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[Kelmych]

Clear and Present Danger - A guide for modding Fallout 3

 

This thread is for reporting problems when using the "Clear and Present Danger guide for Fallout 3". This includes errors in the guide, problems in following the guide, problems with the mods included in the guide, and problems running Fallout 3 when following this guide.

 

Please post any problems such as these in this forum. It's also best to post them here vs. sending me a PM. Often I won't have an answer but the other readers of this forum might have a good answer.

[xanderkand]

Hey so new user here, I've attempted following this guide from scratch at least twice now but I keep coming across the same issue. I get up to end of 'supplemental UI' section then go to test in game and all is running well but when I try to load testQAItems the cell will load then immediately freeze with the row of mailboxes full of items in front. When I start disabling mods one by one to try and figure out what the problem is then relaunching and trying to load the cell I find that disabling Updated Unofficial Fallout3 Patch allows the cell to load normally. I've already described the problem at greater length on the UUFO3P Nexus page under this same user name but they don't seem to know how to help.

 

The only deviations from instructions given by this guide I have made are the addition of Gopher's 'Advanced Recon Armour' after 'Advanced Recon Thermal Nightvision', adding 'Rad crosshair' as linked on 'Dynamic Crosshair' page immediately after 'Dynamic Crosshair' instead of using 'Smaller Crosshair' mentioned later in this guide, adding Gopher's 'Director's chair' with the mods it controls immediately before 'Unified HUD Project', used 'Enhanced Camera' instead of 'Centered Overhead 3P Camera', used 'Colour Hi-Detailed Map and Icons' instead of 'Better High Detail Map and Icons', didn't use any Item description mods, and used 'A Familiar Friend - Pip-Boy 2500' and 'Pip-Boy 2500 Hi-Res Retexture' instead of 'Omni's High Res Pip-Boy 3000', then got to installing the 'Hectrol Lock Interface' at end of 'supplemental UI' section.

 

Launch game to test, all modules appear to be working correctly including those I added instead of what was listed, but then on loading TestQAItems game will freeze. Deactivate UUFO3P and it does not freeze when the cell is loaded. Any help at all or pointers as to what specifically I am doing wrong or may be causing the problem are greatly appreciated. I understand that by not following this guide to the letter and not installing some optionals (which nothing else relies upon) or installing a slightly different, similar version of some mods it cannot be guaranteed by author not to cause problems and isn't their responsibility, but as stated those mods appear to be working correctly and in theory don't conflict with the setup as described.

 

I've managed to create the exact same freeze issue on 2 separate fresh installs and am getting quite frustrated by this, not that I really need testQAItems, but if that cell wants to freeze on me I'm willing to bet a ton of other cells containing similar objects would also freeze if I started playing and running all over the wasteland.

 

There are many other things I could say having read and used this guide quite a bit over the last few days that might be helpful and improve its clarity for the sake of the layman user if author is interested to hear my contributions at all, I would be glad to as it seems the only compensation I might be able to offer for any further assistance help advice or pointers given! :)

 

Many thanks for writing the guide and reading my post and efforts to simplify a very complex and daunting mod process for so many mods, and education of the layman user in operation of Mod organiser and various other utilities, collation of further reading resources, links, etc etc etc.

 

Yours, A frustrated novice modder ;)

Edited September 17, 2014 by xanderkand

[Kelmych]

We would appreciate any comments on the guide; it's best to post these in the feedback thread. I'll look at the issue with the test cell

 

The main reason the UI section is fairly strict is to make sure that the menus get constructed correctly. There are a lot of UI mods that can be added without many problems even if they affect menus. Some care must be taken when doing this if additional prefabs are added or if the installation requires FOMM-fork. The plugins from UI mods don't typically affect game cells so most of these are unlikely to cause the problem you mention.

 

You might try a profile with only UUF3P included to see whether the problem occurs. I'm assuming you cleaned the vanilla esm plugins.

[xanderkand]

I was only just linked to the feedback thread by a user in UUF3P comments but my description of the issue has been removed from that page now as it was quite lengthy and I guess they thought it wasn't much their problem to fix or not useful to other users. Anyway now I have that address maybe I can post a comment or two there.

I understand the potential problems with UI mods as I've had them before and solved them, all my additional/replacement UI mods are working perfectly in combination with those in the guide.

 

I've just done a clean install of the game, installed all the same stuff (detailed above) up to Unified HUD project, added UUF3P, launched, loaded testQAItems and it crashed immediately so we can conclude that it has nothing to do with 'supplemental UI' section or any mods following UUF3P in the list as I had earlier suspected. Can LOOT be trusted 100% or ought I be shuffling things around a little?

 

Other things to note are that New Vegas AntiCrash is the only thing which prevented the freeze from being a CTD. One other thing I did slightly differently is to install 'Burke's key' and merge it in MO with 'Advanced Recon Thermal Nightvision', and add the FWE patch for that separately afterwards, these are not mentioned in your guide. deactivated Adv Rec Thermal NV FWE patch and still crash in test cell so it's not that, couldn't have anything to do with Burkes key could it? Far as I'm aware Burkes Key is only a replacement AdvancedReconGear.esp with the key added. The only other non-UI/visuals addition this time is 'Adv Rec Stealth Armour' after thermal nightvision. I'm fair certain these are the only deviations from your guide.

 

I'm guessing you don't crash in the test cell on your game then? :p

Cheers.

 

P.S. just started a new game like you suggested under 'vanilla fallout' profile i.e. none of the ini tweaks only cleaned vanilla ESMs + UUFO3P, played through the vault until Amata wakes you up then tried consoling coc testQAItems and it crashed immediately... so what does that mean that all other active mods are irrelevant to what causes the crash? and its not my load order either? confused.com

What do you reckon the guys at UUF3P will think of that? I was told 'sorry but UUF3P makes no changes to testQAItems'. very strange...

Edited September 18, 2014 by xanderkand

[Kelmych]

Your post is in the correct thread. I was only suggesting that if you have guide comments to share you might find this thread better.

 

I did a test with only the UUF3P plugin loaded. I get a crash going to testQAItems . I have no way of knowing whether this is caused by some inherent problem such as the one I discus below or some other type of problem. I'd suggest ignoring this particular error since getting to this cell is important for the game itself.

 

COC to a test cell isn't part of the testing methodology that I use. I have read a few comments over the years with Bethesda games that using test cells with large numbers of items can cause problems with some of the larger mods, so I have avoided doing this.

[Kelmych]

At times I wish I had more expertise with whatever causes in game texture errors in Fallout. Right now I have a problem with Fallout 3 and I don't know what is causing it. The vanilla Plasma Pistol has a giant red Exclamation point when it is on the ground, indicating there is a missing texture. If it is in my inventory and I use it, both the first person view and the third person views are fine, but if I drop it I get the exclamation point. I've checked the vanilla texture (and normal map) used by the pistol as well the 1st person version of the texture and they all seem fine. I used alternate  textures from a different mod (Hall of Weapons) and it is still not working. I extracted the mesh from the BSA and opened it with Nifscope, and checked to make sure the textures it expected had the same name as the ones I was using. They do. I'm using MO so I can't see how Archive Invalidation could be the cause. I used the console to make sure it had the right weapon and it does.

 

It wouldn't matter as much if this didn't stop successful completion of one of the script stages in the Mantis Imperative quest for Fallout 3.

[Nozzer66]

It's actually more likely a missing mesh, and if it's only showing the ! when on the ground, it would suggest it's missing a ground model.

Edited September 20, 2014 by Nozzer66

[Kelmych]

It shows the ! when it's resting on something. Is the ground model different from the the model I see in the CK for the pistol and when I use the console to see the model number? The only model I see is PlasmaPistolStatic.nif .

[EssArrBee]

Missing meshes cause crashes in fallout in my experience.

[Kelmych]

With FO3Edit I looked up the weapon, the mesh is PlasmaPistolStatic.nif and that mesh is available. I extracted it from the meshes BSA just in case and added it as a mod in MO, as I described above.  I understand mesh problems cause various kinds of game problems, I just don't know what else to look for or look at since the mesh and the textures are available and I can see them in MO.

 

Is it possible there is an issue with the mesh (I have tried alternate textures so I doubt it's that) and if so how do I tell? It looked OK in Nifscope (based on my extremely limited experience with this tool).

[EssArrBee]

See if any mods add that mesh. It may be a bad mesh from EVE or something.

[Kelmych]

You were very close. The Blackened FWE+MMM+Project Beauty patch included a subrecord that pointed to a mesh from EVE, which didn't exist since I hadn't loaded EVE in the profile I was using. Maybe I should just load EVE and live with the transient VRAM usage explosions. My graphics card can handle it, but I was trying to see which mods could be included for users with 1Gb VRAM. Several years ago when I played Fallout 3 with a 1GB VRAM card EVE was the main cause of CTDs for me.

[phosphor]

This is driving me nuts...

I've never had an issue with ENB before however I cannot get the game to load if the ENB is installed. I'm only using ENB Boost, by the way. I went through the guide until I finished with the UI (which I've done before the 'fixes' section as recommended in the guide so 'fixes' are not installed currently). I got to the end of the UI (Unified HUD) and it recommends testing the game out. It 'Run' in Mod Organizer and it's like nothing happens. Tried disabling some mods here and there... same problem. I uninstall the ENB and the game starts up real quick.

So, if the ENB is loaded into the Fallout 3 GOTY folder it causes my game to not load. I tried the "Fallout Launcher" and with ENB instsalled it loads the launcher almost... box appears... no text... then crashes.

I tried working with the injector version. Installed the ENB. Ran ENBInjector.exe. Loaded up the game. The game starts but without any kind of sense that the ENB is running. No Version number in the upper left corner. 

I run an AMD Radeon 5800 card 1gb Vram. I've run the game in the past using Midhrastic so I've used ENB's before with Fallout 3.

Anyone have any ideas?

[phosphor]

A little issue with the guide.

You'll notice the Notes are mismatched:

 

Scribe Yearling takes all Pre-War Books

• Author: Yukichigai
• Version: v1.0
• Notes: Caravan Merchants now heal after combat

Caravan Merchants Heal After Combat

• Author: Yukichigai
• Version: v1
• Notes: Scribe Yearling now accepts both types of Pre-war Book

[Kelmych]

 

A little issue with the guide.

You'll notice the Notes are mismatched:

 

Scribe Yearling takes all Pre-War Books

• Author: Yukichigai
• Version: v1.0
• Notes: Caravan Merchants now heal after combat

Caravan Merchants Heal After Combat

• Author: Yukichigai
• Version: v1
• Notes: Scribe Yearling now accepts both types of Pre-war Book

 

Thanks for the feedback. The guide has been corrected.

[Mikaal]

I tried to use the "Marts Mutant Mod Merged". I followed your guide to move the plugins into Optional ESPs. But when I come to edit the "Blackened esp", it gave me an error saying that one of MMM esps is missing!?