50, your food is healing 2x as many hitpoints and recovering 2x as much Food/Water. At skill level 100 you are healing/recovering 3x as many.

Bugs

 * Survival is actually governed by Intelligence, patching the game will fix this on the 360.
 * A high survival skill will actually increase the negative effect of food items on the player's Hunger or Thirst stats, e.g. with a Survival skill of 100 whiskey will increase the player's level of Thirst by 75.

Appearances
Survival appears in Fallout: New Vegas.

Behind the scenes
In Fallout 2, it was already possible to take the skin of a little gecko and a golden gecko through the perk Gecko Skinning.