Status of FO4 scene? Almost dead?

[garg]

For many modders we got 1/4 of the way into something and hit a wall till F4SE is more functional.

 

Yea where the heck is GetName() and what happened to SetAnimationVariableInt("isNPC",1) doesn't appear to do anything anymore like it did in Skyrim, etc, etc! Ranting because I have spent a whole week trying to get player to head track NPC'S and all I can get is eye tracking!

[Crag]

I agree the greyish works quite well in FO4, IMHO even the institute is more dark grey and misguided then outright evil.

 

I think what FO4 is missing is more non-player settlements with unique NPCs and something like the guilds from skyrim - factions that are not related to the main story, who let you play certain aspects of your character and make you feel more like living in the world, then just go through the main quest.

 

 

^^^^^

And that's the problem with FO4. Most of the content is related to the MQ. You can't even open all the factions with running the main quest. In Skyrim you run the TG, DB, Companions, Dawnguard, and Winterhold - which you could do in any order, or all together without touch the main quest.

 

I think the modding scene has calmed down for FO4 cause people aren't sticking with the game. Play it once, and that's it. There is no replay value.

 

Also SkyrimSE hit.. and the the modding community for Skyrim is STILL very busy.

[superdog]

 

it's just the fucking faces. almost all f4 girls look the same. And if you try to do something unique with the faces (ex: something cute) it looks deformed because the mesh looks like ass.

 

A wise man once said: "Where there are waifus, there is a modding scene".

 

We need the ability to create waifan, then you will see.

 

I don't know, I actually think it's the lighting in the game that kills it, not the geometry of the face mesh. No, it's definitely not perfect, but I have seen some very beautiful presets, and even made one of my own. I'll share my character's face and you be the judge, but I really don't think the faces are bad, if you are willing to put in the time, and it can take up a ton of time, to make a decent preset.

 

My Character.jpg

 

 

 

 

it's just the fucking faces. almost all f4 girls look the same. And if you try to do something unique with the faces (ex: something cute) it looks deformed because the mesh looks like ass.

 

A wise man once said: "Where there are waifus, there is a modding scene".

 

We need the ability to create waifan, then you will see.

Most modders are more waiting for the scripting tools to create sex animated mods actually, there are already plenty of good looking face presets people have made.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Took me 30 seconds to find some decent examples to remind you all where we just came from. While your girl is nice, that isnt what I am referring to.

 

There is no flexibility with the current looksmenu as far as faces. Skyrim has actual waifan. FO4 has does not. I can promise you; if we could make some actual waifan, this scene would explode.

 

The types of faces I posted above just arent possible. So there are entire groups of people who will not touch FO4 (potential modders) because of these limitations. I was there when the skyrim scene exploded. Racemenu by expired, ECE, etc etc... And then SG textures came out and BAM! 

 

We had HDT. We had it all man. FO4 is a huge step backward until the proper tools are released. You gotta lure them with waifan, or we are doomed!!!!!!!1111

 

 

...lol

[Jack_Wallace]

Yeah, I guess you have a point, superdog. I feel like the face potential in FO4 is adequate to my tastes, but there is definitely more potential to be had, I'll admit. (Really the only thing Skyrim had that I miss is the vertex editing capabilities and the custom color choosing) However, I stick by what I said earlier about the lighting being a major flaw in appreciating the character art in this game. I also think the geometries for FO4 leave Skyrim in the dust, it's just that we don't have the abilities to really sculpt what's there in-game. I have recently booted up my old Skyrim, and while I like my Dark Elf character, her geometry is considerably less smooth than that seen in FO4, at least around the mouth and eyes. Also, I'm pretty sure a custom skeleton to better animate the amazing CBBE body would go a really long way to motivate people. I know the vanilla skeleton has a few issues around the shoulders and the knees.

 

Really, in conclusion, there's a lot of groundwork that needs to be laid, like everyone else has said. I guess I'm beating a dead horse here. LOL

 

Anyways, I have some passable modeling skills, though texture mapping is not my strong suit at all. Unfortunately that really doesn't help lay any groundwork. Maybe all of us should just try to figure this out on our own. If other modders want to go focus on Skyrim SE, and we are serious about wanting a better fallout 4 scene, we all need to get started on some heavy researching of the new engine and maybe help develop F4SE on our own.

 

Although, I get the feeling I am making things sound impossibly easier than they actually are. 

[Bruce Banner]

You can make more than decent different human faces in Fallout 4 . Its not meant to be an anime game . None of it looks anime . So to expect your characters to even remotely look anime is like expecting a square to be round . Even Skyrim was not really an anime type game , but it was more fantasy so therefore anime characters didnt look too out of place . In Fallout though they would stick out like a sore thumb . By the way , I'm no loremonger because I dont think anyone should be lectured how to play their game as games are there for the enjoyment of each and every individual , and I hope some modders do make it so that you can make characters for yourself like the ones above . To expect Bethesda themselves to do so though , even though I blame them for some things , you cant really expect them to make your characters look like something out of Final Fantasy . If you want characters to look like that , then without the help of modders youve probably picked the wrong game .

[Jack_Wallace]

^ I couldn't agree more, Bruce!

I personally love the way my character looks, and I would only change a few colors a bit more, if I could, and maybe move a vertex here and there. I think LooksMenu + Bethesda's non-slider based generator gives us way more freedom than Skyrim did. Even with Racemenu, I think Skyrim is just on par with Fo4's generator, if you don't include the vertex editing feature. However, I am more in the camp of enjoying a bit more realistic beauty in this game franchise, and not so much the anime look, though I agree about not telling anyone how to play their game. What makes the modding community great is our diversity in our ideas and tastes.

[OrcishOatmeal]

It seems like im not the only person wondering this issue, I thought the same thing a week or two after the release of SSE aswell

 

So the TL:DR reason behind everything is that F4SE doest have as much features as SKSE...

 

I diddnt know that at all, (Silly me thought that once it came out it supported everything)

It must be really bad for the silverlock guys working on the scripting mods, that they are working their asses off and we're all moaning that we cant have all our best mods remade and working on SSE

[Jack_Wallace]

It must be really bad for the silverlock guys working on the scripting mods, that they are working their asses off and we're all moaning that we cant have all our best mods remade and working on SSE

 

Personally, I think releasing Skyrim SE at all was a really bad move on Bethesda's behalf. When compared to a fully modded Skyrim, the special edition really doesn't offer any improvement, in my opinion. I understand that the engine was updated, but i don't think that alone merits spending an extra 40-60 bucks and countless hours updating old mods' functionality.

 

Then again, by comparison to the Skyrim world, the fo4 world is sorely lacking in immersion and rich npc interaction, so I get why people might want to go back to Skyrim.

[Jazzman]

it's just the fucking faces. almost all f4 girls look the same. And if you try to do something unique with the faces (ex: something cute) it looks deformed because the mesh looks like ass.

 

A wise man once said: "Where there are waifus, there is a modding scene".

 

We need the ability to create waifan, then you will see.

Bullshit. There are many cute chars out there that look unique, ey.

So tell your Mister Wise Man that he has mush for brains. Nuff said.

[superdog]

You can make more than decent different human faces in Fallout 4 . Its not meant to be an anime game . None of it looks anime . So to expect your characters to even remotely look anime is like expecting a square to be round . Even Skyrim was not really an anime type game , but it was more fantasy so therefore anime characters didnt look too out of place . In Fallout though they would stick out like a sore thumb . By the way , I'm no loremonger because I dont think anyone should be lectured how to play their game as games are there for the enjoyment of each and every individual , and I hope some modders do make it so that you can make characters for yourself like the ones above . To expect Bethesda themselves to do so though , even though I blame them for some things , you cant really expect them to make your characters look like something out of Final Fantasy . If you want characters to look like that , then without the help of modders youve probably picked the wrong game .

 

 

I assume you're referencing me?

 

Here's some things you arent understanding:

 

1. Modding. Modding can ADD things to a game. The point is to allow users to do things they couldnt normally do. You mentioned skyrim wasnt an anime game, but for some reason FO4 isnt the game I should be playing? They are both fictional worlds. It is the SAME situation. Surely you dont want to talk about realism in FO4 with cbbe busty/curvy/perfect titty'd bitches wearing heels? LOL. Let's not go there.

 

2. I picked a couple of faces to prove a point, but they don't have to be anime inspired. My argument was that the face editing is limited by our current toolset. That is a fact. 

 

3. Final fantasy? That's a bit overboard. Not asking for spiky hair (which we already have btw) or anime eyes. I am asking to be able to create something bit more cute (rounder cheeks, fuller lips, etc) and less mommy-fu. Not loli-ish (although I am sure people would want that too). 

 

I love FO4. I love all of Beth's fallouts. I like them just the way they are. But lets not pretend having waifu wouldnt boost this modding community (especially with MORE Chinese/Japanese modders on board).

[peculiaris]

 

It must be really bad for the silverlock guys working on the scripting mods, that they are working their asses off and we're all moaning that we cant have all our best mods remade and working on SSE

 

Personally, I think releasing Skyrim SE at all was a really bad move on Bethesda's behalf. When compared to a fully modded Skyrim, the special edition really doesn't offer any improvement, in my opinion. I understand that the engine was updated, but i don't think that alone merits spending an extra 40-60 bucks and countless hours updating old mods' functionality.

 

Then again, by comparison to the Skyrim world, the fo4 world is sorely lacking in immersion and rich npc interaction, so I get why people might want to go back to Skyrim.

 

 

I don't think Bethesda planned on every releasing their Skyrim port for the next gen consoles AKA Skyrim Special Edition.

Until they themselves leaked that they were doing it as a side project and noticed the interest from the community. I do think it's a little high priced but that's compensated by it being free for owners of the original.

[Jack_Wallace]

I do think it's a little high priced but that's compensated by it being free for owners of the original.

 

 

You have a valid point there. I hadn't thought about that. SE never really appealed to me because I didn't see the appeal of starting over with little to no mod support, so I didn't look into upgrading.

[ralfetas]

I think there is something to consider.

Compare skyrim to fo4 is not fair, skyrim has that vast landscape with snow, forest and all that nice views, if you put a AK in skyrim it will fit someway, in fo4 you have a wasteland, the options are much more limited, that is the scene, that is the lore and nothing we can do about it, unless someone makes a total different area with some nice views etc... You can put as many green trees you want in fo4, will still be a wasteland.

Skyrim like any fantasy game, can be played as a mage, warrior, archer or whatever you want, in fo4 you have 2 options, sneak ninja style or a brute shooting everything.

 

So, to compare both are difficult, they are very different, and skyrim is much more friendly to anyone, even if they don't like the fantasy style.

 

Another point that i mention in other places too, is the why, in skyrim everything you do have a why, have a reason behind it, you learn alchemy  to make potions to learn smithing to make enchants to make better everything, the missions have a why, you help X faction to gain something that will unlock something so you can do another thing and you will get a very nice weapon/armor/trophy/perk/whatever, in fo4 you don't have these, the only why you have is to save your son, nothing more, and in the end you will blowup your son dream, so there is really no point in nothing, why help the dealer in diamond city? To get chems you can do yourself? You don't get nothing from it, and these goes for everything, they focus so much in settlements that they forgot the key element to this, why build it?

 

Modding scene in fo4 is small yes, but this open space to new people learn stuff too, them maybe f4se team will get interested in making it more advanced, new worlds will show and so on... Is a process, and making a new face will not bring a asian genius to the scene.

[Bruce Banner]

Hey Superdog , I wasn't having a dig at you and if you read my post carefully you'll see that I said that I hope some modders make it so that you can make the kind of characters that you want to . What I was pointing out was that you can't really expect Bethesda to make the character creator so that's its easy to make characters out of the box like that because it's a more realistic kind of game than Skyrim . I've no doubt modders might eventually be able to put dragons in Fallout through the close nature of the two games , but that's up to them . No argument is intended and if my post came off as argumentative I apologise .

[Jack_Wallace]

I think there is something to consider.

Compare skyrim to fo4 is not fair, skyrim has that vast landscape with snow, forest and all that nice views, if you put a AK in skyrim it will fit someway, in fo4 you have a wasteland, the options are much more limited, that is the scene, that is the lore and nothing we can do about it, unless someone makes a total different area with some nice views etc... You can put as many green trees you want in fo4, will still be a wasteland.

Skyrim like any fantasy game, can be played as a mage, warrior, archer or whatever you want, in fo4 you have 2 options, sneak ninja style or a brute shooting everything.

 

So, to compare both are difficult, they are very different, and skyrim is much more friendly to anyone, even if they don't like the fantasy style.

 

Another point that i mention in other places too, is the why, in skyrim everything you do have a why, have a reason behind it, you learn alchemy  to make potions to learn smithing to make enchants to make better everything, the missions have a why, you help X faction to gain something that will unlock something so you can do another thing and you will get a very nice weapon/armor/trophy/perk/whatever, in fo4 you don't have these, the only why you have is to save your son, nothing more, and in the end you will blowup your son dream, so there is really no point in nothing, why help the dealer in diamond city? To get chems you can do yourself? You don't get nothing from it, and these goes for everything, they focus so much in settlements that they forgot the key element to this, why build it?

 

Modding scene in fo4 is small yes, but this open space to new people learn stuff too, them maybe f4se team will get interested in making it more advanced, new worlds will show and so on... Is a process, and making a new face will not bring a asian genius to the scene.

 

You make some very good points. Personally, the views of the fallout 4 world aren't something I find lacking. It is a very beautiful world, and will only get better with more mods, like 4k texture packs and new worlds mods. I think you hit it on the head with the 'why' argument, though. It really resonates with me that most of the things I do in the game don't seem to have a real purpose or reward. That's just how it feels to me though. Also, like I said before, the NPC activity in this game is bland at the best of times. There is really only a handful of places that you run into any kind of character development, at least that I have seen so far. Again, like I said before, it feels like a shinier version of minecraft most of the time, with boobs and ass.

 

You know a game that I found oddly satisfying to play? The Saints Row games. Yeah they were insane and took a turn for the worse following the second release, but the character generator was amazing and it had options that even determined how your character interacted, such as different voices and animations to choose from. I wish more developers would take note of things like that when designing character creators.

[Bruce Banner]

Here's a few mods that will give some of you guys a reason for a bit more playtime in Fallout .

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/8704/?

This one is by the Skyrim 3dnpc guys so it speaks for itself that it's an extensive add on for the game .

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/20524/?

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/20512/?

 

These two map edits on the face of it may seem like they dont add too much to the game , but actually if you look at the question marks on the maps you'll undoubtedly find at least one or two locations you havent discovered yet so these mods actually do indirectly add more to the game than it looks .

 

And there are plenty more quest mods out there so there's no need to think ' Game Over ' when you've flattened the Institute .

[superdog]

 

I think there is something to consider.

Compare skyrim to fo4 is not fair, skyrim has that vast landscape with snow, forest and all that nice views, if you put a AK in skyrim it will fit someway, in fo4 you have a wasteland, the options are much more limited, that is the scene, that is the lore and nothing we can do about it, unless someone makes a total different area with some nice views etc... You can put as many green trees you want in fo4, will still be a wasteland.

Skyrim like any fantasy game, can be played as a mage, warrior, archer or whatever you want, in fo4 you have 2 options, sneak ninja style or a brute shooting everything.

 

So, to compare both are difficult, they are very different, and skyrim is much more friendly to anyone, even if they don't like the fantasy style.

 

Another point that i mention in other places too, is the why, in skyrim everything you do have a why, have a reason behind it, you learn alchemy  to make potions to learn smithing to make enchants to make better everything, the missions have a why, you help X faction to gain something that will unlock something so you can do another thing and you will get a very nice weapon/armor/trophy/perk/whatever, in fo4 you don't have these, the only why you have is to save your son, nothing more, and in the end you will blowup your son dream, so there is really no point in nothing, why help the dealer in diamond city? To get chems you can do yourself? You don't get nothing from it, and these goes for everything, they focus so much in settlements that they forgot the key element to this, why build it?

 

Modding scene in fo4 is small yes, but this open space to new people learn stuff too, them maybe f4se team will get interested in making it more advanced, new worlds will show and so on... Is a process, and making a new face will not bring a asian genius to the scene.

 

You make some very good points. Personally, the views of the fallout 4 world aren't something I find lacking. It is a very beautiful world, and will only get better with more mods, like 4k texture packs and new worlds mods. I think you hit it on the head with the 'why' argument, though. It really resonates with me that most of the things I do in the game don't seem to have a real purpose or reward. That's just how it feels to me though. Also, like I said before, the NPC activity in this game is bland at the best of times. There is really only a handful of places that you run into any kind of character development, at least that I have seen so far. Again, like I said before, it feels like a shinier version of minecraft most of the time, with boobs and ass.

 

You know a game that I found oddly satisfying to play? The Saints Row games. Yeah they were insane and took a turn for the worse following the second release, but the character generator was amazing and it had options that even determined how your character interacted, such as different voices and animations to choose from. I wish more developers would take note of things like that when designing character creators.

 

 

 

 

I agree, jack. customization is truly amazing in saints row. I love character customization in games!!!

 

 

Hey Superdog , I wasn't having a dig at you and if you read my post carefully you'll see that I said that I hope some modders make it so that you can make the kind of characters that you want to . What I was pointing out was that you can't really expect Bethesda to make the character creator so that's its easy to make characters out of the box like that because it's a more realistic kind of game than Skyrim . I've no doubt modders might eventually be able to put dragons in Fallout through the close nature of the two games , but that's up to them . No argument is intended and if my post came off as argumentative I apologise .

 

 

 

No offense taken, my dude. I was just clarifying my points.

[oblivioner]

 

 

 

Yeah, I can't help but feel like it's not even the modding scene's fault that there is not anything super fantastic for fallout 4 yet. I have modded the hell out of my FO4 just to make it halfway playable (Compared to FO:NV and FO3). I bought the game over a year ago thinking I was going to love it as much as fallout 3, but it feels like a slightly more polished version of minecraft most of the time i'm playing it, not a fallout game. I'm not sure what Bethesda was thinking with this release, but I'm not surprised that there's not a ton of interest in making mods for this game as it takes so much work just to stay interested sometimes.

 

It's likely them looking at survival games like Rust and Ark and thinking how they could implement gathering systems in those games along with the housing mechanics created in the hearthfire DLC, since that did get a good reception.

 

They just forgot to include existing, viable settlements and personality in the process.

 

 

For me the worst in F4 is the missing roleplay element. All the people you meet are either friendly or hostile, no gray areas. And I find the story to be pretty lackluster.

 

 

With all the DLC the game has been opened for solid roleplay and replay value. Hell with Nuka world you can end up being an absolute cunt. 

 

Think about this. 

 

When you leave the vault you head south towards Fort Hagen/Ration Stockpile because your husband/you were formaly based there. On the way you come across the entrence to Nuka World and see some "soldier" looking types. You end up being involved in a firefight and upon further investigation you come across your first friendly person who tells you about nuka world. You go in to help find his family and due to events end up being put in charge of the raiders there. It's the end of the world so might as well. 

 

When raiding the Commonwealth you come across a group of people being attacked by another Raider faction and help them out. You get word that if you head to Diamond City people can help you find your kid. BoS arrives which pose a threat to your Raider operation. Since the Minuteman wont help you, you seek out the RR to get into the Institute. Fast forward and you have destroyed your biggest threat the BoS and end up leading the institute. 

 

So not only are you in charge of technologically advanced group that has a robot army due to leading the Raiders from Nuka World you also have a large organisation to police the Commonwealth and keep every cunt inline and force then to pony up with everything they have. You have basically created a dictatorship. A real nasty one at that, that not even the BoS could fight. 

 

 

Good guys is basically the same as above but replace raiders with minuteman. 

 

BoS/RR is somewhere grey depending whether you help the Minuteman and destroy the raiders or not .

 

 

The "good guy" version is what I did in my main playthrough.  Although in mine he's Institute 1st and Minutemen 2nd, using them as a way of reinforcing the commonwealth to ensure that the BoS or raiders don't get any bright ideas

[Chekist]

 

 

 

 

Took me 30 seconds to find some decent examples to remind you all where we just came from. While your girl is nice, that isnt what I am referring to.

 

There is no flexibility with the current looksmenu as far as faces. Skyrim has actual waifan. FO4 has does not. I can promise you; if we could make some actual waifan, this scene would explode.

 

The types of faces I posted above just arent possible. So there are entire groups of people who will not touch FO4 (potential modders) because of these limitations. I was there when the skyrim scene exploded. Racemenu by expired, ECE, etc etc... And then SG textures came out and BAM! 

 

We had HDT. We had it all man. FO4 is a huge step backward until the proper tools are released. You gotta lure them with waifan, or we are doomed!!!!!!!1111

 

 

...lol

I kinda like the options FO4 meshes provide. For me Fallout series always was an RPG for a more mature audience than Baldur's Gate/TES/Neverwinter. And in my opinion, plastic doll faces, elves and animu stuff just don't fit in Fallout setting. While I am all up for diversity, I honestly don't think that a miriad of follower mods (waifus) or eyecandy will actually somehow improve FO4 modding scene.

 

What FO4 needs is more quest mods (Tales from the Commonwealth-like) to add more replayability and content that isn't tied to the main story. After all, main problem with FO4 is its centricity around main story (which may not be compelling enough for some people to sink hundreds of hours into it, and all what they are left with is exploring, a dozen sidequests and settlement building). While settlement building and defense are very popular mods for FO3 and FNV, settlement building won't be a substitute for hundred hours of sidequest content that Skyrim had.

 

The other problem with FO4 modding is that Bethesda already added a lot of FO3 and FNV popular mods and ideas into the game. Settlement building, Perks every level, summon vertibird/enclave soldiers/BoS soldiers etc. bounties. So it's kind of hard to come up with an idea of mechanic or gimmick for the mod that will improve the gameplay by building on top of the existing mechanics without overhauling/breaking some of the vanilla FO4 mechanics. And overhauling is a lot of work.

 

The only idea for a mod I have that will improve FO4 is the "live another life" style of mod, where you can chose a different starting scenario and pretty much do whatever you want, ignoring the main story. But that again, that would require a ton of work and I don't know if its even possible without breaking too much in the game...

[MRM18870]

 

I kinda like the options FO4 meshes provide. For me Fallout series always was an RPG for a more mature audience than Baldur's Gate/TES/Neverwinter. And in my opinion, plastic doll faces, elves and animu stuff just don't fit in Fallout setting. While I am all up for diversity, I honestly don't think that a miriad of follower mods (waifus) or eyecandy will actually somehow improve FO4 modding scene.

 

 

While I agree that plastic faces do  not really fit into the fallout world, I think nevertheless that there is not that much variability in faces you can create. At least I can make more individual in Skyrim ( and not only the plastic examples you quoted ) 

 

 

What FO4 needs is more quest mods (Tales from the Commonwealth-like) to add more replayability and content that isn't tied to the main story. After all, main problem with FO4 is its centricity around main story (which may not be compelling enough for some people to sink hundreds of hours into it, and all what they are left with is exploring, a dozen sidequests and settlement building). While settlement building and defense are very popular mods for FO3 and FNV, settlement building won't be a substitute for hundred hours of sidequest content that Skyrim had.

 

 

I think what could help here would be pimp up some factions. Gunners could be a joinable merc faction. I can also think of a mafia style faction based in good neighborhood. Children of atoms could be a freak faction ( ok, they did so in far harbor, but in the main game they are unfortunately nothing else but just some other targets )

 

Also some location could be more then just some other shooter galleries. Think of Combat Zone or the place where this robo race take place.   I think there is some untapped potential.

 

 

 

[Hariyuki]

 

The only idea for a mod I have that will improve FO4 is the "live another life" style of mod, where you can chose a different starting scenario and pretty much do whatever you want, ignoring the main story. But that again, that would require a ton of work and I don't know if its even possible without breaking too much in the game...

 

 

Already exists.http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/14253/?    and   http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/13762/?

[MRM18870]

 

 

The only idea for a mod I have that will improve FO4 is the "live another life" style of mod, where you can chose a different starting scenario and pretty much do whatever you want, ignoring the main story. But that again, that would require a ton of work and I don't know if its even possible without breaking too much in the game...

 

 

Already exists.http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/14253/?    and   http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/13762/?

 

 

Yes, but to fill an alternative start with life, we need also lots of alternate quests and stories./storylines It will require time to develop those.

[Varithina]

 

Already exists.http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/14253/?   

 

 

That has some really nasty start points for new characters, one of them drops you slap bang next to the greater mass blood clinic, lots of bloatflies and bloodbugs on your arse before you can even begin to think wtf, and it seems to trigger them all hostile due to how close you appear to the place, depending on your game mode that could well be instant death or pretty much close enough not to matter mostly due to the poison from the bloatflies.

[DigitalP]

According to Google Maps it's a 6 hour walk from Sansturary to Diamond City. That doesn't take into account fighting or collecting supplies. 

 

If it was up to me. 

 

With that as a guide the main quest shouldn't really start for at least 8 or so hours of game time assuming you more or less head to Diamond City straight away. To do this instead of Codsworth telling you to go to Concord, you could be told or it is strongly advised to go to either the National Guard Office or Fort Hagen. Like I mentioned before either you or your husband were in the army so it would make sense to go to a location where you possibly served because when you leave the vault you only know that a few months has passed so there could still be people in those locations that can help or protect you. 

 

So if you assume the husband is still in the reserves Codsworth could say "Maybe Sir, went to the National Guard Office to help in all the confusion, why don't you try there or go to Fort Hagen where Sir was based?"

 

Now this opens up all the radiant and side quests of Covenant, Vault 75, Bunker Hill, Goodneighbour, Diamond City, Vault 81 if you go to National Guard Office first. If you go to Fort Hagen first you get pulled into the Nuka World DLC or the Gunners as a faction. The top floor of Fort Hagen is where the hinting that Shaun is still alive happens with say Kellog making a terminal entry "I've been ordered to track down the scientist who was working on the team who needed the kid from Vault 111. It seems odd that so soon after the Old Man took the kid back to the Institute after living easily in Diamond City for the past 6 months to go hunting again. Well Orders are orders"

 

Bang you have your introduction to the main quest after hours and hours of side quests. Not within 5 minutes of leaving the vault. 

This would actually be a good mod for alternate start. 

[Chekist]

 

 

The only idea for a mod I have that will improve FO4 is the "live another life" style of mod, where you can chose a different starting scenario and pretty much do whatever you want, ignoring the main story. But that again, that would require a ton of work and I don't know if its even possible without breaking too much in the game...

 

 

Already exists.http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/14253/?    and   http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/13762/?

 

None of those mods remove main story quest requirement for faction quests. You still need to do main story to get access to faction quests. What I had in mind is more of the bypass main quest and have faction side/radiant quests available right after character creation.