GUIDE General Feedback

[fartflower]

Hey guys, finally finished the game. im putting my save file up here incase anyone wants to have a look at all the weapons and armor, or visit various locations. the save works fine with a vanilla unmodded fallout 3 so should work for everyone else with any different mods. but any items from extra mods i added wont be in their locations.

 

https://www.mediafire.com/download/6qazr19bucsjox8/Save+2578+-+Adam%2C+My+Megaton+House%2C+174.54.01.7z

 

The starting location is the megaton house. i tried to get one of every item. On the bottom floor, one container has all various animal bodyparts and random items, another container is filled with the aid items, and the fridge is filled with all the misc tems (check the players inventory for the rest)

 

the top floor has a room filled with various toys and random oddities, the other room with the bed has a desk filled with all the armor and the container next to it has every weapon i could find. There is some doubles of the same items, if you look closely, they are actually different in some way. only doubles i intentionally put in were the power armours, parts of power armors and a few random things.

 

This is not a 100% save, or a cheat "give all weapons, items and armors" save (towards the end i did cheat and unlock some doors though) Tried to do everything i could, and visit every location. i didnt use a guide so i didnt get every bobblehead and im sure i missed a few rare weapons (and after 170 gameplay hours and some 400 crashes, i just wanted to finish the game)

 

All the map locations are unlocked for fast travel except for Arefu (walked all over the place, it would never unlock) a location to the bottom middle and another to bottom right (these locations don't actually seem to exist?). You can tell what isnt unlocked as the icon on the map looks like a bullet.

 

Some quests are actually finished but havnt been registered as finished. some im not even sure i finished. and some i just couldnt figure out how to finish.

 

my setup was pretty much the entire guide minus a few minor mods and with these extra mods not shown in the guide:

 

Companions

 

Ties that Bind

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/19941/

 

Adds a sister as a companion, starts from the very start of the game to near the end. Worked great, simple to install, the voice acting is excellent and theres a lot of it (i might be biased cos im australian), she reacts to certain quests and locations and is well woven into the story. few extra quests to flesh out the past a little too. But the ending was abrupt and felt pointless too (you'll know what i mean when you get to it). i installed the Alternate appearance by Crudeowl because her head was squashed for me

 

Lucy West Companion

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/5696/

 

works fine, not much to the quest after you get her though. had no problems at all during the game.

 

Quests

 

Cube Experimental

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/6270/

 

excellent mod. beautiful to look at, well laid out, well scripted and the voices are excellent. the only problems were the extrance door to the house conflcts with a mod so you have to look the door from certain angles. one angle opens door to a normal house, other opens up to house of the mod. To install the mod i downloaded the .exe file and installed it into a random folder (not the fallout folder) then zipped up the folder and added it to modmanager. only problem i had during the game was, if you have anything that changes the rate of your radiation, you might have to turn it off/down or cheat to lower your radiation because you loose your items, and theres no healing or radx but theres radiated water. Really recommend this mod.

 

The Overpass

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/18789/?

 

Works fine, fairly interesting story and location. only problem is it feels unfinished. some rooms seem a little haphazardly put together and its not balanced, far too many books and the weapon and armor aint balanced. plus you can skip the story with a little jumping, going in through the back and get all the goodies, not sure if thats intentional.

 

A Little Mutant Problem

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/8080/

 

fairly interesting. had no problems running or installing this mod. some of the quest parts are just plain stupid though.

 

i added a few more but cannot remember them (A bobblehead quest i think, something that adds to the Zeta DLC giving you a fairly extensive addon to it, and a another that seemed to be about time travel and spiritual things)

 

I also used this program towards the end (so it wasnt extensively tested)

 

Optimizer Textures

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/17594/?

 

works good on minimum default settings, you need to remove some of the mods to do with the pip boy first or the pip boy will hitch and take longer to open (i just took out all mods related to the map and pipboy). i have no doubt this might effect other things negatively though. but i played through the last 30 hours fine with less hitching (the part of guide on optimising textures just made my eyes glaze over, so this app might be better for some people like me)

 

When testing out any weapons, if you have the Cube mod installed, dont test the Spacewarper weapon inside. or in megaton. its best to fire in the open wasteland, and far enough so itll land at the end of the draw distance.

 

Anyway, i wanted to thank everyone that contributed to the guide and ofcourse the mod makers. it was a fun ride playing it all through again

[Kelmych]

Thanks for the comments on the mods. I'll look at these.

 

I don't recommend using Optimizer textures. It uses a one-size-fits-all approach to optimization that can cause problems (e.g. it does a poor job of optimizing compressed normal maps). Look at "How does DDSopt compare with Optimizer Textures" in the FAQ section of the DDSopt guide.

[hishutup]

Here is a MO categories.dat

it obliterates the default -not very useful- categories and contains entries that fit your guide. 

Its rather useful in my opinion.

 

If you are going to edit it, open it as a txt doc because mass edits are a pain with how it is implemented in MO.

 

EDIT:

I changed the MGs Neat Clutter instruction style because lists are easier to read in comparison with a block of text. 

I stole what SRLE had because its fairly clean. 

If you like it, keep it, otherwise toss it.

[triptonite]

In initial INI tweaks, it says to add "sFontFile_5=Textures\Fonts\Darn_Sui_Generis_Otl_13.fnt" to the [Fonts] in fallout.ini. Is this supposed to replace the previous sFontFile_5 or to be added? 

[AcesofDeath7]

It is supposed to replace the previous sFontFile_5.

[Kelmych]

The DarNUI fonts don't normally replace this particular font, but the recommendation is to replace this font with a DarNUI one.

[SergeTroy]

- Asked & answered elsewhere, ignore. :D

Edited October 24, 2015 by SergeTroy

[13thGeneral]

Here is a MO categories.dat

it obliterates the default -not very useful- categories and contains entries that fit your guide.

Its rather useful in my opinion.

 

If you are going to edit it, open it as a txt doc because mass edits are a pain with how it is implemented in MO.

 

EDIT:

I changed the MGs Neat Clutter instruction style because lists are easier to read in comparison with a block of text.

I stole what SRLE had because its fairly clean.

If you like it, keep it, otherwise toss it.

This sounds really useful. Thanks for providing it. How can this be used - where do we place this file so MO sees it? Edited November 2, 2015 by 13thGeneral

[hishutup]

This sounds really useful. Thanks for providing it. How can this be used - where do we place this file so MO sees it?

with the Mo exe.

[krclark]

Not sure if this is still being kept up, but I wanted to let you know about another issue with the BIG TOWN OVERHAUL mod.

 

When using the Optional - Gang Store.esp file, in addition to the many (really way too many) items that need to be cleaned, there is a vanilla item that has been deleted which can't be fixed using the standard cleaning method.

 

FormID 000158C9  BusInterior02

 

There is no reason I can see for this item to have been deleted by this mod. I know for a fact that it can mess with other mods that you may install that use this FormID .

 

Specifically the Museum Halls Of Today mod, which you also include in this guide, is affected, as that mod places the bus interior in question as an inset into the wall of the transportation room, and Big Town Overhaul causes that area to be a void instead.

 

You can fix this issue manually by editing the record in the Optional - Gang Store.esp file and select to remove the entry. It is the only entry listed under the Static section of the mod in FO3Edit.

 

Not sure if there is anything else that can be done to fix the issue. Trying to add the vanilla item back in as an override in my personal patch did not work, nor did changing the load order.

[Nebulous112]

Kelmych - just a heads-up that LOOT 8.1 is out, along with UF3P 2.1.

 

EDIT: Also, MO is now 1.3.11. Looks like a ton of fixes from 1.3.8, along with some specific for pre-Skyrim games. Has been out since Sept. 5, so it looks fairly stable.

Edited November 10, 2015 by Nebulous112

[krclark]

After playing through most of this setup now, I think I would recommend not installing the Big Town Overhaul mod. The issue I noted previously is minor and easy to fix, but there other issues with the mod, including one that I believe to be too large to allow it in my installation routine.

 

The town "walls" have been extended to the outer ring of houses, and an extended buffer/barrier was added around the entrance point, but the navmesh was never updated for these significant changes in border area.

 

This leads to significant problems, all due to the same issue:

 

1. Companions going insane (running around like crazy) every time you cross over the "old" barrier point. They will also get stuck at the new barrier and/or the fencing when traveling the "outside" navmesh area, though eventually they do seem to pop-through the obstruction.

 

2. Creatures/enemies get inside the town for the same reason as above, pretty much destroying the whole purpose of the extended (and extensive) fortifications.

 

3. Completing the baseline town quests is difficult to impossible because the towns folk will get stuck, sometimes to the point of locking up/freezing, while trying to find their way through the obstructions to the location they need to reach for part of the quest. If they do find their way, it usually takes a long time to do so.

 

4. Other mods that have quest lines with NPCs traversing the area can also get stuck due to the pathing problems, which makes things even more annoying.

 

Other, much more minor, quibbles include the gigantic towers and sky-high walkways, with no way to have possibly built them. Enormous (like twenty feet square) single sheet plywood for the walls, the money shack (why???), and the restaurant in the sky that nobody seems to be running (or using).

 

Don't get me wrong - I do like the idea behind the mod, or at least most of the various mods it was combined from, but it needs some serious work before it is ready for normal play.

 

Final note, and pretty much the nail in the coffin for me, the author of the mod noted in a blog that their was a navmesh issue that would be fixed in a new version, but that was posted back in 2010, so...

[Bugger]

Hi, I'm about halfway throught the guide and while testing I noticed a problem in Megaton. In several areas there are aplied different shaders, it's jarring becuse the change in lighting/tint is abrupt. The problem is solved by moving Megaton Lighting Overhaul after Dynamic Weather in the load order. I was just wandering why LOOT didin't do it for me.

If this is cowered further in the guide than sorry, but I did skim through it and didn't find it.

 

 

EDIT: Sry it's supposed to be before Dynamic Weather esp, and after I used the provided LOOT userlist it worked just fine.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Bugger

[Kelmych]

The Big Town Overhaul mod has been changed to optional because of the issues it creates.

[Sarcarsis]

Hello! I have some suggestions to make this awesome guide even better. I have compared all the duplicates manually with TES Texture Merging Utility.

Better Clutter and Furniture Pack - The guide reads "Adds a large set of high resolution furniture and clutter retextures". Actually 90% of textures are same low res vanilla textures with some sharpening filter applied.

MGs Neat Clutter - The guide reads "Medium resolution retextures of more than 100 items". Most textures are 1k with some 2k as well. There are 44 duplicates with NMC's Ultra pack and all MG's textures are actually better.

I recommend first installing NMC's pack, then MG's with overwriting duplicates, then Retextured Clutter Collection without overwriting and finally Better Clutter and Furniture Pack without overwriting.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Sarcarsis