In-game configuration of Fallout 3 mods

[Kelmych]

The Clear and Present Danger guide provides two pages on configuring the mods used in Fallout 3. These are the Hotkey page, which includes a list of all the hotkeys used by mods in the guide, and the Control Panel menu settings page. The latter includes a list the menus available to access mod configuration, and some recommendations for a few of the settings. The current format of the Control Panel menu settings page isn't very good, in part because setting up multi-column tables is difficult on the wiki. I'm interested in suggestions on how to setup these two pages to make them more useful, and for the Control Panel Menu settings to provide some alternate sets of suggested settings for different goals (e.g., different game difficulty) especially for settings that can be changed as the game progresses.

 

The other main configuration topic is the settings themself. Id like to separate the discussion of these into two categories,

• settings that get set at the start of a game and shouldn't be changed (these can actually be changed during the game, but rebalancing the game involves a lot of work in the console to reconfigure a large set of game variables). There are only a few of these settings.
• settings that can be changed as the game progresses (often to increase of decrease game difficulty). This includes most of the settings in the game.

My primary concern here are the mod settings that get set at the beginning of a game. There are several parameters in FWE that fall into this category:

• Leveling setting: how many experience points are needed to achieve a new character level; I prefer option 3 (300 points) since I found this gets a character to roughly level 30 (the level cap) when the vanilla game and DLC are all completed along with a number of quest mods.
• Skill Advancement setting, skill points per level: A2, moderate 7 points/level; if more points per levels are used the character reaches very high skill levels across many skills well before reaching the level cap
• Intelligence Advancement setting: A0 (default), 1 skill point per level for each 2 points of Intelligence
• Bobblehead settings: +5 skill points for each skill Bobblehead (FWE default) vs. +!0 points (vanilla); +5 helps keep from having skills at max level too early in the game
• No SPECIAL bonuses from SPECIAL bobbleheads (FWE default) vs. +1 SPECIAL bonus from SPECIAL bobbleheads (vanilla); The FWE default keeps players from having max (or nearly max) SPECIAL values well before hitting the level cap

 

I included some suggestions on a few of the other parameters; Ghostwise has a different set of these recommendation aimed at making the game easier.

[GrantSP]

The 'm' key is also used by the Radio Aktiv mod to bring up it's playlist selector.

I'm not sure either of those mods allow for changing the hotkey, at least I can't find a way.

EDIT:

I must learn to read ALL the fine print. The guide does make mention of this and how to change the key.

 

 

Also I had to use the FWE menu to switch my grenade toggle and throw keys around several times before the keys would actually make the UI element change. ie. the default keys would make the switch sound but the UI would still show only one of my grenades. Only reversing the keys from G&H to H&G and then back again to G for switch & H for throw, did that UI change.

Edited January 25, 2015 by GrantSP

[Kelmych]

I'll check out the grenade key and see whether I get the same behavior.

[MosAnted]

Any thoughts regarding the "Alternative balance" presets for FWE?

[Kelmych]

I prefer to use the individual settings since the presets aren't always setup for the level 30 cap with Fallout 3 GOTY. The recommended settings are mentioned in the "In Game Settings" portion of the guide; the list of recommendations is available here. These are set to make the game challenging but not excessively difficult. There are some other suggestions in the forum thread for those who prefer less challenge.