Kelmych

The guide version posted today includes the using the new NCC client for MO including revised mod installation instructions; this eliminates the need for using FOMM - fork. Hopefully this takes care of the questions you had with using FOMM. CRAFT is already included with FWE, and it is used by a number of mods. It is also included in compatibility patches in the guide. As pointed out in Classic Fallout Weapons Revived - CFWR it isn't feasible to use Classic Fallout Weapons with either FWE or FOOK2. Note that FWE and some of the other mods in the STEP Fallout 3 guide add a large set of weapons including versions of many of the classic Fallout weapons. Moreover, these are balanced in FWE and some of the compatibility patches in the guide so that all the weapons should have damage consistent with their expected capabilities. FWE and FOOK2 are incompatible; several users have tried to create compatibility patches but such patches would be very large and difficult to maintain. You will likely need to pick one or the other. This guide uses FWE, in part because many of the better available mods have FWE compatibility patches but no FOOK2 compatibility patches.

Thanks again for all the help Note that with this guide update FOMM - fork is no longer needed.

I installed the new mod to replace the existing NCC client and tested it using a fairly simple non-UI mod that has a fomod. It worked fine. I haven't tested it with a UI mod that overwrites existing files (If I test this I'll have to backup a lot of folders so I can restore the MO folders and configuration files), but since this works for Fallout NV I expect there won't be any problems using it for UI mods in Fallout 3. I'll put it in the Fallout 3 guide. My MO is currently configured to prefer the internal FOMM installer. Does this need to change with the new client?

The comments from post 174 were also included in the guide update posted today. Thanks for all the help.

The FOMM-fork mod is needed when installing some of the mods in the guide. I'm testing a new script that EssArrBee mentioned that could eliminate the need for FOMM - fork; read the recent posts in the General feedback thread.

Blackened is much more current than FOIP so I use it. The Blackened plugins are only relevant if the optional mods MMM and/or EVE are used, so they aren't useful for everyone. The PPA - FWE TalonExtraArmor.esp plugin is from the PPA and FWE Armor Balancer mod. I'll fix the instructions to mention that it should be moved to Optional ESPs. I'm surprised that FO3Edit didn't show a problem when you ran it since it should have noted the missing plugin. In addition, the right pane of MO should have a triangle with a red border in the Flags column for this plugin if it was included. This is also mentioned in the "Troubleshooting" section; perhaps I should I also include it at the beginning of the Post Installation Checklist. As Nozzer66 mentions, the New Vegas version of NVAC also works with Fallout 3, so it is included in the Fallout 3 guide. When a new version of NVAC is released I test it with Fallout 3 to make sure it works, and if there are problems the author typically fixes them quickly.

Failure at load time generally means there is a problem with mod dependencies, or with one of the other problems mentioned in the "Failure to Launch Fallout 3 using MO" section. If the mods load with FO3Edit then it usually isn't a mod dependency problem. Did you see whether any of the problems in the failure section are relevant? Did you try loading the game after the UI mods were installed, as suggested in the guide? Unmanaged Fallout3 should be the first mod in the installation list (priority 0), but this wouldn't cause a loading problem since the plugin is first in your load order

Thanks for the comments as they are certainly useful; the areas you mentioned weren't very clear in the guide. As you find more issues or questions please post them.

Those three sites have not shown up on the Pipboy map in any of my previous FNV games prior to using F&L. I expect it is a conflict with a mod or mods that adds some additional markers that are close to the three that don't show up.

Instructions are often confusing, don't worry about it.

you need to enter a number, not text. I suggest "60" as per the guide recommendation.

You might have a problem with the graphics setup. Have you forced any the parameters to be 120 FPS; generally ENB is set at 60 frames per second. Are you also using Skyrim, and if so have you setup the graphics the way that is recommended in the initial part of the STEP guide? If not, read that part of the STEP guide as it should mostly also apply to Fallout.

I've never seen a slowdown when running FOSE. You might want to download a new copy in case there is a problem with the file. Are you also using ENBoost; if so try running without the d3d9.dll file installed in the "Fallout 3 Goty" directory to see if it is related to that. I also use 20th century weapons so I use a different compatibility patch for WMK and FWE instead of the one from FOIP, but other than that I'm using all the mods you list.

Skyrim - textures.bsa and the DLC BSAs each include a base set of textures. The 3 High Res Texture Packs include higher resolution replacement textures for some, but not all, of the textures in Skyrim - textures.bsa and the DLC BSAs. When optimizing, textures all of these files (Skyrim - textures.bsa, the DLC BSAs, and the HighRes texture packs) need to be optimized.

We'll change the guide to clarify this. On the upper DDSopt window it doesn't matter as much for the vanilla and mod optimizations; the file type should't be set to ".bsa" but ".dds" is fine. One the lower window it's also important that the file type should not be ".bsa".

The other option is Bethesda Software Archive (.bsa) files. The BSA setting is used only when files are being extracted from a BSA or being archived in a BSA file. This setting should retain the last choice you made for it. If it doesn't, make sure that DDSopt is being run with administrative privilege as mentioned in step 6 of the DDSopt Setup at the top of the page.

After doing the first optimization with Performance settings, rename the "Vanilla Optimized" folder to something like "Vanilla Optimized Performance". Keep this renamed folder and the "Vanilla Extracted" folder, and delete the rest of the folders. You don't need to run the "1_HRDLC_Clean-START_2.7.bat" again. Just run the "2_Pre-optimization_2.78.bat" and then optimize using the High Quality settings.

The install order you show is correct. When you look at the Conflicts tab for each optimized DLC textures file you should see some textures that are provided by this mod as well as a notation that some textures are provided by other mods. I'll look at the tamriel objects texture and see what happens when I optimize it as an uncompressed texture with R5G6B5 format.

GOG says that it is free until 2pm GMT on Nov 14. Look at the entire front page, it's not at the top.

The textures/terrain/tamriel/objects/tamriel.objects.dds file in HRDLC2 is uncompressed and should have been sorted by the batch file to a different folder so it wouldn't be converted to a DXT5 texture. The batch file will be changed to do this. You can replace the current optimized version of this file with the original file, or you could instead optimize the original file to an uncompressed R5G6B5 format (which reduces the file size by 50%) and then use this file instead of the incorrectly optimized one. The DG/HF/DB optimized textures should not show up in MO as all being overwritten. Where do the optimized textures sit in the installation order? When you double click one of the optimized DLC textures and look at the Conflicts tab, it should show that files from this mod overwrite files from the Unmanaged HighResTexturePack files and the Unmanaged DLC. If this isn't true then the optimized textures aren't in the correct place in the installation order (priority).

It's intentional, but you can change it in the FWE config. FWE defaults are intended in part to make the game more challenging.

If you frequently change mod versions or add new mods to your game then it's common for the save files view in Wrye Bash to have most of the save games be orange or red.

I'm assuming by guide you mean the DDSopt guide. Did you compare the folders of optimized textures with the screenshots that show the directories of the optimized files?