GUIDE General Feedback

[Kelmych]

Clear and Present Danger - A guide for modding Fallout 3

 

This thread is the feedback thread for the Fallout 3 guide that complements EssArrBee's "Fear and Loathing in New Vegas" guide for modding Fallout New Vegas. While Fallout 3 is older, some friends of mine who never played it got interested when they recently bought Fallout 3 GOTY at a Steam sale. I said I would provide them some information on mods and utilities they might want to try. After that, well ... it kinda grew to be a bit more. I looked in detail at the "Fear and Loathing in New Vegas" guide and found to my surprise that many of the better mods available for Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas were very similar, and that there were also many new mods for Fallout 3 that weren't available for Fallout 3 the last time I played it in 2010.

 

Since I really liked the style of the "Fear and Loathing in New Vegas" guide, I made a copy and used it as the starting point for the Fallout 3 guide. A lot of the "Fear and Loathing in New Vegas" guide text and structure has been preserved. It is intended to include a set of mods in each category that were a reasonably representative set of the better mods currently available for the associated category, including ones that I (or other participants in this thread) had used and liked the last time playing Fallout 3. I also wanted to include some mods I had never used that seemed quite interesting and worth trying. Of course, since it is an evolving guide there is a lot of flexibility to add and remove mods in the list.

 

There has been a reasonable amount of testing of Fallout 3 with the entire set of mods in the guide loaded, but I wouldn't characterize the testing as extensive. There is still a lot of testing of some of the optional texture especially for clutter and weapons. EsssArrBee has been working lately on evaluating exterior textures choices to try to come with a set with good quality and acceptable performance; this also needs to happen for Fallout 3. Since Fallout 3 is older it may be easier to get good performance; the resolution of the textures and meshes for Fallout 3 are usually not as high as those for more recent games.

 

Many of the initial mods added to the guide are the Fallout 3 versions of mods in the "Fear and Loathing in New Vegas" guide; this simplifies some of the testing needed. There is more detail on this at the beginning of the guide itself.

 

I wanted to have a theme for the guide that is closely related to the Washington DC area, to the Fallout 3 storyline, and to the overall set of Fallout games.  My choice was "Clear and Present Danger". Fallout 3 is much less whimsical and more serious than the other 3 Fallout games (and IMO even more dangerous from the outset than the recent Elder Scrolls games), and the Jack Ryan series of books/movies have at least a few good relevant quotes; I'm open to suggestions on supplemental themes.

 

I continue to work on updating the LOOT mod cleaning instructions and Bash tags for the mods in the guide to include in the LOOT masterfile. Since Fallout 3 is old, many mods have ITM and UDR errors shown in FO3Edit. Bash tags are critical in providing the data Wrye Flash needs to provide  compatibility among the varied mods included in the guide. With the proper Bash tags and existing compatibility patch mods, it doesn't look like much will be needed in any manual merge patches - at least among the mods in the guide that are not marked as optional. Wrye Bash is also being expanded and evolved to include the Fallout 3 and NV games, and eill eventually replace Wrye Flash for use with the Fallout games.

 

This is the feedback thread, so look and see what you like and don't like and what's missing and comment. Fortunately here on the STEP forums there are always lots of useful comments and feedback. If you have troubleshooting questions or comments please enter these in the "Support" thread. If you want to suggest mods to add to the guide please enter these in the overall STEP "Mods" thread, using the Fallout 3 tag to identify the mod.

 

I'll update this post as the guide moves forward, adding comments on some of the issues that seem to be of most interest.

[Nozzer66]

Looking good, but there's still a reference to Fallout New Vegas in the vault Boys splash there. Sorta stands out a little. :)

[Kelmych]

I thought I had eliminated all the Fallout version errors but as always there are more errors. It's fixed now.

[hishutup]

At first of reading this. I was thinking that this is exactly like EssArrBee FNV guide but then I read your first post and realized you said fallout 3... Cool mod guide... Ill take a look when Fallout 3 is for $5 on steam.

[EssArrBee]

Yeah, I bet you guys didn't see this guide coming.

 

If I ever put together a TTW guide I can just combine the two guides and call it Fear & Present Danger.  :hurr:

 

Have you thought about announcing that you released the guide other places like reddit?

[EssArrBee]

As far as Breeze and Robert's goes, are both body replacers being installed? I'm not clear on what is going on with that setup. Is Breeze for FO3 mostly armors?

[Kelmych]

My intention has been to use the Roberts body since that what Fear and Loathing uses, and to use the Breezes mod only for the clothes it adds (which are compatible with both bodies). I need to change a few of the instructions in the guide so this happens properly.

[Kelmych]

Yeah, I bet you guys didn't see this guide coming.

 

 

 

Have you thought about announcing that you released the guide other places like reddit?

Currently it's only here on STEP. Which sites did you use when releasing information?

 

I'm not sure how many people are playing Fallout 3; it's probably dependent on having Fallout 3 GOTY in a Steam sale at an especially attractive price.

[FamousDeadGuy]

Dammit, right after I uninstall for TTW. 

 

I will have to put this on my list. Thanks, Kelmych!

[gimpyone]

For a theme suggestion: What about the book/movie A Boy and His Dog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_and_His_Dog

[EssArrBee]

Finally added ENBoost to the guide with a bunch of optional settings and stuff. It uses the same binary for both games, so it should work the same AFAIK.

 

https://wiki.step-project.com/User:EssArrBee/FalloutNewVegas#ENBoost

[hishutup]

I like how the STEP community is starting to get guides together for the other moddable games...

[perrob]

I'm a huge fan of EssArrBee's F&L guide for FNV, so when I spotted this on the forum I was over the moon - I love Fallout 3. It's different enough that I can alternate between the two games without generating 'fallout fatigue' at double speed! Yeah ok, that's a bit geeky. Don't care! :)

 

Thanks for putting this together. I'll work through it as soon as I can pull myself from F&L FNV.

 

Great info on ENBoost btw. The 'official' ENBoost frustrated me with it's older buggier binary & occasional invisible walls/people/everything. Hoping instructions here with latest binary should sort things out. Cheers!

 

 

edit: just like to add, afaik it's considered best practice to install Wrye B/Sm/Fl-ash and MO to the game's directory rather than elsewhere. These apps at least do some auto configuration based on install location, and MO in particular is best installed in the games dir - With multiple versions of MO it helps me know which is which, and means I have no chance of upgrading, editing, or whatever, the wrong version at any given time. Since I have an install each for Skyrim, FO3, and FNV, this is important to me. I guess for others who do not have multiple compatible games installed it is less so, but even so the STEP wiki page for Mod Organizer recommends to use the game's installation directory.

 

2nd edit: fixed link. I did it reddit-style before and didn't even realise. lol.

Edited August 19, 2014 by perrob

[Brainfever]

Well about time someone would make a STEP-like modding guide for one of the best CRPG's ever made

 

 

So, here are some suggestions:

 

- A World Of Pain for FO3 is really a must-have you should consider adding it asap to the guide. On the other hand, I guess it's gonna need testing since the possibility of conflicting with the rest quest/ interiors expansion mods is very high.

 

- Franklin Metro Raider Bug Fix v1.0 [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/19759/? ] and Safe Regulator HQ v1.0 [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/11853/? ] should be added to the FIXES section since they are not included in the Updated Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch and they are pretty useful and basic fixes.

 

- Here is a couple of mods that could be added as well since they are lore friendly and try to make the game more immersive and realistic:

 

  NPC-Confessor Cromwell has a Break EV _ DV [ https://www.nexusmods...ut3/mods/4660/? ]

  Sleep in Megatons Common House [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/18946/? ] 

- And some enhancement/texture mods that could fit/combined with the already included ones in your guide:

 

  Creatures/Critters:

 

  Vandr HD Creatures [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/18500/? ]

 

  Robot Revolution HD - Protectron [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/18902/? ]  Swampfolk Backwater Retexture [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/18894/? ]

 

  Glowing Ghouls - FO3 V1.0 [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/20321/? ] 

  Landscape/Areas/Clutter:

 

  Citadel Retextured 4096x4096 [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/13000/? ]

 

  Mothership Zeta DLC Retextured [ https://www.nexusmods...ut3/mods/8260/? ]

 

  UHQ Terrain Overhaul [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/19799/? ]

 

  Skill Books Hi-Res Retexture [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/19514/? ] (I prefer 6IX's retextures :) )

 

  Improved Glass Bullet Impact [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/13120/? ]

 

  Nuka-Cola Hi-Res Retexture [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/19276/? ]

 

  Retex_Gore [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/16940/? ]

 

  Retex_Gorycorpseparts [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/16927/? ]

 

  Retex_Brahmincorpsetrap [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/16933/? ]

 

  A Useful Metro Map - Texture Replacement [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/20005/? ]

 

  HD Smoky Fire and Explosions for FO3 [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/20053/? ]

 

Sounds/Music:

 

  Sounds From The Wasteland [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/17849/? ]

 

  Fallout 3 - HD Audio Overhaul [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/13055/? ]  Home brewed sound pack v1.2 [ https://www.nexusmods...t3/mods/12209/? ]

 

By the way, Wasteland clothing Hires retexture [ https://www.nexusmods...as/mods/54478/? ] works fine in FO3.

 

For the end I left probably the best weather mod for FO3, Weather for ENB - URWLENB FO3 [ https://www.moddb.com...enb-urwlenb-fo3 ] but it has one tiny disadvantage; it needs an ENB preset in order for the sky textures to appear properly(thus the mod's name -weather for enb-). I said "tiny" though cause in 2014 I believe everyone has the capability of running an ENB preset along with FO3 plus there are many performance friendly presets out there already. In fact with this weather/lighting mod you can actually disable Megaton Lighting Overhaul and Realistic Interior Lighting as well. Or you can disable this mod's plugins and let the others. It's up to the user.

 

 

PS. Lol I think my post was way off-topic. But anyway here's something that has to do with installing one of the existing mods in your guide. If I remember correct, Crowded Cities mod had an issue with the NPCs added by that mod causing them having white bodies or completely different head/body colors. The issue could be solved if CrowdedCities_v2.esp had its file header record flags changed to an ESM through FO3Edit.

 

Yep I confirmed its this mod. Take a look at the first page of the comments section in Crowded Cities page.

 

This is c/p from the other topic I think I posted it on the wrong topic. Please remove it from the other support & troubleshoot topic.

Edited August 19, 2014 by Brainfever

[Kelmych]

Finally added ENBoost to the guide with a bunch of optional settings and stuff. It uses the same binary for both games, so it should work the same AFAIK. https://wiki.step-project.com/User:EssArrBee/FalloutNewVegas#ENBoost

Thanks. I added it to the Fallout 3 guide, with a few modifications for FO3. I tested it using the enblocal.ini parameters you showed, and it seems to be working fine.