Desert Survivalist is an achievement in Fallout: New Vegas which is awarded for successfully healing 10,000 points of damage using food.
Notes
- All HP restoration occurring over time from a consumed item is awarded to this achievement, even if the player is fully healed before the expiration of the items effects. Example: a player who is hurt by 1 point, and consumes a bottle of purified water (+2 points for 5 seconds = 10 points overall) will be awarded 10 points to this achievement.
- HP restoration occurring over time can be stacked, if the player consumes all the food items of his choice at once without leaving his Pip-Boy. However, if they are healed completely by the instantaneous healing effects of the food items they consume, the achievement will cease tracking the rest of the consumed food towards this achievement.
- Blood sausage, Black blood sausage, Thin Red Paste, Thick red paste, Sunset Sarsaparilla and Nuka-Cola do not count towards this achievement/trophy.
- An easy way to get this achievement/trophy is to kill geckos and obtain their gecko meat. With a survival skill of 40, you can make Gecko Steaks at campfires, which replenish a good amount of HP. Geckos can be found in large groups at Clark Field, Bootjack Cavern, Crescent Canyon West, Crescent Canyon east, Nopah Cave, Lucky Jim mine, Fire Root Cavern, Cottonwood Crater, Vault 34, and Lucky Jim mine. An easy way to lose health so that you can replenish it faster is by falling off a high surface, such as the roller coaster in Primm.
- If you are having trouble finding geckos in the method above, you can also hunt radscorpions at numerous locations such as Scorpion Gulch or more preferably, The Thorn. After killing them, take their poison glands and bring them back to Ruby Nash at the Vikki and Vance Casino in Primm. She will make you Ruby's casserole which can be used to replenish HP fairly quickly. (Note: To kill radscorpions at The Thorn, you must first speak to Red Lucy).