GUIDE General Feedback

[Nozzer66]

That's often an issue with Archive Invalidation.

[Kelmych]

I looked at this guide from the distance for a while, and since my "Fallout monkey" has come back, I decided to try and mod it by following this guide. So far i'm at the UI section, and I have a few questons:

1. Why the Flashlight mod is Core? What patches depend on it? I would like to remove it, since a magical beam of light that starts from your face is not my thing :)
2. Are there any good ENBs that remain true to the vanilla look? I tested with ENB Boost only following the guide, but unless you activate the effects you have some crappy antialiasing, and if you leave the game antialiasing on the grass start to look funky...
3. About the alternate fast travel from FWE not being recommended, J3Xified Driveable Motorcycle is not the best alternative, or at least the most healthy gudging from the comments on the mod page, so why is it preferred over the default bike from FWE? From what i remember from my last playthrough i haven't had any issues with it.

Oh, and thanks for the time youre devoting to this incredible guide!

1. I made mods Core for one of two reasons, either because other mods depended on it or because it contributed significantly to gameplay. With the darker interiors and darker nights resulting from lighting and weather mods (using the ones in the guide or ones that work better with ENBs) a flashlight is a necessary (based on at least my own gameplay) and reasonably lore friendly addition so I made a flashlight mod Core. I'm not aware of other good flashlight mods; if there are some the guide could include several with a recommendation that a flashlight is needed and one of the options should be used. As far as the light starting from your face, I don't think hand carried flashlights are realistic with all the combat so to me a head mounted flashlight seems more realistic. In real life I happen to have one and find it very useful when I need to keep my hands free for other uses.

2. I haven't started experimenting with ENB options myself yet so I suggest reading some the informative posts in this forum and on the STEP Post Processing and ENB forums. I'm mostly working on improving bash tags and experimenting with patches to improve consistency, and finishing the recommendations on optimizing textures for Fallout and Skyrim (at the moment the Fallout recommendations are more up to date, by the way).

3. The motorcycle provided by FWE is better than the alternative ones I've seen. However, I don't feel that completely disabling fast travel makes sense in any Bethesda game. I discourage using fast travel in FO3 because it can break immersion, but there are always times when I need to fix a problem with the game or test something and I need fast travel. If fast travel is unavailable I would then have to disable a plugin and then enable it again later, which itself can cause gameplay and game stability problems. I added the J3X one I because I wanted to provide an alternative; if anyone has a better option I'll remove the J3X motorcycle and add the new option. I tried using the J3X one and I don't really like it, but I wanted to provide an alternative to the FWE approach. I would really have preferred that FWE separated the optional motorcycle from disabling fast travel so I could enable/disable fast travel when necessary but still use the motorcycle.

[Kelmych]

By the way, any ideas on how to fix Roberts Male graphical glitches with some NPC's? On my character the body looks fine except maybe a small black spot under my heros armpit which ok is minor and its not something you notice immediately, but on some NPC's the visual result is a total mess. First example that comes in mind is Moriarty in Megaton. His chest looks like a mutated surface with different textures mixing and generally its really ugly.

 

Only files that get overwritten in Roberts Male mod are the textures in ghoul's folder upperbodymale.dds and upperbodymale_n.dds from Ghoul Retexture mod which is stated in the guide that it's fine.

I have tried to look into this several times since I first noticed this effect (e.g., with Moriarty), but for me it only happens sometimes and I haven't determined what other factor(s) affects it. Most of the time I don't see this problem, but it does happen occasionally.

[Brainfever]

Quick question: Is it wise to clean our Bashed Patch? Mine had like 500+ ITMs.

[EssArrBee]

Hey I figured out a part of the BSA thing. It has to do with the greyed out BSAs. Add enough of them that the game doesn't load then just add something to the end of the name. SomeBSA.bsa becomes SomeBSA - something something.bsa and the game will load.

[GrantSP]

Hey I figured out a part of the BSA thing. It has to do with the greyed out BSAs. Add enough of them that the game doesn't load then just add something to the end of the name. SomeBSA.bsa becomes SomeBSA - something something.bsa and the game will load.

You've done well @EssArrBee, as I posted on the other thread, it is definitely linked to bsas that share the same name as the plugin. You deserve a cold drink, have one on me. 

[Kelmych]

Quick question: Is it wise to clean our Bashed Patch? Mine had like 500+ ITMs.

Does that happen even when all the plugins you are using are cleaned? The bashed patch will contain only records that are already in one of the plugins, so if there is a dirty record it is from one of the plugins that is loaded.

[Brainfever]

Damn, you are right I forgot to clean the Book Of Earache's plugins(that's a mod of my own preference over some weapon mods in the guide).

[Lonewolf]

Has someone another download link for the 20th Centuary Weapons mod? I just discovered that my country is not among those able to download from Gamefront...
I tried to Google another link, but it just point me to some torrents, which i'm not sure if they contain the correct mod or not.

[GrantSP]

Wow! where do you live? That's a fairly long list of acceptable places.

 

Anyway, on the Clear & Present Danger page, if you look in the 20th Century section there is a link to the FNV equivalent. Following that takes you to it's host site where I believe they also have a copy of this mod. Haven't checked it, can't be 100% sure it is the same file, but it looks like it.

[Lonewolf]

It may be long list, but unfortunately Italy is not among them. I think i found the page, although the file doesn't seem the same from the name. I will try to download it tomorrow.

[pStyl3]

Okay, so I've played Fallout 3 quite a lot now (still a lot to do though, clearly) and thus familiarized myself with it, how the map is like, how it feels, how the game mechanics are, et cetera. I also modified the HUD to my liking. The only problem I have left is that I am not able to quicksave/quickload, pressing the buttons just does not do anything. CASM is working fine on the other hand. Has someone any idea what possibly could hinder me from using quicksave/quickload?

[GrantSP]

@Lonewolf

I am staggered Italy is not on the list.

[GrantSP]

Okay, so I've played Fallout 3 quite a lot now (still a lot to do though, clearly) and thus familiarized myself with it, how the map is like, how it feels, how the game mechanics are, et cetera. I also modified the HUD to my liking. The only problem I have left is that I am not able to quicksave/quickload, pressing the buttons just does not do anything. CASM is working fine on the other hand. Has someone any idea what possibly could hinder me from using quicksave/quickload?

Are those keys remapped by another mod?

 

Also I don't think you are missing anything by not being able to quicksave/load. I'm fairly sure there are save game corruption issues when the same savegame is overwritten as with autosaves and quicksaves, not 100% sure, but I do recall reading somewhere about that.

[Kelmych]

CASM disables the normal quick save keys (I think it does more than just remapping them) .