GUIDE General Feedback

[thommaal]

I have installed your pack, and it works fine so far.

 

While discussing FO3LODGen, you write:

In MO, go to the archives tab and make sure "Have MO manage archives" is Unchecked when using FO3LODGen.

The first time I tried to start F3 after following your guide I had, of course, totally forgotten to check the archives afterwards and, naturally, I crashed. Easy enough to figure out what I had missed -- but it might still be a good idea to add that little bit of information to your instructions to avoid any head scratching.

[thommaal]

Funny thing happened while trying out different characters with the pack: Butch killed me at my birthday party. He just didn't stop attacking and was unkillable, of course. Was I tempted to do a setessential 0 in his case.

 

I have no idea if this is pack-specific but it's the first time this happened in any of my playthroughs.

[13thGeneral]

The borderless window in ENB works even if you are only using it for ENBoost vs. graphic enhancement, by the way.

 

The previous posts in the STEP forums on One Tweak suggest that it can introduce some problems, but the author is still actively working on the mod (a new beta was posted last month) so it is worth testing. We originally looked at it to replace Double Cursor fix in Skyrim.

Any further thoughts on using OneTweak?

I had it set up in one of my previous installs of the Guide, but have been holding off on this one this time, until I get through without recurrence of my past issues.

It seemed to work as designed though.

Edited September 1, 2015 by 13thGeneral

[Kelmych]

Funny thing happened while trying out different characters with the pack: Butch killed me at my birthday party. He just didn't stop attacking and was unkillable, of course. Was I tempted to do a setessential 0 in his case.

 

I have no idea if this is pack-specific but it's the first time this happened in any of my playthroughs.

In one of my previous game starts I had a similar problem with attacks in the opening sequence. I started over and it didn't occur the next time.

[Kelmych]

Thank you all for the replies!

 

1) I appreciate the advice regarding ENBoost injector, Faldaani (I am using Win 8.1 64-bit, btw). I thought I tried this setup, but I could be mistaken. I know for certain that I had Fallout3.exe, FalloutLauncher.exe and fose_loader.exe set to run with administrative privileges, but I could have forgotten to set the ENBoost .exe files. Which leads to my first question:

 

Kelmych, why can setting Fallout3.exe to have administrative privileges cause other problems? And what are the potential problems, exactly? I am glad you folks are mentioning this, as (without doing any research,) I assumed setting something to run as administrator could only help matters. Knowing how buggy Fallout 3 is, I just set it, the launcher, and any other .exe files I run with it (FO3Edit, mod manager, etc.) to run as admin. Obviously, after reading what you folks have posted, this is probably causing me more troubles.

 

Look at this post by Tannin in which he mentions that MO and other programs should typically not have administrative privileges. You can also find others by Tannin with the advanced search tool  on the top right.

[pt1f4b]

Hi Kelmych, first i want to thank you for this great guide, amazing job here, really. I have a small question though, it's said multiple times in your guide that specifics mods needs cleaning, but Loot reports nothing for a bunch of them (e.g : A World of Pain or Reilly's Ranger expanded). I'm not quite sure what to do here and after a few searches on the web there's not so many informations about that. Maybe i'm too carefull here but what do you suggest me to do ?

[thommaal]

Maybe i'm too carefull here but what do you suggest me to do ?

Not Kelmych. Still, the recommendations done within the packs you'll find here at STEP are usually diligently researched by the author -- and feedback reduces the error rate even more.

 

As far as I can see, Kelmych is right with his recommendations, and no one has objected to them yet.

 

That doesn't mean you can be totally sure the cleaning of a specific mod won't add some problem to your game (I doubt that anyone has drawn a thorough before-after manual comparison of all the changes in all the mods -- correct me if I'm wrong), but the few comparisons I have made, show plenty of advantages to an uncleaned mod list.

 

Regardless, if you happen to stumble upon a problem through cleaning -- please, do report it!

[Kelmych]

LOOT gets input from users (including me) on mods needing cleaning. Their list of mods needing cleaning isn't always complete. I've had problems for a while sending updates to them. If you run FO3Edit and find that a mod listed as needing cleaning doesn't actually need cleaning,(or other cleaning related issues) let me know.

[pt1f4b]

Thank you for the quick reply i'll let you know if i find something. For now i'll stick with the recommendations from your guide

[Kelmych]

LOOT might have additional recommendations that I missed, as well as cleaning recommendations for mods not in the guide.

[GrantSP]

A young modder friend of mine, @Deadmano, has informed me of what he thinks is an ENB setting that may need attention.

 

 

 

Deadmano said:
======================================================================
Hey! Since you have the ability to edit the STEP page for FO3, I just wanted you to please make a nice big red warning under the ENB section or anywhere appropriate that turning "FixTransparencyBugs=true" under enblocal.ini which is located under the [FIX] section will make walls and other objects totally disappear in certain places. I was testing a patch in Point Lookout when this happened and I thought I cocked things up royally until I disabled all my mods and it still happened... Luckily I then cleaned out my FO3 directory and found the culprit. Even disabling ENB (just turning off object and post processing) does not resolve this. Either remove ENB completely or make sure the line is:

[FIX]
FixTransparencyBugs=false

I have no idea of the efficacy of this change, or it's need, but I thought I'd just pass it on.

[Kelmych]

Does this happen when ENBoost is used or only when ENB is used for processing?

[Kelmych]

Which is why I think all STEP instructions should be using "xEdit" as the terminology and then adding the game switches as necessary.

xedit.exe -tes5 == TES5Edit

xedit.exe -fo3 == Fallout 3

etc.

 

I know I might sound obsessive about this but it assists users to know that these tools can be used on other games if they aren't specifically named to match them. This then aids them when additional tools call them, as in this case.

My 2 cents worth.

The FO3 guide uses xedit when referencing the executable. Note that when getting updates from AFK the 7zip file name is TES5Edit and the executable is TES5Edit.exe, so some references to TES5Edit need to remain. Perhaps the FO3 guide should mention renaming the developer version after installation.

[GrantSP]

Does this happen when ENBoost is used or only when ENB is used for processing?

Apparently any ENB INI that has that line: FixTransparencyBugs in it needs to changed. As I said though, I have no 1st hand knowledge of this.

[Adonis_VII]

There is a FO3 collision mesh package by Kochi666 & Kanewright located https://www.mediafire.com/download/ar87qp88cv534zm/FO3_pack25.08.15.7z. Beyond improved collision meshes, it improves the graphical meshes of pool balls, and fixes many bugs in meshes that don't seem to be covered by the fix packs.  It's not quite a full nexus release yet so I didn't make a mod page for it.  The info is posted in the thread for this mod https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/59149/? about half way down.

 

EDIT: Before & After (Ignore pool table texture)

Edited September 6, 2015 by Adonis_VII