Kelmych

I've been using this also and like it.

Millenia's mods are intentionally put in two sections; the headings should have explanations of this but they are currently incomplete and will be fixed The first set of these mods includes two mods using Millenia textures for vanilla replacers compatible with WMK, RH_Ironsights, or both (unlike the Millenia mods in the later subsection which aren't compatible with either). The AK-7 mod is in this section only because it is needed for use with the Millenia Assaultrifle Replacers RH WMK Patch mod. The later set of Millenia mods unfortunately don't support either WMK or RH_Ironsights, and they aren't balanced for FWE without the Ghostwise mod. I was never sure how to organize the weapon mods in way that clearly showed the differences between the different groups of mods, especially since many of them are incompatible (e.g., installing the main set of Millenia mods means that most of the vanilla replacers can't be used). Any suggestions? I suppose a matrix could be created showing what is compatible with what, but it's very hard to format this with STEP guide formatting. Part of the problem with the STEP guide formatting is that there isn't any difference in the formatted guide between the third and fourth set of topic levels, which makes it harder to show some of the intended overall differences.

It would be good to get these files hosted on a site other than just the two Russian sites. I knew they couldn't be on Nexus or sites with similar rules.

Adonis and others working on TTW found them. I don't think there is any chance the author would want to host them on Nexus or any similar site. The author seems comfortable with the Mediafire host.

Some people have had problems with 20th century weapons, so you might want to leave it out. Perhaps Deadmano can make another patch like his largest patch that includes Impact, but without 20th century weapons. It will be interesting to see if you have problems in the game similar to those that @JUNKdeLUXE reports. If so it will likely be a Windows 10 problem; I'm not quite sure what to do if it causes problems in the game itself in addition to the installation issues.

Unfortunately fast travel can break scripts (including vanilla scripts), and using it on a regular basis (e.g., once every few missions) can often cause CTDs later in the game. The approach some users want to use of going on a mission, getting a lot of loot, and them frequently using fast travel to a home base increases the likelihood of instability. If fast travel is used regularly the list of mods with large scripts used may need to be decreased noticeably. This is true in any Bethesda game. It is even more problematic in Skyrim, which has many mods with extensive scripts, than in Fallout 3/NV. You don't have to install the TWPC patch, which was built based on the mods in this guide. There was a limit to how many optional patches were included. Currently, however, there aren't any other available patches that remove the container you mention. In my game before patching it I just ignored the container; I don't consider this a significant problem. FO3edit can be used to delete the container object.

I installed the mods in the guide with Windows 8.1. I did not install all the optional mods, but I did install most of them. I did not use fast travel since, as mentioned in the guide, it is can cause problems unless used quite infrequently. Fast travel causes problems in all the Bethesda games. I did not have any significant problems with CTDs. I don't know about Windows 10 effects. Other users have installed the game with Windows 10 and they have not reported the same in game problems you did. The Fallout 3 engine is certainly less robust with Windows 10 than with previous versions. I'll be installing Win 10 very soon and I'll have a better idea of what it affects. The container in Springvale has been reported in the forums. At least one of the TWPC patches removes it (the largest one), and I also thought it was mentioned in the guide. I initially installed with only the bash tags for major mods like FWE using the tags in LOOT. There aren't compatibility problems with most of the mods in the guide; they don't affect other mods at all. In my games I don't expect to get all the compatibility problems fixed; it would be much too time consuming. I live with some compatibility problems like a few incorrect item stats but not with problems that cause CTDs. I didn't test AWOP myself, but several forum users reported they used it and did not have problems. The installation instructions that allow options should not affect CTDs or similar problems as the choices provide very small changes. For any mod that isn't labelled optional I have tried the options in the guide. I'll look at the CTDs you saw and see if I get them also. A lot of users were interested in Fallout 3 to play before Fallout 4. Now that this has past there aren't as many users trying out the mods, finding problems, and creating patches.

Thanks. I hadn't seen this.

You should be ok for weapons and armor improvements in the early game from loot and containers. Do some local Megaton quests, wander outside but not too far, start Moira's Wasteland quest but don't go too far. I feel that some spoilers are needed for this quest because the final reward depends on details of how you solve the sub quests but you don't learn the details until you finish it.

Are you using an alternate start point or did you come out from Vault 101?

You can use the script. There aren't many tags that needed to be removed, and even if you use the script without removing some tags the differences are usually fairly small. None of the STEP guides have complete compatibility patches or bash tag lists. The Skyrim guide relies on LOOT for tags; Skyrim is new enough that it's probably adequate. Skyrim Revisited has a fairly detailed patch, primarily for the lighting conflicts. There isn't a full compatibility patch for FO3 because only a few of the mods need it and because it's quite time consuming. The only mods that need any notable compatible patches are the weapon mods. The armor mods need a little but not much. The TWPC patches cover the majority of the compatibility patching needed for weapons, so in my game I use it. I need to use the mods it covers, of course. With any of the Bethesda games you can never solve all the compatibility problems, but as long as they are reduced to the point where they don't have a significant impact it's ok.

Answering several questions: Texture size reduction is one aspect of optimizing; size reduction (if done) is achieved during optimization. Optimization does other tasks like improving the mipmaps and fixing the format of textures that don'e seem to be using the most appropriate format.You are changing compression if you change the resolution; if you don't want to change the compression at all then set the resolution to a large value. If you mean changing the compression format (DXTx vs. uncompressed) then yes you generally don't want to change the compression format although there are exceptions. If you uncheck all of the texture types then DDSopt does nothing.It is generally suggested that you exclude mods where the author has already done a good job of texture optimization. Typically mods in the SR guide that are primarily texture replacers are already high quality, so unless they are quite old mods I wouldn't suggest optimizing these. The best candidates are usually the location or quest mods like Falskaar and Helgen Reborn which are primarily gameplay changing mods.The most useful textures for size reduction are exterior normal maps (textures in architecture, terrain, and landscape folders). Again, don't optimize mods like Flora Overhaul since these ar already high quality.Care is needed when optimizing body related textures such as facial textures and/or files ending in *.msn.Don't optimize vanilla textures along with mod textures; get already created optimized textures or if you want to experiment with different alternatives use the information and tools in the QuickStart guide for Skyrim.If you selective about which mods are optimized then a single run over the entire set of mods is practical. Make a new folder somewhere, copy the selected mods from the Mod Organizer mods folder to the new folder, and then optimize them and copy the result back to the mods folder after you are happy with the results. I haven't every had time to check every mod in the SR list, but I'd guess that at most 20-30 might be useful to optimize. It also depends of course on how much VRAM reduction you need. If you do everything it will take a long time and you will likely optimize many textures that don't need it.Make sure to configure DDSopt as shown in the main or QuckStart guides. The default settings are not adequate.

Yes, but it doesn't work as well as DDSopt. There is a discussion of the differences in the DDSopt guide here.

Impact only changes a few record types, and is useful even without a patch. The record types it changes are not ones handled by bash tags; a manual patch is needed. With a little familiarity with FO3Edit it is fairly straightforward to create an Impact patch for the specific weapons being used.

The rule for bash tagging is to give a plugin the bash tags that are appropriate (any plugin that changes a record that is one of the record types for the particular bash tag). The exception is when it would overwrite records in plugins that are actually intended to provide the record. To start with it is important to have hash tags for the major mods; LOOT generally has proper values for these. Initially the bash tags for smaller mods could be excluded until they are tested; there aren't that many small mods in the guide that cause significant compatibility problems (by design and selection of mods included in the guide). The other problem is that bash tags only cover a portion of the conflict types, so some (hopefully not too large) manual tags are often needed anyway.

Unfortunately there has not been significant community involvement in providing bash tags to LOOT for Fallout 3. LOOT provides what users have submitted, and there haven't been any checks on the tags that LOOT has. Almost all the bash tag entries in LOOT were added before the Generate Bash Tags script became available. For anything other than major mods I don't currently trust the LOOT has tag recommendations, and the lack of a particular bash tag in LOOT doesn't mean that it shouldn't be there it just means that the user who uploaded the tags to LOOT didn't include it which may or may not be correct. The Generate Bash Tags script is very useful, but it takes time with each mod to determine which tags should be removed and noone has had the time to do this for a large set of mods to a fairly old game.

When a manual patch is mentioned it means you need to create one yourself. Any existing patches are mentioned when available. One of the Wasteland Patch Collection patches includes Impact; you would need to use the other mods in the patch, of course. You could also look at how the TWPC patch handles Impact if you want to create your own.

It's generally OK to clean both unless LOOT or the guide mention otherwise.

When there are explanations we'll try to make them clearer, and it's useful to know when they aren't as clear as we thought they were.

The alternative would be to leave out any discussion of why this is done. I could do that and just say follow the instructions, as most of the STEP guide authors have, if it would actually reduce confusion. I felt it helps more experienced users so they understand what is happening, but if it isn't actually useful it can be eliminated. The purpose of the explanation was that experienced users, who are the ones more likely to add or remove mods in their game, should be able to tell whether a new mod they want to add will affect UIO without necessarily having to ask questions in the forum.

DarnUI Support for FWE I feel the full sentence is sufficient: It is installed just before installing UIO so the Menus\main\hud_main_menu.xml file from this mod overwrites any files from other UI mods with the same name. One implication is that mods with no Menus\hud_main_menu.xml can load after the FWE version of DarNified UI. Gopher suggests installing aHud and iHud as close in installation order to UIO, by the way. The FNV version of UIO is apparently more flexible in the installation order of DarnUI, but for FO3 I've tested extensively with different installation orders and noted what happens. The guide provides some indication of the "why" for the UI mods, but few users are interested in the full details. If you want to see what happens when it isn't right go to the FNV guide forum and look at the large number of posts after the guide was initially released about problems getting the UI mods installed so they work correctly. Those that didn't closely follow the instructions had problems, as the guide author said they would.

Take a look at the Fallout NV guide and most of the other guides on STEP. The Nexus (or other) download name isn't typically included if there is only one choice or if the choice is fairly obvious. There is always a tradeoff on how much text is used in a guide. The CPD guide provides more detail than the other STEP guides for the most part; some users already feel it could be shortened. The downloaded file for Flashlight has several plugins, but the guide does mention which one to use.

You can try using Adjustable HUD, one of the mods in the guide, for at least some of this. If you are willing to experiment you can edit the map xml file in Better High Detail map and Icons to move some of the map UI elements around, but it isn't easy to get it right.

I'm trying to fix an error in the Changelog for the FO3 guide and it's hopeless. I keep getting 504 errors.

That is old text that should have been changed. There will a new version shortly. The fixes are generally ones that are independent of plugins (typically ones that have FOSE dlls or perhaps game dlls) or can be overwritten. I separated the fixes into two categories. The Core fixes like UUF3P are intended to have resources and plugin records that are overwritten by later installed/loading mods or for plugins some of the records from other mods should incorporate what UUF3P includes. The other two core fixes are ones that should always be there. The FO3 guide has 3 core fixes. The next important section is the user interface mods that use UIO. For these installation order is important since their installation scripts change what is installed based on the existing UI menu mods already installed.