Going to Give FO3 a Playthrough. Modding suggestions?

[TheWilloughbian]

As the title says, I am going to have my first playthrough of FO3 on PC. I played on 360 back when it came out and loved it vanilla, so I'm betting a lightly modded playthrough will be lots of fun. I have been poking around a bit looking at mods and the script extender. I see that many things have not been updated in a long time and that the anniversary edition broke all the FOSE mods. I don't have an issue using a downgrade patcher or Steam DB to downgrade, but I was wondering if there was an archive for older versions FOSE as I didn't see one on the silverclock page. I guess I could use a little help in learning to understand versions and compatibility. For instance, this mod looks really cool....   J3Xified Driveable Motorcycle at Fallout 3 Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)  In the description it says it was compiled with v1.1.8.  Does that mean the version of the game or the version of FOSE? I'd like to get a build of FO3 going the will let me use some of these vehicle mods. So I guess some advice on what works with what is what a seek in this regard.

 

I'm guessing not many people are modding FO3 these days, which is why the mod selections may be a little dusty. But I figure the folks here might still remember how to go about a few things and what might be a some good mods to try out. Thanks : )

Edited April 7, 2022 by TheWilloughbian

[Fiend71]

I'm right on the edge for trying out either FO3 or FO4... 

 

Just - giving Steam more money right now...lol

 

Anyhow, following...

[TheWilloughbian]

FO3 Has a much, much better story. Like the game is excellent just vanilla.

Edited April 7, 2022 by TheWilloughbian

[llmods975]

Tale of Two Wastelands. Using the stability mods for NV to make 3 actually playable is great. kinda screws with the balance but i had an old build so I have no idea what its like now.

[A.J.]

I didn't try the new updated version, but if you manage to use the previous one... with the last version of FOSE you should be good.

 

As suggestion for mods - FO3 interiors. Imho it's the best of the Interiors mods, it really adds a lot of them if you like to explore, and very well done.

Another suggestion is Ties that bind, if there's someone who made an update it's even better because when I played it around 2015 it had some errors inside. That story made me cry.

[TheWilloughbian]

6 minutes ago, A.J. said:

I didn't try the new updated version, but if you manage to use the previous one... with the last version of FOSE you should be good.

 

As suggestion for mods - FO3 interiors. Imho it's the best of the Interiors mods, it really adds a lot of them if you like to explore, and very well done.

Another suggestion is Ties that bind, if there's someone who made an update it's even better because when I played it around 2015 it had some errors inside. That story made me cry.

 Yeah FO3 has a great story. No better setting for post apocalyptia than DC.

[A.J.]

It seems that someone has fixed some errors of the mod I was mentioning: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/24330

[TheWilloughbian]

On 4/7/2022 at 12:11 AM, llmods975 said:

Tale of Two Wastelands. Using the stability mods for NV to make 3 actually playable is great. kinda screws with the balance but i had an old build so I have no idea what its like now.

The more I look into modding FO3 the more I see that this is the way to go. I wasn't really sure what it was until I looked into getting Outfit studio going for FO3. The I found this 360 Movement at Fallout New Vegas - mods and community (nexusmods.com) when I was looking at the skeleton the tutorial here said to get. Guess I'll be dropping $20 on New Vegas  XD. Porting FO3 a little nicer engine would be a lot of fun. Thanks for the tip.

[llmods975]

22 hours ago, TheWilloughbian said:

The more I look into modding FO3 the more I see that this is the way to go. I wasn't really sure what it was until I looked into getting Outfit studio going for FO3. The I found this 360 Movement at Fallout New Vegas - mods and community (nexusmods.com) when I was looking at the skeleton the tutorial here said to get. Guess I'll be dropping $20 on New Vegas  XD. Porting FO3 a little nicer engine would be a lot of fun. Thanks for the tip.

New Vegas is great. I always re-install it every time I get a new PC.

Dead Money is probably my favorite non-titty part of Fallout. Willow companion for NV. I always get Heather (same voice actress) for 4

 

Also dug up my old list of NV stability mods I sent to someone one time.

Apparently disabling auto saves helps with save file bloating down the road when it get to the point big files break the game. Gotta remember to save frequently so you don't screw yourself though.

Edited April 9, 2022 by llmods975
More info.

[TheWilloughbian]

1 hour ago, llmods975 said:

New Vegas is great. I always re-install it every time I get a new PC.

Dead Money is probably my favorite non-titty part of Fallout. Willow companion for NV. I always get Heather (same voice actress) for 4

 

Also dug up my old list of NV stability mods I sent to someone one time.

Apparently disabling auto saves helps with save file bloating down the road when it get to the point big files break the game. Gotta remember to save frequently so you don't screw yourself though.

 

 Thanks! I have TTW up and running. I'm a bit overwhelmed by having to another modding setup going. But I'll get there. I need to get the GECK going for FNV next. Truth is, I'm a bit more of A FO3 fan, so I'm hoping to get some of the FO3 mods I was getting into, before I went with TTW, converted. Thing that sold me on it was the movement mod, which seems to be working, just need to get some animations I like going. They came out with a new build of TTW somewhat recently, I think, and made a lot of changes that might make some the of the previous TTW mods not work. Not to sure yet. I probably won't leave my house for a week though XD

 

[dborg2]

Suggest you don't use FOMM, Stutter Remover, and you only need one of the 4GB fixes (just don't forget to apply it)

 

[llmods975]

15 hours ago, dborg2 said:

Suggest you don't use FOMM, Stutter Remover, and you only need one of the 4GB fixes (just don't forget to apply it)

 

Yeah my approach was to throw as many stability mods at NV as i could find and hope something stuck to the wall

[TheWilloughbian]

16 hours ago, dborg2 said:

Suggest you don't use FOMM, Stutter Remover, and you only need one of the 4GB fixes (just don't forget to apply it)

 

 

I've been pretty bare bones about it other than 360 movement and cobbling together some animations that work with it if you set things up a certain way. Picked up a couple mods to revert things to original FO3, like the bobbleheads. Also, nerfing the albino radscorpion. Those things were horrible when GTOY first came out after you hit lvl twenty you would never get to a random encounter before an albino radscorpion killed it. I have an ENB going with it to. Haven't really played much other than to test things out though XD.  That's how it always goes though. Who doesn't tinker more than they play XD?

Edited April 11, 2022 by TheWilloughbian

[dborg2]

12 hours ago, llmods975 said:

Yeah my approach was to throw as many stability mods at NV as i could find and hope something stuck to the wall

instead of FOMM use Mod Organizer. Instead of Stutter Remover, use Tick fix

Stutter Remover under Windows 10 causes crashes every 10 minutes

FOMM can't handle big mods properly, like TTW

 

[TheWilloughbian]

I just went with what the guide said for TTW said. they only thing I decided not to use was one tweak. Seems that and ENB prevent adjusting the gamma in game. I'm really psyched though, everything seems to be working very nicely. 

 

Question: I was looking into how to adjust holstered weapon positions. Is this done via animations rather than skeleton nodes?

Edited April 11, 2022 by TheWilloughbian

[A.J.]

47 minutes ago, TheWilloughbian said:

Question: I was looking into how to adjust holstered weapon positions. Is this done via animations rather than skeleton nodes?

 

Yes unfortunately

[TheWilloughbian]

1 hour ago, A.J. said:

 

Yes unfortunately

 

Ok Thanks.

[KoolHndLuke]

19 hours ago, dborg2 said:

Stutter Remover under Windows 10 causes crashes every 10 minutes

FOMM can't handle big mods properly, like TTW

Not refuting you but NVSR works for me just fine and I play for hours and hours at a time. And true iirc about FOMM. I install manually most of the time anyway and TTW provides an independent auto-installer.

 

Only thing I would remind OP of is that (unless things have changed) there is a 'soft' limit for plugins with these games of around 125-130 mods. As soon as you start seeing wonkiness in your game (like random shit that doesn't point to any specific reason), then you might have hit your game's limit.

 

One more thing is when changing locations (between CW and Mohave) it's a good idea to make a save immediately, quit and restart the game. Sometimes TTW doesn't load meshes/textures correctly when switching.

Edited April 12, 2022 by KoolHndLuke

[KoolHndLuke]

17 hours ago, TheWilloughbian said:

Question: I was looking into how to adjust holstered weapon positions. Is this done via animations rather than skeleton nodes?

If you have BS installed and working correctly, you can adjust the mesh coordinates/shape/scale in OS and export as .nif back into the game files as a loose overwrite if they happened to packed in a BSA.

Edited April 12, 2022 by KoolHndLuke

[TheWilloughbian]

1 hour ago, KoolHndLuke said:

If you have BS installed and working correctly, you can adjust the mesh coordinates/shape/scale in OS and export as .nif back into the game files as a loose overwrite if they happened to be packed in a BSA.

 OSBS is on my to do list actually. I have your tutorial here bookmarked in fact : )

[TheWilloughbian]

I suppose it stands to reason that a Bethesda game would have something known as "The Exploding Head Bug" XD

 

Neck seam concealer chains at Fallout New Vegas - mods and community (nexusmods.com)

[Fiend71]

LOL!

[dborg2]

4 hours ago, KoolHndLuke said:

Not refuting you but NVSR works for me just fine and I play for hours and hours at a time. And true iirc about FOMM. I install manually most of the time anyway and TTW provides an independent auto-installer.

 

Only thing I would remind OP of is that (unless things have changed) there is a 'soft' limit for plugins with these games of around 125-130 mods. As soon as you start seeing wonkiness in your game (like random shit that doesn't point to any specific reason), then you might have hit your game's limit.

 

One more thing is when changing locations (between CW and Mohave) it's a good idea to make a save immediately, quit and restart the game. Sometimes TTW doesn't load meshes/textures correctly when switching.

NVSR also causes stuttering (which is weird, considering the name)

A group of modders relatively recently (like in the past 2 years) have made a better version, which is the New Vegas Tick Fix.

Also the 125-130 limit. The limit is more like 135-139.. but again. a mod maker relatively recently finally managed to fix that bug too. with that mod (it's in 'my list' but I forgot the name right now) allows you to go to the Oblivion-limit of 254 plugins.

[TheWilloughbian]

So, while doing this I decided to give MO2 a try, and while I see the upside of having the mods organized in this fashion, really makes mesh editing a pain. I'm guessing I'm going to have to unpack the textures to the data. syr kind of of topic.

[KoolHndLuke]

6 hours ago, dborg2 said:

Also the 125-130 limit. The limit is more like 135-139.. but again. a mod maker relatively recently finally managed to fix that bug too. with that mod (it's in 'my list' but I forgot the name right now) allows you to go to the Oblivion-limit of 254 plugins.

Wow! Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. That has been a pain for such a long time now. 

 

FNV Mod Limit Fix