Mod recommendations for giving the game another go

[steo]

I got Fallout 3 for Christmas, and played it quite a bit, getting to a pretty high level without actually doing much of the main quest (I think my next objective was to go to the radio station). I gave up on the game, because I felt the balancing was done terribly, and I hated the way I was always so heavily stocked up on drugs, weapons and weightless ammo.

Now the game's been out for a while, I see there's a lot of mods out to address such issues. I'm really looking for something in the style of Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul, downloading FOOK2 at the moment, but it's huge and I'm getting crap speeds.

What does TTLG think of FOOK? Any other big, overhauly mods to consider that people have used?

[EvaUnit02]

Whilst very good, FOOK goes heavily against Fallout lure. Eg you've got modern assault rifles and like coming out of the arse.

XFO is a highly regarded balance mod and Martigen's Mutant Mod is also (often used in combination with either one or both of the aforementioned).

I've most just used visual enhancement mods (eg high res textures) and small mods that tweak a few aspects of gameplay, like the shitty vanilla repair system, the range from which you can activate VATS and the stupidly high rate at which weapons degrade.

Some of the mods that I use:-

-The texture packs by NMC.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/modules....php?id=309068
4Aces weapon and armour textures and texmeshes + his environment texmesh pack (his massive several GB hi res pack incorporates NMC's packs)
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/modules....php?id=649063
-Better clutter
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6894
-EVE - Energy Visuals Enhanced by Weijiesen
-Weijiesen's high res power armours
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/modules...php?id=1026866

CptJoker's texture packs for clutter and the like. Better Booze, cigarette mega pack, enhanced night sky, etc.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/modules....php?id=225951

Then just search Fallout3nexus for more, such as hi res skill books, VaultTech lunchboxes, Nuka Cola machines and bottles, etc.

Enhanced Weather - Snow and Rain is awesome.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6170

Also Fellout. Removes the green hue that everything has.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2672

Off the top of my head, Darn's UI and Fallout 3 Unofficial Patch (F3UP) are essential installs. Also Fallout Mod Manager (FOMM) by Timeslip and Fallout Script Extender (FOSE) are essential downloads.

Once you've installed all of your mods, I recommend creating a merged patch in FO3Edit, put it the very bottom of your load order in FOMM. This gives you increased stability, because mod incompatibilities can make the game crash. You have to make a new one every time that you install or uninstall a new mod that uses an ESP.

Also patching your ESPs by running FO3Edit in MasterUpdate mode decreases incompatibility.

In your load order put any ESMs at the very top, with Fallout3.esm first and any DLCs that you have purchased directly after it. The U3FP ESPs should proceed directly after your ESMs.

Small gameplay tweak mods that I really like are cross-repair mods, Repair Rethought Reborn being the best. I also use one that extends the range of VATS, perfectly suited for use with the sniper rifles and the Gauss Rifle (from Operation: Anchorage).

Sniper Rifle aiming fix, scope aiming is totally off-centre and broken in vanilla FO3.

[henke]

Have you tried simply upping the difficulty level, steo?

I'm playing on Hard at the moment and regularly running out of ammo for the guns I use most. And I always sell all the drugs I find. WINNERS DONT DO DRUGS \o/

[EvaUnit02]

Even on the hardest difficulty the vanilla game becomes a piece of piss once you're around level 17-20.

[Jason Moyer]

Slower levelling mod, and that's about it. Same as what I run in Oblivion, actually.

Official content-wise, I only recommend Broken Steel, Point Lookout, and the Pitt. The other 2 are pretty useless, and also unbalance the game bigtime.

[steo]

Thanks for the list, Eva. I'll check out XFO when I get a chance, along with the visual enhancements.

As I recall, I was playing the game on hard last time anyway. The problem I had was less simple difficulty and more an issue with balancing and excessive amounts of equipment and goodies.

[PeeperStorm]

I just gave Fellout a try. I like it. Aside from the more realistic looking environment, they really nailed the near total blackness that you can get at night when there's no city lights to speak of. And, an added bonus, the darkness is a huge boost for stealth.

As far as too much stuff, are there any mods to give you more ways to spend your wealth? Once you've outfitted your house and gotten your favorite follower, there's nothing to do with all the things that you pick up.

[steo]

Drugs and Hookers?

That second mod is the 9th most popular on FO3 nexus.

[PeeperStorm]

I found a partial answer to my own question: SDs Wasteland Furniture. It puts a shop in front of Megaton where you can buy furniture (beds, shelves, containers) which you can then place and use normally. Basically it lets you set up a home wherever you want...as long as there's room for the furniture. So if you want to turn the deck of Rivet City into your bedroom, or set up housekeeping in the mostly empty semi-trailer behind the NukaCola factory, maybe make Rockopolis into a hideway, now you can.

[Dresden]

I've been playing this again for the past week and and yet again I've found more great mods for this play through. I'll list everything I've got running except for all the texture mods without esp files.

Fallout Street Lights - Makes the DC streets look waaay better and spookier at night. Some street lights also flicker on and off while making sparking sounds.

Fallout Street Lights: Wasteland - Same deal except for the greater wasteland area.

Darnified UI - Much cleaner UI and you can set it to show additional info like XP Meter, Time, Radiation Meter, etc.

Hi-Res Weapons and Ammo Textures - Forces all the weapons lying on the ground to use the higher res first person textures and meshes.

This guy makes some amazing retexture mods. He even retextured the entirety of Mothership Zeta.

Alternate Start: Roleplayers - Great little (or not so little really) mod that starts you out in a shack in the wasteland instead of the Vault. You make your character there, pick a profession, and you're off.

GNR - More Where That Came From - Adds 100 more oldies songs to the GNR station.

Wasteland Whisperer - A perk that allows you to tame animals that will fight for you or pack brahmin to lug things around.

RobCo Certified - A perk that lets you repair dead robots as companions.

Owned! - Removes ownership of someone's property if they die. You can also use their house or rent it out to people.

Fire Light Fix - Adds lighting effects to some outdoor fires that Bethesda forgot about (Greyditch).

Unlimited Death Reload Time - If you like seeing your gruesome death in all it's glory (Aim the MIRV Fatman straight down and fire).

Existence Radio - Ambient Horror radio with original music. It even has a quest.

Underground Hideout - AMAZING house mod that has everything you could possibly want in it without messing with game balance.

DC Interiors - Haven't gone into DC to try this out yet but it looks promising.

Dynamic Weather - Great weather mod but a bit too dark at night for my tastes. I use this instead of Fellout. Be sure to keep it dead last in your load order.

[Jashin]

Some good mods there, I'm especially looking for a good UI mod.

Although I'm debating whether to bother with anything else, as I know 1.) in the wrong order they'll gimme grief, 2.) imbalance the game, and 3.) the bundles can never be tailored exactly to one's taste.

I finished FO3 with only 2 mods - a ui one and a faster movement one. The default ui and moving speed is just too crap and slow.

[PeeperStorm]

The GNR- More Where That Came From mod sounds like just what I've been looking for. I've been playing lately with the in game radio turned off, and with a radio next to my computer tuned to a local oldies station. Unfortunately much of their music doesn't fit very well...

[Dresden]

Some good mods there, I'm especially looking for a good UI mod.

Although I'm debating whether to bother with anything else, as I know 1.) in the wrong order they'll gimme grief, 2.) imbalance the game, and 3.) the bundles can never be tailored exactly to one's taste.

1.) Not as much as you might think and FOMM has a button that automatically orders all of the popular mods.

2.) The game's already imbalanced. I need mods that balance it. Easily maxing all skills and everything dying in one VATS round are big annoyances for me.

[steo]

Well, I've started again now, and after a lot of hassle trying to get mods to work, I'm having a pretty good time of it. Just got to level six, I think, and found GNR.

I originally tried using XFO, because it looked to have the best balance, but since it's not compatible with FOOK2, I ended up switching to FWE. I'm also using MMM, and FOOKU2 - a texture mod for FOOK. The combat is pretty tricky, which was a little frustrating at first, but I'm used to it now. One of the first things I did in the game was help Leo Stahl out with his problem, which net me a big supply of drugs (FWE includes a mod which adds tonnes of new chems). I then bought a .32 pistol and 11 bullets and went to the Springvale school. Naturally, 11 rounds was immensely insufficient to deal with a large band of raiders, so I ended up going on a drug-fuelled frenzy round the school with a fire axe and bullet-time, hacking all of the raiders to pieces.

Having bullet-time and sprinting is a good way to increase the use of agility, especially since I don't really like to use VATS. Bullet-time is very powerful, particularly with sniper-rifles since you can easily get accurate shots and toggle it off between shots so it never runs out (kind of exploitative, really). It is, however, balanced by the fact that the combat is so brutal anyway - since you die so much quicker, bullet-time really only slows down the speed at which you get killed to how it was in vanilla.

Weighted ammo is nice, and I find myself buying stimpacks now, but it's a bit silly that the 12.7mm (.50cal) depleted uranium rounds are the lightest ammo type. It's also a big shame that they haven't added many new ammo types to the game, since they've added lots of new guns that should use other calibres, but instead they end up with one bullet filling the role of four or five different bullets. This is a big big shame, because having to match guns to the right calibre would greatly increase the survivalist aspect of the game, and add a purpose to holding on to a lot of the different guns - the MP5A4, MP9, MP7, P90, Makarov, etc. all share 10mm ammo, so you work out which one is best and forget about all the rest. If you had spare 9x18mm rounds, you might use the makarov a bit to kill easy enemies, so you could conserve ammo for your favourite SMG, for example. Hopefully they'll rectify this in a later version of FOOK.

[Dresden]

FWE looks interesting. I'm not sure I like the idea of making a shooty RPG even shootier though. Can you still use VATS in it? Well I guess they can't take VATS out but is it still a viable option?

[PeeperStorm]

Turns out that the GNR mod mentioned previously is exactly what I wanted. 100 new songs, and all of them fit the GNR style perfectly.

[Jashin]

Duck and Cover has a list of mods they call "Usermods that are making FO3 less shitty and more bearable."

It's a pretty cool list with a lot of great stuff. Now I'm really tempted to try FO3 again, take the time to proper it up with some good mods.

[PeeperStorm]

I didn't even know that D&C was still around. Thought they folded about 8 years ago.

Too bad a lot of those mods listed require the use of FOSE. The script extenders that have been put out for all of the Bethesda games (starting with Morrowind) have always made my computer crash about three times as often as without, and FOSE is no exception.

[Dresden]

Are you sure it's FOSE? I used to think that too but after I disabled a certain codec from my system FO3 started crashing ten times less.

[PeeperStorm]

"A certain codec" narrows it down to about a billion files.

[Dresden]

Found it. It's an audio codec called Fraunhofer. You can see if you have it by using InstalledCodec and disable it if you do. The program doesn't have an installer. You just use the executable.

[PeeperStorm]

Well, I removed that codec. No effect on the freeze/CTD situation. No big deal as long as I stay away from FOSE.

[Dresden]

Just another heads-up:

After updating Windows Vista, Windows Data Execution Prevention kept crashing the game and displaying that "Windows DEP has prevented Fallout3.exe blah blah" pop-up. I had to add it to the DEP exception list and it's running fine now.

[june gloom]

I've been getting crashes too, though most of them are just simple CTDs. I've had two that shut my monitor off (blind-typing start->run->cmd fixes that, though I still have to bring my display settings back to normal) and so far 3 that made my PC BSOD itself, all of them when entering VATS. I'd turn off FOSE but I'm really enjoying FWE too much, so I'm leaving it on.

Here's my own mod listing:

FWE, which in turn requires CRAFT and CALIBR; I have the optional Level 30 Balancer, No Fast Travel and Sneak Messages Returned mods as well.
DarnUI of course.
More Where That Came From, despite the fact that I almost never listen to the radio.
Fellout, and the additional Megaton lights, streetlights and wasteland lights mods.
A color mod for the Pipboy light that makes it white.
aaaaand the Anchorage Start Condition mod that ties in Anchorage with a quest you do for the Outcast at their HQ.

[EvaUnit02]

Pssst, dethtoll.

Once you've installed all of your mods, I recommend creating a merged patch in FO3Edit, put it the very bottom of your load order in FOMM. This gives you increased stability, because mod incompatibilities can make the game crash. You have to make a new one every time that you install or uninstall a new mod that uses an ESP.

Also patching your ESPs by running FO3Edit in MasterUpdate mode decreases incompatibility.

In your load order put any ESMs at the very top, with Fallout3.esm first and any DLCs that you have purchased directly after it. The U3FP ESPs should proceed directly after your ESMs.