Fallout: New Vegas
75 Achievements
112-136h
Sierra Souvenir Aficionado
Collect 500 Sierra Madre Chips.
16.4%
How to unlock the Sierra Souvenir Aficionado achievement in Fallout: New Vegas - Definitive Guide
When you enter the bunker, continue down the stairs, as if you were going to start to DLC. Open the door that gives you a warning message, but DO NOT WALK ALL THE WAY TO THE NEXT ROOM. Doing so will force you into the Sierra Madre, and you may not be ready yet. Instead, hang your first left, and hack the computer there.
This will open a little room formerly occupied by a BoS knight. In the corner, there is a vending machine. It will dispense food for Sierra Madre chips. It will also give you chips, for cartons/packs of cigarettes.
Cartons and packs of cigarettes are relatively low-weight/high-value items that a lot of people pick up, to sell to merchants. So you might already have a few, or might have recently sold a few to a merchant. Go buy them back. Alternatively, if you've been let into The Strip, and the Lucky 38, the 38's casino floor has a ton of free cartons of cigarettes. there should be enough there to easily net 500 chips.
I made 845, in one shot, from a few I had sold to a merchant, and the ones in the lucky 38.
The Snowglobe is located in Salida del Sol North. After entering Salida del Sol North from Salida del Sol South go down the stairs in the room your in and then through the hole in wall at the bottom. Right after going through the hole turn right and follow the wall all the upway the stairs and stop at the top of the stairs and turn left. cross the roof of the archways and then follow this path until you can cross over to the left via another archway's roof. Turn right after crossing and then head straight down the path and through the hole in the wall on your left. You will enter a small room and the snowglobe will be on a crate to your left immediately after entering through the whole in the wall
Note: occasionally the snowglobe glitches for some people and can not be obtained until exiting the vault at the end of the DLC
1.) As soon as you enter the BoS Bunker to start the DLC, there will be a room to the left (requires hacking) that once housed a BoS Knight (you'll find out whom later). In this room there is a funky-looking vending machine that will dispense goodies for Sierra Madre chips (you don't have any yet) but will also dispense Sierra Madre Chips for packs/cartons of cigarettes. If you have enough on your person, or have some stashed away, this is an easy way of getting the achievement without committing to entering the DLC... Also a great way to get the achievement if somehow you went through the DLC without collecting the required Sierra Madre Chips.
2.) Once entering the Sierra Madre Villla, just start looking. These chips are everywhere: on the ground, in fountains, etc. As you walk around, just pick them up!
3.) As the story progresses and you start going through buildings, check all the file cabinets; specifically the cabinets in the clinic when you are rescuing/finding Christine, as there are dozens/scores laying around in there.
4.) Once you have Christine and you erm.. talk to her a bit, you'll find that she can counterfeit chips using a FISSION BATTERY and SCRAP METAL. She will teach you the perk, and from then on you can counterfeit your own chips.
5.) After gaining access to the Sierra Madre Casino you'll be tasked with turning the power back on. Once this is completed, you can gamble at the slot machine, play blackjack or roulette.
With only a few chips starting out, you can win the required amount of chips for the achievement to pop.
6.) At the cashier (once turning the power on in the casino) you can trade PRE-WAR MONEY for Sierra Madre Chips. I tend to go through the entire game and collect PRE-WAR MONEY as it has a nice value:weight ratio and is a nice way to get some easy cash. If you do the same and have a large amount, you can just trade it for the required amount of chips.
An unrelated topic, but worth mentioning:
If your LUCK is very high, I would greatly suggest playing the slots in the Sierra Madre, maxing out your winnings, cashing out for PRE-WAR MONEY, then taking them to the Vendortron at Gun Runners. - I now have over 200,000 chips (sure its a game-killer, but I've already killed-the-game)
However, this doesn't make you have a total of 500 coins. You'll still have 50, but the game registers you picking up those 50 or however many you decide to drop as extra toward the achievement.
there's another way: you can try and find the sierra madre snowglobe, it'll give you instant 2000 chips just for collecting it.
edit: you can find the snow globe in the Salida del Sol North area. (Not in the Villa like the game's description says).
Once you enter the Salida del Sol South area, make your way to the Salida del Sol House. Go down the stairs and outside. Then turn around and look up once outside to see the big gaping hole in the wall - it's in there.
just make a right from there and go up the nearest staircase and jump onto the roof from there.
Worth 2000 Chips
Try to use food you find and create siera madre martinis (unless you dont want to get addicted to them, which you will, but its worth it as health is limited) to heal and save stimpacks for when your really low.
Search EVERYTHING and this won't take long. Lock pick skill of a 100 will make this go faster as some big stashes require it.
I got this before the gala event happens.
In the Brotherhood of Steel bunker that you trace the initial signal in the Mojave to contains a Sierra Madre Vending machine with with you can exchange cartons of cigarettes for Sierra Madre chips at a rate of 20 chips per carton so simply collect 25 cartons and exchange them at the Brotherhood of Steel bunker.
There are 19 cartons located throughout the lucky 38 casino, 7 at Mojave outpost, 5 at Mick and Ralph's, 5 at Jacobstown Lodge and 4 scattered through Helios One.
You can spend caps, the trophy is for the challenge not having them all at once.
MISSABLE
I got this trophy before I finished the Gala event. All you have to do is pick up every chip you see and search all cabinets and such that contain chips. You'll have this trophy in no time. They can be found mainly in the villa in fountains, inside of buildings they can be found in dressers, night stands file cabinets and on tables. Just be sure to check everywhere. Basically you can't miss this trophy if you're trying to get it.
Alternatively, collecting the Sierra Madre Snowglobe will award 2,000 chips and complete this challenge. You can also gamble until you have enough chips at the tables in the Sierra Madre.
Thank you so much for reading my guide everyone! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did making it. Like I said, if you have any additional tips or want to correct me on a mistake let me know!
Note that the achievement means 500 chips cumulative, not 500 chips at one time. While this achievement is technically missable, there are numerous opportunities to easily get it. Not to mention unless you are exceedingly lucky you will need many more chips than 500 just to survive. The most natural way to attain this is to scavenge everywhere in the Town for chips. Each container usually has 8-15 chips in it (the Scrounger perk will significantly increase this amount), so over time you'll accumulate enough.
If you still haven't gotten it once you enter the Casino, you can simply gamble for the chips. Once you've turned the power on, the hologram table workers activate allowing you to play Blackjack or Roulette with your Sierra Madre chips. Simply gamble until you have the 500 chips (though I suggest farming for much longer so you can simply vend everything you'll need for the rest of the DLC). If you need help with earning chips through gambling, see The Courier Who Broke the Bank in the main achievement guide.
You can still get the achievement in the Mojave wasteland in one of two ways. First, you can make counterfeit chips if you received the Coin Operator perk from Christine during the DLC. Note the Coin Operator perk is learned from Christine, not given as her companion perk. You can use these counterfeits to buy goods from the vending machine in the abandoned BoS bunker. Next, sell back the goods you bought from the machine to receive real chips. Alternatively, you can simply bring items you find around the wasteland back to the machine, return them, and receive chips for it. The only way to truly miss this achievement is to not get enough chips during the DLC and not have found the return codes for at least one item. In other words, not likely.