Fallout 4 Modding Mini-Guide

[Sacremas]

This is a mini-guide to help users with modding their fallout 4 games, a bit similar to my Skyrim Modding Guide. THis has been copied and pasted over from the old/new forum. Note that this is a guide for users wanting to USE mods, not actual modders wanting to MAKE mods. If anyone wants to add to this guide/thread information on making Fallout 4 mods, then feel free to do so. Personally I'm not interested in getting involved with that until the GECK is out.

 

Note while I will update this post as more universally beneficial stuff shows up, but something like the Skyrim Modding Guide won't show up until at least a year down the line, when that comes I will stop posting on this thread and request it to be locked and make a new thread called Fallout 4 Modding Guide. Also note that I will not be posting every mod I use, I might post if a generic mod proved to be very detrimental to my use such as by ruining my save, but otherwise I will only post mods that are generally applicable and will help everyone out, beyond that rely on your own browsing abilities.

 

First off for making modding possible at all, go into your Fallout4.ini, this is located in my documents/my games/Fallout4 instead of the Fallout 4 steam folder as you'd assume going by Skyrim.

Scroll down to [Archive] and make sure this line is there in full;

sResourceDataDirsFinal=STRINGS\, TEXTURES\, INTERFACE\, SOUND\, MUSIC\, VIDEO\, MESHES\, PROGRAMS\, MATERIALS\, LODSETTINGS\, VIS\, MISC\, SCRIPTS\, SHADERSFX\

 

Also in Fallout4Prefs.ini make sure this is there;

bEnableFileSelection=1

 

Now you should have a manager, but Fallout 4 works different than Skyrim did, you automatically enable all ESPs and ESMs put in your Data folder so for now you can technically go on without, but I recommend you don't. For now I'm using the Fallout 4 Mod Manager which is surprisingly robust for such a simple program, you can use Nexus Mod Manager for it but I prefer not to, refer to ElfPrince's post for that. This is a very simple mod manager, it's got a decent installer process letting you dragging and dropping between folders, and everything you really need for now, however once Mod Organizer becomes compatible with Fallout 4 I will be switching to that.

 

For some basic FPS and stability boost I recommend these mods;

 

Shadow Boost Is a way to both increase your shadows beyond what you normally would be able to, and actually gain FPS in areas with a lot of objects. It does this by reducing shadow quality if it would impact your FPS, it has a ini file where you tell it what FPS you want (which if you are using vsynch - which you absolutely and definetly should or your physics are going to be wonky to say the least - you should set to 2 points below your vsynch or it won't work) and if you drop below this target it reduces shadow draw distance until your FPS goes up, only increasing it if your FOV actually lets you look at something distant enough for more shadows, indoors and in a city it will stay much lower than it will while walking the wastleand. Check out Gophers video on how this works and how to set it up below, but personally I just copied and pasted it to my Fallout 4 steam folder (not the data folder) and it works fine. Note that I linked the authors site instead of the Nexus because he's doing a Boris Voronstov and not allowing the binaries to be posted to the nexus.

 

 

And then there's good old ENBoost, I suggest you get it off Boris's site; ENBDev - Fallout 4 get whatever is latest, like the Shadow Boost mod just put it in your Fallout 4 Steam folder, neither of these mods work with mod managers. Open up ENBLocal.ini, scroll down to VideoMemorySizeMb, and insert a number that is your RAM + VRAM - 6 x 1000, so since I have 8 GB RAM, 4 VRAM that ends up as 6000. The -6 part is to take away the number of GB that both Windows and Fallout 4 actually needs to run, Fallout 4 needs around 3 GB (between 2-4), Windows need around 2 GB (usually less), erring on 6 to give you a little bit of overhead and not getting the actual number (1 GB is 1024 MB, not 1000) for slightly bit more.

 

For now the only mod I've found I'd call a must is Armorsmith which enables you to wear addon armor bits with every armor and clothing, enables modding of a lot more armor and clothing (put vault suit mods in a tuxedo, put ballistic fiber into either, put metal mods in a helmet, etc), and allows you to wear a gas mask with anything that doesn't cover your head, so you can do gas mask + combat helmet for the standard look that should have always been there. There's an optional version that also makes every helmet and hat in the game invisible so you can wear them for the stats and still show your nice hairdo/face.

 

Here's a mod that I can gladly recommend that will probably help out some of you, especially less advanced users not familiar with how the inis work. This is the Fallout 4 Configuration Tool, a UI to customize your ini and easily make changes that could take you a while otherwise to find. This is a young mod obviously, but already it can do things like disable godrays and blur, disable the crosshair, set how many cores of your CPU the game will use (hyperthreading) if the game is to get priority on CPU usage (this takes a registry update and you need to use it as an administrator), disable mouse accelleration, set your FOV, disable the intro movies, and a lot of other stuff. I've been tweaking my inis for years in Skyrim and I still found this very useful and would like it in Skyrim as well, if only to not have to scroll through hundreds of lines looking for grass density.

 

Also a mod that had a really dramatic impact on the look of the game beyond what I expected of it, Pip-Boy Shadows let the light of your Pip-Boy and the front light of your Power Armor both cast shadows, which for some peculiar reason was disabled before. This results in a far more vivid and realistic look when you have your lights on, the light actually behaves like a light, and it behaves like if the light is comign out of the thing on your arm rather than from your body, so if your character moves your arm (including during animations to wipe her forehead) the light shfits a lot. I have SweetFX and a lighting overhaul mod both active and neither had as much impact on the look as this did.

 

 

 

[Sacremas]

This should be of some interest to some of you, the dangers of Fallout 4 Modding; http://puu.sh/lKUgN.pdf

 

And here's Gopher rambling on it;

 

[D_ManXX2]

I was wondering if you know how to fix this, i accidently removed some of the broken equipments from my power armor since i never knew how to even fix power armor before and now it won't even let me put the broken equipments on my power armor telling me it needs to fixed first ?? But if i can't put it in the inventory of the power armor how am i suppose to fix the broken equpment to begin with ??

[Sacremas]

You need to hook it up to a power armor repair station. Once you're in that menu you can repair items with some amounts of steel, aluminum and other things, then you reattach them. Once broken a piece will always end up in your inventory, you probably didn't unequip it yourself.

[D_ManXX2]

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/20492-mod-organizer/page-148?do=findComment&comment=1381346

 

I was wondering what are my options to mod Fallout 4 now that MO is broken for windows 7 users ??

[Sacremas]

I already posted a mod manager in this thread that should work fine for you. Otherwise there's NMM.

[Idocrase]

As an aside, with so many people asking for mods that cannot be created yet due to a lack of GECK, whats the best way to explain to someone who tries to argue that we could 'just modify the skyrim creation kit'?

 

I hate replying to questions like that with "Because you touch yourself" but i've had it a couple of times now and its getting painful explaining about source code and licenced property and differences in game architecture.

[Sacremas]

Hooo, boy. Sorry those are the kinds of morons that I don't have any patience with myself. Personally I tell them to never talk to me again, unless they actually figure out how to do so. But really even if it was possible (and for some of the more advanced among us, such as the SKSE team, Fore or our own Ashal or CPU it probably is) why would you bother? I mean it's two months, three at a most, and meanwhile the people who can't wait to make new mods can do the basics in the Skyrim creation kit which is very similar (same Papyrus for one) so they can get done easier in the F4 one. That's what's being done with SexTec for example.

 

However tell them that you can already make mods in FO4Edit, mods like Armorsmith Extended was made that way. If it's not a scripted or animation mod you can make it just fine that way. With CBBE out for Fallout 4 already that means you can put in custom meshes and textures as well already.