Kelmych

I'll add some comments to the installation instructions for that mod; thanks for noticing this.

It may be correct but, as you mention, it's certainly odd.

Thanks for adding the details on the download policy. I don't see any folders named "sounds" in the package, I see only the "Sound" and "sound" folders.

We'll replace the directory screenshot in the guide with the corrected version; sorry about that.

I finally got my system back running (HDD crash) and rebuilt the working directory with the vanilla textures. I redid the optimization and I get the same results you got; we'll change the screenshot image in the guide. Thanks for noticing this.

The textures are quite impressive; I added this to the guide.

It looks like this mesh, as well as those from the other mods by the same author that you mentioned previously, provide more detailed models and would be useful to include in the Fallout 3 guide.

I did a cache reset, as Z suggested, and I now get the correct version of the image in the browser. I should have remembered that :facepalm: . However, I still can't figure how to delete images. I have a revert link in the first column when I look at File History, not a delete link.

The red exclamation mark indicates a missing mesh. In the console you can sometimes move the cursor around and click on the various parts of the exclamation mark and get the display to select the item that's missing (vs. selecting another item near it). I've always found it very hard to do this since the cursor usually selects another item that I can see and isn't the one with the missing mesh. If you can select the actual missing item this you can get the ID for the it. As you said, it is likely to be something the slave is carrying like a weapon or perhaps wearing such as clothing. If you can find the slave in the Fallout esm you might be able to find what it is supposed to be wearing or carrying, and you can then check to make sure the meshes are present for these. The guide notes for both Fallout 3 Resigned and MMM say not to use the compatibility plugins that come with these mods. For these two mods the appropriate Blackened patch should be used.

I have used two of the alternate starts and neither one affected completing the main quest or side quests. I'm not aware of alternate start choices that might do this, but I haven't checked extensively. The two I've used are the Medical start at Rivet City and the Mechanic start at Robco. The Mechanic start does affect some quests (a few quests are easier since not all of the robots are hostile), but it doesn't preclude doing any quest. There are still lots of challenges, don't worry. The Medical start is challenging because getting to Megaton from Rivet City is extremely challenging for a low level character, and you won't be able to enter the shopping area in Rivet City until you leave for a while and return. Of the two I prefer the Mechanic start. It's worth doing the standard start once, but overall I found the alternate start more interesting.

It looks like I didn't make the Control menu page and Hotkeys page that provides some recommendations on mod settings, particularly FWE, sufficiently apparent in the guide. I'll add more pointers to it in some of the mods like FWE vs. just having it mentioned at the bottom of the guide. These ancillary pages have some of information and recommendations on settings for FWE and other mods that I have tested in the game I've been running. I'll add the suggestions on MMM settings and the FWE ability hotkeys since these aren't there currently. I based my FWE recommendations on a different set of goals than the above. I prefer to have the game be challenging but not rediculously so, and in particular I want to avoid having characters get many skills with high skill levels and multiple SPECIAL characteristics with high levels until near the end of the game (in games with all the DLC and all the quests) and even then I'd still like the player to have to make choices about which skills/SPECIAL to raise. The FWE recommendations above make the game easier than I feel it should be to keep the game interesting and challenging especially when the player character is above level 20; of course, each player will have different criteria on what is appropriate. For example, having Bobbleheads provide a small skill increase, is better IMO than having them raise SPECIAL levels. In addition to items that provide SPECIAL increases when they are player inventory or worn, the SPECIAL levels can be increased with Perks and some quests in the game.

I'll do some testing with both Skyrim and Fallout 3. I've been primarily working with FO3 lately, so I'll likely concentrate on using it there.

That sounds like a good idea since there is also a lot of Skyrim ENB information that is relevant to the Fallout games. I'll put a pointer to that forum in the FO3 guide.

I asked a while ago if anyone wanted to make an ENB subpage for the Fallout 3 guide, but noone has signed up for this; perhaps you would like to do so. There have been several suggestions in the Feedback thread including: Samsara ENB (Ghostwise) Midhras' ENB (Nozzer66) ENB of the Apocalypse (Brainfever) Some of the suggestions for FNV ENBs might also work well in FO3.

Yesterday I uploaded a new version of 2 screenshot images for use in the Fallout optimization quick-start guide. One worked fine, but with the one for Fallout NV I uploaded the new image file version but the image shown is that of the old image. I've seen this issue in the past and solved it by deleting all versions of the image and loading only the new version, but I don't see deleting file versions as a possibility on the screen with the file history.

I don't advocate using any of the plugins in Mantis other than the two I recommended that are for the quest(s). The plugins I recommended have absolutely no effect on any FWE record; this can easily be seen in FO3Edit. Puce Moose also adds some of his own ideas on balance plugins in the overall Mantis mod. He doesn't use any of the overhauls himself (FWE, FOOK, Arwen, ...) so his balance plugins are typically incapable of use with many of the other mods. He also created some balance plugins for Fallout NV in the Tweak and Balance Center mod, and I find a lot of his plugins for the FNV DLC quite useful. Many of the ones that affect the base FNV game are hard to integrate with the overhauls like Project Nevada, etc. His FNV plugins that remove excessive loot are useful but need to be disabled after they have run for a while because the scripts start eating a lot of CPU cycles. There seems to be a significant effect on one creature in the Mantis - Mantis mod. I can't figure out exactly why this happens since the plugin records are almost all unique to the mod, and the changes it makes to a few creatures (which doesn't include the one that causes the problem I mentioned) are very small. I've never tried doing this one part of the quest with a pure vanilla game. I wish there were a way to bypass this one portion of one subquest since the rest of the quest is quite interesting. The way I typically avoid the problem is to

This is a support forum for the Fallout 3 guide. You should post this in the FNIS thread in the main Mods forum.

There is a lot of useful information about FWE on their Google docs page. I've summarized a little of the key parts on the the ancillary pages to the guide (the control panel menu subguide and hitkeys subguide), but there is a lot there that can be useful in understanding the myriad menu choices in FWE.

You need the FWE-added Wasteland Doctor perk to heal limbs. Do you have that perk?

Where can I get the Russian version so I can patch it for English and see if it works properly?

I'll add a list of the BSAs I leave unextracted to the guide.

Thanks. I'll add that to the guide.

The guide says to enable BSA extraction so it can be used, and I discussed the issues with extraction in the BSAs and Mod Organizer section. Ideally none of the BSAs would need to be extracted, but currently there is a limit on how many unextracted BSAs can be used. In Fallout 3 this limit is based, unfortunately, on the total character count of the BSA file names. I didn't provide a recommendation on exactly which ones to extract since the recommendation might be different based on a users list of mods. Personally I don't extract any of the vanilla BSAs or the one in the Updated Unofficial patch, and I then try leaving some other large BSAs unextracted until I hit the problem where the game won't start using MO. You won't find any significant problems extracting almost all or even all the BSAs, but there is a slight performance improvement to leaving as many BSAs unextracted as possible.

Personally I like the Paradox merged mods since they reduce the plugin count and, perhaps more important, are more up-to-date than the original plugins. They often have fewer unclean records (ITMs and UDRs) than the original plugins. If you are writing compatibility mods like Blackened it's a lot easier to write for the merged versions than to have to maintain multiple versions of the patch, and I've been using Blackened patches because they are being maintained and are updated when needed. The one-size-fits-all approach in Paradox has problems with Enhanced Blood Textures, but I haven't seen any other significant issues. You can see the Paradox mods I'm using in the STEP Fallout 3 guide listed in my signature. I've looked at FOOK and I prefer FWE; FWE also has a lot wider support which is particularly important. Ghostwise has been also been working on some FO3 patches, and has what seem to me to be a nice scheme for organizing the patches. It seems consistent with the approach that ElminsterAU described in this forum thread about how patching could be made easier and how the next release of xEdit will support this (ModGroups). I think it's also compatible with your goal of having patches for various mods that are compatibility for FWE, WMK, EVE, RH_Ironsights (when feasible), and all the DLC. The only difference might be about having one mod for all the weapons of interest vs. having groups, and eventually with ModGroups it should be possible to more easily merge the individual patch mods. STEP recently moved some of the discussion about xEdit (FO3/FNV/TES4/TES5Edit) to a new forum on the site. You'll see it under Support and Troubleshooting. The Bash Tagger thread has a lot of information on using xEdit scripts and the new beta xEdit, and includes posts from a number of the key modders working on useful xEdit capabilities.